THE SACRED METHOD OF Saving Humane Souls BY JESUS CHRIST. By Henry Hallywell Minister of the Gospel at Ifeild in Sussex.

1 Cor. II. vii.
But we speak the wisdome of God in a myste­ry, even the hidden wisdome which God ordained before the World unto our Glory.

LONDON, Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard, 1677.

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.

Reader,

THere are very few Books of what quality soever, though it be but an ordinary Pamphlet that passes the Press, without some fair bespeaking the Reader; wherefore in conformity to the Custome, I am to advertise Thee that the Design of these following Papers is to shew the excellency of the frame and con­stitution of the Gospel, or that Sa­cred Method by which God brings Men to Heaven by his Son Jesus [Page] Christ; which very thing to the considering and judicious, is a testi­mony sufficient of the Divinity of it, there being such abundant evi­dence of the choicest Attributes of the Deity, his Goodness, Wisdome and Power in the contexture of it. For when I consider (who is the Au­thor of the Evangelical Oecono­my, namely, the Blessed Son of God, that Eternal Logos, who has expressed such an Infinite Wisdome in the frame of Heaven and Earth, I cannot but think, that what is there so largely diffused and spread abroad, is, as it were, summ'd up and contracted into a living Image, and beautiful Representation in the frame of the Gospel. And certain­ly the Introduction of the Christian Religion, and the regenerating the World by it, being set off in the Scriptures by the glorious Appella­tive of Creation, and Jesus the Blessed Author and Finisher of it, [Page] stiling himself the beginning of the Creation of God, i. e. Rev. 3.14. of the E­vangelical Dispensation, the spirit of God does clearly intimate to us, that the Goodness, Wisdome and Po­wer of the Divinity, are more emi­nently and transcendently displayed in the Recovery of Mankind by the Gospel, than in their first Producti­on. So that if it be a Piece of our Duty (as certainly it is) to think the most honourably and magnificent­ly of the works of God's hands, it were a sinful debasing that sacred Project and Contrivance, which was laid before the Foundation of the World, to let our conceptions of it dwindle into some poor and trifling Design, and make such a pitiful Re­presentation of it, as shall be un­worthy that Eternal Wisdome, the Creatress of all things, to interess it self withal. For nothing is more sure, than that the Gospel is so con­trived, as may most of all do honour [Page] to God, and promote the welfare and happiness of Mankind. And upon this Ground and Foundation, I have built the following Discourse, which whoever will take the pains to per­use, I desire him to lay aside his Pre­judices, and not to charge every thing that he shall find disagreeing with his present sentiments and perswa­sions, with the opprobrious and in­vidious term of Heresie: For by this means, it comes to pass, that Religion is made only to serve an Interest, and wait upon a Faction, and the grand Interest of Christia­nity is indeed hugely disserved by such oblique Arts and unwarranta­ble Insinuations. It shews Men in­deed to be affected with a mighty Zeal, but it is that [...], that bitter zeal, which the Apostle tells us, is an effect of that wisdome that descends not from above, Jam. 3.14, 15. but is earthly, sensual, devilish. But I am very incurious of the censures [Page] of angry and peevish Men, being se­cure in the sense of having endea­voured to do honour to God, by be­getting in Men right Apprehensions of his Nature, and according to my mean Ability, promoted the Offices and Duties of a Virtuous life, by shewing the necessity of them, in or­der to our everlasting Happiness. And with this Advertisement, I re­mit the Reader to the Discourse it self.

Farewell.

IMPRIMATUR Hic Liber (cui Titulus, The Sacred Method of, &c.)

GEO. HOOPER Rmo Dno Arch. Cant. à Sac. Dom.

THE SACRED METHOD OF Saving Humane Souls BY JESUS CHRIST.

THE Christian Religion is frequently called by Saint Paul a Mystery, wherein it is very pro­bable he might allude to the Mysterious Rites of the Gentile Super­stition, as the Eleusynia, or some such secret and mysterious Actions of the Pa­gan Religion. And in opposition to these, the Apostle declares to the World a higher Mystery, and teaches us that [Page 2] Christianity in all respects exceeds the most sacred and venerable Actions of Paganisme. For although the Heathen Mystagogi pretended a high and noble design, and boasted the end of their Sa­cred Mysteries to be the leading and con­ducting the Initiati to the Presence and Fruition of the worshipped Deity, or in plainer terms, the everlasting Blessedness of Mens Immortal Souls (the sole privi­ledge and prerogative of the Christian Mystery, the Gospel of the Son of God) yet they failed infinitely in the way and means of accomplishing this so excellent a purpose, the whole procedure being bottom'd upon an uncertain Foundation and doubtful evidence, and no better than an Histrionical Representation brought on by those delusive Spirits, who affect­ed a Divine Honour, whereby instead of perfecting and bettering, they really vi­tiated and debauched the minds of Men, and made their most recondite and sacred Rites little better than practices of Fil­thiness and Uncleanness. In which re­gard the Christian Oeconomy is justly stiled by the Apostle a Mystery of God­liness, 1 Tim. 3.16. whose end is not only the highest perfection of Humane Souls, but every [Page 3] where in all its parts breathes the exact­est holiness and purity of Body and Soul, as the only way to attain an Immortal Blessedness and Felicity.

By this Mystery then of the Gospel, we are not to understand a dark and in­tricate Riddle, contrived only to amuze and dazle the minds of Men, and which when explicated and unfolded, has no greater likelihood of benefiting the knower, than Samson's Riddle of feed­ing the Philistines: but we are to con­ceive by it a sacred and recondite Me­thod of saving Humane Souls, that is, of purifying their minds to such degrees and measures, as may render them ca­pable of an entrance into the highest Heavens.

Great is the Mystery of Godliness, i. e. the Way and Method of saving Mankind by the Gospel, is indeed wonderful and admirable. For the sacred plot of the Gospel was not then framed or laid, when it was promulgated and manifested to the World, but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding,Col. 1.26. from ages and generations, and is expresly called by the same Apostle, the mysterious and re­condite wisdome of God, which he ordained [Page 4] before the World, 1 Cor. 2.7. whose projection and contrivance was from the out-goings of Eternity. So that in this Affair of the Gospel, we are not to look for any thing mean, low and shallow, but for some­thing which may be worthy of God, an [...], a design which may evidently and clearly display the highest Perfections of God its Author.

For the better illustration of which, we may consider, that in the contrivance, conduct and management of the Gospel, there is a clear and manifest demonstra­tion of the Infinite Goodness, Wisdome and Power of God.

I. A manifestation of Infinite Good­ness.

The Heavens and the Earth, and all the capacities of Immense space, declare an Infinite Goodness, but the clearest and most sensible demonstration of it, is in this Mystery of the Gospel, wherein that boundless love which has dispersed it self through all the orders and degrees of life, shines forth with a full and perfect lustre and glory. Here it is that we behold that Love, which liberally fills and sustains all things, more powerfully exerting its Blessed Nature, in cement­ing [Page 5] the Ruines, and rearing up the Foundations of a new World; for as in the first Creation, an Eternal and Ener­getical love diffused it self in the Produ­ction of whatever was made, so the same Goodness moves, as it were, a se­cond time in the stupendious renovation of lapsed Souls, in the Evangelical My­stery and Oeconomy.

Which Truth may yet receive a fur­ther Evidence by these Gradations.

1. The more perfect any life is, the more it desires to diffuse and communi­cate it self. God is love, says St. John, 1 Joh. 4.8. and he is the highest and most perfect life; now love is the most diffusive and communicative Principle in all the World, and the firmer any being is ra­dicated in love, the nearer approaches it makes to that most excellent life and nature of God, whose beneficence and kindness the whole Creation tastes of Self-love, or the love of the Carkass, the Bodily life restrains and contracts the free Exertions of the Mind, [...] & [...] 2 Tim. 3.2, 4. and therefore the Apostle sets it as a note of degeneracy, narrowness and anxiety, when Men shall be lovers of themselves and corporeal pleasures, in opposition [Page 6] to that Universal and Intellectual love, which is the great Law of Rational Be­ings, and by which our Minds are made wide as the World, and carried forth in Benignity and Kindness to all the Crea­tures, as they more or less partake of the Divine Life and Nature. God is in­finite Goodness, and all the Creatures are but the issues and emanations of his exuberant Fecundity and Life, and do more intimately depend upon him, than Faculties and Actions upon the Princi­ples from whence they flow. It was not necessity or need, nor any greedy and thirsty desire of receiving praise and glory from them, that was the cause of the production of Men and Angels, but only the Fulness of God's own Goodness, which alone moved him to that chearful Approbation of the Works of his Hands, when he saw his own life diffused in such variety of Beings. And if we will do honour to God, and speak according to our own faculties, we may add life to this Demonstration, from the inward sense and experience of every good Man, who never finds a more in­ward joy and satisfaction of spirit, than when he is carried out in desires, and [Page 7] aspirations of Benignity and Kindness towards the whole Creation. Nor does he look upon this, as any Argument of Righteousness, that he is at any time, in a more happy state and condition than others, for he could be willing that all the World were as happy as himself, did he not see strong and evident Reasons in the wise Administration of Providence, why it should not be so. Something of this excellent Temper, we find in those Passionate Eruptions of Spirit, record­ed in the Scriptures of Holy men, who seem to be altogether transformed into love: Blot me out of thy Book, (says Moses:) and I could be content to be ac­cursed from Christ (says St. Paul) for my Brethrens sake: Nay, I am verily perswaded, that he who is once through­ly baptized into this spirit of Universal love, would be contented to be eternally separated from the Presence of God, so that he might be without sin, if by that means the whole Intellectual Creation might be made happy. Now if we can reason any thing of God from those Perfections we find in our selves, we must needs conclude the highest and most perfect life to be most diffusive [Page 8] and communicative of it self.

2. Goodness is so much the more ex­cellent, as the Objects are more noble, about which it is conversant. All things feel the effects of Divine Goodness, ac­cording to their different Measures and Proportions, and by how much the Ra­tional life hath more objective reality than the sensitive, by so much are the Emanations of Goodness of more worth and excellency communicated to the one, than those diffused upon the other. As a Man is a more noble Creature than a Brute, so is the Goodness concerned with him, higher and of greater value, than that exercised upon a Beast. God is the Father of Spirits, and for that very Reason will not be implacable and irreconcileable to his own dear off­spring, but though he chastise and scourge them for their bold and audacious revolt from his blessed Nature, yet will not cast off for ever, but in his sorest cor­rections remembers mercy. Hence is that Prophetical Speech of the end of Christ's Death, that it should be for the gathering together the scattered Sons of God: Joh. 11.52. though the Souls of Men had vo­luntarily forsaken God, and travelled [Page 9] into a strange Land, though their Ini­quities had scattered them into far di­stant places from their own Home, yet an everlasting Goodness followed them still, and carefully sought the Reduction of those disobedient Sons of God, who had divided and separated themselves from him.

3. By how much the more fatal, de­sperate and universal the evil is, by so much the more glorious is the Goodness imployed in the recovery of the Crea­ture from it. Sin and wickedness is the misery, not of a part only, but of the whole Race of Mankind; and this their Degeneracy became so fatal, that it brought Darkness and Death it self up­on all their better Faculties, and placed them in an utter Incapacity for ever of recovering themselves by their own so­litary power and effort, into that state of immortality and life, which sin had deprived them of. — Death passed up­on all men, (says St. Paul) for that [or forasmuch as] all have sinned. So that all Mankind, by their fall from God, were under the Reign, Dominion and Power of sin and death, and out of this thraldome and captivity, no Man could [Page 10] extricate and deliver himself, whereby their condition became very deplorable and desperate. But Divine Goodness, that it might shew it self more conspi­cuously and gloriously to the World, has brought on a more chearful scene of things under the Gospel, rescuing Men from the Power of sin and death, and delivering them from the Tyranny of the Devil, through the meritorious Death and Passion of Jesus Christ, who by his Glorious Resurrection hath fully declared himself a Powerful Conqueror of all his Enemies, assuring Mankind of their re-enjoyment of Immortality, and redeeming them from their Captivity under the Empire of Sin and Death, and translating them into the peaceful King­dome of Life and Righteousness. Now as the desperateness of the Disease mag­nifies the skill of the Physician, so the fatal and universal Degeneracy of the Sons of Men, commends the transcen­dent love of God in their Recovery and Redemption. Greater love than this can no Man show, than to lay down his Life for his Friend, but herein has God commended his love to us, in that while we were Enemies to God and righteous­ness, [Page 11] and strangers to his life, Christ dyed for us. Such is that Testimony and Witness, which our Saviour bears to Divine Love and Goodness; every word of which is strangely emphatical:Joh. 3.16. So [in such a wonderful and transcendent manner] God [the great Lord of all Be­ings, who stands not in need of any of his Creatures, but is Infinite Fulness and Happiness to Himself] loved [first and without any Motive or Occasion of this love given from us; herein is love, not that we loved God, 1 Joh. 4.10. but that he loved us] the World [not only the particular Na­tion of the Jews, with whom formerly he entred into Covenant, but the whole Race of Mankind, Christ becoming a Propitiation for our sins (says the Apo­stle, the best Interpreter of himself, 1 Joh. 2.2.) and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole World] that he gave [delivered unto Death freely, and that upon no other Motive or Invitation, but that of his own Eternal Goodness and Love] his only begotten Son [not a Ser­vant, or an Angel, not an adopted, but his own Natural Son, that Son who is one with himself, and in whom he is well pleased, as the obedience of Abra­ham [Page 12] was more grateful to God, when he with-held not his Son, Gen. 22.12 his only Son from him.] The whole Gospel is a De­sign and Contrivance of Infinite Love and Goodness; a palpable Pledge and Assurance of which, was, the sending of Jesus Christ from Heaven: He that spa­red not his own Son, says the Apostle; as if he had said, The delivering up of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be an Expia­tory Sacrifice for the sins of Men, is so high a Demonstration of Infinite Love, that it begets in us a confident Assurance and full Perswasion, that the same good­ness will not fail of bestowing upon us, whatever may possibly contribute to our everlasting Happiness, as far as our Na­tures are capable of.

The summe of all is this, that to In­finite Goodness we owe not only the Production, but the continual Preser­vation of our Beings, not only the free­ing us from a certain Misery, and a just and deserved Punishment, but the recei­ving us into grace and favour, and in­vesting us with a Happiness much bigger than our hopes and expectations, even the Eternal enjoyment of Himself in Heaven. And that this should be [Page 13] wrought and effected by Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who left the Sacred Mansions of Heaven, and veiled his Glory under a clould of Flesh and Blood, and while he lived upon Earth, endured the contradictions of sinners, the bitter reproaches of vile and ungodly Men, and at last suffered an Ignominious and accursed Death upon the Cross, What is it but an everlasting Monument of Divine Goodness? such a high Demonstration of Infinite Love, as may well make us cry out with won­der and amazement, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!

2. Secondly, in the Frame and Myste­ry of the Gospel, there is a clear De­monstration of Infinite Wisdome.1 Cor. 1.24 To them who are called (says the Apostle) Christ the Power and the Wisdom of God: i. e. Though the preaching of the Go­spel were a stumbling block to the Jews, and accounted but foolishness by the Greeks, the one expecting their Messiah to be an earthly Prince, and dreaming of nothing but worldly Felicity, and the other counting it not worth the hearing, because not agreeing with the Principles [Page 14] of that vain Philosophy they had addict­ed themselves to; yet to those who were docible, tractable and obedient, there appeared an Infinite Wisdome, and an Eternal Understanding: they could not look into it, but they beheld (as the same Apostle speaks) the mysterious and recondite wisdome of God, 1 Cor. 2.7. which he or­dained before the World, that is, whose sacred plot and contrivance was not then framed or laid, when it was first pro­mulgated and manifested to the World, but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding from all Eternity. 'Tis true, the loveliness and glory of this great Wisdome appears not so evi­dently to all, partly from their own carelesness and negligence, in not arri­ving to that measure and degree of Ho­liness, which may fit and qualifie them for a clear discerning of it: Hence the Apostle says,1 Cor. 2.6. that he speaks wisdome a­mong them that are perfect, such as were well grown in the practice of the Offi­ces and Duties of Christianity; such as had senses exercised to discern good and evil, Heb. 5.14. and partly, through the great Corruption, Depravity and Dege­neracy of the minds of others, which [Page 15] put them into an utter Incapacity and Impossibility (while they remain such) of understanding Divine and Heavenly Truths; for the natural [animal or sen­sual] man receives not the things of the spirit of God. 1 Cor. 2.14 But where these Impedi­ments are removed, and the spirits of Men aptly disposed for the Reception of so great a Blessing, such Persons behold with enravishment and joy the exact strokes and perfect lineaments of an E­ternal Wisdome.

Which Wisdome appears,

1. In the Admirableness of the Con­trivance of the Gospel. Christianity carries with it such evident Proofs of an Incomprehensible Wisdome, that those sagacious Creatures, the Angels, imploy themselves in searching into it: And surely it must needs be an admirable piece of Wisdome, and a wonderful Contrivance,1 Pet. 1.12 that must draw those Bles­sed Creatures to look into it.

Now the Wonderfulness and Admi­rableness of the Evangelical Plot and Contrivance, for the Salvation of Hu­mane Souls, shews it self,

1. In finding out a way, whereby God might demonstrate, both his just [Page 16] and implacable hatred of sin, and his ex­uberant Love and Goodness in saving Men. Sin is no part of God's Creation, nor any thing of the true Nature of the Soul, but an extraneous and adventitious Being, brought first into the World by the Devil, the great Enemy of Mankind. It is the Destruction and Ruine of the Workmanship of God's own hands, and being so infinitely contrary to his Sacred Life and Nature, it is no wonder, if he bear an irreconcileable hatred against it, and seek by all means, the driving it quite out of the World. But although God, by reason of the Infinite Purity and Holiness of his Nature, could not look with any favourable eye upon sin, yet his Almighty Love pitied his Crea­tures,Isai. 63.15. and his bowels yerned over them, being, as it were, grieved and troubled at the heart, that they should be miser­able for ever. Wherefore, God, through his Eternal Wisdome, resolved upon a course, which should both effectually extirpate and eradicate sin and evil out of the World, and yet reduce those stray­ed souls, which through it, had revolted from his blessed Life and Nature, to a participation of it again. And this he [Page 17] hath done, by sending his own Son into the World, to become an Expiatory Sa­crifice for the sins of all Mankind. For should God have cast Men off for ever, and thrown them into Hell, though he had still been Just and Righteous in his Actions, and declared but a high dislike of that, which his Essential Holiness could never patronize or countenance, yet his Goodness and Love had not so conspicuously and gloriously appeared.Sine hoc holocausto po­terat Deus tantum condo­nasse peccatum; sed faci­litas veniae laxaret habenas peccatis effrenibus quae eti­am Christi vix cohibent passiones, quae vix scelera­tos animos à voluptatum faece avellunt. Cyprian. sive Author libri de Cardinal. Christi Oper. Serm. 14. Sic Zanch. lib. 2 de Incarnat. c. 3. q. 1. Etsi verò Deus servare nos poterat solo suo Imperio, peccata simplici­ter ex suâ misericordiâ condonando: noluit ta­men— On the other hand, should God have received the World into grace and fa­vour, forgiving their Ini­quities, without any pre­vious satisfaction for sin, though he might have done this, without any breach of the Eternal Purity and Ju­stice of his Nature, yet he had not so sensibly affected the minds of Men, with his just aversation of sin, nor so effectually discovered to them, his Anger and Displeasure against all evil and wick­edness. But now in the Death of Jesus Christ, God has reconciled Goodness [Page 18] and Holiness, Justice and Mercy, puni­shing sin, and yet saving the sinner.

Behold therefore, and wonder at the Ineffable Goodness, and Transcendent love of God! Could not Man redeem his Brother, and give unto God a Ran­some for him? No surely, for that Sa­crifice, that is presented and offered up to God, must be without spot and ble­mish; but when the Lord looked down from Heaven, upon the Children of Men, he beheld them all gone aside, and become filthy, so that there was not one that did good, no not one. But if this might not be, yet, could not God have declared his will to us by an Angel, by a Voice from Heaven, or by uniting himself to the Angelical Nature? Cer­tainly he might, but none of these ways could have been with such endearing circumstances, with such sensible Testi­monies of dear Compassion and Benig­nity, as enravish ingenuous Minds into sutable Returns and expressions of love. Jesus Christ therefore, the Delights of his Father, the Brightness of his Glory, and the express Image and character of his Person, took flesh and dwelt among us. He that was in the form of God, [Page 19] clothed with all the Majesty and Glory of the supramundane life,Phil. 2.6, 7, 8. yet emptyed himself of all this unspeakable Felicity, and took upon him the form of a Servant, [...]. i. e. an Earthly, or a body of flesh and blood, in opposition to that state, which he before called, the form of God; [...]. and being found in that servile scheme, he humbled himself, and became obedient un­to Death, even the Death of the Cross. What higher expressions of love, can Humane Understandings possibly con­ceive, than these? The endearing love of Friends could never give any greater evidence of it self, than that they lay down their lives one for another: but such was the transcendent love of Jesus, that he dyed for Rebels, for Apostates from that sacred life of God, to which alone the Soveraign Command and Rule both of Heaven and Earth, does of right belong. Behold him a Man of sorrows, exposed to the envy, hatred and malice of the cruel and unbelieving Jews, and yet, so inwardly affected with tenderness and commiseration towards them, that he omits nothing, which a Heart enfla­med with love and compassion, could do to make them happy. And though God, [Page 20] in his Eternal Wisdome, foresaw the ac­cursed Disposition of the Jewish Nation, who, as they had been heretofore thirsty after the blood of the Prophets and righ­teous Men, so now would never leave, till they had satiated their Revenge, in the Blood of his only begotten Son, yet he delivers him up into their hands: for, so the Apostle speaks, that they had taken, and by wicked hands crucified and slain [ [...]] him, Act. 2.23. that was given out of the protecting hand and providence of God, to the will of his Enemies. A love which the Tongues of Men and An­gels are never able sufficiently to ex­press.

And as the Infinite love of God ap­pears, in this way of saving Men by Christ Jesus, so his severity and hatred against sin, is no less manifest and con­spicuous; for in that, God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up to Death, it is a sufficient proof and Argument of his utter Detestation of all sin and evil. No circumstance of his bitter Passion, but speaks forth the heavy wrath and indignation of God against sin. When he came into the Garden of Gethsemane, where began the first Scene of his Tra­gical [Page 21] Passion, the Scripture tells us, that he was sore amazed and very heavy, Mar. 14.33 and this inward grief, and ineffable trouble of his soul, he expresses in that Passio­nate speech to his Disciples, My Soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto Death, Mat. 26.38 not only extensively, such as must last, till Death it self do end it, but likewise in­tensively, so great, as is usually at the very point of Death. And whence arose this sorrow? It was not out of any co­wardly fear of pain and death, for know­ing all things that should come upon him, yet with a firm constancy and se­date Resolution of mind, he comes to his implacable Enemies at Jerusalem; Luk. 9.51. and when he was betrayed in the Garden, he willingly offers himself into their hands, I am he. Though certain it is,Joh. 18.5. our Blessed Saviour, bearing about him our Humane Nature, was likewise sub­ject to all the harmless Passions and af­fections of it, and was so far from that Stoical stubbornness and insensibility, that his Passive and tender Constitution filled him with grief, and yielded to the fear of pain and Death. Nor did his sorrow proceed from any displeasure of God against his Person; for he be­ing [Page 22] perfectly obedient, and fully and ex­actly conformable to his Fathers will; it could not be, that he should groan un­der the anger and wrath of God. Nor was it altogether Bodily pains that made him so, but there was something extra­ordinary; As,

1. A withdrawing the sensibleness of Divine Assistance from him. As the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion, though not disjoyned from the World, yet for a time deserted the World, by withdraw­ing his light from it. And although this withholding the sensibleness of the Di­vine Presence, was done without any A­versation and dislike of the Person of our blessed Lord, which not only be­fore, but at that very instant, was ten­derly beloved of God, yet the Appre­hension of it could not but make him bemoan his case, in that sad exclamation; My God, my God, why [or how] hast thou forsaken me!

2. Because, then all the Powers of Hell and darkness were let loose upon him. The Prince of Darkness, with his accursed Legions, did then (as we may reason­ably suppose) appear to him, in the most affrighting and dreadful forms, and by [Page 23] the Permission of Divine Providence, exerted and tryed the utmost of their In­sulting Rage, in these their last and most furious Assaults; the Conquest and Vi­ctory over whom being to be atchie­ved, not by the Divine Power, but by the Piety and Obedience of our Saviour, he falls into an Agony, and an Angel de­scends from Heaven, to strengthen and comfort his fainting Soul in these hor­rendous Conflicts.

3. Christ suffering for Men's sins, must needs have a distinct Apprehension of the manner, measure and odiousness of them, and beheld all this with a bleed­ing heart, forasmuch as he saw himself cast into those sad circumstances, brui­sed for the iniquities, and wounded for the transgressions of Mankind. All which put together were sufficient Causes of the highest grief and sorrow. Consider now, Jesus Christ, the eternally beloved Son of God, sorrowful and amazed, sweating drops of Blood in his Agony, bereaved of the sensibleness of Divine Assistance, conflicting with the utmost Rage and Insultation of the Devil, and dying a Painful and Ignominious Death upon the Cross, and it gives the highest [Page 24] Demonstration of God's implacable Ha­tred against all sin, that possibly can be imagined.

2. The admirableness and wonderful­ness of the Evangelical plot and contri­vance, declares it self, in rendring this Way and Method effectual for the sal­vation of Men. That it should not be lost labour, or a work to no purpose, alarming the World with great hopes and expectations, and at last become ab­ortive, or prove nothing but a windy birth, but that it should really attain the end, for which it was designed, that is, that men should receive benefit by it, and be eternally saved.

To this purpose three things are ne­cessary;

  • 1. That what God requires, be in it self possible.
  • 2. That Man be endued with a suffici­ent power.
  • 3. That some allowance be made for our Infirmities.

1. First, I say, that the Commands of the Gospel be possible: For it were the most unreasonable and Tyrannical thing in the World, to exact that of another, which we know he is in no Possibility of [Page 25] performing; and therefore, being a thing so abhorrent and repugnant to the natu­ral reason and equity of Mankind, it is at no hand to be attributed to God, whose very Nature is the most perfect and living Law of Justice. Wherefore, the Gospel being given to be the Reli­gion of all Mankind, and for no other end, but their everlasting Benefit and Blessedness, we cannot but imagine all the duties and commands required of them, to be possible to be done; for otherwise it would be so far from con­tributing to their advantage, that it would be but an Exprobration of their misery, and a Tyrannical and Arbitrari­ous Insultation over their calamitous condition. Nay, we are assured, that the laws of Righteousness required of us by the Gospel, are not only possible, but gracious and easie, and that from the mouth of the Blessed Author and giver of them; My yoke (says he) is easie, Mat. 11.28 and my burden is light: and the beloved Apostle has left it upon Record, that the commands of God are not grievous, that is,1 Joh. 5.3. they are not insupportable burdens, too heavy for the nature of Man to bear, nor are they fetters and shackles of Iron, [Page 26] contrived only to ensnare and make the Creation miserable, but such gracious Precepts and Constitutions, as are in themselves immutably good, and so infi­nitely agreeable to the true and proper, that is, the Intellectual Nature of Man, that he can no sooner understand his own happiness, but he would chuse them, if they had never been commanded. The Wisdome of God never interesses it self in unprofitable things, which surely this must have been, if the Observance and Practice of the Injunctions of the Go­spel had been in it self impossible. Be­sides, supposing such intolerable and im­practicable things imposed upon the rea­son of Mankind, it would subvert all fu­ture rewards and punishments. As for Rewards, there could be no such thing, for Rewards are only upon the conside­ration of Duty, and there can be no duty, where the commands are impos­sible: Nor can there be any equitable exaction of Punishment, because the Law it self is not feasible and practicable, and so the transgression becomes necessary and inevitable, and no more in the po­wer of Men to help, than to hinder their being born into the World. Wherefore, [Page 27] upon the whole matter, unless the Go­spel contain only such things as are pos­sible, it is certain, no man can be accoun­table for them, unless we will suppose God such an Arbitrarious Being, as acts by no other Law, than that of his own Will and Authority, which is all one, as for a Man to think to get himself a name of Power and Soveraignty, by going a­bout all day, and treading upon a few poor Worms. And certainly it is all one to have no notion and apprehension of God at all, and to think so meanly of him, and so much below the excellency and dignity of his Blessed Nature and [...]erfections.

But here it will be objected, that if the commands of the Gospel be not only possible, but easie and gracious, how comes it then, that Men are not presently made good, and all the World become true Christians?

To this, I have these things to reply. 1. That God forces none to be good, but having made us Rational Creatures, he has endued us with a free Principle. And without this, there would be no such thing as Moral Goodness upon Earth; for that which a man is compelled and [Page 28] forced to, by the irresistible Determina­tion of an exterior Principle, is neither good nor evil in reference to him be­cause it was not a true exertion of his will, but an act of something without him. And therefore should God irre­sistibly bend and incline the wills of Men to the Laws and Practice of Vertue, it would take away the distinction of good and evil, and Men would be what they are, by a fatal necessity, and not by choice. Moreover, should God forcib­ly make Men good, it would rather de­stroy, than recover the Nature of Man­kind, and make them more imperfect Creatures, than they are already. It is the glory of our faith, that being tryed, it be found unto praise and honour; but what praise can be due to that, which is performed by the violent constraint of an uncontroulable Power? ‘There would be little reason for the Scripture (says a worthy Prelate) so much to magnify the grace of faith,Princ. of Nat. Rel. lib. 1. c. 3. as being so great a Vertue, and so acceptable to God, if every one were necessitated to it, whether he would or no.’ 2. True Religion has a great disagreement with our present sinful Natures. Christianity [Page 29] came into the World to curb our extra­vagant desires, to restrain the sinful and exorbitant affections of the Animal life, and to draw off our minds from the fa­ding and inchanting Beauties of sense, to the living and Immortal forms of righ­teousness and truth. And it is no won­der if it be accounted troublesome and uneasie to a carnal mind, when its whole design is to let out the corrupt life and blood of the old man, and to renew men into that faultless nature, sin and wicked­ness had destroyed. Religion is not such a formidable and difficult thing, such an insuperable task in it self, but because 'tis an affliction to our natural life, to do vi­olence to our lusts and bodily Passions, therefore sensual and hypocritical Per­sons judge it to be hard, troublesome and uneasie. But 3dly, Men generally distempered as they are, have no mind to set upon Religion in good earnest. They are for the most part in love with sin, and Vice is become customary and natural, and because 'tis some trouble to root out and extirpate an habitual cor­ruption, therefore they fairly lay Reli­gion by, as a thing too austere and un­pleasant. So that there is not so much [Page 30] difficulty in Religion, as in bringing men to entertain firm purposes and resoluti­ons of embracing it, that is, of better­ing their lives by it. Were but Men sincere in their endeavours after holi­ness, and the participation of the nature of God, the pretended roughness and asperity of Religion would quickly wear off, and they would see, that its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths peace. By which it appears, that not­withstanding all the objections of our sensual and animal life, that it is possible, nay easie for us to become sincere Chri­stians, and that the commands of God are so far from being Tyrannical and grievous, that they are the most agree­able to our Intellectual and Rational Natures.

2. It is necessary that Man be endued with a sufficient Power. For though the conditions of salvation be in themselves possible, yet if we be not put into a ca­pacity, and endued with power from on high, sufficient for the performance of them, we are never the better. Though the walking of a Mile be a thing possi­ble and feasible, yet it is impossible for him that has lost the use of his Legs. If [Page 31] Christ, when he cured the Impotent and Lame in the Gospel, by bidding them, Rise up and walk, had not at the same time confirmed and strengthned their feeble Limbs, his command had been utterly ineffectual. So although we, through our own fault, are fallen into a state of sin and misery, weakness and im­perfection, yet if God intend to better our condition, and to recover us to our former life and health, he must confer upon us such a Power, as may make his Design effectual. It is confessed, that all Mankind have utterly disabled themselves for the attainment of everlasting Blessed­ness, by their own naked and solitary en­deavours; but God, out of his free goodness and love, making a new Cove­nant with the World, and propounding certain terms and conditions, upon which they may again be made happy, it is al­together repugnant with his Infinite Wisdome and Justice to require of Men the performance of these Conditions, without enduing them with a sufficient strength for that purpose. Should God offer life and salvation upon the terms of the Gospel, and yet never endue us with an ability to embrace and accept [Page 32] of them, it would not be a design wor­thy of him, nor agreeable with those se­rious professions and Desires of our Im­mortal Happiness.

For the fuller Illustration of this, we must know, that God hath always decla­red his delight in the Felicity, and his aversation of the misery and destruction of his Creatures, and lest we should question the reality of this his love, he has confirmed it with an Oath: As I live, Ezek. 33.11. saith the Lord God, I have no plea­sure in the death of the wicked. And this fervent desire of the good and welfare of the World, moved him to enter into a Covenant with them in Christ Jesus. Now, as in all mutual compacts, and stipulations between Parties, there are terms and conditions on both sides, and each Party obliges himself to the per­formance of something: So in this great Indenture or Covenant, which God has made with the World, he is graciously pleased to oblige himself to do some­thing for us, and we are likewise tyed to the observation of certain Articles and conditions required on our part. And this notion of the Gospel seems to be intimated by the Apostle, 2 Tim. 2.19. [Page 33] The Foundation of God standeth sure, having this Seal, the Lord knows who are his. And let every one that names the Name of Christ, depart from iniquity. Where, give me leave to insert, what a very learned Man observes, concerning the signification of the word [...],Mr. Mede. which our Translation renders [founda­tion.] ‘That the Hebrew word, to which it answers in the Rabbinical Di­alect, is used for Tabulae contractûs, a Bill of contract, and so [...] here signifies, the Compact or Covenant of God; for the very mentioning of a Seal here, implyes a Bill of Contract: for Bills of Contract had their Seals appendant to them; each side where­of had his Motto, the one suiting with the one party contrahent, the other with the other. To this the Apostle here alludes, God's [...], says he, standeth sure, (that is, God's Bill of Contract, or his Chirographum) ha­ving a Seal according to the manner; the one side whereof carries this Mot­to, The Lord knows them that are his, i. e. he will never fail to own those who continue faithful to him; the o­ther this, Let every man that names [Page 34] the name of Christ, depart from iniquity: which if he do not, he forfeits all the Priviledges, which he might otherwise hope for, from this Covenant of the Gospel. And this God's entring into a Covenant, is in other terms expressed, by being reconciled to the World, God was in Christ, 2 Cor. 5.19. reconciling the World unto himself, not so, as to take all Men im­mediately into Heaven, but so far as to put all Mankind, by the Gospel, into a capacity of salvation. To which end and purpose, amongst other [...], or Gratuitous Donations which God hath freely engaged himself to bestow, this is one very considerable, the giving of all men sufficient power and strength to inable them to perform his will and com­mands, so as he will accept of. Which very thing is made a part of God's holy Covenant, Luk. 1.74. that he would grant unto us, i. e. that he would give us power, as the word is used, Revel. 11.3. or qualify us with a sufficient strength and ability, to serve him in holiness and righteousness, before him, all the days of our lives. For the further proof of this, I shall offer these two Arguments.

1. That it is necessary that God should [Page 35] impower all Men to whom the Gospel is preached, with a sufficient ability to per­form what is required in it, that he may manifest his Intentions of saving all the World to be real. The Apostle tells us, that God is the Saviour of all men, 1 Tim. 4.10 and how he can be so, unless he put all Men, some way or other into a capacity of sal­vation, I profess my self not able to un­derstand: Now what is it to put any one into a capacity of salvation, but to place him in that way, and to provide for him all those means which shall be necessary and effectual for the obtaining that glorious end? Hence the same A­postle informs us, that God would have all men to be saved, that is,1 Tim. 2.4 as far as lyes in him, and may be consistent with the Nature of Rational Creatures, and that it may appear there is nothing wanting on God's part to make them happy. Wherefore those who deny to the great­est part of Mankind such a Participation of the assistance and grace of God, as may place them under a capacity of ob­taining Heaven, seem to me to question the reality and sincerity of God's De­sign and Intention of saving all the World by Christ Jesus. For if the pur­pose [Page 36] of God, in sending Jesus Christ in­to the World, was, that he should tast [...] death for every man, Heb. 2.9. Joh. 3.17. and that the World through him might be saved, it was like­wise undoubtedly a part of this purpose, that they should all be qualified and im­powered with such ability, the faithful actuating of which should certainly at­tain that end for which it was designed. And that God should intend the salva­tion of all Mankind, and promulgate this his Intention, and alarm the hopes and expectations of all the World, and yet deny them that, without which they can­not be saved, is utterly irreconcileable with those apprehensions, which we ought to have of the Divine Nature.

2. That all Men might thereby be ac­countable to God. No Man can be ac­countable for any more than he has re­ceived, and if there were any number of Men to whom the Gospel were faith­fully preached, and the means of salva­tion made known, and yet were always left destitute of a power and ability of believing and acting, according to the prescriptions of it, they would be so far from being left without excuse, or ha­ving their mouths stopped, that their [Page 37] Apology would be as reasonable, as if God should expostulate with them for not creating the World, or raising the Dead. For if they never were so much as put [...]nto a capacity of believing, how can they be justly punished as Infidels? But because the righteous Governor of Heaven and Earth, cannot but do that which is just and equal, and that all men to whom God has communicated the Gospel, shall be accountable to him for it, therefore we are assured that all of them, at some time or other, were en­dued with such a measure and degree of God's powerful assistance, as should in­able them to do what he required of them, and so as he would accept of. This is the condemnation, (says our Bles­sed Saviour, Joh. 3.19.) not that all the World was in a state of Darkness, but that Light, that is, the Gospel, is come amongst them, and by It they are put into a capacity, not only of discovering, but of coming out of their sins, and they loved darkness rather than light, that is, preferred the satisfaction of their own corrupt lusts, before a sincere obedience to the will of God. And methinks, the Righteousness of God's Dispensation [Page 38] with Men in this kind is evidently pre­figured, in that Parable of the Vineyard, Isai. 5. which is alike applicable to the state of things under the Gospel, as it was then to the Jewish Church: the planting it in a fruitful soil, the careful manuring and cultivation of it, implying all necessary means for the increase and growth of Men in grace and vertue, whereby might very well have been ex­pected such Wine, as might chear and exhilarate the heart of God and man, but when, after all this pains, it brought forth nothing but wild Grapes, then God determines upon the just destructi­on of it, and for the Equity and Justice of this Procedure, appeals to the Con­sciences of Men, What could have been done more that I have not done?

But against this it is objected, that if all Men under the Gospel are put into a capacity of salvation, whence then comes the different entertainment of it, and Why is it that all Men are not effectu­ally convinced and wrought upon by it?

For the solution of this difficulty, I shall return,lib. 6. contr. Cels. p. 315 1. That of Origen, that to an effectual perswasion there is required [Page 39] not only that the Perswader offer such things as are apt to beget belief, but likewise a sutable disposition and tracta­ble frame in him that is to be perswaded. So that the Reason why many Men do not entertain and believe the Gospel, is not that the Gospel is unfurnished of perswasory Arguments, or that God is wanting in any thing on his part, but because they reject and refuse those things which do in others, and might in them (if it were not for their own ob­stinacy) produce faith and belief. As (says the Father) the most eloquent O­rator that ever spake may perswade in vain where he meets with a stubborn and refractory disposition. It is suffi­cient therefore that the Gospel suggests and offers [...] such rational Arguments and Motives as are proper to beget Belief in Moral Agents, but the [...] perswasibility, or the Act of being perswaded is a work of Mens own. For proof of which the Father cites these Scriptures, Gal. 5.8. Perswasion cometh not of him that calleth you. And Isai. 1.19, 20. If ye be willing and obe­dient, ye shall eat the good of the Land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be de­voured [Page 40] with the Sword. Which account Origen seems to have taken out of Ire­naeus, lib. 4. c. 76. Facere enim proprium est benigni­tatis Dei, fieri autem proprium est ho­minis Naturae. Si igitur tradideris ei quod est tuum, id est fidem in eum & subjectionem, percipies ejus artem, & eris perfectum opus Dei. Si autem non cre­dideris ei, & fugeris manus ejus, erit causa imperfectionis in te, qui non obedisti, sed non in illo qui vocavit. 2. The Assi­stance and aid of the grace and spirit of God under the Gospel is not by Om­nipotency or Power at large, but such a concurrence as leaves to Men the liberty of their own wills, as is manifest from several places of the sacred Scriptures, Joh. 5.40. Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life. Though our blessed Saviour spake as never Man spake, and wrought such Miracles as never Man did, beyond which nothing can be offered to make the Gospel credible, yet those con­tumacious Jews would not receive him. And of the Pharisees and Lawyers it is said, Luk. 7.30. That they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, that is, the merciful purpose or design of God towards them in making provision for [Page 41] their salvation, as well as the rest of the Jews.

3. It is necessary that some allowance be made for our infirmities. For though a mighty Power engage it self on our behalf, yet if God should be extreme to mark what is done amiss, if he should take advantage of every frailty and mis­carriage, who then could be saved? Hence it is that our merciful God con­sidering our frame, and remembring the imperfection of Humane Nature, is wil­ling to abate and strike off much of our account upon that stock, and treats with us not according to the degrees of an Angel, but the measures of a Man, not after the highest rigor, but [...], according to equity which is the truest and most perfect Justice. For herein consists the excellency of the Go­spel Covenant, in that under it 1. God allows of our Repentance for past sins. 2. Accepts of our sincerity for the time to come. It was part of that Commis­sion which Christ gave his Apostles be­fore his Ascension into Heaven, that they should Preach repentance and remis­sion of sins in his Name among all Nati­ons: which they faithfully observed,Luk. 24.47. of­fering [Page 42] life and salvation to those that crucified the Son of God, provided they would repent of this their heinous crime and become new Creatures. Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Act. 3.19. It is the great comfort the Chri­stian Religion brings guilty sinners, in that it assures them of the love of an offended God, that their past sinful lives shall not ruine or exclude them from his favour, but that now in this day of mer­cy and peace, if they will return unto him by a speedy Repentance, he will be merciful to their Unrighteousness, and will remember their iniquities no more. The Conscience of Mens own guilt makes them afraid, and like Adam, run from the Presence of God; wherefore to prevent those misgiving thoughts of the Nature of God, which Mens sinful hearts possessed them withall, and for the fu­ture to take away all jealousies and su­spicious fears out of their Minds, God is pleased to publish a Declaration of Pardon and Indulgence to all Penitent Persons, giving them all imaginable se­curity of his Propensity and readiness to be reconciled, and of his unfeigned de­sire and willingness to accept of their [Page 43] Persons upon their serious and hearty detestation of their former sins and evil courses. And to the end that Men may be perfectly convinced that God is not inexorable and implacable, and that he consults not his own Glory in any other way than that of the Creatures good and advantage, he vouchsafes out of his un­deserved favour and grace to accept of our Sincerity for the time to come; the knowledge of which is therefore imparted unto Men by the Gospel to settle their Minds and quiet their Con­sciences, which otherwise upon every failure in their Duty would perpetually torment them with the fear of God's e­verlasting Anger and Displeasure. By sincerity, I mean such a frame and con­stitution of spirit, whereby our whole Souls are faithfully carried out in obedi­ence to the will of God, so far as it is made known to us.1 Joh. 2.1. These things I write unto you (says the beloved Apostle) that ye sin not, that is, It is the design of the Gospel perfectly to abolish all sin, and therefore it requires Mens utmost cau­tion and endeavour against it. But be­cause Men may fall into sin through the improvidence and short-sightedness of [Page 44] Humane Nature, or through the sudden incursion of a Temptation, and the Vio­lence and importunity of it; yet let them not cast away their confidence, nor sink under their load and dye, for if any man thus sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, a royal Agent at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us, not as in the days of his flesh by offering up Prayers with strong crying and tears, but by Virtue of that Power and Autho­rity of ruling his Church according to his own Pleasure, dispensing his favours and saving Men by the mercies and com­passions of the Gospel, which Preroga­tive he purchased and merited for him­self by his bitter Death and Passion. For God does not exact of us a perfect, unsinning Obedience, so as never to fail in our duty, or offend in the least tittle or circumstance, but he requires of us a perfection of sincerity, the not giving way to any known sin, or doing that upon deliberation, which a Man's con­science tells him is a breach and violation of the Law of God, though there be never so great Temptations to it. This is that which the Scripture calls by the Names of the New Man and the New [Page 45] Creature, when we love and serve God with our whole hearts, and retain such a clear sense of the deformity of sin, and the loveliness of Virtue, as makes us studiously prosecute the one, and detest and abhor the other. And though this sincerity of heart may be accompanied with meekness and imperfection, yet it is such as God has graciously promised to accept of, and to wash away those les­ser frailties and infirmities in the Blood of Christ. This state of mind is an e­verlasting Fountain of Peace and Joy, a spring of Eternal contentment and sa­tisfaction. It supports us in all dangers, carries us undauntedly through all diffi­culties, and fills our souls with an enra­vishing calmness and tranquillity. It is certainly the best Companion and the su­rest Friend in all the World: for when the Clouds gather and a storm arises, and the face of things in this lower Region becomes troubled and confused, yet our sincerity never leaves us, but in the most formidable and dismal appearance of Na­ture puts on a chearful countenance, and looks abroad and meets the greatest dan­gers with a high and generous resolu­tion, being confident of this, that that [Page 46] everlasting goodness which folds the whole Creation in tender Arms, will ne­ver disdain or cast away a sincere Per­son, nor despise him who unfeignedly and bewailing his weakness prosecutes that which is simply and absolutely the best.

2. A second thing wherein the Excel­lency of Divine Wisdome appears, lyes in the manner of the manifestation of the Gospel to us. God was manifest in the flesh, says St. Paul, that is, the won­derfulness of the mystery of the Gospel consisted in this, that God took upon him our flesh and blood. God communica­ted his will to us by sending down his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, (Rom. 8.3.) that is, in a body of flesh and blood. I shall not here insist upon those [...], those various ways and divers manners by which God spake to the Fathers of old, communi­cating his will to them sometimes by Dreams and Visions, by a Voice from Heaven and the Apparitions of Angels, but consider that way which God hath chosen of manifesting himself to the World in these last days by his Son, which as it best sutes with the Evan­gelical [Page 47] Dispensation, so it discovers to us that manifold wisdome the Apostle speaks of, Eph. 3.10. a Wisdome that displays it self in several ways and man­ners, and yet all tending to one great end and purpose, namely the recovery of Men from sin to a state of Purity and Holiness. For in this great design of instructing the World by the Incarna­tion of our blessed Saviour, we dis­cover the evident Traces and Foot­steps,

1. Of a condescending Wisdome ac­commodating things to our Apprehensi­ons and Capacities. The delivery of the Law on Mount Sinai was usher'd in with a terrible and amazing solemnity, the Mountain quaking and vomiting out pitchy Clouds of smoke and globes of Flame, a fiery Tempest or Whirlwind roaring with formidable peals and claps of Thunder, together with the prodi­gious sound of a Trumpet rending and tearing the Heavens, so that Moses him­self exceedingly fear'd and trembled: But the Gospel being wholly a design of Mercy and Love carries with it no ter­rors and affrightments, but is composed of the kind invitations of Peace and [Page 48] comfort, the Mount Sion wherein the resplendent glory of the first-born is dis­played, shining only with the gentle beams of an attractive and pleasing light, and Jesus the blessed Mediator of this New Covenant with his extended Arms proclames his willingness to embrace and receive the World which he has recon­ciled to God with his own blood. This is that Oeconomy which the Apostle calls the foolishness of preaching, 1 Cor. 1.21 not as if it were so in it self, but because 'tis a way of condescending wisdome, wherein God stoops down to our apprehensions, and frames things so as we may under­stand them, and receive an infinite bene­fit by them. For Man, partly from the frame and constitution of his Nature consisting of Body as well as Soul, but much more from his fall and descent in­to this lower life becomes wonderfully affected with gross Phantasms and Ex­terior Representations. Whence it comes to pass that we do more easily and fre­quently conceive of things as they ap­pear to sense than as they are in them­selves, when apprehended by a more dis­cerning Principle. Wherefore the Infi­nite Wisdome of God that makes not [Page 49] its Operations in a way of Absolute so­veraignty and immensity of Power, for­cing the Creatures against those inbred Principles she hath placed in them, but sweetly and powerfully directs them in a steady way of congruity and propor­tionateness to the natures of things, be­ing to work out Man from this low con­tracted state, the sad Region of sin and Death, to a participation of Immortality and more free emanations of Divine life, contrived a way most sutable and agree­able to the shallow capacities and facul­ties of Humane Souls. God would not appear to us in a flame of fire, nor speak by an Angel in a body of pure Air, but in the Form of a Servant clothed with our Humane Flesh, and subject to all the harmless Passions of our Nature, that he might more kindly disenslave us from the cruel Tyranny of sin and Satan. For let us but consult with our own Reasons, whether this be not a greater Incitation and more powerful inducement to Men to believe and obey the Declarations of the Divine Will, to exhibit to them some extraordinary and remarkable Person that should by the fullest demonstrations and sensible signs prove himself to be [Page 50] the Eternal Son of God, and by sweetly compulsive Motives even to the suffering a barbarous and shameful Death attract Humane Minds to the Imitation of his Virtues and following his steps, than that God should by any of those forementi­oned ways manifest himself in effects of Benignity or Displeasure. The whole Nation of the Jews discover the sense of Mankind in such a case, when being af­frighted with the terrors accompanying the descent of God upon the Mount, they said unto Moses, Exod. 20.19. speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we dye. For,

1. Considering the world partly from themselves, and partly from the cunning of Satan, so much addicted and given over to the belief of sense, had not Christ visibly appeared and conversed with Men, the Gospel could never have cap­tivated Humane Understandings with such irresistible evidence, or wrought in them such a full perswasion of the things it taught, as we see it hath done. Should the great Pillars of the Christian Faith, I mean the Apostles and Disciples of the Holy Jesus have laid its first ground-work upon the hearing of some [Page 51] voice, or perswaded their Auditors (as Numa Pompilius and some other Hea­then Law-givers) from the converse they had with some Angel, that their Doctrine was [...] delivered to them from Heaven, and had God for its Author, yet how hardly would Men have embraced it upon these accounts, espe­cially considering those imminent and apparent Dangers they were likely to incur upon the profession of it. How ill resented is that great Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour Self-denyal and Resigna­tion among vulgar spirits, and how dif­ficult a thing is it to bring off degenera­ted Hearts from the Interests of the World? and is it likely then that Men should be so prodigal of their dearest Blood, as to sacrifice it to an uncertain Rumour and Report, which every Impo­stor is able to pretend? But to see the meek Lamb of God made in our own likeness, having left the sacred Mansions of Light and Glory, and clothed himself with our frail Mortality, to behold him (I say) testifying by many Miracles and irrefragable Arguments through the whole course of his abode on Earth, and at last taking it upon his Death, [Page 52] that he was the Son of the ever-living God, and came down from Heaven to make known to Men that God was re­conciled to the World through him, this must needs strike our Imaginati­ons more forcibly than whatever else the wit of Man could possibly con­ceive.

2. The Gospel was intended to trans­form and work our Natures into that which is the flower and perfection of the Divine life, that is an universal love: to call off our minds from those little Interests they are apt to espouse by look­ing upon themselves as so many parti­cular Beings divided and separated from the rest of the World, and created only for themselves and their Private con­cernments, and to beget in them an uni­versally extensive charity by widening their Capacities to the Dimensions of the whole Creation. By which we are taught not to think it enough that our love ascend in copious flames to Heaven, unless it likewise descend in due mea­sures and degrees upon all Mankind. And indeed it is impossible for a Man that is throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love, to have any self designs [Page 53] in opposition to the general good of the whole World, but he must needs be infinitely desirous and pleased to see the life and nature of God communicated to all Beings capable of receiving of it. And this love is so strong and vigorous that it firmly unites it self to all in whom it finds any true likeness and resemblance of the Divine Image, and so far endears them to it self, as to constrain us to lay down our lives for the Brethren. 1 Joh. 3.16. But certainly this Flame could never have burnt so bright if it had not been raised and quickned by that sensible demonstra­tion of inimitable affection in the Death of the Holy Jesus. For what greater incouragement could there be to oblige and unite Mens souls to one another, than that their love should first be kind­led from Heaven by that great and un­parallel'd Exemplar of noble Charity, who laid down his life to expiate the crimes of his own and his Fathers Ene­mies?

2. Of a congruity and complyance with the state and condition of Mankind both in respect of

  • 1. Moral
  • 2. Natural

Evils.

[Page 54]First, in respect of Moral Evils: The degeneracy and fall of Mankind from God made them Slaves and Vassals to sin and Satan; for the busie Tempter being not able to work upon them by external force and violence, drew their wills into consent by craft and specious solicitati­ons, till at last he had so far enlarged his Kingdom, as to bring the whole Race of Mankind under his Dominion. Where­fore the Gospel being designed to free Men from that unnatural Bondage, and to restore them to their true liberty, it does in all points confront the ways and methods by which their Captivity was compassed and effected. It had been a small matter by a high hand, and by an Infinite Power at large, to have destroy­ed the Devils Kingdom, but herein ap­peared an excellent Wisdome, so to lay the Ground and Foundation of this glo­rious purpose of the salvation of the World, that the Politick Prince of Dark­ness might be taken in his own craftiness, and lose this his Empire and Dominion by the same methods by which he at first obtained it. The Woman being first in the Transgression, and bringing sin and Death upon all her Off-spring, that Di­vine [Page 55] Wisdome that draws light out of darkness, and Order out of Confusion, decreed that the seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head, that is,Gen. 3.15. that Christ who is the Seed of the Woman, [...], by Nature, and his Members, who are so [...] by spiritual en­graftment into him, should dispossess the Devil of that Power, Soveraignty and Principality which he holds over the World by sin. According to this early Declaration of Men's Recovery, Jesus Christ the true Seed of the Woman comes into the World, and by walking exactly contrary to his Enemy, restores to the World what they lost by the first Adam. And whereas the Devil mana­ged his Kingdom of sin and Death with all imaginable Tyranny and Insultation over poor Mortals, our Blessed Jesus was so far from requiring Humane Blood to be sacrificed to him, that out of a deep sense of our Calamity he parted with his own Blood for the life of the World. A more effectual and agreeable course could never have been taken than this, that the Captain of our salvation should visibly appear and conquer the Kingdom and Powers of Darkness in that Na­ture [Page 56] which the first Adam ruin'd and destroyed.

Secondly, in respect of Natural Evils: Though it be no disgrace nor shame to be made a Man, yet he that deeply re­flects upon Humane life, shall find it at the best very calamitous and standing in need of much Pity and Compassion. We are born into the World helpless and weak, and as if we did presage our own future miseries, the first actions of our life are spent in crying and tears: Our very Bodies are a sad load and burden upon our Spirits, inclining them to many foolish lusts and passions, subject to ma­ny Pains, Diseases and Death, insomuch that many good and holy Men have in passionate streins bewailed their stay and continuance here on Earth, Woe is me that I sojourn in Meseck, and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar! and, O wretched man that I am, who shall de­liver me from this body of Death! Now none can so affectionately pity, nor so intimately resent the distress of another, as he that hath smarted and suffered un­der the same calamity: Therefore says the Apostle,Heb. 4.15. We have not an High-Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of [Page 57] our infirmities, by reason of the great distance, disproportion and sublimity of his Nature, but was in all points tem­pted like as we are, yet without sin, that is, manifested and declared himself to be a true Man, by being subject to all the harmless affections and infirmities of hu­mane flesh and blood; forasmuch there­fore as he became our Brother, by taking upon him the same Natural condition, he must needs be throughly apprehensive and sensible of our state, and so the more apt to sympathize with and commiserate poor Mortals, and by that powerful so­veraignty to which he is exalted, act for us and send down relief from Heaven to us. For though the Infinite Essence of God pervade the whole World and all the Creatures live within it, and therefore must needs feel and know the inmost Energies, Motions and stillest Act­ings of all Beings; yet it affords not such a sensible comfort to Humane minds, as to behold the Son of God taking upon him our Nature, and by that Union and Proximity assuring us of his Tenderness and Compassion towards us. For he took not on him the nature of Angels, being unwilling to be so far removed from us, [Page 58] but took on him the Seed of Abraham. Heb 2.16, 17, 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest—for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to suc­cour them that are tempted.

3. A third thing, which demonstrates the excellency of Divine Wisdome in the dispensation of the Gospel, consists in the fitness and sutableness of it to the end for which it was designed. For things are so much the more excellent, by how much the congruity and fitness is great­er for the accomplishing their end and purpose. Now the great intent and de­sign of God in the Gospel being (as I have said) the everlasting blessedness of Humane Souls, the more congruously and fitly disposed it shall be found to be for the obtaining this effect, the greater is the glory of the Divine Wisdome in­teressing and concerning it self about it. This aptness and sutableness is seen,

1. In that the Gospel is furnished with all those Arguments that are requisite to approve it self worthy of Belief to all Rational Persons. To this two things are necessary.

[Page 59]1. The attestation of God himself.

2. Rational evidence and conviction. For whatever is attested of God, and hath his Seal affixed to it, is by the gene­ral consent of all Men to be looked upon and entertained as infallibly true: Ve­racity being an Essential Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature. St. Paul discoursing of the mystery of Godliness tells us that Christ and Christianity was justified by the spirit, i. e. owned, appro­ved and recommended to the World by the spirit of God. And this God's re­commendation of our blessed Saviour to the World, as a Person commissioned and invested with full Authority to declare his will unto Mankind, was done at several Times and in divers manners.

1. At the Baptism of our Saviour, Mat. 3.16, 17. when the Heavens were opened, and the spirit of God descended upon him, and a Voice from Heaven proclaiming him the beloved Son of God in whom he was well pleased. And this manner of Divine Revelation by a Voice from Heaven, as it was the most ancient,Gen. 21.17. so the most honourable way of God's communicating his will to Mankind, [Page 60] Exod. 20.22. Ye have seen that I have talked with you from Heaven. Vid. Deut. 4.33.36. For what the Jews relate of the Bath-kol, are for the most part fabulous, or else Magical and Satanical Delusions. Certain it is (as a very learned Author observes) there is not the least mention in the Ho­ly Scriptures of a Voice speaking from Heaven,Dr. Light­foot. between the giving of the Law and the Baptism of our Saviour. And it were very strange if God withdraw­ing those ordinary ways of revealing his Will under the second Temple, should yet continue the most noble of all, by speaking to Men from Heaven. And that we may not think there was any plot or combination between John the Baptist and our Saviour Christ, it is said, Joh. 1.33. that John knew him not, but had this sign given him, that upon whom he should see the spirit descending and re­maining on him, that same was the true Messias and Saviour of the World. And to this Voice our Lord himself appeals, Joh. 6.27. Him hath God the Father seal­ed, i. e. visibly approved and owned Christ from Heaven, to the end that he having this wonderful attestation of God himself might be believed on in the [Page 61] World, and his Doctrine as unquestion­ably received as the Letters of a King, when his Seal is affixed to them.

2. Another confirmation of Christ and his Doctrine was at his Transfigura­tion. Mat. 17.5. A Voice comes out of the cloud, which said, This is my belo­ved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. And this St. Peter brings as a Demonstration of the Truth of the Go­spel,2 Pet. 1.16, 17. For we have not followed cunningly devised Fables, when we made known un­to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, q. d. We have not impo­sed upon the Minds and Spirits of Men, as the manner of cheaters and deceivers is, but have delivered to you such things as we have seen and heard, being eye-witnesses of his Majesty; For he receiv­ed from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent Glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: And this Voice which came from Heaven we heard, when we were with him in the Holy Mount.

3. God approved our Lord Jesus by inabling him to work Miracles, which is such a clear Testimony of the Divine [Page 62] Mission of our Saviour, that both Jews and Gentiles ought to be convinced by it. To the Jews it ought to be Convictive from their own Law, Deut. 18.22. When a Prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken— Which Rule was given them to discern true Prophets from false; for if the Prophet brought to them a New Doctrine, and confirmed it by su­pernatural and miraculous Operations, though he commanded them something contrary to the Law, yet if he perswa­ded nothing but the worship of the One true God of Israel, they ought to obey him, forasmuch as there could be no greater Evidence of the Divine Testi­mony and Approbation, than by inabling such a Man to work Miracles. And though this General Rule might be ap­plyed to all the Jewish Prophets, yet did it more particularly respect the coming of the Messias, there being none more conspicuous and illustrious for all those signs by which God would have the Pro­phet that speaks in his Name to be known than Jesus Christ. Nor is it of less moment and argument to the Gen­tiles, [Page 63] for Miracles being such unquesti­onable evidences of the Interposition of a Divine Power, it follows that who­ever shall lead a sincere and unblameable life, and teach nothing but the worship of the true God and the conscientious practice of Virtue, and for the confir­mation of this his Doctrine shall work Miracles, we ought to believe him sent from God. This was it which convin­ced Nicodemus, We know that thou art a Teacher come from God, Joh. 3.2. for no man can do these Miracles that thou doest except God be with him. He saw that Jesus Christ professed and commanded only the worship of the true God, and that he exhorted only to the practice of real Righteousness and Holiness, and there­fore that those great Miracles which he wrought, exceeding the power of evil spirits, were a sensible Demonstration that he was sent from God.

It may now not improperly be inqui­red, Whether Miracles are always ne­cessary to beget belief of the Divine Au­thority of a Doctrine: and how far they are so?

To this I answer, that Miracles to some Persons and in some Circumstances [Page 64] are proper means to beget assent; for that they are not always convictive, ap­pears from the Incredulity of the Jews, whom neither the frequent and stupen­dious Miracles of our Saviour, nor of his Apostles could perswade, but not­withstanding this powerful way of con­viction, they put the Master to death as a Malefactor, and murder his Servants: I say therefore that to some Persons and in some circumstances, Miracles are pro­per means to beget Faith. 1. They are necessary means to them who have been constantly used and trained up by Mi­racles. Such were the Jewes, who re­ceived their Law in a miraculous man­ner, the Divinity of which was fre­quently afterwards attested by Miracles, and upon any great and notable defecti­on of the People to Idolatry, God was pleased to reduce them by sending and inabling a Prophet to work Miracles. Now it is very unreasonable to think that the Gospel which should introduce and make so mighty a change in the Ju­daical Oeconomy should gain belief of them, unassisted of miraculous evidence and testimony, who were already in pos­session of a Law which God himself had [Page 65] so often owned and set his Seal to by Miracles and supernatural Operations. Hence it came to pass that the Jews de­manded of Christ a sign, Joh. 2.18. for­asmuch as he called God his Father, and carried himself in the way of a Prophet, they require him to evidence this his Au­thority by some miraculous Actions, which our blessed Saviour both promi­ses and fulfils by raising himself from the Dead. 2. Miracles do more pow­erfully strike the senses, and so are more apt to beget belief in them, who are not capable of a rational apprehension and dijudication of Truth. Hitherto we may refer Christ's upbraiding Chorazin and Bethsaida, If the mighty works which were done in them, Mat. 11.21 had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes, that is, they would very probably have done so: for they lying under a great and inveterate Ignorance, and being so perfectly ensla­ved to sense, were more likely to have been rouzed out of their blockishness and stupidity by miracles which so for­cibly strike the imagination, than by the most Rational Discourse to which they had so little vital congruity and agree­ableness. [Page 66] And it is very observable, that the Apostles never wrought a Miracle, but upon an urgent occasion and great necessity, where they found their Audi­tors capable and apprehensive: When the great Apostle of the Gentiles, S. Paul, came to Athens, a place long famous for all Polite Learning,Acts 17. he makes an excellent Metaphysical Discourse, and proves the Unnaturalness and Unreason­ableness of Idolatry, by such Principles as were common to, and Universally re­ceived by the Intellectual nature of Man. And indeed a Rational conviction seems more clear and evident than a miracu­lous One, by how much the Innate Idea's and Dictates of the Understanding are more sure and constant, than the perplex­ed motions of a Versatile Imagination. And we find that the Jews evaded the force of our Saviour's Miracles, by say­ing they were done by the power of the Devil, and though Lazarus come to them from the Dead, yet they did not believe, but sought to murder him, and a perverse spirit will find various Arti­fices to elude the Assent which a Miracle commands from us. But now Humane Reason being in all Men one and the [Page 67] same, it is more likely to prevail when advantageously propounded, from that antecedent sutableness and Harmony there is between it and all Truth. And without doubt our blessed Saviour him­self seems to intimate, that the Assent which is extorted upon the working of Miracles, is much less generous and No­ble, than that which is gained from the Understanding, by the Native evidence and beauty of Truth: Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe; Joh. 4.18. whereas the Facility of the Samaritanes is commended, who believed on Jesus upon his own Discourse,v. 42. though he did no Miracle among them. And besides all this, Christ says expresly, that the very Nature and frame, the Sanctity and Majesty of the Doctrine he propounded, was alike sufficient to render the Jews inexcusable, as the unparallel'd Works he performed in their Presence. If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. Again,Joh 15.22, 24. If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin.

Wherefore to us who have Moses and the Prophets, the Discourses of our [Page 68] Blessed Saviour, and the Writings of his Apostles transmitted, if we shall yet be incredulous, it is as likely and probable we shall still continue so, though one come to Us from the Dead. For,

1. We have already all things, per­taining to life and godliness, perspicu­ously delivered in the Holy Scriptures, and this Doctrine at the first delivery of it, was sufficiently confirmed and attested by Miracles and Supernatural Actions, the History of which is made as credi­ble to us, as any Records of things can be, which we our selves were not Specta­tors of. Now, if we can believe any Hi­stories of former Ages, any Records of Times past, we have the same Reason to believe the History of the Gospel, and he that sincerely credits that, will be as much confirmed in the Religion he pro­fesses, by those Miracles he finds long a­go wrought to evidence its Divine Au­thority, as if they were done now at this present before his eyes. Blessed are they who have not seen, Joh. 20.29. and yet have be­lieved.

2. To desire new Miracles for the be­getting of Faith, is to question the Wis­dome of God in the Contrivance of the [Page 69] Gospel. For either the Scriptures are sufficiently confirmed and attested, by the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles, to beget Faith and Credence in any unprejudiced and disinteressed Per­son, or they are not. If they are, it is in vain to require the Reproduction of Miracles in its behalf. If they are not, we then call in question the wisdome of God, as if he either knew not the Na­tures and Constitutions of Men, or did not foresee what was sufficient to work belief in them.

3. The perpetuating Miracles for eve­ry Man's Conviction, would destroy and make useless their Rational Faculties. For the Christian Religion is a manife­station of the highest Reason that ever the World had any cognizance of, and all its Parts and Doctrines are every way fitted to Rational Capacities: But now Miracles being only Convictive to sense, if for the confirmation of every Article of Religion, there must be the concur­rent Testimony of a Miracle, all Appeal to our Reason and Intellectual Faculties were useless and supervacaneous.

4. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead, was a notable suffrage [Page 70] and testimony of his Divine Mission. It is the highest instance of Divine Provi­dence watching over and carefully super­intending the Person of our Holy Lord and Master, which though it permitted Him to fall into the Hands of wicked and cruel Men, who bereaved him of his Innocent Life, yet forsook him not in Death and the Grave, but justified and approved the Design and Cause he mana­ged in the World by dismantling those Infernal Prisons, and bringing Him up to life again. And this the Apostle takes as an eminent Declaration of the Divi­nity of Jesus, who though according to that mortal and frail state he took upon him in the World, became a Man of the Seed of David, Rom. 1.4. yet in regard of that Spi­ritual and Celestial condition, which he obtained by the Resurrection from the Dead, was manifestly declared the glo­rious and powerful Son of God. For we cannot think that God would do so much for an Impostor, or that the Di­vine Power would so highly concern it self in raising him from the Dead, and thereby owning him in so singular and eminent a manner, if he had not spoken in his Name, and done all things by his Authority and Commission.

[Page 71]5. Another Instance of the Divine Ap­probation of the Doctrine of our Savi­our, appears in sending down the Holy Ghost after his Ascension into Heaven. This Mission of the Holy Spirit, Christ promised his Disciples before he left the World, and signally performs it upon the Day of Pentecost. And this very thing is brought by the Author to the Hebrews, as an Indubitable Confirmation of the Gospel: How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, Ch. 2.3, 4. and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him: God also bearing them wit­ness (approving and owning the Do­ctrine of his Son Jesus) both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. God is brought in here as a Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, and his Testimony is the Mission of the Holy Ghost, by whom the Apostles were in­abled and furnished with divers gifts and miraculous Powers for the conviction of the World, that Jesus was the beloved Son of God and Saviour of Mankind. And this Redargution of the World was made a part of the Advocateship of the [Page 72] Holy Spirit by our Lord, When he is come he will reprove the World of sin, Joh. 16.8, 9, 10. be­cause they believe not on me, that is, he shall take upon him the defence of my cause, and convince the World of their great sin in slaying me a true Prophet, who came to declare the will of God unto them. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; that is, he should make it appear that I was just and innocent, though condem­ned as a Malefactor, and that I was own­ed and approved of God in that he vi­sibly took me up into Heaven. Which plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit in such a wonderful manner, whenas he had been withdrawn from the Jews as to those extraordinary and Prophetical gifts for the space of four hundred years, was a Testimony clear as the Sun that Jesus was the true Messias, the belo­ved Son of GOD, and therefore that they ought to have believed on Him.

6. Lastly, Christ was approved by the Spirit of Prophecy. Their want of un­derstanding and incredulity of the Pro­phetick Oracles, was that for which our Saviour upbraided his two Disciples, [Page 73] O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken. Luk. 24.25. Whereby we are informed that the Prophets had long ago given, not only a character and description of the Person, but of the Doctrine, Death, Burial and Resurrecti­on of the Messiah; and these Prophe­cies being so directly applicable to Jesus and to none else, it was an unquestion­able proof that he was the true Messiah, and that the World ought to believe on him. This Argument St. Peter makes use of against the Jewes; Act. 10.43. To him give all the Prophets witness— q.d. If you be­lieve not us the Apostles of Jesus, yet believe your own Prophets, who unani­mously point out and refer to this Jesus, whom we preach to you. And thus St. Paul pleads for the Gospel, Act. 26.22. that he taught no other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come. By all these several ways, it is very apparent that God hath born witness to Christianity, and approved and owned the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the first thing required to the credibility of the Gospel, namely the Attestation of God himself.

[Page 74]2. The Second is Rational Evidence and Conviction.

The most Noble Faculties of the Soul of Man are the Understanding and the Will, and that Religion bear a Rational Evidence and Conviction, it must be fit­ted with Arguments that must convince the Understanding, and perswade the Will to a due Reception and entertain­ment of it. Now the proper Object of the Understanding is Truth, from whence it follows that Christianity must be true that it may be believed. For the Truth of Religion, I shall refer to those Learned Authors, who have pur­posely handled that Argument, and brought as clear Evidence as the thing it self is capable of: And he that cannot believe without a Mathematical certainty, declares himself to be very absurd and disingenuous, and may upon the same grounds as well expect the same Demon­strative Evidence for the affairs of Hu­mane life, or to prove the Truth of the Chronicles of the Kings of England, or France, that is, he is so strangely unrea­sonable, as to desire such proof, as the nature of the things will not bear, though in the mean time he have the highest evi­dence, [Page 75] and most unquestionable assurance of the Truth of Religion, that the thing it self is capable of, that is, a Moral cer­tainty. For the Mind of Man may be as indubitably assured of the Truth of a Moral Proposition, as of a Mathemati­cal or Physical one, although there be not the same way of Probation in all. As for Example, This is a self-evident Truth in Morals, and needs no other light, but that of its own to gain Assent; That in those things which we have not seen nor experienced our selves,See Dr. More's En­chiridion Ethicum. we ought to believe them that say they have seen and experienced, provided they live up to their profession, and are not moved to it by secular respect. Which if it be not assented to, we must be Scepticks even in ordinary affairs and transactions of Humane life, we must not believe there is such a Place as Con­stantinople, nor credit any thing but our own Eyes and Ears, and say in a larger sense than ever the Psalmist did, that all men are lyars. See more of this in Bi­shop Wilkins Principles of Natural Reli­gion.

Now for the Will, that Religion may have a full and compleat entertainment [Page 76] in the Soul of Man, there must be some­thing likewise to work upon that Where­fore to make a thing eligible, it must have the appearance of Good, that is, it must have a sutableness, congruity and harmony with the Intellectual Nature of Man, and a tendency to promote the per­fection thereof; And such is the Christi­an Religion in its whole Frame and Con­texture. For let us consider, who it is that owns, and has interessed himself, as the Blessed Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy, even the Eternal Logos and Wisdome of God, that Almighty Mind which has closely contracted, and deeply seal'd upon all Intellectual Agents, that large and diffusive wisdome, that is seen in all the Parts of Heaven and Earth. And to think that Christianity should be in any of its Parts unreasonable, is to imagine this to be the only Unreasonable thing, that ever the Divine Wisdome was the Author of, and this alone of all his numerous Off-spring to be unlike the Father. The Gospel does in the most intimate manner derive it self from Christ the Eternal Son of God, and is especially owned and superintended by him, as being the repairing that work [Page 77] which he alone made, and which he a­lone can rectifie: and to imagine that an Infinite Reason should propound any thing to us that were unreasonable, is as fond as to say that cold can flow from fire, or darkness positively ray from the bosome of light. Jesus Christ did not bring a Religion into the World, to per­plex our minds and dazle our under­standings, but for the real good and behoof of the lapsed Creation, to form our minds according to his own Image, and to regenerate our spirits into a li­ving nature of Truth and Righteousness, which Design were utterly lost, if there were not in Christianity a perfect sym­phony, congruity and agreeableness with our Intellectual Natures. Besides, let any Man but consider, how the Will is allured and solicited to Action, and he shall find, that it is then the most vigo­rously tempted forth, when something is propounded, which has a Natural su­tableness and harmony with those Con­stitutive Principles, of which we are made: but on the contrary, it is natu­rally averse to, and not at all concerned with that, to which it hath no vital sym­pathy or concord. Which is an evident [Page 78] sign that Christianity is not only agree­able to, but perfective of our Rational Powers. What can be more agreeable to the true Nature of Man than Righte­ousness? What more sutable to his high­er and Diviner Faculties than Truth and Goodness? These beautiful and glori­ous Forms shone bright in our Souls, before Vice and Sin had covered and o­verspread them, and forced our Minds into a Preternatural state. Now Chri­stianity is design'd for the Recovery of Us to our Pristine Health and Rectitude, and tends to the enlargement of our bet­ter Powers, and the Recovery of them from that narrow and contracted state, sin and evil had brought them to. Vice and Wickedness are none of God's Cre­ation, but are Obliquities and Aberrati­ons from those Rules and Laws he im­planted in us, and therefore as it is im­possible the Soul should have any proper agreement with sin, because 'tis none of its Nature, so she must needs, on the o­ther hand, sensibly embrace and acquiesce in the Principles and Precepts of Holi­ness, from that Vital Cognation they bear to her own Moral Being. There is no capacious and generous Mind, but [Page 79] will find it self wonderfully affected and inamour'd with the loveliness of Chri­stianity, there being nothing found, but Principles of the highest worth and no­bility, and whatever else may speak true excellency and perfection. The Gospel is nothing, but God manifested in the Flesh, an eternal Mind clothed with the condescensions of Humane Nature, shew­ing us the Beauty and Pulchritude of that life, from which we had so foully apostatiz'd and degenerated, and confir­ming and re-establishing that Happy league, which was once between our Souls and Righteousness. By the tenor of which sacred Institute, we are obli­ged to great measures and degrees of Holiness, to Sobriety and Temperance, Chastity and Purity, to be strict obser­vers of the Rules of Justice and Equity, full of good nature and the desirable fruits of tenderness and compassion; in a word, we are injoyned no other things in Religion, than what the best and bra­vest spirits the World ever knew, have always accounted the flower and summi­ty of Rational Natures. And do not all considering Men, find the greatest ease and satisfaction of Mind, in the exercise [Page 80] of these things? And whence comes this Heavenly calm and serenity of Soul, but only from that gratefulness and symme­try, that is between such things and our Intellectual Man? so that the more earn­estly we attend to them, the more fully are we transformed into their lovely I­mage and likeness. True Christianity is so far from debasing, that on the contra­ry it infinitely exalts them, by setting them at a true proportion to their pro­per Objects, and raising them to such a state, as all wise Men have ever acknow­ledged the highest Happiness and Per­fection of the Soul of Man.

I have now shown the fitness and su­tableness of the Gospel, to the end for which it was designed, in that it is fur­nished with all those Arguments of Cre­dibility, that may beget Assent in Rati­onal Persons: but its aptness and accomo­dateness to that great purpose of Men's salvation, may further be demonstrated in that,

2. Secondly, It is so attemper'd to Humane Nature, that Men shall certain­ly believe, and yet no violence done to their Wills. For Men being Moral A­gents, must be dealt withall according [Page 81] to their Natural Powers and Faculties, and this makes the Method of saving Hu­mane Souls by the Gospel, to be indeed a Work of Wisdom and Counsel, where­as if God should by his Omnipotency force them to a Belief and Obedience of it, it would not have been so much an effect of Wisdome, as of absolute and uncontrollable Power. Now herein ap­pears the Glory of Divine Wisdome, in the choice of such means and ways, as shall effectually bring to pass its end and purpose, and yet no violence and force offered to that Nature in whose behalf it acts. As therefore to assert, that there is no necessity of the assistance of the grace and spirit of God, in our progress in Virtue and Holiness, but that Men may be good by the strength of the Po­wers of Nature, is directly repugnant to the frame of Christianity, delineated in the Holy Scriptures, and the sense of the Universal Apostolick Church of Christ; so to think that the Operation of God's Spirit upon the Hearts of Men, is by an External Impetus and Force, is no less precarious and absurd, than the other is wicked and abominable. I shall therefore wave the first of these, as not [Page 82] being at all concerned with it, but di­rectly supposing the contrary; and only discourse so far of the concourse and e­nergy of the Spirit of God upon the minds, will and affections of Men, as is evidently declared in the Holy Scrip­tures. And here I humbly conceive, that the Sacred Writings do no where de­clare the concurrence, or operation of the Spirit of God upon Men's Souls, to be by an Omnipotent Power at large, such as was shown in the Creation of the World, or Resurrection of the Dead, and which supposes us so altogether pas­sive, as not to be in the least measure ca­pable of promoting, or hindring our own good; for this were to destroy that noble faculty of Humane Souls their Will, and render all their Actions fatal and necessary: Whereas the Christian Religion was intended to heal and ce­ment, to joyn and confirm the disloca­ted and disordered powers of our Souls, not to take them away, to perfect and compleat, not to extirpate and eradicate their very Nature and Being. No Man acknowledges the actions of Brutes or Engines, or the results of our Animal and irrational powers capable of Moral [Page 83] Goodness; because they act fatally and necessarily; and such would the actions of Mankind be, if they were produced by an irresistible Power. A power and assistance then it is certain God has gi­ven us, and that of his Holy Spirit under the Gospel, but the manner of his Ope­ration is not absolute and unconditi­onate, but hypothetical, like the great conciliating and formative Principle of God in Nature, requiring certain terms and previous Dispositions and Qualifi­cations, without which it is as vain to hope for the compleat efformation of Christ within us, as to expect the Rudi­ments of the Body of an Animal, to be formed out of a piece of Brass or Mar­ble. For though we do not distrust the Power of God, but believe he is able to raise himself up Children out of the very stones of the Fields, and to change and alter the Natures of things as he pleases; yet since we find him framing and guiding them, not according to Will and Power alone, but according to the Counsel of his Will, Eph. 1.11. we are likewise as­certain'd, that in the conducting Humane Souls to Heaven, God works sutably to their Natures and Capacities, and in such [Page 84] an orderly Way and congruous Method, as supposes the Presence of an Infinite Wisdome and Counsel in the Manage­ment of it. And this not only appears from the consideration of the frame of Humane Nature, which in its choicest part is wholly Intellectual, and therefore not to be forced by an outward violence, but moved and drawn (as the Scriptures speak) with bands of love, and cords of a man, Hos. 11.4. that is, by Rational means and per­swasive Arguments, whose force and strength must lye in their Congenerous­ness and sutableness with the Ancient Idea's and Inscriptions of Truth upon our Souls, but is likewise manifest,

1. From the resistibility of the Ope­rations of the Spirit of God. And for a demonstrative and convictive Evidence of this, we need look no further than the preaching of the Son of God, while he conversed with the World and dwelt a­mongst us, who though he were the Es­sential wisdome of his Father, and his Discourses full of Life and Power, who himself was transcendently anointed with the Spirit of God, and able and willing to bestow the same, according as the needs and necessities of Men required, [Page 85] yet Jesus, the Author and finisher of the salvation of Men, was not always succes­ful, but oft-times that precious and Im­mortal seed, which he sow'd, fell upon a Rock, and there were some that rejected the Counsel of God against themselves, Luk. 7.30. and Many believed not on him, Joh. 12.37. and others went back, and walked no more with him. Joh. 6.66. Shall we say now that the Spirit of God did not accompany those excellent Ser­mons of Jesus Christ? If it did, his E­nergy and Operation was not Absolute and Unconditionate, since it was repulsed, and took no effect on many. Or is it not rather plain, that the cause lay in the stubborness and obstinacy of their own wills, according as Christ himself tells the Jews, I would, but ye would not? Mat. 23 37 A like form of Speech God uses to their rebellious Ancestors,Ezek. 24.13. vid. Isai. 65.12. Because I have pur­ged thee, and thou wast not purged, that is, I have done my part towards it, but thou wouldst not do thine. Nor can I ima­gine, if the work of Men's Conversion depended so wholly upon the Power of God, that no precedent Qualifications were necessary to invite the Spirit of God to fall to work, why Men's obsti­nate incredulity should debar Christ from [Page 86] working Miracles,Mar. 6.5, 6. as we find it did; or why he should not require a tractable frame of mind, as a precedent Qualifi­cation, for the exertion of his Almighty Power in the cure of spiritual, as well as corporal diseases. Nay, the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour were so far from imagining an irresistible Power, accompanying the outward Word, that St. Stephen tells the Jews, they did resist the Holy Ghost, even as their Fathers did. Act. 7.51.

2. From those Arguments, the Spirit of God makes use of, under the Gospel, wherein Men are treated with according to their Rational Natures, and wrought off from Vice and sin, to a firm and per­manent adhesion to Virtue, by kindness and love, by hopes and fears, by the in­evitableness of impendent mischiefs, and by the security of future rewards. Which Oeconomy had been altogether superva­caneous, if God had engaged his Omni­potent Power to make Men good. Un­der the Gospel we are perswaded to Ho­liness and Righteousness, by the easiness, pleasantness and satisfaction of such a state, to which our minds being once arrived, they feel a full and entire Acqui­escence [Page 87] and ineffable joy; a Pleasure re­sulting from the connaturality and agree­ableness of those Beautiful Forms, with the inmost sense of our own Souls. And because the dispositions of Mankind are various and different, some being incou­raged to Action, out of a Principle of Gratitude and innate Nobility; others not easily won, but by Advantage and In­terest; others again not without mena­ces of a severe and uneasie Discipline: therefore God in the Evangelical Dis­pensation, hath interwoven the most ef­fectual and cogent Arguments, to meet with each of these tempers in Men. To the first, he propounds the consideration of the Death and Passion of his only be­gotten Son, who being in the form of God, and dwelling in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Glory, yet out of that dear and ineffable love and com­passion, which he always bare to the race of Mankind, was content to banish him­self from those Blessed Regions, and put on our Servile Scheme, being born into the World a helpless Infant, subject to perpetual sorrows and afflictive circum­stances, leading an obscure and contem­ptible life, befriended of few, and at last [Page 88] dying upon that uneasie Bed of sorrows, the Cross, that so his Death might be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World. Which cannot but enravish e­very Ingenuous Breast, and fill it with the highest and most faithful love, to so kind and compassionate a Saviour. But there being almost as few of this sort of Men, as there were of old of those that embraced Virtue for it self, and esteemed it eligible, though divested of all appen­dant Rewards, therefore that Eternal Wisdome which has interessed it self in the Frame and Conduct of the Gos­pel, propounds an advantageous Porti­on to the sincere and unblameable Pro­fessors of Piety and Holiness, and assures them that their labour shall not be in vain, but that their sorrows shall find refreshment, their hardships and difficult enterprises, ease and pleasure, and their faithful Perseverance in Righteousness be recompenced with the Happiness of possessing glorified and Immortal Bo­dies in the highest Heavens. And if it shall happen, the minds of Men to be deaf to all the charms of Gratitude and Advantage, to the Allectives of good Nature and Interest, and there be no [Page 89] way left to awake them out of their stu­pidity, but by the Voice of Thunder, then Jesus Christ the Soveraign of Men and Angels, is represented to Us in Scri­pture, coming in the Clouds of Heaven, attended with Thousands of Angels, to take Vengeance on those that have not known God, nor obeyed his Laws and Commands: And by his Powerful Ope­ration, the Seeds and Principles of Fire shall be excited, and that quick and A­ctive Element insinuate and pervade all the Commissures and Parts of the Earth, and a Deluge of Flame, as once of Wa­ters, shall overspread the Face of the World. Into which sulphureous and burning Lake, the Devil and his Angels, and all those who in this life delight in wickedness, and cast the fear of God be­hind their backs, shall be plunged to E­ternal Ages.

These are the Arguments which are dispersed up and down, and urged in the Holy Scriptures, as so many tyes and bands, to engage us to a faithful and pe­remptory prosecution of the indispen­sable Laws of Righteousness and Truth, and which as well in their own Nature, as in the manner and way of their Pro­posal, [Page 90] do evidently declare that they are not fatal and necessary, but moral Instru­ments of propagating and diffusing the Life and Nature of God, and as all o­ther Rational means of Perswasion, may by an obstinate and perverse spirit be slighted and contemned. And certainly the Nature of the thing it self requires it should be so; for if the whole con­duct of Mens souls, in order to their salvation, were nothing but the effects and emanations of a peremptory and un­controllable Power, there would be no place left for those large Encomium's of Wisdome in this great affair, Wisdome being Inventrix Mediorum, and then most of all discovers its excellency, in fixing and determining upon such ways, as shall operate effectually, and yet con­gruously and agreeably to the Nature of Men, Moral Agents requiring Moral In­struments, to allure and invite them to Action. But lest any Man should care­lesly mistake me, and think that what I have said, tends to the invalidating and weakning our belief of the Powerful Assistance of the Spirit of God, I do confidently affirm, That no Man ought, or can attribute his beginning, progress [Page 91] and continuance in goodness, to his own so­litary effort or powers, but to the benign and auspicious influence of the Divine grace and spirit. It is he that forms in us the Life and Nature of God, that makes us Holy, Righteous and Good, enlightning the Eyes of our Minds, that we may see the inestimable riches of the Gospel, and convinces us of the Truth of the Great Promises of Salvation. It is He that daily by a Vital Energy pur­ges and refines the minds of Men from all filthiness and uncleanness, and conse­crates their hearts as Holy Temples un­to God. It is he that continually burns up and consumes our unruly lusts, and breathes upon the Sacred Life of God in our Souls, fanning it into a flame of love, that we dwell in God and God in Us. Through his mighty Power we are se­cured from our Spiritual Enemies, lead­ing us with a Pillar of a Cloud by Day, and a light of Fire by Night, till he bring us to Heaven the true Land of Ca­naan. But in all this, the Divine Spirit does not pull and draw us like stocks and stones, nor offer any irresistible violence to our wills, nor must we expect that God should do all the work for us while [Page 92] we sit still, but we must do it for our selves, only he has graciously promised to concur and lend us his hand and his assistance.Phil. 2.12, 13. Work out your salvation (says the Apostle) with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do, [...], of his good plea­sure, or according to your desire, that is, God stands ready to help you with Power and Ability to do it according to your desire, or as you desire it of him, and we are to take care that we actuate that Power, which of his gracious boun­ty he confers upon us. Which very thing makes us [...] cooperate with God,2 Cor. 6.1. as the Apostles are called [...] la­bourers together with God in the Dispen­sation of the Gospel.1 Cor. 3.9.

Having now discovered the Great In­fluence of the Divine Goodness and Wis­dome in the Work of Man's Salvation, it remains likewise that I now shew, how the Power of God has interessed and concerned it self in the same: For the A­postle tells the Corinthians, that he Prea­ched Christ to them, not only the Wis­dome, but the Power of God. And again, to them who are saved, the preaching of the Cross is the Power of God.

[Page 93]Now this Power manifested it self, 1. In raising our Blessed Saviour from the Dead. Thus St. Paul says, that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power, Rom. 1.4. by the Resurrection from the Dead, that is, God did own and publickly declare him to be his beloved Son, in that powerful manner of raising Him from the Dead. And again, he calls it the mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the Dead. Eph. 1.20. For when the Jews had crucified our Saviour, the Cause of the Gospel, as to all Humane Appea­rance lay dead and buried with him as a lost and undone Cause, insomuch that the Disciples themselves were brought to this, We trusted it had been he that should have redeemed Israel, so little hopes and expectations had they of a new state of things, when they saw their great Master dead upon the Cross. But suffering Virtue being so illustrious an object of the Divine Providence, God who owned and approved our Lord Jesus all the time of his life, would not now suffer his Credit and Reputation to lye at stake being dead, and therefore notwithstanding the malice of the Jews, and the envious diligence of the spirits [Page 94] of Darkness, asserts and maintains the Truth of his Mission, by bringing him up to life again. The impious care and industry of his Enemies, made the glory of our Saviour's Innocence so much the more clear and conspicuous: they look upon him as an Impostor, and having heard him afore speak of his Resurre­ction, they endeavour by all means to hinder it, that they might blast his Me­mory and bury his Honour with Dis­grace; therefore they roll a great Stone to the Mouth of the Sepulchre, sealing it, (probably with the Signet of Pilate) and setting a Band of Souldiers to watch a­bout his Grave. But God that loved his Son Jesus to his Death, and took the care of Him when he was laid in the Grave, disappointed the hopes and ex­pectations of the Jews, and made their malicious contrivances subservient Testi­monies to the Truth of his Resurrection. A mighty Angel comes down from Hea­ven, at whose Presence and awful Maje­sty the Keepers trembled, and the Earth it self was moved, and rolls away the Stone and sits upon it, and the stupen­dious Power of the Divinity shakes the Territories of Night and slumber, and [Page 95] dismantles the Prisons of the Grave, and restores to our Saviour that Life the Jews bereaved him of, notwithstanding all their fraudulent Practices and Machi­nations. A palpable Indication of the mighty and efficacious Power of God, who alone can call the things that are not, and quicken and enliven the Dead, beyond all Humane Thoughts and Ap­prehensions.

2. The Power of God in the Gos­pel, has been very notable in the De­struction of the Devils Kingdom. When Mankind began to apostatize from God, and fall into Idolatry, he gave them over to the Tyranny and Dominion of the Prince of Darkness, as a just Punishment of their wilful Adhesion to his Counsels and Inspirations, and for Reasons reser­ved in the Depth and Abyss of Divine Providence, permitted all the World (save that he selected himself a Church out of the Posterity of Abraham) to be abused by the Devil, and to lye under that servitude and slavery, till the com­ing of Christ into the World. But when the Son of Righteousness was risen, the Nations of the Earth soon saw and walk­ed in his light, and the Prediction of [Page 96] our Blessed Saviour became verified and fulfilled in the Ruine of the Devils King­dome, whose lapse and fall was like light­ning from Heaven. For notwithstanding the mutual Combinations and Confede­racies of the Kings and Potentates of the Earth against the Lords anointed, and his Disciples and Followers, notwithstanding the furious Rage of Satan, in stirring up and raising many cruel and bloody Per­secutions against the Church, yet the Word of God grew mightily and pre­vailed so far that the whole Roman Em­pire at last became Christian, whereby the Devil utterly lost his hold, his O­racles being silent, and his whole Wor­ship destroyed. And surely had not the Christian Religion been of God, it could never have so Universally prevailed a­gainst such Potent opposition of Men and Devils. The hand and Power of God was visibly and eminently disco­vered in the ample Diffusion and high success of the Gospel, which from such weak and small Beginnings ran and was glorious, captivating the Minds of Men to the obedience of Christ's Laws, and bringing the World under the Scepter of his Kingdome. Which Destruction [Page 97] of the Devils Rule and Dominion over Mankind, being in so great a measure al­ready accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel, and that Powerful Assistance that attended it from Heaven, shall re­ceive its full and final completion, when the Mountain of the Lord's house is exal­ted upon the tops of the Mountains, and all Nations flow unto it: that is, when both Jews and Gentiles shall unite themselves under the Banner of the crucified Jesus. And now that I am discoursing of that signal overthrow of the Devil's King­dome by Christianity, or the Gospel un­der the Powerful conduct of the Lord Jesus, whereby he became dispossessed of his Usurped Dominions, and those who had so long time been his Slaves and Vas­sals, returned to the Loyalty and Obedi­ence they owed to their Natural Sove­raign, I cannot forbear to insert a Con­jecture of the Pious and Learned Mr. Mede, concerning the American, or New World.Lib. 4. Epist. 43. That those Countries were first Inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times, and not before; yea perhaps some Ages after: there be­ing no signs or foot-steps found amongst them, or any Monuments of older Ha­bitation, [Page 98] as there is with us. That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel, and the Cross of Christ in every part of this old World, so that he could in no place be quiet for it, and foreseeing that he was like at length to lose all here, bethought himself to pro­vide him of a Seed, over which he might reign securely, and in a Place, Ʋbi nec Pelopidarum facta ne (que) nomen audiret. That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations, dwelling upon the Northern Ocean, (whither the sound of Christ had not yet come) and promising them by some Oracle to shew them a Country far bet­ter than their own, (which he might soon do) pleasant, large, where never Man yet inhabited, he conducted them over those Desart Lands and Islands (which are many in that Sea) by the way of the North into America; which none would ever have gone, had they not first been assured there was a pas­sage that way into a more desirable Country. Namely as when the World Apostatized from the Worship of the true God, God called Abraham out of Chaldee into the Land of Canaan, of [Page 99] him to raise him a Seed to preserve a light unto his Name: So the Devil when he saw the World Apostatizing from him, laid the Foundations of a new Kingdome, by deducting this Colo­ny from the North into America, where since they have increased into an innu­merable Multitude. And where did the Devil reign more Absolutely and without Controll, since Mankind fell first under his clutches? And here it is to be noted, that the story of the Mex­ican Kingdome, (which was not found­ed above 400. Years before ours came thither) relates out of their own Me­morials and Traditions, that they came to that Place from the North, whence their God Vitzliliputzli led them, go­ing in an Ark before them: and after divers Years Travel, and many stations (like enough after some Generations) they came to a Place which the sign he had given them at their first setting forth pointed out, where they were to finish their Travels, build themselves a City and their God a Temple; which is the Place where Mexico was built. And though the Devil in those Quarter, and such other Parts of the World seem [Page 100] to Lord it alone over abused Mankind without any controll and opposition, yet the Son of God to whom the uttermost Parts of the Earth are promised for an Inheritance, will at length lay a Power­ful claim to his own Possessions, and take out of the hands of his Grand Enemy, by the pure and uncorrupt Propagation of the Gospel, that Soveraignty which he exercises over those Desolate People. For as Christ in the Days of his Flesh by his Powerful and efficacious Word, commanded the Devils out of their u­surped Habitations in the Bodies of Men, as a Praeludium of that Universal Con­quest he should hereafter obtain; so will he after such Periods of Divine Provi­dence fixed and determined by his All-comprehensive Wisdome, go forth with his Legions of Light, and recover those wretched Mortals out of the Hands of the spirits of Darkness, by whom they have been captivated and seduced at their Will. Nor is this a bare Airy Notion or Fancy, but a thing to be hoped and prayed for upon very Rational Grounds, it being nothing but the enlargement of the Kingdome of Truth and Righteous­ness, and the Dissemination of that Holy [Page 101] and Blessed Life of God, to which Mens Souls have a Natural Cognation, though for the present bent and forced out of their true state and Position.

3. The Power of God will Discover it self in a very eminent manner, in rai­sing all Holy Men from the Dead, and rewarding their faithful services with Immortality and Life at the last Day. The last enemy that shall be destroyed (says the Apostle) is Death: And when God shall think fit to put an end to the Gene­rations of Men, and conclude the Scene of the affairs of this World, then shall the Holy Jesus descend from Heaven with a shout, with the Voice of the Arch­angel, and with the Trumpet of God, and the Dead shall be raised and presented each one in the Visible and Individual Personality they bare in this World, be­fore the Judgment-Seat of Christ, to re­ceive for the things done in their Bodies, whether good or bad:Joh. 5.29. and they that have done good shall come forth to the Re­surrection of life, and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation. Which final sentence at the Conclusion of that dreadful Appearance shall be ex­ecuted accordingly, the Wicked being [Page 102] plunged into the Lake of Fire and Brim­stone, but the Righteous, through the gracious Bounty and stupendious Opera­tion of their merciful Redeemer, shall be taken up into the Regions of Immortali­ty and life, where their Corruptible Bo­dies shall put on Incorruption, and be transformed into the similitude of the Glorious Body of the Son of GOD, through that mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. And though this Transcendent state and Portion may very well be thought too big for our humble Hopes and Expecta­tions, and exceed all that we can do or suffer, yet since God is pleased of his Infinite Bounty to promise, we have no Reason to distrust his Faithfulness and Truth in the Performance of it, since he has moreover given us a palpable Pledge and Assurance of it in the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead, and because he lives we may be confident we shall live also. Christ is risen from the Grave, having conquered Death by dying, and is ascended into the pure and peaceable Habitations of Glory, there­fore all his Members who are united to Him in the inseparable bands of Faith [Page 103] and Love, shall feel the effects of his Powerful Life in immortalizing their very Bodies, which shall then be absorpt into the Great Vortex of Eternity, where both Body and Soul shall be deckt with such a refulgent Light and Glory, as shall cause them to shine as the Sun and Stars for evermore. So that what the Poet fabulously speaks of the Apotheosis of Daphnis, shall much more be verified in the Translation of every good Man into the Kingdome of Heaven.

Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi,
Sub pedibus (que) videt nubes & sidera Daphnis.

Having thus far brought this Discourse towards an end, and displayed the Good­ness, Wisdome and Power of God in the Gospel, the great Instrument of the bles­sedness of Mankind, it becomes our duty to receive it with the highest and most honourable thoughts and apprehensions; not to let our Conceptions dwindle into something low and mean, and unworthy of the Nature of God, who hath so in­timately concerned himself in it. For [Page 104] whatever, whether Opinion or Practice, lessens that esteem and veneration Men ought to have of the Works of God, is a high Affront and Injury, and an Un­worthy Derogation from the Perfecti­ons of the Divine Nature; whereas no­thing shallow, trifling and contemptible can ever be a sutable Object of Divine Goodness, Wisdome and Power: much less can there be any thing such in the Evangelical Oeconomy, which was de­signed for so great a Work and so Uni­versal and general a Good, as the Im­mortal Happiness of Humane Souls. The very light of Reason it self teaches us, that we ought to speak worthily of God, and to have due and right Appre­hensions of his Nature, the Excellency of which, though it were in a great measure stamped and ingraved upon the Minds of Men at their first Creation, yet is more clearly and sensibly discovered under the Gospel, than by any other Dis­pensation since the World began. And as we are to take care that our thoughts and expressions be agreeabe and becom­ing so great a Mystery, so are we con­cerned vigorously to prosecute that which is the Grand Intent, scope and [Page 105] aim of the Gospel, that is our pro­gress and growth in Virtue and Holi­ness; to perfect our Minds in true Goodness, by a sincere Practice of all the indispensable Laws and Rules of Righteousness. For however Men may please themselves in expounding Chri­stianity in an Opinionative and Notio­nal way, in peculiar Phrases and Terms of Art, as if Religion were a thing de­duced and borrowed from the Schools; yet certain it is, that the true Life of God, which our Holy Lord and Ma­ster Jesus Christ came to disseminate and propagate by the Gospel, is not a bare sound of Words, but an inward Principle of Life and Power, eleva­ting and raising the Souls of Men from all childish toyes and follies, to a man­ly and generous Apprehension of Righ­teousness and Virtue, advancing their Rational to a compleat and entire com­mand and superiority over their sensu­al and Animal Powers and Faculties, and begetting in them such a lively sense of whatever is absolutely good and holy, as may at last reduce their thoughts, words and actions into an [Page 106] entire conformity to the Divine Will. And forasmuch as this Heavenly Life consists in the sincere Prosecution and Practice of Virtue, and that Morality and Virtue are depressed beneath the concerns of Christianity, by those who pretend a more free Exaltation of Grace, as it will not be Impertinent to the present Discourse, so I am sure 'tis infinitely necessary for every Man to contribute his Pains, in stopping and damming up that Flood of Wick­edness and Immorality, that has bro­ken in upon the World, by shewing the Indispensable Necessity of the Pra­ctice of Morality, that true Religion and Virtue are at no such Mortal Jarrs, but that whoever is false and Hypocritical, to the sincere and Con­scientious Practice of it, though he flie to Heaven in his vain Dreams and Imaginations, and talk of the Vi­sion of God, and an Immediate Com­munion and Converse with Him, yet he has neither seen nor known Him, and is so far from being a true Chri­stian, that he has very little of the Life of Christianity dwelling in him.

[Page 107]As I desire not therefore to charge any Man with the Evil Consequences of his Opinion, but charitably suppose that he holds fast to the Foundation, and whatever Tendency his Opinions may have in their Consecutions, that yet in their Primary Intention, he de­signs not the discountenancing of un­feigned Piety; so neither would I, nor can by any considering Person be up­braided, with setting and exalting Works above the Grace of God, as will appear, when I have a little ex­plicated and unfolded those Termes, which have of late raised such hideous storms and Tragedies.

By [Virtue] therefore I mean that Power of the Soul, which so rules and governs all the Animal motions and inclinations, that she does every where, and in every thing constantly and unmoveably follow that which is best. As for the word [Grace] all the Notions of it in the Sacred Dia­lect (as a Learned Critick observes) spring from that Primary Notion of it for Charity or Liberality. Dr. Ham­mond. Where­fore [Page 108] the Participation of the Divine Nature, being the highest Perfection and Accomplishment of the Soul of Man, and the ultimate end of Christi­anity it self, all those Acts which have a Natural Tendency to the furtherance and attainment of so high and glori­ous a purpose are stiled Virtues, they being nothing but the Powerful Exer­tions of the Soul in the subjugation of its Corporeal Passions, that it may with ease and constancy follow that which is simply Best: and Graces, because they are the free, undeserved and Gratuitous Donations of him, whose Almighty and Beneficent Spirit pervades the whole Order and Com­prehension of Intellectual Agents, re­fining and purifying the Minds and Spirits of the lapsed Creation, and e­very where attempting the Replanta­tion of that Beautiful Image, Sin and Vice had obliterated and defaced. Now for the Term [Moral] remain­ing to be explained, I conceive it may signifie, Whatever contains in it an Eternal, Immutable and Indispen­sable Obligation. By Eternal, Immu­table [Page 109] and Indispensable, I exclude from it all Temporary Constitutions and Po­sitive Sanctions, though deriving their Authority from GOD Himself. I add Obligation, to difference Moral Truths from Speculative and Theore­tical; for there may be many Physi­cal and Mathematical Notions, which may properly be called Eternal and Immutable Verities, which yet lay no necessary Obligation upon Us. That what is once moved will continue to move till something hinder it, is alike an Eternal and Immutable Verity with this, That every Man is to honour his Parents, but the One layes a necessa­ry Obligation upon the Soul, whereas the other does not. Wherefore though the subject of all Truths whatever, and so of Moral Ones, be the Per­ceptive and Intellectual Part of the Soul, yet the sole and Adequate Ob­ject of Morality seems to be the Im­mutable Idea's and Reasons of Good and Evil. And so far forth as the Soul exercises it self in the Discrimi­nation of Moral Entities, it is called by the Name of Conscience. So that [Page 110] the mistake seems to arise from hence, that Men distribute Humane Actions, in reference to Religion, into Moral and Evangelical, whereas Moral is not opposed to Evangelical, but to The­tical or Positive. But to give some further light to this business, we may consider these two things.

1. That the sincere Practice of Mo­rality is a part of the Condition re­quired of us under the Gospel, in or­der to our Justification. For unless the Practice of Moral Virtue be no part of the Divine Will revealed to Us in the Gospel, it must necessarily follow, that so far as it is made a Condition of the Covenant of the Gospel, so far it is required in order to the Justification and Acceptation of our Persons before God. For though we are said in Scripture to be justi­fied by Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, yet we are not to understand by this, an empty, bare and naked Faith, but such a Faith as is perfected and con­summated by Love, which the Apostle Saint James expresses by Works, that [Page 111] is, such a Faith as is not meerly No­tional and inactive, but productive in the Soul of a New and sincere Obe­dience. And what more frequent In­stances does the Scripture bring of our Faithful Conformity to the Will of God, than in our Constant Exer­cise and Practice of Moral Virtue? Insomuch that Saint Paul sayes, that those who neglect the sincere obser­vance of Morality and Virtue, will easily be induced to turn Hereticks,1 Tim. 1.19 and deny the Faith, Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwrack. So indispensably necessary is a Virtuous Conversation to our Par­ticipation of the Blessed Life and Na­ture of GOD, that no Man can be understood to be a Partaker of the Divine Nature, who does not live so­berly, righteously and godly in the World. For what sign does he give of a Spirit renewed and changed into the Compassionate Nature of the Lord Jesus, who can willingly pain and grieve and afflict his Brother? What Specimen does he produce of a [Page 112] sincere Conformity to the Eternal Laws of Justice and Righteousness, who can knowingly and wittingly o­ver-reach and defraud his Neighbour? Or what Evidence does he offer of a Mind desirous to be renewed into a state of Angelical Purity and Holi­ness, who makes it his business and seeks for all Occasions to gratifie his Carnal Appetite in the full enjoyment of all Sensual Pleasures, that may be had without manifest Diseases? Or is it possible to conceive the Life and Nature of GOD, that Life of Uni­versal Holiness and Purity, Justice and Goodness, without the Exercise of these and such like Virtues?

2. That the Maturity and Ripeness of Religion, consists in having a sen­sible Discernment of Good and Evil in a Moral sense. The full knowledge of the Mysteries of Christianity (as the Author to the Hebrews tells Us) belongs to them that are of full age, Heb. 5.14. that is, such as are arrived to the Perfection and Maturity of Religion, and these Persons he describes in the [Page 113] next words, to be such as have a Vi­tal relish and sensible Discernment of good and evil, Who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. That there are Natural Differences between good and evil, is as evident and apparent as the Difference between health and sick­ness: For as health is nothing but the right and Natural Constitution of all the Parts of the Body; and Sick­ness the Oppression, Distortion and Deviation from it: So is it in the Soul of Man. Its true and proper Nature, is that healthful Temper and Constitution wherein God at first Cre­ated it: But now Sin and Evil is a forcing it into a Preternatural State, the driving it into a Disease and Di­stemper, and the putting its Powers and Faculties into Jarring and Dis­cord. And that these Differences are nothing but the Vital relishes and sen­sations of the Soul of Man, in that double Capacity and Resolution of Rational and Animal, or in the Sacred Dialect of the [...] and [...] the inward and outward Man, or the [Page 114] Flesh and Spirit, I think is as evident to any Considering and Judicious Per­son. Now this Maturity and Ripeness of Religion discovers it self, 1. In a particular knowledge of the Diffe­rence between Good and Evil, so as to be able to distinguish what is from the Flesh and Animal, and what from the Spirit and Rational Life. 2. In a ready Application of this to all the Passages of our Lives. For that Blindness of mind the Apostle speaks of,Eph. 4.18. to which the Gentiles as a just Punishment of their former careles­ness were given up, does fully ex­press the Necessity of this Discrimi­native Sense and Discerning between Good and Evil. For when once the Criterion, or Perceptive Faculty has lost its Tenderness and Sensibility, and the Mind becomes Reprobate, [...] Rom. 1.28 then Darkness and Light, Good and Evil, Bitter and Sweet are all one. Then it is (as in the above mentioned place) Men are dedolent and past feeling, [...]. Eph. 4.19. and having no other Law, but that of the Corporeal Life, become insati­able in Impiety, and work Wickedness [Page 115] with greediness: which surely as it is the most deplorable condition the Soul of Man can fall into, so ought most carefully to be avoided by endeavour­ing after a particular Distinction, and clear knowledge of the Notices, Ema­nations and Suggestions of the Flesh and Spirit. And as this inward Sense is not to be stifled, so neither to re­main useless and idle, but to extend it self and have an Influence upon all our Actions. It must be fanned and kept alive by sincere Devotion, and a constant and Habitual Practice of Virtue, by which at length it will be­come a Powerful and Vital Principle, begetting in us a true relish of Righ­teousness and Holiness, that we may not only talk and maintain an Artifi­cial and Mechanical Religion consist­ing of Words, or the running the same Circle of outward Performances and Duties, but may be really rege­nerated and formed into a new Nature, and act out of choice, and from the innate Loveliness and Beautifulness of Virtue. For by bringing our Actions to this Test and Rule, and applying [Page 116] them to the Natural Difference and Distinction of Good and Evil, it will keep us from all deliberate Violations of the Laws and Prescriptions of Ho­liness. By this, Wickedness and Sin will appear in its Natural Dress and Genuine Colours, and its Ugliness and Deformity be rendred so manifest, that our Wills and Affections will not easily be drawn into a Compliance with it, and the various Passages of our Lives freed and discharged from the least Appearance of Evil.

FINIS.

BOOKS Printed for, and sold by Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Churchyard.

  • DR. More's Reply to a late Answer to his Antidote against Idolatry, with the Appendix. 8o.
  • H. Mori Opera Theologica. Fol.
  • Spenceri dissertatio de Ʋrim & Thum­mim. 8o.
  • Frederici Lossii Observationes Me­dicae. Octavo.
  • Speed's Epigrammata Juvenilia, in 4 Partes divisa, Encomia, Seria, Satyras & Jocosa. Octavo.
  • Doctor William Smith's Unjust Man's Doom. Octavo.
  • Two Sermons at the Assizes in Suf­folk. Oct.
  • Two Sermons at Norwich: May 3. and May 29. 1676. Quarto.
  • [Page]Mr. Hallywell's Discourse of the Ex­cellency of Christianity. Oct.
  • Account of Familism, as it is revived and propagated by the Quakers. Oct.
  • Some Opinions of Mr. Hobbes consi­dered, in a second Dialogue between Phi­lautus and Timothy. Oct.
  • Breerwood's Enquiries into the Diver­sities of Languages. Oct.
  • Mr. Allen's Mystery of Iniquity un­folded, or the false Apostles and Authors of Popery compared, &c. Oct.
  • Animadversions on Mr. Ferguson, a­bout Justification. Oct.
  • Friendly Address to the Nonconfor­mists, beginning with the Anabaptists. 8o.
  • Mr. Lamb's stop to the course of Se­paration, Oct.
  • Sherlock's Discourse of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Octavo.
  • Defence and Continuation of the Dis­course, &c. Octavo.
  • Answer to a scandalous Pamphlet, en­tituled a Dialogue between Satan and Sherlock. Quarto.
  • Dr. Worthington's Great Duty of Self-resignation to the Divine Will. Oct.
  • Mr. Hotchkis Discourse of the Impu­tation of Christ's Righteousness to Us, and our Sins to Him. Oct.
  • [Page] Gage's Survey of the West Indies. 8o.
  • Dr. Goodall's Vindication of the Col­ledge of Physicians. Oct.
  • Smith's Pourtract of old Age. Oct.
  • Webster's History of Metals. Quar.
  • Dr. More's Remarques upon two late Ingenious Discourses, the one an Essay of the Gravitation and Non-gravitation of fluid Bodies, the other Observations touching the Torricellian experiment. 8o.
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  • An Account of Mr. Ferguson's Com­mon-Place-Book in two Letters between Mr. Sherlock and Mr. Glanvil. Quar.
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THE END.

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