another occasion push the question home Mar. 2.7 Why doth this Man thus speak blasphemy Who can forgive sins but God only The question was rational enough and implyed a weighty Truth that none has any inherent authority to forgive sins but God only others may declare or pronounce it by a derivative authority only God can do it by his own but the reason of these Questionists left them presently They saw Christ holding a strict Communion with their Church as setled by the Mosaic Law They could not convince him of any sin against that Communion they heard him of himself and in his own name forgive sins this was a plain publick claim to a Divine Authority and they understood it so They saw him with the very same breath work a prodigious cure a cure not likely to be wrought by the influence of a Malignant Spirit it was of too benign and advantagious a nature to the Patient it must then be wrought by a Divine Power but the Divine Power would not concur with a gross sinner a notorious blasphemer therefore Christ of necessity must be no sinner if no sinner then an extraordinary Person for his miraculous actions would admit of no middle state then he could be no Impostor no Deceiver therefore Forgiving sins and asserting his Power by an undeniable miracle upon their own Principle he must be God the True God emphatically for who can forgive sins but God but the True God only For they respected only the True God when they asked the Question It 's a peculiar Attribute of the Supreme God to know the hearts of Men he assumes that Power as his own due in which none can be partakers with him the heart is deceitful above all things says he and desperately wicked who can know it Jer. 17.9.10 I the Lord search the heart I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings The same title our Lord takes to himself Rev. 2.23 All the Churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts and I will give unto every one according to his works it 's true this was in his glorified state but if Christ were a meer man before his Resurrection he was no more afterwards the giving him Honour and Power and Glory could not alter his Nature or make him any more than a Metaphorical God but a bare Metaphor applyed to a Man will not make him immediately commence a God or appropriate the most eminent of the divine Attributes to him But not to insist on that this particular faculty of knowing mens hearts he really had and sufficiently evidenced before his Ascension into Heaven so in one of the before-mentioned instances when Christ had said to the Man sick of the Palsie Thy sins be forgiven thee Mat. 8.24 the Scribes murmured or said in their hearts this Man blasphemes the Evangelist adds Jesus knowing their thoughts said Wherefore think you evil in your hearts Mat. 12.25 Again when Christ cast out the Devil out of one that was possest and the Pharisees hearing of it said he cast out devils by Beelzebub Prince of the devils We are told He knew their thoughts and presently gave them a reproof suitable to their folly The Disciples as they were following their Master fell into a dispute among themselves who should be greatest Their Master when in the house ask'd 'em of their dispute their inward guilt shut their mouths but he presently lets them know he was Mar. 9.33 34 35 36. without their information Master of their mighty secret and took an immediate occasion to teach them how to employ their time better than in such dangerous and impertinent disputes Our Lord was preaching in the Temple to a very captious Auditory they admire his boldness but never pitch upon his Office which he had then undertaken nay they argue among themselves the unlikelihood that he should be the Christ We know say they this Man whence he is but when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is Our Saviour as if he had been privy to all their discourse in the midst of his doctrine tells them aloud Ye both know me John 7.27 28. and ye know whence I am c. When the same blessed Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passeover on the Feast Day many believed in his Name when they saw the miracles which he did John 2.23 24 25. but the Evangelist tells us plainly Jesus did not commit himself to them because He knew all men and needed not that any should testifie of Man for he knew what was in man If he knew what was in Man it must be either perfectly or exactly or it must be imperfectly if imperfectly he might easily have been impos'd upon the Prophets of the antient Jewish Church were often so so Joshua and all Israel in the case of the Gibeonites So Samuel in his opinion of the fitness of David's brethren for the kingdom of Israel So the man of God by the old Prophet who dwelt at Bethel The Apostles afterwards tho' influenced frequently by the Spirit of God were lyable to Error Philip an Apostolical person in admitting Simon of Samaria to Christian Baptism S. Peter in making a difficulty of preaching the Gospel to one that was Uncircumcised in dissembling afterwards for fear of the Jews c. S. Paul in admitting false hearted Demas to the Pastoral Charge but this we find no instance of in our Saviour none were able to deceive him nay not so much as to fasten a temptation on him He chose indeed twelve Disciples and one of them a Devil Joh. 6.70 but he knew him to be such and declared him such tho' not by name long before he betrayed him So neither the treachery of his pretended friends nor of his professed enemies could take any place upon him If Christ's knowledge of those things was perfect it was as much as God's knowledge is No Being can do more than know the heart of man perfectly that heart which Man himself is so generally unacquainted with This is a Knowledge no way compatible with humane nature That since the fall being defective in a thousand particulars besides the necessity of Vbiquity attending a perfect universal knowledge of the thoughts of all which a Body can never be capable of If then the knowledge of Christ in reference to the Hearts of men was equal with God's if it were impossible for him to be deceived if it was no Sacrilege in him to ascribe to himself this peculiar Attribute of the most high God He then must be equal with God therefore he must be the True God If we reflect upon our Lord's behaviour after his Resurrection before his Ascent into Heaven if he be no more than a meer man it 's wholly unaccountable The Holy Ghost is by the Socinians denyed to be a Person or to be God yet it 's allowed by them to
our Saviour himself gave it a yet much stronger Confirmation in that he came and demanded Baptism of John and with this particular reason For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness Matth. 3 15. Now though I doubt not but our Saviour had a further respect in his submitting to John's Baptism yet I question not but he really meant that that Baptism ought to be regarded as a part of the righteousness of the Law though it were no where prescribed by the Law therefore we may be sure He would not have fail'd in his Obedience to any thing which really was a part of that Law but again neither would he have been exemplary in his Obedience either to the one or to the other had not the Latter had a just and reasonable Foundation in the Former and the Former an authentic and truly obligatory Foundation in the Will of God He shew'd himself too resolute an Enemy to the generality of groundless Traditions any way to teach others to set a greater value on them than they deserv'd Had he altogether slighted it as a thing of no value or of no authority it had been impossible for all the Miracles in the World to have conquer'd those very reasonable Prejudices the Jews must have taken up against him and his Doctrine for having an infallible Assurance that the Law given from Mount Sinai was really Divine and having suffer'd so deeply for their contempt of it as Divine they could only have look'd upon one who came to impeach it though attended with never so many Miracles as an Impostor permitted by Almighty God to tempt them and to make tryal of their steady Obedience to his Law and they had been waâ—n'd of this long before by Moses Deut. 13.1 2 3. If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul Now our Saviour being himself God and acting in such a manner as could not but proclaim his own Divinity and being taken notice of by the Jews as so doing they had a great deal of reason to stand upon their guard and had he shewn an open or a secret Contempt of what they knew was Divine that Diâ—honour by such an action accrueing to the God of their Fathers would have made them oppose him justly and to have concluded it impossible that such an Innovator could have been from God much less that he could have been the Son of God But our Saviour's business was by glorifying his Father to draw Mankind to a sense of their own Good and therefore he came not to abolish the Law or to destroy the Law but to fulfil it that is to shew that relation the very slightest Ceremonies in it had to himself and that great design upon which he came into the World to accomplish every thing it related to and to do and to suffer such things as might make all considering Persons plainly apprehend that whatsoever was Typical and Ceremonial in the Law was really consummated in himself at whom onely all such Types and Ceremonies pointed and therefore that it would be unreasonable to expect any other Person on whom their Import was to be terminated While therefore our Lord took this mighty care the more he exalted the Obligation of the Mosaic Law the more exemplary he was in Obedience to it the more reason the Jews had to believe that he could have no ill design upon them and the more justly could he reproach them with that That he honoured his Father Joh. 8.49 but they dishonoured him there was not an Iota or tittle of the Law could or should pass away till all were fulfilled and as to his part in the work he could justly challenge any of them to convince him of Sin and they though malicious and captious enough had nothing to answer to the challenge Indeed they had some Dreams of their own empty and troublesome Traditions which they taught and for their sakes slighted the Moral and perpetually obliging Duties laid upon them these our Saviour cast a just contempt upon and frequently and sharply reprov'd them for and he did so the rather to shew the world what a difference they ought to put between the Institutions of God and the weak and unreasonable Inventions of Men. Now the Yoke of these Jewish Traditions extreamly galling the Necks of the vulgar Jews upon whom their Law-Expounders lov'd to lay heavy Burdens such as themselves would not put so much as one of their fingers to support we find upon several occasions they were ready to receive the Messias with open arms to endeavour to take him by force and to make him a King and to welcome him to Jerusalem with their loud Hosannaes nor could the Chief-Priests and domineering Pharisees without a great deal of malicious Industry manage thâ—se who long'd for Liberty to their own turn Those who were overaw'd and therefore durst not murmure aloud knew well enough they were under the hands of worse than their old Aegyptian Task-Masters and therefore it could be no wonder they should be ready to close with every one whom they thought capable of asserting them into Liberty and yet though their Imperious Task-Masters determined concerning them that that People who knew not the Law were accurs'd that People were not so ignorant but that had they observ'd our Saviour either breaking the Law himself or persuading others that it was lawful for them to do so they would have taken Publick notice of it and at least when they saw Jesus a Prisoner to his implacable Enemies and the great loss they were at for Witnesses against him they would soon have come in and laid him open to his Judges as a Criminal deserving the severest Usage Our Saviour had taken upon him the Office of an Expositor of the Law the People easily found the difference between Him and their common Instructers Matth. 7.29 for he taught them as one having authority and not as the Scribes he cast away the putid Pharisaic Glosses and he laid open their true Import and Meaning We cannot reasonably question but that among Christ's numerous crowd of Auditors there were at that time as we find frequently afterwards some Scribes and Pharisees or if there were none what he deliver'd was not in a Corner and therefore doubtless they had a full account of what he preach'd but we no where find any offer at a refutation of what he deliver'd in his Sermon on the Mount That Exposition of the Law which he there gave was a perfect Test whereby himself was afterwards to be
which made them employ a pert smatterer in Ignorance as their Hawker to disperse their new fangled Theology about the Countrey as if it were fit one employed so much in the dispose of Publick Charity should to keep the Ballance even between Heaven and Hell while he supports their Bodies pervert and poyson the Souls of the impertinently curious unthinking and injudicious part of Mankind If they have offered any new Reasons in defence of Errors Apparent rarae nantes in gurgite vasto it 's almost lost labour to hunt for them and the Quarry scarce worth stooping for when found It may be some may think those things considerable which He has reflected upon if so it's what He wished for presuming his Reflections might pass for a sufficient Refutation at least He hopes He has placed some things in so fair a Light that others may the more easily baffle their Novelties and secure the Foundations of our Christian Profession from the insolent attacks of Libertinism and prevailing Heresie If what the Author has done may be any way acceptable to the Pious and Learned World it will encourage Him to proceed farther and in due time to vindicate every Article of our Faith from the Insults of Socinians and Atheists and to offer them somewhat else wherein the Church of England is immediately concerned and which He hopes will do her no disservice however drooping her present Looks may be Otherwise He begs Pardon for what He has done already and will for the Future either Write better or leave that Work to those who are better able to defend the Cause If He has offered any thing New or Solid in vindication of our Antient Faith it will tend extremely to his Satisfaction If He have err'd in any Matter of weight He begs his Holy Mother's Pardon to the Censure of whose Lawful Governours He humbly submits All He has written and can conclude his Preface with nothing more apposite than that Petition of our Sacred Mother in her Litany From all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from Hardness of Heart and Contempt of thy Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us IMPRIMATUR Guil. Lancaster R. P. D. Henrico Episc Lond. à Sacris Domesticis Octob. 17. 1691. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh IT 'S our business and design for the securing of those who shall read this discourse from damnable Errors for the glory of the eternal Son of God whose Divinity we find boldly impeach'd and blasphemously deny'd by a pestilent crew of subtle and insinuating Hereticks for the confirmation of that Faith in Christ which we profess and in which we hope to dye to encounter several of those Arguments thro' God's assistance which those enemies of Christianity assault the World with To which end it will be absolutely necessary to clear the sense of these words from those artificial clouds which some have endeavour'd to obscure them with and here we find the Socinians not so much disputing about the meaning of the first assertion without controversie great is the mystery of godliness as about the connexion of these words with the particulars following For if they can prove that the Incarnation of the Son of God is no part or member of our Faith or no mystery of our Religion they deprive us of one of the best and plainest Texts of Scripture for the maintaining of his Divinity Again if they can so bafflle all mysteries in Religion that nothing must be regarded but what can easily be comprehended by weak and corrupted reason our holy Religion stands upon a lower ground than the wretched Systems of Pagan Divinity and God must stand reprov'd himself if he speak any thing by inspired Prophets which the meanest person cannot fully and clearly understand In our entrance therefore on our intended discourse we must first remove these difficulties before we speak to the particulars And here we cannot but take notice that the Socinians generally profess abundance of respect for the Scriptures and seem to take a great deal of pains to assert their authority and it is upon the pretendedly genuine explication of that Word of God they build those Heretical Opinions with which they disturb the Church Socinus makes it a strange thing that any man professing Christianity should make any doubt of the authority of the books of the Old and New Testament Vid. Socin de author Scrip. op v. 1. p. 265. especially the last since the Writers of it were men of reputation and exactly acquainted with those things they writ about since the Writers were very well known since the books themselves are not corrupted or depraved and because there are no full or clear testimonies to be found that those books deserve not that credit we commonly give them Catech. Sect. 1. c. 2. The Racovian Catechism asserts the sufficiency of Scripture to make men wise to Salvation Eousque sunt sufficientia ut in rebus ad salutem necessariis iis solis acquiescendum est they are so sufficient to that great end that we ought to depend upon them only in matters of Salvation And for their assertion they add this among other reasons That it was not likely in so large a book and where so few things were absolutely necessary to Salvation Ibid. those very few things should not be fully laid down or that in a book where God had ordered so many things unnecessary he should have forgotten any thing that was absolutely necessary to Salvation And farther they avouch the integrity of Scripture that those holy Books are not corrupted or alter'd and that principally because they say it 's inconsistent with God's Providence and goodness to permit those writings in which he had declared himself and manifested his Will and shewed the way to eternal Salvation and which as such were immediately received and approved by all good men to permit such Writings to be any way corrupted besides that there were so many Copies of those Books transcribed at first in places so far distant one from another and they were translated into so many several languages presently that if any corruption or alteration had been attempted Ibid. c. 1. it had been impossible they should all have conspired in the same reading and therefore we may observe where the least change has been made the Copies disagree In this observation we close with them and by their own rule the better answer their cavil with this Text. For they tell us that some Copies read this Text not as we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was manifest in the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was manifest in the flesh without any mention of God at all Erasmus was the first in this observation Grotius follows him and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is wanting in the vulgar Latin Grot. in loc the Syriac and Arabic translations and that St. Ambrose takes no notice
generally corrupted and none of these admirable men taking any pains to stay the deluge of publick impieties But Non enim eadem sacra coluêre nec iisdem sacrificiis deo litárunt howsoever silent the Scripture may be concerning these devout and applauded Schismaticks we meet with the Pharisees often enough to their eternal ignominy They were besides their pretences to extraordinary knowledge in the Law and a supererogatory purity in their lives great intreaguers in affairs of state and finding the Saducees a powerful and encroaching faction they countermined them and taking the advantage of Queen Alexandra's superstitious humour who had a particular charge from her dying husband to close with them as powerful and indefatigable De bello Judaico l. 1. c. 4. and therefore the more capable of supporting her authority they engrossed almost all publick interests into their own hands as Josephus teaches us so they assumed a kind of Papal prerogative would be infallible in opinion or judgment and supreme in dignity and so be truly Custodes utriusque tabulae the great guardians of the whole Law of God as respecting both matters of faith and of practice A long habit of fear gotten into mens minds makes them at length forget how they came to be possest with it and that which arose from the force and violence of those whom they found able to compel them to any thing grows in tract of time to an apprehension of some great intrinsick merit in the person whom they fear thus when the Pharisees were clambring to that height of power they grasp'd at the steps they mounted by were visible and odious but their powers too great to be resisted when they had gotten a long and quiet possession of Authority the people who had forgot their former ill practices and violence grew into a strange opinion of pharisaick sanctity they found themselves no better than slaves to a prevailing faction and were willing to hide the scandal under the plausible pretext of only being admirers of and therefore servants to the Saints of the most high That these wretches might stand the higher in the worlds opinion the common people were perswaded to believe That if but two were destin'd to inherit eternal happiness the one must be a Scribe the other a Pharisee now the Scribes were not all necessarily Pharisees tho' some of them were the account given of their difference by Tostatus Petavii animadv in Epiph. ◠1. tom 1. ad Haeresin 15. as quoted by Petavius in his notes on Epiphanius is very good and it 's this Tho' the Scribes and Pharisees are joined in the same Gospel text yet as distinct one from another it s to be observ'd that they are not distinguished as the Pharisees and Saducees i. e. as if they were direct opposites for no Saducee can possibly be a Pharisee at the same time he is a Saducee but they are distinguished one from another as a Grammarian and a Logician may be for though its one thing to be a Logician and another to be a Grammarian yet the same person may very well be both so it s one thing to be a Scribe another to be a Pharisee for he that 's a Scribe must be a man learned in the Law of Moses he that 's a Pharisee must enter himself into a particular Sect and engage in a peculiar method of living but he that is a Pharisee that is a Sectary may be a Scribe too i. e. a man learned in the Law at the same time With these we have Lawyers named by our Saviour but their employment being to explain the Law to the people which was the employment of the Scribes too they seem to be one and the same sort of men and the case is the plainer if Maldonate's opinion be true Maldona◠in Matth. c. 2. That some Scribes were as publick Notaries others as publick Teachers so having a double office incumbent upon their party Take these Scribes Lawyers and Pharisees together they were notorious Hypocrites They had reduc'd Religion to nothing but air to a meer empty shew they had a form of Godliness but they denyed the power of it They were extremely ambitious and vain-glorious even to ridiculousness They laid heavy burdens upon the shoulders of others but would not touch them themselves with one of their fingers they did all their works to be seen of men they made broad their Phylacteries that they might seem the greater zealots for the Law and enlarged the fringes upon the corners of their garments for the same purpose they loved the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief places in the Synagogues and greetings in the market places Matth. 23 4-7 and to be called of men Rabbi Rabbi all this contrary to that simplicity and modesty which their Law in several places required of them Again these in conjunction shut up the kingdom of heaven against those that were desirous to enter it They abused prayer by running it out into an impertinent length that the world might not suspect men of such fervent devotions could have any thoughts of devouring widows houses They abused the intent of Proselytisme that being to bring strangers to the knowledge of God but they made theirs twofold more the children of hell than they were themselves They allowed perjury payed Tythes of Mint Anise and Cummin but omitted the weightier things of the Law Judgment Mercy and Faith They were outwardly clean but inwardly conscious to themselves of infinite extortion and excess They appear'd outwardly righteous to the eyes of undiscerning men but within were full of hypocrisie and all iniquity as our Saviour informs us in the continuation of that chapter The Pharisees particularly were so infamous for these things that one Joshua an ancient Rabbine and if his age be rightly calculated antecedent to our Saviour's Incarnation reckons the foolish severities of the Pharisees as one of those things that brought a general infelicity upon the world and yet by those hypocritical severities they pretended to merit Heaven and more they judged their own wills so absolutely free their own abilities towards performance of the Divine Law so very great that They esteemed a reward of mercy or happiness attain'd by God's free grace a matter not worth their acceptance but glory purchas'd by merit was really great and honourable they encourag'd impieties admirably by entayling felicity or a portion in the future world upon every one that was born an Israelite were his circumstances never so discouraging a principle re-asserted and maintained by their modern Rabbines Which corrupt opinions extreme superstitions and shameful Hypocrisies as they fill'd them with abundance of prejudices against our Saviours Doctrine and Person which carried nothing but love and meekness humility and sincerity along with them all direct contradictions to their opinions and practices so after our Saviour's time they expos'd 'em to all the contempt and derision imaginable hence they got those ridiculous
is a Law-giver as a King on his Throne who has no superiour and therefore what he there decrees has the force and sanction of a Law the Lord is our Judge Isa 33.22 says the Prophet the Lord is our Law-giver the Lord is our King he will save us As our Saviour was Man he too tho' superiour to Moses and peculiarly faithful in all the house of God had no authority to make alterations in that original Moral Law and as he was one with his Father and so conscious of every determination of his it was impossible he should vary from himself i. e. from his blessed Father or should openly in the world act as if it were possible any thing imperfect should come out of the hand of God Hence we rationally believe that if salvation be a thing really attainable it must be attained by the same means by all persons whether Jews or Gentiles Of the Patriarchs several have that testimony given of them in Scripture that they pleas'd God now there being no variableness nor shadow of turning with God but he the same yesterday to day and for ever whatsoever pleas'd God in those the same and nothing else can please him now And whereas our blessed Saviour in the days of his flesh made it his business to please his Almighty Father and did so by performing every punctilio of the Mosaic Law so we who are to follow his example must perform the same but whereas the very circumstantial appendages of a Law tho' nothing essential to it but the meer evidences of the Sovereignty of the Lawgiver are not yet to be cancell'd but by a power equal to that which gave them their first obliging authority therefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ in and by whom the ceremonial sanctions of Moses's Law were vacated should be God and so have the same original Divine Authority in himself and his fulfilling and re-confirming all the substantial parts of that Law made it yet the more publickly authentick and taught his followers to have their due respect to him which was due to both an Almighty Lawgiver and an infallible Interpreter And whereas that insupportable burden of Ceremonies is taken off from the necks of Christians it being laid upon the Jews partly for the hardness of their hearts and partly for to shadow out to them their expectations of a Messiah who being himself come in the flesh has now no need of types and shadows to prefigure him so the old Natural Law is urged upon them with the greatest strength and reason in the world and the force and intent of it is more clearly shew'd them from whence the Apostle S. John who tells those he writes to that he gave them no new commandment but the old which they had heard from the beginning yet in the very next verse subjoins 1 John 2.7 8. Again a new commandment I write unto you the substance of which is that you love one another this was an old commandment in that Nature injoyn'd it and it was co-incident with that Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self it was a new Commandment in that it was re-inforced and inculcated so very often by our Saviour in that He gave so many powerful reasons why his followers should practise it and yet the result of all amounts only to this that the design of Religion being to restore Nature to its first happiness and that being rationally concluded to be the best and purest Religion which has the greatest effects in that design if those who were his Disciples would but take care to evidence their Discipleship by that mutual love and endearing charity they would at the same time convince the world that the Lord whom they follow'd was truly authoriz'd by Heaven that the Doctrine which He preach'd was really agreeable to the Will of God and that Love being the first intention of pure and uncorrupted Nature That which raised and encouraged men most powerfully to it must needs be the most suitable to that original purity of Nature And hence it is that we observe many are prejudiced against Christianity by those cursed feuds and animosities to be found among Christians they having an eye generally to the restauration of Nature but quarrels and contentions being wholly barbarous brutish and unnatural hence it appears farther too that whereas the Apostle seems to distinguish between the Gospel and the Mosaic dispensation as if the first were the Law of Faith the last the Law of Works and that such a Law as by which Salvation could never be obtain'd The works the Apostle reflects on are not the duties of the moral Law but the Ceremonial punctilio's of the Levitical Law which as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews agreeably to what I asserted before assures us were not able to make any man perfect but for the Moral Law he 's so far from invalidating it that where ever he dehorts from any vices such as he calls the works of the flesh Gal. 5.19 24. which are these adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulations strife wrath seditions heresie envyings murders drunkenness revellings and such like of which he tells us that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God Again wheresoever he exhorts to any virtue such as Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance against which there is no Law Wheresoever he does thus He enforces the Moral Law with expressions as strong and reasons as weighty as the Holy Ghost could inspire him with and where the same Apostle assures us that in Jesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision Gal. 5.6 he shews what works are excluded from any efficacy in our Salvation for Circumcision is put for the whole Ceremonial Law and where he adds that Faith working by Love is available he shews the inefficacy of all pretences to Faith without good works agreeing with S. James that Faith without works is dead James 2.26 and with his own severe reflection elsewhere upon those who profess they knew God while in their works they deny him Tit. 1.16 being abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Since then it was the great end and design of the Gospel to confirm the Moral and eternal Law of God and so by just degrees to reduce fallen Man again to the rules of perfect reason to make him sensible of the noble nature and spiritual inclinations of the Heaven-born Soul that so he might the more fully apprehend how much below himself he falls in yielding himself a slave to Sin and how much he retrenches his own true liberty by that unbridled exorbitancy he aims at the Gospel being intended to set Man's natural misery in a true light and withal to shew the sole remedy for that misery in the undertakings of a Saviour It remains an inquiry still whether Man could in the state he is in at present arrive