time I have purposely reserved this for the last place because it is their last refuge and if this fail them they are gone To shew the weakness of this pretence we will if they please take it for granted that the Governours of the Church have in no Age more power than the Apostles had in theirs Now St. Paul tells us 2 Cor. 10.8 that the Authority which the Apostles had given them from the Lord was only for edification but not for destruction And the same St. Paul makes it the business of a whole Chapter to shew that the performing the publick service of God and particularly Praying in an unknown Tongue are contrary to edification from which premisses the conclusion is plain That the Apostles themselves had no Authority to appoint the service of God to be performed in an unknown Tongue and surely it is Arrogance for the Church in any Age to pretend to greater Authority than the Apostles had This is the summ of what our Adversaries say in justification of themselves in these points And there is no doubt but that men of wit and confidence will alwaies make a shift to say something for any thing and some way or other blanch over the blackest and most absurd things in the world But I leave it to the judgment of mankind whether any thing be more unreasonable than to tell men in effect that it is fit they should understand as little of Religion as is possible that God hath published a very dangerous Book with which it is not safe for the people to be familiarly acquainted that our blessed Saviour and his Apostles and the ancient Christian Church for more than six hundred years were not wise managers of Religion nor prudent dispensers of the Scriptures but like fond and foolish Fathers put a knife and a sword into the hands of their Children with which they might easily have foreseen what mischief they would do to themselves and others And who would not chuse to be of such a Church which is provided of such excellent and effectual means of Ignorance such wise and infallible methods for the prevention of knowledge in the people and such variety of close shutters to keep out the light I have chosen to insist upon this Argument because it is so very plain that the most ordinary capacity may judge of this usage and dealing with the souls of men which is so very gross that every man must needs be sensible of it because it toucheth men in the common rights of humane nature which belong to them as much as the light of heaven and the air we breath in It requires no subtilty of wit no skill in Antiquity to understand these Controversies between Us and the Church of Rome For there are no Fathers to be pretended on both sides in these Questions They yield we have Antiquity on ours And we refer it to the common sense of Mankind which Church that of Rome or Ours hath all the right and reason in the world on her side in these debates And who they are that tyrannize over Christians the Governours of their Church or ours who use the people like sons and freemen and who like slaves who feed the flock of Christ committed to them and who take the Childrens bread from them Who they are that when their Children ask bread for bread give them a stone and for an egg a serpent I mean the Legends of their Saints instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto salvation And who they are that lie most justly under the suspicion of Errours and Corruptions they who bring their Doctrine and Practices into the open light and are willing to have them tryed by the true touchstone the Word of God or they who shun the light and decline all manner of tryal and examination and who are most likely to carry on a worldly design they who drive a trade of such mighty gain and advantage under pretence of Religion and make such markets of the ignorance and sins of the people or we whom malice it self cannot charge with serving any worldly design by any allowed Doctrine or Practice of our Religion For we make no money of the mistakes of the people nor do we fill their heads with vain fears of new places of torment to make them willing to empty their purses in a vainer hope of being delivered out of them We do not like them pretend a mighty bank and treasure of Merits in the Church which they sell to the people for ready money giving them bills of Exchange from the Pope to Purgatory when they who grant them have no reason to believe they will avail them or be accepted in the other World For our parts we have no fear that our people should understand Religion too well We could wish with Moses that all the Lord's people were Prophets We should be heartily glad the people would read the holy Scriptures more diligently being sufficiently assured that it is their own fault if they learn any thing but what is good from thence We have no Doctrines or Practices contrary to Scripture and consequently no occasion to keep it close from the sight of the people or to hide any of the Commandments of God from them We leave these mean arts to those who stand in need of them In a word there is nothing which God hath said to men which we desire should be concealed from them Nay we are willing the people should examine what we teach and bring all our Doctrines to the Law and to the Testimony that if they be not according to this Rule they may neither believe them nor us 'T is onely things false and adulterate which shun the light and sear the touchstone We have that security of the truth of our Religion and of the agreeableness of it to the word of God that honest confidence of the goodness of our Cause that we do not forbid the people to read the best Books our Adversaries can write against it And now let any impartial man judge whether this be not a better argument of a good Cause to leave men at liberty to try the grounds of their Religion than the courses which are taken in the Church of Rome to awe men with an Inquisition and as much as is possible to keep the common people in Ignorance not onely of what their late Adversaries the Protestants but their chief and ancient Adversary the Scriptures have to say against them A man had need of more than common security of the skill and integrity of those to whom he perfectly resigns his understanding this is too great a Trust to be reposed in humane frailty and too strong a temptation to others to impose upon us to abuse our blindness and to make their own ends of our voluntary Ignorance and easie credulity This is such a folly as if a rich man should make his Physician his heir which is to tempt him either to destroy
Consider it as an Argument ad hominem and shew the fitness and force of it to convince those with whom our Saviour disputed Secondly I shall enquire Whether it be more than an Argument ad hominem And if it be wherein the real and absolute force of it doth consist And then I shall apply this Doctrine of the Resurrection to the present Occasion I. First We will consider it as an Argument ad hominem and shew the fitness and force of it to convince those with whom our Saviour disputed And this will appear if we carefully consider these four things 1. What our Saviour intended directly and immediately to prove by this Argument 2. The extraordinary veneration which the Jews in general had for the Writings of Moses above any other Books of the Old Testament 3. The peculiar notion which the Jews had concerning the use of this Phrase or expression of God's being any one 's God 4. The great respect which the Jews had for these three Fathers of their Nation Abraham Isaac and Jacoh For each of these make our Saviour's Argument more forcible against those with whom he disputed First We will consider what our Saviour intended directly and immediately to prove by this Argument And that was this That there is another state after this life wherein men shall be happy or miserable according as they have lived in this world And this doth not only suppose the immortality of the Soul but forasmuch as the Body is an essential part of man doth by consequence infer the resurrection of the Body because otherwise the man would not be happy or misererable in the other world But I cannot see any sufficient ground to believe that our Saviour intended by this Argument directly and immediately to prove the resurrection of the Body but only by consequence and as it follows from the admission of a future state wherein men shall be rewarded or punished For that Reason of our Saviour that God is not a God of the dead but of the living if it did directly prove the resurrection of the Body it would prove that the Bodies of Abraham Isaac and Jacob were raised to life again at or before that time when God spake to Moses and called himself the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob But we do not believe this and therefore ought not to suppose that it was the intention of our Saviour directly and immediately to prove the resurrection of the Body but only as I said before a future state And that this was all our Saviour intended will more plainly appear if we consider what that Errour of the Sadduces was which our Saviour here confutes And Josephus who very well understood the difference of the Sects among the Jews and gives a particular account of them makes not the least mention of any Controversie between the Pharisees and the Sadduces about the resurrection of the Body All that he says is this That the Pharisees hold the Immortality of the Soul and that there are Rewards and Punishments in another world But the Sadduces denied all this and that there was any other state after this life And this is the very same account with that which is given of them in the New Testament vers 27. of this Chapt. The Sadduces who deny that there is any resurrection The meaning of which is more fully declared Act. 23.8 The Sadduces say that there is no resurrection neither angel nor spirit but the Pharisees confess both That is the Sadduces denied that there was any other state of men after this life and that there was any such thing as an immortal Spirit either Angels or the Souls of men surviving their Bodies And as Dr. Hammond hath judiciously observed this is the true importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. a future or another state unless in such Texts where the Context does restrain it to the raising again of the Body or where some word that denotes the body as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to it Secondly The force of this Argument against those with whom our Saviour disputed will further appear if we consider the great veneration which the Jews in general had for the Writings of Moses above any other Books of the Old Testament which they especially the Sadduces looked upon only as Explications and Comments upon the Law of Moses But they esteemed nothing as a necessary Article of Faith which had not some foundation in the Writings of Moses And this seems to me to be the true Reason why our Saviour chose to confute them out of Moses rather than any other part of the Old Testament And not as many learned men have imagined because the Sadduces did not receive any part of the Old Testament but only the five Books of M ses so that it was in vain to argue against them out of any other This I know hath been a general opinion grounded I think upon the mistake of a passage in Josephus who says the Sadduces only received the written Law But if We carefully consider that passage we shall find that Josephus doth not there oppose the Law to the other Bâ—â—ks of the Old Testament which were also written but to Oral Tradition For he says expresly that the Sadduces only received the written Law but the Pharisees over and besides what was written received the Oral which they call Tradition I deny not but that in the later Prophets there are more express Texts for the proof of a future state than any are to be found in the Books of Moses As Daniel 12.2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake s me to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt And indeed it seems very plain that holy men among the Jews towards the expiration of the Legal dispensation had still clearer and more express apprehensions concerning a future state than are to be met with in the Writings of Moses or of any of the Prophets The Law given by Moses did suppose the Immortality of the Souls of men and the expectation of another life after this as Principles of Religion in some degree naturally known but made no new and express Revelation of these things Nor was there any occasion for it the Law of Moses being a Political Law not intended for the Government of mankind but of one particular Nation and therefore was establish'd as Political Laws are upon temporal promises and threatnings promising temporal prosperity to the observation of its precepts and threatning the breach of them with temporal judgments and calamities And this I take to be the true reason why arguments fetch'd from another world are so obscurely insisted upon under that Dispensation not but that another life after this was always suppos'd and was undoubtedly the hope and expectation of good men under the Law but the clear discovery of it was reserv'd for the Times of the Messias And therefore as
People Nay it is evidently no publick service of God when the Priest only understands it For how can they be said to be publick prayers if the People do not join in them and how can they join in that they do not understand and to what purpose are Lessons of Scripture read if people are to learn nothing by them and how should they learn when they do not understand This is as if one should pretend to teach a man Greek by reading him Lectures every day out of an Arabick and Persian Book of which he understands not one syllable II. As to their depriving rhe people of the use of the Holy Scriptures Our blessed Saviour exhorts the Jews to search the Scriptures And St. Paul chargeth the Christians that the word of God should dwell richly in them And the ancient Fathers of the Church do most frequently and earnestly recommend to the People the reading and study of the Scriptures How comes the case now to be so altered sure the word of God is not changed that certainly abides and continues the same for ever I shall by and by examine what the Church of Rome pretends in excuse of this Sacrilege In the mean time I do not see what considerable Objections can be made against the People's reading of the Scriptures which would not have held as well against the writing and publishing of them at first in a Language understood by the People As the Old Testament was by the Jews and the Epistles of the Apostles by the Churches to whom they were written and the Gospels both by Jews and Greeks Were there no difficulties and obscurities then in the Scriptures capable of being wrested by the unstable and unlearned were not people then liable to errour and was there no danger of Heresie in those Times And yet these are their great Objections against putting the Scriptures into the hands of the people Which is just like their arguing against giving the Cup to the Laity from the inconveniency of their beards lest some of the consecrated wine should be spilt upon them As if errours and beards were inconveniencies lately sprung up in the world and which mankind were not liable to in the first Ages of Christianity But if there were the same dangers and inconveniencies in all Ages this Reason makes against the publishing of the Scriptures to the people at first as much as against permitting them the use of them now And in truth all these objections are against the Scripture it self And that which the Church of Rome would find fault with if they durst is that there should be any such Book in the world and that it should be in any bodies hands learned or unlearned for if it be dangerous to any none are so capable of doing mischief with it as men of wit and learning So that at the bottom if they would speak out the quarrel is against the Scriptures themselves This is too evident by the counsel given to Pope Julius the III. by the Bishops met at Bononia to consult about the establishment of the Roman See Where among other things they give this as their last advice and as the greatest and weightiest of all That by all means as little of the Gospel as might be especially in the Vulgar Tongue should be read to the people and that little which was in the Mass ought to be sufficient neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more For so long say they as men were contented with that little all things went well with them but quite otherwise since more was commonly read And speaking of the Scripture they give this remarkable testimony and commendation of it this in short is that Book which above all others hath raised those tempests and whirlwinds which we were almost carried away with And in truth if any one diligently considers it and compares it with what is done in our Church he will find them very contrary to each other and our Doctrine not only to be very different from it but repugnant to it If this be the case they do like the rest of the Children of this world prudently enough in their Generation Can we blame them for being against the Scriptures when the Scriptures are acknowledged to be so clearly against them But surely no body that considereth these things would be of that Church which is brought by the undeniable evidence of the things themselves to this shamefull confession that several of their Doctrines and Practices are very contrary to the Word of God Much more might have been said against the practice of the Church of Rome in these two particulars but this is sufficient I shall in the second place consider what is pretended for them And indeed what can be pretended in justification of so contumelious an affront to mankind so great a Tyranny and cruelty to the Souls of men hath God forbidden the People to look into the Scriptures No quite contrary Was it the practice of the ancient Church to lay this restraint upon men or to celebrate the service of God in an unknown Tongue our adversaries themselves have not the face to pretend this I shall truly represent the substance of what they say in these two points I. As to the service of God in an unknown tongue they say these four things for themselves 1. That the people do exercise a general devotion and come with an intention to serve God and that is accepted though they do not particularly understand the prayers rhat are made and the lessons that are read But is this all that is intended in the service of God do's not St. Paul expresly require more that the understanding of the people should be edified by the particular service that is performed And if what is done be not particularly understood he tells us the People are not edified nor can say Amen to the prayers and thanksgivings that are put up to God and that any man that should come in and find people serving of God in this unprofitable and unreasonable manner would conclude that they were mad And if there be any general devotion in the people it is because in general they understand what they are about and why may they not as well understand the particular service that is performed that so they might exercise a particular devotion So that they are devout no farther than they understand and consequently as to what they do not understand had every whit as good be absent 2. They say the prayers are to God and he understands them and that is enough But what harm were it if all they that pray understood them also Or indeed how can men pray to God without understanding what they ask of him Is not prayer a part of the Christian worship and is not that a reasonable service and is any service reasonable that is not directed by our understandings and accompanied with our hearts and affections But then what say they to the Lessons and