the mournful remembrance of his lost felicity and harden'd in dispair 1. The Christian Religion gives a full account of the depravation and misery of humane Nature in its first Causes The Heathens felt an insuperable permanent discord in Man between the upper Faculties and the lower Appetites but were utterly ignorant of the Cause of it Now the Scripture reveals that Man in the original frame of his Nature was regular and holy a piece of workmanship worthy the Perfections of his Creator but he abus'd his liberty to break the first Command which was given for the tryal of his Obedience He yeelded to the inticements of a fallen Spirit who was a Liar that he might be a Murderer and by his revolt from God lost his Holiness and made a forfeiture of all the priviledges of his happy State Thus the Fountain was tainted and who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean By the offence of one Judgment came upon all to condemnation Every Man is now born a slave of Sin a tributary of Death From hence it follows that the most deformed Monsters in villany the most fierce enemies of Religion serve to confirm its Truth as well as the most eminent Saints These shew the vertue of Redemption by the sanctity of their Lives the other the corruption of Nature by their obstinate wickedness 2. The Christian Religion instructs us that God sent his own Son into the World in the humane nature that he might offer up himself an expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of Men to restore them to his Favour This is a Mystery above the flight of any created understanding yet 't is so temper'd and fram'd there is such an uniformity of Wisdom in all its parts it presents such a full and glorious Image of the Deity in all his perfections that it causes the highest admiration and commands belief in those who duly consider it The whole oeconomy becoms the Majesty the Goodness the Holiness and Justice of God His supreme Majesty appears in his pardoning the guilty for the sufferings of another For this is an infallible proof that he is above Law And his inconceiveable Mercy is the only principle and fountain of our Pardon For Man was absolutely uncapable to merit the Favour or to repair the Honour of God so injur'd by his inexcusable disobedience Repentance cannot produce such great effects What merit can there be in the sorrowful sense and confession of that which deserves Eternal Death Besides an extream hatred of Sin an ardent love of Holiness serious Resolutions to follow it what ever it costs which is the best part of Repentance was due to God before the commission of Sin therefore cannot be satisfaction So that pure Mercy is the cause of our forgiveness Moreover God to glorifie his Holiness in declaring his vehement and irreconcileable hatred to Sin and to preserve the Rights of Justice was pleas'd to appoint an all-sufficient Mediator capable to offer himself an expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and to give an infinite value to it This was done by the Incarnation of the Son of God The Flesh and Bloud he took of our humanity was made Divine by union with him and offer'd on the Cross was full payment for our offences Thus Justice and Mercy triumph with equal Glory being equally Victorious For what is more honourable to Justice than satisfaction equal to the offence And what can more commend Mercy than the most free and undeserved bestowing the high price requisit for it Thus the Gospel affords to us a just and compleat Idea of the Divine excellencies in the Redemption of Man The design manner and the effect are most worthy of God Where might such a contrivance of Wisdom be fram'd but in the Divine mind where could such an excess of compassion be found but in the heart of God Thus it became God who is Love to magnifie his Love to advance his dearest Glory and overcome our guilty disaffection to himself For while terrible apprehensions of the Deity possess the heart 't is frozen with a stony rigor which the hope of Mercy only can dissolve Thus it appears that the Doctrine of the Gospel is worthy of all acceptation 2. The Christian Religion sets before us a rule of life pur and perspicuous in nothing superfluous or defective but comprehending the intire duty of Man This was necessary in order to his recovery For in his fallen state the Law of Nature is active in some things but dormant in others The best Morals of the Heathens are dasht with impure permissions But the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present World It forbids all Sin in all its degrees not only the consummation of it in the act but the first conception of it in the thoughts and desires Which argues that the Lawgiver was more than a Man having an inspection into the heart which is only visible to God and only accountable to him It teaches us to worship God the supream and purest Spirit with the highest esteem and with purity of affections It enjoyns all relative duties to Men in a most perfect manner What things we would have others to do unto us supposing our selves in their circumstances we are obliged to do to them This one Law of Christ eminently contains all others that respect society This is the primitive rule of commerce and directs our carriage towards all persons with justice and equity kindness and decence The Gospel also with respect to our selves gives a perfect rule to make us holy and blessed It teaches us the contempt of the World the valuation of Heaven the restraint of corrupted sense and the Angelical exercise of our affections In short it commands the practice of all Vertues and that we should aspire to the most eminent degrees in them But especially it enjoyns humility and love to God the foundation and perfection of all vertues of which the precepts of Philosophy take little notice Humility that is a lively deep sense that nothing is properly ours but sin and misery arises from the consideration of our absolute dependance upon God for our being and all the benefits we enjoy in Nature or Grace From hence gratitude springs 'T is most reasonable that our lives should be a continual expression of Obedience from a noble and free principle of love to God and be design'd for his Honour and that for all our advantages temporal or spiritual we should only glory in him In this Philosophers were very defective They consider'd Man with respect to himself or to other Creatures without him and accordingly the product of their Precepts was a certain moral honesty to do nothing unbecoming the reasonable Nature nor to break the civil Peace But they did not consider duly his relation to the Creator in whom he lives moves and has his being from whom proceeds every good and perfect gift And by
the spectators of his Death All that see me laugh me to scorn they shoot out the lip they shake the head saying He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him His words spoken in the heighth of his distress My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Prophet Isaiah represents the Ignominy and Torments of his Passion I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting and by the eyes of his mind saw him crucified between two Thieves He was named with Transgressors and as present at his most affectionate dying prayer for his enemies Father forgive them they know not what they do observe that he made intercession for Transgressors Thus as several Painters that would draw divers Copies from the same excellent Original are intent to view its various Aspects some directly some on this and the other side so the Prophets as if they had been the Spectators of his cruel Sufferings copied from the life every one that part that the Holy Spirit assigned to them Now how was it possible if not instructed by Omniscience that being so distant in time and place and so long before the Accomplishment they should concur in such an exact description of what should befal the Messiah Men are not Prophets by the light of Reason as Nature is not subjected to their power to work Miracles neither is Futurity open to their view to compose an History of things to come The Death of Christ depended on several Causes Men Devils and God himself concurr'd for divers Ends in the same Event The two prime Conspirators against his Life Lucifer and Caiphas were moved both from Reasons of State to secure their own The Devil to maintain his cruel Empire which for so many Ages he had usurp'd in the World For our Saviour having with Authority cast out Legions of his ministring Spirits from those who were miserably possest by them he was in fear of losing his Power Besides he foresaw that if Christ were the Son of God the killing of him would bring such a crimson guilt upon the Jews that no less punishment than their Rejection would follow And so God should lose his peculiar People Caiaphas excited the Council to devote him as a Sacrifice to preserve their Nation from ruine for their safety depending on their homage to the Romans to prevent the jealousies that might arise by the fame of his mighty Works and by the Peoples attendance on him that were fed by his Miracles they concluded on it as a necessary expedient that Christ should dy and all suspicions be removed with him Thus Men and Devils were the instruments but God appointed that great Event The storm fell from Heaven upon Him for our Sins 'T is therefore expresly said He was delivered by the determinate Counsel and foreknowledge of God who over-ruled the train of disorders the work of their cruel malice for contrary ends than were design'd by them For the Devils were cast out of their Kingdom the Jews depriv'd of their Liberty and the Kingdom of Christ establish'd for ever Now who could read in the Mind of God his free Decrees even the Angels of Light that always see his face cannot without a revelation of them None but the Spirit that searches the deep things of God could make the discovery And who could foresee that the Messiah so often promised to the Jews so impatiently expected and ardently desir'd should be so fiercely rejected by them that his Death should be the effect as of his own love so of their hatred None but God to whom all the periods of time are equally present and who is more intimate with the Counsels and Passions of Men than their own Souls are could predict it He communicated some rays of his Prescience to holy Men who foretold that obscurest Contingency From hence it follows that the clear Testimonies of the Prophets exactly fulfill'd in Jesus Christ are an unanswerable demonstration that He was the expected Deliverer to restore the World 2. The universal and irreparable Destruction of the State of the Jews foretold as the just punishment of their rejecting the Messiah is another illustrious proof of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine To represent all the Characters of that Vengeance as they are set down by Josephus an Eye-Witness and Historian of it would lengthen this Discourse beyond the limits intended It is sufficient to observe 1. That all the severe Scourges of God met in a direful conjunction against them The most affrighting Prodigies were his forerunners A flaming-Sword brandish'd in the Heavens and Monsters born on the Earth And War Famine Pestilence and Fire were his Attendants Those who escap't the Sword were consum'd by Famine and those who were preserved from cruel War and Famine were swept away by the Pestilence or devour'd by the merciless Flames Wherever they turn'd their eyes Death in terrible shapes appear'd 2. All these Judgments were inflicted at once upon them in the heaviest degrees The Sword never made a greater destruction of Men than in Jerusalem here were Rivers of Blood there Mountains of Carcasses In some places nothing but silence and horrour amongst the dead in others the crys and groans of the dying Innumerable were massacred by the rage of Sedition amongst themselves And when the mild Conquerour would have spared them yet by an unparallel'd fierceness they would rather perish in an obstinate resistance The Famine was so extreme as compell'd even tender Mothers to eat the flesh of their miserable Children The Fire consum'd the City from one end to the other without leaving any part entire The Temple the Sanctuary of Religion and Image of Heaven where God so long had dwelt had been serv'd and prais'd and rendred his Oracles was not exempted from the fury of the Fire 3. Their Calamity was extreme and irreparable The first Desolation by the Chaldeans so compassionately recorded by Jeremiah was not comparable in the degrees and continuance to this second by the Romans of which CHRIST himself was the Chief Mourner and made lamentation Then they were transported together and not to a very rigorous nor perpetual servitude in Babylon After seventy years they recover'd their Liberty and were restored to their Native Land But in the last the Captives were dispers'd among divers People a sad Prognostick that they should never be joyned again in one Society The Ruines of the Nation were so great that the pieces of it are scatter'd all over the World Where ever a Jew is found there is a stone of ruin'd Jerusalem never to be rebuilt In short that wretched Nation is rent into innumerable parts and expos'd to the contempt and hatred of all As the Body of a Traitor is quarter'd and the parts hung up in several places of publick view to signify the horrour of his Crimes in the severity of his
Nations and all sorts of persons that were converted to the Faith of Christ. Now who caused such a marvellous and holy Revolution in the World but God What less than a Divine Power could raise Men above Sense and make them victorious over the Lusts of corrupt Nature fortified by Custom a second Nature Is it conceivable supposing the Doctrine of Christ were not from Heaven that it should produce such admirable Effects And is it conceivable that God would adorn with all his Graces the Image of his own Excellency his most precious Benefits those who did not honour him according to his Will Can there be found such astonishing Contrarieties joyn'd together as the most impious Errour and Depravation of the Mind with the greatest Purity and Rectitude of the Will and Affections For if Jesus Christ were not the Son of God those who worship'd him were in a mortal Delusion The third Testimony the Apostle produces is the Blood that is Peace with God and Conscience the blessed Fruit of Justification by Faith in Christ. The Heathen World was in a dark State of fears or slept securely in the shadow of Death Some were in a Hectic Trembling continually haunted with the Apparition of their Sins as so many Infernal Furies Others though guilty of most fearful crimes were secure from stupid Atheisme Others were quiet from a presumption cherish'd by Opinions unworthy of God as if he would neglect his own Glory to shew Mercy to them Now the Gospel to conquer the fears of sensible afflicted Sinners and to establish a lively hope in God's Mercy propounds a Means of Universal Sovereign Efficacy to reconcile him to us The most precious Blood of the Son of God offer'd up as a Sacrifice to expiate Sin This sprinkles all Nations and in all Ages to the end of the World will be of undecaying Vertue This appeas'd all the unquiet Agitations of the Spirits of Believers and produc'd the Peace that passes understanding a Joy unspeakable and glorious This delivered them from the fear of Death under which the World was so long in bondage And it is worthy the observing that no Principles of Nature ever produc'd such a generous Contempt of Death as the Christian Religion did in the Professors of it The Alexanders Scipio's and Caesars had trembled at the sight of these Savage Beasts that were let loose upon the Martyrs at the preparations of Cruelty to torment them Whereas they regarded them with tranquillity nay with Joy as the matter of their Triumph This was true Valour indeed for the Confession of the most important Truth and superiour to the Courage of those who were called Fulmina Belli the most Renowned Souldiers For in a Battel by Martial Sounds by Violent Motions the Spirits are fired and Men scarce feel their Wounds and are inconsiderate of their danger But the Martyrs had nothing to heighten their Courage but in cool blood deliberately and without alteration encounter'd that terrible Enemy Besides Souldiers in the sharpest Conflicts have some hopes of Victory or else of a sudden and honourable Death Aut cita Mors aut Victoria laeta And he that rusheth into perils with a seeming bravery when there is hopes of escaping has not resolution to look Death in the face when 't is inevitable There is an eminent instance of this in a famous Captain of late memory the Duke Biron none was more bold in fight but when he was to receive the Sentence of Death for his Crimes none more disorder'd by fear sometimes he was in a rage against his Judges and after his passion was evaporated fell into the other extremity unmanly crys complaints and low submissions to obtain favour But the more than Heroick Constancy of the Martyrs contemned Death in its nearest approaches and most fearful pomp Christian Religion has often transform'd the most tender Women and Children into Men or rather into Angels making them suffer with joy that which our Nature cannot see without horrour It changed as it were Flesh and Blood into a Celestial substance insensible of Fire and Sword and the most cruel Violences Now this unshaken Resolution in Christians encountring the last Enemy was from the lively sense of God's favour reconciled by the most pure and precious Blood of his Son and the hopes of everlasting happiness in his presence To conclude this Argument 't is to be observed there is no proof more proper that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the World than the joynt testimony of the Spirit Water and Blood For whereas Sin was the only cause of our Ruine the Office of our Saviour is to repair that Ruine and consequently he that effectually does it is to be acknowledged believed and imbraced as our Saviour Now the worst effects of Sin are the ignorance of the Mind the depravation of the Affections and the terrors of Conscience from the apprehensions of Vengeance Therefore since the Gospel of Christ has brought Celestial Light Purity and Peace into the World it is an infallible proof that He is the Redeemer of it The Sun that visits the World with its refreshing beams has no clearer marks of the Divine Wisdom in making it and ordering its motions than the Spiritual Light of the Gospel that irradiates the minds of Men before in deep darkness The riches of the Earth in variety of Fruits is not a more convincing Argument of the Divine Goodness than to see the Souls of Men that before were as dead earth under the curse of Heaven to abound in all the fruits of Righteousness The separating the Sea from the Land and setting bounds to its impetuous Waves is not a greater effect of God's Power than the calming the tempests of an unquiet Conscience and establishing Tranquillity in it And these Blessings we entirely owe to Jesus Christ in whose Name they are obtain'd by whose Spirit they are conferr'd and for whose Glory they are design'd Now what more is requisite to afford us satisfaction that JESUS CHRIST came from God and revealed his Will in order to our happiness Can it be reasonably expected that new Miracles should be wrought to satisfy every Sceptick that is still unsatisfied Indeed the fountain of them is not dried up the Power of God is not weaken'd nor his Mercy lessened but in extraordinary Cases when the Gospel is first preach'd to a Nation it may be expected that to convert them from Gentilism to the Christian Faith he will make himself known not only by Word but Power in Supernatural Operations But the vein of Miracles is not still current in the Church there being sufficient motives of Belief for the conviction of all that are not obstinate without the performing new Must the Son of God present himself to all Men in a visible Glory Or must his Divine Father give another Majestick Testimony from Heaven concerning him If we have not such sensible Evidence we have as sure The accomplishment of Scripture-Prophecies is a permanent Miracle a more certain