Allegories and Metaphors as the Modern Conformable Clergy 8.9.10 CHAP. III. Of the Union of Believers with Christ THe Concernment of the Church of England in reference to some Discourses lately Published on this subject 1. What seems most especially to have influenced Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter 2. The Doctrine of the Nonconformists not fram'd to befriend men in a course of Vngodliness Mr. Sherlock's is 3.4 The Notion of Vnion in General stated with an account of the arduousness of resolving the Nature of Common Vnions 5. 'T is the Person of Christ that Believers are Vnited to 6. The Vnion we are enquiring after consists not in the specifical Oneness which is betwixt Christ and us through his having assumed Humane Nature 7. Nor doth it consist in any mixture of his Bodily substance with ours through a Carnal feeding on him 8. A personal Vnion disclaym'd 9. Not meerly a Legal Vnion and yet a Legal Vnion between Christ and those given to him of God justified 10. 'T is not barely a Love-Vnion 11. Christians not Vnited to Christ by means of a previous Vnion with the Church 12. What ever it be 't is more than a Political Union 13. An Intelligible Notion of it assigned and the whole shut up CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in RELIGION Sect. I. THe Interest which all Christians have in the Truths of the Gospel doth sufficiently Authorize a Concernedness in every Believer that they be neither directly Invaded nor secretly Supplanted And the more Important the Doctrines are either in themselves or with Respect to their Influence on the Hopes and Comforts of such as Believe and Profess Christianity the less chargeable as Importune is he who Engageth either in the Explication or Defence of them Besides the Name of William Sherlock and the Quality of Rector of St. George Buttolphâ—Lane London which the Author Characters himself by I understand nothing of the Person whose Writings I am now to Incounter and I wish for his own sake as well as the Truths that I had no further Occasion of knowing him than as his Interest lies in the Church of England But having vouchsafed the World a further Discovery and Manifestation of himself by a Stated Opposition of the Immediate Union of Believers to Christ and their being justified by the Imputation of his Righteousness Truths wherein the whole of our Concernment and Expectation consists He must not Resent it Amiss if while we are Examining what he would Obtrude upon us in these and some other things we Regulate our Conceptions of him in relation to what he Intimates to us of his Principles in those Matters The Prefixed Imprimatur of Doctor Parker would tempt one to Suspect that all this is done not only under the Connivance but with the Approbation of more than we are aware of I confess Men are filled with Surprizal and Amazement that it should be so considering the Manifest Repugnance of our Authors Principles not only to the Opinions of private Doctors of the Church of England but the Declared Articles of the â—aid Church Though it be Unjust to Ascribe the Sentiments of every private Writer to the Society whereof he is a Member yet when Errors are Vented under Allowance others besides the Authors become Accountable for them The Quality of the Licenser and the Relation he stands in to a greater Person in whose Behalf in all these things he is Reputed to Act would seem to Plead that the Fame and Dignity of the Church of England as well as the Interest of Truth bespeaks some Vindication from her Ecclesiastical Rulers or Dignified Members in these Matters Or it is easie to be imagined who will Suffer under the Imputation and Dishonour of them In the mean time a sober Inquiry into and Disquisition of these Points may I hope be pursued without Offence to any especially being managed without passionate Heats or Invidious Reflections Invectives and Satirs do not only disparage Religion in general but betray the Cause in whose Behalf they are used Nor are they Adapted to proselyte any but such who have forfeited the Use of their Judgments and Resigned themselves to the Conduct of Impudence Noise and Clamour For my self I profess such an Aversation to the Method some of our Modern Writers take in Treating their Adversaries that I shall not so much as insinuate Suspicions or raise Misprisions of the Tendency of the Notions here contended against further than the Unfolding and Pursuing them to their Springs necessitates me And if thereby any who wear the Livery of the Church of England shall be found to do the Work of the Assembly at Cracovia I cannot help it unless I should betray the Cause I am pleading for Yet I do hereby no ways intend to List even those among them whose Principles they have imbib'd Remembring what one said of the Milesians that may be they were no Fools though they did the same things which Fools are wont to do However 't is fit to be declared upon whose Foundations they Build and with whose Buttresses they support their Fabrick and withall that it falls too evidently under the Prospect of every discerning Person who are like to Reap the Harvest of these kind of Sowings Now though I might be thought sufficiently to acquit my self by continuing on the Defensive and only examining the Reasons which have swayed Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Common Judgments of other Men and though this would be the easiest Undertaking and in the Judgment of every indifferent Person enough both to Undeceive such as are already Misled and to pre-arm others against the Danger yet Designing the same universal Usefulness to the Reader as if I were not confined to Reply to anothers Book I shall together with an Answer to my Adversaries Exceptions endeavour to State and Establish the Doctrines in whose Defence I appear and withal Attaque him in the Opinions he Erects against them Nor am I without Hope that I shall find the Generality of those who are stiled Conformists as well as those who are termed Non-Conformists notwithstanding their Disciplinary Controversies Candid and Favourable The things here contended for are the Joynt-Concernment of both and the Opinions opposed are inconsistent with and Destructive to the Hitherto Received Doctrine of that Party as well as this If I receive no other Fruit of this Interposure but the Awakening others to more Matur'd Productions I shall not Repent my Labour the putting a Common Adversary to a stand till greater Forces Rally being of some account though the Victory be Reapt by other Hands Sect. 2. As to the Method here observed 't is such as I judge Rational being not only Adapted to the Discovery and Vindication of Truth the Unmasking and Conviction of Errour but accommodated to the Instruction and Benefit of the Reader which would be greatly obstructed by following our Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is it
Doctrine of the Ancient Church besides the external Revelation of the Word there was also an internal Inspiration of the Spirit supposed necessary in order to the understanding of it in a saving manner And in this the Church of England not to speak of Forraign Churches hath hitherto harmonised with the Ancients For though a few are and have been otherwise minded yet they are as far from deserving the name of the Church of England as an excrescency is from obtaining the name of the Body upon which it grows The way and manner how the Spirit assists us in the understanding of spiritual things spiâ—itually I shall not at this time enquire largely after only in brief we may conceive of it thus 1 There is either through the immediate in dwelling of the Spirit or through the Communication of new principles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ablation of every thing extraneous a dissipation of those fuliginous vapours that both obnubilate the mind and do imbuere Objectum colore suo By the purification of the Heart the Understanding is clarified Scales drop off from our Eyes and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Governing Faculty becomes purged from those prepossessions prejudices and Lusts which obstructed its perceptive Powers 2 By the Spirit of Life in the new Birth the subject is elevated and adapted to the Object Grace renders the mind idoneous for and consimilar to Truth The Eye is not so much relieved by the prospective and Telescope as the Understanding is by Grace 3 There is a suggesting of Media for the Elucidating of Truth A reviving in the Memory clear texts to illustrate such as are dark 4 There is frequently an irradiation of the Word it self An attiring and clothing it with a garment of Light that is impatient either of Cloud or Shadow And upon the whole the Soul both feels and is transformed into what it knows Its apprehensions are no longer dull and languid but vigorous and affective As every thing relisheth according to its contemperation to the palate so the mind being seasoned with Goodness tastes a pleasure and delight and feels an efficacy in what it understands It sees things in a steddy Light and exerts its self in all suitable operation both in matter of internal acts and outward Duties However though we contend that the Spirit of Wisdom is absolutely necessary for the Understanding the sense of Scripture-propositions in a Spiritual saving manner yet we do not deny but that the meer Rational mind may discern the Literal Sense of the Word in a way congruous to its own state and condition It is true even with reference to the perception of the bare Literal sense that the person renewed in the Spirit of his Mind is greatly advantaged above the Unregenerate Man For the Spirit of God makes us of quick Understanding in the fear of the Lord. Isay. 11.2 3. The mind is defecated from those impure fogs and mists of Lust and Passion which greatly hinder and prejudice the Understanding in the perception of Natural Truths and much more of Supernatural and Divine Grace both helps us to use Reason aright for the discovering the true meaning of Scripture Enunciations and furnisheth us with a holy Sagacity of smelling out what is right and true and what is false and perverse and especially by impressing implanting and working in us the thing revealed it confirms us in and causeth us rather immediately to feel than logically to discern the sense of such and such a place Yet I know none who affirmeth that to conceive the sense of Theological propositions the supernatural Light of the Spirit is absolutely necessary For if it were thus Infidels which reject them would not disclaim them as False and Incredible but as unconceivable and unintelligible Yea thousands destitute of the Divine Unction have in a theorical way actually understood the Bible All that have usefully commented on the Scripture were not born of God The means conducive to the Understanding of the true sense of Scripture are besides Humility Teachableness frequent Reading of the Bible and prayer an acquaintance with the Signification and use of Words the Nature and kinds of Rhetorick with the Rules and conditions of Argumentation c. Three things occur to to our consideration in enquiry after the sense and meaning of any Book The mind of the Writer the Words in which he declares it and the connexion habitude and relation betwixt the Words spoken and the Mind of the Speaker What ever there is often in Men yet in God there is never a separation betwixt the Judgment himself hath of things and that which the words he maketh use of manifest and import He can declare nothing as our Duty but what indeed is so what himself judgeth so to be Men having then by common consent agreement established that such and such conceptions shall be united with such Words accordingly whenever such a word is heard or read such a conception doth arise in our minds and if at any time we would make known to others such a Cogitation such words do presently occurr to express it by To arrive therefore at the knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures There is nothing required on the part of the Object but that it be intelligibly written and that the words in which it is given forth signifie according to the Institution Use and Custom of mankind For as one sayeth Scriptura non esset Scriptura nisi verbis ex usu significantibus scripta extaret And here the knowledg of the Etymology of Words their usage in Exotick Authors is of great import but that which is chiefly to be attended to in the sensing of Scripture is their use in Sacred Writers God is many times pleased to restrain or enlarge the signification of Words as in His Wisdom he judgeth meet Hence many Terms taken up from other Disciplines Artes and usages are peculiarly applied and confined to denote things otherwise than they do there whence they are borrowed God useth rather a practical and Oeconomical way of speaking than a Theorical and Acroamatical Nor do Scripture Enunciations signifie philosophically as in Dialectical Schools but practically according to their Use in Families and common converse And unless there be very urgent Grounds to the Contrary we are to determine the signification of Words not with respect to their Etymologie and Grammatical propriety or their usurpation in Schools but according to their popular Use Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma loquendi Many a Text otherwise plain hath been rendred abstruse and unintelligible by mens glossing it in analogie to their Metaphysical notions and querks fathering those nice and subtile fancies to Terms occurring in the Scripture which they find the Schoolmen have applied them to in their wanton luxurious and Aenigmatical Debates Yea the same Words are in Scripture used sometimes in a larger sometimes in a narrower signification And in such cases the only Rule to
by virtue of their being vested with an Office are obliged to yet to ascribe Actions to an Office as if it were the very Agent whereas it is meerly the Foundation from which an Obligation to the performance of such and such Actons in the due discharge of it results whatever Wit or profoundness his Friends may Imagine in it I cannot otherwise account of it than a piece of sublime Nonsense And Nonsence is not to be refuted but exposed For he betrayes the weakness of his own Reason who undertakes to encounter an absurd Phrase with Arguments Nor Secondly doth the Name Christ in the Question under Debate signifie the Gospel and Religion of Christ. 'T is indeed by the Doctrine of the Gospel as a Moral means that we come to be united to Christ but 't is not It that we are united to As the Gospel alone reveals our Union with Christ and as the Communication of the Spirit the repairing the Image of God in our Souls are only promised by it So God in his soveraign Wisdom hath ordained it to be the alone Vehiculum of the Spirit and the means of ingenerating Faith in our Hearts which are the Bonds of our Union Hence 't is called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the Law which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as the purity of its Precepts and the nobleness of its Promises do admirably qualify and adapt it as an Objective Moral means of restoring the Image of God in us so through the Blessing of God attending it as His solemn Institution to this End we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it 2 Pet. 1.4 Though no Physical Efficiency is to be ascribed to it yet besides a Moral Efficacy which through its own frame and complexion it hath to reform Mankind beyond what any Declaration of God our selves that ever the World was made acquainted with had There is a Physical efficacious Operation of the Spirit of God accompanies it on the score of the Lords having in Infinite Sapience ordained it as a means for the communicating Grace But still 't is not the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are united to 'T is true that it is both by the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are brought to be united to Christ and 't is also true that whosoever are united to Him have the Doctrine of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an ingraffed and incorporated Word and are moulded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Form of its Doctrine But yet 't is not the Terminus of the Relation of Union which intervenes betwixt Christ and them nor is it That which they are united to Mr. Sherlock I confess tells us that when Christ Joh. 15. speaks of the First person I and in Me he cannot mean this of his own person but of his Church Doctrine and Religion and that by I in him v. 4. and I in you v 5. we are to understand the Christian Doctrine dwelling and abiding in us 'T is pretty to observe with what nimble removes from the Church to the Doctrine of Christ again from the Doctrine to the Church of Christ our Author paraphraseth the first five or Six verses of that Chapter The I and me in the first 2d verses are glossed as referring to the Church I am the true Vine the meaning is saith Mr. Sherlock that Church which is founded on the Belief of my Doctrine is the true Vine Every Branch in me i. e. saith he every Member of my visible Church But then the I in you and the I in him v. 4. and 5. are expounded of the Doctrine of Christ. His flying from one quarry to another argues some inconvenience and danger he foresaw his exposition of the place encumbred with or else that some vertigo troubled his pericranium I shall at present only examine so much of his paraphrase as respects those words where in stead of the person of Christ he will have the Doctrine and Religion of Christ to be understood That which he interprets as relating to the Church of Christ which can only be understood also of his person shall hereafter be taken into consideration And as to that which lyeth now before me 't is enough not only to prejudice Mr. Sherlocks exposition but to overthrow it with all Judicious persons that-Expressions of the same Nature are not allowed the same sense I know that one and the same Word is sometimes in one the same verse differently sensed when the subject Matter context scope of the Discourse do so require But to impose disagreeing and various meanings upon Expressions of one and the same Nature occurring together where one and the same sense may safely be admitted is to violate all Laws of Exposition and to make the Scripture pliable to what purposes we please The in you and the in him v. 4. and 5. are predicates referring to the same I affirmed of the same Subject that True Vine is predicated of v. 1. and 5. But it being as well absurd to style the Doctrine of the Gospel the true Vine as to assert concerning the Church that it is in us our Author hath therefore found it necessary to make the subjects of the Propositions different though there needs no more where the Judgment is not forestalled and the mind under a chosen Occecation than the meer inspection of the Paragraph to ascertain the contrary 2 Though the subject of a Proposition may be brought into Debate where it is expressed by a Relative Pronoun yet when one speak's of Himself in the First Person by a Pronoun Demonstrative as the Evangelist introduceth Christ here doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say that he speaks not of Himself is no less than to give him the Lie Words in the common acceptation and stated sense of them being infallible manifestative signs of the Conceptions of the Speaker when the Author is Veracious I would know of Mr. Sherlock that supposing it had been the design of Christ to have told us that by I in you and I in Him he meant himself how he could have done it otherwise or in Terms of a more determined signification What better Evidence can we have of the sense of a Place than that had an Author intended such a meaning he could have used no plainer Expression to declare it 3 The I in you v. 4. is the same with the I that had spoken to them and through whose Word they were made clean v. 3. Now to think that this could be the Doctrine of Christ or any other than Christ himself is a Non-sensical Imagination What friendship our Author hath for the Religion of Christ I cannot tell but that he expounds Scripture at a high rate of confidence to the derogation of his Person is by the Instance before us too plain evident Nor do we Thirdly in the Question under consideration understand by Christ the Church of Christ. I shall
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual And as I have endeavoured to regulate all my Conceptions by Scripture and Reason so whatever Proposition shall be made appear to lye in a Repugnancy to these I am ready openly to retract it If any shall attaque these Discourses with Reviling Reproachful Language I do declare before-hand that I reckon my self superseded from Replying I will combat no man at these weapons nor do I think it a reputation 〈◊〉 any to Rail how much in Fashion soever it is though he should be able to do it in fine Language How often Mr. Sherlock hath contradicted himself and by what falsifications he hath imposed Principles on the Non-conformists which they never held how he treats the Sacred Writers with as much contempt as he doth T. W. and Burlesques the Scripture no less than others have done Virgils Poems how he hath renounced the Doctrine of the Church of England and borrowed his Glosses on the Bible as well as his Dogmatical Notions from the Socinians how Illogical he is in all his deductions and slandereth his Adversaries by undue Inferences should have been the Theme and Argument of this Preface and accordingly I had digested Materials for it but the Book being swell'd to too great a bulk already and there being others engaged against the same Author within whose Province these things must needs lye as having undertaken the arraignment of his whole Discourse I do wave the prosecution of them all at this time And shall detain the Reader no longer than to tell him that since the Printing off the first Chapter which treats of the Interest of Reason in Religion there is come to my hands a Treatise of Humane Reason in which there are many iâ—l things though as it often happens they be well said I know not an Opinion more pernicious in its Consequences than that Men may be as safe in the Event by embracing Turcism as Christianity and as secure of happiness in their Errours as others are in the Truths which they do espouse Should Persons conspire to overthrow all Revelation they could not fall upon a Method more likely to effect it than by endeavouring to persuade the World that there are things equally as strange in the Bible as in the Alcoran 'T is enough that our Reason may serve us if duely attended to and pursued to discern that this or that Religion is false nor are we therefore to be judged Innocent because we neglect the Exercise of it in making the Discovery No man can embrace a false Religion but by a Criminal Deviation from Reason and who will admit one Transgression to take Sanctuary in another That whole Treatise proceeds upon a false Hypothesis namely that as mens belief of the Scripture is owing to the conduct of Reason so they may disbelieve it by the same Guidance Corrupt Ratiocinations are recommended by the Name of Humane Reason and being once cloathed with this Livery every Foolery as well as Abomination appeals to them if not for its justification at least for its being but a Venial offence No man ceaseth to be an Offender in Morals nor doth he therefore deserve pardon because he hath the concurrence of his judgment in what he does Though no man can chuse or prosecute what his understanding continues to represent to him as Evil yet its failâ—ur in point of duty neither alters the Essential Nature of things nor makes his condition more safe for acting under the conduct of it Some men would have no restraint laid upon their Vnderstandings because they will submit to none in their lives and they would have their corrupt Ratiocinations in Doctrinals as Venial as they seem in reference to Manners to presume the gratifying of their Lusts to be 'T is to be hop'd that for the undeceiving such as are already imbu'd with the principles of it and for the preventing others from being â—ainâ—ed and inveigled some one or other will bring the whole under an Examen In the interim I shall adventure to say that 't is as weak in regard of the Reasonings which occur in it as it is pernicious in its tendency Farewell THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in Religion INtroduction 1. Motives influencing to the handling of this subject 2. The Import of Reason 3. What 's meant by Religion 4. The serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the Existence of a Deity with an account of the Topicks on which it proceeds 5. It s usefulness in proving the Divinity of the Scripture with the several Media which it makes use of to this purpose 6.7 Of the Authority of the Scripture as emerging from its Divine Original 8. Our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God Divine and Infallible seeing built upon Media that are so 9. The serviceableness of Reason in our attaining the sense and meaning of the Word with an account of the Measures which we are herein to be guided by 10. Of Scripture-Consequences and the usefulness of Reason in making the Deductions 11. What appertains to Reason in reference to Doctrines which besides the Foundation they have in Revelation have also evidence in the Light of Nature this exemplified with respect to the Immortality of the Soul and the certainty of Providence 12. The concernment of Reason in defending the whole of Religion from the Clamors and Objections of Gainsayers 13. Nothing contradictious to Right Reason to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith Many things obtruded for Principles of Reason which are not so The prejudice done Religion by mistaken Philosophy pursued and declared in various instances 14. CHAP. II. Of the Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors THe Inducements upon which some men endeavour to discharge all Disputes in and about Religion The Grounds of their Quarrelling at Metaphors with an account of the reasons of my discoursing this Theme 1. No Forms of speech used by the Holy Ghost but what are proportioned to the end for which they are made use of The Bible adorned with all sorts of Figurative Expressions Some fancy more Tropes in the Bible than there are Mr. Sherlock among others guilty of this 2. The Nature of a Metaphor what Tropes it hath affinity with the Rules and Lines by which it is distinguished from them 3. The Reason why God who doth all things according to infinite sapience hath so often adopted Metaphorical Terms to declare himself and the Things of his Kingdom in and by 4. When an Expression is to be accounted Metaphorical 5. How to attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors 6. An Enquiry into the use of other common Metaphors with an account of their usefulness and the Measures that are to be attended to in the Vsurpation of them 7. The Non-conformists injuriously charged for their Vsage of Metaphors the Contempt thrown upon them falls often with the same weight upon the Holy Ghost None so Guilty of turning Religion into
which they form in their minds nor the Arrayment of them in Words are adapted and proporpotioned to things They are like boys walking upon stilts who seem higher then they are and their discourses are like a load of flesh in the body of man that serves only to embarass it with an unprofitable weight But to imaigine so of God or to ascribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great swelling words of vanity to him 2 Pet. 218. Jud. 16. or to think that in the enditing the Bible he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only feed us with gaudy phantasms poetical Schemes luxariunt phrases is to impeach more than one of his perfections In a word Gods design being to instruct us and it being repugnant to His Nature either to be deceived himself in the nature of things or to deceive others it necessarily follows that the Scripture doth actualy dedenote all and whatsoever it is capable of denoting Nor are we in the interpreting of the Word to restrain and confine its sense but to take it in the greatest Latude of signâ—fication it can bear I shall shut up this wâ—th that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.6 11. So likewise yee except yee utter by the Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words easy to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken For yee shall speak into the Air Therefore if I know not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning of the voice the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 posse vocis the whole force vertue power and signification of the Words I shall be unto him that speaketh a Barbarian § 11. The next thing considerable with respect to the interest of Reason in Religion is its Use and serviceableness in drawing Consequences from Revealed and supernatural Truths And this follows from what we have said concerning the sence of Scripture-propositions It is by this means that Divines have always laboured to clear Mysteries of Faith by making appear the Connexion of things obscure with these that are plain and those that are contested with these that are not It is by this Method also that the Fathers have refuted Heresies by shewing that those evil Doctrines which they introduced into the Church either had not any agreement with the true Mysteries of Faith or that they were altogether opposite to them To disclaim all Scripture Consequences the ministration of Reason in deducing them is plainly to deny all the Connexions Relations dependencies and oppositions of one thing to and upon an other and to betray Religion into the Hands of its Enemies And as this is one of the last so I look upon it as one of the most shameful Refuges of the Romanists Finding themselves in their disputations about matters of Religion foiled and bafled by the Protestants some of them have thought it their safest course to renounce all Principles of Reason in the concernments of Faith to reject all Conclusions as well inferr'd from premisses where both are of Revelation as where one only is of Faith and the other of Reason It must be a desperate Cause that cannot otherwise be maintaitained And nothing but a failure in other defences would have reconciled them to a method pregnant with so many absurdities But when men are pre-engaged in the defence of a Cause what will they not rather seek relief from than reject what their lusts interests and educations oblige them to The first forgers of this new Armature forwarding off the blows of Protestants with the entertainment that the Invention met with at Rome as well as Sorbon he that hath a mind to inform himself may learn from Vedelius in his Rationale Theologicum and Bochart contre Veron And how far the Socinians those Idolaters of Reason when it serves their designs do conspire with the Papists to disparage it in this matter we are now enquiring about when it doth not be-friend them such as are inquisitive may read in Hoornbecks Socinianismus confutatus Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 9. p. 211. But that we may address to the matter it self By a Consequence we mean either a proposition standing in that habitude relation and having that connexion with another that if that be true this is also true or a proposition lying in that repugnancy and opposition to another that if the first be true the latter must be false There is either that coherency betwixt them that the one infers and draws the other after it or that contrariety that if truth be the portion of the one falsehood must fall to the lot of the other Now conclusions are of two kinds first when there is nothing in the Antecedent but what is in the Consequent and this is always between two Terms and no more and these Terms are either convertible as no Innocent person is a sinner therfore no sinner is an Innocent person Or they are subalternate the one the other as every man is guilty before God therefore this and that man is so Or else they are Terms Equivalent as Believers have the guilt of sin remitted to them therefore their liableness to legal Wrath is removed 2 dly When there is somthing In the Antecedent that is not in the Consequent and to Conclusions of this Nature there are always required three Terms and the Foundation of deducing one proposition here from another is either the connexion or opposition that is betwixt the one and the other All Conclusions are virtually included in their premises and he that assents to these doth in effect grant those It is all one whether both the premises be in Scripture or one onely be there the other being either fetch 't from undoubted Principles of Reason or evidence of Sense for in all these Cases the Conclusion is as much the Word of God as if it were in so many letters and sillables in the Bible Hence that common saying quaedam in Scripturis sunt et dicuntur quaedam in iiâ—dem sunt etsi non dicantur There are some things in the Scripture and are accordingly reported to be in them and there are somethings in them though they be not in so many Words there related c. Men through Ignorance ositancy or the like do not always discern what ariseth and followeth from what they say and do often therfore affirm that from whence something doth ensue which they are so far from holding that they do detest it and accordingly we frequently argue against them per deductionem ad absurdum seu impossibile But God always foresees whatsoever followes upon every declaration he makes he understands all the habâ—tudes connexions dependencies and oppositions of one thing upon and to another and accordingly we not onely may with safety but he expects that we should inferr and deduce from what he hath said all and every thing that necessarily bears upon and follows from it And though what is thus inferred be not in the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters yet while it is there either 〈◊〉
what they please without running the hazard of being contradicted 2. Because finding themselves unable to justifie what they would obtrude upon the World unless it be in a Dramatick Drolling way they think it fit under the plea of dislike to a pugnacious disputing humour to except against all Logical and Scholastical Methods of treating things as knowing the weapons they are sure to be foiled at Did they only disallow quarrelling about Opinions which neither serve to render us sounder Christians nor better men and which were both at first commenced and are still maintain'd out of interest or did they only impeach the fetching of Topicks from Aristotle or Aquinas and the arguing with the same confidence from the Decretals as from the four Evangelists I should highly commend both their Wisdom and Zeal But while what-ever crosseth Socinus or Pelagius is immediatly branded as vain and empty speculations and Pauls Epistles are censured with little less modesty than they arraign the Writings of the School-men I must suppose them engaged in a design against the Gospel which they are not willing as yet publickly to own If they account that I impose upon them in this matter I shall upon the least intimation direct them to the Authors I aim at and the places whence I derived my information But in the mean time out of respect both to the interest of Religion and their Reputation I shall forbear The second is their arraigning Words Phrases and modes of speech wherein what they dislike is intended Hence are their Clamours concerning Metaphors even against such as the Holy Ghost condescendeth to use in order to the instructing us as well of our State as Duty Where the authority and credit of Men is meerly concerned I love not to quarrel with any about Terms and expressions further than as they have an Influence upon things and providing I were at an agreement with them in the latter I should as well give as claym a great liberty in the former But when both the Wisdom of God stands impeached and under the palliation of quarrelling with Terms Phrases the chief Doctrines of the Gospel are supplanted it then becomes the Duty of those who have a Zeal for his Honour and the Truth once delivered to the Saints to declare their resentment The unfolding the Nature Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors as it is in it self a laudable undertaking so there are two things which at present render it needful and expedient 1. The vindication of the Non-Conformists who are publickly charged for turning Religion into unaccountable Phansies and Enthusiasm's drest up with empty Schemes of speech and for embracing a few gawdy Metaphors Allegories instead of the substance of true and real Righteousness So that if you will believe a late Authour herein lyes the Material difference between the sober Christians of the Church of England and the Modern Sectaries that while those express the precepts Duties of the Gospel in plain and intelligible Terms these trifle them away by childish Metaphors and Allegories and will not talk of Religion but in barbarous and uncouth Similitudes And as another expresseth it That the mystery of Phanaticism consists in the wresting Metaphorical and Allusive expressions to a proper sense And as the former person phraseth it Abusing Scripture expressions not only without but in contradiction to their sense 2. The defence and vindication of the Doctrines of the Gospel many of which are undermined under the pretence of renouncing luscious and fulsome Metaphors Thus the Immediat Union of Believers to Christ is disclaimed as being built only upon Metaphors perversely sensed our spiritual impotency and inability to Good is contended against as being inferred from a Mis-understanding of that Metaphorical expression viz. Our being dead in Trespasses and Sins Our being meerly passive in the first communication of grace to us or Regeneration is likewise indicted as a falsity built upon a mistake of the meaning of our being Created to good Works which is a Metaphorical phrase It were endless to recount the many Doctrines which the Church of Christ hath in all ages been in the persuasion and belief of that are by this new artifice of crying out Luscious and rampant Metaphors subverted and overthrown The due stating therefore the Nature and import of Metaphors is become not only a seasonable but a necessary piece of Service I can very well allow that in Philosophy where the Quality and Nature of things do not transcend and over-match words the less Rhetorical ornaments especially the fewer Metaphors providing still that the phrase be pure and easie the better But in Divinity where no expressions come fully up to Mysteries of Faith and where the things themselves are not capable of being declared in Logical and Metaphysical Terms Metaphors may not only be allowed but are most accommodated to the assisting us in our conceptions of Gospel-mysteries § 2. But before I proceed further on this subject there are some few things which I desire to premise whereof the first is this The Holy Ghost in giving forth the Scripture hath usurped no Words Tropes Phrases Figures or Modes of speech but what are proportioned to his End namely the instructing us in Faith and Obedience To think otherwise is either to impeach his Wisdom as if he knew not what forms of speech in order to such an End were best to declare himself in or else his Goodness in not vouchsafing to speak to us in those terms which he knew to be most adapted to promote our knowledge of the Things which he had made it our duty to be acquainted with The Scripture stile can neither in the whole nor in any part of it be reflected upon without offering reproach to God who as well guided the sacred Amanuenses in the words and expressions they revealed things in as in the things themselves they did reveal The 2 d. is this that the Bible is replenished and adorned with all sort of figurative expressions There are hardly any Tropes or Figures in Rhetorick of which numerous Examples do not occurr in the Holy Writ Some Tropes confer a grandeur others an elegancy to the stile where they are met with and some reconcile an easiness to the things that are treated of Now among other Rhetorical Tropes to be found in the Bible I hardly know any of which we have more examples than of Metaphors in which God by similitudes borrowed from known and obvious things intimates to us the usefullest and sublimest Truths In such kind of phrases he condescends to lisp those Mysteries to us which would never be so well understood by any other way of expressing them Now though in this case we not only may but ought to call such to an account who abuse Scripture-Metaphors to a perverse sense yet we must always preserve the reputation of the Metaphor it self How tender in this Matter some late Authors have been we shall afterwards more largely declare I shall at
dare affirm if all this be true that Justification as it is opposed to the accusation of the Law its charging us with Guilt and its passing sentence of Condemnation against us thereupon doth not admit a proper sense in the whole Scripture but must every where be construed Metaphorically and that the import of it is not that we are properly and in a Law-sense justified but that such benefits accrue to us by Remission of sin as if we were so According to the sentiments of our Author we are only pardoned but by reason of some Allusion betwixt the Advantages redounding to us by Forgiveness and the priviledges immunities and benefits which ensue upon a proper justification we are therefore Metaphorically said to be justified It were to bid defiance to the Scripture in a hundred places to say that we are not at all justified yet in effect their Principles imply no less For by stating the whole of our assoilment from the accusation of the Law in Remission they indeed say that we are not justified only we are improperly said to be so because of some Correspondence betwixt the one and the other in the exceeding great and excellent Benefits which by Forgiveness of sin redound to us Justified in a proper sense we are not only the Name of Justification is transferred to Remission of sin because of some Analogy in the Effects and Consequences of the one to the other This our Author is so ingenuous sometimes as to acknowledg for he tell 's us That to affirm that the Merit of Christs Death is ours to free us from the Guilt and Punishment of our sins and his Active Obedience to the Will of God his Righteousness is ours for our Justification consists in the wresting of Metaphorical Expressions to a proper Sense Let the Candid Reader now judg who they are that exercise their Wits in finding out Metaphorical Senses in the plainest Scriptures and in perverting the clearest Texts into Metaphors and Allegories and who not daring openly to decry and renounce the Gospel take a course to undermine it They proclaim us guilty when indeed they themselves are the chief Criminals And accuse their Brethren at adventure without ever considering that the Charge returns upon themselves CHAP. III. Of the Vnion of Believers with Christ. SECT I. I Am come at length to the ventilation of that which I principally designed and which in my undertaking to accost Mr. Sherlock I had chiefly in prospect And as I am not without hope that what hath been tendred upon the former Themes will not be altogether displeasing so I reckon that what is now to be discoursed will both receive Light and be sustained as well by treating as the arranging them in the order I have done Nor is it only Matter of complaint to find the received Doctrines of the whole Christian as well as Protestant Church publickly impeached and arraigned but 't is matter of wonder how by persons nor only living in the Communion of an Orthodox Church but enjoying great emoluments by virtue of their station and interest therein it comes both to be so and to be connived at by those whose Duty it is upon many accounts to express their resentment To suffer those principles which we not only believe but superstruct our hope and comfort upon to be publikely invaded because in the opposition given to them the reputations of those are endeavoured to be abated whom for other causes we think we have reason to dislike is not an allowable Apology before Men much less will it serve as a just plea before God To permit the Articles of our Belief not only to be questioned but contradicted and run down with all the Satyr and Contempt that can be imagined meerly because some of the Non-conformists are at the same time made the Triumph of their Derision and Drollery who do so is not wisely done to say no worse of it For by the publication of such Discourses under the stamp of their Authority who are entrusted with the Care Defence and Preservation of Religion and through the universal connivance of the Fathers and Dignitaries of the Church since their Publick venting it cannot be otherwise expected but that the Church of England in general will come to be reputed guilty of the Principles asserted and even such as are Innocent will be made to suffer in the esteem of the World amongst the Nocent Especially Forreigners who can take no other measure of the whole but what they draw from the approved Writings of particular and Individual members no whole having any existence but what it hath in its parts will be tempted to judg otherwise of the Church of England than is either for her Interest or Honour that they should And besides whilst these New Doctrines stand propagated under the countenance and security of an Imprimatur there is little likelyhood that the heats and ruptures between Them and dissenting Brethren should be extinguished or made up but that instead thereof they will grow to be further enflamed and widened There is no man how modest or zealous of peace soever he be who will much care to maintain Communion with that Church that hath both departed from her own established Doctrine and that of the whole Catholick Church also 'T is a very incongruous Method of promoting Unity and an odd way of providing for the safety of the Church to suffer persons of known Learning Holiness Gravity and Moderation and such as dissent from her only in matter of Formes of Ecclesiastical Government and Rites and Modes of Worship to be treated with all the Scorn Contempt and whatever else the Fall of Adam hath stained the World with and all this for any thing that yet appears meerly for maintaining her own anciently received and yet Legally estalished Doctrine Were the matter controverted only Scholastical niceties or enquiries of lesser Moment yet it were both for their own Honour who manage them the Interest of the Church where their concernment lyes that they should be debated with Candour and Modesty And that mutual esteem and Charity of affections might be preserved under different apprehensions of judgment And that though the Opinions were not Reconcileable yet there might no Variance arise through invidious representations of one another betwixt the persons differently sensing How much also the Church of England by suffering her publick Articles and established Doctrines to be assaulted by any of her Members who hath but the pride and boldness to do so exposeth her self to the clamour of the Papists is easy to be conjectured For hereby she retains no common standard of Religion by which it may be understood what she holds And this if I be not misinformed hath been mustered up by a Romanist urged in a private Discourse to a Person of Learning beyond the possibility of a satisfying Reply Did the Fathers and Dignitaries of the Church only resolve on this Neutrality till the Non-conformists were worded or
railed into silence yet this is not reconcileable to the Wisdom to omit the Zeal which we are willing to believe them to be endowed with For besides that the Trust reposed in them is not answered by their looking on so long 't is more than likely that if the minds of men come once to be tinctured with these Notions an interposure then will be like the applying a remedy when the Disease is incurable Unhappy Principles when once throughly imbib'd are not found so easy for men to devest themselves of Though persons esteem it no reflection upon their Parts nor disparagement to their Understandings to change their Opinions once especially if they obtained our Belief before we were in a capacity to examine them yet few are willing to proclaim their Weakness so far as to change their Judgments often particularly when the things again to be receded from did not solicite their Faith till they were of age and thought them selves of ability to enquire into them And if an implicite apprehension of the Concurrence of our chief Doctors collected from their Silence should be found to have influenced any to submit to these Notions beyond what the glosses with which their Authors varnish't them could do their declining so long to declare themselves is yet worse to be accounted for § 2. But waving the Interest of the Church of England in those Truths which our Author manageth an opposition to and Her Concernment more than Ours to appear in the Defence and Vindication of them from the rude and bold though weak assaults of Mr. Sherlock I shall rather enquire into what seems more especially to have given Birth to our Adversaries Notion of the Union of Believers with Christ and to have influenced him to denounce War against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter And not to insist upon what our Author is pleased to alledg as the Reason of it whereof cha 1. sect 2. seeing I do rather judg That a pretext than the true Motive It seems to me to derive its spring higher and to own its self to another Opinion espoused by some of our late Writers which however artificially glossed doth indeed damm up all the sources of Grace and Holiness and is no way defensible but by renouncing all Immediate Union betwixt Believers and Christ and disclaiming Him from being a Head of influence to any In brief then the Root and Stem from which our Authors Opinion in this matter hath shot forth and sprung is this namely That there is no infused Principle of Grace communicated to us from Christ as our Life and Head by the efficacious operation of the Spirit but that whatsoever is so stiled in vulgar Talk is only the result of our natural Abilities assisted and seconded by the Moral influences of the Gospel That Mr. Sherlock is throughly baptized into thâ—s Pelagian and Socinian Principle though he may sometimes mask himself in declaring it I shall endeavour to Demonstrate by presenting the Reader with some passages which occur in his Book When Dr. Owen had upon a certain occasion said That the Humane Nature of Christ if it could be conceived as separated from the Deity could afford no spiritual supply but only in a Moral way our Author is pleased to reply in way of Sarcasm and Irony that That is a very pittiful way indeed intimating in effect that there is no other way by which supplyes of Grace are communicated to us Nor doth he only Railly upon the foresaid Learned Person for styling Christ the Fountain of all Grace p. 213. but he plainly tells us that by Grace for Grace which we are said to receive out of Christs fulness there is no more to be understood but onely a clear and perspicuous Revelation of the Divine Will in the Gospel because it proclaims so many excellent Promises A gloss evidently borrowed from Socinus Schlichtingius and others of that Tribe which I thought fit to intimate not only to prevent his glorying in another mans line but that the world may know what copy he useth sometimes to write after Hence it is that he will have Christ to be styled our Life only because he hath preached the Word of Life and declared the true and only way to Life and Happiness And because he hath Power and Authority to bestow Immortal Life upon all his sincere followers Of kin and affinity to these is his affirming God to have by various ways attempted the recovery of mankind but with little success till at last he sent his Son into the World who by more plainly publishing the Word of Life and by his more easy directions and nobler Promises reformed the World after that long and sad experience had proved all those Ways ineffectual which the Divine Goodness out of a restless Zeal and concernment for the recovery of Mankind had fallen upon Hence not only the Methods of Divine Grace are denyed to consist in the production of any new Principles by an omnipotent irresistible Power But the asserting a necessity of infused Principles to regenerate our Natures relieve our Weakness and adapt us to live to God is represented by our Author a making us to be Acted like Machines by the Irresistible Power of the Grace and Spirit of God And to declare us passive in the reception of the first Grace is said to render all the Rules and Directions prescribed us by God vain and foolish P. 354. I purpose not here to discourse the nature of Regeneration nor the consistency of Efficacious Grace with humane Liberty nor how the producing Faith in us by a power infallible in its Effects and which is never actually defeated is so far from being subversive of our Rational Freedom that it promotes as well as preserves it Nor shall I urge how if Regeneration be nothing but the result of the exertion of our Faculties through an-application of Gospel-Precepts and Promises to our minds for influence and conduct that the Holy Ghost hath not only suggested things ordinary and obvious to us under an Embarass of lofty Hyperbolical and swelling words but instead of enlightning us in the Nature of the work of Conversion beyond what the Phlosophers have done he hath only envelopt it in thick Darkness and cast it into further obscurity the chief Terms declarative of it in the Scripture if that supposition be once admitted being only Rampant fulsome Metaphorical expressions of Amendment of Life Nor shall I debate what is required of us in way of Duty in order to our Regeneration and how that whatsoever so is exacted as to the Matter and substance of it lyes within the Sphere and Circle of our Natural Abilities As nothing but charming lusts false delusions Carnal Interests foolish prejudices indulging the appetites of the Animal life and attending to the titillations of the flesh can hinder men from the performance of what God in subserviency to his communicating of Grace at
not now controvert whether by the Name Christ the Church may not sometimes be signified All I shall say is this that as the Phrases of Being in Christ engrafted into Christ and United to Christ being one Body with Christ and Brethren in Christ are to be otherwise Understood than meerly to imply Our belonging to that society whereof Christ is the Head and Governour which is the Paraphrase that Mr. Sherlock is pleased to put upon them but shall be afterwards disproved and overthrown so Gal. 3.16 and 1 Cor. 12.12 where of all other places the Church seems with the greatest probability to be signified by the Name Christ ought in my mind to be otherwise interpreted And were that my present business I should think it a matter encumbred with small difficulty to Demonstrate that 't is the Person of Christ not his Church that is immediately primarily intended by that Name in both places And truly even admitting the supposition that there is no other Union betwixt Christ and Believers but meerly a Political I do not see but that Mr. Sherlock might have allowed Christ himself to be intended wheresoever our Union with him is declared spoken of I am sure as his Hypothesis had thereby remained as consistent every way with it self so more reverence had been maintain'd towards the Scripture than there is by justling out Christ and substituting the Church in his room For example when Christ saith of himself I am the true Vine c. Our Author even in pursuance of his own Notion might have allowed him to be so and that Christ spake the Truth though in way of Paraphrase he had subjoyn'd that he was so no otherwise but by the Gospel and upon the account of his Authority over and influence upon the Church by his Doctrine and Laws I am sure the Socinians though through their denying the Divine Person of Christ they renounce all vital influences from him to Believers and disclaim his being other than a Political Head unanimously allow that where Christ says I am the true Vine he mean's himself Though the Honour of being the First-framers and erecters of the Hypothesis of Christs being meerly a Political Head to his Body be due to them yet I should be Injurious to Mr. Sherlock did I deny him the reputation of being the Contriver of this New Dresse and Trim with which he hath adorned it Only 't is attended with this Inconvenience that it is not shapen very agreeably to the place that lay before him and which should have been his measure with what handsomeness soever otherwise it be deckt and set out Whereas Christ saith Joh. 15.5 I am the vine ye are the Branches this must be expounded saith our Author to the same sense with what goes before where Christ speaking of himself saith I am the true Vine The meaning is that Church which is founded on my Gospel is the true Vine I signifies Christ together with his church which is his Body Concerning which Paraphrase I shall only recommend these things to the Consideration of the Reader 1. 'T is inconsistent with it self In one line he affirms the Church to be the true Vine and in the next he tells us that the I of which True Vine is predicated signifies Christ together with his Church yet a few lines after he contends that by I am the True Vine we can Rationally understand nothing but the Church which is founded on the Belief of the Gospel and her being the only True Church which God now owns And accordingly all the four Reasons brought in confirmation of his exposition are wholly calculated to shut Christ out from any share or claim in that Proposition I am the True Vine and to establish the Church for the alone Subject of that Enunciation Now I understand not how these things are reconcileable viz. When Christ speaks in the First Person I he cannot mean this of his own Person but of his Church and yet that I signifies Christ together with his Church pag. 145. 2 'T is altogether Novel For besides that no one Commentator who own 's the Divinity of Christ hath preceded him in it even the Socinians out of whose Mine he hath too frequently digged his Treasure do in this particular stand in opposition to him As to the Manner of our being in this Vine viz. through a Belief of and adhesion to Christs Doctrine our Author hath the Exposition of Schlichtingius to befriend him But I know none of the Socinians that have been so front-less or who have so far steeld their brow as to preclude Christ from being understood here by the True Vine 3. 'T is repugnant to the Universal Reason and sense of Mankind For though there may be Contrasts about the Subject of an Enunciation when the Expression is in the 2 d. or 3 d. Person yet it was never till Mr. Sherlock wrote so much as questioned but that when the Person speaking affirms any thing of himself in the 1 st person he himself is the Subject of that Proposition Christ therefore being the Person speaking saying of himself I am the True Vine 't is both to give him the lye and to contradict the Reason that Mankind is determined by in judging of the Subject of a Proposition to say he is not the True Vine but the Church is so 4. It offers violence to the Harmony of the Context For 1 Though we can easily conceive how a particular Believer may be in the Church yet 't is impossible to a apprehend how the Church can be in a particular Believer And therefore seeing 't is the same Identical I of whom the True Vine is predicated v 1. that in you and in them is affirmed of v. 4 5. either the whole Church must be allowed to be in every Individual Christian which is impossible or else the Church is not signified by the â—â—n either of the places which overthrow's Mr. Sherlocks paraphrase 2 Because no Christian severed from the Vine and its Influences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here intended either doth or can bring forth fruit to God but this a person severed or separated from any Visible Church may do and consequently 't is not the Church which by this Metaphorical Term Vine is here meant and understood Now that one living in the fellowship and communion of no Visible Church may yet be a Christian these following Reasons do demonstrate First Because when these words were spoken there was no Church of Christ founded on the belief of the Gospel and yet there were believers 2 ly Because 't is possible for a man to be a Christian where there is no visible Church for him to be united to And unless we should suppose a Number to be converted together we must grant this to have been the case at least for a time of such as first embraced the Faith of the Gospel in Heathen
Nations 3 dly Because a person may be cast out from actual Communion with the whole visible Church and yet remain a disciple of Christ and a true Believer And that this hath been the lot of some of the best servants of God might be made manifest in diverse Instances if it were either necessary or lay now before me 4 Because no adult person especially such as are not sprung of Christian and Covenant-parents either hath or can plead a right of admission into the visible Church of Christ who both doth not live to God and of whose so doing there is not some previous Moral Certainty and Evidence Interest in Christ by Faith is the Foundation of all that Interest which any Man rightfully hath in the Church as a Member of it It is through a Relation and habitude to Him as our Vital Head that we come to be knit together as Members of the same Body So far is our Communion with the Church from being the Fountain and spring of our Holiness that as it s our being Holy that entitles us to the Communion with the Church before God so it is our seeming to be so that entitles us to her communion before Men. So that upon the whole our Authors Gloss of the Churches being understood by the True Vine proving contradictious to it self repugnant to the Reason of Mankind in the measures by which they judg concerning the sense of a Proposition as well as inconsistent with and irreconcileable to the Context and withal Novel I hope he will find few Proselytes to it and fewer Advocates for it And as the Arguments upon which he hath built it are no other than vain and trifling Pretences so the most plausible of them have been already replyed to and the futilousness of the rest shall hereafter if necessity do so require be made manifest I shall shut up this with Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase of the Text whom I suppose none of the Conforming-Clergy will either upbraid with Ignorance or deny him to equal Mr. Sherlock both in the knowledg of Divinity and the Docttrine of the Church of England I am the True Vine and my Father is the Husband Man is thus Glossed by him I am the True Generous Fruit bearing Vine Jer. 22.1 my Blood as the blood of the Grape shall Rejoyce the Heart of God and Man Jud. 9.12 And my Father who hath thus planted me in this World here below hath the whole ordering of all that belong to me and every Branch every Believer every Member of my Mistical Body And accordingly he understands our abiding in the Vine ver 5. to be in the Virtue of Grace communicated from Christ to us Having discharged the Church and the Doctrine of the Gospel from being signified by the Name Christ as that Word and Name denotes the Term to which Believers are united it remains that we declare what is the true import and just meaning of it with respect to the room it hath in the present Question And here by the Name of Christ we understand the person of Christ nor is any thing else intended properly by it in the whole Gospel Supposing that secondarily and in way of Trope it occur sometimes used to imply the Doctrine of the Gospel and may be sometimes to signify the Christian Church yet that primarily and properly it doth not denote the Person of Christ is a blasphemous wild Imagination That Christ is a Person was never denied by any unless it be the Quakers who neither know what the Idea of Person is which they deny him to be nor what themselves intend in the acknowledgment they make of Him The Arrians and Socinians deny the Divinity of his Person the Manichees of old disclaimed the real Manhood of His Person The Nestorians asserted two Persons in him as well as two Natures but that he was a Person some one way or other hath been always granted till a Generation hath of late arisen who neither understand whereof they speak nor what they renounce But the Enquiry is What we mean by the person of Christ to which Believers must be united And this we are obliged the rather to declare our selves about seeing Mr. Sherlock is pleased to Character us as having here out-done all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez Pag. 200. First then By the Person of Christ we understand more than his being a meer Man There are a sort of Gentlemen who though they own the Personality of Christ yet they wholly renounce the Divinity of His Person And to give them their due 't is upon the supposition of his being a meer Man that they allow him to be only a Political Head to his Members Nor is this any thing but a just pursuance of their former Principle for not admitting Him to be God 't is impossible that he should be a Head in respect of Vital Influences to any And I wish that among the many Expositions of Scripture-Texts which our Author hath transcribed from them he had not in complyance with them perversely sensed even such places wherein their design is to undermine the Deity of the Son of God I would not be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his Glosses of Col. 1.19 Col. 2.3 and 2.8 Joh. 14.20 Joh. 1.14 which are the very same that the Socinians impose upon those places be admitted we have some of the main proofs of it wrested out of our hands Secondly Though by the Person of Christ to whom we are United we understand more than a meer man yet we also affirm that he is truly and properly a Man As we do not Un-God him with the Arians and Socinians so neither do we Un-man him with the Marcionites and Manichees As he is truly and Essentially God and not meerly styled so upon the account of his wonderful Conception the Sanctity of His Life His Power of working Miracles His Resurection from the Dead His Rule and Care over the Church and the like so He is as truly and essentially Man having assumed the whole and entire Humane Nature with whatsoever belongs to it as a necessary Affection or Adjunct He had both a true Organical Body and was not a meer Spectrum or Phantasm in the shape and form only of a Man as Marcion and Manes blasphemously imagined and had also a true Humane Rational Soul nor was the Deity meerly instead thereof supplying its Office to the Body as Apollinaris with equal folly and perversness asserted Thirdly We do by the Person of Christ to which we are United intend and understand more than his God-head and Man-hood abstractedly and separately considered And if this be The outdoing all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez which our Author Chargeth us with that we have found out a Person for Christ in this sense distinct from his God-head and Man-hood we think not to have done would have been as far from Wit as Truth A deep and mysterious Doctrine
nor others may think themselves imposed upon I shall represent his apprehensions of it in his own words Those Metaphors says he which describe the Relation and Union betwixt Christ and Christians do primarily refer to the Christian Church not to every individual Christian The Union of particular Christians to Christ is by means of their Union to the Christian Church The Church is the Body of Christ and every Christian by being United to this Body becomes a Member of Christ. The Union of particular Christians to Christ consists in their Union to the Christian Church and our Union with the Christian Church is the Medium of our Union to Christ. Those Phrases and Metaphors which represent our Union with Christ signify our visible Society with the Christian Church and our sincere practice of the Christian Religion Now this Union says he between Christ and the Christian Church is a Political Union that is such an Union as is between a Prince and his Subjects Christ is a Spiritual King and all Christians are his Subjects and our Union to Christ consists in our Belief of his Revelations Obedience to his Laws and Subjection to his Authority Fellowship and Communion with God according to the Scripture Notion signifies what we call a Political Union that is that to be in Fellowship with God and Christ signifies to be of that Society which puts us into a peculiar Relation to God This is the account that Mr. Sherlock is pleased to afford us concerning the Union of Believers to Christ and were this a true report and description of it it ceaseth to be Mysterious nor needs the perfect knowledge of it be reserved to the next world or the coming of Elias that I may again usurp our Authors phrase He seems very careful that there should be nothing left Mysteririous in the Christian Religion nor doth the Term Mystical please him being as he tells us a hard word Only I wish that under pretence of wariness and caution there be not any thing in the Gospel acknowledged of arduous conception he did not lay a foundation of going soberly to destroy Christianity Now in the examining Mr. Sherlocks Notion of the Union of Christ with Believers I reckon it necessary before I address to the disproof of what I dislike in his opinion to declare what I own to be true in the matter of a Political Union between Christ and Christians First then That Christ is the Political Head of his Church we readily grant nor is it denyed by any so far as I know that profess themselves Christians The very espousing the Profession of the Christian Religion includes an acknowledgment of Christs being our Supreme Legislatour and Governour and that we are to be subject to his Authority and obedient to his Commands A Right of Erecting Governing and protecting the Church is delegated to and vested in him And as he in the discharge of this Regal Office wherewithal he is entrusted hath enacted Laws appointed Ordinances and ordained Officers for the Government of his Church so we by our submission to them do acknowledg his Authority and make profession of our subjection to him as our Lord and King and therereupon may be said to be related to Him as our Political Head All that own the name of Christians are thus far agreed for though the Papists interpose another immediate ruling Head between Christ and the Catholick Church yet as they acknowledg Christ to be the only Head of Vital Influence to the Church Regenerate so they confess Him to be the only supreme Governing Head of the Universal Church But as their Notion of a Vicarious Political Head over the whole Church is both destitute of all countenance from the Scripture and repugnant to it so no one is capable of enacting Laws for the Universal Church nor of seeing them executed nor hath the Catholick Church ever acknowledged such a constitutive Imperant Head what ever some part of it may have done Upon this account especially we judge the Pope to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Antichrist and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Opposer who exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God because he usurpeth the Headship over the Church of Christ as to Legislation Judgment and Execution dispensing with Christs Laws and enacting his own He challengeth a peerage with Jesus Christ as to Legislative Power and Headship over the Universal Church which is no less than to storm his Throne and Usurp his Scepter The claym of the Roman See is great but their Allegations to justifie it are wholly precatious And when Jesus Christ appears to vindicate his Supreme Authority from the invasions which Usurpers have made upon his Dignity the counterfeiting the broad Seal of Heaven and the suborning Scripture to supplant Christs Throne will prove a Crime unanswerable I shall only add in reference to this particular I have been discoursing that no verbal profession of being a Christian unless it be accompanied with a belief of the Revelations and an Obedience to the Laws of Christ can de Jure entitle us amongst his Subjects Secondly As a visible profession of subjection to Christ testified in the belief of what he hath revealed and in the obedience of what he hath commanded is the foundation of this political Union between Christ and his Church so we do hereby become politically united one to another and are denominated Members of Christs Catholick Visible Church For as the Profession of the Gospel in the belief of its Doctrines an avowed subjection to its Laws is the constituent form of the Church as Visible and the formal reason of its obtaining that appellation so all that profess the Invocation of the Name of the Lord Jesus their Lord and ours 1 Cor. 7.2 do hereby belong to Christs Catholick Church Visible and become Politically united as Subjects of the same Legislator and King In the profession of the same Lord Faith and Baptism doth the Union of the Church under the consideration of Catholick and Visible consist and as the Subjects of one and the same Temporal Prince become politically United together by their being in subjection to the Authority of the same supreme civil Ruler and governed by the same Laws so may all Christians be said upon a parallel account to be politically united one with another And here upon the one hand as Christ hath not made our Right to a room and membership in the Catholick Church to depend upon a formal belief of every thing that he hath revealed though every thing that Christ hath revealed ought to be believed when it appears that he hath revealed it so upon the other hand there are some Doctrines the explicite belief of which is necessary to the having a place in the Universal Church a Church being nothing else but
to evince it though obstinate persons and such as maintain Tenets in despite of evidence to the contrary may not be convinced by them 'T is the Church in its full latitude and extent that is eminently Christs Body and his Spouse and 't is his Body and Spouse that he is conjoyned and marryed to Now for any one to say that he is united to the Church by the vincula that are between him and Individual Believers is to run himself into the absurdity which we commonly call a circle For if the copula of particular Christians to Christ be their Society and Fellowship with the Christian Church and if the vinculum between Christ and the Church be through the cohesion of particular Believers to Christ there is no remedy but that our Author must be entangled in a circle or else there is no such thing in the World as circular defining and discoursing And to say that Christ is united to the Church by the Churches belief of his Revelations and Obedience to his Laws is but instead of loosing the knot to tye it faster For the Church being an Aggregate Body of Believers she can no other ways embrace the Revelations of the Gospel or yield obedience to its commands but in the virtue of what her particular constituent Members do 2. That our Union with Christ even supposing it a meer Political Relation should be by the means of our Union with the Christian Church is repugnant to that conception and idea which we have of the Church For the Church Catholick-Visible and much more particular instituted Churches being nothing else but the Collective Body of Christians it naturally follows that they must in priority of Nature be Christians before they can any ways belong to the Church Now to suppose them Christians I speak of adult persons without their previous owning the Authority of Jesus Christ through a belief of his Doctrines and a professed subjection to his Laws is an absurd and self-contradictious Imagination 3. If the Apostles were immediately United to Christ without any Antecedent Relation to the Christian Church I see no cause why every Individual Christian ought not to be held united to Him in the same manner that they were For the Apostles being united to Christ under the formal consideration of their being Christians and not under the reduplication of their being Apostles it follows by a short and easie train of ratiocination that all who have a right to the denomination of Christians are united by the same Bond and stand in the same immediateness of conjunction with Christ that they were Yea Paul hath said enough to set this beyond all suspect in that speaking of the Body of Christ he reckons the Apostles in the classis of Members with other Believers 1 Cor. 12.27 28. Now that the Apostles were not united to Christ by the Mediation of any Antecedent Relation to the Christian Church but that their Relation of Oneness with Him was immediate there be unanswerable Arguments at hand to demonstrate But I shall only mention one namely there was no Christian Church pre-existent to them into whose Society and Fellowship they could be admitted I have thus far discoursed these things with Mr. Sherlock taking the church for the universal Catholick Visible Church which is the most favourable acceptation to befriend the Notion of our being united to Christ by the means of Union to the Christian Church that 't is capable of And this acceptation of the Church as our communion with it is the Medium and Bond of our Union with Christ Mr. Sherlock finds himself in some cases necessitated to retreat to If says he there be no Visible Society of Christians professing the Faith of â—hrist and living in Communion with each other as it may happen in times of persecution or some great degeneracy of the Church our Union to Christ then consists in an acknowledgment of his Authority and Subjection to his Laws which makes us Members of the Universal Church though there be no particular Church to communicate with Now if the Notion of Union with Christ by the Medium of a previous Interest in the Catholick Visible Church be not defensible much less is it maintainable on the Hypothesis of an Union with a particular Church as the Vinculum and Foundation of it And yet most of our Authors discourse is fram'd in countenance of this namely that Individual Christians are not united to Christ but by means of their Union to some particular Church Hence we are told that we cannot be United to Christ that is cannot own his Authority and Government till we unite our selves to the publick Societies of Christians and submit to the publick Instructions Authority and Discipline of the Church And this is made the motive and ground of our living in the Communion of the Church where Providence hath cast us so long as she submits to the Laws of Christ and acknowledgeth his Authority because as our Author saith this Unites us to Christ. Mr. Sherlock so far as I am able to conjecture was not at leisure to think what was most serviceable to the Hypothesis he had espoused or what was most disserviceable to it All Immediate Union of particular Christians with Christ save by means of their union with the Christian Church he was resolved to deny but in what sense the Church was to be taken by Communion with which we come to be copulated with Jesus Christ he durst not determine At one time 't is by our being Members of the Universal Church at another 't is by our Fellowship with such a Church as is under the conduct of Bishops and Pastors whose Members are in regular subjection to their spiritual Guides and Rulers and live in concord and Unity amongst themselves and in a mutual discharge of all Christian Offices But that Communion with a particular Church cannot be the Medium of a Christians Union with Christ I come under the influence and command of these Reasons to believe 1. There may be some Individual Christians where there is no particular Instituted Church of Christ into which they can be admitted Nor may this only be supposed but there are divers instances in Ecclesiastical story to evince it Yea there can be no particular Church without the pre-existence of Individual Believers seeing it is of such that every particular Church is constituted and formed We may as well build a House without pre-existent Materials as erect a particular Church without Believers to constitute it of There must be living stones of which this Temple of God is built and fram'd The being Saints through the effectual Vocation and renewing of the Holy Ghost is the first ground presupposed by the Apostles in their adscription of the Name and Title of Church to any Nor are the Duties required of those that stand in a particular Church Relation possible to be performed but by such as are sincere Christians 2. Christians in the very
Virtue and upon the alone Motive of their being Believers may be obliged and that upon no meaner inducements than their Loyalty to Christ to renounce Communion not only with the particular Church with which they have walked but to suspend Fellowship with any particular Church that lyes within the circle and compass of their knowledg If any Church shall so degenerate as to forsake the common Faith it becomes the duty of every honest Christian to forsake that Church and renounce all external communion with her And yet I hope it will not be said that the Person so acting ceaseth to be united to Christ there being no greater evidence of his Union with the Lord Jesus than his disclayming fellowship with those who had revolted from the Faith of the Gospel 3. Christians may be injuriously cast out of the Communion not only of one but of every particular Church and yet remain united to Christ and consequently their union with a particular Church cannot be the Bond of their cohesion to Him Our Blessed Lord hath predicted it to be the Fate sometimes of Believers to be so entertained and hath accordingly advised his Disciples to expect it as their lot and to resent it as their honour to be cast out and separated for the Son of mans sake Luk. 6.22 The Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred they shall separate you is of the same import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 16.2 Yea it may fall out that a person may be justly secluded for a time from communion with any particular Church and yet his union with Christ not be dissolved A scandalous sin in a Professor providing the party offending give not evidence of his sincere Repentance is foundation enough for the Church to proceed to such a censure yea the maintaining her own Dignity and Honour and the making Christianity appear to be a Doctrine of exact purity and that the Christian Religion as Celsus and Julian reproached it doth not allow impunity to Criminals obligeth her to it and yet it will be unsafe to pronounce of every person that is the Object of those censures that he ceaseth to be a Christian or that all his union with Christ is interrupted and dissolved 4. Our union with a particular Church being the Medium of our Union with Christ is an assertion so remote from all truth that on the contrary none are to be received under the Notion of Members into a particular Church but upon a presumption that Christ hath first received them Without previous grounds of judging men to be Believers we are not only destitute of all warranty to admit them but we are obliged by the Laws of the Gospel yea by principles of Reason considering the Nature of the Society not to do it A Church being a Spiritual Corporation wherein Priviledges are to be enjoyed upon Terms antecedently required and these Terms being at least the acknowledgment of Christs Authority through a belief of his Doctrines and a professed subjection to his Laws which is the Notion and Idea of a Political Union with him to suppose our Union with a particular Church to be the foundation and ground of the Relation of Oneness with Christ involveth no less than a Contradiction 5. 'T is a persons submitting himself to the Laws and Authority of Christ which is that wherein Mr. Sherlock himself stateth the Political Union of Christians with Christ to consist that swayeth and influenceth him to submit himself to Pastoâ—s and Teachers and to joyn with others in the Fellowship of the Gospel and by consequence our Union with a particular Church is so far from being the Bond of our Union with the Lord Jesus that on the contrary our Union with Him is the Motive inducement of our joyning into Fellowship with a particular Church which is that we mean by Union with it The account which the Apostle giveth us of the Churches of the Macedonians is that they first gave themselves to the Lord and then unto them by the Will of God 2 Cor. 8.5 It was by taking upon them the observance of Christs commands that they found themselves obliged to coalesce into Church-Societies 6. I shall only add in the last place for it is not number but strength of Arguments that men are prevail'd upon by that an Imagination of our being United to Christ by the Mediation of an Union with the Church seems to have been the foundation of the Papal Vicarious Political Head Nor is this my apprehension alone but 't is the sense also of Episcopius a Person whose Judgment Testimony Mr. Sherlock will not undervalue And to speak my inward thoughts 't is all he says to purpose upon this Theme though he undertake to treat it with some industry being in this as in most other particulars rather florid than nervous Besides a brisk air that displays it self in his manner of handling things there is little solid or beyond what is vulgar and common in him But to return into this supposition that Christ is not the immedidiate Political Head of his Church is the substitution of an Universal Vicarious Head resolved And to do the Papists right if Believers even in a Political sense be not immediately united to Christ 't is more congruous to Reason to establish one Vicarious Catholick Visible Head than five thousand And though upon the supposition that there is such a Head the Pope may fail in his claym to it yet I see not but that if the honour and priviledg of it be refused him some one or other must have the credit of it Thus admitting that were all the Union which intercedes between Christ and Believers meerly such a Political Relation as is between a Prince and his Subjects yet I hope I have proved that our Union with Christ is nevertheless immediate I am sure the King of England through his governing his Subjects by subordinate Officers delegated to Rule by his Authority doth not cease to be an Immediate Head to all his Subjects and to every Individual person amongst them There remains only before I advance to the second Conclusion some exceptions of our Author to be taken notice of And upon a survey of what he hath mustered in the behalf of his Hypothesis I cannot but ascribe to him a faculty of pressing any thing that comes in his way to fight for him Nor shall I here only rescue some Texts of Scripture and some received Doctrines from the rape which our Author hath committed upon them and from that involuntary service into which they are compelled but I shall endeavour to defeat his cause by them The 1st is drawn from the Metaphors which describe the Relation and Union between Christ and Christians which says he do primarily refer to the Christian Church and not to every Individual Christian. Thus Christ is called a Head but he is the Head of his Church which is his Body as the Husband is the head of the Wife Eph. 5.23 24.