such a People for the neglect or change of it If ever God would have done this we might most reasonably expect it under the Jewish Oeconomy in which every minute Circumstance was so strictly commanded by God as having something Sacred and Typical in it and yet it does not appear that every deviation from their Rule though in some very material parts of it did provoke God to cast them off God had appointed a certain place where they should offer their Sacrifices to him and when this place was actually fixed and determined it was unlawful for them to offer Sacrifice in any other place And yet when the Temple at Jerusalem was built which was the only place God had appointed for Sacrifice the People continued to offer Sacrifice in their high places even in the Reign of very good Kings and though this practise was condemned yet it did not un-church them God had appointed Aarons Family for the Priesthood 1 Kings 12.31 and yet Jeroboam made Priests of other Tribes and Families and the Law which expresly appoints Aaron and his Sons for the Priests Office only threatens death against Usurpers Numb 3.10 Thou shalt appoint Aaron and his Sons and they shall wait on the Priests Office and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death God did not reject the Church of Israel for the irregularities of their Priests but owned them for his Church and People many years after this till they defiled themselves with the worship of Baal and other Heathen Gods And Josephus observes that after the death of Menelaus Joseph Antiq l. 12. cap. 14. Antiochus made Alchymus High-Priest who was not of the Family of the Priests and yet I should be loth to say that such an irregular promotion did un-church the Jewish Church and whoever considers in what manner the High-Priests were advanced and deposed even in the time of our Saviour possibly may think it as inconsistent with the first Institution of that Office as the irregular Ordinations of Presbyters 2. We ought especially to consider the force and power of necessity to dispence even with divine Institutions No necessity can dispence with the eternal Laws of good and evil because no necessity can be pleaded to justifie men in sin though in some cases it may extenuate the evil and guilt of it for the internal necessity in the nature of things is stronger than any external necessity can be no external force can compel men to sin which is an Act of their own will and choice and the obligations to Vertue remain in the most extreme necessity But in positive Institutions which depend upon the Will of God we find necessity has often dispensed and that with God's allowance and approbation As to give some few examples of it 1. The necessity of the divine Worship has dispensed with positive Institutions Thus in Hezekiah's Sacrifice the Priests being too few 2 Ch ron 29.34.35.11 the Levites assisted them in doing the Priests work in slaying the Sacrifices and the like we may see in Josiah's Passeover And by the same reason we may suppose that if the Family of Aaron had failed other Families of the Tribe of Levi might have succeeded into the Priest's Office though against a positive Law For the necessity of the divine Worship is much greater and more unalterable than the confinement of the Priesthood to a certain Family and where the divine Providence makes a necessity necessity will make a Priest And therefore I think a late learned and ingenious Author who disputes so earnestly that the Power of administring Sacraments must be derived from God and that this Power now is given only by Episcopal Ordination ought to have distinguished between the ordinary and extraordinary conveyance of Power Whoever administers in holy things must derive his Power from God because he acts in God's Name and when it may be done he must derive his Power in such a way as God hath appointed by a positive Law and whoever rejects this way without necessity can have no valid Power but whatever he does is null and void as I doubt not but all Ordinations of Presbyters are in opposition to and contempt of their Bishops as I think that learned man hath sufficiently proved But the case of necessity ought to be considered it being contrary to the Nature of all positive Institutions to oblige in case of necessity and I take that to be a case of necessity when Episcopal Orders cannot be had and yet the Church must sail without them Bishops are for the Church not the Church for Bishops and when the ordinary conveyance of this Authority fails necessity legitimates other extraordinary ways We have all the reason in the World to presume in such cases that God will confirm and ratifie the choice and designation of the People much more the Ordinations of the Presbytery where Episcopal Ordination cannot be had For I see no reason why Presbyters may not do the Bishops work in case of necessity as well as Levites do the work of Priests 2. The necessity of mens lives dispense with positive Laws Upon this account our Saviour justifies David's eating the Shew-Bread when he was an hungred which was not lawful for him to eat Mark 2.24 25 26. but for the Priests and his Disciples plucking the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Upon this Principle Matathias allowed the Jews to fight on the Sabbath-day Joseph antiq l. 12. cap. 7. in case they were assaulted by their Enemies and our Saviour resolves all such cases by that general Principle I will have mercy and not Sacrifice and certainly mercy to the Souls of men is as considerable as any temporal concernments 3. But we may further consider what force and Authority the presumptive allowance of the Church has in such cases The Christian Church in all Ages has thought fit to dispense with positive Institutions in case of necessity and by her own Approbation and Authority to supply the defects and irregularities of such Administrations and therefore certainly did believe she had Power to do it And indeed if there be not sufficient Authority in the Church to provide for cases of necessity the Power of the Church is more defective than of any other Society of men and cannot in many cases without a miracle preserve her own being and therefore if the Church may be presumed in cases of necessity to allow Persons to perform such religious Offices and Ministries as otherwise they are not qualified to perform this very allowance supplies the incapacity of the Person and does virtually confer that Authority on him which in other cases he had not Now it is not only highly reasonable to presume that the Catholick Church will rather allow the Ordinations of Presbyters though they are not regularly qualified for that Office where there are no Bishops to Ordain than that a considerable member of the Christian Church should want a succession of Pastors to
great Prophets by Miracles and when he was persecuted for it he owned the truth to the very death and set a great example of constancy and patience and submission to God in his sufferings as other great Prophets had done before him though not in so extraordinary a manner 3. This crucified Jesus was raised by God from the dead the third day though being but a Creature or a Man he was not able to raise himself and was advanced by God to great Power and Glory 4. Which Power consists in all those Acts which are specified in the opposite Scheme with this difference that his Power is not owing to his Priesthood or Sacrifice nor has any dependance on it but he is a Saviour forgives sins c. by a Soveraign Power given him by God not by Merit or Purchase or the expiation of his Sacrifice And there is this contradiction in it that a Creature is invested with Almighty Power and this riddle in it that God should make a Creature the Saviour of mankind and this Blasphemy that God should advance a Creature to be his own Rival or Partner in divine Honour This short account makes it very evident what a fundamental difference the belief or denial of the Divinity of our Saviour makes in the whole Doctrine of Salvation by Christ The first makes it an Act of stupendious love in God in giving his own Son to be a Propitiation for our sins the second is a great act of love in saving sinners but the manner is not so full of Wonder and mysterious Goodness The first makes it an act of infinite Love and Condescention in Christ to become Man a Minister and a Servant and to submit to an accursed death for our sakes That though he were rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich But the second infers no such thing as I can see If he were nothing greater than a man it was no condescention in him to be made a man especially if he had no being before he was born of the Virgin Mary it was no more matter of his choice to become man than it is of any other man who is born into the World and therefore could be no Act of Love or Condescension Nay suppose that Christ were the most glorious and excellent Creature yet being a Creature there is not such a vast difference between the most perfect Creature and a perfect Man as there is between a God and the most perfect Creature it is no such mighty debasement for the most glorious Angels to appear in pure and untainted Flesh and Blood especially upon such a glorious design as the redemption of mankind Though the disguise and appearance may be thought below an Angelical Nature yet the Character with which he appears as the great Prophet and Saviour of the World is as much above it The meanest state and condition of humane nature a poor despised and laborious Life the most painful and ignominious death which makes the most excellent Creature the Saviour of mankind and advances him to be Lord and Judge of the World is so far from being an Act of condescending love in the most glorious Creature that it is above his Ambition and would be like the pride of Lucifer to be equal to God To become man to suffer and die for the redemption of the World and to be made the Lord and Judge both of the quick and of the dead can be an act of condescending love and goodness only in God So that to deny the Divinity of Christ alters the very foundations of Christianity and destroys all the powerful arguments of the Love Humility and Condescention of our Lord which are the peculiar motives of the Gospel Thus the belief of the Divinity of Christ makes God to be our Saviour the object of our Faith and Hope and Relyance the denial of it makes a Creature to be our Saviour and the object of a Religious Faith and Worship which I think differ as much as the Worship of God and of a Creature The first contains a visible union of our Nature to the Deity which is a visible demonstration of God's love and tender regard to mankind the second deprives us of this sensible Consolation The first exhibits to us a Saviour by Purchase and by Redemption which is both more endearing and a greater security to our guilty fears the second makes Christ a Saviour only as a Prophet or a King may be a Saviour who saves by wise instructions by preaching the way of Salvation or by Power The first respects the guilt of sin and the just Wrath and Displeasure of God which is the Object of our guilty fears It offers a Saviour to us who is a Mediator between God and man and powerfully intercedes for our Pardon in vertue of his meritorious Sacrifice The second has no respect to the atonement and reconciliation of God which is the only security to a guilty Conscience but only contains proposals of Peace and Reconciliation without a Sacrifice A thing which mankind will not easily believe when they are thorowly convinced of the evil of sin and the inflexible purity and holiness of the divine Nature not to take notice now how irreconcileable this is with all the ancient Types of the Law of Moses In a word he who believes Christ to be perfect God as well as perfect man is easily satisfied of his Power to save as well as of the Vertue of his Sacrifice For omnipotent Power is essential to the Notion of a God and when God becomes our Saviour he can exercise all that Power which is necessary to our Salvation but he who believes Christ to be but an exalted Creature can never understand how he can exercise omnipotent Power which is peculiar to God For I think it is somewhat harder to understand how a Creature can be made a God and be possest of divine Perfections such as omnipotent Power is than to believe that God can take a Creature into a personal union with himself This I think is sufficient to satisfie any man what a fundamental Change the denial of Christ's Divinity makes in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ It makes a new Gospel and a new Religion and therefore the Divinity of Christ must be acknowledged to be a fundamental Doctrine because the denial of it subverts Foundations Thus to proceed our Salvation by Christ does not only consist in the expiation of our sins and the proposal of terms of Reconciliation and the promise of Pardon and a Reward but in the Communications of divine Grace and Power to renew and sanctifie us and this is every where in Scripture attributed to the holy Spirit as his peculiar Office in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation and it must make a fundamental change in the Doctrine of divine Grace and assistance to deny the Divinity of the holy Spirit For can a Creature be the universal Spring and Fountain of
to the same passions nay he asserts the divine nature it self to be passible And I think I need not shew how this overthrows the fundamental Doctrine of Salvation by Christ which proves it to be a fundamental Heresie I shall only observe that Leo Bishop of Rome in his Letter to Flavian who was then Bishop of Constantinople and was afterwards murdered by the Eutychian Faction in the packt Council of Ephesus confutes the Heresie of Eutyches from the very Principle Et ad resolvendum conditionis noslrae debitum natura inviolabilis naturae est unita passibili ut quod nostris remediis congruebat medlator Dei bominum homo Jesus christus mori posset ex uno non mori posset ex altero Leo ep ad Flavian on which I have all along proceeded because it destroys the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ For says he to discharge the debt and obligation of our lapsed State a nature which cannot suffer is united to a nature which can That so as our Redemption required the Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus might be capable of suffering and dying as man and exempted from all possibility of dying as God This I think is sufficient to shew how fundamental the belief of the sacred Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour is in the Christian Religion Salvation by Christ is a fundamental Doctrine or nothing is fundamental in the Christian Faith and yet the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ is necessarily founded on the belief of the holy Trinity each sacred Person being peculiarly concerned in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation And I confess it does mightily confirm me in this way of stating the notion of Fundamentals that it does so plainly discover the necessity of that Faith which has always been accounted sacred and inviolable by the Catholick Church This is the Faith we are baptized into according to our Saviours Command to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is the sum of all the ancient Creeds The Apostles Creed being little else than the explication of the form of Baptism what we are to believe of God the Father what of God the Son and what of God the Holy Ghost And when Hereticks arose who corrupted this Faith the Catholick Church expressed greater Zeal in nothing than in preserving this Faith pure and sincere This was the occasion of the first general Councils wherein Arius Nestorius Eutyches Macedonius and such other Hereticks were condemned This occasioned the Nicene Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds which contain only the Catholick exposition of the Doctrine of the Trinity in opposition to these ancient Heresies And it would be very strange if that which is the chief nay almost the only Subject of all our Creeds should not be thought a fundamental of our Religion And yet it is as strange that is should be a fundamental if it be only an abstruse and difficult speculation which is of no other use nor valuable upon any other account than pure Orthodoxy which is the only reason that can be assigned why any men who believe the Doctrine of the Trinity should not express a great and warm Zeal for it because they do not observe how the whole Gospel-Doctrine of Salvation by Christ depends on it The end of Christian Faith is a holy Life and if men may lead a very holy Life without the velief of the Trinity some think this Faith cannot be absolutely necessary to Salvation but now this must be a great and dangerous mistake though we should suppose that men may live very holily without the belief of the Trinity unless we suppose also that a holy Life will carry men to Heaven without Faith in Christ or Salvation by him for we cannot rightly believe in Christ for Salvation without this Faith And thus I might shut up the Doctrine of Fundamentals for indeed I know nothing strictly fundamental in the Christian Religion but the Doctrine of the holy Trinity and the several Acts and Offices if I may so speak of each sacred Person in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation which I have already briefly hinted But having entred upon a Discourse of such vast Importance to give the greater satisfaction to inquisitive men I shall venture one step further and I think no man need go any further 3. The next inquiry therefore shall be what is fundamental in the Doctrine of Salvation it self Now this our Saviour briefly comprehends in that Commission he gave to the Apostles to preach Repentance and Forgiveness of sins in his Name Luke 24.47 i. e. to preach forgiveness of sins to all true Penitents through Faith in his Name Rom. 3.24 25. or through Faith in his Blood as St. Paul expounds it Now not to dispute this point at present with the Socinians all who believe that Christ died to make atonement for our sins must acknowledg the atonement and expiation of Christs death to be a fundamental Article of the Christian Faith whereon the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ is built For therefore he is our Saviour because he saves his People from their sins and how this is we are often told viz. by dying for our sins the just for the unjust that he may reconcile us to God Now if this be true as I shall at present take for granted then it must be a fundamental Doctrine upon these two accounts 1. Because the belief or the denial of the atonement of Christ's death makes a specifical change in Religion A Religion with a Sacrifice and a Religion without a Sacrifice differ in the whole kind the first respects the atonement of our past sins and our daily infirmities it respects God as the Judge and avenger of wickedness as well as the rewarder of those who diligently seek him the other is a kind of Philosophical institution to train men up in the practice of Piety and Vertue That is a Religion without a Sacrifice is at most but half as much as a Religion with a Sacrifice and that half wherein they agree of a quite different nature from each other That Religion which requires an expiatory Sacrifice to make atonement for sin and to obtain the Pardon of it does also strictly enjoyn the practiee of an universal Righteousness which is the whole of a Religion without a Sacrifice And yet this practical part of Religion is vastly altered by the belief or denial of the Sacrifice and expiation of Christ's death Those who deny the death of Christ to be an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World may pay all that Homage and Worship to God which is due to the great Creator and Benefactor of mankind and may observe all the duties of moral Righteousness but there are some new Acts of Religious Worship or some new instances of Duty or new degrees and respects of Vertuâ—â—… which necessarily result from the expiation of Christ's death which either cannot be