loath to repent and try him except she were sure She can't find in her heart to forgive her poor Debters Some-body or other has wrong'd her and she 's resolved to have Satisfaction it is but just So she thinks God must have Satisfaction for her Sins or he can't be just and tho' she has heard a Sin-sweetning-Story that Christ hath made Satisfaction for Sinners she can't believe she is of that number she is not sure she 's one of the small number predestinated Shall I tell her yet more plainly what 's her Disease She loves Sin too much Duty too little her Heart is not inflam'd with Love to God so as to influence all her Actions She has not had him represented to her so Good Merciful Loving Ready to Forgive all freely as indeed he is Besides that Witness for God the Conscience that testifies when Man hath done well or ill is not clear perhaps and according to the measure of Obedience or Disobedience in known Duty will the Comfort or Discomfort generally be to a convicted Soul and faith that there is Forgiveness with God is one Duty without which Comfort is seldom securely enjoy'd Now let us consider has God left or afflicted such Persons No they have left God and hid themselves from him let them but be perswaded to turn to God and believe his Infinite Love and Goodness and love him with all their Hearts and they will quickly find that Perfect Love casts out Fear their Troubles will cease with the restifying their Judgments and changing their Wills Now of all the Miserie 's sinful Creatures are lyable to the Eternal Torments as they are call'd of the Damned in Hell can I think with least reason be thought to come from the hand of the Best Being as the Inflicter or Executioner when these Miseries may well be thought chiefly to consist in the Exasperation and height of those uneasie Thoughts which are the very Acts of Sin as Wrath Envy Hate Despair Desire impossible to be satisfied c. Add unto these their Effects with whatsoever Devils and Immortal wicked Men may be able to inflict upon one another and the most uncharitable Soul can hardly desire a greater Hell for his greatest Enemy But what I have said already of Displeasure merely Mental and that which comes by the means of the Body may be easily applied here if well considered But yet farther methinks it is a very hard Thought to think that God who as the beloved Disciple tells us is Love should hate and take Pleasure or Delight in tormenting his poor foolish frail Creatures or that he should afflict willingly or from his Heart or affect with Grief the Children of Men and that for ever But he must be supposed either to do it willingly and take pleasure in so doing or he cannot properly be said to do it for God cannot with any reason be said to do any thing against his own Will or in which he has not pleasure that cannot be suppos'd of a Perfect or Self sufficient Being nor can any action of the Creature be thought to bring God under a necessity of doing any thing he delights not in and he swears he hath no pleasure in the Death of the Wicked Ezek. 33.11 chap. 18.32 It is the Sinner that will die or chooseth Death he seeks pleasure indeed but he hath it not because he seeks it where it is not to be had viz. in his own foolish disorderly Will distinct from God's Will when God cannot give it him that way it being impossible The Damned doubtless are exceeding uneasie why they have turned from God the Fountain of Pleasure They have lived and died in a course contrary to God's Will contrary to the only possible way of Happiness and God is just in suffering them to have their own choise in leaving them after innumerable Arguments to perswade them to real good to make the Experiment how happy they can be without being beholden to him and it is enough to shew that God approves not of their Sin if he continue their Being his Work under the greatest Misery they can bring themselves into and as they are no more sinful than they themselves and their fellow Sinners can make them so if they have no more Misery than what they can work in themselves and one another it will be proportionable to their Sins and both may be exceeding great God can't be thought to work or cause Despair Wrath Malice Hate and Envy at the greatest Good Extream Discontent at his Will and the Happiness of others fierce furious unsatisfied Desire c. in his Creatures he must not be thought to be the Cause or Agent of those sinful Passions they are all against his Will as he hath clearly manifested And we cannot suppose that God's Justice requires that Sinners for a short life of Rebellion against their Maker in this World should be bound to rebel against him for ever or believe that they can satisfie for some Sins here with a Continuance of all Sins they are capable of in a State of Immortality hereafter No there is no necessity of Unhappiness but what the Sinners own perverse Will brings upon him his disorderly Passions are let loose and to what extremity Passions may be carried out who knows These will be Tormenters if there were no Devils able to vex And where these evil Passions are in their extream how can it be thought that the Bodies such Anxious Souls would delight in can be other than the Occasions of far greater Misery than they were capable of being in this Life wherein some of the Passions disorder'd have brought the Bodies to be very uneasie Concomitants with this Aggravation that they have then no more Death to expect to rid them of that uncomfortable Companion unless we could suppose that Hell it self hath at least this Happiness to be a Remedy for the Diseases of the Body and a Safeguard from all those Evils Sinners could lay upon one another in this life or that their Folly could bring God under a necessity to disown his well-wrought Work their Being and to let them fall into nothing As for the Examples of external Judgments as they are call'd which we have especially in Scripture wherein some may think the immediate Act of God as inflicting is always required when they were more than Preventions of greater Evils the Persons would have run into they may easily be accounted for by supposing Men sometimes left to the power of the Devil the Prince of the power of the Air who seems eagerly covetous to enlarge the Dominion of Hell or to do any kind of Mischief Of this we have an Example in Job Or that God sometimes withdraws his Providential hand from protecting a People or a Person that leaves him and suffers them to fall into the hands of others that are wicked their Enemies As were the Judgments on Israel or others by Inimical Nations in which Instances we can't suppose God does
of the Field are mine V. 12. If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the Fulness thereof V. 13. Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats V. 14. Offer unto God Thanksgiving and pay thy Vows unto the most High V. 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 51.16 Thou desiredst not Sacrifice else would I give it thou delightest not in Burnt-offerings V. 17. The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit c. Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning Burnt-offerings or Sacrifices V. 23. But this thing commanded I them saying obey my Voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people c. 1 Sam. 15.22 To obey is better than sacrifice Hos 6.6 God will have mercy and not sacrifice Math. 9.13 If ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Ye would not have condemned the guiltless Spoken to the Jews condemning his Disciples when they being hungry plucked the Ears of Corn but might have been said to them rather when they afterwards more unjustly condemned and slew him Is 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the Burnt-offerings of Rams and the fat of fed Beasts and I delight not in the blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-goats c. And at the 16th Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil Ver. 17. Learn to do well seek Judgment relieve the Oppressed judge the Fatherless plead for the Widow Mich. 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of rivers of Oil Shall I give my first-born for my Transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my Soul He hath shewed thee O Man what is Good And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God But the sacrifices of God Psal 107.22 are sacrifices of Thanksgiving Psal 4.5 Sacrifices of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.5 Spiritual Sacrifices Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ Sacrifices of praise and doing good Heb. 13.15 16. By him therefore let us offer up the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name But to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Sacrifices of love to God and our Neighbour Mark 12.33 And to love him with all the Heart and with all the Understanding and all the Soul and with all the Strength and to love his Neighbour as himself is more than all whole Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices Living Sacrifices Rom. 12.1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service And the Author to the Hebrews chap. 10.5 brings Christ in from Psal 40.6 c. saying to God A Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared me as the Septuagint reads it but the Hebrew hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Ears hast thou digged viz. opened to hear thy Commands not to Sacrifice certainly for saith he in Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God Above when he said Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not neither hadst pleasure therein c. Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God He taketh away the first viz. Sacrifice that he may establish the second viz. doing the Will of God By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all c. Ver. 16. This is the Covenant I will make with them after those days speaking Jer. 31.33 of the New Covenant saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their Hearts and in their Minds will I write them Ver. 17. And their Sins and Iniquities will I remember no more Ver. 18. Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin c. From all which places compared and many more that we might consider it appears that Christ is a Sacrifice or Offering acceptable to God as he does his Will in prosecuting the end of his Mission the bringing Sinners to Repentance and Obedience to God against all opposition even Death it self giving up his Body to Death rather than omit any thing he was to do And Sinners have the benefit of this Sacrifice not as God is appeas'd atton'd or reconciled to Sin or Sinners by any pleasure that can be added to him by beholding the Pain Bloodshed or Death of an innocent Man but rather as they are attoned or reconciled to God and their Duty to him by beholding Christ's Obedience in doing the Will of his Father even under the greatest Sufferings even to Death he could meet with from the opposition of Earth and Hell his Constancy being a convincing Argument that his Doctrine was good and his Life to be imitated a Perswasive to follow him in Gospel or exact Moral Obedience through whatsoever Persecution for Righteousness sake leaving all those external and childish things of the Levitical Priesthood as useless Wherefore as a better Covenant God saith He will put his Laws into their Hearts What Laws The Laws of Offerings and Ceremonies might possibly be put into their Hearts no such Laws as readily come into the Hearts of considering Persons such as we have ver 24. viz. Love and good Works So that the Obedience of Christ is the Christian Sacrifice but not ours by its pacifying God for us Sinners but by our following it as it is an Example in offering up all we are and have in love to God which is our reasonable Duty Christ may also be said to be sacrificed for us as he dedicated and offered up his Life in prosecuting the Good of Sinners by teaching them and perswading them to be reconciled to God He may also be said to be a Sacrifice to the Wrath and Malice of the wicked Jews as they devoted him and gave him up to Death according to the Councel of Caiaphas to prevent the Romans coming upon them on the noise of his being said to be the King of the Jews they supposing as also his Disciples for some time did that he meant then to set up an earthly Kingdom thinking it was better that one Man should die than that the whole Nation should perish
the pleasing sight of as great pains as all his fallen Creatures can possibly suffer he will have it in the Innocent They represent God as one that taketh pleasure in the Death of him that dies in the Death of the Innocent for the Guilty as one much more pleas'd with the Punishment of the Just than of the Transgressor The most blameless Creature that ever was must not be abated one dram of Torment they can devise fancy due or wish to their most wicked Enemies They are not contented Christ should suffer those things merciless and unjust Sinners could lay upon him by means of his Body or what might come by the fear and apprehension thereof what he might suffer in his great Compassion to Sinners and Love to God on the Consideration of Man's Sin and Misery and God's leaving him for a time who loved him so greatly without more than common Assistance under these Sorrows or what he might possibly bear from attempts of Satan but they make God the Active Inflicter of more than all this of the greatest Torment even that of the Damned on that dear Soul who was the greatest Saint making God like a Tyrant like themselves or worse They tell strange Stories of Christ's bearing the weight of his Father's Wrath Burning Wrath Yea I have heard an ignorant but confident Preacher tell his inconsiderate Hearers that Christ was a Sacrifice and roasted in his Father's Wrath and his Agony was Certamen a Contest or Fight and that Christ fought not with Devils not with Men but with his Father But God himself testified the contrary to these bold Fancies by a Voice from Heaven that he was his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased and we can't suppose that God changed his Mind and became displeas'd with him who never sinn'd nor can he be suppos'd to contend fight or be displeas'd with his Father's Will while we grant him without Sin which is another Argument that God's Will was not the cause of his Sufferings for there is no Suffering but from some sort of Displeasure with the case we are in and if Christ were displeas'd with what God did he sinned But we believe God could not be displeas'd with Christ being without any fault at all so neither could Christ be displeas'd with God but he might be displeas'd and uneasie by means of Sinners It must be a hard Heart and impudent Tongue that can believe or affirm that God was wrath with the most Innocent Creature and tormented him when God calls him his Beloved Son God left him indeed to that Cup of the Sorrows of Death occasion'd by the Body inflicted by wicked hands he left him deeply to be sorry for and sympathize with miserable Sinners and to grieve for the breach of his Father's Laws but he never left him without the Knowledge of God's being his God and Father he never had the Misery of Despair Envy Malice Wrath Strong desire of Impossibilities Hate of God c. the chiefest Ingredients of the Damned's Misery Whatever was his fear of that Cup the painful and lingering Death of the Cross which was likely to be so tedious to one who in all probability had not been accustom'd to Sickness or Bodily Pains yet he was not left without the Heavenly Assistance of an Angel to strengthening him Whatever was God's forsaking him he was sure God was his loving Father and that that day he should be in Paradise If God left him to all the Pain and Anguish the cruel Death of Crucifixion or the Apprehension of it might produce in an Innocent Man as he has left many of his Followers to cruel Torments and did not interpose and prevent the Cup of Sufferings by some extraordinary means God can be thought to be no more but the Permitter of the Wicked so far to afflict the Righteous and to work no Miracle to separate Sorrows and Pains from their common Conditions in Humane Nature Christ's Patience under all praying for his Enemies submitting to Death tho' he deserved it not rather than omit his Duty may be of great use to us to set before us the greatest Pattern of Good-behaviour under Sufferings for Righteousness sake and to forewarn us what we must expect if we will be his Followers And whatever was the Cup Christ spake of in his Agony the Author to the Hebrews ch 5.7 8 9. tells us that when he had offered up Prayers and Supplications with strong Crying and Tears unto him that was able to save him from Death he was heard from his fear which may encourage us and tho' he were a Son he learned Obedience by the things that he suffered and being made perfect he became a cause of eternal Salvation To whom to all them that obey him So that if we should suppose Satisfaction possible to be made how full soever this Text tells us we could not be saved alone on the account of what Christ hath done or suffered because something else is yet necessary viz. our Obedience so Christ's doing and suffering is not indeed enough for us and so really no Satisfaction But that God does truely forgive Sinners that I think is so clearly and often declar'd in Scripture it needs not be farther demonstrated and Satisfaction cannot stand with Forgiveness any more than the Word can be found in Scripture 44. Having here discoursed somewhat concerning Sufferings I think it most proper to subjoin my Thoughts about the Common Opinion relating to the Evil call'd Punishment or the Miseries of the Creature consequent on Sin Wherein I think Men are generally mistaken while they look upon God as truely and properly the Inflicter as the sole Cause and Efficient of this Misery of the Sinner and obliged so to be It is no wonder indeed that those Men should be of this opinion who believe God was a Punisher and that a severe One of the Innocent Jesus they forgetting even the Oath of God That the Soul that sinneth shall die the Righteousness of the Righteous shall be upon him and the Wickedness of the Wicked shall be upon him one shall not bear anothers Wickedness as we read at large Ezek. 18. Nor is it strange that any who do not believe the Goodness of God greater than they can conceive or desire should esteem God the Author of some sort of Evil. But for my part I must confess I do not see cause to believe that God is properly and positively a Punisher or the cause of Unhappiness in any of his Creatures much less bound to be so or that any Evil can proceed from the Fountain of all Good or any thing but what 's good from Goodness it self but if God give any thing it must needs be good I would here be understood to speak properly for I know the Scripture Tropically and Figuratively after the manner of Men speaks often to the contrary I do not deny but affirm that the wicked that die impenitent shall be exceeding miserable and suffer Exquisite
depends on its Capacity of Knowledge and Circumstances it is then naturally in or how far it is liable to be mistaken in it self or impos'd upon by such Agents as will certainly as much as they can deceive it and when and where and how far God will permit or interpose by his special Acts of Information and Perswasion But that God should decree absolutely or will any Evil is an Opinion so full of Absurdities yea and in its tendency so apt to over-throw all Religion that no single probability or other difficulty can perswade a considerate Man to believe it therefore I think I need say no more in this matter 51. And now after all these Considerations I cannot but reflect and consider with Grief the miserable State of Christianity and the Professors thereof as well as of the rest of Mankind of the generality of those that call themselves the Reformed and Protestants as well as of the Papists between whom I can see but very little difference they agree so much still in many the same Unreasonable Doctrines as the Fundamentals of Religion as well as consent in the like wicked Practices as the Upholders and Effects of those Doctrines How much is the World and many the highest Pretenders to Religion in it alienated and changed from True Religion and the Scope and Design thereof in its Primitive Purity and Plainness How much more busie and concern'd are Men in contriving and contending for idle and uncertain Speculations and Niceties than in doing the plain undoubted and necessary Duties of the Gospel Natural Religion or the Practice of Love Goodness Mercy Brotherly Kindness Patience Meekness Humility Truth c They seem much more intent in considering according as every ones Fancy and Education leads him how Men are or may be saved or not saved than in working out their own or in furthering other Mens Salvation Whilst they place the main business in hitting the right notion how Salvation is wrought and in this they are also commonly mistaken they labour very little in conforming to the easily known Will of God according to the Precepts and Pattern he hath given us in the Man Christ Jesus whose pure holy Life seems hard and uneasie to the Rebellious Will but to be saved in the Theory is look'd upon now as more pleasant and desireable And how apt are Men now a-days to judge and condemn one another and that merely on the account of their Differences even in their idle Speculations in which Censures some are so ridged that they will hardly allow any but themselves and a few whose Noses are just of the same length and fashion to have smell'd out the way of Happiness or to be fit for Christian Brotherly Communion with them But we will not be afraid to affirm That whosoever truely loves God and his Neighbour shall certainly be saved or happy nay is pass'd from Death to Life Whosoever does not cannot be happy till he does tho' he may have the finest yea the best System of Divinity in his Head Tho' he have all Faith even to remove a Mountain of Contradictions to believe the greatest Mysteries Absurdities or Nonsense imaginable That one pure simple Act and Habit of Child-like Love to God is really more influencing to persevering Obedience and pleasing to God than the most Catholick Orthodoxy in the World He more truely knows God even by experience that loves him tho' but a Child than the most eloquent and subtile Teacher in the World that does not love But I am afraid nay I think I need not question it that the life of Religion is very much eat out and weakned by those many unreasonable Doctrines Whilst we have it taught either implicitly or expresly That God is the Author of Evil. One that made the greatest part of the Creation for that very end to be inevitably miserable for ever and consequently that they must needs be and continue Sinners to make them so That he is one that loves the Miseries of his Creatures and takes such pleasure in their Pains that he will bear with their Rebellion for ever rather than not have them unhappy That he made the most of them on purpose to shew his Power and Sovereignty in their everlasting Disorders Yea that that little number that he is said to be dearly hired and hardly perswaded to spare are continually afflicted with one Mischief or other from his hand tho' they are seeking him and crying after him continually he is not so ready to hear but often hides himself from them And yet that tho' this little number is sohardly saved they are infallibly sure of Salvation do or not do what they will Who would not rather be astonished and confounded and render'd inactive than influenced to love and obey God by these Doctrines When farther I am told that I cannot keep God's Commandments but that Christ hath keept them for me consequently my keeping them is not so necessary if suppos'd possible and God reckons Christ's Perfect Righteousness to be mine and I am perfect in him tho' I am not like minded all is done for me without me if I can but believe that is fancy so Ah but my Heart misgives me may one that considers say I fear that if Christ hath done all for me without me he will be happy also for me without me and I shall go to Heaven but by Proxy Who will be humbled before God and thankful for his free Beneficence and Forgiveness when we are perswaded that Christ hath purchased it at a full rate of him by his Doings yea and Sufferings for us and we may demand Happiness of God as our due But I fear many such Confidents will be put off with I know you not Nay how do we acknowledge God just and good and ready to forgive when we are perswaded that tho' he does not satisfie himself in punishing us for our Sins yet he will have them punished somewhere or other and rather than any where in the most Innocent Man Jesus on whom they say he laid all the Punishment or Misery due for the Sins of all Men and yet nevertheless most of them are damn'd and all of them die and that he reckon'd him guilty of others Sins tho' he were not so O Justice how unjustly hath the Malice of the Adversary represented the Fountain of Goodness and Justice But what shall the Generality of Mankind do What Encouragement shall they have to their Duty How shall they be stir'd up to seek Life and Happy Immortality especially the poor Convinced Souls that cannot get up so high as to read their Names in the Eternal Decree of Life or see yet much of the Effects thereof in themselves When they are told unless they are of that little number Christ has made Satisfaction for and ten thousand to one whether they be or no all their Repentance is in vain and their best Works are Sins in the sight of God tho' perhaps splendid Ones When they are taught that greater Goodness Justice Mercy Truth c. in one Man is less acceptible to God than much less in another and so God a Respecter of Persons Supposing I cannot perswade my self as I think all Predestinarians do that I am one of the Elect or do not believe that God has absolutely decreed either to save or damn any I am nevertheless convinced of my Sin and Duty as the way of Unhappiness or Happiness and would fain be happy Shall not I do my Duty on a Fancy that God has not decreed the Event or must I despair in it the former were but Madness the latter a miserable Condition But I must leave these things to the Thoughts of the Considerate and to them I would propose this Question What has been the reason that no more of Mankind have embraced Christianity and where has the fault been I think surely Original Goodness has not hinder'd nor has the fault been in the Christian Religion it self or in the want of the Love of Happiness in Mankind I believe you must confess that the generality of its Professors have discredited Christianity and given the World a false Draught or Picture thereof Till which is mended what hopes can we have of the Conversion to Christianity of those who have not from their inconsiderate years its Deformed Doctrines impos'd upon them and the disagreeing Lives of its Professors recommended to them What Expectations can we have of convincing Jews Turks and Pagans when not only the above-named Doctrines and an hundred more perhaps have represented Christianity as full of Contradictions and Absurdities and unsuitable to the Condition and Nature of Man But we even seem to differ in our Notions whether there be One or More Objects of Divine Worship insomuch that if those that have not yet embraced Christianity were to hear our Discourses and Forms of Worship they could not I believe but think that a great part of Christians believe and worship more Gods than One and even enjoin such a Faith and Practice upon pain of Damnation yea some of them having no better Arguments urge it by the Rack of Persecution while their Lives also are as different from Unity in pure Christian Morality Which now adays is distinguish'd from Religion O Times and a Moral Man is spoken of with Contempt in comparison with the Religious as a different Person But I must confess I look upon nothing as a Doctrine of Christianity or think can reasonably be represented as such or proved so to be by Scripture which does not naturally tend to promote Morality or Influence to those Good Manners which become our relation to God and which are convenient and profitable towards the true Interest of Mankind I would that Men would once come to try Doctrines by their natural Inferences and Tendencies then I should hope Truth would more appear But I must here conclude tho' I have been very short on every Particular I have been discoursing as unable now to write all I could wish to say of the Natural of the True Christian and of our Laodicean Religion promising my Reader an Answer to what he shall rationally object against whatever has been said in this Discourse and therewith a fuller Demonstration of things if God give me Life and Opportunity supposing that my whole Life must be spent in labouring against our common Errors if the Appearance of Christ don't bring on their Period sooner FINIS