become Brothel-houses 2. The holy Jesus wanted not Disciples even among the wise men of the Jews such was Simeon the Just the Scholar of Hillel who was filled with the Holy Ghost and after whose Death that Divine Spirit which inspired the great Synagogue departed from them John the Baptist who not only acknowledged Christ himself but sent his Disciples to him as to that Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world and Gamaliel is said to have followed the Apostles and to have been Simeon's Scholar And St. Paul who was a man of great Repute and Esteem with the Jews and sate at the feet of Gamaliel yet was afterward an Apostle of the holy Jesus and Josephus further informs us that the more sober and serious Jews who were Lovers of the Truth were such as followed Jesus and those that were studious and zealous for the Law sharply rebuked Ananus the High Priest for commanding the Disciples of Jesus to be stoned Object 2. Acts i. 6. Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel It was a current Opinion among the Jews in our Saviours time that the Messias should be a Temporal Monarch and redeem them from the yoke of the Romans as appears from this Question of the Disciples who doubtless spake the general sense of the Jews but they finding nothing in the Attempts and Actions of Jesus tending that way hence they could not believe him to be the promised Messias Answ Christ came into the World such as he was foretold to be that is humble and meek not with the Splendor and Glory of an earthly Prince but poor and despicable a man of sorrows and without form and comliness as it is predicted by Zechariah the Prophet Zech. ix 9. and Isa liii The End and Design of his coming was to appease the Anger of God by devoting himself for the Sins of men to destroy the Kingdom of the Devil and to make one body of Jews and Gentiles of which he himself should be the Head And 't is no way fit and agreeable for such an Undertaking to appear in earthly Splendor and Glory filling the World with Blood and Slaughter like another Alexander or Caesar by the Puissance of mighty Armies Wherefore the holy Jesus being to disseminate and promote the blessed Life of God upon Earth shewed his Divinity more refulgent by Vileness and Contempt his Power by Weakness and Infirmity his Glory by the Scorns of men and his Almighty Life and Virtue by Death and the Grave And if he had otherwise descended from the celestial Mansions than the Scriptures relate Man had entituled himself to part of the Glory of his Undertaking and the more splendid the Divine Life had appeared to outward view with the fainter Lustre had it shone in itself Besides that that Doctrin which Christ was to bring into the World and render acceptable to men by his own Example was quite contrary to the Gratifications of the Animal Life and too vile and base to be essential to the Perfection of Human Nature Object 3. Mat. xxvii 40. If thou be the Son of God come down from the Cross Answ He that came into the World clothed with human Flesh and in the several Actions of his Life manifested himself to be a true Man would now in this last Act keep a Decorum that as he was born into the world like other men partaking really of Flesh and Blood and all the Frailties and Infirmities of Mankind Sin only excepted so he would die like other men and suffer a real Separation of his Soul from his Body that we might be conformable to him in his Death and die unto Sin crucifying all our inordinate Lusts and Affections and descending into the Grave with him by a profound Humility and Mortification which is a sufficient Answer to this insulting Cavil of the Jews that if Jesus were the Son of God he must needs demonstrate it by a miraculous Descent from the Cross CHAP. IV. That-Christianity is every way fitted and accommodated for an effectual Recovery of lapsed and degenerated Mankind TO this purpose we must consider Man as a rational Being endued with Liberty of Will and a Lord of his own Actions and consequently must be treated according to those Faculties and Qualifications bestowed upon him by the gracious Bounty of his Creator And this being the Nature of Man he is not to be dealt withal like a Stock or Stone that is wholly inert and sluggish nor like a Beast that is acted and led only by the impulse of Sense but as indued with Reason and Intellect and capable of discriminating between real Good and Evil and this Principle in Man cannot be forced without the Destruction of his Nature but is allured and drawn by moral Arguments Wherefore the Design of God in the Gospel being to wind men off from Sin to a serious pursuit of Virtue and Goodness he makes use of such Arguments as are most powerful and efficacious for that end and most sutable to the Nature of Man As 1. What can more deter men from Wickedness and Vice than the sober pressing upon them the Consideration of a future day of Judgment wherein the just Judge of Heaven and Earth will impartially look into their Lives and dispose of them according to the moral Frame and Disposition of their Spirits To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory Honour and Immortality eternal Life But to them who do not obey the Gospel he will recompense Tribulation and Wrath. He that is convinc'd that the Scriptures are the Word of God must likewise believe that though God be patient and long-suffering not willing that any should perish yet he is likewise just and hates all Sin whatever and to convince all unbelieving and Atheistical Persons of his Displeasure against Wickedness and Vice he has appointed a Day wherein he will judge the World a Day wherein Jesus Christ the blessed Son of God shall visibly descend from Heaven accompanied with innumerable Legions of mighty Angels before whose Throne all wicked Men and Devils shall stand with Paleness and Horror expecting the Pronuntiation of that dreadful Sentence Go ye cursed into everlasting fire which final Doom and Sentence shall presently be executed upon them for through the stupendious Operation of the Son of God the infernal Treasures of Fire shall be opened and an universal Deluge of Flame shall spread itself over the Face of the aged Earth which shall be cleft and riven by terrible Eruptions of sulphureous Matter breaking forth with horrible Rage and Fury from the lower Regions and this together with Showers of Fire raining down from thick and pitchy Clouds shall wrap Universal Nature in a sheet of Flame and complete an external Hell where the Worm dieth not and the Fire is not quenched Tell me then O Man thou that thinkest Righteousness but an idle Name on whose hard and stubborn soul a Discourse of another
Life can make no Impression where will be the Objects of thy Love and Joy when the Heavens shall be dissolved the Elements melt with fervent Heat and the Earth with all the works therein be burnt up What shall support and bear up thy dying Hopes when all sensible things shall perish in this dreadful Conflagration Thinkest thou that the Holes of the Rocks or the secret Caverns of the Mountains can hide thee from his Eye which pierceth through Obscurity who is every where present by his mighty Power and to whom the Night is as bright as Noon-day Or will that just Judge who sits upon the Life and Death of all the Sons of Adam be bribed with thy Gold and Silver when the whole World is his and the Fulness thereof Surely nothing but Righteousness will then deliver from Death nothing but Innocence and Purity white as the Beams of Light can save the Souls of men from eternal Destruction Wickedness and Sin like a Talent of Lead shall sink down those Souls that have delighted in it into that sulphureous Lake where a most acute and searching Pain shall stick close to them and unspeakable Torments weary their restless Ghosts for ever A sad and pitiable Calamity but as just as great for the blessed Author of all things does not make Laws to ensnare the Creation nor does he directly and primarily intend Punishment but has entailed that upon Disobedience that men might consider and beware and in time provide for their Reception into all that Happiness God made them for and which he by threatning Punishment so affectionately desires they should enjoy 2. That there might be nothing wanting to enforce the foregoing Consideration the Scripture manifestly resolves our good or ill Being in the other Life to depend upon our Deportment in this It is in this life that we lay the trains of our future Happiness or Misery and every moral Action has an Influence either good or bad upon Eternity and here it is that we have a vital Union and Conjunction either with Hell or Heaven To be born into this World is not only a Punishment but a state of Probation to us Mortals wherein he that acquits himself generously and nobly fighting manfully against the World the Flesh and the Devil and returns with the Spoils and Trophies of his conquered Enemies to his beloved Lord shall be crowned with an eternal weight of Glory but he that through faint-heartedness and cowardice yields himself a willing Captive to his Lusts and Corruptions sparing those rebellious Sins and Affections with whom the Captain of our Salvation has sworn War for ever he combines and unites himself to a living Hell and no sooner is his Soul dislodg'd from its earthly Fabrick but it descends into those Regions of Bitterness and Sorrow with which it so wilfully sought a Cognation and Affinity in this Life And he that will but patiently lend an ear to this cannot so obstinately forsake his own good nor delay and put off his Repentance by imagining the day of Judgment a great way off and not likely to overtake him For no sooner has Death disseized him of his terrestrial Tenement but that universal Nemesis which pervades the whole World will fatally convey him to such a Place and Society as he had prepared and accommodated himself for here on Earth And he that obstinately rejects the Counsel of God and sets at nought all his Reproofs will find that the Wrath of the Lord can reach him and he will have little or no Possibility left to better himself in the other World 3. For the more ingenuous sort who are rather attracted and won by the Expressions of Kindness and Love than the Fear of external Punishment what can more prevail with them than to behold the ever-blessed Son of God who lived in the boundless Tracts of Truth and Righteousness forsake those celestial Mansions and come down and take a Body of Flesh and Blood and here lead an obscure and evanid Life persecuted and afflicted never seeing good days but always carrying an heart full of Pensiveness and Sorrow and at last die a painful and ignominious Death upon the Cross and all this to recover and free the race of Mankind from the Tyranny and Slavery of Sin What can this but beget a suitable return of Love in every ingenuous Soul What kind heart is there that this Spectacle will not fill with Tears of Love and Joy and with the most endearing Expressions devote itself to a faithful Obedience of so compassionate a Saviour 4. The Promises of the Gospel are most suitable means for the reinstating men in the Possession of Gods own Life that possibly can be offered to the World For he that considers how deeply Vice and Iniquity are radicated in our very Natures and what great Diligence and Care is required to extirpate even a single Habit which of a long time hath gotten an entire and full possession of our minds and withal reflects on the crazy and sickly state of our most generous and manly Faculties how bedwarfed and unable they are to resist through a continued imbibition of a sweet Poyson from Sense cannot but conclude the Evangelical Oeconomy would be very lame and imperfect were it not instructed and furnish'd with Arguments sufficient to countermand and outbalance the importunate Solicitations of the degenerate Principles of Unrighteousness and Sin And indeed were not a Crown of Glory the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our holy Faith were not Virtue countenanced with an appendent Felicity the Face of the World would now appear as squalid and deformed as in its first and greatest Brutishness and Barbarity For who would seek the Renovation of decayed Righteousness or who would entertain afflicted and oppressed Holiness if its Reward did not fully answer and compensate whatever Troubles Difficulties and Molestations do attend it Who would buy Religion with the Expence of all his temporal Interests nay of his Life itself if he were not assured the Happiness laid up for holy and incorrupt Souls did infinitely transcend and exceed the choicest Pleasures and Gratifications that are to be met withal in this Region of Mutability And that such a Course and Order of things should be taken is not only a merciful Provision of the good and wise Creator of all things towards us Sons of Sense but gives us a full Evidence and Assurance that his Intentions for the Recovery of the World are real and sincere and renders unsuspected the grand Dispensation of Christianity For had the Gospel propounded only intellectual Notions and solicited our choice by things most remote from Sense while we were so fatally entangled and opprest with the Incumbrances of dull Mortality such a Design would rather confound and amaze the Faculties and Capacities of men than prove any whit serviceable for the regaining their antient Liberty and Command like a potent and vigorous Light set before weak and distempered Eyes which rather blinds than affords
them a true and faithful discrimination of Objects Wherefore Divine Wisdom hath treated the Sons of men after a sensible manner and engaged them by Arguments that more forcibly strike their Fancies and Imaginations and have a greater Influence for the promoting the indispensable Duties of Sanctity and Truth than any terrestrial Pleasure can possibly be allective to the contrary 'T is true if Religion could consist with Avarice Vain-Glory and Ambition the covetous Miser who rips up the Bowels of the Earth for Treasure and spins out his Life in a golden Thread would become a Proselyte and he who seeks to ride upon the shoulders of the Multitude and lives upon the Air and Breath of Popular Applause would need no Inducements to turn Christian But when things go directly contrary and he that will be a sincere Disciple of the Son of God must crucifie his rebellious Lusts and descend into the Grave of Mortification and cashier every inordinate Motion and Desire that hinders or any way obstructs his approach to so inestimable a good as the Possession of the blessed Life of God and this not to be done without indefatigable Industry and Care and as it were a Dilaceration of himself from himself that is a forcible Subjection of that grand Principle of our Apostasie and Deviation from God which is so mischievously powerful to the Commands and Laws of our superior Life there is no man can doubt but that the Promises of the Gospel are infinitely necessary in order to that weighty Design eternal Wisdom seeks to carry on by the Promulgation of them to the World Which Promises we may refer to these three general Heads 1. Pardon of all our Sins upon a true Repentance and sincere Conformity of our Minds and Spirits to the Will of God And this was the great End of Christs coming into the World that he might reconcile it unto God and assure guilty Sinners who had made themselves obnoxious to Divine Wrath and Displeasure that if they will return to their Loyalty and Obedience and express an unfeigned Repentance by sincere Purposes and Resolutions of a new Life God will forgive their past Trespasses and remember their Iniquities no more The whole Gospel what else is it but a free and gracious Declaration of Pardon and Forgiveness to the World which as it takes away all direful and jealous Thoughts which criminal Persons through a Conscience of their own Guiltiness and Sin and frequent Presages of Divine Vengeance are apt to retain of God so it gives them a true and faithful Representation of his Nature that he is no dreadful and hurtful Being encircled with Tempests and devouring Flames no Tyrant whose arbitrary Love or Hate are the Rules and Laws of his Government but an Almighty Goodness whose pregnant Fecundity gave Life and Being to the whole Creation and studiously endeavours the Conservation of all things in all that Happiness their Natures are capable of This was it to which the holy Jesus bare witness and published to the Sons of men by going about doing good and diffusing a Spirit of real Righteousness throughout the World He took it upon his Death that this was true that God did infinitely desire the Reconciliation of the World to himself and that not for any Self-Ends or Designs for what can accrue to him who is infinite Life and eternally possessed of whatever speaks Perfection but for the sole Good and Welfare of things themselves that every Being might obtain that Place and Order in the Universe and enjoy all that Felicity to which it was at first intended and from which nothing but its own wilful Wretchedness could degrade it For Gods Justice is nothing but his Goodness Power and Wisdom imployed for the Maintenance and Conservation of what is eternally just and right and if this may be done without Extremity and Rigour his Goodness doth as much oblige him to take the gentlest and mildest Course as any man can pretend his Justice for exact Punishment and Severity But that all the Attributes of the Deity might be at once secured and fallen Man restored to a Capacity of being made happy again Christ appearing in human Nature hath undertaken the Cause of Man and given himself a Ransom for all the Punishment due to us being transferred on him and through the Sacrifice and Death of Jesus God is upon terms of Peace and Friendship with the World and proclaims a free Indulgence to all who will lay down their Hostility and Rebellion and become obedient Subjects to his Kingdom God takes no advantage against any man to destroy him and 't is a horrid Impiety in us to suspect him of Treachery and Deceit and to represent God to our minds in such a fearful Garb and Image as eternally wishing the Destruction of the greatest part of his Creatures is no less Idolatry than to fall down and worship the Works of our own hands 2. The powerful Assistance of Gods Spirit to enable us to perform his Commands When the great Love the holy Apostles bare to the Lord Christ made them sorrowful for his Departure they supposing he would then leave them to the Mercies of a faithless and perverse Generation he takes Compassion on his Charge and assures them that when the time comes that his bodily Presence should be withdrawn from them he would not leave them destitute and forsaken but send the Comforter the Spirit of Truth unto them who should not only perform the Office of an Advocate in pleading and maintaining the Justice of his Cause against the unrighteous World but be a Principle of Love and Purity in their hearts and conduct them through the various Windings and Obliquities of Error and Falshood into the plain and easie Paths of Truth and Righteousness And for a Confirmation of this Promise he appeals to common Sense and the Evidence of all Mankind If ye who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall your heavenly Father from whom all Creatures proceed and upon whom they depend more intimately than Faculties and Actions upon the Principles from whence they flow bestow his Holy Spirit upon them that ask it of him Wherefore that no man might despair and count it an impossible thing to atchieve a perfect Victory and Conquest over his Lusts and Corruptions God has promised that the Business shall not be transacted by our own single Effort and solitary Endeavours but that we shall have the powerful Aid of his blessed Spirit than which nothing can be a more vigorous Encouragement For what can resist his Almighty Energy and Virtue or what can be so stubborn and refractory that he cannot render sequacious and obedient who at first brought all things out of nothing Be our Lusts never so mighty and gigantick and the Powers of Darkness never so resolutely armed against us yet the Strength and Assistance derived to us from Heaven is able to put to flight all our Enemies and make us perfectly
victorious The Spirit of God is no dull and sluggish Principle but a quick and active Life and into whatever Soul it enters it is perpetually cleansing and purifying and refining it till it have wholly extirpated and destroyed whatever beats no similitude with itself and rendred the whole Man an immaculate Temple for the Manifestation of its own glorious Presence Let no man then pretend an invincible Infirmity or that he is fatally bound and enslaved to Sin and Vice for if we would but excite those Powers God has given us and by ardent Breathings invocate the gracious Auxiliaries of Heaven there would be Wonders wrought upon our Souls the Strength of our Corruptions would abate and our furious Passions be restrained and reduced into Discipline and Order 3. The last general Head is the Promise of a future and blessed Immortality in Heaven when this present Life is ended The blessed Jesus while he lived upon Earth did not wholly obscure his Glory in the mantle of Flesh and Blood but gave a notable Specimen of that efficacious Life and Power which as he himself was already possessed of so all those that believe in his Name should hereafter be endued withal which should melt their Corruptible into Incorruption and translate them to the quiet and peaceful Regions of Immortality in his Transfiguration upon Mount Tabor which was enough to call off the Thoughts and Cares of men from the trifling Concerns of this World and teach them that there was a better Portion to be expected for all the Sons of God and Virtue in the pure and undefiled Mansions of Heaven where dwells nothing but Truth and Goodness But the most lively and pregnant Evidence of the future Subsistence of our Souls was his glorious Resurrection from the dead whereby as he was declared to be the Son of God with Power so it gives us a full Assurance and convictive Demonstration even to outward Sense that the comfortless Chambers of the Grave shall not for ever detein us but that when he who is our Life shall appear and summon Earth and Sea to deliver up their dead and open the secret Receptacles of Souls then shall all holy and righteous Persons appear with him in Glory and take possession of their long expected Joy and receive the just Recompence of all their Pains and Labours an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved by a gracious Providence in the Heavens for them All Power is committed into the hands of Christ who hath vanquished Death and Hell and captivated all the Powers of Darkness and begotten us to a lively Hope that when we shall put off our Mortality and be released from all terrestrial Pressures and Incumbrances he will cloth us with an heavenly Body like unto his own Body of Light and Glory But lest we should undo ourselves with fruitless Expectations and flie to Heaven in our vain Dreams of Salvation before our sincere Conformity to Gods blessed Will and Commands has rendred us capable of that pure and holy State fancying we can read our Names written among the Stars before we have learnt the Precepts of a holy Life God hath annexed Conditions of Obedience to all his Promises and resolved that no man shall be crowned but he that with Courage and Perseverance maintains the War against Sin and Hell And indeed the Reward that is promised to all virtuous Persons in the Gospel hath so great Affinity and Agreement with Holiness the Condition of it that in the Nature of the thing itself he cannot be capable of the one who is not aforehand invested with the other For what is Heaven but a state of spotless Love and Purity where no Envy nor Malice straitens and contracts the boundless and enlarged no clouds of Passion or disordered Lust obscure the Brightness of that eternal Day where the Sun of Righteousness neither rises nor sets upon the Horizon of Time but remains Vertical for ever And now what Concord can possibly be imagined between such transcendent Beauty and Glory and the Deformity and Ugliness of the Frame and Temper of an unrighteous mans Spirit where every thing lies cross and untoward and his unruly Desires like the boisterous Waves enraged by a sudden Storm sweep the bottom of his polluted Soul and throw up so much Mire and Dirt that it defaces whatever is comely and leaves not the least Emblem of Heaven to be discerned in it This is the grand importance of the Promises of the Gospel which is enough to demonstrate the prudent Care and dear Affection of the Son of God to the Children of Men and a sufficient Manifestation of the great Ingratitude and Unworthiness of those who do not believe in him that it is not the Want of Reasons or convictive Arguments but their own careless and wretchless Neglect of Consideration that makes them deaf to such Charms of Love and stupid and unmindful of so important Interests But men seldom want Objections against that which they have no mind to believe against this therefore 't is said That if the Promises of that eternal Reward Christ has made to us in the Gospel be so framed as to be inevident to men and leave them place of doubting it will be no such great Crime in wicked Persons not to believe those Promises and so not to embrace them To this I say 1. That the Gospel leaves no such place of doubting as to make Infidelity or a Disbelief of it excusable For Unbelief can then only be excusable when there are really wanting such Arguments as may beget Faith in a rational and unprejudic'd Person But the Gospel and the Promises thereof being sufficiently confirmed by such prevalent Reasons as are apt to acquire Belief and Credence from an unbias'd Nature the pretended Inevidence where there is no just Cause or Suspicion of Doubting cannot at all patronize Infidelity nor be a reasonable ground to act contrary to what Belief would otherwise incite them It s true were the Arguments for the Disbelief of the Promises of Life and Salvation equal to and strong as those that perswade us to the Belief of them there would be some Colour and Appearance of Reason for rejecting them but when there can be no such Doubting or Fluctuation of Judgment as proceeds from an Equilibration of Arguments on both sides it is impossible that Infidelity should have any rational Apology For what can be more convictive than to have some holy and divine Person come into the World who should by many infallible Miracles Wonders and Signs give an evident Proof that he came from God and for a full Confirmation of his Doctrin rise from the dead the third day after the suffering a painful and ignominious Death and to shew that he was no Spectrum or illusive Phantasm conversing with his Disciples for the space of forty days and afterwards ascending in their Presence into the highest Heavens there to rule and govern his Church till the End of
the World to testifie which his Apotheosis he sends down his holy Spirit upon his Apostles and enables them to speak with Tongues and do Miracles which Scheme of Providence doth so palpably evince the Interposition and Efficiency of a Deity and that all these things hapned by his actual concurrence that he must on purpose blind his eyes who will not see it 2. All the place of doubting which is left to us in the Belief of the Promises of the Gospel is no other than what may be in the highest moral Certainty imaginable It only leaves a Possibility that notwithstanding all the Arguments brought to confirm it it may yet be otherwise Every thing is not capable of a Mathematical Demonstration but the ways of Probation are different according to the Diversity of Subjects And certainly he will be a very imprudent man that will neglect an important Affair to the Undertaking of which he hath highly probable Reasons only because 't is possible it may be otherwise 3. It was a great piece of Divine Wisdom so to order the Gospel that the Promises of Life and Salvation should not be so evident as those things that are known by Sense or Demonstration but only so far as might conciliate Faith in a rational Person that thereby the wicked Tempers and Dispositions of men might the more plainly be discovered If the Gospel had been so demonstratively certain so as to exclude all Doubting i. e. Possibility to the contrary all men would have been forced and necessarily good and all that Praise which is due to the embracing of Virtue would have been lost but now that men believe when notwithstanding there is a Possibility to the contrary the Trial of their Faith will be found unto Praise and Honour and Glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ For what Praise is due unto him that believes not out of Choice but from the necessary and demonstrative Truth of the Thing itself Let not any man therefore flatter himself with hopes that this will patronize and defend his Infidelity that it was possible the Evangelical Promises might be uncertain but let him consider upon what account his Faith induces him to act in the Affairs of the World Will a human Faith be sufficient to perswade the Merchant to commit his Life and Fortunes to the flattering Waves when he knows not but a merciless Pyrat or the next succeeding Storm may bereave him of both Will the Souldier march all day scalded with Heat or pinched with the Northern Cold and expose his Body to a Storm of Bullets and Swords drunk with his Companions Blood and all for the Spoils of an uncertain Conquest Shall this be able to put us upon Action and shall not the Belief of the Gospel which is not half so uncertain or inevident as this We need no such firm ground to build our Faith upon in matters of the World and therefore we are utterly inexcusable if we do not believe in the Son of God who hath brought Life and Immortality to light FINIS Lib. 7. contra Celsum 1 Cor. 2.13 1.27 1 John 2.12 c. Lib. 4 contra Celsum Euseb Praepar lib. 5. De Praesc adv Haereticos Lib. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ why born of a Virgin Of the Star * The same the Colledge of Priests affirmed of the Comet that appeared at the Ludi Veneris Genetâ—icis instituted by Augustus Plin. l. 2 c. 25. And Virg. Ecl 4. Ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris Astrum Of the VVise Men. Christ God and Man