the Essential wisdome of his Father and his Discourses full of Life and Power who himself was transcendently anointed with the Spirit of God and able and willing to bestow the same according as the needs and necessities of Men required yet Jesus the Author and finisher of the salvation of Men was not always succesful but oft-times that precious and Immortal seed which he sow'd fell upon a Rock and there were some that rejected the Counsel of God against themselves and Many believed not on him and others went back and walked no more with him Shall we say now that the Spirit of God did not accompany those excellent Sermons of Jesus Christ If it did his Energy and Operation was not Absolute and Unconditionate since it was repulsed and took no effect on many Or is it not rather plain that the cause lay in the stubborness and obstinacy of their own wills according as Christ himself tells the Jews I would but ye would not A like form of Speech God uses to their rebellious Ancestors Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged that is I have done my part towards it but thou wouldst not do thine Nor can I imagine if the work of Men's Conversion depended so wholly upon the Power of God that no precedent Qualifications were necessary to invite the Spirit of God to fall to work why Men's obstinate incredulity should debar Christ from working Miracles as we find it did or why he should not require a tractable frame of mind as a precedent Qualification for the exertion of his Almighty Power in the cure of spiritual as well as corporal diseases Nay the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour were so far from imagining an irresistible Power accompanying the outward Word that St. Stephen tells the Jews they did resist the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did 2. From those Arguments the Spirit of God makes use of under the Gospel wherein Men are treated with according to their Rational Natures and wrought off from Vice and sin to a firm and permanent adhesion to Virtue by kindness and love by hopes and fears by the inevitableness of impendent mischiefs and by the security of future rewards Which Oeconomy had been altogether supervacaneous if God had engaged his Omnipotent Power to make Men good Under the Gospel we are perswaded to Holiness and Righteousness by the easiness pleasantness and satisfaction of such a state to which our minds being once arrived they feel a full and entire Acquiescence and ineffable joy a Pleasure resulting from the connaturality and agreeableness of those Beautiful Forms with the inmost sense of our own Souls And because the dispositions of Mankind are various and different some being incouraged to Action out of a Principle of Gratitude and innate Nobility others not easily won but by Advantage and Interest others again not without menaces of a severe and uneasie Discipline therefore God in the Evangelical Dispensation hath interwoven the most effectual and cogent Arguments to meet with each of these tempers in Men. To the first he propounds the consideration of the Death and Passion of his only begotten Son who being in the form of God and dwelling in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Glory yet out of that dear and ineffable love and compassion which he always bare to the race of Mankind was content to banish himself from those Blessed Regions and put on our Servile Scheme being born into the World a helpless Infant subject to perpetual sorrows and afflictive circumstances leading an obscure and contemptible life befriended of few and at last dying upon that uneasie Bed of sorrows the Cross that so his Death might be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World Which cannot but enravish every Ingenuous Breast and fill it with the highest and most faithful love to so kind and compassionate a Saviour But there being almost as few of this sort of Men as there were of old of those that embraced Virtue for it self and esteemed it eligible though divested of all appendant Rewards therefore that Eternal Wisdome which has interessed it self in the Frame and Conduct of the Gospel propounds an advantageous Portion to the sincere and unblameable Professors of Piety and Holiness and assures them that their labour shall not be in vain but that their sorrows shall find refreshment their hardships and difficult enterprises ease and pleasure and their faithful Perseverance in Righteousness be recompenced with the Happiness of possessing glorified and Immortal Bodies in the highest Heavens And if it shall happen the minds of Men to be deaf to all the charms of Gratitude and Advantage to the Allectives of good Nature and Interest and there be no way left to awake them out of their stupidity but by the Voice of Thunder then Jesus Christ the Soveraign of Men and Angels is represented to Us in Scripture coming in the Clouds of Heaven attended with Thousands of Angels to take Vengeance on those that have not known God nor obeyed his Laws and Commands And by his Powerful Operation the Seeds and Principles of Fire shall be excited and that quick and Active Element insinuate and pervade all the Commissures and Parts of the Earth and a Deluge of Flame as once of Waters shall overspread the Face of the World Into which sulphureous and burning Lake the Devil and his Angels and all those who in this life delight in wickedness and cast the fear of God behind their backs shall be plunged to Eternal Ages These are the Arguments which are dispersed up and down and urged in the Holy Scriptures as so many tyes and bands to engage us to a faithful and peremptory prosecution of the indispensable Laws of Righteousness and Truth and which as well in their own Nature as in the manner and way of their Proposal do evidently declare that they are not fatal and necessary but moral Instruments of propagating and diffusing the Life and Nature of God and as all other Rational means of Perswasion may by an obstinate and perverse spirit be slighted and contemned And certainly the Nature of the thing it self requires it should be so for if the whole conduct of Mens souls in order to their salvation were nothing but the effects and emanations of a peremptory and uncontrollable Power there would be no place left for those large Encomium's of Wisdome in this great affair Wisdome being Inventrix Mediorum and then most of all discovers its excellency in fixing and determining upon such ways as shall operate effectually and yet congruously and agreeably to the Nature of Men Moral Agents requiring Moral Instruments to allure and invite them to Action But lest any Man should carelesly mistake me and think that what I have said tends to the invalidating and weakning our belief of the Powerful Assistance of the Spirit of God I do confidently affirm That no Man ought or can attribute his beginning progress and
consider that in the contrivance conduct and management of the Gospel there is a clear and manifest demonstration of the Infinite Goodness Wisdome and Power of God I. A manifestation of Infinite Goodness The Heavens and the Earth and all the capacities of Immense space declare an Infinite Goodness but the clearest and most sensible demonstration of it is in this Mystery of the Gospel wherein that boundless love which has dispersed it self through all the orders and degrees of life shines forth with a full and perfect lustre and glory Here it is that we behold that Love which liberally fills and sustains all things more powerfully exerting its Blessed Nature in cementing the Ruines and rearing up the Foundations of a new World for as in the first Creation an Eternal and Energetical love diffused it self in the Production of whatever was made so the same Goodness moves as it were a second time in the stupendious renovation of lapsed Souls in the Evangelical Mystery and Oeconomy Which Truth may yet receive a further Evidence by these Gradations 1. The more perfect any life is the more it desires to diffuse and communicate it self God is love says St. John and he is the highest and most perfect life now love is the most diffusive and communicative Principle in all the World and the firmer any being is radicated in love the nearer approaches it makes to that most excellent life and nature of God whose beneficence and kindness the whole Creation tastes of Self-love or the love of the Carkass the Bodily life restrains and contracts the free Exertions of the Mind and therefore the Apostle sets it as a note of degeneracy narrowness and anxiety when Men shall be lovers of themselves and corporeal pleasures in opposition to that Universal and Intellectual love which is the great Law of Rational Beings and by which our Minds are made wide as the World and carried forth in Benignity and Kindness to all the Creatures as they more or less partake of the Divine Life and Nature God is infinite Goodness and all the Creatures are but the issues and emanations of his exuberant Fecundity and Life and do more intimately depend upon him than Faculties and Actions upon the Principles from whence they flow It was not necessity or need nor any greedy and thirsty desire of receiving praise and glory from them that was the cause of the production of Men and Angels but only the Fulness of God's own Goodness which alone moved him to that chearful Approbation of the Works of his Hands when he saw his own life diffused in such variety of Beings And if we will do honour to God and speak according to our own faculties we may add life to this Demonstration from the inward sense and experience of every good Man who never finds a more inward joy and satisfaction of spirit than when he is carried out in desires and aspirations of Benignity and Kindness towards the whole Creation Nor does he look upon this as any Argument of Righteousness that he is at any time in a more happy state and condition than others for he could be willing that all the World were as happy as himself did he not see strong and evident Reasons in the wise Administration of Providence why it should not be so Something of this excellent Temper we find in those Passionate Eruptions of Spirit recorded in the Scriptures of Holy men who seem to be altogether transformed into love Blot me out of thy Book says Moses and I could be content to be accursed from Christ says St. Paul for my Brethrens sake Nay I am verily perswaded that he who is once throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love would be contented to be eternally separated from the Presence of God so that he might be without sin if by that means the whole Intellectual Creation might be made happy Now if we can reason any thing of God from those Perfections we find in our selves we must needs conclude the highest and most perfect life to be most diffusive and communicative of it self 2. Goodness is so much the more excellent as the Objects are more noble about which it is conversant All things feel the effects of Divine Goodness according to their different Measures and Proportions and by how much the Rational life hath more objective reality than the sensitive by so much are the Emanations of Goodness of more worth and excellency communicated to the one than those diffused upon the other As a Man is a more noble Creature than a Brute so is the Goodness concerned with him higher and of greater value than that exercised upon a Beast God is the Father of Spirits and for that very Reason will not be implacable and irreconcileable to his own dear off-spring but though he chastise and scourge them for their bold and audacious revolt from his blessed Nature yet will not cast off for ever but in his sorest corrections remembers mercy Hence is that Prophetical Speech of the end of Christ's Death that it should be for the gathering together the scattered Sons of God though the Souls of Men had voluntarily forsaken God and travelled into a strange Land though their Iniquities had scattered them into far distant places from their own Home yet an everlasting Goodness followed them still and carefully sought the Reduction of those disobedient Sons of God who had divided and separated themselves from him 3. By how much the more fatal desperate and universal the evil is by so much the more glorious is the Goodness imployed in the recovery of the Creature from it Sin and wickedness is the misery not of a part only but of the whole Race of Mankind and this their Degeneracy became so fatal that it brought Darkness and Death it self upon all their better Faculties and placed them in an utter Incapacity for ever of recovering themselves by their own solitary power and effort into that state of immortality and life which sin had deprived them of Death passed upon all men says St. Paul for that or forasmuch as all have sinned So that all Mankind by their fall from God were under the Reign Dominion and Power of sin and death and out of this thraldome and captivity no Man could extricate and deliver himself whereby their condition became very deplorable and desperate But Divine Goodness that it might shew it self more conspicuously and gloriously to the World has brought on a more chearful scene of things under the Gospel rescuing Men from the Power of sin and death and delivering them from the Tyranny of the Devil through the meritorious Death and Passion of Jesus Christ who by his Glorious Resurrection hath fully declared himself a Powerful Conqueror of all his Enemies assuring Mankind of their re-enjoyment of Immortality and redeeming them from their Captivity under the Empire of Sin and Death and translating them into the peaceful Kingdome of Life and Righteousness Now as the
Life and Nature to a participation of it again And this he hath done by sending his own Son into the World to become an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of all Mankind For should God have cast Men off for ever and thrown them into Hell though he had still been Just and Righteous in his Actions and declared but a high dislike of that which his Essential Holiness could never patronize or countenance yet his Goodness and Love had not so conspicuously and gloriously appeared On the other hand should God have received the World into grace and favour forgiving their Iniquities without any previous satisfaction for sin though he might have done this without any breach of the Eternal Purity and Justice of his Nature yet he had not so sensibly affected the minds of Men with his just aversation of sin nor so effectually discovered to them his Anger and Displeasure against all evil and wickedness But now in the Death of Jesus Christ God has reconciled Goodness and Holiness Justice and Mercy punishing sin and yet saving the sinner Behold therefore and wonder at the Ineffable Goodness and Transcendent love of God! Could not Man redeem his Brother and give unto God a Ransome for him No surely for that Sacrifice that is presented and offered up to God must be without spot and blemish but when the Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men he beheld them all gone aside and become filthy so that there was not one that did good no not one But if this might not be yet could not God have declared his will to us by an Angel by a Voice from Heaven or by uniting himself to the Angelical Nature Certainly he might but none of these ways could have been with such endearing circumstances with such sensible Testimonies of dear Compassion and Benignity as enravish ingenuous Minds into sutable Returns and expressions of love Jesus Christ therefore the Delights of his Father the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image and character of his Person took flesh and dwelt among us He that was in the form of God clothed with all the Majesty and Glory of the supramundane life yet emptyed himself of all this unspeakable Felicity and took upon him the form of a Servant i. e. an Earthly or a body of flesh and blood in opposition to that state which he before called the form of God and being found in that servile scheme he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross What higher expressions of love can Humane Understandings possibly conceive than these The endearing love of Friends could never give any greater evidence of it self than that they lay down their lives one for another but such was the transcendent love of Jesus that he dyed for Rebels for Apostates from that sacred life of God to which alone the Soveraign Command and Rule both of Heaven and Earth does of right belong Behold him a Man of sorrows exposed to the envy hatred and malice of the cruel and unbelieving Jews and yet so inwardly affected with tenderness and commiseration towards them that he omits nothing which a Heart enflamed with love and compassion could do to make them happy And though God in his Eternal Wisdome foresaw the accursed Disposition of the Jewish Nation who as they had been heretofore thirsty after the blood of the Prophets and righteous Men so now would never leave till they had satiated their Revenge in the Blood of his only begotten Son yet he delivers him up into their hands for so the Apostle speaks that they had taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that was given out of the protecting hand and providence of God to the will of his Enemies A love which the Tongues of Men and Angels are never able sufficiently to express And as the Infinite love of God appears in this way of saving Men by Christ Jesus so his severity and hatred against sin is no less manifest and conspicuous for in that God spared not his own Son but delivered him up to Death it is a sufficient proof and Argument of his utter Detestation of all sin and evil No circumstance of his bitter Passion but speaks forth the heavy wrath and indignation of God against sin When he came into the Garden of Gethsemane where began the first Scene of his Tragical Passion the Scripture tells us that he was sore amazed and very heavy and this inward grief and ineffable trouble of his soul he expresses in that Passionate speech to his Disciples My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death not only extensively such as must last till Death it self do end it but likewise intensively so great as is usually at the very point of Death And whence arose this sorrow It was not out of any cowardly fear of pain and death for knowing all things that should come upon him yet with a firm constancy and sedate Resolution of mind he comes to his implacable Enemies at Jerusalem and when he was betrayed in the Garden he willingly offers himself into their hands I am he Though certain it is our Blessed Saviour bearing about him our Humane Nature was likewise subject to all the harmless Passions and affections of it and was so far from that Stoical stubbornness and insensibility that his Passive and tender Constitution filled him with grief and yielded to the fear of pain and Death Nor did his sorrow proceed from any displeasure of God against his Person for he being perfectly obedient and fully and exactly conformable to his Fathers will it could not be that he should groan under the anger and wrath of God Nor was it altogether Bodily pains that made him so but there was something extraordinary As 1. A withdrawing the sensibleness of Divine Assistance from him As the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion though not disjoyned from the World yet for a time deserted the World by withdrawing his light from it And although this withholding the sensibleness of the Divine Presence was done without any Aversation and dislike of the Person of our blessed Lord which not only before but at that very instant was tenderly beloved of God yet the Apprehension of it could not but make him bemoan his case in that sad exclamation My God my God why or how hast thou forsaken me 2. Because then all the Powers of Hell and darkness were let loose upon him The Prince of Darkness with his accursed Legions did then as we may reasonably suppose appear to him in the most affrighting and dreadful forms and by the Permission of Divine Providence exerted and tryed the utmost of their Insulting Rage in these their last and most furious Assaults the Conquest and Victory over whom being to be atchieved not by the Divine Power but by the Piety and Obedience of our Saviour he falls into an Agony and an Angel descends from
therefore sensual and hypocritical Persons judge it to be hard troublesome and uneasie But 3dly Men generally distempered as they are have no mind to set upon Religion in good earnest They are for the most part in love with sin and Vice is become customary and natural and because 't is some trouble to root out and extirpate an habitual corruption therefore they fairly lay Religion by as a thing too austere and unpleasant So that there is not so much difficulty in Religion as in bringing men to entertain firm purposes and resolutions of embracing it that is of bettering their lives by it Were but Men sincere in their endeavours after holiness and the participation of the nature of God the pretended roughness and asperity of Religion would quickly wear off and they would see that its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths peace By which it appears that notwithstanding all the objections of our sensual and animal life that it is possible nay easie for us to become sincere Christians and that the commands of God are so far from being Tyrannical and grievous that they are the most agreeable to our Intellectual and Rational Natures 2. It is necessary that Man be endued with a sufficient Power For though the conditions of salvation be in themselves possible yet if we be not put into a capacity and endued with power from on high sufficient for the performance of them we are never the better Though the walking of a Mile be a thing possible and feasible yet it is impossible for him that has lost the use of his Legs If Christ when he cured the Impotent and Lame in the Gospel by bidding them Rise up and walk had not at the same time confirmed and strengthned their feeble Limbs his command had been utterly ineffectual So although we through our own fault are fallen into a state of sin and misery weakness and imperfection yet if God intend to better our condition and to recover us to our former life and health he must confer upon us such a Power as may make his Design effectual It is confessed that all Mankind have utterly disabled themselves for the attainment of everlasting Blessedness by their own naked and solitary endeavours but God out of his free goodness and love making a new Covenant with the World and propounding certain terms and conditions upon which they may again be made happy it is altogether repugnant with his Infinite Wisdome and Justice to require of Men the performance of these Conditions without enduing them with a sufficient strength for that purpose Should God offer life and salvation upon the terms of the Gospel and yet never endue us with an ability to embrace and accept of them it would not be a design worthy of him nor agreeable with those serious professions and Desires of our Immortal Happiness For the fuller Illustration of this we must know that God hath always declared his delight in the Felicity and his aversation of the misery and destruction of his Creatures and lest we should question the reality of this his love he has confirmed it with an Oath As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked And this fervent desire of the good and welfare of the World moved him to enter into a Covenant with them in Christ Jesus Now as in all mutual compacts and stipulations between Parties there are terms and conditions on both sides and each Party obliges himself to the performance of something So in this great Indenture or Covenant which God has made with the World he is graciously pleased to oblige himself to do something for us and we are likewise tyed to the observation of certain Articles and conditions required on our part And this notion of the Gospel seems to be intimated by the Apostle 2 Tim. 2.19 The Foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal the Lord knows who are his And let every one that names the Name of Christ depart from iniquity Where give me leave to insert what a very learned Man observes concerning the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translation renders foundation That the Hebrew word to which it answers in the Rabbinical Dialect is used for Tabulae contractûs a Bill of contract and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies the Compact or Covenant of God for the very mentioning of a Seal here implyes a Bill of Contract for Bills of Contract had their Seals appendant to them each side whereof had his Motto the one suiting with the one party contrahent the other with the other To this the Apostle here alludes God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he standeth sure that is God's Bill of Contract or his Chirographum having a Seal according to the manner the one side whereof carries this Motto The Lord knows them that are his i. e. he will never fail to own those who continue faithful to him the other this Let every man that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity which if he do not he forfeits all the Priviledges which he might otherwise hope for from this Covenant of the Gospel And this God's entring into a Covenant is in other terms expressed by being reconciled to the World God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not so as to take all Men immediately into Heaven but so far as to put all Mankind by the Gospel into a capacity of salvation To which end and purpose amongst other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gratuitous Donations which God hath freely engaged himself to bestow this is one very considerable the giving of all men sufficient power and strength to inable them to perform his will and commands so as he will accept of Which very thing is made a part of God's holy Covenant that he would grant unto us i. e. that he would give us power as the word is used Revel 11.3 or qualify us with a sufficient strength and ability to serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives For the further proof of this I shall offer these two Arguments 1. That it is necessary that God should impower all Men to whom the Gospel is preached with a sufficient ability to perform what is required in it that he may manifest his Intentions of saving all the World to be real The Apostle tells us that God is the Saviour of all men and how he can be so unless he put all Men some way or other into a capacity of salvation I profess my self not able to understand Now what is it to put any one into a capacity of salvation but to place him in that way and to provide for him all those means which shall be necessary and effectual for the obtaining that glorious end Hence the same Apostle informs us that God would have all men to be saved that is as far as lyes in him
and may be consistent with the Nature of Rational Creatures and that it may appear there is nothing wanting on God's part to make them happy Wherefore those who deny to the greatest part of Mankind such a Participation of the assistance and grace of God as may place them under a capacity of obtaining Heaven seem to me to question the reality and sincerity of God's Design and Intention of saving all the World by Christ Jesus For if the purpose of God in sending Jesus Christ into the World was that he should tastâ— death for every man and that the World through him might be saved it was likewise undoubtedly a part of this purpose that they should all be qualified and impowered with such ability the faithful actuating of which should certainly attain that end for which it was designed And that God should intend the salvation of all Mankind and promulgate this his Intention and alarm the hopes and expectations of all the World and yet deny them that without which they cannot be saved is utterly irreconcileable with those apprehensions which we ought to have of the Divine Nature 2. That all Men might thereby be accountable to God No Man can be accountable for any more than he has received and if there were any number of Men to whom the Gospel were faithfully preached and the means of salvation made known and yet were always left destitute of a power and ability of believing and acting according to the prescriptions of it they would be so far from being left without excuse or having their mouths stopped that their Apology would be as reasonable as if God should expostulate with them for not creating the World or raising the Dead For if they never were so much as put â—nto a capacity of believing how can they be justly punished as Infidels But because the righteous Governor of Heaven and Earth cannot but do that which is just and equal and that all men to whom God has communicated the Gospel shall be accountable to him for it therefore we are assured that all of them at some time or other were endued with such a measure and degree of God's powerful assistance as should inable them to do what he required of them and so as he would accept of This is the condemnation says our Blessed Saviour Joh. 3.19 not that all the World was in a state of Darkness but that Light that is the Gospel is come amongst them and by It they are put into a capacity not only of discovering but of coming out of their sins and they loved darkness rather than light that is preferred the satisfaction of their own corrupt lusts before a sincere obedience to the will of God And methinks the Righteousness of God's Dispensation with Men in this kind is evidently prefigured in that Parable of the Vineyard Isai 5. which is alike applicable to the state of things under the Gospel as it was then to the Jewish Church the planting it in a fruitful soil the careful manuring and cultivation of it implying all necessary means for the increase and growth of Men in grace and vertue whereby might very well have been expected such Wine as might chear and exhilarate the heart of God and man but when after all this pains it brought forth nothing but wild Grapes then God determines upon the just destruction of it and for the Equity and Justice of this Procedure appeals to the Consciences of Men What could have been done more that I have not done But against this it is objected that if all Men under the Gospel are put into a capacity of salvation whence then comes the different entertainment of it and Why is it that all Men are not effectually convinced and wrought upon by it For the solution of this difficulty I shall return 1. That of Origen that to an effectual perswasion there is required not only that the Perswader offer such things as are apt to beget belief but likewise a sutable disposition and tractable frame in him that is to be perswaded So that the Reason why many Men do not entertain and believe the Gospel is not that the Gospel is unfurnished of perswasory Arguments or that God is wanting in any thing on his part but because they reject and refuse those things which do in others and might in them if it were not for their own obstinacy produce faith and belief As says the Father the most eloquent Orator that ever spake may perswade in vain where he meets with a stubborn and refractory disposition It is sufficient therefore that the Gospel suggests and offers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such rational Arguments and Motives as are proper to beget Belief in Moral Agents but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswasibility or the Act of being perswaded is a work of Mens own For proof of which the Father cites these Scriptures Gal. 5.8 Perswasion cometh not of him that calleth you And Isai 1.19 20. If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land but if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the Sword Which account Origen seems to have taken out of Irenaeus Facere enim proprium est benignitatis Dei fieri autem proprium est hominis Naturae Si igitur tradideris ei quod est tuum id est fidem in eum subjectionem percipies ejus artem eris perfectum opus Dei. Si autem non credideris ei fugeris manus ejus erit causa imperfectionis in te qui non obedisti sed non in illo qui vocavit 2. The Assistance and aid of the grace and spirit of God under the Gospel is not by Omnipotency or Power at large but such a concurrence as leaves to Men the liberty of their own wills as is manifest from several places of the sacred Scriptures Joh. 5.40 Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life Though our blessed Saviour spake as never Man spake and wrought such Miracles as never Man did beyond which nothing can be offered to make the Gospel credible yet those contumacious Jews would not receive him And of the Pharisees and Lawyers it is said Luk. 7.30 That they rejected the counsel of God against themselves that is the merciful purpose or design of God towards them in making provision for their salvation as well as the rest of the Jews 3. It is necessary that some allowance be made for our infirmities For though a mighty Power engage it self on our behalf yet if God should be extreme to mark what is done amiss if he should take advantage of every frailty and miscarriage who then could be saved Hence it is that our merciful God considering our frame and remembring the imperfection of Humane Nature is willing to abate and strike off much of our account upon that stock and treats with us not according to the degrees of an Angel but the measures of a Man not after the highest rigor
claps of Thunder together with the prodigious sound of a Trumpet rending and tearing the Heavens so that Moses himself exceedingly fear'd and trembled But the Gospel being wholly a design of Mercy and Love carries with it no terrors and affrightments but is composed of the kind invitations of Peace and comfort the Mount Sion wherein the resplendent glory of the first-born is displayed shining only with the gentle beams of an attractive and pleasing light and Jesus the blessed Mediator of this New Covenant with his extended Arms proclames his willingness to embrace and receive the World which he has reconciled to God with his own blood This is that Oeconomy which the Apostle calls the foolishness of preaching not as if it were so in it self but because 't is a way of condescending wisdome wherein God stoops down to our apprehensions and frames things so as we may understand them and receive an infinite benefit by them For Man partly from the frame and constitution of his Nature consisting of Body as well as Soul but much more from his fall and descent into this lower life becomes wonderfully affected with gross Phantasms and Exterior Representations Whence it comes to pass that we do more easily and frequently conceive of things as they appear to sense than as they are in themselves when apprehended by a more discerning Principle Wherefore the Infinite Wisdome of God that makes not its Operations in a way of Absolute soveraignty and immensity of Power forcing the Creatures against those inbred Principles she hath placed in them but sweetly and powerfully directs them in a steady way of congruity and proportionateness to the natures of things being to work out Man from this low contracted state the sad Region of sin and Death to a participation of Immortality and more free emanations of Divine life contrived a way most sutable and agreeable to the shallow capacities and faculties of Humane Souls God would not appear to us in a flame of fire nor speak by an Angel in a body of pure Air but in the Form of a Servant clothed with our Humane Flesh and subject to all the harmless Passions of our Nature that he might more kindly disenslave us from the cruel Tyranny of sin and Satan For let us but consult with our own Reasons whether this be not a greater Incitation and more powerful inducement to Men to believe and obey the Declarations of the Divine Will to exhibit to them some extraordinary and remarkable Person that should by the fullest demonstrations and sensible signs prove himself to be the Eternal Son of God and by sweetly compulsive Motives even to the suffering a barbarous and shameful Death attract Humane Minds to the Imitation of his Virtues and following his steps than that God should by any of those forementioned ways manifest himself in effects of Benignity or Displeasure The whole Nation of the Jews discover the sense of Mankind in such a case when being affrighted with the terrors accompanying the descent of God upon the Mount they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we dye For 1. Considering the world partly from themselves and partly from the cunning of Satan so much addicted and given over to the belief of sense had not Christ visibly appeared and conversed with Men the Gospel could never have captivated Humane Understandings with such irresistible evidence or wrought in them such a full perswasion of the things it taught as we see it hath done Should the great Pillars of the Christian Faith I mean the Apostles and Disciples of the Holy Jesus have laid its first ground-work upon the hearing of some voice or perswaded their Auditors as Numa Pompilius and some other Heathen Law-givers from the converse they had with some Angel that their Doctrine was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to them from Heaven and had God for its Author yet how hardly would Men have embraced it upon these accounts especially considering those imminent and apparent Dangers they were likely to incur upon the profession of it How ill resented is that great Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour Self-denyal and Resignation among vulgar spirits and how difficult a thing is it to bring off degenerated Hearts from the Interests of the World and is it likely then that Men should be so prodigal of their dearest Blood as to sacrifice it to an uncertain Rumour and Report which every Impostor is able to pretend But to see the meek Lamb of God made in our own likeness having left the sacred Mansions of Light and Glory and clothed himself with our frail Mortality to behold him I say testifying by many Miracles and irrefragable Arguments through the whole course of his abode on Earth and at last taking it upon his Death that he was the Son of the ever-living God and came down from Heaven to make known to Men that God was reconciled to the World through him this must needs strike our Imaginations more forcibly than whatever else the wit of Man could possibly conceive 2. The Gospel was intended to transform and work our Natures into that which is the flower and perfection of the Divine life that is an universal love to call off our minds from those little Interests they are apt to espouse by looking upon themselves as so many particular Beings divided and separated from the rest of the World and created only for themselves and their Private concernments and to beget in them an universally extensive charity by widening their Capacities to the Dimensions of the whole Creation By which we are taught not to think it enough that our love ascend in copious flames to Heaven unless it likewise descend in due measures and degrees upon all Mankind And indeed it is impossible for a Man that is throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love to have any self designs in opposition to the general good of the whole World but he must needs be infinitely desirous and pleased to see the life and nature of God communicated to all Beings capable of receiving of it And this love is so strong and vigorous that it firmly unites it self to all in whom it finds any true likeness and resemblance of the Divine Image and so far endears them to it self as to constrain us to lay down our lives for the Brethren But certainly this Flame could never have burnt so bright if it had not been raised and quickned by that sensible demonstration of inimitable affection in the Death of the Holy Jesus For what greater incouragement could there be to oblige and unite Mens souls to one another than that their love should first be kindled from Heaven by that great and unparallel'd Exemplar of noble Charity who laid down his life to expiate the crimes of his own and his Fathers Enemies 2. Of a congruity and complyance with the state and condition of Mankind both in respect of 1. Moral
2. Natural Evils First in respect of Moral Evils The degeneracy and fall of Mankind from God made them Slaves and Vassals to sin and Satan for the busie Tempter being not able to work upon them by external force and violence drew their wills into consent by craft and specious solicitations till at last he had so far enlarged his Kingdom as to bring the whole Race of Mankind under his Dominion Wherefore the Gospel being designed to free Men from that unnatural Bondage and to restore them to their true liberty it does in all points confront the ways and methods by which their Captivity was compassed and effected It had been a small matter by a high hand and by an Infinite Power at large to have destroyed the Devils Kingdom but herein appeared an excellent Wisdome so to lay the Ground and Foundation of this glorious purpose of the salvation of the World that the Politick Prince of Darkness might be taken in his own craftiness and lose this his Empire and Dominion by the same methods by which he at first obtained it The Woman being first in the Transgression and bringing sin and Death upon all her Off-spring that Divine Wisdome that draws light out of darkness and Order out of Confusion decreed that the seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head that is that Christ who is the Seed of the Woman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Nature and his Members who are so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by spiritual engraftment into him should dispossess the Devil of that Power Soveraignty and Principality which he holds over the World by sin According to this early Declaration of Men's Recovery Jesus Christ the true Seed of the Woman comes into the World and by walking exactly contrary to his Enemy restores to the World what they lost by the first Adam And whereas the Devil managed his Kingdom of sin and Death with all imaginable Tyranny and Insultation over poor Mortals our Blessed Jesus was so far from requiring Humane Blood to be sacrificed to him that out of a deep sense of our Calamity he parted with his own Blood for the life of the World A more effectual and agreeable course could never have been taken than this that the Captain of our salvation should visibly appear and conquer the Kingdom and Powers of Darkness in that Nature which the first Adam ruin'd and destroyed Secondly in respect of Natural Evils Though it be no disgrace nor shame to be made a Man yet he that deeply reflects upon Humane life shall find it at the best very calamitous and standing in need of much Pity and Compassion We are born into the World helpless and weak and as if we did presage our own future miseries the first actions of our life are spent in crying and tears Our very Bodies are a sad load and burden upon our Spirits inclining them to many foolish lusts and passions subject to many Pains Diseases and Death insomuch that many good and holy Men have in passionate streins bewailed their stay and continuance here on Earth Woe is me that I sojourn in Meseck and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar and O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death Now none can so affectionately pity nor so intimately resent the distress of another as he that hath smarted and suffered under the same calamity Therefore says the Apostle We have not an High-Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities by reason of the great distance disproportion and sublimity of his Nature but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin that is manifested and declared himself to be a true Man by being subject to all the harmless affections and infirmities of humane flesh and blood forasmuch therefore as he became our Brother by taking upon him the same Natural condition he must needs be throughly apprehensive and sensible of our state and so the more apt to sympathize with and commiserate poor Mortals and by that powerful soveraignty to which he is exalted act for us and send down relief from Heaven to us For though the Infinite Essence of God pervade the whole World and all the Creatures live within it and therefore must needs feel and know the inmost Energies Motions and stillest Actings of all Beings yet it affords not such a sensible comfort to Humane minds as to behold the Son of God taking upon him our Nature and by that Union and Proximity assuring us of his Tenderness and Compassion towards us For he took not on him the nature of Angels being unwilling to be so far removed from us but took on him the Seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted 3. A third thing which demonstrates the excellency of Divine Wisdome in the dispensation of the Gospel consists in the fitness and sutableness of it to the end for which it was designed For things are so much the more excellent by how much the congruity and fitness is greater for the accomplishing their end and purpose Now the great intent and design of God in the Gospel being as I have said the everlasting blessedness of Humane Souls the more congruously and fitly disposed it shall be found to be for the obtaining this effect the greater is the glory of the Divine Wisdome interessing and concerning it self about it This aptness and sutableness is seen 1. In that the Gospel is furnished with all those Arguments that are requisite to approve it self worthy of Belief to all Rational Persons To this two things are necessary 1. The attestation of God himself 2. Rational evidence and conviction For whatever is attested of God and hath his Seal affixed to it is by the general consent of all Men to be looked upon and entertained as infallibly true Veracity being an Essential Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature St. Paul discoursing of the mystery of Godliness tells us that Christ and Christianity was justified by the spirit i. e. owned approved and recommended to the World by the spirit of God And this God's recommendation of our blessed Saviour to the World as a Person commissioned and invested with full Authority to declare his will unto Mankind was done at several Times and in divers manners 1. At the Baptism of our Saviour Mat. 3.16 17. when the Heavens were opened and the spirit of God descended upon him and a Voice from Heaven proclaiming him the beloved Son of God in whom he was well pleased And this manner of Divine Revelation by a Voice from Heaven as it was the most ancient so the most honourable way of God's communicating his will to Mankind Exod. 20.22 Ye have seen that I have talked with you from Heaven For what
he makes an excellent Metaphysical Discourse and proves the Unnaturalness and Unreasonableness of Idolatry by such Principles as were common to and Universally received by the Intellectual nature of Man And indeed a Rational conviction seems more clear and evident than a miraculous One by how much the Innate Idea's and Dictates of the Understanding are more sure and constant than the perplexed motions of a Versatile Imagination And we find that the Jews evaded the force of our Saviour's Miracles by saying they were done by the power of the Devil and though Lazarus come to them from the Dead yet they did not believe but sought to murder him and a perverse spirit will find various Artifices to elude the Assent which a Miracle commands from us But now Humane Reason being in all Men one and the same it is more likely to prevail when advantageously propounded from that antecedent sutableness and Harmony there is between it and all Truth And without doubt our blessed Saviour himself seems to intimate that the Assent which is extorted upon the working of Miracles is much less generous and Noble than that which is gained from the Understanding by the Native evidence and beauty of Truth Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe whereas the Facility of the Samaritanes is commended who believed on Jesus upon his own Discourse though he did no Miracle among them And besides all this Christ says expresly that the very Nature and frame the Sanctity and Majesty of the Doctrine he propounded was alike sufficient to render the Jews inexcusable as the unparallel'd Works he performed in their Presence If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Again If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did they had not had sin Wherefore to us who have Moses and the Prophets the Discourses of our Blessed Saviour and the Writings of his Apostles transmitted if we shall yet be incredulous it is as likely and probable we shall still continue so though one come to Us from the Dead For 1. We have already all things pertaining to life and godliness perspicuously delivered in the Holy Scriptures and this Doctrine at the first delivery of it was sufficiently confirmed and attested by Miracles and Supernatural Actions the History of which is made as credible to us as any Records of things can be which we our selves were not Spectators of Now if we can believe any Histories of former Ages any Records of Times past we have the same Reason to believe the History of the Gospel and he that sincerely credits that will be as much confirmed in the Religion he professes by those Miracles he finds long ago wrought to evidence its Divine Authority as if they were done now at this present before his eyes Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed 2. To desire new Miracles for the begetting of Faith is to question the Wisdome of God in the Contrivance of the Gospel For either the Scriptures are sufficiently confirmed and attested by the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles to beget Faith and Credence in any unprejudiced and disinteressed Person or they are not If they are it is in vain to require the Reproduction of Miracles in its behalf If they are not we then call in question the wisdome of God as if he either knew not the Natures and Constitutions of Men or did not foresee what was sufficient to work belief in them 3. The perpetuating Miracles for every Man's Conviction would destroy and make useless their Rational Faculties For the Christian Religion is a manifestation of the highest Reason that ever the World had any cognizance of and all its Parts and Doctrines are every way fitted to Rational Capacities But now Miracles being only Convictive to sense if for the confirmation of every Article of Religion there must be the concurrent Testimony of a Miracle all Appeal to our Reason and Intellectual Faculties were useless and supervacaneous 4. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead was a notable suffrage and testimony of his Divine Mission It is the highest instance of Divine Providence watching over and carefully superintending the Person of our Holy Lord and Master which though it permitted Him to fall into the Hands of wicked and cruel Men who bereaved him of his Innocent Life yet forsook him not in Death and the Grave but justified and approved the Design and Cause he managed in the World by dismantling those Infernal Prisons and bringing Him up to life again And this the Apostle takes as an eminent Declaration of the Divinity of Jesus who though according to that mortal and frail state he took upon him in the World became a Man of the Seed of David yet in regard of that Spiritual and Celestial condition which he obtained by the Resurrection from the Dead was manifestly declared the glorious and powerful Son of God For we cannot think that God would do so much for an Impostor or that the Divine Power would so highly concern it self in raising him from the Dead and thereby owning him in so singular and eminent a manner if he had not spoken in his Name and done all things by his Authority and Commission 5. Another Instance of the Divine Approbation of the Doctrine of our Saviour appears in sending down the Holy Ghost after his Ascension into Heaven This Mission of the Holy Spirit Christ promised his Disciples before he left the World and signally performs it upon the Day of Pentecost And this very thing is brought by the Author to the Hebrews as an Indubitable Confirmation of the Gospel How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness approving and owning the Doctrine of his Son Jesus both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will God is brought in here as a Witness to the Truth of the Gospel and his Testimony is the Mission of the Holy Ghost by whom the Apostles were inabled and furnished with divers gifts and miraculous Powers for the conviction of the World that Jesus was the beloved Son of God and Saviour of Mankind And this Redargution of the World was made a part of the Advocateship of the Holy Spirit by our Lord When he is come he will reprove the World of sin because they believe not on me that is he shall take upon him the defence of my cause and convince the World of their great sin in slaying me a true Prophet who came to declare the will of God unto them Of righteousness because I go to my Father and ye see me no more that is he should make it appear that I was just and innocent
though condemned as a Malefactor and that I was owned and approved of God in that he visibly took me up into Heaven Which plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit in such a wonderful manner whenas he had been withdrawn from the Jews as to those extraordinary and Prophetical gifts for the space of four hundred years was a Testimony clear as the Sun that Jesus was the true Messias the beloved Son of GOD and therefore that they ought to have believed on Him 6. Lastly Christ was approved by the Spirit of Prophecy Their want of understanding and incredulity of the Prophetick Oracles was that for which our Saviour upbraided his two Disciples O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Whereby we are informed that the Prophets had long ago given not only a character and description of the Person but of the Doctrine Death Burial and Resurrection of the Messiah and these Prophecies being so directly applicable to Jesus and to none else it was an unquestionable proof that he was the true Messiah and that the World ought to believe on him This Argument St. Peter makes use of against the Jewes To him give all the Prophets witness q.d. If you believe not us the Apostles of Jesus yet believe your own Prophets who unanimously point out and refer to this Jesus whom we preach to you And thus St. Paul pleads for the Gospel Act. 26.22 that he taught no other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come By all these several ways it is very apparent that God hath born witness to Christianity and approved and owned the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the first thing required to the credibility of the Gospel namely the Attestation of God himself 2. The Second is Rational Evidence and Conviction The most Noble Faculties of the Soul of Man are the Understanding and the Will and that Religion bear a Rational Evidence and Conviction it must be fitted with Arguments that must convince the Understanding and perswade the Will to a due Reception and entertainment of it Now the proper Object of the Understanding is Truth from whence it follows that Christianity must be true that it may be believed For the Truth of Religion I shall refer to those Learned Authors who have purposely handled that Argument and brought as clear Evidence as the thing it self is capable of And he that cannot believe without a Mathematical certainty declares himself to be very absurd and disingenuous and may upon the same grounds as well expect the same Demonstrative Evidence for the affairs of Humane life or to prove the Truth of the Chronicles of the Kings of England or France that is he is so strangely unreasonable as to desire such proof as the nature of the things will not bear though in the mean time he have the highest evidence and most unquestionable assurance of the Truth of Religion that the thing it self is capable of that is a Moral certainty For the Mind of Man may be as indubitably assured of the Truth of a Moral Proposition as of a Mathematical or Physical one although there be not the same way of Probation in all As for Example This is a self-evident Truth in Morals and needs no other light but that of its own to gain Assent That in those things which we have not seen nor experienced our selves we ought to believe them that say they have seen and experienced provided they live up to their profession and are not moved to it by secular respect Which if it be not assented to we must be Scepticks even in ordinary affairs and transactions of Humane life we must not believe there is such a Place as Constantinople nor credit any thing but our own Eyes and Ears and say in a larger sense than ever the Psalmist did that all men are lyars See more of this in Bishop Wilkins Principles of Natural Religion Now for the Will that Religion may have a full and compleat entertainment in the Soul of Man there must be something likewise to work upon that Wherefore to make a thing eligible it must have the appearance of Good that is it must have a sutableness congruity and harmony with the Intellectual Nature of Man and a tendency to promote the perfection thereof And such is the Christian Religion in its whole Frame and Contexture For let us consider who it is that owns and has interessed himself as the Blessed Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy even the Eternal Logos and Wisdome of God that Almighty Mind which has closely contracted and deeply seal'd upon all Intellectual Agents that large and diffusive wisdome that is seen in all the Parts of Heaven and Earth And to think that Christianity should be in any of its Parts unreasonable is to imagine this to be the only Unreasonable thing that ever the Divine Wisdome was the Author of and this alone of all his numerous Off-spring to be unlike the Father The Gospel does in the most intimate manner derive it self from Christ the Eternal Son of God and is especially owned and superintended by him as being the repairing that work which he alone made and which he alone can rectifie and to imagine that an Infinite Reason should propound any thing to us that were unreasonable is as fond as to say that cold can flow from fire or darkness positively ray from the bosome of light Jesus Christ did not bring a Religion into the World to perplex our minds and dazle our understandings but for the real good and behoof of the lapsed Creation to form our minds according to his own Image and to regenerate our spirits into a living nature of Truth and Righteousness which Design were utterly lost if there were not in Christianity a perfect symphony congruity and agreeableness with our Intellectual Natures Besides let any Man but consider how the Will is allured and solicited to Action and he shall find that it is then the most vigorously tempted forth when something is propounded which has a Natural sutableness and harmony with those Constitutive Principles of which we are made but on the contrary it is naturally averse to and not at all concerned with that to which it hath no vital sympathy or concord Which is an evident sign that Christianity is not only agreeable to but perfective of our Rational Powers What can be more agreeable to the true Nature of Man than Righteousness What more sutable to his higher and Diviner Faculties than Truth and Goodness These beautiful and glorious Forms shone bright in our Souls before Vice and Sin had covered and overspread them and forced our Minds into a Preternatural state Now Christianity is design'd for the Recovery of Us to our Pristine Health and Rectitude and tends to the enlargement of our better Powers and the Recovery of them from that narrow and contracted state sin and evil had brought them to Vice
in so great a measure already accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel and that Powerful Assistance that attended it from Heaven shall receive its full and final completion when the Mountain of the Lord's house is exalted upon the tops of the Mountains and all Nations flow unto it that is when both Jews and Gentiles shall unite themselves under the Banner of the crucified Jesus And now that I am discoursing of that signal overthrow of the Devil's Kingdome by Christianity or the Gospel under the Powerful conduct of the Lord Jesus whereby he became dispossessed of his Usurped Dominions and those who had so long time been his Slaves and Vassals returned to the Loyalty and Obedience they owed to their Natural Soveraign I cannot forbear to insert a Conjecture of the Pious and Learned Mr. Mede concerning the American or New World That those Countries were first Inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times and not before yea perhaps some Ages after there being no signs or foot-steps found amongst them or any Monuments of older Habitation as there is with us That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel and the Cross of Christ in every part of this old World so that he could in no place be quiet for it and foreseeing that he was like at length to lose all here bethought himself to provide him of a Seed over which he might reign securely and in a Place Vbi nec Pelopidarum facta neque nomen audiret That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations dwelling upon the Northern Ocean whither the sound of Christ had not yet come and promising them by some Oracle to shew them a Country far better than their own which he might soon do pleasant large where never Man yet inhabited he conducted them over those Desart Lands and Islands which are many in that Sea by the way of the North into America which none would ever have gone had they not first been assured there was a passage that way into a more desirable Country Namely as when the World Apostatized from the Worship of the true God God called Abraham out of Chaldee into the Land of Canaan of him to raise him a Seed to preserve a light unto his Name So the Devil when he saw the World Apostatizing from him laid the Foundations of a new Kingdome by deducting this Colony from the North into America where since they have increased into an innumerable Multitude And where did the Devil reign more Absolutely and without Controll since Mankind fell first under his clutches And here it is to be noted that the story of the Mexican Kingdome which was not founded above 400. Years before ours came thither relates out of their own Memorials and Traditions that they came to that Place from the North whence their God Vitzliliputzli led them going in an Ark before them and after divers Years Travel and many stations like enough after some Generations they came to a Place which the sign he had given them at their first setting forth pointed out where they were to finish their Travels build themselves a City and their God a Temple which is the Place where Mexico was built And though the Devil in those Quarter and such other Parts of the World seem to Lord it alone over abused Mankind without any controll and opposition yet the Son of God to whom the uttermost Parts of the Earth are promised for an Inheritance will at length lay a Powerful claim to his own Possessions and take out of the hands of his Grand Enemy by the pure and uncorrupt Propagation of the Gospel that Soveraignty which he exercises over those Desolate People For as Christ in the Days of his Flesh by his Powerful and efficacious Word commanded the Devils out of their usurped Habitations in the Bodies of Men as a Praeludium of that Universal Conquest he should hereafter obtain so will he after such Periods of Divine Providence fixed and determined by his All-comprehensive Wisdome go forth with his Legions of Light and recover those wretched Mortals out of the Hands of the spirits of Darkness by whom they have been captivated and seduced at their Will Nor is this a bare Airy Notion or Fancy but a thing to be hoped and prayed for upon very Rational Grounds it being nothing but the enlargement of the Kingdome of Truth and Righteousness and the Dissemination of that Holy and Blessed Life of God to which Mens Souls have a Natural Cognation though for the present bent and forced out of their true state and Position 3. The Power of God will Discover it self in a very eminent manner in raising all Holy Men from the Dead and rewarding their faithful services with Immortality and Life at the last Day The last enemy that shall be destroyed says the Apostle is Death And when God shall think fit to put an end to the Generations of Men and conclude the Scene of the affairs of this World then shall the Holy Jesus descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Trumpet of God and the Dead shall be raised and presented each one in the Visible and Individual Personality they bare in this World before the Judgment-Seat of Christ to receive for the things done in their Bodies whether good or bad and they that have done good shall come forth to the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Which final sentence at the Conclusion of that dreadful Appearance shall be executed accordingly the Wicked being plunged into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone but the Righteous through the gracious Bounty and stupendious Operation of their merciful Redeemer shall be taken up into the Regions of Immortality and life where their Corruptible Bodies shall put on Incorruption and be transformed into the similitude of the Glorious Body of the Son of GOD through that mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself And though this Transcendent state and Portion may very well be thought too big for our humble Hopes and Expectations and exceed all that we can do or suffer yet since God is pleased of his Infinite Bounty to promise we have no Reason to distrust his Faithfulness and Truth in the Performance of it since he has moreover given us a palpable Pledge and Assurance of it in the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead and because he lives we may be confident we shall live also Christ is risen from the Grave having conquered Death by dying and is ascended into the pure and peaceable Habitations of Glory therefore all his Members who are united to Him in the inseparable bands of Faith and Love shall feel the effects of his Powerful Life in immortalizing their very Bodies which shall then be absorpt into the Great Vortex of Eternity where both Body and Soul shall be deckt with such a refulgent