the Father Phil. 2. 9 10 11. Now by vertue of the Authority he is by this means invested and dignified with and particularly as he is King of his Church hath he sent the Holy Ghost to Sanctifie us to excite us to all holy actions and to assist us in the performance of them Sixthly The Death of Christ doth also apparently promote this great Design as by his patient submitting to it he vindicated God's Right of Sovereignity over all his Creatures and the power he hath to require what he pleaseth and to dispose of them as seems good to him Whereas the First Adam by Contumacy Pride and Rebellion did put an high and unsufferable affront upon the Authority of his Maker and his wretched posterity followed his Example and have by that means done what lay in them to render his Right to their obedience questionable this Blessed Second Adam by acting directly Contrary viz. by Obedience Humility Subjecting himself to the Divine pleasure in the severest expressions and significations of it hath done publiquely and before the world an infinite honour to his Father And his absolute Right of Dominion over his whole Creation and the power he hath to prescribe to it what laws he judges sitting which was before so eclipsed by wicked sinners hath he by this means in the most signal manner manifested and made apparent And of what force this is to promote our Holiness and Universal obedience the dullest capacity may apprehend From what hath been said it appears to be a most plain and unquestionable Case that our Saviour in his Death considered according to each of the notions we have of it had an eye to the great work of making men Holy and that this was the main Design which he therein drove at And I now adde that where as it is frequently affirmed in the holy Scriptures that the End of Christ's death was also the Forgiveness of our sins the Reconciling of us to his Father we are not so to understand those places where this is expressed as if these Blessings were absolutely thereby procured for us or any otherwise than upon Condition of our effectuall believing and yielding obedience to his Gospel Nor is there any one thing scarcely which we are so frequently therein minded of as we are of this Christ died to put us into a Capacity of pardon the actual removing of our Guilt is not the necessary and immediate result of his Death but suspended till such time as the forementioned conditions by the help of his grace are performed by us But moreover it is in order to our being encouraged to sincere endeavours to forsake all sin and to be universally obedient for the time to come that our Saviour shed his blood for the Pardon of it This was intended in his death as it is subservient to that purpose the assurance of having all our sins forgiven upon our sincere Reformation being a necessary motive thereunto Therefore hath he delivered us from a necessity of Dying that we might live to God and therefore doth God offer to be in his Son Jesus reconciled to us that we may thereby be prevailed with to be reconciled to him Therefore was the Death of Christ designed to procure our Justification from all sins past that we might be by this means provoked to become new Creatures for the time to come Observe to this purpose what the Divine Author to the Hebrews saith Chap. 9. 13 14. If the blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Unclean Sanctifieth to the Purifying of the flesh How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit ofsered himself without Spot to God purge your Consciences from dead works for what end it follows to Serve or in order to your Serving the Living God And thus much may suffice to be spoken concerning the Design of our Saviour's Death CHAP. VIII That it is onely the promoting of the Design of making men Holy that is aimed at by the Apostles insisting on the Doctrines of Christ's Resurrection Ascension and coming again to Judgement I Might in the next place proceed to shew that the Resurrection of our Saviour did carry on the same Design that his Precepts Promises and Threatnings Life and Death aimed at but who knows not that these would all have signified nothing to the promoting of this or any other end if he had always continued in the Grave and not risen again as he foretold he would If Christ be not risen saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 13. then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain So that whatsoever our Saviour intended in those particulars the perfecting and final accomplishment thereof must needs be eminently designed in his Resurrection The Apostle Peter tells his Country-men the Jews Acts 3. 21. that To them first God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless them in turning every one of them from his iniquities But farthermore we find the Doctrine of Christ's Resurrection very much insisted on by S. Paul especially as a principle of the Spiritual and Divine life in us and proposed as that which we ought to have not onely a Speculative and Notional but also a Practical and Experimental acquaintance with And he often telleth us that it is our Duty to find that in our Souls which bears an analogy thereunto He saith Phil. 3. 10. That it was his ambition to know or feel within himself the Power of his Resurrection as well as the fellowship of his sufferings to have experience of his being no longer a dead but a living Jesus by his inlivening him and quickening his Soul with a new life And again he saith Rom. 6. 4. that Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism unto Death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life that is Christians being plunged into the Water in Baptism signifieth their undertaking and obliging themselves in a spiritual sence to die and be buried with Jesus Christ which death and burial consist in an utter renouncing and forsaking of all their sins that so answerably to his Resurrection they may live a Holy and a Godly life And it followeth vers 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection that is If we are ingrafted into Christ by Mortification to Sin and so imitate his death we will no less have a Resemblance of his Resurrection by living to God or performing all acts of Piety and Christianity And then from vers 8. to 11. he thus proceeds Now if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall or we will also live with him Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him For in that he died he died unto Sin once or for sin once for
with profitable Instructions and in so many respects of great importance to the good of our Souls as this is CHAP. VII That to make men Holy was the Design of Christ's Death Proved by several Texts of Scripture And how it is effectual thereunto discovered in six Particulars FOurthly the making of us Holy as it was the Business of our Saviour's whole Life so was it also the great End and Design of his Death And this are we assured of by abundance of Express Scriptures Some few of which we will here produce Romans 6. 6. Knowing this that our Old man is crucified with him that the Body of Sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin 2 Corinthians 5. 15. He dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again Galatians 1. 4. Who gave himself for our Sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world viz. From its corrupt practices according to the Will of God and our Father Ephesians 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of Water by the word that he might present it unto himself a Glorious Church not having Spot or Wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Colossians 1. 21 22. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works hath he now reconciled in the Body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight Titus 2. 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of Good Works 1 Pet. 1. 18. For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with Corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain Conversation received by Tradition from your Fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as a Lamb without blemish and without Spot 1 Pet. 3. 18. For Christ also hath once suffered for Sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God c. That is saith Calvin upon the place that we might be so consecrated to God as to live and die to him 1 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our Sins in his Own body on the Tree that we being dead to sins should live to righteousness by whose Stripes ye were healed Now the Death of Christ is greatly effectual to this end of making us Holy these several ways First As it gave Testimony to the Truth of his Doctrine which as hath been shewn hath no other Design Christ took his Death upon it that that was true was willing to expose himself in the Defence thereof to a most ignominious and painful death Secondly As the shedding of his blood was a Federal right confirming the New Covenant wherein is promised in and through Him the Pardon of our Sins and Eternal happiness on Condition of our sincere Repentance Faith and new obedience So the Blood of Christ is called the Blood of the Covenant Heb. 10. 29. And the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant Heb. 13. 20. Thirdly As it is exemplary of the highest vertue 1 Pet. 2. 21. Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his Steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously The Greatest Humility and Self-denial the greatest Meekness Patience and Submission to the Divine Will the most wonderful Charity and Forgiveness of Enemies c. are exemplified in our Saviour's Death and so it must needs be very highly Effectual towards the promoting of these most Excellent Graces and the like in us and the expelling and utter extirpating out of us the Contrary Vices One would think it impossible that he should be of an Haughty Spirit and a proud mind that seriously Considers how the Onely-begotten Son of God humbled himself to the death even the shameful and ignominious death of the Cross That he should Covet great things in the world that frequently affects his mind with the thoughts of his Saviour's emptying himself and becoming poor that we through his proverty might be made rich and preferring the death of the Vilest of wretches before the life of the greatest and most Honourable Personages How can he be vain and frothy that considers his Saviour's horrid Agony what a man of Sorrows he was and how acquainted with Griefs How can he storm at the receiving of injuries and swell with indignation against those that offer him incivilities and rudely behave themselves towards him that fixeth his thoughts upon his Saviour's meek putting up the Vilest and most Contemptuous usages and considereth how gentle sedate and Lamb-like he was when Barbarous Villains Mocked Buffetted and Spit upon him Crowned him with Thorns put a Robe in a jear upon his Back and a Reed for a Scepter into his hand and at last acted the parts of the most inhumane Butchers towards him One would think it no uneasie matter to perswade our selves to forgive very heartily the Spitefullest most malicious enemies whilst we take notice that Christ shed even his pretious blood for those that carried in their breasts the greatest malignity against him and bare him the most deadly hatred that he suffered death for those which in the Cruellest manner they were able took away his life What temptation can be forcible enough to prevail upon us sinners to murmure and repine at the hand of God in the afflictions he inflicts upon us while we observe how much greater sufferings than ours are were with profoundest Submission to and likewise the heartiest approbation of the Divine Will endured by the not onely perfectly innocent but also the highly meriting and infinitely Well deserving Jesus Fourthly As the Death of Christ was likewise a Sacrifice for sin it was in an Eminent manner effectual to this great purpose In the death of Christ considered as an Expiatory and Propitiatory Sacrifice is the offence that God Almighty hath taken against sin and the hatred he bears to it as well as his Love to us sinners infinitely declared in that he would not forgive it to us without the intervention of no meaner an offering than the Blood of his onely-begotten Son Observe what the Apostle S. Paul saith to this Purpose Rom. 3. 25 26. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Iesus The Plain sense of which words as I conceive is this That God might at one and the same time demonstrate how holy he
is and how much he hateth sin on the one hand and how infinitely gracious he is in his willingness to forgive sinners on the other was Christ set forth by him to be a Propitiation through Faith in his blood There are many and they no Adversaries to the Doctrine of our Saviour's satisfaction that do not question but that God could have pardoned sin without any other Satisfaction than the Repentance of the Sinner and in the number of them were Calvin P. Martyr Musculus and Zanchy as might be fully shewn out of their several works but that this is not a place to do it in but he chose to have his Son die for it before he would admit any terms of Reconciliation that so he might perform the highest act of Grace in such a way as at the same time to shew also the greatest displeasure against Sin And therefore would he thus do that so he might the more effectually prevent wicked mens encouraging themselves by the consideration of his great mercy to persist in their wickedness Therefore was Christ set forth to be a propitiatory Sacrifice for Sin I will not say that his Father who is perfectly sui juris might be put by this means into a capacity of forgiving it but that it might be a Cogent motive and most prevailing Argument to Sinners to reform from it There is an excellent place to this purpose Rom. 18. 3. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin or by the means of sin condemned sin in the flesh that is what the Precepts of the Mosaical Law could not do in that they were weak by reason of the impetuosity of mens fleshly inclinations that the Son of God coming in the humane Nature and in all respects becoming like to us sin onely excepted did and by being a Sacrifice for Sin so the word Sin signifieth in diverse places as Leviticus 4. 29. Chap. 5. 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. and as I suppose also Gen. 4. 7. Condemned Sin in his flesh he by this means shewing how hateful it is to God took the most effectual course to kill and destroy it And moreover the most dearly beloved Son of God undergoing such extreme sufferings for our Sins it is evidently thereby demonstrated what dismal vengeance those have reason to expect that shall continue impenitent and refuse to be reclaimed from them For saith he Luke 23. 31. Is they do these things in a green Tree what shall be done in the dry If God spared not his own most innocent holy and onely Son than whom nothing was or could be more dear to him but abandoned him to so shameful and horrid a death for our Sins how great and severe sufferings may we conclude he will inflict upon those Vile Creatures that dare still to live in Wilful disobedience to him And from the Death of Christ considered as a Sacrifice we farther learn what an esteem God hath for his holy Laws that he would not abate their Rigour nor remit the punishment due to the Transgressors of them without a Consideration of no meaner value than the most Pretious blood of his own Son And lastly in that Christ hath laid down his life at the appointment of God the Father for the purpose of making an Atonement of Sin this gives all men unspeakably greater assurance of the Pardon of True Penitents than the bare Consideration of the Divine Goodness could ever have done And so by this means have we the greatest encouragement that our hearts can wish to become new men and return to obedience and have all ground of Jealously and suspicion removed from us that we have been guilty of such heinous and so often repeated impieties as that it may not become the Holiness and Justice of God to remit them to us though they should be never so sincerely forsaken by us In the Death of our Saviour thus considered are contained as we have seen the strongest and most irresistible Arguments to a Holy Life and I farther adde such as are no less apt to work upon the principle of Ingenuity that is implanted in our natures than that of self-love For who that hath the least spark of it will not be powerfully inclined to hate all sin when he considereth that it was the Cause of such direful sufferings to so incomparably Excellent a person and infinitely obliging a Friend as Christ is Who but a Creature utterly destitute of that principle and therefore worse than a Brute Beast can find in his heart to take Pleasure in the Spear that let out the heart-blood of his most blessed Saviour and to carry himself towards that as a loving friend which was and still is the Lord of Glory's worst enemy Again hath Jesus Christ indured done so much for our sakes and are we able to give our selves leave to render all his sufferings and performances unsuccessful by continuing in disobedience Can we be willing that he should do and suffer so many things in vain and much more do our parts to make him do so Is this possible Nay hath he been Crucified for us by the wicked Iews and don 't we think that enough but must we our selves be Crucifying him afresh by our Sins and putting him again to an open shame by preferring our base lusts before him as the Iews did Baral bas Hath he expressed such astonishing love to us in dying for us and wo'nt we accept of it which we certainly refuse to do so long as we live in Sin Hath he purchased Eternal Salvation for us and such great and glorious things as Eye hath not seen nor ear heard and which have not entered into the heart of man to be conceived by him and can we perswade our selves to be so ungrateful to him as well as so wanting to our-selves as to refuse to receive these at his hands on those most reasonable terms on which he offers them Hath he bought us with such a price and can we refuse to be his Servants and rather chuse to be the slaves of Sathan the Devil's Drudges Where can we find so many strongly inciting Motives to hate and abandon all sin as are contained and very obvious in the Death and sufferings of our Saviour for it Fifthly The Death of our Saviour is in a special manner effectual to the making of us in all respects vertuous and holy as he hath thereby procured for us that Grace and Assistance that is necessary to enable us so to be In regard of his humbling himself as he did and becoming obedient to the death of the Cross hath God highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name that at the Name of Jesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth And that every Tongue should Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God
the first sight assured of the truth of the contents of it For no man in his wits can in the least question the Veracity of him whom even natural light assures us can be no other than Truth it self Secondly Those good Principles that the Heathens by the greatest improvement of their Reason could at best conclude but very probable are made undoubtedly Certain to us Christians by Revelation As First That of the Immortality of our Souls The vulgar sort of Heathens who were apt to believe any thing that was by Tradition handed down to them 't is confessed did not seem to doubt of the truth of this Doctrine but to take it for granted which no question is also to be imputed to the special Providence of God and not merely to their Credulity But the more learned and sagacious that would not easily be imposed on nor believe any farther than they saw cause though by Arguments drawn from the notions they had truly conceived of the Nature of Humane Souls they have diverse of them undertaken to prove them Immortal yet could their Arguments raise the best of them no higher than a great opinion of their Immortality Cato read Plato of the Immortality of the Soul as he lay bleeding to death with great delight but that argues not that he had any more than great hopes of the truth of it Socrates did so believe it that he parted with this life in expectation of another but yet he plainly and ingenuously confessed to his friends that it was not certain Cicero that sometimes expresseth great confidence concerning the truth of it doth for the most part speak so of it that any one may see that he thought the Doctrine no better than probable He discourseth of it in his book de Senectute as that which he rather could not endure to think might be false than as that which he had no doubt of the truth of And after he had there instanced in several Arguments which he thought had weight in them for the proof thereof and expressed a longing to see his Ancestors and the brave men he had once known and which he had heard of read and written of he thus concludes that whole Discourse If I erre in believing the Souls immortality I erre willingly neither so long as I live will I suffer this errour which so much delights me to be wrested from me But if when I am dead I shall be void of all sense as certain little Philosophers think I do not fear to have this errour of mine laught at by dead Philosophers But now the Gospel hath given us the highest assurance possible of the truth of this Doctrine Life and immortality are said to be brought to light by it He who declared himself to be the Son of God with power gave men a sensible demonstration of it in his own person by his Resurrection from the Dead and Ascention into Heaven And both by himself and his Apostles who were also indued with a power of working the greatest of Miracles for the confirmation of the truth of what they said did very frequently and most plainly preach it Secondly The Doctrine of Rewards and Punishments in the life to come which is for substance the same with the former according to our behaviour in this life the learned Heathens did generally declare their belief of which they grounded upon the Justice Holiness and Goodness of the Divine Nature They considered that Good men were often exercised with great calamities and that bad men very frequently were greatly prosperous and abounded with all earthly felicities And therefore thought it very reasonable to believe that God would in another life shew his hatred of Sin and love of Goodness by making a plain discrimination between the conditions of vertuous and wicked persons by punishing these and rewarding those without exception But this though it was in their opinion a very probable argument yet they looked not on it as that which amounted to a Demonstration For they could not but be aware That that Doctrine which was so generally received by them viz. That Vertue is in all conditions a Reward and Vice a Punishment to it self did very much blunt the edge of it And that other very harsh one That all things besides Vertue and Vice are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither good nor evil did render it as the perfect Stoicks did seem too well to understand too too insignificant But I must confess that Hierocles who as hath been said did not admit that notion but in a very qualified sence saith of those that think their Souls mortal and consequently that vertue will hereafter have no reward that when they dispute in the behalf of vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they rather talk wittily than truly and in good earnest The excellent Socrutes himself when he was going to drink off the fatal drug thus said to those that were then present with him I am now going to end my days whereas your lives will be prolonged but whether you or I upon this account are the more happy is known to none but God only intimating that he did not look upon it as absolutely certain that he should have any Reward in another world for doing so heroically vertuous an act as chusing Martyrdom for the Doctrine of the Unity of the Godhead But now what is more frequently or clearly declared in the Gospel than that there will be Rewards and Punishments in the world to come sutable to mens actions in this world than that Christ will come a second time to judge the world in righteousness and that all must appear before his Iudgment-seat to receive according to what they have done whether it be good or whether it be evil 2 Cor. 5. 10. Thirdly That mens sins shall be forgiven upon true Repentance from the consideration of the Goodness and Mercy of God the Heathens were likewise perswaded or rather hoped But we Christians have the strongest assurance imaginable given us of it by the most solemn and often reiterated promises of God himself and not onely that some or most but also that all without exception and the most heinous impieties upon condition of their being sincerely forsaken shall in and through Christ be freely forgiven to those that have been guilty of them Fourthly The Doctrine of God's readiness to assist men by his special grace in their endeavours after Vertue could be no more at the best than probable in the judgement of the Heathens but we have in the Gospel the most express promises thereof made to us for our infinitely great encouragement Tully in his Book de Naturâ Deorum saith that their City Rome and Greece had brought forth many singular men of which it is to be believed none arrived to such a height nisi Deo juvante but by the help of God And after he tells us that Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu Divino unquam fuit No excellent man was ever made so
on mens wills to use their utmost endeavour to subdue their lusts and to acquire vertuous habits yet this grace is not such as that there is no possibility of refusing or quenching it Nor is it fit it should seeing mankind is indued with a principle of freedom and that this principle is as Essential as any other to the Humane Nature I will add that this is one immediate cause of the unsuccessfulness of the Gospel to which it is very much to be attributed Namely mens strange and unaccountable mistaking the Design of it Multitudes of those that profess Christianity are so grosly inconsiderate not to say worse as to conceive no better of it than as a Science and a matter of Speculation And take themselves though against the clearest evidences of the contrary imaginable for true and genuine Christians either because they have a general belief of the truth of the Christian Religion and profess themselves the Disciples of Christ Jesus in contradistinction from Iews Mahometans and Pagans and in and through him alone expect salvation Or because they have so far acquainted themselves with the Doctrine of the Gospel as to be able to talk and dispute and to make themselves pass for knowing People Or because they have joyned themselves to that party of Christians which they presume are of the Purest and most Reformed Model and are zealous sticklers for their peculiar forms and discriminating sentiments and as stiff opposers of all other that are contrary to them Now the Gospel must necessarily be as ineffectual to the rectifying of such mens minds and Reformation of their Manners while they have so wretchedly too low an opinion of its Design as if it really had no better And so long as they take it for granted that its main intention is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make them Orthodox not Vertuous it cannot be thought that they should be ever the more Holy nay 't is a thousand to one but they will be in one kind or other the more unholy for their Christianity And lastly There are several untoward opinions very unhappily instilled into professors of Christianity which render the Truths of the Gospel they retain a belief of insignificant and unsuccessful as to the bettering either of their hearts or lives as infinitely apt and of as mighty efficacy as they are in themselves for those great purposes 2. Secondly Whereas it was said also that the Generality of Heathens live in diverse respects better lives than do multitudes and even the Generality of those that profess Christianity it is so far from being difficult to give a satisfactory account how this may be without disparaging our excellent Religion that it is to be expected that those people should be even much the worse for it that refuse to be bettered by it It is an old Maxime that Corruptio optimi est pessima The best things being spoiled do prove to be the very worst And according to this nothing less is to be looked for than that degenerated Christians should be the vilest of all persons And it is also certain that the best things when abused do ordinarily serve to the worst purposes of which there may be given innumerable Instances And so it is in this present case S. Paul told the Corinthians that he and the other Apostles were a savour of death unto death as well as of life unto life And our Saviour gave the Pharisees to understand That for judgement he was come into the world that those that see not might see and that those that see might be made blind that is That it would be a certain consequent of his coming not onely that poor ignorant Creatures should be turned from darkness to light but also that those which have the light and shut their eyes against it should be judicially blinded And the forementioned Apostle in the first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans saith of those that held the truth in unrighteousness that would not suffer it to have any good effect upon them through their close adhering to their filthy lusts that God gave them up to the most unnatural villainies permitted them to commit them by withholding all restraints from them and likewise gave them over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a reprobate mind So that from the just judgment of God it is I say to be expected that depraved Christians should be the most wicked of all people And therefore it is so far from being matter of wonder that those that will not be converted by the Gospel should be so many of them very horribly prophane that it is rather so that all those which having for any considerable time lived under the preaching of it continue disobedient to it should not be such In the purest ages of the Church were degenerated Christians made in this kind most fearful Examples of the Divine Vengeance And so utterly forsaken of God that they became if we may believe Irenaeus Tertullian and others of the Antient Fathers not one whit better than Incarnate Devils Nor were there to be found in the whole world in those days and but rarely since such abominable and most execrable Caytiffs as they were I have sometimes admired that humane nature should be capable of such a monstrous depravation as several stories recorded of them do bespeak them to have contracted But 3. Thirdly If we must needs judge of the efficacy of the Gospel for the making men Holy by its success herein Let us cast our eyes back upon the First ages of Christianity and then we shall find it an easie matter to satisfie our selves concerning it though we should understand no more of Christianity than the effects it produced in those days For though there were then a sort of people that sometimes called themselves Christians that were as was now said the most desperately wicked Creatures that ever the earth bare yet these were esteemed by all others that were known by that name as no whit more of their number than the Pagans and Iews that defied Christ. And their Religion was a motly thing that consisted of Christianity Iudaism and Paganism all blended together and therefore in regard of their mere profession they could be no more truly called Christians than Iews or Pagans Or rather to speak properly they were of no Religion at all but would sometimes comply with the Iews and at other times with the Heathens and joyned readily with both in persecuting the Christians And in short the Samaritans might with less impropriety be called Iews than these Gnostiques Christians 'T is also confessed that the orthodox Christians were calumniated by the Heathens as flat Atheists but their only pretence for so doing was their refusing to worship their false Gods And they likewise accused them of the beastliest and most horrid practices but it is sufficiently evident that they were beholden to the Gnostiques for those accusations who being accounted Christians did by their being notoriously guilty of