directed the Lawyer who asked Luke X. 25. What he should do to inherit eternal life Do this i. e. what is required by the Law and thou shalt live On the other side it seems the unalterable purpose of the Divine Justice that no unrighteous Person no one that is guilty of any breach of the Law should be in Paradise But that the wages of sin shold be to every man as it was to Adam an Exclusion of him out of that Happy state of Immortality and bring Death upon him And this is so conformable to the Eternal and established Law of Right and Wrong that it is spoke of too as if it could not be otherwise St. Iames says Chap. I. 15. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death as it were by a Natural and necessary production Sin entred into the World and death by sin says St. Paul Rom. V. 12. VI. 23. The wages of sin is Death Death is the Purchase of any of every sin Gal. III. 10. Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them And of this St. Iames gives a Reason Chap. II. 10 11. Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all For he that said Do not commit Adultery said also do not Kill i. e. He that offends in any one Point sins against the Authority which established the Law Here then we have the standing and fixed measures of Life and Death Immortality and Bliss belong to the Righteous Those who have lived in an exact Conformity to the Law of God are out of the reach of Death But an Exclusion from Paradise and loss of Immortality is the Portion of Sinners of all those who have any way broke that Law and failed of a Compleat Obedience to it by the guilt of any one Transgression And thus Mankind by the Law are put upon the issues of Life or Death As they are Righteous or Vnrighteous Iust or Vnjust i. e. Exact Performers or Transgressors of the Law But yet all having sinned Rom. III. 23. and come short of the glory God i. e. the Kingdom of God in Heaven which is often called his Glory both Iews and Gentiles v. 22. So that by the deeds of the Law no one could be justified v. 20. it follows that no one could then have Eternal Life and Bliss Perhaps it will be demanded Why did God give so hard a Law to Mankind that to the Apostles time no one of Adam's Issue had kept it As appears by Rom. III. and Gal. III. 21 22. Answ. It was such a Law as the Purity of God's Nature required and must be the Law of such a Creature as Man unless God would have made him a Rational Creature and not required him to have lived by the Law of Reason but would have countenanced in him Irregularity and Disobedience to that Light which he had and that Rule which was suitable to his Nature Which would have been to have authorized Disorder Confusion and Wickedness in his Creatures For that this Law was the Law of Reason or as it is called of Nature we shall see by and by And if Rational Creatures will not live up to the Rule of their Reason who shall excuse them If you will admit them to forsake Reason in one point why not in another Where will you stop To disobey God in any part of his Commands and 't is he that Commands what Reason does is direct Rebellion which if dispensed with in any Point Government and Order are at an end And there can be no bounds set to the Lawless Exorbitancy of unconfined men The Law therefore was as St. Paul tells us Rom. VII 12 holy just and good and such as it ought and could not otherwise be This then being the case that whoever is guilty of any sin should certainly die and cease to be the benefit of Life restored by Christ at the Resurrection would have been no great Advantage for as much as here again Death must have seized upon all mankind because all had sinned For the Wages of Sin is every where Death as well after as before the Resurrection if God had not found out a way to Justifie some i. e. so many as obeyed another Law which God gave which in the New Testament is called the Law of Faith Rom. III. 27. and is opposed to the Law of Works And therefore the Punishment of those who would not follow him was to lose their Souls i. e. their Lives Mark VIII 35-38 as is plain considering the occasion it was spoke on The better to understand the Law of Faith it will be convenient in the first place to consider the Law of Works The Law of Works then in short is that Law which requires perfect Obedience without any remission or abatement So that by that Law a man cannot be Just or justified without an exact performance of every tittle Such a perfect Obedience in the New Testament is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Righteousness The Language of this Law is Do this and live Transgress and die Lev. XVIII 5. Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments which if a man do he shall live in them Ezek. XX. 11. I gave them my statutes and shewed them my judgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Moses says St. Paul Rom. X. 5. describeth the righteousness which is of the Law that the man which doth those things shall live in them Gal. III. 12. The Law is not of Faith but that man that doth them shall live in them On the other side Transgress and die no dispensation no atonement V. 10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them Where this Law of Works was to be found the New Testament tells us viz. in the Law delivered by Moses Iohn I. 17. The Law was given by Moses but Faith and Truth came by Iesus Christ. Cap. VII 19. Did not Moses give you the Law says our Saviour and yet none of you keep the Law And this is the Law which he speaks of where he asks the Lawyer Luke X. 26. What is written in the Law how readest thou v. 28. This do and thou shalt live This is that which St. Paul so often stiles the Law without any other distinction Rom. II. 13. Not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law are justified 'T is needless to quote any more places his Epistles are all full of it especially this to the Romans But the Law given by Moses being not given to all Mankind How are all men sinners since without a Law there is no Transgression To this the Apostle v. 14. Answers For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do i. e. find it reasonable to do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the
THE REASONABLENESS OF Christianity As delivered in the SCRIPTURES LONDON Printed for Awnsham and Iohn Churchil at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row 1695. THE PREFACE THE little Satisfaction and Consistency is to be found in most of the Systems of Divinity I have met with made me betake my self to the sole Reading of the Scripture to which they all appeal for the understanding the Christian Religion What from thence by an attentive and unbiassed search I have received Reader I here deliver to thee If by this my Labour thou receivest any Light or Confirmation in the Truth joyn with me in Thanks to the Father of Lights for his Condescention to our Vnderstandings If upon a fair and unprejudiced Examination thou findest I have mistaken the Sense and Tenor of the Gospel I beseech thee as a true Christian in the Spirit of the Gospel which is that of Charity and in the words of Sobriety set me right in the Doctrine of Salvation ERRATA Page 35. line 22. read on the. p. 62. l. 26. r. Bethesda p. 63. l. 26. r. little of any thing p. 64. ult r. it was p. 65. l. 6. r. them at Ierusalem Ibid. l. 10 r. ing in that place p. 67. l. 17. r. that remained p. 69. l. 23. r. a king or rather Messiah the King p. 75. l. 6. dele these Ibid. l. 14. r. nor 〈◊〉 p. 112. l. 4. r. Bethesda p. 161. l. 2. r. and of p. 165. l. 20. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 present World p. 194. l. 11. r. availed not Devils p. 217. l. 11. r. In his Sermon in the. p. 263. l. ◠r. before observed p. 264. l. 24. r. custom p. 271. l. 2. r. apophthegms Ibid. l. 24. r. themselves and deduces p. 282. l. 〈◊〉 r. No touch of p. 284. 1. 〈◊〉 confusion p. 287. l. 17. r. life and. p. 295. l. 22. r. the Apostles p. 203. l. 20. r. Treatise p. 304. l. 4. ◠abstract Ibid. l. 14. read them The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures T IS obvious to any one who reads the New Testament that the Doctrine of Redemption and consequently of the Gospel is founded upon the Supposition of Adam's Fall To understand therefore what we are restored to by Jesus Christ we must consider what the Scripture shews we lost by Adam This I thought worthy of a diligent and unbiassed search Since I found the two Extreams that Men run into on this Point either on the one hand shook the Foundations of all Religion or on the other made Christianity almost nothing For whilst some Men would have all Adam's Posterity doomed to Eternal Infinite Punishment for the Transgression of Adam whom Millions had never heard of and no one had authorized to transact for him or be his Representative this seemed to others so little consistent with the Justice or Goodness of the Great and Infinite God that they thought there was no Redemption necessary and consequently that there was none rather than admit of it upon a Supposition so derogatory to the Honour and Attributes of that Infinite Being and so made Jesus Christ nothing but the Restorer and Preacher of pure Natural Religion thereby doing violence to the whole tenor of the New Testament And indeed both sides will be suspected to have trespassed this way against the written Word of God by any one who does but take it to be a Collection of Writings designed by God for the Instruction of the illiterate bulk of Mankind in the way to Salvation and therefore generally and in necessary points to be understood in the plain direct meaning of the words and phrases such as they may be supposed to have had in the mouths of the Speakers who used them according to the Language of that Time and Country wherein they lived without such learned artificial and forced senses of them as are sought out and put upon them in most of the Systems of Divinity according to the Notions that each one has been bred up in To one that thus unbiassed reads the Scriptures what Adam fell from is visible was the state of perfect Obedience which is called Justice in the New Testament though the word which in the Original signifies Justice be translated Righteousness And by this Fall he lost Paradise wherein was Tranquility and the Tree of Life i. e. he lost Bliss and Immortality The Penalty annexed to the breach of the Law with the Sentence pronounced by God upon it shew this The Penalty stands thus Gen. II. 17. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die How was this executed He did eat but in the day he did eat he did not actually die but was turned out of Paradise from the Tree of Life and shut out for ever from it lest he should take thereof and live for ever This shews that the state of Paradise was a state of Immortality of Life without end which he lost that very day that he eat His Life began from thence to shorten and wast and to have an end and from thence to his actual Death was but like the time of a Prisoner between the Sentence past and the Execution which was in view and certain Death then enter'd and shewed his Face which before was shut out and not known So St. Paul Rom. V. 12. By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin i. e. a state of Death and Mortality And 1 Cor. XV. 22. In Adam all die i. e. by reason of his Transgression all Men are Mortal and come to die This is so clear in these cited places and so much the current of the New Testament that no body can deny but that the Doctrine of the Gospel is that Death came on all Men by Adam's sin only they differ about the signification of the word Death For some will have it to be a state of Guilt wherein not only he but all his Posterity was so involved that every one descended of him deserved endless torment in Hell-fire I shall say nothing more here how far in the apprehensions of Men this consists with the Justice and Goodness of God having mentioned it above But it seems a strange way of understanding a Law which requires the plainest and directest words that by Death should be meant Eternal Life in Misery Could any one be supposed by a Law that says For Felony you shall die not that he should lose his Life but be kept alive in perpetual exquisite Torments And would any one think himself fairly dealt with that was so used To this they would have it be also a state of necessary sinning and provoking God in every Action that men do A yet harder sense of the word Death than the other God says That in the day that thou eatest of the forbidden Fruit thou shalt die i. e. thou and thy Posterity shall be ever after uncapable of doing any thing but what shall be sinful and provoking to me and shall justly deserve my wrath and
indignation Could a worthy man be supposed to put such terms upon the Obedience of his Subjects much less can the Righteous God be supposed as a Punishment of one sin wherewith he is displeased to put Man under a necessity of sinning continually and so multiplying the Provocation The reason of this strange Interpretation we shall perhaps find in some mistaken places of the New Testament I must confess by Death here I can understand nothing but a ceasing to be the losing of all actions of Life and Sense Such a Death came on Adam and all his Posterity by his first Disobedience in Paradise under which Death they should have lain for ever had it not been for the Redemption by Jesus Christ. If by Death threatned to Adam were meant the Corruption of Humane Nature in his Posterity 't is strange that the New Testament should not any where take notice of it and tell us that Corruption seized on all because of Adam's Transgression as well as it tells us so of Death But as I remember every ones sin is charged upon himself only Another part of the Sentence was Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground For out of it wast thou taken Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return This shews that Paradise was a place of Bliss as well as Immortality without toyl and without sorrow But when Man was turned out he was exposed to the toyl anxiety and frailties of this Mortal Life which should end in the Dust out of which he was made and to which he should return and then have no more life or sense than the Dust had out of which he was made As Adam was turned out of Paradise so all his Posterity were born out of it out of the reach of the Tree of Life All like their Father Adam in a state of Mortality void of the Tranquility and Bliss of Paradise Rom. V. 12. By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin But here will occur the common Objection that so many stumble at How doth in consist with the Justice and Goodness of God that the Posterity of Adam should suffer for his sin the Innocent be punished for the Guilty Very well if keeping one from what he has no right to be called a Punishment The state of Immortality in Paradise is not due to the Posterity of Adam more than to any other Creature Nay if God afford them a Temporary Mortal Life ' 't is his Gift they owe it to his Bounty they could not claim it as their Right nor does he injure them when he takes it from them Had he taken from Manking any thing that was their Right or did he put Men in a state of Misery worse than not being without any fault or demerit of their own this indeed would be hard to reconcile with the Notion we have of Justice and much more with the Goodness and other Attributes of the Supream Being which he has declared of himself and Reason as well as Revelation must acknowledge to be in him unless we will confound Good and Evil God and Satan That such a state of extream irremidiable Torment is worse than no Being at all if every one ones sense did not determine against the vain Philosophy and foolish Metaphysicks of some Men yet our Saviour's peremptory decision Matt. XXVI 24. has put it past doubt that one may be in such an estate that it had been better for him not to have been born But that such a temporary Life as we now have with all its Frailties and ordinary Miseries is better than no Being is evident by the high value we put upon it our selves And therefore though all die in Adam yet none are truly punished but for their own deeds Rom. II. 6. God will render to every one how according to his deeds To those that obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil v. 9. 2 Cor. V. 10. We must appear before the Iudgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad And Christ himself who knew for what he should condemn Men at the last day assures us in the two places where he describes his proceeding at the great Judgment that the Sentence of Condemnation passes only on the workers of Iniquity such as neglected to fulfil the Law in acts of Charity Mat. VII 23. Luke XIII 27. Mat. XXV 42. But here is no Condemnation of any one for what his fore-father Adam had done which 't is not likely should have been omitted if that should have been a cause why any one was adjudged to the fire with the Devil and his Angels And he tells his Disciples that when he comes again with his Angels is the Glory of his Father that then he will render to every one according to his works Mat. XVI 27. Adam being thus turned out of Paradise and all his Posterity born out of it the consequence of it was that all men should die and remain under Death for ever and so be utterly lost From this estate of Death Jesus Christ restores all mankind to Life 1 Cor. XV. 22. As in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive How this shall be the same Apostle tells us in the foregoing v. 21. By man death came by man also came the Resurrection from the dead Whereby it appears that the Life which Jesus Christ restores to all men is that Life which they receive again at the Resurrection Then they recovered from Death which otherwise all mankind should have continued under lost for ever as appears by St. Paul's Arguing 1 Cor. XV. concerning the Resurrection And thus men are by the Second Adam restored to Life again That so by Adam's sin they may none of them lose any thing which by their own Righteousness they might have a Title to For Righteousness or an exact obedience to the Law seems by the Scripture to have a claim of Right to Eternal Life Rom. IV. 4. To him that worketh i. e. does the works of the Law is the reward not reckoned of Grace but OF DEBT And Rev. XXII 14. Blessed are they who do his Commandments that they may HAVE RIGHT to the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God If any of the Posterity of Adam were just they shall not lose the Reward of it Eternal Life and Bliss by being his Mortal Issue Christ will bring them all to Life again And then they shall be put every one upon his own Tryal and receive Judgment as he is found to be Righteous or no. And the righteous as our Saviour says Mat. XXV 46. shall go into eternal life Nor shall any one miss it who has done what our Saviour
time bringing him out to them after he had whip'd him Iohn XIX 4. 6. And after all When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing but that rather a Tumult was made he took Water and washed his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the Blood of this just man see you to it Mat. XXVII 24. Which gives us a clear reason of the cautious and wary Conduct of our Saviour in not declaring himself in the whole course of his Ministry so much as to his Disciples much less to the Multitude or the Rulers of the Jews in express words to be the Messiah the King And why he kept himself always in Prophetical or Parabolical terms He and his Disciples Preaching only the Kingdom of God i. e. of the Messiah to be come And left to his Miracles to declare who he was Though this was the Truth which he came into the World as he says himself Iohn XVIII 37. to testifie and which his Disciples were to believe When Pilate satisfied of his Innocence would have released him And the Jews persisted to cry out Crucifie him Crucifie him Iohn XIX 6. Pilate says to them Take ye him your selves and Crucifie him For I do not find any fault in him The Jews then since they could not make him a State-Criminal by alledging his saying that he was the Son of God say by their Law it was a Capital Crime v. 7. The Iews answered to Pilate We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God After this Pilate was the more desirous to release him v. 12 13. But the Iews cried out saying If thou let this man go thou art not Caesar 's Friend Whosoever maketh himself a King speaketh against Caesar. Here we see the stress of their Charge against Jesus whereby they hoped to take away his Life viz. That he made himself King We see also upon what they grounded this Accusation viz. Because he had owned himself to be the Son of God For he had in their hearing never made or professed himself to be a King We see here likewise the reason why they were so desirous to draw from his own mouth a Confession in express words that he was the Messiah viz. That they might have what might be a clear Proof that he did so And last of all we see the reason why though in Expressions which they understood he owned himself to them to be the Messiah yet he avoided declaring it to them in such words as might look Criminal at Pilate's Tribunal He owned himself to be the Messiah plainly to the Understanding of the Iews But in ways that could not to the Understanding of Pilate make it appear that he laid claim to the Kingdom of Iudea or went about to make himself King of that Country But whether his saying that he was the Son of God was Criminal by their Law that Pilate troubled not himself about He that considers what Tacitus Suetonius Seneca de Benef. l. 3. c. 26. Say of Tiberius and his Reign will find how necessary it was for our Saviour if he would not dye as a Criminal and a Traytor to take great heed to his words and actions that he did or said not any thing that might be offensive or give the least Umbrage to the Roman Government It behoved an Innocent Man who was taken notice of for something Extraordinary in him to be very wary Under a jealous and cruel Prince who encouraged Informations and filled his Reign with Executions for Treason Under whom words spoken innocently or in jest if they could be misconstrued were made Treason and prosecuted with a Rigor that made it always the same thing to be accused and condemned And therefore we see that when the Iews told Pilate Iohn XIX 12. That he should not be a Friend to Caesar if he let Iesus go For that whoever made himself King was a Rebel against Caesar He asks them no more whether they would take Barrabbas and spare Iesus But though against his Conscience gives him up to Death to secure his own Head One thing more there is that gives us light into this wise and necessarily cautious management of himself which manifestly agrees with it and makes a part of it And that is the choice of his Apostles exactly suited to the design and fore-sight of the Necessity of keeping the declaration of the Kingdom of the Messiah which was now expected within certain general terms during his Ministry And not opening himself too plainly or forwardly to the heady Jews that he himself was the Messiah but leaving it to be found out by the Observation of those who would attend to the Purity of his Life and the Testimony of his Miracles and the Conformity of all with the Predictions concerning him without an express promulgation that he was the Messiah till after his Death His Kingdom was to be opened to them by degrees as well to prepare them to receive it as to enable him to be long enough amongst them to perform what was the work of the Messiah to be done and fulfil all those several parts of what was foretold of him in the Old Testament and we see applyed to him in the New The Iews had no other thoughts of their Messiah but of a Mighty Temporal Prince that should raise their Nation into an higher degree of Power Dominion and Prosperity than ever it had enjoyed They were filled with the expectation of a Glorious Earthly Kingdom It was not therefore for a Poor Man the Son of a Carpenter and as they thought born in Galilee to pretend to it None of the Iews no not his Disciples could have born this if he had expresly avowed this at first and began his Preaching and the opening of his Kingdom this way Especially if he had added to it that in a Year or two he should dye an ignominious Death upon the Cross. They are therefore prepared for the Truth by degrees First Iohn the Baptist tells them The Kingdom of God a name by which the Jews called the Kingdom of the Messiah is at hand Then our Saviour comes and he tells them of the Kingdom of God Sometimes that it is at hand and upon some occasions that it is come but says in his Publick Preaching little or nothing of himself Then come the Apostles and Evangelists after his Death and they in express words teach what his Birth Life and Doctrine had done before and had prepared the well-disposed to receive viz. That Iesus is the Messiah To this Design and Method of Publishing the Gospel was the choice of the Apostles exactly adjusted A company of Poor Ignorant Illiterate Men who as Christ himself tells us Mat. XI 25. and Luke X. 21. Were not of the Wise and Prudent Men of the World They were in that respect but meer Children These convinced by the Miracles they saw him daily do and the unblameable Life he lead might be disposed to
have I spoken to you in Proverbs i. e. In General Obscure Aenigmatical or Figurative terms All which as well as Allusive Apologues the Jews called Proverbs or Parables Hitherto my declaring of my self to you hath been obscure and with reserve And I have not spoken of my self to you in plain and direct words because ye could not bear it A Messiah and not a King you could not understand And a King living in Poverty and Persecution and dying the Death of a Slave and Malefactor upon a Cross you could not put together And had I told you in plain words that I was the Messiah and given you a direct Commission to Preach to others that I professedly owned my self to be the Messiah you and they would have been ready to have made a Commotion to have set me upon the Throne of my Father David and to fight for me that your Messiah your King in whom are your hopes of a Kingdom should not be delivered up into the hands of his Enemies to be put to Death And of this Peter will instantly give you an Example But the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Parables but I shall shew unto you plainly of the Father My Death and Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Ghost will speedily enlighten you and then I shall make you know the Will and Design of the Father What a Kingdom I am to have and by what means and to what end v. 27. And this the Father himself will shew unto you For he loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from the Father Because ye have believed that I am the Son of God the Messiah That he hath anointed and sent me Though it hath not been yet fully discovered to you what kind of Kingdom it shall be nor by what means brought about And then our Saviour without being asked explaining to them what he had said And making them understand better what before they stuck at and complained secretly among themselves that they understood not They thereupon declare v. 30. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee 'T is plain thou knowest mens Thoughts and Doubts before they ask By this we believe that thou comest forth from God Iesus answered Do ye now believe Notwithstanding that you now believe that I came from God and am the Messiah sent by him Behold the hour cometh yea is now come that ye shall be scattered And as it is Mat. XXVI 31. and shall all be scandalized in me What it is to be scandalized in him we may see by what followed hereupon if that which he says to St. Peter Mark XIV did not sufficiently explain it This I have been the more particular in That it may be seen that in this last Discourse to his Disciples where he opened himself more than he had hitherto done and where if any thing more was required to make them Believers than what they already believed we might have expected they should have heard of it there were no new Articles proposed to them but what they believed before viz. That he was the Messiah the Son of God sent from the Father Though of his manner of proceeding and his sudden leaving the World and some few particulars he made them understand something more than they did before But as to the main design of the Gospel viz. That he had a Kingdom that he should be put to Death and rise again and ascend into Heaven to his Father and come again in Glory to Judge the World This he had told them And so had acquainted them with the Great Council of God in sending him the Messiah and omitted nothing that was necessary to be known or believed in it And so he tells them himself Iohn XV. 15. Henceforth I call ye not Servants for the Servant knoweth not what his Lord does But I have called ye Friends for ALL THINGS I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you though perhaps ye do not so fully comprehend them as you will shortly when I am risen and ascended To conclude all in his Prayer which shuts up this Discourse he tells the Father what he had made known to his Apostles The Result whereof we have Iohn XVII 8. I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and THEY HAVE BELIEVED THAT THOV DIDST SEND ME Which is in effect that he was the Messiah promised and sent by God And then he Prays for them and adds v. 20 21. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also who shall believe on me through their word What that Word was through which others should believe in him we have seen in the Preaching of the Apostles all through the History of the Acts viz. This one great Point that Jesus was the Messiah The Apostles he says v. 25. know that thou hast sent me i. e. are assured that I am the Messiah And in v. 21. 23. he Prays That the World may believe which v. 23. is called knowing that thou hast sent me So that what Christ would have believed by his Disciples we may see by this his last Prayer for them when he was leaving the World as well as by what he Preached whilst he was in it And as a Testimony of this one of his last Actions even when he was upon the Cross was to confirm this Doctrine by giving Salvation to one of the Thieves that was crucified with him upon his Declaration that he believed him to be the Messiah For so much the words of his Request imported when he said Remember me Lord when thou comest into thy Kingdom Luke XXIII 42. To which Jesus replied v. 43. Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou be with me in Paridise An Expression very remarkable For as Adam by sin left Paradise i. e. a state of Happy Immortality Here the believing Thief through his Faith in Iesus the Messiah is promised to be put in Paradise and so re-instated in an Happy Immortality Thus our Saviour ended his Life And what he did after his Resurrection St. Luke tells us Acts I. 3. That he shewed himself to the Apostles forty days speaking things concerning the Kingdom of God This was what our Saviour preached in the whole Course of his Ministry before his Passion And no other Mysteries of Faith does he now discover to them after his Resurrection All he says is concerning the Kingdom of God And what it was he said concerning that we shall see presently out of the other Evangelists having first only taken notice that when now they asked him v. 6. Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel He said unto them v. 7. It is not for you to know the Times and the Seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive Power after that the Holy Ghost is come