and the Father Lo I come to do thy Will O God In the Volume of the Book it is written of me I will give thee the Heathen for thy Possession and the utmost parts of the Earth for thine Inheritance The first Text tells us what he came to do and in pursuance of what Agreement The other what he was to have for doing it and who he was to have it from Now God being the undoubted Author of Eternal Life there can be no hazard in this Title for want of a right Person to make the Grant which is more than can be said of any Titles amongst Men. 3. The Contents and Consideration That if he became bound we should be made free He gave his Life a Ransom for many Christ well knew what Man stood bound to under the Law of Death And did as well know that if he himself ever came under that Law he must thereby become bound to the same And that if he should come under the Law before he made an agreement previous to it he should be concluded by the Law to suffer under it upon his account and thereby be incapacitated to capitulate with God about it For the Life of a Man attainted as Christ was the first moment of his Birth is forfeited to the Law and therefore after that he could not have been at liberty to treat with God concerning that Law And thereupon he would not become charged with this Law till he had made this Covenant That we that were before charged with it might thereby be discharged from it By which he was to be neither Surety nor Bail for Man For in both these the Principals still remain liable and the Sureties stand only hazarded with them and have a Remedy over against them Which had been a dishonourable Engagement for the Dignity of so great a Person And therefore he offered himself a Ransom or nothing to be delivered in exchange for the Captives whereby he alone stood bound And as such he was accepted I have trodden the Wine-press alone and none of all the People with me And therefore when he was taken there was not a Man taken with him I am Jesus of Nazareth whom ye seek let these therefore go their way And this was the highest Honour that God could put upon him to accept him a Ransom for the whole World And yet this was not an Honour above his Merit for as in Debts by Civil Contract 't is not the Multitude but the Solvency of the Debtors that makes the Payment so in the Laws of Ransom 't is not the Number but the Dignity of the Persons that is valued in the Exchange And hence this Son of Man being more worth than ten thousands of the people his Death was a greater Honour to the Law than if all the World besides had died under it And could Man from hence understand the force of the Covenant of Eternal Life he might see himself discharged from Death in the very moment the Law fell upon Christ which was the instant of his Birth Because Man was to be ipso facto released upon Christ's becoming bound And after that it was no matter to Man whether Christ had ever given Satisfaction to God or not we might have said to God Look thou to that For God by this Covenant having once accepted Christ for a Ransom Man could never after that have been retaken by any Law of Reprizal altho the Ransom had escaped As soon as the Ram was caught in the Thicket the Sacrifice that before lay bound upon the Altar was let loose Not that the coming of Christ in the Flesh was the Satisfaction but God was thereby sure of his Satisfaction For as certain as Christ by his Birth became a living Child in fact so certain did he that moment become a dead Man in Law But yet all that I have hitherto said doth not amount to instate Man into the same Title of Eternal Life which Christ had after his Resurrection Because a meer Ransom doth in it self amount to no more than to restore us to the same Liberty which we had before we were Captive And then this Ransom by Christ would only have reinstated Man into that Law of Life conditional in which Adam stood before the Fall But God having found out this Salvo for his Honour by that Man Christ Jesus he did at the same time find that this would not only do but over-do all that Man had misdone And that this superabundancy might not run in waste God did declare that for this Man should have eternal Life absolute as Christ himself had it And hence Eternal Life is called the Gift of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ over and above our Redemption So that now by this Covenant of Eternal Life we are not only ransomed from that Law under which we fell in Adam but are delivered over into a State and Title which we never had before the Fall viz. that absolute and indefeasible Estate of Eternal Life in which Christ was installed by his Resurrection from the dead And this Redemption from one Law and Deliverance over into another are both done at the same instant without any Interval of Time passing between them As in Conveyances amongst Men the Title vests and devests from one to another by one and the same Act. And hence this Covenant is not called the Covenant of Redemption but the Covenant of Eternal Life as the most worthy Title And therefore he that takes any thing by this Covenant must take Eternal Life or nothing A Believer is never spoken of with a less addition than Eternal Life He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting Life And thus it is in Conveyances among Men whatever is contain'd in the Deed can't be divided but must pass altogether by the Execution of that Deed which as to this now stands next in order 4. The Sealing and Execution for let the Contents of a Writing be what it will it is neither Deed nor Covenant till it is executed This Covenant of Eternal Life being thus formed in Heaven was afterwards sealed and executed by God himself according to all the Forms and Ceremonies of Titles among Men. For God having establish'd Eternal Life by a Law he hath used all the Ceremonies of Law to make a Title to it Every Law prescribes its own Ceremonies by which it is to be executed The Ceremony as I have said by which the Law of Death is executed upon Man is his Birth The Ceremony by which the Jews received the Law of Moses was Circumcision And the Ceremony by which the Covenant of Eternal Life was executed by God is the Blood of Christ And now I am come to that Point that hath puzled the whole World What! Eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of a Man and be saved That this Covenant should be sealed is agreeable to all other Titles amongst Men. But that it should be sealed with the Blood of
extravagant humour in God to distinguish Men to be saved or damned only for believing or not believing in Christ But may we not think it as extravagant in us to distinguish our selves to have or not have a thousand pounds a Year only for sealing or not sealing a Deed Should we not call our selves Fools for refusing to put forth our hands to a piece of Parchment and take it off again to get an Estate by And yet we think our selves wise in refusing Eternal Life because we may have it upon such easy Terms For tho from the positive words of this Prescription the sealing and executing this Covenant of Eternal Life by Man without more saying or doing gives him as perfect a Title to Eternal Life as the sealing of a Deed among Men can make to the Lands contained in it Yet from the negative words of the Prescription there can be no Title to this Eternal Life without the complyance with this Ceremony For if Man can have any other Title to Eternal Life than according to this Covenant this Covenant don't give him a Title to it No Deed gives Man a Title that leaves any part of the Title at large out of the Deed. If the Grantor reserves any of the Title to himself then the Grantee hath no perfect Title But God hath excepted nothing out of this Covenant but his own Personal Life For when it is said That he hath put all things under him it is manifest that he is excepted who hath put all things under him Wherefore all the other parts of Eternal Life are subject to this way of Life by Jesus Christ And hence all other attempts for Heaven are accounted Sin He that entereth not in by the Door but climbeth up some other way is a Thief and a Robber and comes for to steal And having thus opened this Covenant First I put it upon the Profession of Divinity to deny one word of the Fact as I have repeated it Next I challenge the Science of the Law to shew such another Title as this And then I defy the Logicians to deny my Argument Of which this is the Abstract That the Law delivered to Adam before the Fall is the Original Cause of Death in the World That this Law is taken away by the Death of Christ That therefore the Legal Power of Death is gone And I am so far from thinking this Covenant of Eternal Life to be an Allusion to the forms of Title amongst Men that I rather adore it as the Precedent for them all from which our imperfect Forms are taken Believing with that great Apostle That the things on Earth are but the Patterns of things in the Heavens where the Originals are kept BVT why then doth Death remain in the World Why because Man knows not the way of Life The way of Life they have not known Or as I said at the beginning that Death maintains its dominion over us by our fear of it Having no other right to remain with us but because our Faith is not yet come to us When the Son of Man comes shall he find Faith upon the Earth Man is a Beast of Burden that knows not his own strength in the virtue of the Death and the Power of the Resurrection of Christ Which Ignorance doth not proceed from want of Revelation of the Truth but from our neglect to study and inaptitude to believe it O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Unbelief don't go by reason or dint of Argument but is a sort of Melancholy-madness by which if we once fancy our selves bound it hath the same effect upon us as if we really were so It is like the noise of War heard in the Camp of the Syrians which made them fly when no one pursued Or like that possession of fear which still kept the besieged within the Garison tho the Enemy had left the Field Death is like Satan who appears to none but them that are afraid of him Resist the Devil and he will fly from you Or like Tyrants and saucy Pedagogues whose former Cruelties render them terrible to those who have been under their lash after they are freed from it Because Death had once dominion over us we think it hath and must have it still And this I find within my self that tho I can't deny one Word I have said in Fact or Argument yet I can't maintain my belief of it without making it more familiar to my understanding by turning it up and down in my thoughts and ruminating upon some proceedings already made upon it in the World Some Specimens whereof I 'll present to the Reader The Motto of the Religion of the World is as I have said Mors janua Vitae Death is the Gate of Life Now I say if we do by this mean the Death of Christ then we are in the right But if by this we mean our own Death then we are in the wrong The Death of Christ was necessary for him and us both because the Covenant of Life would not take effect but by his Death which in the Covenant hath two Capacities 1st As it was the consideration upon which the Covenant was made 2dly As it was the Ceremony by which it was executed But all this being over and done the Death of Man is wholly useless and serves to no intent or purpose in order to Eternal Life nor ever did And could we distinguish between the change of our State and the change of our Persons and Places this Doctrine would be more plain to us By State I always mean Title so that when I say a Man is in the State of Life I mean he is by Law intituled to live and when I say he is in the state of Death I mean he is by Law appointed to die Now a Man may change his State without change of his Person or Place Christ by his Death and Resurrection did pass under an invisible change of his State by being discharged from that Law of Death to which he stood before subjected by his Birth and being translated into that Law of Life which he gained by his Resurrection Which tho it were only a legal or invisible Translation he was thereby as safe from Death as he is now being ascended and sitting at the right Hand of God And yet his Person remained here unchanged Behold my Hands and my Feet that it is I my self These were Marks of Honour that could not be counterfeit And that some did not know him is said to be from their Unbelief or that their Eyes were holden that they should not know him But tho this change of his State in an instant did not work so sudden an alteration in his Person yet it did intitle his Person to a change for the better which Title he had not before his Death Christ was as perfect in his Nature and his Principles before Death as he was afterwards and yet he could not then
this attainment much longer above ground that Time seems to them an Interval of perfect leisure as Alexander's did to him after his Conquest till at last espying Death it self they fall upon it as an Enemy that must be conquered one time or other through Faith in Christ And for this cause there seems a respite of time intended to be allotted to Believers after the first Resurrection and before the Dissolution of the World for perfecting that Faith which they began before their Death and which they could not attain to in the first reach of Life For Death being but a discontinuance of Life wherever Men leave off at their Death they must begin at their Resurrection The Believers already dead are not ascended into the Heavens for David is not ascended into the Heavens Nor shall they ascend after their Resurrection till they have attain'd to this Faith of Translation And by that very Faith they shall be then convinced that if they had had that Faith before they need not have died The Story of Lazarus makes this plain His two Sisters said to Christ that if he had been there their Brother had not died And others that stood by said Could not this Man that opened the Eyes of the blind have even caused that this Man should not have died And Martha said further That whatever Christ would yet ask of God God would give it him By which she declared her Faith to be that Christ could raise her Brother presently Now these People had not these Articles of Faith from any Religion then commonly received amongst them But observing the Miracles Christ had done before they could not beat it out of their heads but that he could have prevented the Death of Lazarus and could then raise him presently Both which were right and rational Conclusions and did form a true Religion in them But when Christ closed in with them upon it and offered to make it good by raising the dead Man presently they all fell to recanting their Faith one cry'd He stinketh and the other He hath been dead four days and thereupon desired him to desist And the reason of the Recantation is evident The common Religion then received amongst them concerning the Resurrection was what we still retain That there will be a Resurrection at the last day And this having gain'd an Impression upon them from the force of Education was too strong for that single Impression which fell upon their Minds from their own Observation only And therefore they thought it safer to renounce their own Faith than the Religion delivered them by their Parents But Christ by doing the thing did convince them that their own Faith and Opinion of him was right And yet he did not say that the Religion delivered them by their Parents was wrong For that there will be a Resurrection at the last day in which all they that are not before that time raised shall then arise But what he said by this Text was that this Resurrection at the last day doth not prevent a present Resurrection from Death nor an immediate Translation without Death to them whose Faith is ready to receive it We must all be changed but we need not all die in order to be changed for 't is not Death that works our Change but the Death and Resurrection of Christ which we may pass through without Death Paul was of this Religion that we may be changed without Death We shall not all die but we shall all be chang'd And yet tho he had deliver'd this to be his Faith in general he did not attain to such a particular knowledg of the way and manner of it so as to prevent his own Death And his Confession tells us the reason of his failure That he had not yet attained the Resurrection of the Dead but was pressing after it But tho he was taken away in this pursuit he hath not lost his labour but is got so much nearer to the mark and at his Resurrection will be so far beforehand with them that never studied it He had but a late Conversion and after that was detained in the study of another part of Divinity the confirming the New Testament by the Old and making them answer one another in which he seems to have spent himself and from whence all Students in Divinity after him have stood upon his Shoulders For this is a Point previous to the Faith of Translation and must be learn'd before it in order to it And this his pressing tho he did not attain hath much encouraged me to make this Inquiry being well assured that he would not have thus pursued it had he not apprehended more in it than the vulgar Opinion is about it We don't think our selves fit to deal with one another in Human Affairs till our Age of one and twenty But to deal with our Maker thus offended to counter-plot the Malice of fallen Angels and to rescue our selves from eternal Ruin we are generally as well qualified for before we can speak plain as all our Life-time after Children can say over their Religion at four or five years old and their Parents that taught them can do no more at four or five and fifty For Religion being preach'd to them as a Mystery they are forbid to think of understanding it Graecum est non potest legi The common Creed of the Christian Religion may be learn'd in an hour And one day's Philosophy will teach a Man to die But to know the Virtue of the Death and Power of the Resurrection of Christ is a Science calculated for the study of Men and Angels for ever BUT if Man may be thus chang'd without Death and that it is of no use to him in order to Eternal Life What then is Death Or Whereunto serveth it What is it Why 't is a misfortune fallen upon Man from the beginning and from which he hath not yet dared to attempt his recovery And it serves as a Spectrum to fright us into a little better life than perhaps we should lead without it Tho God hath formed this Covenant of Eternal Life against Death Man still maintains a Covenant with it They have made an Agreement with Death and Hell By way of composition to submit to Death in hopes by that obedience to escape Hell And under this Oath of Allegiance we think our selves bound never to rebel against it The study of Philosophy is to teach Men to die from the Observations of Nature The Profession of Divinity is to inforce this Doctrine from Revelation And the Science of the Law is to settle our civil Affairs pursuant to these Resolutions The old Men are making their last Wills and Testaments And the young are expecting the execution of them by the death of the Testators And thus Mortis ad exemplum totus componitur Orbis Now what one Man dares raise a Faction against the whole World thus constituted under the Political Government of Death Why but if the
AN ARGUMENT Proving That according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life without passing through Death altho the Humane Nature of CHRIST himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through Death Nec vanis credite verbis Aspicite en faciatque fidem Conspectus Anno Dom. 1700. THE PREFACE TO them that knew not the reason it look'd like a Whym for the Man in the Gospel to walk about the streets with his Bed upon his Back on the Sabbath-day while the rest of the People were at their Devotion And perhaps it may seem more odd in me to bolt out an Argument in Divinity as a Bone of Contention into the World at a time when the rest of Mankind are so deeply engaged in Secular Affairs But he that regardeth the Wind will never sow and he that waiteth for Times and Seasons will never do Business And as that seeming whimsical Man said to them that reproved him He that made me whole the same said unto me Take up thy Bed and walk So say I to them that affront me He that revealed this unto me the same bad me tell it abroad as a watch-word to be given out from one to another every Man to his Fellow as fast as he receives it Let him that heareth say Come And having thus delivered my part of the Message I look upon my self to have no more to do with it afterwards than you have But hereby I shall know whether this Doctrine be mine or no. If it be mine it will sink and fall and die But if it be his that I think 't is it will kindle it self like a Firebrand from one to another till it hath set the World in Arms against Death And having thus left the decision of the truth of it to the success I begin to feel my self more easy under it And as the four Leprous Men said to one another in the Gate of Samaria If we sit here we are sure to die with Famine and if we go into the Camp of the Syrians we can but die by the Sword So I have said to my self If I submit to Death I am sure to die and if I oppose it I can but be kill'd and die And should I be baffled in this Essay I can lose nothing by it but that little Credit with the World which I value not in comparison of this Attempt And as those four desperate Men venturing themselves upon this Resolution did thereupon find that they had been before more afraid than hurt So in making this Sally against Death methinks I have discovered it to be rather a Bugbear than an Enemy And therefore as they having filled themselves with Plunder thought it their Duty to go and tell the news to them that were ready to perish So I can't satisfy my self to eat my Morsel alone without communicating to them who I know with my self must by reason of Death be all their life-time subject to Bondage And as their glad Tidings of plenty was never the less welcome to the King and People of Israel for being brought to them by Men poor and miserable So if my News be true in it self why should it fare the worse for being told by the greatest of Sinners And perhaps this qualifies me to be the Messenger lest one more holy should seem to be honoured with it for his own personal Sanctity I remember a sudden Retort once given me by a Lady to whom I excused this my Emulation by the Example of Enoch But you are not so good as he was for Enoch walked with God And this might have puzled me had not Paul in his List of Worthys counted upon the Translation of Enoch as done by Faith By Faith Enoch was translated that he should not see Death Why then if I have as good a Faith for this purpose as he had I am in this point quoad hoc as good a Man as he was tho I fall short of him in all his other Qualities Nor is it to be expected that any Assembly of Divines should be employed in such a Business as this They inclose themselves within the Pale of their own Church and whoever breaks through that Fence is prosecuted as a Trespasser upon their Jurisdiction And thus the Jewish Priests excommunicated a Layman for teaching them Religion Thou wast altogether born in Sin and dost thou teach us and they cast him out But he that had opened his Eyes took him in And such an exchange I should reckon no great misfortune But is it not a shame That this Enoch in the beginning of Time so long before the receipt of the Promise should attain to that Faith in Christ which we that have seen him crucified before our eyes think a Sin to offer at But having been tempted to commit this Sin like a true Mother's Child of my grand Parent Eve I would tempt my Friends to do so too And all I ask of them is this Having abstracted the study of seven years Recluse into less than two hours reading I only desire the perusal of it at a time of leisure when Men and Women design to be serious and think most of themselves And then I flatter my self that they will find it not the most unpleasant hour that ever they spent in their life For this I know that nothing is more pleasant to us than News and what I have said was never said by Man before And this I know that notwithstanding the defection of our Natures nothing is more pleasant to Man than Truth And what I have said is true And a Truth that all the Gainsayers shall not be able to resist Tho it be in contradiction to the most received Truth in the World That all Men must die An Argument proving That according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life c. ANTE obitum felix nemo supremaque fata is a fiction of Poets And that old Motto worn upon Tomb-stones Death is the Gate of Life is a Lie By which Men decoy one another into Death taking it to be a thorough-fare into Eternal Life Whereas it is just so far out of the way For die when we will and be buried when we will and lie in the Grave as long as we will we must all return from thence and stand again upon the Earth before we can ascend into the Heavens Hinc itur ad Astra Now the Assertion of Christ concerning himself was that Man by him may live for ever And this is that Magnetick which hath drawn the World after him For as he said to us Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God So we may say of him Except his words exceed the words of common Men what should we follow him for And thus when he
of every Man within any Country doth subject him to the Laws of that Country is the Law of all Nations And without these Concessions there could be no Laws because else every Man must have a particular Law delivered him for himself which being a publick Inconvenience cannot be admitted in the nature of Laws And thus this Law of Death fell upon Christ himself as a Descendant from the same common Ancestors Christ had two descents in his Birth One was his natural descent from the Virgin Mary his real Mother The other his legal descent from Joseph his supposed Father But in his Genealogy set down by two Evangelists this legal descent by Joseph is only counted upon without taking any notice of his descent by his Mother's side Because this descent by Joseph was his legitimate descent according to that Law which makes all the Issue of the Woman born during the Coverture to be the Issue of the Husband although it be notoriously known that in Fact it were begotten by another And this is our Law at this day altho the Issue be born but one day after the Espousals And the Canon Law is much stronger for that makes the Issue born of the Woman before Marriage let them be begotten by whom she will unless by a former Husband in Wedlock to be the Issue of the Husband to whom she is afterward married And therefore Christ having such a Father-in-Law as this his descent must be accounted from his Father-in-Law and not from his Mother because all legal descents are accounted from the Father and not from the Mother When the eleven Tribes were polled in the Wilderness of Sinai they gave account of their Pedigrees after their Families by the House of their Fathers without taking any notice of their descent by their Mothers side And so did they of the Tribe of Levi who were numbered after them Wherefore I say the business of the Evangelists being to shew such a descent in Christ by which the Curse of the Law might fall upon him in his Birth they must shew a descent upon which the Law might operate For as this is a Law all Proceedings thereupon are according to Law And hence it is observable that his being born of a Virgin espoused and not of a single Virgin was not accidental but designed For as it was necessary that he should be born of a pure Virgin to preserve his Nature from the defilements of the Humanity so it was necessary that he should be born of a Virgin espoused to derive upon himself the Curse of the Law by a legal Father For which purpose it was necessary that the Birth of Christ should in the terms of the Evangelist be on this wise and no otherwise And as this peculiar Genealogy of Christ was not accidental but designed the quality of his descent was so too There are mutual courtesies and civilities used amongst Equals but he that accepteth Riches or Honour from another doth thereby acknowledg him to be his Superior for the lesser is blessed of the greater Wherefore when Abraham had rescued the Plunder taken from the Sodomites he permitted the young Men that fought with him to eat and drink of the Provisions and his three Confederates that assisted him to take their Portion of the Goods but for his own part taking himself to be as good a Man as the then King of Sodom he scorned to accept from him the value of a Shoe Latchet lest it should be said he made Abraham rich So tho Christ in the days of his flesh behaved himself with all the freedom of Conversation The Son of Man came eating and drinking and when little Zacheus climb'd up a Tree to see him he frankly invited himself to dine with him Yet knowing himself to be the Son of God he neither could nor would receive any Dignity from Man I receive not Honour from Man And thus knowing his real descent to be from Above I am from Above it was equal to him to be reputed the Son of a King or a Carpenter But he rather chose the latter because being himself a King I am a King he would not accept his immediate descent from another King lest it should be said that that made him King David often vaunted of him as his descendant to come twice fourteen Generations before he was born And Abraham rejoiced to see his day But he was so far from valuing himself upon these great Ancestors one a King and the other a King's Fellow that he rather seemed to disown them Before Abraham was I am If David called me Lord how am I his Son He made no other use of his Royal Pedigree but to convey by them a corrupted descent from Adam who standing attainted of Treason against Heaven Christ himself under this Attainder was baptized in his own Blood to restore the rest of Mankind into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God For Christ himself thus falling under the Law became as guilty of the breach of it as any common Man notwithstanding his personal Holiness For we are none of us guilty of this Sin in Fact but only by construction of Law in the Article of our Birth which falls upon us before we know Good or Evil and so it did upon the Humanity of Christ And this Law thus falling upon him was as just a cause of his Death as it is of ours Nor can his Death be assigned to any other cause but this This Death of Christ was the most unlikely thing that ever happen'd in the World His Disciples could not believe it till they saw it He did not die of Age being about thirty three at his Death He did not die of natural Infirmity having the power of Health by which he preserved his own and restored others He did not die in Battel For his Kingdom was not of this World else would his Servants have fought that he should not have been delivered unto the Jews He did not die by any sudden Accident the Angels having charge over him lest he should dash his foot against a stone He did not murder himself but made all his Efforts to escape the greatest of which was his asking his Life of God Nor was he murdered by others because there was a form of Law in doing it And yet he was not executed by Law because there was no Law then in being by which he could be executed for the Crime of which he stood accused The time that Christ lived in the World was after the destruction of the Jewish Monarchy and during the continuance of the Roman Conquest under which the Jewish Nation being then Subjects were permitted the exercise of their Religion and Priesthood but not of the Civil Power which they had while their Monarchy was in being So that if a Jew had committed any Offence against the Jewish Law which was not an Offence against the Roman Law he was liable to no other Punishment than the Censure of the Jewish Church
that he would only forbear one Common Tree for it seems to be no more till it became otherwise by his eating of it Withal telling him that if he did eat of it his Life should go for it Not that God thought his Life satisfaction but it was all the Satisfaction God could have of him it was rather a Resentment of the Affront than any Satisfaction for it By which God shew'd that if Man had had more than his Life to give God would have had it of him And therefore to signify the height of this Resentment God raises Man from the Dead to demand further Satisfaction of him Death is a commitment to the Prison of the Grave till the Judgment of the great Day and then the grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea to give up their Dead to remove the Bodies with the cause of their Commitment And as these Causes shall appear they shall either be released or else sentenced to the common Goal of Hell there to remain until Satisfaction Such was the Resentment of despised Love and yet this was a Resentment without Malice For as God maintained his Resentment under all his Love so he maintained his Love under all his Resentment For his Love being a Love of Kindness flowing from the generosity of his own Nature could not be diminished by any Art of Man And yet his Honour being concerned to maintain the Truth of his Word he could not falsify that to gratify his own Affection And thus he bore the Passion of his own Law till he had found out a Salvo for his Honour by that Son of Man who gave him Satisfaction all at once by the dignity of his Person Personal Satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed sufficient or not sufficient according to the equality or inequality between the Persons who give and take the Affront Therefore God to vindicate his Honour thus affronted was oblig'd to find out a Person for that purpose equal to himself who was affronted The invention of which is called the manifold Wisdom of God The Invention it self being the highest Expression of the deepest Love And the Execution of this Invention in the Death of Christ being the deepest Resentment of the highest Affront Which Death of Christ did nevertheless surmount all the Demands made upon him For as much as his Person was superiour in dignity to the Human Nature so much the Satisfaction by his Death surmounted the Offence of Man And thus I say this Law being fulfilled and over satisfied by Christ in his Death was and is taken away so that there was no such Law in being against him after his Resurrection He was made under the Law by his Birth but he did not arise under it having taken it away by his Death And having thus taken away the Law by his Death the Life regained by him in his Resurrection was by Conquest He met with no quarter from God nor Man God would not save him from Death tho he ask'd him and therefore he rescued himself from it He pray'd to be preserv'd from Death before it came upon him but he craved no Aid against the Power of it towards his Resurrection Destroy this Body and I will raise it in three days Die he knew he must but rise he knew he could And the reason of his Resurrection was because Death could hold him no longer For it was not possible that he should be held any longer of it And this he did not in contradiction to the Will of God For God having executed the Law upon him by his Death he did not oppose him in his Resurrection And therefore tho he could not come down from the Cross because the Will of God was then against him yet he could arise from the dead because the Will of God did not then oppose him And so God leaving him to himself he conquered Death By which according to all the Laws of Conquest the Law of Death is taken away For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the conquered are ipso facto taken away by the very Conquest and all Records and Writings that remain of them are of no more force than waste Paper The Law of Death as I have said remains in words and will remain for ever but it had no more force against Christ after his Resurrection than if it had never been made And from hence the Title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute By absolute I mean discharged from all Tenure or Condition and consequently from all Forfeiture And this is the Title of Conquerors who hold of none but themselves because they receive their Right from none but their Arms. And is in opposition to the first Title of Life delivered to Adam which was held by Tenure as being received from God and being so held it became forfeited to him of whom it was held according to the Laws of Tenure But Christ receiving his Life in his Resurrection from none but himself I lay down my Life of my self and I take it up again it is now his own without Tenure and therefore is absolute and cannot be forfeited And as his Title to Life is thus become absolute by Conquest So the duration of it is become Eternal by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead A Man may have an absolute Title and yet that Title may be but for a time Life is called Temporal or Eternal according to the Persons or Things to which it is annexed or united The Life of Vegetables and Animals is called a Temporal Life because it is annexed to things which have a Temporal Duration And thus according to our Laws whatever is annexed to the Person of a Man is adjudged to have continuance during his Life So that if Land be convey'd to a Man indefinitely without naming any time how long he shall hold it he has without more saying an Estate for Life because his Estate is annexed to his Person which is said to have continuance for his Life And hence the Life of Christ regained by the Conquest of his Resurrection being annexed to the Person of his Godhead which is eternal doth thereby become Eternal Life for the Life of God and Eternal Life are synonymous Terms And thus Christ ever since his Resurrection did and doth stand seized of an absolute and indefezible Estate of Eternal Life without any Tenure or Condition or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever And I had reason thus to assert the Title of Christ at large Because this is the Title by and under which I am going to affirm my Argument and to claim Eternal Life for my self and all the World Had Christ thus become Man and died and rose again all voluntarily to try an Experiment he had only saved his own Life and left all the World to shift for themselves But this would have been Knight-Errantry in tempting God against which he hath sufficiently declared himself And
make his immediate passage to Heaven by way of translation because he was fallen under that Law which did oblige him to the common Fate of Death But having once suffered this and thereby and by his Resurrection delivered himself from that Law which had obliged him to it He then stood perfectly qualified to make his Exit by way of Translation And therefore having done all he had to do upon Earth he claimed a right of reentrance into his former Glory without dying any more I have finished the Work thou gavest me to do Now glorify me with that Glory which I had with thee before the World began And thereupon God sent him down one of the Chariots of Heaven to convey him thither as he had done before to those two Heroes of old whom I have excepted out of the possession of Death upon this their Faith in him before they saw him Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed Now I say this that as Christ did thus change his State upon Earth without change of his Person or Place so Man may do too with this difference that tho Christ passed this change by his own Death and Resurrection yet we can't do it by our own Death and Resurrection but must do it by passing through the Death and Resurrection of Christ in that legal Form prescribed by the Covenant of Eternal Life because his Death and not ours is made the Seal of that Covenant And this Man may do without any real Death or Resurrection of his own If the Death and Resurrection of Christ be the Passage into Eternal Life then he that is passed this is passed into Eternal Life whether he himself ever died or not And for us to think to imitate Christ in attaining Eternal Life by passing through Death because Christ did so shews us to be as ignorant of the Law of Eternal Life as a Man would seem of our Laws who seeing another intituled to an Estate by sealing of a piece of Wax upon a piece of Parchment should think to get the same himself by doing the same thing upon other pieces of the like of his own putting together For my own part I thank God I have already made this so familiar to my self that could I pass through an actual Death and Resurrection of my own without Pain I would not value the Experiment as any thing towards Salvation further than this that I should thereby know that there is nothing in it And of this I am as well satisfied by the Experiments made upon others as if it were upon my self When Christ had opened the Eyes of the Man born blind the People were ready to interrogate him to death What How Where When did he cure you What did he say to you What did he do to you What did you see first What did you feel first But he knew no more of the matter than they did Only that whereas I was blind now I see So when the People flock'd about Lazarus expecting to hear from him some News of the other World he could give them no other account of it than whereas I am dead now I am alive He was neither richer nor wiser by his Resurrection nor could learn by that how to escape another Death but died again and might have thus died and rose and rose and died a hundred times without any change of his State Wherefore Samuel ask'd Saul Why dost thou disquiet me to bring me up What wouldst thou have with me Is it to see me Why here I am an old Man in a Mantle as thou hast seen me a hundred times Wouldst thou talk with me Why thou knowst what I have told thee over and over the Lord is departed from thee and hath rent the Kingdom out of thy hand and so I tell you now and more I cannot say If Men will not believe Moses and the Prophets while they are living why should we fancy we shall rather believe them when risen from the Dead If they say the same things over again it is Impertinence and should they contradict themselves how could we believe them We have strange Conceptions of Death and Resurrection as long as we are on this side them But when we have once passed through and find our selves much the same as we were before we shall be at as much loss about it as we are now And if the Death of others who have died before us hath put us into such a fear of Death that we shall die too I can't conceive how our own Death should discharge us of that fear after our Resurrection but that it should rather augment it for what we have once felt we are ever after more afraid of feeling again The burnt Child dreads the Fire And yet far be it from me to say that Man may not attain to Eternal Life tho he should die for the Text runs double I am the Resurrection and the Life he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die and tho he were dead he shall live But this I say that by this very Text there is a nearer way of entring into Eternal Life than by the way of Death and Resurrection Whatever Circumstances a Man is under at the time of his Faith God is bound upon his Fidelity to make good this Text to him according to which part of it he builds his Faith upon If he be dead then there 's a necessity for a Resurrection But if he be alive there 's no occasion for Death or Resurrection either Nor doth this Text maintain two Religions but two Articles of Faith in the same Religion But this I do apprehend that the Article of Faith for a present Life without dying is a higher Article of Faith than that which expects Death and Resurrection because I passed through this last Article long before the other which I am now arguing for ever enter'd into my thoughts I once courted Death as Elijah did under the Juniper-Tree in the Wilderness when he requested for himself to die and said Now Lord take away my Life for I am not better than my Fathers Which shews that he was not educated in this Faith of Translation but attained it afterwards by study For no Man can comprehend the heights and depths of the Gospel at his first entrance into it And in point of order the last Enemy to be destroyed is Death The first Essay of Faith is against Hell that tho we should die we might not be damned And the full assurance of this is more than most Men attain to before Death overtakes them which makes Death a Terror to them But they that do attain to this assurance before they go hence can sing a Requiem at their Death Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace for mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation And if God takes them at their words they lie down in the Faith of the Resurrection of the Just But whenever he pleases to continue them after
Truth of Religion be defined by the number of Professors then the Mahometan is safer than the Christian and the Romish than the Protestant The majority of Votes in Civil Affairs may conclude our right but it don't thereby convince our Judgment Nor are our Rights thereby concluded further than for that Turn only And thus it is in the whole Scheme of Government In the Power Elective The majority of Electors conclude the minority for that Turn only In the Power Legislative The majority of the Legislators make a Law but their Successors are not by this precluded from repealing that Law by another majority In the Power Judicial The opinion of the Majority make a Rule in Law but their Successors may alter those Rules by the like Majority Which hath made much difference between Opinions Antient and Modern And tho these seem and indeed are incertainties in the Law yet the policy of Man can't form a better Because those Laws or Judgments which are good at the time of the making may come to be otherwise by things that may happen in revolution of time And therefore none but God himself who alone foreknows Times and Seasons can establish an Eternal Law When the vastness of Empire in the Persian Monarchy had raised a Pride in their Kings to arrogate to themselves this Power it proved but a Fallacy And thus when Hadassah the Queen had prevailed upon Ahasuerus to reverse his Decree for the Massacre of the Jews the Scribes who were the Lawyers in those days soon found out an Evasion of the Law to sute the change of the King's Mind They let the former Proclamation for the Massacre go as it was And issued out another granting the Jews liberty to stand for their Lives with force of Arms. And thus both these Decrees were executed with the loss of about 75000 Men slain on one side And yet forsooth these two Proclamations so contrary to one another and issued within less than three months one of the other must bear the Sacred Name of Eternal Laws for the Honour of the King that made them This I instance to shew that the Policy of Man can't constitute an Eternal Law And from hence I say I am not so much concerned for the present Opinion of the World against me because being but the Opinion of Men it is subject to a change And I know the time when the whole World were of another Opinion Adam and Eve had no fear of Death till they fell under the Law of Death And could their Posterity who are fallen under this Law with them apprehend their deliverance from it into the Law of Life they would all be converted in a day I was under this Law of Death once and while I lay under it I felt the terror of it till I had delivered my self from it by those thoughts that must convince them that have them And in this thing only I wish for their sakes that all Men were as I am Nor do I yet think my self obliged in this Argument to dispute all the rest of the World by Unites For in Matters of Faith Men aggregate into Churches and Classes where we may argue with a whole Clan of them at once Now for Children and Madmen and all the Nations that know not God nor call upon his Name I am no more capable of discussing this Point with them than with Creatures wholly deprived of Speech But for the whole Christian World professing their Religion from Revelation I 'll venture to encounter them all at once and that in their own Creed which I know they can run over as fast as a Mariner doth the Points of the Compass But if after that we would but catechise our selves a little in it we shall find that when we come to the main Point our Faith will be like the Athenians Worship We believe we know not what You believe in God and in Jesus Christ his Son our Lord born of the Virgin suffered under Pontius Pilate crucified dead buried rose again the third day ascended into Heaven sitting at the right Hand of God and from thence he shall come to judg the living and the dead Very well this is a full description of the Person in whom you place your Faith But what is it that you do or would believe of him or in him Why we believe him for our Saviour Save you from what Why from our Sins Why what hurt will Sin do you Why it will kill us How do you know Why the Law of God saith so In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die Why but then will not this Saviour save you from this Law and from this Death No no he 'l save us from Sin Why then it seems you have got a Pardon for Horse-stealing with a non obstante to be hang'd Do but see now what a Jest you have made of your Faith And yet I defy the Order of Priesthood to form a better Creed than this without admitting the Truth of my Argument Or to make sense of their own Faith without adding mine to it It is much easier to make a Creed than to believe it after it is made Nor can any Man really believe any part of the Gospel that doth not believe it all For it is a Doctrine so dependant upon it self that unless we know the whole of it from the beginning to the end we can't know the use or reason of any part of it Wherefore notwithstanding this Inundation of Death in the World and the infection of fear contracted upon Man from hence I am not afrighted from reassuming my Assertions at the Beginning That this long possession of Death over Man is a possession against Right That the length of this Possession is no foreclosure of the Right of Man to Life And that he that dares prosecute his Claim with effect may recover this Right and avoid that possession And that he that is got through the Death and Resurrection of Christ hath had Judgment against Death and execution of Eternal Life Christ by the instant of his Resurrection stood dissolved from all his former Relations to the World neither could he die any more being become a Child of the Resurrection For tho he did arise with the same Body with which he died yet that risen Body was not the Son of the Virgin Mary because he had assumed it by a new Power and in another manner than that by which he was first born The Body with which he lay down in the Grave was of no more use to him in his Resurrection than so much other common Matter for he was put to add Life to it by his own Power which he could have done to any other matter as well as that The present Bodies of Men laid down in the Grave are of no use to God in the Resurrection Therefore he permits them to be dissolved into any other Forms knowing that he can give the old Forms again to any other Matter by those
my Heart's desire But when that is done I know no Business I have with the Dead and therefore do as much depend that I shall not go hence by returning unto the Dust which is the Sentence of that Law from which I claim a Discharge But that I shall make my Exit by way of Translation which I claim as a dignity belonging to that Degree in the Science of Eternal Life of which I profess my self a Graduat according to the true intent and meaning of the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures And if after this I die like other Men I declare my self to die of no Religion And in this let no one be concerned for me as a Desperade For I am not going to renounce the other parts of our Religion but to add another Article of Faith to it without which I can't understand the rest And if I lose this additional Article by failing in this Attempt I have as much Religion left still as they that pity me Nor have I in all this spoken presumptuously or from fancy having said nothing but what he that made me said before me And if it be possible to believe too much in God I desire to be guilty of that Sin I dread no Hell but the Sentence prepared against them that despise the Gospel Behold ye Despisers and wonder and perish Behold what Behold Men coming from the East and from the West to sit down in the Kingdom of God and you your selves shut out Shut out from what To be shut out from Virtue and Holiness Justice and Truth perhaps would be no uneasiness to us all but to be shut out from an eternal Draught of an eternal Stream of Love from the Marriage Feast of the King's Son from the view of his Bride adorn'd in her Glory and from all the Joys of Nuptials for ever this will be a Torment created by Man to himself through Unbelief beyond the Exquisition of Tyrants or the Execution of Devils It seems conceivable that Man by his change into the other World will not lose any species of his present Affections or have any new ones added to them But that all those Passions which are now begun in him will there increase upon him for ever He that is holy let him be holy still and he that is filthy let him be filthy still And then tho Man cannot now conceive by what Objects his Passions or Affections will be thus augmented yet by his present feeling of them he may conceive the nature tho not the perfection of his future Joys or Torments Did you ever feel a fit of Envy Multiply that by thousands till you want a Name of Number and then call that the thousandth thousandth part of one of the Torments of Hell Did you ever feel a Pang of Love Spend your days in Algebra and carry on the Account of it to Heaven and there add to that for ever till your Desire fail and you 'll ne'er begin to sum the Total All Life is Motion and therefore cannot be eternal without an eternal Motion For whenever it comes to stagnate the Patient rots and stinks and dies The most pleasant Enjoyments being kept long in our hands pall our Appetites to them And hence the smallest addition to what we had before seems greater Riches to us than all our former Possessions And every new Thought that falls into our Studies proves a greater Diversion to us than all our former Knowledg Now in all Inventions of Men towards Perpetuity of Motion they never attempt any thing beyond a Circle which moving it self by Rotation comes to the same place again But the Motion calculated for the maintenance of Eternal Life is made to move in a direct Ascent for ever in every reach of which we see and taste and seel what we never did before The Water that I shall give him shall be a Spring of living Water rising up to Everlasting Life But behold ye Despisers and wonder Wonder at what Wonder to see Paradise lost with the Tree of Life in the midst of it Wonder and curse at Adam for an original Fact who in the length of one day never so much as thought to put forth his hand for him and us and pull and eat and live for ever Wonder at and damn our selves for Fools of the last Impression that in the space of seventeen hundred years never so much as thought to put forth our hands every one for himself and seal and execute the Covenant of Eternal Life and live for ever But behold ye Despisers and wonder and perish Perish how Why perish under the same Malice against the Son of God for ever They blasphemed God and yet repented not to give him Glory being concluded under Unbelief from the day of Adjournment of Time into Eternity proclaimed by the last of the seven Heralds of Angels who setting his right foot upon the Sea and his left foot upon the Earth lifted up his hand to Heaven and swore by him that lives for ever That Time should be no longer AND now bear with me a little while I prepare my self for being shown as a Monster 'T is no news for Believers and Unbelievers to be the Admiration of one another They wondered at his Works and he marvelled at their Unbelief And this is a marvellous thing that ye know not whence he is who hath opened the Eyes of one born blind Therefore to be even with the World at once he that wonders at my Faith I wonder at his Vnbelief And stare at me as long as you will I am sure that neither my Physiognomy Sins nor Misfortunes can make me look so unlikely to be translated as my Redeemer was to be hang'd And tho perhaps I may be the sport of some yet I can't but think and say again that whoever is designed for Happiness will meet with some of that Pleasure in reading which I have had in writing and whoever are not so appointed no one can lament them more than I do Nor can I think how any Man that is right in his Religion can be wrong in his Morals which are all set to right in him as an incident to his Faith The Blood of Christ hath an incident quality which cleanseth from Sin But this quality is subsequent and accidental to that legal Sanction and first Appointment of it to take away the Law of Death And he that understands this aright never makes any use of his own personal Virtues as an Argument for his own Salvation lest God should overbalance against him with his Sins Nor doth God ever object a Mans own personal Sins to him in the day of his Faith because Christ had no Credit given him for his personal Holiness in the day of his Death And therefore till I am more sinful than he was holy my Sins are no Objection against my Faith And because in him is all my hope I care not almost what I am my self This I know from
abroad that Wisdom is better than Folly Earnest than Jest Love than Hatred Riches than Poverty Health than Sickness A virtuous Woman than a Whore And an honest Man than a Knave And when now and then I cast my Eyes within me I thank God I find Cruelty Covetousness and Envy departed from me I can't envy a Man of Merit because the Labourer is worthy of his Hire And as long as I maintain a perfect Friendship with my self I can be no more a Rival to another plac'd above his Desert than a beautiful Female is to one of her own Sex harder favour'd and finer drest And as I thus envy no Man I can't think my self big enough for any one to envy me But if they do I keep an Answer within my Conscience to all the Hatred and Malice of Man against me They hate me without a Cause Besides this I say no more to any one concerning Religion or Morality either And if any one hath ought of either to say to me whenever they shall please to make that as publick as I have done this I 'll read it But what they shall not think worth their writing I shall not think worth my hearing It is observed in the Mathematicks that the Practice doth not always answer the Theory And that therefore there is no dependance upon the mere Notions of it as they lie in the Brain without putting them together in the form of a Tool or Instrument to see how all things fit Upon which whole sets of thoughts have been lost and the Student set at large again And this made me distrust my own thoughts till I had put them together to see how they would look in the form of an Argument But in doing of this I thank God I have found every Joint and Article to come into its own place and fall in with and sute one another to a hair's breadth beyond my expectation Or else I could not have had the confidence to produce this as an Engine in Divinity to convey Man from Earth to Heaven And to give every one their due this Advantage I have had by Enoch and Elijah That tho neither of them have left the form of their Faith behind them yet their doing the thing before me heartned me on to study out the Invention my self And as I never did nor will desire any Man to confine himself to my Understanding so in making this Inquiry I have set no bounds to my thoughts but the very word of Revelation without regarding the Opinion of other Men about it Not but that there are flights in other Sciences that seem as extravagant to vulgar Apprehensions as this doth and yet they are evincible by Demonstration Every Bungler can do business with bustling and main strength but the perfection of Science is to do the hardest things with the least labour A Mathematician by a right position of his Power at a due distance from the Center will move a weight by the force of one hand which five hundred Men heaving at it all together close upon the Center can't stir And according to this Art it cannot be denied That the whole weight of this Terrestrial Globe is moveable by the strength of a Hair and the force of a Man's Breath only by getting far enough off from the Center before he gives the puff And tho this can't be done by Man for want of a place thus to stand in Yet the demonstration of it to our understanding causes us to adore the Wisdom and Happiness of the Architect of Nature and Ruler of the World who sitting upon the Heavens can reign the Earth with a twined Thread And this prompts us to believe that God can do other impossible things and teach Man to do them too He that believeth on me shall do greater Works than these Not by his own Labour but by putting the Labour-Oar upon God Men may dig and carry till their Hearts ake to remove a Mountain but the Engine of Faith draws down the Power of God which removes it all at once I am not making my self Wings to fly to Heaven with but only making my self ready for that Conveyance which shall be sent me In which I don't pretend any Privilege above other Men that are or will be ready with me Which it seems they say themselves they are not nor shall be till the Resurrection at the last Day But remember that Samuel came up in his old Mantle which makes me think you 'l return much as you went However let us part Friends and every one make the best of his way And if I should lose my self in this untrodden Path of Life I can still find out the beaten Road of Death blindfold And as I would not allure any Man Woman or Child to venture themselves with me till they see my success So their company would do me no good For every one must attain it by their own Faith And if this Faith will do I have it and if it will not do in me it will not do in them for God is no respecter of Persons And yet had I a mind to juggle I would not put the decision upon so blunt a Point I can write and talk too as soft as other Men. With submission to better Judgments and I 'll leave it to you Gentlemen I am but one and I always distrust my self I only hint my Thoughts You 'l please to consider whether you will not think that it may seem to deserve your consideration This is a taking way of speaking But much good may do them that use it I don't desire to take it from them tho 't is the safest way because there can be no advantage taken of it to do themselves any hurt Nor any one else any good But as I have more respect for my self than to trouble the World with common Discourses so I have more reverence for Mankind than to hazard the meanest Figure of it with any Novelty but what I will first pawn my Life to try the Truth or Falshood of it And tho I do own That the very Daring of this Essay is too great an Honour for me to be guilty of yet I know there is that gratitude left in Man that since I am willing to take the shame of my own Mistake they will not begrudg me the result of my success If therefore as I have said before after this I go the way of my Fathers I freely wave that haughty Epitaph Magnis tamen excidit Ausis And instead of that knock under Table That Satan hath beguiled me to play the Fool with my self In which however he hath shewed his Master-piece for I defy the whole Clan of Hell to form another Lie so like to Truth as this is But if I act my Motto and go the way of a Eagle in the Air then I have plaid a Trump upon Death and shew'd my self a Match for the Devil And while I am thus fighting with Death and Hell it looks a little like foul play for Flesh and Blood to interpose themselves against me But if any one hath spight enough to give me a polt thinking to falsify my Faith by taking away my Life I only desire them first to qualify themselves for my Executioners by taking this short Test in their own Consciences Whoever thinks that any thing herein contained is not fair dealing with God and Man and giving the Devil himself his due let him or her burn this Book and cast a Stone at him that wrote it J. Asgill