consider that in the contrivance conduct and management of the Gospel there is a clear and manifest demonstration of the Infinite Goodness Wisdome and Power of God I. A manifestation of Infinite Goodness The Heavens and the Earth and all the capacities of Immense space declare an Infinite Goodness but the clearest and most sensible demonstration of it is in this Mystery of the Gospel wherein that boundless love which has dispersed it self through all the orders and degrees of life shines forth with a full and perfect lustre and glory Here it is that we behold that Love which liberally fills and sustains all things more powerfully exerting its Blessed Nature in cementing the Ruines and rearing up the Foundations of a new World for as in the first Creation an Eternal and Energetical love diffused it self in the Production of whatever was made so the same Goodness moves as it were a second time in the stupendious renovation of lapsed Souls in the Evangelical Mystery and Oeconomy Which Truth may yet receive a further Evidence by these Gradations 1. The more perfect any life is the more it desires to diffuse and communicate it self God is love says St. John and he is the highest and most perfect life now love is the most diffusive and communicative Principle in all the World and the firmer any being is radicated in love the nearer approaches it makes to that most excellent life and nature of God whose beneficence and kindness the whole Creation tastes of Self-love or the love of the Carkass the Bodily life restrains and contracts the free Exertions of the Mind and therefore the Apostle sets it as a note of degeneracy narrowness and anxiety when Men shall be lovers of themselves and corporeal pleasures in opposition to that Universal and Intellectual love which is the great Law of Rational Beings and by which our Minds are made wide as the World and carried forth in Benignity and Kindness to all the Creatures as they more or less partake of the Divine Life and Nature God is infinite Goodness and all the Creatures are but the issues and emanations of his exuberant Fecundity and Life and do more intimately depend upon him than Faculties and Actions upon the Principles from whence they flow It was not necessity or need nor any greedy and thirsty desire of receiving praise and glory from them that was the cause of the production of Men and Angels but only the Fulness of God's own Goodness which alone moved him to that chearful Approbation of the Works of his Hands when he saw his own life diffused in such variety of Beings And if we will do honour to God and speak according to our own faculties we may add life to this Demonstration from the inward sense and experience of every good Man who never finds a more inward joy and satisfaction of spirit than when he is carried out in desires and aspirations of Benignity and Kindness towards the whole Creation Nor does he look upon this as any Argument of Righteousness that he is at any time in a more happy state and condition than others for he could be willing that all the World were as happy as himself did he not see strong and evident Reasons in the wise Administration of Providence why it should not be so Something of this excellent Temper we find in those Passionate Eruptions of Spirit recorded in the Scriptures of Holy men who seem to be altogether transformed into love Blot me out of thy Book says Moses and I could be content to be accursed from Christ says St. Paul for my Brethrens sake Nay I am verily perswaded that he who is once throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love would be contented to be eternally separated from the Presence of God so that he might be without sin if by that means the whole Intellectual Creation might be made happy Now if we can reason any thing of God from those Perfections we find in our selves we must needs conclude the highest and most perfect life to be most diffusive and communicative of it self 2. Goodness is so much the more excellent as the Objects are more noble about which it is conversant All things feel the effects of Divine Goodness according to their different Measures and Proportions and by how much the Rational life hath more objective reality than the sensitive by so much are the Emanations of Goodness of more worth and excellency communicated to the one than those diffused upon the other As a Man is a more noble Creature than a Brute so is the Goodness concerned with him higher and of greater value than that exercised upon a Beast God is the Father of Spirits and for that very Reason will not be implacable and irreconcileable to his own dear off-spring but though he chastise and scourge them for their bold and audacious revolt from his blessed Nature yet will not cast off for ever but in his sorest corrections remembers mercy Hence is that Prophetical Speech of the end of Christ's Death that it should be for the gathering together the scattered Sons of God though the Souls of Men had voluntarily forsaken God and travelled into a strange Land though their Iniquities had scattered them into far distant places from their own Home yet an everlasting Goodness followed them still and carefully sought the Reduction of those disobedient Sons of God who had divided and separated themselves from him 3. By how much the more fatal desperate and universal the evil is by so much the more glorious is the Goodness imployed in the recovery of the Creature from it Sin and wickedness is the misery not of a part only but of the whole Race of Mankind and this their Degeneracy became so fatal that it brought Darkness and Death it self upon all their better Faculties and placed them in an utter Incapacity for ever of recovering themselves by their own solitary power and effort into that state of immortality and life which sin had deprived them of Death passed upon all men says St. Paul for that or forasmuch as all have sinned So that all Mankind by their fall from God were under the Reign Dominion and Power of sin and death and out of this thraldome and captivity no Man could extricate and deliver himself whereby their condition became very deplorable and desperate But Divine Goodness that it might shew it self more conspicuously and gloriously to the World has brought on a more chearful scene of things under the Gospel rescuing Men from the Power of sin and death and delivering them from the Tyranny of the Devil through the meritorious Death and Passion of Jesus Christ who by his Glorious Resurrection hath fully declared himself a Powerful Conqueror of all his Enemies assuring Mankind of their re-enjoyment of Immortality and redeeming them from their Captivity under the Empire of Sin and Death and translating them into the peaceful Kingdome of Life and Righteousness Now as the
the Essential wisdome of his Father and his Discourses full of Life and Power who himself was transcendently anointed with the Spirit of God and able and willing to bestow the same according as the needs and necessities of Men required yet Jesus the Author and finisher of the salvation of Men was not always succesful but oft-times that precious and Immortal seed which he sow'd fell upon a Rock and there were some that rejected the Counsel of God against themselves and Many believed not on him and others went back and walked no more with him Shall we say now that the Spirit of God did not accompany those excellent Sermons of Jesus Christ If it did his Energy and Operation was not Absolute and Unconditionate since it was repulsed and took no effect on many Or is it not rather plain that the cause lay in the stubborness and obstinacy of their own wills according as Christ himself tells the Jews I would but ye would not A like form of Speech God uses to their rebellious Ancestors Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged that is I have done my part towards it but thou wouldst not do thine Nor can I imagine if the work of Men's Conversion depended so wholly upon the Power of God that no precedent Qualifications were necessary to invite the Spirit of God to fall to work why Men's obstinate incredulity should debar Christ from working Miracles as we find it did or why he should not require a tractable frame of mind as a precedent Qualification for the exertion of his Almighty Power in the cure of spiritual as well as corporal diseases Nay the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour were so far from imagining an irresistible Power accompanying the outward Word that St. Stephen tells the Jews they did resist the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did 2. From those Arguments the Spirit of God makes use of under the Gospel wherein Men are treated with according to their Rational Natures and wrought off from Vice and sin to a firm and permanent adhesion to Virtue by kindness and love by hopes and fears by the inevitableness of impendent mischiefs and by the security of future rewards Which Oeconomy had been altogether supervacaneous if God had engaged his Omnipotent Power to make Men good Under the Gospel we are perswaded to Holiness and Righteousness by the easiness pleasantness and satisfaction of such a state to which our minds being once arrived they feel a full and entire Acquiescence and ineffable joy a Pleasure resulting from the connaturality and agreeableness of those Beautiful Forms with the inmost sense of our own Souls And because the dispositions of Mankind are various and different some being incouraged to Action out of a Principle of Gratitude and innate Nobility others not easily won but by Advantage and Interest others again not without menaces of a severe and uneasie Discipline therefore God in the Evangelical Dispensation hath interwoven the most effectual and cogent Arguments to meet with each of these tempers in Men. To the first he propounds the consideration of the Death and Passion of his only begotten Son who being in the form of God and dwelling in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Glory yet out of that dear and ineffable love and compassion which he always bare to the race of Mankind was content to banish himself from those Blessed Regions and put on our Servile Scheme being born into the World a helpless Infant subject to perpetual sorrows and afflictive circumstances leading an obscure and contemptible life befriended of few and at last dying upon that uneasie Bed of sorrows the Cross that so his Death might be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World Which cannot but enravish every Ingenuous Breast and fill it with the highest and most faithful love to so kind and compassionate a Saviour But there being almost as few of this sort of Men as there were of old of those that embraced Virtue for it self and esteemed it eligible though divested of all appendant Rewards therefore that Eternal Wisdome which has interessed it self in the Frame and Conduct of the Gospel propounds an advantageous Portion to the sincere and unblameable Professors of Piety and Holiness and assures them that their labour shall not be in vain but that their sorrows shall find refreshment their hardships and difficult enterprises ease and pleasure and their faithful Perseverance in Righteousness be recompenced with the Happiness of possessing glorified and Immortal Bodies in the highest Heavens And if it shall happen the minds of Men to be deaf to all the charms of Gratitude and Advantage to the Allectives of good Nature and Interest and there be no way left to awake them out of their stupidity but by the Voice of Thunder then Jesus Christ the Soveraign of Men and Angels is represented to Us in Scripture coming in the Clouds of Heaven attended with Thousands of Angels to take Vengeance on those that have not known God nor obeyed his Laws and Commands And by his Powerful Operation the Seeds and Principles of Fire shall be excited and that quick and Active Element insinuate and pervade all the Commissures and Parts of the Earth and a Deluge of Flame as once of Waters shall overspread the Face of the World Into which sulphureous and burning Lake the Devil and his Angels and all those who in this life delight in wickedness and cast the fear of God behind their backs shall be plunged to Eternal Ages These are the Arguments which are dispersed up and down and urged in the Holy Scriptures as so many tyes and bands to engage us to a faithful and peremptory prosecution of the indispensable Laws of Righteousness and Truth and which as well in their own Nature as in the manner and way of their Proposal do evidently declare that they are not fatal and necessary but moral Instruments of propagating and diffusing the Life and Nature of God and as all other Rational means of Perswasion may by an obstinate and perverse spirit be slighted and contemned And certainly the Nature of the thing it self requires it should be so for if the whole conduct of Mens souls in order to their salvation were nothing but the effects and emanations of a peremptory and uncontrollable Power there would be no place left for those large Encomium's of Wisdome in this great affair Wisdome being Inventrix Mediorum and then most of all discovers its excellency in fixing and determining upon such ways as shall operate effectually and yet congruously and agreeably to the Nature of Men Moral Agents requiring Moral Instruments to allure and invite them to Action But lest any Man should carelesly mistake me and think that what I have said tends to the invalidating and weakning our belief of the Powerful Assistance of the Spirit of God I do confidently affirm That no Man ought or can attribute his beginning progress and
Life and Nature to a participation of it again And this he hath done by sending his own Son into the World to become an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of all Mankind For should God have cast Men off for ever and thrown them into Hell though he had still been Just and Righteous in his Actions and declared but a high dislike of that which his Essential Holiness could never patronize or countenance yet his Goodness and Love had not so conspicuously and gloriously appeared On the other hand should God have received the World into grace and favour forgiving their Iniquities without any previous satisfaction for sin though he might have done this without any breach of the Eternal Purity and Justice of his Nature yet he had not so sensibly affected the minds of Men with his just aversation of sin nor so effectually discovered to them his Anger and Displeasure against all evil and wickedness But now in the Death of Jesus Christ God has reconciled Goodness and Holiness Justice and Mercy punishing sin and yet saving the sinner Behold therefore and wonder at the Ineffable Goodness and Transcendent love of God! Could not Man redeem his Brother and give unto God a Ransome for him No surely for that Sacrifice that is presented and offered up to God must be without spot and blemish but when the Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men he beheld them all gone aside and become filthy so that there was not one that did good no not one But if this might not be yet could not God have declared his will to us by an Angel by a Voice from Heaven or by uniting himself to the Angelical Nature Certainly he might but none of these ways could have been with such endearing circumstances with such sensible Testimonies of dear Compassion and Benignity as enravish ingenuous Minds into sutable Returns and expressions of love Jesus Christ therefore the Delights of his Father the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image and character of his Person took flesh and dwelt among us He that was in the form of God clothed with all the Majesty and Glory of the supramundane life yet emptyed himself of all this unspeakable Felicity and took upon him the form of a Servant i. e. an Earthly or a body of flesh and blood in opposition to that state which he before called the form of God and being found in that servile scheme he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross What higher expressions of love can Humane Understandings possibly conceive than these The endearing love of Friends could never give any greater evidence of it self than that they lay down their lives one for another but such was the transcendent love of Jesus that he dyed for Rebels for Apostates from that sacred life of God to which alone the Soveraign Command and Rule both of Heaven and Earth does of right belong Behold him a Man of sorrows exposed to the envy hatred and malice of the cruel and unbelieving Jews and yet so inwardly affected with tenderness and commiseration towards them that he omits nothing which a Heart enflamed with love and compassion could do to make them happy And though God in his Eternal Wisdome foresaw the accursed Disposition of the Jewish Nation who as they had been heretofore thirsty after the blood of the Prophets and righteous Men so now would never leave till they had satiated their Revenge in the Blood of his only begotten Son yet he delivers him up into their hands for so the Apostle speaks that they had taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that was given out of the protecting hand and providence of God to the will of his Enemies A love which the Tongues of Men and Angels are never able sufficiently to express And as the Infinite love of God appears in this way of saving Men by Christ Jesus so his severity and hatred against sin is no less manifest and conspicuous for in that God spared not his own Son but delivered him up to Death it is a sufficient proof and Argument of his utter Detestation of all sin and evil No circumstance of his bitter Passion but speaks forth the heavy wrath and indignation of God against sin When he came into the Garden of Gethsemane where began the first Scene of his Tragical Passion the Scripture tells us that he was sore amazed and very heavy and this inward grief and ineffable trouble of his soul he expresses in that Passionate speech to his Disciples My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death not only extensively such as must last till Death it self do end it but likewise intensively so great as is usually at the very point of Death And whence arose this sorrow It was not out of any cowardly fear of pain and death for knowing all things that should come upon him yet with a firm constancy and sedate Resolution of mind he comes to his implacable Enemies at Jerusalem and when he was betrayed in the Garden he willingly offers himself into their hands I am he Though certain it is our Blessed Saviour bearing about him our Humane Nature was likewise subject to all the harmless Passions and affections of it and was so far from that Stoical stubbornness and insensibility that his Passive and tender Constitution filled him with grief and yielded to the fear of pain and Death Nor did his sorrow proceed from any displeasure of God against his Person for he being perfectly obedient and fully and exactly conformable to his Fathers will it could not be that he should groan under the anger and wrath of God Nor was it altogether Bodily pains that made him so but there was something extraordinary As 1. A withdrawing the sensibleness of Divine Assistance from him As the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion though not disjoyned from the World yet for a time deserted the World by withdrawing his light from it And although this withholding the sensibleness of the Divine Presence was done without any Aversation and dislike of the Person of our blessed Lord which not only before but at that very instant was tenderly beloved of God yet the Apprehension of it could not but make him bemoan his case in that sad exclamation My God my God why or how hast thou forsaken me 2. Because then all the Powers of Hell and darkness were let loose upon him The Prince of Darkness with his accursed Legions did then as we may reasonably suppose appear to him in the most affrighting and dreadful forms and by the Permission of Divine Providence exerted and tryed the utmost of their Insulting Rage in these their last and most furious Assaults the Conquest and Victory over whom being to be atchieved not by the Divine Power but by the Piety and Obedience of our Saviour he falls into an Agony and an Angel descends from
Heaven to strengthen and comfort his fainting Soul in these horrendous Conflicts 3. Christ suffering for Men's sins must needs have a distinct Apprehension of the manner measure and odiousness of them and beheld all this with a bleeding heart forasmuch as he saw himself cast into those sad circumstances bruised for the iniquities and wounded for the transgressions of Mankind All which put together were sufficient Causes of the highest grief and sorrow Consider now Jesus Christ the eternally beloved Son of God sorrowful and amazed sweating drops of Blood in his Agony bereaved of the sensibleness of Divine Assistance conflicting with the utmost Rage and Insultation of the Devil and dying a Painful and Ignominious Death upon the Cross and it gives the highest Demonstration of God's implacable Hatred against all sin that possibly can be imagined 2. The admirableness and wonderfulness of the Evangelical plot and contrivance declares it self in rendring this Way and Method effectual for the salvation of Men. That it should not be lost labour or a work to no purpose alarming the World with great hopes and expectations and at last become abortive or prove nothing but a windy birth but that it should really attain the end for which it was designed that is that men should receive benefit by it and be eternally saved To this purpose three things are necessary 1. That what God requires be in it self possible 2. That Man be endued with a sufficient power 3. That some allowance be made for our Infirmities 1. First I say that the Commands of the Gospel be possible For it were the most unreasonable and Tyrannical thing in the World to exact that of another which we know he is in no Possibility of performing and therefore being a thing so abhorrent and repugnant to the natural reason and equity of Mankind it is at no hand to be attributed to God whose very Nature is the most perfect and living Law of Justice Wherefore the Gospel being given to be the Religion of all Mankind and for no other end but their everlasting Benefit and Blessedness we cannot but imagine all the duties and commands required of them to be possible to be done for otherwise it would be so far from contributing to their advantage that it would be but an Exprobration of their misery and a Tyrannical and Arbitrarious Insultation over their calamitous condition Nay we are assured that the laws of Righteousness required of us by the Gospel are not only possible but gracious and easie and that from the mouth of the Blessed Author and giver of them My yoke says he is easie and my burden is light and the beloved Apostle has left it upon Record that the commands of God are not grievous that is they are not insupportable burdens too heavy for the nature of Man to bear nor are they fetters and shackles of Iron contrived only to ensnare and make the Creation miserable but such gracious Precepts and Constitutions as are in themselves immutably good and so infinitely agreeable to the true and proper that is the Intellectual Nature of Man that he can no sooner understand his own happiness but he would chuse them if they had never been commanded The Wisdome of God never interesses it self in unprofitable things which surely this must have been if the Observance and Practice of the Injunctions of the Gospel had been in it self impossible Besides supposing such intolerable and impracticable things imposed upon the reason of Mankind it would subvert all future rewards and punishments As for Rewards there could be no such thing for Rewards are only upon the consideration of Duty and there can be no duty where the commands are impossible Nor can there be any equitable exaction of Punishment because the Law it self is not feasible and practicable and so the transgression becomes necessary and inevitable and no more in the power of Men to help than to hinder their being born into the World Wherefore upon the whole matter unless the Gospel contain only such things as are possible it is certain no man can be accountable for them unless we will suppose God such an Arbitrarious Being as acts by no other Law than that of his own Will and Authority which is all one as for a Man to think to get himself a name of Power and Soveraignty by going about all day and treading upon a few poor Worms And certainly it is all one to have no notion and apprehension of God at all and to think so meanly of him and so much below the excellency and dignity of his Blessed Nature and â—erfections But here it will be objected that if the commands of the Gospel be not only possible but easie and gracious how comes it then that Men are not presently made good and all the World become true Christians To this I have these things to reply 1. That God forces none to be good but having made us Rational Creatures he has endued us with a free Principle And without this there would be no such thing as Moral Goodness upon Earth for that which a man is compelled and forced to by the irresistible Determination of an exterior Principle is neither good nor evil in reference to him because it was not a true exertion of his will but an act of something without him And therefore should God irresistibly bend and incline the wills of Men to the Laws and Practice of Vertue it would take away the distinction of good and evil and Men would be what they are by a fatal necessity and not by choice Moreover should God forcibly make Men good it would rather destroy than recover the Nature of Mankind and make them more imperfect Creatures than they are already It is the glory of our faith that being tryed it be found unto praise and honour but what praise can be due to that which is performed by the violent constraint of an uncontroulable Power There would be little reason for the Scripture says a worthy Prelate so much to magnify the grace of faith as being so great a Vertue and so acceptable to God if every one were necessitated to it whether he would or no. 2. True Religion has a great disagreement with our present sinful Natures Christianity came into the World to curb our extravagant desires to restrain the sinful and exorbitant affections of the Animal life and to draw off our minds from the fading and inchanting Beauties of sense to the living and Immortal forms of righteousness and truth And it is no wonder if it be accounted troublesome and uneasie to a carnal mind when its whole design is to let out the corrupt life and blood of the old man and to renew men into that faultless nature sin and wickedness had destroyed Religion is not such a formidable and difficult thing such an insuperable task in it self but because 't is an affliction to our natural life to do violence to our lusts and bodily Passions
but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to equity which is the truest and most perfect Justice For herein consists the excellency of the Gospel Covenant in that under it 1. God allows of our Repentance for past sins 2. Accepts of our sincerity for the time to come It was part of that Commission which Christ gave his Apostles before his Ascension into Heaven that they should Preach repentance and remission of sins in his Name among all Nations which they faithfully observed offering life and salvation to those that crucified the Son of God provided they would repent of this their heinous crime and become new Creatures Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out It is the great comfort the Christian Religion brings guilty sinners in that it assures them of the love of an offended God that their past sinful lives shall not ruine or exclude them from his favour but that now in this day of mercy and peace if they will return unto him by a speedy Repentance he will be merciful to their Unrighteousness and will remember their iniquities no more The Conscience of Mens own guilt makes them afraid and like Adam run from the Presence of God wherefore to prevent those misgiving thoughts of the Nature of God which Mens sinful hearts possessed them withall and for the future to take away all jealousies and suspicious fears out of their Minds God is pleased to publish a Declaration of Pardon and Indulgence to all Penitent Persons giving them all imaginable security of his Propensity and readiness to be reconciled and of his unfeigned desire and willingness to accept of their Persons upon their serious and hearty detestation of their former sins and evil courses And to the end that Men may be perfectly convinced that God is not inexorable and implacable and that he consults not his own Glory in any other way than that of the Creatures good and advantage he vouchsafes out of his undeserved favour and grace to accept of our Sincerity for the time to come the knowledge of which is therefore imparted unto Men by the Gospel to settle their Minds and quiet their Consciences which otherwise upon every failure in their Duty would perpetually torment them with the fear of God's everlasting Anger and Displeasure By sincerity I mean such a frame and constitution of spirit whereby our whole Souls are faithfully carried out in obedience to the will of God so far as it is made known to us These things I write unto you says the beloved Apostle that ye sin not that is It is the design of the Gospel perfectly to abolish all sin and therefore it requires Mens utmost caution and endeavour against it But because Men may fall into sin through the improvidence and short-sightedness of Humane Nature or through the sudden incursion of a Temptation and the Violence and importunity of it yet let them not cast away their confidence nor sink under their load and dye for if any man thus sin we have an Advocate with the Father a royal Agent at the right hand of God who makes intercession for us not as in the days of his flesh by offering up Prayers with strong crying and tears but by Virtue of that Power and Authority of ruling his Church according to his own Pleasure dispensing his favours and saving Men by the mercies and compassions of the Gospel which Prerogative he purchased and merited for himself by his bitter Death and Passion For God does not exact of us a perfect unsinning Obedience so as never to fail in our duty or offend in the least tittle or circumstance but he requires of us a perfection of sincerity the not giving way to any known sin or doing that upon deliberation which a Man's conscience tells him is a breach and violation of the Law of God though there be never so great Temptations to it This is that which the Scripture calls by the Names of the New Man and the New Creature when we love and serve God with our whole hearts and retain such a clear sense of the deformity of sin and the loveliness of Virtue as makes us studiously prosecute the one and detest and abhor the other And though this sincerity of heart may be accompanied with meekness and imperfection yet it is such as God has graciously promised to accept of and to wash away those lesser frailties and infirmities in the Blood of Christ This state of mind is an everlasting Fountain of Peace and Joy a spring of Eternal contentment and satisfaction It supports us in all dangers carries us undauntedly through all difficulties and fills our souls with an enravishing calmness and tranquillity It is certainly the best Companion and the surest Friend in all the World for when the Clouds gather and a storm arises and the face of things in this lower Region becomes troubled and confused yet our sincerity never leaves us but in the most formidable and dismal appearance of Nature puts on a chearful countenance and looks abroad and meets the greatest dangers with a high and generous resolution being confident of this that that everlasting goodness which folds the whole Creation in tender Arms will never disdain or cast away a sincere Person nor despise him who unfeignedly and bewailing his weakness prosecutes that which is simply and absolutely the best 2. A second thing wherein the Excellency of Divine Wisdome appears lyes in the manner of the manifestation of the Gospel to us God was manifest in the flesh says St. Paul that is the wonderfulness of the mystery of the Gospel consisted in this that God took upon him our flesh and blood God communicated his will to us by sending down his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh Rom. 8.3 that is in a body of flesh and blood I shall not here insist upon those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those various ways and divers manners by which God spake to the Fathers of old communicating his will to them sometimes by Dreams and Visions by a Voice from Heaven and the Apparitions of Angels but consider that way which God hath chosen of manifesting himself to the World in these last days by his Son which as it best sutes with the Evangelical Dispensation so it discovers to us that manifold wisdome the Apostle speaks of Eph. 3.10 a Wisdome that displays it self in several ways and manners and yet all tending to one great end and purpose namely the recovery of Men from sin to a state of Purity and Holiness For in this great design of instructing the World by the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour we discover the evident Traces and Footsteps 1. Of a condescending Wisdome accommodating things to our Apprehensions and Capacities The delivery of the Law on Mount Sinai was usher'd in with a terrible and amazing solemnity the Mountain quaking and vomiting out pitchy Clouds of smoke and globes of Flame a fiery Tempest or Whirlwind roaring with formidable peals and
claps of Thunder together with the prodigious sound of a Trumpet rending and tearing the Heavens so that Moses himself exceedingly fear'd and trembled But the Gospel being wholly a design of Mercy and Love carries with it no terrors and affrightments but is composed of the kind invitations of Peace and comfort the Mount Sion wherein the resplendent glory of the first-born is displayed shining only with the gentle beams of an attractive and pleasing light and Jesus the blessed Mediator of this New Covenant with his extended Arms proclames his willingness to embrace and receive the World which he has reconciled to God with his own blood This is that Oeconomy which the Apostle calls the foolishness of preaching not as if it were so in it self but because 't is a way of condescending wisdome wherein God stoops down to our apprehensions and frames things so as we may understand them and receive an infinite benefit by them For Man partly from the frame and constitution of his Nature consisting of Body as well as Soul but much more from his fall and descent into this lower life becomes wonderfully affected with gross Phantasms and Exterior Representations Whence it comes to pass that we do more easily and frequently conceive of things as they appear to sense than as they are in themselves when apprehended by a more discerning Principle Wherefore the Infinite Wisdome of God that makes not its Operations in a way of Absolute soveraignty and immensity of Power forcing the Creatures against those inbred Principles she hath placed in them but sweetly and powerfully directs them in a steady way of congruity and proportionateness to the natures of things being to work out Man from this low contracted state the sad Region of sin and Death to a participation of Immortality and more free emanations of Divine life contrived a way most sutable and agreeable to the shallow capacities and faculties of Humane Souls God would not appear to us in a flame of fire nor speak by an Angel in a body of pure Air but in the Form of a Servant clothed with our Humane Flesh and subject to all the harmless Passions of our Nature that he might more kindly disenslave us from the cruel Tyranny of sin and Satan For let us but consult with our own Reasons whether this be not a greater Incitation and more powerful inducement to Men to believe and obey the Declarations of the Divine Will to exhibit to them some extraordinary and remarkable Person that should by the fullest demonstrations and sensible signs prove himself to be the Eternal Son of God and by sweetly compulsive Motives even to the suffering a barbarous and shameful Death attract Humane Minds to the Imitation of his Virtues and following his steps than that God should by any of those forementioned ways manifest himself in effects of Benignity or Displeasure The whole Nation of the Jews discover the sense of Mankind in such a case when being affrighted with the terrors accompanying the descent of God upon the Mount they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we dye For 1. Considering the world partly from themselves and partly from the cunning of Satan so much addicted and given over to the belief of sense had not Christ visibly appeared and conversed with Men the Gospel could never have captivated Humane Understandings with such irresistible evidence or wrought in them such a full perswasion of the things it taught as we see it hath done Should the great Pillars of the Christian Faith I mean the Apostles and Disciples of the Holy Jesus have laid its first ground-work upon the hearing of some voice or perswaded their Auditors as Numa Pompilius and some other Heathen Law-givers from the converse they had with some Angel that their Doctrine was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to them from Heaven and had God for its Author yet how hardly would Men have embraced it upon these accounts especially considering those imminent and apparent Dangers they were likely to incur upon the profession of it How ill resented is that great Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour Self-denyal and Resignation among vulgar spirits and how difficult a thing is it to bring off degenerated Hearts from the Interests of the World and is it likely then that Men should be so prodigal of their dearest Blood as to sacrifice it to an uncertain Rumour and Report which every Impostor is able to pretend But to see the meek Lamb of God made in our own likeness having left the sacred Mansions of Light and Glory and clothed himself with our frail Mortality to behold him I say testifying by many Miracles and irrefragable Arguments through the whole course of his abode on Earth and at last taking it upon his Death that he was the Son of the ever-living God and came down from Heaven to make known to Men that God was reconciled to the World through him this must needs strike our Imaginations more forcibly than whatever else the wit of Man could possibly conceive 2. The Gospel was intended to transform and work our Natures into that which is the flower and perfection of the Divine life that is an universal love to call off our minds from those little Interests they are apt to espouse by looking upon themselves as so many particular Beings divided and separated from the rest of the World and created only for themselves and their Private concernments and to beget in them an universally extensive charity by widening their Capacities to the Dimensions of the whole Creation By which we are taught not to think it enough that our love ascend in copious flames to Heaven unless it likewise descend in due measures and degrees upon all Mankind And indeed it is impossible for a Man that is throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love to have any self designs in opposition to the general good of the whole World but he must needs be infinitely desirous and pleased to see the life and nature of God communicated to all Beings capable of receiving of it And this love is so strong and vigorous that it firmly unites it self to all in whom it finds any true likeness and resemblance of the Divine Image and so far endears them to it self as to constrain us to lay down our lives for the Brethren But certainly this Flame could never have burnt so bright if it had not been raised and quickned by that sensible demonstration of inimitable affection in the Death of the Holy Jesus For what greater incouragement could there be to oblige and unite Mens souls to one another than that their love should first be kindled from Heaven by that great and unparallel'd Exemplar of noble Charity who laid down his life to expiate the crimes of his own and his Fathers Enemies 2. Of a congruity and complyance with the state and condition of Mankind both in respect of 1. Moral
2. Natural Evils First in respect of Moral Evils The degeneracy and fall of Mankind from God made them Slaves and Vassals to sin and Satan for the busie Tempter being not able to work upon them by external force and violence drew their wills into consent by craft and specious solicitations till at last he had so far enlarged his Kingdom as to bring the whole Race of Mankind under his Dominion Wherefore the Gospel being designed to free Men from that unnatural Bondage and to restore them to their true liberty it does in all points confront the ways and methods by which their Captivity was compassed and effected It had been a small matter by a high hand and by an Infinite Power at large to have destroyed the Devils Kingdom but herein appeared an excellent Wisdome so to lay the Ground and Foundation of this glorious purpose of the salvation of the World that the Politick Prince of Darkness might be taken in his own craftiness and lose this his Empire and Dominion by the same methods by which he at first obtained it The Woman being first in the Transgression and bringing sin and Death upon all her Off-spring that Divine Wisdome that draws light out of darkness and Order out of Confusion decreed that the seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head that is that Christ who is the Seed of the Woman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Nature and his Members who are so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by spiritual engraftment into him should dispossess the Devil of that Power Soveraignty and Principality which he holds over the World by sin According to this early Declaration of Men's Recovery Jesus Christ the true Seed of the Woman comes into the World and by walking exactly contrary to his Enemy restores to the World what they lost by the first Adam And whereas the Devil managed his Kingdom of sin and Death with all imaginable Tyranny and Insultation over poor Mortals our Blessed Jesus was so far from requiring Humane Blood to be sacrificed to him that out of a deep sense of our Calamity he parted with his own Blood for the life of the World A more effectual and agreeable course could never have been taken than this that the Captain of our salvation should visibly appear and conquer the Kingdom and Powers of Darkness in that Nature which the first Adam ruin'd and destroyed Secondly in respect of Natural Evils Though it be no disgrace nor shame to be made a Man yet he that deeply reflects upon Humane life shall find it at the best very calamitous and standing in need of much Pity and Compassion We are born into the World helpless and weak and as if we did presage our own future miseries the first actions of our life are spent in crying and tears Our very Bodies are a sad load and burden upon our Spirits inclining them to many foolish lusts and passions subject to many Pains Diseases and Death insomuch that many good and holy Men have in passionate streins bewailed their stay and continuance here on Earth Woe is me that I sojourn in Meseck and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar and O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death Now none can so affectionately pity nor so intimately resent the distress of another as he that hath smarted and suffered under the same calamity Therefore says the Apostle We have not an High-Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities by reason of the great distance disproportion and sublimity of his Nature but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin that is manifested and declared himself to be a true Man by being subject to all the harmless affections and infirmities of humane flesh and blood forasmuch therefore as he became our Brother by taking upon him the same Natural condition he must needs be throughly apprehensive and sensible of our state and so the more apt to sympathize with and commiserate poor Mortals and by that powerful soveraignty to which he is exalted act for us and send down relief from Heaven to us For though the Infinite Essence of God pervade the whole World and all the Creatures live within it and therefore must needs feel and know the inmost Energies Motions and stillest Actings of all Beings yet it affords not such a sensible comfort to Humane minds as to behold the Son of God taking upon him our Nature and by that Union and Proximity assuring us of his Tenderness and Compassion towards us For he took not on him the nature of Angels being unwilling to be so far removed from us but took on him the Seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted 3. A third thing which demonstrates the excellency of Divine Wisdome in the dispensation of the Gospel consists in the fitness and sutableness of it to the end for which it was designed For things are so much the more excellent by how much the congruity and fitness is greater for the accomplishing their end and purpose Now the great intent and design of God in the Gospel being as I have said the everlasting blessedness of Humane Souls the more congruously and fitly disposed it shall be found to be for the obtaining this effect the greater is the glory of the Divine Wisdome interessing and concerning it self about it This aptness and sutableness is seen 1. In that the Gospel is furnished with all those Arguments that are requisite to approve it self worthy of Belief to all Rational Persons To this two things are necessary 1. The attestation of God himself 2. Rational evidence and conviction For whatever is attested of God and hath his Seal affixed to it is by the general consent of all Men to be looked upon and entertained as infallibly true Veracity being an Essential Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature St. Paul discoursing of the mystery of Godliness tells us that Christ and Christianity was justified by the spirit i. e. owned approved and recommended to the World by the spirit of God And this God's recommendation of our blessed Saviour to the World as a Person commissioned and invested with full Authority to declare his will unto Mankind was done at several Times and in divers manners 1. At the Baptism of our Saviour Mat. 3.16 17. when the Heavens were opened and the spirit of God descended upon him and a Voice from Heaven proclaiming him the beloved Son of God in whom he was well pleased And this manner of Divine Revelation by a Voice from Heaven as it was the most ancient so the most honourable way of God's communicating his will to Mankind Exod. 20.22 Ye have seen that I have talked with you from Heaven For what
he makes an excellent Metaphysical Discourse and proves the Unnaturalness and Unreasonableness of Idolatry by such Principles as were common to and Universally received by the Intellectual nature of Man And indeed a Rational conviction seems more clear and evident than a miraculous One by how much the Innate Idea's and Dictates of the Understanding are more sure and constant than the perplexed motions of a Versatile Imagination And we find that the Jews evaded the force of our Saviour's Miracles by saying they were done by the power of the Devil and though Lazarus come to them from the Dead yet they did not believe but sought to murder him and a perverse spirit will find various Artifices to elude the Assent which a Miracle commands from us But now Humane Reason being in all Men one and the same it is more likely to prevail when advantageously propounded from that antecedent sutableness and Harmony there is between it and all Truth And without doubt our blessed Saviour himself seems to intimate that the Assent which is extorted upon the working of Miracles is much less generous and Noble than that which is gained from the Understanding by the Native evidence and beauty of Truth Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe whereas the Facility of the Samaritanes is commended who believed on Jesus upon his own Discourse though he did no Miracle among them And besides all this Christ says expresly that the very Nature and frame the Sanctity and Majesty of the Doctrine he propounded was alike sufficient to render the Jews inexcusable as the unparallel'd Works he performed in their Presence If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Again If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did they had not had sin Wherefore to us who have Moses and the Prophets the Discourses of our Blessed Saviour and the Writings of his Apostles transmitted if we shall yet be incredulous it is as likely and probable we shall still continue so though one come to Us from the Dead For 1. We have already all things pertaining to life and godliness perspicuously delivered in the Holy Scriptures and this Doctrine at the first delivery of it was sufficiently confirmed and attested by Miracles and Supernatural Actions the History of which is made as credible to us as any Records of things can be which we our selves were not Spectators of Now if we can believe any Histories of former Ages any Records of Times past we have the same Reason to believe the History of the Gospel and he that sincerely credits that will be as much confirmed in the Religion he professes by those Miracles he finds long ago wrought to evidence its Divine Authority as if they were done now at this present before his eyes Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed 2. To desire new Miracles for the begetting of Faith is to question the Wisdome of God in the Contrivance of the Gospel For either the Scriptures are sufficiently confirmed and attested by the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles to beget Faith and Credence in any unprejudiced and disinteressed Person or they are not If they are it is in vain to require the Reproduction of Miracles in its behalf If they are not we then call in question the wisdome of God as if he either knew not the Natures and Constitutions of Men or did not foresee what was sufficient to work belief in them 3. The perpetuating Miracles for every Man's Conviction would destroy and make useless their Rational Faculties For the Christian Religion is a manifestation of the highest Reason that ever the World had any cognizance of and all its Parts and Doctrines are every way fitted to Rational Capacities But now Miracles being only Convictive to sense if for the confirmation of every Article of Religion there must be the concurrent Testimony of a Miracle all Appeal to our Reason and Intellectual Faculties were useless and supervacaneous 4. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead was a notable suffrage and testimony of his Divine Mission It is the highest instance of Divine Providence watching over and carefully superintending the Person of our Holy Lord and Master which though it permitted Him to fall into the Hands of wicked and cruel Men who bereaved him of his Innocent Life yet forsook him not in Death and the Grave but justified and approved the Design and Cause he managed in the World by dismantling those Infernal Prisons and bringing Him up to life again And this the Apostle takes as an eminent Declaration of the Divinity of Jesus who though according to that mortal and frail state he took upon him in the World became a Man of the Seed of David yet in regard of that Spiritual and Celestial condition which he obtained by the Resurrection from the Dead was manifestly declared the glorious and powerful Son of God For we cannot think that God would do so much for an Impostor or that the Divine Power would so highly concern it self in raising him from the Dead and thereby owning him in so singular and eminent a manner if he had not spoken in his Name and done all things by his Authority and Commission 5. Another Instance of the Divine Approbation of the Doctrine of our Saviour appears in sending down the Holy Ghost after his Ascension into Heaven This Mission of the Holy Spirit Christ promised his Disciples before he left the World and signally performs it upon the Day of Pentecost And this very thing is brought by the Author to the Hebrews as an Indubitable Confirmation of the Gospel How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness approving and owning the Doctrine of his Son Jesus both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will God is brought in here as a Witness to the Truth of the Gospel and his Testimony is the Mission of the Holy Ghost by whom the Apostles were inabled and furnished with divers gifts and miraculous Powers for the conviction of the World that Jesus was the beloved Son of God and Saviour of Mankind And this Redargution of the World was made a part of the Advocateship of the Holy Spirit by our Lord When he is come he will reprove the World of sin because they believe not on me that is he shall take upon him the defence of my cause and convince the World of their great sin in slaying me a true Prophet who came to declare the will of God unto them Of righteousness because I go to my Father and ye see me no more that is he should make it appear that I was just and innocent
in so great a measure already accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel and that Powerful Assistance that attended it from Heaven shall receive its full and final completion when the Mountain of the Lord's house is exalted upon the tops of the Mountains and all Nations flow unto it that is when both Jews and Gentiles shall unite themselves under the Banner of the crucified Jesus And now that I am discoursing of that signal overthrow of the Devil's Kingdome by Christianity or the Gospel under the Powerful conduct of the Lord Jesus whereby he became dispossessed of his Usurped Dominions and those who had so long time been his Slaves and Vassals returned to the Loyalty and Obedience they owed to their Natural Soveraign I cannot forbear to insert a Conjecture of the Pious and Learned Mr. Mede concerning the American or New World That those Countries were first Inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times and not before yea perhaps some Ages after there being no signs or foot-steps found amongst them or any Monuments of older Habitation as there is with us That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel and the Cross of Christ in every part of this old World so that he could in no place be quiet for it and foreseeing that he was like at length to lose all here bethought himself to provide him of a Seed over which he might reign securely and in a Place Vbi nec Pelopidarum facta neque nomen audiret That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations dwelling upon the Northern Ocean whither the sound of Christ had not yet come and promising them by some Oracle to shew them a Country far better than their own which he might soon do pleasant large where never Man yet inhabited he conducted them over those Desart Lands and Islands which are many in that Sea by the way of the North into America which none would ever have gone had they not first been assured there was a passage that way into a more desirable Country Namely as when the World Apostatized from the Worship of the true God God called Abraham out of Chaldee into the Land of Canaan of him to raise him a Seed to preserve a light unto his Name So the Devil when he saw the World Apostatizing from him laid the Foundations of a new Kingdome by deducting this Colony from the North into America where since they have increased into an innumerable Multitude And where did the Devil reign more Absolutely and without Controll since Mankind fell first under his clutches And here it is to be noted that the story of the Mexican Kingdome which was not founded above 400. Years before ours came thither relates out of their own Memorials and Traditions that they came to that Place from the North whence their God Vitzliliputzli led them going in an Ark before them and after divers Years Travel and many stations like enough after some Generations they came to a Place which the sign he had given them at their first setting forth pointed out where they were to finish their Travels build themselves a City and their God a Temple which is the Place where Mexico was built And though the Devil in those Quarter and such other Parts of the World seem to Lord it alone over abused Mankind without any controll and opposition yet the Son of God to whom the uttermost Parts of the Earth are promised for an Inheritance will at length lay a Powerful claim to his own Possessions and take out of the hands of his Grand Enemy by the pure and uncorrupt Propagation of the Gospel that Soveraignty which he exercises over those Desolate People For as Christ in the Days of his Flesh by his Powerful and efficacious Word commanded the Devils out of their usurped Habitations in the Bodies of Men as a Praeludium of that Universal Conquest he should hereafter obtain so will he after such Periods of Divine Providence fixed and determined by his All-comprehensive Wisdome go forth with his Legions of Light and recover those wretched Mortals out of the Hands of the spirits of Darkness by whom they have been captivated and seduced at their Will Nor is this a bare Airy Notion or Fancy but a thing to be hoped and prayed for upon very Rational Grounds it being nothing but the enlargement of the Kingdome of Truth and Righteousness and the Dissemination of that Holy and Blessed Life of God to which Mens Souls have a Natural Cognation though for the present bent and forced out of their true state and Position 3. The Power of God will Discover it self in a very eminent manner in raising all Holy Men from the Dead and rewarding their faithful services with Immortality and Life at the last Day The last enemy that shall be destroyed says the Apostle is Death And when God shall think fit to put an end to the Generations of Men and conclude the Scene of the affairs of this World then shall the Holy Jesus descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Trumpet of God and the Dead shall be raised and presented each one in the Visible and Individual Personality they bare in this World before the Judgment-Seat of Christ to receive for the things done in their Bodies whether good or bad and they that have done good shall come forth to the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Which final sentence at the Conclusion of that dreadful Appearance shall be executed accordingly the Wicked being plunged into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone but the Righteous through the gracious Bounty and stupendious Operation of their merciful Redeemer shall be taken up into the Regions of Immortality and life where their Corruptible Bodies shall put on Incorruption and be transformed into the similitude of the Glorious Body of the Son of GOD through that mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself And though this Transcendent state and Portion may very well be thought too big for our humble Hopes and Expectations and exceed all that we can do or suffer yet since God is pleased of his Infinite Bounty to promise we have no Reason to distrust his Faithfulness and Truth in the Performance of it since he has moreover given us a palpable Pledge and Assurance of it in the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead and because he lives we may be confident we shall live also Christ is risen from the Grave having conquered Death by dying and is ascended into the pure and peaceable Habitations of Glory therefore all his Members who are united to Him in the inseparable bands of Faith and Love shall feel the effects of his Powerful Life in immortalizing their very Bodies which shall then be absorpt into the Great Vortex of Eternity where both Body and Soul shall be deckt with such a refulgent