Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A38061
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A preservative against Socinianism. The first part shewing the direct and plain opposition between it, and the religion revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures / by Jonath. Edwards.
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Edwards, Jonathan, 1629-1712.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing E217; ESTC R24310
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65,484
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89
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a fair adversary and have treated the mysteries of our Faith with such a Prostitute and Impudent Scurrility that we cannot well tell what reply to make to them except in Imitation of the blessed and meek Arch-Angel Michael we should desire God to Interpose in his own quarrel and to rebuke the Blasphemies of these men but to have mercy upon the Blasphemers To Conclude all as there is no danger at present God be thanked that we should be frighted out of our Religion so I hope we shall not be wheedled out of it by any of the Artifices of these seducers who lye in wait to deceive nor by any other specious pretences that they may make no not by the pretence of Peace which I know hath sometimes bin offered in their behalf I confess peace is a most desireable thing the blessings that attend it are so great that we cannot tell how sufficiently to value and so many that we can scarce number them So that all humble and truly pious Christians should be content to part with any thing to obtain it But I must recal that last word for upon second thoughts I find it may be too dearly purchased as it certainly will be when bought at the expence either of Truth or Justice without which Peace tho otherwise the most useful and excellent would prove one of the most pernicious and mischievous things in the World And when I speak of Truth I chiefly and principally mean those fundamental Truths which are treated of in these following Papers the Belief of which have hitherto bin looked upon by most Christians to be necessary to our Salvation and if there be any Truths of that Importance I hope every man will consider that tho Peace be much to be desired yet that it is not advisable for him to hazard his Salvation to secure it When all is done the reputation of being esteemed a Peaceable and moderate man will stand a man but in little stead when he comes to appear before the Tribunal of Christ and there to be charged with the guilt of betraying his Religion and at the same time the Souls of them committed to his charge to endless perdition and ruin In one word tho Peace be so great a blessing that a man might be content to lay down his Life yet no man should lay down his Soul for the sake of it And tho a Pious man might in some cases commendably submit to Death yet no wise man nay indeed no man not out of his wits would venture upon damnation to Obtain it A PRESERVATIVE AGAINST Socinianism IN all ages ever since the first planting of a Christian Church in the world God for many wise reasons hath thought fit to exercise it with various and different sorts of tryals The Apostles who were immediately commissioned by Christ and sent to teach all Nations and thereby to bring them over to the belief and obedience of the Gospel according to the prediction of their blessed Master in the 10 th of Matth. who had forewarned them of it met with great and violent opposition and that both from Jew and Gentile who with an extraordinary zeal or rather fury set themselves to oppress and stifle this new doctrine if it were possible at its first appearance and before it had gained much ground and footing in the world But besides the open force with which the enemies of it endeavoured to destroy the Christian doctrine the Apostles and other Ministers of it met with another and more dangerous opposition from some false brethren who did not aime so much at the destruction of the Christian faith as by some undue mixtures to corrupt the purity of it Such were the Judaizing Christians who tho they embraced the doctrine of the Gospel yet still they retain'd a weighty affection for their old Religion and the law of Moses to the observance of which they thought themselves under an indispensable obligation and not only so but would oblige all other Converts to the like observance and their zeal in this matter occasioned no small trouble to the Apostles and disturbance to the Churches where they first planted the Christian faith See Acts 15. and 5. Gal. And tho this was a matter of no small concern and might in the conclusion have proved of dangerous consequence yet it was not considerable in a manner if compared with many other execrable opinions and practices which began very early to be introduced into the Church by Ebion and Cerinthus Menander Saturninus Basilides and Carpocrates Succeeded afterwards by Valentinus and Marcus Marcion and Hermogenes and a long train of Hereticks shall I call them or Hogoblins for so I think they might well be styled if we consider either the darkness and ignorance of all religious matters with which they were encompassed or the wild pranks which they played to the great disturbance of all good men who were all descended from that son of perdition Simon Magus who was their Patriarch and Ring-leader It were a difficult task to muster up the names but almost an endless attempt to reckon the senseless and extravagant opinions of these Hereticks by reason of whose pernicious ways the way of truth was evil spoken of For many of the objections of the Heathens against Christianity tho all of them were false yet were taken from the execrable opinions and practices of these lewd miscreants who thereby brought no small disgrace upon the Christian Religion and put no small stop to the growth and propagation of it But not to prosecute this matter any farther if we descend a little lower we shall find that God had no sooner dissipated the storm that hung over the Christian Church for some Centuries and put a stop to the effusion of any more of that blood which without any distinction of Age or Sex was spilt like water under the ten famous persecutions by the advancement of Constantine to the Empire but the devil betakes himself to new shifts who finding his former methods of cruelty so signally baffled by the patience and constancy of the Martyrs he begins to play a new or rather to revive his old game and since he cannot destroy the professors of Christianity he will endeavour to undermine their Religion He had indeed made a vigorous effort to extinguish both the name and memory of the Christian Religion and to have tore up both the faith and the believers quite by the very roots but herein he was disappointed and therefore he endeavours to compass that by stratagem which he cannot effect by storm and in this method he finds greater success than in the former For being baffled as we said before in his attempts upon the disciples of Christ he attacks the doctrine which they embraced and here Inimicus homo the enemy came and sowed tares among the Wheat hoping thereby to choke the word which now he despair'd to extirpate And herein he found fit instruments for the execution of his design for taking
how he comes to be so as he saith in another case viz. his opinion against Hell Torments that he had so contrived the matter ut lector prius sentiat doctrinam istam sibi jam persuasam esse quam suaderi animadvertat And now I should come to a conlusion of this discourse about Gods Justice which I have spun out to a greater length then I at first intended But that I foresee an objection will be made against all that I have said by the Socinians and their friends who will be apt to say that I have bin taking a great deal of pains to no purpose to aggravate the mischiefs of an Opinion which admit it were false in speculation yet as it is stated by them can in point of fact and practice carry no inconvenience imaginable along with it For whatever God may do when left to his own liberty yet he hath thought fit to oblige himself by positive promises and threatnings to reward the righteous and to punish the wicked so that now by the revelation of his will he hath indeed abridged himself of his natural liberty but hath thereby taken effectual care to secure his own honour and to establish Religion in the world and all this is plainly acknowledged by the Socinians To which I answer 1 st that this doth not take off the falshood and Impiety of this Socinian opinion which I was obliged to discover any more than if a man should say that God hath indeed resolved to act wisely and righteously in the government of the World but that neither wisdom nor righteousness are necessary and essential Attributes perpetually residing in him but are only the effects of his free will which were a most irreligious and profane assertion notwithstanding the former acknowledgment 2. Tho the Socinians hereby take care of revealed yet they overturn all natural Religion as we shewed before where God hath made no such Revelation of his will or discovery of his intentions how he doth design to deal with men and so as far as in them lies by this principle they help to make the much greatest part of mankind Atheists 3 ly When God hath declared his purpose and hath accordingly given men Laws for the government of their actions and hath to those Laws expresly annexed the sanctions of rewards and punishments yet according to the Socinian principles this doth not sufficiently encourage men in virtuous practices nor lay an effectual restraint upon the wicked 1 st As to rewards it is true the Gospel affords us as the Apostle tells us exceeding great and precious promises 2 Pet. 1. 4. which exceed not only our deserts but our hopes But what absolute assurance have we that they shall be made good to us They are only the effects as Socinus tells us Liberae or as Vorstius explains it vertibilis voluntatis not only of a free for therein we agree with them but of a mutable will for according to them as was shewed before God is liable to alterations and may change his purpose as he doth the weather sicut potest pluere vel non pluere and tho the Morning proves never so fair yet the Heavens may be overcast and the Sun that rose so gloriously may set in a Cloud In short if we believe the Socinians the promises of God considered barely in themselves are not a sufficient Basis for a Christians hope and security forasmuch as God being mutable in his nature he may repent of what he promised and change and alter his Resolution And that the Reader may not think that I have wronged the Socinians in laying this to their charge I must refer him to a Treatise writ by Crellius de Causis Mortis Christi where he will find this that I have affirmed of them abundantly made good For there he tells us that the true reason of Christs dying for us was that thereby he might be a Mediator and surety of the Covenant which God hath made with men for tho God had given men the promise of pardon of their sins yet that promise was no sufficient security because he might have receded or started from it Therefore to fix him as it were to his word Christ was sent as a sponsor and surety of the New Testament which in the name of his Father he did confirm and ratify by sealing it with his Blood whereupon now God is obliged to make good his promise so that if he had a mind to revoke it he cannot the Death of Christ compelling him to preserve it Indeed he could not but be sensible that what he had thus delivered would sound harshly in the Ears of most Readers those especially who had any concern for the Honour of their Maker which by this supposition was so highly and scandalously invaded therefore to mollify this matter he tells us that the efficacy which he ascribes to Christs Death was not absolutely necessary in respect of God whose own Love Grace and Mercy might move and encline him to make good his promise yet however this put him under no obligation for if it had there had bin no need of the death of Christ either in respect of God or our selves either to have tyed him to the performance or to have afforded us security Therefore he tells us that we might have a firm bottom for our hope that if we believed in Christ that is obeyed his Gospel our sins should be forgiven us it highly concerned us that God should be obliged to perform what he had promised and not only so but that we might acquire a Right to pardon which right he founds not in the promise of God but the Death of Christ which he saith gives us such an undoubted Title to Mercy and that supported by such a firm and manifest assurance and proof as will not suffer God whatever may happen to break his word and recall his promise And this he tells us was the true reason of Christs coming into the world and of Gods delivering him up to death for our sakes By all which it is evident that in the opinion of this man the promises of God considered nakedly in themselves do not afford us a sufficient security forasmuch as something may intervene which may cause God to repent of what he promised and thereby hinder the performance and that you may not think that he had forgot himself by making an impious or impossible supposition he tells us utimur phrasi sacris literis usitata that he used a phrase which was frequently made use of in the Scripture it self which often mentions Gods sorrow and repentance and therefore it can be no disparagement to Almighty God to ascribe it to him it being rather in their opinion an argument of his wisdom as was shewed before I must indeed acknowledge that this very Author at another time Lib. De Deo Cap. 25. de Sanctitate Dei p. 241. affirms that the promises of God put him under an