from the Scope of the whole Epistle and the beginning of that Chapter understand only of the state that St. Paul represents himself to have been in while yet a Iew and before his Conversion Whereas others understand it of him in his converted and regenerated state Very plausible things have been said on both sides but without arguing any thing from words the sense of which is under debate Gal. 5.17 Rom. 8.13 there are other places which do manifestly express the struggle that is in a good Man The flesh is weak though the spirit is willing The flesh lusteth against the spirit as the spirit lusteth against the flesh We ought to be still mortifying the deeds of the body and we feel many Sins that do so easily beseâ— us that from these things we have reason to conclude that there is a Corruption in our Nature which gives us a biass and propensity to Sin Now there is no reason to think that Baptism takes away all the Branches and Effects of Original Sin It is enough if we are by it delivered from the Wrath of God and brought into a State of Favour and Acceptation We are freed from the Curse of Death by our being Entitled to a Blessed Resurrection And if we are so far freed from the Corruption of our Nature as to have a foederal right to such Assistances as will enable us to resist and repress it though it is not quite extinct in us so long as we live in these frail and mortal Bodies here are very great Effects of our Admission to Christianity by Baptism though this should not go so far as to root out all Inclinations to Evil out of our Nature The great Disposition that is in us to Appetite and Passion and that great heat with which they Inflame us the Aversion that we naturally have to all the Exercises of Religion and the Pains that must be used to work us up to a tolerable Degree of Knowledge and an ordinary Measure of Virtue shews that these are not natural to us Whereas Sloth and Vice do grow on us without any care taken about them so that it appears that they are the natural and the other the forced growth of our Souls These ill Dispositions are so universally spread through all Mankind and appear so early and in so great a Diversity of ill Inclinations that from hence it seems reasonable and just to infer That this Corruption is spread through our whole Nature and Species by the Sin and Disobedience of Adam And beyond this a great many among our selves think that they cannot go in asserting of Original Sin But there is a further step made by all the Disciples of S. Austin who believe That a Covenant was made with all Mankind in Adam as their First Parent That he was a Person Constituted by God to represent them all and that the Covenant was made with him so that if he had obeyed all his Posterity should have been happy through his Obedience but by his Disobedience they were all to be esteemed to have sinned in him his Act being Imputed and Transferred to them all S. Austin considered all Mankind as lost in Adam and in that he made the Decree of Election to begin There being no other Reprobation asserted by him than the leaving Men to continue in that state of Damnation in which they were by reason of Adam's Sin so that though by Baptism all Men were born again and recovered out of that lost state yet unless they were within the Decree of Election they could not be saved but would certainly fall from that state and perish in a state of Sin But such as were not Baptized were shut out from all hope Those words of Christ's Except ye be born again of the water and of the Spirit Joh. 3.3 5 ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God being Expounded so as to Import the Indispensable Necessity of Baptism to Eternal Salvation All who were not Baptized were reckoned by him among the Damned Yet this Damnation as to those who had no Actual Sin was so mitigated that it seemed to be little more than an Exclusion out of Heaven without any Suffering or Misery like a state of Sleep and Inactivity This was afterwards dressed up as a Division or Partition in Hell called the Limbo of Infants so by bringing it thus low they took away much of the horror that this Doctrine might otherwise have given the World It was not easy to Explain the way how this was propagated They wished well to the Notion of a Soul's propagating a Soul but that seemed to come too near Creation So it was not received as certain It was thâ—refore thought That the Body being propagated defiled the Soul was created and infused at the time of Conception And the though God did not Create it impure yet no time was interposed between its Creation and infusion So that it could never be said to have been once pure and then to have become impure All this as it afforded an easy Foundation to Establish the Doctrine of Absolute Decrees upon it no care being taken to shew how this Sin came into the World whether from an Absolute Decrâ—e or not so it seem'd to have a great Foundation in that large Discourse of St. Paul's where in the 5th of the Romans he compares the Blessings that we receive by the Death of Christ with the Guilt and Misery that was brought upon us by the Sin of Adam Now it is confessed That by Christ we have both an Imputation or Communication of the Merits of his Death and likewise a Purity and Holiness of Nature convey'd to us by his Doctrine and Spirit In opposition then to this if the comparison is to be closely pursued there must be an Imputation of Sin as well as a Corruption of Nature transfused to us from Adam This is the more considerable as to the Point of imputation because the chief design of St. Paul's Discourse seems to be levelled at that since it is begun upon the Head of Reconciliation and Attonement Upon which it follows That as by one man sin entred into the world Rom. 5.12 to the end and death by sin and death passed upon all men for that or as others render it in whom all have sinned Now they think it is all one to their Point Whether it be rendered for that or in whom For though the later words seem to deliver their Opinion more precisely yet it being affirm'd That according to the other rendring all who die have sinned and it being certain That many Infants die who have never actually sinned these must have sinned in Adam they could sin no other way It is afterwards said by St. Paul That by the offence of one many were dead That the judgment was by one to Condemnation That by one man's offence death reigned by one That by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to Condemnation And that by one man's disobedience
God had been their God Ver. 31.32 but still was their God Now when God is said to be a God to any by that is meant that he is their Benefactor or exceeding rich reward as was promised to Abraham Exod. 3.6 And that therefore Abraham Isaac and Iacob lived unto God that is were not dead But were then in a happy state of life in which God did reward them and so was their God Whether this Argument rests here our Saviour designing only to prove against the main error of the Sadducees that we have Souls distinct from our Bodies that shall outlive their separation from them or if it goes further to prove the rising of the Body it self I shall not determine On the one hand our Saviour seems to apply himself particularly to prove the Resurrection of the Body so we must see how to find here an Argument for that to Answer the Scope of the whole Discourse Yet on the other hand it may be said that he having proved the main Point of the Soul 's subsisting after death which is the Foundation of all Religion the other Point which was chiefly denied because that was thought false would be more easily both acknowledged and believed As for the Resurrection of the Body all that can be brought from hence as an Argument to prove it is That since God was the God of Abraham Isaac and Iacob and by consequence their Benefactor and Rewarder and yet they were Pilgrims on this Earth and suffered many Tossings and Troubles that therefore they must be rewarded in another State or because God promised that to them he would give the Land of Canaan as well as to their Seed after them and since they never had any Portion of it in their own possession that therefore they shall rise again and with the other Saints reign on Earth and have that Promise fulfilled in themselves From all this the Assertion of the Article is as to one main Point made good That the Old Fathers look'd for more than Transitory Promises It is also clear That they looked for a further Pardon of Sin than that which their Law held forth to them in the Expiation made by Sacrifices Sins of Ignorance or Sins of a lower sort were those only for which Sin or Trespass-offerings were appointed The Sins of a higher Order were punished by Death by the Hand of Heaven or by cutting off so that such as sinned in that kind were to dye without Mercy Heb. 10.28 Yet when David had fallen into the most heinous of those Sins he prays to God for a Pardon according to God's Loving-kindness Psal. 51.1 2 16 1â— and the Multitude of his tender Mercies For he knew that they were beyond the Expiation by Sacrifice The Prophets do often call the Iews to repent of their Idolatry and other crying Sins such as Oppression Injustice and Murder with the Promise of the Pardon of them even though they were of the deepest Dye as Crimson and Scarlet Since then Isa. 1.18 for lesser Sins an Expiation was appointed by Sacrifice besides their confessing and repenting of it and since it seems by St. Paul's way of arguing that they held it for a Maxim That without shedding of blood there was no remission of sins this might naturally lead them to think that there was some other consideration that was interposed in order to the pardoning of those more heinous Sins For a greater degree of Guilt seems by a natural Proportion to demand a higher degree of Sacrifice and Expiation But after all whatsoever Isaiah Daniel or any other Prophet might have understood or meant by those Sacrificatory Phrases that they use in speaking of the Messiah Isa. 53. Dan. 9. yet it cannot be said from the Old Testament That in that Dispensation it was clearly revealed that the Messias was to die and to become a Sacrifice for Sin The Messias was indeed promised under general terms but there was not then a full and explicite Revelation of his being to dye for the Redemption of Mankind Yet since the most heinous Sins were then pardoned though not by virtue of the Sacrifices of that Covenant nor by the other means prescribed in it we have good reason to affirm that according to this Article Life was offered to Mankind in the Old Dispensation by Christ who was with relation to the obtaining the Favour of God and Everlasting Life the Mediator of that as well as of the New Dispensation In the New Testament he is set in opposition to the Old Adam that as in the one all died so in the other all were made alive Nor is it any way incongruous to say That the Merit of his Death should by an Anticipation have saved those who died before he was born For that being in the view of God as certain before as after it was done it might be in the Divine Intention the Sacrifice for the Old as well as it is expresly declared to be the Sacrifice for the New Dispensation And this being so God might have pardoned Sins in consideration of it even to those who had no distinct Apprehensions concerning it For as God applies the Death of Christ by the secret Methods of Grace to many Persons whose Circumstances do render them incapable of the express Acts of laying hold on it the want of those for instance in Infants and Ideots being supplied by the goodness of God So though the Revelation that was made of the Messias to the Fathers under the Old Dispensation was only in general and Prophetical Terms of which they could not have a clear and distinct knowledge yet his Death might be applied to them and their Sins pardoned through him upon their performing such Acts as were proportioned to that Dispensation and to the Revelation that was then made And so they were reconciled to God even after Sins for which no Sacrifices were appointed by their Dispensation upon their Repentance and Obedience to the Foederal Acts and Conditions then required which supplied the want of more express Acts with relation to the Death of Christ not then distinctly revealed to them But though the Old Fathers had a Conveyance of the Hope of Eternal Life made to them with a Resurrection of their Bodies and a Confidence in the Mercy of God for pardoning the most heinous Sins yet it cannot be denied but that it was as a light that shined in a dark place till the day-star did arise 2 Pet. 1.19 and that Christ brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel giving us fuller and clearer discoveries of it both with relation to our Souls and Bodies and that by him also God has declared his righteousness for the remission of sins Rom. 3.24 25. through the forbearance of God through the redemption that is in Christ Iesus and through Faith in his blood The Third Branch of this Article will not need much Explanation as it will bear no dispute except with Iews
wild loose and irregular Frâ—m all this they conclude that Man is free and not under Inevitable Fate or Irresistable Motions either to good or evil All this they confirm from the whole Current of the Scripture that is full of Persuasions Exhortations Reproofs Expostulations Encouragements and Terrors which are all vain and Theatrical things if there are no free Powers in us to which they are addrest To what purpose is it to speak to dead Men to persuade the Blind to see or the Lame to run If we are under an impotence till the Irresistable Grace comes and if when it comes nothing can withstand it then what occasion is there for all those solemn Discourses if they can have no effect on us They cannot render us inexcusable unless it were in our power to be bettered by them and to imagine that God gives Light and Blessings to those whom he before intended to Damn only to make them inexcusable when they could do them no good and they will serve only to aggravate their Condemnation gives so strange an Idea of that Infinite Goodness that it is not fit to express it by those Terms which do naturally arise upon it It is as hard to suppose two contrary Wills in God the one commanding us our Duty and requiring us with the most solemn Obtestations to do it and the other putting a certain Bar in our way by Decreeing that we shall do the contrary This makes God look as if he had a Will and a Will though a Heart and a Heart import no good quality when applied to Men The one Will requires us to do our Duty and the other makes it impossible for us not to sin The Will for the good is ineffectual while the Will that makes us sin is infallible These things seem very hard to be apprehended and whereas the Root of True Religion is the having right and high Ideas of God and of his Attributes here such Ideas arise as naturally give us strange Thoughts of God and if they are received by us as Originals upon which we are to Form our own Natures such Notions may make us grow to be Spiteful Imperious and without Bowels but do not seem proper to inspire us with Love Mercy and Compassion tho' God is always proposed to us in that view All Preaching and Instruction does also suppose this For to what purpose are Men called upon taught and endeavoured to be persuaded if they are not free Agents and have not a power over their own Thoughts and if they are not to be convinced and turned by Reason The Offers of Peace and Pardon that are made to all Men are delusory things if they are by an Antecedent Act of God restrained only to a few and all others are barred from them It is further to be considered say they That God having made Men free Creatures his Governing them accordingly and making his own Administration of the World suitable to it is no diminution of his own Authority it is only the carrying on of his own Creation according to the several Natures that he has put in that variety of Beings of which this World is composed and with which it is diversified Therefore if some of the Acts of God with relation to-Man are not so free as his other Acts are and as we may suppose necessary to the ultimate Perfection of an Independent Being This arises not from any defect in the Acts of God but because the Nature of the Creature that he intended to make free is inconsistent with such Acts. The Divine Omnipotence is not lessened when we observe some of his Works to be more beautiful and useful than others are and the Irregular Productions of Nature do not derogate from the Order in which all Things appear lovely to the Divine Mind So if that Liberty with which he intended to endue Thinking Beings is incompatible with such positive Acts and so positive a Providence as governs Natural Things and this material World then this is no way derogatory to the Sovereignty of his Mind This does also give such an account of the Evil that is in the World as does no way accuse or lessen the Purity and Holiness of God since he only suffers his Creatures to go on in the free use of those Powers that he has given them about which he exercises a special Providence making some Mens Sins to be the immediate Punishments of their own or of other Mens Sins and restraining them often in a great deal of that Evil that they do design and bringing out of it a great deal of Good that they did not design but all is done in a way suitable to their Natures without any violence to them It is true it is not easy to shew how those future Contingences which depend upon the free choice of the Will should be certain and infallible But we are on other accounts certain that it is so for we see through the whole Scriptures a Thread of very positive Prophecies the accomplishment of which depended on the free Will of Man and these Predictions as they were made very precisely so they were no less punctually accomplished Not to mention any other Prophecies all those that related to the Death and Sufferings of Christ were fulfilled by the free Acts of the Priests and People of the Iews They sinned in doing it which proves that they acted in it with their Natural Liberty By these and all the other Prophecies that are in both Testaments it must be confessed that these things were certainly foreknown but where to found that Certainy cannot be easily resolved The Infinite Perfection of the Divine Mind ought here to silence all Objections A clear Idea by which we apprehend a thing to be plainly contrary to the Attributes of God is indeed a just ground of rejecting it and therefore they think that they are in the right to deny all such to be in God as they plainly apprehend to be contrary to Justice Truth and Goodness But if the Objection against any thing supposed to be in God lies only against the manner and the unconceivableness of it there the Infinite Perfection of God answers all It is further to be considered That this Prescience does not make the Effects certain because they are foreseen but they are foreseen because that they are to be So that the Certainty of the Prescience is not antecedent or causal but subsequent and eventual Whatsoever happens was future before it happened and since it happened it was certainly future from all Eternity not by a Certainty of Fate but by a Certainty that arises out of its being once from which this Truth That it was future was eternally certain Therefore the Divine Prescience being only the knowing all things that were to come that â—oes not infer a Necessity or Causality The Scripture plaiâ—â—y shews on some occasions a conditionate Prescience God answered David That Saul was to come to Keilah and that the Men of Keilah
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily