respects as bad as ever this indeed is so slight a thing that a greater disparagement cannot de offered to our Religion nor can a greater strengthning of sin be contrived than the giving any sort of encouragement to it for it is one of the greatest and the most mischievous of all those practical Errors which have corrupted Religion These are the most important parts of our whole Commission and therefore we ought to state them first aright in our own thoughts that so we our selves may be fully possessed with them that they may sink deep into our own minds and shew their efficacy in the reforming of our Natures and Lives and then we shall be able to open them to others with more clearness and with better advantages when our hearts are inflamed with an overcoming sense of the Love and Goodness of God If the Condition of this New Covenant were deeply impressed on our thoughts then we should publish them with more life and joy to others and we might then look for the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel on our selves and on our labours DISCOURSE III. Concerning the INFALLIBILITY AND AUTHORITY of the CHURCH AFTER we are well setled in the Belief of the Christian Religion our next enquiry must naturally be into the Way and Method of being rightly Instructed in the Doctrine and other parts of this Religion and that chiefly in one great Point Whether we ought to employ our own Faculties in searching into this and particularly into the meaning of those Books in which it is contain'd or Whether we must take it from Oral Tradition and submit to any man or body of men as the Infallible Depositaries and Declarers of this Tradition In this single point consists the Essence of the differences between us and the Church of Rome While we affirm that the Christian Doctrine is compleatly contain'd in the Scriptures and that every man ought to examine these with the best helps and all the skill and application of which he is capable and that he is bound to believe such Doctrines only as appear to him to be contain'd in the Scriptures but may reject all others that are not founded upon that Authority On the other hand The foundation upon which the Church of Rome builds is this That the Apostles deliver'd their Doctrine by word of mouth to the several Churches as the Sacred Depositum of the Faith That the Books of the New Testament were written occasionally not with intent that they should be the Standard of this Religion that we have these Books and believe them to be Divine only from the Church and upon her Testimony that the Church with the Books gives us likewise the Sense and Exposition of them they being dark in many places and that therefore the Traditional Conveyance and the Solemn Decisions of the Church must be Infallible and ought to be submitted to as such otherwise there can be no end of Controversies while every man takes upon him to expound the Scriptures which must needs fill mens Minds with Curiosity and Pride as well as the World with Heresies and Sects that are unavoidable unless there is a living speaking Judge This they also prove from some places of Scripture such as Christ's words to St. Peter Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and unto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Tell the Church I am with you alway even to the end of the World the Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth This is their Doctrine and these are their chief Arguments upon which it is founded There is no point in Divinity that we should more clearly understand than this for it is in it self of great Consequence and is that which determines all the rest if it is true it puts an end to all other Controversies and if it is false it leaves us at liberty to examine every thing and gives us the justest and highest prejudices possible against that Church that pretends to it without just grounds It is also that which of all others the Missionaries of that Church understand the best and manage the most dextrously they are much practised to it and they begin and end all their practice with this which has fair appearances and will bear a great deal both of popular Eloquence and plausible Logick so if men are not on the other hand as well fortifi'd and as ready on the other side of the Argument they will be much entangled as often as they have occasion to deal with any of that Church There is not indeed any one point that I know of that has been open'd and examin'd both with that Beauty and Force that is in Chillingworth's Unvaluable Book upon this Subject Few things of this nature have ever been handled so near a Mathematical Evidence as he has pursu'd this Argument and his Book is writ with such a thread of Wit and Reason that I am confident few can enter upon it without going through with it I shall now endeavour in as narrow a compass as is possible to set this matter in its true Light We must then begin with this That the freedom of a man's Thoughts and Understanding is the most Essential Piece of his Liberty and that in which naturally he can the least bear to be limited therefore any Restraints that are laid upon him in this must be well and fully proved otherwise it is to be suppos'd that God could never intend to bring us under the yoke in so sensible and so valuable a thing without giving clear and evident warrants for it And as every Invasion on the Liberties of the Human nature ought to be well made out so every Priviledge which any person claims against the common fate of Mankind ought to be also fully proved before others can be bound to submit to it We perceive in our selves and we see in all others such a feebleness of understanding such an easiness to go too quick and judge too fast and such a narrow compass of knowledge that as we see all Mankind is apt to mistake things so we have no reason to believe that any one is exempted from this but as there are evident Authorities to prove it Since then this is a Priviledge in those that have it as well as an Imposition on those that have it not it ought not to be offer'd at or obtruded on the world without a full Proof Probabilities forced Inferences or even disputable Proofs ought not to be made use of here since we have reason to conclude that if God had intended to put any such thing upon us he would have done it in so plain and uncontested a way that there should have been no room to have doubted of it Besides all such things as do naturally give jealousy and offer specious grounds of mistrust ought to be very clear Since
then all Companies of men that lodge themselves in any Authority and more particularly those who manage mens Consciences and the Concerns of Religion have been too often observ'd to enlarge their powers and to make the most of them they could and that by their means Religion has been often and much corrupted the World has from hence a Right to exact very full proofs before they can be bound to believe any such body of men to be exempted from Error This will yet appear the more evident if that very Body in which this Infallibility is suppos'd to dwell has manifestly corrupted the Morals and the order or discipline of this Religion if they have fill'd the world with Fables if they have fallen under gross Ignorance and have been over-run with Vice and Disorder these must afford great occasion of suspecting them in all other things If Impostures have been set up and promoted with great Zeal in some Ages which have in other Ages of more Light and Knowledge been thrown out and disclaim'd and if we find that the same Methods of Craft and Violence which have been practised in all other Societies have been more notoriously and scandalously practis'd by the men of Infallibility then we have from all these things just prejudices given us against this pretension Now a just prejudice amounts to this That we have no reason to believe a thing unless we see very good grounds to believe it and it gives us all reason to suspect those grounds and to examine them well before we are concluded by them Further This being so great a Matter and that which must settle all other things we have just reason to believe That if God has left such Authorities in the World that he has also made it plain where they lie and with whom they are to be found for it is not imaginable that God should have concluded Mankind under such an Authority and yet not have explain'd so necessary a Point as Who are the Depositaries of it but to have left men to their shifts to find that out the best way they can since till this is clear'd the other is of no use There is a dormant Infallibility they say in the Church but no body knows where for it is no Article of Faith in whom it is vested We are where we were only with this disadvantage that if we think we are sure there is an Infallibility in the Church but are not sure to whom it is trusted we may be resisting this Infallibility by opposing those who indeed have it while we adress our selves for it to others who have it not tho we fancy it belongs to them In all Constitutions among men the most evident thing is this Where rests the Supreme Authority of that Constitution And if this is necessary for the order and policy of the World it is much more necessary that if God has devolv'd so main a part of his own Authority and indeed the dispensing of one of his own Attributes this should be so described and circumstantiated that there should be no danger of mistaking and that there should have been such Characters given by which all the World should have been as infallibly directed to this Authority as it was to be infallible in its Decisions When God consign'd such a Character to the Jewish Nation that the Symbol of his presence was to appear and that Answers were to be given out as he was consulted it was expresly declar'd with whom it was lodged and in what Method the High-Priest was to appear before the Lord with the Vrim in the Breast-plate that so there might be no room left for Imposture or even for suspicion Upon all these reasons we have a very just right to demand of those who call us to submit to their Infallibility to give us such plain express and determinate proofs for it as are proportion'd to the Importance and Unusualness of that which they impose upon us It is a vain thing to prove that this must be in the Church because otherwise a great many Absurdities must needs follow if it were not in it When it is once prov'd that God has given it to his Church we shall very willingly yield that he had very good reasons for it since so extraordinary a Power which might be easily imploy'd to very bad purposes certainly was not to be given but for very good ones but it is a very preposterous way to argue That God must have done such a thing because we fancy that it is necessary to prevent some great Evil or to procure some very great Good For this is only to pretend to prove that God ought to have done somewhat that he has not done unless they can at the same time prove that God has done it this is to conclude That his Ways must be as ours are and that his Thoughts must be as our Thoughts We may at this rate prove as well that the Messias should have appear'd much sooner than he did have shew'd his Miracles and even his Body after his Resurrection more publickly than he did This will prove that the Gospel should have been preach'd to many Nations yet in Paganism and this will rather with an advantage in the Argument prove that there should be no sin left in the world and that no man should be left to perish in his sins and so be damn'd for them It will require no great Art to make it appear that these are much more dreadful things and seem to be much more contrary to God's Nature to his Love to Mankind and to his Church but indeed if we will give our selves scope upon this Argument to fancy that God must do every thing which we imagine would be very convenient we should soon frame an Idea both of his Creation and his Providence that is wholly different from what we perceive it to be We are not capable of so vast a Thought as to take in a Scheme of those great Designs that lie in the Eternal Mind and that are scatter'd in a seeming Confusion through his Works and Ways but are beautiful and orderly as they are gathered together in his Ideas We cannot say what is good or evil with relation to the whole nor what are the properest Methods of bringing about the one or of diverting the other so to conclude the arguing that Christ had dealt ill with his Church if he had not made her Infallible unless it is made out that he has done it is only a reproaching him with this That he has not done that which he ought to have done and that he has not been faithful in discharging the Trust committed to him of his Father Therefore all these are false ways of arguing which cannot work on any but such as measure God by themselves The Argument if true is Infinite and has no bounds It does seem to agree much better with the Jewish Oeconomy that an Infallibility should have been lodg'd among them Their
of their Law or the Conveyers of their Traditions to them Must he set up his Skill and Reason above theirs Thus we see that if this Reasoning is true it being founded on Maxims that are equally true at all times then it was as true at that time as it is now It is of no force to say that the Miracles which our Saviour and his Apostles wrought gave them such Powers that the people were upon that account bound to believe them rather than their Teachers For one part of the Debate was both the truth of the Miracles and the Consequences that arose from them So the Appeal according to this way of Reasoning did still lie to their Sanhedrim In a word In such Matters every man must judge for himself and every man must answer to God for the Judgment that he has made he judges for no body else but for himself He and He only can be the Judge and if he uses a due degree of Industry and frees himself from every corrupt Biass from Pride Vain-glory and affectation of Singularity or the pursuing any ill ends under those appearances of searching for Truth and the adhering to it he is doing the best thing which according to that nature of which God has made him he can do and so he may reasenably believe that he shall succeed in it Nor is there any pride in this for a man to think according to his own Understanding no more than to see with his own Eyes His Humility ought to make him slow and cautious modest and fearful but no humility can oblige him to think otherwise than he feels he must needs think Among the Works of the flesh Heresies or Sects are reckon'd as one sort and species Now by Works of the flesh are to be understood the appetites of a vicious and depraved nature the meaning therefore of reckoning Heresies among these is this That when a man out of a bad disposition of mind and on ill designs chuses to to be of a party he then is a Heretick but he that in sincerity of Heart goes into persuasions from an overcoming sense of their Truth cannot be one because he does not chuse his persuasion out of a previous ill design but is of it not out of choice but necessity since his Understanding in which those matters may be variously represented offers them so to him that he must believe them to be true in the same manner in which he apprehends them If upon this Principle there happen to be many Sects and Divisions in the Church this is a part of that Wo that Christ left upon the World by reason of Offences and Scandals for he forsaw that they must needs come God has made this present Scene of Life to be neither regular nor secure The strange Follies and Corruptions of Mankind must have their Influence on Religion as well as they have on all other things God has reserv'd a fulness of Light and of unerring Knowledge to another State Here we are in the dark but have light enough if we have honest Minds to use and improve it aright to guide us thither and that is the utmost share that God seems to have design'd for us in this Life we must therefore be contented and make the most of it that we can I go next to shew That the same Difficulties if not greater ones he upon those who build on Infallibility for before they can arrive at the use of it they must have well examin'd and be fully assur'd of two things either of which has greater Difficulties in it than all those put together with which they press us First They must be convinced that there is an Infallibility in the Church and next they must know to which of those many Churches into which Christendom is divided this Infallibility is fastned Unless the design is to make all men take their Religion implicitely from their Forefathers these things must be well consider'd If men are oblig'd to adhere blindly to the Religion in which they were bred then Iews Heathans and Mahometans must continue still where they are If this had been the Maxim of all times Christianity had never got into the World If then men are allow'd to examine things they must have very good reason given them for it before they can believe that there is an Infallibility among men Their own Reason and Observation offers so much against it that without very clear grounds they ought not to receive it Now the reasons to persuade it must be drawn either from Scripture or from outward visible Characters that evidence it The Scriptures cannot be urg'd by these men because the Scriptures as they teach have their Authority from the Testimony of the Church Therefore the Authority of the Church must be first prov'd for the Church cannot give an Authority to a Book and then prove its own Authority by that Book This is plainly to prove the Church by her own Testimony which is manifestly absurd it being all one whether she affirms it immediately or if she affirms it by affirming a Book in which it is contain'd here a Circle is made to run for ever round in Why do you believe the Church because the Scriptures affirm it and why do you believe the Scriptures because the Church affirms them I do not deny but they may urge the Scriptures for this very pertinently against us who acknowledge their Authority but I am now considering upon what grounds a man is to be instructed in the stating the grounds of his own Faith and resolving it into Principles In this an Order must be fix'd and in the progress of it every step that is made must be prov'd without any relation to that which is afterwards to be proved out of that and therefore either the Church or the Scriptures must be first prov'd and then other things must be prov'd out of that which is once fix'd and made good But in the next place if we should suffer them to bring Proofs from Scripture how shall it he prov'd that the true sense of them is that which makes for infallibility Other senses may be given to them which may both agree to the Grammatical Construction of the words to the contexture of the Discourse and to the Phraseology of the Scriptures who shall then decide this Matter It were very unreasonable to prove what is their true Sense by the Exposition that any Church puts on those passages in her own favour that were to make her both Judge and Party in too gross a manner Therefore at least thâ—se passages and all that relates to them must fall under the private Judgment and in these Instances every man must be suffer'd to expound the Scriptures for himself for he cannot be bound to submit to any exposition of them but that which satisfies his own Reason and if this step is once admitted then it will appear as reasonable to leave a man all over to the use of his
Faculties since these passages and that which necessarily relates to them will lead a man into the understanding of the hardest parts of the whole New Testament If this method is let go they must prove the Infallibility of the Church by Arguments drawn from some other Visible Characters by which a man is to be convinc'd that God has made her Infallible If there were such eminent ones as the gift of Tongues Miracles or Prophecies that did visibly attest this here were a proof that were solid indeed It were the same with that by which we prove the Truth of the Christian Religion But then these Miracles must be as uncontestedly and evidently proved they must also belong to this point that is they must be Miracles publickly done to prove the truth of this Assertion But to this Appeal they will not stand what use soever they may make of it to amuse the weaker and the more credulous The Character of an uninterrupted Succession from the days of the Apostles is neither an easier nor a surer one since other Churches whom they condemn have it likewise nor can it be search'd into by a private man unless he would go into that Sea of examining the History the Records and Succession of Churches This is an Enquiry that has in it Difficulties vastly greater and more insuperable than all those that they can object to us If they will appeal to the vast Extent of a Church that so many Nations and Societies agree in the same Doctrine and are of one Communion this will prove to be a dangerous point for in the state in which we see Mankind Numbers make a very bad Argument It were to risque the Christian Religion too much to venture on a Poll with the Mahometans In some Ages the Semi-Arrians had the better at numbers and it is a question if at this day those that are within or without the Roman Communion make the greatest body Nor must a man be put to chuse his Religion by such a laborious and uncertain way of Calculation To plead a continuance in the same Doctrine that was at first deliver'd to the Church by the Apostles is to put the matter upon a more desperate issue For as no man can hope to see to the end of this so it lets a man in into all Controversies when he is to compare the present Doctrine with that which was deliver'd by the Apostles Let then any Character be assign'd that shall oblige a man to believe the Church Infallible and it will soon appear very evidently that the searching into that must put the world on more difficult Enquiries than any of those that we are pressed with and that in the issue of the whole the determination must be resolv'd into a private Judgment Another Difficulty follows close upon this which is In what Church this Infallibility is to be found Suppose a man was born in the Greek Church at any time since the IX Century how shall he know that he must seek the Infallibility in the Roman Communion and that he cannot find it in his own He plainly sees that the Christian Religion began in the Eastern parts and by every step that he makes into History he clearly discerns that it flourished for many Ages most eminently there but now that there is a breach between them and the Latins he cannot judge to which Communion he is to adhere without he examines the Doctrine for both have the outward Characters of a Succession of Martyrs and Bishops of Numbers and an appearance of continuing in the same Doctrine only with this difference that the Greeks have the advantage in every one of these they have more Apostolical Churches I mean founded by the Apostles than the Latins and they have stuck more firmly with fewer Additions and Innovations to their Ancient Rituals than the Latins have done How can he then decide this matter without examining the grounds of their difference and making a private Judgment upon a private Examination of the Scriptures or other Authorities If it be said that the present depress'd and ignorant state of those Churches makes it now very sensible that there can be no Infallibility among the Easterns To this it is to be answer'd that I have put the case all-along from the 9th Century downward In many of those Ages the Greeks were under as good Circumstances and had as fair an appearance as the Latins had if not better for the outward appearances of the Roman Communion in the next Centuries the 10th and 11th are not very favourable even by the Representation that their own Writers have made of them and if we must judge of the Infallibility of a Church by outward Characters it may be urg'd with great shews of Reason that a Church which under all its Poverty and Persecutions does still adhere to the Christian Religion has so peculiar a Character of bearing the Cross and of living in a constant state of Sufferings that if Infallibility be in the Church as a favour and priviledge from God and not as the effect of human Learning and other Advantages I should sooner believe the Greek Church Infallible than any other now in the World But when these difficulties are all got over there remain yet new and great ones Suppose one is satisfi'd that it is in the Roman Church he must know where to find it without this it is of no more use to him than if one should tell a hungry man that there is food enough for him without directing him where to seek for it he must starve after all that general Information if he has not a more particular direction And therefore it seems very absurd to affirm that the believing of Infallibility is an Article of Faith but that the proper Subject in whom it rests is not likewise an Article of Faith This is the general Tenet of the whole Roman Communion who that they may maintain their Union notwithstanding their difference in this do all agree in saying that the subject of this Infallibility is not a matter of Faith This destroys the whole pretension for all the Absurdities of no end of Controversies of private Judgment and every man's expounding the Scriptures do return here and the whole design of Infallibility is defeated For how can a man be bound to submit to this in any one Instance or to receive any proposition as coming from an Infailible Authority if he does not know who has it Thus according to that Maxim of Natural Logick that a Conclusion can have no certainty beyond that which was in both the Premises if it is not certain with whom the Infallibility dwells as well as that there is an Infallibility in the Church all the noise about it will be quite defeated and of no use If a man had many Medecines of which one was an Infallible Cure of such or such Diseases can it be suppos'd that he would communicate these to the World and tell that one of them
other Circumstances It should be hoped that so great and so plain a Precedent should conclude those who have made the Primitive Church their Pattern and who have always reckoned this one of the special Glories of the Church of England that she built upon and conformed her self to the first Ages of Christianity I have now opened these two Precedents very particularly to you they seemed to weigh much with you when I have laid them out to you in some Conferences that I have held with you upon this Subject I hope you will both feel the force that is in them and and will be able to manage them with more advantage now that you have them lying before you To conclude all I do charge you by all the Authority I have over you and beseech you by all the Interest that I have in you to set your selves wholly to your Studies and Labours to be earnest in Prayer to continue in it and to join fasting with it Search the Scriptures diligently give your selves to reading and meditation and be you wholly in them that so your profiting may appear unto all men and watch over the Flock committed to your charge Be instant in season and out of season to instruct admonish exhort and reprove and by so doing you shall both save yourselves and them that hear you In doing these things you shall always have the most constant Assistance and the most earnest Prayers of My Reverend and Dear Brethren Your most Affectionate Brother and Humble Servant in the Lord G. SARUM 8. Decem. 1693. PART I. Concerning the TRUTH OF THE Christian Religion THERE is not any one thing that we ought to enquire into with so peculiar exactness as the Truth of that Religion which we believe nor is there any thing in which we ought to be so conversant and to which we should be so well prepared as to defend this great Argument the Foundation of our Faith and Hope It is a very preposterous way of Study to be able to argue about the retail of our Religion I mean the particular Doctrines of it and the subdivisions into which it is broken and not to know how to maintain it in gross when the truth of it is called in question either in the petulant way of profane Liberty or with the subtilties of Philosophy and Criticism We may have to do with both in the Age in which we live The Divisions among Christians have made the World conclude that they had a right to prove all things that so they may know how to hold fast that which is good The Enthusiasms and Hypocrisies of some and the Looseness and Disorders among others the superstitious magnifying of small matters and the contending eagerly for them while the greater as well as the more useful and more uncontroverted Rules have been too visibly and generally neglected have furnished them with prejudices that must be confessed to be but too specious and plausible And I wish some of us may not have contributed to make many think we are scarce in earnest in arguing for the Truth of our Religion while our Lives do but too openly testifie that we do not firmly believe our own Arguments The great Author of our Religion has left this woe upon the World that offences must come and the heaviest part of that woe will certainly fall upon those by whom they come But when we are enquiring into so Important a Matter it certainly becomes us to free our Minds from Prejudices as much as we can And neither to suffer our selves to be possessed by the first Impressions that Education made upon us nor by our present Stations and Engagements on the one hand nor to be led away by the fury of our Appetites and Passions and the bad Examples that the World abounds in on the other hand That so we may more freely search after Truth and both find it out and follow it As a Preamble to what is to come afterwards let us look into our Natures and see if we do not feel a Principle within us that both thinks and acts freely which is totally different from matter which neither thinks nor chuses This Principle then feels that its thoughts do direct its freedom in all that it does and therefore is capable of good or evil of reward and punishment The more distinctly that it thinks and the more exactly that it follows those Truths which by thinking it discovers it feels it self become the more perfect the more that it can resist all the Impressions which arise either from the constitution of the Body or from outward Objects and Accidents it grows to enjoy a perfecter calm within and is enabled to go through the fatigues and chances of Life with much more ease and patience The more it resists the furious cravings of the Body it enjoys a longer life and perfecter health There is also a Chain of Rules which arise out of these two Qualities that in the opinion of all Mankind are the best our Nature is capable of which are Veracity and Goodness which render all the Societies of Men both safe and happy They establish a confidence and maintain an entercourse in the World they give credit and draw esteem they endear Men to one another and make all the Ties and the whole Neighbourhood and Commerce of Life firm and useful And there is also a train of thoughts which run through a Man's mind and life which makes him live with great advantage and die with much firmness which give him much courage and attract much esteem These are all things that a Man may safely affirm since none question them and as no Man who sees the constant mirth in which some in Bedlam do pass their days will be from thence tempted to think that they are truly happy so the mad frolick in which some Libertines waste both their Bodies and Minds their Lives and Fortunes has never imposed so far on the World as to make Men so much as to doubt whether it were better to be as they are or to be good and wise calm and sober This then being laid down it is a great step made in favour of any Religion if it does exactly quadrat with it all If the Principles that it contains and the Rules that it prescribes are so much of a piece with this that they do both improve and fortifie it This does not prove it to be true indeed but it renders it probable it makes us inclined to believe or at least to wish it to be true The thoughts of a Supream Being who made and preserves all things who is every-where and can do whatsoever he pleases raise vast Idea's in us and give a sort of opening and enlargement to our Powers The sense of his knowing all things begets a composure and creates an awe the perswasion of his governing the World gives a quiet when we know that as Infinite Power cannot be withstood so Sovereign Wisdom cannot be mistaken Nothing
Minds and if we will quarrel with every thing that does not suit our own Notions we will be very uneasie in our Thoughts There are some Sins for which God gives over all further dealing with Persons and Nations and upon which he delivers them up to their own reprobate minds and when he has used such sufficient means as might well serve to convince and reform them he lets them alone and leaves them to their own hearts lusts Those who had seen so many of our Saviour's Miracles which instead of having a good effect on them did only serve to harden them the more in their opposition to him did well deserve that God should suffer them to harden themselves still more and more and it was enough that Christ shewed himself so often to such a competent number of unexceptionable Witnesses and give them full powers to prove their Testimony concerning him by working such Miracles as he himself had wrought Why he did it in this way and in no other is among the Secrets of his Councils which are to us unsearchable When our Souls become more perfect our Capacities and Faculties more enlarged and our Thoughts more exalted then we may come to understand the reason of these things more perfectly than it is possible for us to do in this depressed and darkned state One thing after all we may gather from our Saviour's words who has pronounced them blessed who have not seen and yet have believed and from the value that in many places of the New Testament is set on faith and on believing that God did not intend to give the World such an undeniable Evidence as that it should be out of their power to disbelieve for to believe either such things as our Senses do plainly perceive or to believe Mathematical Truths is that to which our Nature constrains us and for which we can deserve no sort of commendation Therefore to make our Faith to be both well grounded and also highly acceptable to God it is enough that there are sufficient Reasons offered to us to persuade our belief and that there is no good reason to the contrary tho' we may start possibilities of imaginary reasons against it and a Man who is so far convinced by those that he is from thence determin'd to believe all the other parts of that Revelation both the Promises and the Precepts of it so that he gives himself up to its conduct in the whole course of his Life in the assured expectation of the Promises it sets before him has such a Faith that must certainly be of great value in the sight of God because it has a great effect on the believer himself There is Beauty enough in the Rules of our Religion to oblige every Man to examine well the Authority upon which it rests and to him that will set his thoughts a working upon it this Authority will soon appear strong enough to determine his assent and when that has its due operation upon him then his Faith has had its full effect So that it is no dull nor lazy or implicite Faith on which the New Testament sets so high a value it is a Faith that purifies the Heart that worketh by Love that makes us new Creatures and engages us to keep the Commandments of God So that this Objection has no other force in it but this That God's Ways are a great depth and to us are past finding out A second Objection is That if our Saviour and his Apostles gave such Proofs of their Mission how is it to be imagined that any Man could be so obstinate as to stand it out against so full a Conviction These things were probably enquired into at that time by Men of all sides Curiosity might work on some and Fear on others and those who had drawn the Guilt of his Blood upon them were most particularly concern'd to examine the matter carefully since Blood is apt to raise a Clamour within which is not easily silenced Besides according to the Acts of the Apostles the Iews and even their Sanhedrin seem to have been struck with the Reports of his Resurrection so that they knew not how to gainsay it and were concerned only to stifle and silence it Now it seems somewhat unaccountable how it came that they still stood out and were not overcome with all that Evidence if it was so full as we do now represent it But in answer to this it is to be considered That there is a perversness and depravedness in Humane Nature that cannot be accounted for To some of the Enemies of our Religion I mean the Iews this can be no Objection since Pharaoh's hardning himself against all Moses's Miracles and Messages and even the murmurings of their Forefathers the Israelites in the Wilderness are every whit as extraordinary Instances of the depravation of Humane Nature as these we now consider were but indeed we need not go so far to seek for amazing Characters and Instances of the Madness of Mankind no Laws no Rewards no Punishments no Experience nor Observation can make Men wise or good When Men are once engaged in ill Courses they quickly contract Habits and are soon hardned in them and when Pride and Interest are got on the side of that which of it self was strong enough to overcome them then they become intractable and fierce against every opposition and become really the worse the more they are pursued and dealt with Another Objection is Why do not some of those Miracles that seem to have been with a sort of profusion thrown out abundantly at first now appear to convince the World for these would certainly have a great effect What was said to the first Objection belongs in a great measure to this We are not to ask of God an account of his ways if he has laid enough before us for our conviction and if that is rejected by us we have no reason to expect that he should disturb the Order that he has setled in the Creation to gratifie our humours It were not suitable to that Order that he has so wisely and usefully establish'd that it should be too often put out of its channel It is enough that at the first openings of the Two Revealed Religions that he delivered to the World he gave evident Signs both of his Dominion over the Works of his Hands and of his having authorised those whom he sent to speak in his Name That being then fully done and the Precepts of this Religion bearing such an apparent suitableness to our Natures and to the Interests of all Humane Societies there is no sort of reason for us to demand more proof than that which God was pleas'd to give at first Besides that all Ages and Nations have the same pretended claim to Miracles for they are equally his Creatures and we can fancy no reason why he should be partial to some more than to others Now if there were such a constant return of Miracles the whole
the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all