there is any wrong done I am sensible the introductive part should have been in some respects otherwise methodiz'd But I am content to let it go as it is tho' I find by the Notes that were brought me that some things were somewhat transpos'd otherwise than was intended in the delivery from a Memory not the most faithful If it do any good it must be from the supply of the good Spirit of God which I admonish all you that read seriously to seek and ask from him who hath promised thereupon it shall be given The very expectation whereof will prevent reading with a vain mind or ill design and the consequent danger of receiving hurt by what you read Your in our common Lord J. H. THE CARNALITY OF Religious Contention Gal. V. xvi This I say then Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh THE last time I spake to you from these Words having largely opened before the Import of Walking in the Spirit I undertook to shew you how the Flesh here is to be understood against the Lusts whereof such walking in the Spirit is the prescribed Remedy In the General you have been told that Flesh is here to be taken morally and in that Latitude as to signifie all sorts of moral Evil or the general Depravedness of our Corrupt Nature For though sometimes in the moral Acceptation the Sense is limited as hath formerly been shewed to grosser Sins in contradistinction to more refined as 2 Cor. 7. 1. and 1 John 2. 16. yet sometimes also it is so far extended as to signifie all Sins as Col. 2. 11. compar'd with Rom. 6. 6. And in this Context it is plain the Apostle comprehends Sins of both these sorts under this one Expression But what particular Evils he more especially intended here to censure and caution these Galatian Christians against under this one Name cannot better be understood than by consulting this Context it self in which tho' we cannot say we have a full Enumeration we have yet very many Instances of the Carnalities against which this Remedy is directed Some of them more gross as we have told you they might be distinguished Adultery Fornication Vncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatory Witchcraft Murther Drunkenness Revellings and some other that may seem more refined not as having less but only a more subtle Malignity in them such as Hatred Vartance Emulation Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings c. It may here be thought strange that such Sins as these should be animadverted upon in Christian Churches as this Epistle is inscribed to such the Churches of Galatia Chap. 1. 2. so soon after the Gospel was come among them the Apostle himself thought it strange for you find him wondring at it Chap. 1. 5. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the Grace of Christ to another Gospel Yea and after that with the Gospel they had received the Spirit too For 't is said Chap. 3. 2 3. This only would I learn of you received ye the Spirit by the Works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith And are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit do you think to be made perfect by the Flesh We are therefore to consider whaâ— sort of Persons and Doctrines they were that had corrupted and depraved those Churches and whereby it will be the more apprehensible by what kind of Insinuations they so far prevailed And we may collect in very great part what they were from divers Passages of this Epistle it self and indeed from this very Context Some would have us think the Persons were of that Sect called Gnosticks from their pretended and highly boasted Knowledge We have no Evidence that this Sect was so early known by this Name but it is very likely they were that sort of Men that were afterwards so called The Characters here given them in this and the other Apostolical Epistles do much agree with what divers of the more Ancient Christian Writers and one Pagan one Plotinus say of that Sect Which Pagan an Interpreter and great Admirer of his would sain have pass for a Christian because living in a time when the Controversie between Christianity and Paganism was at the height he says nothing against Christianity it self but speaks very much against these Pseudo-Christians whom tho' that Author mentions not by that Name this his Interpreter often doth it for him inserting The Gnosticks even when he is but translating into the Body of the Work it self But this less concerns us It is however out of question that this sort of Men very anciently called Gnosticks did highly vaunt their great Knowledge A very tempting specious Pretence Tho' their sublimer Notions about the Aeons c. were Imaginations only Phansie and not Knowledge or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge misnamed or falsly so called as we may borrow the Apostles Expression 1 Tim. 6. 20. tho' those Inventions were later and could only serve to fill the Minds of their Prosâ—lytes with Wind and Vanity But their Doctrines upon which the Apostle animadverts in this Epistle we may collect from the manifest Scope and Design of it and that was to assert Justification by Faith without the works of the Law which they greatly perverted and Sanctification by the Spirit of Christ or the Doctrine of the New Creature which they even quite subverted With which false Doctrines they conioyned a most impurely vicious Life and Practice falling in much with the Jews in their corrupt Doctrines and with the Pagans in their Licentious Practice Which must be equally tempting to carnal Minds And this may make it appear less strange that all these sorts of Carnality that are here mentioned in this Context from ver 15 to the 21st should in reference to the same sort of Men be so put together For it is evident they were partly a Judaizing and partly a Paganizing sort of Christians as for ends of their own they affected to call themselves They held it lawful for Christians to joyn with Pagans in their Solemnities of Worship which they were wont to Celebrate in the Temples of their Idols It is notorious how gross Impurities and Immoralities were in those days incorporated into the Paganish Worship such as made it sufficiently reasonable that Idolatry should have in conjunction with it Fornication and Adultery Vncleanness and Lasciviousnâ—ss And for the addition of Witchcraft it was not unaccountable there being also Sorceries Magical Rites and Diabolical Incantations observed to have been intermingled with the Sacra of the Pagans And for which these misnamed Christians might have the greater kindness also for the sake of Simon Magus the Father of their Sect by whom the Affectation thereof was transmitted to some of his noted Followers that thought it a glorious thing to vie with their Predecessâ—r in this sort of Excellâ—ncâ— Nor is it alien from this purpose to take notice that those Diabolical Rites are said to have obtained
among the Paganish Idolaters of drinking the warm Blood of their Sacrifices and of eating things strangled with the Blood in them upon the Imagination that in their so doing they did partake of the very Spirit of their Gods whom they worshipped and 't is not altogether unsupposable that rhe Devil might in some unusual manner enter into them at those times more violently agitating their Blood and other Humours in the higher Ferments whereof if by the directer Influence of the great Enemy of Mankind Quarrels and Murders as was not unlikely should also sometimes ensue it could not but heighten the Sport and Triumphs of Hell And that the Decree of the Apostles and Elders Acts 15. might have such a Reference prohibiting these things conjunctly Idolatry and Fornication and things strangled and Blood that they should by no means mingle with the Pagans in these Horrid Rites a learned Modern Writer of our own hath rendred very probable And hereto those vehement Dehortations of the Apostle must answerably be understood to refer 1 Cor. 10. 11. remonstrating to them that they could not have fellowship with the Lord's Table and the Table of Devils And I would not says he that you should have fellowship with Devils For tho' he did not judge it unlawful to eat of the Idolytha i. e. things offered to Idols being sold in the Shambles he yet most earnestly protests against their presuming to mingle and partake in the horrid Diabolical Rites and impure Practices that were wont to be used at their Festivals in the Idols Temples All thoughts of being by their Christianity obliged and enabled unto strict Purity and Holiness of Heart and Life were out of Doors with these Seducers and endeavoured to be extinguished in such as they could work to a compliance with them Whereof the Apostle seemed deeply apprehensive when he so earnestly inculcates that in Christ Jesus or in the Christian state neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision were of any avail but a new Creature and Faith working by love But it must seem of all things the most unaccountable and incongruous that Men of so profligate Sentiments and Practices should be for introducing a Justification by the works of the Law in opposition to that by the Faith of Christ. 'T is manifest they hated the holy Design of Christian Religion which they profess'd and profess'd it that they might have better opportunity to undermine it Hereupon not opening at once all the Arcana of their way they carry answerably to persons and ocâ—â—sions as they occurr'd and as the Apostle was all things to all that he might save some so were they that they might pervert and destroy To the Christian Jews one thing to the Christian Gentiles another In this their Doctrine they did most plausibly Judaize in their impure Practices they verged more to Paganism Pretending to Christian Converts from among them that Christ never intended to tie them to strict Severities or hold them under an uneasie Bondage whereto the Apostle seems to refer Chap. 5. 13. Ye have been called he grants to liberty but use not saith he your liberty for an occasion to the flesh Thus we must suppose that they differently apply'd themselves to such as they design'd to make their Proselytes endeavouring to accommodate themselves in the one of these to one sort of Men and to another sort in the other In dealing with the Jewish Christians they not only deny'd the Doctrine of Justification by Faith opposing thereto that of Justification by the works of the Law but calumniated it too as if it tended to infer a liberty to sin and make Christianity subservient to wickedness whereof they knew their own to be more guilty A piece of monstrous Impudence but usual with Men of such Foreheads to endeavour the averting that Charge from themselves to which they were most manifestly liable by first charging it on the Innocent Hereto the Apostle hath manifest reference when having first asserted against them Justification by Faith only Gal. 2. 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law for by the works of the Law shall no flâ—sh be justified He then vindicates the Assertion against their Imputation that it made Christ a Patron to Men's Sins If saith he while we seek to be justified by Christ we our selves also are found sinners Is Christ therefore the minister of sin God forbid For if I build again the things that I destroyed I make my self a Transgressor For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ and am in and with him dead unto all Sin so as not to be under the Dominion of any and Death never more had Dominion over him when he had once died And whereas they thus objecting against the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in Christ that it ministred unto sin or made Christ a Minister thereunto were liable to have the Objection retorted upon them being a sort of Men themselves so very infamously wicked for this they had a double Salvo both of which the Apostle doth industriously resute That is from the two parts of the Law given by Moses and the two sorts of the Works of the Law enjoyned thereby that is the Moral and the Ritual or Ceremonial part In reference to the former they fall in with those Jewish Conceits of the Merit of their good Works done from the Principle of Free-will And that in order to their Justification this Merit was to be measured by the Preponderation of their good works to their bad and that it was possible that one good Work in some cases might turn the Scale That is if they were equal before Now this the Apostle occurs to by shewing that they that were under the Law were under a Curse For that if they continued not in all things written in the Law to do them All they did was nothing as you may see Chap. 3. of this Epistle ver 10. And then as to the Ritual or Ceremonial part because their Sacrifices were in great part expiatory of Sin and divers of their other Performances carried a great shew of Sanctity and Piety in them Which their Expiatory Sacrifices could only be as they were representative of the One Propitiation and their other Observances were nothing to their Sanctity if the thing they were designed to signifie did not accompany the Sign They imagin'd they were not to signify it's Presence but to supply it's Absence This Notion did obtain even with the stricter sort of them the Pharisees themselves who thereupon made very light of the weightier matters of the Law reckoning that tho' they were guilty of many Immoralilies in Practice their exact observance of the Rites and Ceremonies enjoyned by Moses would go far to make
an amends and that their Praying Tythe of Mint Annis and Cummin would serve in stead of Judgment Faith Mercy and the love of God which they are said to pass over as very light and small matters See Matth. 23. 23. compared with Luke 11. 42. And herein the Apostle Contests with these Galatian Christians not only with Vehemency but with some kind of Wonder that when Gospel Light had come among them and that having known God or rather been known of him as Chap. 4. 9. they should attribute any thing to so beggarly Rudiments as these were that is being circumcised and keeping Days and Months and Years c. the things whereon they laid so great stress And because they did so he tells them in that 4th Chapter That he was afraid that he had bestowed labour in vain among them In Summ therefore he makes it his business to evidence to them that both their Justification and their Sanctification must be conjoyned and arise together out of one and the same Root Christ himself and by Faith in him without the Works of the Law as that which must vitally unite them with him and that thereby they should become actually interested in all his Fulness that Fulness of Righteousness which was to be found only in him and no where but in him and withall in that fulness of Spirit and Life and holy Influence which also was only in him so as that the Soul being united by this Faith with Christ must presently die to Sin and love to God Chap. 2. 19 20. And at the same time when he delivered a Man from the Law as dead to it he became to him a continual living Spring of all the Duty which God did by his Holy Rule require and call for and render the whole Life of such a Man a Life of Devotedness to God And 't is here by the way worth the while to observe how the Apostle himself expounds that Phrase of being dead to the Law by being delivered from it Rom. 7. 1 2 3 4 5 6. And no man can be said to be delivered from any thing as it is a good or an advantage to him but as it is an evil and doth him hurt And the Law hurts no man as a Rule of life But as to one stated under the full Power of it 't is a Barr against that great Blessing of the Spirit Chap. 3. 13 14. which by it's yet abiding Curse it keeps off from him hereby occasioning his continuance in sin and then condemning him for it Whereupon how clear is the Current of the Discourse in these Words viz. By the Law I am dead to the Law that I might live to God I am crucify'd with Christ yet I live q. d. The Law it self hath slain me and killed all my Hopes and Expectations from it The same Law that slew Christ hath slain me I am crucify'd with him which supposes his being in him by that Faith by which he was to live ever after In this Faith stood his Marriage to Christ who succeeds into the room of the Law as the case is stated Rom. 7. 1 2 3 c. They that were settled in reference to each other in the Conjugal state as the Law and the Sinner were upon the death of the one which soever it be the Relation ceases and so the Obligation which depended upon that Relation And thereupon says he The Law it self having given me my deaths wound and killed me as to it in the Article of Dying I joyn my self to Christ and yield to be crucified with him but therein acquire with him a New Life Nevertheless I live And how Not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I live in the flesh is by Faith in the Son of God who hath loved me and given himself for me And this Life I now thus live is a Life of pure and absolute devotedness to God terminated upon his Interest and Glory as the End of it governed by his declared Will as the Rule of it i. e. In summe 't is an holy Life or as before 't is a living to God Whereupon he so copiously distinguishes Ch. 3. between Jews and Jews those that were born after the Flesh and those born of the Spirit the Sons of the Bond-woman and of the Free as he allegorically speaks signifying the latter only born into this new State of life By all which he shews the connection to be most necessary and inviolable between being justified by Faith in Christ and a life of Holiness So little opposite were these to one another that one and the same Faith was to infer both But now that the large extent of this Holiness of Life might more fully appear the Apostle signifies that it must not only exclude those grosser lusts and works of the flesh but also such as because they might seem somewhat more refined might be reckoned by some less Criminal he therefore inserts divers of this other kind also And the state of the Case did equally require it For it appears as it might well be supposed that so far as any were tainted with the false Notions and with inclinations to the impure practices before mentioned they were filled with animosities with wrath envyings and hatred towards them that had not received the taint and they might have too much place with these back again towards them Whereupon there could not but be very great and high Ferments in these Churches Nothing therefore could be more requisite or seasonable than that several Instances of this sort of Carnality should be put into this Catalogue viz. hatred variance emulations wrath strise c. For they were not to be thought as was said more refined as having less but a more subtle Energy or penetrative power of malignity in them Nor indeed hath Christianity and the Christian Church suffered more by any sort of Evils than by those of this sort Others destroy particular Persons These besides their doing so do more directly hurt the Community and tend to wast and destroy the Church Now as to those grosser Carnalities mentioned in this Context I did formerly say somewhat briefly and so I did as to that which seems the central one among those of this latter sort viz. that of Heresie Which I considered according to what it doth import in it self and did design also to consider it in this its Concomitancy viz. of the things here mentioned in so â—ear conjunction and that are of nearer affinity with it hatred envyings and the like I have indeed been since in some suspence whether I should pursue that intention or no But upon serious consideration and solemn looking up to Heaven for direction I have determined not to let this sort of Carnality pass without just Animadversion For I consider that I speak to a Christian Assembly who must be understood all to profess equal and impartial reverence to the Word of God as to a Revelation come down from Heaven for our