Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A60477
|
Christian religion's appeal from the groundless prejudices of the sceptick to the bar of common reason by John Smith.
|
Smith, John, fl. 1675-1711.
|
1675
(1675)
|
Wing S4109; ESTC R26922
|
707,151
|
538
|
the most daring enemies of our Jesus and the Nation to which they are peculiarly calculated being dispersed and ceasing to be a Nation Nay after themselves have in effect renounc'd the Religion of Moses and betaken themselves to the Religion of the Patriarchs which yet is unpracticable among them in the point of Sacrifices so that they worship God in a way which neither their Fathers nor their Fathers-fathers knew A way taken up by themselves since the demolishing of their Temple and dispersion of their Nation wherein they add and take from their own Law contrary to the Divine Sanction In vain do they urge those Texts that seem in the Letter to import the perpetuity and irrevocableness of Moses Law such as Deut. 29. 29. Things revealed belong to us and our children for ever Lev. 23. 14. First fruits a statute for ever and the passover a statute for ever Ex. 12. 17. For if they will allow David to speak in Moses his Language when he applies ever to the Temple Psal. 132. 13. This is my rest for ever and allow their own eyes to interpret David's ever now they see the place of his residence for ever demolished the Chain wherein they think themselves still bound to Moses will fall off of its own accord can the ever of Oblations possibly be stretched beyond the ever of that Sanctuary to which they are limitted As vain is the exception against the cogency of this Argument from the Instance of the first Temples laying waste during the Babylonish Captivity during which time though the Law as to the practise of it was in some points suspended yet it was not abolished For 1. The Law had a shrewd shake and was loosen'd in its sinews by the ruine of the first Temple Gods withdrawing then the Ark of his Presence and Covenant from them was a sign he would quickly grow weary of sitting on Mount Sion now that his foot-stool was removed his not vouchsafing to give them Fire from Heaven for their Sacrifices in the second as he had done in the Tabernacle and first Temple and yet accepting their Offerings made by strange fire so directly contrary to the Law was an Argument that he stood not so much upon Levitical punctilios as he did at first when he punish'd Nadab and Abihu with suddain death for offering with strange fire If the Jews will avouch their own story upon Dan. 6. 4. Ut invenirent occasionem Danieli ex latere regis where interpreting latus regis to be the Queen or the King's Concubines they tell us that Daniel was an Eunuch they must be forc'd to a confession that God stood not much upon the Ceremonial Law when he preferr'd an Eunuch who by that Law was not to come into the Congregation into that intimate Communion with himself as to reveal to him more of his Counsel than he did to any Prophet beside Moses Jerom. in locum I urge these Instances as Arguments ad hominem they being the Jews concessions though in themselves not true as I shew elsewhere It is from their own Premisses I infer this Conclusion That God weaned them by degrees from Moses antiquating one Ceremony after another till at last Christ cancell'd the whole Hand-writing of Ordinances breach upon breach was made in that wall of partition till Christ took it wholly away and rac'd it to the ground 2. God promised to return that Captivity to restore to them their own Land and to repair the ruines of the first Temple but this Captivity will never be return'd the second Temple will never be repair'd but both Nation and Place are to be perpetual Desolations Of this I make proof elsewhere and therefore here shall propound this only Argument to evince the truth of it viz. That during the desolations of the first the Spirit of Prophecy was not with-held from them God raised them up Prophets in Babylon he then set them up Way-marks guides to their Cities again he whistled to his Flock scatter'd in that gloomy and dark day of their wandring to prevent their total dispersion and to keep them within the hearing of Cyrus his Proclamation But since the desolating of the second Temple they have had no Voice no Vision none to answer how long no Prophets have risen up among them but false ones as themselves acknowledg such as Ben Cozba of whom their Taba in Taanith per 4. halac 6. and Maymon in Taanith per. 5. quoted by Dr. Lightfoot Vespacian 1. Sect. 1. thus write It was on the 9. day of the Month Ab that the great City Bitter was taken where were thousands and ten thousands of Israel who had a great King over them whom all Israel even their greatest wise men thought to have been Messias And before him and Jerusalem's fall according to our Saviour's Prediction the many false Christs of whom Josephus in the History of that Age gives many instances § 3. As the Ceremonial Law fell with its own weight was disannull'd by its own Vote and cancel'd by vertue of its own Ordinances So that Old Testament-law which cannot be shaken 1. Is confirm'd and establish'd in the Gospel upon better Principles and more powerful Motives 2. And improved by our Royal Lawgiver in many branches of it that budded not under that Testament 3. And in the whole of it to the utmost heroick degree of Christned Morality 1. That an humane Soul cloathed with Mortality is capable of 2. Or can be drawn to by the most powerful Attractives of the Spirit of Grace 3. Most plentifully poured forth upon all that sincerely embrace the Gospel Of all which points I shall speak distinctly not only because they demonstrate that Christ came not to destroy but to perfect and fill up the Law but do also present Christ and the Gospel to us in a quite other form than the faithless Solifidian draws them in whose Models of Christianity look as if they were designed to shame Religion 1. The Salvifick Grace teaches us in the Gospel to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts to live godly righteously and soberly with more masculine and strenuous Motives than were propounded under the Law The Argument then was I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage but that which was but implyed in that is in the Gospel clearly expressed and obedience prest from our deliverance from the bondage of Satan the vassalage of our own Lusts the chambers of eternal Death The motive expressed there was That thy days may be long in the land a land slowing with milk and honey here the darkness of Type that was upon the face of that earth is dissipated the waters that overwhelm'd it are divided from it and the dry Land made to appear that Land that is very far off far above all visible Heavens The Childrens Rattles and Nats being laid aside the Gospel openly hangs out Prizes becoming men of full age to run for in that Race
of those sacred Waters making the Souls of men take the Impress of the Soul of the Gospel forming in them the Image of God and converting the most wicked persons that embrace it from all their Debaucheries wherein they were immerst to a life most sutable to Nature and Reason and to the practice of all Virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. Cont. Cel. lib. 1. cal 30. Whereupon to Celsus his Calumnie that Christ chose the worst of men for Apostles Origen replies that Christ thereby made it appear how Soveraign a Medicine his Doctrine is against Soul-plagues and that therefore Celsus ought rather to have admired the Physicians skill than to have upbraided him with the pristine maladies of his Patients who could do more than all Chrisippus his Rules towards the curing of unrulie Passions How many saith he did Christ recover from the Plague of their head strong Affections From the colluvies of their vitious distempers how many had their beastly Manners tamed by occasion of the Evangelical Preaching which ought to have been embraced of all men with thankfulness if not as true yet as a new and compendious Method of curing Vice and exceedingly advantagious to Humane kind He that can think the malignant Powers would contribute towards the bringing of such a Doctrine as this into credit by their Sealing to it in those wonderful Operations which gain'd it an Authority over Conscience may with an equal likelihood of Reason conceive it worth the while to milk Hee-Goats To which labour I remit him while I commend to wiser persons the conclusiveness of this last Argument for the Divine Original of the Christian Faith in general and in special for the probat of Christs Resurrection the Center wherein all the Articles of the Christian Faith meet and the demonstration of the Divine Authority and heavenly Mission of the blessed Jesus to communicate that way of Salvation to the World as being the Doctrine of Christ that dyed or rather is risen again from the dead and ascended into Heaven whence he communicates that Grace of which we have been speaking and wherein Christianity triumphs over the greatest pravities of corrupt Nature as subdued by her Discipline and overall other Methods of cure as insufficient as unable to reduce lapsed man to a state of health § 5. The strength of this Argument would be more apparent if we of this Age could make good the assumption as easily as those Primitive Christians did of whom the Patrons of the cause of Christ made these holy boasts and such as that Non aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tertul. ad Scapulam Christians are not to be known from other Sects but by the emendation of their pristine vitious manner were we who embrace the form of those sound and healing words as much under the power of Godliness as they whom that saving Grace taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live godly righteously and soberly did we more study the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ so as to know him in the power of that Resurrection of his which we make profession to believe the truth of and in the fellowship of his sufferings so as to be made conformable unto his Death In which point notwithstanding that never to be enough bewail'd Apostacy of these latter times God hath not left himself without witness But reserv'd a remnant of persons who cordially embracing the truly Catholick Religion of Christ as it is profest in the Church of England and mourning over the Irregularities of and Scandals given by such as conform not to its sacred Precepts really exhibit to the Worlds view a Specimen of ancient Holiness in their harmless and blameless Conversation with and towards all men in their serious piety towards God their reverential observance of their Superiours their Justice Charity Love towards all men their Continency Chastity Sobriety Temperance in respect of themselves And for the rest of the Professors of the pure and undefiled Religion who deviate from the rule of this Sacred Discipline they cease to be Christians Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosáam à regula disciplinae desinunt tum Christiani baberi penès nos Philosophi verò illi cum talibus factis in nomine honore sapientiae perseverant Tertul. apol 46. Some men may say that even some of ours deviate from the Rule of Discipline They cease then to be esteem'd Christians by us Philosophers with such debaucheries retain the name and honour of Philosophers Fanaticks though unrighteous unmerciful unpeaceable pass among their own Tribes for Saints but no man can pass the Muster for a Christian indeed that keeps not the Commands of Christ that conforms not to his Example The Church owns them not for hers Christ owns them not for his but will profess unto them I know yee not depart from me ye that work iniquity and will expostulate with all who hate to be reformed for their taking his Covenant in their mouths Christ has past the same Decree against all vitious Livers that Severus past against Thieves per praeconem edixit ut nemo salutaret Principem qui se furem esse nosset ne aliquando detectus capitali supplicio subderetur That none salute him with Lord Lord who knows himself to be guilty under pain of being Convict and suffering the extream punishment None must enter into his Courts any more than to the Eleusine Rites or into the Emperours Palace Nisi qui se innocentem novit but he that knows himself free of those sins which by the sanction of the Royal Law exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven And who so presume to contravene those Edicts must expect the same entertainment that Severus gave Septimius Arabinus when he came to salute him O numina O Jupiter O dii immortales Arabinus non solum vivit verùm etiam in Senatum venit fortassis etiam de me sperat tam fatuum tam sâ—ultum esse me judicat ac Heliogabalum Lampridii Alex. Severus Oh monstrous Arabinus dares come into the Senate dares appear in the Assembly of Christians does he think he can deceive me as he did the world with vain shews as he did himself with vain hopes he 's deceiv'd indeed if hetake me for such a fool if he think I will be mock'd Can he be ignorant that the sentence is past the prohibition à mulieribus famosis matrem uxorem suam salutari vetuit Id. Ib. is seal'd that none presume to joyn themselves to my Church to associate with my Love my Dove my undefiled Spouse whose Lives are infamous Christians may not eat with such and can they expect to eat bread in my Kingdom And therefore they who either by going out from us do more openly declare or by a Conversation unbecoming the Gospel while they are with us more secretly insinuate that they were not that they are not of us in an impartial judgement should neither prejudice