the Concurrence of Both no less a Power was imployed to raise Christ out of the Grave than that which first raised the World it self out of Nothing 2. Let us consider God's immutability in respect of his Word and Promise for these also were engaged in this affair In what a clear Prophecy was this foretold and dictated by that Spirit which could not lye Psalm 16.10 Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption And Christ also had frequently foretold the same of himself Now when God says a thing he gives his Veracity in pawn to see it fully performed Heaven and Earth may pass away sooner than one Iota of a Divine Promise fall to the ground Few things are recorded of Christ but the rear of the Narrative is still brought up with this That such a thing was done That it might be fullfilled what was spoken by such or such a Prophet Such a firm unshaken adamantine connexion is there between a Prophecy and its accomplishment All things that are written in the Prophets concerning Me says Christ must come to pass And surely then the most Illustrious Passage that concerned him could not remain under an uncertainty and contingency of event So that What is most Emphatically said concerning the persevering obstinacy and Infidelity of the Jews John 12.39 40. That they could not believe because that Esaias had said that God blinded their Eyes and hardened their Hearts that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Hearts and so be converted and He should heal them The same I affirm may with as great an Emphasis and a much greater clearness to our Reason be affirmed of Christ that therefore Death could not hold him because the Kingly Prophet had long before sung the Triumphs of His glorious Resurrection in the forementioned Prediction In a Word whatsoever God purposes or promises passes from Contingent and meerly Possible into Certain and Necessary and whatsoever is Necessary the contrary of it is so far Impossible But when I say that the Divine decree or promise imprints a Necessity upon things it may to prevent misapprehension be needful to Explain what kind of Necessity this is that so the liberty of second Causes be not thereby wholly cashiered and took away For this therefore we are to observe that the Schools distinguish of a Two-fold necessity Physical and Logical or Causal and Consequential which Terms are Commonly thus explained viz. That Physical or Causal Necessity is when a thing by an Efficient Productive Influence certainly and naturally causes such an Effect and in this sence neither the Divine Decree nor Promise makes things necessary for neither the decree nor promise by it self produces or effects the Thing decreed or promised nor exerts any active influence upon Second Causes so as to impell them to do any thing but in point of Action are wholly ineffective Secondly Logical or Consequential Necessity is when a thing does not efficiently cause an Event but yet by certain infallible Consequence does infer it Thus the fore-knowledge of any Event if it be true and certain does certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such an event for as much as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known And in this sence it is that God's decree and promise give a necessary Existence to the thing decreed or promised that is to say they infer it by a necessary infallible consequence So that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the Dead as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing and yet for that thing not to come to pass The Third Reason of the Impossibility of Christs detention under a State of Death was from the Iustice of God God in the whole procedure of Christ's sufferings must be considered as a Judge exacting and Christ as a Person paying down a recompence or satisfaction for Sin For though Christ was as pure and undefiled with the least spot of Sin as purity and innocence it self yet he was pleased to make himself the greatest Sinner in the World by Imputation and rendring himself a surety responsible for our debts For as it is said 2 Cor. 5.21 He who knew no Sin was made Sin for us When the Justice of God was lifting up the Sword of Vengeance over our Heads Christ snatch'd us away from the blow and substituted his Own Body in our Room to receive the whole stroke of that dreadful Retribution inflicted by the Hand of an Angry Omnipotence But now as God was pleased so to comport with his Justice as not to put up the injury done it by Sin without an Equivalent compensation so this being once paid down that proceeding was to cease The Punishment due to Sin was Death which being paid by Christ Divine Justice could not any longer detain him in his Grave For what had this been else but to keep him in Prison after the debt was paid Satisfaction disarms Justice and payment cancells the Bond. And that which Christ exhibited was full measure pressed down and runing over even adequate to the nicest proportions and the most exact demands of that severe and unrelenting Attribute of God So that his Release proceeded not upon Terms of Courtesy but of Claim The gates of Death flew open before him out of duty and even that Justice which was Infinite was yet circumscribed within the inviolable limits of what was due Otherwise guilt would even grow out of expiation the reckoning be enflamed by being paid and punishment it self not appease but exasperate Justice Revenge indeed in the hand of a sinful mortal Man is for the most part vast unlimited and unreasonable but Revenge in the Hands of an Infinite Justice is not so Infinite as to be also Indefinite but in all its actings proceeds by Rule and Determination and cannot possibly surpass the bounds put to it by the Merits of the Cause and the Measure of the Offence It is not the effect of meer choice and will but springs out of the unalterable relation of Equality between Things and Actions In a word The same Justice of God which required him to deliver Christ to Death did afterwards as much engage him to deliver him from it 4. The Fourth Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under Death was the Necessity of his being Believed in as a Saviour and the impossibility of his being so without rising from the dead As Christ by his Death paid down a Satisfaction for Sin so it was necessary that it should be declared to the World by such Arguments as might found a Rational Belief of it So that Men's Unbelief should be rendred inexcusable But how could the World believe that he fully had satisfyed for Sin so long as they saw Death the known wages of Sin maintain its full force and power over him holding him like an obnoxious Person in Durance and Captivity When a Man is once imprison'd for debt
Prey from the Mighty and a Captive from the strong and though he was in the very Iaws of Death yet he was not devoured Corruption the common Lot of Mortality seized not on him Worms and Putrefaction durst not approach him His Body was Sacred and inviolable as sweet under ground as above it and in Death it self retaining One of the highest Privileges of the Living 3. Come we now to the Last and principal thing proposed namely The Ground of Christ's Resurrection which was its absolute Necessity expressed in these Words Because it was not possible that He should be holden of it and that according to the strictest and most received sence of the word Possible For it was not only Par aequum that Christ should not always be detained under Death because of his Innocence as Grotius precariously and to serve an Hypothesis would have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signify but it was absolutely necessary that he should not and impossible that he should continue under the Bands of Death from the Peculiar Condition of his Person as well as upon several other Accounts And accordingly this Impossibility was founded upon these Five Things 1. The Union of Christ's Humane Nature to the Divine 2. God's Immutability 3. His Justice 4. The Necessity of Christ's being believed upon 5. And Lastly the Nature of his Priesthood First of all then The Hypostatical Vnion of Christ's Humane Nature to His Divine rendred a perpetual Duration under Death absolutely impossible For how could that which was united to the Great Source and Principle of Life be finally prevailed over by Death and pass into an Estate of perpetual darkness and oblivion Even while Christ's body was divided from his Soul yet it ceased not to maintain an intimate indissolvable Relation to his Divinity It was assumed into the same Person for according to the Creed of Athanasius As the Soul and Body make one Man so the Divine Nature and the Humane make One Christ. And if so is it imaginable that the Son of God could have one of his Natures rent wholly from his Person His Divinity as it were buoyed up his sinking Humanity and preserved it from a total Dissolution for as while the Soul continues joyned to the Body still speaking in sensu composito Death cannot pass upon it for as much as that is the proper Effect of their Separation So while Christ's Manhood was retained in a Personal conjunction with His Godhead the bands of death were but feeble and insignificant like the Wit hs and Cords upon Sampson while he was inspired with the mighty Presence and Assistance of God's Spirit It was possible indeed that the Divine Nature might for a while suspend its supporting influence and so deliver over the Humane Nature to pain and death but it was impossible for it to let go the relation it bore to it A Man may suffer his Child to fall to the ground and yet not wholly quit his hold of him but still Keep it in his power to recover and lift him up at his pleasure Thus the Divine Nature of Christ did for a while hide it self from his Humanity but not desert it put it into the Chambers of death but not lock the Everlasting Doors upon it The Sun may be clouded and yet not Eclipsed and Eclips'd but not stop'd in his Course and much less forced out of his Orb. It is a Mystery to be admired that any thing belonging to the Person of Christ should suffer but it is a Paradox to be exploded that it should perish For surely that Nature which diffusing it self throughout the Universe communicates an enlivening Influence to every part of it and quickens the least spire of grass according to the measure of its Nature and the proportion of its capacity would not wholly leave a Nature assumed into its Bosom and what is more into the very Unity of the Divine Person breathless and inanimate and dismantled of its Prime and Noblest Perfection For Life is so high a Perfection of Being that in this respect the least Fly or Mite is a more noble Being than a Star And God has expresly declared himself not the God of the Dead but of the Living and this in respect of the very Persons of Men but how much more with reference to what belongs to the Person of his Son For when Natures come to Unite so near as mutually to interchange Names and Attributes and to verify the Appellation by which God is said to be Man and Man to be God surely Man so privileg'd and advanced cannot for ever lie under Death without an insufferable invasion upon the entireness of that Glorious Person whose Perfection is as inviolable as it is incomprehensible 2. The Second Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's continuance under Death was that Great and Glorious Attribute of God His Immutability Christ's Resurrection was founded upon the same bottom with the consolation and Salvation of Believers expressed in that full declaration made by God of Himself Mala. 3.6 I the Lord change not therefore ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed Now the Immutability of God as it had an influence upon Christ's Resurrection was Two-fold First In respect of his Decree or Purpose Secondly In respect of his Word or Promise And First for his Decree God had from all Eternity designed this and sealed it by an irreversible Purpose For can we imagine that Christ's Resurrection was not decreed as well as his Death and sufferings and these in the 23. v. of this Chapter are expresly said to have been determined by God It is a known rule in Divinity that whatsoever God does in Time that He purposed to do from Eternity for there can be no new Purposes in God since he who takes up a new purpose does so because he sees some ground to induce him to such a purpose which he did not see before but this can have no place in an Infinite knowledge which by one Comprehensive Intuition sees all things as Present before ever they come to pass So that there can be no new Emergency that can alter the Divine Resolutions And therefore it having been Absolutely purposed to raise Christ from the Dead his Resurrection was as fixed and Necessary as the Purpose of God was Irrevocable A Purpose which Commenced from Eternity and was declared in the very Beginnings of Time a Purpose not to be Changed nor so much as bent and much less broke by all the Created Powers in Heaven and Earth and in Hell besides For though indeed Death is a great Conqueror and his Bands much too strong for Nature and Mortality Yet when over-matched by a Decree This Conqueror as old as he has grown in Conquest must surrender back his spoils unbind his Captives and in a word even Death it self must receive its Doom From all which it is manifest That where there is a Divine Decree there is always an Omnipotence to second it and Consequently That by
none can conclude the debt either paid by him or forgiven to him but by the release of his person Who could believe Christ to have been a God and a Saviour while he was hanging upon the Tree A dying crucified God a Saviour of the World who could not save himself would have been exploded by the Universal consent of Reason as an horrible Paradox and absurdity Had not the Resurrection followed the Crucifixion that scoff of the Jews had stood as an unanswerable Argument against him Mark 15.31 Himself He cannot save and in the 32. v. Let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe in Him Otherwise surely that which was the lowest instance of humane weakness and mortality could be no competent demonstration of a Deity To save is the effect of Power and of such a Power as prevails to a compleat victory and a Triumph But it is expresly affirmed 2 Cor. 13.4 That Christ was crucified through weakness Death was too hard for his humanity and bore away the spoils of it for a Time So that while Christ was in the Grave Men might as well have expected that a person hung in chains should come down and head an Army as imagine that a dead body continuing such should be able to Triumph over Sin and Death which so potently Triumphs over the Living The discourse of the Two Disciples going to Emmaus and expecting no such thing as a Resurrection was upon that supposition hugely rational and significant Luk. 24.21 We trusted said they that this had been He who should have redeemed Israel thereby clearly implying that upon his Death they had let that confidence fall to the ground together with Him For they could not imagine that a breathless carcase could chase away the Roman Eagles and so recover the Kingdom and Nation of the Jews from under their subjection which was the Redemption that even the Disciples till they were further enlightened promised themselves from their Messiah But the Argument would equally nay more strongly hold against a Spiritual Redemption supposing his continuance under a State of Death as being a thing in it self much more difficult For how could such an one break the Kingdom of darkness and set his Foot upon Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickednesses in High places Who himself fell a Sacrifice to the wickedness of mortal Men and remained a Captive in the lower parts of the Earth reduced to a Condition not only below Men's Envy but below their very Feet 5. The Fifth and Last Ground of the Impossibility of Christ's perpetual continuance under a State of Death was the Nature of the Priesthood which he had took upon him The Apostle Heb. 8.4 says That if He were upon Earth He should not be a Priest Certainly then much less could he be so should He continue under the Earth The two great works of his Priesthood were to offer Sacrifice and then to make intercession for Sinners correspondent to the two works of the Mosaical Priesthood in which the Priest first slew the Lamb and then with the bloud of it entred into the Holy of Holies there to appear before God in the behalf of the People Christ therefore after that he had offered himself upon the Cross was to enter into Heaven and there presenting himself to the Father to make that Sacrifice effectual to all the Intents and Purposes of it Upon which Account the Apostle to express his fitness for the Priesthood infinitely beyond any of the Sons of Aaron states it upon this Heb. 7.25 That He lives for ever to make intercession for us and upon that very score also is able to save to the uttermost But surely the dead could not intercede for the Living nor was the Grave a Sanctum Sanctorum Had not Christ risen again His bloud indeed might have cryed for Vengeance upon his Murderers but not for Mercy upon Believers In short It had spoke no better things than the bloud of Abel which call'd for nothing but a fearful Judgment upon the Head of him who shed it Christ's Death merited a Redemption for the World but Christ while dead could not shew forth the full effects of that Redemption He made the purchace at his Death but He could not take Possession till he was returned to Life Ever since Christ ascended into Heaven He has been pursuing the great Work begun by him upon the Cross and applying the vertue of his Sacrifice to those for whom it was offer'd It is affirmed by some and that not without great probability of Reason That the Souls of the Saints who dyed before Christ's resurrection did not actually enter into a State of Compleat Glory till Christ the Great Captain of their Salvation upon his Ascension first entred into it himself and then made way for others So that according to that Divine Anthem of the Church After that he had overcome the sharpness of death then at length and not till then He opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers And thus I have given five several reasons why it was not possible that a State of Death should finally prevail over Christ which was the thing to be proved And I have nothing further to recommend to your consideration but only Two things which the very Nature of the Subject seems of it self to imprint upon all pious Minds 1. The First is a Dehortation from Sin and that indeed the strongest that can be For can we imagine that the Second Person in the Glorious Trinity would concern himself to take upon him our Flesh and to suffer and die and at length rise again only to render us the more secure and confident in our Sins Would he neither see nor endure any Corruption in his Dead Body that we should harbour all the Filth and Corruption imaginable in our Immortal Souls Did he Conquer and Triumph over Death that we should be the Slaves and Captives of that which is worse than Death Christ has declared that he will dwell in those whom he assumes into the Society of his Mystical Body But can we think that he who passed from a clean new Sepulchre into an Heavenly Mansion will descend from thence to take up his Habitation in the Rotten Sepulchre of an heart possessed and polluted with the Love of that which he infinitely Hates It will little avail us That Christ rose from a Temporal Death unless we also rise from a Spiritual For those who do not Imitate as well as Believe Christ's Resurrection must expect no benefit by it 2. Christ's Resurrection is an high and Soveraign Consolation against Death Death we know is the Grand Enemy of Mankind the Merciless Tyrant over Nature and the King of Terrors But Blessed be God Christ has given a Mortal blow to his Power and broke his Scepter And if we by a through Conquest of our Sins and Rising from them can be but able to say O Sin where is thy Power We may very Rationally and Warrantably say thereupon O
gave me as I should do which my Neighbour did not and for that Reason I go to Heaven and he to Hell and as he can blame none but himself for the One â—o I am beholden to None but my self for the Other This I say is the main of the Pelagian Divinity though much more compendiously delivered in that known but lewd Aphorism of theirs A Deo habemus quòd sumus Homines à nobis autem ipsis quod sumus Iusti. To which we may add another of their Principlâ—â— to wit That if a man does all that Naturally he can do still understanding hereby the Present State of Nature God is bound in Iustice to supply whatsoever more shall be Necessary to his Salvation Which Premisses if they do not directly and unavoidably infer in Man a Power of meriting of God the World is yet to seek what the Nature and Notion of Merit is Accordingly both Gelasius and St. Austin in setting down the Points wherein the Catholick Church differed from the Pelagians assign this for one of the chief That the Pelagians held Gratiam Dei secundùm Hominum merita conferri And the Truth is upon their Principles a man may even merit the Incarnation of Christ For if there be no saving Grace without it and a Man may do that which â—hall oblige God in Iustice to vouchsafe him such Grace as with no small self-contradiction these Men use to speak then let them Qualify and Soften the matter with what Words they Please I affirm that upon these Terms a Man really merits his Salvation and by Consequence all that is or can be necessary thereunto In the mean time throughout all this Pelagian Scheme we have not so much as one Word of Mans Natural Impotency to Spiritual Things though inculcated and wrote in both Testaments with a Sun-beam nor consequently of the Necessity of some Powerful Divine Energy to Bend Encline and effectually Draw Mans Will to such Objects as it Naturally resists and is averse to Not a Word I say of this or any Thing like it for those Men used to explode and deny it all as their Modern Off-spring amongst us also do And yet this passed for sound and good Divinity in the Church in St. Austin's time and within less thâ—â— an hundred years since in our Church too till Pelagianism and Socâ—nianism Deism Tritheism Atheism and a Spirit of Innovation the Root of all and Worse than all broke in upon us and by false Schemes of Models countenanced and encouraged have given quite a new face to Things though a new face is certainly the worst and most unbecoming that can be set upon an old Religion But Secondly To proceed to another sort of men famous for corrupting Christianity more ways than one to wit those of the Church of Rome We shall find that this Doctrine of Mans being able to merit of God is one of the Chief Foundations of Popery also Even the Great Diana which some of the most Experienced Craftsmen in the World do with so much Zeal Sacrifice to and make shrines for and by so doing Get their living and that a very plentyful and Splendid One too As knowing full well that without it the Grandeur of their Church which is all their Religion would quickly fall to the Ground For if there be no merit of good Works then no Supererogation and if no Supererogation no Indulgences and if no Indulgences then it is to be feared that the Silversmiths Trade will run low and the Credit of the Pontifical Bank begin to fail So that the very marrow the life and Spirit of Popery lies in a stiff adherence to this Doctrine The Grand Question still insisted upon by these Merchants being Quid dabitis and the great Commodity set to sale by them being merit For can any one think that the Pope and his Cardinals and the rest of their Ecclesiastical Grandees care a Rush whether the Will of Man be free or No as the Jesuits state the Freedom of it on the one side and Dominicans and Jansenists on the other or that they at all concern themselves about Iustification and Free Grace but only as the Artificial stating of such Points may sometimes serve them in their Spiritual Traffick and now and then help them to Turn the Penny No they Value not their Schools any further than they furnish their Markets nor regard any Gospel but that of Cardinal Palaviâ—cini which professedly owns it for the main design of Christianity to make Men as Rich as Great and as Happy as they can be in this World And the Grand Instrument to compass all this by is the Doctrine of Merit For how else could it be That so many in that Communion should be able to satisfy themselves in doing so much less than they know they are required to do for the saving of their Souls but that they are taught to believe that there are some again in the World who do a great deal more than they are bound to do and so may very well keep their Neighbours lamp from going out by having oyl enough both to supply their own and a comfortable Overplus besides to lend or which is much better to Sell in such a Case In a Word take away the Foundation and the House must fall and in like manner beat down Merit and down goes Popery too And so at length that I may not trespass upon your Patience too much I descend to the Fourth and Last Particular proposed at â—â—â—st from the Words Which was to remove an Objection naturally apt to issue â—â—om the Foregoing Particulars The Objection is obvious and the Answer to it needs not be long It proceeds thus If the Doctrine hitherto advanced be True can there be a Greater discouragement to Men in their Christian course than to consider that all their Obedience all their Duties and Choicest performances are Nothing Worth in the sight of God and that they themselves after they have done their Best their Vtmost and their very All in His service are still for all that Vseless and Vnprofitable and such as can Plead no Recompence at all at His hands This You will say is very hard but to it I Answer First That it neither ought nor uses to be any Discouragement to a Begger â—s we all are in respect of Almighty God to continue asking an Alms and doing all that he can to obtain it though he knows he can do Nothing to Claim it But Secondly I deny That our Disavoâ—â—ing this Doctrine of Merit cuts us 〈◊〉 from all Plea to a Recompence for our Châ—â—stian Obedience at the hands of God It cuts us off indeed from all Plea to it upon the score of Condignity and strict Iustice But then should we not on the other side consider whether God's Iustice be the only Thing that can oblige Him in Hiâ— transactings with Men For does not Hâ—â— Veracity and His Promise oblige Him aâ— much as His Iustice can And has Hâ—
a Iargon of empty senseless Metaphors and though many venture their Souls upon them despising good works and strict living as meer Morality and perhaps as Popery yet being throughly look'd into and examined after all their Noise they are really nothing but Words and Wind. Another flatters himself that he has lived in full Assurance of his Salvation for Ten or Twenty or perhaps Thirty years that is in other Words The Man has been Ignorant and Confident very long Ay but saies another I am a great Hearer and Lover of Sermons especially of Lectures And it is this which is the very delight of my Righteous Soul and the main business of my Life and though indeed according to the good old Puritan Custom I use to walk and talk out the Prayers before the Church Door or without the Choire yet I am sure to be always in at Sermon Nay I have so entirely devoted my whole Time to the hearing of Sermons that I must Confess I have hardly any left to Practise them And will not all this set me right for Heaven Yes no doubt if a Man were to be pulled up to Heaven by the Ears or the Gospel would but reverse its Rule and declare That not the Doers of the Word but the Hearers only should be justify'd But then in comes a fourth and tells us That He is a Saint of yet an higher Class as having got far above all their Mean Beggerly Steeple-house Dispensations by an happy Exchange of them for the Purer and more Refined Ordinances of the Conventicle where he is sure to meet with Powerful Teaching indeed and to hear Will-worship and Superstition runn'd down And the Priests of Baal paid off and the Follies and Fopperies of their great Idol the Common-Prayer laid open with a Witness not without some Edifying Flings at the King and Court too sometimes by all which his Faith is now grown so Strong that he can no more doubt of his going to Heaven than that there is such a Place as Heaven to go to So that if the Conscience of such an One should at any time offer to grumble at Him He would presently stop its Mouth with this That he is of such an Ones Congregation And then Conscience say thy worst Or if the guilt of some old Perjuries or Extortions should begin to look stern upon Him Why then all those old scores shall be cleared off with a Comfortable Perswasion That such as he cannot fall from Grace though it is shrewdly to be feared That his only way of proving this must be That there can be no losing or falling from that which a Man never had But ah Thou Poor Blind Self-deluding and Deluded Soul are these the best Evidences thou hast for Heaven These the Grounds upon which thou hopest for Salvation Assure thy self that God will deal with thee upon very different Terms For he absolutely enjoins thee to do whatsoever Christ has Commanded and to avoid whatsoever He has forbidden And Christ has commanded thee to be poor in Spirit and to be pure in Heart To subdue thy unruly Appetites to curb thy Lust to restrain thy Anger and to suppress thy Revenge And if any thing proves an hindrance to thee in thy Duty though it be as dear to thee as thy Right Eye to pluck it out and as useful to thee as thy Right Hand to cut it off and cast it from thee He will have thee ready to endure Persecutions Revilings and all manner of Slanders not only patiently but also chearfully for the Truths sake He calls upon thee to Love thine Enemies and to do Good for Evil To bless those that Curse thee and to pray for those that Despitefully use thee He Commands thee in all Things strictly to do as thou wouldest be done by and not to cheat lye or over-reach thy Neighbour and then call it a fetching over the Wicked the better to enable thee to relieve the Godly He will not allow thee to resist Evil and much less to resist thy Governour He commands thee to be Charitable without Vain-Glory and Devout without Ostentation In short He requires thee to be meek and lowly chast and temperate just and merciful and in a word so far as the poor measures of Humanity will reach Perfect as thy Heavenly Father is Perfect This is the summ of those Divine Sayings of our Saviour which he himself refers to in my Text and which if a Man Hears and Does all the Powers of Hell shall never shake him And nothing but a constant impartial universal Practice of these will or can speak Peace to thy Conscience here and stand between Thee and the Wrath of God hereafter As for all other Pretences they are nothing but Death and Damnation dressed up in Fair Words and False Shews nothing but Ginns and Snares and Trepans for Souls Contrived by the Devil and Managed by such as the Devil sets on Work But I have done and the Result of all that I have said or can say is That every Spiritual Builder would be perswaded to Translate his Foundation from the Sand to the Rock and not presume upon Christ as his Saviour till by a full Obedience to His Laws he has owned Him for his Sovereign And this is properly to Believe in Him This is truly to Build upon a Rock even that Rock of Ages upon which every one that wears the Name of Christ must by an inevitable Dilemma either Build or Split Now to God who is able to Build us up in our most Holy Faith to Establish us here and to Save us hereafter be rendred and ascribed as is most Due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A True State and Account OF THE Plea of a Tender Conscience IN A SERMON Preached at Christ-Church Oxon. before the University IN Michaelmass Term 1672. 1 COR. VIII 12 But when ye Sin so against the Brethren and Wound their Weak Conscience ye Sin against Christ. I Shall by God's Assistance from these words debate the Case of a Weak or as some improperly enough call it a Tender Conscience And with what Evidence I can shew both what it is and what Privileges it may justly claim from this and such other places of Scripture One great one we have here set down and that indeed so great that it looks more like a Prerogative than a Privilege Namely that to Wound or Sin against it is no less a Crime than to Sin against Christ Himself Our Apostle in two places of his Epistles treats professedly of this Argument To wit in the 14 th of the Rom. and in this 8 th of the 1 Cor. For the better understanding of his design and meaning in both which places it â—ill be requisite to give some brief account of the Subject Matter and Occasion of them In the 14 th Chapter of the Rom. he speaks of such as had been Converted from Judaism to Christianity some of which being but new
we can fetch in no Information or Relief to our Understandings from our Senses no Picture or Draught of these Things from the Reports of the Eye but we are left Entirely to the uncertainties of Fancy to the Flights and Ventures of a bold Imagination And here to illustrate the Case a little let us imagine a Man who was born blind able upon bare Hear-say to conceive in his Mind all the Varieties and Curiosities of Colour to draw an exact Scheme of Constantinople or a Map of France to describe the Towns point out the Rivers and distinguish the Situations of these and the like Great and Extraordinary Places And when such an One is able to do all this and not before then perhaps may we also apprehend what a Spirit an Angel or an Immaterial Being is The difficulty of understanding which sufficiently appears from this One consideration That in all the Descriptions which we make of God Angels and Spirits we still describe them by such Things as we see and when we have done we profess that they are Invisible But then to do this Argument right again on the other side As it would be extreamly sottish and irrational for a blind man to conclude and affirm positively That there neither are nor can be any such Things as Colours Pictures or Landskips because he finds that he cannot form to Himself any true Notion Idea or Mental Perception of them So would it be equally or rather superlatively more Unreasonable for us to deny the Great Articles of our Christianity because we cannot frame in our Minds any Clear Explicit and Exact Representation of them And yet this is the true state of the whole matter and of the Ratiocination of some Men about it how Absurd and Inconsequent soever we see it is Let this therefore be another and a second Cause why the Christian Religion which treats of and is conversant about such Things must of Necessity be Mysterious Thirdly A third Property of Matters belonging to Christianity and which also renders them mysterious is their Strangeness and Vnreducibleness to the common Methods and observations of Nature I for my part cannot look upon any Thing whatsoever others can as a more Fundamental Article of the Christian Religion than Christ's satisfaction for Sin by which alone the lost Sons of Adam are reconciled to their offended God and so put into new Capacities of Salvation and yet perhaps there is nothing more surprizing strange and out of the road of Common Reason than this if compared with the general course and way of Mens Acting For that He who was the offended Person should project and provide a satisfaction to Himself in the behalf of Him who had offended Him and with so much Zeal concern Himself to sollicite a Reconciliation with those whom He had no need of being Reconciled unto but might with equal Justice and Honour have destroyed them was a Thing quite beside the Common course of the World and much more was it so That a Father should deliver up an Innocent and Infinitely beloved Son to be sacrificed for the redemption of His justly hated and abhorred Enemies and on the other hand that a Son who loved His Father as much as He could be loved by Him should lay down His Life for the Declared Rebels and Enemies of Him whom He so transcendently loved and of Himself too This I say was such a transaction as we can find nothing like or Analogous to in all the dealings of Men and cannot but be owned as wholly beside if not also directly contrary to all humane methods And so true is this that several Things expressly affirmed of God in Scripture relating to the Prime Articles of our Faith are denied or eluded by the 〈◊〉 and Socinians because they Cross and Contradict the Notions taken up by them from what they have observed in Created Beings and particularly in Men which yet is a gross fallacy and inconsequence concluding ab imparibus tamquà m paribus and more than sufficiently confuted and blown off by that one passage of the Prophet concerning Almighty God that His Thoughts are not as our Thoughts nor His Ways as our Ways Isa. 55.8 to which we may add that neither is His Nature as our Nature nor his Divine Persons as our Persons And if so where is the Socinian Logick in arguing from one to the Other And yet 't is manifest that they hardly make use of any other way of arguing concerning the main points in controversy between them and the Church but this But there are also two other Principal Articles of the Christian Religion which do as much transcend the common Notice and observation of Mankind as the former One of which is the Conversion and Change of a Man's Sinful Nature commonly called the Work of Regenâ—â—â—â—â—â—on or the New-birth concerning which Men are apt to Wonder and deservedly too by what strange Power and Efficacy it should come to pass That ever any One should be brought to conquer and shake off those Inveterate Appetites and Desires which are both so Violent in their Actings and so early in their Original as being born with him and to have other New ones and those absolutely contrary to the former planted in their room So that when our Saviour in Iohn 3. discoursed of these things to Nicodemus a great Rabbi amongst the Jews and told him that he must be born again he was presently amazed and non-plus'd at it as at a great Paradox and Impossibility and forth with began to Question How can these Things be In which indeed he said no more than what the hearts of most Men living are apt to say concerning most of the Articles of our Christian Religion But above all the Article of the Resurrection seems to lye marvellously cross to 〈◊〉 â—ommon Experience of Mankind For who ever was yet seen by them after a Total Consumption into Dust and Ashes to rise again and to resume the same Numerical body This is a Thing which amongst all the rare Occurrences of the World all the Wonders and Anomalies of Nature was never yet met with in any One single instance and consequently Men must needs be apt to startle and to be full of Thought and Scruple upon the proposal of so strange a Thing to their Understandings And if any one should think that he can make this out by bare reason as possibly some Opiniators may let him by all means in the next place try the strength of his doughty Reason about Transubstantiation or turn Knight Errant in Divinity encounter Giants and Windmills and adventure to explain things impossible to be explained This therefore is a Third Cause of the Unavoidable Mysteriousness of the chief Articles of the Christian Religion namely That most of them fall neither within the common course of Men's Actings nor the compass of their Observaâ—â—oâ— And thus much for the First Ground of the Gospel's being delivered to the World in a Mystery namely the Nature
inward Man the Labours and Strivings of his restless Thoughts which cast his Body into that Prodigious Sweat For though it was the Flesh that Sweated it was the Spirit that took the Pains It was that which was then treading the Wine-Press of God's Wrath alone till it made him Red in his Apparel and dyed all his Garments with Blood What thought can reach or Tongue express what our Saviour then felt within his own Breast The Image of all the Sins of the World for which he was to suffer then appeared clear and lively and express to his Mind All the vile and horrid circumstances of them stood as it were particularly ranged before his Eyes in all their dismal Colours He saw how much the Honour of the Great God was abused by them and how many millions of Poor Souls they must inevitably have cast under the Pressures of a Wrath Infinite and Intolerable should he not have turn'd the Blow upon himself The horrour of which then fill'd and amazed his vast Apprehensive Soul and those Apprehensions could not but affect his tender Heart then brimful of the highest Zeal for God's Glory and the most relenting Compassion for the Souls of Men till it fermented and boyled over with Transport and Agony and even forced its way through all his Body in those strange Ebullitions of Blood not to be parallel'd by the sufferings of any Person recorded in any History whatsoever It was this which drew those doleful words from him My Soul is exceeding sorrowful c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was surrounded and as it were besieged with an Army of Sorrows And believe it his Soul was too big and of too strong a make to bend under an ordinary Sorrow It was not any of those little things which make us put the Finger in the Eye as loss of Estate Friends Preferment Interest and the like things too mean to raise a tumult in the Breast of a resolved Stoick and much less in His who both placed and preached Happiness not only in the want but in the very defyance of them And now after this his Agony in the Garden I need not much insist upon the Wounds given his Reputation by the Sword of a Blaspheming Tongue the sharpest of all others and which like a Poysoned Dagger hurting both with Edge and Venom too at the same time both makes a Wound and prevents its Cure Even a guilty Person feels the sting of a malicious Report and if so much more must one who is innocent and yet infinitely more must He who was not only Innocent but Innocence it self Reputation is tender and for it to be blown upon is to be tainted like a Glass the clearer and finer it is the more it suffers by the least Breath And therefore for him who came to destroy the Kingdom of Satan to be traduced as a Partner with and an Agent for Beelzebub For Him whose greatest Repasts were Prayer and abstinence and the most rigid severities upon Himself to be taxed as a Wine-bibber and a Good-fellow For Him who came into the World both in Life and Death to bear Witness to the Truth to suffer as an Impostor and a Deceiver what could be more grievous and afflicting to a great Innocence joyned with as great an Apprehension However his Church gains this great Advantage of Comfort by it that the worst of sufferings comes sanctified to our Hands by the Person of our grand Example Who was reviled and slandered and tossed upon the Tongues of Men before us A greater Martyrdom questionless than to be cast as the Primitive Christians were to the Mouths of Lyons which are tender and merciful compared to the Mouths of Men whether we look upon that bitter Spirit which acted in those Jews or in some Christians now adays worse than Jews Men who seem to have out-done all before them in the Arts of a more refined Malice and improved Calumny Qualities lately sprung up out of the stock of a spreading Atheism and a domineering reigning Sensuality Sins now made National and Authentick and so much both Iudgment and Mercy-proof that it is well if we can be cured without being cut off But to return to the business before us We have now seen the first thing setting forth the greatness of this suffering to wit the Latitude and Extent of it as that it seized both Body and Soul and every Part and Faculty of both Second The next thing declaring its greatness was the intenseness and sharpness of it We have seen already how far it went we are now to consider how deep It fell not on him like a dew or mist which only wets the surface of the Ground but like a pouring soaking Rain which descends into the very Bowels of it There was pain enough in every single part to have been spread in lesser Proportions over the whole Man Christ suffered only the exquisiteness and heights of pain without any of those mitigations which God is pleased to temper and allay it with as it befalls other Men like a Man who drinks only the Spirits of a Liquor separated and extracted from the dull unactive Body of the Liquor it self All the force and activity the stings and fierceness of that troublesome thing were as it were drain'd and distill'd and abridged into that Cup which Christ drank off There was something sharper than Vinegar and bitterer than Gall which that draught was prepared and made up with We cannot indeed say that the sufferings of Christ were long in duration for to be violent and lasting too is above the methods or measures of Nature But he who lived at that rate that he might be said to live an Age every hour was able to suffer so too and to comprize the greatest torments in the shortest space which yet by their shortness lost nothing of their Force and Keenness as a Pen-Knife is as sharp as a Spear though not so long That which promotes and adds to the Impressions of pain is the delicate and exact Crasis and Constitution of the Part or Faculty aggrieved And there is no doubt but the very Fabrick and Complexion of our Saviour's Body was a Master-piece of Nature a thing absolutely and exactly framed and of that fineness as to have the quickest and most sensible touches of every Object and withal to have these advanced by the communion of his admirably made Body with his high and vigorous Intellectuals All which made him drink in Pain more deeply feel every lash every wound with so much a closer and a more affecting sense For it is not to be doubted but a dull Fellow can endure the Paroxysms of a Fever or the Torments of the Gout or Stone much better than a Man of a quick mind and an exalted Fancy because in one Pain beats upon a Rock or an Anvil in the other it prints it self upon wax One is even born with a kind of Lethargy and stupefaction into the World armed with an Iron
Heaven would grow Cheap and Common and which is very preposterous to Conceive they would be Miracles without a Wonder The Papists indeed who having swallowed and digested the Belief of so many Monstrous Contradictions would do but very unwisely and disagreeably to themselves if for ever after they should stick at any advantageous Absurdity these I say hold that the Gift of Miracles still continues ordinary in their Church and that the Christian Religion has still the same need of such Miraculous Confirmations as it had at first Where if by the Christian they mean their own Popish Religion I am so fully of their mind that I think there is need not only of Daily but even of hourly or rather continual Miracles to Confirm it if it were but in that one single Article of Transubstantiation But then we know whose Badge and Character the Scripture makes it to Come in Lying Wonders and we know also that Lying Wonders are true Impostures and theirs are of that Nature that the fallacy is so gross and the Cheat so Transparent in them that as it hardens the Iews and Mahumetans with a desperate Invincible Prejudice against Christianity as a Thing as false as those Miracles which they see it recommended by so I am Confident that it Causes many Christians also to nauseate their own Religion and to fall into secret Atheism being Apt to Think as even these Impostors also pretend that the very Miracles of the Apostles might be of the same Nature with those which they see daily Acted by these Spiritual Juglers so that hereby the grand Proof of Christianity falls to the ground and has no force or hold upon Men's minds at all Whereas our Saviour Himself laid the main Stress and Credit of his Gospel and of his Mission from God upon his Miracles The Works that I do says He bear Witness of me John 10.25 And Believe me for my very Works sake John 14.11 And had I not done amongst them the Works which no other Man did they had not had Sin John 15.24 So that we see here that the Credit of all turned upon his Miracles his mighty and Supernatural Works But as we know it often falls out that when a Man has once got the Character of a Lyer even Truth it self is suspected if not absolutely disbelieved when it comes from the Mouth of such an one So these Miracle-Mongers â—aving alarm'd the World round about tâ—em to a discernment of their Tricks wâ—en they came afterwards to Preach Christianity especially to Infidels and to preâ—â— it upon Men's belief in the strength of those Miraculous Works which were truely and really done by Christ yet since they pretend the same of their own Works too which all People see through and know to be Lyes and Impostures all that they Preach of Christ is presently looked upon as false and fictitious and leaves the minds of Men locked up under a fixed obstinate and impregnable Infidelity Such a fatal blow has the Legerdemain of those Wretches given to the Christian Religion and such jealousies have they raised in some Men's Thoughts against it by their false Miracles and Fabulous Stories of the Romantick feats of their Pretended Saints In all which there is nothing indeed strange or Miraculous but the Impudence and Impiety of such as report and make them and the folly of such as can believe them 2. Pass we now to the second Thing proposed which is to shew what is meant by this Diversity of Gifts mentioned in the Text. It Imports I conceive these Two Things 1. Something by way of Affirmation which is Variety 2. Something by way of Negation which is Contrariety 1. And first for the first of them It imports Variety of which Excellent Qualification it is hard to say whether it makes more for Vse or Ornament It is the very Beauty of Providence and the Delight of the World It is that which keeps alive Desire which would otherwise flag and tire and be quickly weary of any one single Object It both supplies our Affections and Entertains our Admiration Equally serving the Innocent Pleasures and the Important Occasions of Life And now all these Advantages God would have this desireable Quality derive even upon his Church too In which great Body there are and must be several Members having their several Vses Offices and Stations as in the 28 th v. of this Chapter where my Text is the Apostle tells us that God has placed in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Preachers after that Miracles then Gifts of healing helps Governments Diversities of Tongues The particular Function and Employment of so many parts subserving the Joint Interest and Design of the whole As the motion of a Clock is a Complicated motion of so many Wheels fitly put together and Life it self but the Result of so many several Operations all issuing from and Contributing to the support of the same Body The great help and furtherance of Action is order and the Parent of order is Distinction No sence faculty or Member must Encroach upon or interfere with the Duty and Office of another For as the same Apostle discourses in the two next verses Are all Apostles Are all Prophets Are all Teachers Are all Workers of Miracles Have all the Gift of Healing Do all Speak with Tongues Do all Interpret No but as in the Natural Body the Eye does not Speak nor the Tongue see so neither in the Spiritual is every one who has the Gift of Prophecy endued also with the Gift and Spirit of Government every one who may speak well and pertinently enough upon a Text is not therefore presently fit to rule a Diocess nor is a Nimble Tongue always attended with a strong and a steady Head If all were Preachers who should Govern or rather indeed who could be governed If the Body of the Church were all Ear Men would be only hearers of the Word and where would then be the Doers For such I am sure we are most to seek for in our days in which sad experience shews that Hearing of Sermons has with most swallowed up and devoured the Practice of them and manifestly serves instead of it rendring many Zealots amongst us as really guilty of the Superstition of resting in the bare Opus Operatum of this Duty as the Papists are or can be Charged to be in any of their Religious Performances whatsoever The Apostle justly reproaches such with Itching Ears 2 Tim. 4.3 And I cannot see but that the Itch in the Ear is as bad a distemper as in any other part of the Body and perhaps a Worse But to proceed God has use of all the several Tempers and Constitutions of Men to serve the Occasions and Exigences of his Church by Amongst which some are of a Sanguine Chearful and Debonair Disposition having their Imaginations for the most part filled and taken up with Pleasing Ideas and Images of Things seldom or never Troubling their Thoughts either by