fallen may be raised up and we our selves may be clear from the blood of them that wilfully and obstinately resolve to perish Acts 20.26 CHAP. IV. An Introduction to the Doctrine of Christ our Mediator shewing how far the Light of Nature will lead us toward Eternal Happiness and wherein it comes short The various acceptions of the Words Christ and Mediator in the Scriptures opened for preventing Erronious constructions of those places of Scriptures THe Apostle tells us Rom. 1.20 that The invisible things of God even his Eternal Power and Jodhead are clearly seen and to be understood by the things that are made The Philosophers and as many amongst the Heathens as did improve the Light of Nature and study the Book of the Creatures as they ought could not but apprehend that this stately Fabrick of Heaven and Earth could not be reared up without an Architect yea that Praesentem refert quaelibet herba Deum The smallest Creatures that are in the World may convince us that there was some first cause to Create or produce them upon the Earth And as every Workman is more noble then his Work so he that made all Things must be a more Noble and Excellent Being then any or all of those Creatures And this was sufficient to convince them that there is a Being Infinite in all Excellencies and Perfections in Wisdom Power Goodness c. who had a Being before any of the Creatures even from all Eternity and gave beginning and being to all things beside Himself and this is that Supream Being and first Cause which we call GOD. And he that duly considers himself and all Things else to be Creatures might easily from hence conclude that this Supream Being which gave beginning and being to all things ought by them all to be Loved and Served and Adored as he Acts 17.28 In whom they live and move and have their beeing And as Reason binds us to believe the Maker of Heaven and Earth infinitly to excel the most excellent of all the Creatures so it must be thought very unreasonable to entertain any dishonourable thoughts of God to subject our Maker to our own making or to carve out him from the stock of a Tree who formed Us and all other Creatures out of nothing To impute to him those Quarrels Rapes Adulteries Incests and other Enormities which the Heathens fathered upon their gods For if we esteem these the fruits of the most debauched Natures amongst men and every man accounts them faults wheresoever they are then sure to impute these Acts to that Supream Being that infinitly excels whatsoever is excellent in us and is free from whatsoever is evil or imperfect in us must needs be a great wrong to our Maker and to be esteemed no better then a project of the sensitive Appetite in man to excuse its own highest enormities by fancying the same to have been acted by him that made us and whom we ought as near as we can to resemble in our Affections and Practises Beside the like exercise of Reason would readily shew us that the first Cause and Mover of all things is but one and that to conceit more than one infinite Being or first Cause is equally absurd as to believe none at all And consequently they might easily have seen that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a most absurd Chimera fancied by idle and extravagant brains Yea further Reason might be ready to prompt us that as we owe our beginning and being and whatsoever we do enjoy to this first Cause the Lord our Maker so we owe to him the best and fairest of those fruits that we can possibly bring forth as a testimony of our thank fulness to him for his favours vouchsafed unto us And as the infinit perfections that are in him may reasonably be supposed to oblige him to love what is like them and to abhor what is contrary so whosoever doth desire to please his Maker must endeavour to be like him in his Imitable Attributes of Holiness Justice Goodness and Mercy c. and that whosoever doth not endeavour to frame his Heart and Life to a conformity to the Nature and Will of God cannot please him nor be said to answer the ends of his Creation Nor yet can reasonably expect to partake of those rewards which Nature prompts us to hope for from the goodness of God in pleasing him nor to be free from those punishments which Nature tells us we are to expect to suffer from the Justice of God in displeasing and provoking him Thus far I say the Light of Nature and right Reason will easily carry any man who doth not violently disturb it in its proceedings And from hence the Apostle Ro 1.20 c. in the forecited place doth conclude that even the Gentiles though they had not enjoyed the written Law of God yet would be without excuse before Gods Tribunal for that they had not walked up to these Dictates of Reason but had entertained dishonourable apprehensions concerning him whom Reason did prompt them to believe to be their Maker Some of them denying the being of God others by multiplying it confounding their own conceptions touching a first cause Most of them by the impious practices which they imputed to their gods dishonouring that God in whose Throne they set these Idols And all of them by their own impious and wicked lives coming short of that obedience which the Law of Nature did oblige them to pay to him that made them As to this light that shines unto us from the Heavens and all the host thereof the earth and the Sea and all that therein is the Psalmist tells us Ps 19.3 4. That it is gone forth into the ends of the world and that there is no Speech nor Language where the voice of it is not heard But that this is not sufficient to lead a man to heaven without a further guide is evident both in that the Lord hath thought meet to set up a clearer Light before his own people in all ages the light of the Law and the Prophets to the Jews and the light of the Gospel to us Christians which though they differ in the way of administration the services of the Law pointing them to Christ that was to come the services of the Gospel pointing us to Christ as already come and also in the clearness of them the Law representing Christ in Types and shadows the Gospel taking off the vail from Moses face and letting us with open face 2 Cor. 3.18 as in a glass behold the glory of the Lord Yet I say That as the light of the Gospel is sufficient to us Christians so was the light of the Law and Prophets sufficient to the Jews to point them to Christ who was represented in all their typical oblations and expiations and who is the onely way to eternal Righteousness and Salvation Now forasmuch as the great God of heaven and earth who maketh nothing in
Doctrine of Christ crucified as the onely way to Justification and Salvation laid open and asserted in the four preceding Propositions And from what hath been spoken we may First conclude with the Apostle that 1 Cor. 3.11 Other Foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Jesus Christ and his merits This is a foundation of Gods own laying 1 Pet. 2.6 Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and pretious he that believeth in him shall not be confounded And whosoever attempts to lay any other foundation or to draw men off from this Foundation must needs expect to be confounded in the issue Three sorts of builders we meet with even amongst those that pretend to Christianity who attempt to lay other foundations or at least are in danger to draw men off from this sure Foundation 1. The Papists who though they have devised many Ceremonies and complemental expressions of honour unto Christ in their way of Worship yet are found to betray him in their Doctrine while they salute him with so many Ave's There are two Points of Popery which are detestable to every true Christian as having an apparent tendency to draw men off from that honour which they owe to Christs Merits and that trust which they ought to repose in Him alone First The adoration and invocation of Saints departed To omit their Canonizing of those for Saints that either had never any other place but in the Popish Calendars their Utopian Saints as Christopher and George and such like as also those who though they have lived upon earth yet it may justly be suspected they never lived in Heaven their Prophane and traiterous Saints their Becket and Faux c. And yet this tends much to render their Religion ridiculous that they should undertake to make them Saints that were either no men or no honest men and expect help from those that stand in need of help themselves though it shall never be afforded them To omit this I say that the Divine Worship which they bestow upon the best and most undoubted Saints the Apostles or Evangelists yea or the Blessed Virgin her self is no better than gross Idolatry We reverence the Mother of our Saviour inasmuch as He that is Mighty hath magnified her and therefore we and all generations do deservedly call her Blessed Luke 1.48 49. We honour the memory of the Apostles and Martyrs in Heaven and those dayes which our Church appoints annually for keeping up the remembrance of them do put us in minde to bless God for his Graces bestowed on them and the benefits which we may hope to receive both by their Doctrine and Examples But to give Divine Honour to any of these so as to worship them or invocate their help either as absolute donors or yet as intercessours we believe to be as palpable idolatry as to worship any of the Heathen gods And certainly if the Blessed Virgin and the other Saints in Heaven were capable of understanding the superstitious vanity of those that worship them and of communicating their mindes to us on earth they would declare their utmost abhorrency and detestation of that undue honour which is given them Beside is it not gross Sottishness for men to believe that their whispers should be heard by the Saints in Heaven and the whispers of so many thousands as may be conceived to be praying to one Saint at the same time except they can either shew some reason that perswades them to this belief or else a promise that such prayers should be heard And what can be more evident then the wrong that is done to Jesus Christ by substituting many mediatours of Intercession as if himself were either not able or not at leasure to receive all the petitions that are put up to him at the same time or else had not so much goodness and compassion in him towards his people as the Saints have which should make us to expect a speedier redress by calling upon them then by calling upon himself The Apostle tells us 1 Tim 2.5 that There is but one God and one Mediatour between God and man the man Christ Jesus And as the owning or worshipping of more gods then one is as absurd and impious as to worship none at all so the owning or invocating more then one Mediatour is an high wrong to Jesus Christ our onely Mediator and Advocate 2. Their Doctrine of Merits doth lay another foundation beside Jesus Christ When they teach a Merit either of condignity or yet of congruity in our good Works yea are so super-arrogant as to teach their Doctrine of supererogation A monstrous term invented to express a monstrous Notion in Divinity and that which doth apparently tend to draw men off from building their Faith wholly upon the foundation of Christs Merits and to part the glory of their Salvation between him and the Saints departed Doubtless this is such a gross and apparent contradiction to the Doctrine of the Gospel Roâ—a 11.6 Eph. 2.9 2 Tim. 1.9 Tit. 3.5 that themselves could not but be sensible of it did not that gain which accrues to them by dispensing these merits from the Popes treasury blind their eyes that they cannot see a truth which would be so unprofitable to them to own Secondly some new Projectors amongst us who if they did terminate their speculations within the compass of Philosophical points we would easily allow them to make themselves proud with conceiting that they have found out a device to see further into a Milstone then their poor blind Fore-fathers But when they will attempt to alter the old Bodies of Divinity under pretence of solving I know not what Phaenomend in the Divine providence they must give us leave to look a little into their proceedings in matters wherein our Free-hold is so neerly concerned How happy did the Protoplasts conceit themselves when they thought of being like God to know both good and evil and how great happiness do many conceit in attempting such a scutiny into every thing that not only Nature but Religion also must discover all its secrets to their refined reason When these persons have first performed such wonders in Nature as to grasp all the Air that incircles the Earth in their fist or to embrace Heaven in their arms or to lade the Ocean dry with a Nut-shell then we shall believe that the vastness of their Reason may not onely comprehend those matters of Faith which we poor Mortals have admired for so many ages but also perfect their devices for climbing up to the Lunar Orbe and examine the Religion that is professed there But they might do well first to discover the contradictions that are to be met with in the old Systems of Divinity and that by men that have so much seriousness and humility as to understand them in a competent and candid manner and next to reconcile the contradictions which are so palpable in some of their Hypotheses by
understand that in his measure and according to his capacity he was perfect in all those Excellencies that did appertain to his Nature And as the Understanding is one of the noblest and the leader of the other Faculties of mans soul we must therefore conceive that to be made perfect in Knowledg so far as to be capable of rightly understanding whatsoever was necessary or suitable to the Nature of man to know That this Light was pure and free from being mixed with any darkness of Ignorance or Error And that the Will and Affections were perfectly subjected to the dominion of the Understanding so that they did then as readily obey and execute its Dictates as the Members of our Body do now move themselves at the appointment of the Will Nor are we to imagine that in this estate of perfect holiness and happiness in which man was placed there was any such drawing downward of the sensitive Appetite as might either disturb the peace of the soul by the contrariety of its motion to the dictates of Reason or else dispose and incline man to swerve from the right way But even as we believe the Saints in Heaven when their bodies shall be re-united to their souls to be made perfect in holiness Heb. 12.23 and nothing to remain in them that may tend either to disturb the perfection of their happiness or to draw them away from serving and enjoying him that is the chiefest good So we may most reasonably believe that in mans first Creation there was no manner of defect or error in his Understanding nor any discording motions arising from the union of the soul and body nor yet any clouds arising from the sensitive Appetite to darken the light of Reason And whereas there are some that conceive the Fall of man to have been occasioned by his Inadvertency that being of a Finite though perfect understanding he did not therefore apprehend or consider all things at once And therefore fixing his mind wholly upon the pleasantness of the Fruit so as not at the same time duly to consider the strictness of Gods command and the threatning that was annexed to it he did hereby come to violate Gods precept by embracing that pleasant fruit Neither doth this evince any shortness of sight or natural ignorance or error to have been in man from his Creation For if he did not consider all those things together which he ought to have considered yet had he power and capacity sufficient to have apprehended all things necessary to be considered at once for else we should lay a fault upon the Goodness or Wisdom of God in the Creation of man if we believe him to have permitted such a defect in his Nature as must needs occasion his sinning The default therefore is to be imputed to mans want of putting in execution that power which God had given him Man fell not because he wanted knowledg enough to hold him upright but because he did not put forth that power which his Creator had given him to apprehend the strictness of his Law and the certainty of the inflicting the penalty that was annexed in case of mans disobedience By what hath been spoken we may be put in mind to reflect with sadness of heart upon that happiness which once our Nature did enjoy Eccles 7.29 Thus God made man upright but he sought out many inventions And how art thou fallen from Heaven O thou that wast made but little lower than the Angels How unlike is man now to that Exquisite piece which our Creator sent forth of his hands perfect in beauty Now the course of Nature is inverted and as all things in mans soul were once governed with singular order and harmony so now there is as great discord and disorder in all our facultieâ— and the exercises thereof Now the Will and Affections do sometimes with their insinuation enveagle and bribe the Reason of man either to shut its eyes or else to pronounce false sentence upon things that differ Isa 5.20 to call good evil and evil good Or if they cannot prevail to do this they then rise up like unruly Subjects against the commands of their Sovereign and shake off that yoke of obedience which God in Nature hath laid upon them as in those incontinent persons who do with Medea in the Poet Videre meliora probare but deteriora sequi Nor hath the Understanding it self though freer from corruption than the other faculties wholly escaped without depravation but partly through a dimness and short-sightedness in it self is subject to Ignorance and Error and partly through the ill neighbourhood of a depraved Will and disordered Affections it is wofully swerved from its original Rectitude and Integrity The wonderful Wisdom and Power of God is manifest in making such variety of Features in mens Faces that amongst the many myriads of men that live upon the face of the Earch there are not any two so exactly alike but they are to be distinguished by him that looks heedfully upon them And the sad and wonderful mischief of sin is as manifest in that it hath begotten as much variety in mens minds as is in their Physiognomies so that you can hardly meet with two men so exactly of one mind that you will need to lay a thread upon them to know them apart From the beginning doubtless it was not so For as the God of Truth is but one and there is but one way of Truth we may believe that God who made the mind of man on purpose to apprehend the Truth did not put such various tempers into mens minds at first as might make them to have such different thoughts of the same thing of which some must needs be false For Cujus contrarium verum est c. contrary conceptions of the same object cannot both be true Now if Truth be so valuable or rather unvaluable a Jewel that the wise Man adviseth us to buy it at any rate Prov. 23.23 but to sell it at no rate then certainly Error which is contrary to it must needs be as evil and undesirableâ— as being not onely a debasing and perverting of the first and leading Faculty of the Soul and a drawing it beside the Truth which it was made on purpose to contemplate but also in that it produceth so many pernicious consequents in the world When God confounded the Language of the builders of Babel it is said That they were scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth Gen 11.3 and left off to build the City And that confusion of Mind and Language which hath befallen us as the just desert and proper fruit of our fins hath hindred the building up of the Church of God and the edifying of mens souls to Eternal Life And hath scattered and severed men one from another in their Affections and Associations Hence have issued Schisms and making of parties one for Paul another for Apollos a third for Cephas 1 Cor. 1.12