on the Apostles and their companions enabled them to prove that Christ was the Son of God and to confirm their rational arguments and deductions from the Old Testament by a thousand signs and miracles such as made the most stubborn of mankind bow their necks to the yoke of Christ and own that He was truly what he call'd himself the Son of God and the Saviour of the World If we proceed according to the Apostles method Jesus Christ God Incarnate was seen of Angels seen with the greatest admiration since even Angelic intellectuals could never have reach'd so far as to imagine God's love to mankind which yet they knew to be extraordinary should shew it self in so prodigious a condescension Yet when he was pleas'd to stoop so low the Angels saw and knew and prais'd him tho' wrapt in swadling clothes and lying in a manger they ador'd him and administred to him tho' tempted forty days and forty nights by the Devil in the wilderness they attended him with their ministerial comforts when in that bitter agony in the garden when praying more earnestly his sweat was as it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground Luke 22.43 44. They attended his sepulchre when he shook off the fetters of Death Matt. 28.2 3 4. Acts 1.10 and broke through the confinement of the grave striking terror on the trembling Watch but bringing comfort to the women whose early zeal brought them first to the sacred Sepulchre and they waited as diligently on his ascent into Heaven so that they saw him and admired that immense love which appeared so glorious in his humble and so powerful in his exalted state This Saviour of the world that he might really be so was preach'd unto the Gentiles the Word of God was now confin'd no longer to the Jewish nation that vail of the Temple rent in twain when he gave up the ghost upon the Cross took away that wall of separation which was between those Jews and the rest of mankind and through him both Jews and Gentiles have access by one Spirit unto Eph. 2.28 the father Now of himself in this case He taught his disciples after his resurrection That thus it behoved Christ to suffer Luke 24.46 47. and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem Thus Philip preached Christ in Samaria Paul preached him every where in the Synagogues Paul declares to the Corinthians We preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.23 24. to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are call'd both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God And many Texts we meet with declaring the same thing and teaching us that it 's the great incumbent duty on all those who call themselves Pastors of the flock of Christ to preach him and him only to the world For he who was so preach'd to the Gentiles was indeed believed on in the world The three Eastern Sages who adored our Saviour in his infant age were the first fruits of the Gentile world and even Samaritans were profelyted to his Doctrine while he converst with the world to believe in him was that condition without which Salvation could not be attained So he teaches Nicodemus John 3.16 God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life v. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God It was a just sense of the indispensible nature of this condition that made men submit so readily to the first preaching of the Apostles and fly out so eagerly and so early into that Question What shall we do to be saved 'T was that which in Judaea brought multitudes daily into the Church of such as should be saved and enabled S. Paul to preach the Gospel fully from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum and that with extraordinary success and gave Tertullian in the Second Century a just ground to boast of the vast multitudes of Christians in every quarter of the Roman Empire And to this day the same blessed Jesus is the only rational hope of all that dwell on the earth and of those that remain on the broad Sea To conclude this explication of the Text this same Jesus after he had done and suffered so much for our sakes while he converst with and blest his Disciples Luke 24.51 he was parted from them and carried up into heaven He had at last that Petition answered which in the days of his flesh he put up to his Father Now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self John 17.5 with the glory which I had with thee before the world was And if it was glorious for Elijah to be carried up to Heaven in his fiery chariot while Elisha was a spectator of his translation how much more glorious was it when our Saviour in the open view of all his followers had the clouds themselves humbly bowing to his feet to raise him thither where he sits continually at the right hand of his Father making intercession for us miserable sinners Having thus given the true interpretation of the Text take its full meaning together in this Paraphrase S. Paul still speaking to and instructing Timothy as in this Verse he does It 's not without great Reason that I have given thee who art thy self a Bishop in it such directions about those whom thou art to admit as Ministers in the Church of God That Religion our blessed Master has bequeathed to us has nothing in it but what is Holy and Pure too pure to be touch'd with unclean hands and not fit for every unlearned and presuming Novice to meddle with The whole Body of our Faith is founded upon such things as are infinitely true but of so sublime and surprising a Nature that the strongest Humane Reason can never wholly comprehend them all let me but name them as reveal'd and all mankind will soon agree that the most soaring and capacious Soul must falter in its enquiries after them The eternal Son of God God equal with his Father the great Creator of all things rather than perishing man should be eternally lost resolv'd to atone divine vengeance with his own sufferings and since without blood there could be no remission and the immense Divinity could not suffer so He took flesh and blood our weak and passible nature upon himself and in our nature offered himself a sacrifice to his Father for us This glorious Sacrifice produc'd the great effect and reconciled our angry Judge but that undertaking was too great for man tho' so deeply concern'd to believe the chasm between an holy God and polluted man too wide and hideous
l. 10. p. 360. when making gaudy offerings to them No let but the hand free from guilt be lifted up to the Altars of the Gods not the most rich or costly hecatombs shall sooner reconcile the angry Deities than those I shall add no more to shew that sense the Pagans had of the ends of religion but onely make a short reflection upon God's justice in dealing with Mankind as set down by St. Paul He tells us God will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 c. to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile Now that the Jews and Gentiles who stood upon no equal ground yet should suffer equally in case of disobedience seems to some very harsh but if again it be considered that that God who gave the Jewish Nation such great advantages required of them proportionably great returns whilst the Gentiles who had been partakers of less light were onely required to walk in that light they had to come up as near to a perfection in faith and virtue as that would admit of This consider'd the Gentiles were every whit as guilty in neglecting their duties which were lighter and fewer as the Jews in neglecting theirs which were more numerous and difficult since the disobedience to the Divine commands is as notorious in one case as in the other and this reflection reaches farther and teaches those who are more weak and ignorant not to presume too much upon God's mercy because they know so little since it 's as reasonable they should perform that little they know as that we who know more should do our duties and their negligence and proportionable unfruitfulness in good and ours proceed from one and the same damnably offensive principle for as the Apostle urges it v. 12. as many as have sinn'd without Law shall perish without Law and as many as have sinn'd in the Law shall be judg'd by the Law This every Man must acknowledge to be the greatest equity in the World the faith and works of the Jews and so of Christians shall be canvas'd and examin'd by those rules of faith and practice extraordinarily imparted to them the Gentiles had no such Law but the light of Nature was their guide therefore their works shall be tried by that and by no other light now a defect in obedience to the innate light of nature is as much a contempt of God and so as criminal as a defect in obedience to the written Law of God and consequently as justly punish'd now how far this natural light extends as these passages I have quoted from Heathen Writers considerably evidence so the Apostle tells us That the Gentiles which have not the Law i. e. the same Law that was given to the Jews v. 14. do by nature the things contain'd in the Law they not having the Law are a Law unto themselves This proves that truth that God's written Law is not a disannulling but a confirming and enlarging upon the Law of Nature in the manner of a Commentary upon an intricate Text to illustrate and explain it well then The Gentiles shew this natural Law written in their hearts by the witness of their consciences and their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another v. 15. for having as I shew'd before clear apprehensions of the Being of a God and having made very considerable discoveries of his nature so far as legible in the works of the Creation they cannot upon a serious debate with themselves and weighing their own actions by their own notions and rules but have an infallible certainty of the rectitude or pravity of their actions and this is as much as a Jew or Christian can do by his publick Laws and an exact scanning of them Now if my Conscience can certainly inform me of things essentially and eternally so whether they be good or bad the same Conscience will give me as infallible a certainty that God is and must be just when he rewards me according to my actions whether they be good or evil he calls me to account for what I do know not for what I do not know and punishes me for transgressions within the reach of my understanding to have avoided and not for those that were unintelligible without a positive revelation and this even corrupted Reason will own is agreeable to the strictest rules of equity and justice We are to enquire since we have seen what Jews and Gentiles before our Saviour's birth into the World understood concerning the nature and ends of Religion which every one for himself supposed to be true since none can be thought mad enough to trouble himself about that religion he certainly knew to be false We are to enquire how far both Jews and Gentiles had deprav'd and perverted those ends and what care they took to manage themselves according to that knowledge they really had when our Saviour appear'd in the flesh And here again we may begin with the Jews among whom if we find an extraordinary degeneracy we can the less wonder at it among the Gentiles If then we examine the state of things among them we have it thus It was once among them Do this and live i. e. Live here on Earth in a strict obedience to those things commanded you in the Law and you shall be rewarded with an happy future life Now when the terrors and glories of Mount Sinai were fresh in memory and Parents according as they were order'd took care to inculcate God's power justice and goodness particularly exerted toward the People of Israel into their Children and gave agreeable examples in themselves obedience was the common study and peace here and a glorious expectation hereafter the common consequence But when a new generation arose who had not seen God's wonderful dealings with his people and the too prevailing examples of neighbouring Idolaters taught the Israelites a wicked ingratitude the Law of God was slighted and as it is among us at this day the Man who could defie Heaven with the greatest audacity was the most set by And though frequent judgments over-took their Impieties there was no thorough purgation made among them but they went on to add sin to sin so that among the Scribes and Pharisees the great Zealots of the Law at the time of Christ's coming in the flesh things were at that pass that the blessed Jesus had reason when he told his Auditors that Except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees Matth. 5.20 they should in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven If therefore the very best among the Jews as they were generally esteem'd were utterly uncapable of eternal happiness what may
which cost him so much study so many fastings and earnest prayers to Almighty God and Schlichtingius pursues the fancy with a great deal of heat and violence Crellius joyns with it too so that this may pass for their general solution of the difficulty a difficulty which could never be found till they created it and with their mighty pretences to Reason and clear interpretations of difficult places shut all true Reason and clear Scripture-light out of doors It 's certain that the Evangelists mention nothing of this formal ascent into heaven and is it likely that they who set down all the circumstances of his birth to his very wrapping in swadling clothes and lying in a manger they who mention his flight into Aegypt his wandring from his parents his several ascents to Jerusalem his Transfiguration on mount Tabor a matter much less glorious and important his talk with Moses and Elias a very unnecessary discourse if he had learn'd all those things from God himself before is it likely that those who set down these things so punctually nay S. Luke himself of whom when it serves their turns they say that He was so inquisitive as to omit nothing of consequence wherein our Saviour was concern'd that these should omit so prodigious an Ascent into heaven as this which would naturally have conciliated so great an authority to his person and his doctrine and would have been very necessary too if he had been no more than a meer man Had there really been such an Ascent it would have been very improper in his younger years for besides the weakness and insufficiency of that age for the most divine speculations we are told plainly after that dispute of his with the Doctors and his return with and obedience to his parents Luke 2.52 that He encreased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and Man which must be false and ridiculous if he had been in Heaven before and had been fully instructed in all divine matters by God himself As for that second time allotted for this Ascent viz. immediately after his Baptism the Evangelists tell us plainly the design of his being led by the Spirit into the wilderness was that he might be tempted of the Devil Luke 4.2 Nay and as S. Luke asserts He was tempted by the Devil forty days this could not have been true had he been in Heaven any or all those days and whereas the Evangelist adds that in those days he did eat nothing and when they were ended he afterwards hungred this story must be both false and disgraceful too for how could he who had corporeally attained the glorious vision of the Almighty be so soon affected with the inconveniences of flesh and blood when we never find Moses tho' fasting as long several times complaining of any such hunger Or can we believe the Devil so very diligent and violent an enemy to Man's happiness would have given our Saviour so glorious a respite which in all probability too must have been so prejudicial to himself When the Socinians can shew us any thing like a proof of their dreams in God's word we 'l consider it till then we 'l entertain it only as a ridiculous not to say a blasphemous Romance and adhere to the natural and genuine interpretation of these words the Word was with God viz. that Jesus Christ or he who in his humane nature bore that name was from eternity actually existent in the presence and in the bosom of his father that therefore that Prayer of his was rational and intelligible Now O father glorifie thou me with thy self Joh. 17.5 with that glory which I had with thee before the world was This Prayer is intelligible enough according to the common Doctrine of the Christian Church that Christ had a being before the beginning of the world quit that sence and we have nothing but figure upon figure incoherent inconsistent and very profound Heterodoxy and nonsense And may we not fairly assert that old way of explaining such passages as these when the Evangelist in the continuance of his discourse says plainly and the Word was God That the Word was with God say they is as much as if the Apostle had said tho' he was unknown to the world he was very well known to God in his privacy and that 's very likely to be true if God be Omniscient that he knew his Son But if it be said He only knew him then it 's false for God himself had by his holy Angels before made him known to the blessed Virgin to his supposed father Joseph and to the Shepherds of Bethlehem and to the Wise Men of the East nay he was known to most of them by the name of the Son of God by the office of saving his people from their sins c. and good old Simeon in his Eucharistick song gives us a compleat Compendium of the Gospel Luke 2.31 33. and we are sure He knew the infant Jesus to be the salvation of God who was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people Israel Here then we find the adversaries of our Faith wholly mistaken in the consequent gradation of the Evangelists they are yet engag'd in more difficulties but what methods do they fix upon to disengage themselves According to the ordinary acceptation of the words a man would be ready to conclude that the Evangelist meant as he said and that if the Word was God he was so indeed and therefore not simply a Creature or a meer Man but what may look very suspitiously it 's observable that those who are unwilling to own any such thing as a Mystery in the Objects of our Faith make every word in this beginning of S. John's Gospel Mysterious so by God we must understand Man or one that really is no more than a Man only honoured with the name of God as being his Deputy or Vicegerent or as the Psalmist speaks to Kings Psal 82.6 7. I have said you are Gods and all of you are children of the most high but ye shall dy like Men and fall like one of the Princes Well we allow it Princes are so styl'd there in a figurative sence because of their deputation from heaven and the derivation of their authority from thence And in David we have a King a Man after God's own heart but was ever any thing like this in this text spoken of him Would not the Author be impudently ridiculous who should preface a History of David's life thus In the beginning of the Israelitish Kingdom was David for so he really had a being as soon as ever Saul had any title to that kingdom and David was with God i. e. He was known only to him for God had cut out his Prophet Samuel a way to anoint him King unknown to Saul to prevent any jealousie in him of any such intended Heir to his Crown and Israel in general were as ignorant
Father when he has no more and the Union yet between the eternal Father and the eternal Son is of a closer and more levelling kind than any thing inferiour nature can afford Our New Author indeed challenges us Cum Scriptoribus de generatione animaelium haec comparentur Nos Dei virtutem in Virginis uterum aliquam substantiam creatam vel immisisse aut ibi creasse affirmamus ex quā juncto eo quod ex ipsius Virginis substantiâ accessit verus homo generatus fuit Aliàs enim homo ille Dei filius à conceptione nativitate propriè non fuisset Sic Smalcius de vero naturali Dei filio c. 3. Ruarus ab ipso uterque à veritate quantum distat if we believe this eternal Generation to prove it expresly contain'd in Scripture and then to prove this Eternal Generation the true Basis or Foundation of his glorious Title of the Only Begotten Son of God As if clear Consequences from plain Premises were not a demonstrative proof of any thing to Men who pretend to Reason and a capacity of discoursing Rationally which is indeed nothing but drawing Consequences plain or obscure from agreeable Premises Or for an instance as if when I find God call'd a Spirit and I know a Spirit is Invisible I might not conclude God tho' a Spirit to be invisible unless I found Invisibility it self distinctly and separated from the Notion of a Spirit attributed to him somewhere in Scripture Now if all these Proofs I have laid down before have proved that our Saviour had a Being before he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin which we think to be proved beyond contradiction and if our Adversaries will but allow that Dictate of Common sence that He who really is my Son is my Son as soon as he has a Being or if He be not my Son then He never can be my Son otherwise than by Adoption and so Christ can never be the only begotten Son of his Father because all those who Believe in and Obey God are his Sons by Adoption too if they 'l but allow this then Christ must have been the Son of his Father before such time as he was Conceived in the Virgins Womb because he had a Being before that Conception If Christ had a Being before his Conception it must have been as a Spirit but Spirits do not generate one another therefore he must have had a Being from the beginning of the World If then we fall in with the Arrians and say God created his Son the Word first out of nothing and then created all other things by Him we contradict Scripture which positively assures us that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and all that in them is and therefore rested the seventh day but God could not rest the Seventh Day nor do all he had to do in Six Days if he wrought more than Six Days but He must have worked before the beginning of the Six Days if he made the Word before he made any thing else and we have the Six Days Work summ'd up authentically by Moses but no account there of the Creation of the Word before the Creation of Matter If he were not Created before Matter then he could not Create all things as the Arrians pretend If therefore He had a Being it must have been from all eternity but he was not Created from eternity for whatsoever is Created must have a Beginning but he was begotten of his Father as the Scriptures assure us if therefore he were Begotten and not Made and Begotten before the beginnings of the World He could be Begotten of nothing but of the Substance of his Father there being no other Substance for him to be originated from and therefore must be eternal because the Substance of his Father is and cannot be otherwise than eternal This being true it would be meer folly not to fix his Sonship more peculiarly in this eternal Generation for He that is Begotten by a Father must be his Son and he that is Begotten from eternity must be a Son from eternity Therefore Christ who was Begotten of his Father from eternity must be the Son of his Father from eternity which was the thing to be demonstrated If yet a Socinian will stumble at the Vnion of the Humane with the Divine Nature as if it were an impossibility or against reason let Him resolve us fairly how the Vnion is made between a rational and immortal Soul of a Spiritual and an heavy and unactive Body of an Earthly Nature We are all convinced they are so joyned together but those subtle Springs whereby an Immaterial Soul actuates a Material Body are hitherto indiscernible by the sharpest Eye of impair'd Reason why then should we conclude it impossible for the Divine and Humane Nature to be united together unless it be united in a way more intelligible than our Souls and Bodies For tho' our Souls are of a Spiritual Nature they are infinitely inferiour to the Nature of Almighty God and being that Constitutive part of Humane Nature by which Man is a Rational Creature it might seem an easie task for us to find out how that Soul we reason by should be united to that Body we reason in But since we are so far to seek in this matter may we not reasonably conclude God has hidden this from our Eyes to moderate and humble our unruly Fancies to keep us from prying into things that are too high for us and to convince us that many things wherein we are more immediately concerned not being a whit the less True tho' we understand them not we ought to believe that some things may be True with respect to God of which yet we are able to give our selves no considerable account And so we may satisfie our selves that our Saviour spoke plain truth when he said I and my Father are One meaning thereby an Essential Vnity between his Father and Him because tho' he were at the time of his speaking so a true Man invested with real flesh and blood yet He was God before he was Man the Word of God before he was made flesh and dwelt among us and was God when He was Man his Divine Nature not being prejudiced by his assuming Flesh and Blood by that Divine Nature he was One essentially with his Father and his Humane assumed Nature being in his Divine Nature as a finite is contained in an infinite there could be but One Person at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ God-Man our Saviour and Redeemer I take the more notice of this particular which I had insisted on before because our new Assertor of Socinianism would perswade us that if we duely examin'd these Words of our Saviour on this occasion spoken to the Jews when they charged him with Blasphemy because in his former expressions He had made himself God tho' indeed he were but a Man we should quit all arguments drawn from thence the words are these
long'd for Death though in its most dreadful shape was never half so terrible to them as such a Disappointment in the midst of all their Pains not Victors in the fam'd Olympick Games not young Generals after mighty and unexpected Victories were possest with a more exulting Joy than those triumphant Saints on their Natalitial days for such they accounted those times of their Sufferings then happy Visions pleas'd their parting Souls and an expiring Stephen could see the Heavens opened and the Son of Man his glorious Redeemer sitting at the right-hand of God Flames were to them so many Beds of Roses Racks and Wheels like yielding Down or soft as Fanning Briezes on a Summer's Evening no Mournings no Complaints were heard no Tears were seen among them but Songs of Joy and Praise and Triumph were the Exercise of their suffering Hours and their aspiring Souls mounted on them as on Seraphic Wings to Abraham's Bosom and what was the original Ground and Reason of all these Joys but only the certain Goodness of their Cause the extraordinary Assistances of their King and Saviour and an infallible Assurance of God's Love to them and consequently of their future and eternal Happiness Rom. 8.18 They reckoned that the Sufferings of the present time were not worthy to be compared to the Glory which should be revealed in them and therefore Heb. 11.35 though they were tortured yet they accepted not of Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection and all this was agreeable to the Doctrine of the Cross as laid down by the Apostles in Scripture here then was the Faith and Patience the Courage and Resolution of the Saints these were indeed to be imitated the Spirit and Power they acted with was wholly Divine and irresistible but if after all this gallant Prospect of the noble Army of Martyrs we turn our Looks upon the dying Jesus or his behaviour of himself under his Sufferings things will look very differently we find in him all the evidences of Fear and Sorrow and cruel Apprehensions of that Death he was to undergo His Soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death he beg'd of his Father if it were possible that that bitter Cup might pass from him and though he concluded his Prayer with that resigning Expression nevertheless not my will but thy will be done yet he repeated his deprecatory Prayer three times to shew how earnest and real he was in his Requests his Fear and Earnestness produced that Bloody Sweat and brought down the Angel from Heaven to strengthen him all these were Prefaces to his Sufferings of a very disagreeable Nature to the sacred Ambition of his own martyr'd Followers when he was in the Agonies of Death he was so far from any Triumphant Expression on the occasion that he vented his sorrowful Spirits in that despondent Cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken me we cannot pretend the Blessed Jesus at this time was under any alienation of Mind under any distraction of Spirit by reason of the extremity of his Pains we have shewn before that many suffered much greater Cruelties for his sake than the pains of the Cross amounted to consider it only as the Roman Method of putting Slaves to death and even Pagan Philosophers have suffered much more to the World's eye voluntarily and involuntarily without any such inward distemper as Anaxarchus and Calanus the Indian the former being beaten to pieces in a Mortar by Nicocreon the Cyprian Tyrant the latter walking gravely into the Fire prepared for that purpose before Alexander the Great and there Philosophizing seriously and rationally till his Breath was stopt by Smoke and Flames and our Saviour shew'd as great a Mastery of his own Thoughts and as undisturbed Apprehensions of things when upon the Cross as at other times as in refusing Gall and Vinegar in discoursing with the penitent Thief in taking care for his blessed mourning Mother c. we cannot pretend it was the Delicacy of our Saviour's Body who being conceiv'd in an extraordinary Manner was accompanied with a preternatural Tenderness for we know its the Soul that sees in the Eyes feels in the several Members hears in the Ears suffers in every bleeding Wound the Body without its Activity being only a stupid and insensible Lump of Earth and the Soul of our Saviour being according to the Confession of all of a Nature far exalted above the common Standard of Mankind having no Guilt to clog it no Sin to render it uneasie and therefore could not be but far above any groveling Earthy Thoughts infinitely sensible of the Advantages of Death to those that died in God's Favour and therefore would more perfectly despise all the Effects of humane Rage or Malice we cannot say our Saviour was the first that suffered under the Inhumanity of Persecutors so many of the Prophets had been brought to violent Deaths before not to mention that Persecution the faithful Jews underwent from the Tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes it cannot be alledged that Sufferings were the more heavy and insupportable to our Saviour because he was conscious of his own Purity and Innocence such a Conscience of inward Integrity must needs be the most comfortable Circumstance in the World for a dying Man such an Innocent being infallibly certain of eternal Rest and Happiness in a future World and it was among other things a clear Sense of their peace being made with God which those who are holy and harmless can never want that made those eminent Servants of God so eager to be Martyrs knowing it was better for them to be dissolv'd and to be with God than to linger upon Earth though compassed about with all the Grandeur and Felicity a state of Infirmity can be susceptible of nor can it be supposed that the Ingratitude and Baseness of the Jews among whom he had preached and for whose Conviction he had done so many mighty Miracles could work upon him so much as to press him with such exceeding Sorrows it 's true indeed Ingratitude to Benefactors is a Crime it 's a very pungent Thought to Men in Adversity to see those on whom they have laid the greatest Obligations stand among their Enemies and promote their Ruine and it 's further true that never were any Generation of Men more unworthy or more insensible of the most powerful Obligations than the Jews contemporary with our Saviour but after all this granted why should our Lord at that time more particularly pray to his Father that the bitter Cup might pass from him when he had all along through the whole course of his Life found the Jews as ill inclin'd to him as then but only wanting proper Opportunities to shew it or why should the Blessed Jesus cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me only because the Jews had repay'd his Goodness with Ingratitude and Cruelty besides this was the Case of our Lord's Disciples and Followers as well as of himself they preached among both Jews
that had but Men been as careful to improve their vertues as their vices none upon Earth could have been ignorant of God's will but the knowledge of that must have cover'd the Earth as the waters cover the Sea As he took his flesh of the Jews so he took the earliest care to reduce the lost sheep of the house of Israel preaching and doing miracles among them in his own Person beside sending out his Disciples to preach in all their Cities But the veil of the Temple was quickly rent in twain and the Holy of Holies the highest Heavens laid open to all that sincerely believ'd on him whether they were Jews or Gentiles He came not as an Herald to proclaim War but with the glad tidings of peace and as an ambassadour of reconciliation he resolv'd to make Mercy triumphant over Justice to give light to them that sate in a more than Aegyptian darkness and to guide them in the ways of everlasting life and therefore as himself vouchsafed to talk with the Samaritan Woman and others of that Nation to shew that he was not so rigidly uncharitable and unconcern'd for Universal welfare as the Jews were so he gave his Apostles a very large commission to carry his Doctrine to all Nations that all People if careful of their own Eternal Interests might come to the knowledge of his truth and be sav'd That Doctrine and those Laws by which he intended to effect these great things to reduce a corrupted World to a sense of duty were so Innocent so Pure so Rational and Divine that nothing less than a common Reformation could have been expected from them for let a Man examine the Gospel through let him do it with the most violent prejudices the severest Eyes he 'l find no foot-steps of self-interest in our Saviour's management of himself he sought not the applauses and honours of the vulgar as appear'd by those frequent offences he gave them in his plain and open reproofs and those disagreeable propositions he commonly made to them otherwise the vulgar were not so dull but that He who spoke as never man spake might in a great measure have influenc'd them and drawn them to an easie rebellion against their foolish and obstinate Superiours notwithstanding all his care to the contrary the predominant humour was once to take him by force and make him a King which he was so far from indulging Joh. 6.15 that he quietly withdrew himself from their disorderly zeal He expos'd himself indeed to all manner of hazards but never sought to advance himself any farther than to a bare vindication of his Innocence What he aim'd at was the good and safety of others to snatch them who were falling into everlasting flames from that dreadful place to make them wiser and every way better what he propounded to them was the Cross self-denyal patience humility a constant expectation of afflictions things not popular among vain men but such as would stand them in more stead than all the trifling honours and pleasures of the World If then onely to aim at publick good if to lay down and command such Doctrines as himself could reap no benefit by but those to whom he spoke might if to declare openly against all high and ambitious thoughts and to be the great Example of his own Instructions argue the harmless nature of that design a Man carries on doubtless what our Saviour taught tended to the most Innocent purposes in the World Had he privately compos'd a Law and afterwards without propounding it to publick examination endeavour'd to settle it by force of arms by an eager persecution of those who should have rejected it even to extermination howsoever good the Law might have been the very method of its propagation would have been an insuperable prejudice against it and would have made all Men conclude its deficiency as to reason and justice But our Saviour pursued another Method He trod in those steps so many had traced very happily before He endeavour'd to advance onely such notions as were confessedly of Divine original He propounded them to the Judgment and censure of all He was ready to answer all Questions to resolve all doubts to silence all cavils and though He carried on his purpose with the utmost Zeal yet He made use onely of gentle perswasions and of unanswerable arguments which none who were not direct enemies to reason could refuse He pleaded a Divine authority for his undertaking yet desir'd not that his Plea should be regarded any farther than he confirm'd it by his works and by the Innocence of his life his works were truly miraculous all works of mercy not of terror obliging not only his friends by them but his very enemies witness the cure of Malchus's ear He call'd for no fire down from Heaven no Earthquakes no storms of Sulphur or Vniversal Deluges to force Men to submission but endeavour'd fairly to convince all who had not heard of his Doctrine before how much it tended to their welfare not forbiding their objections or studying little shifts and artifices to evade them Now if those who have made men better than they were by plain force are justly celebrated by all as Benefactors how much more do they deserve the name who do as much good by gentler means The Peruvians were wont to account their Yncaes the Sons of Heaven because they made it their continual business to civilize a barbarous World to do which they propounded their own Laws first to the inspection of strangers and endeavour'd to perswade them of the great benefits they were like to receive by submitting to them producing examples of the felicity of others by the same obedience but where they were rejected those Yncae's introduced civility by force of arms yet stand not condemn'd in record even for those rougher proceedings and it could not argue an inferiour Original for our Saviour that he us'd no violence at all and yet if we compare the successes of his Gospel inforced by nothing but reason a charitable Zeal and profitable Miracles with the progresses either of Moses's Law which was from Heaven or that of Mahomet which has been spread prodigiously by Wars and Conquests or that of the Peruvian Yncae's which was promoted by the calmest ways that ever any meer humane politicks were the Gospel has prevail'd infinitely beyond them all having been truly Catholick when others have been confin'd to particular Countries having out-stood all arguments rais'd against it when the rest have been baffled by almost every undertaker and having out-stood the strength of time when the very name of several others are almost lost and even Mahometism it self of a much younger standing though it has thriven beyond the rest has fallen very short of the progress of the Gospel This Universal prevalence is an irrefragable evidence of the Gospels excellence and proves the Contriver of it not to have been of an Earthly original since nothing but Heaven could recommend and practise what
was so indisputably innocent Again to aim wholly at the extirpation of vice of all sin and wickedness and the promoting and recommending of virtue and goodness carries the highest purity and sanctity along with it If miscarriages in government and trespasses upon humane Laws produce terrible convulsions of state and unexpected revolutions in political affairs of which at this day we live to see unaccountable instances it 's easie to infer from thence that encroachments upon the Laws of God and nature must have the same influence upon general affairs and create strange disorders in the World and mightily prejudice all the bonds of humane Society It naturally excites God's vindictive justice and makes him scatter vengeance every where it creates nothing but mutual distrusts and jealousie of one another among men so that they grow like Wolves or Devils in their mutual animosities and injuries As these things are the consequence of wickedness so they are certain proofs and indications of the prevalence of Sin in any place or Nation they show a general infection to have spread it self in a very corrupt people and therefore he that endeavours to purge out the malignant humours of men labouring under such pernicious distempers employs himself in the purest and most desirable work since he endeavours onely to reconcile guilty nature to an incensed God and waspish and ill humour'd Men to one another A full and rigid execution of Laws against impudent vices may keep some under by its terror and make them at least seek the darkest corners for the perpetrating of villanies but it represents not Sin a whit the more in its native ugliness nor gives any ordinary satisfaction that Sin is exceeding sinful for it 's easie enough to conclude that God and Men may prohibit and punish such or such an action out of their own arbitrariness to shew their own absolute and uncontroulable power upon which account though Force may restrain them for a while yet there remain in perverted minds some strange Gustos of delight in finding opportunities to do what they are forbidden and which they conclude may be things good enough notwithstanding such prohibitions but when vice is delineated truly by Instructors appointed for that purpose who are neither afraid nor asham'd to speak Truth when they find Sin decried by solemn and weighty arguments more than by authority where on the other hand they find virtue and goodness described fairly as it deserves recommended by earnest and gentle perswasives set out with all its circumstantial beauties discover'd in its happy effects with relation both to earthly and heavenly influences when they see blessings shour'd down from Heaven upon them and their very Enemies at peace with them when they see how all this onely propounds a pure and unmixed goodness in Devotions towards God and in Converse among Men such Observers have nothing to say for themselves in case they chuse the worst part they cann't pretend so much as to excuse themselves that they embrace evil not voluntarily but by mistake and sub specie boni since vice and virtue ly both unveil'd and naked before them Or they must acknowledge themselves onely to be resolutely wicked to be so because they will be so which puts them easily past all hopes of pity or of Pardon But since devotion and ordinary converse were so exceedingly deprav'd and since the wisest among meer Men had made so many attempts for reforming them and yet had been so miserably mistaken in their measures to that end as to convince them of the impossibility of such atchievments from their hands when one person howsoever despicable and mean in his outward appearances could reassume the forsaken design and not onely assume but apparently accomplish it laying down such Rules as if exactly follow'd must necessarily restore all things to an absolute perfection when Men observe all his instructions to agree closely among themselves and with the ancient authentick methods of doing well and all concurring still in the same center of Vniversal Sanctity it must be necessarily concluded That the Vndertaker was somewhat more than Man that nothing less than infinite holiness and wisdom could effect such things which being yet apparently effected by One who was a true Man that true Man must withall be acknowledged the Son of God And whereas the generality of inquisitive Men in their searches after truth and wisdom always observed strange deficiencies in humane reason whereby antient wise men broke into so many several divisions in their inquiries after the Chief good whereas they found that none could lay down a fair project for pursuit of That but that presently he was assaulted by whole Armies of adversaries and all projects found absurd and unprofitable for acquiring that they aim'd at When the Gospel of our Saviour came to be divulged tho' it met with adversaries enough they were all too weak to inval date its strength and reason It was neither the juggling fair-tongu'd Pharisee nor the absurd and ambitious Saducee nor the wrangling Sophister nor the Sceptical or cunning Philosopher nor the undermining Heretick that were able to ruine the reputation of the Christian Doctrine but it still grew upon them tho' they were cruelly assisted by earthly powers and indeed made use of all the roughest means for the extirpation of the Professors of the Gospel And what was very considerable tho' the great promoters of Religion after the Apostles and their immediate Successor's times neither had the gift of languages nor had much of the learned education of those Ages yet they were able having truth on their side to baffle all the learning of the great wise men among both Jews and Pagans which could never have happened had not what they preached and defended been highly rational For keen adversaries who pretended to the greatest acuteness of Wit and Sence would never have quitted arguments that had been stronger for the sake of meer cant and impertinent jangling But indeed the common scope of the inquiries of wise men being to discover what was really the greatest degree of humane happiness and the highest and chiefest good by which they confest somewhat Lost and tho' possibly to be retrieved yet not without the greatest difficulties imaginable there was no proposition made by any for the full discovery and attainment of that Good but it was eagerly listned to and the probabilities on all sides being duly weighed and the effects of the several propositions being carefully consider'd Christianity gain'd the victory whose effects were the most considerable whose Professors the most innocent whose promises were the most excellent and punctual and whose rules the most general intelligible and unquestionable Pagans and Jews if they were not wilfully ignorant could not but see all those principles of reason which themselves pretended to extremely advanc'd by this doctrine introduced by Christ for whereas they were wont to decry pride and haughtiness of spirit arrogance and contempt of others very earnestly its true the