Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A60477
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Christian religion's appeal from the groundless prejudices of the sceptick to the bar of common reason by John Smith.
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Smith, John, fl. 1675-1711.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing S4109; ESTC R26922
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707,151
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538
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a Decorum do the Evangelists observe in their giving an account of Christ's improvement of the whole body of the Moral Law to the highest pitch that Humane Nature in this Warfare-estate is capable of or can be induc'd to by the powerfullest Motives or greatest Assistance and of his requiring an higher degree of inherent Grace and the exerting thereof in more noble Acts of Obedience to be performed both by the outward and inward Man in order to God's accepting of us through Christ to Salvation as Persons Justifiable without impeachment to God's Justice in condemning others or to the truth of divine and irrevocable Menaces from the charge of Unbelief and Hypocrisie then was required in the Mosaical Covenant Such a pitch of Theological Virtue of Evangelical Righteousness Christ more than once calls aloud and distinctly for as that without which men cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I am not come to destroy but to fulfil thé Law Mat. 5. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word that when it is applyed to a word or a Prophecy signifies to perform or fulfil but in other cases it is to fill up to compleat to perfect as 2. Chron. 24. 10. they cast oblations into the Chest till they had made an end till they had fill'd it and used by Christ in this sence Mat. 23. 32. fill ye up then the measure of your fathers whereupon Eusebius saith admonebat etiam eos ut altiùs saperent iis quae Judaeis a Mose praecepta fuerant c. Euseb. demon evang 3. 7. Christ also admonish'd his hearers that they should savour such Heroick verities as were higher than those that Moses gave in command to the Jews expressed well by the Ancients by the similitude of a Vessel that had some Water in it before but is now filled up to the brim The holy Waters that were but Ankle-deep and ran in the middle of the Channel before are made by Christ Bank-high and Chin-deep the Image of God in Wisdom Righteousness Holiness to which Old Testament-believers were to conform under pain of being rejected as Bastards not Sons was but a rude drawn piece in comparison of that Image which Christ drew to the life and requires conformity to now under the same pain That this is Christ's mind in this Text is manifest from what he adds Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees the most knowing Expositors of their Law and the strictest Sect of their Religion ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven From the following Instances in this Chapter of several particulars of the Law barely set down first and then improv'd by Christ in this form But I say unto you from his commanding us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is From his rejecting that rich man who had from his youth kept all the Commandments in the general and express sence for his refusing to come up to those terms of forsaking all when call'd to it which Christ had made necessary to the rendring of men qualified by the Tenour of the Gospel-law for the Kingdom of Heaven From St. Peter's stiling Christians A peculiar people a nation of kingly priests that hold forth the virtues of God and are partakers of the divine nature From St. John's telling us That he that is of a Christian Hope and sure none but such as have Christian Hope hold the Christian Faith purifieth himself as Cod is pure and that he that doth righteousness is righteous as God is righteous Which Texts though they imply not â—inless perfection much less equality with God in holiness as some blaspheniously gloss upon them yet they can import no less than such a Conformity to God's in Christian Virtue as renders it as to its Genius and Complexion super-humane and those that are endowed with it the Shrines and Temples of God wherein a more noble spirit resides than Adam was capable of in his state of Innocency As is observ'd by Grotius that wonder of men for Reading Judgment and which crowns both Modesty Ad vitam coelestem nobis dandam requirit Deus sanctitatem animi eximiam quae illum Adami non modó ex quo lapsus est sed eùm in quo primùm est conditus statum longè excedat nos Angelis aequat manente tamen discrimine eo quòd corpora humana ab Angelicis distantia secum ferunt Grotius ad Cassand consult articul 2. To our being capable of receiving the heavenly Life God requires an eminent sanctity of mind even such as doth far exceed that which Adam had not only after he fell but when he was first created and equals us to Angels bating this difference which humane Bodies distant from the substance of Angels carry about with them Yea I humbly conceive that the poorest sincere Christian hath a love to God a knowledg or apprehension of God of a more generous kind a more noble tincture than Cherubims and Seraphims have who have their names from ardency of Love and perspicacity of Understanding as if their essence were made up of delighting in and contemplating of the divine Goodness Not that we either love or know God more or better than they do I have more knowledg of my Ignorance and Chilness than to harbour such a Luciferian thought than to set my triumphant Throne above those Stars of the intellectual Heaven But there is in our poor cole almost choak'd with and buried in ashes that peculiar sparkishness that flows from our leaded frail Glass those vivid Reflections of the divine Light and Heat as draw the admiring eye of those Flames of Fire those pure Christal Mirrors after them 1 Pet. 1. 12. Which things the Angels desire to look into as wondring to see in 1 Tim. 3. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it put Angels into an exstacy to contemplate the Mystery of the Gospel and desirous to learn of the Church the manifold Wisdom of God Eph. 3. 10. these friends of the Bridegroom being ravish'd with contemplating the conjugal knowledg and love which the Bridegroom and his Bride have of and bear towards one another so illustrious is the foresight thereof in the Glass of the holy Trinity whence the Angels that fell learn'd it non speculando verbum sed suscipiendo illuminationem à Verbo Bonávent l. 2. dist 4. 9. 1. Not by beholding the word but by receiving illumination from the Word moved envy in Lucifer and his confederate Angels Hieron Zanch. de operibus Dei l. 4. cap. 2. quia inviderunt hominem hanc dignitatem This was the Devil's great sin that he envied Man's happiness and the glimmerings of it in those righteous persons who walk'd with God before Christ's Incarnation made them the Objects of the envy of the the Devil's Seed 1 John 3. 12. though they were but faint glimmerings of that Grace which Christ calls for and requires in his Gospel-Law where the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist
Wounds he hereby gave his Cause and might have avoided if he had but dar'd to have chosen that ground 1. Had he excepted against the Truth of the History and could have gotten the better there he had been absolute Master of the Field could he for shame have denyed the doing of the Miracles the Doctrine delivered would not have been able to stand out against his assaults who would have followed a Doctrine so repugnant to all mens carnal interest so far above all humane Reason had not God given it out under his own Hand and Seal without which Testimony of Christ's Mission from Heaven he would but have been as a private man and his word of no more than nay not so much as the Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees for they sate in Moses's Chair and could shew Gods ordinary Commission and therefore if they could have invalidated Christ's extraordinary Call they needed not have feared that his VVord would have been taken before theirs Now what shorter or clearer way could they possibly have proceeded in to make void Christ's Commission even to all mens satisfaction than by proving that those great Works which are reported of him were not done by him had that been feasible Again could they have proved that he did not preach such Doctrine as the Gospel presents the Miracles would have wheel'd about to them and have proved as good a defence of Pharisaism as they are as the Case now stands of Christianity If it had not been so famously known what Christ preach'd as they could not deny nor pervert his Doctrine they might have father'd their own upon him and have alledged the Miracles wrought by him in confirmation of it Had not the Jew wanted face or courage to fall on here he could not have wanted men their love to sin and priding themselves in the Covenant of Peculiarity would have furnish'd him with whole Legions of Voluntiers besides those he might have prest with Bribes as he did the Witnesses and Souldiers to make a breach upon the Truth of Gospel-history had not that attempt been looked upon as desperate upon what other imaginable account can it be that he sneaks about the Shore where ever and anon he either runs on ground or splits against the Rocks and makes such miserable Shipwrack of his Reputation Why avoids he the open Sea and dare not encounter the Gospel there where if he can put her to the worst all 's his own Can any thing stand in his way but cowardise and the desperateness of the adventure It is reported of the northern Augustus the great Gustavus that he seldom brought into the Field an Army of above 10000 men but those veteranes and experienc'd Solders chusing rather to animate a well-set than a corpulent and bulkie Body Such was Christ's Army of Martyrs whereby he subdued the World to the belief of the Gospel and so formidable to the Jew as he despaired to break its ranks with all the force he could raise Methinks I hear him thus discoursing with himself Should I say this or that Passage in the History of Christ is a forgery I could have Seconds more than a good many I could levy more Legions to employ in that service than the Gospel hath Squadrons to defend its Truth But alas mine would be as so many droves of Sheep led up against Lyons Those that she hath are faithful and tried veterane Soldiers Eye and Ear-witnesses of what was done and said and the greatest part of them prest at first against the natural inclination of their will against the Religion of their Country to be on her side and such in this case will do best service meerly by such Conviction as they are not able to withstand It grieved them to hear and see such things but such is the Evidence whereby they commend themselves to the Consciences of all that see or hear them as they cannot be flattered threatned excommunicated reason'd into a denyal of them Who can I muster up that will not be as Grashoppers in the eyes and hands of such Gyants the greatest part of those I can rally being such as were out of the way when the things under debate were done the rest such as all know to be my own Creatures but the worst is when they come to charge they will not be kept in any Order but fall foul upon one another and be in as many different Tales as they are Persons I must therefore let the Gospel alone as to the Truth of its History which sails with so strong a gale as it were desperate fool-hardiness to affront it directly I will rather try what can be done by Consequences I will give it Sea-room to sail by perhaps I may espie something in the works done that may make men suspect they are not the Finger of God something in the doctrine delivered that may argue it not to come from Heaven but as to the doing of the Works the Delivery of the Doctrine they are so manifest as it were madness to oppose the Report This is the plain English of the Jew's behaviour in his opposing the Gospel § 3. Another irrepairable loss he hath sustain'd to the disparagement of his Cause by permitting the History of the Gospel to pass currant through the first Age without any offer of his opposition is that he hath hereby deprived himself and his friends of the advantage of playing an After-game Had he boldly calumniated the Truth of the Story something might have stuck that might have rendred it less credible and afforded its Adversaries in after-ages some colourable appearance against it but now he that lived upon the place and narrowly watched for Christ's halting for the faultring of the Pen of the sacred Scribes having nothing to say against these Matters of Fact has wholly disappointed and bereav'd succeeding Generations of all possible Pleas. Orpheum Poetam docet Aristoteles nunquam fuisse hoc Orphicum Carmen Pythagorici ferunt cujusdam fuisse Cecropis Cotta in Cicer. de natura deorum l. 1. Aristotle taught that there never was any such Poet as Orpheus and the Pythagoreans report that the Poem that goes under the name of Orpheus is the work of Cecrops But both he any they were too young to gain upon the VVorld's Faith that had been grounded upon the former ancient and universal Tradition that there was such a Poet and that the Verses that go under his name are his Let the Sceptick if he can produce one single Testimony of that validity that these against Orpheus are against the blessed Jesus How then can our Modern Atheist think his silly and importune Quarrels against the Evangelical History are of any Validity with intelligent Persons his Quarrels now in the end of the World sixteen hundred years too young to bear witness against that which its Contemporaries had not the face to deny If Jephtha's Replie to the King of Ammon demanding of him to restore the Towns which Israel had taken