Lord and is highly offensive upon many accounts to Almighty God Who hath appointed Him to take care of our affairs who loves us better than any Saint or Angel can do because he dyed for us and therefore is more inclined to have compassion upon us because he hath that feeling of our infirmities which no Angel was ever touched withal nor any Saint in such a degree as he was Who can also do more for us than all the Angels in Heaven put together being the Lord of Glory Ninthly Which is another thing here clearly revealed the Power and Glory of the Lord Jesus at the right Hand of God We all with open face without any Veil drawn before our Eyes behold as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord as St. Paul speaks 2 Cor. III. ult The Gospel that is which he preached and which we read represents his transcendent Majesty so evidently that our own Face doth not appear more clearly to us in a Glass than Christ is set before us there as advanced far above all Principality and Power to use his words in another place I. Ephes 21. and Might and Dominion and every name that is named not only in this World but also in that which is to come God having put all things under his Feet and given him to be Head over all things to the Church What may we not expect from so great a Prince who hath all things at his command and that for the good of his Church if we faithfully address our selves to God by Him alone Tenthly I might say the like of the rest of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are here plainly taught But I shall only add that as the way and means whereby Christ procured and doth dispense the Divine Grace to us is evidently declared in the Holy Scriptures so is the means whereby we may hope to obtain the Benefit of his Sacrifice Satisfaction and Intercession with God for us Repent and be converted and your sins shall be blotted out III. Acts 19. are words plain enough to be understood And so are these Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your Souls XI Matth. 28 29. And these In Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but Faith working by Love a new Creature or keeping the Commandments of God For in all these terms for the greater clearness sake and that no man may be mistaken is this matter declared by St Paul 1 Cor. VII 19. V. Gal. 6. VI. Gal. 15. And therefore that the Grace of the Gospel teaches us that denying Vngodliness and Worldly Lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present World 2 Tit. II. 12. is as clear as the Sun Nor are the particular duties which belong to every ones place and state less clear and conspicuous than these general lines of our Duty which the Apostle hath drawn in those comprehensive words For when the same Apostle St. Paul directs his Speech as he doth commonly in the latter part of his Epistles unto Masters of Families and Servants unto Husbands and Wives Fathers and Children his Rules are as plain and easie to be understood by us now as they were to those persons who first received them So plain and easie they are unto all Ages so familiar especially to men of meaner rank that I much doubt saith a great Champion of our Church in his Comments on the Creed * Dr. Jackson Lib. 2. Cap. 12. whether the Pope himself and the whole Conclave of Cardinals would be able in this present Age to speak so plainly unto the capacity or so familiarly to the experience of men of their Quality unto whom the Apostle wrote For setting aside the absolute Truth and Infallibility of his Doctrines the manner of delivering them is so familiar so lowly so heartily humble so natural and so well-befitting such mens disposition in their sober thoughts as were impossible for the Pope to attain unto or imitate unless he would lay aside his Court-State and for seven years addict himself unto familiarity with such men in a Pastoral Charge The same may be said concerning his way of speaking when he sets down any other Christian Duties whether private or publick No man could ever pretend any difficulty in this part of the Holy Writings which treat of a Holy Life All the difficulty is in mens wills to be perswaded to consent to be governed by these Laws which they cannot chuse but well enough understand And that they may be perswaded Christ hath left us exceeding great and precious Promises which contain the greatest part of the Gospel-Grace the very end of which is to move us to live soberly righteously and godly Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. VII 1. What words can be more perspicuous than these And with the same clearness these Books pronounce the indispensable necessity of a holy life without which the riches of God's Grace cannot save us Follow peace and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord XII Heb. 14. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers c nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. VI. 9 10. Now the works of the flesh are manifest mark that word adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness Idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulation wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murders drunkenness revellings and such like of which I have told you before in times past that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God But the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance against such there is no law And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit V. Gal. 19 20 c. What shall I say more All the Promises of God which put us in hope and all his Threatnings which are designed to put us in fear upon which two Hinges all Religion turns are you see already declared so expresly and clearly that there can be no dispute about them For this is the promise which he hath promised even Eternal life 1 Joh. II. 25. and the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness I. Rom. 18. For He will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour glory and immortality eternal life But to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but
with there unto this end and not think we know it well till we see how we may be made better thereby I cannot express this in fewer or more proper words than Erasmus hath done long ago in more places of his Works than one particularly in his Dedication of his Paraphrase on St. Matthew to the Emperour Charles the V. Since the Evangelists wrote the Gospel to every body I do not see why every body should not read it And I have so handled it that the most illiterate may understand it Now it will be read with the greatest profit if when any man takes it in his hand it be with this mind ut seipso reddatur melior c. that he may be rendred better than himself and do not accommodate the Gospel to his own affections but correct his own life and all his desires by the Rule of the Gospel I conclude this with that Saying of Seneca In the same plat of ground the Ox seeks for grass the Hound seeks for a Hare and the Stork for a Snake and just so it is with those that read the same Scripture wherein one seeks himself and another seeks the World one studies that is to please himself with the History of ancient Times another to furnish himself with the knowledge that belongs to his Profession but he alone reads it as he ought who therein seeks for God and desires to be filled with the knowledge of his Will that he may walk before him in all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work I. Coloss 9 10. IV. And whosoever he is that designs this great End and comes to learn to be good with an honest mind and heart let him be careful to observe one Rule more which is To study and well digest the first Elements of Christ's Religion For as he will never read nor write exactly that doth not learn to spell truly and he must understand syllables before he understands words and sentences so he will never find the saving Power of the Gospel thoroughly working on his Spirit that keeps not the first Truths always in his mind and deeply rooted in his Heart The prime Principle of our Faith is That Jesus is the Son of God that He speaks from Heaven to us the unerring Will of our Creator The Gospel will not have any efficacy upon us unless we carry this along in our thoughts when we apply our selves to study it that this is the Voice of God this is the Mind and Will of Him that made us how shall we escape if we turn away from Him that speaks from Heaven to us This if we carry in mind while we read the Scriptures they will over-awe us and make us have Grace to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear We shall not dare to read them as we do some humane History wherein we are not all concerned but with attention with seriousness and with diligence tracing the Lord Jesus as pious Disciples of his in every step observing what he said and what he did And thus seeking and searching and hunting after Him every where as Erasmus his words are in his Preface to his Annotations on the N. T. we shall find in that most simple and rude Scripture the ineffable Counsel of celestial Wisdom we shall see in that foolishness of God if we may so speak which at first sight appears mean and contemptible that which far excels all humane prudence though never so sublime and admirable And the next Principle is like to it viz. That the Lord Jesus will come to judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel This if we thought of that we shall be judged and have Sentence passed upon us by this Rule we could not but lay it to heart and square our life by it Therefore let these first Principles of Faith be strongly sixed in our mind and always be in our thoughts and let us think we have as much use of them as he that reads hath of his Letters which are the first Elements of Learning Then for the Principles of Practice this is the prime the chief the most fundamental in the whole Gospel He that will be my Disciple must deny himself forsake all and take up his Cross and follow me This our Saviour tells his Disciples again and again upon several occasions X. Matth. 38. XVI 24. IX Luke 23. XIV 27 33. In the last of which places he lets them know that it is as foolish to think of being a Christian without learning this Lesson as it is for a man to begin the building of a Tower before he hath computed the Charge or for a Prince to undertake a War without considering both his own force and the strength of his Opposer The sense of which two Parables our Lord summs up in these words So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my Disciple In which few words we have this account made to our hands as a great Doctor of ours speaks that e're we can hope to be built up in the Faith of Christ or safely ingage in the War against the Devil the World and the Flesh we must make over our interest in all that is dear unto us here and resign it up to our Lord Christ holding nothing so precious as his Love and his Salvation That is the meaning of this Lesson We must not prize any thing so much as the Mercy Grace and Favour of God in Christ Jesus All the contentments of this life and life it self must not weigh so much with us as God's good esteem of us his affection to us the Honour Glory and Immortality that Christ hath promised us When we have once learnt this and have it by heart there will be no difficulty in learning all the rest The immediate result of it will be an unfeigned feigned assent to the truth and goodness of all that Christ the Prince of Life hath revealed unto us and an uniform obedience to his Holy Will in all things For then there will be Nothing left to oppose him Nothing to gainsay him no interest no head-strong affection and desire to resist the impulsions of Divine Truth whose natural property is to incline and sway the Soul to all kinds and to every part of true goodness It is our duty then to ruminate upon these things over and over again to repeat these Lessons continually to our selves till they become familiar to us and have seated themselves in our hearts not thinking we know them till we feel them nor imagining we feel them to purpose till we be transformed into them That is an excellent Saying of the Hebrews He that learns the Law and doth not repeat it is like to him that sows his seed and never reaps nor binds it into sheaves that he may carry it home into his Barn And this He that repeats his Lesson an hundred times is not so wise as he that repeats it an hundred
obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile For there is no respect of persons with God II. Rom. 6 7 c. If these words be not intelligible there can be no such thing as plain speaking in the World And it is as plainly and intelligibly written that God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness XVII Acts 31. when he will make good all his Promises and Threatnings and that our Lord Christ is that great Person by whom He will judge it All our labour all our Art can never make a Proposition to be understood if all these things which I have mentioned which are the substance of Religion be not obvious and clear to all who will take the pains to read the Holy Scriptures and consider them And therefore they do a great injury to the Grace of God and to the Care and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the Church who endeavour to perswade us the Holy Scriptures are so obscure that it is not fit the people should look into them for fear of mistaking and running themselves into dangerous Errours and Heresies They may do so though they do not read the Scriptures by following their own vain imaginations and by dreaming upon that which they hear out of the Scriptures or which starts up in their own fancy but if they look into the Scriptures to know how to be saved and have no other end nor neglect humbly to implore the Divine guidance they cannot mistake but may be easily and fully satisfied For God hath told usall that Jesus is the Saviour and that he is the Author of Eternal Salvation to them that obey Him and his Commandments wherein we are to obey Him as they are not grievous so they are obvious and may be met withall every where if we have a mind to learn them and he hath set Pastors and Teachers in his Church for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man c. IV. Ephes 11 12 13. So that no man having such directors can miss the way that leads to Eternal life unless both he and they will wilfully shut their eyes and on purpose turn aside from the path which the Holy Scripture shows unto them And if the words of the Spirit of God which are as bright as a Lamp to give light unto our feet may be mistaken or abused then no man no company of men no Interpreter no Council can draw up any words but they may be perverted by those who have no mind to be directed by them but are concerned to put another sense than they intended upon them And indeed it is no slight Argument that the Holy Scriptures are easie to be understood in all things necessary for our Instruction because God would have all even the meanest capacity to read them as I have proved in the foregoing Part of this work beyond any reasonable contradiction It would have been in vain to require men to search the Scriptures as not only God but his Church in ancient times did if they could not readily there meet with satisfaction The Doctors of the Church of Rome I know argue the quite contrary way therefore you should not read them because they are obscure But which will you chuse to believe God who bids you read them from whence you may conclude they are not obscure or men who bid you not read them because they are obscure You may most safely conclude they are not obscure because God bids you read them for this is a right Conclusion from Divine Premisses whereas the other Conclusion that you should not read them is drawn from a false Supposition directly contradictory to what follows from the Command of God to be conversant in them which is that they are not so obscure but in things necessary we may easily understand them Otherwise our Blessed Lord the Wisdom of the Father would not have bidden men search them nor would his Apostles have ceased to imploy their pains till they had made such things plainer if they had not thought they had set them down so plainly in their Writings that no man who would read could be ignorant of them That 's another thing worthy observation That the very End for which the Gospel was written by the Apostles reproves this Pretence of obscurity St. John tells us it was that we might believe XX. Joh. ult These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name By whose Authority did St. John write or by whose assistance did he perform this work Was it not by our Saviour's and by the guidance of the Holy Ghost And to what purpose was he inspired but to work Faith in those mens Souls who read his Writings And what Faith was this only the belief of some few things which are clear enough but not sufficient to make us wise unto Salvation No such matter He wrote that we might have so much Faith as should give us Eternal life through Christ Jesus Now who can believe that he who wrote by that Spirit which perfectly knew the several Tempers and Capacities of every Age and with an intention to breed saving Faith in their Souls should yet write so obscurely that he could not be understood of them for whose good and benefit he wrote Nothing but interest that is nothing but that very wicked Temper which blinded the Jews and made them deny our Saviour and crucifie him can induce a man to be of this opinion It will be replyed I know by some that however here is a confession that some things are hard to be understood and therefore it is best to keep the Scriptures from the people because they may do themselves hurt by those things Unto which I have answered already that if they seek for Nothing but Salvation and how to please God in order thereunto they will not do themselves hurt by any thing they meet withal in the Holy Writings But for further satisfaction I shall proceed to give a brief account of the second thing I propounded to be considered which is II. THAT the Apostle doth not say some things cannot be understood but that they are hard to be understood There is some labour required to the understanding them which if we will take we may comprehend their meaning It would be a long Work to examine what things in St. Paul's Epistles the Apostle St. Peter may be thought to point at as difficult to be understood But the inquiry might be very much shortned by one