venerate the Deity in regard of the eminence of his Being and his natural perfection Because that excellence of his Being is not from Positive Law but natural otherwise men might make and unmake Gods at their pleasures as they do their Statues Either therefore the Epicureans are absolutly without Religion and as much aliens to it as Beasts or the honor which they make profession of rendring to the Deity they do not ascribe to him out of obedience to the Laws of Commonwealths every one in his own Country but because they find themselves naturally oblig'd thereunto For in case it befell them to be in some place where it were forbidden to serve God would they comply with such prohibition And if it were also commanded there to blaspheme him or preach that there is none at all could they obey those Laws without doing violence to their consciences Wherefore if there be of necessity some natural difference between piety and impiety towards God there must in like manner be some between Vice and Virtue in comportments amongst men For as the excellence of the Nature of God obliges us to certain duties towards him so also consanguinity conciliates and contracts certain obligations amongst us one towards another And when I mention consanguinity I do not onely understand that of Brethren and neer kindred amongst themselves but also that of Fellow-Citizens and Countrimen and even of men in general because there is an universal consanguinity between them all which hath its root in the communion of one and the same nature and in the dependance and derivation from one common stock And as the eminence of the Divine nature is the foundation of the honor which we render to it so the equality of ours should be the foundation of the justice which we use one towards another This the Pagans themselves well observed when they affirmed the World was a great City and the several Nation as divers Quarters of the same Town so that though there be certain duties that oblige us more strictly to our next neighbors yet there cease not to be other general ones which are incumbent upon us towards all men Add hereunto that if piety towards God be a natural and immutable obligation yet Vice and Virtue indifferent in themselves and onely good or evil by the authority of a Constitution which is subject to alteration If the law which sets a value upon Virtue happen to suffer a change and the Vice which is contrary to it become recommended by a new constitution there will result a consequence absolutely insupportable For so it may come to pass that a man may be at the same time desperately vitious a thief adulterer false-witness murderer parricide and notwithstanding very Religious toward the Deity who will love and favor him in consideration of his piety if he hath any knowledge of the same Which is a prodigious conceipt and such as without further debate the common sense of men abhors Moreover there is no person so devoid of eyes and understanding who acknowledges not some natural difference between the Beauty and Deformity of our Bodies and that the advantage of the one above the other doth not consist meerly in the opinion of men and custom as the comliness or ill-beseemingness of the greatest part of habits and fashions does I am not ignorant that Opinion bears a great stroke in some singularities and that we may account that for Beauty at this day of which in Ages past they did not make the same esteem as black eyes such as those of Venus were are more pleasing to some to others those that have something of blew as those of Minerva are described But that is in things wherein the natural difference is not so evident and where every one may have his particular sentiment without digressing very much from reason For otherwise I do not think any man would deny that Achilles or Nereus was handsomer then Thersites as Homer paints him out to us and that a strait man and of a proportionable stature is better made then a crooked Dwarfe whose arms reach down to his heels and his legs are distorted Is it then likely that there should be according to Nature a Beauty and an Ugliness of Bodies and none of the Soul so that to estimate things agreeably to reason and not after common opinion the chastity of Lucretia should not be more to be prised then the lightness of Lais nor the Virtue of Cato then the dissoluteness of Sardanapalus If it be so imagine a Commonwealth among the Antipodes in which it were as indifferent for a man to kill his Father as his neighbors Dog to rob in the corners of Woods as to hunt Hares or Deer to lye with his Sister as with a Wise espoused out of the degrees of consanguinity which circumscribe Marriages and to be as honest a thing to Lye and perjure as we account it here to be sincere in words and proceedings it will follow that that Republike is regulated with as good constitutions and laws as the best polici'd that is in Europe For such is the nature of things indifferent that they take their tincture from the most received opinions and weigh only according to the standard of policy and Positive Law But these are not barely extravagances they are distempers and frensies which the consent of all people gives the Lye to and that relick of shame which Nature hath left amongst the most corrupted Nations utterly disowns and flyes from In sincerity is there something in Truth that advantages it naturally above a Lye or is it preferred meerly by reason of custome As much without doubt as there is of difference between Being and not Being so is there of distance between Truth that results from the Being of things and is the representation of them and Falsity which is as the image of not-Being Hence it is that the perfection of the Understanding of Man consisting in the knowledge of things which Are conformably to their Being and consequently in Truth there must of necessity be an inviolable relation between the Verity of things and our Understandings which are improved and perfectionated thereby whereas they reject a Lye by a natural aversion as soon as they know it to be such And this Love of Truth hath ever appear'd uniformly in all generous souls Even little children do not readily take pleasure in stories that are told them unless so far as they fancy them to be true Now is there a Thing naturally determin'd to ennoble our Understandings which cannot be changed by Customes or Laws Opinions or Fancies and which remains always equal to it self and unvariable and is there not also something naturally determin'd to render our other faculties perfect I mean our Appetites and our Wills over which our Understandings preside Certainly it would be a very extravagant thing if Reason whereby a Man is a Man should find its perfection in the sole knowledge of Truth and that in
and Virtue and that he is as an Unwritten Tablet or Wax susceptible of all impressions whatsoever without being either more or less worthy of Veneration or contempt dishonor or Praise for being either pure or polluted with Crimes just or Tyrannicall Good or Evil. If the Epicureans acknowledge what all sorts of arguments constrain them to do that there are certain Laws establisht by Nature according to which things are accounted Good or Bad and actions likewise Vitious or Virtuous in as much as they disagree from or correspond to the same they must also of necessity confess that there ought to be a Providence which after the last Act is concluded will repay the rewards of Goodness to them that have merited them and heap Vengeance upon such as have stored up the same for themselves by their evil actions Semblably as he that offends his Father or Mother deserves chastisement so in sinning against Nature in whose Laws is comprehended that of Fathers over their Children and who is the common Mother to us all without doubt we shall be obnoxious to correction For every deviation from the right way requires a correction or reducement wherefore the correction of a Person that departs from the precepts of Nature is his amendment but the correction of a vitious action is the punishment of him that committed the same Truely the Political Laws by which penalties are appointed for Crimes are not onely just in as much as they are necessary for the conservation of Commonwealths which their violation would ruin they are also so because that wickednesses though they brought no dammage to the State are of themselves punishable and that Nature teaches us that aswell in moral matters as in others Monstres which so far transgress its rules ought to be exterminated to the end their enormity do not turn to her dishonor But whereas Political Laws establish penalties onely to corrupt actions and do not punish intentions and thoughts 't is not for that bad thoughts and intentions are not as deserving of punishment as actions but because the will and intention is not apparent either to the Magistrates or Witnesses besides if all evil aims and purposes and such crimes as are committed in the mind onely were liable to penal animadversion the number of criminals would be so great that the frequency of executions would beget too much horror and the world would soon become depopulated and desart Now it is not reasonable to punish any offences but such as are proved by good evidence and it were better the world should be peopled with tolerable inhabitants then to be reduc'd to so gastly a desolation by punishments and deaths Yet there are a sort of intentions which coming to the knowledge of Judges are capitally punished as those which lead to attempts against persons in Soverainty In which there is not onely a bare regard so far as if such fore-thought design had grown to effect the Commonwealth which is under the Magistrates care might have suffered considerable prejudice but it is considered in as much as the prejudice set aside the design it of it self is too abominable to be pass'd over with impunity such horridnesses requiring to be expiated with proportional punishments Therefore seeing the counsels of which wicked actions are produced are naturally as vicious as the actions themselves which is more the actions are not vicious unless as far as they proceed from bad counsels Whereas actions are punished because of their enormity there would be too notorious a Defect and too great a Disorder in the nature of Things if there were not some power superior to that of Soveraign Magistrates which may give laws to thoughts and deliberations Now if there be any such Power it is necessary that the same have a clear cognisance of thoughts and deliberations that it call those to account that are culpable therein making their Conscience intervene as a witness against which there lies no exception and at length begin to punish them by such remorse as the apprehension of judgement begets in their breasts till afterwards it take a severer vengeance on them Now this is that which we call the Providence of God which punishes a part of those things which are done in this Life to take away all misapprehension that he endures others without exemplary punishment out of connivence and to give every one grounds of belief that he refers them to another time in which the Vengeance he will execute on them shall compensate its deferring by a greater measure of severity Of what I have now represented every man hath ten thousand witnesses in himself For the terrors which all men experience when they have committed some wickedness and whereof they do not cease to feel the effects though they be assured of exemption from penalties constituted by publike laws do sufficiently declare that there is some thing that frightens us within with the denunciation it there makes of another sort of vengeance Certainly if there were nothing to be dreaded besides the punishment which every Magistrate inflicts in his Territory what reason is there that soveraign Magistrates themselvs should be terrified with the same It is true these people object to us in this particular that those terrors are not natural but are bred of the false opinion which hath possessed the minds of all men that the Deity is incensed by reason of our offences to which they add that the profound ignorance of people hath augmented those affrightments to them as little children sear bug-bears in the Dark so that if we had not been prepossessed with such a perverse opinion by our Ancestors we should have always lived free from that fear in a perfect security They adjoin moreover that if there be any such natural Apprehensions wherewith men are discruciated they are those of the Accidents of Fortune which may arrive to all the dispensation of which is erroneously ascrib'd to Providence Divine For so speaks their Poet Nec miser impendens magnum timet aere saxum Tantalus ut fama'st cassa formidine torpens Sed magis in vita Divum metus urget inanis Mortales casumque timent quem cuique serat sors But in case this were no better grounded then on a false opinion men have been continued in whence comes it to pass that the same should have so universally possessed the minds of all Nations For who is he amongst all the people of the World that can avouch himself an exemption from these Fears In every Nation what person ha's not at some time or other had more or less experience of them Certainly that which is universal hath some foundation in Nature and that which persists constantly and maintains it self alwayes in the same sort cannot but be very deeply rooted therein on the other side vain and panick fears are incontinently dissipated and are of very short duration Time saith Cicero wears out the Errors of Opinion but it confirms the judgements and sentiments of Nature
actions but likewise of cogitations and to the nature of man whose outward actions are neither good nor evil but onely so far as they proceed from the good or evil source of the internal affections Upon this Commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery they condemned the act indeed which defiles the bed of ones neighbor wanton thoughts and lascivious glances they made no great reckning of The Christian Religion teaches that he that looks upon the wife of his neighbor with desire after her hath committed adultery in his heart Then which what is more sutable to the holiness of God and more reasonable in reference to that which ought to be in men For what great advantage were it to have kept the body unpolluted with filthy actions if yet the soul should be full of impure cogitations Moses in his Political Laws the administring and superintendency of which belong'd to the Magistrate alone constituted the retribution of Eye for Eye and Tooth for Tooth that so the violence of outrages might be repress'd by the fear of a penalty semblable and adequate to each sort of crime The Jewish Doctors extended this to private revenges as if they had been permitted by this sanction But the Christian Purity reforms this error by teaching that a man ought to be so far from doing himself reason for an injury that it is more commendable to be so dispos'd as to receive and dispense with reiterated wrongs and insolences Then which what is more befitting them that believe there is a God in Heaven who preserves the rights of every one who watches over all by his Providence and who hath declar'd that vengeance belongs to himself And thus also it is in the Law of Divorce and Polygamy abrogated by the Gospel which reduces marriage to the estate of its primitive institution an estate so worthy and becoming in regard of its natural honesty and so recommended even by their own Prophets And truely what likelihood is there the Jews should be lest to eternity in that ancient hardness of heart for which it had been indulg'd to them or that the example of the Jewish incon inence should be made authentick in other Nations So also concerning light and unprofitable Swearing which the Doctors of the Jews tolerated provided exact care were us'd to perform what was incumbent by virtue of the oath Christian Religion ha's abolisht the same as a profanation of the holy and sacred Name of God which must not be pronounced but with great reverence And is not this to reduce men from the shell to the marrow of the Law from the outside to the inside from the body to the soul and even to the most spiritual part of the soul And that these and such like have been the corruptions which the Doctors of the Jews have introduc'd in their Law the testimonies are but too frequent in their Books But there is yet something further considerable For there are two things in every good Law First the Righteousness of the command which it contains and Secondly the Right of punishment due to the transgression of it both which arise from the natural difference which is between Vice and Virtue and their necessary appendances Punishment and Reward Now Christianity hath not onely reduc'd the Law to its integrity in relation to the first but hath also wonderfully illustrated it in the second in which the Ignorance of men had debas'd it two ways For first if there were some among the Jews that had a little deeper knowledge in the Nature of the Law and esteem'd it the rule not onely of actions or intentions accomplisht but also â—f thoughts yet they accounted sins committed in thought or word onely so light that they scarce believ'd God ought to inflict any punishment for them and judged them very venial in themselves Secondly though in sins perpetrated by scandalous actions they beheld a turpitude which deserv'd severe chastisement yet they had all this opinion that God would readily forgive them without other satisfaction then by pitiful sacrifices Perhaps not that they thought sacrifices could impretate remission by their own value as being equivalent to the deserved penalty for to believe so they must have been too like the victimes which they jugulated But because God remitting the same freely was contented with the acknowledgement made of the demerit by killing the sacrifice For every man that slayeth a beast in his own stead confesseth that he hath deserved death But the Gospel hath restored it in this point to its pristine Majesty and reinstated it in the prerogative of a severe avenger of the sins of men for as we shall see hereafter the belief of its inexorable severity in this point conduces highly to conciliate honor and reverence to it First then the Gospel hath taught men that those which they lookt upon as piccadillo sins according to the custome of the world are of a henious nature when weighed in the balance of God's justice so that men are to give account even of their idle words and that the most inward thoughts of their minds the least ticklings of their appetites if they be dissonant from the rules of the Law which require a perfection in which nothing can be impeached render men obnoxious to the curse that is annexed to it And truely should not the Gospel affirm it the Law it self holds forth as much For I demand whether the Decalogue does not contain the rule of the most exquisite and consummated perfection that can and ought to be in humane nature If it does not then seeing all things which can concern the Moral perfection of man that are neither commanded nor prohibited in this Law are reputed as mean that is neither good nor evil but indifferent in themselves it will follow that there may be some defect of moral perfection in man which nevertheless shall not be at all reprovable for mean and indifferent things whether they be done or not bring neither praise nor blame So that a man that ha's all the moral perfection which the Law requires but yet sailes of that which it does not shall notwithstanding merit as much praise as he which ha's that which it commands not and that which it does command together Which is as absurd as if one should say that an Angle made with a right Line and another that cuts the same decussatim deserv's as well the title of a right Angle as that which is composed of two right Lines one of which falls perpendicularly upon the other For it is not more necessary to an angle that it be compos'd of two right lines whereof one falls perpendicularly upon the other to be approv'd for a right angle then it is necessary to a man to have all moral perfections possible in order to being perfect with humane perfection Moreover the Decalogue being nothing but the renewing of the Natural Law which was for a rule of Life to the first man in the Garden of Eden and of which
he with his posterity lost the knowledge by Sin it would be requisite sutable to that opinion to presuppose that Adam in his first creation was not indued with all moral perfection required in humane nature Which indeed would be an affront to him that formed him But I beseech you do not the praises wherewith David extolls the Law of God constrain us to have a more advantageous esteem of it The Law of the Lord is perfect saith he in the 19. Psalm converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes And in the 119. Psalm he prayes for nothing else but that God â—ould illuminate him in the knowledge of the Law that he might walk in his Commandments as being the rule of all perfection desireable which is also extreme frequent throughout the whole book of his sacreâ— Hymnes But if the Law contains the measure of the most exquisite and accomplisht perfection that can be in humane nature then since the denunciation is express that Cursed is he who abideth not stedfast in all the things of this Law to do them he is undoubtedly subject to the malediction that deviates from this Law and omits or commits the least thing forbidden or commanded by it But a curse denounced by the mouth of God himself cannot but be unconceivably dreadful and hideous In the next place the Gospel teaches that the Law is so inflexible in its rights that 't is impossible after having transgress'd it whether in a small or great matter to be acquitted from punishment so as not to suffer the same either in proper person or in that of some other Which to an intelligent considerer even the Law it self sufficiently testifies For it denounces on the one side an inevitable curse to them that transgress it God himself pronouncing the same from the mountain of Sinai with lightnings and thunders smoke and flashes of Fire and earthquakes On the other side gratuitous remission of offenses is promised to them that have violated it Now what expedient is there to fill up the abysse which is between these extremes Shall that pardon be granted without preceding punishment If so what need was there of such terror at the promulgation of this Law and after to suffâ—â— all those horrible menaces of malediction vanish away thus in smoke Perhaps God powers all the Curse upon the victimes instituted upon himself to be sacrifices of propitiation and 't is true they are termed expiatory a hundred and a hundred times But what a kind of Comedy would it be if God after himself had publish'd his Law with such dreadful majesty should be contented for satisfaction of the transgressing of it with the death of a poor beast Might not that Adage be here applyed Parturiunt montes c. It remaines therefore that those terrible threatnings must either fall upon them that violate the Law or upon some other capable to bear the same substitute in their room that so they may be secur'd from them And the glory of the Law remains hereby more full and intire For Reward being a sequel not more natural to Virtue then Punishment is to Vice the Law which denounces a Curse for transgression and yet does not really inflict the same is as imperfect as that which should promise a reward to its observers and afterwards when it came to the effect frustrate all their expectations As he that should have fulfilled the Law in every point would have cause to complain of it if in case he reaped not the recompense of his piety and virtue so would the Law have cause of complaint if he that violated it did not undergo the penalty of his offence the natural order of things alike requiring both the one and the other And from hence results a thing which turns marvellously to the advantage of the Christian Religion above the Jewish Namely that it represents to us the principal Attributes of God in which his usual wayes consist as his Justice Mercy and Wisdome in a much more eminent degree of excellence For as for his Justice it is nothing but a natural repugnanee that is between him and sin by reason his Nature is good and holy and the essence of sin as they speak consists in iniquity and pollution a repugnance I say which necessarily inclines him to the hatred and abhorrence of sin For he were not God unless he hated Evill Now all Hatred is a vehement desire of revenge and hence it is that in their books this Justice is termed Wrath and Fury and even an ardent Fury Whence we infer that accordingly as God is perfect in himself so he abhors Evil and as he perfectly abhors it so he is equally inclin'd to execute vengeance upon it Wherfore the Christian Religion which teaches that God ha's not saved the World without being revenged I say not without taking satisfaction convenient to his Justice exhibits the same to be consider'd in a more eminent degree then that which holds forth remission without inflicting deserved vengeance For since the hatred of sin is a virtue in God the more implacable this hatred is the greater is the virtue There are indeed three sorts of satisfactions First such as is made to repaire a dammage received as if one should give a Statuary money for having broken an Image in his shop Secondly such as is in order to contenting an incensed Passion as when we strike one by whom we have been offended For though no good accrue to us by his harm yet the passion is contented by being revenged Thirdly a satisfaction of Justice when without regard either to dammage or indignation a crime is expiated by punishment for the sole love of righteousness and the natural order which ought to be in things Now the first hath no place in God for what dammage can arise to him from our offenses Nor the second For he is not subject to our Passions choler and animosity do not discompose his serenity nor agitate him in any manner And if these Passions are oftimes attributed to him in the books of the Prophets 't is by way of similitude with the humane mind as well as repentance or rather according to the similitude which seems to be between the actions us which men do out of choler and those which God does out of justice inasmuch as both the one and thâ—â—ther cause grief or pain to those on whom they are exercised 'T is therefore the third sort of satisfaction or revenge which is competent to God after so peculiar a manner that the more perfect his nature is it must of necessity be equally inexorable And no man can imagine a justice in God capable of leaving the sins of men unpunish'd but he must with all fancy him little abhorring sin and too negligent of the natural order of things Which would be a very unbefitting reflexion
this we excell the condition of Beasts who are not capable of comprehending it and in the mean time for our Affections which ought to follow reason there should be no difference between us and Creatures that are destitute of it by reason of which their appetites are wil'd and undetermined without subjection to any Laws of Vice or Virtue But it would be a thing yet more absurd and extravagant if Living Creatures unfurnished of Reason having every one their proper and natural goodness which consists in a certain perfection of their actions as we give the Title of Good to a Horse a Dog for the strength of their Limbes agility of their motions vivacity of their sent and swiftness and yet a man should not be styled Good in regard of a constant and immutable perfection of his operations measuring them by the eternal rules of Truth and Reason Hesiod understood this better then these pretended Philosophers For he delivers this excellent Lesson Operum Dierum Lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et tu Justitiae quidem animum adjice violentia vero obliviscere prorsus Namque hanc hominibus posuit legem Saturnius Piscibus quidem feris avibus volucribus Se mutuo ut devorent quandoquidem justitia carent But if there have been sound Nations heretofore or be any such this day amongst whom that brutish Custome of devouring one another is in use or if some other such brutality of the number of those that the right Reason of Man abhors be practis'd any where without scruple or punishment yet it cannot be inferred from thence that their custome of doing so changes the nature of the thing in it self or that the thing being indifferent in its essence is diversly authoris'd according to the various fancies of Men. For there are People in whom Barbarisme hath subjected Nature and imbued them with such monstrous sentiments which ought no more to be drawn into consequence against the consentment of all other Nations then the Prodigies which emerge besides the course of Nature and violate the Laws which she ordinarily observes in the production of her Works To these people may be applyed that sentence of Petrarch Hanno dal mondo ogni virtu sbandita Ond e dal corso suo quasi smarrita Nostra Natura Since Virtue from the World they have exil'd Our Nature 's grown unsetled savage wild Whereas the Epicureans desire to pass for Philosophers they ought to have remarked that Nature hath distinguish'd our faculties to the end they might never be confounded that she hath assigned them their operations in such manner that one cannot produce those of another and that to those operations she hath determin'd certain rules in the observation or Violation whereof consists the Good and Evil which invests them with the reputation of Goodness or Improbity The Faculty of vision which we have in our Eyes is clean another thing from that of Hearing which is in our Ears and the difference which distinguishes them is so essential to their Nature that it cannot be separated from the same without their intire destruction The action of seeing is so proper to the Eye and that of Hearing to the Ear that whoso should employ the former to receive and discern Sounds and the latter to distinguish the Colours and Figures of sensible things would demonstrate that himself had his Understanding perverted in going about so to pervert the establisht order of Nature That action of seeing to which the Eye is destinated is performed in such manner that he that should attempt to see with his eyes shut or applying the thing to be seen immediately upon the Organ of the eye opened or removing it from the eye to too great a distance or lastly putting some body not diaphanous nor illuminated between the eye and it should find it were to no purpose because Nature hath so ordered that to the act of seeing all the conditions opposite to these should be exactly observed Now what she hath done in the faculties of our Bodies the same she hath also practis'd in those of our Minds There is in us one faculty of the Intellect and another of our Appetites And as our Understandings are designed for the knowledge of objects so are our Appetites conferred on us in order to our desiring or eschewing them The operation of the Understanding is neither good nor rational unless it be accommodated to the condition of the object to judge of the truth or falsity thereof according as the nature of the thing requires Neither is that of the Appetite good or commendable further then it is conformed to the condition of the subject towards which it is carried forth to desire or avoid the same according as it is naturally desireable or worthy our aversion And lastly as the rules of which we make use to frame our Understandings to legitimate ratiocination and by that means to acquire the habitude of Sciences are drawn from the nature of the things themselves so that even Epicurus although he were no excellent Logician composed a certain number of Canons by which to regulate his reasonings So the Maximes wherof we serve our selves to steer our Appetites to desire or reject the objects presented to us as is fitting and requisite and to contract the habitude of Virtues are in like manner drawn from the natures of the things whence we have a certain systeem of Morality by which to conduct our actions And this is of so much greater necessity in relation to the things which concern Virtue in as much as the operations of our other faculties are competible to us as we are Living creatures which state is not the principal of our condition whereas moral actions belong to us as we are Men which is as I may say the apex or highest atchievment of our being and makes the most excellent piece of our Definition For it would be an excessive irregularity in Nature if the most excellent Being amongst all corporeal things should be able to attain a certain term of his perfection in the operations which are common to him with Animals destitute of Reason and yet he should have no certain and determinate perfection in reference to those faculties which advance him so far above Brutes that he thereby approaches in some sort to the image of the Deity In which consideration Plato affirmed that the Supreme Good of Man consisted in his conformity with God which was excellently well declared and is supremely advantageous if whereas God is of invariable Holiness Man would give himself to imitate him by the constant exercise of an eminent Virtue But if there be nothing fixed and certain in the Nature of our Moral operations so that it is indifferent to be Vitious or Virtuous what advantage can there be in our conformity with God For it will be consequent that the Nature of God is likewise indifferent to Vice
the High Priest slew in the Tabernacle but in a place separated with a veil from the Ark a sacrifice for the offenses of the whole people and once in the whole duration of the World a Man devoted thereunto offers himself in sacrifice and suffers death upon the Earth a place remote from the presence of God and sever'd from his especial mansion by the extent of the Heavens as with a veil to the end to oâ—tain remission to all them that seek it This being done the High Priest took the blood of the Victime and presum'd to enter into the Most-holy place within the veil and to appear before the Mercy-Seat And the same Man Holy and without spot after having suffer'd in the World taking confidence from his sufferings as having satisfy'd the justice of God dares attempt to ascend into the Heavens and pass beyond the veil to present himself before the Lord in the habitation of his glory For he no longer dreaded his presence having undergone all his wrath Lastly the High Priest dipping his finger in the blood sprinkled it seven times before the Mercy-seat Now the Septenary is a number of perfection as the Jews themselves acknowledge And the same Man who suffer'd death for the remission of sins being entred into the Holy of Holies in the Heavens abides there untill the consummation of Ages to represent his sacrifice continually before God and by this his intercession to render him eternally propitious unto us Let them therefore consider a little without passion or prejudice the correspondence and resemblance distinctly For whereas in all that external service God had regard to something to come what better interpretation can be made of this mystery then that the sacrifice of a beast prefigures that of a man the expiation of a corporeal defilement a spiritual purification the place where the victime was slain the World the veil the Heavens the Most holy place where the Ark was the habitation of Gods's glorious residence and the sprinkling made by the High Priest the perpetual intercession of him that offered up himself by the Eternal Spirit Wherefore let them either admit this explication thereof made by the Christian Religion or study to give more congruous and sutable Which I assure my self their attempts to effect will be so vain and all their inventions so extravagant that in respect of ours they will be but as darkness in comparison of light But that all these typical representations have been really acted and accomplish'd shall by the help of God appear hereafter with abundant evidence Now if our Christian Religion be thus excellent above that of the Jews in the understanding and application of their own Ceremonies it is also far superior to it in those which Christianity it self practises of which indeed it ought not to be destitute And first it is highly advantageous to us that they are few in number and consequently less painful and laborious Next that they are less carnal and material as not being appendances of a Religion which seem'd to consist wholly in out-side in the mean while till the spiritual things which it promised were really exhibited And lastly that they are eucharistical and commemorative of that truely propitiatory sacrifice which ha's been already offered and by consequence more proper to beget piety in our mindes because they represent and apply things past to us of which we have a perfect and cleare knowledge whereas the Jewish figur'd the same as future obscure and in a riddle Moreover he that shall duly consider the external face of the true Church its exercises of devotion its pompous simplicity and modest magnificence singing publick and solemn prayers due celebration of its mysteries without Idolatry or Superstition and on the other side without contempt of a Being so worthy of profound admiration and reverence and that excellent custom of instructing the people by Preaching and dispensing the Christian Doctrine to edification and comfort by exhortations and convenient reprehensions will find that there is a more pleasing and comely spectacle in the order of its divine ministry then in that butchery of sacrifices which was made in the Tabernacle where it was necessary to be always imployed in washing and cleansing away the blood and scouring all the utensiles of the service from the soile and fat of sacrifices And it may be also observed that whereas the Jewish Religion arrested the mind to sensible things affording them but very little taste of spiritual and intellectual as 't is the custome to retain children and instruct them in gross and sensual things for that their reason is yet but weak and they live principally according to the guidance of their senses On the contrary in the Christian Religion men are reclaimed from sense to understanding so that what is sensible in it is not capable to arrest our minds on it although it be profitable to lead us to the use of spiritual things where with our souls are abundantly fed and satisfied and this because that the Church under this Religion is come to perfect Age being indued with far greater strength of reason and understanding to comprehend them This the Prophets first taught us who have spoken so disdainfully of all those external ceremonies of the Mosaical Law as we have seen above in comparison of the internal virtues of the Soul And indeed nature it self would teach us the same though they had been wholly silent of it For since man being compos'd of body and soul is principally man by the faculties of reason and understanding the Religion which consists rather in corporeal exercises then in the instruction and perfectionating of the mind must be judged infinitely inferior to that which is concerned principally and almost solely about the Soul As for the Decalogue it ha's not been less illustrated by the preaching of the Gospel then the other Not that there ha's been any thing relating to piety and good manners taught by the Gospel which was not compris'd in the Moral Law Since this Rule of Justice and Perfection ha's been alwayes like to it self in all Ages But the understanding of it having been corrupted partly by the hypocrisie and partly by the profaneness of men the Christian Religion ha's reduc'd it to its primitive purity and restor'd it to the highest pitch of its natural perfection The Jewish Doctors upon this Commandment Thou shalt not kill thought that it was enough to abstain from the effusion of blood and otherwise either justified or excused wrath desires of revenge and words of spight and scorn The Christian Excellency teaches us that 't is not the external act of murder only that is forbidden but even the least motions of the mind that carry to revenge the most loose thoughts of mischief and the slightest words uttered in offense to our neighbor either by derision or outrage Then which what is more agreeable both to the nature of God who is so good and who is not the judge onely of