their hands to guard them in all their ways that they may not dâ—â—h their foot aginst any of the stones of Scandal They are Ministring Spirits sent forth to Minister for them that shall be Heirs of Salvation Those greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven humble themselves as Little Ones to serve the Little Ones of God and Christ And as their Angels they always behold in Heaven the Father of our Lord and of all that believe in him that whoever despises them even to Scandal must be sure to have it remonstrated against them 2. He exemplifies the care of them in himself The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which is lost and the Argument is raised to the height as it is exemplified in the Father of the whole Family in Heaven and Earth named after Christ whose will it is not that so much as one and yet when one only is in the danger of Scandal Who does not look upon him as a Singularist especially if one of the least too and reject him should perish but is pleased in the preservation of one such even as the joy of one Sheep that is lost out of a hundred exceeds sensibly the joy of the ninety nine that were not in hazard But now lest the great charge against Scandalising and Despising should seem to introduce a Lawless state in Christianity and increase Petulancy and Licentiousness in those who would be looked upon as at least Little Ones in Christianity or make the care of not Scandalising of endless scruple or burden Our Lord prescribes a Method for preventing so ill Consequences very certain to its End yet very far from Scandal or Despising A Method that allows no sin and yet deserts none till they deserve to be accounted but as Heathens or Publicans to whom yet a due measure of Christian Charity is to be preserved Which Method it is not my business now to enter into the Controversal part of but to observe as of great moment that the Doubting of the lawful use of Indifferent Things in Religion falls not into the account of any of those Trespasses the Lord speaks of and that as if it were on purpose lest the thing should be mistaken a most different Method is in that Case commanded by the Apostle of the Lord. Here therefore give me liberty to compare in some things which I have omitted in the body of the Discourse the Sermon of our Lord and his Apostle First He that doubts in Indifferent Things and cannot conform to what others do and would be conformed to in is not commanded by the Apostle to hear the one or the two or three nor the Church it self Nor is it said by the Apostle they that will not hear on such accounts should be as Heathen-men or Publicans or as we speak Excommunicate both which are very notorious in the Evangelists Records in the Case of the Trespasses there spoken of which assures us they are of another Nature Nor doth the Apostle urge as from our Saviour that what is in these Cases bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven or what is loosed on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven that there shall be any obligation on the doubting Conscience by the Churches Canons or any such discharge of it before God or it self by obeying them But every Man in this Case is to hear his own Conscience there every thing of this nature is bound and loosed there every word or matter is heard and established On the other side there is no Injunction of telling the fault of Non-Conformity if any be aggrieved at it in that gradation from one to more and so to the Church But the Apostle's command is First Not to Judge or Despise if that may keep Indifferents to their Equipoise if not the Command is not so much as by Example to Scandalise or draw any that Doubt to act against or over their Doubt in Indifferent Things because they are but Indifferent for that is to sin against the Brethren the weak Brethren as at the least we esteem them Now in these Cases to sin against the Brethren is to sin against Christ in his Law against Scandal Now in that all things are of so diverse a frame and aspect in the Lords Prescriptions concerning Trespasses and the Apostle's Directions in cases of various apprehensions in things of Indifferency wherein one great part may be guilty yet of great weakness and mistake and that none of the Methods ordered in the one is so much as mentioned in the other or once intimated it argues very evidently that variety and as various practices in indifferent Things though joined with such mistake and weakness are none of the Trespasses our Saviour had regard to And since the Apostle puts all under the notion of Scandal wherein the weaker part is either drawn into sin enfeebled in the vigour disquieted in the true peace of Conscience or so much as despised by being incompassionately neglected in his Doubt the whole Case is brought under the force of our Saviour's Sermon against Scandal that none looking upon themselves on any accounts as Great in the Kingdom of God in the Church or in the Christian Profession let those Accounts be whatever they can be presumed to be should by any sort of Imperiousness whether Command rigorous Treaty or Example that despises all that do not follow it impose upon the Little Ones To all which let me have the Readers patience to add this one Observation That the Evangelist Mark makes the occasion of this or a like Discourse of the Lords upon Scandal That the Disciples were much displeased that one did cast out Devils in Christs name that did not follow them that did not seem and indeed was not of their way in the appearance of Things But our Lord with great Compassion accepts him so far as he was come For saith he He that is not against us is on our part He that although in a different Company or Mode does the same things we do and does nothing in opposition to our Great Design is on our side And so he proceeds into a similar Discourse of Kindness to or Scandal against his Disciples though Little Ones And if we suppose it the same Discourse as in St. Matthew and that this Evangelist had not an accurate regard to the occasion yet in that he connected it with such an occasion and that by the Divine Wisdom it teaches us how much such a Discourse is adjusted to such an occasion for guided by the Holy Spirit the things are so laid together Now that the Apostle had his Eye upon these so famous Discourses besides the Reasons I have given on this Head in its due place it is evident to me further he had so by his Representation of himself in a Figure all along the ninth Chap. of his First Epistle to the Corinths in the very heart of a Discourse concerning Scandal as that Person that humbles himself as a Little Child in
the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord as the waters cover the sea THIS Context is a high and eloquent Declaration of the excellent peaceable and benign Temper that Christianity introduces into the world under the emblem of a general pacification between the mighty and the weak the armed and unarmed the noxious and innocent the oppressive and oppressed parts of the Creation And whether we look upon it as a description rising out of the Rules and Principles whose natural and genuine effect where ever they take will be such as is here drawn out or whether it be also a Prophecy of what shall in some time at least come universally to pass that there shall be such a noble experiment of true Christianity in the world as we have great reason to believe there shall And so whether the effect shall be throughout to conversion and the truly Christian change or whether it shall only smooth and polish many men who have not the true Grace of God within but shall be asham'd in such a land of light to deal Isa 26. 10. perversly and not to behold the majesty of the Lord in that transcendent Goodness and Grace he appears in both in the Commands and great Exemplar of yet so that there shall be a multitude of sincere Converts to that state However we expound either of these they are both alike to the discourse intended it being undoubted that Christanity alwaies lays the grounds and reasons gives the commands and urges the precepts inspires the temper here describ'd and doth most effectively in all times upon many though few comparatively and in all reasonable hope shall upon the generality in some time so prevail in the world that all that Belluine Ferocious and Salvage Temper of men shall be put off and proscribed the world the hearts of men being either truly chang'd by the Grace of God or universally so far convinced by high considerations and over comming light for the knowledg of the Lord shall cover the earth as waters do the sea that at least they will not discover that Leonine and Wolvish Temper that cruelty and venome so natural to mens hearts in this sinful and degenerate state And this extends not only to the superseding the cruelty of action oppression spoyling of goods imprisonment Massacres martyrdoms and all sort of Tortures but to the taking away that poyson of Asps that is in mens lips the Lyon-like teeth of slanders and invective the swords and knives of cruel mockings and Revilings men offer one to another in the management of Religious Controversies For these things the Prophet speaks of are especially to be understood with respect to Religion as men are upon their hatred to true Religion or the mutual differences in it become Lions Leopards and Tygers in their executions Cockatrices Aspes and Scorpions in their bitter words and Anathema's All which according to the influences of Christianity upon mens minds declared in this Prophecy shall be taken out of the world except upon the account of those things alone which will be causes of mens eternal damnation at the Tribunal of God and Christ if the infliction be Spiritual or such iniquities as God hath indeed commanded to be punished by a Judg in this world if the sentence be temporal Of such a change as is here set out the Apostle Paul was a great and remarkable instance whose conversion as it hath been thought a prophetic Pattern of the calling of the Jews so it may be as well thought of this happy transmutation of the world most probably concurrent with it if either be universal as we have reason to hope for he was taken in the very manner of a fierce and wild beast breathing out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord and immediately Acts 9. 1. turned into a meek merciful tender and compassionate Lamb over whom at his conversion there shone a light round about him in resemblance of this knowledg of the Lord that shall cover the earth at the brightness of which they that journeyed with him stood speechless which might allegorize the making tame even those in such a day of Divine Appearance that are no true Converts Now this Apostle as we know ever after breath'd nothing but the Love Meekness and gentleness of Christ in himself and offers in all his writings to inspire it into others as we shall have abundant occasion in the progress of this discourse to observe severe in nothing but what was irreconcilable with this excellent Christian spirit Object Before I pass on I shall only remove one Objection which may seem a very great one viz. That our Saviour saith by way of surprize upon any such expectations Suppose ye that I am come to send or give peace on the earth Think not so I came not to send peace on the earth I Mat 10. 3 4. c. Luke 12. 51. c. tell you nay but rather division and a sword and a fire For I am come to set a man at variance c. and from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided three against two and two against three c. Answ In answer to this we may easily perceive our Saviour in this place speaks neither his own intention and design nor the proper tendency and rational effect of his Doctrine for in that sense he saith to his Disciples attempting to imitate the fiery zealot spirit Ye know not what spirit ye are of for the Son of man comes not in a Chariot of fire to destroy all that will not be of his Religion for he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Luk. 9. 55 56. In this place therefore he only signifies what would arise through the great Corruption of man whose lusts and passions would be apt to swell and rage at so excellent a Doctrine so destructive to sin and to all false Religion defended by long possession and ancient Tradition and composed for the Patronage of mens lusts Hence men would be implacably set against the Religion of Christ and would be divided with extreme hate from those that espoused it as their chief interest and happiness and not be drawn to Apostatize from it though it gathered upon them the spite and rabid Inclinations of the world in general and of their nearest Relations in particular Indeed the prophane and enemies of Christianity are wont to cry out against Religion on such occasions as if it wrought all the mischief in such cases when it is their own wickedness that troubles things as Solomon says The foolishness of man perverteth his way and then his heart
Romans such as Pythagoras Socrates Plato Epicâ—etus Cicero Seneca nor as those of later date Plutarch Porphyry Hierocles Jamblicus But as that one sacrifice abolish'd the Typical yet divinely instituted Sacrifices much more those mock-sacrifices that there are no such now in the more famous Religions in the world as divine Oracles and Prophecies absolv'd and finish'd in Christ and the Apostles silenc'd all those fallacious ones from below so the resplendent light of Natural Religion in the Gospel-revelation since its prevalency in the world and that it is become the Religion of Nations seems to have dazled natural reason that there is not the apparence of it as in former ages but a kind of barbarity hath invaded as a thick darkness the world out of the Goshen of Christianity while the Jews trust to the letter of the Old Testament not 2 Cor. 3. 15. yet unvail'd to them in its glory and further obscur'd by Rabbinick Dotages and Mahometans to the Spite-prophet and his senseless Alchoran set up by Satan and permitted by Divine Justice in opposition to the only true Prophet the Lord of life and glory and his everlasting Gospel All besides these lye obscure and at a distance from us in a manner like a Terra Incognita in Reason and Religion having only some relational glimpses no bodies of their discourse in either A great argument of the Truth of Christian Religion that hath drawn up all Rational Religion Reason and Learning within it self and under its own Horizon For though for a time it pleased God to allow the notable efforts of that sort of learning and in opposition to Christianity one of his unsearchable Judgments as in Porphyry and Hierocles yet being vanquished by the greater light of the Gospel since the days of Constantine it hath never risen in any other parts of the world unchristianiz'd to appear with any remarkable strength But all this doth not diminish so much from Natural Religion as it brings it into question Whether there is now such a thing in the world as Natural Religion without Christianity nay indeed it may be doubted whether notwithstanding or even for the sake of those great Names I just now recorded who were but a sort of Parelian lights to the true light of Natural Religion whether there was ever such a true copy of it as that of the Book of Job in any mans heart life or writings that was without the help of divine Illumination and yet Natural Religion is never the less natural nor the less felt and acknowledg'd to be so When besides such a proportion as is always ready to men not degenerate into beasts being so preserv'd by God that he may not leave himself without witness nor men without Luk. 15. 17. means in order to their conversion and recovery when I say besides this God restores to any man or number of men the perfection of it by his Word or by particular illumination of his mind it is not the less natural even as the prodigals Self he came to was not the less natural Self because he had been so long a fugitive from it and it became necessary to him to be so restor'd so no less is Natural religion natural because it is return'd by revelation after being lost And this carries the great uses indeed of Natural religion that whether it be that part of it by general providence preserv'd to the generality of men or by ordinary means improved or whether by divine Illumination and Revelation it is given as it were anew yet we still find it natural and as it were our own properly belonging to our natures and it comes to us as by way of Reminiscency of what we had once but had lost Thus all the ends of the earth Psal 22. 27. shall remember and turn to the Lord. And as I have now stated things that which may seem a great objection against what I have discoursed of Natural Religion will be more easily reconciled And it is taken out of those places of the Apostle John first what he records in his Gospel that our Saviour said He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father that Joh. 5. 23. 1 Joh. 2. 23. 2 Joh. 9. 10. sent him And in his Epistles Whoever denieth the Son hath not the Father And in his second Epistle Whoever transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God and if any man come and brings not this Doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds By all these sayings laid together it seems undeniable that even the acknowledgment of that first and great principle of Natural Religion The believing in and adoring the one God is made of no value by not acknowledging honouring and believing in Christ the Son which is the principal point of Divine Revelation For the setling therefore this doubt these three Things are to be consider'd 1. That after due Instruction and Explanation of the Doctrine of Christ it is as I have said so united with Natural Religion that who ever hath that in sincerity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set in a posture ready to receive and believe Christianity So that if any one upon Instruction commensurate to the Understanding Christian Religion does not receive it he hath not God he hath not true Natural Religion in that Fundamental point especially if he have had the Preparations of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament as the Jews to whom these words were especially directed had Yet still I suppose this case reserv'd to Divine judgment and not to Humane nor that such an unbeliever may be dealt with by men or by Magistratical Authority as an Athiest man can only deal with him by Remonstrances out of Scripture and reasons flowing from it 2. The severity of the Apostle hath greater force upon those who having receiv'd Christianity apostatize from it transgressing and not abiding in the Doctrine of Christ for it is most certain in the thing it self they have not nor can have Natural Religion that prove Apâ—states from Christianity understood so intimate to it 3. This hath yet much greater force upon those whom the Apostle seems especially in his Epistles to intend those who come with a high pretension of an extraordinary spirit of an immediate Doctrine from Heaven and yet bring not the Doctrine of Christ For there being at that time such infallible proofs and assurances of all sorts to the Apostles and that have descended down from them to us in Sacred History we must needs conclude they might justly Anathematize in the highest degree an Angel from heaven that preacht any other Gospel they were most certain who ever Gal. 1. 8. call'd or proclaim'd Christ Lord were authoriz'd to do so by the Spirit of God and therefore that no man could by the 1 Cor. 12. 3. same spirit declare him accursed seeing that Spirit
and condescension to those that think disseringly from him I come therefore now to the main of the Discourse and to make good that the Nature Constitution and Rules of Christian Religion are most exactly prepared to ingenerate promote and establish love peace and quietness among men even Vniversal and Oecumenical peace but especially among Christians and that by the most compendious Authority viz. the word that is nigh to us in Scripture and true and undoubted reason without going up into Heaven or down into the deep or sending beyond the Sea or turning over voluminous Writings of Ancients Church-History Tradition which perplex things with endless intricacies for before any one can with due rational satisfaction receive them he must for himself search them and when he hath done compare and be able by sagacity to find out the true Genius of the Writer and distinguish what is sincere from things spurious and counterfeit But suppose a man well satisfied herein yet still how various are interpretations and what contrary senses do the same periods yeild to several Readers and when all is agreed that can be agreed it is incertain except things are brought to a higher test wherein the peccancy and lubricity the oversight and weakness of humane nature have had place or what hath been conducted by the Word and Spirit of God by true Wisdom according to the pure and chast Laws of Christianity So that though all knowledg and learning reading and acquaintance with the records of elder times be most valuable and to be desir'd in its due place yet as to the ascertaining our minds in what concerns us not only to everlasting Happiness but to present Peace God hath provided better for us and within a nearer compass wherein our search cannot be too curious or industrious but within lesser room for such a kind of acurate seâ—rch as is due to the Scripture which in short gives us the conclusion of all matters necessary to life and godliness in present would be more than the most of mankind have either leisure patience or skill for if extended upon the monuments of antiquity so variously insisted upon for the finding out what men very often have a mind to find out in them rather than fairly to take what is offered by them But the things I shall present as Christian foundations of universal Peace and Benignity and most especially among the Disciples of Christianity are such as are plainly found in the Word of God and attested by sound reason 1. The first Foundation of universal Peace and Love and Benificence in Religion given us by Christianity is The Vniversal Consent Vnity and even Vniformity in Natural Religion throughout the souls of men if they would shew themselves men and act as men every where presum'd upon and appeal'd to in the Gospel Under this Head I will endeavour these Three things 1. To take a brief view of Natural Religion observing the intimate union of Christian Religion with it as Scripture brings it to light at its full lustre and presents it at its full Dimensions 2. To shew the great agreeableness of Christian Religion with Natural and the testimony Christianity receives from it in what it reveals above and beyond natural Religion and the Reasons we have for our acceptance of it thereupon 3. To observe the grounds of Universal Peace and quietness in the world upon its consent in Natural Religion offer'd to us by Scripture and Reason For that there are such grounds herein I shall shew Christianity supposes and that it strongly intimates they are the measure and standard of such a Peace and quietness to mankind in general Before I enter upon these I must premise 1. That Natural Religion in many things doth not at first and immediately appear to us but upon strong and sedate motions thinking reasoning meditating as we recover natural science by study and labour in many points of knowledg which yet being found are most plain and evident 2. There may be strong prejudice against some Principles of Natural Religion and yet no more argument against the truth of them than that in former times there was a general confident disbelief of the Antipodes was a disproof of them in which cases yet Truth will by degrees prevail to victory 3. It is certain the true and lively characters of this Religion are so defac'd and blotted by the fall that they cannot be perfectly recovered but by Revelation Many Truths clear enough in themselves concerning God his Worship the intercourse of the souls of men with him and in relation to their eternal condition yea and in plainer things than these viz. concerning true Righteousness Mercy Humility Soberness Patience are not seen but in their darker rudiments till they are revealed by God but when they are so revealed they so notably fall in and unite with the remains of Natural Religion preserved in us that they assure the same original writing of all both what we find more immediately in our hearts by their own light and what we receive from the Word of God Yet so that Natural Religion is no where found in that brightness as in the Word of God though revelation being supernatural is an orb above natural yet so large that it comprehends this lower and less The noticeâ— of Natural Religion by mans apostacy retir'd as plants into the earth in Winter Divine Revelation as the Sun returning at the Spring encourages them so that they sprout up afresh and grow being cherished by its warmer beams and so that we know these newer notices are of the primitive implantation by their being drawn out in a continuation from the elder roots Yea those things that in the state of innocency had no place viz. Faith in the pardoning-Mercy of God and repentance for there being no sin there was no need of these by way of supposition of mans sin and so great a goodness of God any way discovered to man flow as freely from the same fountain of Natural Religion as any other duties of it as is after to be shown 4. Notwithstanding all these former premisals that seem to abate from it I affirm Natural Religion is a Basis for the common peace and quietness of Mankind upon which they might easily so concenter as to preserve the world from blood and cruelty on religious accounts if they would as I have said shew themselves men I come therefore to take briefly the intended view of Natural Religion and to observe the intimate union of Christian Religion with it I. And first the acknowledgment of a supreme Being the Lord and Giver of all with all the Reverence Love Obedience Service due to him as the great Author Benefactor Lord and Judg of the whole world is the first most fundamental Principle of Natural Religion and so plain and evident that whoever denies it may without any brand of cruelty be dealt with as a Traytor to the Vniverse 1. For first he hath unhindg'd the order subordination
Faith in Divine mercy and lastly of future rewards and punishments Now in all these as I premis'd Natural Religion is not to be measured by what is found in the dark and sullied state of the generality of Mankind at such vast distances from the days of Innocency or so much as in the colder liveless Climate of Philosophick Morality but by what discovers it self when these frozen benum'd Principles relent and are thaughn by the warmer beams of revealed truth by what men do and must acknowledg when they come to themselves then the Ministers of Natural Righteousness out of and according to Divine Revelation are 2 Cor. 5. 11. made manifest in mens consciences and they speak and write no other things than they do acknowledg and shall acknowledg to the utmost to the very end Even as the illiterate 2 Cor. 1. 13. mind does not at first perceive the wisdom of such a writer as Socrates Plato Plutarch of such Historians as Livy Taritus but when it comes to be cultivated it knows by a Test within it self the gravity and dignity of their sense and stile Thus at the first unexercised souls tast not the gratefulness of the Word of God to natural conscience which is afterwards most agreeable the senses being exercised to discern gâ—od and evil Heb. 5. 14. 2. In what of Christianity pure and perfect revelation alone must be acknowledg'd There is yet such a close affinity betwixt the holiness purity wisdom of the one thus reveal'd and the other implanted that they must be own'd all from the same fountain and accepted alike by every serious considerer that as it is observ'd of the Old and New Testament and the several Writers of each through all the variety of Times Manners and Customs of the world in the sâ—veral ages of it throughout the several periods of the Churches state and progression and throughout the different extractions educations employments temperatures of the Sacred Writers there is yet one Wisdom one Reverence of God one Holiness one Majesty of Discourse running through the whole arguing the supreme Author one and the same Even so in Natural and Revealed Christian Religion the Divine Commandment is perfectly one and the same nothing trivial nothing Romantick nothing Speculative only all is for greatest use of the glory of God and the salvation of mens souls so as not to be refused 3. The Revelations of Christianity are the highest Amplifications of natural light even to the utmost possibilities of conception but in nothing contradictious The Doctrine of the only true God is kept most pure even as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times But this Divine Nature is explained to us in the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and in the infinite Graces and Bounties proceeding from the Deity so explain'd to us and this is so to the utmost that as we certainly know in Heaven it self it is impossible to know any more Gods than the one true God we have known here in the world so it is as impossible we should know any more in that Essence than the Father the Son and the Spirit in Eternity it self It is of everlasting inviolable Truth There is one God and it is reveal'd to us in Christianity There is one Mediator 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Cor. 8 6. between God and man the man Christ Jesus There is one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him And this is life eternal to know thee the only true God Joh. 17. 3. and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Thus the Divine Unity is preserv'd And lest the obligation to a Mediator to a Redeemer should abate or interfere with the obligation to the one God and Father the Mediator is always made known to us as the Son of the Father the brightness of his Heb. 1. 3. Glory tho express image of his person the heir of all things So that the Glory of the one Mediator infinitely and incomprehensibly unites and circulates in one with the Glory of God the Father So far is the Revelation of Jesus Christ Phil. 2. 2â— from any the least contradictoriness to that fundamental natural principle of one God And as evident it is that it is to the utmost and above all we can think for in the highest Glory of Knowledg it is we know certainly impossible to know any higher Mediator any other Mediator than our one Mediator for as a man can rise no higher than God there can be no higher Beeing than God so there cannot be a greater Redeemer and Mediator than the Son of God There cannot be a greater acceptance of a sinner than upon the account of the most perfect obedience and the deepest sufferings of the only begotten of the Father the beloved Joh. 1. 14. â—at 3. ult Son in whom he is well pleased There cannot be a nearer union to the whole nature of of man than by this divine Person assuming not any humane Person which had been limited narrow and confined but humanity it self into one person with himself There cannot be a greater inspiration and internal operation than of which the Spirit of God is the Author and Fountain nor a closer uniting of Believers to Christ than by this Spirit to be so joined to the Lord as to be one 1 Cor. 6. 17. Spirit Thus to the great Justification of Christianity before Natural Religion all is from God and absorpt into him yet in such a distinction from him that every glorified Spirit enjoys its Happiness Glory Purity Perfection Acceptance with the Divine Majesty distinctly and in it self and yet so in God that the whole Glory is refunded into him which is the perfect Glory of the Divinity From the whole then though it is most true that these great points surmount Reason in the discovery and explication yet when it beholds these things in that full portraicture divine Revelation presents them it cannot but adore and admire and confess the manifold wisdom and knowledg of God the riches of his grace the praise of his Ephes 3. 10. 1. 6 11. glory working all things after the counsel of his own will As to the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection and eternal Judgment they are but what is very agreeable to the very Principles of Natural Religion all men having an ingrafted sense both of it and a future state and as to the Resurriction it self I think it most manageable upon grounds of Reason That the Creator can as easily command the Principles of a dissolved body into one as at first create those very Principles out of nothing nor can I think those niceties of dispute brought into this Article of Faith of any moment it being enough there shall be a future state of Spirits in bodies as in sensible appearances of Glory or Misery and those bodies as much mens own as the nature
right of Earthly Powers Not the retrenching any of the Freedoms of Natural Religion not the imposing any thing besides and beyond it by power or penalties not the forbidding of Reformation of any corruptions invading it not the embargoing any Revelation from Heaven consisting with or perfecting Natural Religion as all truly such do only the power of requiring all to live in obedience to the punishment of those that disobey Natural Laws But it may be further said God intended Christianity should be brought in not by might not by power but by tâ—e Spirit of the Lord. That Believers in it should seal it not with Pleasures Honours and outward Advantages accruing to them by it but with their blood and sufferings This is also most true it appears God did so intend But still if Magistrates were intrusted by God with making Religion Legal or not Legal by their seal it is plain that Divine Ordination of Magistracy was dishonour'd and debas'd by him that appointed it in that it was not at all taken notice of in so great an affair of the Divine Kingdom And so far as they could judg who did not believe there was a real injury done to Powers and the sufferings of Christians were on that account just For who could know that for so long a time God had suspended that supposed Ordination of his viz. That no Religion should be brought into any State or Kingdom that had not first the favour and license of the Laws and Magistrates of that State and Kingdom But now suppose it is a stated Rule that beyond Natural Religion the Magistrates Power extends not but that being secur'd there is a freedom to Subjects of taking care of their Souls and wherein they have to do with God as of their bodies lives or estates in private concerns or as a Philosopher hath of chusing what he thinks the best system and from the best Authors and that men may freely reason herein still within the confinement of Natural Religion Reverâ—nce of God and all just deferences to men and then Christian Religion had a Legal entrance offering no disregard to Magistracy but taking natural freedom to offer it self wherein its way being so prepar'd it then opens it self with all that Divine Power and Authority that cannot be refus'd but under the great peril of Eternal damnation Thus proportionably the case is the same concerning the Reformation of Christianity from Popery We then that are Christians and Protestant Christians have great reason to keep that door of the just and lawful propagation of Religion not contrariant to Natural Religion as open as we can and to grant a quiet comprehensive of all offers that can be made keeping within Rules of Natural Religion Reason and Prudence it seeming less hazard to admit those inconveniences attendant upon this liberty that through humane corruption run round with every thing than those greater mischiefs of having Christian or Protestant Religion violently kept out Thus I have endeavour'd to clear that there are obligations lying upon men precedent to any right of Humane Authority viz. of duty to God in obeying God rather than men of the Profession Confession and publication of true Religion however men forbid or scorn it of rational communication of truth as the Apostles said We Act. 4. 12. cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard of charity to mens souls in not concealing the tydings of Salvation the Righteousness and Truth of God For certainly David expresses himself according to the Laws of Natural Religion when he says I have preached righteousness in the great congregation I have not refrained my lips Oh Lord thou Psal 40. 9 10 knowest I have not hid thy righteousness in my heart I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation And Moses when he says Give ear Oh ye Heavens and Deut. 32. 1 2 3 I will speak and hear Oh earth the words of my mouth my doctrine shall drop as the rain my speech shall distill as the dew because I will publish the name of the Lord Ascribe ye greatness to our God Yet from hence I do not suppose any man bound to go and preach to the Great Turk either the Laws of Natural Religion against any of the iniquities of that tyranny or follies of that superstition or the just and holy Laws and Truths of Christianity instead of his worse than Aâ—ile Alcoran Every man is to measure his commission and the enablements he hath receiv'd from God for his work and not to venture upon things beyond his line For even the Apostles knew their measures the measure of the rule distributed them by God a measure reaching so far beyond which they did not stretch themselves in that famous place 2 Cor. 10. 13. Every man may compute the probable account his service will turn to in the Glory of God and the Salvation of mens souls Christ teaches him to forbear when it is certain before hand His pearls will be trodden under foot and himself Mat. 7. 6. rent And so I have finished what I think necessary to be spoken upon this Third Argument and pass on to the fourth Argum. 4. Natural Religion may well be the Cement of Vniversal Peace since whatever can comport with the good of the Vniverse or Community is secured by it The Glory of God so far as Community is charged with it The Peace and Welfare of particular persons The orderly Posture of every man in his Station and Rank The just deference to Magistracy and publick Authority The security of publick Peace and Quiet The Advancement of True Religion in Divine Revelation Now in every one of these I will consider what Objections may be made against allowing freedom in Religion upon Natural Religion secur'd and the Answers to them Object 1. Every False Religion or refusal of the True Religion in a Nation not vindicated by due severity upon Offenders is an offence against the Divine Majesty of a National Guilt and brings down National Judgments Answer The government of Conscience being Gods peculiar no earthly Power shall be charged with the obliquities and errors of it any more than with the secret sins of men that are not known or those Distempers of Mind and Spirit which coming into no palpable Instances can neither be convicted nor sentenced by man Now mistakes of men in Religion not cognisable by the light of Nature are to be reckon'd among the Errors of Conscience and so are properly left to Gods Judgment-seat and the Magistrate stands free It is therefore very observable Princes are called nursing-Fathers and Queens nursing-Mothers signifying not a Isa 49. 23. Commanding-Power but a tender insinuating cherishing the Encouragements from them that such an Appellative carryes with it in those that declare it in those that are to receive it The Magistrate discharging this Honourable Trust may acquit himself and the Community
understood The excellent Wisdom Gravity of Natural Religion in the lives and actions of men especially enobled with Christianity would bring most of men except extremely bad or wild into an admiration of its excellency that even ingenuous shame together with general prudence would compose them against fugitive inconstant changeable giddy opinion Men are not so intractable as they are thought to these awful Laws if wisely propos'd The worst and wildest part would become in every mans sense due subjects for rigor whom so much reason and fair inducement would not prevail upon Steelly unfruitful unsatisfactory ceremonies loose principles and practises the want of that great presence of true Religion and an iron hand instead of it makes men Atheistick Sceptick and Fanatick ever teeming into vain opinion for want of solid goodness to rest upon But however sinful degenerate men will be bad every way Uniformity begets lothsome ignorance and formality That which is best in it self is to be chosen viz. That free air and light in which men may try all things and hold fast that which is good though evil adheres to that as to all good things Argum. 5. To conclude True Natural Religion hath a set of such self-evident principles that it will be enough to name them and yet if they were observ'd and obey'd universal peace and quietness could not fail to result from them 1. That every man hath the due care of his soul committed to himself so that it shall be no Apology for him in the sight of God that others whether Churches Magistrates or publick Teachers misled him it may be some abatement of condemnation to him and increase to them but it shall not Ezek. 3. 18. deliver him he shall die in his sin though his blood shall be required at the watchmans hand What reason then can there be or how can it be accounted for to compel that man with force to take that way he judges dangerous or drive him from what he thinks best for his soul To advise perswade reason him is commendable and charitable It is good for him to make the best inquiry and take the best advice But that he should be forc'd against his own sense is unnatural and barbarous seeing he must be wise for himself or if he scorns he Prov. 9. 12. alone must bear it This is to be understood in cases not evidently good or evil by Natures Laws In them there is no excuse against impressions of absolute authority Now how much would this tend to peace if it had its due observance 2. That Humane Nature should do all the good kindness and ease it can to it self in every particular member and remove all the evil discomfort and mischief it can in the same manner and no severity except in cases plainly destructive to general Humanity can be tollerable to true Humanity If this were mens Rule who would hurt or destroy in the world 3. That in all things wherein a man can without infinite hazard do it he should unite himself with the greatest Communities with lawful Governours with Nations and most comprehensive Congregations of Christians seeing that is most acceptable to God who would have all Nations to Rom. 15. 9 10 11. serve him all people to praise him It is most Humane and Christian it is also most a mans interest most safe and secure to himself 4. That wherein a man finds himself under a necessity of differing from any man much more from a Community he should deport himself with all meekness humility modesty love and charity that he may demonstrate it is truly his judgment and sense of conscience and not perverse humour that makes him differ that he is still a most lively feeling member in the body of mankind and Christians that in all things excepting the glory of God and the salvation of his soul interests too vast to be compounded for he prefers the publick before himself such a one can neither harm nor deserve to be harmed I have now dispatch'd what I intend concerning this first foundation of even Vniversal Peace recommended by Christian Religion viz. The general unity and uniformity there would be in Natural Religion if men would shew themselves men I will only by way of Conclusion reflect upon the usefulness of so great a Point 1. It justifies the great Creator of all who hath not left himself without witness amidst this great Deordination of his Rational creatures that he is yet a Faithful Creator Seeing he hath carv'd into their very Beings such a Law of Truth and Goodness that if they would but shew themselves men would have preserv'd them from the great errors of Vnderderstanding and Practise and as a Compass would steer them in the wide and disorderly sea wherein they now sail By this inward infallible guide if rightly excited to give its sense and duly applied they might find true Religion in this Babel of Languages concerning it And though it is very difficult and in the event through mans great corruption but not in the reason of things almost impossible without Divine Illumination so to excite and apply it yet there it is even within men so to be excited and applied and it is mens corruption only and wickedness that it is not of more use 2. To us Christians having the benefit of this Divine Illumination in the Word of God and in the hopeful assistances of the Holy Spirit the use of this Natural Law is much more visible and indeed chiefly we have the benefit of it and of such discourse as this upon it and our guilt more than twofold if we do not find it To us it may appear how inflexible a Rule it is how excellent the Religion of our Saviour is we may in every thing see by it what it is that is indeed of value among all our divisions What is that faith once delivered to the Saints we should be always in an agony for and what we may allow and condescend to those various Sentiments that are and will be as various as aspect the beauty and even harmony of Humanity and Christianity being not made up of Vniformity in such things but unity of love and charity is the true beauty the true melody here all would be a dead calm without some variety Thus as Christian Religion revives and now impresses Natural Religion so does Natural Religion corrected freed from its Interpolations corrupt Glosses restor'd and fill'd up where gaping chasmes had spoil'd the sense and contexture and anew imprinted upon us by Christian Religion give great light to Christian Religion For being thus restor'd and a natural light within us it is redintegrated to us in its great Office to be as the candle of the Lord in our spirits by which we behold the true and excelling Glories of Christianity 3. It therefore makes brief and compendious many great Controversies as they are made in Christian Religion I shall summarily instance in these Four 1. Those between
Rome and the Reformed Churches Although I have a just value for all those renowned labours of the great lights God hath raised up in the Protestancy a very rational and Christian entertainment of the Writer and Reader Yet I must profess the unshaken Assurance I center upon in all those Controversies is a short Conclusion of the matter That Romish Religion not only is not but cannot be true it is impossible it should be of God if Scripture and our Faculties are true if Natural Religion or Christian Religion that we have in the Scriptures be true And this I take to be a ready and sure Antidote against Popery to all that are equally concern'd to know which is the True Religion Catholick Religion falsly so called Popish Religion or Protestant Religion though they have not opportunity to acquaint themselves with all the Learning so plentiful so valuable at this day in the world for the decision between them 2. That great Principle of Natural Religion Hear Oh Israel the Lord thy God is one Jehovah and Thou shalt love Deut. 6. 4 5. the Lord thy God with all thy soul with all thy mind with all thy might and strength And that great Principle of Christian Religion If any man love not the Lord Jesus let 1 Cor. 16. 22. him be Anathema Maranatha these two joyned together assure me beyond doubt Our Mediator upon whom our Love Trust Service is to rest and that at such a distance as is Heaven from Earth cannot be but the One God with the Father and so I am resolved in the Socinian Controversie And further if he be the Eternal Son of God and his offering up the Humanity united to him a sacrifice I know it must be of infinite value and not a martyrdom not an example only 3. By Natural and Christian Principles united I am convinc'd the great foundations on which the Controversies between the Arminian and Calvinist as we use to express them rest must have great truth on both sides but they being related to those judgments of God that are as a great depth it is impossible to find them out to perfection for how can Finite wade in Infinite without being swallowed by it We need not therefore stay till these two things can be reconcil'd in our Judgments the infinite soveraignty and dominion of the Almighty over every particular immortal spirit that he hath made so that it cannot be dispos'd of or dispose it self without the counsel and foreknowledg of God and yet that no one is prejudg'd by any determination of God in the true liberty of a rational creature much less determin'd to sin and misery upon it by any over-ruling power We may safely with respects to both sides be profoundly abased in the sense of Incomprehensible soveraignty over us in a self-condemnation wherein soever we find our selves degenerate and fallen into sin as knowing our destruction of our selves Nor need we stay till supreme grace and our own free-will are reconcil'd in dispute we may safely on both sides make our humblest and most lowly appeals to him that worketh in us both to will and to do We must do so and are under the same security and obligation in stirring up our utmost Phil. 2. 13. Ezek. 18. 32. powers in turning our selves that we may live in working out our salvation with fear and trembling And all beyond Phil. 2. 12. these two conclusions are but Speculation in which we may imploy and entertain our selves in considering infinite wisdom and glory and searching as near as we dare approve its holy and gracious ways but need not be angry we can't agree in things out of our depth so as to be certain 4. In all the Disputes concerning Forms of Church-Government Modes of Worship we have thus much of resolution from the consent of Christian with Natural Religion Whatever is most substantially good is fittest to be the center of Agreement and Vnion and other things doubtful allowed to particular reason and choice with mutual tolleration and charity As is further to be shewn us under the next Head of Discourse Having now spoken so much of Natural Religion I think it necessary before I quite leave it besides the survey I have taken of it to add these Characters concerning it that it may not possibly be mistaken 1. It is that which depends upon nothing particular but must be the same to all Nations and times it is all essence and hath no accidents or circumstances as it is natural To pray is Natural Religion that is to lift up Desires to God with humility and hope this is and must be the same without any variation to every man in the world Now whatever can be suppos'd to pertain to it if it be not the same every where is not Natural Religion There can be but one nation of a God to all the world there can be but one Justice Sobriety throughout there can be but one notion of sin or of the pardon of it of Judgment to come as they are natural Till you come to Essence you come not to Natural Religion 2. It is that which cannot be demurr'd to but with the failure of all sober reason nor indeed without a consciousness of it while denied I am fully assured no man can deny a God a distinction between good and evil a future state without a strong recoil of the Natural Faculties returning as by an Intellectual Moral Elastick force 3. It is that whereof if any of the Principles be taken away grand inconveniencies and absurdities will follow like taking away light air or water out of the natural world What an infinite necessity is there of God of Prayer to him of Praises of him of his pardoning-mercy since sin of Judgment to come Take away these and universal nature flys in pieces runs every way upon so great a vacuum as the want of any these Principles immediately makes This is Natural Religion and nothing else is Natural Religion but this Having discours'd what a foundation of Vniversal Peace Christian Religion hath laid in not only assuming to but uniting with it self Natural Religion I shall come now to present as in perspective Christian Religion it self and shew the admirable contrivances for unity peace and love it hath found out and most earnestly prest on all its Disciples so infinitely wise reasonable and good so efficaciously insinuated so strongly argued and enforc'd so awfully commanded so to the life the very Divine life of it even Hypostatiz'd in our Lord that it is indeed the inexpiable shame and guilt of the Christian world that it is so unlike the Divine Philosophy the Laws the grand Exemplar of it That I may pursue this Intention with greatest advantage I shall propose under several Heads how this design is laid by the infinite wisdom of our Saviour much different from what is ready on all occasions to offer it self to Humane Imagination that is Vnity in Vniformity without which as
Testament the Apocalypse foretel the kingdoms of the world in the very state of Kingdoms becoming the Lords and his Christs All these things argue a great encouragement of Nations receiving and making a publique profession of the Gospel as Nations even as Families may and ought as Families And though it be undoubtedly the great Honour and Glory of Nations to come as near and as exact and close as may be to the Laws and Order of Christ in the Government as in the Constitution of their National Christianity yet because there will and generally falls out to be a mixture of National Customs in such publique Administrations a Comprimise of them to the Laws and Government of Nations hence it also comes to pass there may be a dissatisfaction in many of the subjects of such Nations to comply with their National Constitutions of Religion Hence there is apt to arise Discomposure and Disquiet if Princes or Powers exceed that exercise of Power allotted to them by God as we have before discours'd and also by the very essential constitution of Christianity seeing Christ hath made none Lords of his peoples Faith or Divine Worship and Princes are no more than Nursing-fathers The quiet therefore and peace of Nations is most advanced by setting up nothing in Christianity but what is absolutely necessary according to the Laws of Christ and yeilding the tenderest and opening the most bountiful hand to the professors and Ministers of essential Christianity Covering all the faulty divisions of Christians with their Royal and compassionate PVRPLE This is most Princely Generous and Great this is most exalting of Christianity it self But if this cannot be obtained the next Best and that which is indeed as I have already made out but Just is That no native Rights and Liberties be defaulked nor punitive oppressions inflicted but that the Honorary Rewards of Nations and Princes be adjudged to men who are of the Publique Sentiment in their Administrations in Christian Religion And this indeed cannot be excepted to it being the Right of National Powers to dispose of their own according to their own Reason and Judgment Yet is there still an obligation upon Christian subjects beyond these Considerations to examine all things with the greatest prejudice for and on the side of the National sense especially when they find the substantials of Religion secure and in safety and besides their private adjustments of Christian performances in particular Societies according to the exacter Rules of Christianity as they are Judges for themselves to encourage also promote and as far as possibly they can communicate with National Religion putting the fairest and kindest interpretation and Hope upon all things tolerating all that can without disobedience to God be tolerated observing Rites and Customs of Nations as far as they can with security from vain worshipping of God by the commandments of men both because of the Honour Christianity gives to Magistracy according to Natural sanctions and also and more especially because of the esteem Christianity hath of a Publique and National Religion Let me then resume upon the whole matter And it plainly appears Christianity notwithstanding the Freedom it allows to every man's conscientious sentiments is no Enemy but a Friend 1. To Society 2. To the Order and Peace that bind Society Yea and strictly commands them and hath given positive Institutions for them 1. For first It unites all its true disciples in that common ample universal center of Love Peace and Order God and Christ to whom the first dedication of a Christian is made and in whom it always rests 2. It unites them with that most publique wise rational and most holy Assembly under Heaven the Catholick Church even all that are that one Body acted by that one Spirit united in one Hope one Faith one Baptism In all which every Christian being one with the whole desires and rejoyces in the encrease of that one Body the advancement of that one Faith communicates in the prayers and praises of that one Body sorrows in its Afflictions ministers to its necessities and if opportunity be offer'd communicates in Spiritual Gifts and Services with any member of it and values not their particular Rites as any obstruction while they agree in Essentials And indeed every Christian should be suffer'd to drop that Mantle of Ceremonies as he pleases when he ascends in holy offerings of himself â—o God 3. 〈◊〉 to particular Societies or Churches of Christians in whiâ—â— the Essentials of Doctrine and Worship are preserved uncorrupted and so they must be or else such Societies deserve not the name of Churches and when they are in such a neighbourhood to the true Christian that he may freely enjoy his choice he considers these two both recommended by the Word of God 1. Private particular Congregations that cannot conform to publique settlement such must needs be the first Churches when Christianity had no publique allowance such may be still 2. The most publique Settlement of Christian Religion and wherein he may do it he uses both promiscuously wherein he must divide he considers upon the Ballance of his most humble and impartial judgment which tends most to the glory of God to publick edification as well as his own and so as not to do evil that good may come If he chuses that which is more particular as best according to his Sentiment he is yet careful to do all he does with the greatest vigor of Charity Inoffensiveness and desire of promoting of that publique worship as it contains the Essentials of Christianity If according to the sincere sense of his mind he prefer the publique Appointment either as publique and in that regard overweighing smaller doubts and so taking the best advantages afforded therein as to all the Duties particular Congregations seem most adapted to or that the whole composure of the publique is most agreeable to his Sentiment he considers the more private as being of the same body and cannot be severe to the Retirers thereto knowing every man hath the proper sense of his own mind and what Essentials Christianity consists in and therefore would not forcibly hale any into the publique but remonstrate to them as he sees reason with mild and Christian arguments the disadvantage of separating from it beyond plain necessity 4. In the differences of judgment of publique Societies and private in relation to one another or the differences of private among themselves the true Christian still keeps himself upon that Love Mercy and Peace Christianity teaches him and in the midst of those diversities considers the higher tyes worth and value of those Vnities wherein they all meet 5. If a Christian fall into such places where the Essentials are corrupted he esteems Religious solitude the best Communion yet refuses not to improve any thing of Truth he can extract from such Corruption or if there be any parts of publique worship not so adulterated but to admit a possible separation in the exigence of present service
to God yea if it were but pure true natural worship he would not deny to joyn in it when no better can be had and therein is ready to take any advantage to improve that little to such great purposes as St. Paul did the Altar to the unknown God at Athens Lastly In every one of these Associations He considers some universal and undeniable practices of all Christian Churches that are yet not pertaining to the Essentials of Christian Worship in themselves but either to natural Order and Decency or at least to the decency observed in such parts of the world wherein Christians so meet and most freely complies with them some of which I shall observe ordained as such by the Apostle such as he ordained in all Churches 1. That of every mans walking as God hath call'd him in Circumcision or Vncircumcision Bond or Free and esteem neither state any prejudice upon his Christianity 1 Cor. 7. 17 18. 2. That of women keeping silence in the Churches 1 Cor. 14. 34. 3. That of Prophets speaking one by one and not in Confusion and a Medley of voices IN A KNOWN TONGVE with Interpretation v. 5. These pertain to natural Decency and Order in all the Churches of the Saints of which God is the Author and so are to be observed 1 Cor. 14. 33 40. 2. Decency proper to such Ages of the world or to such Parts of the world So I esteem those Rules of the Apostle concerning men and women Praying cover'd or uncover'd wearing their Hair shorn or unshorn And in such cases the Custom of Churches determines them or the Churches of God have no Custom to be Contentious concerning them 1 Cor. 11. 16. Such Rules of uncontestable Order and Decency as these a Christian Wise and Sober always and most ncessarily acknowledges Ceremonials and Rituals beyond these he suffers to have no Ascendent over him if for other Reasons he uses them as if he used them not Now such a person as this and such a one Christianity teaches every man to be I boldly affirm concerning him he is a Christian he is no Schismatick he is no Boute-Fen in society nor is he as some may mistake him any Ambidexter in Religion no more than the Apostle who became to the Jews to them under the Law to them without Law to the weak such as themselves that he might by all means save some To allow no latitude in these things that are to vere to opportunity of doing good is starchedness and not constancy even in the judgment of a St. Austyn who avowed the greatest Indifferency and freedom from Rites having any power over him And so I have passed through the third Head concerning the Peace Christianity designs viz. Christians imbodying themselves into Societies I come now to a fourth Head shewing how Christianity hath provided for Peace and Quiet within its own Gates and Walls And that is this 4. The Ministerial Presidency our Saviour hath ordained in and for the conduct of Christian Religion is such as plainly demonstrates he did not intend there should be a striving or a cry or a clamorous lifting up the voice in tâ—e Mat. 12. 19 20. Thes 5. 12. Heb. 13. 7. 1 Pet. 5. 1. streets for his Kingdom that the bruised Reed should be broken or the smoaking Flax quench'd for his sake For though this Ministry is frequently styl'd a Being over Christians a Rule over them an Eldership an Eminency and such like ways of speaking as carry Superiority and Submission Obedience Honour and High esteem are required of Christians as of an under Degree to that higher Order in the Church Yet the Designation of the whole Office is wholly for the service of Christ and his Church for the Administration of the word of God to watch for souls that they may Heb. 13. 17. give an account of them with Joy for the good success of having guided them to Salvation the Honour and Esteem is for their works sake it is a labour in the Word and Doctrine it is no Dominion or Lordship over mens Persons or 1 Tim. 5. 17. Estates nor over their Faith or Consciences but as they offer Divine Commands all their Superiority is in the Lord. It is not Grandeur or Imperiousness but Vse Service Ministry and Work that expresseth this Precedency not as having Dominion over your Faith but helpers of your Joy saith the Apostle Paul Not as Lords over Gods Heritage but as ensamples of the Flock saith the Apostle Peter But above all ought that of our Lord and Master the chief Shepherd and Bishop to be remark'd to this purpose Mat. 20. 25. c. Mark 10. 42 c. Luk. 22 25. Having describ'd the great Assumptions of the Princes and Chiefs of this world he expresly warns and declares to his Disciples it is not in the nature of Christian Greatness so to assume But if any one would be accounted Great or Chief among the Disâ—iples of Christianity it must be his Service his plâ—in Service his Ministry that must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so advance him Indeed it were enough to the purpose if our Saviour intended no more than this Let such a man that loves Preeminency under the Profession of Christianity let him be turned down into the lowest Classe among the Disciples of lowest and meanest Account as a just Recompence of his Ambition But it is altogether most probable our Saviour intends a more kind sense to represent the great serviceableness of all those of more Eminent Character in his Kingdom it is their publick Use that recommends them to Grandieur in it For this he exemplifies in himself The Son of man came not to be minisired to to be attended upon and served in state but to minister to give his life a Ransom for many They who witness a good Confession who can be instant in season out of season who can instruct publickly and Act. 20. 19 31. from house to house who are apt to teach who can serve tâ—e Lord in tâ—e salvation of Souls with many Tears and Prayers Day and Night and seal their Ministry with their blood They are the Great ones in the Account of Christianity I speak not this to detract any thing from the Figure Bishops or any in Ecclesiastical Dignities make by the Favâ—ur of Princes who as I have often said may dispose what is their own as they measure themselves from the Donation of mâ—n to their Superiority over men from the favour of Princes and Laws to the Government they place them in over others of their Subjects so they are Great and Honourable and may exercise Authority secular Authority standing indeed upon that Foot though call'd Spiritual and very reasonably and justly so far as I know But this is not the Greatness proper to Christs Kingdom that lies wholly in service in condescension in application to mens Souls As they measure from Christ to Christians this is the true Account of Christian Greatness
And I am sure this in all Justice Humanity and Reason tends to Peace for what can move to it more than a sole design of doing Good in them that are at the top and an evident Assurance to them that are below that that Good is offered to them and continually â—laborated for them what can more quiet and addulce mens Spirits than to see an inâ—ire Contrivance and Composure of all things to their Eterâ—â—l Salvation as the Apostle did all for the Elects sake that they might be saved 2 Tim. 2. 10. Such Ministerial Rulers are therefore the peculiar gift of Ephes 4. 11. Christ and speak the Magnificence of his Ascension They are given for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying the body of Christ all great ends in a Christian computation and as there were then extraordinary qualifications immediately given by Christ so now there ought to be such in the ordinary methods of Divine blessing upon Reading Study Meditation to which they that desire to serve Christ in the Ministry are wholly to give themselves that their profiting may appear to all Church-preferments as we call them and Ecclesiastick Dignities are often otherwise bestowed and serve other ends and yet too very often the Donors design these excellent ends and when they are otherwise intended yet are in many instances over-rul'd by God into great subserviency to these ends by the excellent Abilities and Labours of Holy and Learned Ministers of Christianity But be those things as they are under human Dispose as they fall out the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his Great ones even his true Ministers And let him that calleth himself by great names in Christs Kingdom see that he make them good by his Service and Ministry Not by serving tables I understand any meaner service than feeding the sheep of Christ A prudent Governour for Church-Orders Rites and Ceremonies a great Improver of Church-Revenues however good they may be in their kind will not rise high enough nor answer the account Not a cunning Disputer a witty Haranguer but a Workman that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth is Christs Minister 5. In appendage to this Head follows the Fifth account of the Peaceable Intendment of Christianity to the world and that is The Method of Chastising Correcting and Reforming the known transgressions against the Laws of Christ and they so far as they are stated to the use of after-ages are according to the nature of the offence Admonitions Warnings Reproofs Rebukes Avoiding Rejecting from Communion esteeming as Heathens and Publicans casting out of the Church consignation over to Divine Judgment All these of a spiritual nature fitted to edification and not to destruction 2 Cor. 13. 10. to touch the Conscience to affect the Mind to work self reflection shame self-condemnation repentance and amendment or else Divine Judgment must be awaited It is the Rational as well as Christian Expedient of purging a Society from the scandal of offendors from Infection and Contagion of keeping it pure and honourable viz. to disavow them when gentler means are ineffectual It is a most natural Instrument for Reformation and Amendment and if it do not work so when upon just causes and by an unerring key is not only an appeal to Divine Judgment but a Predamnation I know it is debated by Learned men Whether the Apostolick 1 Cor. 4. 2 1. Rod and delivery to Satan did not operate by corporeal infliction as in Ananias and Sapphira and possibly in the Incestuous person in a lower degree I will however allow It did or might yet sith it was extraordinary it was immediately from heaven much more convictive of conscience than human processes wherein are often found much of mistake and injustice It was without noise or violence nor did it allow recrimination and complaint and therefore much more fit to go along with so spiritual Doctrine than Worldly Judicature and possibly necessary for primitive times to give authority to the Doctrine of Christ newly set out in the world So that still here 's none of that barbarous hurting or destroying in all Gods Holy Mountain and most probably the infliction fell upon those that were guilty of great offences against Natural Religion Acts 5. 1. Acts 13. 11. 1 Cor. 5. 5. 2 Cor. 12. 21. Chap. 13. 2. 1 Tim. 1. 20. as Ananias's falshood of the deepest dye Elymas his Sorcery the Incestuous Corinthian those that had not repented of their Fornication Lasciviousness and Vncleanness Hymeneus and Alexander who had put away a good conscience and then broke out into Blasphemy 6. The peacefulness of Christianity is most evidently seen in its deportment of it self towards Magistracy of which having spoken much in that which concerned Natural Religion taken into union with Christian I shall only present these following short mentions of particulars wherein Christianity manifestly designs Universal Peace under this Head 1. It every where confirms and assures the Divine ordination of it 2. It states its Power in inforcing all Natural Religion and Goodness In restraining all that is impious and evil 3. It craves nothing of it but to have Justice done it according to those sanctions nor prophecies any thing in the greatest outward happiness of Christianity but that Princes and Nations shall be sprinkled by it and Supreme Princes Isa 52. 15. become its Nursing-fathers 4. It enjoins upon all its servants and professors upon unjust sufferings to return nothing of violence but blessings and prayers for injuries and with patience to resign life it self 5. It interposes not in deciding the bounds between Princes and people but leaves that to Laws of Nature and particular Laws of Nations Compacts between one and the other neither straitning nor enlarging Prerogative neither swelling nor abating Power nor on the peoples side curtailing or stretching Liberty It leaves these things to be disputed in their own Forum to be debated in their own proper Senate For its own sake it moves no Land-marks either way It tears up no sences As it therefore is horrible injury ro Christianity to proclaim as some speak King Jesus to the disturbing Earthly Kingdoms when his Kingdom is not of this world So is it a huge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a grand extreme on the other side and inconsequence to argue from the Commands of Christians sufferings when Human Laws and Regular State-Constitutions adjudged them to such how unjustly soever then indeed no resistance is to be made for the sake of Christian Religion But it is vastly inconsequent to infer hence any man is bound by the Law of Christianity tamely to resign those Rights even those Religious Rights that are establish'd to him by the Fundamental Laws and Statutes of a Nation wherein the whole Power of Kingdoms and States Princes and People have concurr'd For Christian Religion as Christian Religion undermines no Laws whether for Princes
Wisdom and Goodness yet it is spoken to us in the plainest Language as if God carryed it as Princes do in their magnificence whose Glory is in their great Courts in the multitude of their Attendants and People Spectators Admirers and Tributaries to their luster 2. I argue to the publickness of Religion from the good it does to the souls of men It is from hence the greatest wisdom to win souls and they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars Now the offer of true Religion to them that had it not before the perswasion of it upon those that have not yet obeyed it tends to their Conversion Repentance to their love and fear of God They therefore that have the true sense of these things in their own souls use all means out of love to the Glory of God and to the souls of men to propagate them to others which is best done by all publick acts of Religion This is the original Law from the very beginning it was so Enoch the seventh from Adam prophecyed publickly The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness This was the great zeal of Christians in the first times Further It strengthens confirms and inflames Religion among those that are the joynt Professors Publick Religion is the great glory and security of Religion it self mutually warming and assisting it self in all its several parts and the Professors of it As Iron sharpens Iron so is the countenance of a man to his Friend herein How much more lively is Religion probable to be in a Religious than an Atheistick and Barbarous Country nor does God afford those divine heats to those that withdraw from Assemblies in Religion except in cases of necessity however he may supply in extraordinary exigences without which Wo to him that is alone in Religion if he fall he has not any to help him up and how can one be warm alone If one prevails against him he wants a Second to withstand together with him and the benefit of the threefold cord that is not easily broken Every thing in nature endeavours towards Community or universal Unity as its own strength and security Even the Devils retain so much of first Nature as to knit in a community and false Christianity imitates the true in a pretence to Vniversality though a most destructive one like that of the God of this World who aspires to Universal Monarchy but it is in sin and death But this does not disparage True Religion moving to an Universality of Truth Peace and Life for evermore 3. The blessing and acceptance that Religion receives from the Divine Majesty is much greater for the publickness of it even in this sence Two are better than one for they have a good reward for their labour In thss sence their complicated services are more forcible their threefold Cord is not easily broken Not that God is prevailed upon to any change in himself or his Government by the services of his Creatures though in a multitude but he is pleased to found the occasions and opportunities of his own most bountiful Recompences in the drawing near of their greater numbers For as when God was pleased to communicate himself more freely he did it to a multitude of Creatures so he delights in receiving back the glory of having thus communicated himself from a multitude also and as there is more of himself in more of his Creatures whether of several sorts or of the same so there is more of his blessing in their approaches to him He that does not only weigh the Mountains in scales but comprehends the dust of the earth in a measure takes notice of those prayers and desires of the poor of the people that make the crowd and throng in his worship and service He accepts the pair of Turtle Doves the two Mites when it is the All and is ready to reward it This was the policy of Nineveh's Natural Religion to unite their Force in Humiliation Fasting and Prayer and to take advantage of joyning the mute desires of the Beasts that have a voice in the ears of God Abraham's Servant made the Camels kneel down while he prayed to God Thus in Thanksgivings It was David's art to gather up all the praises even of the lowest of the Creatures that could so meanly give them and inspiring them with his own reason made them as it were to follow his Harp and unite in his own Hallelujahs Thus he served himself of them that making by them a greater present of glory to God he might receive the greater blessing from him The Apostle speaks of the good effect of Christian Charity in causing an abundance of thanksgivings to God David saying The congregation of the people would compass God about adds this prayer therefore for their sakes return thou on high Now all these expressions reporting to us a great force in the publickness of Religious Duties we know it is only from the agreeableness of this publickness with the Divine Will and Nature and his holy Ordination who loves his Saints and knows their approach to him is an approach to their life and happiness And because he loves all his Saints and Creatures the more of them in conjunction draw near to him the more of his tender mercies have the occasion to spread themselves for else all the Nations are to God but as the drop of the Bucket and the dust of the Ballance all their services are not sufficient to him for a sacrifice to burn before him He humbles himself to behold the things that are in Heaven as well as those on Earth He with great delight yet looks to one that is of a broken and contrite spirit and that trembles at his word As one day and a thousand years are both alike to the Infinity of God so are a thousand persons and but one as it is all one to him to save with many or few so it is to be intreated by them in prayer or accept their praise but according to the wisdom and holiness of the Divine Manifestation in his Love and Bounty so he is pleased to see his Servants draw near to him in an union of Love among themselves and every one having a claim to his favour who is all Goodness the united claim is stronger He hears even the Ravens that cry for they are his Creatures if any man therefore could intwist their cry with his own in a general scarcity he makes his own so much the stronger He then that joyns the prayers and desires of many with his own doubles still the strength as is manifest by the Apostles so often and earnestly desiring the help of prayers And this may answer what may seem to be an objection against good men joyning with publick and promiscuous Assemblies wherein are so many ignorant and bad men that by their sins ignorance and folly rather obstruct the effect and acceptance of good men joyning with them so that
of them that diligently seek him that Godliness hath the promises of this life and of that which is to come And this must be first because as Righteousness and Duty are before sin so Blessing and Favour are before Wrath and Displeasure Yet Wrath is a more certain Demonstration of absolute Duty violated than Favour is of absolute Duty observ'd because the Favour of God is more at liberty than his Wrath which always depends on strict Justice All which amounts to the full proof of the great Duty of National Religion from this prayer seeing National Irreligion is so near the Curse of Divine Fury and Revenge Having thus far considered National Religion as it is founded Argum. 2 in the very Laws of Nature and inviolable duty to God I come secondly to consider the Wisdom and unquestionable Rationality of the Divine Ordination among the Jews when by a Prerogative of Power and Goodness God would secure the True Religion after the Nations had so corrupted themselves and that he had now begun as the Apostle speaks to suffer them to walk after their own ways He founds his Worship as it were anew first in Abrahams Family and from thence commences it into a National State even as he did the Family wherein he had plac'd it and that for the very sake of his True Worship which Family and Nation had indeed many peculiars in its Religious Constitution such as are not to be found in any other as I shall after account for them yet in the general it is an Evidence of the Fitness and Agreeableness of that Model of Humane Society to the Ends of Religion and the Acceptableness to God it should be so devoted But because we may think this chusing of Abrahams Family and the Nation rising from it was an Interdict upon any other Family or Nation to institute a publique National Religion any other ways than as they Proselyted themselves to that one Nation and Family It is very observable there are elsewhere the footsteps of National and Family Religion though more rare in that very time as in Melchisedeck who was King of Salem of Peace and Righteousness and Priest of the most High God so incorporating Religion with his Government the same is to be found in Job and his Friends so that the Erecting a National Religion among the Jews did not supersede the obligation of any of the Nations to the National Worship of God though in Judgment past our finding out He so overlook'd them as to leave them to themselves for he never left himself without witness He ought to be so worshipped by giving them fruitful times and seasons and filling their hearts with food and gladness He was never far from them in that he gave them life and breath and all things and in him they lived moved and had their Beings so that they wâ—re without excuse when at any time his wrath was reveal'd from Heaven against them for not glorifying him as God and being thankful Belshazzar and his Nation were obnoxious to God for not Glorifying that God in whose hands was his life and breath and all his ways Besides those of the Nations that were near the Jews were allowed to unite themselves to the Jewish National Religion when the Laws of Nature were grown so dark and obsolete among themselves and though they were the sons of strangers yet God assur'd them a place in his sanctuary but because there was not provision enough for the multitude of the Nations within the Bounds of that Religion it was certainly at all times lawful and pleasing to God that they should have Nationally dedicated themselves to the true Jekovah though eminently known then to be the God of Israel and that they did not so gave reason always to his Wrath against them whenever he pleased to execute it But I hasten to the third Argument of nearer concernment to us The third Argument I derive from the Favour of Christian Religion Argum. 3 to National Religion of which I shall lay down several proofs 1. Christianity repeals none of the Laws of God that are founded in the very Nature of Things if therefore National Religion be according to the Rules of Essential Duty towards God if it be the Reasonable service of Nation It is certain Christianity does not remove it but restores and exalts it to the greatest perfection Christ came not to dissolve any of those Laws but to fulfil them that is to restore the Doctrine to its just Integrity where it was falsly gloss'd upon and if any thing was wanting in the former Revelation of it to superadd what might render it most complete 2. Of the same Nature is the second proof That if God not only for the sake of type and shadow which was useful for that State of the Church but for the sake of the real Goodness and Usefulness of the Thing it self pitch'd upon the National Form of Religion by his immediate Revelation to Abraham and Moses as I have already argued it cannot be suppos'd to be revers'd by Christ It remains therefore among those things that are written for our Admonition and Learning on whom the Ends of the world are come 3. Christianity vouches it self a Religion of the most publique spirit and intention and came into the world by the High Conduct of God to open all passages for Truth and Divine Knowledge among men as innumerable places in the Old and New Testament assure us so that the Gospel most evidently designs it self to be free and publique as the Heaven as the lights of it and the words of the Psalmist may well be apply'd to it The line of it is gone throughout all the Earth and its words to the ends of the world so far therefore as Naturalness and Publiqueness agree so far the thing is undeniable 4. Many expressions of the Prophets that went before of our Saviour and his Apostles that folâ—owed after have a particular Favour for National Religion To name some of a multitude Christ shall sprinkle many Nations He is the Desire of all Nations Go make Disciples of all Nations All the Kingdoms of the World shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ The Apostle magnifies himself as the Apostle of the Nations He compares himself with the Holy Priesthood while by Preaching the Gospel he was negotiating in the offering up the Nations a sacrifice consecrated and sanctified by the Holy Ghost the greatest sacrifice that was ever offer'd to God except that of the Son of God offering himself And this is the only instance of the Ministry of the New Testament resembled with the Priesthood of the Law or cloath'd with that Denomination of Priestliness use hath appropriated to it and that to no other office but of Preaching to Conversion Rom. 15. 16. But because I know the proofs from these Scriptures are lyable to be retrench'd by expounding them of the Diffusion of Christianity into the Catholick Church throughout the World and
then calling out of every Nation Converts into particular Societies and Congregations I shall make an Essay to level the line of them to Nations and Kingdoms as they are united into such Conspicuous and Illustrious Bodies of Mankind with their Principalities so form'd so compacted and not only a Diffus'd Catholick Church or small and invisible Congregational Churches 1. The Kingdom of Christ can no way attain that Greatness which it is prophecyed and foretold it shall attain if it does not allow Nations as Nations to associate themselves in the profession of it if it only gives Right to private and particular Churches or Congregations and a Diffusive Church that can no way congregate which though great in its Spiritual Union yet arises to no visible Greatness but as it moving into all parts of the world congregates it self according to any of the Laws or Advantages of Humane Society it falls into and finds prepared for it The Messiah then can never as is prophecyed of him have his portion divided him with the great nor divide the spoyl with the strong but must rest in a very low and under-condition of small private and particular Assemblies of his servants professing him but a National Christian Religion a Religion as Famous as the name of the most populous Cities and the greatest Princes and their Territories in honour to the Lords anointed must not be allowed no not according to his own Designation For though the Eminency of the Doctrine and the Appearance of God with it does infinitely surmount all created Greatness yet many places of Scripture compare the Honour and Glory of Christ as a Prince over Nations with other Soveraignties and prefer his not only in regard of the Heavenliness and Eternity of it but as it obtains an Interest and Command in the world For it is a Government over Nations as Nations over the Laws and Principalities of Nations and not of one only but many Nations not indeed in the way of Worldly power but Divine perswasion Evidences of Truth and Reason Vertue of Holiness and Goodness are the Scepter of this Kingdom the weapons of this Power and this Mountain shall grow greater and greater till all the Prophecies are exactly fulfill'd in the Soveraignty of Christ and the lowest subjection of all Kingdoms to him the greatest Mountains disappearing and becoming nothing before him when the fulness of the Jews and Nations are come into him Thus it is a Mountain set upon the top of the Mountains not only in the Eminency of its Doctrine but the professed subjection of the Governments of the world that are in Scripture call'd Mountains to it for his Truth Meekness and Righteousness sake But if Nations receiving and flowing into Christianity sink it presently into particular private Assemblies as it was while under persecution and that it should be of no more publique Honour than at such times the Mountain of the Lords house should not be above the Hills but shaded by them and that according to the very Constitution of Christianity it self for the Supremacies stand aloft but the profession of Christ retires into privacies yea the worship of the True God Creator of Heaven and Earth which after the appearance of the Son of God in the world is only in Christ must be so far from being exalted as is everywhere signified that it must be abated and brought low by the Depression and falling down of the Mosaick Frame for then it was setled upon one of the Principalities of the world and though it be now more diffus'd yet if it not only be not but ought upon its own principles to be Established in and upon the publick profession of a Nation It has not nor can have such an Eminency as among the Jews when it had the Awfulness and Majestickness of a Kingdom devoted to that true Worship making it thereby of much greater notice in the World And if Religion may be National even as Nations themselves are united in a way of order so must National Religion also be by order compos'd into its Nationalness and this by the Rules of Scripture and Right Reason But let this be no pretence to that Tyranny in Christian Religion that great Usurpation of Popery for it is a Sacrilegious Displacing the Honour from Christ upon oftentimes a most unworthy Mortal those Princes then that are Minores Coronae that lessen themselves by giving their Kingdom and power to the Beast must needs diminish the Honour of their profession of Christianity seeing they have so far stripp'd themselves of their Principalities that they have them not to dedicate to Christ The retaining their Honour unvouch'd unviolate by any creature and presenting to the Honour of Christianity a Supremacy unprostitute is the true Glory done by Christian Princes to Christianity 2. If there were not the Liberty allowed to Nations to espouse Christianity to their Government and to receive the Honour to themselves of being Religious and Christian as Nations the Condition of Nations were worse than that of the Jews under the Law For now People as in the Body of a Nation may not be so happy as to have the Lord for their God They may not crown themselves with the chief Glory of Nations viz. True Religion Moses we know often magnifies the State of the Jews to themselves in this particular viz. the Excellency of their Religion He uses it as a great Argument that God loved the Nation He told them it was their Wisdom and Honour before the rest of the Nations round about them who had reason to defer to them that they were a great and a wise Nation an understanding people that had such Deut. 4. 8 c. Statutes and Judgments Now seeing Christian Religion hath the undoubted Evidences of Wisdom Truth and Goodness not only so superior to all the Religions in the world as to be the only true Religion but much superior to that under Administration of the True Religion it self among the Jews It must needs be the happiness of Nations to enfranchise it as the publick National Religion by the same Authority whereby they make valid any other Law or Act so as to become the act of the Publick And we have reason to believe those many expressions of Ephes Eph. 2. 14. c. 3. 6. 2. 14. c. 3. 6. Breaking down the Partition Wall and admitting all Nations to be the People of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body together are intended not only to signifie that they may unite in lesser Congregations but in the fullness of National Associations else they are not received into the same freedoms and immunities that the Jews had nor could Aegypt and Assyria be so equal with Israel that Israel should be but a third with them whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless all alike with no more variation than Aegypt my People Assyria the work of my Hands and Israel my Inheritance Isa 19. We may find Christianity intended to embrace all
Inducements fâ—om Scripture there is the same urgency of Reason for the Day of Judgment passing upon men as in Nations and lesser Communities as upon their single persons for else their actions can never be judged the very complyance with the custom of Nations with the sway of such an Age and time being the reason of many sins and the sinful ways of men are so locked into one another that the Day of Judgment that gives sentence upon all things most righteously comprehends them together even as the Fallen Angels the old World were judged together and in common In Sodom and Gomorrah was given a pre-appeatance of the final Jude 7th Judgment upon the world for the Apostle tellâ— us they were set forth for an ensample and that they suffered the Vengeance of Eternal Fire and we know they suffered in their Community Corah Dathan and Abiram with all their company were involved as in the sin so in the punishment and there is no separation except where Repentance and that with great difficulty hath made it So on the happy side of things Religious Nations and Communities encourage and assist one another in acts of Love Service and Duty to God in Virtue and all Goodness and infold their piety mutually so that on neither side the recompences of Mercy or Justice can be proportioned but as in Community 2. There is the same Reason for the last Judgment passing upon Nations as Nations as for its passing upon private persons as private persons For let any one survey History and he shall find Nations as Nations have escaped the vengeance of God in this world as much as single Persons and the same sort of Revolutions Changes and final Periods have befallen Nations professing God and Christ as those that have been enemies to such Profession as is most apparent in a compare of the Jews or Christian Nations Yea generally those that have been called by the Name of God and Christ have been most speedily punished as those that God hath most especially known of all the Nations of the Earth The Prophet Habâ—kkuk's First Chapter is spent upon this very Subject of that wicked Nation of the Chaldaeans so prosperous above the Jews described in many elegant similitudes and vehemently expostulated from the twelfth verse to the end Whoever shall consider the ancient Romans or the Papacy or the Turkish Empire since the rising of it must needs conclude that to judge Nations as Natiâ—â—â— at last appertains as much to the Paramount Soveraignty oâ—â—â—vine Justice and more than single Persons Nations that have been so great and formidable and Princes swelling with the height of Pride and contempt of God and Religion should in all reason stand in those very Appearances at his Tribunal with their wise Senates mighty Captains Armies and Multitude about them and so be Sentenced and Condemned by the Righteous Judge of all the World the only Potentate the King of Kings Lord of Lords and Prince of Princes even Christ the Son of God in humane Natue else they would not be judged at all as Nations For here neither Love nor Hatred can be known any more to Nations than to single Persons by any thing that is before us There is often one event to all to the Righteous and Merciful and to the Vnjust and Tyrannick Nations to the Good and to the unclean People to them that sacrifice to the True God and to them that sacrifice to Idols There are as many Instances of the severity of God against private particular wicked persons as against such Princes Nations or particular Ages and of his patience and forbearance to the one as to the other There are as great examples of the mercy and favour of God to private particular good men as to pious Nations and Governments and of his severe corrections upon the one as the other The piety therefore and the wickedness of Nations according to their particular Generations equally waits for the last Day even as of single Persons For though there are Periods Judgment sets to it self and when sin is come to its height Judgment stays no longer yet this without a future Judgment will not give satisfaction for the Ages of Prosperity and Greatness the many signal Victories the stupendious Grandeur many very bad Nations and their Princes have arrived at and continued in before the final Calamity hath overtaken them any more than dying at last with great circumstances of pain and horror answers for the worldly prosperity of many a wicked man if after Death there were no Judgment So that especially as to particular Generations there is the same Reason for the Judgment of Nations as of particular Persons 3. If all things were not to be as publickly transacted at the Day of Judgment and to be set upon as open and universal a Theatre as they were acted upon here and that before the Congregation of Heaven and Earth at that day there were not so great reason for an Vniversal Judgment The Privatâ—â—udgment of Souls might suffice Nor could there be any reason 〈◊〉 â—cripture should lay so great weight upon the Resurrection and 〈◊〉 in the very same Bodies at least as to the principal parts and so as that men should be known to be the same persons Why thus If men were not to be presented in the same Circumstances Relations Communities and the most notorious Appearances wherein they conversed and whereby they were most known in the world Let this then be granted and it will rise up to States Governors Senates Princes their Laws and Transactions with the temper of their Times And indeed this setting Persons their places of Habitation their Nation their Times together must needs break out with the greatest lustre of Justice and the Supremacy of Divine Judgment when every thing shall be called to account and represented over again just as it was in this world Things high and low publick and private national and personal but without this all would be dark private obscure and imperfect notwithstanding the gathering all together to that Tribunal For very momentous Causes Circumstances Aggravations or Extenuations of Good or Evil could not be understood The Pride of Sin and Wickedness would not be sufficiently humbled and abased nor despised goodness enough raised and honoured and so would amount to little more than a private Judgment as I said before but Scripture every where instructs us it is the very design of the Day of Judgment to shew and present the whole Scene of things and to seâ— the ballance of them even in all particulars It is the Day not only of the righteous Judgment of God but of the manifestation of it every thing is then composed to shew and Manifestation it is the appearance of Christ whom God will then show in the highest glory of the humane Nature and so that his low despised humbled and crucifyed State shall also be seen and the glory triumph over it to the utter confusion and wailing of
all that pierced him whose very own eyes shall see him as so pierced by them It is the appearance of men in their Bodies of Nations in their National Capacities of all men and things in their Restitution For it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Regeneration Mat. 19. 28. to their former state that Religâ—on and Piety may receive its recompences of Glory that Irreligion and Wickedness may have its just rewards of Shame and Punishment and that in the very circumstances wherein each were seen and known and shall then be remembred to â—ave stood here in the world though for the generality very different from the esteem and disesteem they then found Lastly This Representation of the day of Judgment is the most lively feeling and sensible Engagement to speedy Repentance and Reformation that our sins may be blotted out when the times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Re-enlivening all things shall come from the presence of the Lord Who would not take greatest care that when they are Acts 3 19. sought for they may not be found Who would not desire and so use the most effectual means to appear in Glory and not under shame and contempt This is also among the strongest Arguments upon the most honourable Personages and Governors of a Nation yea upon all that love the honour of their Nation and desire the glory of it with the true publick Spirit to mind the promotion of sincere Religion Piety and Goodness in themselves together with the State of the People Times and Governments to which they belong since if they desire their Nations Renown in this world and that their management in it may be transmitted fair in Chronicle that they may live High in Story how much more must they if at all serious desire to mâ—ke an Honourable Figure in that most Illustrious Representation of the last Judgment and the Eternal Records of All Things They and their Countrey together according to the station and Relation wherein they have stood to it and the love they have born to it And certainly every good man desires by an immutable Instinct by a Law of Goodness within himself to be good in a Community and to be saved in their Salvation which he earnestly aspires to in and with his own and his own in and with that Yea though he be so low or mean in his Fortunes Abilities or Discourse as not to be in any Advantages for propagating True Religion yâ—â— he hath an inward force to it and as every good man rises in his Stature and Condition and influence in the Nation to which he belongs so in his service to the publick Religion but especially every eminent great truly Religious Person of a publick Character and a Lover of his Nation hath a most vehement and ardent desire not only of his own Salvation but of the Salvation of his Nation of as many and great numbers of as universal a Body of it as may be Moses was so high in this that he desired to be blotted out of Gods Book of Exod. 32. 32. Favour that he rather than his Nation should and the Apostle Paul for Israel his National Kindred wished to be Anathema from Christ The scruples of either of which I will not dispute being satisfied Rom. 9 3. they express a high and mighty zeal for the National Salvation and which in a degree is to be imitated by the best men Therefore such Persons as Moses Paul and other of the Worthies of Nations and People that have been successful in bringing many to Righteousness and Happiness shall have as our Saviour speaks Rule over Cities proportionable to their service they shall for ever be exalted as Princes over their People in Eternal Glory even as the Apostles shall sit upon Thrones judging that is shall be Rulers and Governors over the twelve Tribes of Israel Those that have not been successful as Noah Lot Esay c. that have yet had the Zeal the publick Spirit that was commensurable to the Piety Religion and Salvation of their whole Community shall not though Israel be not gathered yet spend their strength for nought their judgment is with the Lord and their work with their God They shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord they shall Isa 49. 3 4 be a sweet savour to God of true Holiness and Piety in them that perish even as in them that are saved The glory and happiness shall accumulate upon themselves though it redound not on the Nation God makes them of themselves as it were a great Nation in the blessedness of Eternity as he promised Moses if he would have been contented with the destruction of that present Nation of Israel They are reckoned as a Nation by themselves and not of that Community that perishes For as the Apostle says The Lord knows how to deliver the Righteous out of Temptation and so out of the Infamy of a common corruption and especially that everlasting contempt and reserve the wicked to swallow it wholly in themselves Their Reproach their Lord will return upon them for ever it being turned off from himself and his Servants But though there is an infinite wisdom in the Divine Judgment in rescuing thus his own Glory and the Glory of his Servants that have been unsuccessful in turning men to righteousness while they have been faithful with all their Talents and in all their House yet the salvation of Men and Nations is the plain and manifest glory of God and of his most Eminent Servants Those that are their Converts are their Hope now and their Joy their Rejoycing their Crown of 1 Thes 2. 19 20. Rejoycing in the presence of Jesus Christ at his coming in that day only thus Men of eminency in holiness are secur'd against loss if they save only their own souls while they endeavour the good of many that they may be saved they are Crowned with those whom God hath given them as Children by being inâ—truments of their Conversion On the other side they are assur'd of their reward with God in them that perish But further Every man that is good in a Nation though his Interest be private may like the one poor wise man have done all he can to save a City and therefore shall not be forgotten here If he be a holy good man he will not be lost by being alone nor overseen by being low in the world though he be but one of a Family or even of a City yet God will bring him to Zion the City of the living God Every one shall with Daniel stand in his own lot proportionable to what it was here it shall be in that future state God will seek his Sheep out of all places whither they have been driven in the dark and cloudy day though but the poor of the flock and they shall stand at his right hand at that great Division of the Sheep from the Goats To conclude this Particular The honour of Nations
of Christian Religion This being premised I come more particularly to give answer 1. Many of these things that are named as found in the Church of the Jews as a National Church were not yet the Essentials of a Church as National in general but of that particular National Church and typical of things under the Gospel as is plain in the exposition of them in the New Testament and more particularly that excellent Epistle to the Hebrews the Temple the High Priest the Holy of Holies the Altar the Sacrifices the solemn Feasts with such like serv'd only as shadows of things to come and the want of them argues nothing against National Religion 2. Those things that were not Typical or whose main and sole intention was not to adorn and compleat that whole Frame but rested upon Universal Principles of Reason Truth and Duty can never be abrogated but are for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have National hope in God and be obliged in our duty even as they were Thus the duty of Magistrates and people towards true Religion of publick instruction of publick Ministers of Religion of care for places of meeting for Divine Worship throughout a Nation continue still and need no new commands in the Gospel 3. As to the first planting of Churches by drawing Christians into particular private Societies it amounts but to thus much that Christ the Lord of tâ—e Church did not found his Church universal as necessarily diffusing it self into Nations nor could it in reason be so For seeing it was in Divine Providence for great and weighty Reasons of which it is not proper now to speak intended and ordered that hundreds of years should pass over Christianity ere it had the favour and protection of Supreme Christian Magistrates there must have been for that space no Religion or Church if there had been no other Form but National The Church of Christ therefore though it was in those days within Nations Cities Towns and Villages yet of low stature in comparison of National Religion till the Reign of Christian Emperors considerable indeed in it self and its diffusion through so much of the world but not acknowledged by Laws or Governments till long after its first entrance And at all times upon the change of a Christian Magistracy into a Pagan an Apostate an Heretical or Idolatrous Succession or the complex of all Antichristianism which early invaded the Church and even covered and obscured it in succession of time the Church of necessity must fall back into such a low state and subsist upon its obedience to the Law of Christ and its own prudential accommodations to the state of Times without the Magistrates care and protection Our Saviour therefore took care of the Catholick Church which is of absolute Divine Institution which is founded in that promise The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it To which belong primarily all the great and glorious expressions of Scripture to which are given originally Pastors and Teachers to propagate promote build up and strengthen it and shall by virtue of Christs ascension far above all heavens be certainly continued to it till we all come to the unity of the Faith of the Son of God to a perfect man to the full measure and stature of Christ in all his members All other Societies of Christians are but little images and representations of this in these its excellencies and the more they participate of it the more truly are they the Churches of Christ But because this is too diffus'd for one Model for one Frame to comprehend there is therefore allowance given by Christ for lesser Associations of this Catholick Church from the nature of the thing and because of the discountenance of Nations and worldly powers at first and since upon true Christianity Our Saviour therefore Matth. 15. 18 c. expresly fixes the promise of his Divine Presence in the smallest parts of this Church where but two or three are gathered together in his Name he hath assured he will be in the midst of them so that it is hence evident the whole neighbouring discourse centers in the least Assemblies agreeing in Christian Religion For though it supposes first a greater number the Church and two or three Witnesses being contradistinguished yet as it were in prospect of the great fewness upon some exigencies of Christians practising the duties of Christianity together it brings down the promises of Audience in their appeals to heaven and presence with their whole worship and services to the smallest numbers not by way of limitation to but encouragement of so small a number And it is very observable the very same declaration of Christ to the Apostles whose soever sins you remit or bind by the true Doctrine of the Gospel shall stand good in heaven the very same is said here to the smallest Societies of Christians as to their Judgment and determination upon their own members according to the Laws of Christ concerning the offences that fall out among themselves having the same Doctrine to proceed he committed to them even as to the Apostles themselves Churches are Pillars and Rocks of Truth even as the most Excellent Ministers and either or all being no more but Praecones each in their kind or Publishers of the Will of Christ and his Truth declar'd in his Word in the vertue of their being parts of the Catholick Church Now the Reason why our Saviour pitches upon so small a number of Christians agreeing is certainly this because he would appoint no other form to his Church than such as could live as could subsist under any Civil Government whatever whether friendly or unfriendly to it He gave it no other shape but what it might attain and keep under any state of Civil Laws under any enmity it met with in the world And this was most necessary because the Church of Christ was not confin'd to one Nation as the Jewish was whom God in a peculiar manner singled out and manag'd to the state of a Kingdom and Nation by a mighty power and out-stretched arm and conserv'd by the same ruling it with an immediate sensible presence after he had form'd it by precise Laws and setled the just bounds of all Officers in their Office and appointed them the place of the exercise of it whereas the Christian Doctrine being indifferent to every Nation under Heaven it did as it made its progress convert certain numbers to it self at first which had no priviledg of humane Laws or Powers but the edg of all turn'd against it so that the Form of Churches was composed to all the vicissitudes of Providence they were to undergo and that in all reason must be in case of necessity the very least of Societies of Christians Two or Two or Three as our Saviour significantly points upon small Societies for such are most fitted to the worst of conditions that could befall lesser and single bodies moving every way
which are marks of Segregation from false Churches or Members of the True Church falsly so called Here is the Catholick Church in a Nation according to the Institution and here is the Holy Nation according to both the Law of Nature and the Institution So again Where a Nation brings home Religion into the most particular National Districts or Divisions as near as may be according to the Institution of Christ for particular Churches Here is a Nation of Churches which in regard they all consent in one National Vnion are without any impropriety stiled A National Church and every such Society is both a Holy Society according to the Law of Nature devoted to God and a Church-Society according to the Institution directing and perfecting that Law of Nature Now the Institution of particular Churches by Christ I understand to be that where he says If Two or three agree and are gather'd or enchurch'd in my Name I will be in the midst of them Wherein he does not only encourage the smallest number in case of Exigency or Necessity but couches some Rules whereby much greater numbers whether of Christians in Separation from Civil Societies or united according to them are to be formed As first in all excepting the Universality that is Essential to the Catholick Church which is The Church of the nature of which each particular must therefore partake that it may be a Church 2. In a number proportionable to Edification in all the Duties and Ordinances of Christian Religion 3. In the Humility Modesty and unaspiringness of Christianity For he that instituted his Churches in such small numbers and those not forced but agreeing projected nothing by that Institution for Domination or Grandieur 4. In the simplicity and plainness Christian Religion professes For Churches instituted in such a paucity of Members were never design'd to be Courts of Forensick business nor capable of Subordinating themselves so as that their Members should be Fatigu'd with long and tedious Suits and Appeals removed from one part to another worse than going to Law before unbelievers as the Romish Tyranny hath contriv'd Whereas our Saviours methods for Complaint and Admonition in case of Scandal for Reconciliation in case of Repentance or severer Discipline in case of obstinacy are natural easie and speedy as is plain to any observer 5. Christian Churches allowed in Two or Three shews the care of Christ that there should be a proportion betwixt the strength and gifts of his ordinary Ministers since the Cessation of the Apostolick measures and their charge and trust For our Lord would not by his Institution give any Reason to Moses his complaint I am not able to bear this great people Thus was our Saviours Institution of particular Churches and though it does not lay any absolute Interdict upon the Truly prudential though Additional Constitutions either of Nations or other Humane Societies proceeding according to the general maxims upon which Societies strengthen themselves yet with this Caution that what is so done may not enact any thing by which the main and great Ends of this Institution shou'd be defeated However that the Institution should never be pleaded but stand free from the Errors men fall too often into in pursuit of the Maxims forenamed whereby they would aggrandize Society in Religious Things or make it comport with Civil State But that his Institution should be a standing Rule first to avoid them after to discover and reform them or if they grew extâ—eme and not to be reduced as in Popery to warrant a witâ—drawing from them But to apply all this to our purpose If the main Ends of the Catholick and particular Churches Instituted by our Lord and Saviour are obtain'd There is no Encounter but a most happy Agreement between the Natural Law of National Religion and the Institution of Churches which as I before asserted are not to be drawn into a Desert or Wilderness or shut up in Cells and Cloysters or confin'd to one point of the World as the Donatists would have had the True Church but are to be fix'd in the midst of the Universe of Nations and Cities as the very places of the Candlesticks or Churches from which in just indignation to those places when unworthy of them they are remov'd in the midst of the Business Trade and Conversation of the World as is apparent by the Churches we read of in the Scriptures Let then True Religion as Christianity contended and will at last in much higher Degrees overcome be as wide as the Universe Let the Kingdoms of the World become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ and the Vniversal Church will be as wide Bring it into particular Societies and particular Churches will be as many as numerous as they A Church-State is indeed a State of Separation the Church-Catholick is a Separation from the Universe because there are Fallen Angels unholy and unhappy because there is a multitude of mankind in the same State But this is only for the sake of True Religion and the Happiness consequent upon it that there is such a Separation and this the very Law of Nature agrees in Thus particular Churches whenever they are a Separation from particular Societies It is for the sake of True Religion and its due Administration Restore that and the Law of Nature and the Institution become both one Then a Nation and a National Church coalesce into one then Civil Societies in particular and particular Churches grow into one and God is pleas'd to dwell in them and with greater delight because all his Institutions Natural and Reveal'd unite in one I have only one Caution to add That the state of Things hither to in the world is far from perfection that whethersoever we look we can't find it so that to be removing from one thing to another in hope of it is perpetually to give our selves to change except Things are no way tollerable but the very Substance Rules and Principles are corrupted and that there are no Arts of Retirement and withdrawing from them left we should consider how the pious Jews and Israelites how our Saviour and the Apostles how the undefiled names in Sardis mannag'd themselves in the midst of great Corruptions what retreats from the Evils and yet joyning in all that was good was visible in their practise what kind of Division the good and approved Corinthians made from the misdemeanors 1 Cor. 11. 19. of the bad without forsaking the Church that we may imitate their Examples and continue to do the greatest service to the Churches or Nations we are members of neither silencing our due Resentments of Evil in our place and station nor rending our selves from that Body we are of But that All our Things 1 Cor. 16. 14. may be done in Charity Rule 9. In the last place let us not think Nations and other Incorporations of mankind slide away with this world and are wholly lost in the future state of Things and that only
as he was wont on all such Questions takes the occasion of most Grave Weighty and Important Doctrine and Admonition in return to it And that he might place in his Remonstrance a most lively Emblem He calls a little Child and sets him in the midst of the Disciples and upon him displays these two great points of Truth 1. That except a man be converted and become as a little Child he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven either of Christ here in the Gospel and his True Church or the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter Now though this being Converted and becoming as little Children be very profitably and pertinently applyed to Regeneration yet considering it in the Scope and whole Context it is very evidently designed to that Humility Unimperiousness sense of the danger of perishing for ever Innocency and Inoffensiveness from Scandal by which others perish The resemblances of which are found no where in this World so agreeable and significant as in some Properties of little Children and their Nature the manly state of Humane Nature shewing so little hereof in this great Degeneracy as to require a perfect Conversion and Regeneration to such a state 2. The second point of Truth is this That whoever humbles himself and becomes as such a little Child in those Christian Properties is one of those Great ones those Magnates or the more any one humbles himself so the greater he is and he that humbles himself most is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven in the Kingdom of the Messiah and shall be in the Kingdom of Glory These two great Points of Instruction being now settled upon this living Emblem the Lord proposes the very same to other two as great purposes of Admonition although from another aspect or cast of this one Picture Consider Little Ones as the Emblems of Weakness Infirmity liableness to Danger and Injury of little Defence and Resistance to any Assault and so the Lord declares 1. Whoever receives such a little one in his name that is upon the account of Profession of Jesus Christ into a just esteem value and care of cherishing such a one in that Holy Profession and securing him as far as he can in the Blessedness of that state receives that is owns and acknowledges with Honour Christ himself and the kindness is accepted as if it were immediately placed upon Christ 2. But if any one Scandalises sets a stone of Offence and Ruin in the path of such a Little One by which he falls from or in his Profession of Christianity to his Destruction the Lord pronounces a Woe upon such a one as dreadful as the Proverb imports It were better that a Milstone were hung about his Neck and he were cast into the depth of the Sea Which as it peremptorily dooms the Professed obstinate Scandaliser so it warns all of managing themselves so in Christianity as to cast off all Offence and Scandal from it and to encourage the tenderest in it to strengthen and promote them Hereby then our Lord hath designed the security of the whole state of Christianity from the harm and danger of Scandal for in these Little Ones he comprehends 1. Those who in regard of their being new-born out of the State of Universal Scandal are in danger of being re-intangled in its Net or in regard of any other disadvantage or liableness to Scandals mischief are the lost as our Saviour after stiles them and the weak though not the young as the Apostle names them Now if such are secured all are secured For if a Christians carriage be so off from the danger of Scandalising as not to Scandalise the weak the stronger will be much less in danger to be offended 2. Those are the weak and the Little Ones to us who appear to us under any such disadvantage though indeed they are not as he that doubts and dares not do what others profess to do on great assurances seems weak to them that doubt not but are so assured and then the Precept of Christ takes as great hold of us in all our Administrations towards them as if they were really so Now what a Wall of defence were this to Christianity what a happy state would the state of it be if we were all most tender towards those with relation to their safety for Eternal Happiness who seem the lowest weakest least to us in that Profession 3. The Term Little Ones expresses a subordination under the Great Ones Now that they may not assume over the Little Ones the Lord first affirms with his usual Asseveration that none can be Great or any thing at all in his Kingdom that is not humble and inoffensive as a Little One. And that if any that takes himself to be a Great One thinks he has priviledge to do as he pleases either by Imposition or Imperiousness over the Little Ones and does not in all points of Christianity demean himself as the least under one common Lord the Lords dreadful Commination hangs over him he is in danger to be One of the Grandees in Torments On those things therefore that lye within the Compare betwixt the Great Ones and the Little Ones does the Finger of the Lords Discourse especially point But though our Lord was most feelingly concerned and struck the most stinging Woe into those that Scandalise them that believe in him yet he did not overlook the World in general but bewailed it perishing under Scandals the multitude of Scandals the inevitableness of Scandals that they must needs come even impossible they should not come and yet because he knew what Spirit it is that acts Scandal even from Satan the chief of Scandal down through all the Ministers of it he heaps the Woe upon him by whom Scandal comes Of which I have endeavoured a full account in the after management And because whoever Scandalises others is first Scandalised himself and they also that receive Scandal from others have some great Scandal within upon which that from without catches he therefore so severely cautions on all sides against the Scandal of the Right Eye the Right Hand the Right Foot and prefers to every mans choice the dismembring any of them rather than that the whole Body joyned to that Member so fettered with Scandal should be cast into Hell where their Worm dies not and their Fire is never quenched the dreadful end of Scandal Next follow the Arguments with which our Lord presses the highest value and care over the least of them that believe in him not to offend them 1. He shews at the same time how honourable the Employment in serving the little ones is and also of how dangerous a consequence it is to despise them which both by the relation it hath to the Context and the Apostles use of it cannot be far from Scandalising The Angels suffer no disparagement in being called their Angels And the very mention of Angels brings to mind the Charge they have over all such to bear them up in
Adultery and Peters Denial of his Lord the one was plain Temptation the other Scandal arising from the to him uninterpretable Suffering of our Saviour though both were great and grievous Sins 3. Scandal is a Temptation to some great Sin or course of Sin For though the least Sin introduc'd upon the Counterfeit of Religion and Reason is truly Scandal and partakes in its Woe Yet those Scandals of daily almost unavoidable Incursion in this imperfect State are broken in their deadly effect by the daily and general Repentance and desire of Pardon and Faith in the Blood of Jesus all true Converts live in the Practice of Who can understand his Scandals Deliver thou me from secret ones may every good man pray But keep back thy Servant from Insolent Scandals that they may not have Dominion so that I be Innocent and free from the great Transgression The sins that Scandal precipitates upon may be either in the refusal disavowment rejection or despight to some of the prime manifestations of God in the World in Infidelity or Unbelief or some great Enormity of Practice and it may be absolv'd and finished in some Notorious Act of Sin or may run through the whole Course of a mans Life in an habitual State of sin or Transgression of the Rule that he acts in all a-long Lives and dies in this Snare of Satan in this Captivity under him It may be partial only there being a reserve of the Soul preserv'd by Grace by which the renewed Soul recovers it self as the Apostles were Offended or Scandalis'd in Christ on the Night of his Passion and Peter in a fouler manner and yet theirs even his Faith did not fail They and he most Eminently escap'd out of the broken Snare But men devoid of any Principle of true saving Grace are though in several degrees lock'd within the Scandal and cannot be rescued out of it but by a Renovation to Repentance the first Repentance Yea even the best men under the power of Scandal as we now discribe it are for the present inwrap'd and involv'd so that the whole man seems to fall and the whole strength for that time so far as is visible is taken Captive Now by all this that hath been spoken it is undeniable that a Man is never Scandalised but when he sins he is not Offended in this Scripture-sense but when he himself Offends To be justly displeas'd with other mens sins or defiling Religion with impure mixtures is not to be Offended but when a man himself displeases and offends God and against his Duty 4. Scandal in wraps in Sin and the dreadful consequents of it for in the mischief and deadly issue of Sin is the complemental nature and notion of Scandal It is in the way of Righteousness onely that there is Life and in the Path-way thereof that there is no Death none of the beginnings and first strokes of it of the avant Couriers of Death It is Wisdom alone that is Health to the Navel and Marrow to the Bones whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are Peace But the ways of Scandal so closely united with Sin though they seem right in a Man 's own Eyes yet are all along the ways of Death and most evidently so in their end Guilt Divine displeasure Perplexity Anguish of Mind Grief if the Sin be felt however a wound a stripe upon Conscience and a mark of that stroke of that wound and stripe whether felt or not that can never be worn off but by Repentance and Faith in the Blood of Christ Weakness Inability loss of Vigour to a Holy Life 〈◊〉 Action and often down right Apostacy are the Fruit◠〈◊〉 Scandal for every Sin is a prejudice a mortification 〈◊〉 dead works upon the Consciâ—nce dispiriting it to Holiâ—â—â—â— more and more It is the way of Righteousness that is strength to the upright and the joy of the Lord therein is his double strength Through Scandal Men stumble and fall are discouraged and lye down at length out of Choice and with resolution to continue where they are as most easie Qui jacet in terris non habet unde cadat Upon all this ensues at last Eternal Death if not prevented by Repentance 5. Scandal is covered under some plausible pretence or disguise of a principle of Reason or Doctrine of Religion For Reason being an efflux from God the Sovereign Reason and Light from the Father of Lights any true principle of true Reason and rightly applyed is undoubtedly a Divine Oracle and would justifie any pretension grounded upon it Now in all Cases wherein Divine Revelation is refused or avowedly forced from the genuine Sense because either the Revelation or all Natural Interpretation will not serve the turn of Scandal but detects and exposes it it then flyes under an umbrage of Reason as separated from such Revelation or sets it up to limit and control such Revelation But if it professes to own the Scripture it then serves it self of Divine Revelation but wrested and mis-applyed for the higher the Authority is that is vouched and pretended the deeper the Scandal as we may see in the Pharisees the greatest both Masters and Bondmen of Scandal that ever were in the World except the Galley Slaves of it in the Romans Antichristianisme and they were so because they were defended and flanked on all sides as they miserably deluded themselves with the Authority of the Old Testament the Law and the Prophets together with the to them equall or indeed superiour awful Traditions of the Elders by which they circumscribed and kept under the Authority and Sense of Scripture as the Papists do at this day by like Traditions and Faith of their Church Now all these as they would have it joyned in perpetuating the Ceremonial Law as irreversible by God himself and settling an indefeisible state of Inheritance in the true Religion upon the Jews alone without the calling of the Gentiles to be the People of God but as their meer Proselytes All these as they deemed represented a Messiah of quite another Figure another Character than our Saviour and therefore he as they concluded must needs be an Impostor and his Doctrine Blasphemy upon which Rock of offence the Vessel of their Church and even Nation it self besides their particular Souls was most dismally Shipwrack'd But not only things of so good a Title and Claim as the Jewish Religion are counter-scarf'd with a Doctrine but even such vile things as Balaam taught eating things Sacrificed to Idols in honour of the Idol and committing Fornication when contrived into Scandal must have a Doctrine for them For so the Spirit of God calls it the Doctrine of Balaam In Scandal even Jezabel puts on the Vail of a Prophetess and calls her self so and under it teaches and seduces which may abate to us the wonder of Romes calling it self a Church and its Adulteries Sorceries and Idolatries Catholick Christian Religion 6. Scandal by such a Principle of
and mute in the Commission of Sin or neglect of Duty upon these appearances and who can say herein I have made my Heart clean I am pure from this Transgression so far hath he been Scandalised and indanger'd to his Ruine This is the first great Pillar of Truth and the primary Scandal is placed here That Men think there is no reason God should have so much Love Fear Honour Obedience so much Worship and Service And the Second is like to it 2. Even the Faith of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World is like to that first great Principle and equal to it both because the whole Riches and Treasure of all Religion is deposited and concentered in it so that he hath not the John 17. 3. Father nor the Knowledge of the only true God nor the Eternal Life proceeding from it who hath not the Son who hath not the Knowledge of Jesus Christ whom God hath sent Even as Christ is the brightness of the Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person so is the knowledge of Christ the express Image of the Knowledge of God and the brightness of it wherever it is revealed if it be not believed in the God of the World hath blinded the 2 Cor. 4. 6. minds of them that believe not least they should see the light of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ who is the Image 2 Cor. 4. 4 6. of God shining to them Especially and more particularly that great Attribute of Divine Mercy and Pardoning Grace is illustrated and breaks out with brighter and warmer Beams in this Son of his Love the Lamb of God who takes away the Sins Acts 4. 12. of the World by the Sacrifice of himself His is the only Name given under the whole Heaven to the Children of Men whereby they can be saved This indeed was the Scandal of the Jews who assumed to themselves as the only Masters of the true Religion in the World and foolishness to the Greeks who took Isa 28. 16. upon them as the like Masters of Reason but this corner Stone of Truth was laid so sure and of so tryed an excellency 1 Pet. 2. 6. that all that reject and spurn at it stumble and fall are snared and broken They are false Notions of God and Truth that will not be reconciled to it and while even the Builders refuse it it will yet rise to be the Head of the Corner Ver 7. It hath now surmounted before any Impartial Judges all other Names of Religion in the whole World so that to strike at it where it is known and received argues a disaffection and being Scandalised at Religion it self and is become the same with denying God Providence and Eternal Judgment Corrupted Reason and Lucian-Wit aims at Religion in its very Essence when it pretends to dash upon that and if when it seem'd to encounter with Gods own Administration by Moses there was yet such a presence of God with it that it would be more tolerable Mat. 10. 15. c. for Sodam and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment than for those that refused it as the Lord in several places testifies how much greater will the Condemnation be now when it hath so perfectly antiquated all that pretension against it and worn out the Prejudices of Elder Paganisme And yet so far as the Foolishness of God as the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 25. styles it does not appear to us wiser than Men and the weakness of God stronger than Men we are ready to be Scandalised at the Doctrine of a Crucified Saviour And it seems the easiest place for the Attacks of Atheism Irreligion and Prophaneness who yet at last will find themselves in a Gin or Trap when they thought they had gained Ground and made entrance and shattered to pieces when they believed a Conquest For God taketh the wise in their own 1 Cor. 3. 19 20. Craftiness and he knoweth the wisest thoughts of Men that they are vain Every Degree of Apostacy from Christ is Heb. 3. 12. departing from the Living God Transactions in Prayer or Publick Discourses of Religion are so much the more Divine as they send forth the sweet savour of his Name which is as an Oyntment poured out The Apostle desired to 1 Cor. â— 2. Phil. 3. 8. know nothing but Christ and him crucified It is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Top and Transcendency of Knowledge Apostolick Epistles full of Christ and the Truth as it is in Jesus are the best Patterns for Sermons much exceeding the Rationalism or Moralism of tâ—â— wisest Philosophy It is a Degree of Scandal first taken â—nd then given to speak little of him All Preaching is not giving the savour of his Knowledge 2 Cor. 2. ult and if it have not Life to the Soul it is deadly a Symptom to Death The very diverting though to other Parts of Sacred Scripture speaks Men offended in him when they do not find him and express him the Alpha and Omega in all the Bright Morning Star the Amen And though a Battology a vain Repetition in naming him is blamable yet it is more blame to conceal him even in the best Discourses of his Religion The Rays of Religion are paler more weak and chill as they fall farthest off from him He is the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings and Blessed is he in these days even in these days whoever is not offended in him 3. The Spirituality Purity Cleanness and Chasteness of the Worship of God dictated by the clearest and sincerest Light of Natural Conscience approved by Divine Revelation or founded instituted and directed by that undoubted Heavenly Oracle is the next great Pillar of Truth upon which the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mens Souls is setled But against this sensual and defiled Imagination hath in all Ages raised Scandal and so befool'd Reason that it hath cast down many wounded yea many strong Men in their Intellectual Endowments and Reputation for Wisdom have been ensnar'd and ruin'd by it It hath been the Renown therefore of those Princes in Sacred Story that have had the Religious Magnanimity to resist the Charmes of this Sorceress and kept Divine Worship uncorrupted in whose Glory so much as the High Places was a dark Shade and ecclips'd them though it had fair Pretence Idolatry and Superstition have been most evidently branded in Scripture for the most wretched State of being scandaliz'd and Idols for the most abhorr'd Scandals This was the Snare of Gideon and his House and yet as Interpreters give us in a Matter as innocent at first as laying up the Ephod he had inquir'd at in his Danger as a Monument of Gratitude for his Victory that was after turn'd thus into a Scandal Judges 8. 27. This was the Scandal Balaam taught Balak to cast before the Children of Israel These were the Wiles the Gins and Traps in which the
Midianites Numb 25. 17 18. inclos'd cramp'd and vex'd them first with the Guilt rising up in the Face of Conscience and then with the miserable Consequence of the sudden Wrath of God revealed from Heaven against them This was the Stumbling-block of Iniquity the wicked Man in Ezekiel puts before his Face even the Idols he had upon his Heart These were the stumbling-blocks with the wicked God would cut off and remove in the Prophet Zephaniah This was one principal Point of Scandal the Apostle discourses of to the Corinthians in the Case of Eating 1 Cor. 8. 10. things offered unto Idols and that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament so eminently remarques for Balaam's Doctrine of Scandal The great Abomination and Lie that deceives the World in the Book of the Revelation is the detestable Rev. 2. 14. Antichristian Idolatry the notorious Scandal of the Christian World both within it self and before the Jews Turks and even Pagans who see their own Brutishness acted under that excellent Name This is so great a Point that God hath departed from the Brevity of that Majestick Law in the Second Commandment for the guarding his Worship as with a Flaming Sword every way because in a Case wherein Humane Nature is so prone to fall Whether therefore it be the dividing the Divine Honour to any other though under the Name of Reverence to him as the Original or Supreme or whether it be the carving a Worship for God he does not prescribe for himself whatever be the Dccency or Expediency to help the Devotion whether of the Learned or Unlearned it becomes Scandal and a Snare to those that are so impos'd upon And seeing though the weakness of Passion be far off from God he owns himself jealous we have reason to mistrust every thing when he is so seeing not only foul Debauches but even what is most innocent in all other Cases is suspected in that Hezekiah in the sense of this broke in pieces so venerable a Relique as the Brazen Serpent not only a Ceremony of 2 Kings 18. 4. Miraculous Cure but a Type of Christ and degraded it into a meer piece of Brass when he saw the Israelites scandalising at it and tempted by it to impure Glances When our Saviour perceived so clean and harmless an Usage as Mat. 15. 1. Washing before Meat creeping into a piece of Religion how severely he disown'd it and was careless of the causeless scandalising of the Pharisees by his Doctrine concerning it because he knew there was True and Real Scandal in that Rite so abus'd And when all is said that can be said the Heavenly Pattern is that in Divine Worship and that only of which it can be said That nothing in it can scandalise that is justly scandalise except we think God's Jealousie was a Jewish Style wholly now out of date And yet how hath this Scandal this Stone of Stumbling this Gin and Snare always lain in the way of Humane Imagination and prevail'd upon it As if God living in the Retirement of a Spiritual Nature did not understand how himself was to be address'd by Men nor knew the Points of Honour due to his own Glorious Nature as is most Fashionable and Modish in the World Men take upon them to distinguish things better by the Breeding they have had in this Earthly Country they think God so much a Stranger as not to know how to appoint for himself when Men have to do with him as if what might be well accepted in Heaven would not yet be current upon Earth Here Images Pictures Elevations Adorations of the Host with innumerable Rites and Ceremonies are necessary to beget Devotion due to God the Saviour they will serve Here they that can best judge what is most Stately have determin'd God must not make himself so cheap as immediately to receive Prayers and Supplications or by his Son only as the Mediatour Angels and Saints must intercede and then who can deny them their share of Honour Religion will be neglected and dâ—spised if it have not Sets-off besides it self and the necessary Decency of Humane Actions There must be something unusual to dress it up and amuse But all this is no more than the Greens and Flourishes laid over a Trap to hide it and invite the unwary Passenger God that understands himself so perfectly as to know what will please him understands all Men too and needs not that any should tell him of Man for he knows what is in Man and he hath pronounced it What is higly esteemed among Men is abomination in the sight of God He hath Isa 15. 9. said it In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men All outward Pomp is but drawing nigh with Lips when the Heart is far off To worship God is to give him the Glory of his own Perfections and not to make him such a One as our selves God is a Spirit and they that worship must worship him in Spirit Joh. 4 24. and Truth in his Spirituality and Truth not in their own Carnality and vain Shew It is not to Paint or Pourtray or Carve a Deity as the Heathen that chang'd the Truth of God into a Lie and the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the Image of Coruptible Man and other baser Creatures because they thought it best and yet worse than that into Names of greatest Infamy and flagitious Turpitudes All frivolous Rites represent Divinity small and impertinent to the Great loss of the Glory due to that terrible Name The Lord our God One great End of Worship is the Conforming the Soul to the Divine Nature by Approaches to and Exercises of the Mind upon it but if this be mis-shapen the Soul is made more unlike to God Blessed for ever as the same Heathen became more licentious by the Pourtraictures they gave their Gods A trivial Temper of Mind naturally results from a trivial Worship even as it forms it first and often meeting it there it daily returns from it confirmed and improved The Sincere Worship directed to in the Gospel is that Glass in which we behold the Glory of the Lord and are changed 2 Cor. 3. ult into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Loosness of Life hath been always noted to be the Fruit of a Corrupt Worship It is naturally so and God curses it to be so God gave Idolaters up to their Lusts and an Injudicious Mind They that Worship him aright according to his Word Psal 36 8. and 6â— â— adhere to him and by regular Conduits drink Life from the Fountain of Life and derive from the River of his Pleasures they are abundantly satisfied with the Goodness of his House even of his Holy Temple They that Worship God after their own Imaginations do but drink out of their own broken or defiled Cisterns that hold no Water and therefore draw nothing but Wind and Air or
Corruption They walk in the Light of their own Sparks and have only this at Gods hand to lie down in sorrow Besides that God in just displeasure sends down upon them the Revenges of an abused and injur'd Power and Godhead Now all this expresses the Heighth both of the Deception and Mischief of Scandal 4. The fourth great Principle of Truth is the absolute and indispensible Necessity of Holiness both in Heart and Life without which no Man shall see the Lord Against which Heb. 12. 24. there lies no such Scandal or cause of Offence as inward and inherent Lust and inordinate Appetite which is obstinately set to obtain its Satisfaction and is no way to be tam'd but by beinâ— cut off though it be the Right Hand or Right Foot or even the Right Eye The Love of God Mark 9. 43. and his Law is the best Security against this Scandal and daily Mortification and Crucifixion of the Old Man with Ephes 4. 22. its sinful Lusts and Affections Pretences from Reason or Doctrines of Religion there can be none in this Case to those who acknowledge either Christianity or Morality But Men are carried down the violent Stream of ungovern'd Passion and that falls into the wide Sea of general Corruption and Bad Example which looks most like an Authority There are the Palliations and Excuses of Sin which may serve in a time of Peace and Carnal Security but cannot so delude Conscience as to be in a strict sense Scandal The continual Practice of Sin hardens the Heart sears benumbs and stupifies all inward Sense and cancels the Awe of those ingraven Laws and revealed Commands of God for a time but cannot either deny their Just Power or challenge them of Unreasonableness So that if any where Men are forc'd to take Refuge at the Atheistick denial of Religion it self or to blind Conscience with Superstitious Acts which seem to commute and make satisfaction for Sin Or if Men are resolved to blind their Eyes and obstruct all Sense they may make the Profession of True Religion a Cover to Sin as they that cry Lord Lord and Mat. 7. 22. the Temple of the Lord are we that name the Name of Jer. 7. 4. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Christ with great ostentation and so may deceive their own Souls but to hold out against either the Challenges of Divine Truth or of their own Reflexions is impossible So that upon the whole matter Predominant Lust from within and Bad Example from the so abounding Iniquity of all sorts of Men the Falls of Good Men the Miscarriages of Hypocrites and insincere Professours of Religion are the greatest Scandals or Stumbling-blocks in the Ways of Holiness to those that are not insnared in the afore-named Scandals But although the necessity of Holiness is above the reach of strict and proper Scandal yet it is the very Center of all Scandal in the effect of it for then a Man is indeed scandalised when the Salt of Divine Truth when the Spirit of Truth can have no power nor efficacy upon him because of that Scandal to season the Heart nor govern the Life and Action in the Love Fear and Obedience of God and Jesus Christ But if it be possible for any Man to understand in his Heart and Life what he does not promise by Profession or if he seem to deny any Principle of Truth and does not understand in his Heart and Life the Extent and Force of his Denial but hath better Principles that are an Antidote and Counter-poyson to any Mistakes in the Doctrine of Religion he is not scandalised with the great Mischief of Scandal But that Man is scandalised that through False Principles or the denial of True ones wants their Power and Vertue upon his Affections and Actions For no Truth is for Notions sake but to make truly good the Heart and Practice the very Confession with the Mouth is to recoil back into the Soul and make that better and to move forward and ingage the Life along with it 5. It is a grand Pillar of the Truth of Religion That we love our Neighbour as our selves and that he that loves 1 John 4. 21. God should love his Brother also And there is not there cannot be any Law of Religion wherein the Equity the Love Favour and Compassion of the Lord our God and of Jesus Christ our Saviour towards Humane Nature does more evidently recommend it self It is the Justification of the Religion of the Scriptures to be the True Religion And as the Love of God to Man his Philanthropy does shine out more illustriously in the Gospel so does the Law and Doctrine of this Love of Christians to one another and not only to Christians but to all Men And in this as of greatest concernment thâ— Gospel is so abundant and its Discourses of so great weight that it is made another Hemisphere of Religion to the Love of God The one is the first and Mat. â—1 38 39. great Commandment and the second is like to it It is the Law and the Prophets it is the whole Law It is irreconcilable Rom. 13. 8 9. to the Love of God not to love our Brother It is 1 Joh. 3. 15. such a Degree of Murther that whoever is guilty of cannot have Eternal Life abiding in him It is the great Mark 1 Joh. 3. 14. We have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren So many are the Arguments and so strong the Obligations to this Duty that they cannot be recounted all may be summed up in that God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love is born of God dwelleth in God and God in him Now that this Love is fix'd in an Uniformity of Opinions or points of outward order in the Worship of God is most unreasonable to believe for besides the impossibility to reconcile all the innocent Varieties that are in Humane Nature though it be Christian humane Nature in their Sentiments and Elections in these things the things themselves are not of that amount as to be the proper rest of this Divine Love or that if it misses these Poles it should therefore cease to be the Axis upon which the Catholick Society of Christians and Christian unity turns for that in the very Nature of the thing must be substantial Christianity it self And this is indeed the Great Schism to be divided in Affection from Christians it is a wonder how it could be otherwise understood seeing smaller differences are frequently by the Apostle considered and allowed for without the least allowance for Christians not loving one another Christianity carries no Gall even towards utmost Strangers upon the account of its being the true Religion much less towards those that are truly Christians though not each uniform with one another in all things The great Scandals against this Love are private Men think it justifiable not to love those that have injured them but this Case hath been considered
Scandal playing it self upon Indifferents 4. The great Considerations against pressing Indifferent things when they are come into Scandal so much as by Example 5. The Answer of the several Objections that may be used to disparallel Indifferents because of other Circumstances with these Indifferents I begin with the first the stating the Nature of Indifferents with relation to God in these four Characters of them 1. They are things in themselves Lawful Innocent and in their Use as of themselves no way displeasing to God So the Apostle pronounces with great boldness and earnestness of Meats that were forbidden under the Law of Moses I am saith he in respect to them perswaded by the Lord Jesus there is nothing unclean of it self but all things are pure In the Case of Things offered to Idols he declares All things viz. of that kind are lawful that is with regard to the things themselves if they are used aright if they are taken by the right Handle Although Meats have been offered to Idols yet there is no such thing as an Infinite Evil that can taint what God hath made good There is one God the Father of whom all 1 Cor. 8. 6. things are originally and we in him and for him and in or for no Idol or Demon There is one Lord Jesus Christ the Mediator by whom in a reconciled and attoned State after the great Corruption and Curse by Sin are all things and we by him and by no Demon-Mediator or Intercessor This Right Title Claim and Propriety of God and Christ no Demon can expulse God and Christ so fill all things that an Idol can be but a Nothing 2. These Indifferents or the Use of them cannot commend us to God as of themselves we are not the better if we eat or the worse if we eat not Meat commendeth us not to God 3. There may yet be so Religious and Advantageous Use of them as that they may by the observation of all due Circumstances and the elevation of them to the best and worthiest Ends be Occasions I say Occasions onely of Religious Service and Glory to God and that on either side which shews their Indifferency for one side may be made an occasion of Religious Action as well as the other and so neither side obliges us more than other He that eateth eateth to the Lord and giveth God thanks He that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks He that eateth Meat offered to Idols in Gods Right and not in the Right of the Demon is a Partaker by Grace or Divine Bounty through Christ For the Meat is Gods and his Provision and the Idol to him that understands hath nothing to do with it and therefore he giveth God thanks and not the Idol It is in relation to these things the Apostle commands Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do that is or not eat or not drink do all to the Glory of God 4. They may be used amiss both ways In some Circumstances It is good not to eat Flesh or drink Wine even while the World standeth They may in some Circumstances be inexpedients and not edifie that is by a diminutive way of speaking run counter to the Ends of Edification and Scandalise others They that have knowledge concerning their true nature and the best use of them may yet so use them as to sin against the Brethren and wound their righteous Conscience and so sin against Christ But they that Eat without knowledge Eat so as to Eat with Scandal to doubt and be damned in their Eating On the the other side they which use them not that Eat not that will not Eat may so not Eat as to turn them into another sort of Scandal while they grow superstitiously affraid to touch taste or handle and therefore he that useth Indefferent things aright only makes use of that side of them he chooses as an occasion or acting â—o the Glory of God as he desires to do in all he does without placing any weight on either side of the things themselves The Christian fully perswaded in his own mind to eat eateth and giveth God thanks but knows meat commends him not to God makes it no matter of Religion to eat and so in case of Scandal forbears it The Christian that eateth not maketh use of the liberty he hath as in an indifferent thing not to eat either meats unclean according to Moses or things offered to Idols without laying any stress of Religion upon his abstinence in either but only the assurance he is not the worse in not eating and thereby avoiding the inconvenience of either doubting in himself or scandalising any other In the same manner he maketh use of his liberty in distinguishing a Day upon any good occasion that was distinguished under the Law without observing of Days as a point of Religion but only places a Religious Action on that Day according to the liberty he hath in an indifferent thing And so avoids the Doubt in himself of not observing what is Commanded and the scandal to any other But now he that not eating slips unawares into a surmise of Evil in the things themselves and that he does a great act of Religion in not eating and so dares not touch taste handle or he that would gain as he thinks upon God by observing Days he falls into the Scandal of making his Weakness a part of his Religion even as he that for the vaunt of his liberty eats licentiously and carelesly of others or thinks in eating he does God service or in eating slides into his old awes or pangs of Devotion to the Idol and eats in his Right to his Honour and so is defiled or lastly eats when he is in doubt of the lawfulness upon the credit of Example which is the proper Scandal the Apostle aims at Now from all these Characters it is most evident 1. Indifferent Things are far below the Scale of Divine Institutions though these Institutions are but Positive and not of Eternal Goodness and Righteousness All the Appointments of God and Christ are lifted up into that state the Divine Appointment designs them to and shall if used according to those Appointments be made efficacious to those Ends for which they are appointed according to the effectual working of that Power and Grace from which they received their Original So that they do make us better they do commend us to God if we observe the Will and Law of God concerning them and we are the worse in the sinful neglect of them according to the degree of neglect 2. They are not of the Scale of those things wherein that Order of which God by the very laws of Rational Nature is the Author stands and not of Confusion so that though this Order runs or ought to run along and conduct all Humane Actions and so is not in it self a point of Religion yet when it is applyed to Religious Services and Actions doth indeed commend
two Cases to be the Expedient against Scandal he therefore perswades the not eating upon these Contingencies as by the by which was a very easie performance for Christian Charity but the Thing he was wholly intent upon was that great Doctrine of not Scandalising for the sake of Indifferent Things These Circumstances easily vanished the main Point remains unmoved They were only a Scheme a momentany and transitory one to display this great Doctrine in and to present it upon When these things grew into a Ritual Religion the Scheme was altered and shifted they grew sinful and were condemned the Doctrine stood yet and for ever stands firm planted upon them Object 4. The Rites used are such as are recommended from Antiquity and were of use of old in the Primitive Church Answ Allow it to be so All that can be collected from thence is but Example wound up to its highest Peg when it does not reach Christ And whenever it does not reach him it does not bind Be ye followers of me as I 1 Cor. 11. 1. am of Christ said the Apostle just about to discourse of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinances or Traditions Those Concurrences All Every where Always must begin in Scripture and be found there else they do but oblige our Prudence not our Conscience Only so far as Antiquity or the Primitive Church inables us to see with our own Eyes the Sense of Scripture or the Determinations of Natural Light and Reason in any Case so far it obliges us in Conscience All else is but the Deference of Modesty and due Regard which cannot weigh against Scandal except we make the Oracles of Antiquity equal to the Heavenly Oracles and then we must demand the same Certainty of the Divine Inspiration of the one as of the other or else we may quickly run into the greatest of Scandals Object 5. The Commands of Lawful Authority take away the Indifferency and make Necessary what was before Indifferent Answ The Question is not Whether Magistrates ought to be obeyed in all things Indifferent for that is readily granted if in all Circumstances they are Indifferent nor whether Rites are Indifferent Things for that is also supposed to be granted but the question must be Whether it is an indifferent thing to give or receive Scandal upon the account of Indifferent Things seeing that may indisputably fall out or the Apostles Discourses fall to the Ground and in one sort of Indifferents as well as others else the Apostles Discourse will be ineffectual to any the like Case Seeing then the Tribunal and Authority of God is higher than of any of the Supreams of this World and that Scandal is cognisable only before him and that whatever incurs Sandal is inseparable from Sin against God it must needs follow that in a Case of Doubt from which a Man cannot acquit himself he cannot obey Men in that without disobeying God who hath declared to him Whatever is not of Faith is Sin and he that doubteth and doth what he doubteth of is Damned that is Condemned within himself and in the thing it self And the Reason in such a Case must be the same as in a Case of Obeying Magistrates against any express Divine Prohibition For though the thing doubted of does much differ if it be indeed indifferent Yet the Prohibition is as plain against doing what is doubted of and what is not of Faith as in any Case Seeing then all Humane Authority must lower its Top to Divine I cannot see but that in Indifferent things in Religion which is Gods peculiar for we speak only of that the Magistrates Power is excluded in case of real doubt of Conscience in which a Man can do nothing but he runs into Gods danger even as in any other case of such danger by reason of Sin And what is offered in Relief will not avail viz. That Obedience to Magistrates is certainly a Duty but whether there be any disobedience to God about such or such Indifferents is in doubt and if the thing be indeed indifferent it is a doubt upon mistake And then there is a disobedience to God in an undoubted Rule and Command to avoid it in a case not only of doubt but of mistake This I say cannot avail Because the measure is not to be drawn betwixt Obedience to Magistrates in all lawful things or things indifferent but betwixt Obedience to Magistrates and Obedience to that Rule of the Word of God in all cases of doubt which is as clear and as little subject to doubt as any Rule whatever Yet does not this evacuate the Power of Magistrates it being restrained to things indifferent in Religion and in Doubt and the Doubt fixed upon a grand Principle of Truth Nor is that of greater satisfaction That in Obedience to Magistrates there are so many degrees of Good and so many of Evil in the Disobedience but in doing well or ill concerning Indifferents there are much fewer Degrees both of the Good and the Evil therefore Obedience to God in so great a Morality as Obedience to Magistrates is always to be preferred before our doing well in Indifferents and the fear of Evil in one to be avoided much rather than the same fear in the other The Reason of Dissatisfaction is this That the Measure is not betwixt the Morality of Obedience to God in obeying Magistrates and doing well or ill about things Indifferent but betwixt the Morality of Obeying God in one of his clear and undoubted Precepts and in another of the same Evidence and Clearness which must needs be one and the same and of the same Rate of Morality Seeing Obedience to God is the Fundamental Morality If it were not thus the Magistrates Prohibition of Sacrifice of the Cup in the Lords Supper must exempt from Obedience to God in those Duties because Obedience to Magistrates is a Moral Duty but the other Ceremonial But it is out of Measure certain Obedience to God is both the top and the bottom of all Morality and although Obedience to Magistrates is a great point of Morality yet Obedience to God is so before it as to be the Measure of it Besides if Obedience to God be to be valued not by his Authority but by weighing the Precepts themselves much more Obedience to Magistrates is to be estimated by the Commands they give of which Indifferents in Religion will never be made out to be worthy to be the Tests either of their Authority or our Obedience whatever unthinking Men have said therein Indeed among the Divine Commands God hath chosen Mercy rather than Sacrifice honouring Parents rather than Corban but it is because he hath so declared in his Word and in Mens Consciences But all the Laws of God do harmoniously Conspire and Subordinate themselves one to another among which Obedience to Magistrates and Preserving the Government and Peace of Conscience are none of the least nor of any contest or distance of unkindness between themselves Whoso
every Quarter with Mischiefs How much better then is it that indifferent things in Religion were taken away even while the World standeth than that they should be kept up as the Sconces of Scandal For Indifferent Things let not the Work of God be destroyed nor any for whom Christ dyed in danger to Perish the more we esteem our Church our Religion our Worship of God the better and purer they are the more it is pity any should be divided from it should be so far scandalised as to be Schismaticks from it either in our account or if it be that Sin in the real danger of it and of perishing in it The more excellent our Church is the more the Apostles Rules take hold of us Let not the good of our Church be evil spoken of as if it was Ceremonial Let us not lose any from our Church for Meat and Drink Increase not the Woe of Scandal any way for so mean Things as Indifferents Let us not indanger our selves into the Woe of him by whom Scandal comes for Elements But besides all these Considerations there is not so absolute a security in adding any thing under any Name whatever to the pure Worship of God any more than to his Word lest we be found Lyars to him mismatching with it what will not endure the Fire Greatest Peace have they that Prov. 30. 5 6. love thy Law O Lord and that only nothing shall offend them in nothing will they offend others Observing Rites that had been Divine was not so safe to the first Christians having to do with Rites that had been corrupted Idolatrously and Superstitiously proved very Fatal Ceremonies are but Shaddows Superstition easily pervades that little thin Essence they have They have not the Right of being Gods Creation to bring them off to lye lower than their Corruption and commend them There is no such Cause to be over-zealous of such things in regard of which a late * Father Simmons 's Critical History Romanist hath said The true Religion of the Church of England differs little from the Romish in outward appearance The Argument strikes all ways if our Constitution be so good and injur'd not at all by Ceremonies let us as Christ Seek and save that which is lost those we look upon as the least that believe in Christ let them not be lost for Ceremonies The Love and Compassion of a Saviour triumphs towards these least easily Offended narrow-soul'd morose suppose them Smoaking Flax bruised Reeds yet despise them not if Christians if Protestants Their Angels behold the Face of the Father of Christ in Heaven Let them not be Offended Scandalised from Union with our National Church for Ceremonies If on the other side our Ceremonies in Gods account should be blemishes of our Church and Imperfections or if they may be turned into such by an ignorant use of them or if they cause Divisions and Scandals if the Mischiefs of those Scandals fall upon Strangers to true Religion and keep them at distance All these considerations weigh heavy against a Zeal for them But if none of these can be laid to their Charge yet if Men doubt concerning them what must they do How shall they escape that of the Apostle He that doubteth is Damned if he Eats Whatever is not of Faith is Sin Why should this be hazzarded for Indifferents And when the Tyde of Advantages Preferments Publick Approbation are on one side Deprivation of all those Censures and Penalties on the other who dares answer for many Men that they do not offer Violence to their Principles much more venture over their Doubts And yet in those very Doubts has the Apostle laid his Doctrine Or Lastly Wo can reasonably suppose Men would stem this Tyde that is against them if they had not real Conscientious Doubts or higher than Doubts to contest with in prejudice of their Complyance Upon the whole then I cannot but conclude Imposing Indifferent Things in Religion by a violent Example much more by severe Ways is very contrary to the Apostles Doctrine in that Case and that upon Reasons that till I see them answered I must suppose unanswerable I have now thus far discoursed of Scandal in the more strict and particular Cases Scripture hath given us the notices of but in the remaining Heads to be treated of I shall consider it in that largest and most comprehensive Grasp of it Religion in general And there is nothing that requires greater Wisdom and the prepossessions of a more Religious Prudence than to sit and count the Charge of undertaking serious Piety as the Lord hath bidden us in relation to one Branch of Scandal Persecution so with respect to the whole Negotiation of Scandal in the World It is the great both Wisdom and Goodness of God in the Scripture that he hath given full and ample warning before hand of all the Disadvantages we are to encounter in our Faith Love and Obedience to him as when we are assured There shall be False Prophets There must be Heresies There shall be Persecution There shall be an Apostacy or general Defection from True Symmetral Christianity within Christianity it self And so in the present Case it must needs be that Scandals come For the Knowledge of these things is one greatest Defence against the Evil predicted as also against the staggering of our Minds concerning the Truth of Religion it self Let any man then enquire and search this thing out both in Scripture and close Reason and he will find Scandals must come though he may at first think Religion if it be so great and excellent as is given out of it should not be darkned and clouded with Scandal but stand clear from it and it be impossible it should be any way liable to it Now that it is in it self Just and Right even to Perfection it self is every where recorded and published of it Wisdom speaks excellent things and the opening its Lips are Prov. 8. 6. Right Things It speaketh Truth and Wickedness is an abomination to its Lips All its Words are in Righteousness and nothing froward or perverse in them They are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find Knowledge The Righteousness of thy Testimonies is everlasting give me Vnderstanding and I shall live Gods Precepts are right concerning All Things and secure from every False Way Psal 119. 104. c. His Law is the Truth By the Word of his Lips Men are kept from the Paths of the Destroyer Amidst all the scandalising Psal 17. 4. Hos 14. 11. and intangling Works of Men The Ways of the Lord are all right if Men have but right Feet right Intentions Affections and Motions And yet when all this is granted let any Man cast the thing in his severest Thoughts and he will find it impossible as things are Religion should be free from Scandal and that therefore as if any Man cannot deny himself he cannot be Christ's Disciple so if
wholly naked and uncovered of any pretence according to acknowledged Principles of Natural Religion and the Word of God yet they are not without the Shelter of some Scandal and if they are driven out of all else they yet retire under this It is an undesirable state for a free-born Understanding and Will to be under Subjection there is something Tyrannick and Oppressive in it that they may not know and chuse what is best for themselves and so there is a resolvedness in corrupt Nature to do whatever goes out of its own Mouth The Apostle observes The Carnal Mind is Enmity to the Law of God it is not subject to it neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. It is always offended at it it always pretends some Cause against it and if there be no other that it is too Arbitrary A pretence a shew of Reason seems necessary to a Rational Mind and Will that is so made under the power of Truth and Goodness it cannot sin but by being deceived and grasping at some forbidden appearing Good Hence even the Devils think their Case justifies an eternal quarrel against God their Misery is to them a just Cause But the various Degrees Kinds and Shapes of Scandal are so many so confused so perplexing that the very view of it would enforce a thinking Soul to cry out I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord as the Patriarch Jacob in a Prophetick Prospect upon Dan out of whom some have fansied Antichrist should arise describes him as one would describe Scandal and therefore near enough to Antichrist that Man of Scandal and Son of Perdition that yet will be as Dan Judge over the Tribes of Israel Scandal is a Serpent by the Way an Adder in the Path that biteth the Horse heels so that his Rider shall fall backward most mischievous Ruine Considering therefore the Danger the Multitude of Scandals We wait for thy Salvation O Lord. Scandals then in particular Persons and Cases are Infinite but the more general may be reduced In Persons of no sense no true love to Religion 1. To the almost Universal Insolency of Wickedness in Humane Nature bearing away with the force and authority of so bad Example all before it And if defended by Atheistick Boldness wicked men clap their hands among themselves and multiply words against God they go in Company Job 43. 7. one with another and fulfill or justifie and make good the judgment of the Vngodly They drink scorning like Water and add Rebellion to their sin 2. To the Ignorance Sottishness and Unconcernedness in Religion of Vulgar Minds which rests under such Shadows as these God is Merciful and will not Damn his Creatures All have their Faults even the Best the Wisest and the most Religious There is more ado than needs Religion drives Men out of their Wits 3. To a False a Formal Religion Damnable Heresies or a Superstition in place of Religion raging with great shew of Zeal and Devotion against True Religion which while men bloodily pursue they think they do God good service From those that are more serious in the True Religion these Scandals especially arise 1. All Immoralities impure Interest of Ambition Pleasure or Coveteousness are very Offensive and expose Religion both to Strangers and even among themselves it being so very difficult or almost impossible in this Scandalis'd state to sever in our Censures Religion it self from the miscarriages of those that profess it men will know the Religion and not only the men by the Fruits they bring forth though Religion be the first and most severe in condemning what ever is bad and so should be judg'd only by it self 2. The great and many and sharp Differences among those that are the Professors of Religion made most remarkable by the high Feuds and furious Rencounters that give sport to the Enemies of it in traducing it and every way enfeeble it among themselves are great Scandals 3. The strange Antipathy in Religious persons against permitting the due Liberty to Conscience in things indifferent or in all things that are not expresly commanded or forbidden by God that men either upon the known Principles of Natural Religion or their own Principles and acknowledged Consequences from them cannot deny which is many ways destructive of the true power of Religion wherever it takes being the Scandal of acting against Sense or Conscience The Apostle as hath been shewn so remarks upon and is however a great discouragement to the entrances into and loss of Reputation to the profession of it by the Clashes between those that cannot comply because they Doubt and those that either will not believe them when they say they Doubt or think them not able to understand whether they doubt or not or would drive them against the express Rule of the Apostle though it be allowed they do doubt Thus I have described Scandal in which the whole unconverted Nature of man is Seated though some are deeper than others in it The very best men are under the Remains of it and are never perfect from it till in the state of Just Spirits made perfect where Scandal cannot enter In Hell it remains for ever even under the Convictions of Everlasting punishment There is an Eternal Dislike and Discontent at a Reply against God and his Government as not worthy of love and submissive Reverence but to be rebelled against in the very midst of those Convictions Could there be that humble deference so due to God it would be Repentance and Recovery to Heaven And now the misery of Scandal runs along with it All Disobedience to the Divine Commands which are Eternal Life is Scandal in the Deception first and after falls down into the miserable state in which it always remains but never ends expressed by the Worm that never dies the Fire never quenched the weeping wailing and gnashing of Teeth for ever Every one that maketh and he that receiveth the lye of Scandal are cast into the Lake that burneth with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death but he that maketh that â—ye sinks deepest for though they are so miserable so great a Woe is to them that receive it yet still Woe in an Eminency to him by whom Scandal cometh hath been pronounced by the Lord and cannot be reversed And now I am more immediately and nearly to fall upon what concerns us in a way of Practice from the consideration of Scandal 1. Let us seriously apprehend the great Folly of taking hold of Scandal and making advantage of it against any of the Rules and Laws of Religion It is no other than sucking in a Common Infection or Contagion because it is common or taking into our selves a Reason or a pretence of Reason to be Eternally undone and miserable because the most are so The Scandalising and the Scandalised World perish together they that bring the Pestilentitial Contagion that runs deep in their own Veins and they that draw it in to themselves from
others What recompence or allay of Anguish will it be to us that there were such and such Offences or Causes of Exception to Religion and the Ways of it And that we saw they took mightily in the World that they were generally received When all is but making a Covenant with Death and binding over our selves to it Can there be any Cause just enough why we should be Damned and lose our selves for ever Or will it satisfie us for our Souls that others perish with us 2. It is therefore every Mans Interest to arm himself with all the Reasons he can against Scandal as there are sufficient and to resist this Enemy at the very Gates It is only that we are deeply Scandalised first against Religion that we go up and down as it were inquiring for Scandal for some to Scandalise us and to give us further shew of Reason against being Religious Were our Hearts but true to Religion we should easily find they are more and stronger that are with it than that are against it If our Eyes were opened the Reasons for Religion are like a Mountain full of Charriots and Horses of Fire that cannot be resisted Our business therefore is not if we sincerely resolve that we and our 2 kings 6. 17. House shall serve the Lord to search every where for Offences Josh 24. 17. against such a resolution but to find out the pressing and undeniable Arguments why we should so resolve to fortifie our selves against all the seeming pretences to the contrary by setting them before us as Joshua does before the People of Israel to animate our selves the higher against them That we are so unequally poised so propense upon Scandal is because our Hearts are first bribed toward Sin and Apostacy from God 3. This should engage us to take heed to our selves to beware of our own proper Scandal the motion prejudice and passion that grows from our own false Understanding or Lust and does and will scandalise us though there were no other Scandal in the World these will make us fall into Dislike or Discontent with any of the ways of Holiness and our Duty when they do not satisfie our particular Apprehensions Affections or Desires Let us commit our ways wholly to the Lord and he will give us the desires Psal 37. 1. c. of our hearts a hundred fold in our Design of Good even in this Life in the room of what we would purchase with Scandal Let us rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him and he will bring it to pass for us But let us not fret our selves in any wise to do Evil because any thing in our Duty lies cross to our inordinate Concupiscence We cannot do well in being angry to Scandal for that is indeed to be angry to our Death we foolishly pervert our own way when ever our hearts fret against the Lord. If we love the Law of God nothing can offend us If we love God and our Brother we can have no occasion of stumbling or Scandal in us 4. Seeing Scandals are so every where abroad and our own Hearts so weak on the part of Scandal it is most necessary to commit our selves to Infinite Grace and the Divine Spirit as our greatest Security and Protection without which no Flesh could be saved not the very Elect If we set our love upon God and place our trust in him we shall dwell in the secret place of the Most High and rest under the Shadow of the Almighty and he will deliver us from the Snare of the Fowler from noisome Scandal though a thousand Psal 91. fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand They that be planted in the House of the Lord shall flourish Psal 92. 13. c. in the Courts of our God they shall still being unscandalised bring forth fruit in their old-age they shall be fat and flourishing not blasted with Scandal's East Wind to shew that the Lord is upright a Rock of Security not of Scandal and there is no unrighteousness no cause of Scandal in him Oh how great is thy Goodness to them that fear thee to them Psal 31. 19. that trust in thee before the Sons of Men. Thou shalt hide them in the Secret of thy presence from the Pride of Scandal that compasseth men as a Chain yet they are proud of it from the strife of Tongues the Tongue of Scandal that are a World of Inquity that are set on fire of Hell that are set against Heav'n and walk through the Earth 5. We may from hence learn the great unreasonableness of being Scandalised that there are so many Scandals against Religion not marked with Vengeance If we consider well the state of the World how can it be otherwise It is neither a Heaven nor a Paradise upon Earth that immediately spue out Scandal and having once spued it out never receive it any more for ever Nor is it a Hell where there is Scandal all Scandal and no Religion but Scandal under Divine Vengeance Scandal all in a Flame with the Wrath of God discovering what it is so that it can intrap none any longer but those that are its Vassals for ever This World then is a World of Scandals and scandalised only it is under a Discipline an Administration of Grace like an Hospital a Bethlehem for Lunaticks the Lunaticks of Scandal the Infani as Holy Writ calls them They are under a gracious Provision of all Necessaries and a Method for Cure In the mean time that they that are at the height of this Lunacy should throw about Scandal with all their might is no more strange than that there are Mad Men in such a Bethlehem at the height of Distraction Indeed the Patience the Bounty that God uses to these is greater than of the most compassionate Hospitals generally in this world yet no doubt they have the cruel twinges and lashes of Conscience in order to their Cure if they might proceed to their Effect but that their Cure grows desperate is no more to be wondered at in the one Case than in the other Many never come to themselves They truly have Devils and are Mad Devils that are never cast out Others there are that are brought to a more quiet but sullen state others that have their lucid Intervals others again that have generally fair appearance of Reason yet not in their Right Minds and lastly some that are reduced beyond danger of relapse but not perfect What Reproach is it now to Right Reason to Sobriety that Lunaticks of all sorts erre from it or that some rally at it or that the very best among them do some things unbecoming to it No more is it that Evil Men or Imperfect Men not sanctified to the Perfection of Paradise or Heaven do unsuitable to Religion according to their several states though they do insanire cum ratione seem to be in their Wits and Reason while they do so Or that there
are Infamous Malefactors Male-contents under the most wise and sage Government or Wits ill employed that Lampoon it 6. Let us continually look to Jesus who in himself subdued the whole power of Scandal keeping steady and uniform Obedience to the Divine Will and did always the things that were pleasing to it though Scandals of all sorts pressed in on every side Who being in the Form of Phil. 2. 6. God thought it not robbery to be equal with God yet made himself of no Reputation but took on him the Form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of Men and being found in fashion as a Man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even to the death of the Cross Hereby even by the Dignity of his Person and the Profound Humility of his Obedience he hath not only done that Honour given that Glory to the Divine Soveraignty and Righteousness the Glory of that Supreme Authority as hath made Recompence for all the Scandals of Angels and Men so far as that Soveraignty or Righteousness are absolutely concerned whether any should believe in him or not but hath also made Attonement perfect Attonement and Reconciliation for all that do believe in and obey him into a share of which I make no doubt the Holy Angelical Nature immediately entred according to their state even from the time he was declared the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World Through his Obedience and Meditaion ador'd and applyed to they have persever'd free from Scandal by which so great a part fell upon account of which when the First begotten came into the Heb. 1. 6. World all the Angels of God Worshipped him The virtue from himself as the Exemplar as the First-born among many Brethren Rom. 8. 29. to whose Image they are Predestinated to be conformed does by degrees extirpate all the very remains of Scandal in his Church and he presents it without blame spot wrinkle blemish or any such thing even by real and efficacious operation before the Eyes of Glory His Example alwaies stands before them as the most absolute and sublime Pattern to which they daily are exercised in fashioning themselves Thus our Lord does every way dissolve the Works of the Devil and deliver them who by reason of Scandal were all their lives time subject to bondage by destroying Scandal and him that hath the great Power of it the Devil 7. This should make Heaven desirable to us where no Scandal dwells nor any more since the Angels of Scandal were cast out of it can so much as once enter where there is perfect light without any variation or shaddow of turning The Holy ones there are vext with Scandal's Wiles no more with the Wiles of the God or Ministers of Scandal or those that by his Stratagems are made any way serviceable to it 8. It makes Hell more dreadful the seat and Center the Fund of Scandal where all the good Principles men have had or seem'd to have while they were in the World or the Church the best state of this World and their Temporary good Actions are all swallowed up and by the great power of Scandal turned all into it self wherein all the temporary partial Righteous men of this World whose being Scandalis'd as to the main the true love of God and his Children turned their best things now into a sort of Splendida peccata better complexioned sins have then all that they seemed to have taken from them And by reason of that great Stumbling Block the Eternal loss of God They turn from all their Righteousness and all that they have done is not remembred to them any more for ever They sink into that unpardonable Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit whch is an irreconcilable Enmity to what is known to be of God undeniably of him and that Enmity expressed in the proper language of Scandal Blasphemy and is never forgiven whether committed in this World or that which is to come Now what is there more dreadful to the mind that hath any thing remaining of an Ingenuous sense towards God that hath but so much Love and Reverence towards him though too faint for true saving Grace as will answer a profession of God and the Lord Jesus but will be horribly afraid at the supposition of such a hatred of God such a Blasphemy of him and so of Hell on this account that every sin boils up there into this Height of Scandal 9. We are dreadfully warned from being the Ministers of Scandal either through Design or through great Falls and Miscarriages in our Religious Course this we ought to take care of in Relation to the World in general but especially towards the Little ones that believe in Christ stronger Christians are most out of our danger who grieve or have a just Zeal against our Scandals but in the mean time themselves grow stronger and stronger as Trees that cast their Roots the deeper for being assailed with the Winds But the Little ones are in the Eye of Christ of the tenderest concern because they need it most While we are in the way of our Duty if any receive Scandal and are resolved to do so they create it to themselves we must let them alone but in all things wherein we can save a Soul from Scandal let us consider the Recompence we save a Soul from Death and hide a multitude of Sins a glorious Reward without any more And herein let us always remember we have an Eminent Seat of Doctrine not to Scandalise for the sake of Indifferent Things a Doctrine prepared on purpose for all Ages of the Church of Christ concerning Indifferents one of the Eminent Seats of Doctrine of the New Testament and more particularly in relation to Scandal and therefore by no means to be lightly regarded To Conclude all that we may neither give nor receive Scandal three things are most necessary to which I shall subjoin great Counsels of Scripture in each Case 1. That we have our Judgments well settled within our selves in all the substantials and necessary points of true Religion upon a Divine and not an Humane assurance only that in that part we may neither Offend nor receive Offence for which Solomon's Advice is our great Security Bow down Prov. 22. 7. thine Ear to the Words of the Wise and apply thy Heart to my Knowledge For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee they shall withal be fitted in thy Lips That thy Trust may be in the Lord I have made known to thee this day even to thee Have I not Written to thee excellent things in Counsels and Knowledge That I might make the know the certainty of the words of Truth that thou mightest answer the words of Truth to them that send unto thee Or those Admonitions of the Apostle Paul That we henceforth be no more as Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every Wind of Doctrine by the sleights of Men and cunning
Society of Men that is truly Catholick if it be but according to the Light of Natural Religion to joyn with them in the Performance of any of such Services so far as they will admit it and keep to the Simplicity and Sincerity of them according to the Instances before-named of Jonah and St. Paul And much more should we do this when True Revealed Religion is joyned with Natural if nothing be requir'd of us that corrupts and defiles it No Man's Errour in which we are not forced to communicate should drive us from Truth or any part of it And upon these Foundations we should endeavour to win further and further upon all to bring them home to God wherein they wander We should make Allowances to every Man differing in smaller things receiving him without conditioning him to subscribe to us in things of Doubtful that is Private Disputation If any one erre from the Truth and one convert him by Evidences of that Truth let him know that he that converts a Sinner from the errour of his way shall save a Soul from Death and hide a Multitude of Sins But if we cannot be admitted to such Communions with those that are so enslav'd to False or would bring us under the power of Private or will have nothing to do with us nor admit us to them we must not yet desert our Catholick Respect to all that is True and Good among them but acknowledging what is so value and praise it desire the Divine Acceptance for them in any Good thing so as to bring them out of the Errours they have adjoyned to it and as you have opportunity reason them out of the one by the Evidence of the other CAP. V. Of the Publick or Divine Original of Sacred Writing or Scripture Quest SEeing Scripture is the only Publick Record of True Pure Natural Religion and more eminently of Revealed it is most necessary to be fully informed in all Points concerning it And first What Care God hath been pleased to take that his Word and purely that should be committed to Writing Answ God held the Hands and Pens of Holy Men by an efficacious overshadowing their Minds and conducting all their Motions that they could not erre In some things he so fully possessed their Understandings and Affections with a full Knowledge and Sense of what they were to reveal that they could not so much as muse any thing Strange or Diverse from what they were so carried and born by the Divine Spirit in even as Elijah in his Body In other things wherein they could not look round about them nor fully comprehend what the Spirit in them did signifie though they convey'd it to After-times yet they were by Almighty Impressions upon all their Faculties necessary to that Service held in stronger than Adamantine Consinements that they could not extravagate from Divine Truths Even Balaam thus overpower'd against his will could not go beyond the Word of the Lord to speak either Good or Evil upon the greatest Reward much less Holy Men whose Wills were perfectly resigned to the Divine Will Quest But was not there a Possibility those Holy Men Writers of Scripture might at other times when the Spirit was not so immediately present to them alter or add of another Alloy to what themselves had been the Instruments of conveying from God to the World Or might not Pretenders arise and give out False Scripture to the World that had none of that True Spirit Answ When once any Part of Divine Testimony was committed to Writing it became a Boundary to those very Penmen much more to all others that they were always concluded by it So that besides the Dread and Awe of God and of the great Sin of Falsification of his Truth or Name they could not alter any thing so as to disagree with what they had before spoken by the Divine Spirit whose Righteous Judgments endure for ever nor could they so much as imitate themselves when unassisted by the Holy Spirit When therefore they did not understand by immediate Assistance the utmost End and Reach of what themselves were enabled to speak and write they did and they could do no more search and pronounce by all the best ordinary Helps God afforded them but could change nothing could add nothing they searched what or what manner of Time the Spirit of Christ in them did signifie they could not pronounce of the Time when not revealed to them They knew the dreadful Anathema ready to fall even upon an Angel from Heaven that should preach another Gospel The least Iota once established by Unchangeable Wisdom and Goodness was less movable than Heaven and Earth and would bear no Addition but of the same Authority by which it self was given And even the very Manner Method Words as they meet to carry such a Sense have their Majesty and Divineness so that whatever was by Inspiration from God bridled that which was not and they that were inspir'd knew in what they were inspir'd and what they spoke as so inspired and in what they were not but were as Samson with his Locks cut no more than like other Men and most cautiously distinguish'd betwixt the one and the other Nothing therefore hath assayed to joyn it self to Scripture if any hath dar'd to do it it hath been rejected by it when not of the High and Publick Spirit of it Quest But did not the Writers of the New Testament reverse the Writings and Commands of the Old which thing so scandalised the Jews against our Lord his Disciples and Gospel Answ No otherwise than as the Sun commands the Shadow to fly away and the lesser Lights to retire when it self appears or the things typ'd out being come make useless the Types so that they necessarily give place or as Pictures vail when the Life is present Else there was such a Respect to the Scriptures of the Old Testament in those of the New as to avow them of God before them and Elder Scripture than themselves so that they vouch'd them for all they said and taught and staid the time of themselves being tried proved and sufficiently confirmed and Canonized into Scripture by the Scriptures that were undoubtedly so before them and in the very same Methods that they came into the Honour of being Scripture Upon which account the Apostle calls them the more sure Word of Prophesie more sure because of greater Antiquity and Elder Reception into Scripture than that Historical Relation and Doctrine which yet was immediately to pass into Scripture of the same Authority and Value with former Scripture and of greater Evidence and Divine Clearness and recommended by Higher Appearances of Divinity And on this same account the New Testament derives it self from the Old sometimes by Proofs out of it drawn according to the most regular Trains and Consequences sometimes by more immediate and authoâ—â—tative Interpretation but of the same Publick and Divine Inspiration with the Prophecy of Old Time it self as shall
discern them but by the Word of Righteousness of which all True Ministers are the Ministers on account of which alone Obedience and Submission to them is due Their bringing that Word in its own Life Evidence and Power is their best Commission Quest But how are they most orderly enstall'd into so high a Function Answ Christ as the Head of the Church hath ascended up on high and given gifts to Men and as the Lord of the Harvest takes it upon him as his Supreme Care to thrust forth Labourers into his Harvest The several Congregations of Christians observing Ministerial Abilities and Meetness to Teach call out to such to help them and herein in the Cessation of Extraordinary Gifts the Schools of Learning and Religious Education like the Schools of the Prophets do best prepare and the Judgment of those that have been Pastors and Teachers before them does most orderly recommend to Choice and Acceptance in the great Service such as are Scribes instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven and commits to them the Charge of Teaching others For in this as in all other Acts the Elders of the Church are to preside with due Respect to the Congregation Quest Is the Lord Christ pleased then to act generally by the Elders and Officers of the Church Answ Generally and ordinarily he does so the Officers are therefore more particularly entrusted by Christ with the Keys even as the Church in general is Thus eminently by the Ministry of the Apostles our Lord founded his Church and so edifies and builds it up in After-ages by Pastors and Teachers and when great Defections have prevailed upon it summons it to Reformation by some rais'd up among those Officers and whom he sends out as such to reform and recover his Church Yet still all this Power is in and according to his Word and no other and so that in all things as much as may be the Knowledge Judgment and Approbation of the Church is to be joyn'd in all the Officers do as having their Interest in the Keys also because they have their Interest in the Word of God in the Understanding Opening and Applying of which to Particular Cases the whole Power of the Keys rests The Apostles Elders and the Brethren or whole Church were together pleased and together joyn'd in that Famous Conciliary Epistle Acts 15. 22. Quest I desire your more full Explanation of the Publick Offices of the Christian Church and the Power accompanying it Answ I will very willingly do as you desire and begin with the Apostles Quest Wherein stood their Power Answ It stood in their Preaching Acting Directing Governing by that Immediate and Infallible Assistance of the Divine Spirit by which they writ and sealed Scripture and by which they were so guarded every way that they could turn neither to the Right Hand nor to the left in any thing wherein they exercised this Power Quest How was this Power Justified Answ By the Divineness substantial Goodness and Reasonableness of all their Prescriptions propos'd in all the Methods of Rational Discourse and manifestation of themselves in Mens Consciences witness'd to by the Holy Spirit and authorised by a Power of Miracles generally of Beneficence or doing good and in some but sparing Instances of infliction of Bodily Pains or Death Quest Did the Apostles never err in their Administration Answ Whenever that Infallible Guidance was not present to them they might err as was before observed in the Apostle Peter's Miscarriage which no doubt was recorded to shew their Power was not in themselves but in the Divine Spirit acting by them that none in After-ages might pretend to dictate as their Successors having not their Power and yet requiring Obedience as if they had it whereas even the Apostles themselves might err and so lose their Power if never so little deserted by the Holy Spirit And therefore what they consigned over to After-ages was winnowed from every thing Humane and Fallible that both Officers and People might know the one Common Rule by which one is to Govern the other in the Application of it is to be Governed Quest Who were next to the Apostles in this Office and Power Answ Evangelists such as were Timothy and Titus who having a Portion of the Apostolick Work to plant and settle Churches and Ordinary Officers in them had also a Portion of their Power to enable them to it it being absolutely necessary there should be such till the General Rule was fully settled and fixed Quest Were not the Apostles and Evangelists above Ordinary Pastors and Teachers Answ They were in this great Point of Difference that they had the Word of God by Immediate and Infallible Revelation committed to them to commit the same to others by direction from the same Spirit who gave them Discerning to whom to entrust it till all things relating to the Kingdom of God in the Church were sealed in the Canon of the New Testament else they owned themselves Compresbyters as the Apostle Peter stiles himself A Presbyter with Presbyters Quest From all that hath been spoken we are to conclude That the whole Power in the Church and in all things pertaining to Religion is retained in the Word of God Answ It is so For Christ in his Word is the only King and Lawgiver of his Church which Glory he will not give to another Whatever Power can be supposed resident in the whole Church together is no other than in that Word of Truth publickly offered by it The Apostles Power was only the presence of that Word to them by the Immediate Revelation and infallible Guidance of the Holy Spirit for the Preaching it throughout the World and thereby founding the Christian Church Such was the ordinary Power of any extraordinary Ministers under them The and constant Rulership of the Elders of the Church remains unmoveably in the Word which it is their Office to speak Quest Are not those we distinguishingly call Bishops Successours to the Apostles in that Preeminency they had over other Pastors and Elders Answ That Successors to the preeminency of the Apostles may be well established Three things are necessary 1. That there be found and produced Distinct Commands given in Scripture â—o the Inferior Ministers of the New Testament to obey Superior Ministers or Bishops Commands to Christians to obey Inferior Ministers or Ordinary Presbyters as Inferior Ministers with respect to Superior Ministers and those Superior Ministers as Superiors We must find the Apostle distinguishing ordinary Presbyters as Inferior Ministers with respect to Superior Ministers and those Superior Ministers as Superiors as we find him distinguishing Civil Magistrates into the King as Supreme and Governors as those that are sent by him 2. Seeing it is very clear and apparent there is nothing more distant from the Design of the Gospel than to Constitute any thing for the sake of making a great Figure without as great an Use or End and that Christ hath not given Power to his Rulers to Command
the very least thing but as Commanded by himself first for then they would be Lords which he plainly declares against and absolutely denies to them and that what they do as Commanded by him they should do so in Duty and Service to the Supreme Lord and Subordinately to his Church as not to be called or esteem'd Benefactors for their Services so that it must be evident what their Superior Service is it must be plainly expressed in the Word of God and there at least so determinately set down as to be deduced with greatest clearness to the Understanding and Conscience of Christians and distinguishingly from the Service of other Subordinate Rulers appointed by Christ that so it may be waited for and received according to his Ordinance with Faith and Obedience 3. Seeing Christ appoints none to an Eminency of Service without a suitable Eminency of Abilities as is plain in the Apostles and Evangelists it is therefore reasonable to expect some extraordinary promises of the presence of Christ to those Superior Ministers to assist them in the Conduct of their Superiority wherein they might above any other Ministers of the Gospel Visibly and Experimentally make some approaches to the Eminent Assistances the Apostles and Evangelists had in the time of their Ministry and that they have continued and succeeded in their High Function in the Church of Christ so that the History of the Real Substantial Services of Bishops to Christianity hath come near to the Acts of Apostles and as much excelled that of Common Presbyters as the Order it self is supposed to do Now without these three self evident concurrent marks of Superiority secret invisible Characters are of no signification Quest How then is such a Succession of Bishops in a Superiority over Presbyters so uncontrolably deduced from Antiquity Answ Besides all other Coincident Accounts there is this to be given After the Apostles there was but a Gradual Cessation of Apostolick Men Men of Eminent Graces and Extraordinary Gifts though not of the Infallible Guidance of the Divine Spirit for the Revelation of the Gospel or the writing of Scripture yet of more immediate Divine Assistances in resemblance of Timothy and Titus for the Confirmation of the Churches planted by the Apostles Supervisal over them and Care for them and also for the further propagation of Christianity which being but newly set out had not arrived many places where it was to come and so needed some more than ordinary Assistances Even as Miracles did not immediately Cease no more did these Personages extraordinary in their Endowments Such as these were worthily in a Degree of Superiority over those that had not the same miraculous Inablements nor Knowledge as yet in Christianity Afterwards such Manifestations of the Divine Presence by Degrees retiring and Christianity having fixed it self where it was then to go and the Churches settled the best accounts of the continuing Distinction between those that were upon the same level in regard of their Gifts and Graces were but Humane Prudence and Order which oblige no Man's Conscience beyond the valuableness of the Reasons of that Prudence and Order Except undeniable Holiness Industry and Improv'd Understanding recommend any Person to such Eminency For Eminency and being Taller than others in those Qualifications will make any Person a Bishop in the true sense of one whether so ordinated or not and cannot make him that is a Dwarf in these truly a Bishop however for Orders sake he may stand in the place of that Figure He that excels in his Knowledge of Obedience to Zeal for and Authority in the Word of God seeing that Word conveys all this kind of Power from it self must needs have more of that kind of Power so conveyed than others for the more purely this Word is understood and Preached the more Power goes out of it and along with those that display it and so they become Pastors of a higher Character whether of a higher Order or not CAP. XI Of every Man's Obligation to be wise for himself to Salvation Quest ACcording to all the precedent Accounts of the Church it seems not only reasonable but most necessary every Man should be wise for himself unto Salvation Answ It is certainly so for every Man is to be determin'd by the Word of God to the True Religion to which purpose he is to apply his Mind to search for true Wisdom as for Silver and to seek for it as for hidden Treasure Quest How should Men of so great Disadvantages to such High Things be inabled to Judge Answ Wisdom assumes most justly to it self to be of so high Value that every Man should think it worth his while to Labour and Travel herein and to them that do so it hath promised the most certain Success even the pouring out its Spirit to them and that they shall understand the Fear of the Lord and find the Knowledge of God The Things of greatest moment are not of such difficulty but that they are attainable in the use of Right Means under so great Promises Quest What are those Right Means Answ Bowing down our Ears to the Words of the Wise that is of those that by Inspiration from God have been Wise and written their Wisdom for Future Ages and by applying our Hearts to Divine Knowledge upon which they come to be inlay'd within us and to be fitted to our Lips to be agreeable and well matched to our Discourse and not like a Parable in a Fools Mouth Quest But are not these things spoken and written to the Learned and Elders of the â—hurch that they might know for the People and the People put their trust in them Answ No They are written to thee even to thee that is to every one that they might have their Trust only in God that is find the Rock of Divine Veracity and Infallibility and have no need to trust in Men â—ut to know the certainty of the Words of Truth and be able to answer the Words of Truth either to those that advise with them as Friends or challenge them as Enemies Quest If this was the sense of the Old Testament it is undoubtedly much more so of the New Answ It must needs be so as a higher and more Intellectual State of the Church as much freer and clearer in its Notions of Truth The Apostles Discourse Christians as no Christians if they are not able to Judge as Wise Men what they say If they are not Men in understanding if they attain not to the state of Teachers by skill in the Word of Righteousness and have senses exercised to discern by an Intellectual and Spiritual Gust Things Good and Evil if they cannot give an Apology or Defence of the Hope that is in them that is of their Christianity to every one that asks them a Rational Account of it Quest But in things of Perplexity and Doubt are not Christians bound to submit to the Judgments of their Teachers Answ If they can receive and
of this Truth under an apprehension of a greater moment than there is indeed in the Causes of such a Disunion and a proportionable abatement of Christian Love arising from it All Heresie therefore includes Schism but all Schism does not rise up to Heresie Quest Are these the Scripture Notions of Schism and Heresie according to its use of those Words Answ They are most agreeable with the Sense of it but the words were not so set solemn and formal in Scripture as afterwards in Ecclesiastick Writers for Dichostasyes or Division into two or more Parties and Contentions are by the Apostle used to the same Sense as Schism and Heresie sometimes signifies no more than a Sect or Division though that is remarkably used in its worst Sense by both the Apostles Paul and Peter Quest Is every different Apprehension and Practice ensuing upon it though distant from Truth immediately to be Condemned of Schism Answ By no means if it be a Modest and Humble Distrust and Suspension concerning the Truth and Command of God in some things of smaller moment and doubtful yea though it comes to a positive Determination so far as a Man's judgment and yet erroneous can at the present discern it cannot be branded as Schism if there be no stress laid upon the Thing beyond its desert if the Union in the greatest and clearest Truths and Commands remains firm and the Love due to such an Union with the Church of God be sincere and fervent yea even Dissent in greater points thus qualified and free from ill practice hath not been rigidly censur'd for Heresie Quest Is there no danger then of running into Schism if there be an Vnion with Truth Answ In this Sense only when the weakness or misapprehension of others are rated against them beyond their Merit and without regard to the greater Truths they agree in and the Love due to them upon Union in those greater Truths is withdrawn or the Spirit of meekness in endeavouring to restore the Erring Christian denied This may be justly esteem'd like Schism as it recedes from the just value of Great Truths and from the Charity of Christians upon Union in them but no Man is to espouse any Mans Errors or to receive even Truth by an implicit Faith for fear of Schism in things that carry not a broad Evidence of Divine Truth there is great scope for Modest Suspensions and even Dissents without Imputation of Schism for Truths of magnitude either in Doctrine Worship Practice or Discipline are too bright to be refused by sincere and honest Minds after due admonition Quest Wherein lies then the great Evil of Schism Answ That Schism and the Evil of it may better be understood I will set before you the several Instances of Schism in Scripture and the Evils noted by the Apostle in each of them 1. The first sort of Schism is the Disunion in the sincere Doctrine of the Gospel and bringing in upon it the necessity of the Judaique Rites to concur with it This the Apostle to the Romans Rom. 16. 17. calls making Divisions or Parties beside or contrary to the Doctrine received The great Evil of this adding to the Word of God is that it lays Scandals before Men and draws them into this great mischief that instead of the pure nourishment of Divine Truth all runs into this over-beloved Sentiment and so deprives the Soul of the true and vigorous Spirits of Truth and also the Service due to True Christianity is drain'd away and consumed upon this private Opinion which is indeed the mischief of all Falshood in Religion and Devotion in Things not appointed by God who only can prescribe what is truly fitted to our Good and bless it with suitable Effect Miscarriage from Divine Truth is always found in Schism with this mischievous Consequence that it deceives the Soul with a Cloud and Wind instead of Truth and solid Good 2. A Second kind of Schism the Apostle Notes 1 Cor. 11. 19 20. was the Disorder in Divine-Worship in that great Ordinance of the Lords Supper wherein they that were reprov'd were necessitated to withdraw and to stand apart for the manifesting themselves in the purity of that Worship and Service for the very honor of it The great Evil of this Schism is that it brings in a necessity of divided Parties in Publick Religion and the Duties of it seeing good Men must separate from such Corruptions and stand at a Distance from them on Account of which Religion it self is dishonoured as if it were a Jumble of Sects and gave an uncertain sound and further than that is charged as if it were but a Sect it self because it stands by it self Thus Christianity was called This Sect and the Sect of the Nazarenes Idolatry damns the True Worship of God as a Heresie from it self and the False Church charges the truly Publick-Assembly with Schism and a Private Religion 3. Another Degree of Schism the Apostle taxes in the Corinthians 1 Cor. 1. 11. c. 4. 3. was that this one intire Profession of Christianity in the one Universal Church of Christ they thought ought to be shred into little Fraternities under the Names of some prime Minister of Christianity or even under the Name of Christ himself as an ordinary Master of a Party except we will understand that Those Approved who stood firm in Christ alone were manifested and stood alone by being at a distance from the Schism of others and so appeared as was said before like a Schism themselves Thus vain Philosophy parcell'd out it self under its great Masters The great Evil of this is that it raises Feuds Contentions and Factions as if this one Integral Christianity could have distinct Interests and some ingross one Interest others another Whereas the Apostle thus reduces this Schism all Ministers saith he with all their Gifts Graces and Functions are the whole Churches without any cantoning other than that Order and Conveniency requires the more constant administration of Religion in certain Congregations with their Elders Cephas the Apostle of the Circumcision was the Corinthians though Gentiles as well as the Apostle of the Gentiles Paul himself and not only the Churches Ministers â—ut the whole World and the Cargo of Light and Truth in it are the Churches Every Truth every Ordinance every Minister whâ—ther of Truth Natural or Revealed Religion with all the happy Effects of them are all the Donation of Christ to the Catholick Church whose the Catholick Church is and no Ministers whatever and Christ is Gods who is the Foundation Center and Supream Head of this Unity and Union 4. The last Instance of Schism I find in Holy Scripture is intimated to us under that curious Parable 1 Cor. 12. 12. of the Wise and Excellent Temperament betwixt the several Members of the same Body set in different Degrees of Dignity the less comely parts have more abundant Comliness and those that we think to be less Honourable on these we bestow more abundant
Honour that there should be no Schism in the Body but that the Members should have the same care one for another under this Elegant Shade the Apostle teaches that a neglect and a contemptuous over-looking the Rights and Interest of the lower and less Honourable Members in the Church incurs the guilt of Schism as arguing the want of that Compassion and Feellingness that springs from the head of the Church down through the higher to the meanest of his Members for no Man ever hated his own Flesh even the meanest and lowest part of it but nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord the Church They therefore that carry the greatest Grace and Honour in the Church should invest the least comely Members with more abundant Honour and Comliness in the most humble Christian Condescensions and kindest Treatment covering all their defects in Imitation of God who hath given most abundant Honour to that part which lacked and being more tenderly careful of deferring to them the utmost God hath allowed them On the other side the groundless and unreasonable Repining and Discontent of those Inferior Members that they are not the most noble parts is Schismatical also not feeling the Glory of those more excellent Members as their own Glory with delight and complacency even till it rises up to the Glory of the Head Christ and God To be perfectly united therefore in the same Judgment and Mind and to speak the same thing God hath spoken in his Word and herein to Love one another to observe the same pattern of Worship given by God himself to look upon our selves as only Christs and all Ministers to be the whole Churches given it by Christ alike so far as God gives us opportunity to enjoy them to rejoyce in the Honour of the highest Members and to Honour more abundantly the meanest as being all the Body of Christ and so tempered by him and wherein we cannot in this State of the Church come up to the exactness of these things yet to perform thus in the greatest instances of each of them and in the smaller to tollerate and forgive one another these are our security and certain preservation from Schism Quest Is there not another sort of Schism yet to be spoken of Answ No other that I can find spoken of by the Scripture Quest Is it not Schism when the Church or that part of it wherewith we are conversant prescribes Indifferences to make orderly and decent the Worship of God and any Christians separate themselves into particular Assemblies to Pray to Hear and Speak the Word of God to Admininister Sacraments that they may be free from such prescriptions For this is setting up an Altar against an Altar and one Part of the Church against another what can it then be but most notorious Schism and so esteemed in al Antiquity Answ I know not whether it is at all Schism I am sure if things were rightly managed it were the least Guilty kind for there being an Union as is supposed in all things that are Commanded by God and Christ if there be that Value and Love for one another in those things wherein they unite and agree a desire of Interest in and benefit by one anothers Prayers and a Joy in the Gifts Graces and Spiritual Abilities one of another a care mutually to impart and receive the benefit of them as far as may be such an Union in things Commanded by God shall over-rule the little distances in indifferences and no more divide than Worshiping God in different Congregations by reason of Distance of place or the Church of God using differing Circumstances of Worship in different Countries and Places Quest But what if besides these meer and simple Dislocations of themselves and use or non-use of these Indifferences there be Anger Strife Emulation Bitter Zeal in one against another as is generally and usually seen do not these sowre Passions beget Schism Answ Wherever these are found they must needs amount to that kind of Schism That Christians do not love Christians in the Truth and in keeping the Commandments of God Since it is supposed that each part are united in the Fundamentals of Faith and Divine Commands upon which ought to flow from the Love every sincere Christian hath to God and Christ in these love to one another also For Faith worketh or is effectual by Love and this is Love that we keep his Commands This Love therefore must needs to all united in these mighty things wherein True Christians are united surmount the disaffection that arises in the Disunion about Tything Mint or Cummin or else we must value our Confidence in small things or our Doubts about them above the clear and undoubted Truths and Commands of God which must indeed needs be Schismatical in both parts or on whatever part it â—e found Quest But seeing these Contentions are so hard to be avoided in the midst of different Judgments and especially divers Practices of Christians and in so distinct Congregations and that in the Eye of one another and further that the Assemblies of Christians together ought to be as Vniversal Numerous or at least as Free and Mutual as is possible in regard of nearness of place one to another for that it is most for the Honour of Christianity they should be so and most advantageous to the imparting Spiritual Gifts and Graces between all the Pastors and People seeing all this is so undeniable how can separation from the Assembly of one another do less than carry the guilt of Schism Answ There can be no Schism in keeping close to the Doctrine and Commands of Christ without adding or diminishing turning to the Right-hand or to the Left for therein as hath been often said is the Bond of the Churches Union therein alone is the Church a Church and the Peace lies infolded in the Truth the more than the Considerations forenamed are pressed and they deserve very earnestly to be pressed the more absolutely necessary it is to stay in the Doctrine of God and the Commands of Christ or which are as truely the Commands of God the Dictates of Nature Nay it is better to allow Men a Suspension of their assent to some Truths and of their Compliance with some Commands that are but upon the outward skirts and marches of Christianity and so not so evidently revealed than rush them upon a precipitate belief of a blind obedience the plainest things and those are always the most necessary being the safest to pitch Christian Communion severely upon Quest But may it not be reasonably supposed that according to the Constitution of Church Governours by Christ they have a Power in things neither Commanded nor Forbidden by God to interpose their Authority aâ—d to determine them this way or that way and that Obedience cannot be refused without Schism Answ There are very great Reasons against any such Supposal 1. The Apostles the Highest Authority under Christ as will be easily acknowledged had Commission
only to teach the Observation of things Commanded them by the Lord himself 2. There is a constant Disclaimer in the Gospel of any Despotick or Lord-like Power in Church-Rulers Christ expresly Compares the Power he gave with Civil Powers and Resolves it shall not be so among his Disciples as was among them He saies the Chief among them shall be Ministers and Servants delivering the Will of their Lord and not Lords themselves they must have no Will of their own to promulge They profess they Preach Jesus the Lord and themselves Servants for Jesus sake Servants of those they Preach to as they Minister to them the Divine Will not Lords over Gods Heritage but ensamples of the Flock Embassadours delivering only the Messages of their Master and beseeching Men But if the whole scope of Indifferent Things were given them for a Dominion how great would it be 3. These Circumstances in Religion may grow so bulky and cumbersome and make such a Medly in it that no one would know what Religion it self is 4. The Free Votes and Suffrages of Christians in all things they receive as most con-decent and convenient is that more abundant Honour God hath given to the meanest Members of his Church Thus the whole Affair in that Council Acts 11. was managed by not only the Apostles the Elders but the Brethren also each according to their Station and Situation in the Body the Church For that there may be no Despotique Power what is Commandâ—d by Christ must be so represented that the Evidences it is so Commanded must be duly Represented and the Divine Authority sufficiently remonstrated what is of Advice and Conveniency must be carried by free Suffrage and Consent Quest But still the Church being a Society and the best of Societies it must be Subject to the Laws of Nature concerning Society and what is carried by the Votes of People being always subject to Turbulency and Confusion have we not great Assurance seeing Christ reversed nothing Natural but confirmed it that there are many things not written in Scripture but left to their necessity and expediency according to Natures Laws and so what is nearest to Monarchick being farthest from Confusion the Rulâ—rs of the Church and among them the Bishops ought to determine all things neither Commanded nor Forbidden by God Answ There is in the Church the perfect and absolute Monarchy of Christ in his Word and besides this there is no other nor can the Laws of Nature dictate any other there is one Lawgiver who is able to save or destroy and there need not any more Masters for more would certainly breed Confusion whatever therefore is clearly according to the Word of God or to be made out to be so whatever is the evident Dictate of Nature as distinction of Sexes 1 Cor. 11. 3. in their publick appearance in Religious Assemblies administration of Divine Services in a known Language 1 Cor. 14. v. 5. the speaking of one Prophet only at once and not in a Confusion of Voices v. 31. All such Natural Order and Decency or whatever is of Indisputable Decency according to the Manners and Custom of our Native Country these are the utmost Bounds of Prescription All things else are to be Comprimiz'd by Agreement and Suffrage and even these necessary things are to be Managed by Doctrine Rational Convicton Exhortation Admonition Rebuke and even Charge and Command with all Authority in the Evidences of the Divine Word and Will and no otherwise For this I say again is the more abundant Honour the Rulers or more Honourable Members of the Church are to invest the lowest with to Circulate with them the Life and Spirits of Truth by transfusing the Advantages of all the Light and Knowledge they have that they as Living Wise and Intellectual Members also may judge what is Commanded them by God and not be as Fools or Lifeless Members For what Blood Spirits and Life are in the Body that is Spiritual Wisdom and Understanding in the Will of God in the Church And in all Indifferent things the very same Freedom the Foot hath to represent to the higher Powers of Nature what offends it and is immedately heard the very same Power the lowest Member of the Church hath to remonstrate to the Higher what Scandalizes it in the accepting this or that Indifferent Ceremony and it ought as feelingly as immediately to be heard For as the same Soul is present to all parts of the Natural Body so the same Spirit of the Head of the Church animates his whole Body the Church which is the Fulness or Complement the Receptacle of his Fulness the Fulness in which he will appear Full and Compleat who fills all in all As therefore the Head it self feels by this Spiritual Union so are the Eyes and Ears the Higher Members of this Body to do And if they do not so feel it argues an Interruption between them and the Head it self for that most concernfully reciprocates with the whole Body and the extreamest part of it and so does every part inliven'd by him also if there be no Intercision nor Obstruction betwixt it and the Head Quest Is there yet any further Reason against a Power in the Rulers of the Church for imposing in things of indifferency under the Names of Decency and Order Answ There is the great Reason of the Mischief of Scandal to be added to all that hath been spoken Quest What is to be understood by Scandal Answ Scandal is a Subject of Discourse of too large a Compass for the present purpose but as it is strictly to be adjusted to it it may be thus understood Scandal is that Hurt and Grief a Man receives in Submitting either to Humane Example or Imposition in things of themselves neither Commanded nor Forbidden by God when the Conscience is in doubt whether that which is required to be done be not displeasing to God and forbidden by him or that which is required to be omitted or not done is not pleasing to God and Commanded by him and yet submits it self to be led by that Example or Commanded by such Impositions and so falls into Sin and under a wound of Conscience Quest When the thing is indeed neither Commanded nor Forbidden by God how can it be changed by the Conscience being in Doubt concerning it Answ Because the Conscience is that complex or congregated Power of the Soul wherein are preserved all the Doctrines to be believed and Rules of Action to the end that it may observe and direct how the Soul is to Govern it self and square all its Actions to the Will of God and that it may comfort or check the Soul in doing Well or Ill according to those Doctrines or Rules Wherein then Conscience is mistaken and misjudges either way against that which is Commanded by God or for that which is forbidden by him there is nothing to be done but to reduce Conscience to its Right Rules which is the Will of God in
For the sake of the True Religion we may be oblig'd to forsake not only our Country but our Fathers House and to unite to the Church of God founded in that True Religion yet in the mean time we must own all that is Divine Rational True weresoever we find it much more in our Native Country and if it be possible propagate True Religion upon it For we shall not only be judged in this World with our Nation but shall rise with it at the Day of Judgment in the same Station or Lott wherein we were placed in this World according to our doing good in it we shall receive our Reward with those of it that are saved who shall then survive in Glory and become as if they were the whole Nation the perishing part being lost as we therefore desire the prosperity of it in this World so ought we to endeavour by all means the Eternal Happiness of as many of it as we can by joyning with them and ingaging them in True Religion Quest I desire your Second Proposition Answ It is this That in a Political Sense National Religion is when Magistrates and the Body of the People joyn in the True Religion and Establish it by Law and devote to it the most Publick Advantages that the Largeness and Grandeur of such a Nation have in their Power fixing Characters of Civil Honour and ample Condition upon the Rulers of the Church and Communicating to them Magistratical Power in things pertaining to the External Defence Honour and Provision for the True Religion as it is National all which so far as it is Serviceable to the best Ends is acceptable to God our Saviour who is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace and ought to be Submitted to with Reverence both in Obedience to Government and also as it is done in Honour to the Name of God and True Religion The State of the Church in times of Persecution being not the Standard as to these things in the prosperous times of it Quest I now desire the Third Proposition Answ The Government of a Nation in Religion appointing and prescribing Liturgies Confessions of Faith Catechisms and Publick Forms of Instruction or Homilies they may be so far useful as when they are composed according to the Word of God to secure True Religion and the Publick Administration of it by so much publickly Ratified and requiring of all whom it Intrusts as Ministers of the Word of God under its Approbation and Maintenance to assent to the Truth of Religion so Compriz'd and Publickly to declare it by using them as is appointed But these are not to be understood to put Limits upon the Ministers of the Word first entrusted by Christ who are both in Prayer Preaching the Gospel and all means of Instruction to search into all the Scripture that is profitable for Doctrine Instruction Reproof and to Pray with all Prayer and Supplication according to the particular occasions and in that abundance and liberality of the Divine Oracles that they themselves may speak as the Oracles of God and Pray with the Vnderstanding and in the Holy Spirit and that all their Service may be matter of Bounty from their own Minds and not of Constraint and necessity as impos'd For how should they then as every Good Scribe Instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven bring out of their Treasure Things New and Old or like the good Housholder that hath made provision and laid up in store to that End In all these things Solomons Example is Great According to which the Preacher ought to be Wise and to teach the People Knowledge and give good heed and seek to find out acceptable Words that may be as Goades and Nailes not blunted with Common use Quest I now desire your Fourth Proposition Answ The Benefit of National Religion Established by Law is That every Subject of that Nation hath a Right to the True Religion so Established and may claim his Interest and Property in it as in all Things else legally due to him and is not oblig'd upon the account of Passive Obedience to desert or relinquish his Right in it any more than his Righteous Claim or Title to any thing else he enjoys by Laws and yet Trangresses no Rule of Christianity but hath the same Obligation to defend that his Right as any other Right whatever so far as the Laws of the Nation enable him nor can there be any Resistance to Government in so doing even as there can be none but it is the Duty and Trust of Subordinate Magistrates to adhere to the Laws in the point of True Religion as in all other Cases and of the Supreme Legislative Power of a Nation to foresee Dangers and prevent them by Additional Laws as necessity shall require And all this with the Prerogative due to Religion Quest I desire your Fifth Proposition Answ National Religion seeing it is design'd to Comprehend a multitude of Persons of most necessarily and unavoidably various Sentiments and Apprehensions must be so prepared as that with greatest Ease and Room to Consciences and Understandings of so many several Figures and Impressions there may be an Union in National Religion with least Scruple and therefore to give all the Liberty that Truth gives not imposing Arbitrarily because Religion as hath been said is Gods Peculiar and in that the Doubting Conscience cannot Obey farther than it sees the Divine Rule before it not in things Dark and Disputable because clear things are only necessary to Salvation not forcibly except when Natural Religion is Violated because patient Instruction Counsel and Ratiocination are the Divine Methods in giving and working Faith Quest I now expect the last Proposition Answ I shall give you the last and therein Conclude this whole Enquiry and Instruction and it is this The True Religion of the Word of God in a Nation or City does overtop all the False and Private Religions in it and become in the Sacred Register the National Religion In the Sacred Maps the Christians of Achaia were Achaia it self The Seven Churches of Asia were the Cities themselves And whatever Lesser Differences or Divisions this or that Name of Distinction may seem to make in National Religion yet the True Substantial Religion in all of them shall be one National Religion and become one Rod and Scepter in the Hand of Christ and the Nation be as one National Tribe and Church For let Men do what they can against it True Religion as it is the only Publick Religion and no Separation of Men from it however called Publick can make it Private so in what place soever it is it shall have the most Publick Character and the True Religion in all those that sincerely profess it shall be one True Publick Religion and those little Differences shall not cleave it into more than one Without the Change of True Religion it self there cannot be a Schism of a deeper Sense in it if Bitterness and Animosity Censoriousness and the Persecuting Spirit were away God will graciously Interpret Scruples on one side to a Jealousie for the Purity of Religion the freedom of the other to a desire to Propagate it under the favour of Laws and thereby to be capable of doing most Good In Heaven they now are all one and shall be one and the Envy Strife and Contention which the Good Lord Pardon shall be utterly Abolished This is the Honour of True Religion of Publick Divine Religion Now the God of Peace that brought again from the Dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep by the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make his Church and his Church in this Nation perfect in every Good Work to do his Will Working in it that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS ERRATA Page 36. l. 20. for scale read seal p. 70. l. 9. r. Record