for the Welfare of Society are those which are enjoyn'd by God. Such likewise are those that respect ourselves Why the Law is called The Ministration of Death by St. Paul. What he meaneth when he saith He was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and he died And how the Mosaick Law is termed A Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear P. 1. The Contents of the Second Discourse THE Inducements that Christians have to Love the Divine Law. Love was the moving cause of our Lord 's becoming our Law-giver The Greatness of our Lawgivers Person All the troublesome Ceremonies of the Old Law are done away by the Laws of our Lord and this not by his Will alone but by the admirable manifestation of his Goodness and Wisdom How the Jews urging the Everlastingness of their Law is from hence answered and how their way of Speaking is corrected when they say our Lawgiver hath vilified and destroy'd their Laws Only such Laws are enjoyn'd by our Lord as have in them an Intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one Though the Jews had some Inferiour Laws suted to their Temper and Climate which did the better fit them for the observance of those Laws which were Moral yet we have not the less reason to Love the Laws of our Lord because they are all Good without any mixture of such Inferiour Laws which may be agreeable to different Climates where Christians Live and which may promote the Precepts of our Lord are not by those Precepts excluded Christian Laws are such also as will in our Obedience much comply with our particular Way and Temper The Moral Laws which were given to the Jews are by our Lord more fully and clearly given The Laws that respect ourselves are properly belonging io the New Testament At least are there only directly and openly injoyn'd The Objection answer'd that so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating to Faith which no one living can conceive how they should be The Reasonableness of making our Vnderstandings to yield to our Faith. P. 35. The Contents of the Third Discourse THE Severities of the Christian Laws are not unreasonable neither do they reduce us to such straights as cannot be gone through without a great deal of uneasiness if at all The Design of our Lord is not to beat down our Natural Inclinations and Appetites but to rectifie them Our Dispositions if well managed not averse from a right Improvement The Laws of Christ do not dash the pleasure of Conversation by threatning idle Words with the Day of Judgment The Loving of Enemies while they persist to be injurious is in itself not unmeet but highly equitable in case the History of our Redemption be true Fasting and Abstinence not unreasonable nor the parting with Estates and Lives for the asserting of the Gospel From the Laws of Christ we have a fair way for the Pardon of all Sins What the Law of Faith requires of us How much it is different from the Old Law. What the Law of Repentance is Too many make Faith and Repentance to stand in opposition to the other Laws of our Lord. How the Laws being done away which was Engraven on Stones is to be understood Repentance for Sin cannot without the greatest Absurdity be wrested to the further and more safe committing of Sin. The Examples of the Thief on the Cross and of the Labourers in the Vineyard at the Eleventh Hour consider'd none of the Divine Laws unsuitable to one another These Laws of themselves are grievous unto none As they have relation only to Civil Society and the welfare of Men in this World they do far surpass those of the most noted Lawgivers they by no means do favour the Opinion that Right of Possession is Founded in Grace And that it is Lawful to resist Sovereign Princes in the Maintenance of True Religion They make the Man truly beautiful within P. 66. The Contents of the Fourth Discourse GEneral Motives relating to these Laws altogether To the Conscionable Observance of them Eternal Rewards are promised yet Earthly ones are not excluded For the securing of our Obedience Eternal Punishments are threatned after Death to the neglect of these Laws The Constituting such Punishments is no more than what is meet to be done Stronger Assistances are afforded for the Performance of these Laws than under Moses there were Most Loving Invitations and Affectionate Expressions are joyned with them We have no reason to complain that there are not now under the Gospel-Law those Visible Expressions of Gods Power and Presence as under the Old Law there were Particular Motives relating to these Laws singly and apart Such as are wholly peculiar to the Gospel or else are there more clearly and convincingly urged than ever they were before It is impossible there should be any True Happiness without these Laws From the inward Excellence of them and those admirable Motives annexed to them there is a substantial Proof of their Divinity and Truth No Man hath ever deserved to be so much honoured among Men as our Lord hath done Those who faithfully give up their Names unto him have the Precedence of all others How it comes to pass that since the Law is so good Assistances so great and Motives so taking there should be so many Disobedient Ones P. 114. The Contents of the Fifth Discourse THough the Generality of Men be Wicked and by occasion of these Laws being given shall suffer the greater Torments hereafter yet it would not thereupon have been better that these Laws should not have been given The impious folly of those Men who are willing to flatter themselves with God's being so much a God of Mercy as that he will not destroy them though they walk contrary to his Laws An Explication of I am the Light of the World. Why Miracles were confined to the first Ages of the Church That Prophecy made good viz. The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb c. The great Goodness of God in making these Laws to reach so wide as the whole World. His great Wisdom and Mercy in putting these his Laws into Writing and enjoyning the frequent Reading and Preaching of them The Reasonableness that these Laws should endure without Abrogation or Change so long as the World shall stand The great expectation which was of this our Lawgiver for so many Ages and in every respect his answering of it may prevail much for Mens Obedience to his Laws The Righteousness and Goodness of these Laws will manifest themselves to those who are sincerely Obedient P. 150. The Contents of the Sixth Discourse NOt a few think themselves secure in their actings if they can shew that some good Men in Holy Writ or some well accounted of since have done the like Examples of Good Men to be imitated no further than
be when yet they have the greatest Arguments to convince them that they are May not God exceed their Understandings in things relating to Heaven as much as in things belonging unto Earth And if the things which are seen are in great measure in the Dark to them shall they contradict those things which are not seen meerly because they cannot equal them with their Thoughts Because Christ is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anatomiz'd as it were Naked and open unto Men as Men are unto Him shall they therefore have no Faith in him But as I said before Although the Things we are to believe are high who can throughly know them yet the Law that bids us believe is Clear and Intelligible And it may very well deserve our Love because there are none of these Mysteries which we are to believe but what our Wellfare and Happiness are Founded in and what are instrumental to the Birth and Exercise of those excellent Virtues which the other Laws of our Lord do enjoyn Yea so far as they are Revealed unto us they are to be Rested in not Pryed into And we shall not think amiss if we persuade ourselves they shall hereafter be more fully manifested unto us as a Reward of the Obedience of our Understandings here You 'l excuse me Theophilus that I have been so long on this Answer though truly I could not well help it since the Objection or rather Objectors seem'd to require it Theoph. You shall have your pardon on one Condition that you will be guilty of the like fault in Answering the next Eubul It is very likely I may However I shall not be over Solicitous because I have my pardon before Hand But it begins to be late Every thing is bending Homewards and minds us of what we likewise are to do The next Evening will I hope allow us that Hour which this denies us DISCOURSE the Third The Contents THE Severities of the Christian Laws are not unreasonable neither do they reduce us to such straights as cannot be gone through without a great deal of uneasiness if at all The Design of our Lord is not to beat down our Natural Inclinations and Appetites but to rectifie them Our Dispositions if well managed not averse from a right Improvement The Laws of Christ do not dash the pleasure of Conversation by threatning idle Words with the Day of Judgment The Loving of Enemies while they persist to be injurious is in itself not unmeet but highly equitable in case the History of our Redemption be true Fasting and Abstinence not unreasonable nor the parting with Estates and Lives for the asserting of the Gospel From the Laws of Christ we have a fair way for the Pardon of all Sins What the Law of Faith require of us How much it is different from the Old Law. What the Law of Repentance is Too many make Faith and Repentance to stand in opposition to the other Laws of our Lord. How the Laws being done away which was Engraven on Stones is to be understood Repentance for Sin cannot without the greatest Absurdity be wrested to the further and more safe committing of Sin. The Examples of the Thief on the Cross and of the Labourers in the Vineyard at the Eleventh Hour consider'd None of the Divine Laws unsuitable to one another These Laws of themselves are grievous unto none As they have relation only to Civil Society and the welfare of Men in this World they do far surpass those of the most noted Lawgivers They by no means do favour the Opinion that Right of Possession is Founded in Grace And that it is Lawful to resist Sovereign Princes in the Maintenance of True Religion They make the Man truly beautiful within EVBVLVS AFter that store of Visitants in whose obliging Conversation your Afternoon I hear hath been spent I had thought Theophilus that your Evening Retirement would have been forgot if not wholly hindred and I began to be content that my Walk must to Night be lonely THEOPHILVS NO Eubulus I did not intend to leave you so you see I am at liberty and though I am much Delighted with the Company of Temperate and Ingenious Friends as these to Day were yet I could not forget when they were gone that Eubulus would be here I am I confess much taken with that pleasantness which ariseth from a number of good Friends together but I more enjoy myself with One alone if that One be like my Eubulus The Other smooth my Forehead into Smiles This I will say doth me good at Heart And therefore permit me without further Ceremony to put you in Mind of what will be so Grateful unto me Viz. Your vindicating of the Divine Laws against those who say That granting the Precepts of Christianity are very full and enjoyn'd to a greater Spirituality than in olden Time yet the Severities of them are unreasonable to Vs as we are Men reducing us to such Straights as cannot be gone through without a great deal of Vneasiness if at all And though there be you say none who will not commend a pure Air yet if it be so thin and pure as not to be breath'd in without much difficulty there is no Reason it should be over-delighted in and loved Eubul With Acknowledgments of your kind Expressions to me which I wish I could deserve but am very sensible I do not I would in reference to the Objection of these Men know what those Severities those Straights are which they mean as unreasonable so should we the more clearly answer them Theoph. I remember I heard these things particularly mentioned by them Viz. That the Laws of Christ beat down those Inclinations and Appetites which are Natural unto us That they dash the Pleasure of Conversation by threatning every word that is impertinent or awry with the dreadful Day of Judgment Matth. 12.36 Which instead of Chearfulness in a Mans self and Courtesie to his Friends may in Him excite an anxious Fearfulness and towards them a silent or morose Deportment That they require the Loving of Enemies even while they persist to be injurious which they say deprives us of that sense of Honour and Courage which as we are Men should belong to us and makes way also for new and greater Injuries to be done us That they enjoyn the Macerating the Body with Fasting and Abstinence which what is it but the making a Man cruel to his own Flesh Yea that they bind us to part with our Estates and Lives for the asserting the Gospel when merely some outward Compliance and a Denial of some few things only and this no otherwise than in shew for a time would preserve us Which is an hard saying and who say they can bear it Eubul Truly I think this is the whole they can object and with how little Reason they do it I shall I trust sufficiently shew As to the first viz. That the Laws of Christ beat down those Inclinations and Appetites which are Natural
they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant They can of themselves lay no Obligation upon us The Holy Men we read of in Scripture were not sent into the World to be a Rule to all Others in the Things they acted The Vncertainty of Examples very great Their Insufficiency None of the Actions of our Blessed Lord from his Example merely and without a Law did lay any Obligation upon us to Imitate them The Laws of Christ reach to all Moral Actions No Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in those Laws Inferences concerning the Examples in Holy Writ In those things where the Law of God is Silent Prudence is to be our Guide Examples though of themselves they lay no Obligation upon us are yet of use Those which bear the Image of the Laws of Christ are given us for Incentives and Encouragements of our Obedience When Divine Laws are question'd as to their Sense Examples upon occasion may be Interpretations of them By Examples we may be instructed to do our Duties in a decent and becoming way Decency added unto Sincerity may make its reward the greater Examples are Registred in Holy Scripture for the Honour of those whose they were Our Condition the more sure than it would have been if we had had none in whose Steps we might tread By comparing Examples with our Rule we shall quickly find whether they will hold Good for our Practice or no. P. 175. The Contents of the Seventh Discourse COncerning the Divine Law as taken in a larger Sense Of the Historical part of Scripture particularly of the Creation All other Opinions concerning the Being of the World are cold and unaffecting Of the Fall of Man. It gives Light to many things which otherwise we should never have known the reason of The sad effects of our Fall are in great measure corrected by God's Mercy and made Comfortable to us Many things in the dark and mingled with falsities in profane Authors we may from hence more clearly discern Sacred History shews forth God's immediate Hand and plainly tells us that he punished and rewarded for such and such reasons Of the History of our Redemption How wonderful it is and what a Sacredness runs through all the Circumstances of our Lord's Conception Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension The great evidence of these things Of the Prophetical part of Scripture Especially of those Prophecies relating to our Blessed Saviour As Divine Truth is eminently seen in all of them so the quick and various workings of Providence for the fulfilling of some of them are very delightful The Predictions of the Heathen Oracles much different from these The Sibylline Prophecies of suspected Credit Of the Adhortative part of Holy Writ God hath used the most Taking words for the prevailing with Men for Obedience In the Gospel there is nothing wanting that may work upon the Soul of Man. Of the Devotional part of Sacred Scripture It consisteth of such Services as were fit for Men to pay unto their God and needed not Secresie to shelter them from an Honest Ear or Chast Eye Devotion raised to a much greater perfection by having our Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it Those persons quite mistake what they read in Sacred Scripture who find a pleasure therein without any respect to the Divine Law properly as such What we are to think of those who are conscientiously Obedient to the Divine Law but yet find not that Delight therein which Earthly things do frequently give them and who hereupon are very apt to interpret their Love to God's Precepts to be unsincere and such as will be rejected The great reasonableness and Benefit of Holy Meditation P. 210. The Contents of the Eighth Discourse DIsobedience is a Pollution It brings Disorder into a Man. It tends to make the Almighty to minister to his Creatures in the vilest Offices How God cannot be made to serve How he may He is pleas'd in Holy Writ to speak after the manner of Men that so He may condescend to our Vnderstandings and excite our Affections How He is made to serve in His Holy Name How in His Works The Creation sensible of this Slavery and God very much displeas'd with it Disobedience of an Extensive Nature It affects a kind of Eternity It 's highly Disingenuous God necessitates none to Disobedience Why He will not force Men into Obedience Why he generally cuts them not off P. 257. The Contents of the Ninth Discourse THe Plea of those is vain who say they never sinned maliciously against the Almighty nor wish'd his Greatness and Power to be less The Difference betwixt Rebellion against God and that against a Temporal Prince Disobedience a defilement in whomsoever it is Not the same Pollution in all Sins What the Sins of Good Men are and how known to be theirs The Sins of wicked Men of a deep Dye wherein they differ from those of pious Men. The Difference between wicked Men How of the worst sort some are more open some more secret in their Sins How the Sins of the less evil sort are to be measur'd The same fairness of Converse not equally innocent unto many A Sin may be a pardonable one to some when the very same to the Eye and Opinion of Men will not be so to others What we are to think of the Heinous Sins of Good Men Registred in Holy Scripture No reason from them for wicked Men to think better of their own Sins God will not esteem the Sins of his Children which are in themselves as great as and the same with the Sins of other Men to be therefore the less because they are committed by those who are his Children How to make a Judgment of our own Sins P. 288. ERRAT Pag. 282. lin 21. read them for him THE TRUE NATURE OF THE Divine-Law AND OF DISOBEDIENCE thereunto c. The Contents THE Occasion of the Discourse What is to be understood by the Divine Law. The Difference between the Law of Old and That which was given afterwards The Laws which enjoyn'd Duties towards God were such as we would in Right Reason wish should be towards a Prince and Lawgiver Concerning some Laws which might seem to have no real Goodness in them but Cruelty rather And others which seemed to proceed from the Will of God meerly as Supream without any Reason and consequently without any Love to his Creatures Of the Precepts which require Fear and are enforced upon the account that God is Terrible How these can consist with Love which casteth out Fear The Laws which a Rational Man would desire for the Welfare of Society are those which are enjoyn'd by God. Such likewise are those that respect ourselves Why the Law is called The Ministration of Death by St. Paul. What he meaneth when he saith He was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and he died And how the Mosaick Law is termed A Yoke which
5.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall be liable to the Judgment viz. The Court of the Twenty Three Elders where the Punishment was Capital though in a more mild manner than in the Council viz. of the Sanhedrim or in the Vally of Hinnom denoted there by the Expression of Hell-fire And therefore the least Punishment hereafter being such as answers to Death here importeth no less than Death Eternal though a lesser degree thereof than what shall be inflicted upon greater Sins Theoph. But can this Motive be said any way to prevail for our Love to these Laws It may excite indeed a Dread but not likely our Love. Eubul Yet Theophilus let things be seriously considered and even from This Motive how dreadful soever it may at first view appear there will be reason to love these Laws For the Constituting such Punishments is no more than what is meet to be done Where the Laws are in themselves so every way good and where there are Eternal Rewards promised to the Observance of them you will say when they are disobey'd that it is but fit there should be Penalties inflicted and these Penalties such as shall be answerable to the Offences committed Now the greatness of the Offences is to be gathered from the exceeding Riches of Gods Bounty viz. Everlasting Rewards held out unto Men on Terms so excellent and to Rational Natures so truly agreeable If These shall be despised and cast behind their backs the Sin is of a very great height and what Punishment will so rightly sute it as the contrary to that Eternal Happiness which they have rejected viz. Eternal Misery The measure of Gods Justice is to these Men not greater than the abundant Goodness was which they so ungratefully refused They shall not be thrown deeper in Hell than by the Will of God they might have been raised in Heaven Nor shall they continue longer in Punishments than they should have done in Joys Now these things in Speculation must be acknowledged to carry in them a dueness of proportion and to be therefore bountiful as indeed every thing in God and in his Actings is even his Justice no less than his Mercy Only we are weak and sinful and so cannot over quickly discern it But to impartial Consideration it will at length shew itself so to be But that which comes more near us and may more move our Love is this viz. That the Intent of threatning these Punishments is primarily not that they should be born but that they should be escaped Self-preservation is a thing so natural unto Men that the fears of losing their Welfare and Being shall have a more quick touch upon them than any thing else God therefore hath added this Motive of Fear that it may be a spur to quicken us when by the Corruption of Nature other Arguments are rendred less prevalent These Punishments shall indeed be undergone by refractory Sinners For they have as much as in them lies gone about to dissolve utterly the Community which is made up between God the Legislator and Men his People by infringing the Authority of the Divine Laws and the Dignity of Him who is to see that they be observed But it is only by such as These that these Punishments shall be undergone To others they are chiefly a Motive to Obedience and are further only as a reserve when all other means have proved ineffectual The case in respect of Punishments is much different betwixt our Lawgiver and Lawgivers on Earth Some of These are more forward to punish than to reward because Punishments do oftentimes increase their Treasuries and Rewards diminish them But our Lord is no way profited by the punishment of any neither in the rewarding them is his Abundance extenuated Much delight he takes in the Life of Men but he hath given us the greatest Assurances that he hath no pleasure in the death of Sinners His threatning therefore to punish them is that they may not be punished And truly though we may dread the Effects of God's Justice yet when he thereby shall awaken our Hearts that we may be the more secured unto Happiness as it may very much excite our Obedience so may it also our Love to God's Law even upon the account of threatning Eternal Punishments Theoph. I see out of the Eater there may be Meat and out of the Strong Sweetness What to common view is at the greatest distance from Love is hearer than what I could think an Engagement thereof to the Divine Law. Eubul Another Motive for the securing of Obedience to the Laws of Christ is their having stronger Assistances afforded for the Performance of them than under the Old Law there were The Holy Spirit will always joyn with our sincere Endeavours and will help our Infirmities And hereupon the Gospel and all the Laws of Jesus Christ are in Holy Writ called Spirit by reason of the Grace of God's Spirit preventing and enabling us in the doing of them and are therein put in opposition to the Mosaick Law which is term'd the Letter Thus is it 2 Cor. 3.6 God hath fitted us to be Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit i. e. not of the Old Law but of the Evangelical for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life i. e. The Spirit with its Assistances in this Law enables us to perform it and in so doing to obtain Life Hence it is that the Apostle as some very Learned Persons interpret him reckons more to the Constitution of a Christian than of other Men joyning Spirit to Soul and Body and giving that the precedence of the other two I pray God your whole Spirit Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 2 Thess 5.23 Not that This is a Substance distinct from the Soul and Body but a Principle we may call it which is wrought within us by the Blessed Spirit and is well expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Paul the New Creation and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Peter the Divine Nature whereby we are enabled to act those things which meerly by our Natural Powers we cannot reach unto And what is it that we cannot do if our Lord through the Blessed Spirit will lend us an Hand in the doing it I can do saith St. Paul all things through Christ that strengtheneth me and so may every good Christian say as well as he Which is a very great Encouragement to love these Laws in that they bring their Helps as well as their Rewards along with them Theoph. What you say Eubulus might be a great Encouragement to love these Laws were these Assistances such as you speak them to be But alas our Work seems to be little the less for them We must labour fight and strive and when we have done all which we are able we can see much of the Weakness of Men but little of the Strength of God and nothing
other Who is it can look upon and not be highly pleased in them But all These are nothing else but the Excellencies of the Laws of our Lord And shall we not Reverence shall we not Love them If I say we would in the Laudable actions of Men though much distant from the Perfection of the Laws of Christ often cast our Thoughts upon those Laws acknowledging the Beauty to belong unto them which in all these things is really derived from them it would be no more than a due Expression of Esteem and Love towards them and at the best much â—â—ow their Excellency Meet therefore surely it is when we have a Mind to do any thing and have an Example of the same ready in Sacred Scripture that we think not ourselves presently authoriz'd thereby to do it Some actions even of good Men who are now happy in Heaven having not been always nor altogether Good. Let us make the Precepts of the Gospel to be our Touchstone and by comparing the Example with the Rule we shall quickly find whether it will hold good for our Practice or no. Choose we either those Examples of Holy Writ which in the whole or those which in some part of them are the Image of a Divine Law and thereupon have a perpetual Rectitude Yet in these later be sure to avoid that part of the Example which is transgressive of the Command As for those which had a Warrant only for the Time in which they were done they lay no more obligation upon us now than Circumcision and Sacrifices do but are wholly to be shunn'd And those which the Law of God is silent in and which are therefore merely indifferent we may justly esteem ourselves no more bound by them than we are to wear a Seamless Coat or to lye along every time we eat unless Human Laws shall upon Prudential accounts enjoyn the doing them And then for other Examples Theophilus not recorded in Scripture They also are to be Examined by the Rule If in any thing they deviate from the Laws of Christ we are not to follow them though they be grown the Practice of Many and of some who may seem to be more Understanding and Religious than most of their Neighbors Always bearing in mind that the Best have their Errors and Frailties and that the most dangerous Errors in Religion are for the most part if not always usher'd in with Semblances of Holiness more than ordinary which to wise Men do often betray themselves by being over-acted But the Divine Laws are in every respect sincere and perfect and will lead us into no paths but such as will undoubtedly bring us unto Happiness They have no Interest to set up besides the Glory of God and the everlasting Welfare of Souls And will bear the being search'd into themselves as well as they require that other things be proved by them We may through them find out the failures of many specious Actions and Pretences but may despair in any example to see those Excellences which are not in far greater measures in Them. And Thus Theophilus as well as I could I have answered your Request In the doing of which I cannot reasonably be thought to have detracted any thing from Sacred Examples by having made them wholly dependent on Sacred Laws Were there generally a greater Caution used in Those and a greater Love shewed to These Men would walk more Surely Themselves and would set far better Copies unto Others Theoph. I dare say none of those Holy Men who have left us their good Examples would think those good Examples injured by what you have said Since their greatest Care in them was to obey God's Law And their greatest Pleasure from them was to have done it This your kindness Eubulus together with your other shall I hope find that Entertainment with me which you would wish And among the Virtues which they tend to promote I will see that Friendship and Gratitude shall not be wanting DISCOURSE the Seventh The Contents COncerning the Divine Law as taken in a larger Sense Of the Historical part of Scripture particularly of the Creation All other Opinions concerning the Being of the World are cold and unaffecting Of the Fall of Man. It gives Light to many things which otherwise we should never have known the reason of The sad effects of our Fall are in great measure corrected by God's Mercy and made Comfortable to us Many things in the dark and mingled with falsities in profane Authors we may from hence more clearly discern Sacred History shews forth God's immediate Hand and plainly tells us that he punished and rewarded for such and such reasons Of the History of our Redemption How wonderful it is and what a Sacredness runs through all the Circumstances of our Lord's Conception Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension The great evidence of these things Of the Prophetical part of Scripture Especially of those Prophecies relating to our Blessed Saviour As Divine Truth is eminently seen in all of them so the quick and various workings of Providence for the fulfilling of some of them are very delightful The Predictions of the Heathen Oracles much different from these The Sibyllin Prophecies of suspected Credit Of the Adhortative part of Holy Writ God hath used the most taking words for the prevailing with Men for Obedience In the Gospel there is nothing wanting that may work upon the Soul of Man. Of the Devotional part of Sacred Scripture It consisteth of such Services were fit for Men to pay unto their God and needed not Secresie to shelter them from an Honest Ear or Chast Eye Devotion raised to a much greater perfection by having our Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it Those persons quite mistake what they read in Sacred Scripture who find a pleasure therein without any respect to the Divine Law properly as such What we are to think of those who are conscientiously Obedient to the Divine Law but yet find not that Delight therein which Earthly things do frequently give them and who hereupon are very apt to interpret their Love to God's Precepts to be unsincere and such as will be rejected The great reasonableness and Benefit of Holy Meditation THEOPHILVS I Remember Eubulus that as by the Word Law you understood the Preceptive Part of the Bible which you have hitherto discoursed of so you did not exclude from it what ever else is contained in Holy Writ EVBVLVS YEs Theophilus we may in a larger Sense understand this also And indeed since all Scriptures have some way or other a respect to the Precepts thereof therefore the Word Law doth oftentimes import the whole Scripture as is manifest in these places John 10. It is written in your LAW I have said ye are Gods. And Cap. 12. We have heard out of the LAW that Christ abideth for ever and Cap. 15. It is written in their LAW they hated me without a cause All which places are not in the
his Son the Jews did Rule by their own Laws and so the Scepter was not departed from Judah at the coming of our Lord into the World. I will mention only one Prophecy more which from the unexpected Methods and the quick and various Workings of Providence may be very delightful and that is the Prophecy of Esai concerning his Burial Chap. 53. He made his Grave with the Rich in his Death But how shall this be For the Custom of the Romans required that He and the other Two should continue on the Cross exposed there to the Fowls of the Air to be eaten or to be consumed leisurely by the Air and Weather That this Prophecy should be fulfilled God so orders it that the Jews who were the Authors of his Death should though they wish'd no good to him be the Promoters of his Burial Thus that the Bodies might not remain on the Cross upon the Sabbath day which was then a great day the Jews besought Pilate that they might be taken away and had their desire granted But though this were granted them yet still the Prophecy was in a fair way not to be fulfilled For among the Jews there was a place on purpose to bury Malefactors in And so our Lord must have been buried with the Thieves and then how could he be said to make his Grave with the Rich in his Death That therefore this might be effected Joseph of Arimathea a Rich Man and honourable Counseller comes and begs Christ's Body of Pilate Pilate possibly having a regard to him as he was a Wealthy Man and in good esteem and not well knowing how to deny the Body of Jesus to Burial whom he had declared to be free from fault though he had afterwards condemned him order'd the Body to be given to Joseph Who after it was wound up in fine Linnen and Spices laid it in a New Sepulchre which he in his Garden had hewen out of a Rock for his own Tomb. And so contrary to the use of the Romans he was Buried and contrary to the use of the Jews he was Buried not with Malefactors but in a Creditable Sepulchre with the Rich. In such an Eminent and surprising Manner will God bring about his own Counsels and hath accomplished this Prophecy There are also many other Prophecies directly shewing forth the Resurrection Ascension and other things relating to our Lord in which a Religious and Contemplative Soul may find a Rich and Glorious Repast But these I at present will omit and will only take notice of what I hinted before viz. That some other parts of Holy Writ in themselves very delightful do yet afford us a further Delight and are in a sort Prophetical by including the Image of greater things to come Such were the Israelites coming out of Egypt which signified our Lords Coming out from thence The Rock in the Wilderness pouring out Water which Rock was Christ Jonas's being three Days and three Nights in the Whales Belly and afterwards thrown up which imported our Lords being so long in the Grave and then Rising Isaac's Living after Abraham had in intention Sacrificed him which betokened our Lords Resurrection Agar and Sarah which were an Allegory of the Two Covenants Canaan Jerusalem and Mount Sion which were Types of a Country City and Church above And many more such as These which what a true and sutable pleasure do they give to one whose Heart is fixed on Sacred things Theoph. While we look from hence backwards it may indeed hugely delight us to see the Shadows of our future Happiness While from thence we look forwards it may take us wholly up in Love and Joy to behold those Shadows reduced into Realities which for the Excellence in themselves and the infinite advantage they give unto us have been altogether worthy of such Presignifications And truly Eubulus of quite another Strain were those speeches which the Heathen Oracles gave when they were consulted about things to come The Ambiguous Signification of their Words denoted Sophistry and Cunning rather than Prescience And hence it is no wonder that they were not forward of themselves to Prophesie since when sought unto for knowledge of future Events they were thus put to their Shifts For the Devil can but guess what will be by comparing present affairs with what are past And though his guesses may more encline to certainty than the guesses of Men for we may suppose him to have a far greater insight into former years and the successes of things in them than any Man can have yet for his Reputation Sake with his Votaries he durst not speak things positively but always in a dubious Sense that if they fell out otherwise than was at first thought another Latent meaning might rather make Men blame their own Dimsightedness towards the Oracle than the Oracle's towards the futurities enquired after There are I must confess very perspicuous and important Prophecies in the Books of the Sybils And I will not say but God in his Goodness might inspire those Women for the giving out some Oracles which as rightly suting with the Revelations of the Gospel might afterwards the more sway with the Nations But many of these Prophecies were by the Pious Fraud of some Persons not Written till after things were come to pass With a design no doubt to bring a greater honour to what in appearance was so plainly foretold Thus the Oracles which were ascribed to the Cumean Sibyl were in great measure written by the Jews before our Saviour came into the World. Those which are Extant under the Name of the Erythrean Sibyl are for the most part spurious as being Written by some that lived more than an Hundred Years after our Lord. But instead of greater there is less credit as in such dealing it usually falls out both to the Jewish and Christian affairs mention'd by them Varro so far as there are Acrosticks in them denies their Truth Cicero for the same reason contends that they were rather from Human Study than Divine Inspiration And Celsus will have many things to be foisted in by the Christians So that the Reputation of the whole is hereby much diminished And indeed it is with a rational Man a very great argument against them that many Oracles there are so particular and direct that the Holy Scriptures themselves are in some things less particular and direct And who can think that God would more plainly reveal himself to uncouth Women among the Nations than to Holy Men among his own People to whom as a Pledge of his Favour above all others the Sacred Oracles as the Apostle speaketh were committed Eubul You do the Prophecies of the Holy Scripture no more than right while you prefer them above all others There is no Deceit in them The Time in which they were written is well known And was long before the things Prophesied came to pass The Jews who were the greatest Enemies to our Lord cannot deny the Truth of them
Theoph. You rightly say what the word Law imports as spoken by our Psalmist God's Will being written at that time no further than as it made up the Jewish Oeconomy As it hath been manifested since it hath relation to Men in a far wider sense wheresoever planted upon the Face of the Earth Yea even those Laws of Moses which are retained in the Evangelical Dispensation cease to bind as they were given by Moses and are Obligatory now from another Lawgiver Jesus Christ But yet still they are to be acknowledged God's Laws and we may even now use these words O how I love thy Law Therefore Eubulus I desire you will shew me these things 1. What the Inducements were to this so great Love in David and other holy Men of old to the Divine Laws 2. What the Inducements are which we Christians have to love them Eubul I see Theophilus the greater share of Discourse must lie upon me but you will have it so and to my power I will obey you As to the Inducements which David and other holy Men of old had to love the Divine Laws they seem to me to arise partly from its pleasing God to give those Laws and partly from the Excellency of the Laws themselves In relation to the former I must confess that the Nature of Men seemeth necessarily to require that Laws should be given unto them For it would have been highly irrational on Mens part not to acknowledge Him as their Lord who gave them a Being and it would be a very great Dishonour unto God should we think that They whom he had made a little lower than the Angels should be left unregarded and lawless But yet when Men had fallen from their Obedience and had in great measure sullied that Law which was imprest on their Natures it was certainly a very great Favour that God in stead of throwing upon them deserved Punishments should chuse a Numerous People to be his Peculiar and should himself repair that Law thus obliterated within by writing it in Tables that it might be discern'd by the Eye Consider Theophilus the Greatness of Him who gives this Law how he needs not the Services of any Creature and also the Ingratitude of Man how he disobeyed the most righteous Law in Paradise where all the Love and Observance which possibly he could shew would not have been too much Consider this I say and the Law if it carry but any favour along with it may certainly for the sake of Him who gave it be justly esteemed and loved Neither is the Time wherein it pleased God to give these Laws unworthy of our Notice So much was the Welfare of Mankind esteemed to depend upon the Writing of Laws that many Nations in after Ages contended for the Dignity of being the first Authors thereof And Greece especially among the Priviledges which she boasts to have held forth to the rest of the World reckons this as one of the the chief But the Honour of having the first Written Laws belongs to the Hebrews alone in comparison of whom as Josephus against Apion proveth the Grecian Legislators were but of yesterday and this Honour is much heightned by God's owning the immediate Relation of a King unto them while he wrote these Laws Now the Benefit of Laws and the Glory of having These given so early and by such an Hand being well understood and rightly valued by our Psalmist who himself was a Ruler and a King might well engage his Love to them Theoph. I acknowledge the Inducement from God's thus giving the Law to be a very fair one Pray Eubulus go on to the other you mentioned viz. The Excellency of the Laws themselves Eubulus Take it in that pious King 's own words Psal 19. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul The Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the Simple The Statuts of the Lord are righteous rejoycing the Heart The Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the Eyes The Fear of the Lord is clean enduring for ever The Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether More to be desired are they than Gold yea than much fine Gold sweeter also than Honey and the Honey-Comb Moreover by them is thy Servant warned and in keeping of them there is great reward Theoph. This is a very high Character indeed of those Laws if there be as I doubt not but there is Truth in the whole Eubul There is Truth in every tittle And this will appear if we shall look upon the Laws which require Duties to Him who is the Lawgiver or to Those from one to another or to Themselves whom these Laws are given unto Pray tell me Theophilus what would you in Right Reason and according to a perfect Harmony of Things have the Duties towards a Prince and Lawgiver to be Theoph. I would desire they should be Fear Love and Gratitude and these shewn upon Grounds every way good There being nothing more comely than that Subjects should be with-held from offending by Fear moved to all Obedience by Love and excited to Acknowledgments of Benefits and Protection by Gratitude More than These I mention not because to These all others I suppose may be reduced and are in effect no other than Expressions of them Eubul All these you shall find to be according to your Wish Your first Duty of Fear is in Deut. 6.13 as also in sundry places more Thou shalt Fear the Lord thy God and serve Him and swear by his Name Their Fear is to be such as not to scare them from him but they are to approach unto him and to do him Service And for the deciding of Controversies and establishing of Truth they are to use his Name solemnly in an Oath And a right good Ground there is for such a Fear from the Power and Justice of God such as can and will inflict Punishments on them when they wilfully transgress and this to the utmost of their Deserts The Destruction of the Old World for its Impiety The Overwhelming of the Egyptians in the Red Sea The Earths opening her Mouth and swallowing up Corah Dathan and Abiram and numerous other Instances of the like Nature were hereof Testimonies sufficient So that this Law of Fearing God as a Prince and Lawgiver manifests itself to be built on a sure and lasting Foundation Your second Duty of Love is commanded Deut. 6.5 Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength It is not to be a faint and an unconstant Love but one that is strong and will not fail For the Loving of God with all the Heart and Soul and Strength doth not only import the greatest vigour of Love but the greatest duration of it also It must not be towards him Now and anon quite off him but the greatest Length it must have as well as the greatest Heighth And the strong Inducements to this Duty were well known
Disease but now mentioned it may seem he was For it is hard to give any other Reason why a Person whose Flesh is cover'd all over with the Leprosie should be pronounced clean and another who had any raw or live-flesh not overspread with it should be unclean Levit. 13.12 unless it were that the power of infection had ceased in the former and did continue in the later I doubt not Theophilus but our Psalmist and holy Men under Moses saw more things belonging to these Laws than any now adays are able to instance in But these may take off the force of what you urged against them as to their want of Reasons and in that respect as to their want of Excellencies Theoph. I willingly yield what indeed I cannot deny to these Laws And desire you will deal by my last Objection as you have done by the foregoing ones Eubul If I forget not it was this That the Precepts which require Fear are such as are enforced upon the account tbat God is Terrible and where so great Terribleness is at the bottom of these Laws the Love to them must needs be the Iess For perfect Love casteth out Fear I must confess that God in the Old Testament did often manifest himself in such a manner as might throw a Terrour into Men And even at the giving of the Law in Mount Sinai there were Thundrings and Lightnings and the Noise of the Trumpet and the Mountain smoaking All which might strike a Terrour and did strike so great an one into the People that they desired Moses to speak unto them and they would hear but should God speak unto them they should die But though this were so yet we may truly say That God chose this way by reason of the inflexible Nature of the People whom more mild and gentle Methods would not so well have prevail'd upon How often in Scripture are they called A stiff-necked People And therefore they were to be trained under the Law as under a School-master not being as yet fit for the highest things but as it were in the lowest Form. Their Duty of Fearing God they are to be excited unto by Means that represented God Terrible or they would not have feared him at all Hereupon those that knew the great Love of God to his People who rather than He would lose Them or They should cast Him off would use the more severe Methods for the keeping them in their Duty and the fitting them for his Favour might well love the Law that enjoyn'd the Fearing of God and the way also that enforced it But yet the Methods which struck such Terrour God was pleased to use only upon some special Occasions and he often if not always intermixed with them Means which were more gentle that this Fear might not be the Fear of a Slave or Captive to his Tyrant but of a Subject to his Prince who looks after those under him with Care and Love though he sometimes injects a Dread into them by his Majesty And this is very remarkable even in the giving of the Law when as we said God manifested his Terrours The Preface to the Decalogue remembers the Israelites of his great Kindnesses to them I am the Lord that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the House of Bondage And in the Second Commandment his visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of those that hate him is abundantly out-weigh'd by his shewing Mercy unto thousands in them that love him and keep his Commandments Some indeed there have been who have not approved of any Prologue to be put before Laws or any persuasives to be mingled with them it being the part of a Lawgiver by Authority to Command and not by arguments to persuade But though God hath more Power than all other Lawgivers and hath a Will infinitely more perfect than theirs and consequently might give his Laws in the most peremptory manner yet he was pleased to make way for them into the Hearts of his People by Love as well as Fear that as the careless might be affrighted so the more ingenuous might be allured and none kept back from Obedience either by presumption or discouragement I might instance in many places of Scripture pertinent hereunto but I will do it only in two where God is said to be Terrible The former is in Deut. 10.17 18. The Lord your God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords a Mighty and Terrible God But then the very next words are He doth execute the Judgment of the Fatherless and the Widow and loveth the Stranger in giving him Food and Raiment The other place is in Nehemiah Chap. 1.5 O Lord of Heaven the great and TERRIBLE God that keepeth COVENANT and MERCY to them that Love him and observe his Commandments How is his Terribleness here mitigated yea set off and made Lovely by his Goodness and Mercy And what better Comment can we give of these Scriptures and many others not unlike them than that of David Psal 130.4 There is Mercy with Thee that thou mayest be Feared Though there hath been a Strong Wind that rent the Mountains and brake in pieces the Rocks though an Earthquake there were and after that a Fire yet God was not so much in any of these or at least delighted not so much to be in these as in the still small Voice And this I think may be sufficient for your Objection and also for the Laws which require Duties to God as a Prince and Lawgiver Better Laws and better grounds for their observance could not be wish'd and so they might well be Loved Theoph. Pray Eubulus proceed to those Laws which require Duties from Men one to another Which I well remember you would have to be considered in the next place to those Laws which respected the Duties to God immediately Eubul For the wellfare of Society a Rational Man would desire that there should be Honour and Respect shew'd unto Superiours by those that are below them and that there should not be oppression and ill nature towards Inferiours from those that are above them but that Righteousness and Kindness should be exercised unto all Now these excellent things are all strictly enjoyn'd by Gods Law. The Duty of Honour and Respect to Superiours the Fifth Command sufficiently requires Honour thy Father and thy Mother i. e. all those who being in Place or Authority above thee are in a larger Sense Fathers and Mothers And since Authority and Dignity were first seated in and did arise from that which was Paternal I suppose that therefore Father and Mother are put for all Superiours And under the Word Honour are comprised all those Duties which in any Circumstances are in right Reason to be shewn from meaner Persons to those that are above them which Circumstances may upon occasion be better conceived than here at the present discoursed of For Superiours not oppressing those who are Infeferiour
himself afterwards with respect to his Adultery and Murther to say Thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it Psal 51. There not being any Sacrifices provided for such Sins And hereupon the Law is called The Ministration of Death when yet to those that were Obedient the Priviledges it gave were many and so for those as for the Excellency which in itself it had might be loved That other Scripture to wit I was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and I died We if we take it as spoken in the Person of the Apostle and not rather by a Figure for others are not so to understand it as if he were the worse for the Law and might date his Death from it But thus While he look'd upon himself and his own Actions without a due Examination of them according to the exactness of the Law he might think himself to be in very good plight and free from danger But when he compared his Actions and Performances with the exceeding Accurateness of the Law the Actions which before look'd well appear'd sinful and he saw his Danger and Demerits to be very great Whereas the Law in itself was holy and the Commandment holy and just and good and so for its own worth might be loved Your last Scripture is this viz. That the Mosaick Law is termed A Yoke which neither We nor our Fathers were able to bear To this it may be replyed That we are not to take these words in a strict sense as if the Apostles and Jews could not bear that Yoke but thus They could not bear it without difficulty For we know that they had born it for many Generations from the time of Moses to that day Besides Neither was it a Yoke absolutely consider'd For God in the giving of these Laws did as a great Man interprets it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 13.18 bear with some of their Manners which the use of those Times had taught them and made his Sanctions suitable in many things to their being under-age as it were and too weak as yet for more perfect Institutions But it is therefore term'd A Yoke with reference to that Freedom and those very great Priviledges which are brought unto us by Christ In Comparison of These it is little better than a Bondage When yet before it was a great Honour to the Jews and such as They only had a share in The Heathens as they were Heathens having nothing to do in it You have Theophilus what at present I think may be replyed to the Scriptures you brought Yourself could possibly to your own Satisfaction better have answered them But if you are any way pleased with what I have said and can reap though but the least of that Spiritual Advantage you in the beginning of our Discourse spake of I shall be the less solicitous for the excusing of my Failures DISCOURSE the Second The Contents THE Inducements that Christians have to Love the Divine Law. Love was the moving cause of our Lords becoming our Law-giver The Greatness of our Lawgivers Person All the troublesome Ceremonies of the Old Law are done away by the Laws of our Lord and this not by his Will alone but by the admirable manifestation of his Goodness and Wisdom How the Jews urging the Everlastingness of their Law is from hence answered and how their way of Speaking is Corrected when they say our Lawgiver hath vilified and destroy'd their Laws Only such Laws are enjoyn'd by our Lord as have in them an Intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one Though the Jews had some Inferiour Laws suted to their Temper and Climate which did the better fit them for the observance of those Laws which were Moral yet we have not the less reason to Love the Laws of our Lord because they are all Good without any mixture of such Inferiour Laws Laws which may be agreeable to different Climates where Christians Live and which may promote the Precepts of our Lord are not by those Precepts excluded Christian Laws are such also as will in our Obedience much comply with our particular Way and Temper The Moral Laws which were given to the Jews are by our Lord more fully and clearly given The Laws that respect ourselves are properly belonging to the New Testament At least are there only directly and openly injoyn'd The Objection answer'd that so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating to Faith which no one living can conceive how they should be The Reasonableness of making our Vnderstandings to yield to our Faith. THEOPHILVS I Am very glad Eubulus I have once more your good Company and from the privacy of the place the calmness of the Weather and the leisure you at present have you will I hope go on where Yesterday you left off For I have a great desire to hear the Inducements which Christians have to Love the Divine Law. EVBVLVS YOur desire shall be complied with not because I think I can so much inform you but because those things which we already know are made more Active upon us when we hear they are the Sentiments of others as well as our own Theoph. You will make whatever Truths after this manner shall be quickned in me to belong to yourself as being Watered at least if not Planted by you Besides since the things that lie only in our thoughts do not usually so much affect us as they do when we bring them out into Words it is to be imagined that yourself will not be wholly destitute of benefit while you are kind unto me Eubul Well then with Prayers that it may be for the Ghostly Health of us both we will proceed The Inducements that Christians have for the Loving the Divine Law which are far greater than what the Jews had may I presume be collected from the consideration of these things viz. The Lawgiver The Laws themselves and those Motives which are annexed unto them for the securing of our Obedience As to what concerns the Lawgiver it may very much contribute to the Love of the Christian Law That Love was the moving Cause of his becoming our Lawgiver The Punishment which Mankind for the breach of the Command in Paradise was from Gods Justice to suffer the Son of God was willing in our Nature to undergo himself And though God the Father if he had so pleased might have refus'd that any should bear the Punishment besides those who had deserv'd it for the Law when it is Trangress'd doth require that the Offenders should suffer in their own Persons The Soul that Sinneth it shall dye yet he was pleased to accept of his Son in our stead Accounting the Reverence of his Laws which by the Sins of Mankind had been Violated to be sufficiently maintain'd by his Death But on this condition only would God accept of his
he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom he made the Heavens Heb. 1.1 2. As much as to say He hath spoken to us in a more Eminent manner than ever yet he hath done unto any And Chap. 2. he gives Precedency to his Laws before the Law given on Mount Sinai upon the Account that THAT was spoken by Angels THESE by the Lord. And by how much the greater the Person is that speaks supposing the things he speaks are in themselves Good as we shall shew that His absolutely are by so much the more should the things spoken have our Observance and Esteem This is my beloved Son hear ye Him said the Voice out of the Cloud at the Transfiguration when our Lawgiver did far exceed Moses in the Brightness of his Face and had Moses himself with Elias Attendants upon him He it is that hath the note of Excellence by S. John Chap. 1.18 viz. Who is in the Bosom of his Father i. e. Who as nearest unto him knows his mind most of any Above All he is to be heard He alone is the Man in whom saith God I am well pleased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom I fully rest having made known my Will unto him so as that a further notice of it is not to be expected for to my full satisfaction it is by him declared unto Mankind Such considerations of our Lawgiver may well excite our esteem of his Laws and we have great reason to Love them for the Givers Sake Since never any Laws were so much Honour'd from Love and Greatness as these were Theoph. The things which you have said are of no mean Concern and I wish that they were entertain'd abroad with such a Sense as they ought to be Good Eubulus proceed to the consideration of the Laws themselves Eubul I will and surely they well deserve our Love in these four respects 1. In that all those Troublesom Ceremonies of the Old Law are done away and that in so excellent a manner 2. In that only such Laws are enjoyned as have in them an intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely good and such as are discernable by every one 3. In that those Moral Laws which were given to the Jews are by our Lord more fully and clearly given 4. In that from these Laws we have a fair way for a pardon of all Sins 1. In that all those Troublesom Ceremonies of the Old Law are done away and that in so excellent a manner The Eighth Day doth not now shew us the Blood of our Children nor give us an occasion to pity them from the pains they endured by a Knife or sharp Stone And how great these Pains were and what the Soreness may be collected from the Story of the Shechemites whom Simeon and Levi were able to slay Two Men a whole City Those Numerous Washings which upon the Touching of Unclean Things and those Unclean Things so many were to be performed are now at an end There is now no being polluted for many Days or until the Evening separated from the Company of others neither need we for every Sin of Ignorance go with a Goat unto the Temple for Sacrifice Which how many must they have been since too apt we are unawares to fall into Sin Yea a Period is put to all those Sacrifices which were continually offered up These things had indeed good Reasons as hath been said for their being enjoyn'd to the Jews But it must be confessed that as to their Number and Nature they were tedious and burdensom There was somthing in the whole Oeconomy itself that in the Apostles word Heb. 8.7 was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from blame And though it serv'd well for a time yet Men in after-Ages when their Understandings were adult and their Reason improved were capable of better things than such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul termeth them weak and beggerly Elements Now had God done them or the more uneasie part of them away by his Will only without any visible Effects of his Wisdom in their being abolished it would have been a great Favour unto us But that they All should cease by being improved into greater Excellencies That Circumcision as it mark'd the Jews for Gods People should be at an end by all the Kingdoms of the World becoming the Kingdoms of the Lord That as it imported Purity and Chastness it should be raised into the Spiritual Circumcision of the Heart and the daily cutting off as it were all impure and corrupt Affections That as it was a sign of the Promised Seed it should end in His Wonderfully being Born who is the Everlasting Perfection of it That so many Allusions and Sprinklings should terminate in the inward Cleanness of the Soul and Conscience so as that there should be no further need of such things to denote it That extraordinary Sacrifices should be finished by the Lamb of God's offering up himself once for all appeasing by his pretious Blood his Fathers Wrath satisfying his Justice and purging away our Sins That ordinary Sacrifices should be no more through our Bodies and Souls being presented daily unto God a Living Sacrifice an holy acceptable and rational Service That all those Ceremonies Theophilus should in so admirable a manner be cancell'd is an high Demonstration of Gods Wisdom and the greatest Expression of his Love to us And therefore his Laws so excellently freed from such Troublesom Rites may very much engage our Love. Theoph. What you say as it may much engage our Love to the Christian Law so methinks it affords a good Answer to the Jews who urge that their Laws are in Holy Writ styled Everlasting and Ordinances for ever and so cannot be thought to cease so long as the World stands And it also may correct their way of speaking when they say our Lord hath vilified and destroyed those their Laws Eubul Pray go on and shew how in both Theoph. Some Things being said to be Everlasting and for ever denoteth only their Duration so long till their Nature cannot extend them to a further length Thus Isai 34.10 The Fire is said to burn for ever which shall not be quenched before it hath consumed all the Matter in which it burneth So likewise Deut. 15.17 A Servant is said to be a Servant for ever i. e. So long as till the Year of Jubile should free him Before that time he must not think to leave his Master And not impertinent to what we are now speaking was their way of dividing the World into Two Ages The one before the Messias the other after The former they called one for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Seculum The later added to it was for ever and ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Secula Seculorum Now the Law as given by Moses was Everlasting as the word Everlasting may import a Duration so long as the Nature thereof would well allow of so long as till the great Jubile should be
for so themselves style the Advent of the Messias from Isai 62.2 3. And an Ordinance for ever it was as for ever had relation to the First Age of the World But was not to endure beyond what the Nature thereof would well permit Not for ever and ever as taking in the Age of the VVorld under the Messias And truly we may in a manner say that the Law is not Vilified and Destroy'd by our Lord any more than a House is when from being rough and imperfect it is finished with the greatest Wisdom and Adorned with the most Rich Materials Christianity being the Judaick Religion Heightned and Spiritualiz'd Our Lawgiver himself saith He came not to Destroy the Law and the Prophets And his mentioning the Prophets together with the Law seemeth unto me to be a good explication of what I am now Speaking We do not nor can we think that when Divine Prophecies are come to pass they are vilified and destroy'd Rather say we that they are compleated and that the Compleating them is the Honour and Crown of them If then our Lord hath not destroy'd but by his Coming made good those Prophecies which were of him Why should it be said that he hath Destroyed the Ceremonial Law rather than Fulfilled it Especially when That Law was in great measure as a Type and Prophesie of Him. It is not indeed any more to be so observed as to be reduced in Practice because He whom it did Prefigure hath been Present and Lived among Us just as the expectation of a Prophecie ceaseth when what was Predicted is come to pass But then it hath its use still as also the fulfilled Prophesie have and we are to look both upon the one and the other with a great deal of Reverence and Respect As the Coming of our Blessed Lawgiver and the Purity and Spiritualness of his Government have Crowned and Compleated Them so They do now stand as faithful and evident Witnesses of the Truth of his Coming and of the perfection of his Laws Eubul You have well improved what I said and were a Jew not obstinate in his hatred to our Lord he could not but be sway'd by such considerations Theoph. But let not me hinder you from Speaking to the Second thing to wit That such and only such Laws are injoyn'd by our Lawgiver as have in them an intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one Eubul You hindred me not To this therefore we say That the Laws which relate unto God are all of a Refined Nature requiring that his Worship be performed in Spirit and in Truth and are such as shew forth his Spiritualness his Purity his Omniscience and other his Glorious Attributes While we are Commanded to approach unto him with our Hearts and to have them clean and uncorrupt before him the Law hath an inward goodness in it in that it requires us to be Holy as he whom we serve is Holy. And it nourisheth in us right apprehensions of God that his Nature is not Gross and Bodily but that he is present with us and is a discerner of our thoughts A thing which could not be said of some of those actions which in Moses's Law had Relation to Gods immediate Service For wherein could the Spirituality of Gods Nature be inferred from the Blood of Beasts and their Flesh being offered up unto him How could we from these Rites in themselves consider'd be instructed in the Holiness Goodness and Mercy of God These Acts of Worship might seem to be of a Carnal and Gross Nature and though there be places enough in the Old Testament that speak forth God to be a Spiritual and Immaterial Being to be Holy and Good yet from these parts of his Service look'd upon in themselves alone Men could not learn so much Theoph. But Eubulus there are Two Precepts of Christianity respecting Gods immediate Service which may seem not to have any thing of internal Goodness in them and those are the Dipping or Sprinkling of Children with Water in Baptism and the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For what Affinity doth there appear between true Goodness and the Eating a Bit of Bread and Sipping a little Wine Between true Goodness and the Sprinkling a little Water Eubul I deny not Theophilus what you say but then you must Remember the whole that was said viz. That only such Laws are enjoyn'd which have an intrinsick Goodness in them or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one By Baptism we are initiated into the Church of Christ becoming Members to him our Head and have the guilt of Sin wash'd away Baptism being instituted for the Remission of Sins Acts 2.38 And we are also thereby made partakers of the benefits of Christs Death into which we are Baptized Rom. 3.6 In which Rite our Lawgiver as in every thing he exceeded what was done before hath amplified his Seal by making it applicable to both Sexes when in Circumcision it was impressed only upon one Thus also the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Holy Sacrament are done in Remembrance of the Death and Passion of our Lord. And this Remembrance of him is upon the Account that he hath laid down his Life for Mankind and for ourselves in that Number And so as oft as we do this Worthily and as we ought to do we are afresh entituled to that Salvation which by his Death he hath purchased for us and have God the Father Reconciled unto us Now these are excellent Ends and that to these Ends both Baptism and the Lords Supper were instituted we are expressly told in Holy Writ without any Clouds and Darkness without so much as a word that may have a double or doubtful signification that whoever runs may read Which cannot be said of Sacrifices and some other Significant Rites among the Jews For although they were Types of our Lord as hath been said yet they were not known so to be by the generality of the People And truly it doth not a little Commend the Precepts of Baptism and the Lords Supper that in these great Acts of our Faith our Lawgiver is so far pleased to condescend to our Senses as to make the things that may be Seen and Tasted to be the Conveighers of such inestimable Favours Water and Bread and Wine are indeed things of ordinary use But in so being they import these Divine Priviledges to belong not to the Rich only and the Great but to the Meaner Sort also And very rightly suted they are to the ends for which they were instituted The Washing away of Sins is well signified by the Cleansing of our Bodies with Water And Christs Wounded Body and Spilled Blood are better represented by the lowly Elements of Bread broken and Wine poured out than by more costly and rich Materials they would have been For we are to Remember
your Discourse Viz. That so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating to Faith that no one Living can conceive how they should be And so our understandings which are the sole Judges of other things are so far from being relied on here that they must be wholly laid aside 2. Granting that the Precepts of Christianity are very full and enjoyn'd to a greater Spirituality than in Older Time yet the Severities of them are unreasonable to us as we are Men reducing us to such streights as cannot be gone through without a great deal of uneasiness if at all And though there be none who will not commend a pure Air yet if it be so pure as not to be breathed in without much difficulty there is no reason it should be over Delighted in and Loved Eubul I know there are some who in good earnest dare thus urge against the Laws of our Lord but they are Men of corrupt minds and by their ill Lives are sway'd to talk after this manner lest they should appear to have Opinions any whit better than their Practice A shame it is that any in a Christian Common-wealth where Christianity affords so many outward benefits to them should without severe punishment be permitted to speak against the Laws of Christ But when such a vile Liberty is so much usurped it will be but meet with Truth to defend these Laws And I will with your leave endeavour to do it the more largely that I myself may have the more in readiness what to reply upon occasion to this sort of Men. Theoph. Be that your design then so that I share with you in the benefit Eubul In answer therefore to their first Objection viz. That so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating unto Faith that no one Living can conceive how they should be And so our understandings which are the sole Judges of other things are so far from being relied on here that they must be wholly laid aside we say That however the matter of our Faith is beyond our reach yet the Precept of believing is plain and and what our Faith is to be we are very clearly instructed in Holy Writ And what absurdity will it be if at the thoughts of some Mysteries the Son of God being Conceived by the Holy Ghost and Born of a Virgin and such like we cease with that Blessed Virgin to enquire How these things can be and make our Understandings yield to our Faith as She did when she quietly rested with no more than those Words Behold the Handmaid of the Lord be it unto me according to thy Word And wherein will it misbecome us if in the thoughts of the Hypostatick Union of the Infinite and Eternal God with our Frail and Mortal Nature we cry with St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How are his ways past our finding out This is not to throw away our Understandings but only to reduce them to the Obedience of Faith which will be their perfection The Gospel Theophilus doth teach us the Obedience of the whole Man All the Members of the Body are to become the Members of Christ by being conformed to his Laws and also all the faculties of the Soul are to own his Sovereignty The Will is to be pliant and ready to what he enjoyns and the Affections are to be regulated into the being Holy and Obedient And do we think that the Vnderstanding is to be lawless and yield no Obedience But what Obedience can it shew other than a Submission to the Boundless and Inconceivable Wisdom and Knowledge of God confessing that itself is weak and dimsighted in Comparison thereof Certainly it is but meet to think that God is a Being which is far above our Conceptions and that he can do what our understandings cannot measure and so it is not un-becoming us to acknowledge some things in Christ as the Objects of our Faith which yet our Understandings cannot fathom For our Blessed Lord is in the greatest height the Wisdom of his Father So as that the Holy Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do only desire with a Reverential stooping to look into these things as being fit for Admiration and beyond their Knowledge and therefore they may well surpass the most acute and largest Conceptions of Men. There is indeed a very great Room for Reason in our Holy Religion which claims admittance into the Hearts of Men by Arguments as great and strong as any considering Man would desire There being no rational grounds to think that the Evangelists and Apostles did publish Falshoods in their Writings but the greatest reason for our belief that what they have Written is True and Divine But then when by Reason we have admitted of the Truth and Divinity of the Scriptures we are not to imagin that we can comprehend every particular thing therein contain'd with the same Understanding by which we conceive the Truth of the Scriptures in general And yet the same Reason by which we admit of the Truth of the Holy Scriptures in general doth prove very fully the Truth of all Particulars therein contain'd though we cannot understand them Yea yet further Every even the most difficult Mystery there gives us so much the use of our Reason and Understanding as to think that it is but Reasonable the Chief of the Ways and Methods of God for such the Nature of our Lord his Conception Life Death and Resurrection are should be above our weak Capacities Which may shew methinks very well the Arrogance of some Men who to make the Law of Faith the more easie would bring all the Mysteries of the Gospel down to the Level of Human Conceptions And the Profaneness of others who would make the Height of these Mysteries to be the Disparagement and Blemish of the Holy Laws Or in a Word who will not Believe the one that they may not Practise the other I would not compare these great Mysteries with small things But yet to these Men I may say that every thing in Nature which they look upon and know that it is if I should ask them how it comes to be so they mul◠〈◊〉 that they are Ignorant of it How comes a little un-colour'd Moisture in the same Turf to be formed into Herbs of different Qualities and Shapes That it is so they see plainly but the How of it if I may so speak they understand not And it would be a Madness to deny that there are such Herbs because they cannot conceive how they came to be so And is it not a strange piece of Obstinacy That when these Men are baffled in Ten thousand things which they see before their Eyes to have a real Being they will deny these spiritual Mysteries meerly because they cannot comprehend how they should
Favours of God to their Souls Thinking it possibly no more than their duty so to do But surely the former is not necessary Let your Speech be seasoned with Salt implies as one well Comments it that as our Meat should have a Relish from Salt so our Speech should have the Savour of Religion But that it should be wholly of Religion is not any more necessary than that our Meat should be wholly Salt. And for the later I may say That Spiritual Evidences and the Secret Favours which God may have vouch-safed to us should have a kind of Modesty attending them which should forbid the seeking after Auditors and Spectators He that said Cerne Dionysia fastum deposui See Dionysia I have no Pride left was perchance the more Proud from his Boasted Humility Such joyful Sentiments of Gods Mercy and Love should in some respect imitate godly Sorrow and holy Fasting causing the Man to enter into his Closet that he may not appear unto Men to rejoyce Satisfied with his Eye alone who puts such Gladness into the Heart Or else imparting it to one or some Christian Friends only where he shall not be thought to appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some great one dearer unto God than other Men. And thus Theophilus you see what little reason there is for the finding fault with our Saviours Laws as if by forbidding idle Words they overturned all the pleasure of Society They rather provide that Conversation shall have the more pleasure by all foolish impertinent deceitful and opprobrious Talks being discarded from it and by such excellent and useful variety of Discourses being afforded as shall be befitting Men to use In a word they allow us to be Innocently Chearful but not Extravagantly Merry and command our Conversation to be Religious yet free from Affectedness and Indiscretion Theoph. I see we have reason to use some of our words in Thankfulness to our Lawgiver who hath indulged us such a Freedom as by them to exercise all the chearful Virtues that nourish and commend a sociable Conversation Whoever it is that loves the innocent Enjoyments of Acquaintance and Friends the kind Expressions which they use to each other the grateful Entertainment of profitable and ingenious Discourses and who is it that loves them not must also love the Laws of our Lord which banish all those words that shall any way corrupt or sower so great a Pleasure And whosoever shall find fault with these Laws as if they enjoyned a moroseness of Temper either do not understand them or else are for such a licentious and ill-natur'd way of Converse as even an Honest Heathen would condemn Eubul The next unreasonable Thing is the Loving of Enemies even while they persist to be injurious which they say deprives us of that sense of Honour and Courage which as we are Men should belong unto us and makes way also for new and greater Injuries to be done us But that the Loving of Enemies even when they persist to be injurious is not so unreasonable a thing may hence appear Because some of the better sort of Heathens who had Nature chiefly their Guide have gone a good step towards it and do commend the with-holding of Revenge as very honourable in those that do it and do urge many good Arguments for it Nempe hoc indocti They are the ignorant sort that would vent their spleen upon their Enemies But Chrysippus non dicit idem Learn'd Chrysippus is of another mind and mild Thales and wise Socrates Qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cieutae Accusatori nollet dare Who though by false Accusations thrown into Prison and condemned to end his Life by drinking Poison would yet could he have done it not have given his Accuser a part with him Juv. Sat. 13. So that if it be Unreasonable it is not altogether the fault of Christianity and they in some measure must condemn Those who have been accounted Wise Men in the World and the great Promoters of Virtue before they can find fault with the Laws of our Lord. And indeed when the visible things of the World do all joyn together as they manifestly do in a kind of mutual Concord for the promoting the welfare of Men The Sun and Stars not shining to themselves The Earth not bringing forth Herbs and Fruit upon her own Account nor the Beasts and Fowls feeding merely for their own Lives but all of these either immediately or mediately for Mans use and Service And also when Men are born into the World more impotent as truly they are than any other Creatures naked altogether and helpless for a longer time than what brings many other things to their full Growth and Perfection and this that they may owe their being nurs'd up to the Tenderness and Care of others it may seem to do more than hint That as Friendship and Good-will is highly to be maintain'd amongst us so when by any Persons they are broken the Breach is not to be continued but by friendly yieldings and the being affected with pity towards the Distemper of Mens Minds as we usually are towards the Diseases of their Bodies is presently to be closed up For shall the good of Men which is so carried on by all things else be neglected by ourselves Or shall the Passion of a Man which may quickly wear off prevail more for our Disrespect than the Dignity of Human Nature shall for our kindness to him But suppose that a Retaliation of Injuries be not naturally against Justice yet certainly these Men who urge the unreasonableness of Loving Enemies cannot but grant that in case the History of our Redemption be true it is but just and equitable that our Enemies while they are Enemies should be Loved For while we were Enemies to Christ he dyed for us while we had provoked God to throw his Wrath upon us a Wrath which would have been greater than we could have born our Blessed Lord in pity to us came from Heaven to Save us And when We merely by being Loved as Enemies are preserved from destruction shall We think it such an unreasonable thing to bear a Loving respect towards Those who are our Enemies Especially when the greatest Trespasses which they can commit against us are nothing in Comparison of those which we have committed against God and which are forgiven us by Him. Besides as Christ hath born our Image by taking upon him our Nature so there is none of our Enemies but retain in their Nature as they are Men the Honour that our Lord hath done us and in some sort do wear his Image And can we if we rightly weigh things shew any thing but Love there where is a Resemblance of the Son of Man who hath shewed the greatest Love to us And though Injuries be done us by Those who bear the likeness of Him that never did wrong to any Man yet so far should those Injuries be from hindring of our Love that they should rather put us
in Mind of those great Sins against God which we daily must be forgiven And so should quicken us to do that to our Brethren which God in far greater measures through the Death of Christ doth unto us Whence supposing that there is Truth in Christs being our Saviour the loving of Enemies even while they persist to be injurious is not an unreasonable but an equitable thing And that Christs coming into the World to save us is a certain Truth we have the highest reason to believe But yet whereas they further say That the thus loving of Enemies doth take away that Honour and Courage which should belong to us as Men we reply That it contributes much to our Honour and Courage For he that forgives an Injury is always in the Act of forgiving Superiour unto him who is forgiven And in not permitting the Miscarriages of others to disorder his Passions he doth maintain a Greatness of Spirit which some others who are presently for Revenge and drawing of Swords are far short of Minuti semper infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Vltio is a true saying of the Satyrist It is the part of a mean Soul to be looking after Revenge and taking pleasure in it And that Honour which is so much talk'd of and most an end so much stood upon what is it usually but a Reputation among the vainer and most injudicious sort of Men And what pitifully mean Matters shall engage some in long and costly Law-Suits and others in the venturing their Lives upon the Account of this empty Reputation and Honour Let a Man shew himself to be such who can value an Ingenuous and Christian Carriage towards him and who can resent the contrary but yet will not permit any unworthiness of others to get the upper-hand of his Reason and Charity Let him manifest to all about him that he is a Lover of Men that he desires their good much more than he stomachs the wrongs they have done him That he is more inclinable if they will give him leave to shew Kindness to them than to act any thing of Revenge That he leaves all Revenge unto God whom it belongs unto and yet earnestly prays that God will not execute it Let him do all these things and he will gain more Honour with those that are the most understanding sober and good from whom alone Honour deserves to be termed so than the Man ever shall who rageth at every petty Injury and breathes nothing but Threatning and Revenge Yea and lastly instead of those new and greater Injuries which from such a behaviour towards Enemies are said to have a fairer way made to fall upon him there will be in all likelihood the quite contrary effect For who is he that will be forward to injure the Man who he sees is willing to be a Friend to all And if he hath injured him already when he considers he hath injured so much Goodness how will he cast as it were the first Stone at himself be troubled at his fault and endeavour to repair it by a Submissive and Relenting Carriage But if the Offendor be Stubborn and not so easily brought down yet the Offended Man's Christian and Charitable Deportment without interruption continued will surely at last melt him To this end is that Precept and the Reason of it Rom. 12.20 If thine Enemy Hunger Feed him if he Thirst give him Drink for in so doing thou shalt heap Coals of Fire upon his Head. It is a way of Speech alluding unto those who are Melters of Metals when a Metal is very hard they not only put Fire under it but heap Coals upon it and by this means though hard to be Melted it be yet at last it yields to the Fire So when to an Enemy though of an obstinate and most hardned Temper a Christian Love shall still be shewn and kindnesses upon good occasions be heaped upon his Head He must be harder than Iron or Brass who will not be sensible of them and suffer his Evil to be overcome with Good. Theoph. He would deserve that Those who are Enemies to him should for ever go on so to be and that others not his Enemies should very little esteem him who after such Considerations as these shall say That it is unreasonable to Love Enemies even while they are such Eubul But let us go to the Fourth thing which they object against these Laws viz. That they require the Macerating of the Body with Fasting and Abstinence which what is it but the making a Man Cruel to his own Flesh I freely acknowledge Theophilus That Fasting is a Christian Duty and that when our Lord saith when thou Fastest enter into thy Closet though it be not in the plain form of a Command Thou shalt Fast yet it is not hereby the less a Command And the reason is because our Saviour from the frequent Practice of Fasting and the great Credit which this Duty among the Jews was in did suppose it to be a Duty And by his Precepts for the right performance of it he may well be presum'd to enjoyn the thing And therefore in his Sermon he ranks it with Prayer and Alms Which Duties and I may say which Sermon too as to every part of it concern the Practice of Christians so long as the World stands But wherein Theophilus is it that the harshness of this Law of Fasting lies If our Bodies are apt as too apt they are from constant Feeding not to serve but to rebel against the better part of us our Souls is it so unreasonable a thing to withdraw for a time their wonted Nourishment that from them our Prayers and Praises may not be Drowsie And our better thoughts not Clogg'd Or if out of a Sense of our own Unworthiness we shall somtimes lay aside all our enjoyments refusing to Eat the Fat and Drink the Sweet that in the sight of God we may acknowledge ourselves less than the least of his Mercies which sure by reason of our continual Failings we too truly are what sober Man can condemn us for so doing Or lastly if we shall make a suitable Expression of Repentance for some Sins which have chiefly proceeded from the Body by exercising upon it an holy Revenge and denying it for a season the things which are pleasant They must be very unreasonable Men who will say That we do more than what is meet to be done The Religions even of the Heathens have not been without their Abstinences as their Votivae noctes do testifie and their Wise Men have addicted themselves thereunto Hence Lucilius is by Seneca exhorted to fare somtimes so hard Liberaliora ut sint alimenta Carceris That the Diet of a Prison should exceed his Nay Epicurus himself whom these Objectors against Christianity are so willing to have their Master had his certain days quibus malignè famem extingueret nec toto asse pasceretur Which things surely may teach These Men not to condemn our
Holy Religion by reason of the Abstinence which it enjoyns especially since this Abstinence is used for Ends so much higher than the other and such as are truly excellent So distant Theophilus are the Laws of Christ from the Imputation of Cruelty on the account of Fasting that they allow us ordinarily the moderate Use and on Festival Days whether Civil or Sacred the more plentiful Enjoyment of Gods good Creatures so far as they shall minister to an Innocent or Religious Chearfulness of Body and Soul. Nay even in the very exercise of Fasting our Bodies are not to be enfeebled as some Religious Mens of old were whose Excesses this way will rather be forgiven than rewarded but only made such as they ought to be obedient to the Soul and to God. Yea we thereby contribute to their Health and Welfare which by fulness of Bread and excess of Wine are too often destroyed And what is the chief thing of all we by so doing provide that they shall hereafter to their endless Happiness be Spiritual Bodies If this be cruelty to ourselves I know not Theophilus what will be kindness This is certain that amidst such Acts of Mortification there ariseth a secret but very great Content and Satisfaction He who hath truly tryed knoweth it to be so And then for the Last Fault that they find with these Laws viz. That they bind us to part with our Estates and Lives for the asserting our Religion when meerly some outward Compliance and a denying of some few things only and this no otherwise than in shew for a time would preserve us which say they is a hard saying and who can bear it We answer That we very seldom are brought to these Extremities our holy Religion ordinarily providing that from the sweetness of Nature which it teacheth us to nourish amongst Men we should enjoy both Estates and Lives with Peace and Safety But then Theophilus when our Lives and Welfare are in the usual course of the World so well by our Lawgiver designed and Blessings in his Gospel are made known unto us so much better than Life and all the Enjoyments of it Can it seem so hard a saying that in a seldom and special Exigence we should to the loss of Estate and even of Life itself confess this Lawgiver and bear witness to this Gospel Should our Lord have done so great things for us and permitted us to affirm or deny them as from hopes or fears in this World we should see good He himself would have been much wanting to the Religion he taught and we might with some reason have questioned the Truth of it when its Author was so little concerned for the Esteem and Honour it should have among Men. So that in a right estimate of things upon supposition that the Christian Religion is true our Lord could not in Justice and Wisdom have done less than required the parting with Estate and Life for the maintaining of it And These Men Theophilus however they stand so much upon their Lives and Incomes in this particular will yet be forward enough to venture them for the vindicating of their own Truth and Right or for the asserting the Reputation of a Friend in things on either Hand mean enough And they 'l think that in Generosity they are bound thus to do Why then should they so much shrink of their Courage for the sober and deliberate maintaining of Truth and Priviledges that so highly concern them and of the Honour of their Lord who hath been and is a Friend beyond what the Friendship of all Men in the World were it amass'd together could amount unto Indeed were there an end of all Happiness and Being when this Life should end we could the less blame Men if they upon no Accounts would part with their Lives and upon very few let go their Estates But when Christianity holds out a better Inheritance and a better Life unto those who shall be willing to become Poor or to Dye for the Sake of Christ and his Gospel there is more encouragement to hazard yea to lose all in this cause than in the best cause the World affords beside But whereas it is urged that when a mere outward Compliance and a Denial only of some few things and this no otherwise than in Shew for a Time would preserve us we are then unreasonably required to suffer I would ask What way there is to Confess our Lord and Assert our Religion before Men besides that of outward Gestures and Words For the Heart Men cannot discern and the Thoughts are beyond their Search Where therefore there is an External Compliance with those that are Enemies to Christ and we Say as they Say and Do as they Do we deny Christ before Men as fully as we know how to do And surely the denying of only some things in our Holy Religion cannot be thought to be made amends for by other things being retain'd For by the same reason that One part of Christianity is denied any Other part or All may in the like manner be so too Neither let any one imagine that there can be a denying of Christ which shall be only the Work of the Nerves and Muscles as once a Jew said his confessing of Christ was the Heart in the mean time not consenting and thereby continuing Sound For the Heart must needs be Faulty and False when it shall suffer the Mouth to speak Deceitful Things Our Lords undissembled bearing of Poverty and Want Scandals and Reproaches and his most Faithful Suffering of the most Bitter and Accursed Death for our Welfare doth certainly deserve that when good occasion requires we should openly and fairly undergo the loss of Earthly Enjoyments and of Life itself for his Honour and with the last drop of our Blood bear witness to that Religion for the Confirmation of which he shed his own most pretious Blood. This is the way for us to fill up that which is behind of the Sufferings of Christ in our Flesh For none of his Sufferings for our Expiation are behind Those he hath wholly undergone himself and no Man could joyn with him in them But a room for our Testimony to the Truth of his Gospel he hath left and herein we can share with him in his Sufferings And this let us do willing to lose some few years to come which were we free from Troubles we upon the Account of Mortality could not be sure of rather than cast a blot upon all the years of our Life past Yea disesteeming this whole short Life and all the Pleasures and Profits of it in Comparison of that Crown and Bliss which are prepared for those who are faithful unto Death Though truly our Lord is very desirous that our Lives should be saved rather than destroy'd if by any honest and upright means they so can be And therefore he allows yea commands us if we be persecuted in one City to flee unto another and if with Integrity we can
preserve our Lives by no means to lose them However let not this Command of our Lord which requires us to part with Estates and Lives rather than deny him be faulted as too rigid and hard while the Rewards are so much beyond the Pains and while so many of Those who have thus suffered have had such Assistances and Joys afforded them even in the midst of their Sufferings that a Man would almost wish for their Sorrows could he but have their Joys together with them From all which it may appear Theophilus that the Air as was objected is not too pure to be breath'd in and that they are not unreasonable Heights of Duty which are required of us Neither may it disturb us that this our Work is not without difficulty to be begun and in like manner for some time to be carried on by us For it is in a sort a Priviledge which Angels have not to testifie unto Pains yea even unto Death itself the Sincerity of Obedience Which Testification of Sincerity although it ariseth from an Imperfection of Human Nature will yet be very acceptable unto God possibly no less than that of the Holy Ones Above which is wholly free from all such Conflicts And while the chief Intent of our Lawgiver is to make us Pious towards God Composed in our own Breasts Loving unto others and Loved again by them Perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect who makes his Sun to rise on the Evil and on the Good and meting only the same measure to others which hath first been meted by the Love and Compassion of our Lord unto us we must one would think use very much Violence to the better Inclinations of our Souls if we do not entirely love these Laws As for mine own part Theophilus will you give me leave to speak my Heart freely to you my Love is so great to them that methinks I would obey them all not so much because I am commanded to do it as because they are every way in themselves so worthy to be loved I could wish that they were even one with my Soul and that all my Thoughts and Actions might proceed not more from Life than from Them. And so far would I be from questioning the goodness of them that I would as soon doubt whether it were good to Live and be Happy So dear are they unto me yea so much better than Life itself Theoph. I am much prevail'd upon by the Reasons you have given and your last Affectionate Words add so much a further weight to those Reasons that they appear to me not to be more the Issues of your Brain than of your Heart And therefore you may on good Grounds presume that they will be convincing to others when they have first been so to yourself But though I acknowledge the Laws of our Lord to require most reasonable things of us and do find that they truly have an high place in my Esteem and Love yet I 'll confess to you Eubulus much dejected I am somtimes when I reflect upon my many Failures Resolve indeed I do for the greatest Care and Circumspection but yet my Sins do daily increase upon me and what will it boot me to love these Laws when every day I transgress them To own them so admirably fitted for the perfecting of our Nature and the refining of our Practise when I see mine own Nature so imperfect under them and my Practcie so impure in Comparison of them Eubul What you now say Theophilus makes way for and will best be answer'd by the Consideration of the Fourth thing viz. That from these Laws we have a fair way for the Pardon of all Sins Most perfect these Laws are as you have heard but by reason of that weakness which is within us and those many strong Temptations which are without they are not like to be perfectly obeyed All that we can do is as it were a great way off to behold and admire that perfection which we cannot of ourselves attain unto and to grieve that we daily and hourly some way or other have Sinn'd against it But yet there is hope in Israel concerning this thing Our Blessed Lord knowing our frame and make and seeing that our strength and abilities are but small hath added two other Laws of Faith and Repentance in which we may find some cheering in respect of those many Breaches of the Divine Laws which lie as a weight upon our Souls That of Faith requires thus much of us That we believe in Christ as a Saviour who by his precious Blood for us Shed hath appeased Gods Wrath and obtain'd Remission for all the Sins of Men and for ours in that number And from the mighty importance of this Law and the infinite benefits it affordeth unto us the whole Gospel and all the Laws thereof are in a comprehensive Word called the Law of Faith. And in this respect it is much different from the Old Law. Perfect Obedience was required by That and because perfection of Obedience is necessarily grounded upon a perfection of Nature the Law seemeth therefore to have been the Rule not of our Works only but of our Nature also which at the Creation was committed pure into our Hands But this Law of Faith by reason of Human Natures having been perfect in Christ and having Done also without the least failure whatsoever was Incumbent on the Representative of Mankind to do and as united with the Divine Nature having suffered likewise what Punishment was Due to the Sins of Men this Law I say of Faith doth Command that we should not rely upon any Righteousness of our own not yet Despair for any Sin whether belonging to our Nature or more particularly to our own Persons but should have our Eyes upon Him who alone by his Merits hath purchased Salvation for us The Law of Repentance is this viz. That we truly be sorry for what Sins soever we commit and do heartily endeavour an amendment of Life And this shall be available through the Death of Christ for our Pardon Repentance shall not Theophilus be unto Sins after the same manner as Sacrifices in Moses Law were Not the small Sins only shall be done away but the great ones also shall no less For he who hath called us unto Repentance hath been a propitiation for all the Sins of Mankind alike for those of a deeper Dye as well as those of a lighter Stain And his Blood is against the greatest Offences and the smallest Infirmities equally Efficacious Of Old if a Man had unwillingly Kill'd his Brother and was truly sorry for it the avenger of Blood was notwithstanding allowed to Slay him if he could overtake him before he reach'd to the City of Refuge The Sin here if it were not rather an unhappiness was so far imputed as That he must dye for it if another could run faster than he which might happen to be a thing beyond his power to prevent And though this might
them a Pardon of their Sins so as they may still persist to be Sinful All Sins shall be pardoned for which under the Law strictly considered there was no Hope but not absolutely pardon'd without any further Consideration or Condition The great benefit of Faith is this to wit That instead of perfect Obedience our sincere Endeavours shall be accepted And where These are what Defects soever there be in us they shall all be made up by the Merits of Christ who is our Righteousness But no benefit is there to be expected if we endeavour not at all or be unsincere in our Endeavours The Apostle's words That the Law which was engraven in Stones is done away are to be understood of the Law as it was part of the Covenant with the Jews not as it was a Rule for all Men. In that it was the Law of Nature and written in the Hearts of Men before it was written in Tables it still obligeth and for ever will oblige to Obedience Nor can any one unless he hath bidden a Farewel to all Reason imagine that our Lord would bring the Moral Law into the Gospel delivering it in greater plainness and raising it to an higher Perfection that after all Mens Obedience thereunto should not be necessary or that Faith in Him who came to destroy the Works of the Devil should give a Liberty to the practising those Works To be short Faith though but a single word it be is yet an highly comprehensive one and includeth mighty things in it Such as in good sort do correspond to the infinite and wonderful Love which hath been shewn to Mankind It implyeth a Knowledge of the great Mystery of our Redemption A Closing with the Will of God which is holy and good A sober and right use of Reason A Couragious asserting of our Holy Religion against all Oppositions An unfeigned Love both to God and to Men with a deep sense of our Unworthiness and Affectionate Acknowledgment of our owing all to the Divine Bounty Who are they then can think that if they do but believe it 's no matter how they live And from which of all these Actions which make up the very Being of Faith is there so much as the least Countenance to a loose Conversation Nay there cannot be stronger Obligations to a Sober Righteous and Godly Life than These are and in the exercise of them this Sober Righteous and Godly Life doth consist And how Theophilus can any wrest Repentance for Sin to the further and more safe committing of Sin Shall the Example of the Thief on the Cross which was written for Mens Comfort administer to their Presumption They consider not the Eminency of that poor Malefactor's Faith from which his Repentance did spring It is not altogether improbable that this was the first Opportunity he had of believing in Christ However the time of his believing and hoping for Mercy was very remarkable That when our Lord was in Torments as well as he and was destitute of all Earthly Supports He Then should be sought unto When he was forsaken of his Disciples derided by the Souldiers and reviled by the other Thief as one justly suffering That Then he should be acknowledged as a Lord That Then he should be own'd and his Mercy thus begg'd Lord have Mercy upon me when thou comest in thy Kingdom was a more than ordinary Act of Faith and a Repentance very much heightned from the time in which it was begun and finished But can These who have been Baptized into Christ's Death and have given up their Names unto him as soon almost as they were born and this with Solemn Vows of Fighting Manfully under his Banner against the World the Flesh and the Devil Can These say That some of the Last Days of their Life are the First Opportunities they have had of that Faith which must give Life to their Repentance Should they say it the many outward Calls they have had by God's blessed Word read and heard the many inward Calls of his Holy Spirit moving them to their Duty the many Checks of Conscience they have felt in their sinful and unchristian Practices would be ready to contradict them to their Face And then for the Time though they should be as near their End as the Thief was the case with These and with Him is very different No Hour is there now but in it it may be said That Christ is risen from the Dead Ascended into Heaven hath given Gifts unto Men and hath had all Power given unto him and of these things we have had as great Proofs as can reasonably be desired Which makes the Encouragements of turning unto Christ now to be far greater than in that sad and dismal State of his Passion on the Cross they were Unless These Men could be put in the same Circumstances with the Thief or in some not altogether unlike unto his which cannot likely be while they shall thus from the means of Salvation contrive for their Sins there will be small hopes for them in their late Repentance As for Those who wrought in the Vineyard no sooner than the Eleventh Hour and yet were rewarded alike with the Earliest it is to be understood of those who were called no sooner as is evident from Matth. 20.6.7 About the Eleventh Hour he went out and found others standing idle And saith unto them why stand you idle They say unto him because no Man bath Hired us where by Hiring we are to understand Calling which Calling may have respect either unto single Persons or else Nations Those Persons who have not heard of the Gospel or have not had opportunities of understanding the Mysteries and Precepts of it if as soon as they are acquainted with them and are invited to give their Names unto Christ they shall sincerely do it though it be in respect of their Lives as the Eleventh Hour to the Day they shall not be refused And the like may be said of Nations even at the later end of the World They shall be as dear in the sight of God as those which have had earlier calls But the Receiving a Penny at the Ninth and Eleventh Hour is not to be understood of Them who having been Baptized in their Infancy and outwardly professing Christianity all along have deferred the practice of it till their last years For they were as I may so speak Hired at the first Hour and have idled it ever since And their Idleness is to be esteem'd much different from that of the other The other wrought not because as yet they had no Imployment nor place in the Vineyard But These had Imployment and Place in it and were Unfaithful and Truanty And so may expect Punishment for their early and continued neglect while the other shall have a full Reward for their late Labour late indeed yet as early as their Call. I will not say but the late Obedience of those who have been early called may sometimes be sincere
and in Mercy accepted by God. But the Scripture accounts of it as a thing not ordinary and as it were out of the usual course Let us except that one instance of the Thief on the Cross which is to be looked upon as a special and un-common Example and therefore it stands by itself in the whole Book of God And we shall find the Gospel to promise in the usual Current of it Eternal Rewards to that Obedience only which hath Perseverance joyned with it and which lasts unto not begins at the end of Life He that endureth to the end shall be saved and be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life Such considerations as these Theophilus for the true Conception of Faith and Repentance are requisite abroad where so many either do not understand them rightly or else are willing by false arguings to make them serve for quite other than Christian Ends. And to Vs they may be of use at least so far as to stir up our Grief that the favour of our Lord in the Pardoning of Sins should by any be abused to their greater Condemnation Theoph. They not only encline me to grieve for these miserable Men who are so much their own Enemies but do also give me a pleasure in conceiving these instances of Holy Writ mentioned by you more fully and to better advantage than before I did That knowledge being most of all others delightful to me and satisfactory which ariseth from the Laws of our Lord or which is instrumental to the better understanding and practising of them Eubul I am sure These Laws of Faith and Repentance are well worthy our Love as for the Excellence of their Effects so for the Sacredness of their Matter What an inward pleasure is it to conceive the Son of God leaving the Glory of Heaven to live upon Earth and become one among the Sons of Men How may it engage all the Powers of the Soul into a Divine Love while we contemplate him in in the Garden sweating as it were great drops of Blood and shedding afterwards the remainder thereof upon the Cross amidst bitter pains for our Sake This is indeed in itself matter of the sadest kind But in respect of Vs what Wonder and Joy may it not excite But then if we by Faith look upon our Lord as he is Ascended into Heaven to prepare Mansions for us and as he shall come again in the Clouds with great Glory that where He is there We may be also with what an Holy Splendour will our understandings be entertain'd Men are usually taken with great things State and Grandeur though such in appearance only draw the Eyes of the most if really such they be and do carry in them true Worth as here they eminently do they engage the Hearts also of the Wise and the Good. Truly our Faith from the Sweet and Admirable matter it is fraught with may well work by Love Love not only to God and Men but even to the Law likewise by which it is enjoyn'd Such Majesty as is included in our Faith is not I confess to be found in Repentance which consists chiefly in those Actions that are Humble and Lowly But how comely is it that an offending Soul should be humbled before an offended God who at such Submission and Sorrow condescends and accepts it with the greatest Love A Face which hath so Holy a Sadness in it and is wet with such Religious Tears cannot but appear amiable Yea even to the Person who thus repenteth there ariseth a secret Satisfaction in the midst of Sorrow and it is none of the least Chearings to him that he can grieve in earnest for his Sins against so gracious a Father And thus much Theophilus may suffice for the Consideration of the Laws themselves And if like Those who walking over pleasant Fields and flowery Meads as not content alone with Delights in the Way will look back and bring into one prospect what successively and by parts did so much please them we shall turn our Eyes back upon these Laws and behold them in the Bulk which singly were so excellent they will afford us a new Delight in the Review There is none of them that is unsuty and disagreeing to another They are not like that Face whose Features by themselves were beauteous but united were uncomely but they are such as increase each others Lustre and shew a Symmetry altogether Divine Theoph. It is so Eubulus When I consider the Laws which require Duties to God I am the more in love with those which enjoyn my Behaviour towards Men. And when I weigh those that relate to others and myself those towards God appear more advantageously to me and I presently am excited to put them into practice by reverencing loving and praising Him who hath given such Laws unto us Every particular Precept towards God towards Men towards myself enkindles my Affection towards the rest and they Altogether do highly set off and commend to my Love every Particular And this our Love to the Divine Law is not like our Love in many other cases which when we recollect ourselves and betake us to serious Thoughts goes less For the gaining Acceptance and esteem no need is there of those Artifices that the Religious Institutions among the Heathens had which from Hieroglyphicks Fables pompous and divers Superstitions were served up rather to the Imaginative Faculty than to the Understanding and made to please not the Wise so much as the Multitude The Christian Laws fear not the most piercing and critical Eyes looking into them They discovering the greatest Excellency to him who hath the quickest Sight and profoundest Judgment joyn'd with an Upright Mind And therefore our Love to them gets new Strength from Consideration as having Right Reason for a Foundation from which like an House built upon a Rock it may stand strongly and not be cast down nor abated for any Wind or Waters that may come against it Eubul And truly Theophilus I find it a very great Inducement for the raising our Love to these Laws that They of themselves are grievous unto none but as the Manna was are in a sort fitted to every Palate unless to those that are grievously vitiated Who is it that ever had just cause to repent he had yielded Obedience to them To whom in the exercise do they not bring Content and Satisfaction If at any time they seem to create Trouble to a Man it is rather because others trangress them than because he himself observeth them A thing which cannot be said of other Laws Some of those which are profitable for the Community are not so for some particular Men who for the publick Good must be content to bear some private Inconveniences and some advantageous to a few Persons may not be so to a Nation in general Neither is there any thing in its own Nature truly Good which is omitted in their Injunctions nor any thing in
unto the Great Day for more than ordinary Damnation who do only speak evil of Dignities what Flames will be thought hot enough for those who dare with Swords make Resistence Our Religion is justly more dear unto us than our Lives but that it is so is to be shewn by the Obedience which it enjoyns rather than by the Force which it condemns For to assert the Gospel by breaking the Precepts of it is the being true to it in the ways of Falseness which is no better than bringing the Devils Aid into the Cause of God. Theoph. Allow me yet Eubulus to ask thus much Must we sit still and suffer Eubul Rather stand we still Theophilus and see the Salvation of the Lord. He shall not be the less safe who contains himself in those bounds which God hath appointed him And to seek further would be to find a Sin and a Blot rather than a Deliverance He who by his Wisdom and Goodness hath sent our Religion into the World hath Power enough to preserve it as he himself pleaseth And they who say that no security is left to the Christian Religion if the resisting the Higher Powers upon the account thereof be denyed have no strength in what they say unless they can remove God and his Providence out of the World Who will not suffer the Gates of Hell to prevail against his Church Where there shall be a faithful serving of him and the Arms of the Church Prayers and Tears shall be well managed we need not fear but we shall be safe unde the Protection of the Almighty So sweetly peaceable Theophilus are the Laws of Christ and so utterly averse from whatever shall destroy the Welfare either of Princes or Subjects Particularly from the Opinions we have been speaking to which their Owners may be ashamed of as being very great Wrongs to the Name of Christianity Theoph. God grant they may be honestly ashamed of them so will there be more upright Neighbours and more loyal Subjects Eubul One thing Theophilus is proper to these Laws alone They extend even to the Heart and Thoughts ordering and correcting those inward Powers and Faculties which the Eye and Cognizance of Men cannot reach unto That what the best among Men appear to be outwardly they are no less bound to be within Insomuch that were every Breast transparent as that Noble Roman wish'd his to be through which the secretest Motions of the Thoughts might be seen the fairest outside would be but mean in comparison of that excellent Order and exact Harmony which from the right Observance of these Laws would be there discerned But it is time Theophilus to wish you a Good-Night and what remains we will reserve till the Morrow's Evening Theoph. Mine Ears have been all along wholly yours Eubulus and mine Appetite is so far from being appeased by hearing that it is very much quickned I will only wish That your Sleep may be as refreshing to you as your Discourse hath been to me DISCOURSE the Fourth The Contents GEneral Motives relating to these Laws altogether To the Conscionable Observance of them Eternal Rewards are promised yet Earthly ones are not excluded For the securing of our Obedience Eternal Punishments are threatned after Death to the neglect of these Laws The Constituting such Punishments is no more than what is meet to be done Stronger Assistances are afforded for the Performance of these Laws than under Moses there were Most Loving Invitations and Affectionate Expressions are joyned with them We have no reason to complain that there are not now under the Gospel-Law those Visible Expressions of Gods Power and Presence as under the Old Law there were Particular Motives relating to these Laws singly and apart Such as are wholly peculiar to the Gospel or else are there more clearly and convincingly urged than ever they were before It is impossible there should be any True Happiness without these Laws From the inward Excellence of them and those admirable Motives annexed to them there is a substantial Proof of their Divinity and Truth No Man hath ever deserved to be so much honoured among Men as our Lord hath done Those who faithfully give up their Names unto him have the Precedence of all others How it comes to pass that since the Law is so good Assistances so great and Motives so taking there should be so many Disobedient Ones THEOPHILVS YOU are once more well met Eubulus Though even after I parted with you last Night I was not altogether absent from you For so much had you engaged my waking Thoughts that by them my Dreams were also made yours I was your Auditor in my Sleep and I cannot but still think upon it such a strange Pleasure did there seize me from a sense of the Divine Law as while awake I never yet felt EVBVLVS I Think such a Dream not unfit to be reckoned among your Blessings And though God in these Days makes not such use of Dreams as in times of old he did yet the affirming that he hath now so wholly forsaken them as that they are altogether to be excluded from his Favour and esteem'd all alike meerly as Casual or Natural Things is I dare say not a Virtue especially where Men by Religious Thoughts do make way for his Comforts in the Night and in the Morning are ready to entertain them with thankfulness I remember that in Plutarch it is said A Man's progress in Virtue may be perceived from his Dreams if in them he approves of no ill thing and is inclined to Righteous Deeds his Imaginative Faculty being as it were season'd by right Reason and having its Impress upon it And I hope you may without Extravagance or Errour infer somthing of Rational Satisfaction from your Dream Theoph. You would I see put me in the way to do it And I have so far a Satisfaction from my Dream that I am glad I told it you for the Remarks you have made upon it But let not Dreams put us by the Business of our Walk which is the shewing the Motives which are annexed unto the Divine Law for the securing of our Obedience Eubul Well then Theophilus we will go on These Motives are either such as are more General relating to the Divine Laws altogether or more Particular relating to them singly and apart The more General Motives are these 1. Their having Eternal Rewards promised to the Conscionable Observance of them and Eternal Punishments threatned to wilful Disobedience 2. Their having stronger Assistances afforded for the Performance of them than under the Old Law there were 3. Their having such Loving Invitations and Affectionate Expressions of Kindness joyn'd unto them 1. Their having Eternal Rewards promised to the Conscionable Observance of them c. That which is put in the Front of the Decalogue I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the House of Bondage was a great Motive for the Loving of those Laws But
continually in yours without any ceasing or decay for the great Veneration and Love which you express to these Laws Theoph. Truly Eubulus it is impossible there should be any true Happiness without them Should not the Understanding be recovered from that Blindness and Errour which are in it should not the Will be reduced from its Pravity and Perverseness Should not the Affections be delivered from their Tumultuousness and Evil Excesses even Heaven would not be a place of Joy and Bliss For how unagreeable would Glorious Mansions be and an incorruptible Body were the Soul imperfect and vicious in all its Faculties unacquainted with Holiness secretly grudging at God's Will and openly disobeying it What would the Salvation be should Saint with Saint carry it ill-naturedly and enjoy their Immortality only for the Perpetuating of their Dissentions And if to them whose Natures are not fashioned by these Laws Heaven would not afford an Happiness we may be sure Earth will not Which makes me Eubulus to pity those Men as Enemies to their own Welfare who esteem Liberty and Greatness to be then alone truly perfect when they are attended with a Licentiousness doing whatever liketh them without any respect had to the Laws of God or Man. Whereas God himself who is infinite in Majesty and most absolute in Power acteth according to the Eternal Laws of Righteousness and Goodness And it is the perfection of his Greatness and Liberty so to do Eubul What you have said I cannot gainsay but do much approve And though I confess I could never think as some have done that the Scriptures bare saying that they are the Word of God is a sufficient Testimony that they are so yet from the inward Excellence of these Laws and those admirable Motives which are added to them for the securing of our Obedience there is methinks a substantial Proof of their Divinity and Truth Can it be thought that the Devil could ever prompt any Man to make Laws so righteous and good as these are Or that he would promote their Observance with such mighty Rewards such severe Threatnings and such sacred Considerations If so then surely our Saviour's Argument of Satans being divided against himself and his Kingdoms not being able thereby to stand might be altogether as valid in the present case as then it was when the Jews said that Devils were cast out by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils Neither have we more reason to imagine That any Man out of his own falseness and deceit did make these Laws since they are so directly destructive of all falseness and deceit and may justly be supposed to be everlastingly so in that they are recommended to the World with Considerations so powerful and savoury From their own Purity therefore and Goodness they may well be own'd to be the same Divine Precepts which in reality they are Theoph. And let me add That no Man ever deserv'd to be so much honour'd among Men as He hath done who hath given these Laws and beyond all example hath encouraged their practice I cannot but think somtimes how highly the grave Lucretius hath extoll'd and is himself highly extoll'd by some for so doing his Epicurus who endeavour'd to Arm Men against all Fears by the beating down of all Religion and the excluding the Gods from the knowledge of every thing on Earth as being neither pleas'd with good Actions nor offended with evil ones And He so far well doth shew that all other Inventions however very much conducive to the Welfare of Men are yet nothing to be compared to That which will quiet tumultuous Passions and render the Mind well informed and steady Compare saith he with This the great things which others have found out Ceres and Bacchus are much honour'd She as having first taught the way of sowing Corn He as having first instructed Men in planting of Vines But yet without these things Mens Lives may be sustain'd and as report goes some Nations even now do live without them At bene non poterat sine puro pectore vivi but without a Breast well purged a Man can have no happy Life And then he goes on with the Praises of his Philosopher as being worthy a Place among the Gods. But if He had so much Honour who profanely taught Men not to fear what shall our Lord have who with sacred Religion directs Men in the pleasant and right Paths to Happiness Who gives them Laws which will render them easie to themselves and acceptable unto others Who in any Troubles that may befal them affords them the only Methods of Comfort by telling them that God is a Father unto Men in every thing taking care of them and ordering even Afflictions for the good of those who are pious Who makes known everlasting Joys after Death which are prepared for those that live holy Lives and renders the way thereunto not difficult by the help which he continually vouchsafes from above And all this in such a wonderful manner by having loved us even unto Death with a Love much stronger than Death itself Eubul Our Lord doth indeed in these things deserve Honour above all Men and we may often on his account sing that Anthem which at his Birth the Angels sung Glory be to God on high on Earth Peace Good-will towards Men. And I will further say That They who faithfully give up their Names unto him have the Precedency not only of all Those who among the Heathens pretended to the study of Wisdom but also of God's own People the Jews yea in a sort even of David himself who was so dear to him and whom in our Discourse we have had occasion so often to mention For though I cannot but yield that this King had a fair insight into the Kingdom of the Messias and the things belonging unto it there being in his Psalms so many undoubted Descriptions thereof yet it will not be an Untruth to affirm That the meanest Christian among us hath unless it be his own fault more clear Revelations of Christ of Life and Immortality and of the Assistances of the Holy Spirit than David had or any of the Prophets The words of our Lord tending to what I now say are very remarkable Verily I say unto you Among them that are born of Women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist Notwithstanding he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he Matth. 11.11 i. e. However a very great Prophet John was one that above all the rest had the Honour to see our Lord in the Flesh a thing which many Prophets and Kings had desired to see and had not seen it yet the least Disciple or Christian when Christ shall be set at the Right-Hand of God and shall raise up an Heavenly Kingdom upon Earth shall he greater than John. i. e. From the being Baptized with the Holy Ghost and having a larger knowledge of the Divine Will manifested being made acquainted with higher and
this your Thought But lest it should leave behind it some Scruples in you I think these things may with Innocence be replyed unto it Viz. That though there are many that refuse the great Love of our Lord in his Laws and the Happiness promised in the Gospel yet some there are who do entertain and embrace them and who always shall do so When Elijah thought that He even He alone was left a true Worshipper of the God of Israel there were Seven Thousand in Israel who had not bow'd their Knee to Baal 1 Kings 19.18 Our Lawgiver hath and for ever will have a flock of Obedient ones though a little flock it be And better it is sure that some through the Gospel should be Saved than that all without it should Perish What Numbers there are that shall be Saved there is none can tell for the Faithful here in the Visible Church are in a sort Invisible unto us But They will through the Divine Goodness be greater than some severe ones have been willing to think them With more Charity unto Men and more Reverence unto God's Mercy which is over all his Works we may trust that God will not permit the Work of his own Hands and the purchase of his Son's Blood to be so much destroy'd since he hath assured us he hath no delight in the Death of a Sinner But leaving the Number of Those who shall be Saved unto God and praying that he would every day increase his Kingdom we may affirm be the Number what it will That it is better for their Sakes who obey these Holy Laws that the Gospel hath been Reveal'd than it would have been for theirs who Disobey them that it should never have been made known And there is some Reason to think that the Happiness of Holy Men in Heaven how few soever they shall be who shall reach thereunto will in the whole be greater unto Them than all the Torments of Hell shall be to the Damned how numerous soever they are Because the Merits of our Lord which were truly infinite have obtain'd that Happiness which will be answerable unto them when the Sins of Men which though great must needs be acknowledged less than our Saviours Merits have deserved those Torments which shall not be greater than their Sins were But Theophilus what I would further reply to your Thought is this to wit that so dear unto God are his own Wisdom and Justice and Goodness and so much excelling all other things in the World that the exercise of them through the Laws of the Gospel be the Reception of those Laws among Men what it will is better than the not revealing the Gospel would have been God is the Supream Legislator and in the Gospel Dispensation he hath acted as it became Him who is every way perfect If Men do not generally admit of his Mercy in so much Righteousness and Wisdom shewn it is yet good that it hath been shewn Because he hath therein truly done the part of a Just and Gracious Lawgiver And it is not fit that Mens not doing what was their Duty should have hindred what was in all respects so beseeming Him. And if for their Disobedience to the Gospel-Laws they shall suffer Everlasting Punishments it is yet better that those Laws have been given because of the Glory of God's Justice which is of infinitely more Value than the freedom of such Rebellious Sinners from pains would have been Which pains albeit intense and endless they be These Men do fully deserve since they have refused Happiness no less if not more intense and altogether endless It would indeed have been better for these Mens Persons as they by Disobedience to the Laws of Christ have carried it that the Gospel should not have been made known Not unlike as it was with Judas of whom our Lord thus pronounced Good were it for that Man that he had never been Born Which is all one as if he had said Better it would have been for him that he had never been Born than by his Traiterous Infidelity it will be from my coming into the World. But though it would have been better for their Persons as the having no being is to be preferred before the being in Extremity of Torments yet considering the Whole of things together better it is that even to their Misery since their Misery is thus chosen by them the Gospel of Christ should have been Revealed than that it should not have been The Honour of God's Justice is hereby Magnified Saints and Angels who rightly see things will discern the Beauty of it and praise God for it and God himself will have Infinite Satisfaction from having done according to the Perfection of his Nature I thought it not amiss to say these things Theophilus They will not be your Injury though possibly not needful to be spoken unto you And if you 'll interpret them to that honest freedom I take with you you will do well Theoph. Such a Freedom I ought much to prize which affords me Satisfaction in a matter which I durst not suffer to rise unto a Doubt If it were ill suggested to my secret Thoughts I foster'd it not And I have the less reason to find fault with it from the occasion it hath given of my being satisfied by you against any such thought for the future It hath furnished me I am sure with that which directly meets with the impious Folly of some Men and those too too many who are willing to flatter themselves with God's being so much a God of Mercy as that he will not destroy them though they walk contrary to his Laws Esteeming Men to be more pleasing to him as they are his Creatures than displeasing as they are disobedient And because God's Mercy exceeds theirs and they could not find in their Hearts to condemn others to Eternal Punishments They therefore are forward to think that however he hath threatned he will not condemn them But the Glory of God's Justice being as you have said of infinitely more value with him than the freedom of such disobedient ones from Pains can be reasonably thought to be doth utterly dash such untoward Imaginations Eubul What hath been said doth indeed appositely strike at these Men. For though God's Mercy be infinite yet it is exercised with Holiness and Wisdom which are likewise infinite And He who is every way perfect will never lean to any one of his Glorious Attributes alone so as in the least to forsake the other His Mercy is infinitely shewn in accepting upon such gracious Terms Mens poor Obedience to his Laws But if they shall refuse to obey him preferring the Pleasures of Sin before his Righteous Commands Their being his Creatures and the Work of his Hands will so little prevail with him that though they were yet further commended by being the immediate Off-spring of Abraham he would sooner out of the Stones of the Street form Men whom he might save than shew
Mercy unto those who are so unworthy of it Neither do they rightly infer That God's Mercy which is infinitely more than theirs will be shewn unto them because they themselves would be so merciful to the looser sort of Men as to save them while such from the Punishments which are threatned A great Indignity they offer unto the most Holy God in thus making Him to be such as Themselves are His Mercy is indeed infinitely more than theirs but yet of a Nature altogether different Theirs proceeds from weakness and an evil favouring of Sin And because their love to Righteousness and Holiness is little or none they would therefore effect more for wicked Men than God who hath all Power will do or if we consider his Justice and Wisdom more than with Reverence be it spoken he can do God is not less merciful than they but more just not less pitiful but more holy not beneath them in Compassion but infinitely above them in Wisdom And therefore let them not deceive themselves with vain Words and Thoughts God will in Righteousness inflict those Punishments upon them which they through a Vicious Mercy would have remitted unto others Theoph. I would to God such things as these were truly weighed by Men and urged home upon their own Consciences that they might at last discern the Fallacies they have been willing to put upon themselves even to their everlasting Destruction Eubul We now have Theophilus spoken to all those things which from the first we design'd and have found the Divine Laws to be every way excellent whether we consider The Lawgiver Love having been the primary moving Cause of his giving Laws unto us and this his Love being highly commended from the Greatness of his Person Or the Laws themselves all the troublesom Ceremonies of the Old Law being done away and that in so excellent a manner only such Laws being enjoyn'd as have in them an intrinsick goodness or else are for ends absolutely good and such as are discernable by every one Those Moral Laws which were given to the Jews being by our Lord more fully and clearly given And there being from these Laws a fair way for the pardon of all Sins Or lastly The Motives which are annexed to these Laws for the securing of Obedience whether they be more General relating to the Sacred Laws altogether as their having Eternal Rewards promised to the Observance of them and Eternal Punishments threatned to Disobedience Their having stronger Assistances afforded for the Performance of them than under the Old Law there were And last of all their having such loving Invitations and affectionate Expressions of Kindness joyned with them or whether more Particular belonging to them singly and apart as they respect God or Men in the several Relations they may stand in one to another or as they respect ourselves But though to our Power we have done this yet much short have we come of the Dignity of our subject And while the Apostle asks the Question Who is sufficient for these things We must acknowledge that we are altogether insufficient But since a good part of our Walk is yet to come it will not be amiss from the whole of what hath been said to make some Inferences not unagreeable to our Subject And this Task I am willing should be yours Theophilus who I knew are good at deducing one Truth from another and who will do kindly by me if you will let me be your Auditor now as you have mostly hitherto been mine Theoph. He is most fit to make the Inferences who made the Discourse But if it will not be unacceptable I will endeavour alternately to follow you if you will lead the way Eubul If it must be so only and you will not wholly excuse me I will begin And First Theophilus From the Divine Laws thus consider'd we have if I mistake not a true and just Explication of that place of Scripture Joh. 8.12 I am the Light of the World he that believeth in me shall not walk in Darkness but shall have the Light of Life They are the Words of our Blessed Lord and are to be understood of Him as a Lawgiver so cleerly hath he in his own Person made good those Types that were of him and dispell'd those shadows of things to come so excellently explain'd the Moral Law and given a new lustre to it so throughly Reveal'd Heavenly Rewards and brought Life and Immortality to Light. Hence in the Prophet Malachi He is call'd the Sun of Righteousness and in St. Luke he is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred in our Translation Day-Spring But whether so or the East or Sun-rising it certainly is a Title of our Lord as having done that in Relation to Spirituals and Good Practice which the Sun doth in its Rising and with its Presence viz. put to slight the Darkness wherewith we were encompassed And thus the People that Lived in Evil Practices and in Ignorance of the Divine Laws are said to sit in Darkness and in the shadow of Death Mat. 4.16 and from our Lords coming are said to see great Light and to have Light sprung up unto them Which must necessarily be understood of his instructing them giving them Laws and revealing unto them Eternal Rewards for the quickning their Obedience thereunto And this possibly may give us some insight into that place of Scripture also Which hath been so difficult unto and in a sort the Torture of Interpreters 1 Pet. 3.18 Christ being put to Death in the Flesh but quickned by the Spirit by which also he went and Preached to the Souls in PRISON i. e. to those whose Souls within them were through Ignorance and Evil Practice as in the Darkness of a Prison The Light of Nature being almost quite extinct To These He through the Spirit Preached by the Mouth of Noah By his Laws it is therefore and by other things upon their account Revealed that Christ is the Light of the World. And after the same manner is God the Father said to be Light as having by these Laws through Jesus Christ shewn what He Himself is what he chiefly and most earnestly doth Will Desire and Love insomuch that we cannot likely be mistaken in his Nature unless we will be so either through Perverseness or Negligence Should any of those Heathens who in Relation to Human Welfare had undervaluing Opinions of the Deity have read these Laws with the Inestimable Encouragements annexed unto them they when they had seen the greatest Prosperity to have its allays of Trouble and all Men sooner or later to Die could not any longer have thought that God out of Envy and ill Nature would not permit an unmixt Happiness in this World or that he would keep Immortality to himself as by no means enduring that any should be partakers of it with him It is but the due considering these Sacred Precepts as they proceed from our Lords being given into the World and God cannot but be
Epistles excepting those only to particular Persons are written to the Holy Brethren To the Churches of God that are sanctified in Jesus Christ And to all that call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus And hereupon we may discern as in a late Book hath been well discoursed that the Holy Scriptures are as it were a Trust committed to every Christian and he is to be so true to his charge as by no means to part with it Yea these Sacred Writings are our Lord's Will and Testament by which a Man becomes an Heir through Jesus Christ And if so then He that is Heir of an Estate hath surely no less right to the Conveyances that make over the Estate than he hath to the Estate itself And therefore if in common Estates upon Earth it will be every Man's Prudence to secure to himself the Deeds upon which the Estates depend In this Heavenly Inheritance it will be every Man 's not Prudence only but Duty to preserve to himself the Writings that conveigh it The reason is because though a Man may without blame somtimes part with an Inheritance on Earth yet with That in Heaven he cannot without the Imputation of Folly and Wickedness and even the exposing of his own Soul to Sale and Servitude The Pleadings of some Men viz. That the permitting the Scriptures to be in the Hands of the common People is the cause of Schisms and Heresies would have more weight with it if in the Ages most fruitful of Schisms and Heresies the Learned had not had therein as great a share as not to say a greater than any others and if where the Vulgar have of late in this matter seem'd most guilty we had not too much reason to believe That even Those who most complain of them have by their secret Emissaries seduced them on purpose into Errors and divided them into Parties when otherwise they would have walked in straiter Paths and been more at Unity amongst themselves But though there hath been by some an ill use made of the Scriptures yet God to whom These Things long before were not hid thought them not reason enough for hindring the Writing of his Will or for the withholding it when written from the Hands of any And his Goodness and Wisdom is herein manifested in that the ill effects which would have proceeded from the not writing his Laws or the denying them to the Eye of the Vulgar would in all probability have been far more and greater than from the contrary And the good effects of their being written and allow'd to the use of all Men are by the blessing of God much greater than the bad Consequences now are Theoph. Inferr'd also may be the Reasonableness that these Laws should endure without Abrogation or Change so long as the World shall stand The Gospel is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Everlasting Gospel Rev. 14.6 Such as never shall cease nor be as to the Laws of it in any case Repeal'd And upon this account it is that the Time from our Lord's Ascension to the End of the World or his Coming to Judgment is called the Last Days in Holy Writ A great many years indeed have passed since these Laws were given by our Lord and a great many more possibly may pass before the Dissolution of the World shall be but yet these are the Last Days because we are not to expect another Dispension nor another Lawgiver For it is He that will be with us in his Laws and by his Spirit unto the End of the World. Better Laws cannot be given None can Imagine how there should be any Other more sutable to Infinite Holiness Justice and Goodness in Him that gives them or more agreeable to the Nature and Soul of Men to whom they are given And so if the Gospel wherein these Laws are be called Everlasting if the Time that shall be to the End of the World together with that which hath already been since these Laws were given hath the Appellation of the Last Days upon the account that a further Declaration of God's Will is not to be expected we from our foregoing Discourse may easily perceive that abundant Reason there is why it so should be And whosoever they be that shall make the Breach of any of the Divine Laws either to be none or a less fault now than in former Ages it was under a Pretence that our Nature groweth weaker every Day than other and must therefore have its Allowances in Disobedience for so they seem too plainly to affirm who say Hodie pro fornicatione neminem esse deponendum quia fragiliora sunt nostra Corpora quà m olim erant Distinct 82 in Gloss do fouly reflect upon our Lawgivers perpetual institution and make those Sacred Precepts which should govern the evil Inclinations of Men to be in effect over-ruled by them which is a thing so extreamly ill that the World must be weak indeed when it is not odious to a Religious Ear. Eubul Your Inferences Theophilus are Right and I cannot at present think of another But that must not hinder your further going on with them Theoph. I have done what I promised following every one of yours with another But if you have made an end your ceasing is my excuse and may well be so Eubul To draw then to a Conclusion of this our Subject I hope in the Consideration of the Divine Laws we have not exceeded the bounds of our Duty by inquiring further than we ought to do Theoph. I think I justly may absolve you from any such fault now committed For though it be a fault over-curiously to pry into the Laws of our Lord as if all the Reasons of them were to be understood by us and though where we do not understand many things in Relation to them we are to acquiesce by persuading ourselves that they are in every respect Holy and Just yet where the reasons of them lie open to view or at least by an Humble and Devout search into them may easily be found out there it will be well-becoming us and no more than Duty to look into them That the Excellences of them may be discern'd by us and that our Love of them and Gods Glory from them may be the more raised and magnified And indeed Eubulus in all your words I have perceived nothing but what is agreeable to so humble a search and so pious an end And I acknowledge myself as much edified thereby so likewise much obliged to you Eubul The Design of our Discourse hath been good And that I trust will cast a Vail upon what Defects soever may have been in it And if it hath administred to your Satisfaction or in the Apostle's words but stirr'd up your pure Mind by way of Remembrance I shall account its doing so to be sufficiently my Reward A good Work it would be Theophilus if upon occasion we could prevail abroad for a due esteem and love of these sacred Laws Men are apt to
think and somtimes they may think right that in relation to the Commands of Masters and Governors they could do better than what they are enjoyn'd to do And yet notwithstanding they will yield Obedience as judging it but reasonable That not always what is best but what best pleaseth those who are in Power is to be done But better they cannot do than that which the Laws of our Lord require His Will never stands in Opposition to what is in itself really best because he is pleased with nothing but that which is holy just and good Which sure may create a very great Satisfaction in us whilst we submit to his Laws and may render those his Laws of very high account with us But yet for all this his Laws and Himself too are much disesteem'd and the mean regard which they generally find hath made me with sorrow to think upon those Words of Arrian's Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Men saith he have built Altars and Temples to Triptolemus who shew'd them the way of Agriculture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But to Him who finds out and gives Light to the Truth of Things directing Men not merely to preserve Life but to Live well and as Men ought to do Who of you all Dedicates a Temple to his Honour or so much as thanks God upon his Account All this cannot I confess be said with relation to our Lawgiver Temples are built unto him and Praises are offered unto God who sent him into the World. But are they not with a great many as an outward shew rather than the Expressions of inward Devotion and unfeigned Thankfulness While they obey not the Laws of Him whom they thus celebrate and to use our Lord 's own words do draw near unto him with their Lips when their Heart is far from him Most Men are willing to have our Lord their Priest to Attone for their Sins and for Novelty and Entertainment they can be content to have him their Prophet too But as a King and Lawgiver they care not for him and are backward to submit to his Scepter and Laws Yet surely his Scepter is a Righteous Scepter and his Commands not grievous but such as are fitted to Human Nature and its Interests in this World that the Man may seem unwilling to be Happy either here or hereafter who refuseth Obedience unto them It was a true word of the People concerning our Lord That never Man spake as he spake His Words were with Authority bringing a Convincingness along with them And shall Men now be deaf to them Frequently did our Saviour use that Exhortation shall I call it or Command or both He that hath Ears to hear let him hear As much as to say Of so great importance are the things I declare unto you that if ever a more than ordinary Attention was requisite now it is Well it were if it could not be said of Multitudes That there is a Price put into their Hands and they have no Heart to it Theoph. Let me add Eubulus that the great expectation which was of this our Lawgiver and his Laws may prevail much for Mens Obedience to them Towards Him the Faces of the Jews even from Moses's time and upwards were bent The coming of Shiloh was earnestly waited for And He after so many Propbecies made of him had the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Him that Cometh or the Coming King as is very frequently to be seen in the Evangelists And when the Ages past were so intent upon his Coming when there were so many Types and Predictions of him which under his Government betokened the greatest Happiness unto Men shall Men now He is come esteem meanly of Him and his Laws And this when to those who will impartially weigh and consider things He is not a jot less worthy than all the Expectations of a great People for many more than a thousand Years and those many Figures and Prophecies of him imported him to be Yea when He is excellent beyond the Conceptions of Men Angels themselves desiring with Reverence to look into these things When also All Men are no less concern'd in Him now than the Jews formerly were How ill will it look after all this if Men shall slight his Person and refuse Obedience to his Laws which if a Man observe he shall not only live in them but live happily to all Eternity Eubul Your Persuasive for Reverence and Honour to the Person of our Lawgiver and for Submission and Obedience to his Laws is very strong Yet methinks I would not more urge for an Observance of than for an hearty Love unto those his Laws Though truly where there is a faithful Observance there will be a true Love of them also Their Righteousness and Goodness will presently manifest themselves to those who are Conscionably Obedient And as our Lord saith Wisdom is justified of her Children so these Laws which may in reality be termed Wisdom as proceeding from Him who is Wisdom itself will justifie their own Excellencies to the Thoughts of those who observe them and by Them will be vindicated against all Gainsayers and Disobedient Ones I will end all with this Prayer That God by shedding abroad his Love into our Hearts would encrease our Love daily more and more to his Laws That we may cheerfully obey Him in this World and be everlasting rewarded by Him in the next DISCOURSE the Sixth The Contents NOt a few think themselves secure in their actings if they can shew that some good Men in Holy Writ or some well accounted of since have done the like Examples of Good Men to be imitated no further than they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant They can of themselves lay no Obligation upon us The Holy Men we read of in Scripture were not sent into the World to be a Rule to all Others in the Things they acted The Vncertainty of Examples very great Their Insufficiency None of the Actions of our Blessed Lord from his Example merely and without a Law did lay any Obligation upon us to Imitate them The Laws of Christ reach to all Moral Actions No Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in those Laws Inferences concerning the Examples in Holy Writ In those things where the Law of God is Silent Prudence is to be our Guide Examples though of themselves they lay no Obligation upon us are yet of use Those which bear the Image of the Laws of Christ are given us for Incentives and Encouragements of our Obedience When Divine Laws are question'd as to their Sense Examples upon occasion may be Interpretations of them By Examples we may be instructed to do our Duties in a decent and becoming way Decency added unto Sincerity may make its reward the greater Examples are Registred in Holy Scripture for the Honour of those whose they were Our Condition the more sure than it would have been if we
all Indignities without Endeavours of vindicating himself though he had the power of doing it small Encouragement there would have been for our complying with his Example had he not said Resist not Evil but whosoever shall smite thee on the Right Cheek turn to him the other also Love your Enemies Bless them them that curse you Do good to them that hate you And pray for them that despitefully use you that ye may be the Children of your Father who is in Heaven Certainly had there been only the Example of our Lord without any thing else we should not Theophilus have known how to interpret some Actions But if in the Example which he hath set his Will and Design should have been told the Matter of his Actions would have put on the Nature of a Law and so would have bound us to imitation not as Example so much as Law. Whence I suppose Theophilus it is plain that the Example of none no with Reverence I speak it not of our Blessed Lord himself do as of themselves lay any Obligations upon us and consequently our Imitation of Holy Men is to go no further than their Example hath the Divine Laws for its Rule and Warrant 2. The Perfection of the Laws of Christ which reacheth to all Moral Actions and even to the Thoughts of our Hearts sheweth us the same thing also Nothing is there that is just and good but the Precepts of the Gospel do enjoyn it Nothing that is unrighteous but is forbidden there And in this sense in is that the Law of God is said to be exceeding broad Psal 119. Now to say that there may be Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in the Laws of Christ is to make those Laws imperfect which pierce in every thing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and the Joynts and Marrow and which proceed from Him who is infinitely Wise and so cannot be thought to be any way deficient But to say that such or such an Example is good because it includeth in it that goodness which the Laws of our Lord do enjoyn is to grant that the Law is Superiour to the Example and though there should have been no such Example would have required the matter of it to have been done Theoph. But pray Eubulus what shall we think of the Example of the Church in some things which we account necessary to be done from her Practice when yet there is no Command in Holy Scripture for the doing them I will instance only in two things though I might in more to wit The Baptizing of Infants and the setting apart the First Day of the Week as Holy. It may seem that either we are mistaken when we press the necessity of these things or else that there are some things necessary which the Precepts of our Lord do not reach unto Eubul But yet Theophilus even in these things we are not swayed merely by the Example of the Church without great Reason moving Her to the constant Observance of them And though there be no direct Command for these things yet if they may with good probability be inferred from Holy Writ if there be a Congruity in them to some Laws given unto the Jews so far as Reason and Enquity enforced those Laws and if there be likewise some things in the New Testament that more than a little intimate the doing of them we may observe them upon the same Grounds that the Church observed them and not only from her Example Though truly her Example downwards even from her First Age may add Authority to the Considerations now mention'd in that she is a Society which above all others in the World hath the Aids and Direction of the Holy Spirit who is the Guide unto all Truth If we look upon your first Instance of Baptizing Infants there is a Command that all Nations should be Baptized God enlarging his Covenant to all Mankind which was confined to the Jews before Though truly even the Covenant which was made with Abraham of which Circumcision was the Seal was of an Evangelical Nature and belonged to him chiefly as he was the Father of the Faithful and to his Spiritual no less than to his Fleshly Race And if Children before and in the time of the Old Law were capable of the Covenant why not in the time of the Gospel where is much greater Love manifested unto Men than ever there was in the Jewish State And while Divine Love is more abundant to all Sorts and Conditions of Men shall poor and helpless Children suffer a Diminution in it Especially when our Blessed Lord was pleased to take them in his Arms to rebuke those that kept them from him and to pronounce that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven There is so much cause to think that the Priviledges of Children are not only continued but increased under the Gospel that to make us to be of another Mind it may seem necessary that there should have been a Command on purpose not to Baptize them And what Prejudice think we would it not have wrought in the Jews towards Christianity if their Children who were taken into Covenant under Moses should have been excluded the Covenant under Christ Or should it be said that God hath Mercy in store for them as Infants why if the inward Grace be vouchsafed unto them should the outward Seal of such Grace be denied them who if they be fit for the Kingdom of Heaven are sure not unfit for the Font As for your other Instance of setting apart the First Day of the Week as Holy Natural Religion will tell us that some time is to be allowed to the Service of God And Revealed Religion hath acquainted us that God by a Command to the Jews the Reason of which is fetch'd from the very beginning of the World had determined the seventh part of Time to be continued as his own Peculiar The Equity of which Portion of Time in that it respected the Resting of Cattel as well as of Men the Church still owneth as not knowing a better than what God himself had appointed But the Day of Christs Resurrection by reason of the Exceeding Greatness of Gods Power and Love shewed in it surpassing that Day which immediately succeeded the Creation and having been signalized by the Apostles and other Believers meeting together upon it not once by Chance or another time as it happened but frequently by Choice Our Lord also honouring their coming together by his own Presence and by the wonderful Presence of the Holy Ghost sent upon them on that Day and its being probable likewise that the Observation thereof was by the Order of the Apostles or otherwise there would not have been such early Discipline as the Laying by in Store Collections for the Saints on that Day nor would the Day itself in so short a time have been established throughout the whole Church still every Hour encreasing and further it being no less
Holiness he never approved of them And his Will in the Laws of his Son is and always will be highly dear unto him And therefore in all cases how little hopes of success soever there be and at all times how hazardous soever they may appear is to be stuck unto by us 4. Those Actions which under the Old Testament were altogether innocent are not all of them without scruple to be imitated by us who are Christians Such I suppose was Moses's slaying the Egyptian who strove with the Hebrew Man Exod. 2.12 Ehud's running his Dagger into Eglon Judges 3.22 Elijah's calling down Fire from Heaven for the consuming of the Captains and their Fifties 2 Kings 1.10 David's causing the Ammonites to be put under Saws and Harrows of Iron and to pass through the Brick-Kiln 2 Sam. 12.31 And his cursing his Enemies as in his Psalms we frequently hear him do In some of these Instances if not in all we are to look to an extraordinary Spirit yet not disagreeing to the Mosaick State impelling the Actors and therefore it is very unsafe to bring them to the common Rules of Life now under the Gospel It might justly be objected against a private Man that should go about to do as Moses did Who made thee a Ruler or a Judge over us And Ehud's Deed how little Warrant is it for Attempts of the like Nature We know whom our Lord checked for desiring they might do as Elias had done with these words Ye know not what Spirit ye are of The Son of Man came not to destroy but to save Luk. 9.54 And David's Carriage towards the Conquer'd Ammonites who will say it may to the worst of Enemies be imitated And his so frequent Execrations of his Enemies may they not be said to proceed from a Prophetick Spirit and to be Predictions wrapt up in the Form of a Curse But who now may pretend to such a Spirit And not having the same Spirit how may they presume to do the same thing Look we to the Rule under the Gospel and there we shall find the Precepts that are given us to be of a mild and soft temper and the Spirit that actuates those Precepts in our Souls to be gentle and sweet-natured Not unlike unto the Dove whose Resemblance he took when he descended in a Bodily Shape We are to Love our Enemies to Bless them that Curse us to do good to them that hate us And Servants and Inferiours are to be subject to their Masters and Superiours not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward It is not unworthy Observation that in the whole Gospel there are no Precepts that relate to the carrying on a War because if our Saviour's Laws be obey'd sincerely on all Hands there will be no occasion for Fighting Now where the State and Laws are New as under our Lord in great measure they are some things that were innocent and commendable under a former State may not be so unto us For these Laws are to last so long as the World standeth whereas the Laws that authorized some of those Examples even now spoken of were only Impulses of the Spirit for that time alone in which they were done Yea the Laws which were most properly belonging to the Mosaick Institution and endured the longest were in great measure but in order unto our Saviour's more perfect Institution which was to come and which is styled The Everlasting Gospel because its Laws shall never cease to bind us as was before observed 5. No Actions of Holy Men that express not the Substance of a Divine Law are necessarily to be imitated by us For if our Imitation of Examples in Sacred Writings be to have the Laws of Christ for its Rule and Guidance then those Examples which do not any way express those Laws although they be not contrary to them lay no Obligation upon us for our imitating them Hence that Posture which our Saviour and his Disciples were in at the first Institution of his Supper since it was not belonging to the Substance of the Command of their Consecrating Bread and Wine and Giving them and of others Receiving them at their Hand doth not oblige us There is none can understand any Posture from the Command Do this in Remembrance of me and there is no Command on purpose for any Posture to be observed Why then should there be so much Discord in the Church of Christ about it It were well we could not say Men more earnestly contend about an indifferent Circumstance of the Duty than they make Conscience of the Duty itself And from what hath been said Theophilus we may see how great and dangerous their Errour is who raise Examples so high as to make them together with the Laws of our Lord the Rule of our Actions when those Laws alone and of themselves are so Nothing say they is to be done but what is warranted by some Command or Example in Holy Writ Which what is it but a derogating from the Divine Law to add over-much unto Examples and to give some Men who have their Eyes too much set upon Examples an occasion therefrom to take oftentimes a greater Latitude than the Sacred Precepts will allow When the Law of God is silent as to any particular Action and doth not forbid it it is to be supposed we are left at liberty to do or not to do it Neither need we seek to an Example for our Warrant but our Prudence with respect only to that general Law Whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God is to be our Guide For those Examples which are not directly expressive of the Laws of God arose at first from the Prudence of the Agents and why may not We upon the same Grounds do the same Things Or why should an Example be of more Authority with us than that Prudence from which it sprung and which lieth in common to all Men for the ordering a great part of their Lives Certainly the wholly excluding the Dictates of Prudence where no Law of God layeth any prohibition upon us and the joyning of Examples together with the Divine Precepts without any mark of Difference as if they were of equal sway with them may be of pernicious Consequence to the Practice of Men and hath already been too too much instrumental unto the quarrelling with the wholsom Discipline and Constitutions of our Church and the disturbing of that Peace which ought to be more among Christians than others but which hath been less in the midst of them than it hath been even with Those who in the Psalmist's words are Strangers unto Peace Theoph. But if Examples lay no Obligation upon us any further than as they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant pray Eubulus of what use are they And to what end have we any thing more in Holy Writ than the Laws thereof These of themselves engaging us to all the Duties that any Examples can point us
Box of Ointment on the Head of our Lord That wheresoever the Gospel should be preached in the whole World there also should this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her Mat. 26.13 In the same manner are the good Actions of Holy Men preserved in the Scripture that they may be told as a Memorial of them wheresoever these Sacred Writings shall come and so long as they shall last which shall be to the End of the World. Moses shall for ever be celebrated who refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh 's Daughter choosing rather to suffer Afflictions with the People of God than to enjoy the Pleasures of Sin for a Season Abraham's Faith shall never cease to be praised till Faith itself shall cease and be turned into Vision Gideon Barak Sampson Jephtha David also and Samuel and all the Prophets and Apostles shall for their faithful Deeds be had in Everlasting Remembrance Such Honour have all God's Saints And though they be happy in the enjoyment of the Recompence of Reward and may seem not to need any of that praise which Earth can give yet surely it cannot but be esteemed an high Favor from God unto them while they are Blessed in Heaven to be Honourable on Earth and Celebrated themselves here while they are praising God there Had we ourselves Theophilus no use and benefit from these examples yet their being Registred as an Honour to the Persons that lived so well is sufficient reason for their being written Though truly in this their Honour we may reap a great deal of satisfaction For those Righteous Actions which God hath so much honoured Them for we may justly conclude He will be well pleased with in Vs Since He is no Respecter of Persons in every Nation he that feareth Him and worketh Righteousness being accepted with him 'T is true indeed we cannot expect that God will give Divine Authority to any more Books than the Bible and write our Names in them But He hath other ways of Rewarding Holy Livers on Earth besides enrolling them in a Sacred Volume that shall last as long as the World. He can give us Honour and Prosperity while we Live and can Embalm us also in a lasting Name when we are dead And though he should not do this yet we read of another Book of God in which the Names and all the good Actions of Faithful Men are recorded and which at the last day will be opened when every man shall receive according to his works The Righteous Deeds of Holy Men being preserved in the Books of Scripture may put us in mind of this other Book And the Honour which they have of being never forgotten in this world encourageth us to the like Holy and Just Actions that we may be remembred in the world to come Theoph. God grant we may at last be remembred there and then I shall little care though the same Earth that covers my Body bury my Memory also Though yet the Honour of Living in Sacred Writings after Death and of being made instrumental to other Mens virtuous Deeds and to the more comely performing of them I acknowledge to be very great And since God is pleased to make a Good Name and the Being for Ages Exemplary to be a Reward of a well-led Life I will not blame Those why by rightly ordering their Lives have an Eye to such a Reward Eubul I am sure we have a great deal of Reason to account it a Blessing that we have had so many patterns of Virtue set us by which we are the better capacitated for being Happy ourselves and being also Examples unto others The Faith indeed of Abraham is thought by some to have been the more excellent and even to have given him the Name of the Father of the Faithful upon the account that he had no precedent Example of any ones Believing in God He dwelling in Vr of the Chaldees where they were all Idolaters But supposing this were so and that therefore our Faith cannot have the accomplishment of Father Abrahams because we have Him and many Others our Examples Yet our Condition in our Faith is much the more sure unto us than it would have been if we had had none in whose steps we might tread For who of us would have done as Abraham did We may therefore praise God in that he hath caused us to be Born into the World after so many excellent Persons whose Examples may direct us further than of our Selves we could have gone And albeit we shall not have the Honour to receive others into our Bosome when in Heaven as Abraham doth yet if we can the more easily have a place in his and be our Selves in some measure Leaders of other Men thither we shall have no reason to complain of any want of Happiness but a great deal of cause to rejoyce that the way to Heaven was made so plain and that we had so many encouragements in it not to faint And with reference unto this The Church hath piously ordered that we should bless Gods H. Name for all his Servants departed this Life in his Faith and Fear Beseeching him to give us Grace so to follow their Examples that with Them we may be partakers of his Heavenly Kingdom Theoph. A great Esteem and Love Eubulus we may have for the Examples of Holy Men but it must at last End in the Esteem and Love of the Laws of Christ which include in them all the Good that the best Examples of Men ever have shewn or can shew Eubulus It must so Theophilus For all those actions of Men and Women famous in their Generations The Practice of Righteousness and Mercy of Munificence and Liberality of Temperance and Sobriety of unfeigned Devotion and Piety towards God all of which every Man hath a Tongue to praise are but imperfect draughts of these Holy Laws I say imperfect Draughts Because no Man our Blessed Lord alone excepted hath ever yet risen to that height of Excellence which they require Very pleasing they are as they are represented in the Lives of Good Men though they there are not unlike a Beautiful Face drawn to great disadvantage and with many unbecoming Shades But could we see them without failure exprest in the demeanor of any Man and had Eyes clear enough to behold them we should confess that they were a Sight too good for Earth However in the commendable actions of Men with the imperfections of Mortality if we would but reflect thus to wit The Constancy of that Man is a pleasant thing to behold The Righteousness of this Man is truely Comely Mercy and Goodness here is a real Ornament to the Actor Friendship and Kindness there How amiable are they The Flourishing of Society in Peace and Industry and all publick Virtues The Affections and Tenderness of Parents The Submission and Dutifulness of Children The Dwelling of Brethren together in Unity And the Affability and Usefulness of Neighbors to each
pleasurable Entertainment is there for Holy Thoughts And whether we find him Curing Diseases Casting out Devils Feeding Multitudes with a Miracle Laying Command on the Wind and Sea and Raising the Dead Or whether we read him publickly Teaching or privately Instructing Praying in Secret unto God or appearing Gloriously in his Transfiguration How diversly may we be affected yet every way with Delight Yea if we look towards his Leaving of the World when in the Garden he Sweat as it were great drops of Blood under those Sins which in a Garden first took Birth If we consider his bitter Cross and Passion the Reproaches amidst his Torments and the Death that followed them though we Sympathize with him we yet cannot but love the Story For herein the wonderful work of our Redemption is compleated Here we see a Sacrifice of more worth than a World propitiatory for the Sins of all Mankind Because as Manhood was intimately conjoyned with the Godhead and made one Person He was Infinite who suffer'd and so paid our Price in a short Time which we ourSelves could not have done but by an Eternity of Torments If we read on and accompany our Lord to his Grave we shall find him after a shameful Death to be Honourably Buried wrapped in fine Linnen with Spices and laid in a Sepulchre in which never any before was laid And it may affect us with a secret Pleasure to see Him who was Conceiv'd within a Virgin 's Womb where no one Conceiv'd in Sin had before lain to be Buried as it were in a Virgin Sepulchre where no sinful Man's Body had ever been laid But what Joy may his Resurrection stir up in us after such endeavours to secure his Body if possible from Rising and when Risen to stifle the Truth of its being so It cannot but delight us to read of Angels descending from Heaven to rowl away the Stone before the Sepulchre and to attend upon our Lord in his leaving his Grave And it may almost be a pleasant doubt whether cheereth us the more their so kindly speaking to our Lords Friends that These went away though with some fear yet with great Joy or their terrifying the insolent Keepers that through Fear Those shook and became as Dead Men. If we are taken with Splendor we have it in the Angels appearance in Raiment white as Snow And also in the Resurrection of many Saints who after their Saviour had left his Grave came out of theirs and went into the Holy City and appeared unto many If Love and Kindness please us we have our Lord 's frequent shewing himself to his Disciples after his Rising And though a Crown was ready for him in the Heavens He yet cannot quickly leave Those who once had left all and followed him but continues among them Forty days speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. These great and delightful things are succeeded by His Ascension into Heaven which is truly Great and highly pleasant to a Religious Soul Whether we consider the Cloud of Angels which received him The Powers of Darkness which he led Captive or the inestimable Gifts which he gave through the Holy Ghost Gifts which were worthy of him and such as no one else could bestow And what especially concerneth us Our Nature which was Created lower than the Angels is in Him Exalted far above them And to our Joy also we read That He is gone to prepare Mansions for us That where He is there we may be also This sure if any thing in the World can entitle History to the greatest Love may well entitle this to Ours Abundance more there is in the New Testament which I shall not now insist on though it be exceeding Delightful I thought good to recount that which more immediately related to our Redeemer because it is of such unspeakable Value unto us Theoph. In the particulars which you have given of it I have more than once thought of the words of Seneca Cum Sextium lego libet omnes casus provâ—care When I read Sextius 's Book I could even Challenge Fortune to do her Worst I have an Antidote there greater than all her Mischiefs What was height o Expression concerning Sextius's Philosophy is no more than Truth if applied to this History When Old Simeon had taken our Saviour into his Arms it was in good earnest that he said Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in Peace according to thy Word for mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation The World hath nothing worthy my Eye or Thought after such an inestimable Favour And truly when a Man with a right frame of Soul reads these things what can his Heart desire more How much may he be above all ordinary Joys How much above all ordinary Griefs And yet Eubulus how much soever these great things tend to the composing of all irregular Passions in me I cannot forbear the being very much disturbed when I consider there are some who look upon all these things as imposture and have endeavour'd to beat them d wn as such Surely were there no other Proofs the Sacredness and Love which all along breath in them might shew them to be of higher Original than what Deceit could reach unto And could an understanding Man be tempted to doubt of their Truth yet me thinks they should so far prevail upon him as the less to care whether any thing else were true or not Eubul But God be thanked Theophilus we have the greatest proofs of these Things for the Confirmation of our Faith and for its and our Defence against all the Oppositions of Unbelievers and the Carnal Reasonings of the World. Why should the Evangelists and Apostles go about to deceive the World in things of so great Importance Their whole design in making known the Gospel was so far as can be discerned none other than that Mankind should through it be happy And what injury had the whole World done them that they should in a matter which so highly concerned it impose thus upon it as they needs must have done had they not been absolutely sure of what they declared Untruths for the most part look at the interest of the spreaders of them and are always of a less extent confin'd to certain Persons or Places or Times and are not such as shall respect all Persons Places and Times so long as the World shall endure as these things manifestly do unless there shall be a most Envious and Evil Nature or an inordinate design of Praise or Profit in the Inventors But neither of these can be thought to have been in Those who first published these things Not an Envious and Evil Nature for who out of Envy would publish such things as all Wise and Serious Men would wish should be true if really they were not so Who out of Evil Nature would write and declare Laws to the World that should beget and propagate the greatest Sweetness of Temper An happy effect of Envy it would be to
Understanding when we read them fulfilled in our Lords being conceived of the Holy and born of a Virgin Mother And truly the Prediction Micah 5.2 Of his being born at Bethleem may move us with a more than ordinary delight when we consider how strangely God's Providence was engaged for the fulfilling it All that Taxing which was laid upon the Jewish Nation by Augustus and which required every one to repair to his own City to be Taxed may appear in a special manner to be order'd by God for the bringing Mary unto Bethleem to be delivered of her Son. It was a great way that Joseph and Mary were to go From N zareth in Galile to the City of David in Judea And it might seem ill to have hapned unto Mary at a time when her Condition rather required Rest than was fit for so great a Journey and this too as is not improbable in the depth of Winter But God somtimes is accomplishing his own Will and great things for us when Affairs appear to be cross and unhappy Yea and can order the Councils of Princes at a great distance from them to carry on these Designs which He in his Providence hath laid but which never entred their Hearts to imagine And so it is here We see no means how Mary should have been at Bethleem delivered of her Son there had not the Taxation at that very Time been enjoyn'd Which may shew that She and Joseph had no Thoughts of fulfilling a Prophecy by their journey thither But hence it was that the Son of David was born in the City of David and Divine Wisdom had ordered that of this Man it should be said He was Born there If we look to those Prophecies which were of our Lord's Suffering and Death they are such as may give us a great deal of satisfaction in a Crucified Saviour That of Esai is very express in Chap. 53. He is despised and rejected of Men a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief He hath born our Griefs and carried our Sorrows He was wounded for our Transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities How exactly is his Picture as it were drawn by this Prophet and how pleased may we be with the Likeness though it represents him in Grief and Sorrows So likewise in Daniel Chap. 9.26 After sixty two Weeks shall the Messias be cut off but not for himself Which things are also a good and just Interpretation of our Lord's Behaviour under his Sufferings For should he not have suffered in our stead but died only as our Example and as a Testimony of the Truth of his Doctrine as Socinus and his Followers would have it some things I speak it reverently would not have born a good Colour nor at all have been reconcileable to that Perfection which we must own to be in our Lord. I will instance in one and that is his Sweat in the Garden Consider this without the thoughts of his dying for our Sins and say whether it betrays not too great a fear of Death whether there may not seem to have been greater Instances of undaunted Courage from some Heathen Heroes and from some who have born the Name of Christians than from Christ himself That He should be so much concern'd at a single Death when he knew he died for an Example to others of not fearing Death upon a good occasion what from these Mens Opinions can we think of it But then when we consider that He was wounded for our Transgressions that he struggled with the Wrath of God which was due to all Men and was never to have end that he trod the Wine-press alone and none was with him The uncommonness of his Sweat which was as great drops of Blood may shew forth the greatness of the Burthen that was laid upon him and may make us to wonder at the Power that could at all bear up under such Pressures but by no means to accuse him of Timorousness because his Garments are thus died with Blood. So great and reverend is that Action or Passion rather of our Lord with respect to his Suffering in our stead which otherwise will require a good Invention to make it appear not mean. Add to this that Expression of his My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Had he died only for an Example unto us and a Confirmation of the Truth of what he declared why should he thus have cried out Should we ourselves be called to die for our Holy Religion I cannot say that we might lawfully thus cry unto God We ought rather to submit unto his Will with hopes that he had not forsaken us Somthing else then must be the cause of these his words viz. The pouring out of the full Vials of Gods Wrath upon Him as upon one that bare the Iniquities of us all And this will render his words highly apposite unto and expressive of his Passion which otherwise might seem beyond it So that though we are to conceive of our Lord's Death as an Example unto us for he is said to suffer for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps yet as in his Life there are some things above an Example so in his Death likewise there are which are placed beyond our Imitation We may imitate his Meekness and Patience and Love to Mankind but the height of his Sufferings for the Sins of the World we cannot And some Expressions betokening the Greatness of his Passion whether from his Words or Bloody Sweat must stand alone as highly agreeable to the State of his Agony but not so fit for any besides Himself Thus amiable are these Prophecies to the Considerate Reader not only in so exactly foretelling his Sufferings and Death and thereby vindicating the Honour of our Religion against the Jews who upbraid us with those his Sufferings and Death but also in shewing forth a true Beauty in the now-mention'd Deportment of our Saviour which an horrid Opinion of some who call themselves Christians doth tend to make very unbecoming Nor may the Prophecies of the manner of his Death be less satisfactory unto us to wit They pierced my Hands and my Feet Psal 22.17 And Zach. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced For how rightly are these fulfilled in his suffering the Roman Crucifixion the Jews having no sort of Punishment in which the Undergoers were thus pierced And this Death being inflicted by the Roman Power directs us to the Satisfaction of another Prophecy viz. The Scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come But the Power of Life and Death which is the most proper Signification of Scepter being wholly taken from the Jews and exercised in Judea by the Romans may shew that the Messias was come before according to that Prophecy And very remarkable it is that though Jerusalem before our Lord's Birth was Conquered by Pompey the Great yet throughout the Life of Hircanus the High Priest the Reign of Herod the Great and Archelaus
Mens Constancy and Perseverance What Christian Sorrow expressed at the Defection of any What tender-heartedness shewed towards those who after a Fall are repentant And in them all what Attractives are there for our Love I have somtimes thought that should a Person to whom the True God is unknown read or hear the earnest Exhortations the many taking Suggestions which in Holy Scripture are used for the engaging Men to Obedience he would judge that surely God is much advantaged thereby or otherwise he would not be so very desirous of it This I am sure we may with Truth say that were it possible our Obedience could add to the Blessedness of the Almighty he could not use more winning Speeches for the obtaining of it than now he doth But therefore because we can no way profit Him by the Observance of his Laws and because it is our own very great advantage if we do observe them how sweetly prevalent may so many persuasives seem unto us And how with an holy Gratitude may we say Lord what is Man that thou hast such regard unto him That thou givest him Line upon Line Exhortation upon Exhortation and continuest an uncessant care over him for the securing him unto Happiness Theoph. It is fit indeed that such Exhortations should be followed with Devotions Praises unto God who is so Gracious unto Men and Prayers that we may never suffer such persuasives to be fruitless upon us And it may fairly lead you Eubulus to the Devotional Part of Holy Scripture in the last place to be spoken unto Eubul This we shall find to be truly excellent also For it consisted of such Services as in their intent were fit for Men to pay unto their God. None of their Holy Feasts was there but was in Memory of some Signal Favour And as it was their pleasure to rejoyce thus before their Lord and Holy Benefactor so it may likewise be our pleasure to read of their Religious doing it Had the Creation of the World been understood by the Heathens Juvenal would not have derided the Jews as such Queîs Septima quaeque fuit Lux Ignava vitae partem non attigit ullam Who lost the Seventh part of their Time and improved it to no End of Life And if Plutarch had known the design of their carrying Boughs of Trees in their Feast of Tabernacles he would not in a Scoffing Manner have called it the Jewish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Odious comparing it with that intemperate Feast of Bacchus in which the Bacchides ran about with Javelins wrapped round with Ivy termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Sacrifices were Visible Prayers or Praises or Expiations in all of them the End was truly Excellent and no one of them had such Rites as required Secresie for a Shelter from an honest and Chast Eye And hence possibly it was that God forbad Groves to be near his Altar as having by their Shades and Recesses given occasion to those Uncleannesses which too frequently attended the Worship of the Heathens Neither ever did or durst any tacita libare acerra inaperto vivere voto ask those things which it were a shame Men should hear But the Scope of their Petitions was Gods Blessing in the way of Righteousness And as in these things their Religious Services were quite of a different Colour from those of the Nations and in every thing might have worn this Impress Holiness to the Lord so it is very remarkable what Humility and Submission of Spirit attended their Devotions when God laid Afflictions upon them It is the Lord let him do what pleaseth him saith Eli. I was Dumb I opened not my Mouth because Thou didst it saith David Though he kill yet will I put my Trust in Him saith Job Herein likewise very different from the Heathen who in their Sufferings were forward to accuse their Gods venting their Griefs in undecent Invectives against them But when we read of those sacred Heights of Devotion which some of their Holy Men rose unto how must we be affected how divided betwixt Love and Delight Our Souls are embruted if we be not almost transformed into the same Seraphick Temper with them who to use the words of one of them have thought One day in Gods Courts better than a Thousand Desiring nothing in Heaven but God nor any thing on Earth in Comparison of Him. And such Devotion how yet further is it improved by our Blessed Lord who hath continued all Night therein who hath Consecrated himself by Prayer a Sacrifice for the whole World and hath offered up upon his Cross Supplications with strong Cries and Tears hoth for Himself and Vs Who is it can avoid the being wholly possest with Love who contemplateth our Saviour at the Right Hand of God in a mighty way Mediating for us Though at a distance from us yet openly on our behalf urging his Merits Passion and Death and presenting our Prayers unto his Father Which that they may be the more acceptable he himself while on Earth hath given us a most perfect Prayer as a Patte n for our Imitation and a Form for our Use suitable to the greatest Ardour of Piety that Mortality is capable of Hath sent likewise from Heaven the Holy Spirit to make Intercessions for us with Groans that cannot be uttered joyning with us from within and giving our Prayers such a Fervour and Powerfulness as is not to be equall'd by Words Devotion raised to such Perfection as the having our Blessed Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it is so highly amiable that it requires only the being truly known for the being sincerely loved You have Theophilus in short measures an account of the Divine Law as the word Law may be taken in the wider sense Theoph. How acceptable the account you have given me is I cannot more truly say than by telling you I could have very willingly heard it much longer Yea so delightful are these other parts of Holy Writ that they afford a great pleasure even to some who are less Observers of the Preceptive Part than they ought to be I have known who have been very well versed in the Bible and could reherse if need were the chief things contain'd therein when yet their Practice hath been as lame as if they knew not a Letter there Eubul These Persons quite mistake what they read while they find a Pleasure therein without a respect to the Divine Law properly as such All the other parts of Scripture are as before was said some way or other in order to the Preceptive Part and if there be who understand them otherwise they go contrary to the Mind and Will of their Author But yet how can any one enjoy a Pleasure from that History which God hath caused to be written as an Encouragement to Obedience and not be encouraged at the same time to be Obedient himself Or how acknowledge the Divine Justice in the Punishment of Disobedience and
hereby rectifies and sets all strait again He can in This behold as at a distance the Irregularities of others and solace himself that he is out of the reach of bad Example And though a true reflecting on the Covetousness Pride Ambition and such like Evils which prevail so much abroad and on the Troubles which they betray those unto whose Vices they are and somtimes those whose Vices they are not doth raise some concernedness and grief within him yet he perceives a satisfaction not altogether unlike unto his who seeing others toss'd on troubled Waves is himself safe at Land Or who discerning whole Armies engaged in Fight is secure himself from the Danger And not only so but by such Meditation he dresses and adorns his Soul for an Holy Converse with God and secretly enjoys the Communion of Blessed Spirits in things so resined and Heavenly that no Earthly pleasure is to be compared with them Theoph. I wish this seemed not to have been the Pleasure and Priviledge of the Ages past chiefly and for the most part little to appertain unto Us who have so far degenerated from the Saints of Old that we find much tediousness in that which they placed their greatest delight and spent most of their time in When some of Them have laid down their Lives amidst Torments for their Religion we think much to spend some serious Thoughts about the things which relate to our Eternal Welfare yea we look upon it as a Task and Trouble to meditate even upon the infinite Love of God to us and can hardly do it though but for a few Minutes without Weariness and Distraction Eubul Our Lawgiver may justly take it ill from us that when we can with earnestness fix our Thoughts the greatest part of our Lives upon poor Earthly Things which perish in the using we should be backward to Contemplate his Laws which alone bring a durable Peace unto us and would requite us abundantly if even all our time should be employ'd in them Theoph. Happy it would be if Men could be prevail'd upon to Love their own Happiness and to place their Thoughts thereon A thing this is which one would think should not need many persuasions to move them to do it But they mistake Trifles for Happiness and leave the Fountain of Waters to trust in broken Cisterns Eubul To such Men as These are I would urge only this one thing Let them betake themselves to frequent and serious Considerations and if upon due search into the Holy Scriptures and an humble and constant repairing unto God by Prayer that he would open their Eyes for the discerning the wondrous things of his Law they shall repent of their Pains as being either lost or not well requited let them then forsake the Divine Laws and seek elsewhere for Peace and Rest But if after such Search and such Prayers any should forsake these Laws might not our Lord say unto them as Pharaoh said unto Hadad 1 Kings 11.22 What hast thou lacked with me that thou seekest to return into thine own Country What is it that you have wanted with me Could greater Love be shew'd you More Holy and Righteous Laws be given you Or more desireable Rewards be held forth unto you That you should leave me and return to the World where you will find nothing but Dissatisfaction We may with Truth say unto Men That there are the greatest Excellences in the Laws of our Lord and an Happiness yeilded by them which no where else can be found But whoever shall with Reverence and Singleness of Heart look into them may say of them as the Queen of Sheba said of Solomon 1 Kings 10.6.7 8. It was a true Report that we heard of the great Wisdom and Goodness that were in these Laws We believed not until we came and our Eyes had seen it and behold the half was not told us The Wisdom and the Excellency of them exceedeth the Fame which we heard Happy O Lord are thy Children Happy are thy Servants that stand continually before thee and hear thy Wisdom And thus Theophilus according to your desire we have closed the Seventh Evening Theoph. I wish that all my Days might be spent as much to my advantage as these Seven have been Eubul I doubt not but they will to so much the more by how much Practice is better than Discourse DISCOURSE the Eighth Concerning the Deformity of Disobedience to the Divine Laws Quis est tam dissimilis homini qui non moveatur offensione Turpitudinis Cic. de Fin. l. 5. The Contents DIsobedience is a Pollution It brings Disorder into a Man. It tends to make the Almighty to minister to his Creatures in the vilest Offices How God cannot be made to serve How he may He is pleas'd in Holy Writ to speak after the manner of Men that so He may condescend to our Vnderstandings and excite our Affections How He is made to serve in His Holy Name How in His Works The Creation sensible of this Slavery and God very much displeas'd with it Disobedience of an Extensive Nature It affects a kind of Eternity It 's highly Disingenuous God necessitates none to Disobedience Why He will not force Men into Obedience Why he generally cuts them not off THEOPHILVS I Had thought Eubulus when last I bid you Good-Night to have left to your choice the Matter of this Evenings Talk. But reflecting on the Excellency of the Divine Laws and the great Happiness that Men have in them my Thoughts at length run on to the Consideration of Disobedience thereunto Sure said I if these Holy Laws are in themselves so amiable and do make him who observeth them to be with the King's Daughter all Glorious within the disobeying of them is in itself Odious and renders the Man inwardly very Deform'd I pray you therefore Eubulus let this Vngrateful Thing be the Subject of one Discourse It may not be devoid of Profit to us since the Foulness of This if throughly discerned will possibly no less one way secure our Obedience than the Beauty of the Divine Precepts will another way allure it EVBVLVS INdeed Theophilus Sin Iniquity or Wickedness or whatever Name besides evil Actions have all of which are nothing else but Disobedience or Transgression of the Law are Character'd in Holy Scriptures by Pollution and Filthiness And as a Signification of such Defilement were those Numerous Washings under the Old Law. And those Sacrifices which had the Sins of the People confessed over them were by reason of those Sins so polluted that they were commanded to be burnt out of the Camp and they who burnt them there were by them in such manner defiled that they could not return into the Camp till they had wash'd their Cloaths and bath'd their Flesh in Water Levit. 16.28 And answerable hereunto did the Prophets afterwards speak Wash me throughly from mine Iniquity and cleanse me from my Sin Psal 51.2 They were defiled with their own Works Psal 106.39 Though
doth vindicate his own Soveraignty and Power which they as much as in them lieth have brought under and trampled upon And this he so doth as that they themselves may look upon it to be God's just Hand and that others also may acknowledge it his doing But then Communities of Men which by their publick Sins make the Almighty to serve are always when those Sins are ripe punished in this World for they cannot with any reason be thought punishable in the next because all Bonds of Civil Society are utterly broken and evacuated by the Death of the Whole Yea and those Private Men who have contributed their share to the Sins of a Nation as such are also oftentimes in some respect punished in this World even after Death by Publick Calamities reaching their Children or other Relations in whom themselves are in a manner still here continued Which to one who rightly considers it sheweth forth God's Righteous Judgments upon them But because it is not always safe to pronounce That the untimely Deaths or unexpected Miseries of some particular Persons are an immediate Stroke of God upon them for their Disobedience for our Christian Charity will not permit this when we know no signal Crimes by them And the great Afflictions of some who are not greater Sinners than other Men and of some whom we have reason to esteem as good Men may caution us in this point not to be over-forward to Judge And because also we see a great many wicked Men to live and become old to be in no Troubles as other Men to die in peace and leave the rest of their Substance for their Babes Therefore we may affirm it as a Truth Viz. That God seeth it fit generally not to cut off those Men nor yet to force them into Obedience who by their Disobedience do thus make him to serve He seeth it fit generally not to cut them off that they may have space for Repentance Thus did he to the Church of Thyatira I gave her saith he space to Repent of her Fornication And for this end may he spare these dealing with them as the Lord did with the Barren Fig-Tree hoping that though they be not fruitful this year they will grow better the next And this the rather because from the thoughts of this Goodness of God unto them they may the more effectually be prevail'd upon to repent Despisest thou saith the Apostle the Riches of his Goodness and Forbearance and Long-suffering not knowing that the Goodness of God in this his Forbearance and Long-suffering leadeth thee to Repentance A Sorrow for former Sins and an Acknowledgment of God's Soveraignty for the future in Mens giving themselves up to his Service may arise from other Considerations but from none more directly or more forcibly than from that of his sparing them and suffering them to live that they may Repent and Turn unto him Neither may it be a small Motive for his not generally Cutting them off that in case they do not Repent there may from their Freedom from Punishment in this Life be afforded unto us a strong Proof that there will be Another Life after This in which those Sins which are here spared and Unrepented of shall most surely be punished God is a Righteous God and he hath told us plainly by his Prophet Nahum Chap. 1.3 That he will not acquit the Wicked And it is not Unobservable that These Words are put thus to wit The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power and will not acquit the Wicked As much as to say Though he forbear long yet it is not as if he could not punish yea if they shall go on in their Disobedience and not Repent them of their Misdeeds they most certainly shall have the Reward of their Doings Now in that These Wicked Men who to the utmost of their Power make God to Serve do often live and dye without Punishments they must necessarily be punished after Death or else God will contrary to his Word acquit the Wicked But the Judge of the Earth will do Right though all Men shall be Lyars yet God cannot but be True And therefore he will not Cut them off that he may make them a strong Argument that there will be a Day of Punishments when this World is at an End with them And Lastly Theophilus we may not amiss think he will suffer them to Live that if They Repent not here they themselves may hereafter in the Other World confess that they are justly punished Though Gods sparing their Lives in so much Mercy when they had deserved to be struck Dead or sent Living into Hell were little minded by them on Earth it yet shall at the Great Tribunal have this effect upon them viz. To make them acknowledge that their Damnation is Just because They had so much favour shew'd them and they shut their Eyes upon it And surely as Gods Gracious Designs of Mens Turning unto him and being happy do take off whatever can be Objected against his not presently destroying the Disobedient So the Reputation of his Justice which will by this means be Exalted even among Those that in Hell shall suffer it may abundantly Vindicate Gods Government of the World from being slack and remiss though he do not immediately Condemn unto Death those who make him to Serve by their Sins Theoph. You have throughly satisfied me why God doth not presently Cut those off who are Rebellious But since all Power is his and with a Word He can do it why doth he not Force them into Obedience that his Sovereignty may be acknowledg'd by all and not opposed so much as in appearance by any Eubul One Reason may be Because he would have their Obedience to be their Virtue and such as shall become Rational Creatures to give He as Elihu saith Teacheth Them more than the Beasts of the Earth and maketh Them Wiser than the Fowles of Heaven that they may know what Good and what Evil is and may be sensible of the Favours that are shew'd unto them He hath given them a Will to choose or refuse what things are before them And hath planted Affections in their Souls by which Love and Gratitude may be Exercised Now when they shall endeavour to Understand what is truly Good and also what Gods Loving-kindness to them is when they shall choose that which is best and shall willingly serve Him whom they know to be the Lord of the World and their Lord Loving him for his Goodness and striving to express Thankfulness to him so far as they are able when I say they shall do this they will be Virtuous and shew themselves such as their Nature and Make require they should be But how unagreeable would it be for these Men to be forced contrary to their Mind and Will Wherein would they be Commendable should they do that which they could not help And how unsutable to Love and Gratitude is Violence and Constraint It is Love that is
Favours are obliged to Honour Reverence and Love their Good Master should instead of doing That cause Him to gird himself and to Serve Them till they have Eaten and Drunk and afterwards bid Him to Eat and Drink Whether yet it would not seem much worse to them if these Servants should constrain their Lord to those shameful Actions which the vilest of Slaves would be thought too good for I doubt not but such Servants they would abhor and think no punishments great enough for Them. The Case stands worse in their own making God Serve by their Disobedience For no Earthly Master can deserve so much Honour and Love of a Servant as God doth of Them. Neither can any Servitude even in the most noisome Circumstances be so loathsome to a Master here as the Service of their Sins is unto God. And is it a becoming thing that He who is God over all should be thus Vilified by his own Creatures That He before whom the Angels Cover their Faces and whose Courts We even in our best Services are to approach with Fear and Reverence should be so far profaned as without any regard to his Greatness and Holiness to be brought lower than the meanest of all his Works into a Bondage of itself useful to no good End Sure the Horrid Villany of the thing may make them abominate it Especially since They who of all this lower World are the meetest to Serve God are the alone Creatures that Disobey him All things here even to the meanest Worm that creeps do his Will in their several places and shall Men be the failing yea the Rebellious part of the Creation And instead of serving God with the rest of his Works shall they force those his Works from his Service and themselves make Him by their Sins to Serve Theoph. In good Truth while they thus do they bring the greatest Slavery upon Themselves in that they Serve many Masters and those such as are contrary the one to the Other This Vice bids go That at the same time wills them to stay Covetousness prompts them to hold fast Ambition urges them not to Spare Pride makes them to despise Others and yet to their great uneasiness to fawn that they may rise higher A most uncertain Slavery it is and no less difficult What underhand Contrivances What Glozings with those they cannot abide What Infidelity to them whom thy pretend Friendship unto What Fears of being found out What Evil Industry to keep all private No Servitude can surely be worse Eubul But Theophilus wee 'l now leave these Men Putting up Prayers to God for them that they may remember such things as these bring them seriously to their Minds weigh them in their most deliberate Thoughts and by so doing instead of being Transgressors shew Themselves to be Men. DISCOURSE the Ninth The Contents THe Plea of those is vain who say they never sinned maliciously against the Almighty nor wish'd his Greatness and Power to be less The Difference betwixt Rebellion against God and that against a Temporal Prince Disobedience a defilement in whomsoever it is Not the same Pollution in all Sins What the Sins of Good Men are and how known to be theirs The Sins of wicked Men of a deep Dye wherein they differ from those of pious Men. The Difference between wicked Men How of the worst sort some are more open some more secret in their Sins How the Sins of the less evil sort are to be measur'd The same fairness of Converse not equally innocent unto many A Sin may be a pardonable one to some when the very same to the Eye and Opinion of Men will not be so to others What we are to think of the Heinous Sins of Good Men Registred in Holy Scripture No reason from them for wicked Men to think better of their own Sins God will not esteem the Sins of his Children which are in themselves as great as and the same with the Sins of other Men to be therefore the less because they are committed by those who are his Children How to make a Judgment of our own Sins THEOPHILVS THE great Deformity and Disorder which Disobedience carrieth along with it are not things made probable by Discourse only and then growing less or none when second Thoughts and retired Contemplations are engaged in them The serious Reflection upon what you here last said gave Strength and Confirmation thereunto And from thence my Resolutions against Disobedience as a thing in its own Nature foul and deformed grew the more strong also But Eubulus I have heard some of none of the best Morals endeavouring to extenuate the illness of Disobedience by saying That they never maliciously sinned against the Almighty Never wished his Greatness and Power to be less and by indulging themselves in some things prohibited by the Sacred Laws they gratified indeed their own Inclinations but did no great Injury unto Men much less design'd Ill unto God. Will the Plea of these Men stand them in any stead for the making their Disobedience to be no such thing as yesterday you discours'd of EVBVLVS NO indeed Theophilus will it not For what Quietness soever there may seem to be in their Sins they will be found of dangerous Consequence if nearlier look'd into It is not in Mens Rebellions against God as in those against an Earthly Governour There Tumults are raised Arms are taken up and the Diminution or it may be the Destruction of the Prince wish'd and threatned because he is not out of a possibility of being weakned and destroy'd and such Methods are oftentimes likely enough to effect it But God because he both is and is acknowledg'd to be Immortal and out of the reach of all Force hath no Swords drawn against Him no Designs laid for his Overthrow nay is not by many so much as wished not to be because they know such Wishes are to no purpose Their way therefore of Rebelling is to break his Laws To think him such an one as themselves are One who either cannot or who will not take any notice of them Or it may be to Own Him as to his Attributes to be such as he is yet hoping thereby that their good Opinions of Him will make amends for bad Practices But how little do such Thoughts mitigate their Sins If they shall imagine God to be such who cannot see them is the Robbing him of his Omniscience so small an Offence Because it maketh no Noise and with Calmness layeth Dishonour upon Him whose Eternal Glory it is to know all things is it therefore an excusable good-natur'd fault We may as well call Joab's Carriage to Amasa excusable and good-natur'd when he said Art thou in Health my Brother and then smote him under the fifth Rib. For God's Omniscience cannot more surely be overthrown towards a Man than by such Imaginations which though in appearance mild are deadly in the issue If they shall think that God will not take notice of them is it
Men and also the ill Inferences which these Men are apt to make from them we say Theophilus 1. That those Sins though great they were were yet rather single Acts than Habits of Sin. They were not approved of nor contrived for every day of their Lives nor did they last for Years Now single Acts are rightly esteemed not to carry so much Pollution as Habits do Because an Habit is acquired by Actions often repeated and so includeth the Defilements of many single Acts put together If it shall be said that the single Acts of some heinous Sins may possibly carry a stain with them as great as some Habits of lesser Sins and that the Sins of David and Peter were gravioris Notae of a deeper Dye it cannot yet but be granted that a single Act of a grievous Sin is less polluting than the Habit of the same Sin. But then Secondly Those Sins though very great they were had Repentance following them 〈◊〉 was truly great Look we upon David and we shall find him grieving in earnest and heartily affected with his Misdeeds Psal 38.2 Thine Arrows stick fast in me and thine Hand presseth me sore There is no soundness in my Flesh by reason of thine Anger neither is there any rest in my Bones because of my Sin. For mine Iniquities are gone over mine Head as an heavy Burden they are too heavy for me I am feeble and sore broken I have roared by reason of the Disquietness of mine Heart And in Psal 51. which Psalm he made as the Title hath it when Nathan the Prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba he mourns thus Wash me throughly from mine Iniquity and cleanse me from my Sin For I acknowledge mine Iniquity and my Sin is ever before me Deliver me from Blood-guiltiness O Lord Thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit a broken and contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise I have the more largely spoken David's words that you may thereby see how great his Grief was how earnest his Prayers for pardon and how deep an Anxiety had seized him lest God's Favour should for ever have been with-held from him Nor was St. Peter's Sin without a remarkable Repentance It is said Matth. 26.75 Peter remembred the words of Jesus who said unto him Before the Cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice And he went out and WEPT BITTERLY It was not a light grief and a Tear or two that were quickly dryed up but a Bitter Weeping which words certainly do denote a very great and deep Sorrow Now those that think so well of their own Sins from the thoughts of David's and Peter's Sins being so much greater than theirs are they as ready to consider these good Mens Repentance Do they grieve for their own as these did for theirs Is the Burden of them heavy Are they earnest in the begging pardon for them If not the greatness of some good Mens Sins in Holy Scripture will be a mean Argument for the concluding their own not to be the Deformities of wicked Men. I may truly say that the great Sins of David and Peter if considered with their Repentance are much less than those Sins which in themselves are not so great without Repentance And so there is small reason for any Person from the Failures of these Holy Men to infer his own Spots to be none other than those of Gods Children Thirdly There are more Ends than one for which God hath caused those Sins of his Children to be registred in Sacred Story I cannot say but one End might be that those who in the like manner have grievously fallen may through the Exercise of a like Repentance have hope that they also shall not be refused Thus Rom. 15.4 What things were written afore-time were written for our Learning that we through Comfort of the Scripture might have hope But then a no less End is this viz. That those who now live and those who shall live in the Generations to come may from the Falls of others take the more heed that they fall not also And if they shall fall they may well think that their case is not so good because they have had such warning before and yet have not been prevail'd upon by it for the being more careful And then yet further Another End altogether as great as the other Two why the Sins of good Men have been recorded in Scripture is this to wit The shewing how God hates Sin even in those whom he loves and how he will punish it not only in their Persons while they live but in their Names and Memories when they are dead even to the End of the World. Some other things besides those that have been well pleasing unto God as Mary's Ointment was unto Christ shall wheresoever the Gospel is Preach'd throughout the World be spoken of also for a Memorial To make it known that Sins of a deep Die are in his Children altogether as Odious to his Purity and Holiness as their Pious Actions are acceptable to his Love and Goodness And now who is it that can have favourable Thoughts of Sin when God hath put so many Examples in Holy Writ as Warnings against Sin on purpose that we should have the more care to avoid it Who is it that may flatter himself in his Iniquities who shall rightly consider how God punisheth the Memory of his own Children and setteth a Mark of Disgrace upon them which shall last till Heaven and Earth do pass away He surely very slightly or very partially looks into the Bible who from the Sins of Good Men there can encourage himself in his own Sin and think that its Pollution is small to Him when it hath laid such a Blot upon their Names as must not as cannot be rased out by any Rather let him Hear and Fear and do himself neither in the same nor any other kind so wickedly As knowing that though none need now to Fear that their Misdeeds shall be Registred in Books which shall be of equal Authority with and shall last as long as the Bible for God therein hath wholly declared his will and so Divine Writings are not further to be expected yet the All-powerful and infinitely just Lord hath other ways of punishing them and of manifesting the Pollution of their Sin both to themselves and others to be very great how small soever they at present think it But Fourthly Theophilus we may truly affirm that God will not esteem the Sins of his Children which are in themselves as great as and the same with the Sins of Others to be therefore the less because they are committed by those who are his Children That is if any who are his shall be unjust in their Actions False in these Words Intemperate Unchast or any other ways vitious their Injustice Falseness Intemperance Unchastity and whatever other Crimes they shall commit shall be esteemed as carrying the same