Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
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A44671
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The carnality of religious contention in two sermons preach'd at the merchant's lecture in Broadstreet / by John Howe ...
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing H3019; ESTC R1703
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46,035
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129
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among the Paganish Idolaters of drinking the warm Blood of their Sacrifices and of eating things strangled with the Blood in them upon the Imagination that in their so doing they did partake of the very Spirit of their Gods whom they worshipped and 't is not altogether unsupposable that rhe Devil might in some unusual manner enter into them at those times more violently agitating their Blood and other Humours in the higher Ferments whereof if by the directer Influence of the great Enemy of Mankind Quarrels and Murders as was not unlikely should also sometimes ensue it could not but heighten the Sport and Triumphs of Hell And that the Decree of the Apostles and Elders Acts 15. might have such a Reference prohibiting these things conjunctly Idolatry and Fornication and things strangled and Blood that they should by no means mingle with the Pagans in these Horrid Rites a learned Modern Writer of our own hath rendred very probable And hereto those vehement Dehortations of the Apostle must answerably be understood to refer 1 Cor. 10. 11. remonstrating to them that they could not have fellowship with the Lord's Table and the Table of Devils And I would not says he that you should have fellowship with Devils For tho' he did not judge it unlawful to eat of the Idolytha i. e. things offered to Idols being sold in the Shambles he yet most earnestly protests against their presuming to mingle and partake in the horrid Diabolical Rites and impure Practices that were wont to be used at their Festivals in the Idols Temples All thoughts of being by their Christianity obliged and enabled unto strict Purity and Holiness of Heart and Life were out of Doors with these Seducers and endeavoured to be extinguished in such as they could work to a compliance with them Whereof the Apostle seemed deeply apprehensive when he so earnestly inculcates that in Christ Jesus or in the Christian state neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision were of any avail but a new Creature and Faith working by love But it must seem of all things the most unaccountable and incongruous that Men of so profligate Sentiments and Practices should be for introducing a Justification by the works of the Law in opposition to that by the Faith of Christ. 'T is manifest they hated the holy Design of Christian Religion which they profess'd and profess'd it that they might have better opportunity to undermine it Hereupon not opening at once all the Arcana of their way they carry answerably to persons and ocâ—â—sions as they occurr'd and as the Apostle was all things to all that he might save some so were they that they might pervert and destroy To the Christian Jews one thing to the Christian Gentiles another In this their Doctrine they did most plausibly Judaize in their impure Practices they verged more to Paganism Pretending to Christian Converts from among them that Christ never intended to tie them to strict Severities or hold them under an uneasie Bondage whereto the Apostle seems to refer Chap. 5. 13. Ye have been called he grants to liberty but use not saith he your liberty for an occasion to the flesh Thus we must suppose that they differently apply'd themselves to such as they design'd to make their Proselytes endeavouring to accommodate themselves in the one of these to one sort of Men and to another sort in the other In dealing with the Jewish Christians they not only deny'd the Doctrine of Justification by Faith opposing thereto that of Justification by the works of the Law but calumniated it too as if it tended to infer a liberty to sin and make Christianity subservient to wickedness whereof they knew their own to be more guilty A piece of monstrous Impudence but usual with Men of such Foreheads to endeavour the averting that Charge from themselves to which they were most manifestly liable by first charging it on the Innocent Hereto the Apostle hath manifest reference when having first asserted against them Justification by Faith only Gal. 2. 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law for by the works of the Law shall no flâ—sh be justified He then vindicates the Assertion against their Imputation that it made Christ a Patron to Men's Sins If saith he while we seek to be justified by Christ we our selves also are found sinners Is Christ therefore the minister of sin God forbid For if I build again the things that I destroyed I make my self a Transgressor For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ and am in and with him dead unto all Sin so as not to be under the Dominion of any and Death never more had Dominion over him when he had once died And whereas they thus objecting against the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in Christ that it ministred unto sin or made Christ a Minister thereunto were liable to have the Objection retorted upon them being a sort of Men themselves so very infamously wicked for this they had a double Salvo both of which the Apostle doth industriously resute That is from the two parts of the Law given by Moses and the two sorts of the Works of the Law enjoyned thereby that is the Moral and the Ritual or Ceremonial part In reference to the former they fall in with those Jewish Conceits of the Merit of their good Works done from the Principle of Free-will And that in order to their Justification this Merit was to be measured by the Preponderation of their good works to their bad and that it was possible that one good Work in some cases might turn the Scale That is if they were equal before Now this the Apostle occurs to by shewing that they that were under the Law were under a Curse For that if they continued not in all things written in the Law to do them All they did was nothing as you may see Chap. 3. of this Epistle ver 10. And then as to the Ritual or Ceremonial part because their Sacrifices were in great part expiatory of Sin and divers of their other Performances carried a great shew of Sanctity and Piety in them Which their Expiatory Sacrifices could only be as they were representative of the One Propitiation and their other Observances were nothing to their Sanctity if the thing they were designed to signifie did not accompany the Sign They imagin'd they were not to signify it's Presence but to supply it's Absence This Notion did obtain even with the stricter sort of them the Pharisees themselves who thereupon made very light of the weightier matters of the Law reckoning that tho' they were guilty of many Immoralilies in Practice their exact observance of the Rites and Ceremonies enjoyned by Moses would go far to make
themselves to see Thiâ—â—s a most high Usurpation upon Divine Prerogative and how can any insensibly slide into such an Evil as this in the Face of so plain and so awful a Text of Scripture that so severely animadverts upon it Tâ—at 14th Romans in sundry Verses of it With what Reverence and Dread should it strike a Man's Soul in such a case When we have the Rights of the Redeemer asserted in those whom he hath bought with his Blood And are told that for this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the Dead and Living ver 9. And it 's thereupon further said to us Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant as ver 10. Why dost thou judge thy Brother or set at nought thy Brother We must all stand before the Judgment-seat of Christ. We are all of us his he both died and revived and rose again that he might be Lord of all as Acts 10. 36. And here of dead and living i. e. That he might be Owner of all which is the first Notion of Dominus or Lord and in both Worlds the Visible and the Invisible that into which many are dead and deceased from hence and so to us become invisible and many that yet surviving are still visible to us So ample is his Dominion And because the Jus Imperii the night of Government of which Judgment is the last conclusive Act hath for it's Foundation the Jus Dominii 't is therefore asserted to him as the Coronis and Complement the very Summity of his acquired Rights that he is to finish all things by the last Judgment which must pass upon both the already dead and the yet living Thus is the ground of the Expostulation laid Who art thou who presumest to justle him out of this his Supream and most Sacred right Perhaps the matter disputed about may be doubtful but there is no doubt concerning this incommunicable Authority of our Lord Christ or concerning his Law against such Judging Matth. 7. 1. and to run into certain sin in a furious chasing of uncertain Error What Consideration What Tenderness of offending of affronting him and of hazarding our own Souls is there in all this To judge other Men's Consciences is of so near affinity with governing them that they that can allow themselves to do the former want only Power not Will or Inclination to offer at the other too Which puts the matter out of doubt that when Men of this Temper complain of such Usurpation 't is not that they think it an Offence in it's self but against them only and that no Consciences ought to be free but their own The Proof of an honest and equal Mind herein is when we judge this to be Evil not being hurt by it or abhor to hurt others in this kind when we have Power to do it Upon which account that Passage is memorable of the Emperor Maximilian II. to a certain Prelate that there was no Sin no Tyranny more grievous than to affect Dominion over men's Consciences and that they who do so go about to invade the Tower of Heaven A considerable Saying from so great a Prince that liv'd and dy'd in the Roman Communion What shall be thought of any such Protestants that without any colour or shadow of a ground besides differing from them in some very disputable and unimportant Opinions shall presume to judge of other Men's Consciences and consequently of their States God-ward which such a one as he thought it so presumptuous Wickedness to attempt to over-rule or govern 11. When we over-magnifie our own Vnderstandings and assume too much to our selves That is do expect that our Minds be taken for Standards to all Minds As if We of all Mankind were exempt from Error or the possibility of being mistaken A certain sort of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an excess of love and admiration of our selves or over-pleasedness with our selves too much Self-complacency is the true tho' very deep and most hidden Root of our common mischief in such cases We wrap up our selves within our selves and then we are all the World Do only compare our selves with our selves never letting it enter into our Minds that others have their Sentiments too perhaps wiser than ours but abound in our own sense and while as the Apostle in that case says we are not wise and perhaps are the only Persons that think our selves so we yet take upon us as if we were fit to dictate to the World to all Christians and to all Mankind or as if we only were the Men and Wisdom must die with us This is a sort of Evil than which there is none more common and none less observed none wherewith the guilty are so little apt to charge themselves or admit Conviction of it For I pray do but consider All the several differing Parties amongst us do with one voice pretend to be for Peace but how and upon what Terms Why that all the rest are presently to be of their Mind and that is all the Peace that most are for For where scarce any where is the Man to be found Or how great a Rarity is he that entertains the Thought that there may for ought I know be much to be redressed and corrected in my Apprehensions of things to make me capable of falling in with that Truth which ought to be common to all There is an Expectation with many of a good time and state of things before this world end when all shall be of one mind and Judgment But the most think it must be by all men's becoming of their mind and Judgment And of this Self-conceit it is usually a harder thing to fasten Conviction upon Men than of most other Evils We have more hope in speaking against Drunkenness Murder or any the grossest kind of Wickedness For there the Conscience of the guilty falls in and takes part with the Reprover But we can more easily and more frequently do tho' not frequently enough observe the Faults of the Inferiour Faculties or of our External Actions than of the Faculty it self which should observe Our Mind which is naturally like our Eye is in this too like i. e. That it can see every thing but it self It doth not by using it preserve it 's peculiar self-reflecting Power Is blind towards it's self beyond what naturally belongs to it An Object may be too near our Bodily Eye to be seen Our Mind is herein too bodily too much carnaliz'd sunk too deep into Flesh. It is the next thing to it self and here not by it's Primitive Nature by which as an intellectual Sun it could revert it's Beams and turn them inward upon it self but by Depravation it for the most part sees nothing or doth worse thinks it self to see what is not to be seen certain imaginary Excellencies which make the Man his own Idol an Object of a sort of Adoration to himself and of Scorn