own Disciples and Followers how much more was required at their hands than what the strictest Zealots among the Jews thought themselves obliged to to convince them that it not onely reach'd the outward Man and so might be slighted by evasive subtilties but it was to engage all the inward affections of the Soul and so must necessarily exclude all collusion and Hypocrisy this method our Lord follow'd in that admirable Sermon upon the Mount wherein He cancell'd no part of that Law given to the Jews of old but commented upon it And so the Apostle St. Paul acted with relation to the Gentiles and therefore when he was at Athens though his Spirit was stirr'd up in him mov'd equally with grief and anger to see that populous City so wholly given to Idolatry yet He fell not immediately to the reproaching of their Religion nor to the taking it away both root and branch but he took an happy occasion from that Inscription upon one of their Altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the unknown God to assure them that he preach'd no other God to them but him whom they ignorantly worship'd He being that God who made the World and all things therein Acts 17.23 24. and therefore could not be confin'd to Temples made with hands Thus from the beginning of the World Religion as to its Essence has been immutable what was fixt in Man by nature so long as Nature is must be the same too God planted in man his own fear and whatsoever tended to the promotion of that and an earnest desire of self-preservation with respect to this and to a future life whatsoever byasses men now to a wretched slavish fear onely of Divine displeasure and makes them therefore rather avoid evil than do good And whatsoever engages men in unlawful ways of securing themselves from any apparent danger all that arises from those corruptions nature at present is embarrassed with these things are to be mended but God is still to be fear'd and Men shall still get a good name by doing real good unto themselves Obedience was the great first end of every Law and a Law was given our first Parent to put him upon a tryal of original prudence which could never put him upon any thing but what was excellent when prudence seem'd drowsie sin crept upon him and ruin'd him and his prosperity but because Man sinned God did not therefore change the nature of his commands but he explain'd and improv'd them by adding particulars coincident with them he supply'd the defects of reason impair'd and reveal'd those things at which it might have stumbled beyond recovery Noah and his Sons had not a new Law but the same again illustrated farther and more clear'd up by additional revelation to supply the greater decays of humane abilities Nor did God change his mind when he chose the Seed of Abraham from the rest of Mankind or give Israel any new Laws essential to Religion for Circumcision and the Paschal Feast were not of the essence of it at all since Man might have kept all the moral Law without ever participating in either The rest of the ceremonial and political injunctions were necessary to the Jews necessitate praecepti as they were commanded by a God infinitely powerful and wise and who could enjoyn them nothing that was unfit or unjust but the moral Law which was the Law of nature and obliged all Mankind as well as the Nation of the Jews was necessary necessitate Medii as an absolute and indispensible means of salvation or as containing such duties and forbidding such sins as without an exact care in each of which it was impossible for any man living to be saved and whereas the circumstantial Laws of the Jews were such as had no intimate connexion with or dependance upon one another all the parts of the Moral and perpetually obliging Law are of so close an alliance and in their execution so inseparable one from another that as S. James says James 2.10 Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all for the whole sum of the Law being comprehended in those few words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self If therefore any man bow to an Idol or worship more Gods than one or profane the name of the true God or be guilty of perjury or refuse to devote one day in seven to the worship and service of God by any of these sins he proves he does not love the true God so entirely as he ought And again He that dishonours or rebels against his parents natural spiritual or civil or that commits murder with his hand or in his heart or that submits to the enticements of lust or that defrauds and purloins from another or that by falshood endeavours to prejudice the life or estate or reputation of others or who indulges himself in covetousness or gives way to the first motions of the heart that encline to envy Whosoever sins in any one of these particulars tho' at the sametime he be a rigid observer of all the rest cannot be said to love his neighbour as himself since he would not be willing either that by himself or by any other any injury of what kind soever should be done to him and how much more essential to the body of Religion the Jews thought these perpetual Laws than their own Ceremonial Institutions is plain from their practice since they as much as possible hinder'd all meer Heathens from co-habiting with them and yet admitted those whom they called Proselytes of the gate upon their renouncing a plurality of Gods and submitting to the seven precepts of the sons of Noah to the priviledge of performing their Devotions in the exterior Court of the Temple and kindly suppos'd them too capable of a portion in the world to come As God made no alteration in the natural Law by what he gave Israel by the hand of Moses so neither did he innovate any thing when he sent his only begotten Son into the world for it's Salvation the Law of Christ was the Law of Moses which was the Law of Noah which was the Law of Adam which was the Law of pure original Nature which was the Law of God as Moses was the Law-giver of the Jews so was the blessed Jesus the Law-giver of the Christians but if we look on them both as meer Men their legislative power was not original but as Stephen tells the Jews Acts 7.53 Numb 21.18 the Law was given them by the disposition of Angels Moses yet is called a Law-giver in the Song of the Israelites but it 's in the same sence as a Judge on the Bench who has no power to make any thing a Law of his own contrivance or by his own Authority God himself on whose services myriads of glorious Angels always attend
end to all the strength and vigour of the Animal so crush'd nothing can be more fatal to a real Serpent than a Wound inflicted there it may live some time afterwards and when the Head is crush'd may threaten with the Tail but those Threatnings are languid and easily to be avoided If therefore the Seed of the Woman could crush the Serpent's Head he must get the Mastery and intire Conquest over all the Wiles and Stratagems over all the Strength and Violence of the Devil so as He must for the future lose his Interests and Power and be defeated in the expected events of his Malice and in short have his Tyranny wholly broken by the Seed of the Woman this was what alone could comfort Adam after his fatal Error But this Victory was not to be so easily gotten but that the Seed of the Woman must be partaker of the Inconveniences of the War the serpent must bruise his heel or wound his inferiour Part that which was at the greatest distance from his Vitals and from the Head that governing directing advising instructing Part so that the Government and Power of the Woman's Seed was not to be ended but he was to lose some Blood in that Conflict in which the Serpent's head was to be crush'd without Blood-shed then there could be no Victory obtain'd nor must the Seed of the Woman be absolutely invulnerable for had he been so there could have been no shedding of Blood and consequently no hope for remission to miserable Man Now those Sacrifices afterwards offer'd wherein the blood of living Creatures was shed were propitiatory or design'd to atone that God who was justly displeased with Sin and Sinners not as if the blood of Bulls or Goats or Lambs had any thing propitiatory in their own Nature but they were to represent continually to the Offerers minds that effectually propitiatory Blood which was to be shed in the great Combat between the Seed of the Woman and the Serpent wherein the former was to suffer in his less noble and inferiourly originated part and if those outward a scrifices effected so much they did as much as possibly they could and as much as was necessary for them to do for while Men had daily before their Eyes a representation of that bloody Contest wherein that great and malicious Enemy of Mankind was to be entirely conquer'd Men had reason always to live in hopes and to reap inviolable Comforts from those hopes But now after all if those Commemorative or Typical Sacrifices did bring to mind that Blood afterwards to be shed then when that Blood so represented was actually shed there was no need of any farther prophetical Representation and if the several Washings and Purifications under the Law related to that inward Cleanness and Purity which was afterwards by a more proper medium to be effected then when upon the Conquest gain'd by the Woman's Seed over that infernal Serpent that Sacred Blood was shed which was able to cleanse Mankind from all Sin the inward Purity of the Soul was effectually procured and ceremonial Purifications were rendred altogether useless and therefore that Law enjoining such Ceremonies might very well be disannull'd since Types or Shadows were never invented by any with any other design but to be vacated and abolished at such times as those things appear'd of which they were design'd at first to be the Shadows or Representations The Ceremonial Law though given to the Jews at first by God himself yet might very well be abrogated because in it self it was not essentially necessary to the being or well-being of a Church had it been so it had been unchangeable because it had been a part of the Law of Nature as the Moral Law was that receiv'd no additions or diminutions by the Ceremonial Law nor by the coming or the inherent Legislative Power of the Messias The truth of this reason that the Ceremonial Law is not necessary to the being or the well-being of a Church we find by the existence of the Christian Church among our selves at this day and by a due reflection upon the Church of God existent in the World before the time of Moses's receiving a Law from Mount Sinai We cannot deny but that the Roman part of the Christian World is as much nay infinitely more clogg'd with Ceremonies than that of the Jews ever was though we take in the traditional part of Jewish Ceremonies which had no foundation in what was delivered by Moses this our Church takes notice of in that preface concerning CeremonÃes prefixt to the Liturgy where giving the reason why many Ceremonies were taken away which had been used in times of Popery She tells us Preface of Ceremonies why some abol some kept It is partly because the great excess and multitude of them had so encreas'd in these latter days that the burden of them was intolerable whereof St. Augustine in his time complained that they were grown to such a multitude that the estate of Christian People was in worse case concerning that matter than were the Jews and therefore he advised the taking away that burden as there was opportunity but if he complain'd then much more would he have done so had he seen the number of those in use at the time of the Reformation to which the Multitude he had seen was nothing to be compared which multitude of Ceremonies was so great and many of them so dark that they did more confound and darken than declare and set forth Christ's Benefits to us This Persuasion was so rationally settled in the minds of our first Reformers that whatsoever the Enemies of it may pretend the established Church of England as distinct from that of Rome was settled with the fewest and the most decent Ceremonies of any National Church in the Christian World and upon that reason among others has been accounted the Glory of the Reformation by all but a few Ingrateful and Hypocritical Schismaticks whose viperine Rage has always been endeavouring to tear out the Bowels of their Mother Indeed under the Roman Cloud of numberless Ceremonies true Christianity has been almost lost and the Strength and Purity of that Holy Religion delivered to the World by our Saviour and his Apostles perverted into gaudy Show and ridiculous Pageantry Simplicity as far as it interferes not with Brutality and Slovenliness best becomes the Oeconomy of the Gospel and to be sure the Everlasting Truth will shine brightest there where there 's no Artifice made use of to disguise it nor more of Weight in matters of Salvation laid upon outward Circumstances than upon inward and solid Sincerity and Holiness This was the Ornament of God's Church before the Mosaic particular Dispensation for though it were impossible for Adam or any of the Antediluvian Patriarchs or for Abraham and his Posterity till the Redemption out of Aegyt to perform their Sacrifices without somewhat of Ceremony yet neither the same nor the same number were required of them as were
try'd He could not reasonably refuse to stand to that Tryal but neither do we find that his Enemies ever went about to shew the Discrepancy between his Doctrines and his Practice and therefore when they thought to cajole him into their snares by a most malicious Complement they gave him indeed no more than a true and proper Character Master we know that thou art true Matth. 22.16 and teachest the way of God in truth neither carest thou for any man for thou regardest not the persons of men this Character was really his due whatsoever they meant by it and they who were unwilling to acknowledge their own Hypocrisie could never fairly go off from so remarkable a Testimonial If then the Blessed Jesus were so signally innocent He was above all other the fittest to assert and vindicate the Authority of his Father's Laws and this he carefully did and made his appeal to all those Laws without exception according as occasions offer'd themselves After all then if he would really put an end to the Ceremonial Law and yet maintain to the last his Character of Truth and Justice He must of necessity be the Son of God and God himself his Authority otherwise notwithstanding the mutable Nature of those Laws not being sufficient to bear him out in so great an Alteration Our Saviour was Incarnate That the Law of God as given to the Jews might in our Nature be fulfilled exactly and according to the Letter and so that he who fulfilled it might be a compleat example of Holiness and Obedience to us and how great an Undertaker this required we shall have hereafter Opportunities enough to understand Now when I lay down this reason by the word Law I understand whatsoever was given to the Jews whether Moral as confirming the Law of uncorrupted Nature or Political as relating to their Civil Government or Ceremonial as referring to their various Religious Rites both the last so far as they could concern the Practice of a private Person so that indeed the whole Law as given to the Jews contain'd in it whatsoever could have been expected from Adam had he retain'd his original Innocence or whatsoever humane Nature in its utmost perfection could possibly attain to Now that such a compleat Obedience should be expected from some One Partaker of humane nature was but reasonable when the great work of Man's Redemption was in hand for since Man created in all that Perfection his Nature was capable of had yet fall'n from that Obedience which was justly expected from him he being in a condition every way capable of performing it and by that fall of his had necessarily involv'd all those who should be deriv'd from him in all those Miseries attending the guilt of Sin and since the intent of God's Goodness was that from the Obedience of one man descended of the same flesh and blood many should be made righteous or be blessed with those Rewards attending upon Righteousness as the Apostle assures us it came to pass it was but just and reasonable that that Man from whom that righteousness was to descend to Mankind that that Man should compleatly make up that Character of the first Man when in Innocence which had he persever'd in as he ought his whole Posterity had been entirely happy and yet that task was abundantly greater for the second Adam our Lord Jesus Christ than it was for the first Adam our great Parent for Adam had no Corruption deriv'd down to him from his Original from whence it has been not impertinently question'd Whether before Sin enter'd into the World and Death by Sin He was liable to the common Rules of Mortality But our Saviour when he took Flesh of the Virgin took it up at such a time as Humane nature was sunk into its utmost depravation nor would an allowance of that Roman Foolery That the Blessed Virgin was born without any Original Sin or Guilt upon her help the matter For so long as she was descended from such Parents as had their share in the Corruption of Humane Nature her Freedom would not of consequence free every one who should be born of her but she being no way beyond other Women but only on account of her Practical Holiness our Lord as descended from her must be in all things like his Brethren liable to all the Inconveniences attending a Body certainly mortal for as for his being without Sin it depended on the Union of a Mortal to an Immortal Being the very nature of which superiour Being was more effectual than the Refiner's Fire on Gold or Silver purifying that otherwise corrupt Body it was united to and fortifying it against all that proclivity to Sin and easie succumbency to Temptation which the rest of Mankind was obnoxious to Nor was it any thing but such a coacting Omnipotence which could possibly have produc'd a clean thing out of an unclean or a Body without Sin out of that which was naturally sinful There is certainly such a state as that of Eternal Happiness but it is attainable only as the reward of Merit in a proper sense or as we ordinarily say it 's as Wages which he who faithfully performs his work deserves and may justly lay claim to as his own and therefore cannot be deny'd without Injustice as for instance whereas the condition of eternal Life is This do and live whosoever it is that performs the Condition and does what 's requir'd he has for so doing provided there be no circumstantial failure in the performance of the work a just and rightful claim to that eternal Life propounded and God himself could not be just should he deny the propos'd reward to such a One as should compleatly perform the Condition set before him Had Man continued in the state of Innocence he had had this proper claim of his own to eternal Happiness he might justly have claim'd it and could not without extremity of Injustice have been deny'd it but that eternal Happiness which we now expect is of Grace or it 's the free Gift of God which we as Sinners and such we are all without exception have no proper or inherent right to but it 's not the immediate free Gift of God as if he without any performance of incumbent duty on our part would bestow upon us an eternally glorious Inheritance for this would be as inconsistent with that infinite Justice which makes up the Idaea of the Supreme God as it would be to deny Wages or a Reward to him that had truly deserved it nor is it a free giving Man such an inward Ability to perform all the punctilio's of the Divine reveal'd Will as by which they might make a full compensation to Divine Justice for the original pravity of Nature and do all such things to the utmost as could be requir'd from the beginning to the end of Life for this were to alter the whole frame of Humane Nature and to give it in the present state of things an
have no proper organs to demonstrate their innate reason by these unhappinesses are all the fatal consequences of sin and we could hardly believe that sin had had any ill consequences at all had not reason suffer'd by it for if we can as really we do observe that reason teaches every one who now adverts seriously to it to aim at quiet and happiness so had not sin clouded it strangely it had been impossible any temptation whatsoever contrived by Hell or its emissaries could have baffled it But it 's plain that by our present incapacities to answer the sophistry of the tempter we are continually betray'd to sin reason in its height and purity would have convinced us of the madness and folly of every thing that 's ill reason as it now stands perverted suffers us unless prevented with a great deal of industry to embrace ill under the notion of good and it 's no small argument of a great weakness in our rational faculties to be so impos'd on We oftentimes now entertain our capital adversary the Devil as an angel of light we misprise vice for virtue falshood for truth sophistry for solid arguments novelty for antiquity superstition for devotion noise for sense interest for zeal confidence for great parts and ingenuity and reason it self as now it stands when we have a few lucid intervals shews us the extreme ridiculousness of those mistakes and the abilities which some have to expose the follies of others and at the same time to betray their own is unanswerable evidence of the imbecillity of humane reason in general It 's doubtless possible for some of excellent constitutions to argue themselves into a strong perswasion that there is a God It 's again possible nay we see it too too common for men of delicate intellectuals to pretend to answer all the arguments brought to prove the being of a God and they do it so plausibly as to get proselytes and to make abundance of room for horrid Atheism We make no question but that we have proofs really unanswerable of the Divinity of the Son of God the Socinians with whom we are now concern'd deny it and pretend to demonstrations of the contrary and all from principles of reason or Scriptures rationally interpreted and many well meaning men think they are in the right and therefore close with them These oppositions of Reason could never have happen'd had the Soul or mind enjoy'd its original freedom and activity for nothing could possibly have been offer'd in opposition to reason wholly clear and perfect that having been incapable of stooping to mean arts and trifling sophistry But we need indeed no more but to reflect a little on our first Parents and on our selves to prove the truth of this conclusion It 's impossible to overlook the prodigious difference there was between Adam as a knowing Monarch giving names to all Creatures according to their natures and Adam sowing Fig-leaves together to hide his nakedness from Creatures whom some conclude irrational and flying to the shelter of the Trees of Eden for a security from the presence of an all-seeing God one argued excess of wisdom the other the extravagance of folly and for our selves as the Jews proved themselves dull and senseless who could not be convinced or reduced by him who spake as never man spake so we cannot without extreme difficulty find any impressions of good made on our Souls by the most forcible discourses whereas reason in its primitive glory could admit of nothing but what was holy just and good all this notwithstanding we conclude That Humane reason corrupted as it is has yet so much of light and strength as to shew and convince us of a general necessity of Religion This we assert of the light of nature which really is nothing but meer reason as it stands at present affected Now if the works of nature are such as according to the assertion of the Apostle do evidence the Almighty's power and Godhead this evidence must be clear to somewhat that 's able to comprehend it and if it be so very full and plain that they who neglect it are altogether inexcusable then that reason which we now enjoy which alone is capable of apprehending natural evidence must still have that strength that those who by its conduct cannot find out a God and their general duty to him are therefore not to be excus'd God has made the World and all things therein and gives to all life and breath Acts 17.24 25 26 27. and all things and has made of one blood all Nations to dwell upon the Earth that they might seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him but it would have been very ill argued of the Apostle from such Topicks if such observations had not really been enough to guide those who search after God to make a discovery of him And here the Socinians seem to act by very strange measures they conclude as before I observ'd from Smalcius that there 's nothing to be admitted into Religion but what 's agreeable to reason but we cannot tell what 's agreeable to reason unless we can fully and clearly comprehend it for otherwise we may be mistaken and suppose that agreeable to reason which really is not so But at the same time Socinus himself looks upon the light of nature as not sufficient to impress on Man the notion of a God Socin praelect Theol. c. 2 but will have that general opinion of the existence of God to flow only from traditional knowledge or from revelation yet after this assertion of his Crellius one of the most learned of his followers and defenders goes about in his Book de Deo ejus attributis to demonstrate the being of a God from the works of the Creation But if Man has not sense enough by considering the works of nature to argue to the being of a God such a demonstration is extremely impertinent Socinus would prove his opinion among other things by that of the Apostle He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him which is prefaced with that That without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 But this is no proof at all for Men may by considering circumstances come to the acknowledgment of some supreme power and yet never believe in him nor ever own or practise their duty to him and therefore St. Paul takes notice of some holding the truth in unrighteousness who when they knew God glorified him not as God tho' they were convinced of his existence they were not careful to perform the duty of Creatures or servants to a Supreme Creator they were not thankful but became vain in their Imaginations Rom. 1.21 and their foolish hearts were darkned c. Now those St. Paul there reflects on were Heathens in general who being under a necessity of believing that there was a God by rational discourse
from heaven which all wise men have hitherto believed then the writers of the New Testament had no other way to prove their own inspiration but by agreement with the former lest the holy Spirit to whose conduct both pretended should seem inconsistent with himself or variable as mens humours could apprehend him It 's not now to be doubted but that our Saviour who knew what was in Man therefore all along gave just preventives of those Cavils which the malicious Jews could afterwards raise against him and therefore in his first Sermon upon the Mount he shews himself so far from evacuating what was in its own nature moral and perpetually obliging that he on the contrary clears it from all those putid glosses the Jewish readers or Rabbins had fixt upon it and whereas they had endeavoured to find as many starting holes from the severity of good Morals as the Jesuites of later years have done he gave his hearers the full sense and meaning of the Law that so by pretending to liberty from its rigours they might not run themselves into eternal woes and in plain terms lets them know that whereas they were ready simply to imagine the severities of the Scribes and Pharisees very extraordinary and meritorious they were infinitely deceived and that except their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they should in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Matth. 5.20 It was doubtless the full end and design of Moses and the Prophets to advance the honour of that God who employed them to make his Name and his Laws respected not only among the tribes of Israel but among all those nations to whose knowledge their writings were likely at any time to come who by the rationality and tendency of the Laws would certainly judge of the wisdom goodness and integrity of the Law-giver but when those Prophets and others had done their best their endeavours were mixt with so many failures and imperfections that sometimes they fell themselves a great way under God's displeasure as Moses by his infidelity and presumption at the rock The man of God that Prophesied against the Altar in Bethel by yielding to the lying suggestions of the old Prophet Jonah by his frowardness because of God's superseding his prophetical denunciation by his long suffering and mercy extended to penitent sinners c. And besides in all those services those holy Men perform'd they could claim no higher a title than that of undeserving servants for that they had only done what was their plain duty and in case of failure they were obnoxious to very severe penalties and Moses tho' he have that honourable character that he was faithful in all God's house it was but as a servant still and for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken after Heb. 3.5 6. But Christ as a Son over his own house took a more exact and effectual care in all things to promote the glory of his Father It 's natural for the Son to be more sollicitous in such cases than a mercenary servant who does what he does prompted both by a fear of punishment and an earnest expectation of reward above both which things a pious Son always lives and therefore whereas the rest always call God their Lord and King c. the blessed Jesus continually calls him his Father his heavenly father and by that relation he so stands in to the Almighty and by what he has done for us in taking our nature upon him and the consequences of that assumption he has procured the same privilege superiour to what was apprehended by those of old with assurance of being heard to say in our Prayers Our Father which art in heaven But to effect all this in relation to his Fathers honour and our good how many scorns abuses persecutions and barbarous cruelties did he undergo from wicked Men yet as freely as if he had been altogether unconcern'd so long as Men could but any ways be reduced to an acknowledgment of their errors and a serious repentance What he underwent so made him as Man the more fit to prescribe Laws to others who were likely to suffer extremely from the same foolish world for embracing those truths he delivered them as we always esteem an Humble man most fit to teach others humility and a Charitable man charity and a Patient man patience For tho' others may declaim as well in commendation of the same virtues and in reproof of the same vices yet the discourses of exemplary persons are justly expected to make the deepest impressions upon their hearers With this advantage our blessed Lord instructed every one that would receive his Doctrine in the ways of happiness he used all the allurements of irresistible Wisdom and unanswerable Reason all the motives of Mercy and Goodness to procure their attendance and obedience He set them a compleat pattern of obedience to God and of innocence and holiness in his converse and then gives that as a standing rule that his Disciples should follow his example and let their light shine before Men for that very end that others seeing their good works might glorifie their Father which was in Heaven But when the blessed Jesus design'd the reformation of a sinful World the nature of his Doctrine and the manner of its propagation was adapted rightly to so admirable an end And therefore whereas the wretched Heathen part of Mankind did infinitely dishonour their Creator whereas they exactly answer'd that account of the Apostle When they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful Rom. 1.21 22 c. but became vain in their Imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkned they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible Man and to Birds and to four-footed Beasts and to creeping things they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipp'd and serv'd the creature more than the Creator whence they were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness malice envy c. Whereas this was their real condition infinite numbers of them by this means running head-long into everlasting damnation and yet the ill-natured Jews to whom the Oracles of God were at that time committed took no care for their recovery pleasing themselves onely with a fond conceit of their own righteousness crying to all the rest of Mankind Stand by your selves come not near us for we are holier than you Since they only talk'd of their being the people of God and boasted of his Temple studying more to proselyte Men to an outward Circumcision and a few empty Ceremonies than to real inward holiness and integrity since these very Jews did but abuse their own greater advantages and trample upon the most excellent and obliging part of the Law our Saviour rectified their Error by the dilatation of his own Doctrine and taking exact care to have it spread as far as humane guilt had extended before so
them nor worship them he excluded every Creature from a capacity of receiving divine Honours whatsoever was capable of being represented by any figure or image if it was worshipped was an Idol the Creature represented was so as well as the representation and invisibility as well as any other attribute is ascribed to the true God as a peculiarity whereby we might know him to be the only proper object of our Worship by both these precepts our Saviour is perfectly shut out from being the subject of Divine Honours as he is suppos'd by the Socinians to be a God in subordinacy to his Father and as he is a Creature and capable as other Creatures be of being represented by a material Image which is wholly inconsistent with a true Divinity For tho' the Socinians allow our Saviour to be the Son of God in a peculiar manner by reason of his being begotten in the Womb of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost or as they call it by the influence of Almighty God this does not at all put him out of the rank of the Creatures nor does that Glory and Honour and Immortality which they suppose his Father to have adorned him with after his resurrection make him a God who was before a Man for all these things are reserved too in a just proportion for all such as die in the true Faith of Christ by which they too in their turns must necessarily be Gods tho' because their proportion of honour is suppos'd inferiour to that of Christ they must be Gods of an inferiour rank and quality but this Collation of dignity effects nothing at all and the Socinian distinction between a God made by the supreme God and a God made by Men comes to nothing at all The Poets Divinity in that point is better and more rational than theirs Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus Non facit ille Deos Qui rogat ille facit He who represents a Divine face in gold or marble makes it not a God but he who prays to it makes it such So if God render the body of our Lord never so illustrious that makes him not a God but the presenting of Humane supplications to him makes him one so that Christ by that means comes to be a God made so by Man as well as any other Idol whatsoever is therefore according to the Socinians own principle Christ being a meer Man if he be prayed to must be an Idol There can be no true God but He who is the Creator of all things nor does it lye within the reach of omnipotence it self to make a Creature a Creator therefore either Christ must be the Creator of all things or else he cannot be true God He remains a meer Creature still and all those adorations presented to him by the Christian World are notorious and damnable Idolatry The common notion of Idolatry confirms this so S. Cyprian tells us according to the notion he had of it Idololatria committitur cum Divinus honor alteri datur Idolatry is then committed when that Honour which belongs to God is given to another Gregory Nazianzen gives us this definition of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idolatry is a transposition of divine worship from the maker to the thing made from God the Creator of all things to the Creature Therefore so long as our Saviour is really but a Creature which he must be if he be not the eternal God so long all that Worship paid to him according to this antient notion is Idolatry Now let a Socinian if he please impeach those of the Roman Communion as Idolaters we 'l agree with him and we really believe them to be so but there 's no Argument which can properly be made use of against that Church to convince them of Idolatry by reason of their praying to Angels or departed Saints from which practice they have been sufficiently and undeniably proved to be Idolaters but the same will hold good against these The strength of all Arguments against Rome lying in that That they transfer the Honour only due to the Creator to a Creature which is as true of all those who pay divine Worship to our Saviour if he be no more than a Creature The Gods who have not Created all things who have not Created Heaven and Earth shall perish from the earth and from under the Heaven as we alledged from the Prophet before but according to the Socinians our Lord did not make the Heaven and the Earth Therefore tho' they say he is True God at the same time they say He is not The true God He must be one of those Gods which must so perish A conclusion which our Adversaries either must deny or fairly renounce all their pretences which indeed are but weak at best to Christianity Divine Honours cannot be lawfully offered or Prayers lawfully presented to any created Being but upon supposition of some defect in the Creator for a positive Command from him to that purpose could it be suppos'd would not be enough for a Divine Command open and plain cannot make that which in its own nature is Evil to be good things morally good or evil are eternally so and that from that consideration that their moral goodness or illness flows from their agreement with or contradiction to the Divine Nature Now what was once contradictory to the divine Nature God himself cannot make agreeable to it because He cannot change his own Nature which yet must be if that which being abstractedly considered was a sin against him should now under the same abstracted consideration 1 Tim. 3.16 be no longer so therefore we are sure God himself cannot command any thing that is morally evil but diverting that â—orship which belongs to the Creator of all things from him to his own Creature let that Creature be what it will is morally evil it 's Idolatry therefore God cannot command it therefore he cannot give or have given Christians any positive or open Command to Worship our Saviour if he be a meer Creature because that 's translating that Worship due only to the true God to the Creature To suppose any defect in the Creator is blasphemous if there can be yet any just reason or apparent necessity of Mens addressing themselves to any Being which is but their fellow Creature for the attainment of that for which they were wont to apply themselves only to the supreme Being or Creator before it must be asserted but where there is all Perfection concluded to reside in that Sovereign Being to whom it 's granted on all hands that Divine Worship is due there 's no kind of necessity that we should apply our selves to any Intermedial Power or go round about when we may have a direct access to the throne of grace While we own Christ to be the True God as his Father is of the same eternal Nature whatsoever obliges us in our necessities to call upon the True God obliges to call upon
and prosecute by God's assistance under these Heads Our Saviour was incarnate or the Son of God was made Flesh That He might destroy the works of the Devil or put an end to his Tyranny over us That The World might be convinc'd that the Law given by Moses to the nation of the Jews was so much God's Law that it could not be disannull'd or antiquated in any particular but by an authority not inferiour to that of God himself who framed it That God's Law as given to the Jews might be exactly and according to the Letter fulfilled in our Nature and so that He who fulfilled it might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us God was manifest in the flesh or which amounts to the same our Saviour was Incarnate 1 Joh. 3 8. That He might destroy the Works of the Devil and put an end to his Tyranny over us This is the very doctrine of the Apostle For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil that is that He might get the Mastery of Sin and Death so that neither of them might prevail upon us to our eternal Destruction The Devil had got a strange Ascendant over Men since the Fall so that he seemed to preside in every humane action this Prevalency of his almost banished all Natural Religion out of the World or perverted it to so ill Intents and Purposes that it lost it's name in gross Superstition and ridiculous Idolatry The Devil made use of all the various Dispensations of Providence for the promoting of his own wicked Designs so that the bare Permission of him to prevail was thought a sufficient argument by which to assert his own Independent Supremacy over the World and consequently to engross to himself all that Divine Worship which Originally belonged to the Almighty Nor could it be strange that He who seemed to manage all the affairs of the Universe without controul should be generally feared and sacrificed to if it were for no other reasons but that he might do no outward mischief Having thus insinuated himself into the Throne of God tho' he might now and then for his own credit propound some honest Moral Principles to the World yet He took far greater advantages to instil all manner of Impieties into his Adorers it was his malicious and desperate aim to revenge himself on that terrible Justice which had condemned him to eternal burnings and this revenge as he commenc'd with tempting Men to sin at first so he carried it on by moving deluded Wretches to do all such things as seemed the most directly to contradict the Will of Heaven hence arose that horrid complication of sins of which the Pagan world were guilty summ'd up by the Apostle It was Man's unhappiness Rom 1.28 c. that notwithstanding the visible fatal effects of the first sin they would yet believe it possible there might some unknown sweets lye hid in the perpetration of wickedness Sin always made a gaudy shew like a common Whore in gay trappings who carries so much of Witchcraft in her lascivious looks that tho' many rot away piece-meal in her poysonous embraces yet other wicked and adventurous fools are always adding to the tale of her nasty Trophies This gay outside of sin could prevail not only upon the inferior World but upon the Sons of God themselves those separated from the rest of Adam's race by nobler principles and a diviner knowledge tho' the product of that unhappy softness was nothing but Brutes and Monsters the Plagues of Nature and the insolent Enemies of Heaven Sin prevailed afterwards when God had chosen to himself a particular Nation and made them the proper Lot of his inheritance and where God could discover but 7000. of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal who had not defiled themselves by a miserable prostitution of their Souls to Hell the Devil had a spreading and destructive Interest among the thousands of Israel every day added more to his strength and his ready apprehension of his mighty Conquerours approach edged his Industry and raised his Rage to more than a double heat because his time was short It grieved that enemy of Souls to think of the impendent abridgment of his Insolence He had been so us'd to easie Conquests that He knew not how to veil to the blessed Jesus nor could he speak less to him than as if he had still been the Governour of the Universe and could really by virtue of some inherent authority of his own have bestowed all the kingdoms of the world and the glories of them upon whomsoever he pleased If we would make more particular remarks of the Devil's influence on the World about our Saviour's Incarnation we shall find it notorious in the exertion of a double Tyranny He exercised at that time a prodigious and unaccountable Tyranny over the Bodies of Men He could not be content with enslaving Man 's nobler part but as God himself so the great enemy of God would have the whole Man entirely to himself not that it could be any way advantageous to himself and his own destructive purposes for where he had got the Conquest over the Soul before he knew well enough the body must follow but he cared not what impertinent mischiefs he ingaged himself in provided he might but the more directly cross his Maker and his Punisher Hence he came to take Possession of so many bodies and to vent his malice in so many tormenting Distempers and especially he invaded those of the Jewish nation as if knowing by force of antient Prophecies the World's Saviour was to be born among them He 'd take possession entirely of all he could as if it were by violence to keep out the Lawful Heir from that Inheritance which belong'd to him It has seem'd strange to Many that whereas a Corporeal suffering by the ingress of the Devil into a Man is so very rare now a-days and was not so very frequent among the Gentiles even in our Saviour's time yet so many should be possest among the Jews as we find upon record in the Evangelists This has made divers believe that all violent or convulsive distempers were generally taken to be the effects of the influence of some malignant Spirits not as if there had really been any Devil within them but at most as if he had been permitted then as he was in Job's case to inflict bodily diseases upon some by external causes and not otherwise We know well enough that the Devil in some sence may be called the author of all those Distempers Men's Bodies at this time labour under for it was Sin that introduced Death and all the Preliminaries to it and the Devil introduced Sin But to resolve all these Posessions by the Devil recorded by the Evangelists into nothing but some more violent or unusual diseases than ordinary can no way be allowed For we find it not said of those that were Lepers
design'd to exempt us from all fear of Humane Authority or Justice but it 's à minore ad majus from the less to the greater If we should be afraid of humane Justice which can only inflict temporal Punishments much more should we fear that of Heaven which equally extends to body and soul to temporal and eternal Punishments so that when the fear of one comes in competition with the other we may chuse rather to undergo humane Severities than to cope with everlasting Burnings But if we look upon Justice in its own Nature it 's moral and good from Eternity and therefore the obligations laid upon us to follow Justice are indispensible Now as I formerly observ'd the excellence of Moral Virtues flows from their agreeableness to the nature of Almighty God who is the great and inexhausted source of every thing that 's good therefore whatsoever there is in Man that 's really commendable that Commendation flows from his endeavours to resemble God to be holy as He is holy and perfect as He is perfect and every such part of true Goodness is infinite in God so it 's good for a Man to be Wise and he may by endeavours acquire a considerable Talent in Wisdom but God is infinitely Wise so that without any assistance or forecast he knows and understands every thing at once with all those Circumstances attending on it It 's good for a man to cleanse and purifie himself as far as possible from all filthiness and pollution both of Flesh and Spirit to avoid the very garment spotted with the Flesh every appearance of evil endeavours of this Nature are always requir'd of all Men and those who are pure in heart have Blessedness ascertain'd to them but God is infinite in Purity nothing polluted can possibly approach him nor can the least thought of it be affixt upon him without denying him It 's good for a Man to be Tender Compassionate Loving no Duty 's more inculcated upon Men nothing more agreeable to the temper of the Gospel there will yet be some strugglings in corrupt Nature against it but God is Love it self Infinite and Essential yet as Wisdom in a Man consists in knowing some things rightly but in God consists in knowing all things as Purity in Man consists in honest Endeavours after Innocence and Blamelesness in every respect but in God exalts him infinitely above every thing that is corrupt or imperfect as Love in Man shews it self in doing Good as we have opportunity within the narrow Sphere of our Activity but in God is diffusive to all his Creatures so if it be Justice universal in Man to make good as far as he 's capable every thing that 's due to others universal Justice in God must be of the same nature only infinitely perfect in him because it 's impossible he should be deceiv'd or mistaken in any particular and therefore consequently if it be Justice in any Man according to that Power he 's entrusted with to punish those who do ill and to reward those who do well and if no Man can be counted universally Just howsoever he may manage himself in all other Instances if he be defective in this It 's then as certainly Justice in Almighty God to bestow Rewards and Punishments upon all Persons according to their Actions and therefore the Apostle sets off the consummate Justice of the great Tribunal at last by this that when we appear before it 2 Cor. 5.10 we shall all receive according to what we have done in the Flesh whether it be good or evil and therefore if it should be suppos'd that God should fail in this particular Distribution we must upon this supposition conclude God cannot be infinitely Just and if he fail of Infinity in any one proper Attribute he can really be infinite in none so not infinitely Wise or Merciful or Holy if withal he be not infinitely Just But if we allow that God is indeed infinitely Just then though we allow him to be infinitely Good and Merciful yet his Justice must as certainly be satisfied in the punishment of Criminals who are obstinate in their Crimes as his Mercy in pardoning Criminals who are truly sensible of that Guilt they lye under Now among the Sons of Men there are none who are not great Sinners therefore they are all properly the objects of God's Justice and infinite Justice can never be at rest till those who are Sinners are punish'd therefore that must be true that that Mercy is as infinite which pardons one Criminal who has deserved punishment as that Justice is which condignly punishes all Delinquents and this stands good let the Pardon be granted on what considerations soever for for Justice to punish the guilty is but natural but for Mercy to pardon them seems not so naturally necessary since Mercy shews it self infinite in giving all things their Being in providing every thing necessary for them in giving them Rules and Laws of all kinds to act by and all possible Encouragements for them to manage themselves by those Rules and all this when there was no Merit on the side of the Creature to oblige him to it and that God being infinitely happy in himself had no need either of their Existence or their Services therefore the very Being of all things is only the effect of his eternal Will as the four and twenty Elders acknowledge in their Eucharistic Hymns to God Thou art worthy say they Rev. 4.11 to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Now after all this Mercy shown and this Mercy abus'd and despis'd Justice might very properly take place in punishing the Despisers nor indeed could Mercy however infinite have taken place to the prejudice of Justice or the Obstruction of its free passage had there not been a proper Mean found out for the Satisfaction of Justice otherwise than by immediate or extream Punishment that is by the Interposition of our Saviour in and by whom Mercy and Pardon make their free approaches to undeserving Sinners He that shall go about to make one Attribute in God inferiour to another goes about to ruine the right Notion of a God for in an infinite Being nothing can be but what 's infinite and among Infinites there can be no inequality but they go about to degrade Divine Justice exceedingly who make all the effects of God's punishing Justice only Arbitrary and not natural or necessary and therefore determine that he punishes those who are eternally damn'd only because it 's his pleasure to do so whereas he could forgive them all freely were they never so guilty and those who are at all Forgiven he really does forgive so without any regard to any Merits of their Own or to the Merits of any Other on their account and all these things the Socinians assert merely that they may take away all the Merit of our Saviour's Life or Death and make
the bringing the Son of God to Death who had so terribly over-aw'd and baffled him before were the utmost reach of Hell's impetuous Malice yet that very Death of his gave the infernal Tyrant that fatal Blow which he strove by that very Prosecution to put off that mighty Wound which Hell with all its Stratagems and Strugglings can never recover and this great Event the vanishing of that thick Darkness at that very Instant of his Expiration which before when Nature's Lord was in his Agonies cover'd the Face of the whole Earth the terrible Convulsions of the Earth the Dissolution of mighty Rocks the Rending of the Temples Vail and long buried Saints starting from their Graves as if at that very Instant of their Saviour's Death all the Chains of that King of Terrors had been broke at once with that great Event all these mighty Wonders seem'd to sympathize Now if with these greater and more inexpressible Sufferings we consider all the rest which our Saviour's Life was obnoxious to from his Cradle to his Tomb and withal reflect with due reverence upon the dignity of the Sufferer the distance may not seem so immoderately great as the Socinians would have us believe between the Satisfaction given and the Necessities of those it was given for But further we are to consider that the Eternity of that Death Adam's Sin had laid him open to did not proceed from the nature of the Sin it self for no Crime infinite in its own Nature can proceed from a finite Being but the Eternity of that Penalty annex'd to Sin in Man arises from the absolute Infinity of that God against whom he sinn'd and whose Anger when irreversible must be eternal from a respect to that infinite Goodness and Justice essential to him whereby he had conferred such mighty Benefits upon Man and laid so very reasonable Duties upon him which yet Man had ingratefully slighted and abused Now if the greatness of the Penalty arise from the greatness or immensity of the Being offended then the Greatness and Value of the Satisfaction tender'd in lieu of that Penalty arises from the same Consideration viz. the greatness of that God it 's offer'd to and accepted by and as we believe God to be infinitely Wise and therefore not to be impos'd upon so as with Glaucus in the Poet to exchange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things of the greatest consideration for Trifles Gold for Brass so we reasonably conclude That God understands the true Value of that Satisfaction offer'd to Justice in the Sufferings of his Son we are assured that he has accepted of what his Son has done on our behalf therefore we are assured too that what he has so acted for us was and is equivalent to those Punishments we ought as Sinners to have undergone for the Satisfaction of eternal Justice Our Adversaries indeed would persuade us That if we insist so much on the Dignity of the Person suffering we must suppose that Christ suffer'd for our Sins as he was God or in his divine Nature which Supposition would be blasphemous and the Conclusion impossible but by their leave we neither mean nor pretend to any such thing We know and assert that Immortality cannot die and that the Deity cannot suffer yet we believe that He who was and is true God did both suffer and die but we know He that was God took upon him the Nature of Man and therefore though he could not nor did die as God yet that Humane Nature which he assum'd both could and did suffer and die and by that Suffering and Death among other Proofs evidenc'd the Reality of his being Man as well as he demonstrated his Divinity by his continual Words and Actions But now let us consider God condescending to take upon him our Nature that very Condescension alone is of infinite weight we look upon it as a very meritorious piece of Humility for a Soveraign Prince to take upon him the Habit of a Beggar only to procure good for some miserable undeserving Wretches the Athenians therefore long celebrated the glorious Memory of their last Monarch Codrus who put on the ignoble Arms of a private Centinel meerly that he might die by the hands of those Enemies who had been forewarn'd by an Oracle not to kill him by which private Habit assum'd he procur'd the safety of his Country but we never admire much the Humility or Condescension of that Beggar who wears Rags because he has no richer Habits to put on Now had the Son of God taken upon him a Royal Grandeur had he been wrapt in purple ador'd by all Mankind in his Cradle worn the Imperial Crown even in his Infancy or had he taken any other Methods we could fancy to our selves which might have render'd him considerable to the World yet this had been an infinitely greater Humiliation than for a Cyrus or an Alexander or a Trajan or a Constantine or a Tamerlane to have taken upon him the Person of the most contemptible Wretch in the World and for the noblest End It cannot well be questioned whether it was possible for God to take into his Own an Humane Nature or not Humanity it self being the product of his own Eternal Power was as all other parts of the Creation wholly at his command and though God's assuming a Body might be suppos'd enough of it self to render that Body immortal yet we may reasonably be assured that he could make it according to his own good Pleasure liable to Death as well as other Humane Bodies were but the Union between the Divine and Humane Nature being so close and absolute the Humane Nature howsoever submitted to Mortality must contract an infinite Honour and Dignity from thence but after all the Condescension is not a whit the less that he who is God should assume that mortal Nature nor is his Love less admirable who should assume it for our sake or who should stoop so low purely to make up that breach that was between his Father and Mankind but if to this Condescension we add a due consideration of those many Calamities or extreme Sufferings this Humane Nature was all along obnoxious to if we consider the Son of God as he was Man always in a state of Persecution and that carried on by various Degrees to the utmost Extremity and then recollect again that Honour it had contracted from that close and inseparable Union there was between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ such Sufferings in such a Person must be acknowledg'd infinitely meritorious and consequently capable of atoning or satisfying for infinite Guilt though such Sufferings were not Eternal as those of sinful Men are or ought to have been for it 's not necessary that the Satisfaction given for Humane Sins should be of the same kind as if Divine Anger could have been averted by no Method but that of the Lex talionis or like for like but that the Redemption-Price paid for the guilty Prisoner should be of