express and explicite Authority of God upon it For whosoever explicitely reveal's the thing defined reveals in effect all those things which we have enumerated concerning it While the Scripture for example assureth us that Christ is a man it doth at the same time assure us that he is a Rational Creature and by telling us that he is a man it doth in effect tell us that he is not an Angel And however some late Papists talk in this Matter not to speak of others that they may shift the Protestant Arguments which they cannot Answer Yet I am sure the most learned that ever espoused the Romane Cause are at an agreement with us in this point That is an Article of Faith says Bellarmine which God hath either revealed by the Prophets and Apostles or which may be evidently inferred from thence Smiglesius against Mascorovius proclaims it ridiculous to think otherwise That is not only a part of the Christian Doctrine which is expressly revealed by the Apostles but whatsoever can be evidently deduced thence though one of the propositions going to the deducement of it have its certainty only in Natural Light saith Canus And whereas they say that Conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem the Conclusion receives it specification and is denominated from the weakest proposition I reply 1 Were that Logical Maxime to be taken in the universal Latitude which they affix to it they are yet so far from gaining any thing thereby that their whole Cause in this Matter is supplanted For if both Propositions be evidently true their Dogm's must be evidently false seeing the Conclusions that lye in repugnancy to them are our Enemies being Judges deduced from true propositions God is as much the Author of the Rational Faculty in its Regular Exercise as of Scripture and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be persuaded by God and to be persuaded by Right Reason is one and the same thing 2. That proposition in a Philosophical sense is the weakest which is remotest from self evidence and therefore where there are two premisses whereof the one hath no other Evidence but what it borrows from the Authority of the Infallible Revealer the other in the mean time havâ—ng â—ts Evidence from a light residing in it self and from its Congruity to the Essential Rectitude of our Intellectual Faculties if the Conclusion follow the fortune of the weaker proposition it must be a Conclusion of Faith and not of Science For though the Certitude of Faith be not only equal but transcendent to the Certitude of Reason Sense and Experience 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. Yet the Evidence of Reason and Sense is with respect to the Object assented to the habitude it stands in to us beyond the Evidence of Faith 2 Cor. 5. â— 1 1 Cor. 13.12 Nor do the School men only allow a proposition grounded on an Axiome of Reason to be more evident than a proposition founded only on Revelation but withal not a few of the Learned'st Romanists both School-men and others will have the former to be also more Certain at least quo ad nos than the latter See Bellarm lib. 3. de justifiâ— cap. 2. Durand in 3. d. 23. quest 7. Compt. Tom. poster disp 9. 3. The forementioned Logical Axiome referrs only to the Quantity and Quality of the premisses and not to any other affections incident to them If one of the Premisses be Negative the Conclusion in the virtue of the alledged Maxâ—me must be Negative also or if one of the propositions be a particular nothing beyond a particular can be concluded though the other be an Universal And howsoever in some cases it may hold further yet this and no more was the intendment of the first establishers of it Nor indeed is it admittable in the full Latitude which the Terms seem to bear seeing of two propositions whereof the one only is true there may follow sometimes a Conclusion that is true though the other proposition be in the mean time palpably false But ere I undertake the probation of the thing it self two or three things must be necessarily premised 1. That all Fundamental Articles are contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters and syllables in the Scripture Nor is there any thing necessary in order to our assent to them but that we understand the Terms of the Enunciations in which they are delivered 'T is true there are Terms and Phrases made use of to declare them unto the edification of Believers to secure the Minds of men from undue apprehensions of them that are not in the Scripture but this is no more than what is needful in the explaining of all Divine Truths yea all Moral Duties For example That there is One God and that the Father is this one God and that the Son is so also and the Holy Ghost likewise is declared in many express Testimonies in the Bible but in the Explication of this Doctrine and in the application of it to the Faith and Edification of Believers namely how God is One in respect of his Nature and Essence how being Father Son and Holy Ghost He subsists in these three distinct Persons what are their mutual respects to each other and what are the incommunicable Properties in the manner of their subsistence by which they are distinguished the One from the other there are such woâ—ds and phrases made use of as are not literally and syllabically contained in the Scripture but teach no other thing but what is there revealed 2. That these very Fundamental Articles may be also confirmed by consequences and logical deductions from express literal Testimonies nor do probations of this nature alter or enervate the quality of them The thing is in it self the same though the method of proof be varied For example the Doctrine of the Trinity is equally a Fundamental whether we prove it from express Texts or by consequences from literal Testimonies or by its connexion with the whole Systeme of the Gospel the Incarnation of the Son of God the Oeconomy of Redemption c. 3. That though all Fundamentals be in Terminis expressed in the Scripture that yet these very Truths do include others in them which cannot be proved but by Consequences For instance That God is a Spâ—rit is revealed in so many letters and syllables in the Bible but that therefore he hath not hands nor feet nor any corporeal members can only be concluded by way of Consequence In lâ—ke manner the Incarnation of the Son of God that the Word was made Flesh is expresly taught in the Scripture but yet there are many things predicable of the Word Incarnate which cannot be otherwise demonstrated but by Consequences and by borrowing some proposition or other from principles of Natural light Now these things being premised the lawfulness of arguing from express Scripture-Truths by deduction of Conclusions which though they be not mentioned in the Bible in letters and syllables are
present only observe that many Scriptural expressions abstracting from any corrupt Gloss put upon them meerly upon the account of their being Rhetorical Tropes have been traduced as Fulsom Metaphors Were they only the paraphrases which the Non-Conformists affix to them which they make the subject of their scorn the business were more tollerable Nor should we be offended with their mockeries and derisions till we had justified the expositions fathered upon them but when the very words which the Holy Ghost in his care and wisdom condescendeth to use are also opprobriously reflected on they must pardon us if we know not how to digest such blasphemous and prophane boldness Instances of this Nature I shall afterwards give and hope to make it appear that many of the Rampant and Luscious Metaphors we are charged with are no other but the declaring Gospel-Mysteries in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual 3. Though there be many Rhetorical Tropes and Figurative expressions in the Scripture yet it cannot be denyed but that some either out of ignorance or wantonness have made many more than there ever were There have been and yet are a sort of men in the World who affect to turn every thing into an Allegory and to transform the plainest expressions into Metaphors Besides the Jewish Rabbies who are monstrously guilty in this particular the miscarriage of the Ancients in this matter is both too evident to be denyed and too gross to be justified Their Expositions of Scripture are often light and ridiculous and somtimes perverse and dangerous Origen especially seems to have made it his business to find out Mystical and Cabalistical Senses in the plainest parts of Scripture which made one of the Ancients themselves say of him Ingenii lusus pro Dei Mysteriis venditat he obtrudes the sportings of his fancy for Religious and Sacred Mysteries And as another expresseth it Ingenii sui acumina putat esse Ecclesiae Sacramenta This practice of some Primitive Writers in and about the Scripture influenced Porphyrius to deride the Gospel as containing nothing certain in it How well or rather how unhappily many of the Popish Fryers have imitated them in this I need not tell I shall rather observe that the Socinians who though they impose a proper sense on some Texts of Scripture where it is both absurd and blasphemous to admit it yet they disguise and transform into Metaphors other Texts that have a plain and proper meaning But at the rate of making the Priesthood of Christ his Sacrifice Redemption through his death Metaphorical as they do the whole Gospel both in the Doctrines and precepts of it may be turned into an Allegory Shall I add that these very Authors who of late among our selves have assumed a liberty of censuring their Brethren for Undermining the Gospel by trifling it into Metaphors are themselves so unhappy in paraphrasing Scripture as to make Tropes where few else in the world do In proof of this I shall produce an instance or two out of Mr. Sherlock Whereas other Expositors of Scripture have expounded Christs being called the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 in a plain and proper sense and have accordingly argued from it for the Deity of Christ against the Socinians Mr. Sherlock by Christs being stiled the Brightness of his Fathers Glory c. Understands no more but those discoveries which Christ hath made of God being a true representation of the Divine Nature and Will as any picture is of the person it represents Which as he hath borrowed word for word from the Socinians who hereby understand only his revealing and declaring the will of God unto us fully and plainly which was done before only darkly in shadows so he declares himself guilty of abusing the Scripture to a Metaphorical sense where the words according to all Rules of Exposition will admit a proper one and therefore both Grotius and Hammond persons to whom I suppose he pay's a respect do vouchsafe us a much better paraphrase And according to Mr. Sherlocks exposition of the words I see not but what is here predicated of Christ may be predicated of the Prophets at lest of the Apostles A second instance shall be that of the 2 Cor. 4.4 where Christ is stiled the Image of God Where Nonconformists see no necessity of admitting a Metonymie no more than a Metaphore but that he who was absolutely and antecedently to his Incarnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the form of God Phil. 2.6 is in a proper sense in his person Incarnate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God in which exposition of the words they are countenanced by Col. 1.15 where Christ in a proper sense is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the image of the invisible God The places seem parallel the one to the other especially if as all Copies have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last we admit the reading of those Copies which have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in the first But now Mr. Sherlock is pleased to tell us that Christs being the Image of God comes in very abruptly unless we understand it in this sense that he is the Image of God with respect to the glorious Revelations of the Gospel which contain a true and faithful account of Gods Nature Will Which is plainly to fancy a Trope where there is not the least reason of imagining any the deriving upon himself the guilt which he so liberally chargeth others with And whereas he alledgeth that without allowing a Metonâ—mie in the words Christs being the Image of God comes very abruptly in I see not how the Apostle could better shew how the Father expresseth and declareth himself unto us by his Son in the Gospel than by manifesting what the Son is in himself and with reference to the Father And whereas all Interpreters Ancient as well as Modern except the Socinians alone expound Joh. 1.16 Of his Fulness we have all received Grace for Grace of a participation of renewing Sanctifying Grace by Jesus Christ according to the plain and proper import of the Words Mr. Sherlock groundlesly imagines a Trope in them and accordingly paraphraseth the Fulness which we receive from Christ to signifie no more than a perfect Revelation of the Divine Will concerning the Salvation of Man-kind which Exposition as I have told him else-where whence he hath transcribed it so I shall only say at this time that it is a turning plain Scripture-Testimonies into Tropes Figures where there is not the least reason of supposing any More examples of his Paraphrasing the Scripture by substituting Tropes where other men in whom this humour is supposed to be predominant do see no cause for allowing any shall afterwards be assigned I shall only further observe at present that in several Scripture Passages where other Expositors can see no more but an easie and elegant Metonymie at the most he frames
of the Gospel we acknowledg it to be but to style it a metaphysical subtilty is to betray high Irreverence towards the great Mysteries of Faith as well as shameful Ignorance in the Fundamentals of Religion The Notions of Suppositum Person Hypostasis personality as distinct from the Idea of Nature or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are so far from having their first rise in the Schools of Philosophers or being Originally ow'd to Metaphysicks that they sprung from the Mystery of the Incarnation which both gave occasion of framing distinct and different Conceptions of them and by the account which the Scripture gives of the Mystery did illuminate us concerning them Though the person of Christ do not at all differ from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Humane Nature as they are considered united yet as we conceive of God-head and Man-hood in the abstract there is an inadequate difference betwixt them and the Person of Christ. And although there be no third Nature in the Person of Christ besides his Divine his Humane yet His Person is neither his Divine Nature nor his Humane And had Mr. Sherlock been either acquainted with Metaphysicks or conversant in the Canons of the Ancient Councils not to mention his being familiar with the Fathers he would never have charged the maintaining of that upon his Adversaries as a Reproach and Crime the not holding whereof would have justly exposed them to the Imputation of Heresy But when men are under the conduct of Passion and their Ignorance is answerable to their Rage what less can be expected than the throwing out accusations at adventure and the listing the most momentous Truths of Christians either in the Roll of subtil Querks or pernicious Errors rather than such whom out of prejudice they oppose should escape being blazon'd for Fools or Hereticks Fourthly By the Person of Christ then we mean the Humane Nature assum'd into Union with the Person of the Word and subsisting by the Hypostasis and personality of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or second Person in the Trinity As the Humane Nature of Christ is of it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 't is assumed into Union not precisely the with Divine Nature but with the second Person of the Trinity which connotate's somthing more than barely the Divine Nature though what that is be beyond the Territories of Reason to conceive or declare Now with respect to the operations communications fruits and effects which proceed from the person of Christ constituted and consisting of the second Person of the Trinity and the Humane Nature we are to consider these four things 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Agent or Cause and that is the Person of Christ. The effective Principle of the whole Mediatorial Work is Christ personally considered and the things done wrought bestowed or any effected are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the works and operations of God-Man 'T is not this or that nature simply considered but the Person of Christ that is the Fountain and Causal Principle of Actions and denominated from them Though we cannot conceive any operation to proceed from Christ but what belongs either to his God-head or Man hood as its Formal principle yet as there are many things predicated of the person of Christ wherein the Humane Nature is united to the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot in any single proposition be affirmed of or ascribed to either of them So whatsoever is attributed to him as the Christ He is as a Person the efficient Principle and cause of it 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Formal Principle of all his operations and that is either the Humane Nature or the Word Though the Man-hood be brought into conjunction with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet as both retain what is proper and essential to themselves so they remain distinct Formal Principles of operation Agit utraque forma cum alterius communione quod suum est Verbo operante quod Verbi est Carne exequente quod Carnis est 3. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Action which ceeds either from the Humane Nature or from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as its Formal Principle And as This or That is its Formal Principle it is of such a Specificate Nature i. e. a Divine Action or a Humane Though the things wrought for us communicated to us and effected in us be all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and though Divines use to style the Actions themselves so as proceeding from the same Effective Personal Principle yet I think it better to forbear that appellation of them seeing no Action proceeds both from the Humane Nature and from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as its Formal Principle 4. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The thing wrought or effected by the concurrence of the Humane Nature and the Word as they are united in constitute the Person of Christ. And here the distinct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Formal Principles occurring in the person of Christ do in their influence meet and center each of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Action congruous and peculiar to its own respective Nature And though the God-head and Man-hood in Christ remain distinct Formal Principles of Operations yet through the Union of the Humane Nature to the second Person of the Trinity in Him those things come to be effected by Him personally considered which he could not have wrought either as God or Man separately conceived Now Christ being our Mediator only considered as God and Man in one Person and not meerly as God or as Man And it being from Christ as Mediator though in ways congruous and proportionate that we receive Grace Life and all vital Influences Therefore we contend and plead that the Union of Believers with Christ is through their being united to his Person § 5. The last Term whose import and meaning we are to state and fix is Union And being a Transcendental Term 't is not easy to assign such an uncontroulable and clear Notion of it as may adequately agree to and univocally express it wheresoever it occurs But though Union be one of the greatest secrets of Nature and that which affronts our Understandings when we enquire into the Quality and Mode of this or that Union in particular yet so much Light may be reflected upon it in general as may serve to declare the value and meaning of the Term. Union then is either taken for Unition or for the Effect Modification or Mode caused by the â—â—itive action in the Extremes or at least one of them that come to be copulated or Thirdly For the Relation exsurging between the extremes knit and ligu'd one to another In the First acceptation 't is to be conceived of Efficiently in the Second Formally and in the Third as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Habitude resulting from arising upon the two former In the First usurpation it
can any one else understand it that I know of only I wonder why then it is imputed to us as a Crime That we are not satisfied that Christ and Believers are United unless their Persons be United too But as Mr. Sherlocks Book is pregnant with Contradictions so perhaps he hath found out an Art of justifying the Truth of Repugnant Propositions And though hereby he subvert the Foundations of Science and thwart the Universal Reason of Mankind yet I will not say that he is herein singular For besides those mentioned by Aristotle who maintain'd that one and the same thing might at the same time be and not be and besides that Burgersdicius Schulerus and some others have fancied a Medium betwixt Ens and Non ens There is a certain Carmelite stiled Franciscus Bonae Spei who will have both the parts of a contradiction if it be only in reference to matters of Faith to be susceptive of Truth And indeed if our Author be not acquainted with him 't is pitty but that he should as well upon the account already mentioned as divers others I could suggest particularly because he will find him a man of confidence hugely addicted to novelty one who loves to be invalidating the Evidences which the prime Articles of Faith are built upon § 7. Having established this General viz. that 't is the Person of Christ to which we are United the next enquiry is concerning the Nature quality and manner of the Union of Christians to him And it being here as in most cases which relate not simply to the Existence of things but to the Modes how they exist easier to refute false notions than to establish true I shall therefore observe the Method of declaring First what it is not wherein if I prove successfull I shall either obtain further light to the defining what it is or else manifest the unnecessariness of determining positively about it First then it consists not meerly in Christ's assuming our Nature A specifical oneness there is betwixt Him and us upon that account but all Mankind being equally thus related to him it cannot import the whole of that special Oneness which intercedes between him sincere Christians Now when I say that Christ did partake of our Nature I do not mean that he possessed the Individual Nature of this or that Man much less that he assumed any Universal Nature that is Identically the same in all and every Man for that as Damascenus says would not have been assumptio but fictio but what I aim at is this that as man consists of two essential constituent parts a Rational Soul and a Body thus and thus Organized so the son of God assumed both a Reasonable Soul and a true Organical Body fram'd and made of the substance of the Virgin who was lineally sprung from Adam the first and common original of all Mankind So that there is an oneness of Similitude which is all that intervenes amongst men between Christ and us but as for an Oneness of Identity it imply's a contradiction and should any assert it they are to be reckoned for obtruders of repugnancies under the pretence of sacred Mysteries upon the Faith of Mankind The Son of God through the designation and Authoritative disposal of the Father by the Immediate Efficiency of the Holy Ghost having assumed our intire Nature into Union with his Divine Person became thereby related to us in a cognation and alliance which he is not to the Angels And upon this affinity doth the whole of his Mediatory Interposure and our Interest in what he hath done and suffered bear God in order to the reconciling Man to himself by the obedience and Sacrifice of a Mediatour did first espouse our Nature to the Person of his So that was to be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyss. i. contra Eun. Hereby he became adapted to his Office and qualified for his Work Without this conjunction by the espousing our Nature he could neither have been a Priest ordained for men Heb. 5.1 Nor have atoned God by the Oblation of himself as an expiatory Sacrifice Heb. 8.3 Heb. 10.5 6 7 8 9 10. He behoved to partake of the Humane Nature in common with men before he could either be capable of the Sacerdotal Office wherein he was to act for men with and towards God or before he could be provided of a Sacrifice to offer His agreement with us in one common Nature is the basis of all his fitness to undertake on our behalf of the equity of the accruement of the benefits derived to us thereby 'T is this cognation alliance and propinquity of Nature that qualified Christ to be our Surrogate and to have our sins imputed to Him and which gives us our first capacity of having the Obedience of his Life and Sacrifice of his death either formally or in the effects of them imputed to us Precluding this God could not in consistency with his Wisedom Holiness Justice and Truth have exalted the glory of his Mercy in our Justification and Forgiveness nor could the Son of God have been Inaugurated unto the Mediatory Kingdome or had a right to those Dignities Priviledges and Honours which emerge and result from thence Now although upon the assuming our Nature into Union with the Person of the Son of God the Essences Properties and Operations of both Natures be preserved distinct and entire being united as the Ancients speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without confusion conversion division or separation Yet through that conjunction which they are brought into Christ becomes as it were a Compositum of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Humane Nature And accordingly the Ancients style the Person of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Fathers of the Second Constantinopolitan Council Maximus the Martyr doth not scruple the calling the Divine and Humane Natures parts of which Christ consists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as our Nature is highly dignified and exalted by its being taken into Union with the Second Person of the Trinity so a certain Relation of Oneness results thereupon between Christ and us The Apostle himself Heb. 2.11 say's that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one i. e. as I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Blood or partakers of the same common Nature which is the foundation of that Alliance of Brother-hood he speaks of in the next Words And so the 14. v. which seems to be exegetical of this plainly carrie's it forasmuch then as the Children are partakers of flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same The Ancients as well as Moderns style this a Natural Union And indeed Christ thus is so far one with us as the participating of the same com-Nature amounts to He is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Mass of Humane Nature with us and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Blood being sprung from one and the same
Heb. 1.14 I say besides all this they are in a special manner cemented to him by pure flames and holy ardors Those blessed Spirits through that more perfect knowledg which they have of the attractive beauties and excellent perfections of Christ partly by the means of their more illuminated intellects partly through their immediate attendance upon his glorious person especially from their being above all temptations that may divert their minds from so amiable an object and being free from all impure Lusts that may damp their flames do cleave to him with a Love more defecated and pure as well as more intense elevated than we can who are so far beneath them in the quality of our Nature and whose Understandings are still so much benighted with ignorance and obnubilated with the vapours of Lust and whose residence is so remote from the place of perfection as well as happiness I do not determine whether their happiness be improved and their perseverance in holiness secured by Jesus Christ though if so there is a field of occasion and Motives to promote and exalt their love to him ariseth thence But declining to define any thing in that matter there are enforcements enough besides by which their sallies of Love to the Lord Jesus are allured charmed forth For 1st Whatsoever they do or have received from the exuberant goodness and pregnant fecundity of their Creator they have it all by from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Person of the Son as the immediate Operator and Dispenser of it For the order of operation in the blessed Trinity as to external works corresponds unto and followeth the order of subsistence Hence though the Fabrick and Creation of all things be ascribed to the Father as to Authority and Order Heb. 1.1 and to the Spirit as to disposition and ornament Joh. 26.13 yet they are peculiarly attributed to the Son as to immediate operation Col. 1.15 16 17. 2dly The Glory of God being the alone object of the desires of the Heavenly Host it cannot otherwise be but that the honour which ariseth to God by the restitution of man through the interposure of the Son as Mediator must enflame those pure Spirits with love to him through whose undertaking that Glory is compassed and effected Nor is the Mysterious contrivance of Mans recovery a Theme which with a Religious curiosity they only look into 1 Pet. 1.12 but they both celebrate this plot of Love and Wisedom with Hallelujahs and express their acknowledgments for the Glory which thereby redounds to their blessed Maker in affections resembling the description given us of their Nature Psal. 104.4 to the Person of the Mediator 3dly Man belonging to the same classis of Creatures though of a different species with the Angels the compassion which these Courtiers of the great King bear to the sublunary part of the Rational System whereof we have an evidence and instance in the joy that possesseth them upon the Conversion of a Sinner Luk. 5.10 may be lookt upon as another incentive of their love to Christ. We being separated from the Love of God through the loss of the Divine Image forfeited thereupon the kindness and friendship of the Angels but being restored to conformity and favour with God by Jesus Christ there immediately ensues an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a redintegration of friendship between them and us Nor do I question but that the consideration that it is by Christ that they and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reconciled and brought into Oneness together doth help to kindle their love to him And as there is an adhesion of the Angels to Christ by love so on the other hand he embraceth them with complacency and delight For as there is nothing to be found in them why he should look upon them with displeasure so the sanctity of their Nature and their ministring with readiness not only about his Throne but in the affairs wherein he employs them abroad in the World lead him to behold them with approbation and love And though none of their Homages equal his perfections whom they address their Services to yet their faileurs being no ways the results of an impotence contracted by sin but the inseparable appendants of the finiteness of their Natures he readily accepts them The covering their faces with their wings being in testimony of their infinite distance is as welcome to him and doth as much oblige his Love as their acclamations and celebration of his praise There being then a Love-Union betwixt Christ and the Holy Angels I hope that I may infer from hence that the Union between Christ and Christians is both something else and more sublime I cannot think that any who have read their Bible and believe it dare affirm but that besides the Oneness which we have with the Lord Jesus through his participating of our Nature which the Angels have no share in but that there is also a further Union between him and us of which as the Angels do no ways partake so neither are they capable 3dly That the Mystical Union between Christ and Christians consisteth not in a reciprocalness of Affections may be yet further demonstrated from this namely because according to that Notion of Union Believers are no less United to the Father than to the Son yea they are United first to the Father ere to the Son And I am apt to think that there needs not any more to be said against an Hypothesis but that t is pregnant with consequences of so mischievous a tendency Admit once Believers to be United after the same manner to the Father as they are to Christ and we immediately justle the Lord Jesus out of the place of Mediator That there is an Union of Love between the Father and Believers the Gospel doth every where display in most amiable and bright colours Hence that of the Apostle He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 As Love is the only Attribute of the Divine Nature which is alone put to give us an Idea and Notion of God so to be Love is represented after a manner peculiar to God as the Father The Love of the Father was the first spring and source of our recovery and of all the means of accomplishing and bringing it about It was the Fathers Love that contrived a way to recover us when we had forfeited all right to Happiness and were neither careful nor in a condition to regain it When there were no Motives in us to invite his Love his Love it self was in their room And how great was his Love when he gave him whom he so dearly loved for a Ransom of those who were guilty of sin which he so greatly hated The transcendency of his Love is the greatest Obstacle to the belief of it After that his Love had travailed with plots of Mercy to poor Sinners in what noble and amusing effects did it exert it self See Joh. 3.16 Rom. 5.8
1 Joh. 4.9 10. In a word it is Love which is eminently ascribed to the Father in the Oeconomy of the Blessed Trinity about the Work of Mans Salvation And this property of his Nature which he chose to display in the work of Redemption he hath acted to the uttermost whereas he did not so by his Power which he manifested in the Works of Creation it being within the compass of his Omnipotence and Exuberant Bounty to produce a World more glorious than this And though all this respects Gods Love of Compassion to the Elect yet we may hereby guess what his Love of Delight in Believers is on whom his Love of Goodness hath compassed its designs When his Love of Benevolence hath attained so much of its End as the renewing us in part to his Image and the recovering us back to our obedience He views over with delight the births that his compassion went with and beholds the effects of his good Will with unspeakable complacence That similitude which his Love in its first consideration designed anâ—â—ntended his Love in the second Notion of it embraceth and settles its delight upon And that Believers do embrace the Father with a Love equal and proportionate to that which they have for Jesus Christ I hope I need not spend time to prove Besides the Allective and attractive perfections which the illuminated Understanding discovers in both as they partake of the same Divine Nature and Essence it meets with enforcing Motives of Love in the Oeconomical actings of each as they are represented in the Scripture operating towards about our Redemption with different peculiarities in the manner of their acting How doth the Father's Love in being the Author and Fountain of our recovery in his contriving the means of it in giving his Son to be our Ransom and Propitiation in order to the effecting it and in pursuance of his accepting the Sacrifice of his Death as an Atonement for sin and a meritorious price of sanctification his being the Original disposer in way of Authority and Order of all that Grace by which we are rendred meet objects of Gods delight inflame the souls of renewed Ones with Love to him 4. This Love-Union as it terminates upon Christ from us or as it implies our Affections being set upon him is so far from being the formal Reason of our Mystical Union that it doth suppose us already cemented to him There can be no true Love to Christ without a previous conformity seeing all love includes a supposition of likeness Now to imagine either a resemblance between us and Christ without a New Nature previously form'd and wrought in us or to conceive that there are any principles communicated to us as the ground and matter of similitude and yet we remain unconnected to Christ are fancies that the Gospel obligeth us to account absurd To apprehend a Person renewed by Grace and not implanted into Christ is to bid defiance to the Gospel and to conceive a soul cleaving to Christ by a Love that is sincere without an Antecedent Principle of Grace adapting and connaturalizing it is not only to contradict the Scripture but to denounce War against Metaphysicks which tell us that every Effect presupposeth a cause proportion'd to it In brief As we are not naturally imbued with a Love to Christ so no man will by a prevalent Love embrace him till he be first connaturalized attempered brought into a suitable habitude of mind to him Every act supposeth a Power nor is there hopes of Fruit where there is not a Root that can communicate sap to the branches that are to bear it Though the soul be the Vital Principle of all actions and Affections yet it is Grace that gives holy actions and affections their constituent form The Union which we have with Christ by love saith the Reverend Bishop Reynolds presupposeth an Unity we have in him by Faith Faith is the immediate tye between Christ and a Christian but Love a secondary Union following upon and grounded on the former By Nature we are all Enemies to Christ and his Kingdom of the Jews mind we will not have this Man to raign over us therefore till by Faith we are throughly perswaded of Christs love to us we can never repay love to him again Herein is love saith the Apostle not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son 1 Joh. 4.10 Now between Gods Love and ours comes Faith to make us one with Christ. § 12. That there ought to be nothing in Religion which is incomprehensible or of which we are not able to form adequate Notions is a fancy espoused by the Socinians Hence it is that though they do not wholly renounce the Gospel yet by designing to accommodate the mysteries of it to the Level of Humane apprehensions they supplant the prime Articles of it That there are Doctrines in the Christian Religion which our Understandings cannot fathom seems to have been the chief thing that influenced Celsus Hierocles Porphyrius Lucian and other Heathen Philosophers of old in their opposition of it This their upbraiding the primitive Believers for receiving things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Irrational Faith and their styling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persons of easie belief that had no reason for the things which they embraced abundantly declare And truly admitting the Principle which they proceeded upon namely that there ought not to be any thing in Religion but what our Intellects bear a proportion to they seem to me to have acted more rationally in refusing the Gospel altogether than those do who embrace it and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Model the Oracles of God to their private fancies that so they may level the Mysteries of Christianity to our weak and shallow capacities That there are Mysterious Doctrines in the Gospel and particularly that our Union with Christ is of that Number the Holy Ghost who should best know the complexion of every truth in it hath plainly informed us We are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones This is a great Mystery says the Apostle Eph. 5.30.32 Mr. Sherlock who seems to judg all such things foolish and fanciful Notions which men cannot fully conceive comprehend is pleased to tell us that there is nothing more easie to be understood than our Union and Communion with Christ but how he can reconcile himself to Paul unless great Mysteries be of easie conception and comprehension I know not 'T is true he hath taken care to present us with such a Notion of Believers Union with Christ as may be understood on this side Heaven and without sending for Elias to unriddle it that I may use his own expression Now what that Notion is and whether it fully answer the account which the Scripture gives us in the Matter of Christians Union with the Lord Jesus is that which we are now addressing to the ventilation of And that neither he
explain things which lye at a vaster distance from it and to which it bears less proportion If neither the Nature of God or of our Souls or of Matter of whose Existence we have the most scientifick evidence are to be comprehended by our narrow and shallow Intellects why may we not justifie the belief of such things of whose Truth and reality the Scripture instructs us though we cannot conceive the manner how they are or indeed how they can be And if men will not be talk'd and huff'd out of the persuasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reasons ascertain them though they cannot answer all the difficulties they are accosted with in their enquiries about them much less will Christians be Hector'd out of the belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the conception of them 'T is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God though it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are The highest assurance of the reality of any thing is Gods affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent to its Truth though we can frame no adequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our conceptions To bring down the Doctrines of Religion to the Model of Reason is wholly to overthrow belief and to pay no more respect to the Authority and Testimony of God than we would to that of a Worm like our selves If there were no obscurity and difficulties in the Notions of Gospel-Truths where would our submission and Humility be which are the qualifications that do most recommend us to God and upon this account especially because they prepare the Mind for Faith and give check to all bold and curious enquiries 'T is enough that we can by rational proofs demonstrate the Bible to be the Word of that God whose Veracity is proportionate to his Sapience and both of them infinite nor is it needful that its Doctrines should further adjust themselves to our Understandings And indeed as to the Doctrine we have been discoursing not only the Apostle styles it a great Mystery but Christ himself seems to adjâ—rn the perfect knowledg of it till the glorified state At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in in me and I in you Joh. 14.20 Yet seeing the Holy Ghost hath been pleased not only to assert an Intimate Union between Christ and Believers but hath condescended to illustrate it by so many similitudes and seeing many things that are Mysterious and unsearchable till God reveal them are afterwards of no difficult conception providing we regulate our apprehensions of them by the Word I shall therefore having arraign'd and overthrown the false Notions of this Spiritual Union venture to assign a true and I hope also an Intelligible Notion of it Now this I shall attempt by these several steps and degrees 1st The highest and closest Union is between those things that are actuated by one Spirit dwelling and moving in them Adhesion of parts is not so noble an Union as information by one and the same Spirit If the vegetative juice be precluded admission into any branch it is no longer in a proper sense United to the Root notwithstanding its Physical continuity to the other Branches When the Animal spirits forsake any Member in the Organick Body it is immediately as if it were not knit to the Head though it remain not only connected to the adjoyning parts by Muscles and Sinews but ligu'd to the Acropolis by Nerves and Arteries The strictest and most proper Union is that which emergeth from actuation by the same spirit 'T is this that renders the inferior Members as much coherent with the Head as the superior are because they are all acted by the same Animal spirits which as they are prepared in the Brain so they have their flux thence to all the Regions of the Body and their reflux back thither again Thus the soul though she keep her residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is really joyned to all the Body because of the commerce that is between the Head where her Imperial Court is and the rest of the Members through the ministry of the Animal spirits 2dly Things at the greatest distance and between which there is no physical continuity may be acted by the same Spirit providing he be immense and infinite That Spirit who through the Infinite perfection of his Essence is every where may both inhabite and produce similar operations in those subjects that are locally distant the one from the other Though a Finite spirit cannot at the same time influence and act distinct and distant Subjects if there be not either a continuity or a contiguousness between them yet an Infinite Spirit may 3dly 'T is Christ as Mediator that Believers are United to The Mystical Union is between Him and Believers as he is a Middle Person between Them and his Father Our Moral Union with the Father in way of complacential love is through our Spiritual Union with the Son by the renovation of the Holy Ghost 4. The Holy Ghost did in a singular manner operate upon and reside in the Humane Nature of Christ. Though Christ was Holy by Essence in respect of his Divine Nature yet he was Holy by Consecration and Unction with the Spirit in respect of his Humane Though it was only the Son that did assume our Nature into subsistence with himself yet it was the Spirit that positively adorned and furnished that Nature with Grace 'T is true it is not of easie apprehension how the operation of the Holy Ghost should interpose in the same person between the one Nature and the other but it is as true that we have it plainly affirmed in the Scripture which is the highest assurance we can have of any thing 'T is one of the deep things of God which we ought to submit to with an humble Faith and not to enquire after it with a presumptuous boldness The Testimonies to this purpose are many but I shall only refer the Reader to two or three viz. Isa. 11.1 3. Joh. 3.34 Luk. 4.1 5thly The Holy Ghost is the Immediate Renewer and Sanctifier of the Elect. All the saving Illumination all the Gospel conviction all the Vital quickening all the Regenerating Virtue that we come under at any time have or are made the Subjects of they are from the Spirit of God and the Efficacious subjective operation of the Holy Ghost in and upon us Our birth and progress in Holiness are to be ascribed to Him as the Efficient Cause and Immediate Worker 'T is for this Reason that the Third Person in the Trinity is so frequently styled the Holy Spirit For that Title doth not so much refer to the Essential Purity of his Nature as to the sanctifying operations which are assigned to him in the Oeconomy of Mans Redemption This I shall not now divert to the proof of 't is enough that the
needful in a way of severe Disquisition to pursue every Inconsiderable passage in his Book of how bad Aspect soever it be for if his Principal Notions be overthrown and if the Pillaâ—s upon which the Mayn of his Fabrick bears be Under-min'd to follow the Quest and Chase of every Expression in Reflections and Digressions would be of little Use unless to Swell this Dâ—scourse and Enhance the Price of it The only thing I am aware of lyable to Exception as seeming to have no Relation to the Theme here undertaken is that which follows in the present Chapter concerning The Interest of Reason in matters of Religion Now though the Usefulness of such an Essay will be a sufficient Apology with the Candid and Ingenuous yet I have two things else to justifie it by should any prove severe and morose 1. I find a People so far as I know Innocent of all Undue Reflections upon Reason publickly Arraigned of having rais'd a Cry against it as the great Enemy of Free-Grace and Faith and zealously endeavouring to run it down under the mis-applied Names of Vain Philosophy Carnal Reason and the Wisdom of this World And that here the Enemies of Diocesan Government of the Church began upon this they insisted still and filled their Books and Pulpits and private Corners with these Cantings That this is now their Engine to overthrow all Sober Principles and Establishments that with this the People were Infatuated and Credit was reconciled to Gibberish and Folly Enthusiasms and vain Impulses Idem ibid. p. 230. That this is the Food of Conventicles to this day the Root of the Matter and the Burthen of their Preachments That under pretence of Reasons being contrary to Religion Men have been prepared to Swallow any thing but what is Sober and to make every thing that is Absurd a Mystery and that the Non-conformists for 't is those he there Impeacheth by the Disparagement of Reason have made Religion a Medley of Phantastick Trash Spiritualiz'd into a heap of Vapours and formed into a Castle of Clouds and expos'd to evâ—ry wind of Humour and Imagination Idem ibid. p. 224. And as another is pleas'd to charge them That a thwacking Contradiction can neither Stagger nor Astonish them but that they will stand their Ground against all the Dint of Arguments and by the Assistance of the Spirit of God maintain Conclusions in Defiance to their Premises That say what you will prove what you can demonstrate the Incoherence of their Notions and the Wildness of their Conceits they will Foil all your Wit and Carnal Reason with a Caution against vain Philosophy and Humane Learning and a Disdainful Reflection against the Natural Mans Ignorance in the things of the Spirit And that they become acquainted with the Workings of the Spirit because they are not capable of Understanding the Methods of Reason and Laws of Argumentation Is it not now necessary that we should Vindicate our selves from these Aspersions and endeavour to give a Stop to those Groundless and Unjust Clamours at least to make appear that the whole Party ought not to be Traduced because of the Extravagancies of a few And were there nothing else in it this alone is enough to justifie the Expediency as well as the Seasonableness of Unfolding the whole Concernment of Reason in Religion But Secondly I find that the chief Topicks by which our Modern Writers Accost whatsoever they dislike is either a pretended repugnancy in the things themselves to Reason or at least that they are things unintelligible As to the first We are told that Calvin and his followers obtrude pure non-sense and contradictious blasphemies upon our belief with as much Rigour and boisterous zeal as the most indispensable truths of the Gospel And an instance is given by alledging that there is required as confident an assent to the black doctrine of irrespective Reprobation as to our Saviours Death and Resurrection And that it is made as necessary a point of Faith to believe that the Almighty thrust innumerable Myriads of Souls into being only to sport himself in their endless and unspeakable Tortures as that he sent his own Son into the World to die for the Redemption of Mankind Or as another represents it That God so decreed some to eternal ruine that he made himself the Author both of their sin and Destruction Were this a true account of the doctrine of their adversaries in the matter of Reprobation I should not only pardon but commend their zeal in opposing it But they are so far from doing either Calvin or his followers justice in the declaration they make of his and their opinion that they betray either wonderfull ignorance in the writings of those authors or a very bad Conscience in reporting them Suppose that Calvin and his followers mean generally no more by Reprobation but the negation of Election or a purpose of Soveraignty backt with justice of leaving a certain number of the lapsed Sons of Adam in their fallen state I would fain know what in all this interferes with principles of Reason or what attribute of God militates against it To leave persons in a condition into which they were willfully brought by the Protoplast without Gods withdrawing of any aid from him necessary to have prevented it or having any other accession to it save his not hindering it is not of difficult Reconciliation to Reason as neither reflecting upon the divine Justice nor Goodness and is very suitable to Soveraignty which at least implies God so far master of his own Grace that he is Debtor to no sinner for the Communication of it Yea should we besides a Negation of Grace to fallen man Include in our Idea of Reprobation a purpose in God partly with regard to Corruption arisen in us through the destitution of the divine Image partly with regard to those sins which will infallibly but still upon the election of the creature ensue not to entertain such Creatures in the arms of his Love but to adjudge them to the punishment deserved I know nothing in it that thwarts the Rational nature of Man or grates upon the perfections of God And as I take this to be a truer draught of the doctrine of Reprobation as defended both by Calvin and his followers than the Scheme presented us by Dr. Parker and Mr. Lamb So I know no considerable exception that it is liable to except that it doth not serve the design of charging the Non-conformists for obtruding contradictions upon the World so well as the other doth I might also add that Gods Eternal purpose of Glorifying his Soveraignty in way of mercy upon a certain number of the defiled Guilty sons of Adam in decreeing to give them Grace and Glory without respect to foreseen Faith or good works as the cause motive or inducement of his Decree though in the execution of it he as well designs Faith and Obedience being made the Qualifications of Life as that they shall
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excellently De baptism cont Donat. lib. 2 cap 6. Let us not say's he bring our deceitful balances where we weigh what would and do as we would saying according to our fancy Behold this is heavy or behold this is light but let us bring the Divine Balances of the Scriptures and weigh things or rather not weigh them but learn and take notice what the Lord himself hath weighed I rather chuse to fix the import of Religion thus by its reference to its Rule than by an enumeration of particulars First that it may appear that whatever be the concernment of Reason in Religion yet it is not to invent or introduce any new Doctrine nor to propose or institute any new Media of Worship nor to obtrude and force upon us any new moral Duty Nothing Magisterial doth here belong to it its highest preferment is to minister Secondly Because there is nothing in the Scripture but what we are under the Sanction of and as it is occasionally made known we are to pay a rational subjection to it Though every thing in the Bible be not alike Necessary yet every thing in it is alike True and our concernment lie's more or less in it There is no other Rule by which we are to be regulated in matters of Religion but the Bible and therfore the import and meaning of those Terms can be no otherwayes decided but by their habitude to their measure For this end did God give forth the Scripture that it might be the foundation and standard of Religion and thence therefore are we to learn its Laws and constitutions The instructing mankind in whatsoever is necessary to his present or future Happiness was the design of God in his vouchsafeing the World a supernatural Revelation and foreseeing all things that are necessary to such an End the respect and veneration which we pay to his Sapience Goodness oblige us to believe that he hath adapted and proportion'd the means thereunto Now the Doctrines of the Bible are of two sorts 1. Such as besides their being made known by revelation and believed on the account of Divine Testimony have also a foundation in the light of Nature and there are natural Mediums by which they may be prov'd These are commonly called Mixt but I think amiss seeing they are not made up of dissimilar parts nor have they objects complicated of different natures are only discovered by different Lights proved by different Media and assented to as well upon Motives of Reason as Divine Authority of this kind are the Being and Attributes of God the Immortality of the Soul the certainty of Providence the Existence of a Future State and Moral Good and Evil 2 dly Such as have no Foundation at all in Nature by which they could have been found out or known but we are solely indebted to Supernatural Revelation for the Discovery of them Their Objects having their Source and Rise only from the Will of God a Supernatural Revelation was absolutely expedient to promulge them And these also are of two Sorts 1. There are some Doctrines which though our Understandings by Natural Mediums could never have discovered yet being once revealed our Minds can by Arguments drawn from Reason facilitate the Apprehension of them and confirm it self in their Belief Of this kind are the Resurrection of the Body and Satisfaction to Divine Justice in order to the Exercising of Forgiveness to penitent Sinners 2. There are others which as Reason could never have discovered so when revealed it can neither comprehend them nor produce any Medium in Nature by which either the Existence of their Objects can be Demonstrated or their Truth Illustrated Of this kind are the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God I know that there are many Divines who though they confess that the Doctrine of the Trinity could never at first have been discovered by Reason yet being once Revealed they contend that Reason cannot only Illustrate but Demonstrate it But upon the best Inquiry into their Arguments I find most of them palpably Fallacious and others of them so Disproportionate to what they are brought that they do not so much as afford some saint Adumbrations of it I readily grant that this and the other Mystery are by a clear and necessary Connexion united with other Doctrines of Faith which Reason enlightned by Revelation can give a rational Account of For the Mystery of the Trinity hath a necessary Connexion with the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of an infinite Person hath the like Connexion with the necessity of satâ—sfying Divine Justice in oâ—der to the Dispensing of Pardon to repenting Offenders and the necessity of satisfying Divine Justice for the End aforesaid hath a necessary Connexion with the Doctrine of the Corruption of Mankind and the Corruption of Humane Nature is both fully confessed and can be demonstrated by Reason Thus though all the Objects of Faith have not an immediate Correspondence with the Objects of Reason yet these very Doctrines of Faith which lye remotest from the Territories of Reason and seem to have least Affinity with its Light are necessarily and clearly connected with those other Principles of Faith which when once discovered Reason both approves of and can rationally confirm it self in As two Neighbouring Kingdoms are joyned together though some of their Provinces touch not one another So by those Objects of Faith which have a clear Connexion with Objects of Reason there is a mediate Connexion between Reason and those Objects of Faith that lye farther off I need not add that the most Mysterious Doctrines of Religion are necessarily connected with the Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God and that is a Truth which Reason is so far from rejecting that it can demonstrate it § 5 Having setled the meaning of the Terms namely what we understand both by Reason and Religion We are next particularly to enquire of what Significancy and Use Reason is in Religion that so we may give to Reason the things that are Reasons and yet reserve to Faith the things that are Faiths And whereas we have said that there are some Principles of Religion which besides the Evidence that they have in Revelation have Foundation also in the Light of Nature it may be easily apprehended that more is to be allowed to Reason in and about those than about these the Knowledge of which we are Debters only to Revelation for As to the Latter Reason acquits it self in all that belongs to it by considering what Doctrines are revealed to us in the Scriptures and deduceâ—ng Consequences which by clear Connexions proceed from them leaving Faith to assent to them upon the Authority and Veracity of the Revealer But as to the former Reason doth not sufficiently discharge it self by discovering that they are Revealed and thereupon committing it to Faith to Embrace
them upon Divine Testimony But it ought further to enquire what Inducements and Media there are in the Light of Nature by which they may be also Known and Demonstrated And as this is to be allowed to Reason in all Matters of Religion which have Foundation in Natural Light so especially in and about such Principles of it as are necessarily pre-supposed to Faith of which kind are the Being of God and the Divinity of the Scripture Though all our Religion be in an eminent Manner built upon the Divinity of the Scriptures and some parts of it know no other Foundation but the Bible and accordingly among such as own that Book for the Word of God We need no other Bottome to Erect our Faith upon nor any other Measure to regulate our Debates and to determine our Controversies by yet when the Divinity of the Scripture it self is contended about it is neither a just nor a rational Way of Procedure barely to affirm that 't is Divine but we are to prove that it is so If we will not believe the Alchoran to proceed by Inspiration from God upon the Testimony of a Mahometan no more is it to be expected that a Mussulman should believe what we call the Bible to be God's Word upon the naked Testimony of a Christian. As upon the one hand we should betray Religion to every Infidel by pretending to build our Faith upon a Book whose sacred Authority we cannot justifie so upon the other hand we oblige our selves to the worst of Drudgeries in being resolved to believe what we can give no Reason for Besides we should not only by such a Method unavoidably expose our selves to the Dictates of every Enthusiast but with all Minister a just Plea to such as dislike Religion because of it's Unfriendliness to their Lusts for the renouncing of it Now our Belief of the Scripture supposeth the Existence of God and therefore our knowledge of his Being must precede our Faith of the Divine Authority of the Bible I readily grant that the Scriptures may be brought not only to such as own their Truth but even to Infidels as a proof of a Deity But then it must not be upon the Score of their naked Testimony but upon the account of their being of such a Frame Nature and Quality that they can proceed from no other Author And thus we Arrive by the Scripture at an Assurance of God's Existence as we do at the Knowledge of a Cause by it's Effect But so far as we assent to any thing upon the Credit of the Scriptures meer Testification we are necessitated to presuppose the Existence of God it being only upon the account of his Veracity in himself and that the Bible is a Divine Revelation that we do without the least guilt of vain Credulity because upon the highest Reason implicitely believe it In discoursing the Serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the fore-mentioned Articles together with those other Doctrines that have their Foundation not only in Revelation but also in Natural Light and such common Principles which all men assent to I shall confine my self to wonderful Brevity and rather point at Arguments than pursue them And to begin with the Existence of God Were there no Supernatural Revelation in the World there is enough both within us and without us to Convince us of the Being of a Deity Hence though God hath wrought many Miracles to Convince Infidels and Mis-Believers yet he never wrought any to Convince Atheists Nor do the Pen-Men of Scripture attempt to prove it but take it for granted as being evidently manifest both by Sensible and Rational Demonstration I shall not here insist on the Cartesian Argument drawn from an Innate and Ingraft Idea of God For upon a most serious perusal of what is alledged by Cartes himself Claubergius De Bruin Doctor More and others in Vindication of it together with what is produced by Gassendus Ezekius Vogelsangius Derkennis Doctor Parker and others against it I look upon it as little better than a Sophism and to maintain an Article of such Import by a Medium either Weak or Fallacious is to betray the first Fundamental of Religion I know no Idea's formally Innate what we commonly call so are the Results of the Exercise of our Reason The Notion of God is not otherwise inbred then that the Soul is furnished with such a Natural Sagacity that upon the Exercise of her rational Powers she is Infallibly led to the Acknowledgment of a Deity And this is first effected by her looking inwardly upon her self and her own Acts and we are with Facility and by a short way of Argumentation conducted thence to the Existence of God For 1 st We perceive that the Faculty resident in us is not furnished with all perfections and therefore not Self-existent nor indebted to it self for those it hath otherwise it would have cloathed it self with the utmost perfections it can Imagine and by consequence finding it's own Exility and Imperfection it Naturally and with Ease arrives at a perswasion of deriving it's Original from some First Supreme and Free Agent who hath made it what it is and this can be nothing but God 2 dly We perceive that we have such a Faculty that apprehendeth judgeth reasoneth but what it is whence it is and how it performeth those things we know not And therefore there must be some Supreme Being who hath given us this Faculty and understands both the Nature of it and how it knoweth which we our selves do not 3 dly Our Natures are such that assoon as we come to have the use of our Intellectual Faculties we are forced to acknowledge some things Good and other things Evil. There is an Unalterable Congruity betwixt some Acts and our reasonable Souls and an Unchangeable Incongruity betwixt them and others Now this plainly sways to the belief of a God For all distinctions of Good and Evil relate to a Law under the Sanction of which we are and all Law supposeth a Superiour who hath Right to command us and there can be no Universal Independent Supreme but God 4 ly We find our selves possessed of a Faculty necessarily reflecting on it's own Acts and passing a Judgment upon it self in all it does Which is a further Conviction of the Existence of God for it implies a Supreme Judge to whom we are accountable 5 ly We find that we are furnished with Faculties of vast Appetite and Desires and that there is nothing in the World that can satisfie our Cravings and by consequence there must be some Supreme Good adequate and proportionate to the Longings of our Souls which can be nothing but God This is his Meaning who said of the Heathen that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By the Light of Nature they nodded after a Summum Bonum It were to put a Slur upon Nature to suppose that she hath put those Propensions and Inclinations into us only to delude and abuse us 6 ly We find the
of the Bible The ancient Heathens reproaching the Primitive Christians that they grounded all their Doâ—â—rine upon meer Belief that their Religion consisted In sola ratione credendi and that their simple Faith was all they had to trust to The Christians complained of the Charge as a gross and impudent Calumny appealed to Reason for Proof of their Belief and offered to joyn Issue with them upon that Title And as they that owe their Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God to Report Principles of Education or the Felicity of their Birth and the Clime where they were born receive the Scripture upon no better Motives than the Turks do the Alcoran So if pretended Inspiration may pass for a Demonstration of the Truth of what every bold Pretender will obtrude upon us We expose our selves not only to the Belief of every Groundless Imagination but of innumerable Contradictions For not only the grossest Follies but Doctrines palpably repugnant both to Reason and one another have been delivered by Enthusiasts and pretended Inspirato's I readily grant that the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Souls and Consciences of men to the Truth of the Scripture is the most convincing Evidence that such Persons can have of it's Divinity But 1 st The Holy Ghost convinceth no man as to the Belief of the Scripture without Enlightning his mind in the Grounds and Reasons upon which it's proceeding from God is evidenced and established There is no Conviction begot by the Holy Ghost in the Hearts of men otherwise than by rational Evidence satisfying our Understandings through a discovery of the Motives and Inducements that ascertain the Truth of what he would convince us of 2. No mans particular Assurance obtained thus in way of Illumination by the Holy Ghost is to be otherwise urged as an Argument of Conviction to another than by proposing the Reasons which our Faith is erected on The way of such Mens Evidence is communicable to none unless they could kindle the same Rayes in the Breasts of others that have Irradiated their own and therefore they must deal with others by producing the grounds of their Conviction not pleading the manner of it And that an other is convinced or persuaded by them depends wholly upon the weight and Momentousness of the Reasons themselves not on the manner that such a person came to discover them For should he have arrived at the discerning them by any other Mean they had been of the same Significancy to the Conviction of an Adversary 3. The Holy Ghost as a distinct Person in the Deity is not a Principle demonstrable by Reason Seeing then it is by the Scripture alone that we are assured of the Existence of the Divine Spirit as a distinct Person in the Godhead therefore his Testimony in the Hearts and Consciences of men to the Scripture cannot be allowed as a previous Evidence of it's Divinity To prove the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost when we cannot otherwise prove that there is a Holy Ghost but by the Testimony of the Scripture is to argue Circularly and absurdly I know the Papists to be even with the Protestants for the Circle we charge on them in their proving the Church by the Scriptures and the Scripture by the Church do pretend to fasten the same way of Circular Argumentation upon us in that we prove the Spirit by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Spirit Whereas even those Protestants who contend that the Spirit and Scripture do mutually prove one another may easily acquit themselves from a Circle Seeing whatever Proof the Scripture and Spirit mutually Minister to one another it is in Diverso genere The Scripture proves the Spirit either in way of Witness by plainly testifying that there is such a Being as the Divine Spirit or Objectively and by way of Argument bringing into Light such Truths as can be conceived to proceed from none other save 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Holy Ghost But then the Spirit proves the Scripture not in way of a naked Witness nor in way of Argument but under the notion of an Efficient Cause Elevating and preparing our Understandings to discern the Lineaments Characters and Signatures of Divinity which God hath impressed upon the Scriptures which through that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is upon our Minds we many times do not at all discern much less do we at any time discern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without it Or else by giving Efficacy to Scripture Truths in and upon our Hearts and Consciences so that the Word arriving with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the effectual Working of his Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual Sense and Taste of the things themselves And this Spiritual Gust that I may use Origen's Phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diviner thing and more Convincing than any Demonstration For the Word of God as well as God himself is best known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Intellectual Touch as the Philosopher sayes But as I have said already this is no convincing Proof to an Adversary nor doth the evidence of it reach further than the party immediately concerned And therefore our Recourse must be to Arguments of another Nature In brief when we have to do with such as either Question or Deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture we are to prove it by Ratiocination from common Principles received amongst Mankind and by Topicks that lye even and proportionated to Intellectual Nature And here Reason is justly magnified as hugely Subservient to Religion in that it demonstrates the Divine Authority of the Scripture upon which our Faith as to all particular Articles and Duties of Religion is grounded Not do I doubt but that Reason can acquit it self in this Undertaking to the Conviction of all that are not wilfully obstinate and for such I know no means either sufficient or intended by God to satisfie them Many great Men both Ancient and Modern as well at Home as Abroad have already laboured and to good purpose in this Theme Nor can there be much added by any to what is already said much less am I likely to do it Neither is it my Intention to treat this Subject at large but rather to touch at the Heads of Arguments than handle them And I suppose this will sufficiently answer my Designe which is to vindicate the Non-Conformists from the Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclayming it from all Concern in Religion and deserving to be charged with the Reproach which Julian slanderously fastned upon the Primitive Christians that they had no Ground for their Faith but that their Wisdom was only to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Method I shall here confine my self to shall be First To justifie the Necessity of some Supernatural Revelation in order to
is the same pleasure to me to have my Notions confuted when unsound as it is to be restored to health when I have been sick § 8. Having briefly viewed the serviceableness of Reason as to the demonstrating the Divinity of the Scripture we may ere we make any further proceed infer and conclude from hence its Authority For upon its Divine Original doth its Authority bear The formal reason of our submitting our Hearts and Consciences to the Bible is Gods speaking in it The Authority of God is his right to command and require Obedience and it is founded not only in the supereminence of his Nature but his Relation to us as our maker Having made us Rational Creatures capable of moral Government he may accordingly Rule us by Laws backt with promises and threatnings I acknowledg that de facto men may withdraw themselves from under the Authority of God and may deny him Obedience but that militates nothing against the Right that is vested in Him of ruling them nor the obligation that they are under of obeying him Now the Authority of the Scripture ariseth from its being Gods Word and his speaking in it Nor are the most momentous Reasons of that significancy to determine our Assent as the Testimony of a person of infinite Power Wisdom Goodness and Truth What greater Assurance can we have to ascertain our belief than that the affirmer is infinitely Wise and cannot be deceived himself and infinitely Good and cannot deceive others To say as the Papists do that the Scripture hath its Authority in se in its self from its self but that it hath its Authority quoad nos with respect to us from the Testimony of the Church is to talk without either Reason or sense For 1 Authority being a Relative Term nothing can have Authority in it self which hath it not in respect of others Nothing is a Law properly but what is a Law to some It is impossible to suppose an actual Right in any to Command without supposing an obligation in some to obey If the Scripture therefore have no Authority from it self in respect of us it neither hath nor can have any Authority in its self at all 2 If the Scripture have no Authority with respect to us but what it hath from the Church how comes the Church it self to be under an Obligation to receive and obey it There can be no obligation but in Relation to some Antecedent Authority and if there be no such Authority obliging the Church to receive the Scripture there should be no Sin in her rejecting it 3 If the Scripture have no Authority from its self and Gods speaking in it with respect to us then the Church should be the first Credible which is altogether false it being by the Scripture that we both know that there is a Church and how far her Testimony is to be trusted to 4. every Testimony is posterior to the thing testified and is accordingly true or false as it is agreeable or disagreeable to the nature of the Thing it beareth witness to If therefore the Scripture have any Authority with respect to us upon the Testimonial of the Church it behoved to have it antecedently In a word if God have not a Right of commanding us independently on the Testimonials of the Church then no private Revelation that ever God made or could make of himself to any is of the least force or significancy Nor could they to whom God by Visions Dreams Inspirations or otherwise made himself his Mind and Will known take upon them to give forth and publish to others what was thus revealed to them till they had the Testimony of the Church that it was Authentick Having established the Authority of the Scripture upon its true basis namely on its being Gods Word and speaking in it Now forasmuch as no man either is or can be obliged to believe a lie We may hence learn what to judg of that Notion of Des-Cartes and some others viz. Deum posse fallere si velit that God can deceive if he please No one denies but there both may be and are those things in the Word of God which men may turn into occasions of being Deceived all that is contended for is this that there can be nothing in a Revelation from God which may be a proper Cause of Error To say that God may Deceive if he would is no less than to affirm that he may cease to be God if he would God can do nothing but what in sensu diviso abstracting from his Decree to the contrary he may Will to do If we prove therefore that it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be Willing to deceive his Creatures we at the same time demonstrate that it is contradictory to his Power to do so First then If God may Deceive if He please what assurance have we but that he hath and may chuse to do it Nor is it enough to say that he hath told us that he will not for if he may deceive at all I know nothing hinders but that he may even then deceive us when he informs us he will not Secondly no one can deceive an other but it must proceed either from Ignorance Errour or Malice but all these interfere with the Nature of God and by consequence this posse fallere lyes cross to his Nature also To deceive argues either want of Wisdom Goodness or Veracity and therefore in no sense can God Deceive seeing he can neither cease to be Wise nor give over to be Good nor fail to be True Thirdly though a finite ignorant and mistaken Creature may impose upon us without saying one thing when he thinks another Yet it is impossible that an Infinite Wise and Omniscient Being should deceive any but that at the same time he must lie But that God cannot lie we have both the Testimony of Scrpture Tit. 1.2 and the highest assurance that Reason can give us Hence no one ever acknowledged a Deity but he withall included in his Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak nothing but truth § 9. Having unfolded the Nature and Quality of the Motives that our assent to the Divinity of Scripture is raised on we may hence infer that our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God is Divine and Infallible For as Doctor Hammond sayes in another case if the Person affirming be Infallible then is the Belief of such a Person Infallible also So if the Grounds of our Assent to the Scriptures being a Revelation from God be Infallible our Assent which is built upon these Grounds is Infallible likewise Assents are not specificated and Denominated from their Objects nor yet from the Faculties that elicite them but from the Foundations and Grounds on which they are raised Whilst then the Motives upon which we believe the Scripture are more than Moral our assurance of it's Divinity is more than Moral also For as we distinguish between the Consequent and the
passage in the Bible in it self unintelligible I cannot imagine any use that it should be off or that it should answer any end which we must needs suppose so wise an Agent as God had in the giving of it forth Besides when we discourse of the Serviceableness of Reason towards the attainment of the Sense and meaning of the Scripture we put a vast difference betwixt discerning the Literal Grammatical and Historical sense of it and the discerning it in a saving Spiritual manner I know our Divines sometimes express this as if they distinguished betwixt the Grammatical or Literal and the Spiritual sense But their intendment is not to diversifie the things themselves and what is understood in such places but the manner and way in which they are understood Though the Natural man may discover the true and genuine intendment of a text no less may be than he that is born of God yet their perception is not of one and the same kind nor do they understand it after one the same manner Though the Sense therefore be Physically the same yet in the way of discovering it there is a Moral difference The meer Rational mind may discern the literal Sense of Scripture propositions but without a supernatural Irradiation from the Spirit of life there can be no saving knowledge of them The Spirit which breathed out the Scripture at first is in this Sense the only Interpreter of it And as the Text is his so also is the Gloss. He that unveiled the Object must enlighten the eye for we need as much the spirit of Wisdom for the one as the Spirit of Revelation for the other See among many other places Eph. 1.17 1 Cor. 2.11 12. 1 John 2.20 and 5.20 John 6.48 Psal 119.18 27. But seeing the Socinians and Remonstrants preclude the necessity of the influence of the spirit of God upon the mind in order to the understanding the meaning of the Scripture either one way or an other and forasmuch as diverse who are not willing to be catalogued amongst them do yet in this fight under their banners I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce something in proof of it 1 We have the Testimony of the Scripture that Reason without auxiliary beams can never discern Spiritual things Spiritually The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Natural man we are neither to understand the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the babe the Infirm the Weak For though such be often unskilfull in the Word of Righteousness neither able to frame due conceptions of the mysteries of the Gospel nor throughly disposed to a due savouring of them nor fully capable of improving them to all the holy ends and in all the usefull deductions and inferences to which they are designed and to which they are admirably accommodated Yet the things of the Spirit of God are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolishness to them Nor are we by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to understand only the Sensual man or one that is wholly sunk into the Animal Life and enslaved to the satisfaction of his corrupt appetites and inordinate fleshly desires seeing the natural man in this place is directly opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spiritual or regenerate man and to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wise and the Scribe to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Disputer and the Princes of this World qui dominabantur in scholis Who bare sway rule in the Schools But by the Natural man we are to understand the meer Rational man even him that doth most excolere animam Cultivate his Intellectuals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the person endowed with meer humane Wisedom as the Greek Scholiast says Now what is affirmed concerning this Souly man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither can he know them There is not only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dimsightedness but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an impotency through a disproportion in his faculty with respect to them They are seen in another light than he is endowed with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are spiritually discerned They are known only by a divine irradiation and conquering sun-beam of the Spirit of life upon the mind And therefore God is said to shine into our hearts to give the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 light i. e. the clear and evident manifestation of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 2. We have the attestation of Reason which tells us that nothing is well known but by that which hath a just analogy to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every thing is best understood by that which bears a resemblance of it Things of sense and life are only known by vital Sentient Faculties Vegetables do not admit every particle that comes to nourish them but only such as bear a proportion to their own pores Where there is not a congruity betwixt the Subject and the Object the Object can never be discerned in its true light As the eye cannot behold the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it have some resemblance of the Sun in it self no more can any Man understand the things of God in a due manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless he be made to partake of of the Divine Image Every thing acts in a way consimilar to its own Nature and therefore let the Objects be never so spiritual the natural man can never know them in a way analogous to them i. e. spiritually but only in a natural way that alone being homogeneous to himself We are told in philosophy that quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis every thing is received in a way agreeable to that which receiveth it And therefore where there is nothing but a natural Mind it can act no otherwise than in a Natural way In a word without a vital alliance cognation to Spiritual things we can never understand them in a Spiritual saving Manner I take these two here in an aequipollent sense without medling with the question whether there be no difference betwixt knowing Gospel truths in a Spiritual manner and the knowing them in a Saving 3 If we be in the alone Virtue of our Rational Faculties adapted to a due discerning the things of the Spirit of God and that i◠their proper light I see no reason why an unregenerate man should be more stiled blind in reference to the Word of God than in reference to Euclids Elements or Aristotles Organon Nor indeed why he should be esteemed so inept for that as for these I might add in the fourth place that according to the
from all coaction and necessitation by the influence of any Principle forreign to it Now all these are impossible to Matter because That acts always according to the swing of Irresistible Motion nor can it be courted and solicited to Rest when under the forcible Impulse of a stronger Movent 3dly The Immortality of the Soul is plainly demonstrated from the Attributes of God and his Government of the World Without the supposition of a Future State there is no preserving the Authority of God from contempt no due means provided for the preventing men from gainful sins or the encouraging of them to hazardous Duties And accordingly there have been few in the World who have believed a Providence but they have likewise asserted the Immortality of the Soul these two being inseparably connected While we contemplate the state of things in the World we find Prosperity for the most part attending Vice and Misery the Companion of Virtue Good men are usually accompanied with Crosses and have the least proportion of present things while Bad men are often glutted with success and swim in pleasures Now if there were not an Immortal state where both the Virtue of the Good might be compensated and they receive comfort for their Sufferings and the Vice of the Bad might be punished and they receive Vengeance for their Crimes both the Wisdom and Goodness as well as Justice of the Rector of the World would be lyable to censure and Impeachment Yea it seems the better of the two wholly to deny the Providence of God than to think that he should administer humane affairs with so much irregularity and injustice In a word there is nothing can administer a satisfactory resolution in reference to the present dispensation of things in the World but a firm persuasion of the Immortality of the Soul and the Certainty of a Future state Judgments inflicted on Sinners in this life cannot fully clear the Righteousness of God because the best of men are as well involved in them as the worst yea it is but now and then that the greatest Criminals are made as remarkable in their punishments as they have been in their lives Besides an Infinite Eternal God is the Object of Wicked mens contempt and it s his Law who lives for ever whose Authority they despise nor can any punishment be proportionable but what is Eternal also 4ly That inbred desire which is in all men after Immortality argues that there is such really provided for the satisfying this Natural and Universal appetite For 't is not to be Imagined that Nature should furnish us with longings when there is nothing that may content them To have such desires wrought into the complexion and constitution of our Souls were there provision made of nothing that might answer them would not only reflect upon the Wisdom of our Maker who hath produced us with these longings of which there is no use but his Mercy Goodness and Justice also in implanting those Appetites in us which serve at once to abuse and torment us And this leads me to the other particular which I promised to discourse namely the Certainty of Divine Providence This is one of the Truths also which besides the attestation given to it in the Scripture hath evidence enough in the Light of Nature I confess that if we take our Measures in this Matter from the sentiments of the Wisest Heathen we should be ready to think there is no foundation in Reason to convince us otherwise but that all things go at Random It was not the opinion of Epicurus alone but of many others that the Gods concerned not themselves in sublunary affairs Nor did the Poets only discharge God from the Government of the World but their very Moral Philosophers did the same Horaces Deos didici securum agere aevum And Lucans Nunquam se cura Deorum Sic premit ut vestrae vitae vestraeque saluti Fata vacent Are not worse than Plinies Irridendum curam agere rerum humanarum illud quicquid est summum and Senecaes Deus nihil agit nec illum magis beneficia quam injuriae tangunt Even many of them that owned some kind of providence either confined it to Heaven holding it Unsuitable to His Glorious Nature to concern himself about frail and visible things but that he governs them by subordinate Causes as the Grand Seigniour doth his Provinces by his Bashaws Lieutenants or they limited it to effects which depend on a concatenation of Natural Causes to which they are ligu'd by trains and connexions excluding God in the mean time from any Care of Contingent Events or Administration about the Understandings and Wills of Men or lastly they bound it up to Universals and Generals allowing it little or no interposure about particulars and singulars And this seems to have been the opinion of the Author of the Book de Mundo who whether it was Aristotle or Philo or any other is not material The reasons that prevailed with them to question yea deny the providence of God were 1st That 't is beneath and unbecoming the perfections of God and an interruption of his Felicity to concern himself in the affairs of the sublunary World and to distract himself with the cares of it But this is 1. Rather to describe some effeminate Prince than the Deity And 2. It proceeds upon a Foolish mistake an unworthy supposition namely that it is pain and trouble to God to govern the World which none can imagine but they who are ignorant of his Attributes and Being Whatever God can do he does it without trouble to his Infinite perfections Nor 3. Is the Happiness of God more impeached in Governing the World than in making of it If without molestation to Himself he could produce it at first he can without encumbrance Rule it still The 2d Motive that sway'd them to doubt the Providence of God was the Impunity of Wicked Men. But in this they concluded as Illogically as in the former God 1. may have aims in the prosperity of Criminals that we are not aware of and therefore we ought not to reflect on his dispensations when we know not the grounds of them He hereby testifies that severity is not the inclination of his Nature but that punishments are extorted from him He hereby also allows offenders time as well as Inducements to Repentance He also herein sets us a pattern of mercy and forbearance and teacheth us Meekness and Lenity by his own Bounty and Patience He withal gives assurance to the World by this of a future judgment The Prosperity of the Wicked here is a pledge of their punishment hereafter 2. Bad men are not so happy as they are commonly imagined to be How can they be reckoned happy who have nothing succeeding according to their Scope and Meaning Every man intends well to himself but it is the perpetual infelicity of the Wicked that they never reach the mark they aime at For by doing ill they
controlled in nothing we say or do c. were ever intended for the Felicity of an Intellectual and Rational Being The Soul of a Brute would have served all the Ends that some men propound to themselves but surely the bestowing of an Immortal Spirit on us ought to instruct us that Blessedness consists in something else than Gauds Trifles Grandeur Airy Titles and the like And he who cannot want these things without thinking himself Miserable at once reproacheth his Maker as if he had Created him for nothing more worthy and degrades and dishonours himself by intimating that such gratifications are suitable to Him 6. The advantages which Good men receive by afflictions do amply compensate their feeling of them They hereby both discern their sincerity themselves and discover it to others Nor is it easie to imagine the satisfaction that the Consciousness of a constant sincerity ministers to a Soul To find that we love God notwithstanding the narrow allowance he affords us is a more soveraign Cordial to the Mind that would approve its self to God than the flushest enjoyment of sublunary things can yield Their Adversity also gives them either relief in Mortifying those Corruptions which endanger them or in exercising those Graces which glorifie God And who dare reproach the Wisdom or Goodness of God for disposing things in such a manner as may turn not only most to his own Honour but our advantage Storms and Frosts are as Useful to the Universe as serene and clear weather Nor are Sugar and Honey more necessary than Salt and Brine are If after all this there remain Inexplicables in the works of Providence 't is no more than what we daily meet with in the Works of Creation Nor must a finite Understanding hope to comprehend the Methods of an Infinite God And the future state will set all that straight which we now judge Crooked Having vindicated the Providence of God from those Objections which seem to affront it my next task is to suggest those Arguments which Reason abstracting from all Revelation can muster to attest it 1 Were there not an Omnipotent Power and an Omniscient skill to restrain and govern the quarrelsome Spirits that are in the World it would soon sink under the bottom of its own Confusion This the Heathen intimated in the Fable of Phaethon who being admitted to drive the Chariot of the Sun but for one day burnt both himself and it together It was well said by the Stoick that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not worth the while to live in a World empty of God and Providence Nay it were the greatest unhappiness imaginable to be brought forth into the World to be perpetually tossed up and down by blind Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were not a Providence there could be no Order in the World And as another Philosopher saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were no Supreme Orderer whence comes order to be in the World 2. Preclude Providence we remove one of the greatest foundations of venerating the Diety 'T is not a persuasion of the Excellency of his Nature that can engage us to a hearty Adoration of Him if we once discharge him from all concernment in us and our affairs Though there be the like Eminency of Dignity in the French King as in the King of Great Brittain yet we have a greater reverence for the one than the other because the one protects us which the other doth not Nor can we well believe the Divine Nature to be excellent should we assert it devoid of Goodness which is the greatest perfection much less will it be easie to honour him for a God whose Felicity we judge to consist in Idleness We find our selves capable of yea endowed with the affections of Fear and Love and God is an Object most adapted for them but seclude him from the administration of the World and there is no Foundation left for the begetting and maintaining either the one or the other in the hearts of men towards him For if he regard not what we do instead of having provided due means for our fearing and loving of him he hath left us under an unavoidable temptation of acting towards with him with slight and contempt 3 If there be no Providence there is not the least ground for addresses to God out of hope of assistance or the thanking him for the benefits we partake of and yet the chief of natural Religion consists in these Who would pray to God to be delivered when in straits or praise him when he hath scaped his entanglements if God no ways interest himself in us and our affairs 4 If God govern not the world it is either because he Cannot or because he will not to say the first is to represent him contemptible for his Weakness and besides he that made the World cannot be supposed unable to Rule it to affirm the Second is to bestow Omnipotencie upon Him in vain and to impeach every one of his perfections because of a faileur in their most natural and agreeable effects 5 God is Soveraign of the World and therefore he must needs Govern it Through all things being the products of His will and Power he hath an incontestable Dominion over them Now we cannot fasten a greater reproach upon a Soveraign than that he throws off all the Care and Gubernation of his Subjects 6 We see effects in the World which could proceed from no cause but God and discoveries made to it which he alone can reveal and by consequence he hath not wholly withdrawn himself from the Rectorship of it 7 He must needs Rule the World who hath given it Laws for Law is the Relative of government and that he hath given it Laws the inbred Notions which we have of Good and Evil the Fears and hopes that haunt us do abundantly demonstrate These he hath woven into the composition of our Natures and by these order is maintained in the World Now 't is the greatest affront that can be offered to Reason to think that God should make use of a Fiction to preserve Truth Justice and Righteousness amongst mankind or that he should keep up the Respect of himself by falsehood and Deceit Thus by singling out one or two Truths that have evidence given to them in the Light of Nature as well as in Revelation we have shewn what belongs to Reason about all Doctrines of this Genius and complexion § 13. The next concernment of Reason in about Religion is to defend the whole of it from the Clamours and Objections of gainsayers For as Bisterfield says Though they who reject arguments levied from Reason against the Mysteries of Religion act modestly yet they do not throughly serve the interest nor hereby deserve well of the Cause of Truth which they own and profess 'T is true that the Authority of Divine Testimony is enough to warrant our Faith whatever Objections lye against the thing so testified
faileur in one of these both most of the Arguments against the Doctrine of the Trinity and for Communication of Omnipresence to the Humane Nature of Christ because it agrees to the Person of the son of God not to instance in more particulars may be easily avoided and answered 2 by shewing that if it be an universal and true Maxime of Reason that the Objection is grounded on how that there is not any thing in Revelation that doth contradict it There is an excellent Harmony betwixt Truth and Truth and though they be distinct and different yet they are not contrary and repugnant the one to the other They who reject Gospel Mysteries on supposition of a Repugnancy they lye in to Reason have not been able to this day to justifie their Charge 'T is true the more we adventure too neerly to look into them the more we find our selves dazled with their Fulgor but yet we find no thing in them that implye's a Contradiction to our Faculties or that is repugnant to the Nature and Attributes of God Nor is there any one Argument produced to this day in proof of the repugnancy of the Mysteries of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God his satisfying Divine Justice in the Room and behalf of Sinners the Eternal Decrees c. Which hath not received an answer and the Authors of it been shamefully baffled § 14. Having unfolded the Interest and concernment of Reason in and about Religion it will be necessary ere we shut up this Discourse more particularly to state and fix the Bounds betwixt these two and to offer some Measures by which Reason may have allotted all that belongs to it and yet nothing in the mean time be detracted from Faith First then Reason is the Negative Measure in Matters of Religion Nothing contradictory to right Reason is to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith What Right Reason say's cannot be done we must not father it upon God to do If Reason be objected against any Scripture Testimony how plausible and subtile soever it seems yet Right Reason it cannot be but only deceives through an Unbrage and shew of it And if Scripture Authority be urged against an undoubted and evident Principle of Reason he that doth so presseth not the true meaning of the Scripture for that he doth not reach but only imposeth his own Sense and urgeth what himself phancieth to be there instead of what indeed is so saith Austin These two lights though different yet they do not destroy one another God is the Author of natural as well as Supernatural Light nor can he bely himself We have no greater Certainty than that of our Faculties for by that alone are we inabled to discern a Divine Revelation from Humane or Diabolical Delusions Should God reveal such Doctrines as contradict Natural Truths and Principles of Right Reason He would thereby eradicate what himself hath planted in our Souls The Law of Reason being the first declaration of the Will of God originally annexed to and communicated with our Natures 't is not to be imagined that by any after declaration he should thwart his first Besides all Revelation is to instruct us in a reasonable though supernatural way and therefore though in many things it may exceed our Reason fully to comprehend it yet in all things it must be consistent with our Reasons To admit Religion to contain any Dogm's Repugnant to Right Reason is at once to tempt Men to look upon all Revelation as a Romance or rather as the invention of distracted men withall to open a Door for filling the World with figments and lyes under the palliation of Divine Mysteries We cannot gratifie the Atheist and Infidel more than to tell them that the prime Articles of our Belief imply a contradiction to our Faculties In a word this Hypothesis were it received would make us renounce Man espouse Brute in matters of the chiefest greatest concernment for without debasing our selves into a lower species we cannot embrace any thing that is formally impossible Nothing but mens entertaining opinions which they cannot defend from being absurd and irrational could have sway'd them to reproach Reason in the manner they do but they do only decline the weapons they are sure to be wounded by When men have filled Religion with Opinions that are contrary to common Sense and Natural Light they are forced to introduce a suitable Faith namely such a one that commends it self from believing Doctrines repugnant to the evidence and principles of both And thus under a respect that is pleaded to be due to sacred Mysteries do the wildest fancies take Sanctuary And meerly out of fear of violating that regard which ought to be paid to Objects of Faith we must believe that to be true which the Universal Reason of Man-kind gives the lye to Thus the first Hereticks that troubled the Christian Church under pretence of teaching Mysteries overthrew common sense and did violence to the Universal Uniform and perpetual Light of Mankind Some of them having taught that all Creatures are naturally Evil Others of them having established two Soveraign Gods one Good and another Bad Others having affirmed the Soul to be a part of the Divine Substance not to mention a thousand falsities more all these they defended against the assaults of the Orthodox by pretending that they were Mysteries about which Reason was not to be hearkened to Thus do others to this day who being resolved to obtrude their fancies upon the World and being neither able to prove nor defend what they say they pretend the Spirit of God to be the Author of all their Theorem's Nor can I assign a better reason for the antipathy of the Turks to Philosophy than that it overthrows the follies and absurdities of their Religion This themselves confess by devoting Almansor to the vengeance of Heaven because he hath weakned the Faith of Mussul-men in the Alcoran through introducing Learning and Philosophy amongst them There is no Combating of the Valentinians Marcionites Eutychians and others but by shewing the repugnance of their Opinions to first principles of Reason We do not make Natural Light the positive Measure of things Divine do only allow it a Negative voyce We place it not in the Chair in Councels of Faith but do only permit it to keep the door and hinder the entring of Contradictions and Irrational Fancies disguised under the Name of Sacred Mysteries This I thought fit to propose in the first place and have the more largely insisted on it because of its serviceableness against the Corporal presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the ubiquity of Christs Body and divers other Articles both of the Romane and Lutheran Creeds What the Universal Reason of Man-kind tells us is finite commensurable and impenetrable c. they would have us believe it to be Infinite Immense and subject to penetration The great Article of the Roman Faith viz. Transubstantiation must needs be
And as there are many other Things Actions and Events which then were and fell out related in the Scripture which have no solemn Instituted signification affixed to them but are to be interpreted in reference to what they primarily declare yet so as that many of them seem to have had a Providential Ordination to prefigure something that was afterwards to come to pass So there are many other things related to have fallen out then which though they neither were in the solemn Institution of God nor yet in his Providential Ordination designed to prefigure any thing referring to the Kingdom of Christ are yet meet to illustrate things and events now because of an Analogy and Similitude between what then was and what now is Nor is the applying of a Text to things Actions and Events which have some Similitude with those it originally referred to to be reckoned for an Allegorising of Scripture being only an accommodation of it to our Instruction The Old Testament-Church is proposed in matter of Obedience and Rewards Sins and Punishments as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or example to us 1 Cor. 10.6 11. and therefore what befell them may without the hazard of Allegorising the Scripture be accommodated and applyed to illustrate present events And indeed the Holy Ghost hath besides General Rules such as that Rom. 15.3 left us particular Instances of accommodating Scripture-Texts Passages and Phrases to Things and Events which they neither were in a Proper nor Mystical sense designed Originally to signifie See among many others Matth. 15.8 compared with Isa. 29.13 Matth. 13.14 15. compared Isa. 6.9 10. Rev. 11.4 compared with Zach. 4.3 11 12 13 14. Nor in this the affixing any new sense to the Words but the applying and accomoding their sense to Doctrine Reproof Correction Instruction in Righteousness § 4. Having declared the Nature of Metaphors and the difference between them and other Schem's and Forms of speech with which they seem to have some Cognation and Affinity we are next to inquire into the frequent usage of Metaphors in the scripture with the reasons and grounds of it Metaphors whether founded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a bare and single Similitude where one thing is misnamed by another because of their agreement in some one adjunct affection or property or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where there is a correspondency between plurality of things in an Analogy of Adjuncts Properties are of frequent usurpation in the sacred Scripture as well as in Prophane Authors They are too many to be recounted the Bible being every where adorned and bespangled with them Under Metaphors are comprehended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which Humane Parts Members Affections Actions and such things as belong to men are ascribed to God In such forms of Speech God by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Condescension declares the Infinite Properties of his Nature his Everlasting Counsels with the Mysteries of his Providence in Terms adapted to our capacities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he deciphers what himself is and doth by things that fall under our Apprehension And what is thus said of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of men must be understood of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a way suitable to the divine Nature and Majesty In most Anthropopathies besides a Metaphor there is also a Metonymie For as to attribute Members to God who hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Immaterial and Incorporeal Nature and to ascribe Passions either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irascible or Concupiscible to him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desiring nothing for supply being Infinitely full nor lyable to any Commotion or Perturbation being Holy and Unchangeable must necessarily imply a Metaphor So Hands and Arms being attributed to God to import Power and Strength Eyes his exact Knowledg and exact watchfull Providence Repentance a change only in his Providential dispensations Fear his care in preventing the destruction of his people c. include an easie a Metonymie God in the Revelation of his mind to us in the Scripture hath made use of Metaphors drawn from all the Phaenomena of the Creation and from all the several properties and operations of the several species of Creatures There is not that kind of Metaphor in Rhetorick whereof we have not some example or other in the sacred Writ The Reasons why he who doth all things according to Infinite Sapience hath in the declaration of himself and Will to the Sons of Men so frequently adopted Metaphorical Terms to manifest them in and by are Various I shall only mention such as are most obvious and which lye within the line of every ordinary mans perception 1. He doth it to Inform us how the Material World and the Invisible do correspond together in Analogies and proportions with respect to the Nature and properties of the things contained in the one and the other Not only the Jewish Rabbies have a saying that the Works of the Outward Creation carry in them the Image or resemblance of the Inward but the Platonists say That God hath set the same Seal or Stamp upon different matters i. e. he hath fram'd and contrived the Terrene World with a kind of subservient conformity to the World of Invisible things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sensible forms are Images of Intellectual things was a Pythagorean Maxim upon which they founded their Symbolick mode of Philosophising The several Creatures are so many Looking-glasses where God hath communicated and scattered some resemblances of himself and Invisible Things and Metaphors are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Academy where Nature strips and unvails her self By Converse with and knowledge of the Natures and Properties of sensible things we are the better inabled to conceive and apprehend spiritual things when apparelled in earthly resemblances 2. May be God in his frequent usage of Metaphorick Terms intended it in part as an accommodation of himself to the Custom and Mode of the Jewish and other Oriental Nations who in making known their conceptions of things one to another were much addicted to a Symbolick way Though the Bible was written so as that no Person of whatever Nation or Age might be debarred the Understanding of it yet in its texture and stile there was a regard primarily had to those to whom the several parts of it were first addressed Now it is beyond all contradiction that their usual Mode of Discourse was Abrupt Figurative and Symbolick and therefore if more Metaphors should appear to occurr in the Scripture than do well agree with Western Eloquence though indeed it be otherwise yet they might excellently suit the Genious of those Ages it was written for and the people it was first directed to and designed to work upon That the Eastern Nations not only heretofore had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Symbolick way of teaching but that even to this day those of them who affect to speak
of Discretion in an ordinary Authour to accommodate himself to the Capacities of all to whom he speaks or writes and not to oblige himself meerly to suit and please the Sons of Art how much more doth it become the Wisdom of God that seeing he designed the Scripture for the Universal Instruction of Mankind so to adapt and dispose the phraseology of it as that all might be edifyed by it Now in reference to the Vulgus who scarce understand any thing but in proportion to their senses and in dependence on Material Phantasms what Method can be more likely to affect their Minds with and raise them unto Spiritual things than to have them proposed under the Names and illustrated by the properties and operations of those things with whose Natures and Affections they are so well acquainted Much of every mans Knowledg begins at his Senses and Reason inoculates and superstructs upon them especially they of weaker Intellects need the relief of sensible Adumbrations in the conduct of their Minds to Spiritual and Heavenly things Accordingly therefore hath God disposed the Revelation of the Counsels of his Will in the Scripture yet with that provision and caution that by a very ordinary attendance and care we may see Spiritual things to be intended and designed and that our are not to be arrested by those sensible representations Hence we have not only a wonderful Variation gâ—ven to one and the same proposition and the same thing manifested and inculcated under different Forms of speech but besides in those very places where the Deep Things of God are most brought down to our senses there is enough either in the Nature of the Thing spoken of or in the scope of the Speaker or in the Context to assure us that there is only a Metaphor Similitude or Allegory in the expression For indeed there can be no Corporeal Images of Spiritual Things only by considering the properties and affections c. of things Material to which they are compared we are guided the better to understand and know their Spiritual Nature § 5. Having unfolded the Nature of Metaphors and enquired into the Reasons of the frequent usage of Metaphorical Terms in the Scripture we are next to state when an expression is to be accounted Metaphorical that so we may neither mistake proper expressions for Figurative nor substitute a Figure where there is none We have already intimated § 2. that 't is the humour of some in order to serving a design and ministring to an Hypothesis to transform the plainest Truths into Metaphors and thereby to pervert the Scripture from its true sense to a befriending their prepossessions prejudices Allow but men the liberty of supposing Metaphors where their lusts and forestallments influence them to such Imaginations there is not that Gospel-Truth whâ—ch may not be supplanted notwithstanding the plainest testimony given to it in the Bible If men may be permitted to forsake the Natural and Genuine sense of words where the Matter is capable of it they may notwithstanding their declaring themselves to believe the Gospel yet believe nothing at all of the Christian Faith Two things therefore are carefully to be attended to in the Interpretation of Scripture 1. That we impose not a proper sense where the words ought to be taken in a Tropical Figurative Metaphorick or Allegorick one Numerous Instances may be assigned how the Scripture hath been perverted from its true Intendment by the usurping words in a proper sense where a Metaphorical or Allegorick ought only to be allowed Thus the Anthropomorphites of old and some Socinians of late for all of them have not thought so contemptibly of the Deity by taking those texts which attribute Humane Members to God in a proper sense have fancied him to be Corporeal have ascribed a Material Humane shape to Him whereas the meaning of such places is only to affirm those perfections of God which such Members in us are the Instruments of Corporeity is repugnant to the Divine Nature inconsistent with the Common Notions of mankind concerning Him and contradictious to what the Scripture in other places reveales of his Essence and perfections so that the Attributing Bodily Members to him must be construed as so many Metaphors declaring only such Attributes and Operations to belong to Him as those Organs and Members in us denote and are the apparatus and instruments of Thus also the Jews writing the precepts of the Law on their Frontlets and Phylacteries took its rise from affixing a proper meaning to Exodus 13.16 Deut 6.8 whereas indeed the words are Metaphorical do only intimate that they were to have the Law in Continual remembrance Not but that I acknowledg locks or fringes fastned to the skirts of their Garments as a badg of that Subjection and Reverence they were to abide in towards God and his Law and that they were not to wander after false worship to have been enjoyned them but that the Ten Commandments or any thing else were to be written upon them I read not and do Apprehend that Custom to have derived its Original from the mistake already suggested In like manner their Imagining Isa 19.18 19 20. to be intended in a proper sense gave occasion to Onias's building a Temple resembling that of Hierusalem in Egypt at least was pleaded in justification of it Whereas the import of the place is only to declare the Gentiles admission into the Church and that they were to have a share in the Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel which the Prophet predicts and describes in Terms and Phrases adapted to the O. T. Oeconomy and dispensation I may here add that all the Jewish mistakes in reference to the Messiah as if he to be a Triumphant King subduing the Earth by the terrour of his Legions and to conferâ— on them all Terrene Pomp Magnificence c. did arise principally from obtruding a proper sense upon some of those Prophesies which relate to the Kingdom of the Messiah whereas in Truth their Phraseology is wholly Metaphorick God chusing by words which properly denote and import Things Terrene and Temporal to instruct us concerning the Spiritual Benefits that we should be made partakers of by and through the Messiah The imposing a proper sense upon words which Christ intended only in a Metaphorical gave rise to one of the Articles of Indictment which the Scribes and Pharisees preferred against him see Joh. 2.19 compared with Mark 14.58 T is true they withall altered his words for whereas Christ had only said Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up The false witnesses deposed that they heard him say I will destroy this Temple c. but yet their main prevarication and that without which the other alteration could have no wayes served their design was their construing his words in a proper sense as referring to the Temple at Jerusalem whereas he designed them only in a Metaphorical to denote his Body
the thing whereof we conceive the former to have been only a Figure To paraphrase Metaphors in Metaphorick terms is instead of making them Intelligible to continue them dark and Mysterious For as we are not to terminate in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Images themselves but to penetrate into the things couched under and represented by them so much less is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mimetick Phancy in our commenting on them to be indulged In a word it is the work of a Judicious Interpreter to bring forth and declare the scope and matter of all such Phrases in the most plain and easy expressions Now in order to the arriving at true notions conceptions of those divine and Spiritual things which are lock't up under Metaphorick Terms we ought 1 in some considerable degree to understand the Nature and properties of the things from which the Metaphor is taken For Metaphorick Terms signifying one thing and being only applyed to shadow forth another by reason of some resemblance between them we are wholly inept to declare the Heavenly Truth that such Forms of Speech are adapted have a tendency to instruct us in while we remain ignorant of the things which those Words originally and immediately import And seeing the Scripture expresseth somewhat of Religion by all the parts of the Creation by the Imployments very utensils of Humane life and by the usages and customs of Mankind Metaphors are not a subject for any undertaker to exercise upon who hath not more than a tincture of knowledg in all those Though to understand the Bible well be enough to promote Faith and Good life yet to understand some passages of it well a great many other things must be first understood It cannot otherwise be but that to persons ignorant of natural Philosophy Agriculture c. as well as unacquainted with the customes and usages of the Oriental Nations many Texts will seem obscure which are not at all so to such as are imbued with true Ideas of the Natures and properties of things and enriched with a knowledge of Arts and the Customes of the World A luxurious Fancy will be apt to frame very wild and absurd Notions out of Metaphors if the Understanding be not furnished with a knowledg of the qualities operations and use of those things from which they are drawn A familiarity therefore with the works of God as it will oblige us humbly to adore the Mysteries of the Word which we cannot fathom through finding our selves non-plus't in the most obvious phaenomena of Nature so it will exceedingly contribute to our understanding many passages in Scrâ—pture of which we must otherwise either continue wholly ignorant or judg of them according to the suggestions of Imagination I may add that when a word or Term is borrowed from any Art Science or Discipline and metaphorically applied to illustrate some mystery of Faith or the mode of its Existence the genius and value of the word with respect to its usage in the Discipline whence it is transferred is carefully to be observed How expedient and necessary upon this account an acquaintance with the civil-Law is in order to the fixing the importance of divers Scripture-phrases such as Adoption Surety Earnest c. were easie to Demonstrate 2. There being diverse Metaphorical expressions in the Scripture the meaning of which is not to be arrived at by meer recourse to the immediate signification of the words and Terms as bearing rather upon the things which the Eastern Nations in their symbolical representation of matters applied them to It will therefore be needful to know the meaning of many of the Oriental Symbols and what things and events because of some similitude between the Symbols themselves and the things and events they stood for they represented by them For as there are many Prophetick passages both in the old and new Testament which are not strictly Metaphorick that cannot otherwise be understood So there are many Metaphorick expressions in the Scripture of whose meaning we can have no assurance but by knowing something of the use and import of the Symbols of the Ancients 3 The same Terms according as they are metaphorically applyed to different subjects importing often different things their signification must be stated by considering the subject they are applyed to Through the different Affections Properties Adjuncts and Effects that appertain to things which Words originally and properly manifest and denote it frequently falls out that things hugely opposite are resembled to them and stiled by their Names Now in this case the quality of the Subject Metaphorically denoted by such a Term can alone determine the resemblance which intercede's between the thing originally and immediately signified and the thing to which it is Tropically applyed I should be too tedious did I undertake to enumerate the several Words that with respect to the various properties or effects of the things which they properly signifie are applied metaphorically to represent not only things different but opposite some of them in a good sense in Analogy to one property or effect and others in an evil in Analogy to another 4 Great care is required that when diverse properties and affections of things Originally signified by Terms and Words may without injury to Truth be in Way of similitude applyed to the Things which those Terms are Metaphorically brought to illustrate that the comparison and Resemblance be not carried beyond what the Holy Ghost doth there peculiarly design We ought not only to take heed that we hurry not a Metaphor beyond the precincts of Truth but that we drive it not beyond the limits which the place where it is used and the end of the Speaker confine it to 'T is not enough that we do not trespass against the Analogy of Faith in the application of a Metaphor but it is also requisite that we exceed not the Intention of the sacred Writer in that very place There is in all Metaphorical expressions some one Property Affection Operation or other wherein the proportion and resemblance between the things immediately signified by the Words and the things which they are brought to manifest and illustrate doth peculiarly consist and this the nature of the Discourse the Context and speakers scope must determine us in Want of due attendance to this may occasion a prevaricating from the sense of the place where yet there may be an Harmony maintained in reference to the universal System of the Scripture A failure in this if in any thing relating to the subject before us is that which hath ministred occasion for the clamours of partial and angry men But that others besides some of the Non-Conformists are guilty of it were easy to set beyond all exception did I love to expose the Wisdom and discretion of any as some do Yea 't is not so easy to fasten a just imputation upon any in this matter as some are prone to imagine For besides that fecundity of sense
railed into silence yet this is not reconcileable to the Wisdom to omit the Zeal which we are willing to believe them to be endowed with For besides that the Trust reposed in them is not answered by their looking on so long 't is more than likely that if the minds of men come once to be tinctured with these Notions an interposure then will be like the applying a remedy when the Disease is incurable Unhappy Principles when once throughly imbib'd are not found so easy for men to devest themselves of Though persons esteem it no reflection upon their Parts nor disparagement to their Understandings to change their Opinions once especially if they obtained our Belief before we were in a capacity to examine them yet few are willing to proclaim their Weakness so far as to change their Judgments often particularly when the things again to be receded from did not solicite their Faith till they were of age and thought them selves of ability to enquire into them And if an implicite apprehension of the Concurrence of our chief Doctors collected from their Silence should be found to have influenced any to submit to these Notions beyond what the glosses with which their Authors varnish't them could do their declining so long to declare themselves is yet worse to be accounted for § 2. But waving the Interest of the Church of England in those Truths which our Author manageth an opposition to and Her Concernment more than Ours to appear in the Defence and Vindication of them from the rude and bold though weak assaults of Mr. Sherlock I shall rather enquire into what seems more especially to have given Birth to our Adversaries Notion of the Union of Believers with Christ and to have influenced him to denounce War against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter And not to insist upon what our Author is pleased to alledg as the Reason of it whereof cha 1. sect 2. seeing I do rather judg That a pretext than the true Motive It seems to me to derive its spring higher and to own its self to another Opinion espoused by some of our late Writers which however artificially glossed doth indeed damm up all the sources of Grace and Holiness and is no way defensible but by renouncing all Immediate Union betwixt Believers and Christ and disclaiming Him from being a Head of influence to any In brief then the Root and Stem from which our Authors Opinion in this matter hath shot forth and sprung is this namely That there is no infused Principle of Grace communicated to us from Christ as our Life and Head by the efficacious operation of the Spirit but that whatsoever is so stiled in vulgar Talk is only the result of our natural Abilities assisted and seconded by the Moral influences of the Gospel That Mr. Sherlock is throughly baptized into thâ—s Pelagian and Socinian Principle though he may sometimes mask himself in declaring it I shall endeavour to Demonstrate by presenting the Reader with some passages which occur in his Book When Dr. Owen had upon a certain occasion said That the Humane Nature of Christ if it could be conceived as separated from the Deity could afford no spiritual supply but only in a Moral way our Author is pleased to reply in way of Sarcasm and Irony that That is a very pittiful way indeed intimating in effect that there is no other way by which supplyes of Grace are communicated to us Nor doth he only Railly upon the foresaid Learned Person for styling Christ the Fountain of all Grace p. 213. but he plainly tells us that by Grace for Grace which we are said to receive out of Christs fulness there is no more to be understood but onely a clear and perspicuous Revelation of the Divine Will in the Gospel because it proclaims so many excellent Promises A gloss evidently borrowed from Socinus Schlichtingius and others of that Tribe which I thought fit to intimate not only to prevent his glorying in another mans line but that the world may know what copy he useth sometimes to write after Hence it is that he will have Christ to be styled our Life only because he hath preached the Word of Life and declared the true and only way to Life and Happiness And because he hath Power and Authority to bestow Immortal Life upon all his sincere followers Of kin and affinity to these is his affirming God to have by various ways attempted the recovery of mankind but with little success till at last he sent his Son into the World who by more plainly publishing the Word of Life and by his more easy directions and nobler Promises reformed the World after that long and sad experience had proved all those Ways ineffectual which the Divine Goodness out of a restless Zeal and concernment for the recovery of Mankind had fallen upon Hence not only the Methods of Divine Grace are denyed to consist in the production of any new Principles by an omnipotent irresistible Power But the asserting a necessity of infused Principles to regenerate our Natures relieve our Weakness and adapt us to live to God is represented by our Author a making us to be Acted like Machines by the Irresistible Power of the Grace and Spirit of God And to declare us passive in the reception of the first Grace is said to render all the Rules and Directions prescribed us by God vain and foolish P. 354. I purpose not here to discourse the nature of Regeneration nor the consistency of Efficacious Grace with humane Liberty nor how the producing Faith in us by a power infallible in its Effects and which is never actually defeated is so far from being subversive of our Rational Freedom that it promotes as well as preserves it Nor shall I urge how if Regeneration be nothing but the result of the exertion of our Faculties through an-application of Gospel-Precepts and Promises to our minds for influence and conduct that the Holy Ghost hath not only suggested things ordinary and obvious to us under an Embarass of lofty Hyperbolical and swelling words but instead of enlightning us in the Nature of the work of Conversion beyond what the Phlosophers have done he hath only envelopt it in thick Darkness and cast it into further obscurity the chief Terms declarative of it in the Scripture if that supposition be once admitted being only Rampant fulsome Metaphorical expressions of Amendment of Life Nor shall I debate what is required of us in way of Duty in order to our Regeneration and how that whatsoever so is exacted as to the Matter and substance of it lyes within the Sphere and Circle of our Natural Abilities As nothing but charming lusts false delusions Carnal Interests foolish prejudices indulging the appetites of the Animal life and attending to the titillations of the flesh can hinder men from the performance of what God in subserviency to his communicating of Grace at
least in his ordinary dispensing of it doth require so the being in the Exercise of those means and in the discharge of those Duties which God prescribes and enjoyn's doth not only take us from and prevent those sins which would render Conversion difficult if not impossible but they are further useful as means appointed and blessed of God unto such an end Though our Obedience hath neither any Physical Efficiency upon our Regeneration nor is Grace bestowed in the Consideration of any previous merit that is in our performances yet t is neither superfluous nor vain much less doth it lye in any repugnancy to our Conversions being only perfected by an Effectuall Subjective Work of the Spirit of God Neither shall I here declare with whom the Opinion of our Author in this matter coincident Though to do him right he is so far from being singular in it that he hath not only the Pelagians Socinians and the Writer of the Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Polity but the doughty Mr. Hobbs for his associates the last of whom I can very well allow to combate Gods Grace having first Listed himself in Opposition to his Being And as these are enough to secure him from the impeachment of Novelty so they may serve him to confront Austin Prosper c. the African Arausican and other Ancient Counsells as well as the Synod of Dort and Generality of Christian Writers with That which upon a most serious and Impartial survey and examination of the foregoing passages I have to offer is that from hence hath proceeded our Authors Notion of the Union betwixt Christ Believers Nor could he in congruity with those principles allow any other kind of Union betwixt them and Him but what is meerly Political or at most Moral Admitting once his premises his Conclusion is Good and Regular And allowing his Antecedent his Consequent is every way Logical nor is there the least Flaw in the coherence However bad and perverse his thoughts be in this Matter yet they are Harmonious and duely Ligu'd one to another Union importing a Relation differs not intrinsecally from the Subject Term and Foundation and therefore answerably to the Nature Genius and Quality of the ground and cause of the Habitude betwixt the Extremes Related must our Notion and Idea of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and respect between the Relate and the Correlate be Other Influences of Christ on Believers besides the giving them Laws attended with promises and threatnings being with Mr. Sherlock absurd and impossible all Union betwixt Christ and them save a Political is therefore to our Author obscure and Unintelligible Ignorance dislike of the Communication of the Spirit from Christ to us whose he is said to be Gal. 4.6 Rom. 8.9 and to be given by Him to be with us and to dwell in us Joh. 14.17 1 Cor. 3.16 together with an opposition and enmity to the Holy-Ghosts producing New Principles in us by a Physical and efficacious Operation though he be said to renew us T it 3.5 Sanctify us 1 Pet. 1.2 and regenerate us Joh. 13.5 6. is indeed the true spring and source of our Authors insurrection against and contempt of any Union betwixt Christ and his people but what is Political Whatever else is pretended 't is but the casting a mist before the eyes of men or rather the Hectoring them out of the Common Belief of the Catholick Church by a Noise Clamour of Riddle Unintelligible Mystery And whereas I intimated Chap. 1. § 2. that 't is mainly because of the Unintelligibleness of the Union commonly pleaded for that Mr. Sherlock renounceth and disclaimeth it my meaning was partly that this is the principal reason w ch he thought fit to alledg and partly that the obscurity which in reference to him 't is envelopt with is from that darkness that be-nights him in relation to the Nature of Regeneration and the indwelling of the Spirit The Immediate Communication of Grace from Christ by a powerful and Unresisted operation of the Holy Ghost being in his Opinion first Unaccountable for thence in the Second place comes all kind of Union betwixt Christ and Believers except a Political and Moral to be Unintelligible The obscurity of the Union contended for might indeed influence him to depart from the received Opinion about it but his Opposition to the Principles from which it results gave the Original rise to that abstruseness which made it an Unintelligible Riddle For otherwise the Notion of an Immediate Union betwixt Christ and Believers is not more Unintelligible on the Foundations which we proceed upon than Mr. Sherlocks Notion of it is on the Hypothesis which he hath erected § 3. One would think that the meaning of the Terms Christ and Believers should be so fully understood and universally agreed on amongst Professors of Religion especially Ministers of the Gospel that to spend time and words in stating and setling the import of them were not only needless but superfluous But through the misrepresentation which some have industriously and with respect to the serving a corrupt design given of their Brethren as to the fixing the import of these words the case is otherwise And therefore 't is necessary before we advance any further to settle and determine the Notion of these Terms as well as of Union and to set restraints upon their significations lest otherwise we be made to accept a sense of them which contradicts our own judgment as well as the Truth Mr. Sherlock in his arraigning the immediate Union of Believers with Christ is pleased to charge those whom upon that occasion he thinks fit to encounter for affirming men to be United to Christ while they continue in their sins and that the Union betwixt Christ and Believers is perfected while men continue as ugly deformed and vitious as may be And having represented our Union with Christ to be perfected we remaining in the mean time unholy he proceeds to inferr Our destroying all the necessary obligations to Holiness for the future Because then the merits and satisfaction of Christ become imputed to us to remove the guilt of sin and to deliver us from the punishment of it and his actual Obedience becomes imputed to us to make us Righteous and to give us an actual right to Glory Whether this account which gives of the Opinion of his Adversaries proceed from his ignorance or insincerity I shall not determine but false and slanderous it is and must accordingly be ascribed either to want of knowledg in these things or neglect of faithfulness in reporting what he knew of their Judgments about them whom he undertakes to oppose Having lost the Divine Image and our Integrity by the Fall we not only contend that there is the efficacy of an external Agent necessary for the recovering it and that he who imprinted the Image of God on Humane Nature in the first Creation of Man must restore it in his Regeneration but we
affirm withal that till the sanctifying Spirit effectually infallibly and by an unresisted Operation transform us into the Divine Nature and communicate to us a vital seed we remain polluted unholy and uncapable of doing any thing with all that dueness of circumstances as may commend us or our performances to Gods acceptance Not but that antecedently to the Holy Ghosts renewing us by a communication of Grace to us we may both Dogmatically believe the Doctrines of the Scripture and be found in a discharge of the material parts not only of natural Duties but of the Acts of Instituted Religion But to say that we ought thereupon to be denominated Holy is to remonstrate to the Scripture in a thousand places and to overthrow the very Tenour and design of the Gospel Now while we remain thus Un-holy we are so far from being actually united to Christ or capable Subjects of Justification and Forgiveness that till we be actually made partakers of the washing of Regeneration and the renuing of the Holy Ghost we cannot possibly have any Union with Him or have a right to Pardon of Sin or any thing that ensues or depends thereupon by Him I know not one amongst the Non-conformists who Affirmeth that wicked Men while They continue such are actually united to Christ and thereby have an actual Right to Pardon and Righteousness and Eternal Life yea that they must be united to Christ if ever they be United while they continue in sin as Mr. Sherlock is pleased without respect either to Modesty or Truth to brand them Nor do I know any Opinion maintained by them that draws such a pernicious Consequence after it But 't is no matter with some if the Deduction be odious and reproachful whether it be Rational and Coherent or not All that we plead for is this that as previously to our Union with Christ we are polluted and Un-holy so by that very Act whereby he Unites us to Himself He infuseth those Principles into us by which our Natures are cleansed and we come to be denominated Holy and Pure The Foundation of our Union and that by w ch we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 6.17 ligu'd and cemented to the Lord is the matter of our inward Purity and the vital Seed and living principle of our following Obedience By the same Act that he assumes us into Union with Himself He transforms our Natures and by having made a Change in the Heart there infallibly follows a Change in the conversation Those very Principles by which we are regenerated are both the Ligaments which Knit and Unite us to him and the springs sources of all our Gospel Obedience 'T is a needless enquiry whether our renovation in order of Nature precede our Union with Christ or whether our Union go before our Renovation seeing in order of Time they are not only inseparable but that which is the New Creature the Seed of God and Divine Nature in us is the very Bond of our Cohesion And as none continuing Un-holy are united to Christ so neither doth our being united to Him Destroy our Obligation to Holiness and Obedience for the future of which Mr. Sherlock foolishly as well invidiously impeacheth it For besides that both the Consideration of Gods distinguishing mercy in the renewing our Natures will be a forcible Motive and Argument to Holiness and the principles already inlaid into our Hearts like a vital Form in the Soul turning it into an universal consent with Gods own Will adapt connaturalise and incline us to it The same Spirit which was the Author of our Regeneration continues both to watch over cherish foster excite and draw forth those principles and habits which he hath already infused into our souls and to communicate such farther supplies as upon our serving his promises God in his Soveraign infinite wisdom in order to his own glory thinks meet These we have described are the persons whose being united to Christ we plead for which I hope neither derives a dishonour upon the person of our Saviour nor offers any contradiction to his Gospel We disclaim being the Patrons and advocates of the Union of any Unholy person while he continues such to Christ Nor is our adversary able by any Rule of Argumentation to infer it from any of our Opinions How far he may be able to prejudice those against us who are led by Noise Clamour and Confidence instead of calm and sedate Reason I know not but amongst persons of a better figure who will not meerly be talkt into a contempt of us who hate us not out of Interest and so regulate their Faith concerning us by their Indignation I defie him a Proselyte I wish Mr. Sherlock were not in this very particular lyable to have that retorted upon himself which he hath as unjustly as invidiously fastened upon us For as I should be sorry that any thing in our own opinion should lye in such an inconsistency to the frame of the Gospel as to entitle Unholy persons to an actual Union with Christ so 't is no pleasure at all to me to find the Doctrine of an Adversary pregnant with consequences subversive of true Holiness But we must take things here as they are and he ought not to be offended to have his own Notions in this Matter modestly exposed having with so much Satyr and Contempt injuriously represented the Opinions of others And first he grants in so many words that in one sense we must be united to Christ before we can be Holy and he gives this reason for it Because the first lowest degree of our Union with Christ is a Belief of his Gospel and the belief of the Gospel being the great principle of Obedience it must needs go before it While Mr. Sherlock impeacheth us as disserving Holiness and Religion by our Notion of Union who yet allow no man to be in Christ who is not a new Creature and that Christ only dwells in us and we in him by the Spirit which he hath given us He is at the same time so unhappy and so little mindful of what he says as not only Consequentially but in Terminis to plead that men must be United to Christ before they can be Holy I know he adds That our Union is not perfected without actual obedience but if to be in Christ signify no more than being members of his visible Church which is made up of Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians as our Author tells us elsewhere I see not but that Union is compleated as well as begun without a Mans being Holy seeing to be united to Christ is no more in its full import than to be in Him Yea as if it had not been enough barely to assert that men whilest they continue in sin may be United to Christ the Scripture must be suborned to countenance it Christ sayes he speaks of such branches in him as bear no fruit and therefore
common Root or Stock though not in the same manner that we are Christ and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Alliance and Consanguinity together which as it speaks infinite condescension love and Grace in him seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 se exinanivit he emptied himself which respects the Essential condition of the Humane Nature assumed by the Son of God and not meerly the poverty which in that Nature he submitted to so it declares the Dignity that our Nature is exalted to being in the Person of the Redeemer taken into association with the Divine Nature And as from the Conjunction of the two Natures together in the Person of Christ there ariseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communication of properties between them which is real as to the ascription of the affections of each Nature to the Person though it be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbal as to the predication of the properties of one Nature concerning the other so through the advancement of our Nature into Union with the Son of God there are some rays of Honour reflected upon and some priviledges that may be affirmed of us that the Angels themselves are not susceptive of Yet this is not the Union we are enquiring after for 1 in this respect all Mankind can plead the same propinquity to Christ. The worst as well as the best of men may enter their claim to this Relation of Oneness with him For though the Apostle affirm that he took on him the Seed of Abraham yet the meaning is not that some are precluded affinity with him in the Humane Nature while others are Dignified with that Alliance but the sense of the place is only this that according to the Flesh he came of the Lineage of Abraham the promise having been made to him that in his seed should all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Gen. 12.3 2 Were this the whole import of the Union of Believers with Christ that he and they partake of one common Nature the Oneness betwixt one Man another were greater than the Oneness betwixt Christ and the Faithful which directly opposeth the account the Scripture gives of it the intendment of the many Metaphors by which it is represented Now that it should be so is plain Because the resemblance betwixt one Man and another obtains not only in the essentials of Humane Nature but in the defilements and sinful infirmities of it nor is there any thing in the person of this or that man whereof something parallel is not in the Person of every one else but to imagine such an Universal resemblance between Christ and us is both to overthrow the Divinity of his Person and to supplant the purity of his Humane Nature Though our Blessed Saviour hath assumed our Nature in its essential constituent parts together with all the Natural sinless infirmities that accompany it yet besides His being infinitely distant from all likeness to us upon the account of the Divinity of his Person there is a vast dissimilitude even with respect to the Humane Nature as it is in Him free from all tincture of impurity and concomitancy of culpable imperfections and as it is in us defiled with and debased by sin § 8. As our Union with Christ is of a sublimer importance than meerly to denote that the same Humane Nature was in Him which is in us so what that is which over and above our participating of one common specifical Nature it doth imply is a Theme worthy of our further search And the Popish Notion concerning it is that which presents first to our examen Though the Romanists do not wholly disclaim a spiritual Union betwixt Christ and sincere Believers yet they principally insist on a Mixture of his Bodily substance with ours They will have our Union with Him to consist in our partaking of the Animated and Living Body of Christ by manducation or Carnal and Corporeal feeding on him And this Union they will have obtain'd by means of the Eucharist wherein instead of feeding at all on Bread and Wine they contend that in a Carnal manner we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ. That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is an eminent Symbol of our Union and Communion with Christ yea that hereby our Union and Communion with Him are in a special though Spiritual manner promoted and maintained we readily grant And accordingly we with all chearfulness acknowledge a Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament The Truth of the Real Presence hath been always believed and is so still though as to the manner of it there have been for many Conturies and yet are fierce digladiations in the World The Lutherans will have Christ present one way namely that though there be not a destruction of the Elements and a substitution of the Body and Blood of Christ in their room yet they will have Christ Bodily present with the Elements though hid and concealed under them and this they express by Consubstantiation The Papists plead for a presence of another kind viz. that the Elements being wholly destroyed either by Annihilation or Transmutation into the Body and Blood of Christ he alone is Corporeally Locally and Physically present and this they style Transubstantiation There have been others who have also asserted Bodily Presence but after a manner different from both the former for holding the Elements to continue undestroyed or unchanged they fancied them to become united to the Body and Blood of Christ and to make one and the same Body and Blood by a kind of Hypostatical Union and this may be called Impanation And although there be at this day and always hath been a great number of Christians to whose Reason none of these ways can adjust themselves yet they all confess a presence that is Real though they will have it to be after a spiritual kind and manner All these four ways of presence are Real each in its kind and order Nor do I know any save the Socinians and some Arminians but that in some sense or other allow a Real presence Indeed Socinus and the Men of that Tribe will admit the Lord's Supper to be only a Commemoration of Christ's Death but will by no means have it either to seal or exhibit any thing to the Believing Receiver That it is Commemorative and Symbolical of the Body of Christ as Broken and of his Blood as shed they have our astipulation but that it is besides both an Instituted seal of the Conditional Covenant ascertaining all the mercies of it to such as faithfully Communicate and in whom the Gospel Conditions are found and also truly exhibiting of Christ and his Grace to the Believing soul we strenuously affirm This the Apostle declares by calling the Cup of Blessing the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 This the very Nature of the Ordinance doth likewise confirm for in every Sacrament there must be not
to Gods love of complacency is fram'd to overthrow Election Efficacious Grace the perseverance of Believers and to render the New Covenant no better than the Old and our standing in Christ as lubricous as our standing in Adam was And therefore I hope Mr. Sherlock will pardon me if I do not readily subscribe to him in this forasmuch as I know it repugnant to the Articles of the Church of England not to mention what else it is The unchangeableness of his Love of Benevolence which took its Motives from himself and can no more be inconstant than the Divine Nature is doth strongly infer the preserving those qualifications in us which are the immediate foundations of his love of complacency supposing that he hath once wrought them For the bestowing of those upon us in order to this that he might delight in us being the aim and design of his Eternal Love of Good Will it naturally follows that the Immutability of his kindness ensures his watching over and maintaining them when once he hath wrought them in and communicated them to us In brief Christs heart is wonderfully knit in love to the renewed and sanctified soul Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says he Cant. 4.9 The word there used occurrs no where else in the Scripture and signifies to have won engaged seized upon or rob'd one of his heart 'T is a term borrowed from a passionate Lover who is not Master of his own heart another having gotten the possession of it He that loved us at no less rate than dying for us when we were Enemies cannot but be affectionately linkt to us having once washen us in his Blood and renewed us to his likeness by his Grace On the other hand though the love of a gracious Soul to Christ can neither equal his in its degrees nor any way rival it in the freeness earlyness or instances of discovery yet it is so far reciprocal that upon conviction of Reason conduct of Judgment and the propension of the New Nature it cleaves to and embraceth him The sincere Christian not only reckons Christ an object chiefly worthy of his love but by exiliency egress and expansion of Soul after him he endeavours a Conjunction and Union with him From hence comes that liquefaction and languor of heart to enjoy him and to receive his impressions hence proceeds that consignment of our Wills to his from hence also there springs a concernment for his interest more than for our own All the reciprocal love and friendship of the World are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idols and Images of Love and Friendship being compared with what intercedes between Christ and Christians Now this Love-Union we not only own but plead for and do state our happiness in the perfection of it Nor is there any thing that recommends Heaven more to us than that our souls shall be there enflamed with and united by holy ardors to One so infinitely amiable in his own perfections and so unspeakably deserving our purest flames for his free and preventing as well as his exuberant and superlative love to us This Conjunction through a ligature and bond of love manifested in imitation and uniform obedience betwixt Christians the Lord Jesus Christ is often mentioned in the holy leaves But yet I cannot assent to those who state the whole of Believers Union to the person of the Mediator meerly in a reciprocalness of affections 1. Because one Christian should at this rate be as much One with another as he is with Christ which the Scripture will not allow us to submit our assent to as not being reconcileable to those grand lofty and emphatical expressions which the Holy Ghost peculiarly appropriates to declare the Unity which intervenes between Christ and Christians That there is an Union of Affections between one Christian and another I suppose will not be denyed nor is he indeed a Christian who hath not a witness of it in himself and who doth not in the several ways wherein it is displayable endeavour to give evidence of it to the world 'T is this Love Union amongst Christians which our Lord Jesus so solemnly prayed for Joh. 17.21 'T is this which he hath enjoyned his Disciples as his New Commandment and which he hath appointed to be the bond of perfection unto them Joh. 13.34 Col. 3.14 'T is this which is represented as an evidence both of our Love-Union with God 1 Joh. 4.12 and of our implantation into Christ by Regeneration 1 Joh. 3.14 'T is this that was the glory of the Primitive Saints Acts 4.32 and for which the very Heathen both admired them and payed them an Internal veneration In a word 't is this whereby all the Members of Christ being first copulated to Him as to a Vital living Head and being Harmonious in the belief of all the Essential Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel come to be principally knit together among themselves And where this is not a politick confederacy and a wicked conspiration there may be but such an Union as ought to be amongst Christians there is not But how high noble and necessary soever this Union is which intervenes betwixt one Christian and another yet it is not equipollent to the Union which occurrs between Christ and Believers Nor do I hereby only mean that they differ gradually in some accident or other for so even the Moral Union betwixt Christ and Christians differs from the Moral Union of Christians among themselves the source and spring the Motives and Arguments the degrees dimensions acts and instances of Manifestation being not universally the same either in the love that Christ beareth to Believers or in the flames which they cherish and maintain towards him with those that obtain in the love of one Child of God to another but my meaning is that they differ specifically and in kind And in proof of this I desire no more but that Persons would without prepossession prejudice examine such Texts as Joh. 15.1 2 3 4 5. 1 Cor. 12.27 Rom. 8.1.9 10. Gal. 2.20 Joh. 6.5 6. not to mention more where the Union betwixt Christ and Believers is represented illustrated and if he can find any thing in the Love-Union of one Christian with another that beareth a proportion and Analogy with what is there declared concerning the Union of the Lord Jesus with Believers I am mistaken 2. Because the Holy Angels would be every way as much connected and ligu'd to Christ as Believers are were no more to be understood by this coherence but a conjunction by way of Affection or did this adequately express the Notion of it For besides the subjection that the Angels are in to Christ as their Lord and Governour 1 Pet. 3.22 and the attendance which in pursuance thereof they give at his Throne Isa. 6.1 2. together with that adoration and worship which they pay him Heb. 1.6 and their readiness to minister in whatsoever services he enjoyns them about his Church
we contend for he could not have chosen Terms more plain full and Emphatical to declare it than those by which he hath expressed it in the foregoing places And the same subtilties that are used to persuade the World that what we alledg is not the true meaning of them would equally serve to pervert their sense were that the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them which we affirm There are two passages which I reckon eminently manifestative of the Intimate Conjunction that is between Christ and Christians which I shall at this time borrow some Light from and reflect some upon in reference to the Matter before us The first is that of Paul Heb. 3.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of ou◠confidence stedfast unto the End I know that Modern Interpreters do generally suppose the name Christ to be taken here Metonymically viz. for the benefit of Christs Mediation but I judg that the Apostle intends a great deal more by our partaking of Christ than meerly so The Syriack renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are mingled i. e. united to Christ. Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is it to be partakers of Christ He and we are made One He the Head we the Body Coheirs and Incorporated with Him And accordingly he makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of our confidence to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith by which says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are begotten and consubstantiated with him i. e. intimately and truly United to Him That an Union with Christ by some tye and ligature beyond what a bare owning of his Authority denotes is here intended in our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being made partakers of Christ the use of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the same Apostle from whence the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes induceth me to believe When Paul would express Christs participating of the Humane Nature or of Flesh and Blood he doth it in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems clearly to conduct us to the meaning of the expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are now upon As he became no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by the assumption of our Nature into Union with his Divine person so we do no otherwise become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by participation of the same spirit that inhabited the Humane Nature of Christ which is the Bond and Medium of that Union which we plead for between Christ and Christians The other expression which I judg declarative of a higher Union between Christ and us than what a Political Relation doth imply is his being styled our Life Life is said to be in Christ not only formally as in its subject but causally as in its fountain Nor is he only called the Word of Life and the Prince of Life but he is expresly said to be our Life Col. 3.4 And Paul witnesseth of himself that he lived through Christs living in Him Gal. 2.20 Now that he should be styled our Life meerly with reference to his bringing Life and Immortality to light in the Gospel is too jejune a sense to sustain the weight of the Phrase I do not deny but that the Gospel is the Word of Life and that it is so styled in the Scripture Nor do I bring into debate Christs being in a proper and eminent sense the alone Author as well as the Subject of it Only I affirm that the making his revealing the Gospel which discovers the Glad Tidings of Life and the Terms of it to be the only reason of the Appellation given to him which we are now discoursing is to impose a Notion upon the expression which is too scanty and narrow to answer the Majesty and Grandeur of it And as the Context even to any who do but superficially view it will not admit this to be its full import so the Apostles expression of Christs living in him which seems a commentary and paraphrase upon it doth plainly overthrow this from being the sense of it Nor will it suffice to say that he is our Life in a Moral sense because our Life of Grace here and of Glory hereafter are owing to the Sacrafice of his Death as their procuring cause 'T is true that both our Holiness and Happiness respect Christs Meritorious Life and Death as their price but yet this neither comes up to the Loftiness nor exhausts the fulness of that expression He is our Life much less is there any thing in this Gloss that bears affinity to his living in us The only sense which bears a proportion to the Words is this That as Natural life proceeds from and must be ascribed to the Soul as its spring principle so all spiritual Life is owing to Christ as immediately acting us by his quickning Spirit Of our selves saith the Learned Bishop Reynolds we are without strength without love without life no power no liking no possibility to do good nor any principle of Holiness or Obedience in us 'T is Christ that strengthens us that wins us that quickens us by his Spirit to his Service Christ is the Principle and Fountain of Holiness as the Head is of sense or motion And this he maketh to be one eminent part of the meaning of that place He that hath the Son hath Life 1 Joh. 5.12 though Mr. Sherlock is not only pleased to tell us that it signifies no such thing but treats those who do so paraphrase it with words full of contempt and scorn But to resume what I was upon forasmuch as no Vital Principle doth or can operate but as it is united to the subject that is to be quickned by it Christ being then the Principle of our spiritual life there must be an Union of Christ with us as the spring and foundation of his Influence upon us No one thing can be supposed the principle and source of life to another without admitting a previous Union between them The third and last Argument whereby Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of a Political Union may be combated and if I mistake not utterly defeated is levied from the Vinculum and Bond by which the Scripture reports Christ and Believers to be copulated and brought into cohesion one with another As every Union implies such a Relation in the virtue whereof there resulteth an Oneness between the connected Extremes so as the Nature and Quality of the Unitive Principle or Cement is such is the Genius of the Union it self and of the oneness that thereupon emergeth Now by consulting the Scripture which alone ought to regulate and bound our conceptions in the Matter before us we find the Spirit to be the Vital Ligature of the conjunction and coherence that is between Christ and Christians The very Spirit that resides in Christ being communicated to us we do thereby in a secret but sublime and real manner become knit and ligu'd
together Animation by one Spirit is both a nobler and firmer way of Union than adhesion even by continuity of parts is Now by one Spirit we are all Baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12.13 And hereby we know that we dwell in Him and He in us namely by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 Joh. 4 13. Hence as upon the one hand If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 So upon the other hand He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 I know that Mr. Sherlock glosseth both these Texts of our having the same temper and disposition of mind which Christ had but most ignorantly as well as falsly 'T is true such a temper and disposition of Mind as Christ had is the fruit and effect of the Spirit of Christ but it is no more the Spirit of Christ it self than an effect is its own cause Our having the Spirit of Christ is assigned as the cause of our having a Spiritual temper of mind and I hope our Author will admit a cause and its effect to be distinct and different things The Spirit which we are said to have is the very same Spirit by which Christ will at last quicken our Mortal Bodies and I suppose this will not be the produce of any temper or disposition of mind of ours In a word the whole context lyes in a direct repugnancy to our Authors paraphrase of Rom. 8.9 For that Hypothetical proposition If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his is an inference from the fore-going words if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you And this Spirit of Christ is said to be the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the Dead v. 11. And to have the Spirit of Christ is the same with being led with the Spirit of God v. 14. This Spirit of Christ which Believers are said to have is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Spirit it self that beareth witness with our Spirits that we are the Children of God v. 16. and the Spirit that helpeth our Infirmities the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that maketh intercession for us v. 26. All which lyes in a direct contradiction to Mr. Sherlocks Gloss. And whereas our Author objects that what the Apostle calls the having the Spirit of Christ v. 9. he expresseth by if Christ be in you v. 10. and that this is no more than our being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Christ I reply that though the having the Spirit of Christ and Christs being in a Person be coincident yet 't is most false that we are to understand no more by Christ in you v. 10. but a being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Him And my reason is because the Apostle makes Christs being in them the ground principle and cause of their minds being connaturalized to Virtue and Goodness for that is the import of those words but the Spirit is Life i. e. the inward man is quickened and renewed and surely to establish an Identity betwixt Causes and their Effects is to impeach the first Principles of Science And as for our Authors exposition of 1 Cor. 6.17 namely That He who is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit signifies no more but our having the same temper of mind which Christ had it is not only too dimininutive and scanty a sense to bear a proportion to the words but it is plainly contradictory to the scope of the Text. For not to insist upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render joyned though it be a very emphatical Term importing no less than such a near and close conjunction between Christ and Christians as is between things which are strongly cemented and glewed together Nor yet to dwell upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one Spirit though it be the highest phrase in the stores and treasuries of language to express an intimous conjunction by I shall only take notice that the Apostle having asserted v. 15. That our Bodies are the Members of Christ and having subjoyned by way of inference from thence that we ought therefore by no means to take the Members of Christ and to make them the Members of an Harlot He gives this reason for it v. 16. because whosoever doth so becomes One Body with her and so cannot be One with Christ those two lying in a direct repugnancy the one to the other So that now I argue if the Union betwixt a Man and an Harlot in the virtue of which they are One Body import more then meerly a likeness of Temper and Moral Dispositions as surely it doth forasmuch as there may be a similitude in sensual propensions and inclinations where the becoming One Flesh through Carnal Conjunction interposeth not Much more doth a Believers being One Spirit with the Lord imply a higher kind of Union than an affinity of Dispositions For this being it which the Apostle setteth in opposition to the former it must at least bear a proportion to it in respect of neerness of cohesion although through being compared to it as an oppositum it can have no agreement with it in its Principles Bonds and Media I shall only add that the Affinity between our Authors paraphrase and that of a certain Socinian upon the place gives me some ground to suspect whence our Author imbib'd the Gloss which he would obtrude upon us But to resume what I was upon namely that the Spirit being the Vinculum and Ligament by which we are united to Christ our cohesion therefore to Him must be somthing more than a Political Relation That Believers are inhabited and actuated by the Spirit is a Truth which the Scripture gives Testimony to in an hundred places Nor is he only present in the Hearts of Believers in respect of that New Creature Divine Nature and Spiritual Being which he hath wrought in them but even immediately also Thus the Ancients in a manner unanimously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit is not only in Believers now as heretofore meerly by his operations but he exists and dwells in them as it were after a substantial manner saith Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knits us to himself by a kind of Immediate contact while he maketh us partakers of the Divine Nature saith Cyrillus Alexandrinus Non per gratiam visitationis operationis sed per ipsam praesentiam majestatis atque in vasa non jam odor balsami sed ipsa substantia sacri defluxit unguenti saith Austin He who desires to know the Harmony and agreement as well as the sense of the Fathers in this matter may consult Petavius who treats it at large And if any have a mind to understand the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning it they may advise with Ruiz de Trinitate d. 109. Sect. 7. Vasq. 1.2 d. 205. Valentia 1.2 d. 8.