Allegories and Metaphors as the Modern Conformable Clergy 8.9.10 CHAP. III. Of the Union of Believers with Christ THe Concernment of the Church of England in reference to some Discourses lately Published on this subject 1. What seems most especially to have influenced Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter 2. The Doctrine of the Nonconformists not fram'd to befriend men in a course of Vngodliness Mr. Sherlock's is 3.4 The Notion of Vnion in General stated with an account of the arduousness of resolving the Nature of Common Vnions 5. 'T is the Person of Christ that Believers are Vnited to 6. The Vnion we are enquiring after consists not in the specifical Oneness which is betwixt Christ and us through his having assumed Humane Nature 7. Nor doth it consist in any mixture of his Bodily substance with ours through a Carnal feeding on him 8. A personal Vnion disclaym'd 9. Not meerly a Legal Vnion and yet a Legal Vnion between Christ and those given to him of God justified 10. 'T is not barely a Love-Vnion 11. Christians not Vnited to Christ by means of a previous Vnion with the Church 12. What ever it be 't is more than a Political Union 13. An Intelligible Notion of it assigned and the whole shut up CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in RELIGION Sect. I. THe Interest which all Christians have in the Truths of the Gospel doth sufficiently Authorize a Concernedness in every Believer that they be neither directly Invaded nor secretly Supplanted And the more Important the Doctrines are either in themselves or with Respect to their Influence on the Hopes and Comforts of such as Believe and Profess Christianity the less chargeable as Importune is he who Engageth either in the Explication or Defence of them Besides the Name of William Sherlock and the Quality of Rector of St. George Buttolphâ—Lane London which the Author Characters himself by I understand nothing of the Person whose Writings I am now to Incounter and I wish for his own sake as well as the Truths that I had no further Occasion of knowing him than as his Interest lies in the Church of England But having vouchsafed the World a further Discovery and Manifestation of himself by a Stated Opposition of the Immediate Union of Believers to Christ and their being justified by the Imputation of his Righteousness Truths wherein the whole of our Concernment and Expectation consists He must not Resent it Amiss if while we are Examining what he would Obtrude upon us in these and some other things we Regulate our Conceptions of him in relation to what he Intimates to us of his Principles in those Matters The Prefixed Imprimatur of Doctor Parker would tempt one to Suspect that all this is done not only under the Connivance but with the Approbation of more than we are aware of I confess Men are filled with Surprizal and Amazement that it should be so considering the Manifest Repugnance of our Authors Principles not only to the Opinions of private Doctors of the Church of England but the Declared Articles of the â—aid Church Though it be Unjust to Ascribe the Sentiments of every private Writer to the Society whereof he is a Member yet when Errors are Vented under Allowance others besides the Authors become Accountable for them The Quality of the Licenser and the Relation he stands in to a greater Person in whose Behalf in all these things he is Reputed to Act would seem to Plead that the Fame and Dignity of the Church of England as well as the Interest of Truth bespeaks some Vindication from her Ecclesiastical Rulers or Dignified Members in these Matters Or it is easie to be imagined who will Suffer under the Imputation and Dishonour of them In the mean time a sober Inquiry into and Disquisition of these Points may I hope be pursued without Offence to any especially being managed without passionate Heats or Invidious Reflections Invectives and Satirs do not only disparage Religion in general but betray the Cause in whose Behalf they are used Nor are they Adapted to proselyte any but such who have forfeited the Use of their Judgments and Resigned themselves to the Conduct of Impudence Noise and Clamour For my self I profess such an Aversation to the Method some of our Modern Writers take in Treating their Adversaries that I shall not so much as insinuate Suspicions or raise Misprisions of the Tendency of the Notions here contended against further than the Unfolding and Pursuing them to their Springs necessitates me And if thereby any who wear the Livery of the Church of England shall be found to do the Work of the Assembly at Cracovia I cannot help it unless I should betray the Cause I am pleading for Yet I do hereby no ways intend to List even those among them whose Principles they have imbib'd Remembring what one said of the Milesians that may be they were no Fools though they did the same things which Fools are wont to do However 't is fit to be declared upon whose Foundations they Build and with whose Buttresses they support their Fabrick and withall that it falls too evidently under the Prospect of every discerning Person who are like to Reap the Harvest of these kind of Sowings Now though I might be thought sufficiently to acquit my self by continuing on the Defensive and only examining the Reasons which have swayed Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Common Judgments of other Men and though this would be the easiest Undertaking and in the Judgment of every indifferent Person enough both to Undeceive such as are already Misled and to pre-arm others against the Danger yet Designing the same universal Usefulness to the Reader as if I were not confined to Reply to anothers Book I shall together with an Answer to my Adversaries Exceptions endeavour to State and Establish the Doctrines in whose Defence I appear and withal Attaque him in the Opinions he Erects against them Nor am I without Hope that I shall find the Generality of those who are stiled Conformists as well as those who are termed Non-Conformists notwithstanding their Disciplinary Controversies Candid and Favourable The things here contended for are the Joynt-Concernment of both and the Opinions opposed are inconsistent with and Destructive to the Hitherto Received Doctrine of that Party as well as this If I receive no other Fruit of this Interposure but the Awakening others to more Matur'd Productions I shall not Repent my Labour the putting a Common Adversary to a stand till greater Forces Rally being of some account though the Victory be Reapt by other Hands Sect. 2. As to the Method here observed 't is such as I judge Rational being not only Adapted to the Discovery and Vindication of Truth the Unmasking and Conviction of Errour but accommodated to the Instruction and Benefit of the Reader which would be greatly obstructed by following our Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is it
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
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
we are copulated to Him then not only sincere Believers but the most obdurate sinners providing only they receive the Eucharist should be united to Him Admitting the Popish Hypothesis I neither see of what advantage Faith is to one Communicant nor of what damage Infidelity can be to another but that the whole of both their securities depends upon this that their Stomacks be not queasy and that they have a good digestion 'T is but to swallow the consecrated Host and Christ and they are one whether they partake of the Spirit of the new Birth or not Either Pauls assertion of some mens eating damnation to themselves is false or else the Popish Notion of our being united to Christ by the eating of his Flesh under the Species and Accidents of a white Wafer is so and which of these is most likely to deserve that Brand I leave to the umpirage of all Christians 2 Were this the Foundation and Bond of Union betwixt Christ and his Members there should then be none United to Him but such as have first been made partakers of the Eucharist which is so remote from all shadow of Truth that on the contrary none ought to approach the sacred Table but they who are first sincere Christians 'T is true their pretending to be so if their claim cannot be disproved obligeth Ministers to admit them but yet it is only their being so that authoriseth them to come 'T is sincere Love and Gospel-Faith that God prerequires of all his Guests though his Stewards are often necessitated to take up with professions of them Although the Sacraments be necessary necessitate praecepti and cannot be neglected by any without guilt yet they are not so necessary necessitate Medii but that God hath and can communicate his Grace independently upon them 3 Were there no other bond of our Union with Christ save that which the Church of Rome suggests our Cohesion to Christ were a very lubricous thing and not such an indissoluble Ligue as the Scripture reports it For the Foundation of Oneness ceasing the Relation superstructed thereupon must cease also Union can hold no longer than the unition upon which it results and from which it emergeth holds now this according to the Romanists continues no longer than till the Form Figure and other Accidents of the consecrated Wafer dissolve and vanish So that instead of an abiding conjunction with Christ a little time unties the knot and the incorporation of Christians with Him comes to nothing 4 Were our Carnal and Corporal eating the Body of Christ the Medium of betwixt Him and us I do not see but that Mice and Rats c. may come to be united to Him as well as Believers For that these through the Priests neglect or by some accident or other may snatch up swallow down the consecrated Wafer is a thing easily conceivable there are instances enough of it and by consequence all that is necessary to the Relation of Union intervening betwixt Christ and them the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self must ensue also I shall only add upon this occasion that Minutius Felix's argument in disproof of the Heathen Gods doth with equal strength militate against the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist The Mice Swallows and Crows saith he know better than you Pagans what your Gods are For by gnawing and sitting upon them and being ready to nest in their Mouths if you did not drive them away they know that they have neither sense nor understanding 5 Though I be not forward to concern the Authority of Scripture to confute senseless and irrational Notions reckoning it a condescension to encounter them with Reason and holding it a disparagement put upon the sacred Oracles to call in their Suffrage where Sense alone can give the decision yet I cannot but here observe that our Lord Jesus Christ even there where he most seemingly speaks in Favour of a Carnal eating of his Flesh viz. John 6. hath in words hugely Emphatical said enough to prevent such a Gross stupid and unreasonable Imagination For besides that not a word of that whole discourse relates to feeding upon Christ in the Eucharist as is acknowledged by the most learned of the Roman Writers we have in the preface to it ver 35.40 and in the conclusion of it ver 63. a key afforded us to unlock the whole and to assure that it is not only to be taken in a spiritual sense but that a fleshly eating of the Son of man would conduce nothing to our Good 'T is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life § 9. Having declared that whatever the Nature and Quality of our Union with Christ and what ever the Medium by which it is accomplished be that it is the Person of Christ which we are United to and having also declared that it implies something more than a meer participating of the same specifick Humane Nature and having just now manifested that it consists not in a mixture of Christs bodily substance through our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Carnal and Corporeal Manner with ours The next thing to be disclaim'd from all room and Interest in the Idea of it is its being a Personal Union And this I am the rather obliged to do because Mr. Sherlock with little regard to Truth and as little consistency with himself tells the World That we place all our hopes of Salvation in a personal Union with Christ. A slander so enormous and so void of any colour by which it may be glossed that to what I should impute our Authors charging it upon us I cannot tell Ignorance it cannot be ascribed to seeing Dr. Jacomb whom Mr. Sherlock hath particularly singled out to oppose in this Theme not only barely disclaims but refutes it and seeing our Author himself acknowledgeth else-where that it is only an Union of Persons and not a Personal Union which we plead for p. 198. 293. And to attribute it to a wilful Falsification were to arraign him of a Crime which I would be loath to judge any Man pretending Justice and Honesty much less a Minister of the Gospel guilty of I would rather therefore think it the result of some deduction unduely and illogically drawn from Innocent principles or that he took it up in discourse from some of those who for their diversion throw out accusations against us at adventure than that he either judged it to be held by us in Terminis or that he should fasten it upon us in meer Malice only that he might the better expose us However this in Modesty may be required of him that the next time he writes he would either acquit the Nonconformists from the guilt of this charge or else enforce it by express quotations extracted out of their Books or by lawful Trains of Argumentation from some of their avowed Doctrines
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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
efficacious operation of the Holy Ghost so through our being United to Him he becomes not according to Mr. Sherlock a Quickning Head and a Vital Root of Influences to us He is says he only styled our Head because invested with Authority to Govern us by his Laws and our Vnion with Him as such consists only in an acknowledgment of his Authority and in Subjection to his commands Hence the making the Person of Christ a Fountain of Grace is reflected upon by our Author in words full of contempt and scorn And by our Fellowship with Christ which the Sacred Writers so Emphatically speak of we are told there is only meant such a Political Union as is betwixt a Prince and his Subjects between Superiours and Inferiors Hence also that Fulness of Grace which is said to reside in Christ is declared by our Author to be nothing but his revealing the Gospel to us which may well be called Grace because it contains so many excellent promises and our receiving out of his Fulness Grace for Grace is paraphrased to denote no more but our being perfectly instructed by Him in the will of God Hence likewise Christs being styled our Life is glossed to import only his publishing the Word of Life to us which contains the most express promises of a blessed Immortality and the most easy and plain directions how to attain it Now I do not deny the things revealed and commanded in the Gospel being both Good in themselves and suited to the Reason and Interest of Mankind and also enforced by the most attractive Motives which we can either desire or Imagine but that men in the alone strength of their Natural Faculties may perform many External Duties and in that manner also that we who judg only according to appearance are thereupon to account them Holy yea that nothing but supineness lustful prejudice consuetude in sin a being immersed into the Animal Life can hinder them from so doing But I deny that any Act or Duty hath the proper Form and Nature of Holiness or is so denominated in the Scripture but what both proceeds from an Antecedent Habit or Principle of Holiness in the persons by whom they are performed and an Immediate influence from Christ in the virtue of our Union with Him as our Quickning-Head Vital Root living Spring in the actual performance of them 'T is he that worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2.13 and without him we can do nothing that is Formally Good or acceptable to God John 15.3 That exclusively of an antecedent Habit and seed of Grace communicated to us and Resident in us and of fresh Influences from Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit we are neither Subjectively Holy nor do perform any one thing which the Scripture bestows the Denomination of Holiness upon hath not only been Demonstrated against the Pelagians both by Ancient and Modern Writers but defined in several Councils and Synods And therefore Both these being discharged out of Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of our Union with Christ his Doctrine concerning it is so far from having any Influence upon the promotion of True Holiness that it lyes in a Repugnancy to it and makes it impossible to Christians Let us suppose Men satisfied of the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and accordingly in the Dogmatical Belief of them let us suppose them also perswaded of the Reasonableness and Equity of Gospel-Precepts and that upon the promises and threatnings which accompany and enforce them they are not only inclined and resolved to obey them but that they actually perform the Material parts of all Moral Duties and Acts of Instituted Worship which is the most we can conceive of the persons for whose Union with Christ Mr. Sherlock pleads and indeed more than truly they can be entiled to yet all this admitted I say that providing we will take our Measures of the Nature of Holiness from the Declarations which God hath given of it and not from the ill-digested Notions of the Pelagians and Socinians about it Gospel Holiness is not only disbanded out of the whole of this but undermined subverted by it For as much as the Gospel judgeth nothing to be true Holiness but what presupposeth the Grace of Regeneration as that which adapts to it and implyes a causal Concomitancy of Actual Grace as that which doth immediately influence it Moral Virtue it may be but Christian Holiness 't is not And thus I have declared who they are that stand united to Christ and that our Hypothesis so far as it relates to the Subjects of this Union doth no ways countenance a prophane Course or frown upon a Holy Life And have also demonstrated how the Hypothesis erected by our Author in opposition to it is as it respects that Extreme of this Relation many ways guilty of such an unhappy pernicious tendency § 4. Having declared whom we mean by Believers who are the subjects of this Union we are Discoursing about and having manifested that there is nothing in the Character of the Persons assum'd into this Relation of Oneness with Christ that in the least undermines Holiness or befriends a course of Impiety We are next to fix and determine what we intend understand by Christ who is the other Extreme of this Relation of Union and to whom Believers in the Virtue of it become ligu'd and copulated I confess I should heretofore have esteem'd the engaging in such a service a mee prodigality of Words and Time but the Ignorance and Disingenuity of Mr. Sherlock doth render it a this time a necessary Undertaking Nor can I otherwise either vindicate the Non-conformists from the unjust representation which in this matter he gives of them nor correct the mistakes and prevarications which in assigning the import of the Name and Term Christ I find him guilty of First then neither in the Question before us nor in any other whatsoever doth Christ signify the Name of an Office I expected to have met with Sense whatever I might have mist in the Writings of a Person pretending to so great accuracy as Mr. Sherlock doth and that whatever quarrel he had against any Text in the Bible or the received Rules of Argumentation yet that he would not have fallen out with the Accidence and Syntax If either he had not ability or would not allow himself leasure to write Reason and Truth yet he should have been careful to have avoided Nonsence To affirm that Christ is Originally the Name of an Office or to speak of the Duties and Actions of an Office as our Author doth argues him that I may express it with the greatest modesty I can to have forgotten his Grammar as well as his Logick As every Concrete Term imports a Form Quality or something analogous to these Administring a Denomination so it always implies a Subject denominated from them Though there be Actions belonging to Officers and Actions which Persons
imports an Unitive action exerted either towards both or at least one of the Extremes to be united In the Second it denotes the effect or product of the unitive Action in the Extreme or Extrem's towards which it was put forth And in the Third it signifies a State of Oneness emerging upon the whole betwixt the Exrreme's Something Analogous to all these occurs in most if not in all Unions properly so called And this is what I shall offer in reference to the fixing of the general Notion of Union But whereas now upon the one Hand the unintelligibleness of the Union of Believers with the Person of Christ is that which our Author chiefly pleads as the Motive and Inducement of disclaiming it being as he phraseth it a Riddle and Mystery which no body can understand And whereas upon the other Hand he tells us That there is nothing more easy to be understood than our Union and Communion with Christ and that it had certainly continued so had not some men undertook to explain it I must crave leave in the First place to ask him whether he will renounce every other Union the manner and Mode of which he cannot intelligibly unfold and then Secondly Whether there be any danger or absurdity in supposing this Union which the Apostle styles a Mystery Eph. 5.32 to be as incomprehensible as the connexion betwixt the parts of Matter in a continuous Body or the Union betwixt the rational Soul and the Humane Body And seeing the finding our selves non-plust in the explicating common Unions may serve to teach us modesty in our Intellectual converse with Unions of a sublimer Nature and the haveing our Reasons baffled by the obvious Phaenomena of Nature may possess us with a Reverence towards Objects of Faith I shall a little discourse the unaccountableness of the Quality and manner of other Unions Sense as well as Reason convince us of the Cohesion of the parts of Matter in a continuous Body yet when we arrive to enquire how they come to be connected our Understandings hang their Wings and force us at least so far to subscribe to the Pyrrhonian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Incomprehension Though we be fully ascertain'd of the continuity of one part of matter with another yet by what glue or cement they come to be lock't together no Hypothesis hitherto erected can resolve us Some despairing to unty the knot endeavour to cut it And therefore deny all parts in any Bulk till they are made by Division But First That cannot be supposed Divisible in which there are not antecedent parts into which it may be divided To affirm That to be Divisible into parts which hath no parts at all is the first-born of Absurdities They may as well say that a thing may be separated from it self as that there may be a separation made where there were not previous parts 2. To imagine Bulk without distinct parts going to the Composition of it is a plain Contradiction Continuum in its very idea is nothing but a coalition of plurality of parts 3. If they be not parts antecedently to Separation they were never so because after Disunion each of them is an entire Suppositum or Bluk 4. Contradictory predicates may be affirmed of them while in composition and therefore they must be distinct parts for different wholes they are not But to dismiss this Opinion which doth not resolve the difficulty but destroy the subject of it Others 2 ly betake themselves to indivisible continuant points which as they assert distinct from the constituent parts so they affirm one part to be clasp'd and button'd to another by them But those Peripatetick fooleries of Continuative and Terminative Points distinct from ingredient Compositive parts deserve rather to be hissed off the Philosophick Stage than to be Calmly and Rationally refuted Nor will I be so prodigal of Time or words as to muster an Argument against them save that were they admitted we are still at a loss how they themselves come to be connected with their Contiguous parts or how one part can be knit and fastned by them to another without penetration or the coexistence of more Materials than one in the same place And notwithstanding what a late Learned Person hath said I still judg Penetration not only a greater absurdity than Inaâ—ity but the rudest Non-sense and boldest contradiction that can obtrude it self upon the Rational Mind Others 3 dly have recourse to Hooks and fork'd Corners and will have one part of Matter to be held fast by another through an involution of their Angles But 1 the Coherence of the parts of these Harpaginous Nooks will still remain lyable to the same difficulty And to retreat to new Angles by which the parts of the first hooks are knit together is only to avoid the Objection but not to solve it And our Reason instead of being satisfied comes only to be lost in an Infinite Circle Yea the very allowing an infinite progress without conducting us to something where our understandings can at last acquiesce is not only to renounce the Name of Philosophers but to destroy the End of Philosophy 2 It will still remain of difficult conception how the first Indivisibles whereof according to the Hypothesis beforementioned every Bulk is originally constituted compounded do hang together For though those Atoms which are the Immediate Ingredients of the composition of Bodies should be allowed to consist of parts yet Originally they consist of and are in our conceptions of them ultimately resolved into Mathematical Indivisibles and concerning the indiscerptible Cohesion of them there is no satisfaction afforded by the present Hypothesis Now if the coherence of the parts of Atoms and Minute Bodies be once refunded into the force and Quality of Nature I see not why the continuity of the parts of more bulky compounds should not be ascribed to the same principle Nor 4. doth the Hypothesis of Des-Cartes of the parts of Matter being lock't together meerly by Juxtaposition Rest adjust it self to our Reason or Sense in this Matter For 1 there may be juxta-position and Rest where there is no continuity as in a heap of stones or wheat as well as in two polished Marbles that lye contiguous to one another 2 There may be Motion where is no dissolution of the cohesion of parts as is evident even to Sense in viscous fluids the like might be demonstrated not only of Solids that are Tensile and Ductile but of others also 3 There are degrees of cohesion the parts of Matter being more indiscerptibly clasp'd together in some Bodies than in others whereas there are no degrees of Intenseness in Rest the least Motion being repugnant to it Now upon the whole if our assent to the Continuity and Adhesion of one part of Matter to another remain firm and unshaken notwithstanding the difficulties that encounter us about the Manner of it And though there be not yet any Philosophick Hypothesis that
and Opinions But to resume my Theme That a person may by Philosophy and Contemplation attain such a degree of Union with God as to know and understand things by a contactus and conjunction of substance with the Deity hath been asserted both by the Platonick some of the Aristotelian Philosophers The passages which occur in Plotinus Porphyrius Jamblichus and Proclus all great and famous Platonists of such a tendency are numerous and need not to be here transcribed The possibility of arriving by Contemplation at the knowledg of the first and supreme cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a kind of bodily touch is asserted in those Fragments of Metaphysicks Fathered upon Theophrastus the Disciple of Aristotle and the immediate Successor in his School The same Imagination became espoused by the Arabian Philosophers especially by Averroes a great adorer of Aristotle and who hath signalized himself by his Commentaries upon him Had this Notion been only entertain'd by Contemplative Heathens I should not have taken notice of it but it was imbib'd and that very timely by Persons professing Christianity Origen seems to have been one of those that were first tainted with it and to have received it with many other Platonick Dogms with which he corrupted the Truth and simplicity of the Gospel either from Ammonius the Renowned Professor of Platonism at Alexandria whose Schollar he was or from some more ancient Patrons and Advocates of that Sect. From Origen the Ancient Monks derived the Ferment leaven of it The counterfeit Dionysius Areopagita for that he was not truly the Person whose Name he assumes and that he lived not till about the Sixt Century or at least the Fift hath been demonstrated by Scultetus Rivetus Daillaeus and is acknowledged by Petavius appears by the whole of his Discourse de Mystica Theologia to have been dipt in that Mad and Frantick Notion From all or some of these it spread among the Romish Monasticks I mean such of them as are called Mystick Theologues Nothing more frequent with that sort of men than a tattle of an Intime Union with God whereby the soul becomes Deified And from them the Weigelians and Familists borrowed their Magnificent language of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ. The adventurous determinations of the School-men concerning the Beatifical Vision smell rank of the same Blasphemous Nonsensical figment For by their contending that the Divine Essence is immediatly united as an Intelligible species to the Intellect of the Blessed and that this species and the Glorified Understanding do not remain distinct things but become identified they do in effect affirm the soul to be Transubstantiated into God and to be really Deified And seeing 't is a Matter of easie demonstration that the knowledg which we shall enjoy of God in Heaven differeth only in degree from that which we possess here otherwise 't is both altogether unintelligible and uncapable of rational explication it will follow by a short Harangue of discourse either that Believers have no knowledge of God in this life or else that their souls become Deified and essentially United to God by knowing Him I need not name the admired Non-sense and high-flown Cantings of the Quakers which carry a broad fac'd aspect this way That which we have suggested is enough to instruct us out of what springs they and other Wild Enthusiasts have drawn the putid conceits which they propine to the World But as to the Persons whom Mr. Sherlock censures for placing all their hopes of Salvation in a Personal Union with Christ I dare not only say that they renounce any such Union but that there is nothing in their Principles which consequentially leads to it If our Doctrine of Believers Union with the Person of Christ cannot be defended without introducing a Personal Union with Him we profess our selves ready to disclaim it and do assure all the World that if it harbour any such thing in its bosom our meaning is not so bad as our Opinion We believe the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers to remain distinct after all the Union that intercedes between them We are thankful for the Influences of his Grace and the inhabitation of his Spirit but we detest those swelling words of Pride and Ignorance of being Christed and Deified Whatsoever be the Nature and kind of the Union between Christ and Christians is a Hypostatical Union it cannot without Blasphemy be imagined to be For admitting once a Personal Union it will immediately follow that Christ and They are but one Person As two drops of water which existing apart made distinct supposita coming to be Physically United make but one Physical Body substance and suppositum so two or more subsisting Intellectual substances which considered separate are so many Persons do by Personal Union come to have one singular subsistence and to make but one Person Now to imagine this of Christ Believers interfere's with all that Reason which as Men we are possessed of To be One Person with Christ and yet to be locally distant is a thing which our Discursive Faculties will style a Contradiction Seeing similitude and Identity are opposite Notions and our highest attainment is only to resemble Christ it is impossible that by any Union whatsoever we should become one Individual Numerical Person with Him Innocency and guilt Legal Merit and Demerit not to mention other Innumerable Adjuncts do too vastly disagree to center in the same Individual subject or to be predicable of the same Identical Intellectual Being To be made One real Physical Person with Christ is an Hypothesis attended with such a troop of Absurdities that he neither understands what Christ nor himself is who gives it entertainment They are rather to be encountred with an Anathema who espouse such a blasphemous figment than to be combated with Rational Arguments nor should I have further concerned my self about it than barely to disclaim it but that we have to do with some who will not believe us unless we disprove it also And indeed it seems to have been an apprehension of the Non-conformists owning a Personal Union with Christ which influenced Mr. Sherlock to tell the World that it is not very intelligible how we can be or abide in the Person of Christ and that 't is more unintelligible still how we can be in the Person of Christ and the Person of Christ at the same time be in us which is a new piece of Philosophy called Penetration of Dimensions In reference to which I shall only say that as our Author's supposition so far as it relates to the Opinion of the Non-conformists is both false and disingenuous so the Medium by which he assaults the thing supposed viz. A personal Union is weak sophistical For as the preexisting Corpuscles of Matter do without any Penetration or without ceasing to be entitatively as distinct as they were before come to constitute one Physical Body meerly by being copulated together and
brought into a Continuity and as the meat which we eat being concocted in the Stomach that Laboratory of Nature doth incorporate it self with the previous Corpuscular Particles which constitute our Organical Body without the coexistency of two or more of them in one and the same Individual place which is that we style penetration of Dimensions So I see not but that a Hypostatical Union of Christ with Believers might be easily defended if Penetration of Dimensions were all the inconvenience it were liable to Tertullian who thought God Corporeal as did also the Anthropomorphites and the Audiani little dream'd tha◠a Personal Union could not be maintain'd without Penetration of Dimensions forasmuch as he believed the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Hypostatical Union of the Humane Nature to the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And though the Opinion of the Corporeity of God hath not only been condemned by the Ancient Church as an Heresie but rationally refuted and demonstrated to be both blasphemous absurd yet I do not remember that amongst all the Arguments levied against it that this of Penetration of Dimensions through the Personal Union of the Humane Nature with the Word is so much as mentioned Though some of the Primitive Fathers as well as the Heteticks styled Luciferiani held the soul to be Material yet they never imagined that through being united to the grosser Matter of which the Humane Body is fram'd that any penetration of Dimensions ensued nor is this Medium mustered against them by any that have accosted and baffled their opinion There are some odd Stories in Authors worthy of Credit which seem to import a Personal Union betwixt two created Intellectual Beings and yet I do suppose that no man unless it be Mr. Sherlock will thence infer a penetration of Dimensions One is in Buchanan's History of Scotland where he tells us of a Monster which from the middle downward having but one Body had from thence upward two and that what ever impression was made upon the lower parts excited a perception in both alike but that one only was affected by assaults made upon them where their Members and Organs were distinct Now this together with their frequent quarrelling with one another seems to argue that they had two distinct souls and different formal Principles of perception and operation and yet that they were personally United seeing both every impulse upon the leggs and thighs was perceived by each of them and also because the inferior parts were under the influence of the one Head as well as of the other An instance something parallel to this we have in Voetius de Creatione where he tells us of a young man whom thousands in Holland saw who besides a Head which he had in its due and natural place had another prominent and jetting out from his Belly and that these two Heads were inhabited and actuated by distinct souls as appeared by the contrary perturbations and opposite passions which sometimes even to their falling out with one another display'd themselves in them In fine though we both disclaim all Personal Union of Christ with Believers and abhor the ascribing any such thing to sinful Worms as Identity with the Holy One of God yet I do not see that the opposing it by a Medium drawn from Penetration of Dimensions is either solid or pungent § 10. They who instruct us in the arranging Discourses do not only advise that in our Ratiocinations the stronger Reasons ought to succeed and support the weaker and our Velites precede our Triarij but that those things which perplex our progress though they do not directly oppose it should be first removed before we address to that which is either more difficult to be established or more particularly contradicted and gain-said And accordingly having proceeded hitherto in the best Method and by the most Regular steps I could and discharged the Notion of Believers Union with Christ from all such things as have no room in the Formal Idea of it we are next to apply our selves to the consideration of these things which though they some way or other enter its conception yet they neither adequately declare it nor are the Immediate foundations of that Mystical Union betwixt Christ and Christians whose Quality and Complexion we are enquiring into And the first thing which here falls under our prospect is that though there be a Legal Union betwixt Christ and Believers yet a Legal Union alone will not sustain the weight of all the Scripture-expressions which declare the mystery of our coherence with our Blessed Redeemer A Legal Union I not only grant but assert only I say that the whole of a Believers Union with Christ is not comprehended in it Two things then I am to prove 1. That there is such an Union between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Elect of God as may be styled a Legal Union 2. That this is not all the Union which intercedes between Him and Believers 1. Christians may be said in a Law sense to be One with Jesus Christ. This I account my self obliged to justifie because Mr. Sherlock by endeavouring to invalidate the Media upon which it is built hath not only undermined but in effect denyed it Now it is not by any Act Convention Appointment or Designation of ours that Christ comes to be constituted our Delegate Agent Representative or Surrogate We had neither any power over the Son of God to substitute or interpose Him in our room nor over the everlasting Father to oblige Him to accept any satisfaction from him or to admit that His sufferings should be effectual to Redeem us Yea having lost Gods Image and forfeited his Favour we were so far from being thoughtfull how to recover either the one or the other that Despair in our selves and Enmity against God were the Natural Attendants of our Sin and Misery The Law Union between the Redeemer and us is the Emergency and result of a Federal Pact between the Father and the Son The Blessed Trinity having resolved to manifest the glory of Immense Wisdom and Infinite Mercy in the recovering Lapsed Man from Sin and Wrath the Father by an act of Soveraign choyce and unconceivable Love invites the Son to interpose between the Law and us and the Son by the like Love and Complacential Election condescends to do so Though the exuberant fulness of God supersede all thoughts of any real accession to Him in any of His perfections yet in this great transaction towards Man we must conceive Him not only acting in consistency with the Honour of his Attributes but to the declaration of the Glory of all his properties Man having shaken off his dependency upon God by transgressing the Law of Creation Gods Rectorship over him which is Regulated by his Wisedom Holiness Veracity and the Eternal Rectitude and Righteousness of his Nature would not allow that he should be received into Favour but in such a way and by such means
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
THE INTEREST OF REASON in RELIGION WITH THE IMPORT USE OF Scripture-Metaphors AND The Nature of the Union Betwixt CHRIST BELIEVERS With Reflections on several Late Writings especially Mr. Sherlocks Discourse concerning the Knowledg of Jesus Christ c. Modestly enquired into and stated By Robert Ferguson Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit Tertull. Apol. cap. 5. London Printed for Dorman Newman at the Kings Arms in the Poultrey and at the Ship and Anchor at the Bridg-foot on Southwark-side 1675. TO THOMAS PAPILLON Esquire SIR IT cost me no long deliberation to whom I should direct these Discourses the Obligations I am under to you and your Family rendring them yours by the Title of a just debt The Interest you have in me by an Entail of peculiar kindnesses gives you a right to my Studies the Fruits of them The declining the Imputation of Ingratitude is my plea for prefixing your Name to these Papers And though the concerning you in their behalf may seem an Injury yet not to have done it my condition in the world allowing me to make no better returns would have been a Crime You must either be more wary and have a greater fore-sight in dispensing your Favours or else you must be content to forgive such offences as your self have made the results and effects of Duty So that were there any indecency in this Address yet the Laws of Gratitude do supersede those of Congruity But indeed this Dedication is as much yours by the Rules of Proportion as by the Measures of Justice For as you have few Rivals with respect of the Qualifications required in an active Life which I forbear to make any discovery of being that which every one observes and which all your Modesty cannot conceal so you are endowed with a capacity adapted to the highest contemplations Nor is the knowledg of Aristotle's Moods and Figures together with such Technical Terms as Affectation Design rather than necessity and usefulness have introduced needful to render a person a fit judge of what is solid and Rational I more dread being arraigned at the Tribunal of brisk Reason assisted by Faith and the Spirit of Life in the New Birth than being combated even by your Philosophick Hero's with their Artificial Premises and formal Ergo's Your accomplishments are not the less commendable because you owe them entirely to your self the Idea's of your Mind and the Exercise of your own Faculties and not to the Drs. Chair and an Apprenticeship under University Readers Though I pay as high a veneration to Academick Learning as any man doth and judg Philosophy instead of being Prejudicial to Religion to be very useful both to promote Faith and Obedience in our selves and to defend the Mysteries of Christianity against the rude assaults of petulant Adversaries yet as things are commonly managed I must needs say that it hath often proved a very great Nuisance 'T is through the encumbring our Minds with insignificant Terms and idle Phantasms the deflouring our Virgin Intellects by absurd Dogm's that too many instead of commencing either solid Scholars or being prepared to be good and humble Christians come abroad into the World either Disputations Whiflers or sworn Enemies to Evangelical Grace Sir as I know but few that owe their Religion more to a Rational choyce than you do so there are also few that have distincter Notions of the Reasons why we are not able adequately to conceive the Mysteries of it and of the Reasons why we are nevertheless to believe them And if true Eloquence be to speak pertinently and to proportion words to things 't is natural to you nor need you address to the most esteemed Masters of it to learn either how to arrange a Discourse in the best Method or to adapt the Sentiments and Words by which you express them to the Subject of which you Treat And as you are furnished with more than an ordinary prudence of knowing when to be silent and with a Faculty to be so when it is better to hold ones peace than to speak so by obliging your self to say nothing but what you think there is a Grace as well as commandingness accompanies what you say and you find others favourable to what you aim at through their being possest that you are byassed by no design but meerly influenced by Love to Truth and Justice Sir there is one thing more which I must not omit as having mainly contributed to the Inscription of these sheets to you namely that while such as pretend to be more sagacious than others or who have a mind to put in a claim to no vulgar discretion pitch upon this as the Medium to support their title to both that they dare deride the Mysteries of Faith or profess themselves Scepticks in the Essential Doctrines of the Gospel or which is as bad as any of the former betray their profession by an unsuitable Life you have learned to unite Obedience to Orthodoxie to espouse the precepts of the Gospel with the same zeal that you do the Articles of the Creed The Opinions here arraigned lye as cross to your belief as they do to mine nor do I impose upon you the patronage of any thing that thwarts your perswasion only I submit to your Judgment whether I have duely encountred them and how well I have defended the Truths which they undermine Nor shall I subjoyn any more save that I am as much as I can though not so much as I ought SIR Your most faithful and Humble Servant Robert Ferguson TO THE READER HE that hath enrolled himself under the Banner of Truth needs not make any Apology for his coming into the Field when the Cause in whose defence and service he is listed calls for his appearance Whosoever consuâ—ts either his Name or his Ease when an assault is made upon the Christian Faith deserves the punishment either of a Coward in his Profession or of a Traitor to it 'T is not any Personal provocation nor any pleasure I take in controversie but meerly a regard to the Truths of the Gospel and the Interest of the Souls of men that hath engaged me in this Vndertaking If there be not strength to be encountered in the Oppositiâ—â—s of our Adversaries yet there is petulancy that ought to be rebuk'd Though I cannot bring my self to believe that Mr. Sherlock deserves a Reply yet I am very well satisfied that the Doctrines which he undermines deserve to be explain'd confirmed And as I have made this my Principal Task so I have only employ'd my self about those Truths which seem to require some further Irradiations of Light than are every where reflected upon them I have espoused the Quarrel of no Man unless you will say that by defending the common Cause of Christians I have vindicated those whose chief Crime is their adherence to the Gospel and their declaring the Mysteries of it in
prosecute that which at last themselves will find of all things to be the worst Besides Wickedness is its own punishment not only in that it debaseth the Soul degrades Humane Nature and offers violence to the principles of Reason but that in the very pursuit of it the offender forfeits all true tranquillity for that only accompanies Virtue That lust cannot be assigned the gratifying of which is not attended with disquietness The Unbridled appetite is a scorching flame Envy is a gnawing Scorpion Covetousness is a strangling and corroding care c. The multitude of Ends and Objects which exercise a wicked mans thoughts do wonderfully distract him His Soul is full of disquietness through the intestine and civil Wars maintained in it Scelera dissident Lusts are like the brood of Cadmus arm'd one against the other Diversity of inconsistent Ends and opposite Means do strangely rack and discompose the Soul of a Sinner and his Mind is like the Sea when it rageth with the striving of contrary Winds upon it Nor is this all but there is besides a secret shame linkt to every wicked action and every Evil is pregnant with an inward Horrour Let a man offend never so privately yet when he thinks what he hath done he is both asham'd and his Conscience fills him with remorse for what is past and tormenting fear of what is to come The joy and delight which he promiseth himself in prosperous wickedness is withered by the dread of future punishment 3. All the prosperity of Sinners is constituted of Earthly Enjoyments and the disappointment which they find in them having nothing better neither in possession nor hope doth not only lessen but embâ—tter the fruition There is an insatiable Appetite in the Soul of man which nothing Terrene can content or satisfie and the Meditation of this is enough to make them vote themselves miserable in the midst of all their Grandeur and Opulency Nor is the frustration which we meet with in every single enjoyment to be either prevented or remedyed by having recourse to variety For after we have traversed the Creation we shall still find our selves unsatisfied And how unseasonable will it be to bewayl our folly for seeking that in sublunary things which they could not minister when we find it too late to make better provision 4. As every Wicked man is not prosperous so prodigious Sinners do seldom even in this life escape exemplary punishment God now than singles out some chief offenders whom he punisheth in this World that they may be as common Antidotes against the poyson of Wickedness that it may not encrease and spread through an Universal Impurity of bad men 5. If bad men were immediately punished Moral government would be subverted nor should there be room for the Influence of Comminations and Promises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If punishment were immediately inflicted upon Delinquents obedience would cease to be a Virtue as proceeding from fear not choyce The third Exception against the Providence of God in the Government of the World is fetcht from the Miseries and sufferings of the Righteous But that conclusion is ill drawn from those premisses nor is there any such Consequent chain'd to that Antecedent There is enough in the light of Nature to satisfie us in this Matter though Men have not been so happy as always to discern it 1 Many that seem to be good yet indeed are not so There are some stark naught who nevertheless have the cunning to conceal it But though they deceive us they cannot impose upon Omniscience and when we think that a Righteous person is ill entreated God only punisheth a secret Malefactor It becomes us to suppose a just Cause why God makes men Unhappy by adversity though he do not acquaint us with it 2. There is enough in the Best to deserve worse than they suffer God never chastens a Believer but he strikes an offender He never afflicts a Saint but at the same time he punisheth a Delinquent It is true that though Men will confess themselves not to be so Good as they should be yet every one thinks himself too good to suffer and let their chastisements be never so justly and mercifully moderated yet they judge them too great for them to undergoe But would men calmly examine themselves they would not only find Cause to justifie God in what they meet with but to magnifie his Mercy that they feel no more 3 No Good mans Afflictions are so many but his Mercies are more and we ought to confront the one with the other In the day of Prosperity be joyful but in the day of Adversity consider for God hath set the one over against the other c. Eccle. 7.14 The 70 read that place God hath tuned one thing to another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Harmony in Musick is perfected by supplyes of different Notes so God hath Checker'd our Conditions in the World for the better beautifying of his Providence And as the Night sets off the Day the Winter as well recommends as relieves the Summer so doth God give us the quicker tast and relish of our Mercies by intermixing them with Crosses 4. Our hesitations about Providence upon the account of the sufferings of good men proceeds from Unacquaintedness with Gods design in them and an ignorance of their Issue He is our Friend when he seems to be our Enemy and only acts the part of a Physician when we look upon him as an Executioner He only withdraws what would be our snare instead of our advantage and with-holds what he fore-sees we would mistake for God instead of being lead by it to him As there is no judging of a Picture by its first lines nor of a Structure by seeing its Materials in heaps no more ought we to pass sentence upon the Providences of God without a prospect of them from the beginning to the end Providence is one Entire System nor can we judge of the parts but in relation to the whole What at first we can give no account of we are often brought to approve by a subsequent course of Dispensations 5. The abridging Good Men in the fading Transitory things of the World doth not at all argue that God envies Good Men happiness but only declares that true Happiness doth not consist in such things There is no one thing speaks the Emptiness of the admired greatness profits and pleasures of the World more then that God permits the enjoyment of them to the worst of men and with-holds them from such for whom he hath the greatest esteem Who ever understands the Nature of true Good must bid adieu to the hopes of it in any thing but God alone And for those things that most state felicity in a Wise and Good man would judg himself unhappy if he could not despise them Who can think that to live in a Palace to lye in a soft Bed to eat nothing but what is delicate to give Laws to others to be
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
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
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
being in him can signify no more than being Members of his Visible Church which is made up of Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians But neither doth this nor any other text in the Bible militate in behalf of such an impious Notion however it or they may be pressed wrested and distorted to such a service Should we allow Mr. Sherlocks reading of the words referred to Joh. 15.2 which our present English Translation hath preceded him in yet there is nothing in them towards the Patronage of the Cause they are brought for The meaning of the place is not that there are any really in Christ who bear not fruit but only that there are some void of all fruits of Righteousness who make profession of their being so Who are therefore in an equivocal sense styled branches because they are numbred amongst the Members of the Church For it is usual to speak of persons and things as if they were that which they appear to be But withall the place is capable of another Lection which if admitted our Authors Hypothesis is far from being befriended by it For the words may be as well read Every Branch that beareth not Fruit in me he taketh away as every Branch in me that beareth not Fruit. And then the true import of it is that unless we be in Christ we can bring forth no Fruit to God and that what shew of being branches we make by virtue of an External Member-ship in the Church Yet that shall be no Obex to Christs disclaiming and renouncing our Works Nothing hath the true denomination of Holiness but what proceeds from the Spirit of Christ in us and Principles of Grace by infusion communicated to us which are the Foundation matter and Bond of our Union with Him And under whatever gloss or varnish we or our works appear to the World yet without such a Relation to Christ we are none of His nor are our Duties as to the Principles and Circumstances of them acceptable to God The Obligation upon Men to Obedience in what state soever we suppose them The consistency of Gods Right of Commanding with our contracted inability to the yeilding of due Obedience the Capacity that all men remain in notwithstanding any Congenite Impotency for the performing many External Duties good in themselves and in the matter of them with the subservience of these performances to Conversion as they are means appointed of God in order thereunto all these I in some measure understand and can reconcile with the Oeconomy of the Gospel But that our Lives can be Holy till our Hearts be so through the renuing of the Holy Ghost or that our Works can be adequately Good antecedently to our Reception of supernatural Grace I do no wise understand and I should account my self obliged to Mr. Sherlock would he unfold these things to me without obtruding Pelagianism upon the World And this conducts me to a Second thing wherein our Authors Notion of Union with Christ disserveth and undermines Gospel-Holiness beyond what the highest Malice steel'd with a proportionate Confidence can by any Laws of Reason fasten upon his Adversaries of such a tendency For as if it were not enough to have said that men are in a sense United to Christ before they either are or can be Holy even that very Obedience in which he states the compleatness of our Union with Christ and by which he declares it to be perfected is not owing to an Infused Principle derived from Jesus by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost but is only the result effect of our Natural Abilities awakened and excited by the Gospel Hence that I may not again repeat what we have heard from him before Sect. 2. he tells us That a Holy Life must at least in order of Nature goe before our Union with Christ because by this we are United to Him and that we are not real and living Members of Christ till we first sincerely Obey Him Now I say that this Obedience wherein our Author places the very perfection of our Union with Christ is not only formally distinct from true Gospel-Holiness but indeed lies in a contrariety to it The Gospel acknowledgeth no Acts of true Holiness performed by any where there is not antecedently at least in order of Nature a principle of true Holiness in the persons performing them No Acts operations or Duties of ours are in the esteem of the Gospel Holy but what proceed from and are done in the virtue power and efficacy of Grace previously derived from and Communicated to us by Jesus Christ. There is pre-required to all acts of Gospel-Obedience a new real spiritual Principle by which our Nature is renewed our Souls rendred habitually and subjectively Holy Grace is not the effect and product of any previous good Actions of ours what ever subserviency through the appointment and dispose of God they may lie in as to his bestowing of it but all Acts Operations truly Good are the fruits and efflorescencies of Grace To talk of sincere Obedience precluding our antecedaneous adeption of a new Principle and the Communication of a Divine Vital Seed to us is to impose Pelagianism upon us and that in a more fulsom way and in cruder Terms than many of the followers of Pelagius used to declare themselves Excluding our being furnished with an active supernatural infused subjective Principle the utmost influence the Gospel hath upon Obedience is only by the equity and reasonableness of its Laws the nobleness and certainty of its Promises to solicite our Minds and to awaken the Strength we have but as to the conferring any real Strength or the begetting a vital Form in our Hearts thereby repairing and restoring the Image of God which we have lost it is altogether incompetent and ineffectual So that upon the whole that very Obedience wherin Mr. Sherlock states the Nature and Perfection of our Union with Christ to consist is not only contra-distinct from but subversive of the Holiness which the Gospel requires being an Obedience educed meerly out of our natural Abilities and no ways owing to any Antecedent Renovation of our Natures by the Holy Ghost which is that alone that the Gospel honours with the name of Holiness Nor is this either all the Invasion which our Author by the Idea he gives of Union with Christ hath made upon Gospel-Holiness but admitting once his account of it to be true that which God alone doth entitle by the Name of Holiness is wholly shut out of the Religion of Christians So that a Third Reason why I except against his Notion of our Union with Christ as pernicious to Holiness beyond what the Opinion of any others is whom he so Tragically declame's against is this that it render's all True Holiness even in persons actually and compleatly united to Christ impossible for the future For as our Union with Christ is perfected without any Communication of New Principles by a real Physical and
Nations 3 dly Because a person may be cast out from actual Communion with the whole visible Church and yet remain a disciple of Christ and a true Believer And that this hath been the lot of some of the best servants of God might be made manifest in diverse Instances if it were either necessary or lay now before me 4 Because no adult person especially such as are not sprung of Christian and Covenant-parents either hath or can plead a right of admission into the visible Church of Christ who both doth not live to God and of whose so doing there is not some previous Moral Certainty and Evidence Interest in Christ by Faith is the Foundation of all that Interest which any Man rightfully hath in the Church as a Member of it It is through a Relation and habitude to Him as our Vital Head that we come to be knit together as Members of the same Body So far is our Communion with the Church from being the Fountain and spring of our Holiness that as it s our being Holy that entitles us to the Communion with the Church before God so it is our seeming to be so that entitles us to her communion before Men. So that upon the whole our Authors Gloss of the Churches being understood by the True Vine proving contradictious to it self repugnant to the Reason of Mankind in the measures by which they judg concerning the sense of a Proposition as well as inconsistent with and irreconcileable to the Context and withal Novel I hope he will find few Proselytes to it and fewer Advocates for it And as the Arguments upon which he hath built it are no other than vain and trifling Pretences so the most plausible of them have been already replyed to and the futilousness of the rest shall hereafter if necessity do so require be made manifest I shall shut up this with Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase of the Text whom I suppose none of the Conforming-Clergy will either upbraid with Ignorance or deny him to equal Mr. Sherlock both in the knowledg of Divinity and the Docttrine of the Church of England I am the True Vine and my Father is the Husband Man is thus Glossed by him I am the True Generous Fruit bearing Vine Jer. 22.1 my Blood as the blood of the Grape shall Rejoyce the Heart of God and Man Jud. 9.12 And my Father who hath thus planted me in this World here below hath the whole ordering of all that belong to me and every Branch every Believer every Member of my Mistical Body And accordingly he understands our abiding in the Vine ver 5. to be in the Virtue of Grace communicated from Christ to us Having discharged the Church and the Doctrine of the Gospel from being signified by the Name Christ as that Word and Name denotes the Term to which Believers are united it remains that we declare what is the true import and just meaning of it with respect to the room it hath in the present Question And here by the Name of Christ we understand the person of Christ nor is any thing else intended properly by it in the whole Gospel Supposing that secondarily and in way of Trope it occur sometimes used to imply the Doctrine of the Gospel and may be sometimes to signify the Christian Church yet that primarily and properly it doth not denote the Person of Christ is a blasphemous wild Imagination That Christ is a Person was never denied by any unless it be the Quakers who neither know what the Idea of Person is which they deny him to be nor what themselves intend in the acknowledgment they make of Him The Arrians and Socinians deny the Divinity of his Person the Manichees of old disclaimed the real Manhood of His Person The Nestorians asserted two Persons in him as well as two Natures but that he was a Person some one way or other hath been always granted till a Generation hath of late arisen who neither understand whereof they speak nor what they renounce But the Enquiry is What we mean by the person of Christ to which Believers must be united And this we are obliged the rather to declare our selves about seeing Mr. Sherlock is pleased to Character us as having here out-done all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez Pag. 200. First then By the Person of Christ we understand more than his being a meer Man There are a sort of Gentlemen who though they own the Personality of Christ yet they wholly renounce the Divinity of His Person And to give them their due 't is upon the supposition of his being a meer Man that they allow him to be only a Political Head to his Members Nor is this any thing but a just pursuance of their former Principle for not admitting Him to be God 't is impossible that he should be a Head in respect of Vital Influences to any And I wish that among the many Expositions of Scripture-Texts which our Author hath transcribed from them he had not in complyance with them perversely sensed even such places wherein their design is to undermine the Deity of the Son of God I would not be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his Glosses of Col. 1.19 Col. 2.3 and 2.8 Joh. 14.20 Joh. 1.14 which are the very same that the Socinians impose upon those places be admitted we have some of the main proofs of it wrested out of our hands Secondly Though by the Person of Christ to whom we are United we understand more than a meer man yet we also affirm that he is truly and properly a Man As we do not Un-God him with the Arians and Socinians so neither do we Un-man him with the Marcionites and Manichees As he is truly and Essentially God and not meerly styled so upon the account of his wonderful Conception the Sanctity of His Life His Power of working Miracles His Resurection from the Dead His Rule and Care over the Church and the like so He is as truly and essentially Man having assumed the whole and entire Humane Nature with whatsoever belongs to it as a necessary Affection or Adjunct He had both a true Organical Body and was not a meer Spectrum or Phantasm in the shape and form only of a Man as Marcion and Manes blasphemously imagined and had also a true Humane Rational Soul nor was the Deity meerly instead thereof supplying its Office to the Body as Apollinaris with equal folly and perversness asserted Thirdly We do by the Person of Christ to which we are United intend and understand more than his God-head and Man-hood abstractedly and separately considered And if this be The outdoing all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez which our Author Chargeth us with that we have found out a Person for Christ in this sense distinct from his God-head and Man-hood we think not to have done would have been as far from Wit as Truth A deep and mysterious Doctrine
can resolve us how it comes to pass that one part more indiscerptibly cleaves to another than if they were fastned together by Adamantine Chains I see no reason why the Incomprehensibleness of the Manner of our Union with Christ should any ways obstruct or weaken our belief of it having all the assurance that Divine Revelation can give us concerning our being United to Him As we assent to an Evident Object of sense or to that which is plainly demonstrated by Reason though there occurr many things in the manner of their Existence which is Unconceiveable So the Quod sit and reality of our Vnion with Christ being attested by Him who cannot lye it becomes us to embrace it with all steadiness of Belief though we cannot conceive the Quomodo or Manner how it is For my part I have often thought that through God's leaving us pos'd and Non-plust about the most ordinary and certain Phaenomena of Nature he intended to train us up to a Mancipation of our Vnderstandings to Articles of Faith when we were once assured that he had declared them though the difficulties relating to them were Vnaccountable Nor is the manner of the Coherence of the parts of Matter the only difficulty in Nature relating to Union that perplexes and baffâ—'s our Reason but the Mode of the Mystical Incorporation of the Rational Soul with the Humane Body doth every way as much entangle and leave us desperate as the former That man is a kind of Amphibious Creature allied in his Constituent parts both to the Intellectual and Material Worlds and that the several Species of Beings in the Macrocosm are combined in him as in a Systeme Reason as well as Scripture instructs us That we have a Body we are fully assured by its Density Extension Impenetrability and all the adjuncts and affections of Matter and that we have an immaterial Spirit we are demonstratively convinced by its reacting on it self its consciousness of its own Being and Operations not to mention other Mediums whereof we have spoken elsewhere And that these two are United together to make up the composition of Man is as plain from the Influence that the Body hath upon the Soul in many of its perceptions and which the Soul hath upon the Body in the motions of the Spirits Blood withall that ensues and depends thereupon Nor could the affections and adjuncts of the Material Nature nor the Attributes and properties of the Immaterial be indifferently predicated of Man were not the Soul and Body united together in the Unity of Mans person But now how this can be is a knot too hard for Humane Reason to unty How a pure Spirit should be cemented to an earthy Clod or an Immaterial substance coalesce with Bulk is a Riddle that no Hypothesis of Philosophy can resolve us about How this intellective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should come to be button'd to this corporeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a mystery the unvailing whereof must be reserved to the Future state For our Indagations about it hitherto do leave us altogether unsatisfied 1 The Aristotelick substantial uniter and cement will not do For besides its repugnancy to Reason that there should be any substantial ingredient in the constitution of man save his Soul and Body the Unition of it self with the Soul supposing it to be Material or with the Body admitting it to be an Incorporeal will remain unintelligible And to affirm it to be of a middle Nature partaking of the Affection and adjuncts of both is that which our Reasonable Faculties will never allow us to subscribe to the Idea's which we have of Body and Spirit having no alliance the one with the other And to style it a substantial Mode is to wrap up repugnancies in its very notion For though all Modes be the modification of substances yet they are Predicamental Accidents And how essential soever thâ—s or that Modification may be to a Body of such a species yet 't is wholly Extrinsecal and Accidental to Matter it self In brief the voluminous Discourses of the Aristotelians both about Union in General and the Union of the Rational Soul to the organical Humane Body in particular resolve themselves either into Idle Tattle and Insignificant Words or obtrude upon us contradictions and Nonsense 2 To preclude all Union betwixt the Soul and Body on supposition that they are not distinct constituent parts of Man is plainly to despair of solving the difficulty For not to dispute whether the Soul and Body may in Philosophick rigor be called parts or whether man with reference to them may be styled a Compositum 't is enough that the one is not the other but that they are different principles and that neither of them considered separately is the Man Though the Soul and Body be perfect substances in themselves and though the Soul can operate in its disjunct state in its separation will be no less a Person than Soul and Body now together are yet there are many Operations belonging to the Soul in this conjunct state of which it is uncapable in the separate and there are many things predicable of the Soul and Body together which cannot be affirm'd of them asunder How close and intimate soever the Union betwixt the Soul and Body be and how great soever their mutual dependences in most of their Operations be upon one another yet not only the intellectual Spirit and the duely organised Matter remain even in their consociation classically different their Essences Affections Operations admitting a diversity as well as a distinction but there are some operations belong to each of them upon which the other hath no Influence For as the Mind is Author of many cogitations and conceptions to which the Body gave no occasion so the Body is the spring and fountain of several Functions over which the Soul hath no Dominion nor any direct Influence They remain as much distinct notwithstanding the Union which intercedes between them as they would have done should we suppose them to have had an existence previous to their confederations or as they shall be after the dissolution of the League between them From all which it may be scientifically concluded that they are distinct and different Principles in mans Constitution But whether thereupon he ought to be called a Compositum or they to be styled parts will be resolved into meer Logomachie chat about Words Though to speak my own mind I see no Cause why Man may not properly enough obtain the appellation of Compositum and the Soul and Body be allowed for Constituent parts Nor Thirdly doth the Cartesian Hypothesis though the most ingenious and best contrived of any hitherto thought upon fully satisfy an inquisitive Mind in the Matter before us Their Hypothesis is briefly this That God in his Infinite sapience chose to create three distinct and different kinds of Beings some purely Material which yet through difference of the Figure Size Number Texture and Modification of
their parts come to Multiply into many different species 2 Some purely Immaterial among whom whether there be any specifical difference is pro and con disputed 3 Man a Compositum of both having an Immaterial Intellectual Soul joyned to an Organical Body Now say they God having in his Soveraign pleasure thought Good to form Man such a Creature he hath not only by an Uncontroulable Law confined the Soul to an intimate presence with and constant residence in the Body while it remains a fit receptacle or till he give it a discharge but withall hath made them dependent upon one another in many of their operations And in this mutual dependence of the one upon the other with respect to many of their operations they state the Union betwixt the Soul and Body to consist For through the impressions that are made upon the Organs of Sense there result in the Soul certain perceptions and on the other hand through the Cogitations that arise in the Soul there ensue certain Emotions in the Animal Spirits And thus say they by the Action of each upon the other their passion from one another they are formally united But all this instead of loosing the knot serves only to tye it faster For 1 This mutual dependency as to operation of one upon the other cannot be apprehended but in posteriority of Nature to Union and consequently the Formal Reason of Union cannot consist in it 2 There are cases wherein neither the impressions of outward objects upon the Sensory Nerves beget or excite any perceptions in the Soul which whether it proceed from obstinacy of Mind or intense contemplation alike answers my drift and also cases wherein Cogitations of the Mind make not any sensible impressions upon the Body as in Ecstasies and yet the Union of the Soul and Body remains undissolved which argues that it imports more than either an intimous presence or a dependence between them in point of operation 3 'T is altogether unintelligible how either a Body can act upon a Spirit or a Spirit upon a Body I grant it may be demonstrated that they do so but the manner of doing it or indeed how it can be done is not intelligible That a Tremor begot in the Nerves by the Jogging of particles of Matter upon the sensory Organs should excite cogitations in the Soul or that the Soul by a meer thought should both beget a Motion in the Animal Spirits and determine through what meatus they are to steer their course is a Phaenomenon in the Theory of which we are perfectly non-plust How that which penetrates a Body without giving a Jog to or receiving a shove from it should either impress a Motion upon or receive an impression from it is unconceivable So that to state the Union of the Soul and Body in a reciprocal action upon and passion by and from one another is to fix it in that which surpasseth the Sagacity of our Faculties to conceive how it can be Now if Common Unions of whose reality and Existence we are so well assured be nevertheless with respect to their Nature not only so unknown but unconceivable we may lawfully presume if there lye nothing else against the Immediate Union of Believers with Christ save that it cannot be comprehended that this is no argument why we should immediately renounce the belief of it If we can but once justify that there is such an Union betwixt the blessed Jesus and sincere Christians the incomprehensibleness of the manner of it ought not to discourage our Faith If we can take up with the Evidence of Sense and Reason as to the reality of other Unions whose Modes are as little understood I see no cause why the Veracity of God providing we can produce the Authority of Divine Testimony should not satisfie us as to the reality of the Union though the manner How it is were a question we could not answer § 6. The import of Terms being fixed we are now to make a nearer approach to the matter it self And the first thing that the threed of Reason conducts us here to is this that be the Kind manner of our Union what it please yet it is the person of Christ which we are united to For suppose it to be Political and that the only Vinculum be our owning his Laws yet forasmuch as Christ only personally considered both doth enact them and exact Obedience to them and punish our Rebellion against them our Relation to Him as Subjects doth ultimately respect his Person All the reverence we pay his Laws under the Reduplication as His bears upon the Veneration we pay Himself However he come by his Soveraign Dominion over the Church 't is his Person that it is stated and vested in Whatever room either our Obedience on the one hand or the Gospel of Christ upon the other have in this Relation of Union the Extremes United they cannot be Whether it be by means of our Union only with the Christian Church or by what Copula soever else we are United to Him Yet 't is still to the person of Christ i. e. to Christ himself that we are United Or suppose it to be only a Moral Union an Union in Mind Love Design and Interest a being acted by the same Principles having the same temper and disposition of Spirit yet still 't is between the Person of Christ and the persons of Believers that this Union intercedes For as they through the guidance of sanctified Reason embrace cleave to and with the greatest complacency delight in him so He through their participating of his likeness and haveing his Image imprinted on them loveth and embraceth them In a word all Unions except Natural or Physical are the Relations of Persons to Persons 'T is the Husband and Wife themselves that are ligu'd together by the matrimonial Tie 'T is between the persons of Subjects and the Person of the Prince as clothed with Authority that the Political Nexus consists I cannot therefore but stand surprised to find Mr. Sherlock both endeavoring to disable such Texts of Scripture as are levied in proof of an Union between Believers and the Person of Christ whereof § 4. and impeaching his Brethren that they are not satisfied that Christ and Believers are united unless their Persons be united too For let the Union as to its Quality and manner be what it will suppose an Union by mutual Relations or Affections or common Interest yet it is the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers that the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lies between Yea this our Author acknowledgeth though all he reap by it is to contradict himself For this is a very plain case says he If Christ and Believers are United their Persons must be united too for the Person of Christ is Christ Himself the Persons of Believers are the Believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves Nor
only a sign but something signified and consequently the Elements of Bread and Wine being the signs tendred us they must be really exhibitive of something else that hath an Analogy to them and this can be nothing but the Body and Blood of Christ which are as really exhibited to be spiritually fed upon as the sensible Elements are to be Carnally This the words of Institution also demonstrate for when Christ saith take eat this is my Body there must either be an Exhibition of his Body to us in some sense or other or we must impeach Christ of uttering a false proposition in offering that to be eaten which according to these Gentlemen in no sense is so Yea were the Lord's Supper nothing but a Commemoration of Christ's death and the benefits purchased thereby it were no more to the Worthy Receiver than to the Unworthy nor any more to the Receiver than to the bare Spectator both which are in themselves the grossest of absurdities and withal lye in a direct repugnancy to the Gospel It is not a Real presence as the Papists slander us but a Corporeal that we disclaim But should we grant Christ to be locally and bodily present in the Supper though it be Contradictious to Reason Sense Scripture the Nature of a Sacrament the very words of Institution and the belief of the Ancient Church yet it would no ways serve the End for which it is pretended namely its being the means of our Union with Christ. For not to urge that were he Bodily present in the Sacrament or were nothing really and substantially there but the very Body and Blood of Christ as the Papists affirm it were yet the most abominable thing that ever men were guilty of to eat Him For though some have pawn'd sold and let out their Gods to Farm as Tertullian upbraids the Heathen yet as Cicero say's of all the Religions that have been in the World there were never any of such a Religion as to eat their God There are some instances among the salvage Nations of such as have eat the Flesh and drunk the Blood of their Enemies and of such as have sold their friends to the Anthropophagi when they were either useless through Age or in their apprehension irrecoverably sick but no Nation hath been so barbarous as to feast themselves with the flesh of their God's or to quaff their Blood The Egyptians would not eat with the Jews Gen. 46.3 because as Onkelos tells us the one did eat what the others worshipped 'T is known who said if the Christians eat what they adore anima mea cum Philosophis God by distributing the Brute creatures into clean which might be eaten and unclean which might not be eaten did thereby saith Theodoret provide against the accounting or worshipping any of them as a God Fo who will be so unreasonable as to esteem that a God which is Unclean or so Mad as to adore that which he eats Whatever pittifull beings men have chosen for Gods and how useful soever in their own Nature to have been turned into Cates Viands yet they who worshipped them have been so far from making them their repast themselves that the seeing others who made not such account of them nor payed them any veneration do it hath been enough to excite their Rage An instance we have of this Exod. 8.26 where Moses being permitted by Pharaoh to sacrifice in the land oâ— Egypt return's this as a Reason why he could not Lo we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us They who had most degraded themselves in the choice of their Gods had yet more respect for them than the Papists who make their God a victim have for theirs As if it were not disgrace enough to their God to pawn and fell him and that sometimes to very ill intents and purposes all this they have don with their consecrated Host they place the most glorious part of their Religion in the Sacrificing him and eating his flesh when they have done Now the only Text to sustain the weight of the Bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist and to justify this Cyclopian eating of Him is Math. 26.26 Take Eat this is my Body c. Than which I know not one place in the whole Bible that yields us more infallible Arguments to subvert their whole Hypothesis every word being pregnant with a demonstration against them But all I shall say is this that whereas they upbraid us for the admission of one Trope in the paraphrase of the words they are forced themselves to substitute a great many before they can serve their design of them Had it been the purpose of the Holy-Ghost to declare our sense and oppose theirs I know no plainer expressions that could have been chosen to accomplish either the one or the other The Words are all as plain as the Subject-Matter to which they ought to be adapted will admit nor can the Wit of Man invent any that are more proper to manifest the Conceptions of the Speaker suppose him to have intended the sense that that we contend for The Substantive verb est is in which many of our Divines acknowledg a Figure is as remote from needing such a concession and as capable of a proper acceptation as any one in the whole Enunciation 'T is a Transcendental Term and signifies as properly a Similitudinary Being as an essential and only the quality of the Subject of the Proposition can determine whether it import Being Substantial or Being Intentional Forasmuch therefore as it is here a note of Affirmation interveening between a Sign as a Relate and as a thing signified as a Correlate I affirm that the only proper Sense which it hath or can have is to intimate the one to be vicarious for and representative of the other To imagine that est as 't is the note of affirmation between Signâ—m and Signatum can have any other sense than to signify is a fancy that will never be entertained in the minds of such who understand what they say In a word 't is a Sacramental Enunciation where it occurs 't is the note by which the Relation of the sign to the thing signified is affirmed and therefore the whole Relation between a Sign and the Thing signified being meerly to represent it is impossible that it should have any other import save to denote that the one is signified by the other But to wave any further opposing the Bodily presence in the Sacrament though the Popish notion of our Union with Christ cannot consist without it I say that supposing all which the Romanists say in the Matter of the Elements being Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ our feeding on Him in a Carnal manner were true yet this cannot be the bond of the Union which is so magnificently represented For â— were this the basis of our Union with Christ and the Nexus by which
of the one is distinct from that which we have of the other appears 1 in that our Legal Union implyes a Relation to Christ as our High Priest and Sponsor interposing and acting in our behalf towards God whereas our Mystical Union respecteth Him as acting to us in the quality of a Vital Head 2 Because the vinculum of that is Christs susception of our sins upon him and the Fathers imputing them to him but the nexus of this is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and principles of Grace infused into us 3 Because the result of our Legal Union is the imputation of what Christ in our stead did and suffered for Righteousness to us and discharge from Wrath but the effect of our Spiritual Union is further communication of Grace together with quickning Influences whereby we grow up into a higher conformity with our Head and are more and more adapted to live to God 3dly Those things are different whereof the one is the meritorious fruit as well as the Consequent of the other and that this is the habitude which the things before us stand in might be easily demonstrated For though many of the formal benefits of a Legal Union such as Actual discharge from Wrath and Justification to Life do not arrive to us but through the intervention of a Spiritual conglutination to our Mediator it being not only in the power of the Father and Son to appoint in what order and upon what Terms we should have an Interest in the purchased Redemption but the very Nature of our deliverance which was not only a ransoming us from Wrath but a restoring us to the favour of God and an exalting us to a superadded blessedness required that it should be in such a Method and upon those conditions as that God might both exercise forgiveness in consistency with His Holiness and we be adapted for that to which we were advanced yet even our spiritual Union in the very vinculum bond of it is a purchased fruit of what Christ as substituted in our room and so one with us in conspectu curiae did and suffered Yea the Honour of being Heir of all things and Head of Influence to the Redeemed is a reward of what Christ underwent and performed as our Surety in the relation of which he stood Legally United to us § 11. I now proceed to the consideration of Moral Union which is all that some and those very considerable Persons will admit to intercede betwixt Christ and Believers By Moral Union we understand a Harmony of Wills an agreement in designs a confederation in affections in a word an Union by way of mutual and reciprocal love 'T is styled Moral from its band or ligature which is Love Love is not only â—he principal and chiefest but the source and fountain of all humane Affections All the Affections are but the several forms and shapes of Love Desire Fear Anger Hope Sorrow Delight c. are but the various Forms and Aspects of Love according as its Object is circumstantiated under the consideration of absent present easie or difficult to be enjoyed c. As the Object Beloved is affected with this or that Circumstance so Love receives a new Modification and becomes clothed with this or that Form And indeed Love is of a very Unitive Nature 't is the Marriage of one Intellectual Being to another 'T is the strongest bond of Alliance the most connexive cement All Love tends to Union to have the heart implanted and incorporated with the Object beloved It both unites the Lover to the Object which he loves and transform's him into it What and where our Love is that and there we are There is an assimilating efficacy in Love whereby it casts the mind into the Mould of the thing Beloved which made Austin say si terram amas terra es If thou lovest the Earth thou art Earth And the Philosopher to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Friend is only another Self Friendship which is nothing but mutual endearedness or a confederacy in sincere affections save that it superadds conversation and society to Love is not only styled by Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the noblest efflorescence perfection of Virtue but Aristotle defines it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one Soul in two Bodies Or as Horace calls Virgil whom he entirely loved dimidium animae the half of his Soul Now a Love-Union we readily acknowledg between Christ and Believers As it was infinite compassion which influenced Him not only without Motives but in despite of obstacles in us to become our Ransom so having Redeemed us by his Blood and engraven his Image upon us by his Spirit he doth with superlative delight behold his purchase and embrace his likeness 'T is in pursuance of his complacency in them that he Espouseth their concerns resents their troubles and ministreth opportune relief to them under their several exigencies Nor is his Love greater than it is lasting being as Unchangeable as it is free and superlative Upon the same Motives that he works such dispositions and qualifications in us as may render us fit objects of his Delight he takes care to prevent their being totally lost that so we may not cease to have a share in his complacency Admit that Christs complacential Love stands determined to Holiness and that he delights in none till they be good yet the Immutability of the Divine Counsels the Convention between the Father and Son in the Covenant of Redemption Gods Veracity in reference to the promises which he hath made in the Covenant of Grace the absolute compleatness of Christs Sacrifice for all those in whose behalf he gave himself a propitiation together with the prevalency of his Intercession and his design in purchasing and bestowing the Holy Ghost to reside in and watch over Believers may assure us that he will preserve those as meet objects of his Love upon whom he hath once engraven his Image to make them so And by the way this may serve as a reply to that of Mr. Sherlock p. 211. where he tells us that the Unchangeableness of Gods Love doth not consist in being always determined to the same Object but in that he always Loves for the same reason that is that he always loves true Virtue and Goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceaseth to love any Person till he ceaseth to be Good and then the Immutability of his love is the reason why he loves no longer For besides that our Author doth hereby preclude all Gods love of Benevolence and Compassion of which Persons abstracted from qualifications are the Objects Which as the Scripture doth every where celebrate as the highest love so there was nothing in us that could attract it but on the contrary there was every thing in us which might have rendred us the Objects of everlasting Indignation See Rom. 15.8 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 4.9 10. I say besides this the whole passage even taking it as refering
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
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-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
be rendred more easie and familiar for our minds to contemplate and that our Faith concerning them may be promoted and assisted by their being represented to us under obvious and sensible Images We have also elsewhere intimated that where the Terms are Metaphorick yet the Truths intended and expressed by them are Real And as to that which we are now upon 't is highly remarkable that there being no one kind of Union in Nature which serveth fully to illustrate the Union betwixt Christ and Christians that therefore the Holy Ghost hath sought to enlighten it by Similitudes and Resemblances transferred and borrowed from all sorts of Unions For as Chrysostom well observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ Unites us to himself by many paterns And it is worth taking notice of that having given us a List and Collection of some of them he shuts up the whole with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all these things declare an Union between Christ Believers such an one as will not admit the least thing to come between them Had our Oneness with Christ been only represented by the Relation between a Shepherd and Sheep the Conjunction between a Husband Wife or the habitude between a Prince and his Subjects there might have been some probability in Mr. Sherlocks Notion but being also represented by resemblances drawn from Natural and Artificial Union as the Insition of branches into their root the copulation of Members to their Vital Head the incorporation of concocted Food with our pre-existent Flesh the cohesion of a building by a strong cement to its Foundation and the confederation of the Vital Soul with the Organick Body There must be a sublimer kind of Union between Christ and Christians than meerly what a Political Relation doth import Christ is the Vine we are the Branches He is the Vital Head we the enlivened Members He is the Living Foundation Stone to whom we as lively Stones are cemented I may confidently say that there is not any Analogy between what is originally signified by these Metaphors and the thing aimed at and designed by them if only a Political Relation between Christ and Christians is to be understood The Gospel-Method and Form is the most obscure and improper way in the World of teaching the Truth of things if all these Tropical phrases imply no more but that Christians acknowledg Christ for their Legislator and obey him as their Soveraign Grand expressions and magnificent Terms in Subjects that require Low are an argument of no great discretion in a common Author And to imagine that in the Scripture petty things should be declared in Forms that are august lofty and Emphatical is to think diminutively of the divine Wisdom In a word if there be no more intended under all those Symbolick expressions which we have mentioned but that Believers own the Authority of Jesus Christ by believing his Doctrines and submitting to his Laws then we wonderfully expose the Gospel to contempt by telling the World that under a grandeur of words and Hyperbolical expressions things of a mean and low sense are to be apprehended and conceived I shall only urge this from two other Pattern Unions to which the Scripture in the shadowing forth and illustrating the Oneness between Christ and Christians signally alludes The first of these Symbolical Unions is that of the association and adhesion of the component particles corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and compacted For as the Apostle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing 't is one Loaf of which we partake we are therefore one Body viz. in Christ who participate of that one Loaf 1 Cor. 10.17 Picherellus well observes that Paul doth not say we are One Loaf or Bread though our Translation render it so but that he argues from the coalition of the clusters of the small corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and contexed to the identity and Oneness that intervenes between Christ and Believers And accordingly Beza translates it As the Loaf of which we all eat is one so we partaking of that One Loaf although we be many are but One Body to Christ. Thus also Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What is that Loaf It is the Body of Christ viz. Sacramentally what are those who partake of it They are the Body of Christ not many Bodies but One. For as the many grains of which a Loaf is form'd are so conven'd into one Mass that the distinction and diversity of one from another doth not appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same manner are we conjoyned to Christ and one another in 1 Cor. Hom. 24. The cohesion of the many little parts of Flour of which one and the same Individual Loaf is kneaded and compacted being that which the Apostle declares and illustrates our conjunction with Christ by it plainly follows that our Conjunction to him must be of another kind than what a bare Political Relation doth import The second Pattern Union I shall at present argue from is the Oneness betwixt the Father and Son in the blessed Trinity At that day ye shall know saith Christ to his Disciples that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Joh 1.14 20. I pray that they all be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us c. Joh. 17.21 I readily grant that 't is not an Oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Christians an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Weigelians wildly and blasphemously imagine that is here to be understood Nor doth the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always signifie sameness but is often used to denote similitude and likeness as Matth. 9.48 Luk. 6.36 But yet upon the other hand I deny that 't is meerly an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an Oneness of Will and affection between the Father and Son as the Arians and Socinians pretend that is here meant Nor indeed can there be an Oneness of Will and an universal Consent and Agreement in Design and Affections where there is not previously either a Specifick or a Numerical Oneness of Nature An attendance to other Texts such as Joh. 10.30 Joh. 14. 9 10. 1 Joh. 5.9 where the same phrases occurr will best resolve us what kind of Oneness between the Father and Son we are here to understand And certainly unless we will betray the Gospel and the Faith of Christians into the hands of their worst Enemies 't is an Essential Unity that is there meant Now though we plead not for the same kind of Oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and Son yet we affirm that somthing more sublime than barely a Political Relation between Him and Them is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us 'T is not a sameness of Union between Christ and Christians with that betwixt the Father and Son which the Holy Ghost intends by
those expressions only by alluding to that incomprehensible Identity which is between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity through a Numericalness of Nature he would instruct us that the Union between Christ and those that are born of God is intimate great and mysterious as well as True Real Before we dismiss this we will take a brief survey of our Authors exceptions against the conclusion deduced from the fore-going allusive Metaphors Christ says he is styled the Head of his Body the Church because he hath the command and rule over and is invested with Authority to Govern her and the Church is styled the Body of Christ because she must be obedient to his Laws and subject to his Government Now to this I reply 1st The Head in reference to the Natural Body having not only an Influence upon the Members by way of Communication of Animal Spirits but by way of conduct and Government accordingly I deny not but that the Term as applyed to Christ may somtimes refer only to the last property There are some Texts of Scripture where the subject Matter doth plainly determine the signification of Head as predicated of Christ to refer meerly to Eminence and Rule Particularly the 1 Cor. 11.3 is so to be understood But that Christ is never styled Head save in Allusion to the property and affection of Government which belongs to the Head in the Natural Body over the Members is a bold Imagination and which never any espoused before Mr. Sherlock except the Socinians All pretending to the Name of Christians the Enemies of the Godhead of Christ only secluded have besides their acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Political Head of the Church in respect of Authority and Rule owned him likewise to be a Spiritual Head in respect of quickning Influences 2dly 'T is received as an Universal Measure by which all Expositors are to Regulate their Glosses upon the sacred Text that whensoever any thing is represented by a Metaphorick Term all that bears any proportion or analogy to the affections and properties of the Thing which the Word in its Original signification doth denote ought to be understood Every Scripture whether it be proper or Tropical is to be expounded in the greatest Latitude which the Word will bear as we have demonstrated cap. 1. § 10. Christ being therefore to the Church what the Head is to the Members of the Natural Body and the Head not only giving Direction and Guidance to the Bodily Members but having also a vital Influx upon them it naturally follows that Christ is as well Head to the Church in regard of actual Influences of Spiritual strength and life as in respect of Guidance by Laws and Rules Nor is there any way to avoid this inference and sequel unless it can be made appear that the attribution of spiritual Influences to Christ in reference to his Body doth contradict some principle of Reason or supplant some sacred Truth which I 'm sure our Author hath not hitherto done 3dly Suppose that Christs having the Rule and Government over the Church were all that by attendance to the Allusive Metaphor of his being to the Church what the Head is to the Natural Body could be established and inforced yet the Holy Ghost having besides the accommodation of himself to our instruction in the bare and naked usurpation of the Metaphor extended the import of it so far as we pretend by a comment and paraphrase of his own which he hath left us upon it we may reckon our selves secure in the application which we make of it For as if it had not been enough through the naked and bare use of that Allusive and Metaphorick Term to have intimated that it is between Christ Christians as between the Head and Members he hath expresly informed us as there are communications of Spirits from the Head unto all the Members of the Body through the subserviency of these parts which by the great wise Architect of the Humane Fabrick are thereunto designed that there are in like manner supplies of spiritual life strength from Christ to every Believe◠through the Moral subserviency of one Christian to another in the Duties and Offices which he hath appointed Thus the Apostle Eph. 4.15 16. having styled Christ our Head he adds by way of defining the sense in which he is so from whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh inerease of the Body unto the edifying it self in love And to the same purpose only more emphatically speaks the same Apostle Col. 2.18 And not holding the Head i. e. Christ from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God If these Testimonies be not sufficient to silence the Sophistry of men and to level the Objections whereby our Author endeavours to supplant Christs being a Head of Influence I will not say that we may despair of Understanding the Bible but this I will say that by the same art that Mr. Sherlock avoyds those he may retain a belief of such Scripture expressions as are declarative of any Fundamentals of Faith and yet renounce the Truths they are designed to reveal I shall only here subjoyn Bishop Davenants paraphrase upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joynts and Bands which the Apostle speaks of By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joynts we are to understand saith he those Vincula and ligatures by which we are copulated to Christ and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bonds we are to understand those Media by which we are concatenated to one another Now says he the Ligatures by which we are knit to Christ as our Vital Head and by which we receive quickning Influences from him are the Spirit and the Graces thereof especially Faith The second Argument in opposition to our Authors Hypothesis shall be raised from such Scripture Texts as are not allusive to any Pattern Union but yet are manifestative of such an Intimate conjunction between Christ and Christians as a Political Relation is so far from giving us an adequate Notion of that indeed it bears no proportion nor Analogy to it Nor shall I insist on such places at this time as express Christs Abiding in us and our Abiding in Him His Dwelling in us and our Dwelling in Him His Being in us and our Being in Him Though a Political Relation be too mean and low to answer the Grandeur of these phrases He that without prepossession and prejudice consulteth these following Texts viz. Joh. 15.4 Joh. 6.56 1 Joh. 4.13 2 Cor. 13.5 Col. 1.27 Rom. 8.10 1 Joh. 5.20 2 Cor. 5.17 will soon find that such an Union as intercedes between a Prince and his Subjects is too flat jejune and cold an Interpretation to sustain the weight of those sentences Had the Holy Ghost designed the delivering the Doctrine which
q. 5. and they will satisfie them This is all that I shall offer at present in opposition to Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis nor should I have said so much but that it is here where we have his most Heroick adventures and where he seems all along to speak as strutting and standing on his tiptoes 'T is here that he flings down the Gantlet to all the World and treads the Stage with no less state and majesty than as if he intended to erect lasting Trophies to himself for having baffled the received Opinion of the whole Christian Church And 't is here that most particularly I have accepted his Challenge and bid him battel on his ground and at his own weapons and as to the issue of the Encounter I leave it to the Reader to pronounce betwixt him and me This I do affirm that as I have not declined him in any thing where he seem'd to argue like a Man and a Schollar so I must beg his pardon if in some things I have forborn him and given back forasmuch as I was not willing to be under the temptation of exposing him too much And upon this very inducement I thought once to have overlookt his Argument taken from the Nature of the Sacraments which he brings in proof that all the Union between Christ and Christians is meerly political but upon second thoughts I am resolved to say something to it least by being left in the way it should put some to a stand though it should put none to a retreat We have already encountered the same forces in another field and being defeated there there is the less likelyhood of their standing it long out here As we have disabled this Medium from serving our Author against the Immediate Union of Christ with Believers so we will now venture to see what strength is in it against the common Opinion of the Christian Church about the Nature quality of the Union that is between Him and them Now I take it for granted says he that there can be no better way to understand the Nature of our Union with Christ than to consider the Nature of those Sacraments which were designed as the Instruments and signs of our Union with Him and if we will take that account the Scripture gives of them all the Union they signifie is a publick and visible profession of our Faith in Christ and subjection to Him as our Lord and Saviour and a sincere conformity of our hearts and lives to the Nature and Life of Christ. Thus Baptism is a publick profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel of Christ own his Authority and submit to his Government And the Lords Supper is a Federal Rite which answers to the Feasts or Sacrifices under the Law whereby we renew our Covenant with the Lord and vow obedience and subjection to him c. For answer Baptism and the Lords Supper being Ordinances instituted by Christ in a Habitude to the whole tenour of the New Covenant as it mutually obligeth both on Gods part and outs accordingly they may be considered either as they respect us or as they respect God who hath instituted and ordained them As they respect us they are both Symbols of our Profession and solemn engagements upon us to Duty As they respect God who hath appointed them they are representations of the mercies of the Covenant and Ratifying seals of it But to speak a little particularly to each of them First to Baptism Baptism as it is the outward way and means of our Initiation into the Lord Jesus Christ and of our matriculation into the Catholick Visible Church so it is the great representation of the inward washing of Regeneration and of our being renewed by the Holy Ghost The effusion of the Spirit being often likened to the pouring forth of water See Isa. 44.3 4 5. Ezek. 36.25 26 27. Joh. 3.5 Joh. 7.38 Heb. 10.22 So in Baptism it is most excellently signified and represented The Spirit saith Dr. Patrick is very well signified by water for as that cleanseth purifieth from filth so the Spirit of God is the sanctifier of Gods people purging and cleansing their hearts from all impurities Now the Spirit being no otherwise the spring and principle of all our Sanctification but as he is the Bond and Vinculum of our mystical Union with Christ out of whose fulness we receive all the Grace which we are made partakers of therefore Baptism being a representation of the effusion of the Spirit it is also an adumbration of the Union which we plead for 2ly As to the Lords Supper As the Lords Supper is a visible Symbol and Badg of our abiding in Christ into whom by Baptism we were Initiated and an obligation to all the Duties of growth and progress in Christianity so it is really exhibitive of Christ to us and a representation of our Spiritual Union with Him As the Bread and Wine could not in any congruity of speech be called the Body and Blood of Christ if they were not exhibitive of them so our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Sacramental sense can signifie no less than our being spiritually incorporated with him The Cup of Blessing saith the Apostle which we bless is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 And as by one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body so we are all made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 Our very Author tells us not aware that thereby he overthrows his whole Hypothesis that the Lords Supper is a spiritual feeding on Christ an eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood which signifies the most intimate Union with him that we are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone Eph. 5.30 The Apostle in the place that Mr. Sherlock refers to doth in way of illustration of the Union between Christ and Christians allude to the Oneness which was between Adam and Eve Now that was greater than the Oneness between any other Husband or Wife in the World for she was not only of the same specifick Nature with Him and knit to him in a Matrimonial tye by God himself but she was extracted and formed out of his very Body and so is the fitter Symbol of the Intimate Union that is between Christ and Believers And thus I hope I have not only wrested this weapon out of Mr. Sherlocks hand but struck through his cause with it § 13. It being acknowledged on all sides that there is an Union between Christ and sincere Christians and it being now declared and made manifest what it is not I might here wind up without proceeding any further or undertaking to assign the true and just Notion of it Nor is Religion exposed by our affirming some of its Mysteries to be incomprehensible Our Reason fails us when we attempt to give an account of our selves and the obvious phaenomena of Nature and therefore we may well allow it unable to