miracles which he did most were to dispossess and cast out divels to restore health as they brought diseases who consequently look on him as and proclaim him their enemy and although this may be thought to be done by them for some greater advantage as the Devil may suffer one charm to counter-work another yet could they not here be thought to have used those endevours to raise Christ into that power of destroying them or to assist their utmost to give him an authority in the world Indeed the whole doctrine of Christ was so directly contrary to that which had been maintained by the Oracles that it cannot be imagined to proceed from that principle to which they pretend And the story is approved by Plutarch and the effect hath made it not improbable that there was some truth in it that about Christs time a voice was heard on the Sea that the great God Pan was dead and an huge bellowing and roaring as of infernal mourners following it and that this was probably the cause acknowledgedly the forerunner of the Devils silence and never speaking in the Oracles any more Sect. 32 As for the manner of the Devils giving his Responses in the Oracle it is confest by all that then lived and knew them that they were delivered constantly by a man who was seen when he did it and was called the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} one that spake under the Oracle out of the caverns of the Earth by the vapor of which Plutarch conceived him inspired and so turned Enthusiast which is a far different thing from a voice no man being seen which came in a clap of thunder with a bright shining cloud from Heaven This may reasonably satisfie the importunity of that objection also Sect. 33 And so much for the first part of the ground of our Faith in gross the testimony on which it is built which being an infallible word derived and conveyed to us by the most creditable means and which we have no temptation from Reason to doubt of may sure be concluded a rationall ground of belief CHAP. II. A Digression concerning the use of Reason in deciding Controversies in Religion Sect. 1 HAving proceeded thus far for the convincing of the gainsayer it may not be amiss to consider the beleiver awhile and give him the bounds or limits within which Reason is obliged to contain it self in matters of Faith and this even by the verdict of Reason it self And I shall do it by a brief stating of this Question Sect. 2 Whether Right Reason be appointed the Judge of Controversies Whether all doubts of all sorts be to be determined by the dictates of Nature in the Hears of every Man which hath the use of Reason To this I shall ground my answer in these two Rules or Postulations 1. That Sect. 3 The measure of mans natural power of knowing or judging of things is his participating of those things in some degree with God in whom they are as in the Fountain So that the man may finde and behold them in himself as truly though not as eminently or in the same degree as they are in God For certainly if a man denudate of all experimental acquired revealed knowledge of all forain helps left onely to himself as a man endued with Reason should be questioned in any thing and supposed able to express his conceptions he would be fain to fetch out every word that he said from within him say onely what his own heart could discern within himself otherwise he should be supposed to answer more then he had means to come to the knowledge of The work done would be above the proportion of the means to it the conclusion would have more in it then the premises From hence follows this second Rule That Sect. 4 Men are naturally able to judge onely of those things which by some sure connexion depend on those attributes of God which are communicated to and particularly by men and are the like as far as the adumbration or transcript is to the exemplar or pattern for kinde though not degree in man as in God Sect. 4 Now all Controversies i. e. all things subject to judgement are reducible to two heads Goodness or Truth so that the Question now is Whether Right Reason can infallibly judg what is good or bad true or false And then to this I answer First Concerning the first Head Sect. 5 For a thing to be good morally for Metaphysical goodness is all one with truth depends by sure connexion from that eternal justice which is primarily in God That being the rule as it is the Fountain of all moral goodness in men or things Every thing being good more or less as it more or less partakes of that justice which is in God Sect. 6 Now this being one of the attributes of God which are called Communicable it is truly affirmed That that justice which is in God is the very same in substance communicated to men though in a lower degree And therefore it follows by the second rule that man by the light of nature and general impressions i. e. by a power of seeing whatsoever is within his sphear is enabled by God to judge what is just what not what morally good what bad And no man judges amiss in these things but he that hath his judgement corrupted by some prepossession or habituall vice or present prevailing temptation and therefore of moral Controversies i. e. whether a thing naturally or in it self be good or bad just or not Right Reason is a Judg. Sect. 7 Yet this with this Caution or limitation that it be not extended to those things wherein the Law of Nature hath been elevated higher by any positive Law of Christ For as Right Reason cannot judge what is lawful in any particular Kingdom because what Nature hath made lawful the Municipal Laws of that place may have forbidden and made unlawful and that Right Reason cannot take notice of unless it be told so so in Christs Kingdom the Church when he hath forbidden what Nature had left free and unforbidden Reason untaught by Christ cannot say that that is unlawful yet generally will be found to bear that Testimony to Christ that what Christ hath super-added to the Law of Nature Right Reason will of its own accord commend as best or most laudable and excellent in them that do it though not knowing any precept for it it will not affirm that it is necessary so as it cannot be omitted without sin Then concerning the second Head I answer Sect. 8 That for a thing to be true i. e. to have a Being either potential or actual depends partly on Gods Power partly on his Will In respect of its potential Being it depends on his Power in respect of its Actual on his Will Sect. 9 Now Gods Power though it may in some sense be said communicable to the Creature because all ability in the Creature is a gleam of infinite
he himself riseth from the dead and Angels again are sent to give notice of it And those that at his death had feared themselves deluded as adversity is a great temptation and by Christ himself foretold to be so are every one of them confirmed by seeing touching talking with him And what is seen and testified by them was seen also by five hundred persons at once which lived many years to attest the truth to all that doubted it And at length which was the must immediate testification of the truth of all the former he is bodily and visibly taken up into Heaven before their eyes Sect. 15 When that was done there was but one imaginable method behinde that according as he had promised while he was upon Earth he should being himself departed send the Paraclet which by descending visibly upon the Apostles and by enduing them with the gift of doing Miracles and of speaking of all Languages which they were known never to have learnt should enable them to convince the World by the testimony of Christs Resurrection and Ascention and destroying of Satan by his death the most improbable means of working victories that he was the Messias foretold that Seed of the Woman that should break the Serpents head On strength of this they which so lately doubted now cheerfully lay down their lives in testifying of all these truths And those Jews that did not yet believe on him were according to his distinct predictions many times repeated they their Temple in which they trusted their City their whole Nation and infinite multitudes of them wheresoever they were found most stupendiously destroyed by the Roman Eagles or Legions All this thus hastily put together so as necessarily to omit many weighty circumstances under every head is sure prodigy enough to attest and authorize no greater a change then the clearer Revelation of some obscurer truths the confutation of some false Doctrines and the Reformation of some ceremonies and the perfecting and heightning of some Laws less perfect before and the instituting of a few useful ceremonies in stead of many burthensome ones can be thought to amount to Sect. 16 This first gound of beleiving Christianity being thus mentioned is not capable of any dispute from any reasonable man unless from him which shall question whether this be not fabulous in the relation i. e. whether first there were ever indeed heard such voices or secondly whether they were not delusions of the hearers or at least the voice of some other and not of God And to him that shall make the former scruple I shall be able to give as satisfactory an answer as is possible to be given of a matter of this nature of any the lightest or weightiest consequence To a matter of this nature I say i. e. of a matter of fact for such it must needs be that such a voice was heard from Heaven and that fact past so many hundred yeers ago For first that fact was of necessity to be confined to some determinate time and place to be done somewhere and why not in Judaea where it is said to be done to be seen by some particular men and by them of necessity if it were to be known to be attested to others nay if it had been done so as to be heard and seen by the whole World then living though that this should point out that one person Jesus would not be well reconcileable with that because his body could not be in every place yet could not the next Age come to know this but must be forced to make use of the attestation of men of that Age to reveal it to them and so proceed by the very way that now is allowed us that of faith or beleiving For secondlly should there at this hour come the like voice from Heaven in the hearing of any the most creditable honest men of this Age what way would be expected to convince the Ages to come who should not be present to hear it of the truth of this but by the constant affirmation of those who are now ear-witnesses of it and by their committing all this to writing now so that all that should now live and suspect or beleive it a forgery might be able to examine and discover the truth of it especially if to that they should joyn the doing of the greatest Miracles which coming onely from God cannot be conceived to be by him allowed to assist the bringing a lie into the World Sect. 17 Beyond such testimony of eye or ear-witnesses thus publickly and authoritatively protested and conveighed to posterity there is no rational evidence imaginable for those that lived not in that age nor doe men at any time exact or require any more authentick proofe of matters of fact or ground of believing any thing For as to the voice of God again from Heaven which alone can pretend to be above this this is not at all commodious to this turn for this were for God to multiply prodigies improperly and unseasonably 't is sure unnecessarily and to all that were not present this would be again as questionable as the former Sect. 18 For the testifying an high important truth which cannot otherwise be known God hath been pleased thus personally to interpose his own power and authority and to speak from Heaven yea and to repeat that again and again that there may no matter of doubt remain concerning it But when that hath been thus done by God sufficiently then are there sufficient humane means to convey the truth or history of this fact to other men viz. the testimony of those that saw or heard it And as it were ridiculous to suppose or expect from God that he should testifie from Heaven that such men did hear that former voice from Heaven so the same Law of God and Nature which forbids lying as sinful forbids also incredulity as irrational when a thing is by unsuspected witnesses upon certain knowledg with so many improvements and advantages thus sufficiently testified And if God upon mans several incredulities should be still obliged to give witness to his truths by his own voice then should he cut off that rule for beleif which in all other things agreeably to the dictates of reasonable nature he hath made standing among men And in this case to require any higher testimony were the same inconvenient absurdity as not to beleive any thing upon any other ground then that of sight which is indeed to mistake knowledg for beleif or evidence for adherence and must necessarily leave nothing of virtue rewardable in that Faith which is so violently and unavoidably produced or to expect a voice from Heaven to give me daily assurance of all the passages or relations of history and not to beleive that there was such a man as Alexander or Caesar or William the Conqueror or Elizabeth the late but before our birth Queen of this Kingdom unless some voice of God from Heaven attest it to me Sect. 19
expose themselves to all the torments of Hell the sure reward of an Atheistical Antichristian life upon the bare probability of those their Arguments which cannot be rationally done by them unless their pretensions against Christian Religion exceed ours for it in strength of credibility as far as an eternal Hell exceeds those short sufferings of this life to which Christianity betrayes us or as an eternal state of spiritual bliss in Heaven doth surpass the transitory unsatisfactory short pleasures of sin in this life or whether it be not really their freer indulgence to some liberties which Christianity admits not of and that more against light and against the importunity of Gods judgements then before or perhaps some change of affairs abroad which hath made the practise of Christianity a more inconvenient costly thing then it was wont to be most men being willing to have the advantages of Religion as long as there be but few and supportable encumbrances that attend it and after changing their opinion of it when they have run any hazards by it Sect. 9 Which truly is so far from being new or strange that it was a part of the Character that our Christ set upon himself and his Doctrine both in that parable of the Seed that fell upon stony ground which is supposed to be scorched at the rising of the Sun upon it and by that cloze of his answer to Johns Disciples Blessed is he that is not scandalized at me foretelling them that the most eminent and considerable danger to Christian Religion is That they which in prosperous times are forward professors of it will when their Religion begins to offer them smart fairly forsake and fall off from it Sect. 10 Thus much hath been premised to this second Head of Arguments on purpose to shew the influence that matter of advantage may have on belief and that on either side not onely where mens interests do chance to thwart their perswasions but also and as discernibly when they appear on their sides to assist and confirm them Sect. 11 For so certainly did the sweetnesse and wel-tastedness of the Manna work as effectually on the Faith of some Jews make them as willing to adhere to God and Moses in opposition to returning to Egypt as the new miraculous manner of the coming of that down upon them and the Milk and Honey of Canaan were very good motives and alectives and engagements to the faith and obedience of others And so in like manner the carnality of the paradise that Mahomet promised to his disciples hath much advanced the credit and facilitated the beleif and disguised the grossness and absurdities of the Alcaron Sect. 12 And because advantages are not to be disliked because they are such but because they pretend and are mistaken to be such when they are not and by so doing do rob us of those that are truly so or that are infinitely weightier and more considerable and because that which is really the most advantagious is always most rational most prudent for man to choose and pursue and aspire to Therefore it is that to the former Argument of the reasonableness of the ground or testimony on which we believe Christian Religion to be true I now proceed to the advantages that those that embrace shall reap by it both because most mens Objections against Christianity are founded in an opinion that it is not an advantagious profession and would have no other quarrel to it if they were satisfied that it were and also because though advantageousness no way contributes to the making or proving a thing to be true or false yet it doth to the making it more or less worth beleiving or embracing for every slight truth is not such and so more or lesse fit to be set up in our hearts as our Religion Sect. 13 For that by Religion every man entertains hopes of acquiring somewhat of benefit to himself and would not chuse to enter into those bands if he did not promise himself some advantage by it is a maxime which I shall not think fit to prove or confirm in this place CHAP. IIII. Of the advantages of Christian Religion in the gross Sect. 1 THere is nothing therefore after the testifying of the Truth so proper for this present disquisition as the consideration of the advantages of Christian Religion and those advanced above all other imaginable advantages of any other Religion as much as the credibility of Christian Religion is above the credibility of any other that pretends against it Sect. 2 This I am by my premised method obliged to consider here onely as true in the gross And that will be done by this one consideration which hath been enlarged on * in other Papers That the Precepts of Christ especially his supperadditions to the former Laws of Moses and of Nature are beyond all the contrary vices or the lower degrees of the same vertues perfectly agreeable to Humane reason cultivated and improved and heightned by Philosophy so that that shall confess those things to be still most commendable and most excellent which Christ hath thought fit to command his followers This might be demonstrated through all particulars but I shall more strictly restrain my self to the advantages of a Christian life by considering it first in order to outward and secondly to inward advantages Sect. 3 The outward advantages are again more publick or more private Or the publick there is none sure more valuable and more fundamental to all other then that of Peace and that is so immediately and inseparably annext to the Christian Doctrine that would men think fit to be guided by that rule were but Christs precepts constantly practised there would be no occasion of destemper or disturbance through the world either between Christian Potentates among themselves or betwixt any Christian Prince and the Subjects of his own Kingdom Sect. 4 First In What state or condition soever a man is placed in any Nation be he King or Subject this commands him most strictly therein to abide with God every man to content himself with his present portion whether it be of Soveraigntie or of inferior estate under subjection Then secondly wheresoever the Supremacie of power is placed by the Laws of any Kingdom there Christ requires subjection and non-resistance in all subjects and both by himself and in the writings of his Disciples b repeateth and impresseth that far more earnestly on the subject then he doth the dutie of protection on the Supreme and where they c conjoyn them both there they begin constantly with that of subjection in the inferior as being of more universal concernment to the peace and preservation of the whole and as that which earns the superiors performing of his dutie as a due reward to their obedience Thirdly Christ prohibits self-love thinking highly of ones self all covetousness ambition animosites revenge doing or returning of injuries whisperings backbitings distrusts and jealousies all scrupulous preventions of remote
means to be enlarged to any other but those particular subjects or matters to which it was given The Jews might not at that time have destroyed or invaded any other Nation upon the face of the Earth nor might the Levites at any other time have killed their Brethren on strength of that command much less may any other People of any other Nation on strength of that example And so now that such Commissioners are out-dated when all is left by God in the hands of standing Laws in opposition to new Revelations and consequently when that which is most just for me to suffer or God to permit or by prospering in him to inflict on me is most injurious in him that doth it were it not perfect fury much above the pitch of irrational to demand that Gods dearest Children should act as the vilest men To require such explicite contradictions that none but godly men should be permitted to oppress to kill to commit Sacriledge to lay waste and to destroy to break all those Commandments of God which he that doth ipso facto ceaseth be to godly If there be any wickedness to be done in a City shall the righteous be the onely men to doe it This were worth wondering at indeed But for the wicked whose trade it is whose joy of heart to be thus forever occupied he is in his element he needs no call or incitation to do it The turning him out of that office and employing any body else were the greatest unkindness to him as the casting the Divels out from tormenting the man was by them looked on as the destroying them before their time whereas the Angel of Light would have looked upon it as a degree of Hell had hee been sent in on that errant to torment him Sect. 14 Thirdly Beside the perfect reasonableness of having offenders punished temporally here which were reasonable if it were for ever in another World there is a second not onely Justice but Mercy in such sufferings on whomsoever they fall They are Admonitions and Doctrines and Spirituall Medicines Disciplines of the soul to awake us out of secure and stop in wilful sinning and are by God on purpose made use of to that end when prosperity hath been long used and experimented to have no such auspicious influences in it to be proper to feed and foment very improper to starve or subdue enormities And if the Physitian administer a bitter Potion if the Surgeon apply a Corrosive or Caustick when Julips or Balsoms are judged and proved to be uneffectuall sure it is not the manner of men to count such methods irrationall Sect. 15 Nay it will be no Hyperbole to affirme that the addition of such documents as these may sometimes deserve to be preferred and more pretiously valued then all the Doctrines in the Book of God it self without these one such seasonable Application then all other Receipts in his dispensatorie The Word of God gives rules of living to all men but those so general and unapplied that it is ordinary for passionate men not to see themselves concerned in them These punishments and visitations will be able to bring home and make us while we are under the Discipline confess that we are the very men to whom by peculiar propriety they appertain Sect. 16 But there is yet a third sublimer benefit of such dispensations of God under the Gospel which will render them abundantly rational And that is the exercise of many Christian graces of the greatest price in the sight of God and such as shall be sure to be the most richly rewarded by him which were it not for such changes as these would lie by us unprofitably such are Patience Meekness Humility Contentedness with whatever lot faithful dependance on God in all outward things thanksgiving for plenty and for scarcity too a submitting to Gods Will in suffering as well as doing it cheerfully yea and to his Wisdom too in resolving Gods choices for us to be absolutely fitter for our turns then any our own wishes and lastly that Wisdom which Saint James speaks of the skill of Spiritual judging which can really prefer this state of suffering for Christ an excellence that Angels do not partake of beyond any other state or condition of life Sect. 17 Were it but onely for the variety that all the burthen of the day might not lie on those graces which are exercised in fair weather but that those other provided for the storm or winter might take their turns and give them some relaxation this would be very rational and useful for us as Aristotle saith that the change of motions from up hill to down hill and so back again doth provide against lassitude more then the constancy of any one be it in the easiest smoothest plain because that layes all the burthen incessantly upon one pair of muscles without any relief or assistance from any other But when withall every exerise of each of these graces hath attending it an addition of more Gems in our Crown more degrees of Glory in another World that I may not adde also of present Joy and Satisfaction and Ravishment in the present exercises here then sure the superfluities and pleasures of this life the any thing that is ever taken from us by the Harpies and Vultures of this World are richly sold and parted with by the Christian which knows how much or indeed how little they are worth enjoying if they may thus bring him in that rich fraight of never fading bliss in another World And this will serve for justifying the rationalness of Gods dealing with us now under the Gospel in respect of his Providence CHAP. VI The exceptions against Christ's Commands Sect. 1 IT remains that I proceede to Christs Commands under the Gospel and shew the rationalness of them Sect. 2 And having done it so largely already on the head of Advantages I shall now onely descend to that one against which our Modern Exceptions are most frequently made viz. Sect. 3 The great Fundamentall dutie of taking up the Crosse to follow CHRIST i. e. of approving my Obedience to CHRIST in all and every particular even when the extreamest danger the loss of my Life is like to be the Price to be paid for it Sect. 4 The unreasonableness of this is argued and concluded from the contrarietie of it to that liberty of self-defence and to that Law of self-preservation which nature is supposed to dictate to every man And the shewing the weaknesse of this Objection will be a full vindication of the rationalness of the Precept Sect. 5 And this is done by putting us in minde what is meant by Self-preservation and what by Nature and what by Law A man is made up of a Body and a Soul a mortal and an immortal part and those may be considered either severally or united And consequently Self-preservation may be set to signifie any one or more of these four things Either first the preserving that material mortal
part of him from present hurt or secondly preserving the immortal part of him in well and happy being or thirdly preserving the present union of one of these with the other or fourthly the providing for the perpetual happy union of them eternally The first is the preserving the body and with it the estate and liberty and reputation c. from present loss or diminution The second is preserving the Soul in innocence or virtue The third is preserving of this life of ours which wee live in the naturall Body And the fourth is providing for a joyfull Resurrection and an everlasting Life attending it Sect. 6 Then for Nature that may signifie either blinde unenlightned Nature which sees no more then the reflection upon it self and the Book of the Creatures and Natural instincts represent to it or else Nature as it is enlightned by Revelation i. e. by Gods making known some things in his Word which Nature had never known had they not been thus revealed Such are the Doctrines of our Faith and particularly the eternal rewards and punishments which are revealed to us in the Scripture Sect. 7 Then for Laws those may be either absolute and peremptory which yield not to any superior Laws or else conditional and subordinate when a superior Law doth not interpose to the contrary Sect. 8 To bring all this home to our present discourse If by self-preservation be meant either the first or the third notion of the self the preserving my body or my life then though it may truly be said that it is a Law of Nature that men may and that when no superior Law requires the contrary they ought and are bound to preserve these imperfect mutilate selves these bodies yet then as there is a higher notion of a man then as that barely signifies his Body his Soul being the far more excellent part of him and the eternall union of body and Soul together being most eminently the Notion that he is concerned in so there must be a superior Law of self-preservation then that which commands onely the preserving the Body and though bare un-lightned Nature that is able to look no farther then this life doe not give any Law in this matter yet Nature being supposed instructed in the Christian Doctrine that there is another life of Body and Soul after this to last for ever must needs be resolved to do it it being impossible that reasonable Nature when two things are represented so distant as the life of a few yeers here in the midst of such sad mixtures and an everlasting life hereafter in the fulness of all joyes should not enjoyn the preserving of the latter even with the contempt of the former when the care of the former may bring any danger to the latter Sect. 9 The short of it is That when eternal life is in the hand of Christ to give to them that continue obedient and constant to him and to none else and when the fearing of them which can hurt and kill the body the caring for or preserving of this present life doth at any time or in any case resist or obstruct the performance of that duty which Christ then requires or expects from me there Nature commands me to despise the less and preserve the greater and if it be not absolutely willing to Sacrifice the present to the eternall Life and consequently to prefer the obeying of Christ to the preserving of this fading short life it must acknowledge it self a blinde Heathen Nature that knows nothing of an eternall future life and of him that can cast both Body and Soul into Hell or else an irrational wilde Nature that knows these distances of finite and infinite and doth not thinke them worth considering Sect. 10 It is therefore my most charitable opinion of those that object the Principle of self-preservation to the Doctrine of taking up the Crosse and determine us free from the Obligation of paying obedience to Christ when it cannot be done without endangering of Estate or Life that they speak out of their memory onely what they have read in Books of that supreame Law of the preserving ones self but do not withall remember that if that self signified onely the Body it was the Philosophie of them that knew nothing of the immortality of the Soul or the endlesness of an other Life or if they were aware of the Christian Doctrines of eternity they never called the Body that self that was to be so solicitously tended Sect. 11 And therefore it is observable in the first Ages of the Church that those Hereticks that were enemies of the Crosse of Christ that taught it to be a indifferent and lawfull in time of Persecution to forswear and renounce Christ and offer Sacrifice to Idols were a sort of men the Gnosticks that immerst themselves in all unnaturall filthiness and depended not at all on the Promises of another Life and having first taught that Christ did not b really suffer in the Flesh but onely in appearance would not be perswaded that either hee had any c need of their lives or indeed exspected it from them d being come as they said to save their lives to die that they might not be killed Where the mistake was clear and visible that they thought they were these transitory Lives that Christ came to preserve and not those other lives which were to be conveyed over to Eternity Sect. 12 The fate of those Gnosticks at that time was very remarkable and that which will render our irrational fondness of these bodily lives yet more irrational Their great care was to preserve their lives and their prime dexterity in order to that to comply constantly with the powerful persecutor that was especially with the Jews for though the Sword was in the Heathens hand yet the great malice against the Christians was in the Synagogue from * thence sprang all the Persecutions To this end those Gnosticks took upon them to be great zealots for the Mosaical Law of Circumcision and generally pieced with the Jews and approved themselves to them At last the Roman Army comes against Jerusalem takes Jews and Gnosticks together and destroyes them all and so Christ was as remarkably a true Prophet in that as in any one particular That he that would save his life should lose it that very temporall life that all his compliance with the Jews was designed to save and hee that would lose i. e. venture and lay down his Life for Christs sake should finde it i. e. have it more probably preserved and continued to him here then they that were most solicitous for it and whether he lost or kept it here have it restored to him to continue eternally Sect. 13 And if that promise of the Gospel have truth in any sense of it then is the command no irrational command of taking up the Cross to follow Christ when he can if it be for thy turn except of thy taking up the