for the most part have gone on in their wicked Courses still and would have deny'd God in their Lives though their Understandings were never so clearly and fully convinc'd of his Will and Commandments as well as of his Eternal Power and God-head For as St. Paul testifies the Heathen themselves were not ignorant of the Being of God but when they knew God they glorify'd him not as God No Man can be more certain of any Inspiration which he can receive than he is of the Being of that God from whom he receives it and therefore he who denies the Being of God must by Consequence deny the Truth of any such Inspiration unless it have that powerful Impulse upon his Mind as both to convince him and force him to an Acknowledgement at once of the Being of God and of the Operation of his Spirit upon his Soul And it is hard to conceive how any Inspiration which doth not over-rule the Will and Affections as well as convince the Understanding should be of more Efficacy upon the Minds and Lives of such Men than the Notion of a God is For if Men can so stifle the Notion of a God in their Minds as to doubt whether there be any God or no or at least to act as if there were none no Reason can be given why they might not as well act against any Conviction which they might receive by Inspiration or any other way of immediate Revelation unless it had an irresistible Effect upon them and either take it all for Fancy and Delusion or else so harden themselves against it as not to be reclaim'd by it And of this we have Balaam for an Example who notwithstanding the Revelations he receiv'd from God loved the Wages of Vnrighteousness 2 Pet. ii 15. But above all Men the Prophane and Obstinate Unbelievers can have least Reason to expect that God should vouchsafe them an immediate Revelation (c) Vid. Smith of Prophecy c. 8. The Jews have observ'd That the Spirit of Prophecy rested only upon Men of regular and pure Affections of gentle and meek and tractable Dispositions For the Lord will be found of them that tempt him not and sheweth himself to such as do not distrust him for froward Thoughts separate from God into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto Sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will flee Deceit and remove from Thoughts that are without Vnderstanding and will not abide when Vnrighteousness cometh in Wisd 1 2 3 4 5. And to the same Purpose (d) Quis rerum divinarum Haeres sit Philo p. 404. Philo speaks And for this Reason when Joseph had the Interpretation of Dreams revealed to him (e) See Dr. Hammond on Psal cv 19. the Word of the Lord is said to try him or to purge to clear and justifie him it being evident that God would not in that Manner Inspire one who had been guilty of the Crimes which Joseph was accus'd of It is not to be imagin'd that God should further reveal himself to all such in particular by an immediate Inspiration who have rejected all the Manifestations which he has made of himself in the Creation and Government of the World but that he would reserve these immediate Revelations as peculiar Favours to his faithful and obedient Servants God has sometimes indeed made use of wicked Men Baalam Caiaphas c. as his Instruments both in Prophecies and Miracles to shew that they are at his Disposal and proceed from his Bounty not from any Worth or Merit of Men and that he can over-rule the Designs and Intentions of the worst of Men and make them serviceable to him even against their Will whenever he pleaseth But then these are peculiar Cases in which these Gifts were afforded for particular Ends and for the Benefit of others and the Men themselves were never the better for them But as for the Disobedient St. Paul acquaints us how in the general Dispensations of his Providence God dealt with them God gave them over to a reprobate Mind Rom. i. 28. and he there sets down a Catalogue of those Sins which were the Consequence of this Reprobation The Apostle all along maintains that they had so much Knowledge of God as to render them without Excuse and that they would make no Improvement of it to the attaining the Knowledge of the Laws of Nature first and then of his Revealed Will and it was the just Judgment of God to give them up to their own hearts lusts to abandon them to the Tyranny of their Sins since they would take no notice of his Works and would not abide his Counsels and it must needs have been highly inconsistent to send immediate Revelations or afford particular Inspiration to all such Men as are there describ'd God's Spirit will not always strive with man but he withdraws his ordinary Grace from those that abuse it and therefore it can never be presum'd he should confer higher Favours upon them If Men will believe upon reasonable Motives they have sufficient Means of Salvation allow'd them but if they will not believe without some immediate Revelation they are never like to have that in this World but in the next God will Reveal himself with Terror and Vengeance upon all the workers of iniquity God doth both by Nature and by Revelation provide for the Necessities for the Welfare and Happiness but never for the Humours and Peevishness of Men and those who will not be sav'd but according to some new Way and Method of their own Invention must be miserable without Remedy I doubt not but the greatest Infidels would own that if Christ should personally speak to them in a Voice from Heaven or appear to them upon Earth and grant them that Conviction which he once granted to St. Thomas or St. Paul they would believe in him as these Apostles did But they would do well to consider what Reason there can be why so much Favour should be shewn to those who reject with Scorn and Derision all the Tenders of Grace and Means of Salvation and what Obligation God can be under to save them in such a Manner as themselves shall prescribe who will not be sav'd in his Way and according to the Terms of the Gospel And if God should vouchsafe to make some immediate Revelation of himself to these insolent Offenders and Blasphemers of his Name and Authority how can we be assur'd that they would be converted Would they not rather find out some Pretence to perswade themselves that it was no real Revelation but the Effect of natural Agents or of Melancholy and of a disturb'd Imagination For those who have so long not only rejected that were a modest thing but derided and revil'd Moses and the Prophets nay the Apostles and our Saviour himself would not believe though one should rise from the dead They might be terrify'd perhaps for the present but they would soon stifle
and it being foretold half a year before the Birth of Augustus that a King of the Romans would be born that year the Senate made a Decree (i) Sueton. August c. 94. Nequis illo anno genitus educareter (k) Plutarch in Lycurg Plutarch himself says that he could find nothing unjust or dishonest in the Laws of Lycurgus tho Theft community of Wives and the murthering of such Infants as they saw weak and sickly and therefore thought they would prove unfit to serve the common-wealth were a part of those Laws Revenge was esteemed not only lawful but honourable and a desire of popular Fame and Vain Glory were reckoned among the Virtues of the Heathens and were the greatest motive and encitement they had to any other Vertue (l) Plut. in Aristide Plutarch tells us of Aristides so famed for Justice that tho he were strictly just in private affairs yet in things of publick concernment he made no scruple to act according as the present condition of the Common-wealth seemed to require For it was his Maxim that in such cases Justice must give way to expediency and he gives an instance how Aristides advised the Athenians to act contrary to their most solemn contract and oath imprecating upon himself the punishment of the perjury to avert it from the Common-wealth Tully in the Third Book of his Offices where he treats of the strictest Rules of Justice and proposes so many admirable Examples of it yet resolves the notion of Justice only into a principle of Honour upon which he concludes that no man should do a dishonest Action though he could conceal it both from God and Men and determines that an Oath is but an Appeal to a man 's own Mind or Conscience Cum vero jurato dicenda sententia sit meminerit Deum se adhibere testem id est ut arbitror mentem suam qua nihil homini dedit ipse Deus divinius The Indians themselves whatever may be thought to the contrary have naturally as good Sense and Parts as other people which (m) Jos Acost Hist lib. iv c. 1. Acosta sets himself to prove in divers instances but they had less communication with those who retained revealed Religion and by their own vices and the subtilty of the Devil the Notions which they had received from it were lost or perverted The Egyptians who were so famous for their Learning are a great instance how poor a thing humane Reason is without the Assistance of Divine Revelation for all their profound Learning did but lead them to the grossest Idolatry whilst they conceived God to be only an Anima Mandi and therefore to be worshipped in the several parts and species of the Universe The Stoicks in effect held the same Error and taught (n) Tull. Acad. Qu. lib. i. that there is nothing incorporeal But when the excellency of the Christian Morals began to be so generally observed and taken notice of the last Refuge of Philosophy was in the Moral Doctrines of the Stoicks For almost all the latter Philosophers were of this Sect which they refined and improved as well as they were able that they might have something to oppose to the Morality taught and practised too by the Christians (o) Theophil ad Autolych lib. iii. But the Ancient Stoicks had been the Patrons and Advocates of the worst vices and had filled the Libraries with their obscene Books II. The Stoicks first sprang from the Cynicks that impudent and beastly Sect of Philosophers and they refined themselves but by degrees Zeno who had as great Honour done him by the Athenians as ever any Philosopher had under the Notion of his Vertue taught that men ought to have their Wives in common and would have been put to death by the Laws of most Nations for sins against Nature (p) Diog. Laert. in Zenon Chrysipp Chrysippus taught the worst of Incest as that of Fathers with their Daughters and of Sons with their Mothers and besides his opinion for eating humane Flesh and the like his Books were filled with such obscene Discourses as no modest man could read Athenodorus a Stoick being Library-keeper at Pergamus cut all such ill Passages out of the Books of the Stoicks but he was discovered and those Passages were inserted again But these Philosophers might do as they pleased for they pretended to be exempt from sin and the stoical Philosophy in the Original fundamental Doctrines of it is nothing as Tully observed but a vain pomp and boast of words which at first raise admiration but when throughly considered are ridiculous as that men must live without love or hatred or anger or any other passion that all sins are equal and that it is the same Crime whether a man murther his Father or kill a Cock (*) Tulâ— pro Muraena as Tully says if there be no occasion for it And it is no wonder that Plutarch and others wrote purposely to expose the stoical Philosophy upon its old and genuine principles but the latter Stoicks being very sensible of the many defective and indesensible parts of their philosophy endeavoured to mollify what seemed too harsh and absurd that they might bring their own as near the Christian Doctrine as they could Quinctilian will not allow that Seneca was any great Philosopher but says that his main talent lay in declaiming against vice (q) Quint. lâ—st lib. x. c. 18. in Philosophia parum diligens egregius tamen vitiorum insectator suit It was rather the Art and Design of Seneca who knew wherein the strength and defects of his Philosophy lay to endeavour to give it all the advantage he could and to recommend it to the world by exposing the Follies and Vices of men rather than by instructing them in the Notions of his own Sect. But (r) Seu de Tranqu Animi c. 15. this notwithstanding was one of his Rules nonnunquam usque ad ebrietatem veniendum and when he had expos'd the cruelties the filthiness and the absurdities of the Religions in use amongst the Heathens in a Book written upon that subject yet says he (Å¿) Aug. Civit. Dei lib. vi c. x. quae omnia sapiens servabit tanquam legibus jussa non tanquam Diis grata And Tully likewise in divers places when he has reasoned against the absurdities of their Religion resolves the obligation to observe it into the Duty which men are bound to pay the Laws of the Government under which they live their Philosophy it seems taught them that we must obey Men rather than God But they held no more than (t) Xenophen Memorab lib. 1. Socrates had taught and practised before them Epictetus himself who has set off the Heathen Morality to the best advantage cannot be excused from as great errors and defects He teaches also that men should follow the Religion of their Country whatever it be Enchirid. cap. xxxviii He allows too great indulgence to lust cap. xlvii And
and Aids of Grace to avoid the Punishments and are as earnestly invited and as sufficiently enabled to obtain the Rewards God hath no pleasure in the Death of the Wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live as he solemnly and with an Oath declares by his Prophet Ezekiel xxxiii 11. It is His principal Intention and Desire that all Men should be saved He has proclaimed Himself to be the Lord The Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping Mercy for Thousands forgiving Iniquity and Transgression and Sin but then it is added that he will by no means clear the guilty that is the obstinate and impenitent Sinner Exod. xxxiv 6 7. He exhorts he invites he promises he threatens he promises eternal Happiness and threatens eternal Misery to give all the Discouragement to Vice and all the Enducement to Religion and Vertue which is possible Last of all he has sent his Son to instruct us in our Duty and to confirm all this to us and to purchase our Redemption with his own Blood God deals with Men in the plainest and most condescending manner He lays their Duty before them with the Rewards and Punishments annex'd and both eternal the better to secure them in their Obedience and force them to be happy and then he takes Men at no Advantage but makes all reasonable Allowances in consideration of the frailty of Humane Nature and in condescension to their Infirmities He exacts not absolute Perfection nor any impossible Obedience but requires that tho' we cannot live without Sin yet we should not sin wilfully and obstinately that we should not allow and indulge our selves in Sin and should repent if we have done so He requires a faithful and sincere Diligence in all the Parts of our Duty which is no more than what every Father and Master expects from his Children and Servants When Men have sinned God admits of their Repentance and if after Repentance they sin again yet still they shall be accepted upon a renew'd Repentance nay after a long course of Sin a sincere Repentance may reconcile them to God and no Repentance can be too late that is sincere It is extreamly dangerous indeed to defer our Repentance for one Moment because our Lives are so uncertain and we may provoke God to that degree that he will no longer afford us an Opportunity to repent nor bestow that Grace upon us which is necessary to Repentance But this is after repeated Provocations and an obstinate rejecting of the Goodness of God which leads Men to repentance And these are the Terms of the Gospel that when the wicked Man turneth away from his Wickedness that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right he shall save his Soul alive There is Great Joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth and the returning Prodigal is received with the greatest Favour and Tenderness If we will be obedient we have the Assistance of God's Grace and if we have done amiss yet His grace is offered us to bring us to Repentance and we may be pardoned upon sincere Resolutions of Obedience for the future But if Men either disbelieve or disregard all these things if they neither care for God's Promises nor fear his Threatnings if they trample under foot the Blood of his Son and grieve his blessed Spirit if all the Methods of his Mercy and Goodness be lost upon them there remains no other Remedy but Justice must have its course If when they are told so long beforehand what danger they are in Men will continue obstinate in their Disobedience after so many Invitations and Encouragements to Repentance and after so great Importunity and Forbearance they can have no reason to complain of the Severity of that Sentence which they have been so often threatned with and have as often despised Since the Rewards are eternal on the one hand and the Punishments on the other the Rewards being proportionable to the Punishments the Terms are on both sides equal and since it is in our Power by the Help of the Divine Grace to avoid the Punishments and obtain the Rewards the Condition is such as that any wise Man would be thankful for it and would be glad that such a Prizee is put into his hands so far would he be from complaining that the Terrors of Punishments are join'd to the Encouragement of Rewards that all Motives concur to make him happy and that God has used all means both inward by his Grace and outward by his Promises and Threatnings to bring us to Salvation I repeat it again for God himself often repeats it in the Holy Scriptures God hath no Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked but hath used all means to prevent it he hath provided Heaven for us and threatned Hell if we will not be perswaded to go to Heaven If Men will neglect the Means of their Salvation and will not repent and turn to him notwithstanding all his most loving and compassionate Exhortations and the Death of his own Son for them if neither Heaven can invite nor Hell frighten them from their Sins they must thank themselves only for that Destruction which they bring upon themselves The Appeal which God so long ago made to the House of Israel may at the last Day be alledg'd to Sinners Ye have said that the way of the Lord is not equal Hear now O ye Sinners Is not my way equal have not your ways been unequal And the ways of God shall then appear so equal and the ways of wicked Men so unreasonable and perverse that their own Consciences shall bear Witness against them and He that died to save them will pronounce the Sentence of eternal Damnation upon them CHAP. XV. Of the Jewish Law THere is nothing which vulgar Minds are more surprised and offended at nor at which Men of Understanding and Experience are less enclin'd to wonder or take Offence than the several Laws and Customs of divers Nations in the different Ages and Climates of the World The Habit the Language the Letters and manner of Writing the Food the Complexion the Features of the Body and Disposition of the Mind are various in different Countries and Ages And theresore it is no wonder that the Political and Ceremonial Part of the Jewish Law which was given so many Ages ago and in a Country which is at this Day very different in its Customs from ours should be as different from the Customs in use amongst us as the Age and Climate For when God doth appoint Laws for Men he must be supposed to appoint such as are suitable to the Necessities and Occasions of those for whom they are made And some who have travelled into the Eastern Countries which are not so variable in their Fashions and Way of Living as the Western Nations are have found great advantages both from the Nature of the Inhabitants and of the Climates and from the Customs and Manners of
recedant Hieron in Amos. c. v. Ex quo perspicuum est Apostolos Evangelistas ipsum Dominum salvatorem ex Hebraeo transferre quod legerint non curantes de syllabis punctisque verborum dummodo sententiarum veritas transferatur Id. in Malach. c. iii. CHAP. XX. Of the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God THIS is that Article of our Faith which was to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness 1 Cor. i. 23. and has ever been most liable to the Objections of Infidels and therefore I shall take the more care to give the clearest and fullest account I can of it I. I shall here consider the necessity of the Incarnation of the Son of God for the satisfaction of the Justice and the vindication of the honour of God II. Tho' it should be suppos'd that God could have pardon'd the Sins of Men upon any other terms than the death and satisfaction of his own Son in our Flesh I hope fully to prove that this is so far from being unworthy of God that no other way of our Reconciliation with him as far as we are able to apprehend could have been so becoming the Divine Wisdom and Goodness 1. There seems to have been a necessity for the Incarnation of the Son of God for the satisfaction of God's Justice and the vindication of his Honour For God is Infinite Justice as well as Infinite Mercy and Infinite Justice must punish Offenders unless full satisfaction be made for the Offence because Infinite Justice must demand to the utmost extent of Justice and must require whatsoever can in Justice be demanded But Infinite Mercy found out a Means to satisfie this Infinite Justice which Satisfaction could be made only by the Obedience and by the Death of the Son of God who by his Obedience unto Death even the Death of the Cross vindicated the Honour of God by performing in our Nature a perfect and absolute Obedience to all that ever God required of Mankind and by suffering to the utmost of all that the Sins of the whole World deserv'd It is for the Honour of God that his Laws should be exactly observ'd and observ'd by one who is of that very Nature for which they were ordain'd and that Satisfaction should be made in the same Nature for the Sins of it Christ therefore taking our Nature upon him paid down the uttermost Farthing which in strictness of Justice must have been demanded but which could never have been paid by any Created Being for the Sins of the whole World And he fulfill'd all Righteousness in Obedience to the Divine Laws which otherwise could never have been fully obey'd And as far as God's Justice and Honour was concern'd to see his Laws obey'd and to demand satisfaction for the breach of them so far the Incarnation of the Son of God must be necessary because these things could be perform'd by no Creature 2. Tho' it should be suppos'd that God could have pardon'd the Sins of Men upon other Terms than the death and satisfaction of his own Son in our flesh yet the Incarnation and Death of his Son is so far from implying any thing unworthy of God that no other way of our Reconciliation with him as far as we can apprehend could so much have become the Divine Wisdom and Goodness First There is nothing in this whole Dispensation unworthy of God Here I am to consider that which was the great prejudice taken against the Christian Religion at its first Propagation and is still the great Objection of the Enemies of the Gospel of Christ and of their own Salvation They are apt to represent it to themselves as an unnecessary thing and unworthy of God that he should send his only begotten Son into the World for the Redemption of Mankind they imagine that the Infinite Wisdom of God could have found out other Methods of Salvation for us and that this would never have been made use of if there could have been any other It might be enough in Answer to such Objections to say with the Apostle nay but O Man who art thou that replyest against God shall the Person saved say unto him that saved him why hast thou saved me thus will we not be contented to be saved unless we can be fully certified in all the Reasons and Methods of our Salvation May not God bring to pass our Redemption in such a way as he shall see fitting or shall we question his Wisdom if his Mercy be so much greater than we can comprehend How infinite is his Mercy and how monstrous our ingratitude if his goodness be made an objection against the truth of his word and be alledg'd as an Argument for our Unbelief What if God willing to shew the heinousness of Sin and to make known the riches of his Mercy chose this way for the Redemption of the World What if many Reasons may be given why this Method was the most proper and expedient and what if there might be infinitely greater and better Reasons for it than all the wisdom of Man can conceive But tho' the Revealed will and Counsel of God ought to silence all Disputes in this as well as in all other Cases yet I think this Objection is capable of a very plain and direct Answer For whatever weight there may seem to be in it it is all grounded upon a Mistake and upon a wrong Notion of the Union between the Divine and the Humane Nature of Christ For if the Godhead be not so united to the Manhood as to suffer with it there is no imaginable Reason why its Union with the Manhood should be supposed to be unworthy of God I shall therefore 1. Shew the unreasonableness of this Supposition that the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ should cause the Godhead to suffer with the Manhood 2. I will prove that the Humiliation of the Son of God in assuming our Nature may be accounted for without supposing that the Godhead suffer'd 3. That the satisfaction of Christ by dying for our Sins may be explain'd without it I. The unreasonableness of this supposition that the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ should cause the Godhead to suffer with the Manhood This Objection supposes the Godhead to be so united to the Manhood in the Person of our Saviour as that the Divine Nature must really and properly partake in all the Sufferings which befell his Person It supposes that Christ as God suffer'd the Miseries of Humane Life and at last underwent Death upon the Cross which is so far from being the Doctrine of the Gospel that it is no better than Heresie and Blasphemy and has always been rejected and condemned as such by the Catholick Church That the Union of the Godhead with the Manhood should render the Godhead capable of Sufferings as the Soul by being united to the Body becomes sensible of its pains is indeed a thing not only unworthy of God but
and of seducing and Apostate Spirits without any sufficient Means afforded them to undeceive and rescue themselves Can we suppose that God of Infinite Majesty and Power and who is a Jealous God and will not give his Honour to another should suffer the World to be guilty of Idolatry to make themselves Gods of Wood and Stone Nay to offer their Sons and their Daughters unto Devils and to commit all manner of Wickedness in the Worship of their False Gods and make Murther and Adultery and the worst of Vices not only their Practice but their Religion Can we imagine that the True God would behold all this for so many Ages among so many People and yet not concern himself to put a stop to so much Wickedness and to vindicate his own Honour and restore the Sense and Practice of Vertue upon Earth I shall in due place prove at large That Mankind have in all Ages had the greatest necessity for a Revelation to direct and reform them and That the Philosophers themselves taught abominably wicked Doctrines who yet were the best Teachers and Instructors of the Heathen World And we have no true Notion of God if we do not believe him to be a God of Infinite Power and Knowledge and Holiness and Mercy and Truth and yet we may as well believe there is no God at all as imagine that the God of Infinite Knowledge should take no notice of what is done here below that Infinite Power should suffer it self to be affronted and despised without requiring any Satisfaction that Infinite Holiness should behold the whole World lie in Wickedness and find out no way to remedy it and that Superstition and Idolatry and all the Tyranny of Sin and Satan for so long a time should enslave and torment the Bodies and Souls of Men and there should be no Compassion in Infinite Mercy nor any Care over an erroneous and deluded World in the God of Truth Would a wise and good Father see his Children run on in all manner of Folly and Extravagancy and take no care to reclaim them nor give them any Advice but leave them wholly to themselves to pursue their own Ruine And if this be unworthy to suppose of Natural Parents how much more unreasonable is it to imagine this of God himself whom we cannot but represent to our selves with all the Compassions of the tenderest Father or Mother without the Weakness and Infirmities that accompany them in Humane Parents How unreasonable is it to entertain such a Thought of Almighty God infinite in Goodness and Mercy as to suspect that he would suffer Mankind to make themselves as miserable as they can both in this World and the next without putting a Stop to so fatal a Course of Sin and Misery or interposing any thing for their Direction to shew them the Way to escape Destruction and to obtain Happiness The Fall of our First Parents is known to us only by Revelation and therefore is not to be taken into Consideration when we argue upon the meer Principles of Reason But I consider Mankind as we find it in Fact setting aside the Advantages of Revelation Wicked and abandoned to Wickedness in the Snares of the Devil taken captive by him at his will unable to work out their own Salvation lost and undone without Power or Strength without any Help or Remedy And in this State of the World however it came to pass is there no Reason to believe that infinite Goodness should take some Course and not disregard all Mankind lying in this Condition The great Argument of the Scoffers of the last Days St. Peter tells us would be this That all things go on in their constant Course and that God doth not meddle or concern himself with them Where is the Promise of his Coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the Creation 2 Pet. iii. 4. And if no Promise had ever been made they would have had some Reason in their Arguing For that which rendred the Heathen without Excuse was That they did not make use of the Natural Knowledge that they had of God to lead them to the Knowledge of his Revealed Will which they had frequent Opportunity of becoming acquainted withal and had many Memorials of it amongst them in every Nation but they did not like to retain God in their Knowledge And this is the Force of St. Paul's Argument Act. xvii Rom. i. unless this latter Chapter were to be understood as Dr. Hammond interprets it of the Gnostick Hereticks That the Gentiles ought not to pervert and stifle those Natural Notions which God had implanted in their Minds but from the Law of Nature to proceed to find out the Written Law and for this Reason the Bounds of the Habitation of other Nations were determin'd and appointed by God according to the Number of the Children of Israel that they might seek the Lord and might be able to find and discover the True Religion and Way of Worship among that People to whom he had reveal'd himself Deut. xxxii 8. Act. xvii 26 27. They might have been less vicious than they were without the Knowledge of a Revelation and therein they were inexcusable that though they could not free themselves from the Power of Sin yet they might not have given themselves so wholly up to it as to become excluded from the Grace and Salvation to be obtained by the Revealed Will of God And when God has revealed himself all who will not use the Means and by a due Improvement of their Reason endeavour from Natural Religion to arrive at Revealed become inexcusable for their Negligence and Contempt of God and the Abuse of those Talents and Endowments which God has bestowed upon them For when God has once given Men warning and directed them in the way of Salvation and they will not regard it they must be wilfully ignorant if they will not consider that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day and it is Argument of his Patience and Long-suffering that he doth not bring speedy Vengeance upon a disobedient and rebellious World The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long-suffering to us ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night Now this is very well consistent and exceedingly agreeable with all the Divine Perfections that he should give Men Warning of the Evil and Danger of Sin and afterwards leave them to their own Choice whether they will be Righteous and Happy or Wicked and Miserable and then that he should not take the first Opportunity to punish them nor lay hold of any Advantage against them but give them time for second Thoughts and space for Consideration and Repentance but if they abuse so much Patience and Loving-kindness that he should at last come
upon them when they least think of him with a mighty and terrible Judgment and with a sudden and unexpected Fury But to stand by and look on unconcern'd and then to take Men upon such a Surprize without giving them any notice of it before-hand is a thing impossible to be accounted for and can never be reconcil'd with the Divine Attributes St. Athanasius (b) S. Athan de Incarnatione Verbi Dei insists at large upon this Argument and carries it so far as to prove the Necessity of the Incarnation of the Son of God from it He urges That it would have been unworthy of the Goodness of God to suffer all Mankind to be destroy'd by the Fraud and Malice of the Devil or by their own Fault and Negligence and that it had been more consistent with his Wisdom and Goodness never to have created Men than to have suffer'd them thus to perish An Earthly King says he when he has planted a Colony will not carelessly suffer his Subjects to become Slaves to a Stranger or to revolt from him but he will by his Proclamations admonish them of their Duty and oftentimes will send Messages to them by his Friends and if there be a Necessity for it will go to them himself to awe them by his Presence and recall them to their Obedience And as he there adds shall not God much rather be so mindful of his Creatures as to use some Means to reclaim them from their evil Ways and regain them to his Service Especially when they must be utterly undone for ever unless he take care of them It is plain then that though we had never heard of such a thing as a Miracle or a Prophecy or of reveal'd Relgion yet from the Consideration of the State of the World and the great Ignorance and Corruption of Humane Nature it would be reasonable to expect that God should some way make known his Will to Mankind and we cannot reconcile it to his Attributes nor conceive how it should be consistent with them for him to be an unconcerned Spectator of so much Folly and Wickedness without taking any care to remedy it God cannot be oblig'd to force Men to obey his Commandments and comply with his Will but rather to leave it at their own Choice whether they will be Happy or Miserable but it was necessary to propose the Terms of Salvation to them to offer them their free Choice to set before them Life and Death Blessings and Cursings and so to leave the Obstinate without all Excuse And this is all which I am here concern'd to prove That it is reasonable to suppose that God would reveal himself to Mankind and that it is not conceivable how it should be consistent with the Divine Attributes for him not to do it To own the Being of a God and yet to deny a Providence is so great an Absurdity that none of the Philosophers but Epicurus were guilty of it and this was look'd upon in him as amounting to the Denial of the Divine Existence And to grant both the Being and the Providence of God and yet to confine the Divine Care and Providence to the Bodies only and Outward Condition of Men and to imagine that the Spiritual and Immortal Part of Man is disregarded or neglected by him is no less an Absurdity than wholly to deny his Providence or his Existence because this is to deny the most considerable and inestimable Part of Providence which concerns our Souls and our Eternal State and therefore it is by Consequence to deny the Attributes of God and to represent him not as he is in himself but Unwise Unmerciful and Unholy To say that there is no such thing as a Divine Revelation is no better in Effect than Atheism For whoever can be of this Opinion must believe only the Being of such Gods as Epicurus own'd that never concern'd themselves with Humane Affairs which was only in other Words to say that they were no Gods at all It has therefore been the constant Belief and Opinion of all Nations that their Gods did in some way or other Reveal themselves to Men and though so great a Part of the World have worshipp'd False Gods and have been mistaken as to the particular Revelations which they receiv'd for Divine yet it must proceed either from Ancient Tradition or from the Reasonableness of the thing it self or from both that the World should expect that the Divine Being should by some Means communicate himself to Men and declare his Will to them CHAP. II. The Way and Manner by which Divine Revelations may be supposed to be Delivered and Preserved in the World MAnkind had so corrupted themselves that the Will and Laws of God could not be effectually made known to them but by some extraordinary way of Revelation God had manifested himself in the Creation of the World and by the Preservation of all things from the Beginning according to their several Natures For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things which are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead Rom. i. 20. But Men had corrupted themselves even in the plainest and most fundamental Points of all Religion and acted against all the Dictates of Natural Reason in worshipping the vilest Parts of the Creation rather than God himself and in Contempt and Defiance of Him had set up even four-footed Beasts and creeping Things instead of Gods How then could the Power and Authority of God be asserted but by some extraordinary way of Revelation since the ordinary and constant Methods of God's revealing and manifesting himself by his Providence in the Preservation and Government of the World had been so far perverted and abus'd as that Men were seduc'd to the Worship of any thing or of every thing rather than of God Mankind had neither the Will nor Ability to reform themselves and had by their own Fault brought themselves under an utter Incapacity of being reform'd but by some extraordinary Revelation Natural Reason might have taught them to be less Wicked but nothing could make them Righteous but a Revelation and the gross Errors and Crimes which the wisest Men had fall'n into shews the Necessity of an extraordinary Revelation from God to instruct and inform the World And the Ways of extraordinary Revelation are but these two either God's immediate Revelation of himself to particular Persons or a Power of working Miracles and of Prophesying and Foretelling future Events bestow'd upon some to convince others that they are Inspir'd and come with a Commission from God to instruct them in what he has reveal'd But it cannot seem requisite that God should immediately Inspire or make an immediate Revelation to every particular Person in the World For either he must so powerfully influence their Minds and Affections as to take away their Choice and Freedom of Acting which would be to offer Violence to Humane Nature or else Men would
come hereafter that we may know that ye are Gods Isai xlii 23. But because Things foretold may sometimes come to pass by Chance or it may be in the Power of Evil Spirits to foretell them when they are in Design and Agitation and just ready for Action or to discern Things done at distant Places and to make probable Guesses which may prove true from the various Circumstances of Affairs which they observe in the World We may therefore be assur'd from the Consideration of the Divine Attributes of Goodness and Truth that God will not suffer false Religions to be impos'd upon the World under his own Name by Diabolical Predictions without affording Means to discover them to be such When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not be afraid of him Deut. xviii 22. This is the Mark of Distinction between a False and a True Prophet That whatever the latter foretold in the Name of the Lord should come to pass but whatever the first foretold in his Name should not come to pass which implies that God will disappoint such Predictions and not suffer them to come to pass otherwise the coming to pass of Things foretold could be no certain Mark of a true Prophet because they might come to pass by Chance The Prophet which prophesieth of peace when the word of the Prophet shall come to pass then shall the Prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him Jer. xxviii 9. But if the Prophecy were not pretended to be in the Name of the True God but were given out with a profess'd Design to entice Men to the Worship of False Gods then God might suffer it to be fulfill'd to prove his People Deut. xiii 1 2 3. For this was consistent with God's Truth and Goodness especially after Warning given and after so clear a Revelation both by Prophecies and Miracles If any Man in this Case would be seduc'd by any Wonder or Prophecy to follow other Gods it must be great Perverseness in him But when Prophecies are deliver'd by many Prophets in divers Ages and different Places all teaching the same Doctrine and tending to the same End and Design in their several Revelations and that End is the Discouragement of all Wickedness and the Maintenance of all Vertue and true Religion these Prophecies have all that can be requisite to assure us that they are from God and God by suffering them to pass so long in the World under his own Name and with all the Characters of his Authority upon them has given us all possible Assurance that they are his and engag'd us in Honour to his Divine Attributes to believe that they really are by his Authority And the Certainty of Prophecies being thus grounded upon the Divine Attributes besides the direct Evidence which they afford to whatever is deliver'd by them they add an undeniable Confirmation to those Miracles which have been foretold and are wrought at the Time and in the Manner and by the Persons foretold by the Prophets and the Prophecies likewise receive as great a Confirmation from such Miracles For Prophecies and Miracles which are singly a sufficient Evidence of Divine Revelation do mutually support and confirm each other and hereby we have all the Assurance that can be expected of any Divine Revelation And therefore as Prophecy is in it self a most fitting and proper way of Revelation so in Conjunction with Miracles it is the most certain way that can be desir'd 2. The Suitableness and Efficacy of Miracles to prove a Divine Revelation It is an extravagant thing to conceive that God should exclude himself from the Works of his own Creation or that he should establish them upon such inviolable Laws as not to alter them upon some Occasions when he foresaw it would be requisite to do it For unless the Course of Nature had been thus alterable it would have been defective in regard to one great End for which it was design'd viz. it would have fail'd of being serviceable to the Designs of Providence upon such Occasions The same Infinite Wisdom which contriv'd the Laws for the Order and Course of Nature contriv'd them so as to make them alterable when it would be necessary for God by suspending the Powers or interrupting the Course of Nature to manifest his extraordinary Will and Power and by the same Decree by which he at first establish'd them he subjected them to such Alterations as his Wisdom foresaw would be necessary We can as little doubt but that He who made the World has the sole Power and Authority over it and that nothing can be done in it but by his Direction and Influence or at least by his Permission and that the Frame and Order of Nature which he at first appointed can at no time be alter'd but for great Ends and Purposes He is not given to change as Men are and can never be disappointed in his Eternal Purposes and Designs But when any thing comes to pass above the Course of Nature and contrary to it in Confirmation of a Revelation which for the Importance and Excellency of the Subject of it and in all other respects is most worthy of God we may be sure that this is his doing and there is still further Evidence of it if this Revelation were prophesy'd of before by Prophets who foretold that it should be confirm'd by Miracle As when Men Born blind receiv'd their Sight when others were cur'd of the most desperate Diseases by a Touch or at a Distance when the Dead were rais'd and the Devils cast out these were evident Signs of a Divine Power and Presence which gave Testimony to the Doctrine deliver'd by those by whom such Miracles were wrought and the Divine Commission and Authority was produc'd for what they did and taught For what could be more satisfactory and convincing to Men or more worthy of God than to force the Devils themselves to confess and proclaim his Coming To cause the most insensible things in Nature to declare his Power by giving way as it were and starting back in great Confusion and Disorder at his more immediate and particular Presence to inform Men that the God of Nature was there This gave Testimony to the Things reveal'd and challeng'd the Belief of all Men in a Language more powerful than any Humane Voice whilst God shew'd forth his Glory and made known his Will by exercising his Sovereignty over Nature in making the whole Creation bow and tremble and obey All which was perform'd according to express Prophecies concerning Christ that there might be a visible Concurrence both of Prophecies and Miracles in Testimony of him And this Dispensation of Miracles was admirably fitted to propagate that Religion which concern'd the Poor as well as the Rich the Unlearned as well as the Learned Miracles were suitable
us with the endearments of his Love and with such condescentions of Grace and Favour as must needs mightily affect the most obstinate sinner who has but the sense and gratitude of a man left in him to consider them and then he has denounced his wrath and vengeance against all such as will not be led and persuaded to their own happiness by the infinite love of Christ He was born he lived he died for us he has procured our pardon he proffers us his grace and assistance he promises us eternal happiness with himself in heaven upon our obedience and last of all he threatens us with eternal misery if we will not be happy thus forcing us as it were to happiness if we will not be perswaded to it for this is all the force that free Agents are capable of And if all that infinite Love could do to excite our Love if all the rewards that infinite Mercy and Goodness could propose and the severest punishments that Almighty Vengeance can inflict will not prevail with men to follow Vertue and refrain from Vice nothing can possibly prevail with them Love is most apt to produce Love and hopes of Reward have a mighty effect upon men of any good temper and disposition but the fears of punishment are wont to work upon the very worst men and where infinite loving kindness eternal Rewards and eternal Punishments do all concur to bring men to the practice of Vertue no motive can be wanting by which human Nature is capable of being wrought upon IV. The Christian Religion affords the greatest helps and assistances to an holy Life God who is a Spirit and is the Author of the Being and of the Life and Motion of all things doth more especially act upon the Spirits and Minds of Men by putting into them good desires and by inclining their hearts to keep his commandments and perform his will And this Grace and Favour of God towards us this spiritual aid and strength is sufficient to enable us to conquer sin and over come Temptations And we are exhorted to come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Heb. iv 16. which we are assured shall be bestowed upon us for Christ's sake through his Merits and by vertue of his Mediation and Intercession All the world has been sensible of the great proneness in humane nature to evil and backwardness to what Reason it self seems to dictate as good and fit to be done but the Christian Religion only has provided a Remedy to cure this great corruption of our Nature and assist us in the performance of our duty V. The Christian Religion expresseth the greatest compassion and condescention to our infirmities Christ died to make satisfaction for our sins and to procure acceptance with God for us upon our repentance he interceeds for us and pleads the Merits of his own Death and Passion in our behalf we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins though they be never so great and heinous if we do but truly repent of them and forsake them And the sins of ignorance and surprize and infirmity are not inconsistent with the terms of Salvation but a general humiliation and repentance with a constant and sincere endeavour to serve and please God will through Christ's Merits be accepted of by him for such sins as we have no sufficient means or ability of knowing to be sins and for such as by reason of the frailty of our Nature we cannot live wholly free from Nothing is required of us but a sincere and honest diligence to do what we can and a lively Faith to rely upon Christ's Merits for the pardon of what sins we are not able wholly to avoid Men are forward to complain of the uneasiness of the Christian Yoke without any true experience and trial of it and without considering the Principles and Motives and Helps and the condescending and gracious Terms which the Gospel proposes Indeed to lay some injunctions and restraints more than are absolutely necessary is but what all Lawgivers have done For some things are to be forbidden as a prevention and a preservative from the commission of sin and others commanded as preparatory qualifications and dispositions to vertue and to make the practice of it more easie and certain to us And if men are allowed in all Governments to have this Authority certainly God who has an absolute Power over us and perfectly knows what is necessary for our good and for the ends of his Government has an undeniable right to forbid or command us some things which by the Law of nature we might have been allowed or excused from But these are very few and all things considered no Religion ever was so compassionate and easie as the Christian Religion VI. The Propagation of the Gospel has ever had great effects towards the reformation and happiness of Mankind What could be more beneficial to the world and more for the peace and happiness of all Mankind than to be taught to live under a perpetual sense and awe of the love and fear of God and to be constrained to perform our several Duties to each other in our respective capacities and relations with the utmost fidelity and integrity and to have this enforced upon the Consciences of Men by the hopes and terâ—ore of a future Judgment and an eternal state of happiness or misery as they shall prove obedient or disobedient These then must be acknowledged to be Doctrines most worthy of God and the proper subject of a Revelation For however men may wish as to themselves in particular that they had not been abridged their sinful pleasures yet in respect to the common good of Society it must needs be confess'd by the most inveterate Enemies of Christianity and by those who will believe nothing of another life that if the Christian Religion were as generally practised as it is professed it would make mankind as happy as it is possible for men to be in this Life through the belief and expectation of a Life to come And as much as the Practice of the Christian Religion has been neglected it is so far from being a speculative notion only that it has a real and perpetual Influence for the good of the world even in the worst and most degenerate Ages We are not at this distance of time easily made sensible how great Blessings the Christian Religion brought to mankind in that Reformation which it soon introduced into the world For upon their Conversion there became such a visible alteration in the Tempers and Lives of men that they seemed to have changed their very Natures and to be born again and become new Creatures from whence Conversion is stiled Regeneration This the Apologists generally insist upon that the Converts to Christianity became quite other men and practised all kinds of Vertue with incredible zeal though
Antiquity as Tully assures us but the Antients gave no reasons to prove it by they only received it by Tradition Plato was the first who attempted to prove it by Argument for though Pherecydes Syrus and Pythagoras had asserted it yet they acquiesced in Tradition by which they had received it from the Eastern Nations but Plato as it is generally supposed conversing with the Jews in Egypt or at his coming into Italy being there acquainted (c) Tull. Tusc Qu. lib. i. with the Doctrine of the Souls immortality amongst other notions of the Pythagoreans began to argue upon it but not being able to make it fully out has only shewn how far reason could proceed upon those grounds which were then known in the world from Revelation Seneca (d) Epist 54.102 tho he sometimes asserts the immortality of the Soul yet at other times doubts of it and even denies that the Soul has any subsistence in a separate State And yet this Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul which the greatest of the Heathen Philosophers could not certainly prove from reason was firmly believed even amongst (e) Grot. de verit lib. i. Anot. Barbarians (f) Consuc lib. iii. Part. 4. p. 36. Confucius the famous Chinese Philosopher profest himself not the Author but the Relater only of the Doctrine which he taught as he had received it delivered down from all Antiquity and (g) Arist Metaph. lib. xii c. 8. Aristotle has declared that the Ancients left many Traditions which their Posterity had corrupted but from the remains of those Traditiwe know that they were originally derived from Revelation The first of the Philosophers that taught the immortality of the Soul was (h) Tull. Tusc Qu. lib. i. Pherecydes and he left his Writings to Thales from whence he had the notion that all things were produced from water Pythagoras was a Scholar of Pherecydes and Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle conversed with the Learned Jews (i) Plat. Phaed. Socrates disputed of a future State from Tradition and (k) Plat. Phileb profest that he always followed the Tradition which had descended from Antiquity and that he was at a loss whenever that failed him (l) Plat. Timae And this Tradition could not have its Rise from the Greeks who were confest to understand little or nothing of Antiquity The notions in Philosophy of the latter Heathens were much improved by Ammonius a Christian and a Teacher of Philosophy at Alexandria And we find that upon the propagation of the Gospel Moral Philosophy in a few years attained to greater perfection than ever it had done before as we may see in the works of Seneca Epictetus Plutarch M. Antoninus Maximus Tyrius and others We may therefore reasonably conclude that the Precepts and Rules of Morality which Philosophers all along taught had their original from Revelation rather than from the strength and sagacity of their own reason because they err in things no less obvious to natural reason and it appears that they had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Scriptures and that they spared no pains either by reading or conversation in their own or in foreign Countries in their search and enquiries after truth III. If the Heathen Philosophy had been as certain and excellent as it can be pretended to be yet there had been great need of a Divine Revelation For 1. The rules of Philosophy lie scattered up and down in large and learned works mixt with many wrong and absurd notions and therefore must be in great measure useless how certain and excellent soever they may be in themselves they can be no rule of Life to us No perfect rule of Manners is to be found in any one Author and if it were possible to compile such a rule out of them all yet what man is able to collect them (m) Lact. de vit Beat c. 7. Lanctantius is of opinion that if all the truths dispersed up and down among the several Sects of Philosophers could be collected together into one System they would make up a Body of Philosophy agreeable to the Christian Doctrine but then he concludes it to be impossible for any man to make such a collection without a supernatural Assistance And if there were no other reason for it but this it is no wonder that we find (n) Tull. de Orat. lib. i. the XII Tables preferred before all the Writings of the Philosophers If there be nothing so absurd as Tully says but the Philosophers have taught it then it is necessary that men should not be left to the uncertainties and absurdities of Philosophy for tho some few of them might be free from such extravagancies yet their Notions were no Rule or Standard to the rest and the best were not without many great Errors 2. The Rules of Philosophy were no better than good Advice and carried no Authority with them to oblige men in Conscience they had not the force of a Law and failing in this necessary point whatever their intrinsick worth had been they never could have had that effect upon the Lives of men which Revealed Religion has Vertue was propounded by Philosophers rather as a matter of Honor and Decency than of strict Duty those were esteemed and admired indeed that observed it but such as did not only wanted that commendation Some Philosophers spoke great and excellent things but they past rather for wise sayings than for Laws of Nature their own Reputation which was greater or less with different sorts of men was the only Authority they had it might be prudence to do as they taught but there appeared no absolute necessity for it They commonly represented Vertue as very lovely with many very great and powerful charms and all that were of another mind did not know a true Beauty and that was an intolerable disgrace the Sanction of Rewards and Punishments in the next Life was little insisted upon by them They recommended Vertue for it's own sake not as it is enjoyed by God and will be rewarded by him and the contrary punished and those who could not soar to their Heights were rather the worse than the better for such Doctrines which they looked upon as the impracticable speculations of some who had a mind to speak great things And they often spoke the Truth indeed which they had from Tradition or from the excellency of their own Wit and Genius but they were not able to make it out by any such Principles as are wont to influence and govern humane Actions Accordingly we find that as the several Sects of Philosophy suited to the Tempers and Humors of particular men so far they prevailed and no farther The curious and inquisitive betook themselves to the Academicks the soft and effeminate to the Epicureans and the Morose to the Stoicks men applyed themselves to what ever opinion they liked best and found most agreeable to their Nature and Disposition Thus a severe and haughty Gravity made up the
the most implacable enemies of Christianity and brought Christians into contempt among the Heathen for nothing could make the Gospel of less account in their esteem than to deduce its Authority from the Books of the â—ews who soon after the Crucifixion of Christ became vile and contemptible in the eyes of all the World It can be no great wonder to see men drawn into those vices under the pretence of Religion which no Laws nor Punishments can restrain them from but for a Religion that forbids all vice under the severest penalties to prevail in a vicious world is truly miraculous Besides it is Death by the Law of Mahomet to contradict the Alcoran men are forbid all disputation and discourse about Religion they are charged to believe none but Mahometans and to look upon all others as unworthy of all manner of conversation So that the Sword in the hands of furious and ignorant Zealots is the only way by which that Religion was designed to be propagated But nothwithstanding all these compliances with the Lusts and Passions of men if we take in all Ages since the Incarnation of Christ the Christian Religion not to mention the Jewish has had a much larger propagation than ever Mahometanism has had and has at all times been taught in more parts of the world and even amongst Mahometans themselves And the Alcoran it self asserting the Divine Authority and Mission both of Moses and Christ serves in some measure to propagate the Faith of the Old and New Testament so far I mean as to give an advantage and opportunity for men to make enquiry into them and become acquainted with them CHAP. VII The want both of Prophecies and Miracles in the Mahometan Religion MAhometanism is grounded neither upon Prophecies nor Miracles Mahomet indeed calls himself Prophet very solemnly but we have but this one instance of his Prophetick Spirit (a) Alcoran c. 66. When the Prophet went to visit one of his Wives God revealed to him what she desired to say to him he approved one part and rejected the other when he told his Wife what was in her will to speak to him she demanded of him who had revealed it to him He that knoweth all things hath revealed it to me that ye may be converted your hearts are inclined to do what is forbidden if ye act any thing against the Prophet know that God is his Protector Here is not one circumstance to make the story credible Mahomet pretended to no Miracles but when he has raised that objection as he often doth that the world would not believe in him unless they saw some Miracle he answers (b) Meor c. 13. I am not sent but to Preach the Word of God Tho afterwards he mentions that ridiculous story of the Moons being divided in these words (c) Ib. c. 54. The Day of Judgment approacheth the Moon was divided into two parts nevertheless Infidels believe not Miracles when they see them they say that this is Magick they lye and follow but their Passion but all is written Here is no proof nor any pretence to it but only a confident assertion of a thing ridiculous And yet unless we will believe this Prophecy and this Miracle there is nothing in the whole Alcoran either of Miracle or Prophecy to give it any Authority except that must be accounted one which he so often boasts of viz. It s wonderful Doctrine and Eloquence for (d) Ib. c. x xi xvi he challenges all the world to produce any thing like it protesting (e) C. vii that he could neither write nor read and therefore must needs have it by Revelation And he introduceth God swearing to the Truth of it almost in every Chapter and this is all he offers in answer to the suspicions which he so frequently suggests men then had of his being an Impostor CHAP. VIII The Alcoran is false absurd and immoral I. THE Alcoran is false as when it makes (a) Ib. c. xix the Virgin Mary Sister to Aaron when it asserts that (b) Ib. c. iv Christ was not Crucified but one like him in Contradiction to the Testimony of Jews Christians and Heathens and that Christ (c) Ib. c. lxi Prophesied of him by Name without the least proof or ground for it but against all the evidence that can be to the contrary II. The Alcoran contains things absurd and ridiculous as in that story of the sleepers (d) C. xviii the Infidels say they were five and that their Dog was the sixth they sâ—eak by opinion but the true Believers affirm them to be seven and their Dog to be the eighth And (e) Ib. c. xxvii in the story of Solomon's Army composed of Men Devils and Birds of the Queen of the Pismires and Solomon's discourse with the Bird called the Whoop who brought him tydings of the Queen of Sheba III. The Doctrines of the Alcoran are impious and immoral Mahomet makes all the Angels worship Adam in several parts of his Alcoran and his sensual Paradice is well known and his allowance of many Wives but perhaps his injustice is not so generally taken notice of (f) Ib. c. iv xxiii in permitting the professors of his Religion to take away their Slaves Wives from them The Law of Mahomet proceeds from a savage and cruel spirit obliging those that embrace it to destroy all that are not of it however the Mahometans have not always acted according to the cruelty of their Religion humane Nature not being always able to act so much contrary to it self But this is Mahomet's Doctrine (g) Ib. c. iii. God loveth not the unjust he forgiveth sins to those that believe and extirpate Infidels (h) Ib. c. iv If they forsake it the Law of God pretended to be set down in the Alcoran kill them where you find them Be not negligent to pursue the Infidels And this the (i) Tavern Voyage de Ind. lib. iii. c. 24. Faquirs at their return from Mecha are very mindful of with a furious zeal killing all they can that they meet who are not Mahometans till they are killed themselves and then they are reputed Saints and Prayers are made at their Graves Such is the Alcoran as we now have it and yet it is not now as it was at first written by Mahomet (k) Sandys Trav. lib. i. p. 54. many alterations have been made in it by inserting some things and striking out others and taking some of the absurdities away Mahomet the Second particularly is said to have made great alterations and additions (l) Ricauts Hist of the Ottom Empire lib. ii c. 10. But the Persians the followers of Haly charge Abu-Beker Omar and Ozman whom the Turks follow with falsifying the Alcoran CHAP. IX Of Mahomet AFter this account of Mahomet's Alcoran there will be no need to say much of his Person the general Doctrines of the Alcoran shew him to have been lustful proud fierce and cruel
might not suffer a Book written by his own Appointment and Authority to be encumbred thro' length of Time and the frailty and negligence of Men with insuperable Difficulties if it be supposed still to retain the visible Marks and Characters of a Divine Original in all the Evidence necessary to prove it from Matter of Fact and in the Doctrines delivered by it For as long as these two things are secured all the rest tho' it be of never so great Use and Excellency yet cannot be necessary in order to the ends of a Divine Revelation And therefore a Book of Divine Revelation might be permitted by God for the Sins and by the Fault and Ignorance of Men to become perplext with abundance of divers Readings and even with Contradictions in the Chronological and less material Points of it For so long as it cannot be proved Defective as to the ends and purposes of a Divine Revelation either for want of evidence to make it appear to be such or thro' defect of the Matter and Doctrine contained in it all other Difficulties will never prove it not to be of Divine Authority because so long as there is no Defect but what might be in any Book tho' we suppose it to be of Divine Authority CHAP. IX Of the Creation of the World and the Preservation of it BY Creation in the Book of Genesis is understood not only the Production of the World out of Nothing but the Formation and Disposal of the several Parts of the Universe But there has an Opinion of late years prevailed very injurious to Religion and repugnant to Reason and the Judgment of former Ages That God only created Matter and gave it Motion to be performed under certain Laws by which all the Phaenomena of Nature both in the Creation and Preservation of Things are brought about without any farther immediate Divine Power or Concourse than what is just necessary to continue this Matter and Motion in Being that is God created Matter and put it into Motion and then Matter and Motion do all the rest in a settled Course and by established Laws without any need of the Divine Aid or Direction This Notion indeed can never be reconciled to the Scriptures but then it is as little befriended by Reason and Natural Religion In proof of which I shall consider I. The Creation of the World II. The Preservation of it and shall shew that neither of them could be performed in this way I. As to the Creation we may consider both the Time and the Manner of it And by the Time of the Creation we may understand either the Time when the Creation of the World began or the Time which was taken up in the Creation of it But this latter sense will come under what is to be said of the Manner of the Creation 1. The Time of the Creation of the World as that signifies the Beginning of Time or of the Worlds Duration must be wholly Arbitrary and absolutely at God's Sovereign Pleasure and Disposal For there could be nothing in eternal Duration to fix the Creation of the World more to one Time than another or to determin why it should begin sooner or later And since it is impossible that the world should be eternal it is evident that the Time of the Creation whenever it was can be no good Objection because tho' the World had been created never so long before there must necessarily have been as much a Pretence for such an Objection For there must have been some Period of Time when the World had existed no longer than it has done now and no beginning of the World can be supposed so long ago but still it might with the same Reason be ask'd why it was not created sooner 2. In considering the Manner of the Worlds Creation I shall prove 1. That there is no Reason to suppose the World to have been at the first made by Mechanical Laws tho' it were preserv'd according to such Laws 2. That there are sufficient Reasons to be given for its Creation in that Manner which we find related in the Book of Genesis 1. There is no Reason to suppose the World to have been at first made by Mechanichal Laws tho' it were preserved according to such Laws whereas I shall afterwards prove that it is not preserved according to them There is no Reason that the World should be first framed according to the Laws of Motion which are established for its Preservation and Government in its fixt and settled State The Origin of the Universe was by the immediate hand of God before the Appointment of the several Laws which afterwards were to take place and we may as well endeavour to reduce the working of Miracles to the standing Laws of Nature as the Creation of the World For certainly of all Miracles the Creation of the World must be the greatest not only as it signifies the Production of Matter and Motion out of Nothing but as it was the putting things into such Order as to make them capable of the Laws of Motion ordained for them It is not yet agreed nor is it ever like to be what these Laws of Motion are which the Philosophers so much talk of and there being such a mutual Connexion and Combination of Bodies and such a Dependance of every Body upon so many others in every Motion it is impossible to know how any two Bodies would act upon each other if they were separate from all Bodies besides or were out of that State which they now are in It is reasonable therefore to imagine that the several Parts of the World must be ranged and settled before these Laws could take place and to reduce the Creation of the World to the Laws of Motion which now prevail in it is to suppose a Creation antecedent to that by which the World was made This is as if an Indian should attempt to give an Account of the making of a Watch by the several Motions which he sees performed in it after it is made and should imagine that the Materials moving in such a manner at last arrived to the exact frame of a Watch. 2. There are sufficient Reasons to be given for the Creation of the World in that manner which we find related in the Book of Genesis It is great Presumption in Men to be too curious and inquisitive about the Reasons of God's Actions for whatever he delivers of himself we ought entirely to believe both the Thing it self and the manner and Circumstances of it Where wast thou when I laid the Foundations of the Earth declare if thou hast Vnderstanding Job xxxviii 4. But this must be said to the Glory of God and to the Shame of all such as Censure and Cavil at his Word that even by Men such Reasons may be given of his Actions as all his Adversaries shall not be able to gain-say God hath ordered all things in Measure and Number and Weight Wisd xi 20. And as to
ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them Male and Female And said for this cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother and shall cleave to his Wife and they twain shall be one Flesh Matth. xix 4 5. And St. Paul in like manner to shew that the Woman ought not to usurp Authority over the Man proves it by this Argument For Adam was first formed then Eve 1 Tim. ii 13. and in another place and upon another occasion he observes that the Man is not of the Woman but the Woman of the Man 1 Cor. xi 8. And long before the Prophet Malachi had Argued from the same Topick Malach. ii 15. And Hebr. iv 4. it is noted that God did rest the Seventh day from all his Works from whence the Apostle concludes that he that is entred into his rest he also hath ceased from his own Works as God did from his Vers 10. Now as these and whatever other Arguments are to be found in the Scriptures of the like Nature do evidently suppose the Creation of the World in the same manner as it is related in the Book of Genesis so they explain to us the Reasons why it was thus Created For all these Arguments had been lost and there could have been no ground for them if the World had been otherwise created As certainly therefore as this Arguing from the manner of the Creation is good So certain it is both that the World was so Created and that there was great Reason for it But whatever some Philisophers may think now there is nothing which would have been more disagreeable to the Notions of the Generality of the wisest Men in all Ages than that the World should be made upon Mechanical Principles He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fact Psal xxxiii 9. He Commanded and they were Created Psal Cxlviii 5. This expresses not only the Truth of the History but the general sense of Mankind who have ever had this Notion of God that to command and to do is the same thing with him And therefore the Objection till of late has run the other way that God did rather Create the World in an instant than in six days It was little suspected formerly that divers Years or many Ages were spent in the Creation It was in the Description of the Creation of the World that Longinus observed the sublime Style of Moses and if the Relation of it be admirable the Creation it self in such a manner as is there related must be much more admirable For it is proper for it to be thus described for no other Reason but because it was proper for it in this manner to be done But what would Longinus have said if the Creation had been related to have been performed not by any command which had its immediate effect but by the tedious Process of Mechanical Causes What Grandeur what evidence of the Divine Power and Majesty is there in this more than in any Chymical Operation if the Mechanical Hypothesis were true It were strange Presumption to demand of Almighty God a Reason of all his Actions and not to believe him upon his Word that he has done any thing but when and how some Men conceit it ought to have been done But what I have now said may at least serve to silence the Cavils of such Men. 2. The Preservation of the World is not performed according to Mechanical Laws or Principles The Mechanical Hypothesis supposes that Bodies act upon Bodies or Actives upon Passives in a certain course and according to such Laws as that being left to themselves they necessarily produce their Effects without any immediate Interposition of a Divine Power But this Notion is grounded wholly upon mistakes 1. It supposes that there was at first a certain quantity of Motion infused or impressed upon Matter which still continues passing from one Body to another according to certain Methods or Rules prescribed But this Supposition that there is always the same Quantity of Motion in the World is wholly precarious or rather notoriously false and the best Philosophers have been able to give no Account how Motion can be Communicated without an immediate Impulse or Concourse of the Divine Power 2. By the Mechanical Hypothesis it is supposed as a thing certain that there is a Plenum which at least is very uncertain or rather it has been demonstrated by Mr. Newton that there is a Vacuum not only interspersed but of a Prodigious and almost incredible extent at the distance of the Earths Simidiameter from us And by his Principles Gravitation must proceed from an immediate and constant Impression or Impulse of God For it proceeds from no Action of one Body upon another but is a Quality belonging to all Matter alike and to every particle of Matter however separate and distant from all others The Projectile Motion and that Attractive Force by which the Planets are carried in their Orbits cannot be communicated or performed according to any Mechanical Laws whereby they are determined from a Rectilinear to an Orbicular Motion For Bodies can act upon Bodies only by Contract and therefore cannot Communicate their Motion or any way determin or affect the Motion of each other in a Vacuum so vast as it must be near the Circumference of the several Orbits so that the old occult Qualities and Substantial Terms were not more repugnant to the Mechanical Hypothesis than these Principles are The being of a Vacuum must suppose an immediate Divine Power necessary to keep the System of the World in that order in which we see it continue For otherwise by this Principle of Gravitations being inherent in every Part of Matter all Bodies would press towards the Center and in a Vacuum there can be nothing to hinder their tendency towards it till they come crowding the upon another so that all the Order of things would soon be reduced to one confused Heap or Moss unless some immaterial Power interposed to hinder it It is evident then that the Mechanical Hypothesis is quite destroyed by these Principles For by these here is no Connexion of Causes and Effects according to any Laws of mere Matter and Motion but all must be done by the immediate Power of God Gravitation and the Projectile Motion must be impressed and suspended without any dependance upon surrounding Bodies they must produce their Effects thro' prodigious void Spaces where Bodies have no Communication of Motion from one to another And all being performed by the immediate directing and assisting Hand of God a Man may as well pretend to solve a Miracle Mechanically as to give any Account of the Phaenomena of Nature by Mechanical Laws according to these Principles 3. The Abetters of the Mechanical Hypothesis argue that God acts in the most General and Uniform ways that it is more becoming his Wisdom to let Nature have its course and that constantly to interpose would be a disparagement to the Order
and Contrivance in his Establishment of the Laws of Motion that Matter and Motion are with that Wisdom set to work that they can perform all without any more than preserving and sustaining them in their Being and Operations and that he is the best Artist who can contrive an Engine that shall need the least medling with after it is made But it ought to be considered what the Nature of the Engine is and what the ends and uses of it are and if the Nature of it be such that it cannot answer the ends for which it was framed without sometimes an assisting Hand it would be no point of Wisdom in the Artificer for the Credit of his Contrivance to lose the most useful Ends design'd by it As if among other uses this curious Engine were design'd to reward the Good and punish bad Men to remove the punishment upon Amendment and to renew it upon a Relapse Since Brute Matter is uncapable of varying its Motion and suiting it self to the several States and Changes of Free Agents he must assist it unless he will lose the Chief end for which it is to serve It is no defect in the Skill and Wisdom of the Almighty that Matter and Motion have not Free will as Men have But it would be a great defect in his Wisdom not to make them the Instruments of Rewards and Punishment because it is impossible for them of themselves to apply and suit themselves to the several States and Conditions of Free Agents The Nature of Matter and Motion is such that they cannot serve all the Designs of their Creator without his Interposition and therefore he constantly doth interpose according to a certain Tenour which he has prescribed to himself but this Tenour and Course is altered upon some important Occasions In a natural and ordinary way he Cures Diseases sends Rain or dry Weather or else our Prayers to him would be insignificant upon such Occasions and there would be no room left for his inflicting these Temporal Rewards and Punishments He feeds the Hungry that cry to him and he punishes the Wicked when he sees it fitting by Famine or Drought or Pestilence in the ordinary Methods of his Providence But sometimes he alters these ordinary Methods and acts above them or contrary to them to signalize his Mercy or his Judgments And thus Christ fed so many thousands in the Wilderness and God Rained down Fire from Heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah by a particular and miraculous Dispensation Miracles are the particular Appointment of God in peculiar Cases and Occasions and the course of Nature is his general and perpetual Appointment at all other times God at no time leaves Nature to it self but ever concurs with it by assisting its Power and directing its course he ordinarily interposes in the constant course of Things according to established Laws But Miracles are his wonderful Work when he interposes in an extraordinary manner and alters that Method which he has prescribed to himself to observe in the common course of Nature God doth not in an extraordinary manner interpose to prevent the irregular or unusual productions of Nature as in mostrous Births c. For how irregular soever these may seem yet they are according to this standing Rule that they shall be suffered to happen in certain Cases and they rarely happening serve to illustrate the Divine Wisdom in contriving Nature so that in its general Course all its Operations should be regular and uniform and from hence it appears that God doth not extraordinarily interpose to alter the Course of Nature but for great Ends Superiour to those which concern only the material World We may well suppose that God has at much regard to his Wisdom in his Government of the Moral as of the Material Part of the Creation and yet he has added supplemental Laws to enforce the Moral Laws and these additional Laws have been changed as the Circumstances and Condition of Men required Why then should the Laws of the Material World be so much more sacred as that he should never intermeddle with them He assists Moral Agents with the continual supplies of his Grace and natural Agents with that help which is needful for them to perform his will God may hasten and assist natural causes upon our Prayers he may quicken the Motions and enforce the Powers of Nature and remove secret Impediments to help and make way for natural Operations or he may slacken or retard natural Causes To say that God has so ordered the course of Nature as upon the fore-sight of Mens Prayers to him to grant them what they Pray for and upon the fore-sight that they will not Pray to withhold from them what they want by Mechanical Laws is by no means satisfactory For there is neither Proof nor possibility of Proof of it it is merely a Supposition without any ground of Reason but only this that the Mechanical Notion cannot otherwise be maintained But I will suppose with much more Reason that two Men are Sick of the same Disease that the Circumstances of the Disease are all the same and all outward Accidents likewise the same till the Prayers of one of them make a Difference For one of these Men upon his Prayers Recovers the other neglecting to Pray Dies The natural Causes are supposed to be the same excepting only so far as Prayer moves God in his Mercy to make a Difference in their Case To say that this never happened is wholly precarious and hard to believe since it probably may often happen in Epidemical Distempers but it is much harder to believe that it can never happen and if this either have or can happen it is not upon fore-sight of their Prayers by the contrivance of Mechanical Laws in their first Establishment but by an immediate Act that God assists Men upon their Prayers to him The strange Providential Deliverances of some certain Persons are observable in every Age and all Histories mention them But how shall particular Men amidst the greatest Dangers be preserved in the common Calamities of the Sword and Famine and Pestilence but by a particular interposing Providence Were these Men who have been so remarkably preserv'd all of one Constitution or do Soldiers Slay Mechanically tho' the Plague and Famine should be supposed to do so I wonder it should be thought less agreeable to Philosophy for God to interpose in directing natural Causes than in over-ruling Moral Agents where the Designs of the Providence equally require it The same Providence delivers both from the snare of the Hunter and from the noisome Pestilence A thousand shall fall besides thee and ten thousand at thy Right Hand but it shall not come nigh thee Psal xci 3.7 4. The Mechanical Philosophy proceeds upon a wrong Notion of God supposing it unworthy of him to be concerned immediately in every thing which is done We may as well imagine it below him to know every thing as to suppose it unworthy of him
Earth to be founded upon the Seas and Established upon the Floods and Psal Cxxxvi. 6 to be stretched out above the Waters These are the places of Scripture which as far as I have observed have been most accepted against in this particular and yet there is nothing in them but what may be accounted for upon the Principles of Modern Philosophy CHAP. XII Of Man's being created capable of Sin and Damnation IT is sufficient to prove the Reasonableness of God's Proceedings with Mankind if none are punished but those that deserve Punishment and none punished more than they deserve and all are rewarded who by a Faithful and Sincere tho' but a very imperfect Obedience are become qualifyed for a Reward God can do nothing but what is perfectly Just and Infinitely Merciful and we must be very unreasonable if we cavil at his Proceedings which are consistent not only with Justice and Equity but with Mercy it self For where neither his Justice nor his Mercy and Goodness interpose we must surely acquiesce in the Divine Pleasure unlâ—ss we can think that God himself should be more confined in his Actions than Men are For within the Limits of Justice and Mercy it is certainly left at the Liberty of every Man in any Office or Authority to do as he thinks fit Yet as God is pleased in his dealings with Men to appeal to their own Reason for the Equity of them so there is nothing in all his Proceedings with us but it may be made appear to be more reasonable even according to the Notion that we have of things than the contrary would have been It must de considered that no Crated Being can in its own Nature be uncapable of Sin or Default Because it cannot be infinitely perfect for it is inseparable from all Creatures to have but finite Persections and whatever has bounds set to its Perefctions is in some respect impersect that is it wants those Perfections which a Being of Infinite Perfections alone can have So that imperfection is implied in the very Essence of Created Beings and what is imperfect may make Default All inanimate things may deviate from the Regular course of their Natures as they would certainly do if the Divine Wisdom and Power did not guide and maintain them in it And every rational Being must naturally have a Liberty of Choice that is it must have a Will to chuse as well as an Understanding to Reason For we have no notion how there can be Reason without Choice A Faculty of Understanding without a Will to determine it if left to it self must always think of the same Object or proceed in a continued Series and Connexion of Thoughts without any Aim or End which would be a perpetual Labour in vain and tedious Thoughtfulness to no purpose But if it should be sometimes determined by something External to new Objects yet what use of Reason could there be in Contemplations which were merely obtruded and forced upon the Mind And because Rational Creatures must have some prescribed Rule of their Actions from which being free Agents they may depart they must in their own Nature be capable of Sin God is Infinite Perfection and therefore is a Rule to himself and his Essence is uncapable of any other Rule of his Actions he only Acts according to his Essence from which it is impossible for him to vary But the most perfect Creatures must act by a Rule which is not essential to them but prescribed them by God and is not so intrinsick to their Natures but that they may decline from it for a free Agent may follow or not follow the Rule appointed or else it would not be free The Difficulty therefore is not why Man was Created capable of Sinning for he could not possibly by his Creation and in his Nature be uncapable of it this is peculiar to God who is infinite Perfection that all Sin should be a contradiction to His very Nature and Essence But the Question which has been started by some Men if they State it right must be this How it came to pass that God did not sustain and preserve Men by an irresistible Power from falling into Sin when Damnation was to be the consequence of it In answer to which it might suffice to say that in the Creation God must be supposed to act by His divine Prerogative and by His arbitrary Will and Power He giveth not account of any of his Matters Job xxxiii 13. but it is enough for us to know that he made Man happy and capable of continuing happy and that there could be no necessity why he should force him to continue so Tho' we want not in the mean time Reasons to prove even to our weak and imperfect Understandings that it was expedient that the Happiness or Misery of Man should depend upon his own Choice rather than that he should be kept unavoidably from all sin and be placed out of all possibility of Punishment and Misery I. Because the Glory of God is hereby more advanced and all the Attributes of His Wisdom and Justice and Goodness are more displayed than if Men had been inevitably restrain'd from sinning II. Because this conduceth more to the Happiness of the Blessed than a Necessity of not sinning could have done I. The Glory of God is more advanced and the Attributes of his Wisdom and his Justice and of his Goodness it self are more displayed by leaving Men to a Freedom of acting than they could have been by imposing an inevitable Fate and Necessity of not sinning upon Mankind Unless Man had been left capable of sinning against God he could not have been in a Capacity of paying him a true and proper Obedience for Obedience supposeth Choice and Choice supposeth a Possibility of Disobedience To obey God in proper speaking is to chuse to do what God has commanded to submit to his Will and to resolve to do what we know to be pleasing to Him upon that very Reason and Consideration because we know it to be His pleasure not because the Necessity of our own Nature or some over-ruling Power forceth us upon it The Obedience of Rational Creatures supposing them from their first Creation out of all possibility of sinning would be no other than that of the irrational and inanimate Beings and a Man then could be no more truly said to obey God in acting as God has appointed than a Stone may be said to obey him in falling downward or the Fire in ascending These act according to God's appointment and so would Man if he acted upon necessity but it is an Honour and Homage due to God from Rational Creatures that they should determine themselves to do as he has commanded and make a freâ— Acknowledgment of his Bounty and Goodiness and pay a voluntary Submission to the Divine Authority which is their reasonable Serviceâ— The Wisdom of God is and will be especially at the Day of Judgment more conspicuous by the Government of a wicked
Son are Thoughts which must create a new Heaven as it were in Heaven it self I mean they will enlarge our Souls to the utmost Capacities of our Natures and fill and actuate them with such Divine Ardors of Love as if we had been kept necessarily from all Sin seem impossible to have been raised in us The Angels themselves rejoyce over one Sinner that repenteth and that Joy must have been wanting to them who are of so much higher and more excellent a Nature than we are of if there had been no Possibility either of Sin or of Repentance And the wonderful Dispensation of the Gospel is an eternal Subject of Praise and Adoration an eternal Fountain of Love and Joy and Happiness to all the Blessed Spirits in Heaven The more the Divine Attributes are displayed the more Adorable the Majesty of God will appear and will become the greater Object of our Praise and Veneration those that are wise and good will be made the wiser and better by it and the happier in the Contemplation of the Divine Perfections Now a Governour in his Laws and in the Method and Order of his Government has regard chiefly to the Good and Obedient and has little Concern for the rest And we must consider God not only as the Father but as the Governour of Mankind and tho' an earthly Father perhaps would by all means possible preserve his â—on from incurring Punishment yet a good Governour when the Ends of his Government can be better obtain'd by leaving him to his Liberty would not restrain him by any Force or Violence Therefore if the Liberty of Choice in Men and the Possibility of their Sin and Damnation be for the Glory of God and for the Benefit of good Men and be no Injury to the Bad this is a sufficient Account why man was not necessarily restrained from Sinning tho' Damnation be the consequence of it CHAP. XIII Of the Fall of the Angels and of our First Parents IN the Beginning God created every thing perfect in its kind and endned the Angels and Man with all intellectual and Moral Perfections suitable to their respective Natures but so as to leave them capable of sinning For it pleased the infinite Wisdom of God for the Reasons already alledg'd and for many more and greater Reasons perhaps than any man is able to imagine to place them in a State of Tryal and to put it to their own Choice whether they would stand in their present Condition of Innocence and Happiness in which they were created or fall into Sin and Misery We have little or no Account in the Scriptures of the Cause or Temptation which occasioned the Fall of Angels because it doth not concern us to be acquainted with it and therefore it little becomes us to be inquisitive about it Indeed it is very difficult to conceive how Beings of so Great Knowledge and Purity as the Fall'n Angels once were of should fall into Sin But it must be considered that nothing is more unaccountable than the Motives and Causes of Action in Free Agents when any Being is at Liberty to do as it will no other Reason besides its own Will need be enquir'd for of its Actings What is liable to Sin may sin whatever the Motive be and to enquire after the Motive is to enquire what Motives may determine a Free Agent that is an Agent which may determine it self upon any Ground or Motive But how perfect and excellent soever any Creature is unless it be so confirmed and established in a State of Purity and Holiness as to be secured from all possibility of Sinning it may be supposed to admire it self and dote upon its own Perfections and Excellencies and by degrees to neglect and not acknowledge God the Author of them but to sin and rebell against Him And it is most agreeable both to Scripture and Reason that Pride was the cause of the Fall of Angels For those Excellencies which might secure them from any other Sin proved a Temptation to this and the greater their Perfections were the greater was the Temptation as in a Man who is guilty of Spiritual and Pharisaical Pride all that is good and commendable in him affords him only matter for his Sin So that where there is a freedom of Will and a possibility of Sinning the very Perfection of Nature in a Creature may be made an Occasion to sin and that which excludes other sins may prove a Motive and Temptation to Pride which therefore we have reason to conclude was the Sin of the Fall'n Angels As to the Fall of Man however the Thing may be disputed the Effects of it are visible in the strange Proneness of Humane Nature to act against Reason and Conscience that is to act in plain contradiction to it self and its own Principles This is a State in which it cannot be supposed that Mankind was at first created by the infinitely Good and Holy God And the most plausible Opinion and that which has most generally obtained among the Heathens is that the Souls of Men had a Being before they came into this World and were sent into Human Bodies in Punishment for what they had done amiss in a precedent State But this is mere suspicion and Conjecture without any possibility of Proof and there is this plain Reason against it that â—o man can be punished for his Amendment who knows nothing of it For it is inconsistent with the Nature and end of Punishment that the Offender should not be made sensible of his Fault especially when the Punishment is designed for his Amendment as it is said to be in the present Case If it can be supposed that Men may possibly retain no Remembrance of what they did in another State yet if their Faults were not kept in Memory they should be brought to their Remembrance if this Life were designed as a State of Punishment in order to Amendment But the State of this Life is so far from being thought a Punishment that Men naturally are of nothing more fond nor dread any thing more than to leave it And tho' Men meet with great Afflictions here yet those do not befall those only or chiefly who by their Proneness to Evil in this Life might be supposed to have been the greatest Offenders in a former State and every Calamity has not the Nature of Punishment The Sufferings and Miseries which we endure by reason of Adam's Transgression are not so properly Punishments as the Effects and Consequences of his sin But Personal Faults such as are supposed to have been committed in a State of pre-existence require a proper Punishment and if the Punishment be for Amendment as it is supposed to be in this present State both the Fault and the Punishment must be known with the Cause and End of its being inflicted and the greatest Offenders must undergo the severest Punishment The Account which the Scripture gives us of the Fall of our First Parents may be considered either 1.
be more easily observ'd than this so it was most proper for the place in which they were and for their manner of Life and State of Innocence The common Rules and Laws of Morality could then scarce have any place but it was requisite that this or some such other Instance of Obedience should be imposed Theft and Murder and Adultery and other Sins against Moral Duties were then either impossible to be committed or so unnatural that it can hardly be imagined how any of them should be committed when there were yet but two Persons in the World in a State of perfect Innocence and therefore in Moral Duties there could be no Tryal of the Obedience of our First parent besides these were so well known to them that there could be no need of any Command concerning them But God gives them a Command in a Thing of an indifferent Nature that so he might have a plainer proof of their Obedience in a thing which was both indifferent of it self and so easy to them that nothing but a careless and perverse Neglect could betray them into Disobedience To suppose Good and Evil to be in the Nature of Things only and not in the Commandments and Prohibitions of God is in effect a renouncing of God's Authority but this Tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil For it made them sensible of the Divine Authority upon which Moral Good and Evil formally depend tho' matterially they be in the Nature of Things Whatever God is pleased to command or forbid however indifferent it be in it self is for that very Reason so far as it is commanded or forbidden by him as truly Good or Evil as if it were absolutely and morally so being enacted by the same Divine Authority whereby all Moral Precepts become obligatory as Laws to us for all Moral Truths or Precepts or Rules of Life however certain and necessary in themselves yet receive the Obligation of Laws from the Divine Authority this being the most certain Truth in Morality and in order of Nature antecedent to all others that God is to be obeyed in all that he commands or forbids But the Divine Authority was solely and purely concern'd in this Commandment which had no foundation in the Nature of Things but depended meerly upon the Will and Pleasure of God and by the Transgression of this Law it became notorious to our First parents and their unhappy Posterity that both Good and Evil whatever they may be in Speculation and abstracted Notions yet as they concern us in the Practice of our Lives are to be resolv'd ultimately into the Divine Authority God is our Lawgiver and nothing can be a Law to us but by His enacting and what he enacts must be a Law to us and of the same necessary indspensable Obligation so far as he is pleased to enjoyn it whether it be a Moral Precept or only an indifferent Thing in its own Nature It seems then that God was pleased to manifest his Soveraign Authority in this Commandment and to shew that it is absolute and independant upon Moral Good or Evil and that tho' his infinite Holiness and Goodness would not permit him to Command any thing contrary to Moral Duties nor suffer him not to command Moral Good and forbid Moral Evil yet his Authority is arbitrary over us extending as far beyond all the Duties of Morality as he pleases which indeed are only Truths and Precepts but not Duties to us but by Vertue of his Authority This Commandment therefore was given in Assertion of God's Authority whom it is always and in every thing good to obey and evil to disobey as our First parents found by sad Experience (n) Maim More New voeh Par◠〈◊〉 c. 2. Maimonides observes that they had the Knowledge of Truth and Falshood before but Good and Evil became known to them by their Fall whereby they understood the Value of that Good which they had lost and were made sensible of the Misery of that Condition into which they had brought themselves They perceived how good it was to obey God and how evil to be disobedient to Him in any thing whatsoever (o) Lib. 1. Disc xxvi◠Mr. Mede has observed that their Sin was Sacrilege God had reserved that Tree as holy to himself in Token of his Dominion and Soveraignty and appointed it to such uses as he had designed it for and therefore it was a Sacrilegious Prophanation to eat of it it was a Theft or Robbery no less than the Robbing of God as the Prophet stiles Sacrilege and an Invasion of his Right And the Lord God said Behold the Man is become as one of us to know Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 22. which words are generally supposed to have been spoken by a severe Sarcasm or with an upbraiding Anger and Indignation but they seem to admit of an easier Sense if they be thus interpreted The man is become as one of us he has made himself as one of us he has assumed to himself an equality with us Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God Phil. ii 6. to be equal is there to claim an Equality and so to become as one of us is to challenge or pretend to become as one of us according to the Devil's Suggestion Christ knew it to be no Injury or Presumption in Himself who was in the Form of God and was God as well as Man to assume to Himself an Equality with the Father But our First Parents who were made in the Image of God and after his Likeness were not contented with this but affected something higher than the Perfections of a Creature and aim'd at an independant State of Wisdom and Immortality being seduced by the Serpent who said unto the Woman Ye shall not surely die ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 4 5. This was a most heinous Crime to believe the Serpent rather than God Himself and to be seduced by him and hope by his Advice to procure to themselves Divine Wisdom and Immortal Happiness II. The Consequences of the Fall of our First Parents were answerable to their Crime and were either upon themselves or upon their Posterity or upon the Serpent and other Creatures I. The Curse upon the Serpent was by a visible Object and Representation to denote that Curse and Punishment which was denounced against the Tempter himself who assumed the Body of a Serpent The Serpent before had a freer and stronger Motion and could lift up himself and reach the Fruits of the Trees but is since confined to the Ground and is forced to seek his Food in the Dust And there being Relations of Serpents which carry Part of their Body erect this before the Curse might belong to the whole Kind of them in another manner than it doth since to any one Sort. The Basilisk is said to go with his Head and Breast erect and a Serpent call'd (p) Knexe's Hist of Ceyl Part 1.
Messiah the Jewish Law was to become impracticable and impossible to be observ'd For if the City and Temple were not destroy'd the confinement of the Jewish Worship to one certain Place must necessarily imply an alteration in their Worship upon the coming of the Messiah and the calling of the Gentiles who could not all be supposed to assemble thrice every year at Jerusalem and therefore the Prophets foretold That Jerusalem should then be no longer the only place of God's Worship but that Men should Worship him in any place of the World 'T is true the Prophets often mention the resort which should be made from all Nations to Jerusalem and to the Temple or the Mountain of the Lord. But then these are Mystical Expressions for the City of Jerusalem and the Temple are used by the Prophets as Types of the Christian Church and therefore Ezekiel (m) Lightfoot 's Prospect of the Temple ch 2. describes the Temple larger than the whole City of Jerusalem and the City in greater dimensions than all the Land of Canaan to shew that we are not to understand these Expressions literally A Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedeck different from that of Aaron was Prophesied of Psal cx 4. and a New Covenant different from that which was made with the Children of Israel upon their coming out of the Land of Aegypt Jer. xxxi 31 32. And this Covenant was to extend to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews For from the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offered unto my Name and a pure offering for my Name shall be great among the Heathen saith the Lord of Hosts Malach. i. 11. If against all this it be alledged That the Mosaical Law was to endure for ever it ought to be considered what sense that expression bears in the Law it self And that expression is there used to denote the continuance of any thing which was not designed for some particular occasion or season only but was to last as long as the nature and general design of its Institution would admit The Servant whose Ear was bored was to serve his Master for ever Exod. xxi 6. by which is to be understood not all his Life but only till the year of Jubilee whereas he that had not his Ear bored was to be set free in the seventh year ver 2. And even before the year of Jubilee he whose Ear was bored might be freed with his Master's Consent (n) Grot. ad loc either by Manumission or Redemption and was at liberty upon the death of his Master not being bound to serve his Son Their anointing shall surely be an everlasting Priesthood throughout their Generations Exod. xl 15. which can be understood to extend no farther than as long as their Genealogies were preserved and the Tribe and Generations of the High-Priests could be distinguished I will abide in thy Tabernacle for ever Ps lxi 4. or in other words all the days of my Life Ps xxvii 4. Samuel was brought by his Mother to abide before the Lord for ever that is during his Life 1 Sam. i. 22. And by parity of Reason those Statutes and Laws are said to be Established for ever which were designed to be perpetual and standing Laws not temporary during their journeying in the Wilderness only as others were but to continue as long as the Constitution of the Government was to last and in this sense the Jews themselves (o) Id. de Veritat Lib. 5. §. 7. have taken the word and it is sufficiently explain'd Deut. xii 1. These are the Statutes and Judgments which ye shall observe to do in the Land which the Lord God of thy Fathers giveth thee to possess it all the days that ye live upon the Earth or as we read ver 19. as long as thou livest upon thy earth that is their Law was obligatory to them as long as they had possession of the Land of Canaan or retained any right to possess it by God's donation But those Statutes and Judgments which were to be observed in the Land which the Lord had given them to possess can no longer be of any obligation to them when they are finally deprived of that Land The Ceremonial Law therefore by its Original Design and Institution being to continue in force but till the coming of Christ he gave the accomplishment to it and put a final period to its Obligation Instituting his Gospel in its stead which had been pre-figured by the Law and foretold both by Moses and the Prophets CHAP. XVII Of Sinful Examples Recorded in the Scriptures AS some have endeavour'd to excuse their own Sins by alledging the Sinful Examples which we find mention'd in the Scriptures so others who are no less fond of imitating them yet have from hence taken a pretence for Objections and Cavils I shall therefore shew that the bad Examples in some actions of Men whom we find in all other respects commended in the Scriptures are far from being proposed for our imitation but there is great reason why the Faults and Miscarriages of the best Men should be deliver'd down to us in the Scriptures for our Caution and Prevention as well as upon other accounts I. Several passages of the Scriptures contain only Matter of Fact and that very briefly express'd and a bare Narrative of any Action implies neither the Approbation nor the Censure of it but only declares that such a thing was done and in such a manner but the Nature of the Fact it self with the Circumstances of it or some Command or Permission or Prohibition in Scripture must discover the goodness or lawfulness or the wickedness of the Action No Historian is supposed to approve of all which he relates but he must report bad as well as good Deeds who will do the part of a faithful Historian II. The Rules of Good and Evil are plainly delivered in the Scriptures by which we are to judge of Actions and we are to conform our Actions not to the Example of Men but to the Law of God We are forewarn'd to follow no Man's Example when it is contrary to the Divine Law and therefore it could not be necessary in the relating of every evil Action to set a mark of Infamy upon it and a Caution against the imitation of it III. The Relation of the bad Actions of Good Men may be of great use and benefit tho' we are not to follow but avoid them Because 1. This shews the sincerity of the Pen-Men of the Scriptures that they spare no person whatsoever but relate the plain Matter of Fact even tho' themselves be concern'd when it is never so much to their disgrace as in the Denial of St. Peter and other instances 2. By this we learn the Frailty of Humane Nature and the necessary dependance that the best Men must have upon God for his Grace in
and Instruments whereby he is pleas'd to convey into our Souls the blessed Influences of his Holy Spirit Or lastly they may be consider'd as visible Rites whereby we are admitted into the visible Society of Christ's Church or profess our Communion with it And in all these respects it will appear how beneficial and requisite the Institution of Sacraments is and how fitting it is that God in his Dispensations with Men should appoint something outward and visible to be done or received by them I. Ceremonies and Rites of Initiation and of Worship have been Instituted in all Religions which is Evidence sufficient that the Nature of Man requires them and that our Worship cannot be wholly Mental and Spiritual And God is pleas'd in his Dealings with Mankind to condescend to their Capacities to ascribe to himself their Passions to allude to their Customs and to make use of such Means and Methods as Men are accustomed to in their Dealings with one another He best understands Humane Nature and knows all the dispositions and tendencies of it he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust Ps ciii 14. He considers that we are Flesh as well as Spirit he fully comprehends the strict Union between the Soul and the Body and the cause and manner of it and how great influence the one hath upon the other in their several Operations he planted in us all our Powers and Faculties and sees all their Motions and Inclinations the secret Springs of Action and Passion and has accordingly fitted and proportioned the Institution of his Laws and Ordinances We see among Men that they are not content only to understand one anothers Meaning or to express their Minds in words tho' they be the most solemn and significant but are wont to use some Ceremony and Solemnity of Action and Circumstances in matters of great Importance because this makes greater impression upon the Mind and lays upon it a more forcible and lasting engagement by taking in the Senses and Passions as Parties concerned with it and this is by experience found to have the best effect to all the ends and purposes of Agreement and Obligation between Men. Oaths themselves are not found to be so secure to be rely'd upon when they are only pronounc'd as when they are taken with such Circumstances of words and gesture as may create an awe and reverence in those who take them For the manner and circumstances in which any action is done raise and fix the Attention and express the Mind and Design of the Doer and are better retain'd in the Memory and work more upon the Will and Affections than the Action of itself can do This Orators very well understand for the Art of Rhetorick is almost nothing else but a skilfull management of the circumstances of actions to the advantage of a Cause And Philosophy informs us that the evil or goodness of Actions depends chiefly upon their Circumstances from whence we learn what the intention of the Mind is and to what degree of Resolution it came in the performance of any Action If an Action be performed at a solemn time and place in the presence of Witnesses met together for that very purpose upon great deliberation with such words and gestures as are very significant to express our full Design and Intention all these Circumstances consider'd make it much more our own proper Act and Deed than if it were done without them tho' the Intention were the same For what we declare before others to be our mind and purpose to do or undertake we cannot but think our selves bound to under more obligations than if we barely design'd it or promis'd it only to the Persons concern'd because the design of declaring it is to lay upon our selves a farther obligation to perform it and to call others as Witnesses against us if we neglect the performance of it and since our Resolution may be declar'd as well by Actions as by Words he that expresses his Resolution both these ways shews a farther design to oblige himself than if he should only use words to express it and if the Circumstances of Actions be stated and solemn and significant then all the ways and means concurr by which it is possible for Men to declare and express their Minds in any Case and to oblige themselves to the performance of any Covenant Now Sacraments are the Seals of the Covenant between God and Man and when God is pleas'd to receive Men into Covenant with himself it is requisite that Men should not barely give their assent to the Terms and Conditions of it and declare that they will undertake them but it is farther necessary that this should be done with all the Solemnity of Words and Actions that may engage them to the performance of it and render them inexcusable if they transgress it it is fitting it should be entred into and renewed in the presence of Witnesses that the Words should be Solemn and the Actions Significant and that nothing should be wanting which may testifie the Sincerity and secure the Fidelity of the Undertakers For if Covenants between Man and Man be made with all the formality of Witnesses and Hands and Seals and Delivery in solemn and express words if Men know themselves too well to trust one another without all this Solemnity it may well be expected that when God is pleas'd to permit them to enter into Covenant with himself he should not receive them under less Obligations of Caution and Security for their Integrity than Men are wont to use amongst themselves For every breach of Covenant with him is infinitely more affronting and sinful than any breach of Covenant with Man can be and therefore God who will not be mocked has appointed the most effectual Means to secure his Laws from contempt he knows the deceitfulness of Man's heart how perverse and stubborn it is especially in things of such a Nature as these are of to which Men are obliged by that Promise and Vow that they are required to make to him and that all the Restraints and all the Remembrances which Words or Actions can afford are little enough to keep Men in any tolerable measure to their Duty God was pleas'd to confirm his Promise to Abraham with an Oath and therein shew'd himself willing to give all the assurance that the most Incredulous Man can desire of the fix'd and unalterable stedfastness of his purpose and the Immutability of his Council that we might have a strong Consolation Heb. vi 17 18. And when God himself is pleas'd so far to condescend for our comfort and satisfaction it is most reasonable that he should oblige us to perform our part of the Covenant by all the ways that may put us in remembrance of our Duty and make us faithful and constant in the performance of it And this could be effected by no better Means than by outward Acts and visible Signs to testifie and profess in the most serious and solemn
their Carnal Appetites have concluded that the Body was made not by God but by a wicked Being and that the Soul only was from God Since therefore God is pleased to regard our Bodies as Members of Christ and Temples of the Holy Ghost it was requisite that in contradiction to these and such like Errors they should by some Rite or Sign be devoted to him by which it might be declared that Christ is the Saviour of the Body Ephes v. 23. and by which such Grace might be communicated as to render it the Temple and place of Residence of the Holy Ghost set apart and dedicated to him and inhabited by him that the whole Spirit and Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes v. 23. It is the great and gracious Design of God to sanctifie the whole Man and therefore Christ took not only an Humane Soul but Humane Flesh likewise to dignifie it in the Assumption and offer it upon the Cross and translate it into Glory And as his Incarnation shews the particular Regard he has for the Body as well as for the Soul of Man so the whole Institution of the Gospel hath relation to both 4. Lastly The Sacraments are Foederal Rites of our Admission into the Church as into a visible Society and of our Union with it as such For we cannot be admitted into a visible Society nor communicate with it but by visible and outward Acts which must be performed in the Body So that whatever way we consider the Sacraments either in respect of God or of our selves or of others there is a necessary use and benefit from them and evident Reason for their Institution They are requisite as Symbols of our entrance into Covenant with God or of the Renewing and Confirmation of it and of Dedicating both our Bodies and Souls to his Honour and Service they are Instruments of his Graces and Pledges of his Promises made to us by Covenant and of the Reward and Happiness both of our Bodies and Souls at the Resurrection and are visible Marks and Evidences of our Profession as Members of the Church of our Admission into it and our Communion with it II. The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper fully answer the End and Design of the Institution of Sacraments After the coming of Christ and the fulfilling of the Ceremonial Law by him it was of no longer use or continuance the Gospel being to introduce a Spiritual Service by teaching Men to worship God in Spirit and in Truth Yet there was need of some external Ordinances or Sacraments the Nature of Man and the State of this World requiring them but that they might be as few as possible Christ has appointed but two Sacraments as generally necessary to Salvation and these the fittest and most expedient for the benefit and wants of Men. 1. As to Baptism the Reasons and Designs in the Institution of Sacraments are all visible in it It is a very significant and apt Representation of the cleansing and purifying the Soul from Sin and in this Men of all Nations and of all Religions seem to have been agreed For nothing was more frequent among the Heathens than their Washings and Purifications and tho' they attributed a great deal too much to them yet the superstitious Opinion which they had of these outward Cleansings could never have so universally prevail'd if there had not been some Foundation for the use of them in the Nature of Things and that is the great fitness which is in these outward Washings to excite us to purity of Mind and to represent the great Duty which lies upon us to keep our Consciences undefiled which only can render us accepted with God And as these Washings and Purifications were common in other Religions so the Jewish Church was wont to receive Proselytes or Converts by Baptism for which Custom they alledge the command of God to Moses Exod. xix 10. but (i) Hebr. Talmud Exercit. on Matt. iii. 6. Dr. Lightfoot sets it higher and thinks it was begun by Jacob Gen. xxxv 2. And our Saviour who both in his Words and Actions throughout the whole Gospel condescended to a compliance with the Customs in use among the Jews so far as they might be serviceable to the ends of the Gospel was pleased to make choice of Baptism for the Admission of Persons to the Profession of his Religion as the Jews used it for the Admission of their Proselytes Baptism is very agreeable to the Nature of the Christian Religion being a plain and easie Rite and having a Natural significancy of that Purity of Heart which it is the design of the Gospel to promote and establish in the World and it is fitted to represent to us the cleansing of our Souls by the Blood of Christ and the Grace of Purity and Holiness which is conveyed in this Sacrament and the Spirit of Regeneration which is conferred by it John iii. 5. Tit. iii. 5. And it being in use both amongst Jews and Gentiles it was so much the more proper because both had already an Opinion of the expediency of it Christ came to abolish the Ceremonies of the Jewish Law and the vain and idolatrous superstitions of the Heathen Worship and yet some outward Rite of Worship was necessary to be made use of to dedicate the Body as well as the Soul to God's Honour and Service to be a Pledge of the Resurrection of the Body as well as of the Immortality of the Soul to put Men in mind of that Integrity and Purity of Life which the Gospel requires and to be a means of conveying it and to admit them as visible Members into the Church And as Baptism was very expedient to be Instituted upon all these Accounts so it had this peculiar advantage beyond any other Rite that it was already in great use and esteem and could seem strange neither to Jews nor Gentiles but it had been a very strange thing to both and very unsuitable to the Nature of Man if the most Spiritual and Heavenly Religion that can be on this side Heaven had been instituted without any external Rite for the Admission into it this had been to suppose the Church to consist of Angels and not of Men who have need of Assistance from outward Objects in their highest Acts of Religion it had been to make Men to suspect that the Body as some Hereticks imagined was little regarded of God if no notice had been taken of it at our Reception into Covenant with him and it besides had been to contradict the Notion which Mankind have ever had of Religion and to give the highest scandal both to Jews and Gentiles 2. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is so often the subject of Sermons and of every good Christians Meditation that very little needs to be here said of it For it is evident that the Elements of Bread and Wine have a peculiar suitableness to
other Man's Body And besides it must be granted by all that Believe a God and a Providence that a particular Providence may take such effectual care of us as to reserve to every Man his own Body in all the Essential Parts of it the Hairs of our Heads are all Numbred that is they are as well known to God as they could be to us if we had told and numbred them never so exactly and therefore much more the necessary Parts of us are under his Cognizance and Care These necessary constituent Parts then being the same God may supply the rest as he shall see fitting and the Body will be the same after the Resurrection that it was in this Life tho' the Bodies of Men at the Resurrection must arise in all the Perfection of an Humane Body and therefore must have no part wanting For if any part of an Humane Body should be wanting they would not have all the perfection of such a Body tho' they should be never so perfect in all the parts which they be supposed to have For if a Man having but one Eye or one Ear should be able to see or hear with that one better than ever any Man did with two yet it would still be a defect in his Body to want an Eye or an Ear. All the uses of any one part of our Bodies are not perhaps yet fully known and the Dependance which one part has upon another may be such as that it may be requisite that those parts should be raised for their Relative usefulness which may seem to have no proper use of their own after the Resurrection The Sight is a Sense which may be capable of Improvements beyond what we now are able to conceive as we may conclude from the Improvements which have been made by the help of Microscopes and Telescopes And who knows but that in the Glorified State our Eyes shall have that perfection as to be able to discern the Contexture and Motions and the whole Frame of those pure Spiritual and Coelestial Bodies and then those parts which now to the naked view and much more when discerned thro' Microscopes cause so much Admiration will be still much more admirable to behold when they are thoroughly seen and fully understood by us and to want those parts which may seem to be then no longer of any use would be to want one great Argument of our praise of God in the contemplation of his Wonderful Works But this is mentioned only to shew that an ordinary Fancy if it be allowed to take the Liberty which some have done upon this Subject might easily propose as probable Reasons in Defence of the Received Doctrines as can be framed against them (o) Quaest 53. The Author of the Answers to the Orthodox amongst the Works of Justin Martyr says that some parts of our Bodies tho' they will then have no direct usefulness yet will be raised at the last Day to be Memorials to us of the Wisdom of God in that use which we had of them in this Life And (p) Aug. Civit. Dei lib. xxii c. 17. St. Austin says that the Glory of God will be magnified in that he will have freed those Members from the Corruption to which they were subject here However it ought to suffice Christians that our Bodies shall be like to Christ's Body and therefore shall have the full perfection and proportion of all the parts constituting an Humane Body as his Body had after his Resurrection We know that we shall be like him 1 Joh. iii. 2. and as for any thing further it will be time enough to know it at the Resurrection II. It is not only Credible and Reasonable to believe that God can but likewise that he will Raise the Dead The Revelation of his Will in his Holy Word ought to put this beyond Dispute among Christians But besides it appears to be requisite from the Nature of Man consisting of Soul and Body that there should be a Resurrection of the Body it is fit that the Man should be punished that Sinned and that the Man who lived well here and suffered for Righteousness sake should be rewarded for it But if the Soul only be Punished or the Soul only be Rewarded the Man is not rewarded or Punished for the Soul is but part of the Man but Soul and Body together make up the whole Man and therefore it is requisite that the Soul and Body should be re-united For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. v. 10. For this Reason it is requisite that the Soul should be again united to the same Body otherwise the Soul and Body would constitute a Man but not the same Man that was before the Body not being the same for it must be the same Soul and the same Body that make the same Man As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. xv 22. the same Body therefore that died in Adam is to be made alive in Christ who shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself Philip. iii. 21. Christ himself rose with the same Body that was Crucified and we are to be like him at the Resurrection and to have our Bodies Changed into the likeness of his Glorious Body And indeed if a New Body were assumed how could it be a Resurrection Which implies the Rising again of that Body which after the Separation of the Soul was Buried in the Grave and otherwise as it is usually argued one Body may be punished for the Sins committed in another If it be said that the Body is only the Instrument of Sensation to the Soul but is it self capable of none and therefore must be uncapable of Rewards or Punishments It may perhaps be Answered that this is more than can be absolutely concluded from the Notions of Modern Philosophy against the General Sense of Mankind and the Philosophy of all former Ages However the Body being unable to determine it self in its Sensations if it have any of its own I confess I cannot think this Argument fit to be insisted upon in as much as no Actions can be capable of Rewards or Punishments but such as proceed from choice But it must be acknowledged that the the Soul may be capable of more Happiness or Misery when re-united to the Body than in its Separate State For besides the Anguish or the Peace and Joy of Mind besides its own Reflections and its proper Operations which the Soul is capable of 〈◊〉 State of Separation from the Body it is capable of being affected with Sensations which arise from its Union with the Body And that these may be answerable to what a Man's Actions in this