〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excellently De baptism cont Donat. lib. 2 cap 6. Let us not say's he bring our deceitful balances where we weigh what would and do as we would saying according to our fancy Behold this is heavy or behold this is light but let us bring the Divine Balances of the Scriptures and weigh things or rather not weigh them but learn and take notice what the Lord himself hath weighed I rather chuse to fix the import of Religion thus by its reference to its Rule than by an enumeration of particulars First that it may appear that whatever be the concernment of Reason in Religion yet it is not to invent or introduce any new Doctrine nor to propose or institute any new Media of Worship nor to obtrude and force upon us any new moral Duty Nothing Magisterial doth here belong to it its highest preferment is to minister Secondly Because there is nothing in the Scripture but what we are under the Sanction of and as it is occasionally made known we are to pay a rational subjection to it Though every thing in the Bible be not alike Necessary yet every thing in it is alike True and our concernment lie's more or less in it There is no other Rule by which we are to be regulated in matters of Religion but the Bible and therfore the import and meaning of those Terms can be no otherwayes decided but by their habitude to their measure For this end did God give forth the Scripture that it might be the foundation and standard of Religion and thence therefore are we to learn its Laws and constitutions The instructing mankind in whatsoever is necessary to his present or future Happiness was the design of God in his vouchsafeing the World a supernatural Revelation and foreseeing all things that are necessary to such an End the respect and veneration which we pay to his Sapience Goodness oblige us to believe that he hath adapted and proportion'd the means thereunto Now the Doctrines of the Bible are of two sorts 1. Such as besides their being made known by revelation and believed on the account of Divine Testimony have also a foundation in the light of Nature and there are natural Mediums by which they may be prov'd These are commonly called Mixt but I think amiss seeing they are not made up of dissimilar parts nor have they objects complicated of different natures are only discovered by different Lights proved by different Media and assented to as well upon Motives of Reason as Divine Authority of this kind are the Being and Attributes of God the Immortality of the Soul the certainty of Providence the Existence of a Future State and Moral Good and Evil 2 dly Such as have no Foundation at all in Nature by which they could have been found out or known but we are solely indebted to Supernatural Revelation for the Discovery of them Their Objects having their Source and Rise only from the Will of God a Supernatural Revelation was absolutely expedient to promulge them And these also are of two Sorts 1. There are some Doctrines which though our Understandings by Natural Mediums could never have discovered yet being once revealed our Minds can by Arguments drawn from Reason facilitate the Apprehension of them and confirm it self in their Belief Of this kind are the Resurrection of the Body and Satisfaction to Divine Justice in order to the Exercising of Forgiveness to penitent Sinners 2. There are others which as Reason could never have discovered so when revealed it can neither comprehend them nor produce any Medium in Nature by which either the Existence of their Objects can be Demonstrated or their Truth Illustrated Of this kind are the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God I know that there are many Divines who though they confess that the Doctrine of the Trinity could never at first have been discovered by Reason yet being once Revealed they contend that Reason cannot only Illustrate but Demonstrate it But upon the best Inquiry into their Arguments I find most of them palpably Fallacious and others of them so Disproportionate to what they are brought that they do not so much as afford some saint Adumbrations of it I readily grant that this and the other Mystery are by a clear and necessary Connexion united with other Doctrines of Faith which Reason enlightned by Revelation can give a rational Account of For the Mystery of the Trinity hath a necessary Connexion with the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Work of our Redemption by the Incarnation of an infinite Person hath the like Connexion with the necessity of satâ—sfying Divine Justice in oâ—der to the Dispensing of Pardon to repenting Offenders and the necessity of satisfying Divine Justice for the End aforesaid hath a necessary Connexion with the Doctrine of the Corruption of Mankind and the Corruption of Humane Nature is both fully confessed and can be demonstrated by Reason Thus though all the Objects of Faith have not an immediate Correspondence with the Objects of Reason yet these very Doctrines of Faith which lye remotest from the Territories of Reason and seem to have least Affinity with its Light are necessarily and clearly connected with those other Principles of Faith which when once discovered Reason both approves of and can rationally confirm it self in As two Neighbouring Kingdoms are joyned together though some of their Provinces touch not one another So by those Objects of Faith which have a clear Connexion with Objects of Reason there is a mediate Connexion between Reason and those Objects of Faith that lye farther off I need not add that the most Mysterious Doctrines of Religion are necessarily connected with the Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God and that is a Truth which Reason is so far from rejecting that it can demonstrate it § 5 Having setled the meaning of the Terms namely what we understand both by Reason and Religion We are next particularly to enquire of what Significancy and Use Reason is in Religion that so we may give to Reason the things that are Reasons and yet reserve to Faith the things that are Faiths And whereas we have said that there are some Principles of Religion which besides the Evidence that they have in Revelation have Foundation also in the Light of Nature it may be easily apprehended that more is to be allowed to Reason in and about those than about these the Knowledge of which we are Debters only to Revelation for As to the Latter Reason acquits it self in all that belongs to it by considering what Doctrines are revealed to us in the Scriptures and deduceâ—ng Consequences which by clear Connexions proceed from them leaving Faith to assent to them upon the Authority and Veracity of the Revealer But as to the former Reason doth not sufficiently discharge it self by discovering that they are Revealed and thereupon committing it to Faith to Embrace
can any one else understand it that I know of only I wonder why then it is imputed to us as a Crime That we are not satisfied that Christ and Believers are United unless their Persons be United too But as Mr. Sherlocks Book is pregnant with Contradictions so perhaps he hath found out an Art of justifying the Truth of Repugnant Propositions And though hereby he subvert the Foundations of Science and thwart the Universal Reason of Mankind yet I will not say that he is herein singular For besides those mentioned by Aristotle who maintain'd that one and the same thing might at the same time be and not be and besides that Burgersdicius Schulerus and some others have fancied a Medium betwixt Ens and Non ens There is a certain Carmelite stiled Franciscus Bonae Spei who will have both the parts of a contradiction if it be only in reference to matters of Faith to be susceptive of Truth And indeed if our Author be not acquainted with him 't is pitty but that he should as well upon the account already mentioned as divers others I could suggest particularly because he will find him a man of confidence hugely addicted to novelty one who loves to be invalidating the Evidences which the prime Articles of Faith are built upon § 7. Having established this General viz. that 't is the Person of Christ to which we are United the next enquiry is concerning the Nature quality and manner of the Union of Christians to him And it being here as in most cases which relate not simply to the Existence of things but to the Modes how they exist easier to refute false notions than to establish true I shall therefore observe the Method of declaring First what it is not wherein if I prove successfull I shall either obtain further light to the defining what it is or else manifest the unnecessariness of determining positively about it First then it consists not meerly in Christ's assuming our Nature A specifical oneness there is betwixt Him and us upon that account but all Mankind being equally thus related to him it cannot import the whole of that special Oneness which intercedes between him sincere Christians Now when I say that Christ did partake of our Nature I do not mean that he possessed the Individual Nature of this or that Man much less that he assumed any Universal Nature that is Identically the same in all and every Man for that as Damascenus says would not have been assumptio but fictio but what I aim at is this that as man consists of two essential constituent parts a Rational Soul and a Body thus and thus Organized so the son of God assumed both a Reasonable Soul and a true Organical Body fram'd and made of the substance of the Virgin who was lineally sprung from Adam the first and common original of all Mankind So that there is an oneness of Similitude which is all that intervenes amongst men between Christ and us but as for an Oneness of Identity it imply's a contradiction and should any assert it they are to be reckoned for obtruders of repugnancies under the pretence of sacred Mysteries upon the Faith of Mankind The Son of God through the designation and Authoritative disposal of the Father by the Immediate Efficiency of the Holy Ghost having assumed our intire Nature into Union with his Divine Person became thereby related to us in a cognation and alliance which he is not to the Angels And upon this affinity doth the whole of his Mediatory Interposure and our Interest in what he hath done and suffered bear God in order to the reconciling Man to himself by the obedience and Sacrifice of a Mediatour did first espouse our Nature to the Person of his So that was to be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyss. i. contra Eun. Hereby he became adapted to his Office and qualified for his Work Without this conjunction by the espousing our Nature he could neither have been a Priest ordained for men Heb. 5.1 Nor have atoned God by the Oblation of himself as an expiatory Sacrifice Heb. 8.3 Heb. 10.5 6 7 8 9 10. He behoved to partake of the Humane Nature in common with men before he could either be capable of the Sacerdotal Office wherein he was to act for men with and towards God or before he could be provided of a Sacrifice to offer His agreement with us in one common Nature is the basis of all his fitness to undertake on our behalf of the equity of the accruement of the benefits derived to us thereby 'T is this cognation alliance and propinquity of Nature that qualified Christ to be our Surrogate and to have our sins imputed to Him and which gives us our first capacity of having the Obedience of his Life and Sacrifice of his death either formally or in the effects of them imputed to us Precluding this God could not in consistency with his Wisedom Holiness Justice and Truth have exalted the glory of his Mercy in our Justification and Forgiveness nor could the Son of God have been Inaugurated unto the Mediatory Kingdome or had a right to those Dignities Priviledges and Honours which emerge and result from thence Now although upon the assuming our Nature into Union with the Person of the Son of God the Essences Properties and Operations of both Natures be preserved distinct and entire being united as the Ancients speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without confusion conversion division or separation Yet through that conjunction which they are brought into Christ becomes as it were a Compositum of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Humane Nature And accordingly the Ancients style the Person of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Fathers of the Second Constantinopolitan Council Maximus the Martyr doth not scruple the calling the Divine and Humane Natures parts of which Christ consists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as our Nature is highly dignified and exalted by its being taken into Union with the Second Person of the Trinity so a certain Relation of Oneness results thereupon between Christ and us The Apostle himself Heb. 2.11 say's that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one i. e. as I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Blood or partakers of the same common Nature which is the foundation of that Alliance of Brother-hood he speaks of in the next Words And so the 14. v. which seems to be exegetical of this plainly carrie's it forasmuch then as the Children are partakers of flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same The Ancients as well as Moderns style this a Natural Union And indeed Christ thus is so far one with us as the participating of the same com-Nature amounts to He is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Mass of Humane Nature with us and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same Blood being sprung from one and the same
faileur in one of these both most of the Arguments against the Doctrine of the Trinity and for Communication of Omnipresence to the Humane Nature of Christ because it agrees to the Person of the son of God not to instance in more particulars may be easily avoided and answered 2 by shewing that if it be an universal and true Maxime of Reason that the Objection is grounded on how that there is not any thing in Revelation that doth contradict it There is an excellent Harmony betwixt Truth and Truth and though they be distinct and different yet they are not contrary and repugnant the one to the other They who reject Gospel Mysteries on supposition of a Repugnancy they lye in to Reason have not been able to this day to justifie their Charge 'T is true the more we adventure too neerly to look into them the more we find our selves dazled with their Fulgor but yet we find no thing in them that implye's a Contradiction to our Faculties or that is repugnant to the Nature and Attributes of God Nor is there any one Argument produced to this day in proof of the repugnancy of the Mysteries of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God his satisfying Divine Justice in the Room and behalf of Sinners the Eternal Decrees c. Which hath not received an answer and the Authors of it been shamefully baffled § 14. Having unfolded the Interest and concernment of Reason in and about Religion it will be necessary ere we shut up this Discourse more particularly to state and fix the Bounds betwixt these two and to offer some Measures by which Reason may have allotted all that belongs to it and yet nothing in the mean time be detracted from Faith First then Reason is the Negative Measure in Matters of Religion Nothing contradictory to right Reason is to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith What Right Reason say's cannot be done we must not father it upon God to do If Reason be objected against any Scripture Testimony how plausible and subtile soever it seems yet Right Reason it cannot be but only deceives through an Unbrage and shew of it And if Scripture Authority be urged against an undoubted and evident Principle of Reason he that doth so presseth not the true meaning of the Scripture for that he doth not reach but only imposeth his own Sense and urgeth what himself phancieth to be there instead of what indeed is so saith Austin These two lights though different yet they do not destroy one another God is the Author of natural as well as Supernatural Light nor can he bely himself We have no greater Certainty than that of our Faculties for by that alone are we inabled to discern a Divine Revelation from Humane or Diabolical Delusions Should God reveal such Doctrines as contradict Natural Truths and Principles of Right Reason He would thereby eradicate what himself hath planted in our Souls The Law of Reason being the first declaration of the Will of God originally annexed to and communicated with our Natures 't is not to be imagined that by any after declaration he should thwart his first Besides all Revelation is to instruct us in a reasonable though supernatural way and therefore though in many things it may exceed our Reason fully to comprehend it yet in all things it must be consistent with our Reasons To admit Religion to contain any Dogm's Repugnant to Right Reason is at once to tempt Men to look upon all Revelation as a Romance or rather as the invention of distracted men withall to open a Door for filling the World with figments and lyes under the palliation of Divine Mysteries We cannot gratifie the Atheist and Infidel more than to tell them that the prime Articles of our Belief imply a contradiction to our Faculties In a word this Hypothesis were it received would make us renounce Man espouse Brute in matters of the chiefest greatest concernment for without debasing our selves into a lower species we cannot embrace any thing that is formally impossible Nothing but mens entertaining opinions which they cannot defend from being absurd and irrational could have sway'd them to reproach Reason in the manner they do but they do only decline the weapons they are sure to be wounded by When men have filled Religion with Opinions that are contrary to common Sense and Natural Light they are forced to introduce a suitable Faith namely such a one that commends it self from believing Doctrines repugnant to the evidence and principles of both And thus under a respect that is pleaded to be due to sacred Mysteries do the wildest fancies take Sanctuary And meerly out of fear of violating that regard which ought to be paid to Objects of Faith we must believe that to be true which the Universal Reason of Man-kind gives the lye to Thus the first Hereticks that troubled the Christian Church under pretence of teaching Mysteries overthrew common sense and did violence to the Universal Uniform and perpetual Light of Mankind Some of them having taught that all Creatures are naturally Evil Others of them having established two Soveraign Gods one Good and another Bad Others having affirmed the Soul to be a part of the Divine Substance not to mention a thousand falsities more all these they defended against the assaults of the Orthodox by pretending that they were Mysteries about which Reason was not to be hearkened to Thus do others to this day who being resolved to obtrude their fancies upon the World and being neither able to prove nor defend what they say they pretend the Spirit of God to be the Author of all their Theorem's Nor can I assign a better reason for the antipathy of the Turks to Philosophy than that it overthrows the follies and absurdities of their Religion This themselves confess by devoting Almansor to the vengeance of Heaven because he hath weakned the Faith of Mussul-men in the Alcoran through introducing Learning and Philosophy amongst them There is no Combating of the Valentinians Marcionites Eutychians and others but by shewing the repugnance of their Opinions to first principles of Reason We do not make Natural Light the positive Measure of things Divine do only allow it a Negative voyce We place it not in the Chair in Councels of Faith but do only permit it to keep the door and hinder the entring of Contradictions and Irrational Fancies disguised under the Name of Sacred Mysteries This I thought fit to propose in the first place and have the more largely insisted on it because of its serviceableness against the Corporal presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the ubiquity of Christs Body and divers other Articles both of the Romane and Lutheran Creeds What the Universal Reason of Man-kind tells us is finite commensurable and impenetrable c. they would have us believe it to be Infinite Immense and subject to penetration The great Article of the Roman Faith viz. Transubstantiation must needs be
apprehend things to be as indeed they are as I may affirm one thing of another as indeed it is However though I wave this Medium yet my first Argument shall be drawn from acts of simple Apprehension but built upon another Medium and it is this whatsoever I can clearly apprehend separate and apart I can apprehend the same with the same clearness united and Conjunct for example as I can clearly and distinctly apprehend a River and Wine apart I can with the same clearness apprehend them conjunct and united and yet I should be loath to trust this Cartesian principle so far as to assert that there is really a River runs Wine meerly because I can frame a complex apprehension of these two together 2. It interferes with what the Cartesians else-where and upon other occasions affirm For according to them when possibles offer themselves to our Rational Natures by a clear and distinct perception we do not otherwise perceive them than as actually existent and yet they themselves will not say that they do actually exist 3. The Objective Verity of Things is the Rule and Measure of the verity of perception for therefore are our perceptions true because consonant to the Nature of things and consequently clearness and distinctness of perception is not the Test by which we are to judge of the Natures Qualities and Modes of Beings 4. We are bound to pay an assent to many Doctrines and believe not a few things whereof we can have no clear and distinct perception such for example are the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation of the Son of God c. If we could distinctly and clearly perceive them they were no longer Mysteries and if we do not assent to and belâ—eve them notwithstanding that we do not distinctly and clearly perceive them we are hardly yea I may say not at all Christians This is so indubitable that we may yea ought to assent to many things which we have no clear and distinct perception of that Des-Cartes himself is forced to subscribe to it his words are that multis possumus assentiri quae non nisi perobscure confuse cognoscimus which as it is most true so he could have said nothing more contradictory to and subversive of his own principles 5. Experience not only tells us that Men do often err and mistake but that they do so in things about which they suppose themselves to have clear and distinct perceptions Yea if we will believe Des-Cartes impetrare a nobis non possismus ut obscure confuse cognitis quamdiâ— talia nobis apparent assensum praebeamus We cannot obtain of our selves to assent to any thing so long as we only obscurely and confusedly know it Now though this be egregiously false yet nothing could be said more to the overthrow of this great and fundamental principle of his For if men can assent to nothing but what they have a clear and distinct cognizance of and if daily experience assure that one or other is always embracing venting and justifying Errour then farewell to this principle of the Cartesians that whatsoever presents it self to us by a clear and distinct perception is really and in it self so as we do perceive it 6. Were it most true that it is impossible for any thing to be otherwise than what we clearly and distinctly perceive it yet this can be no first principle of Science because we are still at a loss how we shall know whether we have a clear and distinct perception of things yea or not Let us suppose two men imbued with Opinions whereof those of the one are repugnant with those of the other and each of them pleading a clearness and distinctness of perception in reference to his own Now I would enquire of the Cartesians by what means these two men shall be satisfied that their knowledge is clear and distinct for clearness and distinctness of perception can no more be ascribed to both of them than truth can be predicated of the two parts of a contradiction 7. The Cartesians in the justifying of this principle involve themselves in a most shameful Circle For if it be enquired how we shall know but that God hath fram'd us with such Faculties as may in the most clear and distinct perceptions we have abuse and delude us They reply that we know it from the idea which we have of Gods being perfect i e. infinitely Good and True and if they be again asked what assurance they have that this is a true idea of God they recurr to their Canon of clear and distinct perception for the justifying of it Thus they prove the truth of their Rule and Measure from the perfection of God and the perfection of God from the truth of their Rule which if I mistake not is to argue circularly Shall I add in the eighth and last place that it is nothing but Socinianism new furbished and seems indeed shapen to justify them in their most detestable Errours For it is remarkable that when they are in a sober mood they tell us that they do not renounce the Articles of the Trinity Incarnation of the Son of God c. because they are above our reason but because they judge them repugnant to the distinct and clear perceptions which they of things The words of Smalcius are We readily acknowledge many things in the Christian Religion which are above our Reason and we know that Religion transcends Reason Their quarrel with these mysteries is this that there are many things which they clearly and distinctly perceive to which these Doctrines are contradictious This I thought convenient to discourse a little the more largely because though nothing in Religion be repugnant to any true principle of Reason yet there are many things voted for principles of Reason which indeed are not so and it is no disparagement to Articles of Faith to interfere with such The Mind is so darkned by the Fall and Eclipsed by habitual Lusts that there is but little right Reason in reference to spiritual things in the World Thirdly Reason is not the positive Measure of things Divine As there are many Doctrines of Faith which Reason in its highest exaltation could never have disdiscovered so being made known it cannot in its clearest light fully comprehend them Though Revelation presupposeth Reason and doth in no one thing contradict it yet the very End of Revelation is both to certifie Reason in such things wherein through its contracted darkness it doth mistake and to inform it in those which through the essential quality of its Nature it could never have discovered Accordingly men in all ages have not only been listning after some supernatural Revelation or other but whatever they took for such they always without more ado resigned themselves to the conduct of it 'T is true they disparaged their Reason in admitting that to be a Divine Revelation which indeed was not so but on supposition that it had been such they acted most
of the Gospel we acknowledg it to be but to style it a metaphysical subtilty is to betray high Irreverence towards the great Mysteries of Faith as well as shameful Ignorance in the Fundamentals of Religion The Notions of Suppositum Person Hypostasis personality as distinct from the Idea of Nature or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are so far from having their first rise in the Schools of Philosophers or being Originally ow'd to Metaphysicks that they sprung from the Mystery of the Incarnation which both gave occasion of framing distinct and different Conceptions of them and by the account which the Scripture gives of the Mystery did illuminate us concerning them Though the person of Christ do not at all differ from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Humane Nature as they are considered united yet as we conceive of God-head and Man-hood in the abstract there is an inadequate difference betwixt them and the Person of Christ. And although there be no third Nature in the Person of Christ besides his Divine his Humane yet His Person is neither his Divine Nature nor his Humane And had Mr. Sherlock been either acquainted with Metaphysicks or conversant in the Canons of the Ancient Councils not to mention his being familiar with the Fathers he would never have charged the maintaining of that upon his Adversaries as a Reproach and Crime the not holding whereof would have justly exposed them to the Imputation of Heresy But when men are under the conduct of Passion and their Ignorance is answerable to their Rage what less can be expected than the throwing out accusations at adventure and the listing the most momentous Truths of Christians either in the Roll of subtil Querks or pernicious Errors rather than such whom out of prejudice they oppose should escape being blazon'd for Fools or Hereticks Fourthly By the Person of Christ then we mean the Humane Nature assum'd into Union with the Person of the Word and subsisting by the Hypostasis and personality of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or second Person in the Trinity As the Humane Nature of Christ is of it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 't is assumed into Union not precisely the with Divine Nature but with the second Person of the Trinity which connotate's somthing more than barely the Divine Nature though what that is be beyond the Territories of Reason to conceive or declare Now with respect to the operations communications fruits and effects which proceed from the person of Christ constituted and consisting of the second Person of the Trinity and the Humane Nature we are to consider these four things 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Agent or Cause and that is the Person of Christ. The effective Principle of the whole Mediatorial Work is Christ personally considered and the things done wrought bestowed or any effected are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the works and operations of God-Man 'T is not this or that nature simply considered but the Person of Christ that is the Fountain and Causal Principle of Actions and denominated from them Though we cannot conceive any operation to proceed from Christ but what belongs either to his God-head or Man hood as its Formal principle yet as there are many things predicated of the person of Christ wherein the Humane Nature is united to the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot in any single proposition be affirmed of or ascribed to either of them So whatsoever is attributed to him as the Christ He is as a Person the efficient Principle and cause of it 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Formal Principle of all his operations and that is either the Humane Nature or the Word Though the Man-hood be brought into conjunction with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet as both retain what is proper and essential to themselves so they remain distinct Formal Principles of operation Agit utraque forma cum alterius communione quod suum est Verbo operante quod Verbi est Carne exequente quod Carnis est 3. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Action which ceeds either from the Humane Nature or from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as its Formal Principle And as This or That is its Formal Principle it is of such a Specificate Nature i. e. a Divine Action or a Humane Though the things wrought for us communicated to us and effected in us be all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and though Divines use to style the Actions themselves so as proceeding from the same Effective Personal Principle yet I think it better to forbear that appellation of them seeing no Action proceeds both from the Humane Nature and from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as its Formal Principle 4. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The thing wrought or effected by the concurrence of the Humane Nature and the Word as they are united in constitute the Person of Christ. And here the distinct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Formal Principles occurring in the person of Christ do in their influence meet and center each of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Action congruous and peculiar to its own respective Nature And though the God-head and Man-hood in Christ remain distinct Formal Principles of Operations yet through the Union of the Humane Nature to the second Person of the Trinity in Him those things come to be effected by Him personally considered which he could not have wrought either as God or Man separately conceived Now Christ being our Mediator only considered as God and Man in one Person and not meerly as God or as Man And it being from Christ as Mediator though in ways congruous and proportionate that we receive Grace Life and all vital Influences Therefore we contend and plead that the Union of Believers with Christ is through their being united to his Person § 5. The last Term whose import and meaning we are to state and fix is Union And being a Transcendental Term 't is not easy to assign such an uncontroulable and clear Notion of it as may adequately agree to and univocally express it wheresoever it occurs But though Union be one of the greatest secrets of Nature and that which affronts our Understandings when we enquire into the Quality and Mode of this or that Union in particular yet so much Light may be reflected upon it in general as may serve to declare the value and meaning of the Term. Union then is either taken for Unition or for the Effect Modification or Mode caused by the â—â—itive action in the Extremes or at least one of them that come to be copulated or Thirdly For the Relation exsurging between the extremes knit and ligu'd one to another In the First acceptation 't is to be conceived of Efficiently in the Second Formally and in the Third as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Habitude resulting from arising upon the two former In the First usurpation it
common Root or Stock though not in the same manner that we are Christ and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Alliance and Consanguinity together which as it speaks infinite condescension love and Grace in him seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 se exinanivit he emptied himself which respects the Essential condition of the Humane Nature assumed by the Son of God and not meerly the poverty which in that Nature he submitted to so it declares the Dignity that our Nature is exalted to being in the Person of the Redeemer taken into association with the Divine Nature And as from the Conjunction of the two Natures together in the Person of Christ there ariseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communication of properties between them which is real as to the ascription of the affections of each Nature to the Person though it be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbal as to the predication of the properties of one Nature concerning the other so through the advancement of our Nature into Union with the Son of God there are some rays of Honour reflected upon and some priviledges that may be affirmed of us that the Angels themselves are not susceptive of Yet this is not the Union we are enquiring after for 1 in this respect all Mankind can plead the same propinquity to Christ. The worst as well as the best of men may enter their claim to this Relation of Oneness with him For though the Apostle affirm that he took on him the Seed of Abraham yet the meaning is not that some are precluded affinity with him in the Humane Nature while others are Dignified with that Alliance but the sense of the place is only this that according to the Flesh he came of the Lineage of Abraham the promise having been made to him that in his seed should all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Gen. 12.3 2 Were this the whole import of the Union of Believers with Christ that he and they partake of one common Nature the Oneness betwixt one Man another were greater than the Oneness betwixt Christ and the Faithful which directly opposeth the account the Scripture gives of it the intendment of the many Metaphors by which it is represented Now that it should be so is plain Because the resemblance betwixt one Man and another obtains not only in the essentials of Humane Nature but in the defilements and sinful infirmities of it nor is there any thing in the person of this or that man whereof something parallel is not in the Person of every one else but to imagine such an Universal resemblance between Christ and us is both to overthrow the Divinity of his Person and to supplant the purity of his Humane Nature Though our Blessed Saviour hath assumed our Nature in its essential constituent parts together with all the Natural sinless infirmities that accompany it yet besides His being infinitely distant from all likeness to us upon the account of the Divinity of his Person there is a vast dissimilitude even with respect to the Humane Nature as it is in Him free from all tincture of impurity and concomitancy of culpable imperfections and as it is in us defiled with and debased by sin § 8. As our Union with Christ is of a sublimer importance than meerly to denote that the same Humane Nature was in Him which is in us so what that is which over and above our participating of one common specifical Nature it doth imply is a Theme worthy of our further search And the Popish Notion concerning it is that which presents first to our examen Though the Romanists do not wholly disclaim a spiritual Union betwixt Christ and sincere Believers yet they principally insist on a Mixture of his Bodily substance with ours They will have our Union with Him to consist in our partaking of the Animated and Living Body of Christ by manducation or Carnal and Corporeal feeding on him And this Union they will have obtain'd by means of the Eucharist wherein instead of feeding at all on Bread and Wine they contend that in a Carnal manner we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ. That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is an eminent Symbol of our Union and Communion with Christ yea that hereby our Union and Communion with Him are in a special though Spiritual manner promoted and maintained we readily grant And accordingly we with all chearfulness acknowledge a Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament The Truth of the Real Presence hath been always believed and is so still though as to the manner of it there have been for many Conturies and yet are fierce digladiations in the World The Lutherans will have Christ present one way namely that though there be not a destruction of the Elements and a substitution of the Body and Blood of Christ in their room yet they will have Christ Bodily present with the Elements though hid and concealed under them and this they express by Consubstantiation The Papists plead for a presence of another kind viz. that the Elements being wholly destroyed either by Annihilation or Transmutation into the Body and Blood of Christ he alone is Corporeally Locally and Physically present and this they style Transubstantiation There have been others who have also asserted Bodily Presence but after a manner different from both the former for holding the Elements to continue undestroyed or unchanged they fancied them to become united to the Body and Blood of Christ and to make one and the same Body and Blood by a kind of Hypostatical Union and this may be called Impanation And although there be at this day and always hath been a great number of Christians to whose Reason none of these ways can adjust themselves yet they all confess a presence that is Real though they will have it to be after a spiritual kind and manner All these four ways of presence are Real each in its kind and order Nor do I know any save the Socinians and some Arminians but that in some sense or other allow a Real presence Indeed Socinus and the Men of that Tribe will admit the Lord's Supper to be only a Commemoration of Christ's Death but will by no means have it either to seal or exhibit any thing to the Believing Receiver That it is Commemorative and Symbolical of the Body of Christ as Broken and of his Blood as shed they have our astipulation but that it is besides both an Instituted seal of the Conditional Covenant ascertaining all the mercies of it to such as faithfully Communicate and in whom the Gospel Conditions are found and also truly exhibiting of Christ and his Grace to the Believing soul we strenuously affirm This the Apostle declares by calling the Cup of Blessing the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 This the very Nature of the Ordinance doth likewise confirm for in every Sacrament there must be not
those expressions only by alluding to that incomprehensible Identity which is between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity through a Numericalness of Nature he would instruct us that the Union between Christ and those that are born of God is intimate great and mysterious as well as True Real Before we dismiss this we will take a brief survey of our Authors exceptions against the conclusion deduced from the fore-going allusive Metaphors Christ says he is styled the Head of his Body the Church because he hath the command and rule over and is invested with Authority to Govern her and the Church is styled the Body of Christ because she must be obedient to his Laws and subject to his Government Now to this I reply 1st The Head in reference to the Natural Body having not only an Influence upon the Members by way of Communication of Animal Spirits but by way of conduct and Government accordingly I deny not but that the Term as applyed to Christ may somtimes refer only to the last property There are some Texts of Scripture where the subject Matter doth plainly determine the signification of Head as predicated of Christ to refer meerly to Eminence and Rule Particularly the 1 Cor. 11.3 is so to be understood But that Christ is never styled Head save in Allusion to the property and affection of Government which belongs to the Head in the Natural Body over the Members is a bold Imagination and which never any espoused before Mr. Sherlock except the Socinians All pretending to the Name of Christians the Enemies of the Godhead of Christ only secluded have besides their acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Political Head of the Church in respect of Authority and Rule owned him likewise to be a Spiritual Head in respect of quickning Influences 2dly 'T is received as an Universal Measure by which all Expositors are to Regulate their Glosses upon the sacred Text that whensoever any thing is represented by a Metaphorick Term all that bears any proportion or analogy to the affections and properties of the Thing which the Word in its Original signification doth denote ought to be understood Every Scripture whether it be proper or Tropical is to be expounded in the greatest Latitude which the Word will bear as we have demonstrated cap. 1. § 10. Christ being therefore to the Church what the Head is to the Members of the Natural Body and the Head not only giving Direction and Guidance to the Bodily Members but having also a vital Influx upon them it naturally follows that Christ is as well Head to the Church in regard of actual Influences of Spiritual strength and life as in respect of Guidance by Laws and Rules Nor is there any way to avoid this inference and sequel unless it can be made appear that the attribution of spiritual Influences to Christ in reference to his Body doth contradict some principle of Reason or supplant some sacred Truth which I 'm sure our Author hath not hitherto done 3dly Suppose that Christs having the Rule and Government over the Church were all that by attendance to the Allusive Metaphor of his being to the Church what the Head is to the Natural Body could be established and inforced yet the Holy Ghost having besides the accommodation of himself to our instruction in the bare and naked usurpation of the Metaphor extended the import of it so far as we pretend by a comment and paraphrase of his own which he hath left us upon it we may reckon our selves secure in the application which we make of it For as if it had not been enough through the naked and bare use of that Allusive and Metaphorick Term to have intimated that it is between Christ Christians as between the Head and Members he hath expresly informed us as there are communications of Spirits from the Head unto all the Members of the Body through the subserviency of these parts which by the great wise Architect of the Humane Fabrick are thereunto designed that there are in like manner supplies of spiritual life strength from Christ to every Believe◠through the Moral subserviency of one Christian to another in the Duties and Offices which he hath appointed Thus the Apostle Eph. 4.15 16. having styled Christ our Head he adds by way of defining the sense in which he is so from whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh inerease of the Body unto the edifying it self in love And to the same purpose only more emphatically speaks the same Apostle Col. 2.18 And not holding the Head i. e. Christ from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God If these Testimonies be not sufficient to silence the Sophistry of men and to level the Objections whereby our Author endeavours to supplant Christs being a Head of Influence I will not say that we may despair of Understanding the Bible but this I will say that by the same art that Mr. Sherlock avoyds those he may retain a belief of such Scripture expressions as are declarative of any Fundamentals of Faith and yet renounce the Truths they are designed to reveal I shall only here subjoyn Bishop Davenants paraphrase upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joynts and Bands which the Apostle speaks of By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joynts we are to understand saith he those Vincula and ligatures by which we are copulated to Christ and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bonds we are to understand those Media by which we are concatenated to one another Now says he the Ligatures by which we are knit to Christ as our Vital Head and by which we receive quickning Influences from him are the Spirit and the Graces thereof especially Faith The second Argument in opposition to our Authors Hypothesis shall be raised from such Scripture Texts as are not allusive to any Pattern Union but yet are manifestative of such an Intimate conjunction between Christ and Christians as a Political Relation is so far from giving us an adequate Notion of that indeed it bears no proportion nor Analogy to it Nor shall I insist on such places at this time as express Christs Abiding in us and our Abiding in Him His Dwelling in us and our Dwelling in Him His Being in us and our Being in Him Though a Political Relation be too mean and low to answer the Grandeur of these phrases He that without prepossession and prejudice consulteth these following Texts viz. Joh. 15.4 Joh. 6.56 1 Joh. 4.13 2 Cor. 13.5 Col. 1.27 Rom. 8.10 1 Joh. 5.20 2 Cor. 5.17 will soon find that such an Union as intercedes between a Prince and his Subjects is too flat jejune and cold an Interpretation to sustain the weight of those sentences Had the Holy Ghost designed the delivering the Doctrine which
explain things which lye at a vaster distance from it and to which it bears less proportion If neither the Nature of God or of our Souls or of Matter of whose Existence we have the most scientifick evidence are to be comprehended by our narrow and shallow Intellects why may we not justifie the belief of such things of whose Truth and reality the Scripture instructs us though we cannot conceive the manner how they are or indeed how they can be And if men will not be talk'd and huff'd out of the persuasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reasons ascertain them though they cannot answer all the difficulties they are accosted with in their enquiries about them much less will Christians be Hector'd out of the belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the conception of them 'T is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God though it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are The highest assurance of the reality of any thing is Gods affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent to its Truth though we can frame no adequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our conceptions To bring down the Doctrines of Religion to the Model of Reason is wholly to overthrow belief and to pay no more respect to the Authority and Testimony of God than we would to that of a Worm like our selves If there were no obscurity and difficulties in the Notions of Gospel-Truths where would our submission and Humility be which are the qualifications that do most recommend us to God and upon this account especially because they prepare the Mind for Faith and give check to all bold and curious enquiries 'T is enough that we can by rational proofs demonstrate the Bible to be the Word of that God whose Veracity is proportionate to his Sapience and both of them infinite nor is it needful that its Doctrines should further adjust themselves to our Understandings And indeed as to the Doctrine we have been discoursing not only the Apostle styles it a great Mystery but Christ himself seems to adjâ—rn the perfect knowledg of it till the glorified state At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in in me and I in you Joh. 14.20 Yet seeing the Holy Ghost hath been pleased not only to assert an Intimate Union between Christ and Believers but hath condescended to illustrate it by so many similitudes and seeing many things that are Mysterious and unsearchable till God reveal them are afterwards of no difficult conception providing we regulate our apprehensions of them by the Word I shall therefore having arraign'd and overthrown the false Notions of this Spiritual Union venture to assign a true and I hope also an Intelligible Notion of it Now this I shall attempt by these several steps and degrees 1st The highest and closest Union is between those things that are actuated by one Spirit dwelling and moving in them Adhesion of parts is not so noble an Union as information by one and the same Spirit If the vegetative juice be precluded admission into any branch it is no longer in a proper sense United to the Root notwithstanding its Physical continuity to the other Branches When the Animal spirits forsake any Member in the Organick Body it is immediately as if it were not knit to the Head though it remain not only connected to the adjoyning parts by Muscles and Sinews but ligu'd to the Acropolis by Nerves and Arteries The strictest and most proper Union is that which emergeth from actuation by the same spirit 'T is this that renders the inferior Members as much coherent with the Head as the superior are because they are all acted by the same Animal spirits which as they are prepared in the Brain so they have their flux thence to all the Regions of the Body and their reflux back thither again Thus the soul though she keep her residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is really joyned to all the Body because of the commerce that is between the Head where her Imperial Court is and the rest of the Members through the ministry of the Animal spirits 2dly Things at the greatest distance and between which there is no physical continuity may be acted by the same Spirit providing he be immense and infinite That Spirit who through the Infinite perfection of his Essence is every where may both inhabite and produce similar operations in those subjects that are locally distant the one from the other Though a Finite spirit cannot at the same time influence and act distinct and distant Subjects if there be not either a continuity or a contiguousness between them yet an Infinite Spirit may 3dly 'T is Christ as Mediator that Believers are United to The Mystical Union is between Him and Believers as he is a Middle Person between Them and his Father Our Moral Union with the Father in way of complacential love is through our Spiritual Union with the Son by the renovation of the Holy Ghost 4. The Holy Ghost did in a singular manner operate upon and reside in the Humane Nature of Christ. Though Christ was Holy by Essence in respect of his Divine Nature yet he was Holy by Consecration and Unction with the Spirit in respect of his Humane Though it was only the Son that did assume our Nature into subsistence with himself yet it was the Spirit that positively adorned and furnished that Nature with Grace 'T is true it is not of easie apprehension how the operation of the Holy Ghost should interpose in the same person between the one Nature and the other but it is as true that we have it plainly affirmed in the Scripture which is the highest assurance we can have of any thing 'T is one of the deep things of God which we ought to submit to with an humble Faith and not to enquire after it with a presumptuous boldness The Testimonies to this purpose are many but I shall only refer the Reader to two or three viz. Isa. 11.1 3. Joh. 3.34 Luk. 4.1 5thly The Holy Ghost is the Immediate Renewer and Sanctifier of the Elect. All the saving Illumination all the Gospel conviction all the Vital quickening all the Regenerating Virtue that we come under at any time have or are made the Subjects of they are from the Spirit of God and the Efficacious subjective operation of the Holy Ghost in and upon us Our birth and progress in Holiness are to be ascribed to Him as the Efficient Cause and Immediate Worker 'T is for this Reason that the Third Person in the Trinity is so frequently styled the Holy Spirit For that Title doth not so much refer to the Essential Purity of his Nature as to the sanctifying operations which are assigned to him in the Oeconomy of Mans Redemption This I shall not now divert to the proof of 't is enough that the
Allegories and Metaphors as the Modern Conformable Clergy 8.9.10 CHAP. III. Of the Union of Believers with Christ THe Concernment of the Church of England in reference to some Discourses lately Published on this subject 1. What seems most especially to have influenced Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter 2. The Doctrine of the Nonconformists not fram'd to befriend men in a course of Vngodliness Mr. Sherlock's is 3.4 The Notion of Vnion in General stated with an account of the arduousness of resolving the Nature of Common Vnions 5. 'T is the Person of Christ that Believers are Vnited to 6. The Vnion we are enquiring after consists not in the specifical Oneness which is betwixt Christ and us through his having assumed Humane Nature 7. Nor doth it consist in any mixture of his Bodily substance with ours through a Carnal feeding on him 8. A personal Vnion disclaym'd 9. Not meerly a Legal Vnion and yet a Legal Vnion between Christ and those given to him of God justified 10. 'T is not barely a Love-Vnion 11. Christians not Vnited to Christ by means of a previous Vnion with the Church 12. What ever it be 't is more than a Political Union 13. An Intelligible Notion of it assigned and the whole shut up CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in RELIGION Sect. I. THe Interest which all Christians have in the Truths of the Gospel doth sufficiently Authorize a Concernedness in every Believer that they be neither directly Invaded nor secretly Supplanted And the more Important the Doctrines are either in themselves or with Respect to their Influence on the Hopes and Comforts of such as Believe and Profess Christianity the less chargeable as Importune is he who Engageth either in the Explication or Defence of them Besides the Name of William Sherlock and the Quality of Rector of St. George Buttolphâ—Lane London which the Author Characters himself by I understand nothing of the Person whose Writings I am now to Incounter and I wish for his own sake as well as the Truths that I had no further Occasion of knowing him than as his Interest lies in the Church of England But having vouchsafed the World a further Discovery and Manifestation of himself by a Stated Opposition of the Immediate Union of Believers to Christ and their being justified by the Imputation of his Righteousness Truths wherein the whole of our Concernment and Expectation consists He must not Resent it Amiss if while we are Examining what he would Obtrude upon us in these and some other things we Regulate our Conceptions of him in relation to what he Intimates to us of his Principles in those Matters The Prefixed Imprimatur of Doctor Parker would tempt one to Suspect that all this is done not only under the Connivance but with the Approbation of more than we are aware of I confess Men are filled with Surprizal and Amazement that it should be so considering the Manifest Repugnance of our Authors Principles not only to the Opinions of private Doctors of the Church of England but the Declared Articles of the â—aid Church Though it be Unjust to Ascribe the Sentiments of every private Writer to the Society whereof he is a Member yet when Errors are Vented under Allowance others besides the Authors become Accountable for them The Quality of the Licenser and the Relation he stands in to a greater Person in whose Behalf in all these things he is Reputed to Act would seem to Plead that the Fame and Dignity of the Church of England as well as the Interest of Truth bespeaks some Vindication from her Ecclesiastical Rulers or Dignified Members in these Matters Or it is easie to be imagined who will Suffer under the Imputation and Dishonour of them In the mean time a sober Inquiry into and Disquisition of these Points may I hope be pursued without Offence to any especially being managed without passionate Heats or Invidious Reflections Invectives and Satirs do not only disparage Religion in general but betray the Cause in whose Behalf they are used Nor are they Adapted to proselyte any but such who have forfeited the Use of their Judgments and Resigned themselves to the Conduct of Impudence Noise and Clamour For my self I profess such an Aversation to the Method some of our Modern Writers take in Treating their Adversaries that I shall not so much as insinuate Suspicions or raise Misprisions of the Tendency of the Notions here contended against further than the Unfolding and Pursuing them to their Springs necessitates me And if thereby any who wear the Livery of the Church of England shall be found to do the Work of the Assembly at Cracovia I cannot help it unless I should betray the Cause I am pleading for Yet I do hereby no ways intend to List even those among them whose Principles they have imbib'd Remembring what one said of the Milesians that may be they were no Fools though they did the same things which Fools are wont to do However 't is fit to be declared upon whose Foundations they Build and with whose Buttresses they support their Fabrick and withall that it falls too evidently under the Prospect of every discerning Person who are like to Reap the Harvest of these kind of Sowings Now though I might be thought sufficiently to acquit my self by continuing on the Defensive and only examining the Reasons which have swayed Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Common Judgments of other Men and though this would be the easiest Undertaking and in the Judgment of every indifferent Person enough both to Undeceive such as are already Misled and to pre-arm others against the Danger yet Designing the same universal Usefulness to the Reader as if I were not confined to Reply to anothers Book I shall together with an Answer to my Adversaries Exceptions endeavour to State and Establish the Doctrines in whose Defence I appear and withal Attaque him in the Opinions he Erects against them Nor am I without Hope that I shall find the Generality of those who are stiled Conformists as well as those who are termed Non-Conformists notwithstanding their Disciplinary Controversies Candid and Favourable The things here contended for are the Joynt-Concernment of both and the Opinions opposed are inconsistent with and Destructive to the Hitherto Received Doctrine of that Party as well as this If I receive no other Fruit of this Interposure but the Awakening others to more Matur'd Productions I shall not Repent my Labour the putting a Common Adversary to a stand till greater Forces Rally being of some account though the Victory be Reapt by other Hands Sect. 2. As to the Method here observed 't is such as I judge Rational being not only Adapted to the Discovery and Vindication of Truth the Unmasking and Conviction of Errour but accommodated to the Instruction and Benefit of the Reader which would be greatly obstructed by following our Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is it
in the Bible Nor can we Impeach the Genuine Issues of Reason without Reflection upon God who hath Endowed us with a Faculty necessarily swaying us to those Determinations The Connexion of one thing with another together with their mutual Dependencies ariseth not from the Arbitrarious Appointment and Designation of Men but is involved in the Essences of Beings and Results from the Habitudes which the Soveraign Author hath link't them in one to another Ipsa veritas Connexionum non instituta sed animadversa est ab hominibus notata ut eam possint vel discere vel docere Nam est in rerum ratione perpetua divinitus instituta August lib. 2. De Doctr. Christ. cap. 31. Might we not upon Proleptical Principles which are assented to as soon as the Terms are understood superstruct innumerable others There were no Room left for Meditation Study Ratiocination and Disputes All our Knowledge would be either Intelligence instead of Science or else we must in all things save a few Self-Evidents introduce and Establish Scepticism Were there no secondary Principles which when once deduced from self-evident Maxims we may with safety rely on we must either deny that there are any Habitudes Relations Dependencies or Oppositions betwixt one thing and an other or we must affirm the rational Faculty to be in it 's Natural Exercises universally Fallacious The indissoluble Connexion that is betwixt one thing and another transferrs the Denomination of Truth to the Acts of our Mind stiled Judgments and the Declarations of these Acts to others called Enunciations whensoever we Judge and Pronounce of things as they really are For as the Philosopher sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I readily grant that partly through the Weakness and Darkness which have arrested our Understandings partly through the Nature Quality Extent and Arduousness of Objects and our Inadequate Conceptions of them partly through Prepossessions Prejudices and the Bâ—as of Lusts and Passions that we are subject to partly through Supineness Sloth and Inadvertency we do often prevaricate in making Deductions and Inferences from self-evident and universal Maxims and thereupon establish Mistaken and Erroneous Consequences as Principles of Truth and Reason But then this is the Fault of Philosophers not of Philosophy or of Philosophy in the Concrete as Existing in this or that Person not in the Abstract as involving such a Mischief in it's Nature and Idea Our intellectual Faculties being vitiated tinctur'd with Lust enthralled by Predices darkned by Passions engaged by vain and corrupt Interests distorted by Pride and Self-Love and fastned to Earthly Images do often impose upon us and lead us to obtrude upon others absurd Axoms for Undoubted and Incontestable Principles of Reason It is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adulterate Reason which we charge for being Unfriendly to Religion And that it is not without Grounds shall be afterwards evinced For I doubt not but that I shall make it appear that the most malignant Heresies which have Infected the Church had their Foundation in Vulgar and received Axioms of Philosophy Whoever will trace the Errors which have Invaded Divinity to their Source must resolve them into absurd Maxims of Philosophy as their Chief Seminary Herein we intend not to offer any Disparagement to Reason but rather to pay it our Utmost respect by rescuing it from being accountable for every vain Imagination and false Consequence which are super-scribed with the Venerable Name of Principles of Reason § 4. Having setled the Notion of Reason we are next to fix the meaning of Religion And this is the more needfull in that men have always had the art of Baptizing their weaknesses fooleries yea blasphemies with the sacred name of Mysteries of Faith and afterwards defending them from the assaults of Reason by saying They are Mysteries against which Reason is not to be hearkned to By matters of Religion then we mean in general as well the Agenda as the Credenda of it What we are to perform as well as what we are to believe what relates to Obedience as well as what relates to Faith Now the rule measure and standard of both is the Revelation of God in the Scripture The Bible is now the only perfect Code and Register of natural Religion as well as the only Systeme of supernatural Those very Articles of Belief and Duties of obedience which were formerly Natural with respect to their manner of promulgation are now in the Declaration of them also Supernatural The Scripture is the only Canon of Faith and Rule of Practice So the Apostle stile 's it in more than one place Phil. 3.16 Nevertheless whereto we have already attained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us walk by the same Rule As if he had said what ever dissensions there be amongst us in lesser things let us orderly regulate our life and course for that is the import of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Canon of the Gospel And in the same sense Gal. 6.16 as many as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 walk according to this Rule peace be on them c. The Apostle having to do with such as introduced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an other Gospel Gal. 1.6 7. for their conviction and plainer refutation he gives us a brief epitomy and summary both of the Law and Gospel and at last shuts up the whole debate with this that whoever walks according to this Canon or Rule peace shall be on him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies originally either a Reed made into an instrument wherewith they measured buildings or the limits and bounds of land or a small Line which Architects square out their work by that all the parts of it may bear a just symmetry proportion one to another and from this proper use of it it is Metaphorically transferred to signifie any kind of Rule Thus Aristotle useth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By that which is right we know both its self and that which is crooked for the Canon is the judg of both And thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Canon is a law that cannot err and an infallible measure Phavorin Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies that which is over Scales commonly called the Tongue of the Balance which is the director whereby whatsoever is put into the Scales is tryed and hath its just weight adjudged So the Scholiast upon Aristophanes tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over the Scales which brings them to equality This Original signification of the word also hath given rise to its Metaphorical use of denoting any rule or measure by which either Doctrines or Practices are tried and adjusted And thus the Scripture is the true and only perfect rule of all matters of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exact balance and Rule or Canon of all Truths The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rule of immutable and unshaken Truth Austin improveth this Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
one of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have alledged by which I am not able to demonstrate the Divine Inspiration both of the Bible in general and of most of the particular Books in it so if there be any Books received into the Canon where any of these are wanting they are such as are Narratives of things done among Men and most of those are born Witness to in such other Books as have all the fore-going Characters and if there be any of them that are not Testified to yet we have all desirable Evidence that they were Written by Persons Divinely inspired and though all the preceeding Signatures do not occur in them yet some one or more by which they manifest themselves to be of God do and in none of them is there any thing inconsistent with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have produced Upon the other hand it is easie by the preceeding Marks to discharge from all Interest in Divine Inspiration a vast Number of Books that pretend to a Share in it By such I mean not only the Sibylline writings the Prophecy of Enoch the Epistle of Christ to Abgarus the Gospels of Nicodemus James and Andrew the Canons of the Apostles the Revelation of Paul his Epistles to Seneca and the Laodiceans the Missals of Mathew Mark Peter c. but all those Books which are Commonly stiled Apocryphal § 7. Besides the Characters impressed on the Scripture by which the Divine Inspiration of it is plainly evidenced There are many External Motives by which the same might be further demonstrated And here may be pleaded the quality of the pen-men their candor sincerity inability of being the immediate Authors of such a contrivance that they had no base nor secular Ends that they are impartial in laying open their failings and that they always father the whole upon God 2 The antiquity of Scripture Records at least some part of them to which all the rest are consonant and upon which they superstruct 3 The preservation of the Bible through so many Ages when so many of Wit Power and interest in the World had set themselves against it 4 It s spread success and entertainment in the World with the manner of its propagation without force of Arms or aft of Eloquence 5 The effects it hath wrought in great sudden lasting changes that it hath produced in men principled in their Judgments prepossess'd with Educations and prejudiced by Lust against it 6 The attestation of Miracles which are Gods Seal to authorise the person in whose behalf they are wrought and Doctrines to which they are annexed For a Miracle is an extraordinary work transcendent to the powers and capacities of natural Agents It is either the altering and stopping the Course of Nature or the producing some effect above its Laws and power A Miracle is an operation of God in Nature either without interposure of a Second Cause or above its abilâ—ty In a word it is the production of something out of nothing either as to matter or manner of production Now such Works are the immediate effects of Almighty Power It is the Peculiar Title of God to do Wonders and he only can do Wonderful Things Were there not some things impossible to Natural Agents there were no room for a real Miracle and were there not other things which we only think to be impossibles in Nature we were not capable of being deluded by an appearing one Effects exceeding the lines of ordinary operations may be produced by a combination of material Agents and Sathan may wonderfully ape a Miracle by the impressions he is able to make upon matter but every true Miracle is the product of a Power that is infinite As God alone can work Miracles so he never exerts His Power in the production of any but in order to humane instruction The Devil loves to be acting his Power to fill men with Amazement and to make them Wonder but God reserves his Power to seal some portant Truth to relieve men in some Urgent straight or to afright them from some destructive Practice Miraculous Works are one of the greatest attestations that God can give either to person or thing and are usually his Seal to some great Truth God is a spirit cannot be seen to give Testimony yea should he assume a shape and in that declare himself there would be still a great deal of lyableness to exception and therefore one of the most convincing Evidences that God can give to Person Doctrines or Cause is by the effecting of some such Work as is only possible for an Almighty Power to produce Hence those ancient Impostors that usurp'd the Title of Prophets either among the Jews Christians or Heathens pretended to Miracles and Signs knowing that without that counterfeit Seal their Doctrine would never have been received by the People and the better to Ape a Miracle the greatest part of pretenders to Enthusiasm were in all Ages Magicians True Miracles being the effects of Gods immediate Power the Notions which we have of his Wisdome and Goodness do not admit us to suppose that he should lend His Omnipotency to confirm a falshood For this were the way to induce men into error in a matter of the greatest Moment And therefore while I believe God to be True and Good I will never believe that He will lend his power to Impostors to cheat and abuse mankind Yea were it consistent with Divine Truth and Justice so to do yet it is repugnant to his Wisdome in that he should hereby not only weaken but wholly take off all the Evidence that Himself can give to Truth by miraculous Operations For if God can exert his Power in the confirmation of a Falsity in one Case what security can we have that He may not do so in another To say that God doth never work a Miracle for our Tryal in reference to a false Doctrine till he hath unquestionably confirmed his own Truth before and that the having an established Rule to examine after Doctrines by is enough to preserve us from being imposed upon by Error though it should come backt with the attestation of Miraculous Works I affirm that this plea is not sufficient and and that there are objections to the contrary which it doth not resolve For First As primitive Revelation is not capable of receiving confirmation from its consonancy to any Revelation formerly acknowledged it being it self the first so after Revelations that are either really or according to the best judgment that we can make New are as little tryable by their congruency to what went before And if we allow Miracles to be an Authentick attestation in such cases I see not how we can admit them to be fallacious in any Secondly The ancientest portion of Scripture are the Mosaick Writings now antecedently to the giving forth of these as the Standard of after Doctrines Idolatry Superstition and Error had greatly over-spread the world I would therefore ask if God
express and explicite Authority of God upon it For whosoever explicitely reveal's the thing defined reveals in effect all those things which we have enumerated concerning it While the Scripture for example assureth us that Christ is a man it doth at the same time assure us that he is a Rational Creature and by telling us that he is a man it doth in effect tell us that he is not an Angel And however some late Papists talk in this Matter not to speak of others that they may shift the Protestant Arguments which they cannot Answer Yet I am sure the most learned that ever espoused the Romane Cause are at an agreement with us in this point That is an Article of Faith says Bellarmine which God hath either revealed by the Prophets and Apostles or which may be evidently inferred from thence Smiglesius against Mascorovius proclaims it ridiculous to think otherwise That is not only a part of the Christian Doctrine which is expressly revealed by the Apostles but whatsoever can be evidently deduced thence though one of the propositions going to the deducement of it have its certainty only in Natural Light saith Canus And whereas they say that Conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem the Conclusion receives it specification and is denominated from the weakest proposition I reply 1 Were that Logical Maxime to be taken in the universal Latitude which they affix to it they are yet so far from gaining any thing thereby that their whole Cause in this Matter is supplanted For if both Propositions be evidently true their Dogm's must be evidently false seeing the Conclusions that lye in repugnancy to them are our Enemies being Judges deduced from true propositions God is as much the Author of the Rational Faculty in its Regular Exercise as of Scripture and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be persuaded by God and to be persuaded by Right Reason is one and the same thing 2. That proposition in a Philosophical sense is the weakest which is remotest from self evidence and therefore where there are two premisses whereof the one hath no other Evidence but what it borrows from the Authority of the Infallible Revealer the other in the mean time havâ—ng â—ts Evidence from a light residing in it self and from its Congruity to the Essential Rectitude of our Intellectual Faculties if the Conclusion follow the fortune of the weaker proposition it must be a Conclusion of Faith and not of Science For though the Certitude of Faith be not only equal but transcendent to the Certitude of Reason Sense and Experience 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. Yet the Evidence of Reason and Sense is with respect to the Object assented to the habitude it stands in to us beyond the Evidence of Faith 2 Cor. 5. â— 1 1 Cor. 13.12 Nor do the School men only allow a proposition grounded on an Axiome of Reason to be more evident than a proposition founded only on Revelation but withal not a few of the Learned'st Romanists both School-men and others will have the former to be also more Certain at least quo ad nos than the latter See Bellarm lib. 3. de justifiâ— cap. 2. Durand in 3. d. 23. quest 7. Compt. Tom. poster disp 9. 3. The forementioned Logical Axiome referrs only to the Quantity and Quality of the premisses and not to any other affections incident to them If one of the Premisses be Negative the Conclusion in the virtue of the alledged Maxâ—me must be Negative also or if one of the propositions be a particular nothing beyond a particular can be concluded though the other be an Universal And howsoever in some cases it may hold further yet this and no more was the intendment of the first establishers of it Nor indeed is it admittable in the full Latitude which the Terms seem to bear seeing of two propositions whereof the one only is true there may follow sometimes a Conclusion that is true though the other proposition be in the mean time palpably false But ere I undertake the probation of the thing it self two or three things must be necessarily premised 1. That all Fundamental Articles are contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters and syllables in the Scripture Nor is there any thing necessary in order to our assent to them but that we understand the Terms of the Enunciations in which they are delivered 'T is true there are Terms and Phrases made use of to declare them unto the edification of Believers to secure the Minds of men from undue apprehensions of them that are not in the Scripture but this is no more than what is needful in the explaining of all Divine Truths yea all Moral Duties For example That there is One God and that the Father is this one God and that the Son is so also and the Holy Ghost likewise is declared in many express Testimonies in the Bible but in the Explication of this Doctrine and in the application of it to the Faith and Edification of Believers namely how God is One in respect of his Nature and Essence how being Father Son and Holy Ghost He subsists in these three distinct Persons what are their mutual respects to each other and what are the incommunicable Properties in the manner of their subsistence by which they are distinguished the One from the other there are such woâ—ds and phrases made use of as are not literally and syllabically contained in the Scripture but teach no other thing but what is there revealed 2. That these very Fundamental Articles may be also confirmed by consequences and logical deductions from express literal Testimonies nor do probations of this nature alter or enervate the quality of them The thing is in it self the same though the method of proof be varied For example the Doctrine of the Trinity is equally a Fundamental whether we prove it from express Texts or by consequences from literal Testimonies or by its connexion with the whole Systeme of the Gospel the Incarnation of the Son of God the Oeconomy of Redemption c. 3. That though all Fundamentals be in Terminis expressed in the Scripture that yet these very Truths do include others in them which cannot be proved but by Consequences For instance That God is a Spâ—rit is revealed in so many letters and syllables in the Bible but that therefore he hath not hands nor feet nor any corporeal members can only be concluded by way of Consequence In lâ—ke manner the Incarnation of the Son of God that the Word was made Flesh is expresly taught in the Scripture but yet there are many things predicable of the Word Incarnate which cannot be otherwise demonstrated but by Consequences and by borrowing some proposition or other from principles of Natural light Now these things being premised the lawfulness of arguing from express Scripture-Truths by deduction of Conclusions which though they be not mentioned in the Bible in letters and syllables are
yet there in effect and were accordingly intended may briefly be thus justified 1. In that to preclude this is to render the Word of God of no significancy to any particular person seeing 'tis by this method alone that general precepts promâ—ses and Comminations are applicable to single Individuals Nor can any one Universal direction be otherwise brought down to a particular case 2. God in instructing us how we are to demean our selves towards his Word doth it in Terms and Phrases which are peculiar to such as Discourse ratiocinate and deduce Conclusions from acknowledged Principles See Rom. 3.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore we conclude Rom. 6.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise reckon ye also your selves 1 Cor. 2.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual Act. 17.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they searched the Scriptures namely whether the things which the Apostles deduced from the Testimonies of Moses and the Prophets had foundation in them yea or not 1 Thes. 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things Hence we are enjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rightly to divide the word of Truth 2 Tim. 2.15 and to Prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the analogy of Faith Rom. 12.6 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to convince by argument and demonstration gainsayers And 't is said of Paul that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he reasoned wth the Jews out of the Scriptures Acts 17.2 And of Apollos that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he mightily in the way of ratiocination convinced the Jews demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Acts 18.28 Nor was it possible by any text of the Old-Testament for the Apostles to prove Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah but by argumentation trains of deductions There was no other way or Method by which this could be don but by shewing from Moses and the Prophets that to whomsoever such properties Characters c. agrâ—ed such a one behoved to be the Messiah and then evincing from History and Experience that all these Characterisms centred in and agreed to Jesus of Nazareth And in this way the Apostles proceeded in their dealing with the Jews by producing places out of their own Scriptures where the Properties Signatures Characteristical notes of the Person Natures Offices and Work of the Messiah were foretold and described and by which the Faith of the Church was guided to him and on which the World was bound to receive him and then in shewing that all these agreed to were verified of and met in our Lord Jesus as their Center they concluded that he was infallibly the person concerning whom the Promises were made unto the Fathers And this leads me to the 2d argument in proof of that we have undertaken to justifie namely the Method which the Inspired Writers observed in the conviction of Jews and Heathens There can be no fallacy where we act conformably to such a pattern nor can that be disclaimed as Sophistical in others which we find practiced by the Sacred Penmen without impeaching both the Wisedome and Truth of God by whom they were inspired To allow it to have been lawful for them to argue by Consequences and yet in the mean time to deny it to others is to be perverse partial and humoursome and to lodg it as an accusation on Them that they mistook in the course they steered is not only to justifie the Jews in their unbelief and the Heathen in their Idolatry but to blaspheme the Holy Spirit by whom they were acted and conducted in what they did Now that this was the Method which the Apostles observed in their demonstrating many of the chief Articles of the Christian Faith may be made good by many instances scattered up and down the New-Testament See Act 9.22 Act 18.28 Act 15.8 9. Act 17.16.17 Act 2.16 17 18. Act 3.22 23. Rom. 1.20 Rom. 3.9 to 21. Gal. 3.10 1 Cor. 15.4 5 6 7. Joh. 1.33 34. In all these places not to name more nor to urge the suffrage of the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in whom this way of procedure manifests it self in every Chapter and paragraph We must acknowledg that they not only argued by consequences but that if their Arguments were digested into syllogisms there will be only one proposition found that is of Revelation the other being assumed either from Reason or Sense Besides the attestation of Apostolical practice in this matter we have also the example of our blessed Saviour to convince us not only of the lawfulness but to assure us of the obligation that lyes upon us of accounting all that for the Word of God which can by any train of Natural deduction be concluded from it If men were not resolved to be obstinate this alone were enough to issue the debate and to advance what we are pleading for beyond all jurisdiction of being gainsaid It is by way of argumentation and by consequences that he proves the Divinity of his Person Mat. 22.44 45. The Quality and Authority of his Office John 5.39 45 46. John 10.25 37 38. Luke 7.20 21 22. The necessity of the Death and sufferings of the Messiah Luke 24 26.27 The Resurrection of the Dead in General Mat. 22.31 32. All his Reasonings in the forecited places should they be reduced into a Logical Form will be found to bear upon one only Scripture premiss the other being constantly either a proposition drawn from natural Light or from the evidence of Sense And to affirm that the Ratiocinations of Christ and the Apostles though they joyned one premise from Reason or experience to another from Scripture were nevertheless conclusive because the Proposition from Reason by their very using of it became upon the account of the infallible authority they were clothed with a part of Divine Revelation I say to affirm this is ridiculous and impertinent For had they intended to have immediately concerned their authority in what they said Argumentation from an acknowledged Scripture Truth had been both needless and superfluous Where the whole evidence depends upon the Authority of the immediate Speaker a naked assertion is not only sufficient but most becoming Let the Authority of a person be what it will yet so far as in transacting with others he recurrs to arguments either from Reason or the Testimony of an other so far in that instance he plainly declines his Authority Nor did all these with whom Christ and the Apostles dealt in way of Argumentation acknowledg any such authority by vertue of which whatsoever they said in such a case became immediately a part of Divine Revelation to have belonged to them When the Scribes and Pharisees confessed Christ in the way and Method of proving the Resurrection to have said well Marc. 12.28 Luke 20.39 They did not thereby intend the acknowledgment of Christ as a prophet sent from God or that any authority upon that account resided in him For that they disclaimed but it was the Authority of God Exod.
the thing whereof we conceive the former to have been only a Figure To paraphrase Metaphors in Metaphorick terms is instead of making them Intelligible to continue them dark and Mysterious For as we are not to terminate in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Images themselves but to penetrate into the things couched under and represented by them so much less is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mimetick Phancy in our commenting on them to be indulged In a word it is the work of a Judicious Interpreter to bring forth and declare the scope and matter of all such Phrases in the most plain and easy expressions Now in order to the arriving at true notions conceptions of those divine and Spiritual things which are lock't up under Metaphorick Terms we ought 1 in some considerable degree to understand the Nature and properties of the things from which the Metaphor is taken For Metaphorick Terms signifying one thing and being only applyed to shadow forth another by reason of some resemblance between them we are wholly inept to declare the Heavenly Truth that such Forms of Speech are adapted have a tendency to instruct us in while we remain ignorant of the things which those Words originally and immediately import And seeing the Scripture expresseth somewhat of Religion by all the parts of the Creation by the Imployments very utensils of Humane life and by the usages and customs of Mankind Metaphors are not a subject for any undertaker to exercise upon who hath not more than a tincture of knowledg in all those Though to understand the Bible well be enough to promote Faith and Good life yet to understand some passages of it well a great many other things must be first understood It cannot otherwise be but that to persons ignorant of natural Philosophy Agriculture c. as well as unacquainted with the customes and usages of the Oriental Nations many Texts will seem obscure which are not at all so to such as are imbued with true Ideas of the Natures and properties of things and enriched with a knowledge of Arts and the Customes of the World A luxurious Fancy will be apt to frame very wild and absurd Notions out of Metaphors if the Understanding be not furnished with a knowledg of the qualities operations and use of those things from which they are drawn A familiarity therefore with the works of God as it will oblige us humbly to adore the Mysteries of the Word which we cannot fathom through finding our selves non-plus't in the most obvious phaenomena of Nature so it will exceedingly contribute to our understanding many passages in Scrâ—pture of which we must otherwise either continue wholly ignorant or judg of them according to the suggestions of Imagination I may add that when a word or Term is borrowed from any Art Science or Discipline and metaphorically applied to illustrate some mystery of Faith or the mode of its Existence the genius and value of the word with respect to its usage in the Discipline whence it is transferred is carefully to be observed How expedient and necessary upon this account an acquaintance with the civil-Law is in order to the fixing the importance of divers Scripture-phrases such as Adoption Surety Earnest c. were easie to Demonstrate 2. There being diverse Metaphorical expressions in the Scripture the meaning of which is not to be arrived at by meer recourse to the immediate signification of the words and Terms as bearing rather upon the things which the Eastern Nations in their symbolical representation of matters applied them to It will therefore be needful to know the meaning of many of the Oriental Symbols and what things and events because of some similitude between the Symbols themselves and the things and events they stood for they represented by them For as there are many Prophetick passages both in the old and new Testament which are not strictly Metaphorick that cannot otherwise be understood So there are many Metaphorick expressions in the Scripture of whose meaning we can have no assurance but by knowing something of the use and import of the Symbols of the Ancients 3 The same Terms according as they are metaphorically applyed to different subjects importing often different things their signification must be stated by considering the subject they are applyed to Through the different Affections Properties Adjuncts and Effects that appertain to things which Words originally and properly manifest and denote it frequently falls out that things hugely opposite are resembled to them and stiled by their Names Now in this case the quality of the Subject Metaphorically denoted by such a Term can alone determine the resemblance which intercede's between the thing originally and immediately signified and the thing to which it is Tropically applyed I should be too tedious did I undertake to enumerate the several Words that with respect to the various properties or effects of the things which they properly signifie are applied metaphorically to represent not only things different but opposite some of them in a good sense in Analogy to one property or effect and others in an evil in Analogy to another 4 Great care is required that when diverse properties and affections of things Originally signified by Terms and Words may without injury to Truth be in Way of similitude applyed to the Things which those Terms are Metaphorically brought to illustrate that the comparison and Resemblance be not carried beyond what the Holy Ghost doth there peculiarly design We ought not only to take heed that we hurry not a Metaphor beyond the precincts of Truth but that we drive it not beyond the limits which the place where it is used and the end of the Speaker confine it to 'T is not enough that we do not trespass against the Analogy of Faith in the application of a Metaphor but it is also requisite that we exceed not the Intention of the sacred Writer in that very place There is in all Metaphorical expressions some one Property Affection Operation or other wherein the proportion and resemblance between the things immediately signified by the Words and the things which they are brought to manifest and illustrate doth peculiarly consist and this the nature of the Discourse the Context and speakers scope must determine us in Want of due attendance to this may occasion a prevaricating from the sense of the place where yet there may be an Harmony maintained in reference to the universal System of the Scripture A failure in this if in any thing relating to the subject before us is that which hath ministred occasion for the clamours of partial and angry men But that others besides some of the Non-Conformists are guilty of it were easy to set beyond all exception did I love to expose the Wisdom and discretion of any as some do Yea 't is not so easy to fasten a just imputation upon any in this matter as some are prone to imagine For besides that fecundity of sense
Texts which they use thus to perveâ—t I shall rather instance in some of their darling Notions the very maintaining of which obligeth them to turn a great many of the plainest Texts in the Bible into meer Metaphors I am sensible what a Charge I have entred against them and do plainly foresee how it will be resented therefore I shall endeavour to give indisputable and uncontroulable Evidence in Justification of it The First Medium and Topick I particularly own my self indebted to an Opinion of Mr. Sherlocks for there being none of the Church of England so far as I know that ever vented the Notion before The Offices says he of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ but the several parts and Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom His Intercession signifies the Administration of his mediatory Kingdom the power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive Sins Were it my Humour to Treat an Adversary with severity I would do more than say that Mr. Sherlock by making Christs Office of King but one part and Administration of His Mediatory Kingdom Writes not with that accuracy at all times which some men ascribe to him Had a motion of a Friend of his obtained viz. that Men should be Obliged by Act of Parliament to write Sense as well as Truth I can not see but that an Action at Law might have lay'n against him if some of those Persons he so often Raillies upon had thought fit in Revenge for his Reflections to have commenced it What ever care he hath taken to write Truth he hath not been so careful here as he ought to write Sense But this I wave Nor shall I digress into any large Debate of that Question Whether the Priestly office of Christ be included in his Regal Or Whether though not separated in their Subject the Person of Christ they be not in their Natures Objects Acts and Effects distinguished the one from the other Only thus in brief If moral Powers which are distinguished by their Objects Acts manner of Operation and the Effects which thereupon ensue be different faculties and powers then the Sacerdotal and Regal Offices of Christ which are moral Faculties and Powers with which he is invested by God for certain Ends being thus differenced they must consequently be distinct Offices the one no way included superseded or swallowed up by the other Now that it is thus may be easily Demonstrated For 1 their Objects are distinct The object of the exercise of the Priestly Office is God This not only the Apostle informs us in the account he gives of the Nature and Institution of Priesthood Heb. 5.1 where he tells us that the actings of a Priest in the exercise of his Office respects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but elsewhere Ephe. 5.2 This the common Notion which man-kind hath of it together with the whole Oeconomy of the Aaronical Priesthood and Christs being a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck who was a Priest in a proper sense do evince But now the Object of Christ's Regal Power is Man As King he Acts in the Name and on the behalf of God with and towards us And as his Power and Authority over the Church is confessed by the very Socinians to be a Regal Power so his being vested in and with such a Power doth necessiarily imply his readiness to make use of it for the Churches Good What inward Thoughts men entertain of Christ I know not but to declare Him a King who as such is only able but not willing to help his People is not much to his commendation as inagurated in such an Office yea it is more Honourable to be represented as willing and not able than as able and not willing 2 They differ in their Acts. The Acts of Christs sacerdotal Office are Oblation and Intercession which as they both respect God as their Object it being God not us that Christ offered himself to as a Sacrifice and God not us that he intercedes with So they differ from the Acts of his Regal Office which are Legislation the Communication of the Spirit the Destruction of his and our Enemies and the like Nor are these any where called the Intercession of Christ as Mr. Sherlock falsely imagines Indeed His intercession as upon the one hand it is founded on his Oblation and Sacrifice being nothing but the representation of his meritorious Passion a continuation of His Sacerdotal Function so on the other hand it hath its Effects towards us by vertue of the interposition of some Acts of His Kingly Office For these Offices being all Vested in the same Person and having all the same general End and belonging all unto the work of Mediation it cannot otherwise be but that their Acts must have a mutual Respect to one another yet still the Priestly Office to which Intercession appertains is formally distinct from His Kingly Nor are the Acts of his Regal Office ever called His Intercession though as to the applying the benefits of His Advocation there be the Interposure and Exertion of His Kingly Power To say as Mr. Sherlock doth That Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship is not only to Socinianise but expresly to contradict the Scripture in an hundred places Yea the very next words of the Text he refers to which represents it as an Act of Obedience which I think is no Regal Act do oppose it This Command have I Received of my Father Though Originally it was an Act of Liberty and Choice in the Son of God to condescend by his Contract with the Father to render himself liable to Die yet having once Covenanted and undertaken to give himself a Ransome it was an Act of Debt and Obedience so for do Though with respect to those that Instrumentally took away his Life he had a Physical Power to have preserved it yet with respect to God with whom He had transacted to give himself an Offering for Sin he had no moral Power or Right to with-hold himself from Dying To affirm as Mr. Sherlock also doth that Intercession signifies the administration of Christ's Mediatory Kingdom The Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive Sins is both false in it self and borrowed word for word from the Socinians The Intercession of Christ consists neither in a power of expâ—ating sin nor of conferring forgiveness but in a representation of his Sacrifice for the procurement of the actual communication of the fruits of his Death unto them for whom he had given himself a Ransom Expiation of Sin was perfected before Christ went into Heaven Heb. 1.3 and 9.12 and therefore cannot lye in his Intercession which is an act of his Priestly Office consequent to his entring into the Holy Place In a word neither is intercession any Act of Christ's Regal Power nor is the bestowing of the Forgiveness of Sins any Act of his Priestly Function The Scripture plainly Attributes
as Crellius expresseth it that Christ laid down his Life for us ut jus quoddam ad peccatorum remissionem vitam aeternam obtinendas nobis daret Nor do I find that Mr. Sherlock sometimes acknowledgeth any more But waveing all these things and many more managed by others which Mr. Sherlock if he please may reckon Cavil Sophistry and Vulgar Talk and judg them unworthy of a sober reply and by slighting what he cannot answer or with a storm of words not only darkning but diserediting what he will not find so easy for him in a Logical way to encounter bear up his repute amongst his Friends There are only two things I would premise in order to the more clear making out the Consequence of perverting the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors which I have fathered upon Mr. Sherlocks Opinion The First is this that to justifie is in its proper acceptation a Forensick Term signifying to acquit and absolve one that is accused That this is its import when it refer's to God and Christ as the Objects of it and men as the Agents is plain from Psal. 5.1.4 Mat. 11.19 Luk. 7.29 That this likewise is the meaning of it when it is expressive of the Act of men standing upon their own vindication and Innocency is clear by Luk. 10.29 and 16.15 Job 32.2 and 9.10 That this withall is the only acceptation which it is capable of when it relates to the Act of a Humane Civil Judg as Psal. 8.2 Isa. 5.23 Pro. 17.15 will I suppose hardly be denied In this sense also can it onely be taken when declarative of the Act of God towards us as our Judg or when set in Opposition to Condemnation or the Curse of the Law to which we are obnoxious as Rom. 8.33.5 18. Gal. 3.11 The Second thing I would premise is this that Justification not only supposeth us to be indicted but withal imports an absolution from the Charge of that Law of the breach whereof we are accused Now as the Introduction of the Law of Faith hath not abrogated the Law of Perfect Obedience but this as well as that doth remain in force each of them requiring a Conformity to its own demands so supposing us to answer all that the Gospel requireth which is both a Righteousness of inherent Grace and of Personal sincere Obedience a failure in either of which leaves us incapable not only of being justified but of being pardoned yet the other Law abiding uncancelled and we being all Guilty of the violation of its Terms there lyes accordingly a Charge against us from which by justification we are to be acquitted Had the Law of Faith repealed and abrogated the Law of Works then indeed we should have remained lyable to no farther Accusation provided we had performed the Gospel-Conditions But then it would follow that by being Believers we wholly cease to be sinners and that the Gospel instead of only making-provision for the Remission of Sins against the Law hath prevented the Breaches of it from being so And indeed the Socinians express themselves in this more consonantly to their Principles than some others do For having stated the whole of justification in the Remission of sin upon performance of the Conditions of the Gospel in pursuance of this they accordingly plead for the utter abrogation of the Sanction of the Law These things being premised I do affirm that upon Mr. Sherlocks Notion of justification viz. That we are only justified by our Believing obeying the Gospel of Christ and that the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life have no other influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace wherein God promiseth pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel However in reference to the meer demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified yet that in reference to the Indictment of the Law which is that alone which accuseth us for were we accusable of Non-compliance with the Gospel-Terms our Condition were wholly remediless we cannot in any propriety of Speech be said to be justified but that justification wheresoever it regards our discharge from the accusation of the Law must be taken Metaphorically Pardoned indeed we may be but justified in a proper sense we cannot For to suppose God to pronounce a person just that is unjust or to declare him Righteous that is unrighteous is to make him pronounce a sentence that is unjust false to Act repugnantly to his own Holy and Righteous Nature And as to justify and to pardon are not only wholly distinct in their Natures and Idea's but always separated in the cases of such as are arraigned at Humane Tribunals unless it be where the substitution of one Person in the room of another is allowed and even then though they accompany one another yet they are both distinct Acts and we have distinct Notions of them For neither can an accused Innocent by being accquitted be said to be pardoned nor a condemned Criminal by having the execution of his sentence remitted be said to be justified In like manner as they import the Actings of God as a merciful Father and Righteous Governour towards us we have not only distinct and different Idea's of them but they have their spring and rise in distinct Attributes of God and we become interested in them upon distinct motives and pleas Remission is the result of Mercy and the Act of one exercising Favour but Justification is the off-spring of Justice and imports one transacting with us in a Juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity The word justify neither in its Etymologie nor Application and usage according to the Institution of men and least of all in the Scripture Usurpation is Equipollent to pardon nor coincident with to forgive So that upon the whole If we be not made Righteous with the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us but that God only for the sake of Christ will dispence with the Rigor of the Law As our Author expresseth himself And if the only Influence that the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his Life have upon our acceptance with God be that God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a Covenant with mankind wherein he promiseth Pardon of sin and eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel as Mr. Sherlock declares his Conceptions of it And if those who are justified by Christ and shall Reign with him in Life be not those who are Righteous by the imputation of Christs Righteousness to them but those who have abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousness that is who by the Gospel of Christ which is the Grace and the abundant Grace of God are made Holy Righteous as God is as our Author further tells us I
efficacious operation of the Holy Ghost so through our being United to Him he becomes not according to Mr. Sherlock a Quickning Head and a Vital Root of Influences to us He is says he only styled our Head because invested with Authority to Govern us by his Laws and our Vnion with Him as such consists only in an acknowledgment of his Authority and in Subjection to his commands Hence the making the Person of Christ a Fountain of Grace is reflected upon by our Author in words full of contempt and scorn And by our Fellowship with Christ which the Sacred Writers so Emphatically speak of we are told there is only meant such a Political Union as is betwixt a Prince and his Subjects between Superiours and Inferiors Hence also that Fulness of Grace which is said to reside in Christ is declared by our Author to be nothing but his revealing the Gospel to us which may well be called Grace because it contains so many excellent promises and our receiving out of his Fulness Grace for Grace is paraphrased to denote no more but our being perfectly instructed by Him in the will of God Hence likewise Christs being styled our Life is glossed to import only his publishing the Word of Life to us which contains the most express promises of a blessed Immortality and the most easy and plain directions how to attain it Now I do not deny the things revealed and commanded in the Gospel being both Good in themselves and suited to the Reason and Interest of Mankind and also enforced by the most attractive Motives which we can either desire or Imagine but that men in the alone strength of their Natural Faculties may perform many External Duties and in that manner also that we who judg only according to appearance are thereupon to account them Holy yea that nothing but supineness lustful prejudice consuetude in sin a being immersed into the Animal Life can hinder them from so doing But I deny that any Act or Duty hath the proper Form and Nature of Holiness or is so denominated in the Scripture but what both proceeds from an Antecedent Habit or Principle of Holiness in the persons by whom they are performed and an Immediate influence from Christ in the virtue of our Union with Him as our Quickning-Head Vital Root living Spring in the actual performance of them 'T is he that worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2.13 and without him we can do nothing that is Formally Good or acceptable to God John 15.3 That exclusively of an antecedent Habit and seed of Grace communicated to us and Resident in us and of fresh Influences from Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit we are neither Subjectively Holy nor do perform any one thing which the Scripture bestows the Denomination of Holiness upon hath not only been Demonstrated against the Pelagians both by Ancient and Modern Writers but defined in several Councils and Synods And therefore Both these being discharged out of Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of our Union with Christ his Doctrine concerning it is so far from having any Influence upon the promotion of True Holiness that it lyes in a Repugnancy to it and makes it impossible to Christians Let us suppose Men satisfied of the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and accordingly in the Dogmatical Belief of them let us suppose them also perswaded of the Reasonableness and Equity of Gospel-Precepts and that upon the promises and threatnings which accompany and enforce them they are not only inclined and resolved to obey them but that they actually perform the Material parts of all Moral Duties and Acts of Instituted Worship which is the most we can conceive of the persons for whose Union with Christ Mr. Sherlock pleads and indeed more than truly they can be entiled to yet all this admitted I say that providing we will take our Measures of the Nature of Holiness from the Declarations which God hath given of it and not from the ill-digested Notions of the Pelagians and Socinians about it Gospel Holiness is not only disbanded out of the whole of this but undermined subverted by it For as much as the Gospel judgeth nothing to be true Holiness but what presupposeth the Grace of Regeneration as that which adapts to it and implyes a causal Concomitancy of Actual Grace as that which doth immediately influence it Moral Virtue it may be but Christian Holiness 't is not And thus I have declared who they are that stand united to Christ and that our Hypothesis so far as it relates to the Subjects of this Union doth no ways countenance a prophane Course or frown upon a Holy Life And have also demonstrated how the Hypothesis erected by our Author in opposition to it is as it respects that Extreme of this Relation many ways guilty of such an unhappy pernicious tendency § 4. Having declared whom we mean by Believers who are the subjects of this Union we are Discoursing about and having manifested that there is nothing in the Character of the Persons assum'd into this Relation of Oneness with Christ that in the least undermines Holiness or befriends a course of Impiety We are next to fix and determine what we intend understand by Christ who is the other Extreme of this Relation of Union and to whom Believers in the Virtue of it become ligu'd and copulated I confess I should heretofore have esteem'd the engaging in such a service a mee prodigality of Words and Time but the Ignorance and Disingenuity of Mr. Sherlock doth render it a this time a necessary Undertaking Nor can I otherwise either vindicate the Non-conformists from the unjust representation which in this matter he gives of them nor correct the mistakes and prevarications which in assigning the import of the Name and Term Christ I find him guilty of First then neither in the Question before us nor in any other whatsoever doth Christ signify the Name of an Office I expected to have met with Sense whatever I might have mist in the Writings of a Person pretending to so great accuracy as Mr. Sherlock doth and that whatever quarrel he had against any Text in the Bible or the received Rules of Argumentation yet that he would not have fallen out with the Accidence and Syntax If either he had not ability or would not allow himself leasure to write Reason and Truth yet he should have been careful to have avoided Nonsence To affirm that Christ is Originally the Name of an Office or to speak of the Duties and Actions of an Office as our Author doth argues him that I may express it with the greatest modesty I can to have forgotten his Grammar as well as his Logick As every Concrete Term imports a Form Quality or something analogous to these Administring a Denomination so it always implies a Subject denominated from them Though there be Actions belonging to Officers and Actions which Persons
by virtue of their being vested with an Office are obliged to yet to ascribe Actions to an Office as if it were the very Agent whereas it is meerly the Foundation from which an Obligation to the performance of such and such Actons in the due discharge of it results whatever Wit or profoundness his Friends may Imagine in it I cannot otherwise account of it than a piece of sublime Nonsense And Nonsence is not to be refuted but exposed For he betrayes the weakness of his own Reason who undertakes to encounter an absurd Phrase with Arguments Nor Secondly doth the Name Christ in the Question under Debate signifie the Gospel and Religion of Christ. 'T is indeed by the Doctrine of the Gospel as a Moral means that we come to be united to Christ but 't is not It that we are united to As the Gospel alone reveals our Union with Christ and as the Communication of the Spirit the repairing the Image of God in our Souls are only promised by it So God in his soveraign Wisdom hath ordained it to be the alone Vehiculum of the Spirit and the means of ingenerating Faith in our Hearts which are the Bonds of our Union Hence 't is called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the Law which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as the purity of its Precepts and the nobleness of its Promises do admirably qualify and adapt it as an Objective Moral means of restoring the Image of God in us so through the Blessing of God attending it as His solemn Institution to this End we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it 2 Pet. 1.4 Though no Physical Efficiency is to be ascribed to it yet besides a Moral Efficacy which through its own frame and complexion it hath to reform Mankind beyond what any Declaration of God our selves that ever the World was made acquainted with had There is a Physical efficacious Operation of the Spirit of God accompanies it on the score of the Lords having in Infinite Sapience ordained it as a means for the communicating Grace But still 't is not the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are united to 'T is true that it is both by the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are brought to be united to Christ and 't is also true that whosoever are united to Him have the Doctrine of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an ingraffed and incorporated Word and are moulded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Form of its Doctrine But yet 't is not the Terminus of the Relation of Union which intervenes betwixt Christ and them nor is it That which they are united to Mr. Sherlock I confess tells us that when Christ Joh. 15. speaks of the First person I and in Me he cannot mean this of his own person but of his Church Doctrine and Religion and that by I in him v. 4. and I in you v 5. we are to understand the Christian Doctrine dwelling and abiding in us 'T is pretty to observe with what nimble removes from the Church to the Doctrine of Christ again from the Doctrine to the Church of Christ our Author paraphraseth the first five or Six verses of that Chapter The I and me in the first 2d verses are glossed as referring to the Church I am the true Vine the meaning is saith Mr. Sherlock that Church which is founded on the Belief of my Doctrine is the true Vine Every Branch in me i. e. saith he every Member of my visible Church But then the I in you and the I in him v. 4. and 5. are expounded of the Doctrine of Christ. His flying from one quarry to another argues some inconvenience and danger he foresaw his exposition of the place encumbred with or else that some vertigo troubled his pericranium I shall at present only examine so much of his paraphrase as respects those words where in stead of the person of Christ he will have the Doctrine and Religion of Christ to be understood That which he interprets as relating to the Church of Christ which can only be understood also of his person shall hereafter be taken into consideration And as to that which lyeth now before me 't is enough not only to prejudice Mr. Sherlocks exposition but to overthrow it with all Judicious persons that-Expressions of the same Nature are not allowed the same sense I know that one and the same Word is sometimes in one the same verse differently sensed when the subject Matter context scope of the Discourse do so require But to impose disagreeing and various meanings upon Expressions of one and the same Nature occurring together where one and the same sense may safely be admitted is to violate all Laws of Exposition and to make the Scripture pliable to what purposes we please The in you and the in him v. 4. and 5. are predicates referring to the same I affirmed of the same Subject that True Vine is predicated of v. 1. and 5. But it being as well absurd to style the Doctrine of the Gospel the true Vine as to assert concerning the Church that it is in us our Author hath therefore found it necessary to make the subjects of the Propositions different though there needs no more where the Judgment is not forestalled and the mind under a chosen Occecation than the meer inspection of the Paragraph to ascertain the contrary 2 Though the subject of a Proposition may be brought into Debate where it is expressed by a Relative Pronoun yet when one speak's of Himself in the First Person by a Pronoun Demonstrative as the Evangelist introduceth Christ here doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say that he speaks not of Himself is no less than to give him the Lie Words in the common acceptation and stated sense of them being infallible manifestative signs of the Conceptions of the Speaker when the Author is Veracious I would know of Mr. Sherlock that supposing it had been the design of Christ to have told us that by I in you and I in Him he meant himself how he could have done it otherwise or in Terms of a more determined signification What better Evidence can we have of the sense of a Place than that had an Author intended such a meaning he could have used no plainer Expression to declare it 3 The I in you v. 4. is the same with the I that had spoken to them and through whose Word they were made clean v. 3. Now to think that this could be the Doctrine of Christ or any other than Christ himself is a Non-sensical Imagination What friendship our Author hath for the Religion of Christ I cannot tell but that he expounds Scripture at a high rate of confidence to the derogation of his Person is by the Instance before us too plain evident Nor do we Thirdly in the Question under consideration understand by Christ the Church of Christ. I shall
Nations 3 dly Because a person may be cast out from actual Communion with the whole visible Church and yet remain a disciple of Christ and a true Believer And that this hath been the lot of some of the best servants of God might be made manifest in diverse Instances if it were either necessary or lay now before me 4 Because no adult person especially such as are not sprung of Christian and Covenant-parents either hath or can plead a right of admission into the visible Church of Christ who both doth not live to God and of whose so doing there is not some previous Moral Certainty and Evidence Interest in Christ by Faith is the Foundation of all that Interest which any Man rightfully hath in the Church as a Member of it It is through a Relation and habitude to Him as our Vital Head that we come to be knit together as Members of the same Body So far is our Communion with the Church from being the Fountain and spring of our Holiness that as it s our being Holy that entitles us to the Communion with the Church before God so it is our seeming to be so that entitles us to her communion before Men. So that upon the whole our Authors Gloss of the Churches being understood by the True Vine proving contradictious to it self repugnant to the Reason of Mankind in the measures by which they judg concerning the sense of a Proposition as well as inconsistent with and irreconcileable to the Context and withal Novel I hope he will find few Proselytes to it and fewer Advocates for it And as the Arguments upon which he hath built it are no other than vain and trifling Pretences so the most plausible of them have been already replyed to and the futilousness of the rest shall hereafter if necessity do so require be made manifest I shall shut up this with Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase of the Text whom I suppose none of the Conforming-Clergy will either upbraid with Ignorance or deny him to equal Mr. Sherlock both in the knowledg of Divinity and the Docttrine of the Church of England I am the True Vine and my Father is the Husband Man is thus Glossed by him I am the True Generous Fruit bearing Vine Jer. 22.1 my Blood as the blood of the Grape shall Rejoyce the Heart of God and Man Jud. 9.12 And my Father who hath thus planted me in this World here below hath the whole ordering of all that belong to me and every Branch every Believer every Member of my Mistical Body And accordingly he understands our abiding in the Vine ver 5. to be in the Virtue of Grace communicated from Christ to us Having discharged the Church and the Doctrine of the Gospel from being signified by the Name Christ as that Word and Name denotes the Term to which Believers are united it remains that we declare what is the true import and just meaning of it with respect to the room it hath in the present Question And here by the Name of Christ we understand the person of Christ nor is any thing else intended properly by it in the whole Gospel Supposing that secondarily and in way of Trope it occur sometimes used to imply the Doctrine of the Gospel and may be sometimes to signify the Christian Church yet that primarily and properly it doth not denote the Person of Christ is a blasphemous wild Imagination That Christ is a Person was never denied by any unless it be the Quakers who neither know what the Idea of Person is which they deny him to be nor what themselves intend in the acknowledgment they make of Him The Arrians and Socinians deny the Divinity of his Person the Manichees of old disclaimed the real Manhood of His Person The Nestorians asserted two Persons in him as well as two Natures but that he was a Person some one way or other hath been always granted till a Generation hath of late arisen who neither understand whereof they speak nor what they renounce But the Enquiry is What we mean by the person of Christ to which Believers must be united And this we are obliged the rather to declare our selves about seeing Mr. Sherlock is pleased to Character us as having here out-done all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez Pag. 200. First then By the Person of Christ we understand more than his being a meer Man There are a sort of Gentlemen who though they own the Personality of Christ yet they wholly renounce the Divinity of His Person And to give them their due 't is upon the supposition of his being a meer Man that they allow him to be only a Political Head to his Members Nor is this any thing but a just pursuance of their former Principle for not admitting Him to be God 't is impossible that he should be a Head in respect of Vital Influences to any And I wish that among the many Expositions of Scripture-Texts which our Author hath transcribed from them he had not in complyance with them perversely sensed even such places wherein their design is to undermine the Deity of the Son of God I would not be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his Glosses of Col. 1.19 Col. 2.3 and 2.8 Joh. 14.20 Joh. 1.14 which are the very same that the Socinians impose upon those places be admitted we have some of the main proofs of it wrested out of our hands Secondly Though by the Person of Christ to whom we are United we understand more than a meer man yet we also affirm that he is truly and properly a Man As we do not Un-God him with the Arians and Socinians so neither do we Un-man him with the Marcionites and Manichees As he is truly and Essentially God and not meerly styled so upon the account of his wonderful Conception the Sanctity of His Life His Power of working Miracles His Resurection from the Dead His Rule and Care over the Church and the like so He is as truly and essentially Man having assumed the whole and entire Humane Nature with whatsoever belongs to it as a necessary Affection or Adjunct He had both a true Organical Body and was not a meer Spectrum or Phantasm in the shape and form only of a Man as Marcion and Manes blasphemously imagined and had also a true Humane Rational Soul nor was the Deity meerly instead thereof supplying its Office to the Body as Apollinaris with equal folly and perversness asserted Thirdly We do by the Person of Christ to which we are United intend and understand more than his God-head and Man-hood abstractedly and separately considered And if this be The outdoing all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez which our Author Chargeth us with that we have found out a Person for Christ in this sense distinct from his God-head and Man-hood we think not to have done would have been as far from Wit as Truth A deep and mysterious Doctrine
we are copulated to Him then not only sincere Believers but the most obdurate sinners providing only they receive the Eucharist should be united to Him Admitting the Popish Hypothesis I neither see of what advantage Faith is to one Communicant nor of what damage Infidelity can be to another but that the whole of both their securities depends upon this that their Stomacks be not queasy and that they have a good digestion 'T is but to swallow the consecrated Host and Christ and they are one whether they partake of the Spirit of the new Birth or not Either Pauls assertion of some mens eating damnation to themselves is false or else the Popish Notion of our being united to Christ by the eating of his Flesh under the Species and Accidents of a white Wafer is so and which of these is most likely to deserve that Brand I leave to the umpirage of all Christians 2 Were this the Foundation and Bond of Union betwixt Christ and his Members there should then be none United to Him but such as have first been made partakers of the Eucharist which is so remote from all shadow of Truth that on the contrary none ought to approach the sacred Table but they who are first sincere Christians 'T is true their pretending to be so if their claim cannot be disproved obligeth Ministers to admit them but yet it is only their being so that authoriseth them to come 'T is sincere Love and Gospel-Faith that God prerequires of all his Guests though his Stewards are often necessitated to take up with professions of them Although the Sacraments be necessary necessitate praecepti and cannot be neglected by any without guilt yet they are not so necessary necessitate Medii but that God hath and can communicate his Grace independently upon them 3 Were there no other bond of our Union with Christ save that which the Church of Rome suggests our Cohesion to Christ were a very lubricous thing and not such an indissoluble Ligue as the Scripture reports it For the Foundation of Oneness ceasing the Relation superstructed thereupon must cease also Union can hold no longer than the unition upon which it results and from which it emergeth holds now this according to the Romanists continues no longer than till the Form Figure and other Accidents of the consecrated Wafer dissolve and vanish So that instead of an abiding conjunction with Christ a little time unties the knot and the incorporation of Christians with Him comes to nothing 4 Were our Carnal and Corporal eating the Body of Christ the Medium of betwixt Him and us I do not see but that Mice and Rats c. may come to be united to Him as well as Believers For that these through the Priests neglect or by some accident or other may snatch up swallow down the consecrated Wafer is a thing easily conceivable there are instances enough of it and by consequence all that is necessary to the Relation of Union intervening betwixt Christ and them the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self must ensue also I shall only add upon this occasion that Minutius Felix's argument in disproof of the Heathen Gods doth with equal strength militate against the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist The Mice Swallows and Crows saith he know better than you Pagans what your Gods are For by gnawing and sitting upon them and being ready to nest in their Mouths if you did not drive them away they know that they have neither sense nor understanding 5 Though I be not forward to concern the Authority of Scripture to confute senseless and irrational Notions reckoning it a condescension to encounter them with Reason and holding it a disparagement put upon the sacred Oracles to call in their Suffrage where Sense alone can give the decision yet I cannot but here observe that our Lord Jesus Christ even there where he most seemingly speaks in Favour of a Carnal eating of his Flesh viz. John 6. hath in words hugely Emphatical said enough to prevent such a Gross stupid and unreasonable Imagination For besides that not a word of that whole discourse relates to feeding upon Christ in the Eucharist as is acknowledged by the most learned of the Roman Writers we have in the preface to it ver 35.40 and in the conclusion of it ver 63. a key afforded us to unlock the whole and to assure that it is not only to be taken in a spiritual sense but that a fleshly eating of the Son of man would conduce nothing to our Good 'T is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life § 9. Having declared that whatever the Nature and Quality of our Union with Christ and what ever the Medium by which it is accomplished be that it is the Person of Christ which we are United to and having also declared that it implies something more than a meer participating of the same specifick Humane Nature and having just now manifested that it consists not in a mixture of Christs bodily substance through our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Carnal and Corporeal Manner with ours The next thing to be disclaim'd from all room and Interest in the Idea of it is its being a Personal Union And this I am the rather obliged to do because Mr. Sherlock with little regard to Truth and as little consistency with himself tells the World That we place all our hopes of Salvation in a personal Union with Christ. A slander so enormous and so void of any colour by which it may be glossed that to what I should impute our Authors charging it upon us I cannot tell Ignorance it cannot be ascribed to seeing Dr. Jacomb whom Mr. Sherlock hath particularly singled out to oppose in this Theme not only barely disclaims but refutes it and seeing our Author himself acknowledgeth else-where that it is only an Union of Persons and not a Personal Union which we plead for p. 198. 293. And to attribute it to a wilful Falsification were to arraign him of a Crime which I would be loath to judge any Man pretending Justice and Honesty much less a Minister of the Gospel guilty of I would rather therefore think it the result of some deduction unduely and illogically drawn from Innocent principles or that he took it up in discourse from some of those who for their diversion throw out accusations against us at adventure than that he either judged it to be held by us in Terminis or that he should fasten it upon us in meer Malice only that he might the better expose us However this in Modesty may be required of him that the next time he writes he would either acquit the Nonconformists from the guilt of this charge or else enforce it by express quotations extracted out of their Books or by lawful Trains of Argumentation from some of their avowed Doctrines
and Opinions But to resume my Theme That a person may by Philosophy and Contemplation attain such a degree of Union with God as to know and understand things by a contactus and conjunction of substance with the Deity hath been asserted both by the Platonick some of the Aristotelian Philosophers The passages which occur in Plotinus Porphyrius Jamblichus and Proclus all great and famous Platonists of such a tendency are numerous and need not to be here transcribed The possibility of arriving by Contemplation at the knowledg of the first and supreme cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a kind of bodily touch is asserted in those Fragments of Metaphysicks Fathered upon Theophrastus the Disciple of Aristotle and the immediate Successor in his School The same Imagination became espoused by the Arabian Philosophers especially by Averroes a great adorer of Aristotle and who hath signalized himself by his Commentaries upon him Had this Notion been only entertain'd by Contemplative Heathens I should not have taken notice of it but it was imbib'd and that very timely by Persons professing Christianity Origen seems to have been one of those that were first tainted with it and to have received it with many other Platonick Dogms with which he corrupted the Truth and simplicity of the Gospel either from Ammonius the Renowned Professor of Platonism at Alexandria whose Schollar he was or from some more ancient Patrons and Advocates of that Sect. From Origen the Ancient Monks derived the Ferment leaven of it The counterfeit Dionysius Areopagita for that he was not truly the Person whose Name he assumes and that he lived not till about the Sixt Century or at least the Fift hath been demonstrated by Scultetus Rivetus Daillaeus and is acknowledged by Petavius appears by the whole of his Discourse de Mystica Theologia to have been dipt in that Mad and Frantick Notion From all or some of these it spread among the Romish Monasticks I mean such of them as are called Mystick Theologues Nothing more frequent with that sort of men than a tattle of an Intime Union with God whereby the soul becomes Deified And from them the Weigelians and Familists borrowed their Magnificent language of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ. The adventurous determinations of the School-men concerning the Beatifical Vision smell rank of the same Blasphemous Nonsensical figment For by their contending that the Divine Essence is immediatly united as an Intelligible species to the Intellect of the Blessed and that this species and the Glorified Understanding do not remain distinct things but become identified they do in effect affirm the soul to be Transubstantiated into God and to be really Deified And seeing 't is a Matter of easie demonstration that the knowledg which we shall enjoy of God in Heaven differeth only in degree from that which we possess here otherwise 't is both altogether unintelligible and uncapable of rational explication it will follow by a short Harangue of discourse either that Believers have no knowledge of God in this life or else that their souls become Deified and essentially United to God by knowing Him I need not name the admired Non-sense and high-flown Cantings of the Quakers which carry a broad fac'd aspect this way That which we have suggested is enough to instruct us out of what springs they and other Wild Enthusiasts have drawn the putid conceits which they propine to the World But as to the Persons whom Mr. Sherlock censures for placing all their hopes of Salvation in a Personal Union with Christ I dare not only say that they renounce any such Union but that there is nothing in their Principles which consequentially leads to it If our Doctrine of Believers Union with the Person of Christ cannot be defended without introducing a Personal Union with Him we profess our selves ready to disclaim it and do assure all the World that if it harbour any such thing in its bosom our meaning is not so bad as our Opinion We believe the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers to remain distinct after all the Union that intercedes between them We are thankful for the Influences of his Grace and the inhabitation of his Spirit but we detest those swelling words of Pride and Ignorance of being Christed and Deified Whatsoever be the Nature and kind of the Union between Christ and Christians is a Hypostatical Union it cannot without Blasphemy be imagined to be For admitting once a Personal Union it will immediately follow that Christ and They are but one Person As two drops of water which existing apart made distinct supposita coming to be Physically United make but one Physical Body substance and suppositum so two or more subsisting Intellectual substances which considered separate are so many Persons do by Personal Union come to have one singular subsistence and to make but one Person Now to imagine this of Christ Believers interfere's with all that Reason which as Men we are possessed of To be One Person with Christ and yet to be locally distant is a thing which our Discursive Faculties will style a Contradiction Seeing similitude and Identity are opposite Notions and our highest attainment is only to resemble Christ it is impossible that by any Union whatsoever we should become one Individual Numerical Person with Him Innocency and guilt Legal Merit and Demerit not to mention other Innumerable Adjuncts do too vastly disagree to center in the same Individual subject or to be predicable of the same Identical Intellectual Being To be made One real Physical Person with Christ is an Hypothesis attended with such a troop of Absurdities that he neither understands what Christ nor himself is who gives it entertainment They are rather to be encountred with an Anathema who espouse such a blasphemous figment than to be combated with Rational Arguments nor should I have further concerned my self about it than barely to disclaim it but that we have to do with some who will not believe us unless we disprove it also And indeed it seems to have been an apprehension of the Non-conformists owning a Personal Union with Christ which influenced Mr. Sherlock to tell the World that it is not very intelligible how we can be or abide in the Person of Christ and that 't is more unintelligible still how we can be in the Person of Christ and the Person of Christ at the same time be in us which is a new piece of Philosophy called Penetration of Dimensions In reference to which I shall only say that as our Author's supposition so far as it relates to the Opinion of the Non-conformists is both false and disingenuous so the Medium by which he assaults the thing supposed viz. A personal Union is weak sophistical For as the preexisting Corpuscles of Matter do without any Penetration or without ceasing to be entitatively as distinct as they were before come to constitute one Physical Body meerly by being copulated together and
No particular Christian is the Body of Christ but only a Member in his Body Christ is called a Husband but then the whole Church or Society of Christians not every particular Christian is his Spouse as St. Paul tells the Church of Corinth 2 Cor. 11.2 Christ is a Shepherd and the Christian Church is his Flock Joh. 10. For the Relation between a Shepherd and Sheep doth primarily concern the whole Flock Christ is the Rock upon which his Church is built the chief corner stone and the Christian Church a Holy Temple so that all those Metaphors in their first and proper use refer to the whole Society of Christians and are designed to represent the Union between Christ and his Church To this I answer 1. That were this discourse of our Author fram'd into a Syllogism the incongruity between the conclusion and the premises would easily appear For example Christ is the Head of his Church Ergo no particular Believer is united to him but by means of their Uinion with the Church I deny the consequent surely though the King be Immediate Head to the whole Kingdom yet he is also Immediate Head to every Individual person in it Mr. Sherlocks Logick is like that of Chrysippus which men were too dull to understand though they say the Gods would have used it 2. The Church and its Individual Members being of an homogeneous Nature whatsoever is predicated essentially of the whole is equally predicable of every part 3. The Holy Ghost plainly affirms that it is between Christ and the Church as it is between the Head and Members of the same Natural Body And therefore as not only the whole Body hath influence in the disposal of it self and in the discharge of its Functions from the Head but also every particular Member hath influences of life and strength from thence so Christ is not only an Immediate Head of Direction and Rule to the whole Church but to every Individual Believer in it Whatever the Habitude of Pastors Teachers be to their particular Churches to which they are related and to the Members of which these Churches are constituted yet it is to the Word of God as the Rule of conduct by which Christ under the Notion of a Political Head governs his Church that every Individual Believer is to attend 4. Though our Author informs us that he hath almost pored out his eyes in searching the Scripture in order to his being enlightned about this and some other Notions yet I must take leave either to question the matter of Fact or to suspect that his sight was not good before or that his visible Faculty was strangely tinctured For the Apostle whose Authority and Testimony may I hope be allowed to rival Mr. Sherlocks tells us that as the whole Church is Christs Body so we are all Members in particular of Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 and that the whole Body is joyned to Christ by the conjunction which every Member hath with him 1 Cor. 12.12 And that Christ is not only a Husband to the whole Church but that he is so to every Christian appears by this seeing not only the particular Church of Corinth is said to be Espoused to Him 2 Cor. 11.2 but every Individual Believer among the Romans is also represented as Married to him Rom. 7.4 Neither do they only report him to be the Foundation Rock and corner Stone of the Church taken Collectively but likewise in its distributive acceptation 1 Pet. 2.5 Eph. 2.19 20 21 22. Thus having not only defeated the strength and force of his first objection but improved the Medium from which he musters it to subvert the cause in whose defence it was brought I proceed now to the second That the Union of particular Christians with Christ consists in their Union with the Christian Church the Sacraments which our Saviour hath instituted as Symbols of our Union with him are says he a plain demonstration Our first undertaking of Christianity is represented in our Baptism wherein we make a publick profession of our Faith in Christ and it is sufficiently known that Baptism is the Sacrament of our admission into the Christian Church c. Thus the Lords Supper is a Sacrament of Union and signifies the near Conjunction that is between Christ and the Christian Church and the mutual Fellowship of one Christian with another c. For answer whether the Sacraments import any more than a Political Union between Christ and Believers I shall wave till anon and only consider them at present as brought in proof of Christians being united to Christ by means of their Union with the Christian Church And truly if these be the weapons with which Mr. Sherlock thinks to captivate and subdue the minds of men to espouse his Notion he must either only encounter those that court their own Bondage or there will be few found following the Chariot wheels of our Hero Instead of any slaughter he is like to make amongst the Non-conformists by these Forces he only wounds himself and overthrows his own cause by them And first as to the Argument drawn from Baptism I reply these four things 1. Baptism is neither the Medium of our Union with the Catholick Visible Church nor that by which we formally become Members of a particular Instituted Church Not the latter seeing it is not only possible that a Person may be Baptised where there are not enough to form an Instituted particular Church but it may be sometimes found necessary to deny the Priviledg of Membership in an Instituted even to such as have been Baptized Yea before any particular Churches were erected there were Baptised Christians it being of such that the first Christian Churches were constituted Not the Former forasmuch as a Person may be of the Universal Visible Church and yet not be Baptised Nor is this a Chimaerical Imagination for there have been many who partly through want of opportunity to enjoy the Ordinance of Baptism partly upon other Motives though they are not justifiable have denyed themselves the Mercy of the Baptismal Laver and yet to suppose that thereupon they are not Christians is to renounce all exercise of Charity and to involve our selves under the guilt of condemning those whom the Lord hath received 2. Were Baptism as well the Medium as the Symbol of our Union with the Christian Church yet it doth not follow that we are only United to Christ by means of our Union with the Church And the reason is plain seeing none ought to be admitted to Baptism I speak of adult persons but such who are antecedently judged to be Christians Act. 8.37 Now to reckon any one a Christian who doth not before-hand own the Authority of Jesus Christ in the belief of his Doctrines and an avowed subjection to his Laws which is the Bond of our Political Union is no less than a contradiction 3. Our owning the Authority of Christ which is the Vinculum of our Political Union with
we contend for he could not have chosen Terms more plain full and Emphatical to declare it than those by which he hath expressed it in the foregoing places And the same subtilties that are used to persuade the World that what we alledg is not the true meaning of them would equally serve to pervert their sense were that the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them which we affirm There are two passages which I reckon eminently manifestative of the Intimate Conjunction that is between Christ and Christians which I shall at this time borrow some Light from and reflect some upon in reference to the Matter before us The first is that of Paul Heb. 3.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of ou◠confidence stedfast unto the End I know that Modern Interpreters do generally suppose the name Christ to be taken here Metonymically viz. for the benefit of Christs Mediation but I judg that the Apostle intends a great deal more by our partaking of Christ than meerly so The Syriack renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are mingled i. e. united to Christ. Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is it to be partakers of Christ He and we are made One He the Head we the Body Coheirs and Incorporated with Him And accordingly he makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of our confidence to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith by which says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are begotten and consubstantiated with him i. e. intimately and truly United to Him That an Union with Christ by some tye and ligature beyond what a bare owning of his Authority denotes is here intended in our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being made partakers of Christ the use of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the same Apostle from whence the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes induceth me to believe When Paul would express Christs participating of the Humane Nature or of Flesh and Blood he doth it in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems clearly to conduct us to the meaning of the expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are now upon As he became no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by the assumption of our Nature into Union with his Divine person so we do no otherwise become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by participation of the same spirit that inhabited the Humane Nature of Christ which is the Bond and Medium of that Union which we plead for between Christ and Christians The other expression which I judg declarative of a higher Union between Christ and us than what a Political Relation doth imply is his being styled our Life Life is said to be in Christ not only formally as in its subject but causally as in its fountain Nor is he only called the Word of Life and the Prince of Life but he is expresly said to be our Life Col. 3.4 And Paul witnesseth of himself that he lived through Christs living in Him Gal. 2.20 Now that he should be styled our Life meerly with reference to his bringing Life and Immortality to light in the Gospel is too jejune a sense to sustain the weight of the Phrase I do not deny but that the Gospel is the Word of Life and that it is so styled in the Scripture Nor do I bring into debate Christs being in a proper and eminent sense the alone Author as well as the Subject of it Only I affirm that the making his revealing the Gospel which discovers the Glad Tidings of Life and the Terms of it to be the only reason of the Appellation given to him which we are now discoursing is to impose a Notion upon the expression which is too scanty and narrow to answer the Majesty and Grandeur of it And as the Context even to any who do but superficially view it will not admit this to be its full import so the Apostles expression of Christs living in him which seems a commentary and paraphrase upon it doth plainly overthrow this from being the sense of it Nor will it suffice to say that he is our Life in a Moral sense because our Life of Grace here and of Glory hereafter are owing to the Sacrafice of his Death as their procuring cause 'T is true that both our Holiness and Happiness respect Christs Meritorious Life and Death as their price but yet this neither comes up to the Loftiness nor exhausts the fulness of that expression He is our Life much less is there any thing in this Gloss that bears affinity to his living in us The only sense which bears a proportion to the Words is this That as Natural life proceeds from and must be ascribed to the Soul as its spring principle so all spiritual Life is owing to Christ as immediately acting us by his quickning Spirit Of our selves saith the Learned Bishop Reynolds we are without strength without love without life no power no liking no possibility to do good nor any principle of Holiness or Obedience in us 'T is Christ that strengthens us that wins us that quickens us by his Spirit to his Service Christ is the Principle and Fountain of Holiness as the Head is of sense or motion And this he maketh to be one eminent part of the meaning of that place He that hath the Son hath Life 1 Joh. 5.12 though Mr. Sherlock is not only pleased to tell us that it signifies no such thing but treats those who do so paraphrase it with words full of contempt and scorn But to resume what I was upon forasmuch as no Vital Principle doth or can operate but as it is united to the subject that is to be quickned by it Christ being then the Principle of our spiritual life there must be an Union of Christ with us as the spring and foundation of his Influence upon us No one thing can be supposed the principle and source of life to another without admitting a previous Union between them The third and last Argument whereby Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of a Political Union may be combated and if I mistake not utterly defeated is levied from the Vinculum and Bond by which the Scripture reports Christ and Believers to be copulated and brought into cohesion one with another As every Union implies such a Relation in the virtue whereof there resulteth an Oneness between the connected Extremes so as the Nature and Quality of the Unitive Principle or Cement is such is the Genius of the Union it self and of the oneness that thereupon emergeth Now by consulting the Scripture which alone ought to regulate and bound our conceptions in the Matter before us we find the Spirit to be the Vital Ligature of the conjunction and coherence that is between Christ and Christians The very Spirit that resides in Christ being communicated to us we do thereby in a secret but sublime and real manner become knit and ligu'd
be rendred more easie and familiar for our minds to contemplate and that our Faith concerning them may be promoted and assisted by their being represented to us under obvious and sensible Images We have also elsewhere intimated that where the Terms are Metaphorick yet the Truths intended and expressed by them are Real And as to that which we are now upon 't is highly remarkable that there being no one kind of Union in Nature which serveth fully to illustrate the Union betwixt Christ and Christians that therefore the Holy Ghost hath sought to enlighten it by Similitudes and Resemblances transferred and borrowed from all sorts of Unions For as Chrysostom well observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ Unites us to himself by many paterns And it is worth taking notice of that having given us a List and Collection of some of them he shuts up the whole with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all these things declare an Union between Christ Believers such an one as will not admit the least thing to come between them Had our Oneness with Christ been only represented by the Relation between a Shepherd and Sheep the Conjunction between a Husband Wife or the habitude between a Prince and his Subjects there might have been some probability in Mr. Sherlocks Notion but being also represented by resemblances drawn from Natural and Artificial Union as the Insition of branches into their root the copulation of Members to their Vital Head the incorporation of concocted Food with our pre-existent Flesh the cohesion of a building by a strong cement to its Foundation and the confederation of the Vital Soul with the Organick Body There must be a sublimer kind of Union between Christ and Christians than meerly what a Political Relation doth import Christ is the Vine we are the Branches He is the Vital Head we the enlivened Members He is the Living Foundation Stone to whom we as lively Stones are cemented I may confidently say that there is not any Analogy between what is originally signified by these Metaphors and the thing aimed at and designed by them if only a Political Relation between Christ and Christians is to be understood The Gospel-Method and Form is the most obscure and improper way in the World of teaching the Truth of things if all these Tropical phrases imply no more but that Christians acknowledg Christ for their Legislator and obey him as their Soveraign Grand expressions and magnificent Terms in Subjects that require Low are an argument of no great discretion in a common Author And to imagine that in the Scripture petty things should be declared in Forms that are august lofty and Emphatical is to think diminutively of the divine Wisdom In a word if there be no more intended under all those Symbolick expressions which we have mentioned but that Believers own the Authority of Jesus Christ by believing his Doctrines and submitting to his Laws then we wonderfully expose the Gospel to contempt by telling the World that under a grandeur of words and Hyperbolical expressions things of a mean and low sense are to be apprehended and conceived I shall only urge this from two other Pattern Unions to which the Scripture in the shadowing forth and illustrating the Oneness between Christ and Christians signally alludes The first of these Symbolical Unions is that of the association and adhesion of the component particles corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and compacted For as the Apostle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing 't is one Loaf of which we partake we are therefore one Body viz. in Christ who participate of that one Loaf 1 Cor. 10.17 Picherellus well observes that Paul doth not say we are One Loaf or Bread though our Translation render it so but that he argues from the coalition of the clusters of the small corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and contexed to the identity and Oneness that intervenes between Christ and Believers And accordingly Beza translates it As the Loaf of which we all eat is one so we partaking of that One Loaf although we be many are but One Body to Christ. Thus also Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What is that Loaf It is the Body of Christ viz. Sacramentally what are those who partake of it They are the Body of Christ not many Bodies but One. For as the many grains of which a Loaf is form'd are so conven'd into one Mass that the distinction and diversity of one from another doth not appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same manner are we conjoyned to Christ and one another in 1 Cor. Hom. 24. The cohesion of the many little parts of Flour of which one and the same Individual Loaf is kneaded and compacted being that which the Apostle declares and illustrates our conjunction with Christ by it plainly follows that our Conjunction to him must be of another kind than what a bare Political Relation doth import The second Pattern Union I shall at present argue from is the Oneness betwixt the Father and Son in the blessed Trinity At that day ye shall know saith Christ to his Disciples that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Joh 1.14 20. I pray that they all be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us c. Joh. 17.21 I readily grant that 't is not an Oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Christians an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Weigelians wildly and blasphemously imagine that is here to be understood Nor doth the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always signifie sameness but is often used to denote similitude and likeness as Matth. 9.48 Luk. 6.36 But yet upon the other hand I deny that 't is meerly an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an Oneness of Will and affection between the Father and Son as the Arians and Socinians pretend that is here meant Nor indeed can there be an Oneness of Will and an universal Consent and Agreement in Design and Affections where there is not previously either a Specifick or a Numerical Oneness of Nature An attendance to other Texts such as Joh. 10.30 Joh. 14. 9 10. 1 Joh. 5.9 where the same phrases occurr will best resolve us what kind of Oneness between the Father and Son we are here to understand And certainly unless we will betray the Gospel and the Faith of Christians into the hands of their worst Enemies 't is an Essential Unity that is there meant Now though we plead not for the same kind of Oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and Son yet we affirm that somthing more sublime than barely a Political Relation between Him and Them is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us 'T is not a sameness of Union between Christ and Christians with that betwixt the Father and Son which the Holy Ghost intends by