gather'd arguments against the Christians from all the different Sects and Hypotheses of Philosophy though inconsistent one argument with another and brought objections too from the Old Testament which they did not believe against the New one which they were engaged by all methods to oppose In our present Discourse therefore we shall endeavour to refute these modern adversaries under their double shape and character first as they are mere Deists or Pagans renouncing all Revelation and the very notion of the Messias and secondly as they fight under Jewish colours so as admitting there be a promised Messias the Saviour of the world yet men ought to reject the person of Iesus and still to wait for another And first we shall consider them in the quality of Deists and Disciples of mere natural Reason We profess our selves as much concerned and as truly as themselves are for the use and authority of Reason in controversies of Faith We look upon right Reason as the native lamp of the soul placed and kindled there by our Creator to conduct us in the whole course of our judgments and actions True Reason like its divine Author never is it self deceived nor ever deceives any man Even Revelation it self is not shy nor unwilling to ascribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the test and testimony of Reason Sound Reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser metals Revelation truly divine from imposture and enthusiasm So that the Christian Religion is so far from declining or fearing the strictest trials of Reason that it every-where appeals to it is defended and supported by it and indeed cannot continue in the Apostle's description pure and undefiled without it 'T is the benefit of Reason alone under the providence and spirit of God that we our selves are at this day a Reformed Orthodox Church that we departed from the errors of Popery and that we knew too where to stop neither running into the extravagancies of Fanaticism nor sliding into the indifferency of Libertinism Whatsoever therefore is inconsistent with natural Reason can never be justly imposed as an Article of Faith That the same Body is in many places at once that plain Bread is not Bread such things though they be said with never so much pomp and claim to infallibility we have still greater authority to reject them as being contrary to common sense and our natural faculties as subverting the foundations of all Faith even the grounds of their own credit and all the principles of civil life So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the dignity and authority of Reason but then we differ with them about the exercise of it and the extent of its province For the Deists there stop and set bounds to their Faith where Reason their only guide does not lead the way further and walk along before them We on the contrary as Moses was shewn by divine power a true sight of the promised Land though himself could not pass over to it so we think Reason may receive from Revelation some further discoveries and new prospects of things and be fully convinced of the reality of them though it self cannot pass on nor travel those regions cannot penetrate the fund of those truths nor advance to the utmost bounds of them For there is certainly a wide difference between what is contrary to Reason and what is superior to it and out of its reach To give an instance in created Nature how many things are there whose being we cannot doubt of though unable to comprehend the manner of their being so That the human soul is vitally united to the Body by a reciprocal commerce of action and passion this we all consciously feel and know and our adversaries will affirm it Let them tell us then what is the chain the cement the magnetism what they will call it the invisible tie of that union whereby Matter and an incorporeal Mind things that have no similitude nor alliance to each other can so sympathize by a mutual league of motion and sensation No they will not pretend to that for they can frame no conceptions of it They are sure there is such an union from the operations and effects but the cause and the manner of it are too subtle and secret to be discovered by the eye of Reason 't is mystery 't is divine magick 't is natural miracle If then in created beings they are content with us to confess their ignorance of the modes of existence without doubting of things themselves have not we much more reason to be humble and modest in speculations about the essence of God about the reasons of His counsels and the ways of His actions yes certainly under those circumstances we may believe with Reason even things above and beyond Reason For example If we have sure ground to believe that such a book is the Revelation of God and we find in it Propositions expressed in plain words of a determinate sense without ambiguity so as they cannot be otherwise interpreted by any just metaphor or fair construction allowed in common language we say we have sufficient reason to assent to those propositions as divine doctrines and infallible truths so far as they are declared there though perhaps we cannot our selves comprehend nor demonstrate to others the reasons and the manner of them Neither is this an easy credulity or unworthy of the most cautious and morose searcher of truth For observe we do not say Any thing incomprehensible to Reason is separate and alone a proper object of belief but as it is supported and establish'd by some other known and comprehensible truth As if Abraham had been told by some ordinary Man That in His and Sarah's decrepit age he should be blessed with a Son this Promise so alone without its basis to stand on could not have challeng'd his assent because the thing was impossible in the way of Nature But since it was God Almighty with whom all things are possible that was the author of that Promise by the mediation of that certain truth the veracity and omnipotence of God without hesitation he believed and so obtain'd the glory to be Father of the faithfull And upon the same grounds the Blessed Virgin gave credit to the salutation of the Angel though the message in it self seem'd impossible to reason So true it is that Reason it self warrants us to proceed and advance by Faith even beyond the sphere and regions of Reason We agree then with our adversaries about the authority of Reason but we dissent about the exercise of it and the bounds of its jurisdiction We believe even the abstrusest Mysteries of the Christian Religion of which mysteries perhaps we can assign no reasons but for our belief we assign a good one Because they are plainly taught in the word of God who can neither err nor deceive And this we affirm to be a reasonable conclusion though it carry
Of Revelation and the Messias A SERMON Preached at the Publick Commencement AT CAMBRIDGE Iuly 5 th 1696. By RICHARD BENTLEY D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary and Library Keeper to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by I. H. for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1696. 1 PET. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the Hope that is in you BY the Hope that is in us we do understand here as in other places of Scripture not only the bare Hope strictly so called but the Faith too of a Christian. Whence it is that in the Syriac version of the text and in some ancient Latin copies the word Faith is added to the other the hope and the Faith that is in you And indeed if we consider Hope as a natural passion we shall find it to be always attended and ussher'd in by Faith For 't is certain there is no Hope without some antecedent Belief that the thing hoped for may come to pass and the strength and steadiness of our Hope is ever proportional to the measure of our Faith It appears therefore why the word Hope in the text may with sufficient propriety of speech comprehend the whole Faith of a Christian and that when the Apostle exhorts us to be ready always to answer every man that asks the reason of our Hope 't is the same as if he injoined us to be never unprepared nor unwilling to reply to any doubts or questions about the grounds of the Christian Faith At the date of this Epistle the whole World with relation to the text might be consider'd under one general division Jews and Gentiles First the Jews To whom the Oracles of God were committed and who from thence had the information and expectation of the Messias These when they asked a Christian the reason of his Hope were themselves already persuaded that the Messias would come and the only controversie between them was Whether Iesus was He according to the message of Iohn the Baptist Was Iesus he that should come or must they look for another Secondly the Gentiles who having no means of knowledge besides mere natural Reason could have no notions nor notices of this expected Messias These therefore when they demanded the reason of a Christian's Hope were first to be acquainted with the purpose and promise of God to send the Messias were to be instructed about the reasons and designs of that great embassy about his quality and office and all the circumstances of his Person and then was the proper time to shew That Iesus was He that the description of the Messias was truly exhibited and represented in His character and the ancient prophecies all accomplish'd in His actions and events 'T is not for nothing that the Apostle so presseth this advice in the text Be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in you As if he had foretold That there would be no age of the Christian world wherein this preparation would be superfluous It hath pleas'd the divine Wisdom never yet to leave Christianity wholly at leasure from opposers but to give its professors that perpetual exercise of their industry and zeal And who can tell if without such adversaries to rouse and quicken them they might not in long tract of time have grown remiss in the duties and ignorant in the doctrines of Religion Perhaps before this time even some of the Records of it might have perish'd by mens negligence as the Jews had like to have lost their Law if divine Providence had not preserved one copy of it in the Temple It is while men sleep while they live in peace and security and have no enemies to contest with that the great Enemy comes and sowes tares among the wheat But of all the ages since the coming of Christ I suppose this present has least reason to complain for want of work and imployment in defence of Religion Here are not only the two parties in the text Jews and Gentiles still in the world to engage with but even in the midst of Christianity are the most dangerous designs form'd against it as if our Saviour's prediction of particular families were to be verified too of the whole Church That its worst enemies should be they of its own Houshold There are a sort of persons baptized indeed into the Christian Faith and educated in the profession of it but in secret I wish I might say so nay even openly they oppose and blaspheme it repudiating at once the whole authority of Revelation and debasing the sacred Volumes to the rank of ordinary Books of History and Ethicks The being of God and a Providence they profess to believe to acknowledge a difference between Good and Evil to be verily persuaded of another Life to come and to have their expectations of that state as their behaviour is in this Nay even the whole system of Christian Morals they can willingly embrace but not as a collection of divine Statutes and Ordinances sent us by an express from Heaven but only as usefull rules of life discoverable by plain Reason and agreeable to natural Religion So that they cannot see the mighty occasion that should invite even the eternal Son of God from the bosom of the Father to act so mean and calamitous a part upon the stage of this sorry world What need of so great a master to read mankind lectures of Morals which they might easily learn without any teacher 'T is true they are often told of some sublime mysterious doctrines deliver'd by him which they own would ne'er have been thought of by natural Reason But then that is so far from recommending to them the importance of his errand from Heaven that for that very reason they deny the truth of his message For whatever comes imperiously in the name of divine Mystery and soars above the pitch of humane knowledge whatsoever things they cannot fathom and grasp through all the causes designs modes and relations of them as the notion of the Messias his incarnation mediation satisfaction all these they reject and explode as incomprehensible to pure Reason which they set up as the only principle and measure of belief In all this these persons act the part and place themselves in the condition of Gentiles whom we may imagine in the text to ask the reason of a Christians hope since the whole body of these mens Religion is no more than what even Heathens attain'd to the modern Deism being the very same with old Philosophical Paganism only aggravated and damn'd with the additional crime of Apostacy from the Faith But besides this these very persons will on other occasions personate the Jews too those other enquirers suppos'd in the text and dispute with Jewish objections against the Christian Religion though they no more believe the matter of those objections than the thing they object against like Celsus and Iulian of old that
fervour and temerity of Youth the force and the frequency of Temptations and the narrow dubious conconfines between Virtue and Vice and we may pronounce it impossible that any man should so govern his steps through all the lubricous paths of Life as never once to slip and fall from his duty Agreeably to the testimony of Scripture which hath concluded all under sin Gal. 3. 22. and again If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us and again both Iews and Gentiles are all under sin all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Every mouth then be stopp'd and all the world must plead guilty before the tribunal of God for by the deeds of the Law the Law of nature as well as of Moses no flesh can be justified in his sight It is evident then from the principles of pure Reason beside the authority of Scripture that upon the Deists Hypothesis upon the terms of natural Religion no Salvation can be obtain'd no Life and Immortality can be expected For that being the free offer and favour of God he might justly set what price he pleas'd upon it even the greatest that we can possibly pay nothing less than entire obedience than unspotted innocence than consummate virtue Thus far then even Reason evinceth and holds the Lamp to Revelation Some means of Reconciliation between God and Man the Judge and the Offender must be contrived some vicarious satisfaction to justice and model of a new Covenant or else the whole bulk of Mankind are for ever unhappy And surely to prevent that to retrieve a perishing world was a weighty concern even of greater importance than the very creating it and more worthy of the care and consult of Heaven I say the care of Heaven for alas here on Earth what expedient could Man find out How could Dust and Ashes take upon him to speak unto the Lord Could any of the Sons of Adam presume to be advocate for the rest himself one of the criminals himself in want of another advocate and what friend knew we at the court of Heaven of that high power and favour with God as to offer his intercession or so wonderfully kind to Us as to pay our satisfaction We must freely own to the Deist that here Reason was at a stand even Nature her self languish'd between hope and despair and in the stile of the Apostle the whole Creation groan'd and travell'd in pain together when behold what Revelation hath informed and assured us of the eternal Son of the Almighty the brightness of the Paternal Glory and the express image of his Substance even He vouchsafed to be our Patron and Mediator to take our Nature upon him and to dwell among Men to fulfill that Law of righteousness wherein we were deficient to bear our guilt and our burthen upon himself and to offer his most precious blood as an expiation for our offences as the seal of a new Covenant better than the Law of Nature a Covenant of more gracious terms terms of Repentance and Remission of sins so that if we truly believe in Him and sincerely endeavour to observe his Commands our imperfect Righteousness through the merits of his Sufferings shall be imputed accepted and rewarded as if it were an entire obedience to the strict Law of Works and of natural Perfection And now I dare presume to ask even our adversaries themselves what flaws or fallacies they can shew in all this If it be true then that Reason it self discovers such absolute necessity of some way of Reconciliation between God and Man and if it was necessary for Man as being the party concern'd to know the particular way that God did approve and accept of and if mere Reason could never find that out but Revelation alone must and ought to inform us and lastly if such Revelation be actually made attested and promulgated to the world what pretence is there left why we should not believe and acquiesce in it if upon examination it bear all the marks of true Revelation if it contain nothing unworthy of it self and of the wisdom and goodness of its Author And is not the Oeconomy of man's Salvation as it is set forth in Holy Scriptures every way agreeable to that divine character No if we ask our Adversaries 't is an improper and unequal method 't is inconsistent with the justice and impartiality of God Rex Iupiter omnibus idem God say they if he had design'd such an universal benefit for Mankind would have exhibited it equally and indifferently to every Age and Nation alike But the conditions of Salvation proposed in the Gospel are incompetent and much too narrow being restrain'd to those times and countries alone that can hear of the fame of Iesus and believe in his Person And what becomes then of all the former Ages of men before He was born What of those remote Nations ever since that could have no intelligence of him nor hear the least tidings of Iudea and Ierusalem must all those Myriads of Souls perish for invincible ignorance for want of impossible Faith For how could they believe on him of whom they had not heard and how could they hear without a Preacher And why should the God of the whole earth the God that is no respecter of persons no nor of nations be so unaccountably kind so unjustly fond and partial to any single country much less to a little obscure people the Iews scarce heard of in the rest of the world till they were captives and slaves in it and withdraw his paternal love from so many other Nations much more considerable and more worthy of his providence Is he God of the Iews only Is he not also of the Gentile This way of discourse we may expect from the Deists And I hope according to the advice of the text we are both able and ready to give a Reply For first as to that imagined Partiality of God in preferring any one country before the rest of the World to be the Land of Christs Nativity what a poor and contemptible cavil For upon supposition that the Messias of God was to take human nature upon him and be born of a Woman must he not of necessity be born in some one particular Country exclusively to all the rest And is not that then a ridiculous objection against any single Country that may equally be urged against all whatsoever Neither was it mere Fondness in the Deity that he chose the obscure land of Palestine for the birth place of his Son rather than Greece or Italy or Asia the theatres of Art and Learning and the seats of Empire For not to mention Abraham and the Patriarchs whose singular faith and piety justly obtain'd of God that their Posterity should have the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the promises and the consanguinity of Christ it appears also from event that the circumstances of
upon them and breathed a new warmth and vigour through all the powers of Body and Soul when by the influx of divine light the whole scene of Christ's heavenly kingdom was represented to their view so that their hearts were ravished with joy and their imaginations turgid and pregnant with the glorious ideas then surely if ever their stile would be strong and lofty full of allusions to all that is great and magnificent in the kingdoms of this world But then in other passages of the same Prophets as it were on purpose to hint to us the true meaning of the former the Messias is describ'd plainly without poetical colours to be a person of low condition to have no form nor comeliness in him a man acquainted with sorrows and numbred among transgressors and by other characters so clear and express that some of the Jewish Rabbies to elude so strong a conviction have maintain'd and propagated an absurd opinion as if two Messiah's were foretold by the Prophets the one a triumphant monarch and the other an unfortunate and afflicted person What will not perverse and refractary minds take hold of rather than submit to an unwelcome truth It is evident then that the kingdom of Christ so magnified in the Prophetick stile is a spiritual kingdom And yet to be free and ingenuous we must own that the whole nation of the Jews mistook the meaning of those passages Even our Saviour's own disciples were not exempted from the common error And the whole posterity of that people are pertinacious in it to this day which to many is a mighty prejudice against the credit of the Gospel What as if it were such a matter of astonishment that they obstinately adhere to the literal sense which promises them a temporal kingdom with worldly honours and pleasures an interpretation both specious in it self and agreeable to their proud hopes and carnal apprehensions which are miserably defeated and disappointed in Jesus There seems to be nothing so very unnatural and unaccountable in this But then that very Disappointment so far it is from being an objection that to a sagacious mind and uncorrupt judgment it self is a convincing proof that he was truly the Messias For let us reflect upon the state of those times 'T is certain in fact that the whole nation was possest with an inveterate persuasion that the Messias was then a coming And 't is as certain that Iesus the Son of Mary profest himself that Messias Let us argue now upon human reasons and the common principles of action If he was not the true Messias we are then to consider him as an ordinary Jew of mean quality and education Now to give any tolâ—rable account why such a one should pretend himself to be the Messias there are but two ways possible Either he was acted by ambitious designs which he hoped to compass by that impostâ—â—e or by a complexional and natural enthusiasm verily imagining himself to be the Messias I suppose I scarce need to say that both these suppositions are fully confuted by every word and action of his life But what I now observe is this that upon either of those principles whether Ambition or Enthusiasm he would certainly have acted the part of the Messias in such a character as men then asscribed to him according to the popular expectation and the received notion of those times Now the whole Nation expected that the Messias was to be a great General to rescue them from the Roman power and to restore the kingdom to Israel 'T is certain then that upon either of those motives he would have blown the trumpet to rebellion and attempted their deliverance Ambition would have animated him to it as the only way to his hopes and wishes or if Enthusiasm had inspired him what would he not have promised and assumed to himself to fight the battles of the Lord to execute vengeance upon the Heathen to bind their Kings with chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron Such were the designs of Barcocab and some other impostors of old setting up to be the Messias they put their followers in arms and proclaimed liberty to the people Not so the blessed Jesus but when the multitude would have made him their King he withdrew himself even by miracle to avoid it He did not summon to arms but to repentance and newness of life He had a kingdom indeed but not of this earthly Ierusalem but of that which is above He was truly their deliverer but not from the Roman yoke but from the more slavish yoke of the Law from the more wretched bondage to sin and death Was this the air and language of Ambition Was this the meen and spirit of Enthusiasm Nay rather does not Nature her self cry out and declare that for one of his low condition and vulgar education to profess himself the Messias in so surprizing a manner in a character so unthought of by an interpretation of Prophecies so spiritual and divine so infinitely better than the literal meaning against the universal prejudice of the nation and the hopes and sollicitations of his very followers was certainly a thing more than human an invincible testimony that he was really the Christ and his doctrine from God and not of men But our Adversaries have another objection still behind and our answer thereto will put an end both to it and to the present discourse And this objection is borrow'd from the Law of Moses which say they having a promise of eternity annexed to it to be an everlasting covenant a perpetual statute a covenant of an everlasting Priesthood ought of necessity to be continued and confirmed by the true Messias whereas Iesus endeavoured to abolish it and thereby wholly subverted the credit of his own pretensions But we answer in our Saviour's declaration that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it We are to distinguish then between the moral part of the Mosaic Law and the political and ceremonial As to the Rites and Ceremonies 't is apparent they had no intrinsic nor moral holiness in them no natural tendency to promote the happiness of men nay rather they were inconvenient and grievous a yoke of bondage and servile discipline which none were able to bear Even the rewards and penalties which enforced their observation did not naturally flow and result from them as effects from proper causes but they were miraculously added to them by the sole virtue of the divine promise 'T is true they were fit and proper for the ends of their institution to be types and shadows of better things to come to preserve the people from Idolatry by allowing no intercourse nor commerce with other nations But 't is evident for that very reason as well as many more that those ceremonies were neither calculated for eternity nor modelled for mankind in common So that when the reasons of their sanction no longer continued when the things they typically represented were come to pass when the wall of partition was to be removed and according to the Prophecies all nations to be called to Christ and the ends of the earth to be his possession they must needs be antiquated and abolished like scaffolds that are removed when the buildings are finished since under that new state none of them had any further use and several of them became impossible to be observed And so for the Political institutions of Moses 't is plain they were accommodated to the circumstances of affairs and the necessities of time and place not absolutely the very best but the best that those ages of the world and the genius of that people would bear As for instance the toleration of Polygamy and causeless Divorces these were indulged them not as most pleasing to their Law-giver but because of the hardness of their hearts in the words of our Saviour because they were too stiff-necked and headstrong to admit of a shorter bridle These civil ordinances therefore when better precepts were once proposed and accepted in their place must of necessity drop and die of themselves and become obsolete without any repeal just as the temporary edicts in war and the agreements of the cartel do expire of their own accord when the peace is concluded But then the Moral part of the law of Moses which is the sap and marrow the soul and substance of the whole that indeed is of eternal and universal obligation But then who can say that this is abrogated and cancelled by Iesus so far from that that every branch of it is ingrafted and incorporated into his Gospel In this best of senses therefore the Mosaic Law is confirmed and fulfilled by our Saviour For Morality is a thing immutable and unless human nature it self should be new molded by our maker vice and virtue must be always what they have been So foolish was the cavil of the Deists against our Saviour's descent from Heaven because he gave no other Lectures of Morals than what Nature and Reason had taught before Nay if he had taught us the reverse of those Morals this had been an objection indeed But in that even the divinity of his doctrine most eminently appears that the finger of God upon the tables of our hearts and the pens of the inspired Writers in the volume of the Gospel have prescribed us one and the same lesson As for Us whose employment it is to teach that lesson to others let us but express it also in our own lives and conversations let us but add that credit to our doctrine that reputation to our profession so may we expect to bring over all our adversaries to the truth and power of Religion so may we expect when we give the account of our talents to be received with that blessed approbation Well done thou good and faithfull servant enter thou into the joy of thy Master FINIS Rom. 3. 2. Luk. 7. 19. Matth. 13. 25. Matth. 10. 36. James 1. 27. Deut. 34. Matth. 19. 26. Rom. 4. 11. Gen. 1. 31. Gen. 4. 7. 1 Joh. 1. 8. Rom. 3. 9. 23. Ib. v. 19. Rom. 8. 22. Heb. 1. 3. Rom. 10. 14. Rom. 3. 29. Rom. 9. 4. Rom. â— 11 12. Rom. 1. 18 20 21. Rom. 3. 20. 1 Pet. 1. 20. Matth. â— 17. Matth. 19. 8. P. 4.