because such Actions do tend to the general Happiness of his Creatures whom he loves § 16. and for the contrary Reason it will follow that he hates and abhors all Actions that are evil And this is what I mean when I say That God is most holy 19. All possible Excellency or Perfection that I can conceive is reducible unto these Five Heads viz. 1. Perfection of Being which consists in perpetual Duration without any Decay or Infirmity 2. Perfection of Understanding which consists in such Knowledg and Wisdom as is free all Mistake or Ignorance 3. Perfection of the Will which consists in a free Liberty to choose or refuse without any Constraint or fatal Necessity 4. Perfection of Power which consists in an Ability to do every thing And 5. Moral Perfection which consists in an inflexible Resolution always to do and encourage that which is morally good and to avoid and discourage whatsoever is morally evil Now since all these Perfections are in God in the most absolute manner as I think I have shewn in the foregoing Paragraphs from hence it will follow That God is most absolutely perfect 20. And since he who is absolutely perfect can stand in need of nothing it must also follow that God is most perfectly happy in Himself 21. As my Reason do's evidently demonstrate unto me the Being of a God so does it not in the least suggest to me any Argument to conclude that there is any more but One God And it is absurd and unreasonable to multiply Beings without any Ground or Reason for it 22. That there is a real and not only a nominal Distinction between the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost or Spirit that they are frequently spoken of in the Holy Scriptures in such Terms as we ordinarily use when we speak of Three Persons altho sometimes this Expression Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit may be put to signifie not so much the Person as the Power Effect or Energy of God's Spirit That altho the Son be often spoken of as really and truly a Man yet many things are said of him which cannot agree to a meer Man or to any created Being whatsoever and that there are such things also spoken of the Holy Ghost as cannot be accommodated unto a Creature Moreover that the Son derives his Being from and always depends upon the Father as the Holy Ghost does from and upon the Father and the Son All these things I say in my Opinion are not to be denyed by any one who will but interpret the Holy Scriptures according to the ordinary Sense and Signification of the Words thereof and not according to his own Prejudices or preconceived Opinions And altho the Socinians do clearly enough expound some of those Texts of Scripture which with more Zeal than Reason are sometimes urged against them yet as to the principal Passages which are alleged to prove what I have now asserted I think their Interpretation of them not only to be harsh and strained which in a manner is acknowledged even by their own acute and brief Historian in the last Paragraph of his second Letter but also many times to be utterly irreconcileable unto the Words and Context And now to explain those Conceptions which arise in my Mind upon the Consideration of the Texts here hinted at as well as in a Matter so abstruse and remote from my Senses I am able since I cannot find a more proper Term to express the Distinction of the Father Son and Holy Ghost by I call them Three Persons and not knowing what other Title to give a Divine Person who is no Creature I call each Person God But I give the Title of God in a more emphatical manner unto the Father than unto the Son or Holy Ghost because the Father depends on none but they do depend on him And since both my Reason and the Holy Scriptures do teach me to own no more than one God I am of necessity compelled to say that these Three are so united together tho in such a manner as is above my Understanding as to be but one God And altho it argues a great deal of Imperfection in Humane Speech that for want of other fit and proper Terms we are forced to give the same Appellation to each Person singly and to the Three conjointly yet this does not imply any manner of Contradiction as some do object because when we apply the Word God to one single Person it has not the same exact and adequate Signification as when we ascribe it unto the Three Persons conjointly for that would imply that each single Person were at the same time the Three Persons and so confound that Distinction which the Holy Scriptures do so often and apparently make between them And this analogical Difference in the Signification of the Word God will easily solve most of those Objections which the Socinians do bring against the Doctrin of the Trinity And because I know no better Word to express that Unity which I apprehend to be between the Three Persons I therefore say that they are One in Essence or Substance For Unity of Concord or Consent alone does not seem enough to me to denominate them to be One God And because I find that the Son is said to be begotten and the Holy Ghost to proceed or be sent or emitted I therefore make use of these Terms without pretending to assign the Difference between Generation and Procession And altho the Son and the Holy Ghost being each of them God are and must needs be of the same Nature and upon that account equal with the Father yet it is manifest that this Equality must be understood with an Allowance for the absolute Independence of the Father and the Dependence of the Son and Holy Ghost upon him 23. All the Objections that I can remember to be made against the Doctrin of the Trinity thus stated I think are easie enough to be solved by what I have now said excepting Two which must be particularly answered The first is taken from Joh. 10. 33. c. But tho our Saviour did not here assert his Divinity when there seemed to be occasion for it yet it will not follow that therefore he is not God Especially if we consider that it was not always his Custom to give full and compleat Answers unto such captious Questions and Objections as were put to him But sometimes he contented himself only with shewing the Unreasonableness of those who proposed them of which we have one Instance Mat. 21. 23. c. and another Joh. 8. 3. c. and as some think another Mat. 22. 17. c. And we may as well conclude that he had no Authority for what he did because he did not declare it when the Chief Priests and Elders questioned it Mat. 21. 23. as deny his Divinity because he did not expresly maintain it when on that account he was charged with Blasphemy The other Objection is drawn from Mar. 13.
Blessed Trinity or between the two Natures which are in our Lord Jesus Christ Which three things being taken for granted the question that is to be determined is Whether or no it be a sufficient ground for a Man to deny his Assent to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation of Christ because they are above his Reason 16. And here in the first place it is very plain That although we cannot by any means comprehend the things themselves yet we do so far understand the meaning of the Terms in which these Doctrines are expressed as clearly to perceive that they are not a company of insignificant Words put together to make a sound and signifie nothing What a Person is we know though we cannot tell what sort of Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are and how their Personal Distinction between themselves particularly and fully differs from that of Men one from another What it is to be One we well understand although we cannot frame an Idea of that special Union which is between those Divine Persons What it is for one being to generate another and what to proceed from another we are not ignorant although the peculiar manner of the Generation of the Son of God and the Procession of the Holy Ghost be beyond our Capacity to conceive And Lastly What it is for two Beings to be Vnited together we can very well apprehend although we pretend not to know the manner of That Union which is between the two Natures in the Person of Jesus Christ From whence it plainly follows That these Doctrines though above our Reason do yet so far stand upon equal Terms with those Doctrines which I have termed reconcilable to Reason Sect. 8. That as our Reason may be plainly and positive convinced from its own Principles alone of the possibility of the one so is there no Principle of our Reason which can reach so far as to prove or demonstrate any impossibility in the other And where there is no Contradiction or Impossibility in a Doctrine it will undeniably follow that that same Doctrine may possibly be true And where ever a Man is convinced of the possibility of a Doctrine if the Truth of that same Doctrine appears to him to be restified by any Person of whose Veracity he cannot entertain any manner of doubt he cannot refuse to give his Assent to it as I have said Sect. 13. Since then the Veracity of God admits of no manner of doubt and the Holy Scriptures are by both Parties in this Dispute allowed of as most Authentick Records of the Doctrines of Faith and Rules of Life which God has made known and revealed to the World And lastly since we here suppose that the Doctrine of the Trinity and that of the Incarnation of Christ do neither of them contain or imply any Impossibility or Contradiction although they are both of them above our Reason it will follow that if all or any of the Texts of Scripture which are brought to prove these Doctrines being expounded according to the common way of interpreting all Books of which see Part 1. Sect. 25. do fairly and without being wrested contain either in themselves or their evident Consequences those same Doctrines which they are alledged to establish there can be no just Cause why any Man should deny his Assent to them But if notwithstanding all this it be still urged that it is not possible for a Man explicitly to believe a thing of which he can frame no Conception or Idea I must refer him to the Story of the blind Man Sect. 14. which seems to me abundantly to evince the contrary And why we should not believe the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation upon the Testimony of the Holy Scriptures as well as the blind Man did the Existence of Light and Colours upon the Testimony of other Men joyned with that collateral Experiment which I have mentioned I profess I can see no manner of Reason 17. And as in my Book Part 3. Sect. 71. I have advertised my Reader that I have purposely avoided the use of certain Words and Terms for the Reason there given So must I desire him to take notice that for the like Reason I have both in my Book and in this Appendix omitted so much as to mention the word Mystery about which so great a Noise has of late been made Whether this same Term Mystery be always used in the New Testament in the very same and no other Signification as it is understood by Heathen Authors Or Whether other sorts of things by a very allowable Analogy are not also there called Mysteries upon account of their Obscurity because we know them but in part and see them but as in a Glass darkly Or Lastly Whether there be any thing in Christianity which may properly be called a Mystery according to the genuine meaning of that Term to me seems to be no more but a Contention about a word which the Apostle expresly forbids 2 Tim. 2. 14. But whatever may be determined concerning the propriety of the Word the thing if self seems to me to be very evident that there are some Doctrines in Christianity which are above our Reason and yet that this is no sufficient ground for the denial of our Assent to them 18. And if I am told that after all this there is no greater obscurity in any of the Doctrines of Christianity than what there is in all natural Beings with which we most familiarly converse whose real Essence we cannot penetrate but must content our selves with a sort of Superficial Knowledge of them which is caused by those Impressions which they make upon our outward Organs which at most can be termed but a nominal Essence so that even a spire of Grass a Stick a Stone or any other natural Being may upon this account as truly be termed Mystericus as the most sublime Doctrines of Religion I shall only answer that it mightily raises my wonder to hear Men so freely acknowledge that in every other thing whatsoever there is something which is above their Reason and to which their Understanding cannot reach and yet that they will not allow the same in Religion 19. But I know it will be objected that the first of those three Suppositions which I have laid down Sect. 15. will by no means be granted by the Unitarians for they are so far from allowing the Texts of Scripture which are brought to prove the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to be any way sufficient to that purpose that on the contrary they do with the greatest Assurance undertake to bring other and contrary Interpetations of those very Passages which they pretend to be far more Rational and Natural To which I shall only Answer that this is all that I aim at in this Appendix that the Issue of these Controversies may be placed upon that which is the only true Foundation for it I mean the Authority of the Holy Scriptures and that blind Men would not take upon them by the strength of their Reason to discuss Problems and frame Conclusions concerning Light and Colours of which they can have no true or sufficient Idea I am very sensible that learned Men who have their Minds strongly prepossessed with any Opinion may by their Criticisms and Paraphrases and such like Engines torture and screw almost any Text of Scripture till they make it look with another Aspect from what is truly its own and seem to confess what really it never thought or meant But if we would always take those Interpretations which flow of themselves and not those which are violently pressed from the Scripture which I think is the fairest way of expounding all Speeches and Discourses whatsoever I cannot for my part see how we can otherwise conclude concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation than as I have done Part 2. Sect. 22. 37. FINIS
least that what I have here done may move some more able and Judicious Person to take the Work in hand and supply those Defects of which I have been guilty THE CONTINUATION OF A Gentleman's Religion Being the Second PART 1. THE Holy Scriptures being the only authentick Record that I am able to find of the Christian Religion I take it for granted that they do express Divine Matters really and truly as the things are in themselves And therefore I cannot but believe that all the Doctrin therein delivered is most-certainly true altho many times I am not able to understand the Design and. Meaning of some Expressions and Passages which do occur therein I think it indeed to be very proper that Men of any reasonable Learning and Prudence should modestly offer their Thoughts to the World in order to the explaining of such Places of the Scriptures as appear to be abstruse and difficult But he who speaks his own Words and not those of Scripture can therein only offer his own Apprehensions to which no Man can be obliged to subscribe any farther than as he is in his own Reason convinced of the Truth of them and their Consonancy with the Scriptures 2. I do not apprehend that an implicit Faith is due to the Church of Rome which challenges it Part 1. § 21. much less sure to any other Church which does not require it When therefore any Church much more when any private Men do offer me any Doctrin of Religion in their own Words I think I ought to consider First Whether what they say is intelligible For tho we may be obliged to believe such things as are above our Understanding to comprehend Part 1. § 33. yet it is impossible for any Man to give an explicit Assent to any Form of Words if he does not Know the meaning of them Secondly Whether it is agreeable to the self-evident Principles of Reason for If I apprehend it to be otherwise it is impossible for me to believe it Part 1. § 33. Nor must any Text of Scripture be interpreted above the Level of plain and self-evident Reason whatever the literal Sense may seem to be And Thirdly whether the Truth of it can be proved by any solid Argument either from Reason or Scripture for tho a Doctrin be both intelligible and possible yet still it may be false and therefore is not to be believed except it can be proved These Rules I have endeavoured strictly to observe in the Trial of those Doctrins which I am now about to propose and I desire my Reader carefully to make use of the same in the Examination of all that I shall offer unto him But here I must desire him to take notice that I do fuppose him to be well acquainted with the Holy Scriptures and also with the common Arguments upon which the several Parties of Christians do ground and maintain their Opinions And therefore for his Ease as well as my own I shall save my self the Labour of mentioning such Arguments and Places of Scripture as are usually brought to prove those Points which are generally acknowledged by all Christians and even in those Points which are controverted between different Parties I shall ordinarily think it enough to hint at some of those Texts and Arguments which are used on either side of which I can scarce suppose any Man to be ignorant that is but moderately acquainted with the Principles of Christianity and the several Parties that profess it 3. To believe what God makes known and to do what he commands is what all Men call Religion But things that are impossible 't is certain that God requires from no Man Part 1. § 14. When therefore Damnation is denounced in Scripture against those who receive not the Gospel it must needs be understood only of them in whose Power it was to have received it and not of such who are invincibly ignorant either for want of Capacity John 9. 41. or of the means of Knowledge Joh. 15. 22. But for a Man who has both the Capacity and Means of Knowledge through Negligence to continue in Ignorance of God's Will my Reason tells me is a very great Sin besides all those Places of Scripture which do require us diligently to seek after Knowledge 4. That there is a God is sufficiently to be proved from our own Reason and Observation But fully to comprehend his Nature or declare in all Points what he is is by all allowed to be impossible to us 5. That God never had a Beginning I think I have sufficiently concluded Part 1. § 6. And if the holy Scripture had not told me that he is from Everlasting to Everlasting yet my own Reason would have inferred that he is subject to no Decay nor ever shall have an Ending 6. The Nature of every Material Being seems necessarily to imply a Possibility of having its Parts disjoyned and separated one from another and consequently of being dissolved and destroyed And theresore I conclude that the eternal God does not consist of Matter and that Being which is intelligent and does not consist of any material Parts I call a Spirit And this is what I mean when I say that God is a Spirit As for those Expressions the Eyes of the Lord the Arm of the Lord and such like which do occur sometimes in Scripture and seem to imply Bodily Parts it is manifestly obvious that they must be purely metaphorical 7. Our Experience does sufficiently testifie that whatsoever is visible to us is ever material Since therefore God does not consist of Matter I conclude that he is invisible to Mortal Eyes as the Scripture positively declares him to be And all those Texts which seem to say that he has been seen by Man I think must of necessity be interpreted some other way viz. either 1. Of an Angel appearing in a glorious and majestatick manner Or 2. Of the eternal Son of God assuming a Bodily Appearance as after he took our Nature upon him Or 3. Of some visible and extraordinary Signs and Tokens that the invisible God was there present in an extraordinary Manner Or 4. Of those mystical and Hieroglyphical Representations which God has sometimes been pleased to make of himself not to the Senses but to the Imagination and Understanding of his Prophets in their extatick Dreams and Visions 8. Amongst all those things which I can conceive possible to be done i. e. to imply no Contradiction I can find nothing which to me appears more difficult than what God has already done in the Structure of the Universe And therefore I conclude that God can do whatsoever in its self is possible to be done which is what I mean when I say that he is Almighty Nor is there any one sure who will venture to say that God can do such things as imply a Contradiction either in themselves or to his own Nature and Attributes 9. That God who made all things should be ignorant of any thing appears to
no way contradictory to the Principles of plain and sound Reason And if in many other Points of Speculation which by some are adopted into Religion I am either wholly ignorant or perhaps doubtful and undetermined or it may be mistaken Yet if to the Belief which I have here professed I do superadd a virtuous and Christian course of life I hope there is no moderate Christian who does not in effect make it a part of his Religion to be uncharitable but will allow that I may be saved But wherein this virtuous and Christian life consists and what are the Duties which the Gospel obliges us all to perform whether they are the Duties of pure Morality as to love God and our Neighbour or those of positive institution as to be Baptized to receive the Holy Communion c. is to be the subject of the Third and last part of this small Work to which therefore I now proceed A Gentleman's Religion PART III. 1. ALL the Commands of God and consequently all the Duties of a Christian are reducible to these Two viz. To abstain from that which is evil and to do that which is good according to his ability Those actions I call good which either are eternally agreeable unto the nature circumstances and mutual relations of Persons and Things and therefore for ever to be approved of by every impartial rational Being as I have said Part 2. § 18. for which we must appeal to every mans Reason as we do to his Eyes without any other Demonstration to prove that the Sun shines or else are expresly commanded by God of his own positive will and pleasure to whom as being his Creatures we all owe an intire Obedience for which we must have our recourse to the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament only all the positive Institutions and Ordinances of the Mosaick Law which were given by God to the People of Israel being abrogated and the Obligation of them annulled by our Saviour Christ Altho the moral part of it which contains the Precepts and Rules of eternal good and evil and wherein the very life and soul of that Law consisted be not only abetted and confirmed but also very much improved by him And such actions as are contrary to good that is to say either disagreeable to the nature and circumstances of Things and Persons or else positively forbidden by God I call evil I am indeed of opinion that in the Holy Scriptures we have not only the positive Commands of God whereby some things which otherwise would have been indifferent are enjoyned or forbidden but also either in particular or at least in general a sufficient account of all those actions which are eternally good or evil and therefore to be done or avoided by us And this designed by Almighty God for the direction and instruction of those Men who have not ability to dive into and discover those things by the strength of their Reason And therefore in order to describe the whole Duty of a Christian it might be enough for me to collect the Precepts and Prohibitions which God has given us in his Word and to vouch no other Authority or reason but his Will for them But because every mans Duty will probably make the greater impression upon his mind when he is satisfied as to the reasonableness of it as well as convinced of its obligation I shall endeavour as I proceed first to infer as much of our Duty as I can from the nature and circumstances of Things and Persons and then to superadd where there is occasion what God has positively ordained and commanded as to any point And this with the same conciseness that I have observed in my Second Part neither enlarging upon those Arguments nor reciting those Texts of Scripture which I suppose my Reader to be able to call to mind upon the least hint of them 2. To begin then Since God is the most perfect and excellent Being in Himself and so loving and beneficent to Us It follows that we ought to love him in the highest degree that possibly we can And true and compleat Love as it is an act of one person exerted towards another as its object consists in an unseigned desire First of always doing what may be truly grateful and acceptable to the person beloved and Secondly of enjoying and being with him as much as may be The more ardent and zealous we are in our love to God the better undoubtedly it is And we should strive to engage our Affections as well as our Reason and our Will unto him from whom we have received all things But yet this Love is not to be measured or judged of by the earnestness of those suddain motions which sometimes may arise within us upon the contemplation of God's Excellency and Goodness because to be thus Passionately affected is not wholly in our Power and somtimes least so when we most earnestly desire it But the true and certain way of judging whether we love God or not is by examining whether we are stedfast in our Resolutions and accordingly diligent in our Endeavours constantly to obey him and keep all his Commandments which is the only way to please and consequently to enjoy and for ever be with him And where the Love of God is thus firmly rooted in the Will and brings forth plenty of Fruit in the life and actions it is certainly nevertheless acceptable to him altho it does not so passionately move our Affections as we could wish or desire And as all the Duties which we owe unto Almighty God are derived from and do depend upon that of loving of him or rather indeed are contained in it so is it very evident that they are all to be judged of by the same forementioned Rule that is to say not so much by the strength of an inward Impulse upon the Mind which is a thing not under our Command as by the steady agreeableness of our Will and Actions unto all such Principles as are right and good 3. Since God is the most excellent and perfect and consequently the most worthy of all Beings that are or can be from hence it will follow that we ought to honour him with the greatest Honour that may be Now to honour any person is in other words inwardly to esteem and outwardly to shew our Respect to him Our inward Esteem of God consists in a due Acknowledgment of his Being and Attributes and our outward Respect to him is to be shewn as well by abstaining from all actions which may savour of any Neglect or Irreverence towards him as by performing all such as may appear to be suitable both to his own Excellency and our Dependence upon him 4. Since God is present in all places and knows all even the most secret things and therefore cannot possibly be deceived or imposed on We should on this consideration be very watchful and careful upon all occasions how we behave our selves in his Presence And
is possible When therefore any religious Dispute arises whereby the Church's Peace and Unity is like to be endangered It is free and proper for Nor is there any thing which should hinder either the Church universal or any particular Church or even any prudent Men whatsoever to declare and publish their sense of the matter in debate But as no Man can be obliged to believe the Determination of any Church or party whatsoever any farther than he is convinced and satisfied of its agreement with Reason and the Holy Scriptures Part 2. § 1 and 2. so is not any Man bound to oppose or dispute even against an Error it self except there be something in it which is injurious to Christian Faith or practice and consequently which may prove pernicious to Men's Salvation And therefore if such a Mistake which may have prevailed in any Church cannot well be rectified without endangering the breach of Peace and Charity because they who hold it it may be are obstinately wedded to it I think it is the Duty of us all to be very tender in such a case and to permit every Man freely to abound in his own Sense until such time as God shall think fit to bring them to a clearer sight of the Truth And by no means to renounce the Communion of any Church on the account of any Error that is not damnable and much less on account only of such Terms or Expressions as are but abstruse or of doubtful signification For otherwise since the Apprehensions of Men are so very different especially in such things as being remote from our Senses are matter only of rational Speculation if Difference of Opinion upon such theological Questions as do not immediately concern our Salvation were a sufficient ground for Separation in point of Communion there would soon be probably almost as many Churches as Men in the World But if any Church shall require from a Man either to comply with or practise any thing which is not only against his Fancy in point of Decency or Convenience but also against his Conscience in point of Lawfulness or that he should not only be silent and not oppose but also explicitly profess the Belief of any such Doctrines as he judges to be false however innocent the Belief of them may be to them who think them true and if such a Church shall refuse and deny her Communion to all those who will not joyn with her upon these Terms We must rather be contented to be excluded from such a Church's Communion than to purchase it by solemnly telling a down right Lye before God and the World or by the violation of any other of God's Commands For if we offer to do Evil that Good may come of it St. Paul has declared us to be in a state of Damnation 65. For the due regulation of every Society it is necessary that it have a Power somewhere or other vested in it over its own Members either to compel them to live orderly according to its Laws and Constitutions or if any of them are disobedient and refractory and will not upon due admonition be reclaimed wholly to exclude them from the Body of the Community For otherwise if the Members of any Society may at their pleasure break its Constitutions and violate its Laws without control this would be wholly to pull down the Enclosure and lay all open and common as before and consequently in effect to dissolve the Society it self And accordingly our Saviour has given the Church a Power to admonish and rebuke those who give any scandal by their ungodly and unruly Behaviour and if upon this they do not repent and reform of rejecting and cutting them off from her Communion Which Authority must ever be exercised with due mildness and caution for the edification and not with heat and fury which in the end would more probably tend to the destruction of the Church But if any Church shall go beyond this to punish or persecute Men with Fire and Sword or with Fines and Imprisonment only for being of a different persuasion from and refusing to communicate with her In my Opinion she herein acts contrary to that Mildness and Gentleness which the Gospel upon all occasions prescribes and particularly in the case of dealing with those who oppose themselves to it 2 Tim. 2. 24. Altho at the same time it cannot be deâ—yed but that if any Man under the pretence of Conscience or Religion shall advance such Doctrines or do such acts as are destructive to the peace or safety of the civil State or Common-wealth the civil Magistrate may and ought to punish such a person according to the Laws of the Land notwithstanding all his pretences For if the Plea of Conscience the truth of which can only be known to Almighty God be sufficient to save any Malefactour from Punishment no civil Society can ever be safe and all humane Laws and Magistrates would be wholly useless See Part 1. § 35. 66 And as Almighty God in his Mercy is pleased not to cut the greatest sinners off from all hopes of pardon but is ready at any time upon their true and sincere Repentance to receive them again into his Favour so has he committed unto the Church the ministry of Reconciliation which Church therefore accordingly ought not only to endeavour to bring sinners to Repentance by Preaching Admonition and Exhortation but also wherever she sees evident Marks and Tokens of it in any person of which yet there ought to be good assurance for his greater comfort and ease of Conscience to remit or absolve him from his sins and restore him again to the benefit and privilege of Christian Communion of which I suppose that he has or ought to have been deprived And whatever Sentence of thus binding or loosing remitting or retaining of Men's sins is duly and regularly pronounced by the Church upon Earth our Saviour assures us it shall be ratified and confirmed by God in Heaven But that a Man is obliged to make a particular Confession of all his sins unto any other person except God in order to obtain the Pardon of or Absolution from them as I no where find it asserted in the Holy Scripture so the reason which the Roman Divines do allege for it is very weak and unconcluding For it is not the particular Confession of a Man's sins which may be performed by the most hardened impenitent but his Contrition and the visible reformation of his life which may sufficiently appear without a particular Confession that only can enable the Church or her Ministers to judge whether he truly repents of his sins or not and consequently whether he be a proper Object of God's Mercy and the Church's Favour Altho I deny not but that in some cases it may be very proper for a Man to make known the diseases of his Soul to a prudent Spiritual Physician that he may have his advice for the cure of them And his Duty also
given to them or that such Opposition might soon be suppressed and over-ruled by the Power and Reputation of such prevailing Men. From all which I cannot but conclude That though the general Tradition or Testimony of the Church may be a good Help yet it may not always be a certain Rule to lead me to the entire and unaltered Doctrine of Jesus XXIII Other there are who tell me That to find out the true and entire Doctrine of Jesus I must apply my self to the holy Scripture that is to say to the Books commonly called the Old and the New Testament And because I look upon this to be the right Way I shall briefly and plainly deliver my Thoughts in relation to these Books And first of the New Testament That the New Testament as it was extant in the Greek Toegue has been ever universally owned by all Christians as containing a true though some deny it to be a full Account of the Life and Doctrine of Jesus is a thing so notorious and so universally acknowledged that I cannot find the least Ground or Reason to question it Now the History and Doctrine of Jesus being so well known unto the first Christians by the Preaching of the Apostles and Disciples and they being so ready upon all Occasions to lay down their Lives for the Truth of Christianity it cannot be imagined that ever they would so readily and universally receive and own such a Book if it had contained any thing in it which was dissonant from that Doctrine which they had received It is confessed indeed that some of those Books which make up the Volume of the New Testament that is to say the Epistle to the Hebrews that of St. James the Second of St. Peter that of St. Jude the Second and Third of St. John and the Revelations were not so soon and so universally received throughout the Christian Church as the rest of the Books were The Reason of which apparently was not That these Books contained any thing in them contrary to what was delivered it the other Books of the New Testament for he that reads the whole will plainly find that there is a very compleat Agreement between them the only seeming Discord of St. Paul's Justification by Faith and St. James's Justification by Works being exactly and fully reconciled by considering That St. Paul means no other Faith but such as worketh by Love Gal. 5. 6. and St. James no other Works but such as proceed from Faith Jam. 2. 22. But because it was not at first universally known who were the Authors of them Which abundantly shews the Care and Caution of the Christian Church in not being hasty to receive and admit any Books as authentick Records of their Doctrine without very good Warrant for so doing And therefore since these same Books were in a very little time after received and owned to be of equal Authority with the rest of the New Testament I cannot but from thence conclude That those Churches which at the first doubted concerning those Books did soon receive most full and ample Satisfaction in that matter from those who had before received them I conclude therefore That the Book of the New Testament as it was extant in the Primitive Times in the Greek Tongue did contain a true Account of the Doctrine of Jesus XXIV That innumerable Copies of the New Testament were in a very little time dispersed through all places where Christianity was planted That it has heen at different times and in very distant places translated into all or almost all Languages And that Copies both of the Original and many of the several Translations have been preserved with much Care in a great many distant Parts of the World is allowed by all and denied by none From whence I think we may gather First That where the Generality of the Greek Copies of the New Testament do agree in the very same Words there we have undoubtedly the true and authentick Words of the New Testament For although some Mistakes might creep into some Copies either through the Wickedness or Negligence of some particular Men yet where so many Copies of a Book have been so carefully preserved and in such distant Parts of the World it is not to be imagined that the self-same Errour in any Expression should ever be propagated through the Generality of them Secondly That where the Words or Expressions of divers Greek Copies do differ one from another yet if the Sense and Meaning be exactly the same in all or almost all there we have certainly the true Sense and Meaning of the New Testament For it is easie to apprehend that a Transcriber might by a small Mistake put one Word or Expression of the same Signification in stead of another But that the same Sense should be punctually preserved in all or almost all Copies is not to be imagined except it were the true Sense delivered from the Beginning Thirdly That if there may be found any different Readings in divers Copies of the New Testament which disagree in Sense as well as in Words which scarce ever happens in any thing which is accounted a material Point of Religion then it seems to be most fit and proper to admit of that Reading and Sense which best agrees with the Tenour of the whole with the ancientest and best esteemed Translations and with the evident Principles of sound Reason And if any place be so obscure as that none of these Ways will afford any Light into its Meaning then I think that no stress ought to be laid upon it in any necessary part of Religion XXV But some will demand How are we sure of the Sense and Meaning even of those places of the New Testament where there is no difference about the Words In Answar to this I have already shewn § 21. that we are not to follow the Guidance of the Church of Rome to know the true Doctrine of Jesus Nor therefore consequently to know the true Meaning of the New Testament in which his Doctrine is owned to be contained I have shewn also § 22. That though general Tradition may be a good Help yet may it not always be a certain Rule to lead one to the unaltered Doctrine of Jesus nor therefore consequently to the true and genuine Interpretation of the New Testament Since therefore there is no other way to be found I conclude That the New Testament is to be interpreted the same way that other Books are that is by considering the Sense and Property of the Words and Sentences and the ordinary Figures of Speech as they are commonly used in the same Book and in others written in the same Language and about the same time together with the Scope Drift Coherence and Occasion of the Discourse To which End every Man that is learned being bound to use his best Endeavour to know the Will of God as I have shewn § 14. is obliged according to the measure of his Learning to consult
Lexicons Commentators and ancient Writers and to use all other Helps that he may both satisfie himself and also be able to inform others XXVI But perhaps I shall be told That when a Man has done all this to the best of his power yet after all he may be mistaken as it appears that many Learned Men are since 〈◊〉 oppose and contradict one another about the Meaning of the New Testament To this Ianswer That since I have shewn § 3. that all necessary things whether as to Belief or Practice in Religion are easie to be understood I must from hence conclude That a sober and honest Enquirer cannot easily be mistaken in the Interpretation of those places of the New Testament which do contain any necessary part of Religion And as for other parts and passages of it if Men would be but peaceable which is plainly enough commanded in the New Testament their Mistakes about them could do no harm And again Since I have shewn § 14. That God requires no more from a Man but his best Endeavours to know and perform his Will I do hence conclude That if a Man be mistaken in his Interpretation even of any such place as contains some necessary part of Religion yet if this Mistake be purely an Errour of the Vnderstanding and does not proceed from any Neglect or wilful Fault of the Person so mistaking God will never be offended with him for it And then What hurt can there be in such a Mistake as this XXVII But it may be demanded What shall they do to find out the Meaning of the New Testament who do not understand any thing of the Greek which is the only authentick Language of this Book Which is evidently the Case of much the greatest part of Mankind I answer That he who is ignorant of the Greek Tongue being yet obliged to use his best Endeavour § 14. must do the best he can by reading some Translation or Translations of it or if he cannot read himself by hearing them read and by asking and enquiring from such of his Acquaintance as he believes to be Persons of Sincerity and Knowledge to know what is the Sense and Doctrine of the New Testament and the Will of God therein contained And since God requires no more from any Man but his best Endeavour § 14. it follows That if such a Man be mistaken and cannot help it God will not be offended with him neither for it XXVIII And one thing more let me add for the sake of those who are not skilled in the Greek Tongue viz. That since there have many Translations been made of the New Testament most of them by Persons well skilled in Languages of good Repute for their Honesty and Integrity and who could not but know before-hand that their Translations would be narrowly sifted and examined by learned Men which must needs make them careful to commit as few Faults as they could and since all those things which God requires from Men must needs be easie enough to be understood § 3. and therefore easie to be translated and expressed in any Language I cannot but conclude That a sober and impartial Enquirer may be very well assured of the Doctrine of Jesus even from the Translations of the New Testament though he does not understand the Greek Original And for as much as I can understand of the matter if Men did stand only upon the honest and downright Sense and Meaning of plain Places which only can stive us good Assurance in Religion and would not quarrel about critical Niceties in such Texts as are confessedly obscure I believe there is scarce any Translation of the New Testament so defective but might be a sufficient Guide to any sober Man to lead him to the Doctrine of Jesus XXIX Having thus spoken what I designed of the New Testament I come to say something of the Old And here that the Jews in the Days of Jesus had among them a Book written in the Hebrew and some small part of it in the Chaldee-Tongue which we now call the Old Testament which they called the Holy Scripture and esteemed as the Word of God is a thing beyond dispute That this Book was owned and acknowledged quoted and referred to and all People exhorted and encouraged to search and study it as the Word of God both by Jesus himself and also by his Disciples is most evident to any one who reads the New Testament From whence I must conclude That the Doctrine of that Book as it was then extant is to be esteemed as part of the Doctrine of Jesus and that those Laws and Commands which are there to be found are to be kept and observed by all Christians the Followers of Jesus except where it can be shewn that Jesus has freed us from the Obligation of them XXX Moreover since this Book has been Translated into as many Languages and as many Copies of the Original have been carefully kept in distant Parts of the World as of the New Testament I do conclude That the very same things which just now were said concerning the Words the Meaning and Way of interpreting the New Testament will hold good concerning the Old Testament also as far as they can be accommodated to it XXXI There are some certain Books and Fragments which among the Protestants are well known by the Name of Apocryphal to which the Papists give the Title of Deuterocanonical These Pieces the Papists contend to be a real part of the Old Testament and of equal Authority with the other Books of it But the Protestants will not allow their Authority to be sacred although they grant that there are many useful and profitable things contained in them Now he that is not able to search into Antiquity for the Resolving of this Controversie may by another way be satisfied about it For since the Jews from whom the Christians originally received the Scriptures of the Old Testament do all of them and ever did unanimously reject these same Apocryphal Books and Fragments as being no part of their Holy Scripture I think it may from hence be sufficiently concluded That as to the Controversie about the Apocryphal Scripture the Protestants are in the right and the Papists in the wrong And yet if the Authority of those Pieces were as great as the Papists would have it I see not how it could make any Alteration in my Religion For I do not find any thing in them but what is easily reconcilable with the rest of the holy Scripture XXXII But there are some Difficulties which seem to arise concerning what I have discoursed to which it will be necessary to give a full and satisfactory Answer And First If all be granted that has hitherto been said yet how shall I be sure that the Book of the holy Scriptures contains not only truly but also fully and entirely the Doctrine of Jesus so that nothing is to be esteemed as a part of his Religion but what is contained in
the Scripture To this I might answer That there are several Passages in the Scripture it self which do give us to understand that the whole Law and Will of God as far as it is needful for Man to know them are contained in those holy Writings as the Protestant Divines do sufficiently make appear in the Management of this Controversie against the Papists But waving this I think it is enough to say That it is not indeed impossible in it self but that Jesus might have made known other Particulars of Doctrine and of the Will of God besides what is consigned to us by the Scripture And if any Man can effectually prove that any such Doctrine or Precept was delivered by him I think that whosoever is convinced of the Proof ought to believe that Doctrine and obey that Precept which appear to be so delivered But he that does his hearty and sincere Endeavour to find out the Doctrine and Will of God delivered to Man by Jesus and is not able with all his Diligence to discover any more of it than what is recorded in the Scripture if he faithfully keeps and observes as much of it as he is able there to discover it is plain that God requires no more from him § 14. and therefore certainly will not punish him for want of any thing farther XXXIII Secondly It may be objected That in Reading these Books there do appear to be some Passages which are in themselves absurd and contrary to the plain Dictates of every Man's Reason and Understanding and some which are irreconcileable with one another Now that the Doctrine of Jesus is certainly true must be allowed because it is confirmed by God That both parts of a Contradiction cannot be true is acknowledged by all Men And no Man I think can own that for a Truth which is contrary to the plain Dictates of his Reason and Understanding which to every Man is and must be the Standard of all Truth whatsoever For there can be no Reason why any Man receives and owns any thing for a Truth but only because he apprehends it to be conformable unto the plain and self-evident Notions which are already planted in his Mind Here then it may be demanded how it canbe possible that these Scriptures should contain the true and uncorrupted Doctrine and Religion of Jesus To this I answer First That I cannot find any appearance of a Contradiction throughout the Holy Scriptures in any Point of Doctrine or Rule of Manners but what is so easie and obvious to be reconciled that no Man I think of Candour and Ingenuity but would be ashamed to object it Secondly And as for those few seeming Discordances which do occurr in the Circumstances of some Historical Narrations though I perhaps am not able to reconcile them yet it may be that the things themselves may not be absolutely irreconcilable But suppose they were yet it is no derogation to the Truth of the History as to the main substance of it or of the Doctrine contained in the holy Scriptures that some of the Sacred Writers have been mistaken in the Relation of some small and inconsiderable Circumstances There are several Historians and Chroniclers which give an Account of the Life and Reign of many of our Kings of England and although they differ in many Circumstances of things yet this was never made an Argument to doubt of the Truth of the main History wherein they all agree And why may not the Scripture-Historians be as favourably censured as all other Historians in the World are Thirdly There are many things which are above my Reason and Understanding which I cannot comprehend in my Mind nor frame a clear and distinct Notion of which yet I cannot say are contrary to my Reason Because though they are above my reach yet I do not find that they do contradict any of those plain and self-evident Principles which are implanted in my Understanding For Example I am not able distinctly to apprehend how the smallest Particle of Matter which can be assigned is yet in it self capable of being for ever divided so that no part of Matter though ever so small can ever be so much as convinced to be absolutely invisible And yet this is so far from being contrary to my Reason that my Reason it self does fully satisfie me that the thing is so though I am not able to comprehend the manner of it The same thing also may be said concerning the necessity of some thing being without any Beginning of which see § 5 6. Now if I meet with any thing in Scripture which is thus above my Reason but not contrary to it I cannot refuse my Assent unto it I mean always upon a Supposition that the Words do appear evidently to carry such a Sense For I cannot conclude such a thing to be impossible Because I do not find it contrary to my Reason though above it And if it be a thing in my Apprehension possible I must believe it to be true when I find that God has declared it so to be Other things again there are which are directly contrary unto those self-evident Notions and Principles which my Reason finds to be connatural with it self For Example That a Part is equal to the Whole and such like Absurdities Now if any such Propositions as these which are contrary to my Reason should occurr to me in Scripture I cannot possibly believe them to be true in a Literal Sense for that were to renounce the clear Dictates of my Reason and Understanding upon which the Certainty of all things which I believe or know is ultimately built and without which I could have no Certainty of the Being of God or the Truth of any Religion and therefore I must needs understand them to be meant figuratively And that Figure which best agrees to such Words according to the most common Custom of Speech and is most conformable to common Sense and Reason I think is always to be preferred I never read any Book to my knowledge but in it I found many Expressions which taken literally and strictly were absurd and ridiculous but taken figuratively as 't is evident they were intended did contain very good Sense and Meaning Since then the Holy Scriptures were written in such Words and Expressions as were commonly used among Men in Speaking and Writing why should we think that strange in them which is so usual in all other Books XXXIV Thirdly It may be objected That this Doctrine which I have taught leaves every Man entirely to his own Reason and Understanding to find out the true Religion and the Way to Heaven Now since there is so great a difference between the Notions and Sentiments of different Men it must needs follow that all Men being left wholly to themselves there must necessarily be great Variety and even Contrariety of Opinions among them concerning Religion And if God requires no more from every Man but to do his best Endeavour and to chuse
guilty of such a Mistake can very hardly be charged with a Fault XLIII Fourthly That the Knowledge of God Almighty his Attributes and his Law may in part be gathered from the Light of Nature antecedent to any Revelation is evident from Reason and acknowledged by St. Paul For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead Rom. 1. 20. See Psal 19. 1. And when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the thiugs contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the Work of the Law written in their Hearts their Conscience also bearing Witness and their Thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 2. 14 15. Now although all things relating to Religion which may be known by the Light of Nature are I think again repeated and farther explained by the Holy Scripture Yet because it may be that this will not appear so plainly to every one I think it necessary here to Note That we are obliged to give our Assent to those Truths and our Obedience to those Laws of of Religion which we are able to discover by our Natural Reason although the same should not appear to us to be again repeated in Scripture For for this very reason St. Paul pronounces the ancient Gentiles to be without Excuse because that when they knew God that is had some Knowledge of him by their natural Understanding they glorified him not as God by owning and obeying him Rom. 1. 20 21 c. And what is it else but an Appeal to the natural Notions of Mankind when he exhorts us That whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are Lovely whatsoever things are of good Report if there be any Vertue and if there be any Praise we should think on these things Phil. 4. 8. XLIV Fifthly He that writes a Treatise upon any Subject whatsoever he has a Mind that his Reader should particularly observe and be convinced of he will be sure to lay it down plainly as a main Conclusion nor will he fail if he be discreet as often as Occasion requires to repeat and referr to it that the more Notice may be taken of his Meaning and Design Such things as are mentioned only occasionally and collaterally and not as any part of the main Subject of the Discourse are not always expressed with so much Care and Exactness but that often even the meaning of them may be misunderstood Nor can we be always certain what is the true Sense and Opinion of a Writer from such accidental Expressions which sometimes may be used figuratively sometimes by way of Allusion or Accommodation sometimes with Reference to the Capacity of People without any Regard to the litteral Truth of them except he gives us fome farther Explication of his Mind From whence I think I may conclude That the necessary Doctrines and Precepts of Christian Religion are not to be gachered from those collateral and occasional Expressions which are scattered up and down in the Scriptures but from the main Scope and Design of the whole Bible in general and of each Book of it in particular XLV I have thus briefly and plainly given I hope a rational Account of Religion and of Christianity in general If I find that what I have here writ is likely to do any good in the World I shall proceed with God's Assistance to draw out and publish a particular Account of the Doctrines to be believed and Duties to be practised by a Christian FINIS Errata to the 2d and 3d. Part. PAge 48. l. 16. read my own p. 59. l. 12. for of r. and. p. 82. l. 11. for Love r. live p. 110. l. 3. dele it p. 113. l. 12. for every r. very p. 254. for that r. than p. 260. l. 16. r. Office in a settled Church Books Printed for and Sold by A. and J. Churchil at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row TItus Livius's Roman History Boccacio's Novels and Tales Sir Paul Ricaut's Lives of the Popes of Rome Rushworth's Historical Collections Lloyd Dictionarium Histor Poeticum Geographicum Statutes of Ireland Bolton Justice of Ireland Leybourn's Dyalling Buchanan's Chronicle and History of the Kings of Scotland Machiavil's Works Sir Simon D' Ewe's Journal of Paliament Queen Elizabeth Dr. Brady's Introduction to the History of England Milton's Paradise Regain'd Leybourn's Cursus Mathematicus Sir Roger L'Estrange's Aesop's Fables Clark's Praxis Cur. Ecclesiasticis Dr. Gibson's Anatomy Monsieur Le Clerc's Logica c. Drelincourt of Death Leybourn's Arithmetick Protestant-Reconciler Compleat Homer's Iliads Poetae Minores Royal Grammar Gibbon's Heraldry Patridge's Treasury of Physick Opus Reformatum Bishop Wilkins of Prayer and Preaching Thibault's Chymistry Glasier's Chymistry Valerius Maximus English Two Treatises of Government The Three Letters for Toleration Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering Interest and Raising the Value of Money Sir William Temple's Observations on Holland Miscellanea Dr. Burnet's Travels Plato Redevivus Selden's Table-Talk Debates of Oxon and Westminster-Parliaments Livill Orationes selectae 12o. Sleidan de Quatuor fummis Imperiis Aristotle's Rhetorick English Dr. Whitby's several Pieces Patridge's Astrology Isoratis Oration Large 12o. Guide to Heaven 24o. Latin-Testament the Cambridge-Edition 12o. Boyl's General History of the Air A Gentlemans Religion Two Treatises of Rationa Religion 8o. Common Prayer in Greek Salmon's Dispensatory Dorn Synopsis Medicinae Salustii Historia Weekly Preparation II. Part Bunnian's Sighs from Hell Archbishop Layton's Sermons Gunter's Line Ciceronis Epistol Familiar Mr. Talent's Chron. Tables A GENTLEMAN'S Religion Part II. III. In which the Nature of the Christian Religion is particularly enquired into and Explained LONDON Printed for Richard Sare at Grays-Inn-gate in Holborn 1697. A Short PREFACE To the whole SOme Men slight Religion whilst others corru and perplex it with things either false or unnecessary the later of which I look upon to be much the cause of the former Many will not take the pains to read much and many do not throughly consider nor will digest what they read which renders their Notions confused and themselves uncertain what to conclude I have theresore endeavoured to make such a short and easy Draught of Christianity and the Grounds of it as every Man of a moderate Capacity may read without Tediousness and understand without Difficulty And which if it does not wholly satisfie him may yet serve to put his Thoughts into a Method and himself upon seeking for farther Satisfaction The first Part of this small Work I put forth some time since and finding that it has not proved altogether unacceptable to Men of Judgment and Moderation I have been encouraged to finish and publish the Second and Third Parts also My Design is certainly good and if I have not well performed what I have undertaken I hope at
32. But to it I answer That our Saviour's Design in that Place being only to represent the Day there spoken of as a Secret not to be made known unto Men until it should come upon them that they might always stand upon their Guard watch and prepare for it Let but the Word know be taken to signifie to make known which fully answers the Design of the Place and as it is evident St. Paul uses the same Word 1 Cor. 2. 2. Idetermined says he not to know that is not to make known or teach any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified and then the most natural Paraphrase of that Place will be this But that Day and Hour there is no one who shall or can make known unto you no not the Angels which are in Heaven who may be supposed to be ignorant of it themselves nor even the Son himself who altho he knoweth all things Joh. 21. 17. yet can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do Joh. 5. 19. And who speaketh not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say Joh. 12. 49. But the Father only shall in his own time make it known by bringing it to pass And this Exposition of this Place of Scripture which is the only Text that seems to press very hard upon us in this Controversy I am sure is much more easie and natural than many of those Interpretations which the Socinians do advance of the principal Passages which we urge against them But if any one shall tell me that this whole Matter concerning the Trinity is very obscure and difficult to be apprehended and therefore that it is unreasonable to require the explicit Belief of such Doctrin as necessary either to Salvation or Church-communion As to the Obscurity it is not to be expected that it should be otherwise since in this Life we know but in part and prophesie in part and see but through a Glass darkly or in a Riddle as the Margin has it Word for Word from the Original 1 Cor. 13. 9 12. As to Church-communion I shall speak of it hereafter in its proper Place And as touching Salvation I refer my Reader to what I have said § 3. and Part 1. § 14. and § 26. 24. Either the Matter of this visible World did from all Eternity coexist together with God or else it was produced from Nothing by him there being no Third Way to be assigned Now both these Ways being above tho neither of them contrary to my Reason my Reason alone can never solidly determine which of them is the right But the later of these making most in my Opinion for the Honour of God of whom as being the most perfect Being I think I ought to entertain the most glorious Thoughts that possibly I can and the Holy Scriptures so often ascribing Eternity without Beginning unto God in an emphatical manner as his alone peculiar Attribute I am thereby brought to believe that the Matter of this World is not eternal but was at first created by God from Nothing and consequently that God can again annihilate it or any Part of it if it should so please him 25. That God did contrive frame and fashion this World and every part of it and also that he still preserves and governs it by his Providence I have formerly concluded Part 1. § 7. and § 10. And tho every ignorant Person is not able to dive into and fathom the Counsels of a great and Sovereign Prince yet this is no Argument that he does not manage and rule his Dominions with due Care and Wisdom Nor could the making nor can the Government of the World be any manner of Trouble to God as the Epicureans objected since he is absolutely Omnipotent and needs no more but to speak the Word and the thing is done 26. It is very evident that the Heathen World its self was generally and strongly addicted to the Belief of certain Beings some good and some evil superiour in Nature to Man but subject to and Ministers of the Will and Pleasure of the supreme God But the Holy Scriptures do give us a more full and perfect Account of this Matter viz. that God created certain Spiritual Beings called Angels that is to say Messengers as being sent forth by him to execute his Will upon all Occasions that he thinks fit and particularly to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation not that God has any need of their Assistance or Ministry any more than he has of the Worship and Service of Man but only thought fit to create them of his own good Will and Pleasure and probably that they as well as Man might be Objects for him to exercise his Goodness and Beneficence upon But whether every particular Person State and Kingdom have their proper Guardian Angels appointed them by God is not as I can find upon any sure Grounds to be determined But we are farther informed that of these Angels some sinned and therefore kept not their first Estate but were cast down into Hell and delivered into Chains of Darkness to be reserved unto Judgment the Chief or Prince of whom is called the Devil the great Dragon the old Serpent and Satan and is together with his Angels permitted by God to range to and fro in the Earth to tempt even the Godly but to prevail and work in the Children of Disobedience 27. That an eternal Succession of Men or any other Beings without a Beginning is absolutely impossible I have I think with Reason already said Part 1. § 6. That Man at first was not fashioned by any blind and undesigned Chance is to me very evident as well from the wonderful Frame of his Mind as from the great Variety Regularity and Usefulness of all the Parts of his Body and particularly his Organs of Sensation And that he did not at first spring up out of the Earth by any Force of Nature distinct from the Power of God I think needs no Proof because the contrary Supposition is not only without any Ground of Evidence but also liable to so many monstrous Improbabilities as do render it hightly extravagant to imagine I therefore must conclude That at the least the first Male and Female of Mankind were immediately framed and fashioned by God and that all the rest of them were and are derived from those two by the way of natural Generation Christ Jesus excepted who tho born of a Woman was not begotten of a Man is the plain Voice of the Holy Scripture 28. That Man tho made a little lower than the Angls is yet by Nature far more excellent than any other living Creature is sufficiently apparent The Holy Scripture tells us that God made Man after his own Image But this Expression cannot be understood with respect to the Shape and Structure of the Human Body God being both incorporeal and invisible but is as I apprehend it to be inlation
to those Faculties which are implanted in the Mind of Man and that internal Uprightness in which he was at first created which do carry in them an evident Similitude and Analogy unto some of those Attributes and Perfections which are in God himself That the Body of Man is made originally of the Earth by which it is nourished and into which it is again resolved is obvious to be collected from Reason And if I had never been told that God breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life whereby he became a Living Soul yet those Powers and Faculties which I find in my self of Thinking Judging Drawing Consequences and those sometimes in a very long Train reflecting back upon my own Thoughts and determining my own Actions as I please together with that inward Satisfaction which I reap from doing what is morally good tho naturally and to my Body painful and uneasy and the Trouble which I find upon the doing of any thing which is morally evil tho otherwise never so pleasant and delightful would I think have sufficiently taught and assured me that there is a Principle within me which tho united to my Body and thereby affected with its Delights or Pains yet is really distinct from it and of a different Nature and more noble Original which I call my Soul 29. That God who has originally a Love for all Mankind § 16. should have created any Man with an Intent to make him eternally and unavoidably miserable is to me a Contradiction And since on the contrary he has naturally implanted in every Man a vehement and unextinguishable Desire of being Happy and of always remaining so I cannot but conclude that God intended Man at his first Creation unto eternal Happiness For that he should implant the Seed and Principle of such a Desire in us all which never fails to spring forth and shew its self in every Man who comes to Years of Knowledge and this to be only a Torment to us without any Possibility either of suppressing or satisfying it is I think not to be conceived except we should suppose that at the first he made us to be Objects not of his Love but Hatred 30. As even by the Ruins of a noble Structure we may be able to give a Guess how goodly the Building was at its first Erection so when I at present consider how distorted the Nature of Man is his Lusts and Passions always strugling with and often getting the Victory over his Reason which evidently was designed for the superiour Faculty own my Understanding alone methinks suggests to me that Man was at first created in a more perfect and upright State and Condition than what he is in at present But how our Nature was so far perverted as that all our Reason and Endeavours cannot again reduce it to that firm and perfect Regularity in which we are sensible it ought to be and therefore have cause to believe that it was at first framed by God is what of our selves we never could have collected from any Suggestions of our own Understanding 31. Whether the second and third Chapters of the Book of Genesis are all to be understood literally or whether an allegorical Interpretation is in some parts to be admitted I think my self not much concerned to debate But which way soever we take the plain Result will be that whereas God placed our first Parents at their Creation in a state both of Innocency and Happiness they by transgressing his Law and thereby incurring his Displeasure sell both from the one and the other Now that they by their sin might deprave their own Natures and vitiate their Constitutions is no way irrational to suppose And that from the depraved Nature and vitiated Constitution of Parents divers inconveniences may be entailed upon their Posterity who do derive not only their bodily Temper and Complection but frequently also their Passions and Inclinations from those of their Parents is what common Experience does daily testifie When therefore the Holy Scripture assigns the sin of our first Parents as the Cause of the Corruption of the Nature of Mankind I see nothing therein which is not very reasonably to be allowed 32. He who grants a Favour to another barely and only of his own free will and pleasure may without any violation of Justice whenever he pleases withdraw that which he is under no Obligation to continue any longer than he thinks fit Nor is it any way to be reckoned as unmerciful or cruel to cease the continuance of a purely voluntary kindness if the stopping of it does not render the Person actually miserable without any fault committed by him If therefore God had thought fit even for no other reason but his own Pleasure to divert the stream of his kindness from Man and that altho he had continued in a State of Innocency provided he had not put him into a state of unavoidable Misery who could have any just reason to complain or find fault with him for doing what he should please with his own Much more then will it follow that If upon the occason of our first Parents Transgression and the Corruption of our Nature which thereupon ensued God had resolved to cut us all forever off from the inheritance of those Blessings to which Man was designed at his first creation but now rendred naturally unfit for by this original pollution even in this there had been nothing contrary to the strict Rules of Justice or Mercy Especially if we consider that all the World have ever thought it reasonable that in some cases Children should on account of their Parents Faults lose some benefits and advantages which otherwise they would have enjoyed But actually to inflict a positive Punishment upon any one for a Fault which he never committed nor any way voluntarily concurred to nor was at all capable of hindering in him who committed it being so directly contrary not only unto Mercy but also to the common Rules of Justice I can not but conclude that tho' the original Corruption of our Nature may be reckoned as a just occasion why God might if he had pleased have excluded us all for ever from the Joys of Heaven Yet that alone is not to be assigned as a Cause why he will doom any Man to the Torments of Hell who does not otherwise deserve it by his own actual sins and Transgressions 33. That by the Corruption of our Nature we are all of us mightily inclined to things that are evil and immoral is most evident from our constant Experience But that we have not thereby lost all knowledge and power of doing that which is good I think is no less apparent from the Writings and Examples of so many brave Heathens Who having no other Divine Law but that which was written in their Hearts by the Suggestions of their natural Understanding yet both taught and did so many of the things contained in the written Law of God But curiously to distinguish and assign
to be a person wonderful a Counsellour the mighty God the Prince of Peace of the increase of whose Government there should be no end and unto whom the gathering of the Nations should be Now altho there may some Difficulties be started as to the Interpretation of some of those and such like Prophecies which do occurr in the Old Testament which is no great wonder considering how the Jews who are enemies to Christianity have endeavoured to obscure and perplex them yet if we do consider that there is evidently a fair consonant and reasonable Application of all these Predictions to be made unto Jesus of Nazareth and that there is not nor ever was any other person to whom they could be applied besides himself and since it is not possible for any one but God to foretell a thing with so many circumstances so long before it comes to pass I think I may very well from hence conclude not only against the Jews who acknowledge but also against all others who may perhaps at first deny the Authority of the Old Testament that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ or Messiah whom God had promised to send into the World And if to this we add the greatness of his Miracles and the transcendent Goodness of his Doctrine of which see Part 1. § 19 I think the Argument will have the force of a Demonstration 37. In the Holy Scriptures I find such things spoken of Christ as do plainly shew him to have been a true and real Man in all things like unto us sin only excepted Other Expressions also I find frequently applyed to him which cannot possibly agree to any Man or created Being whatsoever but only unto God as I have already said § 22. And altho there is a plain Distinction made between his Divine and Humane Nature yet is he always spoken of but as one person Here then I know not better how to express my Sentiments than by saying that in the one and single Person of Christ there is a Conjunction of both the Divine and Humane Nature and consequently that Christ is really and truly both God and Man And if the same Objection be made against this Doctrine as is against that of the Trinity viz. that it is very obscure and difficult to be apprehended I shall also return the same Answer as I have already done to that in the latter end of § 23. to which I refer my Reader 38. He who acknowledges Christ to be God to be sure will allow of his eternal Existence as to his Divine Nature And as to what concerns his Humane Nature that he was Conceived by the Power of the Holy Ghost Born of the Virgin Mary and that after some years spent in preaching and doing good he was thro the Malice of the Jews and at their vehement desire condemned by Pilate the Roman Governour to be crucified which was accordingly done and a Spear thrust into his Side That being dead he was buried and lay in the Sepulcher unto the third day upon which he rose from the dead and aster several times conversing with his Disciples for the space of Forty days that he was visibly taken up from them and received into Heaven unto infinite and eternal Glory where he is our perpetual Mediatour and Intercessour at the Throne of God All this I say is so evidently and without Controversy testified by his Disciples whose Veracity I have asserted Part 1. § 19 and recorded in the Scriptures of the New Testament whose Authority I have proved Part 1. § 23. c that no reasonable Man I think can now deny or so much as doubt of any part of it And altho there are one or two passages of Scripture from whence it is inferred that Christ before his Resurrection did descend into Hell yet will I not venture nor do I think it necessary to determine whether by the word Hell is meant the state of the dead only or the place of the damned or if the latter signification be to be chosen for what end and purpose it was that he descended thither Only I conclude certainly that it was not to suffer any thing there because I do not find the least intimation throughout the Scripture of any suffering of Christ which he did or was to endure beyond the shedding of his Blood and yielding up his life upon the Cross 39. What God might have done had he so pleased without any other consideration but only by virture of his own absolute Authority if he has rather chosen to do it for the sake of Jesus Christ and in consideration of that Obedience which he performed and those Sufferings which he underwent who shall dare to find fault with him or pretend to be wiser than he Now that it is for the sake of Christ and of his Obedience and Sufferings that God vouchsafes to us the Pardon of our Sins and makes us the offer of everlasting Happiness is so plainly declared in many places of the Holy Scriptures that nothing can be more And since I find God's sending of Christ to be set forth as an instance of his Love not to some few particular persons only but even to the whole World and since Christ is said to have died for all and to have been a Propitiation for the sins of the World without any exception I cannot but conclude that all men who ever were or are or shall be might have been or may be the better for Christ and his Sufferings if through their own default they have not or shall not forfeit that Benefit which was designed them And as it is not disputed but that the ancient Patriarchs who by Faith foresaw the coming of Christ had a share in that Redemption which he wrought altho they died before he came into the World so to me it seems to stand with a great deal of reason that even those persons who never heard any thing of Christ may yet for his sake find Mercy from God because God who perfectly knows the most secret Inclinations of all Hearts may clearly foresee that if the knowledge of Christ had been proposed and offered unto them they would have owned him and submitted unto his Gospel which our Saviour tells us was the very case of Tyre and Sidon and for which reason he declares that they should receive a milder Doom than Chorazin and Bethsaida in the day of Judgment Mat. 11. 21 22. And how far this may extend to all such as labour under very strong Prejudices altho not strictly invincible I think that God is the only proper Judge 40. But however God may think fit to deal with those who are either ignorant of or strongly prejudiced against the Christian Religion yet the manner of his proceeding with true Believers is plainly enough declared All those who receive and own the Christian Faith are not to be looked upon as so many separate persons each of them believing such and such Doctrines but are always represented
in Scripture as Joyned together in one Society or Body which is called the Church of which Christ Jesus is the chief or Head and under an obligation to live in communion and fellowship one with another under those Laws and Constitutions which Christ has given them but not that I can find in Scripture obliged to joyn with or submit to any one person as the Vicar of Christ and the visible Head of the Church upon Earth For if Christ had appointed any such person as his Deputy upon Earth he must either have declared a matter of such consequence with great plainness and evidence or else it would be very hard to find fault with any man for being mistaken in it Whereas the Arguments which those of the Church of Rome bring to prove either that such a Vicar there must be or that St. Peter the Apostle was the Man or that the Pope or Bishop of Rome and not the Bishop of Antioch is the Successour of St. Peter both in his Bishoprick and Authority are all so weak and precarious so forced and perplexed and so fully confuted by the Protestant Divines that nothing in my Opinion but Blindness of Understanding or worldly Interest can prevail with the Members of that Church still to insist upon them Now that Christ instituted but one Church in which all true Believers and good livers are for ever to be comprised is very plain And altho through the Mistakes and Perverseness of Man this Church is rent and divided into opposite and contending parts and parties yet this does not hinder but that according to its true and primitive Constitution it is or ought to be one as a Kingdom or Common-wealth by its Laws and Constitutions is but one Society altho there may arise Factions and different Interests in it nor shall any Man be esteemed as a Member of the Church before God who is not ready and willing according to the best of his power and knowledge to maintain the Unity of it and that upon those very Terms and none other which Christ has appointed as near as possibly he can find and apprehend them Moreover that all the Laws and Constitutions on which Christ has founded the Church and by which he would have it regulated are exactly agreeable unto the Rules of sound Morality and the Will of God cannot be so much as doubted and therefore it is truly said that the Church is Holy altho every particular Member thereof has both his frailties and his sins which yet he must repent of and so become holy as the Church is holy or else he violates one of the main and fundamental Laws and so becomes as it were an Out-law of the Church and forfeits his part in all the Privileges that belong unto that Society And whereas before the coming of Christ the People of Israel did enjoy more of the Favour of God and had greater privileges and advantages on the score of their being God's chosen and peculiar People than any or all other Nations of the World The Gospel of Christ on the contrary now looks upon all as equally entitled unto God's Favour and the advantages thereon depending who take care duly to qualifie themselves for it So that whereas formerly the Church that is the chosen People of God might have been said to be particular as being in a manner limited to one Nation or People now on the contrary it is Catholick that is to say universal as being no way confined to one place or Nation all People being equally chosen by God in Christ who will receive and love according to the Gospel 41. In those several Revelations which God was pleased to make of himself after the Fall of Man unto Adam to Abraham and to the People of Israel there was still a plain intimation given them that in the time to come there should an extraordinary Person arise in the World who should yet more clearly make known the Will of God to Mankind But when Christ who was That Person did accordingly come and send his Apostles to preach the Gospel over all the Earth he neither suggested to them nor they unto the World that any other Revelation was ever after to be expected But always gave them to understand that God had in the Gospel compleated and finished all that declaration which he intended to make of Himself or his Will unto Mankind until the general Judgment and Dissolution of the World If therefore the Holy Scripture had given me no manner of assurance of the perpetuity of the Church my own Reason would have been enough to make me conclude that God in his Providence will so order the matter as that the Christian Religion being the only known and ordinary means of eternal Salvation shall never be wholly extinguished while the World lasts so as to stand in need of any new Revelation to revive and restore it But that there shall always be a certain Company of Men evidently conspicuous to the World teaching and professing the true Christian Religion without any Errour or Corruption in Doctrine or Worship is what I can no where find promised or foretold either by Christ or any of his Apostles On the contrary there are several passages in the New Testament which do plainly seem to foretell that in process of time most pernicious Doctrines and practices should prevail and take place even amongst the generality of those who should profess themselves to be Disciples of Christ And whosoever shall but lightly compare the state of Christianity for several Centuries before the Reformation with that Draught of it which is left us by Christ and his Apostles in the Holy Scriptures must if he be impartial I think be fully convinced of the truth of those Predictions 42. Whether or no God has or does at any time communicate or bestow any extraordinary Grace or Assistance upon those who are no visible Members of the Church but altogether strangers unto that Revelation which he has made of himself is a question which the virtuous lives and heroick actions of some brave Heathens make it hard positively to determine in the negative But that he will give so much Grace and strength to every one who shall become a Member of Christ's Church as that thereby they may if the fault be not their own sufficiently qualifie themselves for eternal Happiness by the performance of those things which he requires on their part to be done is what I think no man can doubt of who does but in general consider the Mercy and Love which God designed even unto all men but more especially unto the Church in sending our Saviour Christ Jesus into the world altho there were not any particular Promises of this nature in the Gospel And that this Grace and ability to do good is in Scripture ascribed unto the Ministry and Influence of the Holy Ghost upon the hearts and minds of true Believers is plain and generally owned by all Christians But that this
influence of God's Spirit does not work so uncontrollably but that it may be resisted and even wholly rejected and lost is I think sufficiently obvious as well from Reason and Experience as form those passages of the Holy Scripture wherein we are exhorted not to quench the Spirit but to walk in and be led by the Spirit and the like which were apparently needless and to no purpose if the operations of the Holy Spirit upon our Hearts were so strong as that we could not chuse but comply with them Now the things which God requires to be performed on our part in order to life everlasting are apparent and can be no more but to believe those Truths which he has made known which is called Faith and to observe those Precepts which he has commanded which is called Obedience And as I have already shewn that these things are required from no man beyond the measures of possibility Part 1. § 14. So does the Scripture most fully assure us that God will in them make a very sufficient allowance for the ignorance and frailty and even for the perversness of our Nature and will not only be merciful unto our Weaknesses and ordinary Failings but will pardon and forgive even our greatest and most wilful Sins upon our true and hearty Repentance which is a part of our Obedience And as for the sin against the Holy Ghost which is said to be absolutely unpardonable I do not think it needful to enquire here into the Nature and Consequence of it but shall refer my Reader to that excellent Sermon of Dr. Tillotson the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury upon that subject But here it is highly necessary that we should all take that Caution which both Reason and the Holy Scripures do give us viz. That we should not presume so much upon God's Mercy and Lenity as from hence to take occasion of going on in our Wickedness For Kindness thus abused will certainly turn into the highest Wrath and much increase the Damnation of a Sinner 43. I am inclined to think that those Arguments which are drawn from the nature of the Humane Soul it self are not by themselves sufficient to prove that it is immortal but on the contrary that the eternal duration of any created Being depends not so much upon its own Nature as upon the Will of God who created it But as Reason alone suggests unto us that there is a Life to come after this Part 1. § 13. And that Man was at first designed by God unto life eternal Part 2. § 29. so does the Holy Scripture most clearly assure us that they who perform what God requires shall be happy to all Eternity and they who do not so shall be miserable without end The reconcilableness of which with God's Justice and Mercy I have accounted for § 17. But wherein this Happiness of the righteous shall consist we can but very imperfectly tell and whether the Punishment of the wicked shall literally be in everlasting Fire or whether that expression be only made use of Metaphorically to signifie the greatness of the Torment I think it not necessary to determine But both my own Reason and some places of Scripture do seem strongly to suggest that neither the Reward of good men nor the Punishment of the evil shall be equal unto all but greater or less according as they have exceeded one another in the Holiness or Wickedness of their Lives 44. That all Men are mortal is sufficiently testified by out daily Experience But that the Souls of Men immediately upon their separation from their Bodies are not in a state of Insensibility but are straitway conveyed into a state either of Joy or Misery seems very apparent to me from St. Paul's desire to be dissolved that he might be with Christ from our Saviours Promise unto the Thief upon the Cross and from the Story or Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus as also from some other intimations which the Holy Scripture gives us But since there is one day to be a general Judgment of all mankind before the Tribunal of Christ where every man must receive his Sentence for eternal either Happiness or Misery as the Holy Scripture does assure us It seems not irrational to judge that neither the righteous nor the wicked do receive their full and final portion until that Judgment be passed upon them I know not therefore how to condemn those who anciently took up the Custom of praying for their deceased Friends who had lived holily and died piously that they might find favour and acceptance at the general Judgment and have their portion of Glory augmented But I can by no means approve of those who upon such pitiful suggestions have presumed to determine that there is such a place as Purgatory where the Souls of men are to be purged and suffer a temporary Punishment before their admission into Heaven And altho I look upon their praying for the dead to be a mistake rather than a sin yet their taking of Mony for so doing and raising such a Revenue upon that Fund I look upon to be a most ungodly Cheat and Imposition upon the People 45. Altho I do not apprehend that there is any natural decay in the general frame and structure of this World yet it is certain that by the Power of God who made it it may whenever he pleases be destroyed and dissolved and the Scripture assures us that it shall be so at the time of the general Judgment at which time also there shall be an universal Resurrection of the Bodies of all those who have died and a change of those who shall be then alive But whether all the same individual Particles of each mans Body which have been laid down in the earth shall be raised and reunited again to their Souls I look upon to be a needless Enquiry What St. Paul says upon this Argument 1 Cor. 15. 35. does abundantly satisfie me the purport of whose words I take to be this viz. That God who being the Author of Nature has given such a vegetative power to a Grain of Corn that when it is thrown into the Ground and there macerated and dissolved it springs up again and brings forth a Body suitable and proper to its self that that same God I say both can and will at the last day from the dead and dissolved Bodies of Men raise up such Bodies as shall please himself And as there is a continual and great change of Particles in the Humane Body between the Birth and the Grave so I see not what Absurdity would follow if we should allow also that there is a like change between the Grave and the Resurrection 46. And thus I have endeavoured to give a brief and plain account of that part of Christianity which is purely or chiefly doctrinal which upon the most strict search that I have been able to make I think is exactly agreeable to the tenour and main design of the Holy Scriptures and
methinks it is a most shameful and deplorable thing that Men commonly scruple not to do those things in the sight of God which they would be afraid or ashamed it should be known or even suspected of them by Men like themselves 5. Since God is most true from hence it will follow that we ought to believe what soever he says or makes known how improbable soever otherwise it might seem to us But the true estimate of such belief is not to be made by the clearness and strength of our speculative Assent unto those Truths which he has proposed to our Understanding for to receive a Truth without any Doubts or Scruples which sometimes do unaccountably force themselves upon us even in the clearest cases is not always in our power But rather by the constant suitableness of ourlives unto the profession of such Doctrines as we receive and own And he who has but a weak Faith and yet leads a good life altho he is not qualified for doubtful Disputations is nevertheless a true Believer because his Belief answers the main end and design of the Gospel which I have shewn to be Virtue and Morality Part 1. § 42. Nor can there for example be a better Evidence that a man does really and sufficiently Believe the Truth of a life to come than when he is industrious and diligent in preparing for it whatever Doubts or Scruples he may have in point of Speculation about it 6. Since God's Power is infinite and his Authority uncontrolable it follows that we ought to fear him and so much the more because of our natural propensity to sin because he has it always in his Power to make us miserable here and eternally so hereafter But he cannot be said to fear God most that is most truly who is possessed with the greatest dread and terrour at the thoughts of his Wrath or Judgments for then the Devils who tremble or wicked Wretches who despair of God's Mercy would be the best performers of this Duty But he is the truest Fearer of God who always takes the greatest care not to offend him the Fear of him being never originally designed to torment and disquiet our Minds but only to be such a Check upon us as to keep us in due Awe and Obedience 7. Since every sin is an Offence both against a gracious and a powerful God and of every dangerous consequence to the person who commits it And since nothing can possibly be concealed from God it follows that we ought to be deeply concerned and truly sorrowful for every sin which we commit and by no means to palliate or frame Excuses for them but freely to own and confess them to him But the truth of this Sorrow is not to be measured by the Passionateness of it or the Tears which it produces which tho sometimes good signs yet too often produce but little effect but by the hearty reformation of life that follows And he only can be said to any purpose either to be sorry for his sins or to confess them to God who is careful for the time to come to forsake them 8. Since God is Almighty he is certainly able and since he loves us he cannot but be willing to do every thing that is best and fittest for us if we by our own faults do not provoke him to the contrary From whence it follows that as long as we serve him faithfully we ought in all our wants and exigencies to trust and relie upon him And if he does not relieve or help us in such a manner as we desire we ought to bear whatever Afflictions we lie under patiently and contentedly as well knowing that God takes no delight in grieving us but only corrects and keeps us under in order to our eternal good And to demonstrate our Trust in God and submission to his chastising hand we must never attempt by any unlawful means to supply any of our Wants or free our selves from any even the most grievous pressures Altho at the same time honest labour and industry yet still with submission to God's Will for the compassing of any thing which is lawlful and good is not only allowed but commended and required 9. But since God is a free Agent and since all the good which we have or are capable of comes from him and depends altogether on his Power and over-ruling Providence we ought to pray to him for whatsoever we stand in need of and that he would bless all our honest Labours with success But because often if we had the very things which we desire they would at the last tend to our hurt and because he knows what is fit for us much better than we our selves therefore we ought always to pray that his Will should ever take place rather than our own And since we can have no reason to doubt of his Love we ought to assure our selves that we shall receive either the very things we pray for or else that which is altogether as good for us if our sins obstruct it not 10. And the very same considerations which prompt us to make our Prayers to God in all our wants do sufficiently demonstrate that we ought to return Thanks unto him for all the Blessings which we have received Amongst which those Afflictions which have at any time reclaimed us from sin and brought us to a sense of our Duty ought I think to be placed in the chiefest rank And the only Demonstration of a truly thankful Heart to God is the making a pious and honest use to his Glory of all those Blessings which we daily receive from him Nor can there be any thing more absurd than for a man to pretend to give God Thanks with his Lips who does not also do it more to the purpose in his Life 11. As God's Justice and Veracity are a reason beyond exception why we should without Anxiety depend on all his Promises so the great Promise which he has made us being that of everlasting Happiness for our more effectual attaining unto which he has sent his Son our Saviour Christ Jesus to suffer for us It is therefore accordingly our Duty to hope for eternal Salvation that is to say to expect the performance of what God has promised and the enjoyment of what Christ has purchased for us But this hope is to be shewn not by the strength of our Confidence that we shall be saved in which it is very possible that a man may deceive himself but by our constant care in duly performing what God requires on our parts in order to Salvation For he only who is diligent in doing the work does with any reason expect or hope for the promised Reward 12. As we are obliged to pray unto God for all that we want and to hope for eternal Salvation from him so the Holy Scripture directs us to ground all our hopes of Happiness upon the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and to offer up all our Prayers in his Name
as hoping only for his sake to be accepted who is represented as our only Mediatour and Intercessour with God Whosoever therefore offers to joyn the Merits Mediation or Intercession of any Saint together with Christ Jesus either to strengthen his hopes of Salvation or to make his Devotions more surely to be accepted by God as he seems to distrust the Mediation of Christ as if alone it were imperfect and insufficient so he acts not only without any Warrant from but even contrary to the plain tenour of the Holy Scriptures 13. That it is absurd to attempt and impossible to make any bodily or visible Picture or Image to represent God who is both incorporeal and invisible is most evident beyond doubt or denyal And when any such Representations are made with that design and exposed to the view of the People the natural consequence of them must needs be to beget wrong Notions of God in the Minds at least of the more ignorant sort For such as any thing is represented to them such they will be apt to conceive it in all points to be My Reason therefore alone would sufficiently conclude that it is unlawful to make any sort of Picture or Image to represent God altho he had not so positively forbid it in the Holy Scripture nor so expressly declared himself a jealous God in that particular 14. In all Cases where one man may deceive another to his great damage it is reasonable that he who apprehends such danger should not depend upon another man except he first has good security given him of his Truth and Fidelity Now many times the best or indeed the only security which can be given in such cases is a solemn Appeal to Almighty God who is the Searcher of all Hearts and the Punisher of all Wickedness as expecting and freely offering one's self to his Wrath and Vengeance in case he prevaricates in what he asserts or promises And this is what we call by the Name of an Oath And since he who takes an Oath I mean with due seriousness and consideration does therein make an evident acknowledgment of some of the principal Attributes of God viz. his Omniscience Justice Truth and Power it follows that an Oath duly taken is an act of Honour and Reverence towards God and consequently is not in its self unlawful or evil But if an Oath be taken rasbly or unadvisedly or unnecessarily or in trivial cases it is a lessening and undervaluing of the Divine Majesty which ought always to be treated with the profoundest Reverence and consequently sinful and unlawful And this is all that I can conceive to be forbidden by our Blessed Saviour Mat. 5. 34. Nor can I apprehend that that place contains an universal prohibition of all swearing whatsoever For besides that the very Context in the preceding Verse does most evidently limit the discourse to such Oaths as are purely voluntary and therefore altogether unnecessary There is neither Reason nor Precedent to induce any one to believe that our Saviour would universally forbid any thing which has nothing of Evil or Malignity in its nature And some even of the best of Men not only before but since the coming of Christ and even the Blessed Angels themselves we are assured in Scripture have sworn upon some occasions with great solemnity Nor do the Holy Scriptures in other places where mention is made of the taking of an Oath speak of it as a thing unlawful or forbidden or any way universally evil in its self but altogether the contrary Nor did our Blessed Saviour that we can find design to deprive Princes or Magistrates of any part of that lawful Power which they had over their Subjects before his coming who every where were invested with a Right of exacting an Oath from Them when it should be necessary either for the peace and security of the Common-wealth or for the ending of Differences between private parties And as for that passage of St. James 5. 12. which is by some urged against swearing in any case whatsoever It being no more but a recapitulation of our Saviours words which were just now mentioned needs no other Answer than what I have already given But since the very nature and design of an Oath is to invoke God that thereby a Man may give assurance to another of his truth and fidelity it follows that to affirm any thing upon Oath beyond what the Man who swears knows to be true or not to perform what he has upon his Oath promised is a sin And since he who imposes upon another by doubtful and equivocal words does as much deceive him as he who speaks a down-right Falsity from hence it will follow that such a deceitful Oath is altogether as contrary to the nature and design of an Oath and consequently as unlawful as a false one But altho an Oath lays an obligation upon a Man to do whatever he has sworn yet if a Man swears to do any thing which is a sin and contrary to some former Obligation under which he indispensably lyes to God or Man he can not in this case be obliged to keep his Oath but is bound to repent of it For besides that it is not reasonable that any mans own act should free him from any Obligation under which he lyes to another it is plain that an Oath can neither alter the nature of a sin nor make it lawful to commit it And since the design of an Oath in its own nature is to oblige him to performance that takes it and since the Name of God ought never unnecessarily to be invoked it follows that where a Man ought not to keep an Oath he ought not on any account to take it 15. According to the Customs of different places there have divers Ceremonies and Forms of words been introduced in the taking of an Oath some of them grounded upon Reason and others taken up through mistake in imitation Thus probably whereas it may have been a Custom in some places in an Oath to invoke the Vengeance of God upon ones head from hence likely might arise that Form of swearing by the Head and in imitation thereof by the Hand or other parts of the Body And whereas it was usual to take solemn Oaths in extraordinary cases in the Temple or at the Altar and with us at this time laying the Hand upon the Holy Scriptures from hence might arise the Forms of swearing by the Temple the Altar the Bible c. But here it must be noted that the nature of an Oath being for assurance and consisting therefore altogether in the intention of the parties viz. as well of him who requires it as of him who gives it He may be said really and truly to snear not only who makes use of such a Form and Ceremony as is accustomed or prescribed in any certain place but he who any ways signifies to another an intention to oblige himself under the penalty of God's Wrath and Vengeance
And for the same reason the joynt intention of both parties as it appears fairly to be signified without any place for Fraud or Collusion must needs be the true measure of the obligation of every Oath 16. When a Man promises a thing and obliges himself thereto not to any other Man but only to God alone this is what is commonly called a Vow and comes so exactly under the same Rules with a Promisory Oath as will presently appear to whosoever reads the two foregoing Sections that I need not again particularly repear them But it is a very necessary caution to be observed in all Oaths and more especially to be taken care of in Vows that a Man should never voluntarily oblige himself to any thing but what he is well assured is within his power to perform I mean with the help of that common Asistance and Grace which God has promised to all that seek it For if a Man goes beyond this and tyes such Burdens upon himself as he is not sufficiently sure of strength to bear besides the presumption of the thing it must needs involve his Conscience in many Difficulties and Perplexities 17. Since there is no other Being whatsoever which for Power Goodness or excellency of Nature can any way be equalled to or compared with Almighty God from hence it will follow that all these foregoing Duties which we owe unto God on the account and supposition of the Transcendency of his Nature and Attributes are not any of them to be paid unto any Thing or Person besides himself For that would be in effect to set up somewhat else as a God or in the place of God unto our selves Let them then who seem either to love or fear or trust in any Thing or Person as much or more than God and who offer up their Prayers and Devotions unto any Saints or Angels which seems to suppose their Omnisciences and that they know the Secrets of Mens Hearts and to argue some distrust of God's Goodness and Readiness to hear us Let them I say and such like persons consider well with themselves how they can answer these things to God who is a jealous God But since every Man who is sincere in Religion must necessarily suit his Worship and Duty to God according to the apprehensions which he has of the Deity He who is convinced of the distinction of Persons in the Unity of the God head of which I have endeavoured to give my Thoughts Part 2. § 22. cannot I think but make the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost the joynt Objects of his Service and Devotion And why it should not be both lawful and proper to invoke the Son and Holy Ghost together with the Father in our Prayers as well as to be Baptized and to Bless in their Names together with him which are both I think acts of Divine Worship I confess I can see no sound reason that can be given But if any man shall tell me that in the Worship of God he dares proceed no farther than the Holy Scriptures will expressly warrant and therefore that he can not invoke the Holy Ghost in his Prayers because he there finds neither Precept for nor Example of it Judging no Man but leaving every Man to stand or fall to his own Master for my self I answer that since God has made us reasonable Creatures I can not but think that a clear and rational Consequence from Scripture is as good a Warrant for any religious action and lays as great an Obligation upon him that is convinced of it as the most express Text And if the Personality and Divinity of the Holy Ghost be admitted as I here suppose to me no Consequence seems to be clearer than that he is to be invoked and worshiped together with the Father and the Son 18. Since the end to which God designs all Men is eternal Happiness in another life Part 2. § 29. To a capacity for which we are again after our Fall restored by Jesus Christ Part 2. § 33 c. It follows that we ought not to do any thing whereby we may miss of this end or be diverted from the prosecution of it But on the contrary that the whole course of our actions and endeavours should ever be bent on the pursuit of it 19. No Man will ever be diligent in the pursuit of any thing of which he seldom thinks and rarely considers the benefit of obtaining and the evil of missing it If therefore we are obliged to be diligent in our endeavours after eternal Happiness we ought to make the Joys of Heaven and the Torments of Hell the subject of our frequent Thoughts and Meditations 20. He who places his Happiness or any part of it upon a wrong Object will never be so diligent as he ought in the pursuit of that true Happiness to which he is designed by God because the stream of his Thoughts and Endeavours must needs in the whole or in part be diverted according as he apprehends his Happiness to lie another way Now that there is nothing in this World except a good Conscience and the hope of eternal Life which tho they may be had in this World yet are not of the World that can any way make up a part of our real Happiness is abundantly demonstrable from the vanity uncertainty and shortness of all worldly Joys He therefore who places any part of his Happiness upon any thing belonging to this World most certainly places it upon a wrong Object But whatsoever a Man proposes to himself as the ultimate End of any of his actions it is certain that therein he places some part at least of his Happiness For that which is the ultimate End of any action of a Man must be proposed as the final satisfaction of some of his Desires for as far as any one's Desire extends so far off must be the End he aims at and no Desire of any Man can ever be finally satisfied till it meets with that wherein he supposes his Happiness in whole or in part to consist From hence then it will follow that altho there are some Pleasures and Satisfactions in this World which may innocently be enjoyed yet No man ought to propose any worldly enjoyment as the ultimate End and Design of any of his Actions For this would be a placing his Happiness or some part of it upon a wrong Object and thereby a hinderance of his pursuit of the true Happiness for which God designs him To illustrate this which otherwise may seem obscure by an Example or two A Man may lawfully without doubt relish the Meat he eats for to what other end did God give us the Sense of Tasting but the reason of his eating at all times ought to be to preserve his Life and Health that he may be the better able to do all those things which God requires from him in order to his Salvation this being the End for which God designs him and which he
but Diversion and who scarce ever set themselves to any employment whereby either God is glorified or others benefited what can they expect but the same Sentence which is pronounced upon the idle and unprofitable Servant Mat. 25. 26. And if to be altogether idle and unemployed is not to be excused or justified how much more are they to be condemned who are so frequently employed in such things as are evil and scandalous 26. Since the right knowledge of our Duty arises chiefly from a true judgment concerning the circumstances and qualifications of Things and Persons it follows that every Man should endeavour as far as he is able to inform himself rightly and to frame true Notions in all points of and concerning God Himself and other Men to whom there are Duties owing and also of all those things which are the subjects of any of those Duties and in the true management whereof such Duties do consist For if he be mistaken in his Judgment concerning either of these he must of necessity take wrong Measures in his actions Thus for Example if a Man should not believe God to be eternal most good wise and powerful c. it would not be possible for him to love honour and fear him in that degree that he ought to do And if we do not always remember ourselves to be frail Creatures subject to Passions and Infirmities of short continuance in this World and that whatever Excellency we may seem to have we derive it wholly from God and his Providence and not from our selves we shall never be able so effectually as we ought to govern our Passions and restrain our Affections from the things of this World and pursue that End for which God has designed us And if we do not consider that other Men whatever accidental Differences there may be between us are equal to us in nature that their Souls are as precious in God's sight as ours that Christ died for them as much as for us c. We shall not be inclined to behave our selves to them with that Justice Charity and Humility which do evidently appear to be our Duty And lastly if we do not frame a true Notion of the Vanity of the things of this World and the Excellency of the Joys of Heaven we shall never be able to prefer the later before the former in such a measure as we ought to do 27. Altho the chief Happiness of Mankind is reserved by God to be enjoyed in another life by those who heartily strive for it whilst they are in this yet can I find no reason to think that he has decreed us all or any of us to be absolutely miserable whilst we remain in this World On the contrary since God has originally a love for all Mankind in general Part 2. § 16. I cannot but conclude that he always even in this life designs at least some share or beginning of Happiness for every Man and never afflicts or suffers any Man to be afflicted but only in order to his greater Happiness hereafter until such time as he thinks it proper to pour out his Vengeance and final Destruction upon such as have by their Wickedness altogether forseited his Love and Favour Since then God originally designs some measure or commencement of Happiness to all Men even in this life as well as eternal Happiness hereafter it follows that we who ought as much as we can to be subservient to all God's Designs should endeavour as much as in us lies to promote the Happiness of every Man both in relation to this World and of that which is to come Or in other terms that every Man should endeavour to do as much good to all others as he can and to hurt no man whatsoever if he can avoid it 28. But if every Man always kept singly by himself without any Society or Intercourse with others it would be impossible to do any good one to another And therefore I conclude that it is the Will of God that Mankind should live each with other in a state of Society And to make us all the more sensible of the necessity and obligation that lies upon us thus to live with and do good to others God has so ordered the state and condition of all Mankind that it is not possible for any Man long to subsist much less to enjoy any sort of Comfort or satisfaction in this Life without the good will and assistance of others which he has no reason to expect except he be ready upon all occasions to retaliate what he himself so continually stands in need of And since God's original Love to Mankind is not confined to some certain persons but universally extended to all I must needs conclude that he designs not only the Comfort and Happiness of some particulars but universally of all Men whatsoever And since the more universal the Society between Men is the more universal the Happiness which thence results will be it will evidently follow that it is God's Will that every Man should behave himself after a sociable and friendly manner to every other Man without exception And since there is no Man in the World however weak and poor or at never so great a distance from me but it is possible that things may fall out so as that one time or other I may in my Distress stand in need of his Help and Friendship my Reason tells me that it is my Interest as well as Duty as much as I am able before-hand to oblige every Man who comes in my way by doing Offices of Civility and Kindness to him as occasion offers 29. That God has given to Mankind in general the free Liberty to make use of all other Creatures for their support and sustenance my Reason as well as the Holy Scripture does assure me because without some of them we could not preserve our selves in being and if we had not liberty to destroy others of them for our use they would in time so over-spread the Face of the Earth as that we could not have any safe or convenient Habitation upon it But if all these Creatures were always to remain in common so that no Man should have a Right to take possession of any part of them to his own prticular use and disposal and to exclude others therefrom the Consequence must needs be perpetual Discord and Confusion For when I had prepared Food to sustain my Hunger or Rayment to defend me from the Cold if every other Man should have still as good a Right thereto as I any one might lawfully take it away from me and if my Right were as good as any others I might also lawfully Defend my Possession from which state of things Contention and Strife must eternally and unavoidably arise I therefore conclude that there must be some Laws of Property and Right and that every man must yield to others that which is their own or else there can be no such thing as Society and
which is my Right for otherwise all the good and honest Men in the World would continually lie exposed to the Wrongs and Insults of any evil Man who might have a mind to destroy them so I and every Man ought to be ready at any time to be reconciled to an Adversary or Enemy provided it may be upon such terms as are consistent with our own Safety Nor ought any Man upon any occasion to do any greater harm to his keenest Enemy than what he apprehends to be absolutely necessary to his own preservation For since Society and Peace among Mankind is the Will and design of Almighty God If a breach be made therein by another I ought for my part to do nothing which may make it wider but ever to be ready to give a helping hand to the closing and making up of it 35. Hitherto I have endeavoured to lay down the main and fundamental Rules of that Duty which every Man is obliged to pay and perform to God to Himself and to all other Men. Now to deduce all the particular branches of Virtue and Piety from these main Principles and to shew how Morality is improved and refined by the Gospel to the highest degree of perfection is a thing not dificult to be done but yet inconsistent with my designed Brevity For which therefore I must refer my Reader to some of those Books of Christian Piety wherein each Particular of our Duty is at large described and pressed But in the mean time if we would have a shorter Abstract of our Duty than what I have now been giving The Holy Scripture furnishes us with three Rules two exprest and one implied from which every thing that we can be obliged to do is easily dedueed And they are 1. That we should love God with all our Heart Soul and Strength 2. That we should truly love our Selves that is to say so as always to aim at and pursue our true and chief Happiness And 3. That we should love others as we do our Selves Not with the same degree of Love for that is not only unreasonable but impossible but with the same Reality and Sincerity or in other terms that we should ever do unto all other Men what we would think reasonable that they should do unto us if we were in their Circumstances and they in ours But besides these general Duties which are indiscriminately incumbent upon all Men there are divers particular ones which do arise from those several Relations which Men may contract and bear to others of which it is fit that I give some brief Account 36. That God would have the Generation of Men continued and increased upon the Earth is very evident as well from the natural inclination which he has implanted in them as in all other living Creatures to propagate their Kind as from that Love and Affection which is common to them with other Creatures towards those who spring from them But if Mankind were propagated only by the exercise of wild and wandering Lust without confinement to any setled Rules or Laws this would bring in such a Deluge of Confusion and disturbance as would unavoidably deprive them of the greatest part of those satisfactions which at the present they do or may enjoy For if there were no such thing as setled Marriages we can hardly suppose that ever there would be any sort of setled Families which are the first beginnings of Society and regularity amongst Men Fathers would not know which were their own Children and consequently would take no care to bring them up or provide for them and not only the pain of bearing but the whole trouble of nourishing reating and providing for Children would lie wholly upon the Female Sex who by themselves could but very imperfectly perform that work as it should be done Since therefore God intends the Comfort and satisfaction of Men even whilst they are here upon Earth I conclude that it is his Will that Mankind should be propagated no other way but by setled Marriages that is by a Compact and Agreement between the Male and Female and that under such Rules as are fit and proper to promote the general Happiness of Mankind which being his great design ought ever also to be ours 37. That a Woman should have more than one Husband at a time is notoriously contrary to the design of Marriage and therefore directly unlawful And that a Man should have more than one Wife at a time the experience of many in former Ages and at this time in the Eastern Countries does sufficiently testifie to be contrary to that peace and quietness which is necessary to the Comfort and Happiness of every Family and therefore not so agreeable to that universal Friendship which ought ever to be preserved amongst Men but especially among those who are so nearly allyed together Moreover if Men and their Wives should have liberty to part one from the other whenever they please besides the Confusion and disturbance which this also must breed in Families especially where there are Children in the case Marriage would hardly differ from that wild and wandering Lust against which I have spoken in the preceding Paragraph I conclude therefore that altho before the coming of Christ if a Man took more Wives than one not for Lust which is unlawful § 24. but meerly for Propagation it might in some cases be dispensed with yet it ever was most pleasing to God that a Man should have but one Wife at a time and that nothing but Death should ever part a Man and his Wife except the evil Behaviour of one party should make the continuance of the Marriage Compact and Cohabitation not only something uneasy for that for peace and quietness sake should be born patiently but down-right intolerable But these things which Reason may perhaps but imperfectly suggest the Gospel has passed and established into Laws viz. that as every Woman is to have but one Husband fo no Man must have more than one Wife at a time nor must any thing part Man and Wife but Death except it be the case of Adultery And better much it is that particular persons should sometimes be forced to labour under some Inconvenience than that any such Liberty should be allowed as tends to disturb and distract the World 38. We generally find that all Men even Heathens as well as Jews and Christians have conceived a more than ordinary abhorrence against the Marriage of such persons as were very nearly Allyed together within some certain Degrees of Relation And since the World is wide enough for a Man to chuse a Wife or a Woman a Husband those general Rules which are given to us in Scripture of providing for things honest not only in the sight of God but of Men also and of taking care not only about such things as are just and honest but also about such as are lovely and of good report should teach us that no person should engage in such a
Society have not certain Laws and Rules to proceed by in all such cases and some certain persons to put those Laws in execution every Man would take upon him to be his own Judge and what might feem fit and reasonable to one might appear otherwise to another of a contrary interest from whence perpetual Factions and Confusion must needs follow But there is no reason that any one or more of such a Society without the consent of the rest should take upon them to make Laws for or exercise Authority over the whole Community For if it were in every Mans power to make himself a Magistrate all might set up to be Rulers and few or none would be Subjects which would bring in Confusion and destroy the Society But when the whole Society do agree and consent that such certain persons shall have the exercising of such certain Powers which originally are in the Body of the Society it self it is then lawful for those persons to act accordingly and they who have consented to their Authority are by virtue of that Consent obliged to pay Obedience to them I conclude therefore that the Original of Magistrates is from the Consent of the People since there is no other solid ground that I can find upon which to establish them And when once a legislative and executive Power is thus setled and established by the consent of a People who acquiesce in it and upon all occasions take shelter under its Protection it is to be looked upon as ratified and confirmed by God's own appointment and Subjection and Obedience is accordingly to be paid to it by every particular person who abides within the precincts of its Juridiction For this was the very case of the Roman Government which was in St. Paul's time and there is exactly the same reason for it in all other Kingdoms and Common-wealths whatsoever 47. Since then Magistracy derives it self wholly from the Consent of the People from hence it will follow that the Original Rule of the Magistrates Power and the Subjects obedience is that Consent which the People has given or in other terms those Laws and Constitutions of the place in which the Body of the Nation have acquiesced Beyond which neither any Magistrate ought to command nor is any Subject bound to obey For where there is no Law there can be no Transgression nor any Obligation to Obedience nor consequently any Right to Command 48. But if the legislative Power of any Nation do enact any thing which is contrary to the express Law of God or the eternal Laws of good and evil No particular Man can be bound to obey such a Constitution For the Authority of God ought to weigh more with us than that of any Community whatsoever And it is expressly ruled in Scripture that we ought to obey God rather than Man 49. And the same Reason viz. Self-preservation which allows a Society thus setled into a Government to punish Malefactors within themselves must also justifie them it by force of Arms they defend themselves against any foreign Enemy which would wrong or oppress them or endeavour to recover their Right from those who have taken it from them and refuse to restore it For otherwise it were in vain for a Community to hope to subsist by maintaining good Order and Discipline at home if all the while they must without remedy lye continually exposed to the Wrongs and Insults of every Enemy which may assault them from abroad I conclude therefore that War whether defensive or offensive may in many cases be very just and lawful Nor is there the least word throughout the Holy Scriptures which may represent the Profession of a Soldier who fights under a lawful Authority as any way contrary to Religion and a good Conscience Tho such a Man certainly ought not only to exercise his calling with as much Mildness and Humanity as can be consistent with the service of his Country but also ever to satisfie himself first of the lawfulness of the Cause in which he engages before he draws his Sword in the Quarrel For as we are obliged to do no hurt to any Man whatsoever if we can avoid it so for the very same reason ought we not to become instrumental in any Wrong or Injustice which another Man let him be who he will intends to do 50. That an humble Demeanour together with a reasonable Diligence and an honest Fidelity to his Master is the Duty of every Servant is most apparent because if a Servant be either haughty negligent or unfaithful he ceases in effect to be a Servant And on the other side that Justice and Humanity are no less the Duty of a Master towards his Servant is altogether as clear because where these are not observed the Condition of a Servant must be intolerable and contrary to that comfortable state which we suppose God to design for all Men and therefore for Servants who are as much Men and as much valued by God and for whom Christ died as well as for their Masters 51. That all Christians are or according to Christs Institution ought to be combined together into one Society which is called the Church I have already said Part 2. § 40. Now in all such incorporated Societies these three things are ever to be considered 1. What is the Design of the person or persons who first gather and institute them 2. What Advantage accrues to those who become Members of them And 3dly what are the Laws and Rules to be observed by the whole Body and every Member of it The Design of our Saviour Jesus Christ who at the Will of his heavenly Father instituted and embodied the Christian Church was to purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works or in other terms by this Incorporation so made more effectually to promote the practice of Virtue and Godliness in the World The benefit and advantage which every true Member of this Church may propose to himself is the participation of God's Grace and assistance here for the better performance of his Duty and the enjoyment of everlasting Happiness hereafter both which are promised to us by God in and through Christ Jesus our Saviour And lastly the Laws of the Christian Church are either 1. The general Laws of Piety and Morality of which I have hitherto been giving an account or 2. Such particular Constitutions as are proper to it considered as a congregated and incorporated Body of Men which I have reserved to be treated of in the last place of all 52. The first thing which is incumbent on every Man as or rather in order to become a Member of the Christian Church is to be baptized in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Which Ceremony is intended to put us in mind of that Purity and Cleanness from sin to which we ought to bring our Souls by a virtuous and holy life And altho to wet or wash the Body with Water may
seem but a slight and inconsiderable thing yet since our Saviour Christ has expressly appointed and commanded it and since his Apostles were always most careful to perform it insomuch that even they who had received the extraordinary Gift of the Holy Ghost from Heaven were yet required to be Baptized in order to become visible Members of the Church This Ceremony I think ought not to be left off or discontinued Altho whether it be performed by dipping the Body under the Water or by sprinkling the Water upon it to me seems to be altogether indifferent and to be regulated only by Prudence or the Custom of particular places For neither does the word Baptize signifie any more than to Wash which may be done either way nor does it appear that the Apostles dipped all those whom they baptized Moreover since sprinkling as well as dipping may sufficiently denote the washing and cleansing of the Soul from sin and since Baptism is not expressly in the Holy Scripture determined to either of these ways to the exclusion of the other I conclude that God has left the matter so far indifferent to us and to be ordered according to Prudence as the Circumstances of things and persons shall at any time direct And as long as the Substance and Design of his Command is carefully retained I see no necessity of being so very solicitous about a Circumstance of it except it could evidently be made appear that he had appointed and determined it 53. Since then Baptism is as the Entrance or Door of Admittance into the Church of Christ it will follow that all they and they only who are duly qualified to be Members of his Church are fit to have Baptism administred to them If any person has been brought up out of the Chucrh until he comes to years of understanding and knowledge he is then and only then qualified to be a Member of the Church when having repented of all his former sins he believes and owns that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and consequently receives and professes that Faith and Doctrine which he has taught and authorized and obliges himself to live according to all those Laws and Rules which he has prescribed to us this being the very Condition which our Saviour indespensably requires from his Church and every Member of it according as they are capable of performing it But if a Child be born of Christian Parents or is so in the hands of Christian Guardians as that it is in their power to bring him up in the true Religion and they do promise and engage so to educate him such a Child as this even before he comes to any knowledge of things is yet qualified to be a Member of the Church of Christ upon the presumption that he will perform what God requires from him when he comes to be capable of it and so to continue if by Apostacy or wickedness he does not in process of time separate himself again from it For this beyond dispute was the case of In sants before the coming of Christ who at eight days old if Males were to be Circumcised and thereby admitted into the Church of God and within his Covenant if they were either the Sons or Servants born in the House of believing persons and who as well as their Parents are expressly said to enter into Covenant with God which is but another expression for becoming of his Church And no one surely will offer to say that the Case of Infants is made worse than it was by our Saviours coming into the World especially since he has expressly commanded that little Children should come unto him and not be forbidden for that of such is the Kingdom that is the Church of God I conclude therefore that not only adult persons who make a due profession of their Faith and Repentance but also such Infants as are in a way of being brought up in the Christian Religion are without any Obstacle to be admitted to Baptism 54. There are some passages in the New Testament which seem plainly to suggest to us that it was a constant Custom with the Apostles of Christ to lay their Hands upon all such as had been Baptized which laying on of Hands was undoubtedly accompanied with Prayer to God in order to their receiving the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Spirit of God But that this was a thing positively prescribed and commanded I do not find clearly proved And therefore altho I dare not hastily condemn those particular Churches where this same Custom is disused or intermitted yet since the Grace and Assistance of the Holy Ghost in order to the leading of a good life and obtaining eternal Happiness is for ever continued unto the Church as I have said Part 2. § 42. and therefore ought ever to be sought for altho the working of Miracles and speaking of all Languages without learning them be ceased from amongst us I cannot but conclude that the laying on of Hands upon persons that have been baptized together with Prayer to God for their growth and continuance in Grace which is commonly called Confirmation is a prudent and godly Custom and ever fit to be continued in the Church 55. As every particular Man whatsoever is obliged in his own private person to honour and worship God so the Church being a Society incorporated for the better serving of God is under an Obligation to do the same in her associated capacity that is to say to assemble together for his worship And because the whole Number of Christians which are dispersed over the Face of the Earth are not capable of meeting together in one place the Universal Church therefore lies under a necessity of subdividing it self into particular Churches and those again into particular Congregations according as they find to be most convenient for the pursuing that same end for which they are so incorporated Moreover since all these particular Churches and Congregations are still or ought to be but Parts and Members of that One Catholick Church which our Saviour Christ has appointed and founded it follows that none of them ought to constitute or act any thing amongst themselves which may give a just occasiou for the breaking of that Union and Concord which he designed and has commanded always to be maintained amongst them But on the contrary Matters ought every where so to be ordered as that if a Member of any one particular Church should travel into any other part of the World he may meet with nothing in any Christian Congregation where he comes which justly should be a hinderance to him from assembling or communicating with it 56. The particular acts to be performed in these Christian Assemblies are all such as tend to the Edification of the People in Virtue and Godliness which is the design of their Incorporation and consequently to the promoting of each mans eternal Salvation which is the end that every Christian is supposed to pursue All which are
reducible to these Two Heads viz. Devotion towards God which includes Confession of sins Prayer for all things necessary both for themselves and others and Praising of God as well for his own Excellency and Perfection as for his Love and Beneficence to all Mankind And 2. the Instruction of the People which are assembled which is to be done by Reading and Explaining the Holy Scriptures Catechizing Preaching c. But there is one act of Devotion towards God to be performed in such publick Assemblies which is commonly known by the name of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper or the Holy Communion of which it will be fit to say something more particularly because it is an Ordinance altogether of positive Institution as well as Baptism of which I have already spoken 57. As our Saviours Death and Passion which he underwent for the sins of the whole World should ever out of Gratitude be remembred by us in the most emphatical and affecting manner so except we have every one of us a share and interest in that Atonement which he thereby made to God for us we cannot by the Terms of the Gospel hope for eternal Salvation In order then to both these Ends he himself before his Death appointed it as a perpetual Ordinance for ever to be continued in his Church that Bread should be blessed broken and eaten and a Cup also blessed distributed and drank in such assemblies as should meet together in his Name not only as a Remembrance of his Sufferings for us which are thereby shewn forth and represented but also as the Communion that is to say the exhibition of his Body and Blood unto and the participation of them by all faithful and good Christians To say with the Roman Church that the Substance of Bread and Wine being blessed or consecrated in this Ordinance are transubstantiated or turned into the very real Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ so as that that very same Body of his which was crucified and that Blood which was shed are wholly and intirely received into the bodily Mouth and swallowed down by every Communicant does not only draw after it such monstrous Absurdities as no Man I think without renouncing his Reason can digest nor can be inferred from any passage of Scripture interpreted according to the Rules which I have laid down Part 1. § 25. and 33. But is also directly contrary even to the Letter as well as Meaning of the New Testament in which the Bread in this Holy Institution is plainly called Bread and by the same Rule the Wine must still remain Wine as to its natural substance even after the Blessing or Consecration of it As therefore I must needs conclude that the Body and Blood of Christ are not received by the Members of his Church after that manner which they of Rome do define so must it also follow that their Worshiping of the Host and pretended Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass together with their depriving the Laity of the Cup which besides other Absurdities do wholly depend upon the Doctrine of Transubstantiation are none other than meer human and unlawful Inventions and practices But since a Man may then be said truly to receive and partake of any thing tho at never so great a distance from him when he has a real Interest in it and enjoys the Benefit and Advantage of it as a Man may have an Estate and reap the Profits of it tho it lies in a far distant Country I do therefore conclude that the way whereby we do receive or communicate in the Body and Blood of Christ by this Ordinance is by being made Partakers of those Benefits which by the Crucifying of his Body and the shedding of his Blood do accrue to us and that whosoever eats of this Bread and drinks of this Cup in such a manner as Christ has appointed has thereby assuredly a share of those Benefits held forth and conveyed unto him 58. How often this Ordinance is to be practised and repeated in every Congregation is not expressly determined either by Christ or his Apostles and therefore can only be regulated by the Prudence of the Church it self But common Reason will tell us that it should be so often at least as may be sufficient to preserve a fresh and lively Remembrance of the Sufferings of our Saviour in the minds of the People this being one main End of its first Institution And so often therefore ought every Christian who is arrived to years of understanding for such only are capable of doing any thing in remembrance of another to come and be partakers of it For to contemn or neglect this Ordinance which Christ has appointed for such a peculiar End argues a great slight and disregard of his Death and Passion besides the Disobedience to his Command and therefore is justly to be looked on as a very great and heinous sin 59. As it is a great Affront and even a Mocking of God for a Man to draw near to him in any of his Ordinances without a sincere and well-meaning heart for which Reason Hypocrisy in Scripture is represented as most odious and the Prayer and Sacrifice of a wicked Man whilst he continues such is said to be an Abomination unto God so does he seem to resent such a Practice in no instance more than in this of the Holy Communion of which he who eats and drinks unworthily is expessly said by the Apostle to be quilty of the Body and Blood of Christ and to eat and drink damnation to himself Which Expressions altho they are differently interpreted by divers persons yet in whatever sense we take them they do abundantly shew that God is in a particular manner offended with those who any way profane this sacred Institution It therefore is the Duty and ought very much to be the concern of every Christian first to examin himself and to make the best trial and enquiry that he can whether he be truly sincere in his resolutions of serving and obeying God faithfully all his life-long for any person who is thus disposed and none other is ever acceptable to God And then with Devotion and Reverence suitable unto such Sincerity to come and eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup That as on the one side he may not neglect what Christ has commanded and required so on the other he may not incur the Penalty which is threatned to an unworthy Receiver 60. He that worships or prays to God by himself alone may do it as well by offering up only the inward Thoughts and Desires of his Mind which are clearly seen and known unto God as by expressing himself outwardly by Words which tho even in our private Devotions they may be very proper to keep our Minds intent upon what we are about yet are no way necessary to inform God of what we think or wish for But when a Society of Men do meet to joyn together in God's worship their Devotion must
to make an open Confession of his sins whenever it is necessary for God's Glory or to repair any publick scandal which has been given by him 67. That Almighty God even where he has pardoned a Man's sins upon his true Repentance may yet on the score of those very sins which he has so pardoned lay some sharp and severe temporal Afflictions upon the penitent either to keep him more effectually from sinning for the time to come or that it may be a Terror to others or for many other reasons best known to himself is a thing that cannot be disputed But from hence to infer that these temporal Afflictions if not laid on us in this World are to be undergone in Purgatory and that therefore for the preventing them it is fit and necessary that Penance should be imposed by way of satisfaction or Indulgences granted by way of Remission and all this without any Warrant from the Holy Scripture save only a faint and forced Consequence from some few perverted Texts is a thing so groundless and precarious that it amazes me to think how Men can suffer themselves to be so grossly imposed upon And whosoever shall duly consider upon what weak grounds the Pope and his Prelates do pretend to a Power of dispensing and distributing the Merits of Christ unto the People by way of Indulgence as if they alone had the keeping of that Treasure under Lock and Key and to which tho infinite they have yet added the Merits of the Saints to make their Treasure more abundant will I think very much wonder that their People should be so free to part with their earthly Treasure in purchasing these Indulgences upon no better security 68. That the Apostles of Christ when they were first sent abroad to preach the glad Tidings of the Gospel did anoint many sick persons with Oyl and thereby miraculously heal them we are plainly told by St. Mark c. 6. v 13. And that in this they did no more than what Christ himself had expressly commanded them is most reasonable and probable to suppose Moreover that the anointing with Oyl which is mentioned by St. James c. 5. v. 14. was intended for the very same purpose viz. the raising up the sick person and restoring him to Health is as apparent as any thing can be form the very Context But as we do not find that this anointing of the sick was appointed either by Christ or his Apostles as a standing and perpetual Ordinance for ever to be used in the Church so since Experience shews that the miraculous effect of healing thereby is now wholly ceased I can see no reason why the practice it self should be any longer continued But what just ground the Church of Rome can have from either of these or any other place of Scripture for the divine Institution of their Extreme Unction which they make use of for a far different end namely the preparing thereby of persons who are past hopes of recovery for their passage into the next life is more than I am able to find out 69. As the Body natural would be but a confused and useless Lump if it were not distinguished into the several Members which are necessary for its own Service and preservation And as the Body-politick would be but a disorderly Rabble if there were not Magistrates setled to rule and govern and ministerial Officers appointed to perform all necessary Functions in and about it so the Holy Scripture as well as Reason assures us and the practice of the apostolical Church which is there recorded confirms it that the like Appointment and distinction of Offices are no less necessary in the Church in order to the regular and orderly government of it and the due execution of all its Laws and Constitutions But how far these Offices are limited and appointed by the Law of God or how far left to be setled and determined by the Prudence of the Church according as Circumstances may render it convenient is what I shall not take upon me to pronounce my Sentence in But whatever Polity or ecclesiastical Constitution is setled and acquiesced in either by the whole Church in general or by that of any Nation or Country in particular I think ought quietly to be submitted to by every one who would be a Member of such respective Church except there appears to him to be either something therein which is not only uncommanded but even contrary to the Law of God or else something wanting which God requires and therefore is absolutely necessary to be maintained and kept up in all Churches Nor can I apprehend that any less Warrant can be sufficient for breaking or endangering the Peace or Unity of the Church the preservation of which is so often and so earnestly recommended to us in the Holy Scripture besides the absolute necessity of obeying the Positive Command of God himself And therefore since the Government of the Church by Bishops that is to say by certain persons having in their several Districts a Priority among and in some respects a Superiority over the Presbyters has for so many Ages been universally setled amongst and acquiesced in by all Christians in all parts of the World I cannot find how they can be excused who without any necessity for so doing have so earnestly set themselves not only to retrench the Exceffes and rectifie the Abuses of the episcopal Power but also to pull down and wholly abolish the very Order it self to the no small scandal of those who think that so universal a Constitution every where taking place even in the primitive Church could be grounded on no less than an Apostolick Ordinance of which there seems to be some not obscure Foot-steps in the Scriptures of the New Testament and that most probably in conformity to that Imparity which Christ himself established between the Apostles and the seventy Disciples who were yet both commissioned by him to preach the Gospel 70. How far a case of necessity may upon some occasions excuse or justifie a Man for taking on him an Office which regularly does not belong to him especially if his design therein be truly honest and sincere I know not But no Man certainly ought to intrude into any ecclesi astical Function or exercise any such Office who is not called and admitted thereunto by the lawful Authority and according to the established Constitutions of the Society For if this be not carefully observed the distinction of Offices and Functions in the Church is in effect wholly taken away and a wide Door opened for Confusion and Anarchy But then on the other side good care ought ever to be taken by the Church that no persons be entrusted with any sacred Office but such as are duly qualified for it And that such a Maintainance be provided and setled for every such person as that he may not be necessitated to neglect the publick Service of God and the due exercise of his Function by being constrained to bestow