Righteousness a State of pure and undefiled Light whose happy and glorious Inhabitants are perfectly delivered from the Bondage and Servility of Corruption and Goodness and Justice and all the Moral Excellencies of Divinity enthron'd within their sacred Breasts And every good Man does not only presage but really possesses in this Life a part of his future Happiness when the Divine Nature throughly informs possesses and actuates the Powers and Faculties of his Mind and he faithfully attends to and is guided and governed by its Laws and Suggestions And he whose Soul and Spirit thus becomes an Habitation of Righteousness is in a sense Deified and God dwells in him and he is united to that Omnipresent Spirit of Love and Purity For that Divine Nature the Participation of which is the End and Design of the whole Gospel is not Power and Wisdom but something more precious and soveraign for if a man had all Power that he could remove Mountains and with his breath stop the constant Gyres and Circulations of the Earth and if he had all Wisdom and Knowledge to understand the abstrusest Theory in Nature and Providence and could perswade with the Rhetorick and Oratory of an Angel yet if he had not Charity the Bond of Perfection which not only consolidates and holds together the great Body Politick of Heaven and Earth but is the Root and Center in which all the lines of Beauty and Excellence in Human Souls unite and meet he would have no more of the true Life and Spirit of Christianity in him than a tinkling and sounding Piece of Brass Love is the Joy of Men and Angels the Glory of Heaven and the first pregnant Spring and Source from whence issued all the numerous Productions of the Spiritual and Corporeal Life For God is Love and Love is that to speak with Reverence makes the Divinity a Uniform Being all other Modes and Attributes being too fluctuating arbitrary and unsetled to be the Basis and Foundation of that ever-to-be-adored Author of all things And as Goodness is the most pretious thing in the Deity and for that reason alone obtains the first place in acting so is it that which consummates and completes all moral Agents that derive from him Power and Wisdom and all other Modes being nothing but the several Explications and Diffusions of absolute Goodness But that we may not mistake ourselves the Philosopher tells us of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Harlotry as well as a Heavenly Venus whereby the Soul is enamour'd with these fading Beauties and ensnared by the powerful Inescations of Sense and Corporeity and this weakens and destroys the Soul but 't is the celestial Venus that is the beautiful and perfective Object of Human Minds and by its Union with it changes and transforms the Soul into its glorious Image And what we have hitherto said is no more than what the natural Sentiments of our own Souls bear witness to and all the moral part of Ethnick Philosophy attests which was wholly employed in laying down Rules and Precepts for the regulating mens Lives and putting a stop to the bold Intrusion of Vice and this was universally acknowledged the only way to acquire a Cognation and Affinity with God And what was judged laudable and decorous then and approved as most excellent is made much more so by the Christian Oeconomy which sets the Attainments of a rational Soul at a higher pitch than the secular Wisdom and Philosophy of the Gentiles could arrive to For what more ennobles and inspirits the Mind of Man with true Glory and Magnanimity than the captivating his irrational Desires and suppressing all inordinate Lusts and Appetites and the introducing a Spirit of Love Meekness Temperance and Sobriety What more Divine and Godlike than Charity to bind up an aking head and dry up watry eyes and relieve him who was fighting with the Pressures of Want and Poverty What greater Pleasure can we reasonably imagine than that which results from an Act of Goodness and Bounty whether it respect the Souls or Bodies of our fellow-Creatures in extricating him who was involved in a Labyrinth of Misery and bringing the cheerful Day to him who sate in a Night of Ignorance and Error Which things if duly considered as they are very agreeable and proportionate to our higher and rational Soul so they depretiate the grosser Satisfactions of our viler parts and make good this first Proposition That the true Felicity of Human Souls results from their Participation of the Divine Nature 2. The Gospel shews us the true way to obtain this complete Perfection of our Spirits that it is by an universal Purification of our Minds from all Pollution whatever and an entire Resignation of ourselves to the Conduct of the Divine Life and Light But it will be said that Philosophy teaches as much as this and the Pythagoreans Platonists and Stoicks asserted the highest Perfection of the Soul to consist in her Union with God which is obtained by a perfect Extirpation of all irregular Motions and an abstraction of the Soul from her Love and Sympathy with the Body and transforming her wholly into Intellect For the Passions and sensual Affections being once subdued and the Rational Life excited the Soul becomes presently like unto God as Porphyry speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Hierocles shews us the Scope and End of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Purgation of the Mind namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore although the Heathens by the Light of Nature proceeded to the eradication of Vice out of their Minds yet they retained still an arrogative Life ascribing the Attainments and Perfections of their Souls and their whole Progress in Virtue to their own solitary Endeavours and this their Spiritual and subtle Pride tainted and infected the best of their other Performances So that though they were glorious Lights in their Generations yet they fell short of the Character of a true Christian which is an entire Subjection of a Mans self to the Government and Command of the Life of God being perfectly dead to all Self-seeking and Interest and no otherwise affected to ourselves than if we were not And this heavenly Temper the Divine Providence reserved for the meek and humble Soul of the Messias to bring into the World who hath resumed that as the most compendious way to Blessedness which was rejected by the wise men of the World 3. He that shall impartially and without Prejudice peruse the Evangelical Histories shall find that there is not any thing recorded in them vain and trivial but such as is of the highest moment and importance and some way or other useful and advantageous for the Propagation of Christianity in the World and for those things which seem most liable to the Exceptions and Cavils of vile and prophane Persons I shall endeavour to shew their Reasonableness and how becoming and decorous it was to insert them in the Histories of the Gospel It is too well known that there
A DISCOURSE OF THE EXCELLENCY OF Christianity I. THESS v. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1671. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER READER THese Papers having lain by me for some years in scattered Parcels I was at last perswaded to unite in this small Discourse the Subject is great and glorious viz. To set forth Christianity in all its native Beauty and Lustre which has been too much sullied by the Atheistically given for whilst the speculative Infidel soars aloft and thinks to dispute God out of the World and laughs at Religion by Pretences and Shews of Reason though indeed he declares the greatest and vilest Folly the Practical Atheist sits beneath in a Crowd of Lusts and Passions Profits and Interests and though he believe there is a God and such a thing as Religion yet by reason of that firm bold Sin and the Devil have upon his mind he acts in Repugnancy to his Faith and frames wrong notions of God and Religion and if he may sleep securely in those sins he most delights in he is well contented and at ease And to reduce both these sorts of Persons to a sober and fixed Love of Religion and to the Prosecution of whatever is virtuous and excellent that Christianity might not be an idle and fruitless Notion but an inward Principle of Life daily perfecting the Souls of Men till it bring them to their highest and most complete Happiness is the Aim and only Design of this present Discourse A DISCOURSE OF THE EXCELLENCY OF Christianity 1. REligion in its usual and obvious sense is a Devoting ourselves to the Worship and Service of the Deity For God when he first made Man wrote this Truth on his heart That he was a Creature and beholden to something without him for his Life and Being and therefore ought to worship and adore God as his only Happiness and by whose ever-present Power he is as it were daily created anew and kept and preserved in Being And indeed there is no man who searches into the Perfections of Human Nature that can find any Principle or Power in Man of conserving and maintaining his own Existence wherefore his Existence being drawn through all the parts of time which have no Connexion or Dependence one upon another by some other more perfect Essence he must necessarily acknowledge that to be self-existent and sufficient and consequently adore it as the Author and Conservator of his present and particular Subsistence 2. Hence it is that Religion is not a thing which is merely instilled into us by Instruction and Education For let us be never so impiously diligent in rasing the venerable Name of the Deity out of his Temple and blotting his Inscription out of our Souls 't is manifest to all that we can never totally rid our Minds of the Apprehensions and Fears of a supreme Numen And that some men have so far debauched their Minds and stifled the Sentiments of Reason that they can swallow down the grossest Impieties as Sacriledge Rebellion Murder and Adultery without the least Regret proves no more that Religion is not a Principle of Nature than it doth of the Non-existence of the Sun that some men wilfully live in Darkness and shut up themselves that they may not see his Beams for 't is evident that such Persons have put themselves into a preternatural State and forced their Minds and Reasons to a Constitution far different from the Universal Nature or Reason of Mankind Nor can it be eluded by fancying Religion to be a piece of State-Policy invented only to keep People in awe and for the better cementing Governments together and so derived from one Generation to another by the Custom and Example of their Progenitors For if there were no such Faculty inherent in us and contemporary with our very Beings which had a Natural Propensity and Inclination to a Religious Veneration and Worship it could not be but that in time Nature would return and cast off whatever is contrary to it As a Spring has always a Conatus to unbend it self and if at any time the Impediment be removed will infallibly reduce itself to its proper state So our Faculties though they may be long distorted and forced out of their due Position yet they have still an Endeavour to free themselves and cast off that uneasie Load which constrains and oppresses them and will undoubtedly upon any due occasion offered return to their first and true state And if there were no such Being as God the wiser Ages of the World would soon discover the Falshood and Imposture and chalk out a fair Way and Method for the Natures of men to recover from that Error and Prejudice they lay under and by their own genuine Effort and Strength reassert themselves into their ancient Liberty But besides this the Peace and Tranquillity of Kingdoms and States Politick might sufficiently be conserved without the invention of Religion by severe Laws and Penalties For although there were no immaterial Being in the World yet every Person being so well satisfied with himself and contented with the exercise of those Faculties he finds in himself no man would seek his own Ruine and Torment and therefore there would be little or no need of instilling into the minds of men such a Notion as Religion 3. In the first Times and Ages of the World the Law of Nature which God hath equally implanted in all men and by which I mean nothing but Reason or that Power in man which teaches him to distinguish and put a difference between Good and Evil Beauty and Deformity Purity and Impurity was the only Rule and Guide to direct them and by the help of this they knew God and served him For God being in himself an infinite Rectitude and Perfection delineated himself and copied out his own Nature in all moral Agents so far as they were capable of receiving it And herein God left not himself without witness in that all Mankind had Means and Helps sufficient to come to the knowledge of a Deity by an inspection into the Book of Nature wherein God has displaid himself in plain and legible Characters so that they were wholly without excuse For if the Law written in their hearts and discriminating between Good and Evil together with the obvious Reflections from the Natures and Proprieties of things had not been enough to demonstrate and point out the Existence of a God men could not have been accountable nor rendred obnoxious to Punishment But although this Law sealed on the Tables of mens Hearts were sufficient to teach them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which might be known of God if they would have given heed to it yet in process of time it so came to pass that through the Iniquity and Perversness of mens minds whereby they gave themselves wholly up to their own Lusts and Passions this Light of Nature became dull faint and obscure and men
the Salvation and future Happiness of a Christian we may take a brief Abstract or Sum of our Duty which is this To love the Lord our God with all our hearts and to have a firm and radicated Faith in his Goodness declared to the World by his only begotten Son Jesus Christ an universal Abstinence from all Wrong and Injustice a hearty Love and Good-will to all men whatever to hold fast that which is Good and to abstain from all appearance of Evil to be of a compassionate and forgiving Spirit and if we have received an Injury not to recompense it again in any kind to abstract and withdraw our hearts and minds from earthly Goods and make Treasures for ourselves in Heaven and to be no more solicitous for worldly concernments than the Lilies of the field or the Fowls of the air but that having food and raiment therewith to be content to keep ourselves pure and undefiled not only from outward and grosser but inward and more refined Pollutions to be ready to do good and distribute to the Necessities of our Brethren to live peaceably if it be possible with all men In a word whatever things are true whatever things are honest just lovely and of good report if there be any virtue if there be any praise to think on such things What can be plainer and easier than this Nor is the Simplicity of the Gospel any derogation from it though that impious Epicurean Celsus deride it upon that account extolling the Writings of Plato above the Scriptures For as Origen acutely enough replies the Design of God in the Gospel being to make men good and virtuous it was necessary the Precepts tending to that end should be delivered plainly and perspicuously suitable to the Capacities of the illiterate Vulgar who are better allured and won by a common and usual form of Speech than by the artificial Deckings and gay Schemes of Rhetorick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore Christ and his Apostles did much more advance that which was their chief aim the Life and Nature of God in the World by that as Celsus calls it rude and rustical manner of speaking than all the elegant Writings of Plato which if they ever were advantageous for the rectifying and amending the Lives of men it was only to such whose Intellectual Faculties were raised and elevated above the Plebeian Strain Therefore did the Holy Jesus on purpose make choice of ignorant and illiterate Persons that it might appear that the things which they spake were not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth and that by the foolish things of the world God might confound the wise and by the weak destroy the things that are mighty Object But you will say To what purpose is that Intricacy and Perplexity which is found in many Places of Holy Scripture and wherefore are many of the chiefest of its Doctrines involved in such Darkness and Obscurity Answ 1. It was in some measure requisite that the Scripture should be obscure to conciliate Reverence and to beget a greater Esteem of its Worth and Dignity For the Gospel is often called a Mystery which supposes somthing venerable and secret and hidden from the eyes of vulgar Persons And God as in Nature he hath hid many pretious things in the Bowels of the Earth which cannot be obtained without great Labour and Diligence in like manner hath he veiled many inestimable Treasures in the Christian Mystery which are only attainable by the diligent Search and sincere Endeavours of pious men For should the Divine Wisdom have displayed at once all the Glories and Beauty of this sacred and recondite Method of recovering Souls it would appear contemptible and worthless as being the easie purchase of every profane and impious Person 2. The Reason of the Obscurity of Christianity lies not so much in the Nature of the thing itself as in the incongruity of mens Minds and Understandings with so high and raised an Object The Eye cannot behold the Sun unless it have some Resemblance and Similitude of it within itself for like is known by its like and if mens Minds be not purified and brought into some Cognation and Likeness with the Truths offered to them it is impossible they should ever have any true and genuine Apprehension of them There is a Learning and Knowing the Truth as it is in Jesus in that God-like meek and resigned Spirit and till mens Tempers be plain'd and smooth'd from the ruggedness of their Passions and the stubborn Asperities of their Lusts and won to the embracing of the Truth in the love of it in that Christ-like Nature of Humility and Self-Denial they may fill their heads with sapless and lean Notions windy and turgent Fancies but never nourish up their Souls with solid and substantial Knowledge The true sense of Religion and Christianity arises out of a mind devoid of Passion and in which the Life of God has taken deep root and flourishes and spreads itself throughout all the powers of the Soul giving a tincture relish and savour of itself to every Thought Word and Deed in the whole course of a mans Life And without this purified sense we feed upon nothing but the Husks and Shells of Religion and fall in love with Shadows instead of lasting and durable Substances And this is no more than what the Scripture speaks of itself 1 Cor. ii 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned There is required a spiritual Sense a Life of Holiness and Justice of Benignity and Righteousness to the true discrimination of Good and Evil. And further to the Knowledge and Understanding of Divine Mysteries there is necessarily required the Aid and Assistance of that Almighty and Omnipresent Spirit who by his fostering Incubation brought into Being the goodly frame of Heaven and Earth and that this Holy Spirit of Truth may begin the Efformation of the new and heavenly Nature a considerable part of which is Divine and Spiritual Wisdom there must be some previous Preparations and men must be morally good and virtuous or else they will be perfectly incapable of the illapse of his Celestial Influence And therefore it is no marvel if to brutish and immoral Persons the Mystery of Godliness be hid and obscure 3. That there might be somthing still reserved for the gratification of all degrees of Christians in all Ages of the World There are both weak and strong Christians some that are Babes in Christ and are fed with Milk others that are of full Age and have a discriminating sense of Good and Evil. For the one there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rudimental way of instruction whereby men were led as it were by the hand through the Principles of Religion as the Author to the Hebrews intimates Heb. vi where the first thing required
victorious The Spirit of God is no dull and sluggish Principle but a quick and active Life and into whatever Soul it enters it is perpetually cleansing and purifying and refining it till it have wholly extirpated and destroyed whatever beats no similitude with itself and rendred the whole Man an immaculate Temple for the Manifestation of its own glorious Presence Let no man then pretend an invincible Infirmity or that he is fatally bound and enslaved to Sin and Vice for if we would but excite those Powers God has given us and by ardent Breathings invocate the gracious Auxiliaries of Heaven there would be Wonders wrought upon our Souls the Strength of our Corruptions would abate and our furious Passions be restrained and reduced into Discipline and Order 3. The last general Head is the Promise of a future and blessed Immortality in Heaven when this present Life is ended The blessed Jesus while he lived upon Earth did not wholly obscure his Glory in the mantle of Flesh and Blood but gave a notable Specimen of that efficacious Life and Power which as he himself was already possessed of so all those that believe in his Name should hereafter be endued withal which should melt their Corruptible into Incorruption and translate them to the quiet and peaceful Regions of Immortality in his Transfiguration upon Mount Tabor which was enough to call off the Thoughts and Cares of men from the trifling Concerns of this World and teach them that there was a better Portion to be expected for all the Sons of God and Virtue in the pure and undefiled Mansions of Heaven where dwells nothing but Truth and Goodness But the most lively and pregnant Evidence of the future Subsistence of our Souls was his glorious Resurrection from the dead whereby as he was declared to be the Son of God with Power so it gives us a full Assurance and convictive Demonstration even to outward Sense that the comfortless Chambers of the Grave shall not for ever detein us but that when he who is our Life shall appear and summon Earth and Sea to deliver up their dead and open the secret Receptacles of Souls then shall all holy and righteous Persons appear with him in Glory and take possession of their long expected Joy and receive the just Recompence of all their Pains and Labours an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved by a gracious Providence in the Heavens for them All Power is committed into the hands of Christ who hath vanquished Death and Hell and captivated all the Powers of Darkness and begotten us to a lively Hope that when we shall put off our Mortality and be released from all terrestrial Pressures and Incumbrances he will cloth us with an heavenly Body like unto his own Body of Light and Glory But lest we should undo ourselves with fruitless Expectations and flie to Heaven in our vain Dreams of Salvation before our sincere Conformity to Gods blessed Will and Commands has rendred us capable of that pure and holy State fancying we can read our Names written among the Stars before we have learnt the Precepts of a holy Life God hath annexed Conditions of Obedience to all his Promises and resolved that no man shall be crowned but he that with Courage and Perseverance maintains the War against Sin and Hell And indeed the Reward that is promised to all virtuous Persons in the Gospel hath so great Affinity and Agreement with Holiness the Condition of it that in the Nature of the thing itself he cannot be capable of the one who is not aforehand invested with the other For what is Heaven but a state of spotless Love and Purity where no Envy nor Malice straitens and contracts the boundless and enlarged no clouds of Passion or disordered Lust obscure the Brightness of that eternal Day where the Sun of Righteousness neither rises nor sets upon the Horizon of Time but remains Vertical for ever And now what Concord can possibly be imagined between such transcendent Beauty and Glory and the Deformity and Ugliness of the Frame and Temper of an unrighteous mans Spirit where every thing lies cross and untoward and his unruly Desires like the boisterous Waves enraged by a sudden Storm sweep the bottom of his polluted Soul and throw up so much Mire and Dirt that it defaces whatever is comely and leaves not the least Emblem of Heaven to be discerned in it This is the grand importance of the Promises of the Gospel which is enough to demonstrate the prudent Care and dear Affection of the Son of God to the Children of Men and a sufficient Manifestation of the great Ingratitude and Unworthiness of those who do not believe in him that it is not the Want of Reasons or convictive Arguments but their own careless and wretchless Neglect of Consideration that makes them deaf to such Charms of Love and stupid and unmindful of so important Interests But men seldom want Objections against that which they have no mind to believe against this therefore 't is said That if the Promises of that eternal Reward Christ has made to us in the Gospel be so framed as to be inevident to men and leave them place of doubting it will be no such great Crime in wicked Persons not to believe those Promises and so not to embrace them To this I say 1. That the Gospel leaves no such place of doubting as to make Infidelity or a Disbelief of it excusable For Unbelief can then only be excusable when there are really wanting such Arguments as may beget Faith in a rational and unprejudic'd Person But the Gospel and the Promises thereof being sufficiently confirmed by such prevalent Reasons as are apt to acquire Belief and Credence from an unbias'd Nature the pretended Inevidence where there is no just Cause or Suspicion of Doubting cannot at all patronize Infidelity nor be a reasonable ground to act contrary to what Belief would otherwise incite them It s true were the Arguments for the Disbelief of the Promises of Life and Salvation equal to and strong as those that perswade us to the Belief of them there would be some Colour and Appearance of Reason for rejecting them but when there can be no such Doubting or Fluctuation of Judgment as proceeds from an Equilibration of Arguments on both sides it is impossible that Infidelity should have any rational Apology For what can be more convictive than to have some holy and divine Person come into the World who should by many infallible Miracles Wonders and Signs give an evident Proof that he came from God and for a full Confirmation of his Doctrin rise from the dead the third day after the suffering a painful and ignominious Death and to shew that he was no Spectrum or illusive Phantasm conversing with his Disciples for the space of forty days and afterwards ascending in their Presence into the highest Heavens there to rule and govern his Church till the End of