Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
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A27438
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Of revelation and the Messias a sermon preached at the publick commencement at Cambridge, July 5th, 1696 / by Richard Bentley ...
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Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing B1942; ESTC R5633
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15,739
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38
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fervour and temerity of Youth the force and the frequency of Temptations and the narrow dubious conconfines between Virtue and Vice and we may pronounce it impossible that any man should so govern his steps through all the lubricous paths of Life as never once to slip and fall from his duty Agreeably to the testimony of Scripture which hath concluded all under sin Gal. 3. 22. and again If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us and again both Iews and Gentiles are all under sin all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Every mouth then be stopp'd and all the world must plead guilty before the tribunal of God for by the deeds of the Law the Law of nature as well as of Moses no flesh can be justified in his sight It is evident then from the principles of pure Reason beside the authority of Scripture that upon the Deists Hypothesis upon the terms of natural Religion no Salvation can be obtain'd no Life and Immortality can be expected For that being the free offer and favour of God he might justly set what price he pleas'd upon it even the greatest that we can possibly pay nothing less than entire obedience than unspotted innocence than consummate virtue Thus far then even Reason evinceth and holds the Lamp to Revelation Some means of Reconciliation between God and Man the Judge and the Offender must be contrived some vicarious satisfaction to justice and model of a new Covenant or else the whole bulk of Mankind are for ever unhappy And surely to prevent that to retrieve a perishing world was a weighty concern even of greater importance than the very creating it and more worthy of the care and consult of Heaven I say the care of Heaven for alas here on Earth what expedient could Man find out How could Dust and Ashes take upon him to speak unto the Lord Could any of the Sons of Adam presume to be advocate for the rest himself one of the criminals himself in want of another advocate and what friend knew we at the court of Heaven of that high power and favour with God as to offer his intercession or so wonderfully kind to Us as to pay our satisfaction We must freely own to the Deist that here Reason was at a stand even Nature her self languish'd between hope and despair and in the stile of the Apostle the whole Creation groan'd and travell'd in pain together when behold what Revelation hath informed and assured us of the eternal Son of the Almighty the brightness of the Paternal Glory and the express image of his Substance even He vouchsafed to be our Patron and Mediator to take our Nature upon him and to dwell among Men to fulfill that Law of righteousness wherein we were deficient to bear our guilt and our burthen upon himself and to offer his most precious blood as an expiation for our offences as the seal of a new Covenant better than the Law of Nature a Covenant of more gracious terms terms of Repentance and Remission of sins so that if we truly believe in Him and sincerely endeavour to observe his Commands our imperfect Righteousness through the merits of his Sufferings shall be imputed accepted and rewarded as if it were an entire obedience to the strict Law of Works and of natural Perfection And now I dare presume to ask even our adversaries themselves what flaws or fallacies they can shew in all this If it be true then that Reason it self discovers such absolute necessity of some way of Reconciliation between God and Man and if it was necessary for Man as being the party concern'd to know the particular way that God did approve and accept of and if mere Reason could never find that out but Revelation alone must and ought to inform us and lastly if such Revelation be actually made attested and promulgated to the world what pretence is there left why we should not believe and acquiesce in it if upon examination it bear all the marks of true Revelation if it contain nothing unworthy of it self and of the wisdom and goodness of its Author And is not the Oeconomy of man's Salvation as it is set forth in Holy Scriptures every way agreeable to that divine character No if we ask our Adversaries 't is an improper and unequal method 't is inconsistent with the justice and impartiality of God Rex Iupiter omnibus idem God say they if he had design'd such an universal benefit for Mankind would have exhibited it equally and indifferently to every Age and Nation alike But the conditions of Salvation proposed in the Gospel are incompetent and much too narrow being restrain'd to those times and countries alone that can hear of the fame of Iesus and believe in his Person And what becomes then of all the former Ages of men before He was born What of those remote Nations ever since that could have no intelligence of him nor hear the least tidings of Iudea and Ierusalem must all those Myriads of Souls perish for invincible ignorance for want of impossible Faith For how could they believe on him of whom they had not heard and how could they hear without a Preacher And why should the God of the whole earth the God that is no respecter of persons no nor of nations be so unaccountably kind so unjustly fond and partial to any single country much less to a little obscure people the Iews scarce heard of in the rest of the world till they were captives and slaves in it and withdraw his paternal love from so many other Nations much more considerable and more worthy of his providence Is he God of the Iews only Is he not also of the Gentile This way of discourse we may expect from the Deists And I hope according to the advice of the text we are both able and ready to give a Reply For first as to that imagined Partiality of God in preferring any one country before the rest of the World to be the Land of Christs Nativity what a poor and contemptible cavil For upon supposition that the Messias of God was to take human nature upon him and be born of a Woman must he not of necessity be born in some one particular Country exclusively to all the rest And is not that then a ridiculous objection against any single Country that may equally be urged against all whatsoever Neither was it mere Fondness in the Deity that he chose the obscure land of Palestine for the birth place of his Son rather than Greece or Italy or Asia the theatres of Art and Learning and the seats of Empire For not to mention Abraham and the Patriarchs whose singular faith and piety justly obtain'd of God that their Posterity should have the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the promises and the consanguinity of Christ it appears also from event that the circumstances of
that nation were of all others the most sutable to the design of the Messias For since it was fit and necessary that Prophecies should foretell of him long before his coming that his pedegree and extraction should be accurately deduced through a long series of Ancestors and other such marks be assigned of him that men might know This was He what more proper to those purposes than the state of the Jews that peculiar people secluded and distinguish'd one tribe from another and the whole from all the rest of Mankind by the very frame of their polity So that the Genealogies were less confused the Histories and Prophecies more faithfully recorded and the accomplishment of all more certain and illustrious than they could have been in any other Nation upon Earth all of which within that long compass of time were blended together by mutual commerce and mutual conquest and other omnifarious causes of mixture and confusion And then as to that other surmise that God would have proposed fair and equal means of general salvation and not upon such narrow and insufficient terms as an actual Faith in the person of Jesus a condition impossible to the much greater part of Mankind we acknowledge it to be true infallibly true Faith in Christ Jesus the only way to Salvation since the preaching of the Gospel so as whosoever rejects that when it is duly declared to him and refuses his assent and obedience to it can have no portion in the Kingdom of Heaven But for those that never once heard of the Lord of Life that 's an undecided case which we do not determine For who has authority to give sentence where God and Scripture are silent Thus far we are assured there that let the future condition of those be as God pleases at least he will not condemn them for invincible ignorance For there is no respect of persons with Him but as many as have sinned without Law shall perish without Law The meaning whereof is that the Gentile world shall not be judged and condemned for the breach of the law of Moses which never was given them but for sins against the law of Nature and the common light of Conscience We may inferr then by parity of argument That as many as shall sin without the Gospel shall perish without the Gospel that is not because they believed not in Jesus whom they had not the least notice of but they will be tried and sentenced for sins against natural Reason for things within their power and capacity because when they knew God they glorified him not as God because they held the truth in unrighteousness so that they are without excuse But if the Deist shall still insist that though we have justified God from the calumny as if he would condemn the Gentiles for want of impossible Faith yet still he maintains it to be unjust and incredible that while one small part of Mankind enjoys the favour of the Gospel all under the state of Nature shall have the hard measure of Summum Ius must be all damn'd by rigid inflexible Justice without equity or mercy without any act of pardon or the least room for Repentance if he will rather obstinately believe or hope or wish that the God of tender compassions who loveth all things that he hath made who will not require much where little has been given cannot be so extreme with the Gentile world as to mark all that is done amiss and yet to slight and overlook those shining examples of vertue not unfrequent among them If this be all he sticks at God forbid that on this single account he should exclude himself from the Communion of Faith We can allow him this opinion as at worst a charitable error as some indication of a large heart and a generous love of Mankind But then he must always remember that even those virtuous Heathens whom he would so gladly place in some part of Heaven can be saved on no other account than by the merits and mediation of Jesus their Saviour For without his satisfaction there is no remission of sins nor acceptation of repentance and without remission of sins by the deeds of the Law and natural Righteousness no flesh can be justified in the sight of God They are saved therefore if they be saved at all by the sole benefit of Christ though in this life they could not know nor thank their Benefactor For though they lived in the earliest ages of time long before his Incarnation yet even then they might be purified by the blood of the Lamb manifested indeed in latter times but pre-ordained before the foundation of the world so that from the first origin of it he might extend and impart to all that were worthy the efficacy of his Merits and the privileges of Faith and Grace and a share in the inheritance of Glory and Immortality II. And now we may expect that our Adversaries will put off the garb and character of Deists and make a new attempt for the fortune of the day under the arms and conduct of the Jews It must be granted on all hands that the Messias whensoever he is manifested to the world must appear in that very manner as the Jewish Prophets describe him All the characters must hit and correspond one to another the same features the same lineaments visible in both the one the shadow and picture and the other the substance Now say they it is evident from the Prophets That the Messias is to be a temporal Prince to sit on the throne of David his royal ancestor and to make Ierusalem the seat of an universal and perpetual Empire But the character of Jesus is as different from this description as a stable from a palace 'T is true we Christians endeavour to shew a similitude between them by figurative interpretations of Scripture which we call the spiritual and mystical sense but they call arbitrary and precarious as having no foundation in the native and naked Letter which is not to be racked and wrested from its obvious meaning little credit being to be given to such extorted confessions Thus far our Objectors But I suppose the Prophetick language and character is better understood than that this surmise should pass without a just answer Indeed if it were in this case alone that the expressions of the Prophets need a figurative interpretation the exception might appear fair and plausible But it cannot be denied that on many other occasions besides the matter of the Messias their discourse after the genius of the Eastern nations is thick set with metaphor and allegory the same bold comparisons and dithyrambick liberty of stile every-where occurr Which is an easie and natural account besides the more secret reasons that the Holy Spirit might have why the kingdom of Messias though really spiritual and not of this world is so often dressed and painted by them with the glories of secular Empire For when the spirit of God came