in peace according to thy word for mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people A light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of thy people Israel Was it for this the blessed and Immaculate Virgin the Royal consort of the Eternal Spirit the happy Mother of the Son of God broke out into that thankful Rhapsodie of Joy and gladness My Soul doth magnify the Lord and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the low Estate of his Handmaiden for behold from henceforth all Generations shall call me Blessed and more to the same or like effect But to what purpose is all this joyful this triumphant Noise this sound of Peace and Happiness and Salvation what reason have all the Generations of the world to call the Virgin Mother Blessed how did the Angel bring good tidings of great Joy which were to be to all People how was he a light to lighten the Gentiles and how a Glory to his people Israel or is he not rather a Reproach to that Stock from which he is descended when he came into the World not so much to save as to destroy Mankind for if so vast a proportion of those miserable Mortals who are born into this world are irreversibly consigned to everlasting Torments without any offence or provocation given on their Parts and if Christ himself be that Unmerciful that Unrelenting Judge who at his second coming the Circuit of the world is to pronounce that cruel Sentence against it and if this second coming cannot be without the intervention of a first then what was his first appearance instead of bringing health and Happiness to men but the beginning of our Sorrows the Introduction to eternal Misery and Pain the mournful Prologue to the Tragedy of Hell and is he not more fitly stiled the Destroyer than the Saviour and the Redeemer of Mankind Again If it be demanded for what reason our ever blessed Lord is said to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the World I answer there are three ways especially by which he may be said to have purchased to himself those Glorious and Magnificent Titles First In that he came into the world to Redeem us from the more than Egyptian Bondage of Sin and Darkness of Ignorance by the precedent of his Example by the light of his Gospel and by the Grace of his Spirit working in the Hearts of his true and faithful Disciples now all Example is in vain of which there can be no Imitation and there can be no Imitation where there can be no Endeavour nor any Endeavour without an inward Principle of Self-activity and Self-motion nor any Self-activity without Freedom they being indeed but two words for one and the same thing Secondly He redeems us from punishment by his Satisfaction or by the merit of that propitiatory Sacrifice which he made of himself upon the Cross for the Sins of all Mankind the atonement of which Sacrifice is apply'd to all who by a lively Faith sincere Repentance and hearty endeavour to please God by obeying his Commandments fulfill those Conditions by virtue of which this application is made but now where there is no Sin there needs no satisfaction and where there is no Liberty there can be no Sin St. Paul himself tells us Rom. 4. 15. That where no Law is there is no Transgression And the 1 St. Joh. c. 3. v. 4. That whosoever committeth Sin transgresseth also the Law for Sin is the transgression of the Law but every Law does manifestly suppose a freedom in him to whom it is prescribed for Laws are given in vain to them that cannot Obey and where men must Obey whether they will or no there the promulgation of a Law is needless because our obedience is not paid to the Law it self but it is an unavoidable submission to that irresistable Grace by which our non-complyance is rendered an impossible thing if then there can be no Law without a supposition of Liberty nor any Transgression without a Law then it is manifest according to St. Paul's own Concession that without the same liberty there can be no Transgression which was the thing to be proved And indeed how can it ever seem a likely matter that the Blood of the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of the Sin and the Trespass Offerings of the Passovers the Peace-Offerings and the Holocausts or Burnt Offerings the Blood of Rams and Bulls and Goats the Blood of Beasts and of Birds should with so great cost and expence such indefatigable toyl and labour so much address and ceremony be streaming perpetually under the Mosaick Law as a pompous and magnificent Introduction to that great Sacrifice which was in the fulness of time to answer and abolish the shadows of the legal Administration and all this by way of expiation for those who never had offended Or did the Jews undergo all this troublesome and ceremonious Fatigue Did Christ himself suffer upon the Cross only for the Sin of our first Parent imputed without any proper guilt of ours to his Posterity No certainly God is too just to condemn all the World for what they could not avoid and the Blood of Christ was too precious to be spilt only for the single Transgression of one single Man How absurd How ridiculous is it to say that he dyed for those Sins which we never committed Or that he rose again for that justification which by reason of our innocence we did not need Or is it not better to acknowledge as the Scripture does that upon account of our own personal Guilt as well as that of our first Parent we all lay in Darkness and in the shadow of Death and that we all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and that for this reason God himself took our Flesh and dwelt amongst us that he might be to us in the nature of a legal Redeemer who was always to be of the Kindred of the party to be redeemed Which custom of the Jews God could not any way so properly imitate as by taking our Flesh and our Nature upon him Neither will the intercession of Christ which is the third way of saving Mankind according to this Hypothesis make any better sense than his satisfaction does for if we will believe these very Writers themselves the satisfaction of Christ is alone available for all the Elect and for the Re-Probate it is in vain to make use of any intercession Therefore I speak it not only with a becoming reverence but scarce without trembling what a ridiculous thing do these Men make of the Mediatory Office of Christ in Heaven who spends so many Ages in a sollicitous but fruitless intercession at the right hand of God either for those that cannot do amiss or for those that cannot possibly be saved Whereas if we follow the truth it self rather than the fancies of particular Men of how great name or authority soever nothing
is more plain than the reason and the usefulness of his Intercession for Salvation being annext to Faith and Repentance and a good Life and the satisfaction of Christ being apply'd to the person of a Believer upon these conditions which conditions are not so fully performed by any as they might be nor equally by all it is manifest there must needs be very many whose performance is so weak and imperfect that without any breach of that Covenant which God has entered into with Mankind he might very justly abandon them to eternal Flames to be tormented for ever with and by the Devil and his Angels but that the intercession of Christ extends and enlarges the benefit of his satisfaction and makes it more operative and available than otherwise it would have been But besides the Prophetick Office of Christ under which I include his example and his preaching and the Priestly to which his Sacrifice and his Intercession in virtue of that Sacrifice belong there is also his Kingship to be considered one great part of the exercise of which consists in his sitting in Judgment at the last day to pronounce the irreversible sentence of Death or Life upon all Men but there can be no Judgment where there is no difference made betwixt the Moral good or evil of things for to judge is to act with reason and Fate and Morality are inconsistent together which Fate if it were the only principle and spring of Action the Reprobate at the last day need not stand in justification of themselves from other Topicks as they are made to do in Scripture but they need only say that what they had done they could not avoid which being a very reasonable excuse and yet not urged where the Pleas of the Wicked are set down by our Saviour himself it is a very powerful and convincing Argument that he will at that day proceed by other measures and that he will not much less did he design it from all Eternity condemn the meanest Wretch that ever wore the shape and title of a Man for any but voluntary and wilfully committed Sins Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right said Abraham to his God Gen. 18. 25. That be far from thee to do after this manner Which Expostulation and Appeal of his to the Divine Justice must either be acknowledged to be very frivolous and nothing at all to the purpose or else we must be forced to confess that Christ when he sustains the person and character of a Judge and a Judge of all the Earth as he will do at the last day he will not proceed by Arbitrary measures which know no distinction of Persons or of Causes but condemn or save by unaccountable methods without any regard to reason or to justice the exercise of which is founded upon the differences of Moral good and evil all which differences must come to nothing where the liberty of humane Actions is destroyed but he will act with us upon a supposition of Freedom for the improvement or abuse of which we shall reap a proportionable punishment or reward And as nothing is or can be more contrary to the whole current of the Scripture than the Doctrine of absolute Reprobation so neither is there any thing more destructive of that meek charitable and humble frame of Mind which it was the design of the Gospel to establish in the World the natural and immediate tendency of such Doctrines in the minds of inconsiderate Men though if they consider all they have no reason to be proud being to create a Spiritual Pride and overweaning Conceit of themselves together with a contempt and hatred of all others whom they call the Reprobate and are pleased to look upon as the Dross and Off-scouring of the World There neither is nor can be any other opinion which is so naturally fitted to make distinctions and parties amongst Men or to preserve those distinctions when they are made for what greater or what wider difference can there possibly be thought of than between the Reprobate and the Elect Those who are irrecoverably given over to everlasting Torments and those who are out of all danger of miscarrying and past the possibility of not being as happy as God and happiness themselves can make them Or what greater indignity or reproach can be cast upon one Man by another than for some to separate from the rest under pretence that they are rejected and forsaken by God This being if those that separate would speak their minds one of the true reasons of their separation as it is likewise the strongest Prop and Pillar by which that uncharitable Schism is supported for I reckon that there are six accounts especially to be given of the first rise of this absurd and impious Doctrine of absolute Reprobation and of its continuance in the World to this day The first of which is that inconsiderate Interpreters not minding the whole scope and drift of the Writings of St. Paul but looking only to the immediate seeming sense of one single Proposition and not considering that neither so well as they should have done have stretched the interpretation of those places beyond their natural extent wherein St. Paul sets himself in opposition to the Jews who expected Justification from the Law of Moses or to the Judaizing Christians who would have retained that Law either in whole or in part as thinking that Justification could not be had without it or lastly to any other who expected Salvation from an exact observance of the Duties of natural Religion or of the Law of Nature For by the Law in the Writings of St. Paul both these are promiscuously understood as might be shewn from several places but that of Gal. 5. 22 23. is sufficient The Fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace long Suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance against such there is no Law that is whether of Moses or of Nature And the same may very well be the sense of all those places where he says That the knowledge of Sin is by the Law and that if it had not been for the Law he had not known Sin and that by the works of the Law no Flesh can be justified and that where there is no Law neither is there any Transgression All which may very well be understood of the Law of Nature as well as of that of Moses it being equally true of both Now the reasons why Justification could not be obtained by the works of the Law of Moses were these two First That that Law containing the Types and Shadows of things to come when once their Antitypes appeared in the World they could be of no longer value or signification And Secondly That besides that those legal Rites and Ceremonies had a respect to future events which events were now exactly fulfilled they did also under them contain a shadow of that inward sincerity and purity of Mind without which notwithstanding all the accuracy of external Observations
sufficient of themselves to withstand any danger and to resist any temptation how great soever not considering that humane Frailty is so far from being able to maintain so great a Combat by its own strength that setting aside the assistances of Grace without which no such Conflict can be successfully managed the very ordinary powers of Nature are at God's disposal and he may either permit or obstruct the use of them as he pleases himself all our Springs are in and all our Faculties are from him It is observable therefore that as the desertion of ten of them for Judas is not now to be reckoned and the denial of Peter was an effect of their presumption Though I should dye with thee said Peter yet will I not deny thee likewise also said all the Disciples Yet Peter was more positive more presumptuous than the rest and therefore he is made the greater example of the Infirmity of humane Nature the rest only forsook their Lord but Peter denied him which was much more for it is in some cases lawful to fly from Persecution but in none to make an express renunciation of Christ or of his Gospel Upon the whole matter I make no scruple to affirm That the denial of Peter three several times the Maidens and others giving him so many occasions by their Interrogatories to do it and the Cock's crowing just at the third time were all of them managed by a Divine fate Judas his case agrees in this with that of David and Peter that he was hurried on to what he did by a necessity not to be resisted for it is said That Satan entred into him as he did into David but yet as in the instance of David it was no less true that the Lord moved him to number the people by which it must be meant either that the Lord imployed Satan as his Instrument to harden the Heart and blind the Eyes of David or that there was a concurrence of the Divine and Diabolical Power together in order to this end So also in the business of Judas it is said That Satan entred into him but that was not 'till Christ had given him the Sop which seems to have been as it were the signal for Satan to begin to play his part and it is added from our Saviour's own mouth immediately after speaking to Judas as he was going out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That thou doest do quicklâ— John 13. 27. Which words what are they else but the Divine Will imbodied in an articulate sound and hurrying him on with an impatient madness to the execution of his treacherous Design For there is still this difference betwixt the case of Judas and that of Peter and of David already mentioned that the two latter had no foregoing design to do what they did of themselves but David on the contrary did express upon all occasions the utmoâ—â— trust and confidence in God and Peter was so far from any intention to deny his Master that he had made the most obstinate resolutions in the world never to be guilty of it But in Judas it is manifest that he had before-hand harboured such a wicked intention in his Heart that he had not only designed but that he had actually covenanted and agreed with the chief Priests about it which is but another instance added to those of Pharaoh and of Nebuchadnezzar of the concurrence of the free and the necessary principle together But now whereas I have affirmed that one Judas and that this very Judas Iscariot was beforehand designed and pitched upon by Divine providence to betray his Master I will now add that he was the rather pitched upon because he was of the Family of the Iscariots that is to say the Lepers because the Leprosie was an argument of guilt under the Law The Jewish Masters tell us it was the punishment of Pride and therefore the scarlet Wool Cedar Wood and Hyssop which were the Materials made use of in the lustration of it were to denote partly the heinousness of Sin in general which cannot be expiated but by Blood which was the meaning of the scarlet Wool and the reason of those Sacrifices which were enjoyned in this case by way of expiation partly that Pride or haughtiness of Mind of which the Cedar Tree by reason of its usual height was a very fit and proper Emblem which was the cause or occasion why this Disease was inflicted and partly that Humility that pious Meekness and equability of Spirit to which the diseased party was warned by this way of expiation to return the Hyssop being to a very Proverb the most humble and despicable of all kind of Plants whatsoever 1 King 4. 33. And he Solomon spake of Trees from the Cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the Hyssop that springeth out of the Wall Neither was the Leprosie only an effect of Sin but it was also by its spottedness and deformity a Symbol of it and of its spreading and infectious nature Sicut grex totus in agris Unius Scabie cadit porrigine porci Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvâ. What fitter name therefore could there be than this for him who was so black a Traytor to his Master and his Friend who was himself so bad a Man and was to dip his hands in the Blood of God And that this was the ture sense and meaning of his name I will now prove as plainly and as briefly as I can before I pass any farther Our Saviour was entertained at the House of one Simon who is by St. Luke called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simon the Pharisee but by St. Matthew c. 26. v. 6. and by St. Mark c. 14. v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Leper which Epithetes it is manifest at first sight are consistent enough and do by no means exclude one another so as they might not both well enough be understood of the same person though other circumstances of the Story in all the Evangelists had not been so exactly the same as they are Now it is manifest that at this Entertainment Judas was present for it was he that made that envious or rather covetous and selfish Objection when the good Woman poured her precious Ointment upon the Head and Feet of our Lord John 12. 5. Why was not this Ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the Poor And he is called every where by St. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 6. 71. 12. 4. 13. 26. which is as I have said the same exactly with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the Sirname given to their Family as is probable some Ages before but upon what particular occasion cannot now be determined For Segirouth or Segiroutha in the Chaldee Dialect which was in those days much better understood than the present Hebrew signifies the Leprosie to which it is but adding the Greek Termination significative of a Person and you have without any more ado the very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
who would have lost all Credit and Authority among the people if either his person had received that entertainment which was due to the sacred Character of the Messias or if his Doctrine which was so great an enemy to the Dissimulation and Hypocrisie the Covetousness and Extortion the Pride Affectation and supercilious behaviour of those whited Walls and painted Sepulchres had ever prevailed or got to be in vogue among them But yet notwithstanding so great were his Miracles and so useful to the world so holy was his Life and so excellent his Doctrine that they forced Confessions from his greatest Adversaries very much to the disadvantage of their Cause and if they would but have given themselves the trouble of an impartial enquiry they would have found that he was by Joseph his reputed Father and perhaps by his Virgin Mother too though not at the next remove of the Tribe of Judah and of the Family of David they would have found that he was not born in Nazareth of Galilee but in Bethlehem of Judea they would not have wondered to see him put so â—ittle value upon the ritual part of the Mosaick Law when he came to introduce that purity of Mind and will of which those Mosaical washings and Lustrations were but a faint shadow and Typical Representation Lastly Though it was true they did expect then generally not a suffering but a Triumphant and Victorious Messias one whose head should be encircled not with a Crown of Thorns but with a Chaplet of Laurels yet this was an opinion wholly owing to that exquisite hatred which they had conceived against their oppressors of whom they hoped to be sufficiently revenged in the Reign of the Messias and to the pride and haughtiness of that humour which then prevailed among them But if they had considered coolly and impartially with themselves it would have appeared very reasonable to believe that all the Sacrifices and expiations of the Law were but Typical of that one great Sacrifice which was in the fulness of time to be offered up for the Sins of the whole world and after which there was to be no more Sacrifice for Sin besides that it was prophesied of the Messias by the Prophet Daniel Dan. 9. 27. That he should cause the Sacrifice and oblation to cease They might have learnt from the writings of the same Prophet ib v. 26. That the Messias after a certain period of time was to be cut off but not for himself but for the Sins of others And that after this the Destruction of the second Temple and of the City of Jerusalem and of the whole Jewish Oeconomy was very soon to follow They might have known from the Characters which other Prophets have given but more especially from those of David and Isaiah that it was a Suffering not a Reigning Messias that was to come among them and save them not from their Enemies but their Sins Lastly Their own traditions would have told them if they had harkened to them what manner of Messias that was who was to be expected for they all agreed he was to come some time or other upon the Anniversary of the Feast of the Passover and it is a common observation among the Jews to this Day that all their great deliverances have hapned upon this Day they acknowledge therefore that the deliverance of the First-Born of Israel by the blood of the Paschal Lamb when the first born of Egypt was destroyed and the passage or Passover through the Red-Sea that is through a Sea of blood was Typical of that great deliverance which was in the fulness of time to be purchased for them by the Messias but now nothing is more plain than that the Sacrifice of the Passover and the Passage through the Red-Sea which was a shadow of deliverance by blood might be very proper Types of a suffering Messias but by no means of a Triumphant For what expiation is there in Conquest How does Confidence and Assurance answer to Fear Security and Triumph to a dangerous and uncertain passage through the middest of an impending Sea and thorough the dry places of a barren Wilderness into the land of Canaan It is so far therefore from being true that such a temporal Prince as they looked for was really to be expected that on the contrary all things were so very plain against them the other way that it can hardly seem less than a divine Infatuation for the Sins of that and former Ages that the Jews in our Saviours time were so generally and so obstinately of this opinion especially if you consider that it was necessary in order to the bringing the designs of Providence to pass that they should be of this mind For certainly had they believed him to be the Messias and that the Messias was no otherwise to deliver them than by suffering for them they of all men in the world would not have embrued their hands in his blood which yet it was Typically necessary they should do because the Lamb of the Passover was to be slain by the whole Congregation But still the fatality was not yet so strong but in many of them at least it might have been overcome had they not provoked God to inflict a further degree of Obduration by new Provocations by the contumelious usage of his Person and by ascribing his Miracles to the efficiency of infernal Spirits notwithstanding they carried in themselves so plain Demonstrations of a divine power and were intended to promote a Doctrine so useful and advantageous to mankind for which our Saviour tells them that is to say those of them who were the most eminently and obstinately guilty of it that they should not be forgiven either in this World or the next what more plain therefore than that their hearts from that time forward were hardened That the sentence was past against them by the just Judgment and decree of Heaven and that they were given over past all recovery to a final impenitence and irreversible doom Neither in truth is it possible to conceive that any thing less than this could be the occasion of that execrable derision of our Lord upon the Cross when in the pangs of the most bitter Agony that humane Nature was capable of enduring he cryed out with a loud and mournful voice Eli Eli Lammahsabacthani my God my God why hast thou forsaken mee At which some of them in derision said he calleth for Elias which knowing profanation of the name of God and from the mouth of Jews with whom it has always been superstitiously sacred cannot easily be attributed to any thing less than a supernatural obduration Nay when the Sun it self astonished at so dire a spectacle durst not behold it but darkness overspread the face of the whole Earth from the sixth to the ninth hour and when at his giving up the Ghost the Foundations of the Earth were shaken and the relenting Rocks were cleft in sunder when the Graves were opened and the
Divine worship which must have continued still in force so long as those shadows were not done away by the more perfect Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross Secondly By this means God gave the world the strongest assurance that it could possibly receive of his Veracity or of his fixt and unalterable resolution to perform on his part the Conditions of that new Covenant which he had entered into with Mankind whose sanction was founded in the Blood of his only Son it being not only unreasonable but impious and highly derogatory to the Honour and Majesty of God to suppose that the Divinity it self should condescend to appear in the form and likeness of a Servant should take our Flesh and our Nature upon him should stoop to those mean Indignities which were offered him by the vilest of men and should suffer such a shameful and ignominious Death upon the Cross by the hands of Sinners and in the scandalous Company of two notorious Malefactors and all this to no purpose in the world Thirdly A third reason why this Method was taken seems to me to have been not only that by faith in a crucified God we might have sufficient assurance of the remission of Sins but also that by his Resurrection and Ascension which were consequent upon that Crucifixion we might have the most sensible Demonstration that could be given us of the certainty of our own Resurrection and of those Eternal Joys that expect us in Heavenly places there being no way so proper to bring life and immortality to light as for him who first made so clear and perfect a discovery of them to rise himself from the Dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept and if to these three you will add likewise a fourth Consideration it may be this that if God had bestowed a gratuitous remission upon the world that is for I would not be mistaken in the use of that word a remission without any satisfaction made for Sin either by our selves or our Proxy it would have argued such an easiness in the Divine nature in the opinion of many men that it would rather have proved an encouragement to continue in Sin than an obligation as it ought to be in point of Gratitude to greater strictness and Holiness of Conversation as on the Contrary if for this reason without shedding of Blood there could be no forgiveness it follows plainly that nothing less than the Sacrifice of God himself upon the Cross would serve the turn because nothing short of this could possibly be a compleat Expiation and Atonement for the Sins of the whole world but it would be so far from it that all the Sacrifice that could be offered would fall infinitely short of the value of this and God might as well pardon us without any Atonement at all as by that which would be so infinitely disproportionate to the guilt of the offending Parties Further Though it be certain that God could not possibly give the world a more signal Demonstration of his love than by sending his only begotten and his entirely beloved Son to die for it for he that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Rom. 8. 32 Yet this will but enhance and aggravate the Condemnation of our Disobedience if after so dear a purchase paid for our Redemption we shall still notwithstanding continue in an obstinate and wilful course of Sin for how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation And now having thus clearly explained what is meant by Justification namely the pardon of our Sins or the remission of that right of Punishment which is devolved upon God by them and having likewise seen by what means this Justification is to be procured that it cannot be obtained by any thing in our selves but that it is wholly oweing to the Grace and Mercy of God in and through the meritorious Death and passion of his Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ the Righteous who knew no Sin neither was guile found in his Mouth and who by the Sacrifice of himself once offered upon the Cross made a full perfect and compleat Satisfaction Propitiation and Redemption for the Sins of all Mankind We may now from hence give such a clear and solid Exposition of many places in the writings of St. Paul which are so miserably abused and stretched beyond their true extent by the Calvinistical Doctors as to make them for ever hereafter utterly useless to that cause and party which without that method which I have used cannot so convincingly be done by any other way of proceedure St. Paul tells us Rom. 11. v. 6. if we are saved by Grace then is it no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace But if it be of Works then is it no more Grace otherwise Work is no more Work and Gal. 2. 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law For by the works of the Law shall no Flesh be justified Lastly Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace ye are saved And again v. 8 9. For by Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast Which places together with several others of a like purport and signification are so far strained beyond their true sence and meaning by Calvinistical Interpreters as if God in the justification of a Sinner had no regard to any previous Conditions of Repentance or good Works but that he proceeded perfectly by an arbitrary Goodness and had not the least respect to any other Consideration whatsoever which it is plain does not only destroy the necessity of Obedience and a good Life but renders all the exhortations and Encouragements to it which are so plentifully and so pathetically interspersed up and down the Scriptures both of the old and the new Testament and all the arguments or menaces made use of to deter us from sinful gratifications or desires not only useless but ridiculous and consequently very unbecoming the Majesty of that God in whose name and Authority they are delivered and St. Paul would be very inconsistent with himself if this opinion were true when in the 12th of his Epistle to the Romans v. 1 2. he exhorts them with so much passion as he does I beseech you Brethren by the Mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable Service and be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good that
the real Merits of a Cause whether I have not very fairly and clearly expounded those places of St. Paul which I have produced upon this head together with all others of a like meaning and signification which it is not necessary accurately to insert so as that no advantage can be reaped from them to the Calvinistical Doctrine The Second Account which I shall give of the origine and progress of this Opinion and of its Continuance among us to this Day shall be taken from those Texts in the Epistles of St. Paul where he describes the Lucta or Contention which is to be found more or less in every man for it is not equal in all between the two principles of the Flesh and Spirit or between the natural tendencies and desires of the humane Soul as it moves from its self by an inward spring or principle of self activity abstracted from all Intanglement or Encumbrance from the Body which are all regulated by the sober and steady deliberations of right reason without any Prejudice Humour Interest or Passion and between those desires which are owing to the union of the intellectual or spiritual principle with matter from whence it comes to pass that our nobler part is perpetually sollicited and frequently overborn by the importunity of sensual Pleasures by yielding too frequently or too grosly to which it follows unavoidably that the natural strength and activity of the mind will be by degrees impaired as Elastical Bodies by moysture lose their Spring or as the Bodies of men or other Animals by want of exercise and too much ease are used to grow Scorbutick resty and unactive but on the contrary by constant breathing activity and motion they acquire new strength and arrive to an Athletical firmitude and vigour as it is also with the Mind which is not more impaired by a tame and cowardly submission to Animal and fleshly desires than it is improved and strengthned by a stout and resolute resistance of them In this continual combat between concupiscence and reason consists that spiritual Warfare which we are obliged to maintain with the World the Flesh and the Devil in the conquest of which Enemies or in our utmost endeavour towards it as being an effect of the natural strength and activity of the Soul shaking off the Cloggs and Encumbrances of the sensual or lower Life which is wholly governed by gross and corporeal Impressions from without the nature of Virtue consists a on the otherside Vice is nothing else but an unnecessary yielding to so mean impulses or it is that decay or infirmity of mind which is the consequence of such a yielding This Combat is excellently described by St. Paul in the Seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans from the 14th verse to the end of that Chapter in these words We know that the Law is Spiritual but I am carnal sold under Sin For that which I do I allow not For what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not I consent unto the Law that it is good Now then it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me For I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing For to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not For the good that I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do now if I do that I would not it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me I find then a Law that when I would do good evil is present with me For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man But I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this Death I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord So then with my mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the flesh the Law of Sin Much such a Description as this we have likewise by the same Apostle in his Epistle to the Galathians c. 5. v. 17. The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would Where he also acquaints us what are the distinct works of the Flesh and the Spirit the First consisting mainly in the gratification of sensual Appetites and desires or in an ambitious pursuit after the Pomp and Vanities of this world or in that turbulent and uneven constitution of mind in those either private or publick Mischiefs which are the usual consequences of Lust and Passion as the latter are chiefly discernible by such a calmness and serenity of Mind and Will as does perpetually accompany the Soul of man when it is moved from it self from an inward spring and principle of its own and when its streams are not troubled or turned back with violence upon their Fountain by the tempestuous winds of Passion such a calmness and serenity as makes a man most easie to himself most acceptable to others and most fit to enjoy an intimate Friendship and Communion with God Now the works of the Flesh saith he v. 18 19 20 21 22 23. are manifest which are these Adultery Fornication Uncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murthers Drunkenness Revellings and such like of the which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but the fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance against such there is no Law And from this distinction of the Flesh and the Spirit men are denominated according to the respective Predominancy of either sometimes Carnal or Natural and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spiritual men So in the next Chapter v. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are Spiritual restore such an one in the Spirit of meekness considering thy self lest tho◠also be tempted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye which are Spiritual that is ye who have mortified the Flesh with its affections and Lusts ye who have given your selves up to the guidance and conduct of the inward-man whose Souls are as far as may be retired within themselves freed from the Dominion of Prejudice and Temptation and making no further account of any thing without than it is necessary to the support of Life or serviceable to the noble ends of Happiness and Virtue ye who measure all things by a steady and impartial reason according to their true estimate and value and not as they are falsly and unskilfully represented by the specious flatteries of a deluded fancy and so those things or truths of which
be thought to have been borrowed from the Platonick School is that St. Paul in his use of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mind which was the second Person in the Trinity of Plato takes it every where in the same sense which those Philosophers are used to do for a pure and unprejudic'd reason or understanding furnish'd with multiplicity of Ideas of whose objective perfection and of the motives which may induce it either to pursue or avoid those Objects which they represent it considers with a sound and impartial Judgment So Rom. 7. 23. I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and again v. 25. So then with my mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the Flesh the Law of Sin where the same word is still observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the language of the New-Testament that which is carnal and sensual is to be understood will appear no less plainly from several other places than from that which hath been already produced So James 3. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Wisdome descendeth not from above but is Earthly Sensual Devilish And in the Epistle of St. Jude v. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit and as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the same so also are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the two first being taken for the sensual and concupiscible as the two latter for the more intellectuall abstracted and speculative life in man for though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in propriety of Speech do not signifie an immaterial substance but only a more subtile and tenuious matter yet that this is the signification of it in many places of Scripture cannot be questioned especially in that of the Acts c. 23. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angel nor Spirit where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spirit it is plain an immaterial Nature must be understood for that there was such a thing as a Cogitant or thinking Substance in general they could not question without contradicting themselves the very doubt of it being a proof of its Existence neither could they any more dispute the Existence of a subtile or Aetherial matter of which common sense and every Moments experience would undeniably convince them And this was the reason why they would not grant the liberty of the humane Will because Matter and necessity are exactly the same as I shall shew more largely by and by wherefore looking upon the Soul of man as the Stoicks and Epicureans likewise did to be nothing else but a Collection of subtile Matter disposed conveniently for the exercise of Cogitation and Perception they could not think it capable of Freedom which implyes some principle distinct from matter and for the same reason they deny'd the Resurrection and the immortality of the Soul because as life according to the Sadducean principles was nothing but a Collection of subtile Matter disposed and modifi'd after a certain manner so Death was nothing else but the Dissolution or Dissipation of that collective Substance and therefore the Soul after Death must of necessity cease to be Lastly From this Notion of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spirit we may frame to our selves a clearer Explication of that famous Place of St. Paul to the Corinthians than has hitherto been thought of where speaking concerning the Resurrection he says thus 1 Cor. 15. 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is sown a natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body there is a natural Body and there is a Spiritual Body Where though it be true that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Spiritual Body may be understood such a Body as is of a more fine and subtle Contexture than that we now carry about us if we regard only the Propriety of the Greek Language without respect to the peculiar Idiome of the New-Testament and though it be likewise true that the Glorified Bodies of the Saints will actually consist of a more tenuious and Aetherial Substance because the Scripture tells us that in that State there will be neither Marrying nor giving in Marriage that is no sensual gratifications nor any sensual Desires which cannot well be if we carry these Bodies of Flesh about us which administer perpetual Food to so many disorderly Passions and in which St. Paul expressly tells us there dwells no good thing yet this does not depend upon the signification of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but upon the Nature of things themselves wherefore he that would rightly understand the true meaning of this Place must consider the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spiritual Body as it stands in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Natural Body and it being manifest from what hath been said already that by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be understood such a Body as is fittest for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Animal life to exercise its Functions and operations in nothing is more clear than that by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spiritual Body such an one in General must be understood as is best fitted for the operations of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the pure immaterial and immortal Nature in us Having thus given an Account of that Contention which we find within our selves between the two principles of the Flesh and Spirit as that Contention is described by St. Paul let us now see what advantage may be made from it to the Calvinistical Doctrine and those advantages are chiefly two First That he seems to speak in such a manner of the Spiritual principle as if it were perpetually overborn and kept under by the Carnal so as it could not possibly bring any thing to Effect of it self nor were in the least wise able to resist the perpetual Impulses of the Animal or Bruitish Nature I am carnal sold under Sin saith he Rom. 7. v. 14 15. For that which I do I allow not For what I would that do I not But what I hate that do I. Again v. 17 18. Now then it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me For I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good Thing For to will is present with me but how to perform that which is Good I find not and more to the same purpose to v. 23 where he has these words But I see another Law in my Members Warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members Which difficulty is Capable of a fourfold Solution First That even in profane Authors there are Expressions to be found which may seem at first sight to infer a natural Impossibility of doing Well by which notwithstanding no more than
liberty of the Will but speaking of that famous Difficulty concerning the inconsistence of the Divine Prescience with it he says that we are not to deny the truth of a Proposition or Notion which we feel and of which we are intimately conscious to our selves for the sake of a Being whose Modes of operation and ways of scientifical Intuition by reason of his infirnity we cannot comprehend And I do appeal to any Man in the World let him be who he will and of what perswasion soever if Posidonius in a raging fit of the Gout or Stone should yet out of an affected piece of Stoicism pretend that all that while he feels no manner of Pain but that he is perfectly at ease and should not have suspected himself to be at all discomposed were it not for the Visits of his Friends and the formality of a Nurse and a Physician by his Bed-side that he is listning all this while with unspeakable Delight to the Tunefull and Melodious Musick of the Spheres when yet his Groans and wry Faces do sufficiently confess that he feels no such Harmony within would not every one say that he does not believe himself and that he has no reason to expect that any one else should believe him And shall we not with equal reason say the same of him who will needs argue and dispute himself into a necessary Agent notwithstanding he feels himself inwardly to be Free Or how is it possible for us ever to look on any Proposition as True when the universal Seemings and Appearances of Mankind and those not of things without us but such as if they be any thing at all are a part of our very Nature and are always most intimately present with and in us shall yet notwithstanding be looked upon as no better than Dreams and Delusions of a sickly Mind This is the first Answer to the first Advantage that may be taken from the consideration of that Lucta or Contention which there is between the two Principles of the Flesh and Spirit as that Contention is described by St. Paul But Secondly The second Answer may be that if this place of St. Paul or any other be to be understood of an absolute and uncontrollable Necessity overruling all actions and thwarting perpetually all our good Desires so as without the help of an irresistible Grace they can never produce their effect this will destroy not only the Necessity but the nature of Obedience for Obedience and Compulsion are inconsistent together to Obey is one thing and to be compelled is another not only of a quite different but of a quite contrary Nature Thirdly Since it is supposed at least from this very place of St. Paul that there are such good Desires implanted in us by Nature which yet for all that are everlastingly overborn without being able to attain that end to which they are directed what is this but to represent God as the most cruel and arbitrary Being that can possibly be conceived who does not only plague and torment us in the other World for no reason but his own arbitrary Will and Pleasure but to compleat the Torment of those whom he has predestined to Eternal Flames and to signalize his utmost Vengeance and Displeasure against them He begins the Tragedy in this Life and creates in them a longing after Happiness and Virtue only to make them the more exquisitely Miserable by an everlasting Frustration Fourthly and Lastly St. Paul himself in the beginning of the next Chapter hath these words For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of Sin and Death For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for Sin condemned Sin in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit In which words it is plain beyond all possible colour of Exception that we are capable by Nature of paying some sort of Obedience to the Laws of God and right reason for whatever is weak is acknowledged to have a comparative though imperfect Strength and whatever wants to be fulfilled or compleated is at the same time acknowledged to have something of its own And so St. Paul tells us elsewhere not that we cannot possibly do any good work or think so much as a good thought of our selves by our own natural ability and power but that we have all Sinned and come short of the glory of God that is that our Obedience though it is not nothing and though it may be syncere yet it is imperfect and stands in need upon account of its defects of some other Expiation than what we are able to make so that after all it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth though we may do both but of God that sheweth Mercy It is so far from being true that by reason of the Original corruption of our natures we are carried forth with such an irresistible violence to all manner of Evil that it needs a perpetual Miracle to hinder the most profligate wretches from being worse than they are which yet Mr. Calvin does expresly assert and I have shewn that by his principles he is bound to do it that on the contrary it is acknowledged by St. Paul himself that there are very strong desires and tendencies to Goodness very powerful inclinations and breathings after Virtue implanted in us by nature and it is manifest by experience that all manner of Wickedness even in those who are arrived at the utmost perfection of degeneracy and Lewdness is at first accompanied with a sensible regret and pain that every man in the cool and unprejudiced retirement of his thoughts condemnes it and finds always in it an harsh and grating Incongruity to the natural grain and byass of his mind Nemo repente fuit turpissimus it requires a great deal of exercise and practice for a man to arrive at such a desperate pitch of Madness and Folly as to sin without any reluctancy or pain without some inward blushing and secret shame without a silent Confession of his Guilt and an earnest though fruitless and impracticable Desire that his lost Innocence might be retrived Every man is naturally desirous of a good name and a good name in the common judgment of all Mankind not excepting those themselves who have most grosly forfeited their Title to it is only to be purchased by worthy Inclinations and virtuous Deeds and for what those Deeds and those Inclinations are we have the same unanimous and universal consent All men admire and envy the Virtues of those who are better than themselves they excuse their own Follies by comparing them with those of other men and they uphold their drooping Spirits which would otherwise be oppressed by the too heavy weight of guilt and shame either by such Intemperance as removes from
Divine Grace by considering only in a Philosophical way the power of God and his ability to produce those effects which exceed any humane Efficiency or Skill and by attending to the nature of that Doctrine which Christ is said to have Taught which conduced so much to the Benefit and advantage of Mankind compared with that human or traditionary Testimony which has been handed down to us through so many Centuries of years by Men of unquestionable Credit and Virtue who neither had nor could propound any design of temporal advantage to themselves but on the contrary met with Trouble and Persecution and expcted to meet with no other for their Pains I say upon these Grounds any reasonable Man may of himself believe that there was such a Person as Jesus Christ Born of a pure Virgin who lived a most Holy and Exemplary Life wrought very many and very great Miracles and Wonders among Men who was the Promulger and Preacher of a most wise useful and Glorious Gospel to the World who Died upon the Cross to Seal and ratifie that Covenant which he had made between God and Men and who after his Crucifixion arose again from the Dead and ascended in a Glorious and Triumphant manner into Heaven having obtained a compleat Victory over Death and Sin where he still continues performing the Office of an everlasting Mediator and making a perpetual Intercession for us all This may be believed barely upon the Credit of that Historical Testimony which is given to it but if by Faith we mean a practical and saving Belief of these Truths which by being set home upon our hearts and being always present upon our Minds shall have a lasting and a powerful influence upon our Lives this as I conceive cannot be had or hoped for without the special influence of the Grace of God for the same Reasons upon which I have already asserted an habitual Goodness not to be obtained without the assistance and influence of the same Spirit And therefore when Peter made that Confession Matth. 16. 16. Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Jesus answered v. 17. Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona For Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Not that it was Impossible to come to the Knowledge of this in any degree without asupernatural Revelation For several of the Jews did from the greatness of his Miracles and the Wisdom of his Doctrine suspect and partly believe him to be the Prophet that was to come by which they meant either the Messias or his Forerunner and the Centurion who cannot be thought to have received his Information by any such Miraculous way when he saw our Saviour giving up the Ghost and considered the dreadful Agony of Nature at the instant of his Passion said of a truth this was the Son of God But such a Belief as Peter had of this Truth that is a practical and deeply rooted Sense of the Truth of what he said whereby his heart was changed and his affections subdued and his whole Man captivated into the Obedience of Christ and his Gospel this cannot be revealed by Flesh and Blood which is apt to suggest thoughts and invite to practices of a quite contrary Nature but it is owing to the Grace of God and to the supernatural Illuminations and Influences of the Divine Spirit working upon those who have experienced the new Birth and are become Regenerate and Born again into newness of Life by the adoption of Grace Thus have I endeavoured to explain the operations of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of Men and especially of the Faithful so as neither to make them useless with Pelagius nor irresistable with Calvin nor unintelligible with some of our Modern Writers who are cry'd up by their Adherents for nothing more then that they understand not what they say or Write nor the other what they Read or hear and who do on both hands exactly fulfil that witty and Judicious Character which Lucretius gives of Heraclitus and his admirers Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter Inanes Quam de grates inter Graias qui vera requirunt Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque Inveris quae subverbis latitantia cernunt Veraque constituunt quae bellè tangere possunt Aures lepido quae sunt fucata sonore But now that I may not seem in what I have Written upon this weighty Question to depart from the Sentiments of the Church of England to whose Authority I shall always pay as I am in Duty obliged a most profound respect I will here Transcribe those Articles of Hers in which this point is Concerned which are these three which follow ARTICLE X. Of Freewill The Condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot Turn and prepare himself by his own natural Strength and good works to Faith and calling upon God Wherefore we have no Power to do good Works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will In which Article it is plainly imply'd both that we have some natural strength and that we are capable of performing some good Works though that strength be so imperfect that we cannot by the sole Power and Virtue of it prepare and turn our selves to Faith and calling upon God neither are those Works pleasant and acceptable to God in themselves by reason of that mixture of imperfection with which they are attended and because they are interwoven with many bad ones of both which Causes of their non-acceptation I have already spoken without the assistances of Grace by which the Crudities of the carnal and concupiscible Life in us are attenuated and exalted which would otherwise ascend in gross and malignant Fumes darkning the understanding and depraving the will so as neither the one could discern its Duty with that Clearness nor the other execute it with that entire Resignation of it self to the conduct and governance of Reason and with that inward Fervo◠Chearfulness and Sincerity which is necessary to make our performances acceptable and well-pleasing in the sight of God and which is that which this Article calls a good will to which as well in its Being as continuance and preservation the Grace of God is of necessity required Neither would our good works though assisted and improved by these supernatural auxiliaries from above be acceptable and pleasant in his sight that is so as to be subservient to the great ends of Happiness and Salvation because in themselves they are no more than what by the Laws of Reason and self-Preservation we are obliged to do and because they are allay'd and tempered by so many Misdemeanours whose Guilt all our after-amendment can never wash away if it were not for the Blood of Christ which God has accepted as an Attonement and Propitiation for our Sins and for the
placing us in a State if not of perfect Innocence yet of Forgiveness and Justification ARTICLE XII Of good Works ALbeit that good works which are the fruits of Faith and follow after Iustification cannot put away our Sins and endure the severity of Gods Iudgement yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith in so much that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a Tree discerned by the fruit In this Article there is nothing which I have not already sufficiently asserted and insisted upon in what I have said above about Justification and in what I have just now observed upon the Article of freewill And Lastly In what I have said concerning Perseverance and of the case of St. Peter and that confession which he made that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of the Living God ARTICLE XIII Of Works before Justification WOrks done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God for as much as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ neither do they make Men meet to receive Grace or as the School Authors say deserve Grace of Congruity yea rather for that they are not done as God hath Willed and Commanded them to be done we doubt not but they have the nature of Sin In which last recited Article though more difficulty may seem to lie then in the two foregoing yet upon a more particular survey of it it will appear that there is nothing which is not very consistent to those principles which I have laid down For First This Article asserts plainly that good Works may be done but that they are not pleasant to God before the Grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Jesus Christ of which I have already spoken Secondly This Article does not deny that there is such a thing as Grace of Congruity and consequently that there may and must be some manner of preparation in our selves by which we are made capable of receiving it but only that we cannot deserve this grace of Congruity and that is very true for it is still an infinite condescention in the Spirit of God that it will stoop to our Infirmities and enter into so strict a Friendship with such polluted Beings as the best of Men of themselves are found to be Lastly When the Article tells us that before the Reception of this Grace even our good Works themselves have the nature of Sin it is not so to be understood that good Works proceeding out of an honest Heart and a pious Intention are or can be displeasing to God so far forth as they are done to good Purposes and out of good Designs for this would be to make them good and bad at the same time but before the Reception of this Grace they are tainted with much of imperfection in themselves and by their having the nature of Sin may be also meant that before the Reception of this Grace and without the satisfaction of Christ for the transgressions of our Lives they are no more available for our Justification than if they had been bad or wicked Works because no future innocence or virtue can be a proper Attonement or satisfaction for the guilt that is past so it being no more than we are always obliged to it cannot expiate for our former Sins Neither is it affirmed as I conceive in the tenth Article that we cannot turn or prepare our selves at all or in the least degree but that Article is rather to be explained by this expression in the thirteenth that we cannot so turn or prepare our selves as to deserve the grace of Congruity which I have already granted to be True and I have shown the Reason why it is so St. Paul tells us Rom 8. 7. That the Carnal Mind is at Enmity against God by which it is imply'd at least that there is a friendship and Congruity betwixt the spiritual mind and the mind of God And the case of the Heathen world in the first Chapter of that Epistle who were deserted by the spirit of God and given over to their own beastly Lusts and Affections to defile themselves with all manner of Wickedness and Uncleanness shews plainly that there is a common Grace or Influence of the Divine Spirit running through the World and that it never forsakes us till we by many acts of willful Sin have broken and violated those Congruities to which its presence is inseperably united according to the greater or lesser proportions in which those Congruities exert themselves though since no Man by the Assistances of this common Grace did ever live up to the perfection of the law of Nature I shall neither be so Uncharitable as to exclude them from all benefit in the Passion of Christ nor so presumptuous as to determine how far the Merits of that Passion may be applicable to them However if it be granted as it is all the reason in the World that it should what we find contained in the twentieth Article that it is not lawful for the Church it self to Ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods word neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another then it is easie to perceive what we are to pronounce of the Doctrines of irresistable Grace and of absolute Reprobation if we will adhere either to the Judgment of right Reason or to the sentiments of the Church of England it being impossible to maintain either of these Doctrines without explaining one Text after such a manner as to make it flatly contradictory to another and consequently to invalidate the Authority of the Scripture which if it be not consistent to its self can be of no force or obligation to us Besides what hath been already largely represented of the inconsistency of these Doctrines with the constant tenour design and current of the Scriptures if in the place of St. Paul so lately mentioned where he exhorts us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling it be but granted as it cannot be avoided but it must be that there is a Power or ability of working supposed in them to whom this exhortation is made otherwise it would be a very impertinent Exhortation and if it be affirmed of the very next words for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do that they are so to be understood as if he had said that we are able to do nothing of our selves but that God does all by an irresistable Grace then it is manifest that these two places though immediately Joyned are yet plainly contradictory to one another How is it possible then if we will follow the Counsel of the Church of England but we must expound this latter so as I have done since any other way they cannot be consistent together And what can be a greater disparagement to
stupid and insensible Block if the communication of Motion from one body to another be a manifest proof that those numerical degrees of Motion are not essential to either Body and consequently not to Matter in the general considered then we must look still further abroad for some other Substance wherein this Power of self-activity shall reside which Substance because it is not Matter must be immaterial neither must we be content to say only that selfactivity is an attribute belonging to some immaterial Substance but that it flowes immediately from the very essence and constitution of it because if you take away this you will then have nothing left but passive or passible Extension which is the Idea of Matter It is plain then and will be plainer from what I shall say in an Appendix to these Discourses that there are two sorts of Substance and by consequence two sorts of Extension a passive and an active Extension in the World The First of which has no manner of activity or motion but what is communicated to it from without The Second hath a power of selfactivity or selfmotion within its self which it can impress upon the matter about it and which it can either exert or suspend as it pleases or as it shall see cause For that Being whatever it is which cannot suspend its motion is passive in it and consequently is moved from without and that which cannot exert it from it self hath no power of self-activity from within but that which can do either of these when ever it pleases as it hath been proved that it can be no other then an immateriall so it must be granted to be a free Agent and therefore to deny that there is such a thing as freedom of Will or liberty of Action in Men is in effect to assert that they are as very Clods as the Dirt they tread on and that they are not partakers of an immaterial Nature The Antients were so sensible of the Truth of what I have here asserted that matter implies Necessity and mind self-activity and by consequence Freedom That Plutarch in his de placitis Philosophorum lays it down as the General sense of the Philosophers of the earliest Times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is it is impossible that matter should be the only principle from whence all things proceed but we must also add to this an active or intellectual principle which shall be the cause of Order Beauty and diversity in the matter For this reason it was that the Sadduces who denied the existence of any immaterial Principle subjected the Government of all humane Actions to a resistless Necessity and Fate but the Pharisees who looked upon themselves as made up of two distinct and contrary Natures or as consisting of an active and a passive Principle an immaterial Soul whose vigour was blunted and its activity diluted by the intimate union of a material gross and earthly Body did with better reason assert that there was a mixture of Freedom and Necessity in humane Life as Josephus and Abraham Zacuth have reported And that the Soul and Body are the two principles of Liberty on the one hand and Fatality on the other is likewise acknowledged by Lactantius in that Chapter which I have already cited in these words Tu quidem non peccas quia liber es ab hoc corpore non concupiscis quia immortali nihil est necessarium Lastly This blending or mixture of Necessity and Freedom is likewise acknowledged by Pythagoras or whoever was the Author of those truly Golden Verses that goe under his Name for Porphyry and Jamblichus do both of them assure us that he left no Writing behind him and besides the want of the Pythagorick Dorisme does sufficiently discover that it is a Poem of a much later Composure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For a small fault do not thy Friend forgo But curb thine Anger ere it lawless grow For Fate with Freedom is together joyn'd But it is still further admirable to observe how exactly St. Paul jumps in his sentiments of Things with the opinion of these ancient Philosophers For he also makes the Flesh or the union of the Soul with matter to be the cause of all those inordinate desires whereby it is assaulted though otherwise when she is retired within her self and disintangled by cool and serious Meditation from this bodily Encumbrance all her natural tendencies are to Goodness or which is all one to the enjoyment of perfect Happiness and Rest It is and must always be the nature of every cogitant Being to be carried forth with a perpetual desire of being Happy which blessed End being only attainable by the measures of right Reason and Prudence it can be nothing but Ignorance and Blindness or want of due heed and attention or Lastly the disquiet and disorder of our Passions all which are owing to the matter which we carry about us and are in their several degrees so many approaches towards an absolute and uncontroulable Necessity which can be the cause of any Sin or folly of which we are at any time guilty So St. Paul Rom. 7. 14. The Law is Spiritual but I am carnal sold under Sin And v. 18. For I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing And v. 20. Now if I do that I would not it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me And v. 23. But I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into Captivity to the law of Sin which is in my Members In which and other places already mentioned and now needless to be again repeated he very truely and wisely asserts the mind or inward man to be a principle of Freedom whose nature and Business it is to determine its self according to what is most suitable to its true Interest of which when it is not violently carried away by the importunity of passion and sensual pleasure it is a proper and impartial Judge but being united to a Body which is the seed and source of every evil desire and Inclination it is by their perpetual sollicitation diverted from its proper course and imposed upon by false appearances of profit interest or pleasure so as it cannot so easily discern what is for its true advantage and before it has sufficiently considered of things proceeds to action which is so far sinful as it might have been avoided by care and circumspection and so far more or less an approach to absolute Necessity as it is more or less influenced by the tumult and disorder of the material or necessary principle in us So that in every virtuous action there is an instance given of absolute and untainted Freedom because in these the Mind considers wholly and indifferently of the true worth and value of things and determines concerning them with an equal and unprejudiced Judgment and proceeds all the way upon steady
be deceiv'd in their proper objects when they are duly circumstanced to take a right cognizance of them Which if it be admitted for true we can not tell whither any such Miracles were ever wrought or no there being the same possibility of our senses being deceiv'd in one case as in another p. 215 216 And the same is likewise true of the Doctrine of Reprobation if it be admitted for true in the Calvinistical sense for there is no question but God doth reprobate obstinate and impenitent sinners the whole Oeconomy of the Gospel is overthrown all the dutyes recommended in it are either destroyed or â—â—erted the design of Christs coming into the world is frustrate and so is that of his passion and his intercession p. 216 217 When St. John exhorts us to mutual love after the example of God 1. Joh. 4 8. He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love it ought to have been considered if the Calvinistical Doctrine be true that denominatio sumitur a parte potiori and therefore if we consider how small the proportion of the elect is in comparison of those that are arbitrarily doom'd to Eternal Torments it would have been a truer proposition and a more Legitimate inserence He that hateth not knoweth not God for God is hatred and more to the same purpose from p. 217 to 221 It is by no means in this case sufficient to say that the reprobation of so great a number of mankind is owing to the Sin of Adam who acted freely in what he did for it is impossible that a free action in him should be the true and proper cause of a necessary nature in us p. 221 Since therefore God did at least for see the fall of Adam and upon supposition of that fall did reprobate so great a proportion of Mankind by concluding them under an irresistible pravity it is the same thing as if he had condemned them antecedently to the fall of Adam that is without any respest or regard to it from all Eternity or if he had condemned the 〈◊〉 the same state though Adam had not fallen at all because a simple decree and a decree founded upon a condition that will certainly come to pass are to all intents and purposes the same p. 222 But Mr. Calvin confesses plainly that God did plainly preordain the fall of Adam and therefore the former considerations return with greater force if God so hated us and if he be the best and the more noble patern for our imitation then ought we also to hate our selves and one another from p. 222 to 224 The horrid Blasphemy of this doctrine and its inconsistence with the word of God which is the rule and measure of our Christian Faith aggravated from several considerations from p. 224 to 228 Three ways by which Christ may be said to have redeemed us p. 228 First he Redeems us from the Bondage of sin or from the Dominion of it in our hearts and from the gloomy night of ignorance which hovered over the Jewish and the Heathen world by his example his Gospel and his Spirit but where there is no liberty there can be no sin where there can be no endeavour or imiâ—ation which suppose a freedome and a power of not imitating and not indeavouring there can be no example to them that have it not in their power to obey the Gospel is in vain proposed and the influences of the spirit where they are irresistible as Calvin ever supposes them to be cannot properly be said to redeem us in any measure from sin but only to drive us out of one necessity into another p. 228 229 Secondly Christ redeems us by his satisfaction but where there is no sin there needsno satisfaction neither indeed in propriety of so speech can there be any and where there is no Freedome there can be no sin so that after all the Calvinistical bitterness against the Socinian Haeriticks for so I call them and so I think them to be they themselves deny the satisfaction every whit as much and with more detestable circumstances than the Socinians themselves do from p. 229 to 232 The third way of redemption is by the intercession of Christ which though in the Orthodox Creed that is in the Creed of those that believe rightly concerning the nature of the humane soul and the nature of its Will it be very good â—â—â— useful and intelligible sence yet admit the Calvinistical Doctrine to be true and nothing is more useless and impertinent nay nothing can possibly be thought of more contemptibly ridiculous than that is p. 232 233 Again if we consider Christ as exercising the Office of supream Judge as he will do at the last day it is manifest that there can be nothing which can in propriety of speech be called a judgment where there is no difference made betwixt the moral good or evil of things and it is as certain that in the Calvinistical necessity which destroys the very nature of Morality and Religion no such difference can possibly be suppos'd so that a judgment in this case would be every whit as ridiculous at the last day as an intercession before it p. 234 235 And as nothing is more inconsistent with the whole current of the Scriptures than the Doctrine of Reprobation so neither is there any thing so destructive of that meekness and humility which it was one of the main designs of the Gospel to encourage and promote nothing that is so naturally productive of insolence and Pride of a fastidious contempt and scorn of one man towards another nothing so exactly fitted to make Parties and Divisions among men and to continue and propagate those Divisions when they are made to the great prejudice of the publique peace and the perpetual disturbance of the world from 235 to 237 Six accounts to be given of the rise and progress of the Doctrine of absolute reprobation p. 237 First account to be taken from a too inconsiderate interpretation of those places wherein Justification is ascribed wholly to faith in opposition to the works of the Law of Moses or to that justifycation which pretends to be obtained by a perfect obedience to the Laws of nature or an absolute and entire conformity in all parts of our lives to the duties and obligations of natural Religion p. 237 238 Two reasons why justication could not be obtained by the Law of Moses the one drawn from the nature of the law it self which was but a shadow of a more perfect dispensation and the other from the defectiveness and imperfection of that obedience which was given it p. 239 But neither was the law of Nature by reason of humane Frailty which renders it morally impossible for us to walk up to the utmost perfection of that Law sufficient of it self in order to this end p. 240 A sin being committed there are but five ways possibly to be thought of by which justification that is the Remission of that