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A27438 Of revelation and the Messias a sermon preached at the publick commencement at Cambridge, July 5th, 1696 / by Richard Bentley ... Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742. 1696 (1696) Wing B1942; ESTC R5633 15,739 38

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gather'd arguments against the Christians from all the different Sects and Hypotheses of Philosophy though inconsistent one argument with another and brought objections too from the Old Testament which they did not believe against the New one which they were engaged by all methods to oppose In our present Discourse therefore we shall endeavour to refute these modern adversaries under their double shape and character first as they are mere Deists or Pagans renouncing all Revelation and the very notion of the Messias and secondly as they fight under Jewish colours so as admitting there be a promised Messias the Saviour of the world yet men ought to reject the person of Iesus and still to wait for another And first we shall consider them in the quality of Deists and Disciples of mere natural Reason We profess our selves as much concerned and as truly as themselves are for the use and authority of Reason in controversies of Faith We look upon right Reason as the native lamp of the soul placed and kindled there by our Creator to conduct us in the whole course of our judgments and actions True Reason like its divine Author never is it self deceived nor ever deceives any man Even Revelation it self is not shy nor unwilling to ascribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the test and testimony of Reason Sound Reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser metals Revelation truly divine from imposture and enthusiasm So that the Christian Religion is so far from declining or fearing the strictest trials of Reason that it every-where appeals to it is defended and supported by it and indeed cannot continue in the Apostle's description pure and undefiled without it 'T is the benefit of Reason alone under the providence and spirit of God that we our selves are at this day a Reformed Orthodox Church that we departed from the errors of Popery and that we knew too where to stop neither running into the extravagancies of Fanaticism nor sliding into the indifferency of Libertinism Whatsoever therefore is inconsistent with natural Reason can never be justly imposed as an Article of Faith That the same Body is in many places at once that plain Bread is not Bread such things though they be said with never so much pomp and claim to infallibility we have still greater authority to reject them as being contrary to common sense and our natural faculties as subverting the foundations of all Faith even the grounds of their own credit and all the principles of civil life So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the dignity and authority of Reason but then we differ with them about the exercise of it and the extent of its province For the Deists there stop and set bounds to their Faith where Reason their only guide does not lead the way further and walk along before them We on the contrary as Moses was shewn by divine power a true sight of the promised Land though himself could not pass over to it so we think Reason may receive from Revelation some further discoveries and new prospects of things and be fully convinced of the reality of them though it self cannot pass on nor travel those regions cannot penetrate the fund of those truths nor advance to the utmost bounds of them For there is certainly a wide difference between what is contrary to Reason and what is superior to it and out of its reach To give an instance in created Nature how many things are there whose being we cannot doubt of though unable to comprehend the manner of their being so That the human soul is vitally united to the Body by a reciprocal commerce of action and passion this we all consciously feel and know and our adversaries will affirm it Let them tell us then what is the chain the cement the magnetism what they will call it the invisible tie of that union whereby Matter and an incorporeal Mind things that have no similitude nor alliance to each other can so sympathize by a mutual league of motion and sensation No they will not pretend to that for they can frame no conceptions of it They are sure there is such an union from the operations and effects but the cause and the manner of it are too subtle and secret to be discovered by the eye of Reason 't is mystery 't is divine magick 't is natural miracle If then in created beings they are content with us to confess their ignorance of the modes of existence without doubting of things themselves have not we much more reason to be humble and modest in speculations about the essence of God about the reasons of His counsels and the ways of His actions yes certainly under those circumstances we may believe with Reason even things above and beyond Reason For example If we have sure ground to believe that such a book is the Revelation of God and we find in it Propositions expressed in plain words of a determinate sense without ambiguity so as they cannot be otherwise interpreted by any just metaphor or fair construction allowed in common language we say we have sufficient reason to assent to those propositions as divine doctrines and infallible truths so far as they are declared there though perhaps we cannot our selves comprehend nor demonstrate to others the reasons and the manner of them Neither is this an easy credulity or unworthy of the most cautious and morose searcher of truth For observe we do not say Any thing incomprehensible to Reason is separate and alone a proper object of belief but as it is supported and establish'd by some other known and comprehensible truth As if Abraham had been told by some ordinary Man That in His and Sarah's decrepit age he should be blessed with a Son this Promise so alone without its basis to stand on could not have challeng'd his assent because the thing was impossible in the way of Nature But since it was God Almighty with whom all things are possible that was the author of that Promise by the mediation of that certain truth the veracity and omnipotence of God without hesitation he believed and so obtain'd the glory to be Father of the faithfull And upon the same grounds the Blessed Virgin gave credit to the salutation of the Angel though the message in it self seem'd impossible to reason So true it is that Reason it self warrants us to proceed and advance by Faith even beyond the sphere and regions of Reason We agree then with our adversaries about the authority of Reason but we dissent about the exercise of it and the bounds of its jurisdiction We believe even the abstrusest Mysteries of the Christian Religion of which mysteries perhaps we can assign no reasons but for our belief we assign a good one Because they are plainly taught in the word of God who can neither err nor deceive And this we affirm to be a reasonable conclusion though it carry
upon them and breathed a new warmth and vigour through all the powers of Body and Soul when by the influx of divine light the whole scene of Christ's heavenly kingdom was represented to their view so that their hearts were ravished with joy and their imaginations turgid and pregnant with the glorious ideas then surely if ever their stile would be strong and lofty full of allusions to all that is great and magnificent in the kingdoms of this world But then in other passages of the same Prophets as it were on purpose to hint to us the true meaning of the former the Messias is describ'd plainly without poetical colours to be a person of low condition to have no form nor comeliness in him a man acquainted with sorrows and numbred among transgressors and by other characters so clear and express that some of the Jewish Rabbies to elude so strong a conviction have maintain'd and propagated an absurd opinion as if two Messiah's were foretold by the Prophets the one a triumphant monarch and the other an unfortunate and afflicted person What will not perverse and refractary minds take hold of rather than submit to an unwelcome truth It is evident then that the kingdom of Christ so magnified in the Prophetick stile is a spiritual kingdom And yet to be free and ingenuous we must own that the whole nation of the Jews mistook the meaning of those passages Even our Saviour's own disciples were not exempted from the common error And the whole posterity of that people are pertinacious in it to this day which to many is a mighty prejudice against the credit of the Gospel What as if it were such a matter of astonishment that they obstinately adhere to the literal sense which promises them a temporal kingdom with worldly honours and pleasures an interpretation both specious in it self and agreeable to their proud hopes and carnal apprehensions which are miserably defeated and disappointed in Jesus There seems to be nothing so very unnatural and unaccountable in this But then that very Disappointment so far it is from being an objection that to a sagacious mind and uncorrupt judgment it self is a convincing proof that he was truly the Messias For let us reflect upon the state of those times 'T is certain in fact that the whole nation was possest with an inveterate persuasion that the Messias was then a coming And 't is as certain that Iesus the Son of Mary profest himself that Messias Let us argue now upon human reasons and the common principles of action If he was not the true Messias we are then to consider him as an ordinary Jew of mean quality and education Now to give any tol●rable account why such a one should pretend himself to be the Messias there are but two ways possible Either he was acted by ambitious designs which he hoped to compass by that impost●●e or by a complexional and natural enthusiasm verily imagining himself to be the Messias I suppose I scarce need to say that both these suppositions are fully confuted by every word and action of his life But what I now observe is this that upon either of those principles whether Ambition or Enthusiasm he would certainly have acted the part of the Messias in such a character as men then asscribed to him according to the popular expectation and the received notion of those times Now the whole Nation expected that the Messias was to be a great General to rescue them from the Roman power and to restore the kingdom to Israel 'T is certain then that upon either of those motives he would have blown the trumpet to rebellion and attempted their deliverance Ambition would have animated him to it as the only way to his hopes and wishes or if Enthusiasm had inspired him what would he not have promised and assumed to himself to fight the battles of the Lord to execute vengeance upon the Heathen to bind their Kings with chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron Such were the designs of Barcocab and some other impostors of old setting up to be the Messias they put their followers in arms and proclaimed liberty to the people Not so the blessed Jesus but when the multitude would have made him their King he withdrew himself even by miracle to avoid it He did not summon to arms but to repentance and newness of life He had a kingdom indeed but not of this earthly Ierusalem but of that which is above He was truly their deliverer but not from the Roman yoke but from the more slavish yoke of the Law from the more wretched bondage to sin and death Was this the air and language of Ambition Was this the meen and spirit of Enthusiasm Nay rather does not Nature her self cry out and declare that for one of his low condition and vulgar education to profess himself the Messias in so surprizing a manner in a character so unthought of by an interpretation of Prophecies so spiritual and divine so infinitely better than the literal meaning against the universal prejudice of the nation and the hopes and sollicitations of his very followers was certainly a thing more than human an invincible testimony that he was really the Christ and his doctrine from God and not of men But our Adversaries have another objection still behind and our answer thereto will put an end both to it and to the present discourse And this objection is borrow'd from the Law of Moses which say they having a promise of eternity annexed to it to be an everlasting covenant a perpetual statute a covenant of an everlasting Priesthood ought of necessity to be continued and confirmed by the true Messias whereas Iesus endeavoured to abolish it and thereby wholly subverted the credit of his own pretensions But we answer in our Saviour's declaration that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it We are to distinguish then between the moral part of the Mosaic Law and the political and ceremonial As to the Rites and Ceremonies 't is apparent they had no intrinsic nor moral holiness in them no natural tendency to promote the happiness of men nay rather they were inconvenient and grievous a yoke of bondage and servile discipline which none were able to bear Even the rewards and penalties which enforced their observation did not naturally flow and result from them as effects from proper causes but they were miraculously added to them by the sole virtue of the divine promise 'T is true they were fit and proper for the ends of their institution to be types and shadows of better things to come to preserve the people from Idolatry by allowing no intercourse nor commerce with other nations But 't is evident for that very reason as well as many more that those ceremonies were neither calculated for eternity nor modelled for mankind in common So that when the reasons of their sanction no longer continued when the things they typically represented were come to pass when the wall of partition was to be removed and according to the Prophecies all nations to be called to Christ and the ends of the earth to be his possession they must needs be antiquated and abolished like scaffolds that are removed when the buildings are finished since under that new state none of them had any further use and several of them became impossible to be observed And so for the Political institutions of Moses 't is plain they were accommodated to the circumstances of affairs and the necessities of time and place not absolutely the very best but the best that those ages of the world and the genius of that people would bear As for instance the toleration of Polygamy and causeless Divorces these were indulged them not as most pleasing to their Law-giver but because of the hardness of their hearts in the words of our Saviour because they were too stiff-necked and headstrong to admit of a shorter bridle These civil ordinances therefore when better precepts were once proposed and accepted in their place must of necessity drop and die of themselves and become obsolete without any repeal just as the temporary edicts in war and the agreements of the cartel do expire of their own accord when the peace is concluded But then the Moral part of the law of Moses which is the sap and marrow the soul and substance of the whole that indeed is of eternal and universal obligation But then who can say that this is abrogated and cancelled by Iesus so far from that that every branch of it is ingrafted and incorporated into his Gospel In this best of senses therefore the Mosaic Law is confirmed and fulfilled by our Saviour For Morality is a thing immutable and unless human nature it self should be new molded by our maker vice and virtue must be always what they have been So foolish was the cavil of the Deists against our Saviour's descent from Heaven because he gave no other Lectures of Morals than what Nature and Reason had taught before Nay if he had taught us the reverse of those Morals this had been an objection indeed But in that even the divinity of his doctrine most eminently appears that the finger of God upon the tables of our hearts and the pens of the inspired Writers in the volume of the Gospel have prescribed us one and the same lesson As for Us whose employment it is to teach that lesson to others let us but express it also in our own lives and conversations let us but add that credit to our doctrine that reputation to our profession so may we expect to bring over all our adversaries to the truth and power of Religion so may we expect when we give the account of our talents to be received with that blessed approbation Well done thou good and faithfull servant enter thou into the joy of thy Master FINIS Rom. 3. 2. Luk. 7. 19. Matth. 13. 25. Matth. 10. 36. James 1. 27. Deut. 34. Matth. 19. 26. Rom. 4. 11. Gen. 1. 31. Gen. 4. 7. 1 Joh. 1. 8. Rom. 3. 9. 23. Ib. v. 19. Rom. 8. 22. Heb. 1. 3. Rom. 10. 14. Rom. 3. 29. Rom. 9. 4. Rom. ● 11 12. Rom. 1. 18 20 21. Rom. 3. 20. 1 Pet. 1. 20. Matth. ● 17. Matth. 19. 8. P. 4.