no not the fear of death or torment could hinder them from being open witnesses to the World of all those things which they had seen and most certainly knew concerning the crucified Iesus the Son of God and Saviour of Mankind 3. We have seen in general how requisite this Supernatural assistance was to the Apostles We shall now take notice in particular how congruous at least decorous the First appearance thereof was at the day of Pentecost The Apostles together with other Disciples being met in an upper room at Ierusalem and being all of one mind and of one faith and expectation of the promise of the Spirit at the above-named day of Pentecost of a suddain there came upon them a sound from Heaven as of a mighty rushing winde which filled the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven Tongues like as of Fire which sate upon each of them and they all filled with the Holy Ghost began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance 4. Supposing a God a Providence and the Ministry of Angels and Spirits there is not a jot of this impossible or incredible But we shall also take notice of the Congruity of circumstances which are either for an handsome Symbolical sense or else for a more indispensable convenience as I conceive the Day to be and their assembling thus together on this day of Pentecost in one place For their seeing what happened thus miraculously to every one of them is a stronger confirmation of all their faiths and they are the more sufficient witnesses to all the World of what thus miraculously befell them And the Day of Pentecost was the most convenient time for this to happen because of the greater concurse of people on that day 5. But it does not exclude that more Mystical and Symbolical sense of S. Austine's That as the written Law was given to the Iews on the fiftieth day after the Passeover so the Law of the Spirit which was to be written in mens hearts was thus wonderfully begun here on the same day by the preaching of the Apostles on whom the Spirit descended in such an extraordinary manner Nor does that other sense concerning the Unity of place exclude that Moral intimation of Grotius Deus dona sua promisit unitati That also of their being seated in an upper room must signifie Morally or nothing considerable for else the more removed from the Earth the never nearer to God especially within the smell of the Atmosphere Which Philosophick contemplation Apollonius pursues with a great deal of pomp and gravity indoctrinating Damis while they were travailing on mount Caucasus which the neighbour Inhabitants look'd upon as the holy Mansion of the Gods as other hills also are call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that opinion that a man is never the nearer the knowledge of Religion and Vertue if he were mounted upon the highest Athos Olympus or all the Caucasus's in the World unless he contemplate religious and Divine matters not so much in a pure and subtile Air as from an undeprav'd and sincere Spirit 6. But that which is of the greatest significancy is the mighty rushing Wind and the fiery cloven Tongues The former whereof is an Emblem of the External violence which God would doe to the World in the introducing of the acknowledgment of his Son into it For without doubt those wonderfull Miracles that were done by the Apostles beat so strongly upon the outward Senses of men that they were after a manner forcibly driven to acknowledge that the hand of God was with them and that the doctrine which they taught was true The knowledge whereof at last with the fame of their Miracles filled the whole World as that Sound from Heaven and mighty rushing Wind filled the whole house where they sate I am sure the chief Priests complained betimes that the Apostles had filled all Ierusalem with their doctrines 7. The latter viz. the Fiery cloven Tongues the fieriness of them intimates the searching penetrating melting and purifying power of the Spirit as their being cloven or divided the effect of the living word which accompanied their preaching which we may better call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the Stoicks their meager Reason For this is that which is sharper then any two-edged sword dividing the very joints and marrow and piercing to the inmost penetrals of the heart as may be observed at the preaching of Peter's Sermon Or not to be altogether so Mystical or Spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these divided or cloven tongues may be only an external symbol of that inward power given them to speak and understand several Tongues though they were never taught them Which was a gift of very sober and necessary use as all the Miracles are that were done either by Christ or his Apostles they being to preach to men of several Nations then sojourning at Ierusalem and afterwards to travail into several Countries to convert men to the Faith 8. This is a solid account of all the Circumstances of that great Miracle done partly upon and partly by the Apostles after Christ's Ascension into Heaven Which Divine power ever after assisted them in all their travails and labours in the Gospel as you may see in the Acts. Where you shall find them not only endued with this miraculous power themselves but by prayer and imposition of hands conferring it upon others for the benefit of the Church where you shall see them healing the sick making the lame to walk raising the dead casting out devils and doing over again all the most considerable Miracles of our Saviour and some which he never did as the speaking with tongues and healing by the mere shadow of their bodies which seems more wonderfull then by the touching of the hem of Christ's garment To which you may adde what strangely happened to them as upon their praiers and devotions how the house shaked under them as in an Earthquake through the sensible presence of the Divine power attending them Their being transported through the Air by the hand of an Angel from one place to another Their being visited by Angels in prison who opened the prison doors and made the fetters fall off from their bodies of their own accord The transfiguration of their countenances into an Angelical glory and the appearance of Christ from Heaven to them in a splendour more bright and radiant then the Sun at mid-day as it happened to Paul as he was travailing to Damascus The Credibility of which things as also of the Resurrection and Miracles of Christ the Success it self does plainly argue 9. For it seems utterly impossible that Christ a man cut short of all accomplishments that are plausible to flesh and bloud being neither arm'd by the power of Eloquence the knowledge of Philosophy the authority and honour of the World nor the advantages of Birth or Fortune but on
that teach the contrary 1. AS for that Text which we deferred to speak to we shall now take it into consideration It was Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Iesus Christ even we have believed in Iesus 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 From this place of Scripture also there are some that would inferre a superannuating and annulling of all moral honesty and reall Righteousness whatever pretending that nothing but mere Faith is required to make us approvable before God And indeed they fansy that this whole Epistle administers invincible arguments to maintain this mischievous Conclusion though there be not to any indifferent Judge any solid reason of so full a confidence Which we shall easily understand if we take notice that the designe of this Epistle is only to reduce those Galatians again to the truth of Christianity that were almost apostatizing to Iudaisme and the Ceremonial Law of Moses Ye observe dayes and moneths and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed labour on you in vain Chap. 4.10 11. But the main scope of the Apostle is against Circumcision as is plain upon the very first perusall of the Epistle which he beating down together with the Law of Moses and extolling the Faith in Christ seems sometimes to excuse a man from walking according to the moral Law under the pretence of Faith in Christ. But as S. Peter hath well observed there be many things in S. Pauls Epistles hard to be understood which foolish men pervert to their own destruction But that we be not led into the same errour and mischief it will be of no small concernment to trace the footsteps of S. Paul that so we may wind our selves out of this dangerous Maze or Labyrinth 2. Whereas then he seems to nullifie or vilifie at least the Law in the advancing of that Righteousnesse that is by faith let us see what this Righteousnesse that is by faith and what that of the Law is Chap. 2.19 For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me I through the Law am dead unto the Law what a riddle is this that the Law should deprive it self of its disciples And yet it doth so For it is a Schoolmaster to Christ or rather an Usher which when it hath well tutour'd us and castigated us removes us up higher to be made in Christ perfect who is the perfection of the Law But the Law it self makes nothing perfect and this is the reason that Righteousness is not of the Law And to this purpose speaks the Apostle in this very Epistle at the 21 verse of the 3. Chapter Is the Law then against the promises of God God forbid For if there had been a law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A law that could enliven and enquicken us But that is beyond the power of the Law That 's the title and prerogative of Christ who is the Way the Truth and the Life I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Joh. 11. This therefore is the Righteousness of Faith or belief far above the Righteousness of the Law or killing letter 3. Wherefore when this Faith is come that worketh us up to a living frame of Righteousness within us we are no longer under the servility of the Law of Moses but are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Now none are the children of God but those that are led by the Spirit of God as the Apostle elsewhere witnesseth in his Epistle to the Romans And those that have the Spirit of God what fruits they bring forth is amply set out by the Apostle in this to the Galatians chap. 5. v. 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance against such there is no law For indeed there is no need of it they being a law unto themselves So we see how those that are in Christ are not under the Law because that inward fountain of obedience or living law in their hearts is above it They do really and truly fulfill it through the Spirit that is by faith For that Spirit is the begetter of Love and Love is the fulfilling of the Law For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.14 This I say then walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to another that ye may not do the things ye would Which certainly is the true and genuine sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius also has noted And these are contrary that is to say oppose one the other namely the Spirit the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the end you may not do those things that your own corrupt will or carnall minde inclines you to which naturally coheres with what follows But if you be led by the Spirit you are not under the Law For against such there is no law as was said before Which implyes if they be not led by the Spirit they are liable to the curse of the Law to death hell and damnation For so also speaks the Apostle when he hath reckoned up the works of the flesh That they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God ver 21. And v. 25. he openly declares That they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts 4. So we see plainly that the Righteousnesse that is of faith is not a mere Chimaera or phansie but a more excellent Righteousness then that of the Law For the Law is no quickening spirit but a dead letter But Christ is the Resurrection and the Life And he is God our righteousness mighty to save and can with ease destroy the powers of death darkness and the Devil out of the Soul of man but we must have the patience to endure the work wrought in us by him I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And if we will still cloak and cover our foul corrupt hearts with forged conceits of Hypocrisie's own making and excuse our selves from being good to one another or to our selves because God in Christ is so good to us hear what the Apostle speaks in the sixth and last Chapter of this Epistle at the seventh verse Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
then by any other way conceivable For those words of so great sound and of no less import namely the Millennium the Reign of the Saints the New Jerusalem and the like to them that are not very wild or ignorant can signifie nothing else but the recovery of the Church to her ancient Apostolick purity wherein nothing shall be imperiously obtruded upon men but what is plainly discoverable to be the Mind of Christ and his Blessed Apostles There shall be nothing held Essential and Fundamental but the indispensable Law of the Christian life and that Doctrine that depends not upon the fallible deductions of men but is plainly set down in the Scripture other things being left to the free recommendation of the Church ensnaring no mans Conscience nor lording it over the flock of Christ. 14. Which certainly they do that call those things Antichristian that are not and thereby make more Fundamentals then Christ or his Apostles which Errour is the very Essence and Substance of Antichristianisme and of the grand Apostasy of the Church As methinks should appear plainly to any man that considers it from the description of the New Jerusalem whose Foundation and whole Fabrick runs so upon Twelve For truly it seems to me very unsafe and over-near the brinks of reproach to the Spirit of God to conceit that Wisdome which dictated this Prophecy so shallow and trifling as to mean nothing by that so industriously inculcating the number Twelve but the Churches proceeding first from the preaching of the Apostles a Truth that no man never so destitute of the spirit of divination could misse of or possibly think otherwise Wherefore the meaning of the Prophecy questionless is That after the Church has added false Fundamentals to the Christian Faith and as bad Superstructures the time will come when it shall be again restored to its former purity and That as the root Twelve is the Embleme of the pure Church so there is also a root of a number that will discover that Church which is the Mother of this great Apostasy as really in my judgement Mr. Potter in the number 666. has ingeniously demonstrated But it is manifest that all the zealous Corrivals for the Government of this Nation by either decrying things for Antichristian that in themselves are innocent and of an indifferent nature or by obtruding Opinions that are worse then indifferent have but shewed themselves Branches of that great Stock of Apostasy and are too far removed from the reputed merit of either being or beginning of a Church that is purely Apostolical 15. This Honour therefore seems to have been reserved by Providence for the eternizing the happy Reign of our Gracious Soveraign and all the parturient Agonies and zealous presages of the people of this Nation as if there was an approach of some extraordinary Good to be revealed suddenly to the World to have been nothing else if they knew their own meaning but a less explicite presensation of the return of CHARLES the Second to the rightfull Government of his Kingdomes And truely it will be the greatest Miracle to me in the world if he can frustrate our expectation For whether we consider the excellent Qualifications of our Gracious Prince whom Providence has so long time disciplined in the most effectual method of Prudence and Vertue besides the express Declaration of His own Royal inclinations this way or whether we look upon the Reasonableness of the thing it self it being not onely recommended to us both by Precept and Prophecies but also offering so irrefragable evidence from its own nature of the indispensableness of the duty there being no other possible means to reduce the World to a right Christian tenour of Spirit and to recover it to a due strength and soundness of complexion but by shearing off those large excrescencies of either useless or scandalous Ceremonies and Opinions the foments of strife and palliations of Hypocrisy men seeking by these to be excused from the most weighty Precepts of the Gospel or lastly we take notice of the great Interest the wise and reverend Clergy of this Nation cannot but discover herein even in reference to themselves it is almost impossible to doubt of either endeavour or success in this so important affair For certainly nothing can so well secure their peace and make them impregnable as the using of their Power and exercising their Discipline in the behalf of such Truths and Rites as are plainly and confessedly Apostolical and the being more facil and easie in additional circumstances and cutting quite off all useless and entangling Opinions For hereby will their Opposers be manifestly found to fight against God and his Christ while they contest with his Ministers who urge nothing upon the People but what was plainly taught and practised by himself and his Apostles whose Waies and Doctrines are so sacred that they ought to be kept up with all lawful severity Which one plain and generous Rule of Government if faithfully kept to is the most effectual means imaginable of making the world good and for both the Unity and Enlargement of the Church infinitely above all those many fine artifices and small devices of the most professed Politicians in the Church of Rome provided we be not course and sordid but reverent and comely in our publick Worship 16. But to return In the third and last place Although the exigency of the Times which then urged me to write thus carefully touching the Quakers and Familists is now God be thanked changed into a more safe Scene of things and the resettlement of our Gracious Soveraign in his Throne doth again secure the Scepter of Christ to his Church yet I thought it fit not to exâ—unge what I had wrote concerning these Sects For for the present It cannot but contribute considerably to an unfained composure of their Spirits and peaceful acquiescence in the known Christian Truth their minds being more at leisure now better fitted to consider what is true then they were before when the heat of Enthusiastick hopes of I know not what great success inflamed them and blew them up so high that the voice of sober Reason could not well be heard in that fanatick storm and Bluster nor an Errour easily let go which seemed a pledge of the sudden approach of so great advantages to the entertainers of it And then for the future So fundamental a discovery of the unsoundness and madness of these Sects cannot I think but be very effectual for the preventing their spreading hereafter that it will not be any longer in the power of their false Teachers to befool well-meaning men with fine words and make them unawares countenance a Faction the deepest Arcanum whereof is absolute rebellion against the Person of Christ and an utter abrogation of Christian Religion Which task though others heretofore have undertaken and I question not but with like faithful and zealous regard to the good of the Church yet their discovery
were not asleep at so concerning a Sermon 6. Again 2 Cor. 5. v. 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly intimates a going out of this Mortal Body not a change of it into an Immortal one therefore we may safely conclude that this courage and willingness of the Apostle to die implies an enjoyment of the presence of Christ after death before the general Resurrection Else why should he rather desire to die then to live but that he expects that Faith should be presently perfected by Sight as he insinuates in the foregoing verse But assuredly better is that enjoyment which is onely by Faith then to have no enjoyment at all as it must be if the Soul cannot operate out of this Body 7. A like Proof to this and further Confirmation of the Truth is that of Philipp 1.21 22 23 24. where the Apostle again professing his courage and forwardness to magnifie Christ in his body whether by life or by death uses the like Argument as before For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live in the flesh it will be worth my labour yet what I should chuse I wote not For I am in a strife betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you 8. The genuine sense of which Place is questionless this That while he lived his life was like Christ's upon Earth innocent but encumbred with much hardship and affliction bearing about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus but if he died he should then once for all seal to the Truth of his Martyrdome and not onely scape all future troubles which yet the love of Christ his Assistance and Hope of Reward did ever sustain him in but which was his great gain and advantage arrive to an higher fruition of him after whom he had so longing a desire But if to be with Christ were to sleep in his bosome and not so much as to be sensible he is there it were impossible the Apostles affections should be carried so strongly to that state or his judgement should determine it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so exceedingly much better especially his stay in the flesh being so necessary to the Philippians and the rest of the Church and what he suffered and might further suffer in his life no less a Testimony to the Truth then Death it self 9. Fourthly Those phrases of S. Peter 2 Pet. 1.13 Yea I think it meet so long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up and put you in remembrance Knowing that I must shortly put off this Tabernacle c. And so vers 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all likelyhood alludes to the same as if his Soul went out of the Body as out of a Tabernacle All these Phrases I say seem to me manifestly to indicate that there is no such necessary Union betwixt the Soul and the Body but she may act as freely out of it as in it as men are nothing the more dull sleepy or senseless by putting off their cloaths and going out of the house but rather more awakened active and sensible 10. Fifthly Hebr. 12. There God is called the Father of Spirits the Corrector and Chastiser of our Souls in contradistinction to our Flesh or Bodies and then vers 22. lifting us up quite above the consideration of our Corporeal condition he brings us to the Mystical mount Sion the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the Universal assembly and Church of the first-born which are inrolled in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect Now I demand what Perfection can be in the Spirits of these just men to be overwhelmed in a senseless Sleep or what a disproportionable and unsutable representation is it of this throng Theatre in Heaven made up of Saints and Angels that so great a part of them as the Souls of the Holy men deceased should be found drooping or quite drown'd in an unactive Lethargie Certainly as it is incongruous in it self so it is altogether inconsistent with the magnificency of the representation which this Author intends in this place 11. Sixthly Matth. 10.28 The life of the Soul separate from the Body is there plainly asserted by our Saviour Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell i. e. able if he will to destroy the life both of Body and Soul in Hell-fire according to the conceit of those whose opinions I have recited in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 3. chap. 18. or else miserably to punish or afflict both Body and Soul in Hell the torments whereof are worse then Death it self For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perire signifie to be excessively miserable so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perdere may very well signifie to make excessively miserable But now for the former part of the verse but are not able to kill the Soul it is evident that they were able if the Soul could not live separate from the Body For killing of the Body what is it but depriving it of life wherefore if the Soul by the death of the Body be also deprived of life it is manifest that she can be killed which is contrary to our Saviour's Assertion CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward implie That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 1. WE have yet one more notable Testimony against our Adversaries Our Saviour Christ's Soul and the Thief 's upon the Cross did subsist and live immediately upon the death of the Body as appears from Luke 23.42 43. And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise As if he should thus answer Thou indeed beggest of me that I would be mindfull of thee when I come into my Kingdome but I will not deferre thee so long onely distrust not the unexpected riches of my goodness to thee For verily I say unto thee That this very day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And there is no evasion from this Interpretation the Syriack as Grotius noteth interpointing betwixt I say unto thee and Today and all the Greek copies as Beza affirmes joyning
in the town stocking after him and heightening his intoxication by their apish injuries But I will not insist upon this 3. Secondly It is not so strange that there should be a greater number of possessed in Christs time then now because since Christianity the power of the Devil is much more curbed For it is plain that where Paganisme rules the persons of men are more subject to the cruelty of the Devil As appears by what is recorded in History concerning the Inhabitants of several Countries as of Madagascar where the Devil afflicts them bodily in Florida he astonishes them with dreadfull Apparitions and cuts their very flesh off in his approaches they of Guiana are beat black and blew by him and the Brasilians so grievously tormented that they are ready to dy for fear upon the very thought of him The Apostate Jews that they fell under his power is the opinion of their own Rabbins and the primitive Christians delivered to Satan felt to their smart the rigour of his lash All which may go for a sufficient proof That the profession of Christianity and the worship of the true God in that way that he will be worshipped is a personal protection from the gross assaults of the Devil 4. A man might adde further That not onely they that are duly excommunicated by the Church are made obnoxious to his Tyranny but also those that revolt of themselves and deny the Lord that bought them by their misbelief of the sacred History of the Gospel and the Personal office of Christ even of him that died betwixt two thieves at Ierusalem As is notoriously apparent in some of the forlorn and giddy-headed Sects of these times amongst whom I dare say a man may find out a greater number of true Daemoniacks then Christ and his Apostles are said to cure 5. For to what more rationally then to the possession of these deceiving Spirits can be attributed those wild extasies they are in their falling down dead the swelling of their bodies and foaming at the mouth their neglectedness sordidness and abhorring from all order and humanity their antick postures gestures one going in the open Marketplace with his head lift on high and his arms spread out roaring and mouthing out fanatical denunciations and another following him at the heels with a soft sneaking pace his head hanging down as if his nose bled and his hands pressing his navel as if he were troubled with the Belly-ach others creeping on all four like brute beasts and wallowing and tumbling on the ground like dogs or swine Others taken with the expected power they lay vacant for were hurried on in a very swift pace on tip-toes with their hats inverted on their heads and yet not falling off and their arms stretched directly upwards with their fore-fingers pointing to the Zenith and this for so long a space as no ordinary man could doe the like 6. Adde to this their being troubled with Apparitions their fearfull and hideous howlings and cryings their wild and extatical singings and frantick dancings their running naked through Towns into Churches and private houses their violent and irresistible shakings to the utter weakening of nature and making their very bodies sore and all this transacted by a Power or Spirit which themselves confess distinct from themselves which also speaks distinctly and audibly in them and uses their arms and hands to the beating their head and body which imposes upon them very absurd commands macerating most killing some with fasting tyrannizing over them all in every thing almost as much as the Devil does over the poor Indians 7. Creeping crouching licking the dust eating of Butterflies feeding of nought but crums and bones such as we fling to dogs Cabbage stalks and leaves of Coleworts scattered and cast away by the Market-women these are smaller services of that imperious fiend within them But this new guest countermanding the allowable voice of Nature so as scarce to suffer a man to take four and twenty hours rest in five and twenty daies to condemn him to the guidance of every foolish fly that comes in his sight and so to adjudge him to hold his leg so long and so close to the fire the fly guiding him the time that it was scorched from the knee to the foot in such grievous manner that it was not to be cured in less then a quarter of a year these are more severe and rigid services of that infernal Task-master Besides that ever and anon this inward voice and sometimes outward utters very audibly to them some place or other of Scripture to a ridiculous abuse and prophanation of it and not that only but enforces the poor captivated vassal in scorn and contempt of the person of Christ to act some remarkable passages in his story such as his Death and Triumph at Ierusalem the former by Iames Milner and Iohn Toldervy the latter by Iames Naylor who had his horse led in triumph by two women trudging in dirt at his entring Bristol with Holy Holy and Hosanna's sung to him by the Fanatical company that attended him garments also in some places being strowed in the way Such wild tricks as these are these deluded Souls made to play to make sport for those aerial Goblins that drive them and actuate them 8. I might enlarge further upon this matter but this short glance at things might be enough to induce any indifferent man that can at all believe That there is any such thing as Witches and possession of Evil Spirits not easily to mistrust but that the distemper of this present Age has been such and it may be still is that if there were any such Venerable person as could command them from under this Power by which many of them are so madly actuated there would plainly prove a more plentifull harvest of Daemoniacks in these times then in our Saviour's and a number more besides Iohn Gilpin and Iohn Toldervy would acknowledge themselves to have been possessed by the Devil But at least we will gain this reasonable Observation from our Digression we have made which will be succedaneous to what we mainly aim'd at viz. That if one Age be so exceeding Fanatical above another why may not one Age be as much more Daemoniacal then another 9. Thirdly Such distracted and Epileptical persons as also Daemoniacal would not be talked of unless they were miraculously cur'd which not happening in other Ages they are not so much taken notice of Fourthly Our Saviour going from place to place and his fame flying further then the motion of his person he was likely to meet with and to have brought to him more of such persons by far from the Pagan nations about him then otherwise at any time could in any likelihood have been taken notice of though there were in other parts of the World and in other Ages as many 10. Fifthly Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called in the Scripture there is no need to take them all in
the contrary being disadvantaged by leading a life and offering himself an example of manners that are either scorn'd or hated by every natural man who was still made more odious and contemptible by his suffering a shamefull death betwixt two groâ—s Malefactors I say if an high hand from Heaven had not carried on the affairs of Christianity that is if Christ had not done some such Miracles himself as are recorded if he had not risen from the dead ascended into Heaven and thence powred forth his Spirit upon the Apostles and enabled them to doe such wonderfull works as they did it had been utterly impossible that Christianity could have had any such success in the world as we see it has at this day So that the whole History of Christ is very congruous and coherent and such as according to the nature of the thing ought to be whenever the Messias was to come into the World CHAP. XII 1. Three main Effects of Christ his sending the Paraclete foretold by himself Iohn 16. When the Paraclete shall come c. 2. Grotius his Exposition upon the Text. 3. The Ground of his Exposition 4. A brief indication of the natural sense of the Text by the Author 5. The Prophesie of Christ fulfilled and acknowledged not only by Christians but also Mahometans 6. That the Substance of Mahometism is Moses and Christ. Their zealous profession of One God 7. Their acknowledgment of Miracles done by Christ and his Apostles and of the high priviledge conferred upon Christ. 8. What Advantage that portion of Christian Truth which they have embraced has on them and what hopes there are of their full conversion 1. IT would be too tedious a business particularly to prosecute that ample Success that the Passion Resurrection Ascension of Christ and his Sending the Holy Ghost had in the World but the most universal and farthest-spreading Effects thereof we cannot pass by in silence especially those Three which himself foretells of John 16. That when the Paraclete should come he would convince the world concerning Sin Righteousness and Iudgment Concerning Sin because they believe not on me Concerning Righteousness because I goe to the Father and you see me no more Concerning Iudgment because the Prince of this World is judged 2. All which as Grotius interprets the place in a Forensal sense is of a very large extension and acknowledged as well by Turk as Christian. For that learned Expositour makes Christ to send the Spirit as an Advocate to plead his cause against the World and indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies so and nothing else and thereby to convince the World First of that great Crime of Infidelity and of killing of their true Prophet nay their expected Messias This properly respects the Jews who crucified him and they felt the Divine vengeance for so heinous a fact their City being sacked their Temple demolished and themselves scattered and made underlings in all places of the World Secondly of the Equity and righteous dealing of the just God with Christ who because he had suffered so wrongfully made him a compensation by making him a partaker of his Heavenly glory for the reproach and injury he bore upon the Earth Thirdly lastly of Iustice betwixt party and party and that therefore as the Devil excited the Jews to put Christ to death so by way of Retaliation Christ should put the Devil out of his present dominion and rule in the world by the destruction of Idolatry and the worship of those Apostate Spirits though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems something lame here the members being so heterogeneall one to another 2. But the Exposition will appear sufficiently ingenious for all that if we do but consider what he sets down for the ground of his interpretation That Sin Righteousness and Iudgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answer to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying publica judicia de criminibus but the other two privata judicia unum ex aequo bono which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alterum certam ex lege formulam habens which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which assuredly comprehends such Laws as concern the right of Possession as well as that of Retaliation which Grotius so specially aims at in his citing Levit. 24.20 The Devil therefore being a mere usurper and having no right to the rule and dominion of the World the Action will lie against his Usurpation and thus the Interpretation will be unexceptionable And that the action is of this kind is plain in that Christ the Son of God is heir of all things as himself somewhere intimates and the Apostle also in plain terms declares 4. The sense therefore of the forecited Text in short is this That the Spirit which is called the Paraclete or Advocate when he comes should convince the World of the Veracity of Christ and the Infidelity and Cruelty of the Iews that crucified him who was a true Prophet neither Deceiver nor deceived and of the Equity of God that compensated his sufferings amongst the Jews by taking him to himself and crowning him with immortal glory and of the Iudgment of God against the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God has given sentence against him already that he shall be ejected out of his usurped dominions and that all the Pagan forms of worship shall be abrogated and destroy'd 5. This the Paraclete or Spirit of God coming upon the Apostles and assisting them and the Church so miraculously for many Ages has with such undeniable conviction made good that not only all Christendome is assured thereof but that vast Empire of the Turks and all the Mahometans whereever dispersed in the World So that after a manner the whole Earth is filled with the belief thereof which I thought worth the taking notice of that this Success may not seem less ample then it is 6. For though the Mahometans are not Christians but Pagans in too true a sense yet it is plain that much of the letter of their law is Moses and Christ. And to the confusion of gross Idolatry and Polytheism they profess One only God Creatour of Heaven and Earth and their great stress of their Religion lies upon this main Article with which they are so transported that they spend a great deal of their time in their Mosco's in chanting out this one Truth La illa ilella la illa ilella that is There is but one God as Historians relate But this is no more then the Jews believe nor upon so good grounds but they proceed further as if they were ambitious to make out that broken title that one gives them who calls them Semichristianos Half-christians 7. For partly in their Alcoran and partly in Zuna it is recorded how Iesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and so born of the Virgin Mary That the Gospel is the way the light and salvation of men and
be better For this Article of Infidelity among the rest keeps the Witnesses still dead in all the senses above-named Wherefore let every man reform himself and exhort and encourage his neighbour and witness the good witness of the power of God to the conquering and subduing of all manner of Sin For these times come not on by Rapine and Violence but by the increase of Righteousness upon Earth For the real and speedy advancement whereof there is nothing more effectual then the belief That God will now in these last times of all give more then ordinary assistance to them that will be faithfull in his Covenant and that the work of Righteousness will goe on with much more ease then heretofore and with infinitely better success Wherefore it is good striking while the Iron is hot and making use of this Day of Salvation lest such Prophecies of grace being conditionall it may fare with us as it did with the Israelites whose carkasses fell in the wilderness in a tedious delay and a long leading them about who otherwise had in their own persons entred the promised Land So I do not see that it is impossible or improbable but this Prophecie of the Churches change into so excellent a state may be foreslacked by the ill management and faithlesness of them from whom God more peculiarly expects that they should be industrious Labourers in this white Harvest of Apostolick Purity and Sanctity they having now for some time separated from the great Babylon to build those that are lesser and more tolerable but yet not to be tolerated for ever it being more then high time they should clear up into an holy City of God Otherwise I do not see but the success is likely to answer the endeavours of them that are chiefly concerned And the variety of numbring the period of time by Daies Months and Semi-Times seems to threaten some such matter And therefore according to that laxer computation by Months and Semi-Times there may lie hid a reserve of delay for thirty nay an hundred or two hundred years longer then God otherwise intended to commence this glorious Dispensation But the certainty of the Events of other Prophecies that precede in order if this Promise be not conditional to both Jew and Christian is a Demonstration that it will not fail to take effect This is the faithfullest Account that I can give of the affairs of Christendome from the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles till Christ's coming again in the Spirit to renew his lapsed Church into true Holiness and Righteousness in the rising of the Witnesses and the reigning of the Saints upon Earth a thousand years The close of which will be The Day of Iudgment properly so called which after this long but not impertinent Digression if it be a Digression we shall now take into consideration BOOK VI. CHAP. I. 1. Three chief things considerable in Christ's Return to Iudgment viz. The Visibility of his Person The Resurrection of the Dead and the Conflagration of the World 2. Places of Scripture to prove the Visibility of his Person 3. That there will be then a Resurrection of the dead not in a Moral but a Natural sense demonstrated from undeniable places of Scripture 4. Proofs out of Scripture for the Conflagration of the world as out of Peter the 3 Chap. of his second Epistle 5. An Interpretation of the 12 and 13 verses 6. A Demonstration that the Apostle there describes the Conflagration of the World 7. A Confutation of their opinion that would interpret the Apostle's description of the burning of Jerusalem 8. That the coming of Christ so often mentioned in these two Epistles of Peter is to be understood of his Last coming to Iudgment 9 10. Further confirmation of the said Assertion 11. Other places pointed at for the proving of the Conflagration 1. IN the Return of Christ to Judgment these Three things are to be considered as very nearly annected and comprehended in it The Visibility of his Person and pomp of his coming The Resurrection of the Dead and Conflagration of the World But because all these things are doubted by some that do not profess themselves Anti-Scripturists I shall first produce such places of Scripture as do plainly assert these Points and then in the next place shew how Reasonable the Assertion is 2. The Visible or personal Return of Christ to Iudgment though it may be proved from many places yet I shall content my self with a few And I must confess I look upon the 24 of Matth. from the 30 to the 32 verse where the Son of Man is said to come in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory and to send out his Angels with a mighty sound of a Trumpet to be a pregnant Testimony thereof But the 29 verse to be a description of the state of the World especially of the Roman Empire till the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man But whether this sign of the Son of Man be the same with the Son of Man coming in the clouds or some sign in the Heavens to be given long before his coming for the Conversion of the Jews I take not upon me to decide But from the 32 to the 36 verse I think there our Saviour may reassume his first Subject the Destruction of Ierusalem and therefore being within the view of the Temple and of the City he uses the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these things in his prophecie of them But in the 36 verse pursuing his prediction of the end of the World he saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but concerning THAT day and so he gives wholesome precepts of watchfulness to his Church to the end of this Chapter Which sense is very agreeable to the following Chapter which most easily and naturally is wholy to be understood of the last Judgment But from the 31 verse of that Chapter to the end even they that would wind the former part of the Chapter to another sense acknowledg it to be understood of the last Day And there the Visible Pomp of Christ coming to judge the World is plainly set down viz. his sitting upon a throne with his holy Angels about him To these you may add the Testimonie of the two men clothed in white shining raiments that told the Disciples as they were gazing up into Heaven after Christ as he ascended that he should come down again in the same manner as they had seen him goe into Heaven As also that of S. Paul to the Thessalonians For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall we be ever with the Lord. These places are so plain concerning the Visible Appearance of Christ's
reap For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting 5. The aim therefore of the Apostle is not to extenuate or discountenance real Vertue and Righteousnesse but to point us to it and shew us where it may be had Not in dayes or years not in New Moons or Festivals not in Circumcision nor in the dead letter of the Law but in Christ and the Spirit of God in the renewed Image of God in the new birth in the new life in the second Adam from Heaven in the new Creature But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world For in Christ Iesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature Which the Apostle elsewhere cals the new man That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man that is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the Spirit of your minde And that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse that is not in external Ceremonial holiness or outward sanctimonious shew but in the regeneration of the inward Spirit to a new life from the very heart And again Colos. 3. vers 9. Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him where there is neither Greek nor Iew circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian bond nor free but Christ is all and in all 6. This new Creature then is nothing else but the Image of God in the Soul of man So witness both these Texts The new man which after God is created in Knowledge Righteousness and true Holiness The very same that Plato speaks at once in his Theaetetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be like God is to become Holy Iust and Wise. But because most men even the old Adam in us take themselves to be holy just and wise it will be seasonable here to see what Iustice Holinesse and Wisedom this is that is in the new Creature 7. And who can tell it so well as he that is it Matth. 5. Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement But I say unto you that whosoever ◠angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement and whosoever shall say unto his brother Racha shall be in danger of the Councell but whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be in danger of hell-fire Ye have heard that it was said by them of old Thou shalt not commit adultery But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Again it was said of old Forswear not thy self But I say unto you Swear not at all but let your communication be Yea yea and Nay nay for whatsoever is more then these cometh of evil Ye have heard it also said An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you Resist not evil Ye have heard also Thou shalt love thy neighbour but hate thine enemy But I say unto you Love your enemies Bless them that curse you Do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despightfully use you and persecute you Behold the exact and unblameable Righteousnesse that is in the regenerate Soul far above the doctrine or thoughts of either the Legal Pharisee or mere Moralist External Righteousness in the outward man or to be internally just as far as corrupt Reason suggests is but filthy rags in respect of this Righteousnesse Christ requires of us and the new Creature doth bring into us once grown up to its due stature in us Let every man examine himself by this Rule 8. And as this Iustice is far above yea sometimes contrary to the Justice of the Natural man for with him to hate his enemies to recompense evil with evil is just so the Holiness is far transcending the Holinesse of either the ancient or modern Scribes and Pharisees and Zelotical Ceremonialists For all outward Ceremonies of Time or Place of Gesture or Vestments Rites or Orders they are all but Signes and Shews but the Body is Christ. Lastly that the natural man phansie not himself Wise as who is not of all precious things the most forward to appropriate that to himself that he phansie not himself Wise before he be Holy and Iust let him examine his Wisedom by that square in the third Chapter of S. Iames's Epistle Who is a wise man and endowed with knowledge amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of Wisedom But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisedom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work But the Wisedom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie The Righteousnesse then of the new Creature is a Righteousness far above the letter of Moses's Law though exactly performed it 's Holiness more resplendent then the Robe of Aaron and all his Priestly attire or whatsoever Ceremonies else God hath instituted or man invented it 's Wisdome far above all the thin-beaten subtilties of either the wrangling Sects or disputacious Schools without contention or bitter contradiction 9. So that it is plain from the constant scope of the Apostle both in this Epistle and every where else That he does not vilifie true Vertue and Morality but drives at an higher pitch and perfection thereof and that the Righteousness of Faith which he prefers before the Righteousness of Works is not by way of exclusion of Good Works out of the Righteousness of Faith but of urging us to exacter and more perfect works of Righteousnesse then could be performed under the dispensation of the Law How wicked a treachery therefore is it against the Church of Christ and how impudent a piece of boldness in those false Teachers that would bear men in hand That this doctrine of the being approved in the eyes of God by a dry and dead Faith devoid and destitute of all real sanctity and holiness is not only a Christian truth but the most choice and principal doctrine in all Christianity when there is not any footstep of any such thing in all the Instructions and Informations of either Christ or his Apostles CHAP. VII 1. That no small measure of Sanctity serves the turn in Christianity 2. As appears out of Scriptures already alledged 3. Further
mean The evidence that we are to be inwardly and really righteous and not only so but in an extraordinary manner are the two Powers of the Gospel that comprehend our great and ultimate duty of being holy as he that has called us is holy of becoming perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect The following Gospel-Powers all of them are aids and helps to this design The first whereof is The Promise of the Spirit through Christ's Intercession the second The Example of Christ the third The Meditation on his Passion the fourth on his Resurrection and Ascension and the last on the last Iudgement These Powers are of such admirable efficacy if rightly applied that they are able to pul down every strong hold and to cast out all evil imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ as the Apostle speaks No strength of habituated sin no violence of any lust shall be able to stand before them 3. The first of these Powers is The Promise of the Spirit I do not mean for the doing Miracles for that was but a transient business and accommodate only to the first Ages of the Church but for through-sanctification and cleansing us from all our sins and for our perfect growth in Righteousness and Holiness That this Power is a concomitant to the Dispensation of the Gospel in all true Believers is apparent both from the predictions of the Prophets and from the mouth of our Saviour and his blessed Apostles Esay 44. Hear now O Iacob my servant and Israel whom I have chosen Thus saith the Lord that made thee and framed thee from the womb and will help thee Fear not O Iacob my servant and thou Iesurun whom I have chosen For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy offspring And they shall spring up as among the grass and the willows by the water-courses Which Prophecie is most properly applicable to the Church of Christ who is the true seed of Iacob those wrastlers with God and strivers to get in at the narrow gate that leads to life they are the true Iesurun the upright of heart and sincere seekers after God those that truly hunger and thirst after righteousness and therefore God will satisfie them by the supernatural assistance of his blessed Spirit Again Ezekiel 36. ver 25. prefiguring the blessed dispensations of the Kingdome of Christ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and doe them Also Esay 41. v. 10. where certainly according to analogie of interpretations of Prophecie the seed of Abraham being a Type of the Spiritual Church of Christ and their warfare not carnal but spiritual nor the waters promised by Christ such liquors as run in Brooks and Rivers but emanations of the purifying and refreshing powers of the Spirit of God we may see with what close and faithfull assistance God is pleased to adhere to his true Israel in whom there is no guile but they are sincerely waging war and to the utmost resisting all the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil But thou Israel my servant Iacob whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham my friend fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismaied for I am thy God I will strengthen thee yea I will help thee yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness Behold all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded they shall be as nothing and they that strive with thee shall perish Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them even them that contended with thee they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand saying unto thee Fear not I will help thee Fear not thou worm Iacob and ye men of Israel behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having teeth thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaffe Thou shalt fan them and the wind shall carry them away and the whirlwind shall scatter them and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord and shalt glory in the holy One of Israel When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them I the God of Israel will not forsake them I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the vallies I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water This Prophecie is an exquisite description of those full and complete Victories the Church gets against Sin and Satan by the supernatural assistance of the Spirit of God Which Promise is again repeated in the following chapter which though it be larger then the former and part cited already to another purpose yet I cannot refrain from transcribing the whole it being so plain a Prophecie of Christ as appears from the fore-part thereof and of the power of his Kingdome through the Spirit for the vanquishing of all sin and wickedness in them that do truly believe Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall he not break and smoaking flax shall he not quench he shall bring forth judgement unto truth He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he hath set judgement in the earth and the Isles shall wait for his Law Thus saith God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it he that giveth breath to the people upon it and spirit to those that dwell therein I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles To open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven images Behold the former things are come to pass and new things do I declare before they spring forth I
abuse thus treacherously the great gift of God therefore the divine Wisdome may not lodge in his false heart but in stead of that any fortuitous Opinions which his own natural inclinations practices education or confusion of his own mind and conscience shall heap together in him hand over head which he taking for Truth shall notwithstanding abuse and shew the divine Wisdome how he would also use her if he could come at her 't is likely worse or rather he would abuse himself worse with her then with those that meat being worst for the sick which is best for them that are well But beside that the counsell of God is such that he will not give the gift of Wisdome to the wicked heart there is also an incongruity if not an incompossibility in the thing it self The wicked man is uncapable of it The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sun cannot be seen by the Eye unless the Eye receive the likeness of the Sun as Plotinus speaks Wherefore we doe very foolishly in that we bestow so much time in the exercise of our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so little in the preparing and fitting of it that afterward the use of it may be with good effect If the Eyes be weak muddy and dim even almost to blindness we are not so foolish as to think to perfect our sight by looking long or often or on many Objects it makes our sight rather worse but the disease of the Eye is first to be taken away and then with ease and in a moment we may see more then before we could in many years by wearisome poaring with our short sight or rather which is more to the purpose we should be able to discern such things as in our former condition we should never have been able at all to discern So the Soul of man in its unrighteous and polluted condition does very unadvisedly with so much curiosity and anxious labour to endeavour the discoveries of divine Truths for there is as yet Laesum organum and she ought to commit her self first to the skill of a faithfull Physitian to Christ who is the healer of the Souls of men as well as he was of their Bodies and so to be re-estated again into that state of health and soundness and Righteousness is this soundness of the Soul and then to use her Faculty when it is able to receive that whereby the Object is discovered In lumine tuo videbimus lucem In thy light we shall see light But if the Eye receive no light it discovers no Object So if the Soul receive no impresse from God it discovers nothing of God For it is most certainly true That like is known by like and therefore unless the Image of God be in us which is Righteousness and true Holiness we know nothing of the Nature of God and so consequently can conclude nothing concerning him to any purpose For we have no measure to applie to him because we are not possessed of any thing homogeneal or of a like nature with him and this only can be a measure for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher speaks But when we are arrived to that Righteousness or rectitude of Spirit or uprightness of Mind by this as by the Geometrical Quadrate we also comprehend with all Saints what is that spiritual breadth and length and depth and height as the Apostle speaks What the Rectitude of an Angle does in Mathematical measurings the same will this Uprightness of Spirit doe in Theological Conclusions 3. And not to make this loss of Wisdome a jot less then it is I further add That Unrighteousness is encumbred with many distempers and impediments whereby even Natural knowledge as well as Divine Wisdome is much hindred in a man Such are Anger Impatience Self-admiration or Self-conceitedness Admiration of persons or a pusillanimous Over-estimation of them Desire of Victory more then of Truth Too close attention to the things of the world as Riches Power and Dignities Immersion of the Mind into the Body and the slaking of that noble and divine fire of the Soul by Intemperance and Luxury with such like All which certainly are very great enemies to all manner of Knowledge as well Natural as Divine And as for Anger which appears in disputes that it blinds the Judgement is an acknowledged truth as those Proverbial sayings witness Impedit ira animum c. and Ira furor brevis and Madness and Wisdome do not consist together This Passion placed upon Religious objects is called Zeal and the Apostle that there may be no mistake calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter Zeal But this inordinate Anger be it in things Humane or Religious it is really a Whirlwinde in our Soul and carries up with it dirt and straws and dust and all in to the Understanding and does alwaies more or less blind the Judgment And how great an enemy Impatience is to that choice piece of Natural knowledge which lies in Mathematicks is evident from hence That those Sciences either find or make the studiers of them of calm and quiet Spirits as Petiscus truly observes But whether the Admiration of our selves or of other Persons be more mischievous to the Truth is not easie to define For though we be more prone to admire our selves yet we may with less checking admire another it looking something like Friendship or Modesty though commonly if not alwaies we have some lurking interest involved in the same and so admire our selves in another with less Envy and Suspectedness Wherefore the next way not basely to admire another is not conceitedly to admire ones self or more favourably to look on a mans own conceits then on a strangers For it will be very hard for one whom Self-love does not impose upon to be imposed upon by any other person whom he cannot love better then himself And as for Desire of Victory the sense of that folly is That a man had rather seem wise then be so or have the glory and fame then the possession of Wisdome And he that is thus affected must of necessity follow such things as are most obvious plausible and popular and so become a fool amongst wise men as well as seem a wise man amongst fools And as for close Attention to the world that man ought to hold there be more Souls then One in a mans body that will hold that ambitious and covetous men have any leisure to be much seen either in Divine or Natural things For their plottings after Wealth and Honour and the putting of their plots in execution will take up the Animadversion of the Soul so much that one Animadversive will not suffice for both these Provinces So that it is possible that men that have not addicted themselves to any such projects but have been ever imploied in
Houses it would also have hâ—ndred them from lighting their candles at a tinder-box and warming their fingers in a frosty morning And yet this curious Philosopher seems to lament the losse of that Telesme they having thereby as he saies exposed the City to frequent Scale-Fires ever since But let the Telesmatical Sculpture of Fire and VVater be never so like insomuch that we may hope that it may affect the Spirit of Nature something there being no sagacity nor sense in the River Lycus suppose which Apollonius curb'd with such a device nor in Fire now existent much lesse that which is to come how can they withdraw themselves from such places where Telesmes are laid up they having not as Animals have the power of spontaneous motion Lastly There are Telesmes that have no similitude at all with the things they are to keep off as that Man on Horseback in brasse set up at Constantinople against Pestilential Infection which say they being once demolished the City has been extraordinarily subject to Plagues and fearful Mortalities That Ship also of brasse there Telesmatically consecrated against the dangers of that tempestuous Sea it had no similitude at all of either the Water or VVinde but yet of such force it was that a piece of it being broke off and lost the Sea returned to its former Unrulinesse but being found and put together the Sea became quiet again They took it therefore apieces again for experience sake and the Windes and Sea were suddenly rough and boistrous so that a Ship could not come up into harbour but the brazen Ship being again handsomely compacted the Windes and Sea were again peacefull and calme Wherefore if a man do but cast an indifferent eye upon the whole matter it will be very difficult for him not to pronounce That he that can believe that the power of Telesmes is natural is more irrationally credulous then the most simple Superstitionist in the world 8. Out of what has been said it is evident that the Brazen Serpent erected by Moses in the Wildernesse was not a Telesme in that sense Gaffarel would understand the word that is a Sculpture Statue or Similitude of something made so by Astrological Art that what Effects it has for the keeping off evil or remedying what has already befallen is merely from the concurrence of natural causes though the Application of them was Artificial the chief whereof is the Influence of the Heavens and the Figure of the Telesme For it is apparent there can be no such But if they mean by a Telesme such a Figure of some creature consecrated in a way of Religion for the services above-named nothing hinders but that the Brazen Serpent may be a Telesme whether from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Image or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denotes Consecration And this of Moses was both a warrantable and effectual Telesme For it was by the prescription of God himself and throughly did the effect it was set up for But the cures that it did being supernatural and neither the Figure nor the Matter of the Serpent contributing any thing to the healing of them that were bitten by those fiery flying Serpents it is plain that Moses had been left free from making any such Telesme of the Figure of a Serpent there being nothing in the thing it self to invite him to it had not God moved him thereto Nor can we imagine any other cause why divine Revelation should suggest such a thing unto him unlesse there were some mystery in it Something therefore that did notably concern the Church of God was denoted thereby and what I was a going to say at first having removed all obstacles I now again resume and dare pronounce That it was a plain though Typical Prophecy of the Messias his Passion and of the use of it and so clear that no words could have more punctually prefigured it to us For the Analogy and Resemblance is most exquisite if we cast our eye upon the whole Scene of things 9. For how naturally doe the Israelites in the Wildernesse represent the Church of Christ in the World and their being bitten with fiery flying Serpents our being poisoned and pained with vexatious lusts and remorse of conscience when sin has entred into our Souls What could more lively represent our Saviour upon the Crosse who knowing no sin yet was made sin for us then this Brazen Serpent set upon a pole in the Camp of Israel Which indeed had the outward shape of a fiery flying Serpent but was so far from being a Serpent that it had nothing of a Serpent but external form thereof and healed all them that were bit with those poisonous and deadly Serpents So our blessed Saviour devoid of Sin himself yet being in the most ugly outward appearance of Sinfulnesse that could be put upon him he suffering betwixt two criminal Malefactors as it was prophesied of him that he should be numbred amongst the transgressors he is in this posture where he looks so like Sinfulnesse it self unto the whole Church of God when they are smitten with the fiery excitements of Sin or the deadly pangs or remorse of Conscience those rancorous wounds that Sin leaves in the Soul when she has been once bitten therewith he is I say thus hanging upon the Crosse if they look upon him with the eye of Faith the most soveraign Remedy and the most presentaneous asswagement of their Pain and Malady that can be offered to the thoughts of men I am sure of any humble and well-meaning man 10. But for those that are self-conceited of a perverse Reason and of an high-flown Luciferian Temper that prefer the subtilty of their own opinionated Wit and curious search into all secrets and magnifie their own natural Worth before the Friendship of him that loved us even to the death these men are not fit Relishers of the Sweetnesse of that abundant Goodnesse and kinde Condescension of Divine Providence in his manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world as neither the fiery Enthusiast filled with the sense of his own foolish Revelations and Divine Visitations as he phansies them so stout so stiffe and so perfect as the flatteries of his own Imagination would bear him in hand that he findes nothing but God and himself worth thinking of and will be an immediate Reteiner to the Almighty without any Interposal whatsoever To that height and hardnesse is he swollen in his own conceit But the true Character of him is that which the Apostle Iude has given him that he is but a mouth filled with great swelling words puffed up sensual knowing not the Spirit Such as these are those in too great a measure that wholly neglect the meditation on Christs Passion though it be of so great efficacy for the quenching and suppressing of all the restlesse and fiery motions of Sin in them But execrable Blasphemers are they whose Pride and Conceitednesse has made
they being given up into the power of those deformed Fiends of Hell the very thoughts of whose sight and company might be enough to affright any man that is not Atheistically sortish from assimilating himself to those nasty Gaol-birds by repeated acts of Vice and Wickedness Besides what smart of punishment shall reach both their outward Senses and guilty Consciences by the inevitable rod of God's Justice upon them 3. VVherefore it is most indispensably rational to use this VVorld as if we used it not and to addict our selves to such Pleasures as are most proper to the other State such as are those most delicious touches senses of the Divine Love or that pure and intellectual Affection which S. Paul calls Charity VVhereby we delight in the good of another as if it were our own whereby we rejoice in the wisdome goodness of God displaied his Creatures whereby we ardently desire the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ infinitely before any private advantage whatsoever and do faithfully assist and earnestly expect the joyful accomplishment and finishing of the great Mystery of Godliness in the fullest period thereof to a final Triumph over Sin and Satan and a perfect Redemption of the Church of Christ into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God 4. These are the warrantable Pleasures of the Soul that has a designe upon the Life to come of a Soul that is risen with Christ and therefore seeks those things that are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God And upon this very consideration the Apostle enforceth his Exhortation Colos. 3. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth Fornication Uncleannesse inordinate Affection evil Concupiscence and Covetousness which is Idolatry And our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount Lay not up for your selves treasures upon Earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal But lay up for your selves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor thieves break through and steal For where your treasure is there will your heart be also And therefore Saint Paul professes of himself and exhorts others to imitate him that his minde is wholly taken up with those things which are above Philip. 3.17 Brethren be followers of me and mark them that walk so as ye have us for an example For our conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our municipal affairs our negotiations of greatest concernment are in Heaven of which City we are and from whence we look for our Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile bodies that they may be fashioned like to his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself 5. And verily he that through Faith is once possest of these things it is a wonder to me how he can think of any thing else As the Prisoner could not abstain from the pleasure of thinking of the known day of his Liberty or a poor man of an Inheritance that would certainly fall to him within the term of few years And if it were Conditional as this of the Kingdome of Heaven is we may easily conceive how much he were concerned to have a care punctually to observe the Conditions propounded or earnestly to endeavour to get such Qualifications as that he may not forfeit the enjoiment of that Fortune which otherwise would naturally fall to his share And how they are to be qualified that are to be Heires of that everlasting Inheritance the Scripture doth plainly set out there must no unclean thing enter into the Holy City None can be Heirs of this Kingdome but the sons of God nor any be the sons of God but those that are led by the Spirit of God Rom. 8. And what are the Fruits and Effects of that domestick Guide the Apostle has plainly told us already Galat. 5. That the fruits of the Spirit are Love Ioy Peace Long-suffering Gentlenesse Goodnesse Faith Meekness Temperance And they that are Christs in whose Title alone it is that we can lay claim to Heaven have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts And again Rom. 8. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live that is to say ye shall live the life of Peace and Joy and Righteousness here and of Eternal Glory hereafter 6. Wherefore we see what an urgent Power the Meditation of future Happiness is to the Believer to make him endeavour to the utmost to be Partaker of the Divine Nature and to aspire to a due measure of Holiness without which we shall necessarily be frustrate of our expected Happiness The consideration whereof cannot but wean him from all the exorbitant desires of the Pleasures Profits or Honours of this World Which though they had not intermingled with them many vexations and distasts much care and solicitude but were certain for this life and entire yet Life being uncertain and the longest terme thereof but like a Dream or a Post that goes by in comparison of our future abode elsewhere I dare leave it to the worldly mans own computation what a pittiful bargain he has made in forgoing what is to come for these temporary Enjoyments worse far then he that sold his Birth-right for a mess of Pottage But I shall not dilate any further on so plain a matter All the Wit and Rhetorick of Man cannot move him whom those known but weighty Words of our Saviour will not VVhat will it profit a man to gain the whole VVorld and to lose his own Soul CHAP. XVIII 1. The Day of Judgement the seventh and last Gospel-power fit as well for the regenerate as the unregenerate to think upon 2. The Uncertainty of that Day and that it will surprize the wicked unawares 3. That those that wilfully reject the offers of Grace hâ—re shall be in better condition after Death then the Devils themselves are 4. A Description of the sad Evening-close of that terrible Day of the Lord. 5. The Affrightment of the Morning-appearance thereof to the wicked 6. A further Description thereof 7. The Translation of the Church of Christ to their Aethereal Mansions with a brief Description of their Heavenly Happinesse 1. WE come now to the Seventh and last Power of the Gospel which is The consideration of the dreadful Solemnity of the Day of Iudgement the very mention whereof from the mouth of Paul made Felix the Governour to tremble And I must confess it is so hard an Engine that it is more fit to beat upon the obdurate hearts of the Unbeliever and Unregenerate that are crusted over with Iron and Flint then for battery against the truly Regenerate and sincere Believers for those other Powers of the Gospel are more proper and abundantly sufficient for carrying them on with courage and constancy in the waies of God But there is in the Day of Iudgement an Object not
no better a dispensation then under the Law is plainly a Stranger to them For the Law conveies no life but all congruity sympathy and vital affinity must arise out of a Principle of life And hence it is that the Law makes nothing perfect and that Righteousness cannot be of the Law as I have above intimated out of the Apostle The Law therefore giving no life a mere Legalist is even a stranger to those things he practices and imitates under the Law and acts so as the Parot speaks by external imitation not from a due inward Faculty Secondly This Agar her condition was a bond-woman and what I pray you is it to be in bondage or not sui juris but to be constrained to act ad nutum alterius And in this condition are all those that are under the Law For they do not act according to a free inward and living Principle in them but are fain to be curb'd and fettered by an outward imposition which is perfect and proper bondage And there is no bondage but to doe or suffer otherwise then a man would himself 3. Thirdly Of this Agar is begot Ismael What 's that Ismael may signifie these two things viz. either one that has only a knowledge of God by hearsay from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 audire and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deus or so far as some external letter conveies it to him resolving all his faith in things concerning God into an outward Scripture only and haply is so earthly and carnal that he would scarce believe there were a God unless it were for the Scripture Or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedire from obeying God in a servile and external forc'd way For Obedience implies some kind of reluctancy or that that which we obey in goes something against the hair with us but yet in obedience to the Commander we doe it nevertheless as being bound to obey And this is most of all proper to them under the first Covenant For that Law not giving life there is no Principle of life and natural and genuine compliance of the Soul of man with the spirituality of the Law under the First Covenant and therefore that of the Law which he endeavours to perform must needs go cross to him and it will be merely the obedience to the Precept not the love of the thing that will make him endeavour the performance And this is the true condition of Agar's Son Ismael And it would not be unseasonable to add also that he is a great and fierce Disputer upon the letter a notable Polemical Divine and his ignorance and untamedness of his carnal heart makes him very bold and troublesome his hand is against every man and every mans hand against him as the Scripture witnesses of him But I will not insist upon these things Fourthly and lastly This Ismael the Son of Agar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was begotten and born after the flesh or according to the ordinary and accustomary power of Nature And such an one is he that is merely under the First Covenant He is not born of the Spirit or regenerated 〈…〉 nary power and assistance of God which he that is un 〈…〉 Covenant takes hold of by Faith in the Promise but toiles and tugs with that Understanding and ordinary Naturall power is in him of externally conforming himself to the proposed Rule and under this poor dispensation when he is come to the best of this his either birth or growth he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is but Flesh and not Spirit For that which is born of the Flesh that is of our own natural abilities is but Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit that is of God and his Divine seed in us that is Spirit the true Spiritual man the Lord from Heaven Heavenly in a Mystical sense But this under the Law is but the Son of the Flesh or the Earth is not a Son of that Ierusalem that is from above the Heavenly Ierusalem which is the Mother of as many as are real and true Christians For this is Sarah the Free-woman but the old Ierusalem is in bondage with her Children as the Apostle plainly tells us 4. And thus far have I described the condition or nature of the Old Mosaical Covenant so far forth as is intimated in the Text. I proceed now to the Second or New Covenant under Christ. And the first Particular in the Protasis here is Sarah Domina a Free-woman libera à vitiis ac ritibus as the Interpreter speaks very well one that is not commanded into obedience by others but is sui juris does what she pleases and so she may very well for nothing pleases her but what is good and therefore fit to be done For Sarah or the New Ierusalem from above is of one Spirit and one mind with Christ. And this is the true Church of Christians in whom the body of sin being dead they are free from it as the Apostle speaks to the Romans being quit thereof they walk freely and safely etiam custode remoto that surly Paedagogue the Law no longer dogging them at the heels For whatever it can suggest from without the Spirit of God whispers to them from within or indeed that living Form of all holinesse and righteousnesse the Image of Christ recovered in them guides them as easily and as naturally to as our external Senses guide our Natural man in this outward and visible world This therefore is the condition of the Church of Christ and every true member of it at least arrived to its due maturity and perfection that every Soul there is as Sarah Domina as a Queen Regent in her little world her self acting nothing forcedly but freely as from a living principle and keeping those under her in due order and subjection Which condition undoubtedly the Scripture does point at in such phrases as these He hath made us Kings and Priests and elsewhere You are a Kingly Priesthood and the like 5. Secondly Of this Sarah was born Isaac which signifies Laughter and is a signe of Chearfulness and Ioy. Because he that is a true Christian acts and walks with joy and chearfulnesse in the waies of holinesse and righteousnesse And herein is he mainly distinguished from Ismael who acts merely out of obedience to an external form and so forces himself against the hair to do or omit that which were it not that he was bound in obedience to do or omit he would take the boldnesse to neglect his inward principle being contrary to it As for example he would revenge did not the Law forbid him he would immerse himself into all manner of Sensual pleasures were he not aw'd as an hungry dog by the lash and penalty of the Law and so in other things But the Soul of a true Christian in whom Isaac is born does not act what is good or omit what is evil out of any force or fear of
any external inconvenience but naturally as I may so speak that is from a Divine nature and power in him and therefore with as much chearfulnesse and willingnesse as the natural man does eat and drink And of this Isaac was born Iacob who was called Israel which Philo the Jew interprets one that sees God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but you may be remembred that Ismael in the first signification of his name noted one that did onely know God by hear-say which is quite contrary to the seeing of God For that priviledge is proper to the true Christian to whom Isaac is born and from him Israel but he is quite out of the line of Ismael having now nothing to do with hear-saies and conjectures and fruitlesse disputacity upon the mistaken letter and Polemical Divinity and vain and ridiculous altercations and janglings for he is now a Citizen of that New Ierusalem from above and the onely true Ierusalem according to the notation of the name which they will have to signifie The vision of Peace He is a living stone of the Temple of Him that is greater then Solomon where there is not heard the noise of any axe or hammer Thirdly and lastly This Isaac was not born according to the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Per eam vim extraordinariam quam Deus promiserat for it is a Metonymy as the Interpreter rightly has noted Isaac was not born according to the power of Nature for that Natural power of begetting and bearing Children was then extinct in Abraham and Sarah by reason of old age as the Text tells us but he was born by the power of God working extraordinarily in Nature which power Abraham having a faith in and believing the promise he at the appointed time saw and enjoied the effect of it And this is the precious Christian Faith so mainly necessary and yet so little spoken of by them that spake much in matters of Divinity For without this Faith in the power of God Isaac will not be born in us and if he be not born in us I know no warrant we have to conclude our selves Christians or men under the Second Covenant Wherefore it is a point mainly necessary to be insisted upon that we may at length be really that which we pretend to be that is Sons of the Free-woman and not of the Bond-woman that the true Isaac may be in us which is Christ according to the Spirit the Wisdome and Power of God a Divine vigor and life whereby we are inabled with joy and chearfulnesse to walk in the waies of God 6. And verily it was this so necessary and useful Faith that was so commended in Abraham that it was imputed to him for righteousnesse as I have above noted viz. his believing the Promise of God in things above the ordinary power of Nature For it is the nature of men that make large professions of God and Divine Providence yet never to believe him further then in Natural Causes and humane probabilities But this is not so much to believe God as Nature nor to depend on him but on our own cold and ineffectual Reason concluding from accustomary probabilities Which if Abraham had done it might well have forfeited the birth of his Son Isaac And it will be very reasonable to examine our selves if we do not now hinder the birth of the spiritual Isaac by reason of our unbelief For we finding the generality of men so evil as they are and being conscious to our selves of abundance of corruption and all manner of weaknesse and proclivity to what is bad and finding it so common a thing for men to continue in their evil wayes and not to put off their wonted habits and that in our own attempts and resolutions we have been often baffled and cast back again we are likely through a spirit of Infidelity to conclude that that which is so hard to flesh and bloud and is so seldome seen in the course of the World will not be at all effected in us and therefore either live as it happens or at least make very small progresse in matters of true Religion and Piety I am sure fall short of that high calling whereunto we are called viz. that glorious liberty of the Sons of God from the slavish inveiglements of all uselesse Ceremonies and real sins And this is for want of Abraham's Faith who believed contrary to all probability of Nature that for all his decaied body and Sarah's barren womb yet God would raise up seed to him and that they should have a Son in their old age We are therefore to imitate Abraham the Father of the faithful and what we finde our selves weak in not to distrust but that God in his good time can make it out to us and therefore with patience and perseverance to presse forward and by Faith in the power of God who raised Christ from the dead to expect that after we have been made conformable to his death we shall also partake of the Resurrection from the dead For Christ in our Souls wading through the death with us that is supporting and strengthening us in our greatest Agonies brings up himself and us into a glorious Resurrection from the dead which you may call a Birth if you please as well as a Resurrection using but the same liberty that is already in the Scripture where speaking of his Resurrection the Apostle cites that in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And this is the Son who as he professes of himself if he make us free we are then free indeed For he is the Son of Sarah the Free-woman and we being of one Spirit with him do ipso facto become free 7. And if we would compendiously declare the grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant it does consist mainly in these two points we are upon First That a true Christian or one attained to the End and Scope of the Second Covenant is what he is by Faith in a supernatural power working him to it Secondly That that condition he has attained to is a condition of true and perfect Freedome properly so called But he that is under the First Covenant is what he is by the power of Nature onely and by applying himself as well as he can to the external Rule he has set before him And verily he that does no more then thus in Christianity it self that is outwardly apply himself to the Letter of the Gospel has not arrived to the End of the Gospel nor is Isaac yet born in him but is under an outward legal Form in stead of the Law of the Spirit of Life And he cannot be born of the Free-woman forasmuch as the Law of the Spirit of Life is wanting in him which does really free us from the Law of Sin and Death But now by reason that a true Christian arrives to that happy condition he is in by a Supernatural power
hadst rather call Love take heed that thou transgress not against Purity by declining into unclean fanatick Lust that foul ditch that many of our high-talking Enthusiasts have tumbled into and have been so blinded with the mire thereof that they have made it a principal fruit of their Illumination to doe those acts without shame or measure that both the Light of Nature and the Gospel of Christ has taught us to blush at Such circumspections as these thou art to use if thou wouldest stear thy course safely and if thou wilt be faithfull to thine inward Guide and deal uprightly in the holy Covenant thou wilt want no Monitor thy way shall be made so plain before thee that thou shalt not err nor stumble but arrive at last to the desired scope of all thy travails and endeavours to a firm Peace and unfailing Righteousness and shalt be filled with all the fulness of God BOOK X. CHAP. I. 1. That the Affection and esteem we ought to have for our Religion does not consist in damning all to the pit of Hell that are not of it 2. The unseasonable inculcation of this Principle to Christians 3. That it is better becoming the Spirit of a Christian to allow what is good and commendable in other Religions then so foully to reproach them 4. What are the due demonstrations of our Affection to the Gospel of Christ. 5. How small a part of the World is styled Christians and how few real Christians in that part that is so styled 6. That there has been some unskilfull or treacherous tampering with the powerfull Engine of the Gospel that it has done so little execution hitherto against the Kingdome of the Devil 7. The Author's purpose of bringing into view the main Impediments of the due Effects thereof 1. THE Fourth and last Derivative Property of the Mystery of Godliness which arises from the Usefullness thereof and that great concernment it is of in relation not only to this present and transitory but that future and everlasting Happiness of mankind is that Appretiation and high Value it deservedly wins or should win 〈◊〉 us Which is not to be expressed as usually is done by vilifying and reproaching all other Religions in damning the very best and most consciencious Turks Iews and Pagans to the pit of Hell and then to double lock the door upon them or to stand there to watch with long poles to beat them down again if any of them should offer to emerge and endeavour to crawl out This Fervour is but a false zeal and of no service to the Gospel To make it impossible to all men to scape Hell that are not born under or visibly converted to Christianity when they never had the opportunity to hear the true sound thereof For if Providence be represented so severe and arbitrarious it will rather beget a misbelief of all Religions then advance our own especially with all free and intelligent Spirits 2. And what need they tell such sad stories to them that hear the Gospel concerning them that hear it not nor ever were in a capacity of hearing it it touches not them but disturbs these that hear it and makes Divine Providence more unintelligible then before Were it not sufficient for their Auditors to understand That they that doe hear the Gospel and yet refuse it that they are indeed in a damnable condition the belief thereof being the very Touchstone of Salvation to them that it is offered to But if they will be curious which is no commendable quality they can onely adde That none shall be saved but by virtue of that Truth which is comprehended in the Gospel that is before they come under that one Head of the Church which is Christ Jesus there being no other Name under the Heavens whereby we can be saved as the Apostle has declared But how the consciencious Iews Pagans and Turks that seemed not to die Christians may be gathered to this Head it will be a becoming piece of Modesty in us to profess our Ignorance 3. Certainly it were far better and more becoming the Spirit of the Gospel to admit and commend what is laudable and praise-worthy in either Iudaisme Turcisme or Paganisme and with kindness and compassion to tell them wherein they are mistaken and wherein they fall short then to fly in their faces and to exprobrate to them the most consummate wickedness that humane nature is lapsable into in matters of Religion and thus from an immoderate depression of all other Religions to magnifie a mans own Which is as ridiculous a Scheme of Rhetorick in my apprehension as if one should compare Solomon with all the natural fools in the world and then vaunt how exceeding much he out-stripped them all in Wisdom or Helena with all the ugly deformed Females that ever were and so argue the excellency of her Beauty because she so far surpassed these mishapen wretches which in my judgment is a very small commendation 4. But such demonstrations of our affections as these are very sorry and injudicious He that professes he believes the Truth of the Gospel and has entred into this New Covenant if he will give a solid testimony of his sincere affection to it indeed he must doe it by his life and conversation For if he like it and believe it he must needs follow the counsel conteined in it which if he do closely and faithfully he will finde it of that unspeakable excellency and important concernment that he cannot rest quiet in reaping the fruit thereof himself but will be truly desirous that the same good may be communicated if it were possible to all the world 5. And truly for my own part when I seriously consider with my self and undeniable clearness and evidence of Truth in the Gospel of Christ above all the Religions in the world and the mighty and almost irresistible power and efficacy that lies in it for the making of men holy and vertuous I cannot but with much fervencie of desire wish it were further spred in the World and am much amazed that it has made no further progress then it has For as Brerewood has probably collected in his Enquiries Pagan Idolatry still possesses two thirds of the known world Mahometisme one fifth part and Christianisme but a sixth And what is a thing more deplorable a very great part of the Christian Church has been overrun with the Turk and does lie at this very day in miserable bondage under him And that there may be nothing wanting to encrease wonderment even those parts of the world that are purely Christian as to Title so great share of them whether they go under the name of Reform'd or Catholicks are tainted with so gross Hypocrisy such open Prophaneness and professed Atheisme amongst their own Crews and loose Conventicles that it is something hard to finde a cordial Christian in the most pretending Churches of Christendome that does not deny his profession either in heart or practice or in both
Reprobationers have defined it namely That God has irresistibly decreed from all Eternity to bring into Being innumerable Myriads of Souls of men exceeding far the number of them that shall be saved who as without their own consent they were thus thrust into the World so let them doe what they will are certainly determined to unspeakable torment so soon as they go out of it and at the last day shall be adjudged to an higher degree of misery so great and so exceeding that all the racks and tortures that the Wit or Cruelty of the most enraged Tyrants could ever invent or execute would be ease and pleasure in Comparison of it and that these Pangs and Torments shall remain fresh upon them for ever and ever 8. This is the Representation of that sour Dogma Which to Reason is as contradictious as if one should name a square Circle or black Light and as harsh and horrid to the eares of the truly-Regenerate into the nature of God who is Love it self as the highest blasphemie that can be uttered Nor is the nature of those that are irreligious enough so much estranged from the Knowledge of God but that they think if there be any at all he cannot be such a one that laid such dark plots from all eternity for the everlasting misery of his poor impotent and unresisting Creature that never did any thing but what the Divine Decrees determined he should doe and therefore was alwaies the Almighties obedient servant For which at last he must be condemned to eternall punishment by him whom he did ever obey The serious and imperious obtrusion of such a dismal Conceit as this for one of the greatest Arcanums of Religion will make the free Spirit and over-inclinable to Prophaneness confidently to conclude That the whole frame of Religion is nothing but a mere Scar-crow to affright Fools and that there is no Hell at all since such Innocent Persons and constant Obeyers of the Divine Decrees must be the Inhabiters ot it CHAP. III. 1. The true Measure of Opinions to be taken from the designe of the Gospel which in general is The setting out the exceeding great Mercy and Goodness of God towards mankinde 2. And then Secondly The Triumph of the Divine Life in the Person of Christ in the warrantableness of doing Divine Honour to him 3. Thirdly The advancement of the Divine Life in his members upon Earth 4. The Fourth and last Rule to try Opinions by The Recommendableness of our Religion to Strangers or those those that are without 1. I Might adde several other Opinions in several parts of Christendome that tend very much to the defeating and eluding the serious End and purpose of Religion but before I go any further I shall set down the main designes of the Gospel of Christ that we may have a more plain and sure Rule and Measure to try all Opinions by The designe therefore of the Gospel in general is the magnifying of the Goodness and Loving-kindness of God that he has afforded mankinde so glorious a light to walk by so effectual means to redeem them from the love of the perishing vanities of this present world and to recall them back again to himself and to the participation of the ineffable joyes pleasures of his celestial Kingdom For God so loved the World that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the World through him should be saved And Titus 3. For we our selves also were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another But after that the Kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour To which sense also the Apostle speaks Ephes. chap. 2. And you who were dead in trespasses and sins Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the Aire the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our fleshly minde and were by nature the children of wrath even as others But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Iesus That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Iesus Christ. To which lastly you may adde Tit. 2.11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world c. These Scriptures give plain testimony of this more general designe of the Gospel 2. The next designe is an external exaltation of the Divine Life that did so mightily and conspicuously appear in the Person of our Saviour Christ as I have already abundantly declared How the mystery of Christianity comprehends in it chiefly this designe of exalting into Triumph the Divine Life above the Animal and Natural and that either externally in the religious worship we do our Saviour and is done even by Hypocrites and wicked Persons or else internally in the advancing of true Faith and Holiness in his living members and sincere followers of his doctrine Philip. 2. Let the same minde be in you which was in Christ Iesus Who being in the forme of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God But emptied himself and took upon him the forme of a servant and was made in likeness of men And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore hath God also exalted him and given him a name above every name That at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father And Hebr. 1. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oile of gladness above thy fellows that is to say hath exalted thee to this due honour and rule having put all things under his feet Angels themselves not excepted as S. Peter tells us 1 Epist. 3.22 Who is gâ—ne into Heaven
having been contracted by our Lapse may justly by Religion be set on our score This Sincere Christian whose Character I have given will be so far from setting the Person of Christ at defiance and vilifying his Passion Intercession and holy Priesthood that he will with the greatest reverence of Devotion that can be imagined love him and adore him and will not quit that sweet Repose of minde he findes in the recounting with himself what an inestimable Friend he has with God for all the Pleasures and greatest Interests of this present life nor presume to be justified by his own Life or Works but by Faith in Christ whom he rejoices to think that he shall see his Judge at the last Day 3. This is the true and sound complexion of a Sincere Christian and he that does not faithfully endeavour to arrive at this state discovers himself to be an halting Hypocrite and one that is no Lover of the Divine Life nor has tasted the sweetness of Sanctity and of the holy Spirit of God nor known the power of his operations He that pretends to be above it he is self-condemned and betraies himself of what Kingdome he is that he is inacted by the envy of Satan against the Kingdome of Christ to antiquate his Offices and to lay aside his Person which he perswades sundry fanatical Souls to do puffing them up with the conceit of Self-perfection on purpose to exclude our Saviour The danger of which errour is no less then the utter forfeiture of their Eternal Salvation For no man shall inherit eternal life but by the donation of the crucified Iesus whom God has appointed Judge at the last day Besides that the very life and moral temper in these Revolters from the Son of God if we compare it with that of the Sincere Christian there is as much difference to them that can tast as betwixt the wilde grape and the sweet So hard a thing is it for either Nature or the Devil to imitate the true tincture of the Spirit of Christ. Their vine is the vine of Sodom and their fruit as the clusters of Gomorrah and their Churches as a field whom the Lord hath blasted there is the smell of the Sulphurous Lake and of the pit of Hell amongst them 4. The last thing I propounded was the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Of which Opinion as the reasons are slender or none at all so the Usefulness thereof to me invisible not knowing that it promotes any End of the Gospel which I can take notice of But that there may be a Millennium as they usually call it or a Long Period of time wherein a more excellent Reign of Christ then has manifested it self yet to the World may take place truly it seems so reasonable in it self and there are such shrewd places of Scripture seem to speak that way that it is hard for an indifferent man to gainsay it But I conceive then that the Renovation of the state of things will be as S. Peter speaks into new Heavens and new Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell wherein real Sanctity and universal Peacefulness shall bear sway wherein the crucified Iesus shall not be onely complemented aloof off and saluted in Statues and Pictures both himself and his Mother and all his Apostles and most eminent Adherents whenas in the mean time Mars Venus and Pluto and other Idols of the Heathen are cordially lov'd and serv'd all Christendome giving themselves enormously to War and Bloudshed to Lust and Luxury to Wealth and Covetousness worshipping these Deities in Spirit and in truth but as the Divine honour done to our Saviours person shall not then cease so the power of His spirit shall be more potently felt for the unpaganizing of the World and for the destroying of this spiritual Idolatry which is the Inordinate Affections and fierce endeavours of the Animal Life and shall implant such a love and liking of the life of Christ that Peace and Righteousness shall overflow all Contentions about Opinions shall then cease they being priz'd onely by the Pride and Curiosity of the Natural man and all the goodly Inventions of nice Theologers shall then cease and all the foolish and perplexing Arguments of the disputacious Schools shall be laid aside and the Gospel alone shall be exalted in that day And truly the Millennium being in such a sense as this stated it is both probable and very desirable and an opinion that agrees with nay such as may very well further all the designes of the Gospel as any one may discern by making application to the Rules I have set down Of which Rules these few Examples may serve to shew the use and to teach a man how to extricate himself from that mighty cumbersomeness of the numerosity of Opinions whether they be suggested from his own thoughts or offer'd by other men For if he applies them to these Rules he will finde most of them either so little to the designes of the Gospel or so much against them that he will account some not worth the sifting others not worthy the naming much less the entertaining by a sober Christian. Which practises and considerations cannot but tend much to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ if diligently observ'd though but by private Christians I shall onely give some brief touch what is proper for the Magistrate to contribute for the Advancement of Christianity and then we shall conclude CHAP. X. 1 That in those that believe There is a God and a Life to come there is an antecedent Right of Liberty of Conscience not to be invaded by the Civil Magistrate 2. Object That no false Religion is the command of God with the Answer thereto 3. That there is no incongruity to admit That God may command contrary Religions in the world 4 5. The utmost Difficulty in that Position with the Answer thereto 6. That God may introduce a false perswasion into the mind of man as well for probation as punishment 7. That simple falsities in Religion are no forfeiture of Liberty of Conscience 8. That though no falsities in Religion were the command of God yet upon other considerations it is demonstrated that the Religionist ought to be free 9. A further demonstration of this Truth from the gross absurdities that follow the contrary Position 1. BEfore we can well understand the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion we must first consider the Common Right of Mankind in this point provided they be not degenerated into Atheisme and Prophaneness For he that believes there is no God nor Reward nor Punishment after this life what plea can he have to Liberty of Conscience or how unproper is it to talk of his Right in matters of Religion who professedly has no Religion at all nor any tie of Conscience upon him to make that wicked profession For Atheisme as it is very coursely false in it self to any man that has the clear exercise of his Reason so is