the acceptance of them if well kept The Iews also fixed one Anniversary in commemoration of their Deliverance from Haman's wicked designs against them and another for remembring the Purifying the Temple from its Idolatrious Defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes This last was observed by our Saviour at least we find him in the Temple on that day Now can any reason be assign'd either from the nature of things or from any special limitations in the Scripture that should restrain the Power that is naturally in every body of men for appointing things of this nature The commemorating the Dispensation of the Gospel committed to the Apostles has nothing of the Superstition of Popery in it No Invocations or Addresses being made to them and no Sacraments administred for their Honor or recommended to their Intercession God is only blessed for those several Dispensations of which they were made the Channels and Instruments But we ought rather to be concern'd That these Commemorations are practic'd in so slight a manner that we seem much more liable to an Objection upon that account and tho in the first fervour of Christianity in which those early Converts lived almost wholly in the Meditations of Christ and of what related to him some Institutions of days for more special remembrances of particular Circumstances had not been made there might have been very good reason for the succeeding Ages to have studied to keep alive that fervour by such appointments of days for the more solemn Commemoration of such signal Blessigns and tho there were not the same clear warrants from Antiquity for every one of these yet it was still in the Power of the Church to make such new Orders as should seem necessary for carrying on the main Design of Religion The Ancient Church thought that the whole fifty days between Easter and Pentecost ought to be kept with a special Solemnity of Rejoycing for the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour and for the Effusion of the Holy Ghost since some more particular Devotions on those heads during that whole time did not break off the labours of their other Employments nor interrupt the common business of life upon the same parity of reason they might appoint some time before that season of Ioy to be spent in confessing past sins and mourning for them in higher degrees of Prayer and Fasting This being only the prescribing a method for appropriating such Exercises in Devotion to the several seasons of the year an over-valuing of these things together with a nice distinction of Meats was a piece of Superstition which might corrupt that which was good in any Constitution The distinction of Meats for that season is among us founded meerly on a Law of the Land for Civil and Political Ends since the Church only recommends Prayer and Fasting in general witout any further Specialities as to the measure of the Fast so no just exception lies to any part of this whole matter concerning days and times appropriated to particular Exercises I wish our Practice in these were such that this part of our Constitution were not too evidently a matter of Form and observed with too visible a slightness And thus I have gone round â—ll that I remember ever to have met with in Books or Discourses from any of the Dissenters except from those call'd Quakers against our Constitution and have offer'd you those answers which to me after the most impartial search that I am capable of seem full to satisfy 'em all It remains That I consider such as are offer'd by those who are called Quakers First They are against all sorts of stated Forms their main Principle being That nothing is to be done by us by virtue of any outward warrant unless there is an inward excitation or opening of the Spirit that leads to it And therefore all fixed Rules being contrary to the freedom of the Spirit they are against them all But either this Principle must have some limitation to restrain it or it will cast open a door to subvert all Religion and Policy for those inward Excitations being only known to those who have them every man's word must be taken concerning them If then a man by affirming that he had or had not such or such an excitation will be thereby justified or excus'd then he may do or not do what he will and the whole Order of Religion Morality and Civil Society will be thereby dissolv'd but if they say that there is that Harmony between the secret leadings of the Spirit and the Scriptures that whatsoever is commanded in the one is always witnessed to by the other then we are to examine this matter by the Scriptures and to conclude That if there are rules given in them for the constant use of the Sacraments then they are hereby condemned who have laid them aside Our Saviour encourag'd his Apostles to go and execute the Commission that he gave them to make Disciples and Baptize all Nations with this Promise That he was to be with them alway even to the end of the World The promise is given as as an encouragement to the duty enjoin'd and from hence we may conclude that the precept of Baptisme must continue likewise to the end of the World To this we must join those other words of our Saviour Except a man is born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which is affirmed without any limitation of time By the Kingdom of Heaven is plainly meant the Dispensation of the Gospel and since Baptism was then practised and was well understood by them who were born Iews nothing in reason can be understood by the being born of Water and of the Spirit but the being initiated by Baptism and the being inwardly Sanctified The one as well as the other is made indispensably necessary to the being a member of this new Dispensation St. Mark also has recorded those words of our Saviour He that believeth and is baptized stall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Now since Baptism is only enjoined by Precept and is not necessary as a mean but only as an act of Obedience therefore tho the doing it is commanded in order to Salvation yet Damnation is not the consequent of its not being done since one may be prevented in it by death or other Impossibilities may put it out of his power to procure Baptism to himself And therefore as the one branch of this period shews the obligation laid on us to be baptized in order to Salvation so the leaving it out in the other branch shews that our not coming within the rites of our Religion when that failure is no fault of ours does not exclude us from Salvation or bring us to a state of Damnation In the beginnings of Christianity the wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost was thought a true reason for baptizing such persons on whom it fell and therefore St. Peter said when
are we now bound to answer such difficulties as seem to arise out of them since they were not questioned in the time in which only an Appeal could be made to the Publick Registers themselves If then it is yielded that those Publick Actions done in the sight of many Witnesses passed without being challenged or disproved in that time here was a series of most wonderful things done by a man with a word He calmed Seas and Winds he fed great multitudes out of a very small Store which increased vastly as it was distributed he cured the most desperate Diseases such as Palsies and Leprosies He gave sight to the Blind strength to the Lame and hearing to the Deaf he healed many of their Infirmities and which was more than all the rest he raised some that were dead to life again One was indeed but newly dead but another was led out to be buried and a third had been four days dead His own Resurrection Ascension and the wonderful Effusion of the Holy Ghost surpassed all and were the confirming Seals and Testimonies of his whole Doctrine and proved that he was sent and Authorised by God And besides the Miracles which were wrought by those whom he sent to Preach his Doctrine the Gift of Tongues that they had as it was absolutely necessary for the discharge of their Commission of going to teach all Nations so it was of a nature not to be capable of an Imposture since it was in the power of every single man to have discovered the truth or falshood of it In other Miracles it may be suggested that Witnesses might be so managed as to carry on the credit of them true or false But the Apostles having given this out as a part and a main part of their History we cannot suppose but that this was true otherwise the falshood of it must have been discovered and with it the whole must have sunk If these extraordinary things were really transacted as they are related it cannot be pretended that they were the effects of some Secrets in Nature which our Saviour might know For though the Loadstone may be plaid with so much variety as to amuse a simple man and though Jugglers by a slight of hand seem to do wonders yet the vast variety as well as the great usefulness of our Saviour's Miracles shews he was not limited to a few Secrets which work always one way Nor were the Wonders he did shews of Pomp that do only amuse but they were things of such use to Mankind that it very well became one who was sent of God to prove his Mission by them Nor can it be said that Imagination wrought powerfully and made People fancy they saw things that they saw not or that the persuasion which some took up might so strike their Fancy as really to cure their Diseases for though a Hypochondriacal person may be deceived especially in the dark or twilight yet numbers of People in full daylight could not agree in the same Mistakes Some Effects were too signal to be so mistaken such as for a Man born blind to be made to see by a word or for a Storm to be calmed with a Rebuke And tho' in critical Diseases such as Feavers which lie in the fermentations of the Blood a strong Conceit may have a real Operation yet Chronical Distempers and Natural Defects go not off by Fancy Nor can it be thought that these wonderful Operations could come from the assistance of an Evil Spirit for since our Saviour's Doctrine tended wholly to pull down the Kingdom of Satan to destroy Idolatry and Magick and to root out all Immorality an Evil Spirit could not co-operate to carry on so good a Design otherwise it had changed its nature and from being bad must have grown good so that our Saviour's Answer to this Objection was full and clear that if Satan was divided against himself his kingdom could not stand For our Saviour's Doctrine being so totally opposite to him if he had joined his force to give it credit he must thereby have pulled down his own Kingdom But to give Infidelity its utmost advantage we shall now consider that which is its last refuge and chief strength which is That in all Ages some Men have been so bold and crafty while the Herd has been so simple and credulous that many Impostors have past upon the World in such different shapes that though we cannot discover the conduct of them yet we are not for that to judge in favour of them and therefore though it is not easie to assign the method how Christianity came to be received we may still have reason to mistrust the whole matter This might be tolerably alledged if there were any one thing in our Religion that gave the least shadow to suspicion if the Teachers of it had pretended either to Authority Wealth or Pleasure if on the contrary the Rules that were laid down in it did not shut out all these For whatsoever corrupt Men may have brought in since by an after-game that has no relation to the Beginnings and Doctrines of our Religion which does directly contradict them So far were the first Publishers of this from expecting advantages by it that they knew they were to be exposed to much contempt and hatred and that by their own Countrymen in which there is a peculiar sting They looked for severe Persecutions nor were they disappointed they endured great Hardships by Want and Poverty by Imprisonments and Cruel Whippings and in conclusion they lost their Lives in the Cause And they did so certainly reckon for all this that they warned their first Converts of a fiery trial that was to come upon them and of much tribulation through which they must enter into the kingdom of heaven Impostors must draw on their Followers by specious Promises and flattering Hopes and it argues a great certainty of success as well as an assurance of the truth of a Cause when those who promote it are so far from drawing on Men by Allurements till they are once engaged that they warn them early of the dangers and difficulties that are before them With this our Saviour begun when he said If any man will come afcer me let him deny himself take up his cross daily and become my disciple The severe Morals which accompany this Doctrine and are indeed a main part of it are a very lively character of Integrity The true Secret of all Corrupt Religions is That they propose somewhat to be done for the honour of the Deity by which their Votaries may compensate with God and may buy off their Obligations to solid and true Vertue But a Religion that proposes a simple and naked Worship with such easie performances in it that no Man can suppose the bare doing of them is any way meritorious and that proposes these not as compensations but as helps to real Holiness and that carries the obligation to it into the secret recesses of the
we see clear Characters in that Psalm to shew us that the Iews did so expound it Since those words the Heathen shall fear the Name of the Lord and all the Kings of the Earth his Glory and when the Lord shall build up Sion he shall appear in his Glory together with several passages that follow could not according to the Cabbala of the Iews be understood of any thing but of the Messias and of the Divine Shechinah that was to rest upon him and so according to this all the other parts of the Psalm were also applicable to him If St. Paul argues that the Promise was not made to Seeds but to the Seed of Abraham which seems a bad inference since Seed tho' in the singular is yet of a plural signification this may perhaps be bad Greek unless some corrupt form of Speech had made Seed stand for Son but tho' the Greek is not pure yet the Sense is true and the Argument in it self is good St. Paul's design being to let them see that their being the Seed of Abraham alone was not enough to assure them of the favour of God It was not to all Abraham's Posterity that the Promise was made since neither Ishmael nor Keturah's Children were comprehended within it But it belonged only to Isaac and in that contracting the Promise to one an emblem was given of the Messias in whom singly the blessing of that Covenant was to center and was not to be spread into the whole Nation that descended from him So that what fault soever we may find with the Greek the Sense is true and the Application is useful and we do not know but such a form of Speech might have been then used in common discourse It is certain that the Apostles had no Rhetorick and often their Grammar is not exact But this instead of making against their Writings does really make for them since it shews that they us'd no enticing Words nor laboured Periods no lively Figures nor studied Sentences all was natural without Art or Study which shewed that they knew they needed no borrowed help to support a Cause in which they were sure Heaven would interpose and promote its own concerns and the veneration with which their Writings were received and in which they were held shews that there was somewhat else than the Skill or Eloquence the Persuasives or Arguings of the Authors that begat and maintained their Reputation If we find here and there a Passage that we know not well what to make of this is the fate of all Books that were writ at a great distance from us The Customs and Manners of Men change strangely in a course of many Ages and all Speech especially that which is figurative and dark has such relation to these that if in a Book full of many plain useful and excellent Theories and Rules some Passages come in amongst them which we plainly see relate to some Practice or Opinion of which we are not sufficiently informed such as the being baptised for the dead having power on the head because of the Angels or the like This is nothing but what occurs to us in all ancient Books and what we easily bear with in all other Writings even of a much later Antiquity Weare therefore to make the best use we can of that which we do understand and to let those other places lie till we can find out their true meaning That of Christ's going in the Spirit to Preach to the Spirits now in Prison is perhaps one of these unless we believe that by Prison is to be meant according to the use of that word and others like it in the Septuagint the darkned state of the Gentile World who were shut up in Idolatry as in a Prison or in Chains under the power of the God of this World In this sense there is nothing easier to be apprehended than that period which imports only that Christ by vertue of the Holy Ghost that he had poured out upon his Apostles was calling the Gentile World out of their Ignorance and Idolatry And as in the days of Noah those who were disobedient perished in the Flood while there was an Ark prepared for those who would go into it So says he our rising out of the Waters that being the last piece of the Baptismal Ceremony as it was then practised and being the representation of our rising again with Christ was that which now saves us In all this the sence is clear and good tho the manner of the expression be a little dark The way of all the Easterns even to this day in all their discourses being obscure and involv'd where a great deal is supposed to be already understood we are not to wonder if we should find some parts of the New Testament writ in that strain As for that of Melchisedeck as the words lie they seem to be a riddle indeed but with a little observation we will find that passage concerning him in the Epistle to the Hebrews to be as plain as any thing can be The design of a great part of this Epistle is to shew that the Messias was to be a Priest and was to offer up a Sacrifice but not to be of the Family of Aaron since he was to spring out of the Tribe of Iudah nor to be a Priest after that Order or according to the Rules of that Institution but according to the Psalm to be a Priest after the Order of Melchisedeck Now the Rules or Order of the Aaronical Priesthood were that every Priest was to be descended from that Line to be born of a Mother that had not been a Widow or Divorced and this gave him who was thus received a right to transmit his Priesthood to his descendants in a Genealogy derived from him These Priests were also tied to their Turns in attending on the Temple which were called their Days in which they were admitted to serve at Thirty which was therefore the Age of the beginning of their days and at Fifty they were dismissed and were no more bound to attend than if they had been naturally dead so this was the end of their Life as to their Priesthood Now in opposition to this Melchisedeck was a Priest without Father and Mother that is He was immediately called to it of God and it did not devolve on him by descent nor was he to derive this in a Genealogy to his Posterity He came â—ot on to an attendance on the service of God at such an Age nor went he out at another but was a Priest of God for ever that is of a long continuance according to the common use of that word which only imports a constancy in any thing Melchisedeck was a Priest for term of Life which answers the signification of the word but was a Type of him that in the strictest sense was to be a Priest of God for ever Thus if we conster that verse by a reverse which is very
the two pretending Popes was truly chosen It must also be cleared in what form he is to proceed when Infallibility accompanies his Decisions whether he may proceed upon his own sense or with the advice of others and who these must be and what Solemnities in the Publication are necessary to make him speak ex Cathedra Here a great variety of Difficulties arise which ought to be well cleared to us before we can be bound to acquiesce in so great a Point as his Infallibility And we ought to have these things made out by a Divine Authority for if Christ has made a special grant of Infallibility to the Bishops of Rome no Forms nor Rules invented by men can limit that These may be Rules agreed on as fit to be observed but after all if a Pope is Infallible by a Commission from Jesus Christ he must be believed Infallible tho he should break through all those Forms that men have only invented It remains then that we consider those Proofs that are brought to confirm this since without very good ones it is extream unreasonable to urge such a Point or to expect that it should be submitted to Here all that was said formerly against proving this matter from Scripture is to be remembred But waving that in this place the Passages that seem to be formal for the Church in general are brought to support the Papal Authority For if great Powers are given to the Church and if it does not appear that they are any where else then they must be found in him he being the Church-Representative But this is an absurd Imagination unless they can shew us that God has lodged that Representation in that See As for that of 18. St. Matthew 17. for telling the Church and that such as do not hear it shall be to us as Heathens and Publicans it must be confess'd that these words barely in themselves and as separated from all that went before seem to speak out all that they plead for but when the occasion of them and the manner that governs them is consider'd nothing is plainer that our Saviour is here speaking only of such quarrellings and differences as may happen to fall out among Christians who are by these words oblig'd to try all amicable ways of setling them First by private endeavours then by the interposition of Friends and finally by the Authority of that Body or Church to which they belong'd and such as could not be prevail'd on by those methods were to be esteem'd no true Christians but to be look'd on as Heathens or as very bad men They might upon that be excommunicated and prosecuted afterwards in Civil Courts since they had no right any more to the Tenderness and Charity that ought to be among the Members of the Church This Exposition has a fair appearance and looks like being true to say no more at present for that is enough according to what was formerly laid down since the proofs of such a matter as this is ought to be full and home This seems to look more favourable towards the way of the Congregational Churches in which the whole Assembly of the Brotherhood govern all their Concerns but does not so much as by a hint seem to favour the pretensions either of Popes or Councils That Character of the Church given by St. Paul that it is the Pillar and Ground of Truth is a figurative form of Speech upon which it is never safe to build much less to lay so much weight upon it It is a Description that the Iews gave to their Synagogues and is by St. Paul appli'd to the Church of Ephesus for it is visible that it has no relation to the Catholick Church it being only an enforcing consideration to oblige Timothy to a greater caution in his Behaviour there It has visibly a relation to Inscriptions that were made on Pillars but what ever be the strict Importance of the Phrase it is clear that it is but a Phrase and therefore it cannot bear that which is raised upon it Some Reflections have been already made on those Promises of Christ to his Apostles that the Spirit should lead them into all Truth which plainly related to the infallible Conduct under which they were to be put but from these words themselves there is no reason to infer that the Promises were to descend to any after them they relate to an immediate Inspiration so if they prove any thing they prove too much That the Church must still have in it a successive Inspiration It is urg'd that a parity of Reason leads us to conclude That this Promise was still to continue tho not in the same manner in the Church But all such Arguments are only conjectural Inferences and are at best but probabilities so that there is no arguing from them and therefore this can signify nothing Those words of our Saviour's with which St. Matthew concludes his Gospel Lo I am with you always even to the end of the world infer no Infallibility but import only a promise of Assistance and Protection which was a necessary encouragement to the Apostles who were sent out upon so hard and laborious as well as dangerous Commission In both Testaments by God's being with any by his walking with them his being in the midst of them his never leaving them nor forsaking them no more is meant but that he watches over them that he directs assists and protects them and there being a vast difference between all this and Infallibility it can prove noting of that kind So that in conclusion the whole matter must turn upon the words of Christ to St. Peter for these do not relate to the Church in general but seem to belong particularly to him yet there is not so much as a hint given to lead us to apply them to his Successors nor does he give any himself when he was writing his Second Epistle not long before his death since he mentions a Revelation that he had of its being near him yet he does not in those last Warnings against the Corrupters of this Holy Religion give so much as a remote Intimation of any Authority that he was to leave behind him for the Government of the Church and preserving it pure both from Error and Immorality Nor were these words of Christ's so much as pretended for many Ages to import any Authority or Infallibility lodg'd with St. Peter's Successors I do not now question his being at Rome tho that matter is really so doubtful that even there we are far from any degree so much as of human Certainty But to go on with those words of our Saviour's to St. Peter there is one great presumption that lies against any pecular Authority given to him by them since we see not the least appearance either in the Acts of the Apostles or Epistles of any peculiar Appeals or References made to him On the contrary he seems to be call'd to an account for his