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
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 490 CHAP. II. 1. The most fundamental Mistake and Root of all the Corruptions in the Church of Christ. 2. That there may be a Superstition also in opposing of Ceremonies and in long Prayers and Preachments 3. That self-chosen Religion extinguishes true Godliness every where 4. The unwholsome and windy food of affected Orthodoxality with the mischievous consequences thereof 5. That Hypocrisy of Professours fills the World with Atheists 6. That the Authoritative Obtrusion of gross falsities upon men begets a misbelief of the whole Mystery of Piety 7. That all the Churches of Christendome stand guilty of this mischievous miscarriage 8. The infinitie inconvenience of the Superlapsarian doctrine 492 CHAP. III. 1. The true measure of Opinions to be taken from the design of the Gospel which in general is The setting out the exceeding great Mercy and Goodness of God towards mankind 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 that are without 497 CHAP. IV. 1. The general use of the foregoing Rules 2. A special use of them in favour of one anothers persons in matters of opinion 3. The examination of Election and Reprobation according to these Rules And how well they agree with that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Humility 4. The disagreement of absolute Reprobation with the first Rule 5. As also with the third 6. And with the second and fourth 499 CHAP. V. 1. That Election and Reprobation conferrs something to Humility 2. That some men are saved irresistibly by virtue of Discriminative Grace 3. That the rest of Mankind have Grace sufficient and that several of them are saved 4. The excellent use of this middle way betwixt Calvinisme and Arminianisme 5 6. The exceeding great danger and mischief of the former Extremes 502 CHAP. VI. 1. The Scholastick Opinions concerning the Dâ—vinity of Christ applied to the foregoing Rules 2. As also concerning the Trinity 3. The Application of the Antitrinitarian Doctrine to the said Rules It s disagreement with the third 4. As also with the second 5. The Antitrinitarians plea. 6. An answer to their plea. 7. How grosly the denying the Divinity of Christ disagrees with the third Rule 504 CHAP. VII 1. Imputative Righteousness Invincible Infirmity and Solifidianism in what sense they seem to comply with the second and last Rule and how disagreeing with the third 2. The groundlesness of mens Zeal for Imputative Righteousness 3. And for Solifidianism 4. The conspiracy of Imputative Righteousness Solifidianism and Invincible Infirmity to exclude all Holiness out of the Conversation of Christians 5. That large confessions of Sins and Infirmities without any purpose of amending our lives is a mere mocking of God to his very face With the great danger of that Affront 507 CHAP. VIII 1. The flaunting Hypocrisie of the Perfectionists and from whence it comes 2. The easie Laws whereby they measure their Perfection And the sad result of their Apostasie from the Person of Christ. 3. That there is far more Perfection in many thousands of those that abhor the name of Perfection then in these great Boasters of it 4. In what consists that sound and comely frame of a true Christian Spirit 510 CHAP. IX 1. Sincerity the middle way betwixt pretended Infirmity and the boast of Perfection with the description thereof 2. A more full character of the Sincere Christian. 3. That they that endeavour not after that state are Hypocrites and they that pretend to be above it Conspiratours against the everlasting Priesthood of Christ. 4. The Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth and the Millennium in the more sober meaning thereof applied to the above-nam'd Rules 512 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 515 CHAP. XI 1. That there is a Right in every Nation and Person to examine their Religion to hear the Religion of Strangers and to change their own if they be convinced 2. That those Nations that acknowledge this Right and act accordingly have naturally a Right to send out Agents into other Nations Their demeanour there and the right of revenging their injuries And how this Method had justified the Spaniards Invasion of the Indians 3. The unpracticableness of the present Theory by reason of the general perversness of the World The advantageousness of it to Christendome and suitableness of it to the Spirit of a Christian 4. That Religion corruptive of manners is coâ—rcible by the Magistrate 5. And that which would plainly destroy the defence of the Countrey 6. As also whatsoever Religion is inseparably interwoven with Principles of Persecution 7. An Answer to that Objection That all Sects are persecutive and that therefore there can be no Liberty of Conscience given 521 CHAP. XII 1. To what Persons and with what Circumstances the Christian Magistrate is to give Liberty of Conscience And the great advantage thereof to the Truth of Christianity 2. That those that are not Christians are not to be admitted into places of trust by the Christian Magistrate if he can supply himself with those that are 3. That the Christian Magistrate is to lay aside the fallible opinions of men and promote every one in Church and State according to his merit in the Christian life and his ability of promoting of the interest of the Church of Christ and the
Solomon in defining her to be the true Mother that could not endure that the Child should be divided and killed And whatever Church is cruell and remorsless in either Temporall persecution or the Eternall damnation of such men as believe in Christ according to the plain and easie meaning of the Scripture and live accordingly she may approve her self to be an imperious Harlot but no discerning spirit will ever take her for the true Mother that new Ierusalem which is the Spouse of Christ or Wife of the Lamb. Wherefore those are very weak Christians that are so low-belled by this terror as to be taken up and captivated by the Church of Rome and acknowledge her the mother-Church by force of that Argument that demonstrates the contrary to say nothing of their disingenuous abuse of the Charity of the Reformed Churches But for my own part I confess that for sureness I had rather exercise my Charity in wishing them Converts from Popery then express any great confidence of their being safe in that Religion Not that it is possible for me who cannot infallibly demonstrate to my self that all that lived under Paganisme are certainly damned to imagine that all that have gone under the name of Papists have tumbled down into Hell But the case is much like that in Shipwrack on the sea or Pestilence in a City where we will suppose not a house free no man can pronounce that it is impossible that such or such a person should escape nor that any of them are in any tolerable safety The danger is alike to them that adhere to the Apostate Church for though there be a possibility of some mens being saved by an extraordinary or miraculous Providence they breaking through all those impediments and snares that are laid in their way and attaining to a Dispensation above the Church they live in as haply some under Paganisme did yet it cannot be denied but that the Oeconomie of that Church naturally tends to the betraying of Souls to Eternall destruction that falling out which our Saviour said of old of the Pharisees They compass sea and land to make one profelyte and when he is made he becomes twofold more the child of the devil then themselves For he will not stint his Hypocrisie in Religion by the measure of their gain that invented the forme and submit to it for their End but for his own namely that he may excuse himself from all reall holiness by keeping to the observation and profession of their vain inventions And thus are the Commandements of God made of none effect by their Traditions In brief the whole frame of that Church is fashioned out so near to the ancient guise of Idolatrous Paganisme or else to the liveless and ineffectual forme of Judaisme both which Christ appeared on purpose to destroy as either contrary or ineffectuall to Salvation and does explicitly recommend to the world a pure and spirituall worship that we should worship the Father in Spirit and in truth or lastly is so full of Contradictions and Impossibilities in their feigned Stories and imperiously-obtruded Opinions that the natural result of being born under such a Religion or of turning to it is either to become a besotted Superstitionist to believe or do any thing that others will have him to do which is a sign the Spirit of Regeneration has not yet passed upon him and that there is no life nor light in him or else which is too frequent to turn down-right Atheist it being so grosly discernable that the Tenents of their Church are impossible and their Practices fraudulent fitted chiefly for filthy lucre and their Ceremonies useless thankless and ridiculous And therefore if any be saved in the Church of Rome they are such as are not truely of it but above it and fend for themselves as well as they may by some pardonable sleights of Prudence accompanied with an impregnable innocency of Spirit and readiness of doing all possible good they can they sparing their own lives and liberties upon no other account then that and out of a perswasion that he that commanded them to be wise as Serpents as well as innocent as Doves has given them no commission inconsiderately and to no purpose to betray themselves into the power of his usurping Enemy But for others that are perfect Papists and swallow down all that Church proposes to them without chewing or distasting any thing it is a Demonstration there is no Principle of life in them but that they are like dead earthen pitchers which receive poison and wholesome liquors with a like admittance And if there be no principle of life there is no seed of Salvation in a man For it is most certainly true and the Scripture it self doth witness to it That unless a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdome of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This is the new Creature that is created in wisdome righteousness and true holiness The first of which the Church of Rome expunges in that it gives no leave to a man never so regenerate to judge for himself but he must say as the Church sayes right or wrong and for the other two all their superstitious Ceremonies put together adde nothing to them but rather stifle and sufflaminate them Again S. John tell us That he that hates his brother is in the dark and walketh in the dark and knows no whither he goes But others may know it as appears by another saying of the same Apostle Every one that hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternall life abiding in him But on the contrary he affirms That Love is of God and that he that loveth is born of God and knowes God Now to apply the Case to these Rules If Love be an essential Character of a Regenerate soul and Hatred of Errour Darkness and Eternal Death or to come yet closer If Hatred it self be Murder what will Murder it self be added thereunto And if any thing be Murder I demand whether this be not namely to take away the life of a member of Iesus Christ who does fully and freely profess the Ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Letter or History of the New Testament and does seriously compose his life according to the Precepts therein contained and does onely declare against and reject the Contradictious Opinions and Idolatrous Practices that have no ground at all in Scripture nor Reason but are quite contrary to both I say if this be no Murder there is no Murder in the world and how guilty the Church of Rome is of this Crime all the world knowes Wherefore this being one of the Principles of that bloudy Church and he that is a perfect Papist being of one mind and suffrage with his Church in all things for she will be held no less then Infallible 't is apparent that no through-paced Papist can ever go to
Faith and Devotion and invigorated Meditations of the other State will so fortifie his spirits and strengthen his minde that in all this affliction he will become more then Conquerour through the power of Christ that enables him to all things And by how much the enjoyments of this present life are diminished the more his thoughts are cast upon those that are to come 3. This brief Intimation shall suffice to shew how serviceable Christianity is for comfort and solace in this present life to every true Christian in his private Capacities But I must not omit to discover also that advantage which a Communialty has by becoming truly Christian. Which I am forced to the rather because some have not stuck to pronounce of Christianity as of a Religion never intended for bodies Politick and very disadvantageous for publick Concerns As if Christian Humility Mortification of the Flesh and Patience of Injuries would so cow and soften a Nation that it would make them as helplesse as innocent and thus betray them to the victorious Fierceness of their invading Neighbours and the Precepts of Charity so indispensably urged but slacken the hands of those that are able to work and fill the whole Land with lazy beggars Such like Cavils as these have some ill-willers not only to Christian Religion but as I suspect to any Religion that would curb their inordinate affections invented and cast abroad but more to the detection of their own ignorance and shame then of any Imperfection or Unfitness in Christianity whereby it may not be the Religion of the most flourishing States and Kingdoms that can be constituted 4. In answer therefore to the proposed Objections I will in the first place acknowledge with them That the Gospel was not intended primarily for the advantages of this Life nor bore in it any Politick design for the administration of Publick affairs of State but for making men in their private capacities good and happy and for working their spirits into such a frame of Life and Holiness as would most certainly assure them of that Joy and Glory that is laid up for Believers in the other World But withall I cannot but take notice By how much it is plain that there is no Political or Worldly Design in the Gospel by so much the more evident it is that there is no deceit nor falshood therein and that it is not the cunning contrivance of some crafty Law-giver but an holy sincere and infallible Testimony of the Will of God concerning the True way of Salvation and of the everlasting Happiness of the Souls of men 5. But though I have been so liberal as to allow them thus much yet I deny That there is any thing in Christian Religion but what is not onely not inconsistent with but highly advantageous to a State or Kingdome that becomes truly Christian. For empty noises and names of things do nothing Wherefore I shall affirme That whatever advantages other Religions may be thought to have for conscientious obedience to the supreme Powers and faithfull dealing betwixt man and man which is the universal scope of all Religions as they are made serviceable to bodies Politick Christianity has these and upon more evident and unquestionable grounds then any Religion else whatsoever For what Religion is there in the World that can give that demonstration of a Life to come that Christianity doth in the Resurrection of our blessed Saviour that infallible pledge of immortal Happiness to all his followers The truth therefore of Christian Religion rightly represented being so irrefutably convincing to both the learned the unlearned the Heart and Conscience not onely of the People but also of the Magistrate will be the more irresistably bound to the performance of their mutual duties one to another The Result whereof is an unviolable Peace and with that all such comforts of Life as the best Laws and Governments pretend to aime at for making a Nation happy 6. Nay I adde further that those things that they object against Christianity are such as if a Nation become truly Christian do most effectually reach the chiefest Ends of Political Government Of which one main one is mutual succour in time of need And what is more proper for this then Charity Nor is there any fear that this proneness to help one another shall relaxate the endeavours of the generality of the body Politick but it only sweetens their care and industry and takes off that torturous solicitude that must naturally attend those that know too well that if they cannot hold up themselves they must certainly perish Which desperate consideration forces them to all possible tricks frauds for Self-Preservation Which uncomfortableness of life and the evil temptations thereof are prevented in a Common-wealth that is truly Christian and consequently sincerely Charitable Neither will Laziness thereby be nourished this same Christian frame of Spirit making them all more ambitious of doing then receiving good according to that noble saying of our Saviour It is a more blessed thing to give then to receive 7. And as it is without controversie that Humility the patient Suffering of injuries and the Mortifying the exorbitant desires of the flesh do tend most certainly in a Polity that is become thus Christian to a constant Peaceableness and a faithful and impartial Administration of Iustice in all things For from whence is Warre and Dissension Violence and Injustice but from the inordinate lusts of the Flesh from Pride and Desire of disproportionable Revenge so is it as true also that they make us not a whit more liable to the invasion of our Enemies as becoming thereby more cow'd or soft in Spirit For a due castigation of the lusts of the Flesh rendreth the Body more healthful and hardy whenas Luxury will certainly make it rotten and effeminate and expose it to all manner of diseases And it is a very unskilful conceit to think that Humility will make them such tame things that the enemy may take them up and carry them away at his pleasure For Christian Humility does not consist in being content to be brought under bondage by men but in not despising others and not arrogating any thing to our selves nor seeking unjust dominion over others for our own pleasure and satisfaction 8. Nor does Patience toward particular injuries inure the Christian at all to be remiss in making resistance against an unjust Invader of his Country and Liberties For the very same Principle namely the Divine Love that prompted him to bear private wrong the damages whereof he could better reckon up will as forcibly urge him to resist such publick Violence done against the body of Christ who are more dear unto him then the apple of his eye and their Concerns as much beyond his private Interest as their Number exceeds his single Person His Love therefore to Christ who died for him and whose Cause then shall really lie at the stake His sincere affection to his fellow-members to
Reason who pretend not to dictate but demonstrate out of Scripture the Sleep of the Soul confidently suggesting to the better gaining Proselytes to their own that the contrary opinion is not Christian but Heathenish derived from the Philosophy of Plato which the Greek Fathers had imbibed and thence introduced into the Church of Christ. To the First of which I answer That our Adversaries Demonstrations for the Sleep of the Soul are but their own Imaginations and Dreams upon the mistaken Text. It is beside my scope to insist long on this matter I shall onely give you a tast of the weakness of the rest of their Arguments by proposing and refuting of those that seem the strongest Their main proof is from the whole tenor of the 15 of the 1 Cor. and more particularly from the 32 verse If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me if the dead rise not Hence they think may certainly be concluded That the Soul before the Resurrection of the Body has not the Perception or Enjoyment of any thing otherwise the very Remembrance of those sufferings for Christ might be a solace for Paul when he was out of the Body 3. But to answer this Difficulty with the fuller satisfaction let us premise some few things to prepare the way to it As first That the Schemes of speech in Prophets and men inspired are usually such as most powerfully strike the Phansie and most strongly beat upon the Imagination they describing things in the most sensible palpable and particular representations that can be According to which Figure the General Resurrection is set off by mens awaking out of the dust of the Earth and coming out of the Graves when as yet many thousands have wanted Burial their bones rotting on the surface of the Earth and as many thousands have had their intombement in the Waters 4. Secondly That the Holy Writers do not pen down their Conceptions in so strict a Scholastick Method that they keep precisely and punctually to one Title but by a free vibration of Phansie give a touch here and a touch there according as they were moved and actuated by that Spirit that exhibits more to their Minds at once then their Tongue has leasure orderly and distinctly to utter and are more earnestly taken up in making good the main and most usefull scope of their discourse then to satisfie mens Curiosities in particular Niceties 5. Thirdly That many Words in Scripture have a lax and ambiguous sense and that therefore they are to be understood according as Circumstances and Likelyhood of Truth determine and that these Termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of that nature they sometimes signifying the raising up again of a Body out of the grave sometimes merely vivificating of the Body or recovering a Person to life other sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very same with the Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius observes which signifies nothing else but Eternal life or a Blessed Immortality Others enlarge the Signification further and make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conservation in Being And Death seeming to us so dangerous a passage as if we were in hazard of either falling asleep or sliding into a Non-subsistence Divine Conservation because we begin then a new state of life is not unfitly termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving us as it were a new Subsistence setting us upon our feet again and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as keeping us awake when we seemed in danger of letting go all functions of life Which meaning of the words a late Interpreter handsomely makes good comparing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 9.17 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 9.16 which the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The manner of which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Conservation is excellently set out by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may imply a kinde of jogging or stirring up which is used to recover or prevent ones falling into a swoon and God is the grand Author of Life and Motion as the Apostle speaks 6. Fourthly and lastly That the Corinthians being a people given notoriously to the pleasures of the Flesh there is no question to be made but the Temptations of the place had also drawn away some Members of the Church there at Corinth and made them also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now there being nothing that does so much extinguish all Hopes and Apprehensions of a Life to come as Carnal and Sensual pleasures it is very likely that those corrupted members fell away in their own judgments from the belief of any Reward after this life and so with Himeneus and Philetus or with the David-Georgians and our modern Nicolaitans allegorized away the real meaning of the Resurrection or the Blessed Immortality into a mere moral sense under pretence whereof they might ostentate themselves more Spiritual and knowing Christians then the rest and yet with less fear and remorse of conscience indulge to themselves all loosness and liberty of enjoying every tempting pleasure of this mortall life 7. Wherefore to the present Argument I answer in general out of this last and the foregoing Premiss That the purpose of the Apostle in this 15 to the Corinthians is to shew That there is a Life after the death of this Body and a Blessed Immortality to be expected A palpable pledge whereof was God's raising of Christs body out of the grave and exhibiting him alive to his Disciples Which was a Sign very significant and expressive of the thing this Blessed Immortality mainly consisting in being clothed with those Heavenly Ethereal and Paradisiacal bodies which Christ will bestow upon those that belong to him at the last day 8. Out of the First I answer That though S. Paul speak in such a Phrase as fixes our Imagination on the Earth only as is plain from that comparison of seed sown and rotting in the ground for men sow not seed upon the Water yet in whatsoever Element the Souls or Bodies of the Saints be found Earth Water or Air nay though we should grant with some that sundry Souls of holy men act in Aery vehicles in this interval betwixt their Death and the Day of Judgment yet it is no more prejudice to them then to those that are found alive in the flesh For none are excluded from the enjoyment of their glorified bodies 9. Out of the Second and Third I answer That S. Paul might very well have Three conceptions vibrating in his minde while he wrote concerning this Mystery the one more Simple and General of the Life and Subsistency of the Soul out of this Earthly Body the other more Special of a Blessed Immortality and the Third most Determinate of all which represented the manner of this Blessedness in being invested with glorified bodies And out of this General I shall direct a
would be which would signifie then at large only the adding of further clothing whether within or without but is to be expounded as circumstances require 4. Being thus fitted for the purpose we shall now briefly paraphrase the six first verses of the 15. chap. which they alledge against us thus 1. For we know that if this Earthly and Mortal Body of ours were destroyed that yet we have an Heavenly one whose Author and Maker is God 2. And for this cause is it that we groan so earnestly to be clothed also with our Heavenly Body within this Earthly 3. Because we being thus clothed when we put off our Earthly Body we shall not be found naked nor our Souls left to float in the crude Air. 4. For we that are in these Earthly Bodies groan earnestly being burdened not as if we had a desire to be stript naked of all Corporeity or that we should be presently rid of these Earthly Bodies before God see fit but that we may have a more Heavenly and Spiritual clothing within that mortality may be swallowed up of life 5. Nor do we arrive to this pitch by our own power but it is God who works upon us as I said both Body and Soul and frames us into this condition by the operation of his holy Spirit which he has given as a pledge of our Eternal Happiness 6. And therefore we are alwaies of a good courage not discontented at any thing For whether we be in this Earthly Body it is tolerable as being our usual and natural home or whether we go out of it which is most desirable we shall then go to the Lord our inward man being so fitly clad for the journey 5. That this is the genuine sense of these verses the 16 verse of the Chapter immediately going before will further confirm where the Apostle saith That though his outward man perish yet his inward man is renewed day by day which is Though his Earthly Body be in a perishing and decaying condition yet his Spiritual and Heavenly gets strength and flourisheth every day more and more Now the Resurrection and Attainment of the Heavenly Body being all one it were worth the while to enquire into the meaning of the Apostle Philipp 3. v. 11. where he professes his unwearied endeavours to attain to the Resurrection of the dead where presently it follows Not as if I had already attained it or as if I were already perfected For if he meant not this Inward Spiritual body inveloped in the Earthly he need not tell the Philippians that he had not yet attain'd it But the Point in hand is sufficiently plain already 6. We have seen what weak Demonstrators the Psychopannychites are against the Life and Operation of Souls out of the Body in their appeals to Scripture We shall now see how improbable their aspersion is of the Opinion being a Pagan or Heathenish invention derived as they say merely from the School of Pythagoras and Plato and from thence introduced into the Church CHAP. VIII 1. That the Opinion of the Soul 's living and acting immediately after Death was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers because they left out Preexistence an Opinion very rational in it self 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy Jeremy and Job 3. as also God's resting on the seventh day 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ might have been a further inducement 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians 8. That our Saviour did admit or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations namely That the Soul 's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures 1. AND I think it is not hard for a man to prove that this sinister conceit of theirs is almost impossible to be true For if the ancient Fathers by vertue of their conversing so much with Plato's writings had brought this opinion of the Souls living and subsisting after death into the Christian Religion they could by no means have omitted the Preexistence of it afore which is so explicite and frequent a Doctrine of the Platonists especially that Tenet being a Key for some main Mysteries of Providence which no other can so handsomly unlock and having so plausible Reasons for it and nothing considerable to be alledged against it For is it not plain that the Soul being an Indivisible and Immaterial Substance can not be generated Now if it be created by God at every effectual act of Venery besides that in general it is harsh that God should precipitate immaculate Souls into defiled Bodies it seems abominable that by so special an act of his as Creation he should be thought to assist Adultery Incest and Buggery Of this see more at large in my Trestise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 2. chap. 12 13. But they 'l still urge That it was not the Unreasonableness of the Opinion but the Uncompliableness of it with Scripture that made them forgoe the Preexistency of the Soul though they retained her Subsistency Life and Activity after death 2. But it had assuredly been no hard matter for them to have made their Cause plausible even out of Scripture it self The Jewes would have contributed something out of the Old Testament Menasseh Ben Israel cites several places to this purpose as Deuteronomy 29.14 15. insinuating there that God making his covenant with the absent and the present that the Souls of the posterity of the Jewes were then in Being though not there present at the Publication of the Law For the division of the Covenanters into absent and present naturally implies that they Both are though some here some in other places This Text is seriously alledged by the generality of the Jewes for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls as Grotius has noted upon the place Also Jeremy 1. verse 5. The forenamed Rabbi renders it Antequam formassem te in ventre indidi tibi sapientiam reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel not in Cal. Before I formed thee in the belly I had made thee of a wise ingenie fitted thee to all holy Knowledge c. We will add a third place Job 38. He renders it Nosti te jam tum natum fuisse Knowest thou that thou wast then born and that the number of thy daies are many Then viz. from the beginning of the Creation or when the Light was made a symbol of Intellectual or Immaterial Beings The Seventy also plainly render it to that sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know that thou wast formed then and that the number
of thy years are many The Author of the Book of Wisdome who though he be not Canonical yet is acknowledged a very venerable Writer speaks out plainly concerning the Soul of Solomon chap. 8. v. 19 20. For I was a witty childe and had a good Spirit Yea rather being good I came into a body undefiled 3. Besides they might have alledged how inconsistent the daily Creation of Souls is with God's resting on the Seventh day as having then finished the whole work of his Creation 4. Moreover their inclination to think that in sundry of those Apparitions of Angels to the ancient Patriarchs it was Christ himself that appeared would further have enticed them to retain this Doctrine of Preexistence of Souls that that opinion of Christ's appearing then might be more entire and determinate as it would be also in those that hold Melchisedec that blessed Abraham to have been Christ which opinion Cunaeus looks upon as true nor can Calvin look upon it as strange if he do but hold to his own words in his readings upon Daniel In eo nihil est absurdi quòd Christus aliquam speciem humanae naturae exhiberet antequam manifestatus esset in carne And that the Angel that led the Israelites into the land of Canaan was Christ seems plainly asserted 1 Cor. chap. 10. v. 9. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them tempted him and perished by Serpents But Christ is a complexion of the Humane nature with the Divine Consider also Hebr. 11.26 which seems to implie that the Soul of the Messias was a Patron and Protector of the Holy seed betimes and had a special relation to the Iews above any other Nation And therefore when he came into the world i. e. was born brought up and conversed among the Jews he might the more properly be said to come to his own though his own knew him not John 1.11 And verily that the Soul of the Messiah was in Being before he took upon him our flesh the most easie and natural meaning of 1 Joh. 4.2 seems also to import 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here S. Iohn seems to cabbalize as in several places of the Apocalypse that is to speak in the language of the Learned of the Jews For the genuine sense is He that confesses that Iesus is the Messiah come into the flesh or into a Terrestrial Body is of God Which implies that he was before he came into it Which is the doctrine of the Jews and expressed so exactly according to their sense that themselves could not have uttered it more naturally and significantly and therefore might they say it is unnatural and violent to put any other meaning upon it 5. Again He being happily before the Generation of men and the peopling of the earth the Messiah Elect as I may so speak united also with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and resplendent with Celestial glory and beauty amongst the Angels in Heaven this Hypothesis will give a very easie and natural sense to sundry places of the New Testament that otherwise seem very obscure As that of Philipp 2.6 7 8. For it has racked many mens minds to conceive how an Exinanition of himself can belong to the Eternal and Immutable God by becoming man which the Text seems to point at But it may very properly belong to the Soul of the Messiah who was yet truly God by a Physical union with the Godhead So likewise John 17.4 5. I have glorified thee upon earth for which purpose I was sent down thither And now Father bring me up back again to thy self that I may again enjoy that Glory which I had with thee in the Heavens before the world and Generations of men were This is the easie meaning of those two Verses For that this is to be understood of the Humanity of Christ Grotius is so confident that he is fain to turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I was to have or which I was designed to have before the world was But this present gloss needs no such distortion or force done to words but is very natural and genuine 6. Again John 6.38 I came down from Heaven not to doe mine own will but the will of him that sent me and chap. 3.31 He that comes from Heaven is above all and yet clearer chap. 16.28 I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father But clearest of all chap. 3.13 where speaking of his Ascension and that was Local he mentions also his Descension which it is most natural to understand in the same sense No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man who is in Heaven i. e. whose mind and conversation is there though his Personal and visible presence be here on earth as Grotius also interpreteth these last words To all which you may adde John 6.26 What if you shall see the Son of man ascend where he was before 7. These Scriptures which we have cited bear so strong towards a Local descending from as well as ascending up to Heaven that some have thought that Christ was besides his Ascension after his Resurrection bodily taken up into Heaven and that he there received instructions from God and was then sent down to publish the Gospel But certainly so notable a Transaction of Christ then in the flesh would never have been omitted by the other three Evangelists nor so slightly and obscurely intimated by this 8. But this Evangelist flying higher then to be kept within the compass of the time since his Incarnation it had been very easie for the Fathers to have pleaded for the Preexistence and Descent of the Soul of the Messiah from Heaven into an Earthly Body from those passages of Scripture which we have quoted And to make all sure they might have further alledged for this opinion of the Soul's Preexistence that it was at least unreproved if not approved of by our Saviour himself as appears out of John 9. where he being asked by his Disciples whether it was the blind mans own fault or his parents that he was born blind which question plainly implies a Preexistence before this life he seems to admit it is certain he does not reprehend the Hypothesis No more then he does Mark 8.27 28. or Matthew 16.14 where his Disciples telling him that some took him for Elias others for Ieremias or for some one of the old Prophets or other he there again admits or not gainsaies the opinion of the Jews concerning the Preexistence or Transmigration of Souls as Grotius himself acknowledges that of Ieremie to be referred ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but passes to a questioning of them whom they thought him to be 9. I conclude therefore there being such plausible pretensions to prove the Preexistence of Souls not only out of Reason but Scripture it self if the Fathers had been imbued with that Heathenish and Pagan opinion as our
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of them also having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that all subterfuge is quite taken away 2. Grotius his Commentary upon this place is very ingenious wherein he supposes Christ to speak to the Thief being a Jew according to the Doctrine of the Hebrews who called the state of the piously-deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the garden of Pleasure or Paradise where though they enjoyed not that consummate Happiness which they were in expectation of at the Resurrection yet they were at the present in a great deal of Joy and Pleasure so much indeed that they held none to arrive to it after their death but such as had their Souls well purified before they departed their Bodies whom he parallells to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above mentioned out of the Author to the Hebrews chap. 12. and therefore there was great cause saith he that our Saviour said This day thereby signifying that he should not be any longer deferred according to the Doctrine of their Rabbins notwithstanding the vainness of his life but upon this his Repentance should immediately be with Christ in Paradise even that very day he spoke unto him 3. Nor need we with S. Austin sweat much in labouring to make that Article of the Apostles Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agree with his being in Paradise in the Intervall betwixt his Death and Resurrection For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general as this Expositour makes good signifies nothing else but the invisible state of Souls separate from the Body nor does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 restrain it to a descent into Hell For as for this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is spoken of the whole Person of Christ as it is also of others that enter into the state of the dead by the defixion of our Phansy upon what is most gross and sensible viz. the going down of the body into the grave we are easily drawn to make use of it to express the whole business both of the Bodie 's and the Soul 's receding from amongst the number of the living as Iacob does Genes 37.35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when notwithstanding his Son was not buried but torn in pieces with wild beasts as he thought Wherefore the sense is my Body descending into the Grave with my Soul shall I go unto my Son into the Region of the dead 4. Again Though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usually signifies to descend or go downwards yet it signifies sometimes merely to vanish or go out of sight and very often as in other words so in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has no signification at all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to go of which it were easie to give plenty of Examples out of the Septuagint but that I account it needless Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well be rendred not that he descended into hell but that he went into the Region of Souls separate or of the Spirits of men departed this life And that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bears this General sense Grotius makes good not only from the forecited place of Genesis but from the use of the word in sundry Greek Authors as Diphilus Sophocles Diodorus Siculus Iosephus Plato and others That of Plutarch is very remarkable where he expounds that verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the same Author elsewhere To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimating that the Air is that Invisible Region of the dead into which the Spirits of dying men depart And it is confessed of all sides that whereas those other Elements Fire Water Earth are visible that the Air and Aether are utterly invisible and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well contain in it both Hell and Paradise Whence it is plain that Christ might be at the same time both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise as a man may be both in England and in London at once And his Promise to the Thief of the immediate enjoyment of that Bliss was as it were a Proclamation from the Cross to all the World That the Souls of men live and subsist out of their Bodies Which he further demonstrated by reassuming his own and ascending with it up to Heaven in the sight of his Disciples 5. Which Truth he seems to me also plainly to suppose in the Parable of Dives and Lazarus as also of the Unjust Steward For Dives his desiring Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren to inform them of his sad condition in what trouble and torment he was does manifestly imply That the Souls of the Wicked are in Torment and in Trouble before the Day of Judgment yea immediately upon their Death and That the Souls of the Godly are forthwith in Joy after their departure out of this life as is intimated by the Transportation of Lazarus his Soul into Abraham's bosome and our Saviour's application of the Parable of the Steward exhorting us to be liberal of these worldly goods that when this life and the pleasures thereof fail we may be received into joy everlasting But we need not insist upon what is more obnoxious to the Cavils and Evasions of our slippery Adversaries we having produced already so many and unexceptionable Testimonies of Scripture for the Confirmation of the present Truth viz. That it is no Paganism but sound and warrantable Christianity to assert That the Souls of the deceased do not sleep but do live understand and perceive what condition they are in after death be it good or evil BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. He passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity for the understanding whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down 2. As That there is a God 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary concatenation with the Rational account of all other Beings as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter 1. WE have at length passed through the most dark and doubtful part of our journey and have given what Account we were able of the most Obscure and Abstruse points in Christianity We begin now to enter into a more lightsome Region and easier prospect of Truth the day breaking upon us and the morning-light tinging the tops of the mountains from whence we are ascertain'd of a further and a more full discovery of that Grand Mystery we seek after which the Spirit of God in the plain Records of Scripture will afterward so ratifie and confirm that to those that have a judgment to discern it will be secured from all future controversie But in the mean time we are to contemplate the Reasonableness and Intelligibleness thereof from some chief Heads or
reaching to every Individual thing or Person in the world It being as easie for God to see all things as to see any one thing his Perception being Infinite and therefore Undistractable and Indefatigable Now his Goodness and Power being no less immense it will necessarily follow That there is not any thing that befalls the meanest Creature in the whole Creation but that it was suitable to the Goodness of God either to cause it or permit it For though it may seem at the present harsh to that particular Being yet at the length it may prove for its greater Advantage at least it may be deemed good for the Universe as Marcus Aurelius solidly and judiciously ever and anon does suggest and I think he is but a shallow Philosopher that cannot maintain this Cause against all Atheistical surmises and cavills whatsoever CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances and of their Kinds 2. The Proof of their Existence and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels 1. MY Third Assertion is That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances Which will easily flow from what is so firmly proved already That there is one Omnipotent Omniscient and infinitely-Benign Spirit which we call GOD who therefore acting according to his nature we cannot doubt but that he has created innumerable companies of Spirits to enjoy themselves and their Creatour Which are either purely Immaterial having no communion at all with Matter with the Greeks again divide into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into pure Intellects or Minds and simple Unities or else such as although according to their very Substance or Essence they be Immaterial yet have a propertie of being vitally united with and also affected by the Matter To these Spirits for want of a better term I must take the boldness to abuse a known word to a greater latitude of sense and give the name of Souls to them all because they do vitally actuate the Matter be it Aethereal Aereal or Terrestrial Whether there be not also a middle sort betwixt these Souls and pure Intellects a man may well doubt which differ from Intellect in having an immediate power of moving the Matter and from Souls in not being vitally joined therewith but acting merely as Assistent Formes such as the Aristoteleans phansie their Intelligencies to be 2. For the Existence of the Three first Orders we have intimated already a considerable Argument which reaches all the Orders of Spirits indifferently The last Order falls not only under the knowledge of more abstracted Reason but also under Experience it self For that there is a Spirit in the Body of Man is evident to us because we find such Operations in us as are incompetible to Matter if we more closely and considerately examine them This Spirit that thus acts in us is called a Soul But that there is some such analogical Principle in the Aereal or Aethereal Genii the actions and conditions of some of them do confirm For if their Nature were not such as we have described that is if they did not inhabit and vitally actuate corporeal Vehicles how could they ever sin or fall For it is out of the conjunction of these two Principles Spirit and Vehicle that there ever could be brought in any inward Temptation Distraction or Confusion in any of the Orders of the Genii or Angels But Pure and Simple Abstract Beings seem utterly Impassible and therefore Impeccable Wherefore it is very highly probable That all fallen Angels which we ordinarily call Devils are of the Fourth Order of Spirits which we have described 3. Which Spirits of the Genii fallen or not fallen notoriously differ from these Spirits of men in that they are not capable of informing an Humane or Terrestrial Body and therefore bear themselves above them as a Superior Being and out of their pride and scorn have ever since their fall either by fraud or force universally entangled poor contemptible Mankinde in sundry performances of Idolatrous worship unto them which they could not have done if men were not lapsed as well as they Wherefore the Pagans Superstitions and the History of Witches will make good that there are Devils and that they are of that nature we speak of 4. And I think this being evinced no man will question but that there are also Good Angels to conflict with and moderate the Bad. For God will not let the great Automaton of the Universe be so imperfect as to be forced to step out perpetually himself to do that which some Noble part of his Creation might perform nor set those things one against another that are quite of another kinde Besides those Philosophers that have wrote of these things with most judgment do not easily conclude That there are any other created Intellectual Beings but such as are capable of being vitally united with some Vehicle or other Which if it were true is nothing prejudicial to us the admission of the Three First Orders being little or nothing serviceable to our design And lastly it is improbable but that the Fall of the Angels being from a Free principle as some fell so others stood and that there has ever been since their fall both Good and Bad Angels in the world in that sense as I have explained the Nature of the Angels or Genii whether Good or Bad. CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal life and forsaking the Divine 2. The Fifth That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent 3. The Sixth That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life 4. The Seventh That the Souls of Men are immortal and act and live after death The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception 6. The scope and meaning of External Organs of Sense in this Earthly Body 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle 8. And lastly The accuracy of Divine Providence 1. WE add Fourthly That these Angels before their Fall had a twofold Principle of Life in them Divine and Animal and that their Fall consisted in this In leaving their obedience to the DIVINE LIFE and wholy betaking themselves to the ANIMAL LIFE without rule or measure 2. Fifthly That this Rebellion had an effect upon their Vehicles and changed their pure Aethereal Bodies into more Feculent and Terrestrial understanding Terrestrial in as large a sense as Cartesius does which will take in the whole Atmosphere They have forfeited therefore these more resplendent mansions for this obscure and caliginous Air they wander in and have now in
their polluted Vehicles less of Heaven then the meanest Regenerate Soul that dwels in these Tabernacles of Earth and that of the Prophet is most true of them that their Sun is gone down at mid-day 3. Sixthly That the Destruction of these Aethereal Vehicles was not an utter Extinction of life to them but onely an Exclusion from the life and pleasures of that Supernal Paradise which they enjoyed in those Heavenly Vehicles For that they now live and move and act is manifest in that the whole World rings of their exploits and villanies 4. Seventhly That the Souls of men which are as much Immortall they being Spirits as those of the faln Angels are are not devoid of life after the death of this Body For as the Souls of the fallen Angels descended from thinner to thicker without the loss of Sense and Life so do our Souls ascend from thicker to thinner habitations with the like if not greater security of acting and living after the Death of the Body 5. Which we shall the easilier believe if we consider how contemptible and homely a thing that Organ is which is the ultimate and immediate conveigher of whatever we perceive in the outward world and which is most remarkable in which alone the Soul has any Sense at all of any thing that arrives to her cognoscence Which if it be not the Animal Spirits within the Brain which makes most of all for us I confess with Cartesius I think it most probable to be the Conarion then which nor Water nor Air nor Aether nor any other Element else seems more Simple and Homogeneal So that the advantage seems not to be in the nature of that Organ but it is because the Soul by those lawes that brought her into the Body has placed her Centre of Perception there 6. Which little Pavilion of the Soul's Centre of Perception being of so gross consistence as it is and becoming thereby less Passive and Alterable it was very requisite that there should be that curious frame of the external Organs of the Eye the Ear the Nose and other parts to strengthen those motions and impressions that they transmit so that they may be able forcibly enough to strike upon the Conarion or at least strike through the Organs and penetrate to the Animal Spirits in the Brain supposing them the most inward and immediate Organ of Perception And that the Conformation of the external Organs of Sense is such that they are to admiration fitted to this end is a thing so well known amongst the Anatomists that I need not insist on the proof of it as it is also among Physitians That none of the external Organs have any Sense at all in them no more then an Acousticon or a Dioptrick glass From whence is discovered the Unreasonableness of their Despair that conceit that when the Soul is devested of her Organical Body she can have no Sense nor Perception of any thing For this curious Organization tends to nothing else but the proportionating the vigour of Motion to the difficulty of its passage through the Nerves or to the grossness of the consistency of the Conarion Which Organical contrivance therefore may not be at all needfull in the Soul separate from the Body the Centre of Perception being placed bare in a more tender and passive Element such as Air Aether and the like So that it will be the greatest wonder in the world that the Soul should sleep after death so small a thing being able to waken her 7. Besides it is not Unreasonable but that She and other Spirits though they have no set Organs yet for more distinct and full perception of Objects may frame the Element they are in into temporary Organization and that with as much ease and swiftness as we can dilate and contract the pupil of our Eye and bring back or put forward the Crystalline humor 8. And not only to respect the Natures of Humane Souls but also the Will and Purpose of God there was never any yet that pretended to knowledge in Philosophy that denied the Immortality of the Soul in this sense which we contend for but they deni'd first a Particular Divine Providence which for my own part I think it is impossible for any one to deny that will diligently and indifferently search into the matter And therefore this Seventh Assertion may very well stand That the Souls of men are Immortal and act and live after Death Of this Subject I have wrote more lately and more fully in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul to which the Reader may have recourse CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion THE Eighth Assertion is That every Angel Good or Bad is as truly a Person as a man being endued also with Life Sense and Understanding whence they are likewise capable of Ioy and Pain and therefore coercible by Laws And mutual Helps being able to procure what Solitude cannot they must of necessity be Sociable and hold together in Bodies Politick and obey for either hope of advantage or fear of mischief Out of the whole masse therefore of the Angelical Nature taking in also according to Philo the Souls of men be they in what Vehicles they will there arise since their Fall two distinct Kingdoms the one of Darkness whose Laws reach no further then to the Interest of the Animal life the other of Light which is the true Kingdom of God and here the Animal life is in subjection and the Divine life bears rule as the Divine life is trodden down in the other Kingdom and the Animal life has the sole Jurisdiction 2. Now the inward life and spring of Motion in each Kingdom being so different it follows that these two Kingdoms must alwaies be at odds and that there must be a perpetual conflict till victory Which we shall still more easily conceive if we admit what is very reasonable That the Kingdom of Light reaches from Heaven to Earth that is That as there are found on the same surface of the Earth Animals both wilde and gentle harmless and poisonous and men good and bad pious and impious so likewise even in the same Regions of the Air that there are scatter'd Spirits of both Kindes good and evil Subjects of the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light In the order of those Aereal Angels the ancient Philosophers ranked the Souls of men deceased whether Vertuous or Wicked unless they had reached to an extraordinary and Heroical degree of Purity and Perfection for then they conceited that they were carried up to those more high and Aethereal Regions 3. Ninthly That there
are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial belonging to the Kingdom of Darkness that either absolutely deny God or at least particular Providence and look upon the Divine life as a tedious and troublesome phansie and destitute of all future reward and if there be any present contentment in it they reckon it amongst such as accrews to men mad and distracted whose Imagination makes them many a fools Paradise to please themselves in and so say they does this Religious Lunacy to them that are tainted with it it having neither any real Object nor solid fruits but what a beguiled Phansy mocks their superstitious minds withall And though these Rebels may be well enough seen in the knowledge of Nature and Mathematical subtilties as also in all manner of Craft and State-policy yet their desires being so fully lulled asleep to all Divine things they can neither excogitate ought themselves nor allow of any Reasons from others whereby they might be brought off from that state of Darkness and Rebellion they are in to the true worship of the living God Nay it is probable they are obdurated to that height of boldness that they think themselves able to grapple with the Powers of the Kingdom of Light and that Superiority was theirs of old and is yet their due and may come into their hands again and that their Chieftain is the elder brother though cast thus low by the envy of the yonger which was the wilde conceit of the Euchites Ophites or Satanians CHAP. VI 1. His Tenth Assertion That there will be a finall Overthrow of the Dark Kingdome and that in a supernatural manner and upon their external persons 2. The Eleventh That the Generations of men had a beginning and will also have an end 3. To which also the Conflagration of the world gives witness 1. NOW in the Tenth place it is very uncouth and unusual that so resolved and unreconcileable opposition as there is betwixt the Two Kingdomes we speak of should not end at last in some signal overthrow with Victory on the one part or other But besides the undeniable right and justness of the cause which the Powers of the Kingdome of Light contend for will not onely procure of Him that fits Judge an End to their toyle and conflict but they will certainly carry it on their side and that not onely in a still Mystical Allegorical sense which these Atheistical Spirits will have no sense at all of nor any perception for they will resolve all into Nature Policy and good Fortune it may be into some more then ordinary influence of the Starres that begin to set a golden Age on foot again so little would a Reign of righteous men upon Earth convince the obdurately wicked but by a powerful Miraculous appearance whereby they shall be confounded in their outward Senses there being nothing else left for Divine Providence to work upon the Divine life and touch of Conscience being utterly lost in them and their Reason being perfectly lulled asleep to whatsoever concerns the true Knowledge of God and duties of Religion 2. Eleventhly The Generations of men had a beginning and will also have an end That they had a beginning is the general consent of all Philosophers Poets and Historians The Aristoteleans indeed dissent but upon such weak grounds that it is not worth the while to confute them But Cartesius his Philosophy is so favourable to this Opinion that necessarily it inferrs it Besides the History of Nature seems to confess it in that the Earth cannot bring forth such perfect Animals as she did at first as Lucretius has noted Lib. 2. de Rerum Natura Iamque adeo fracta est Aetas effoetaque Tellus Vix animalia parva creat quae cuncta creavit Secla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu The Earth who of her self at first brought forth Huge lusty men of Stature big and bold And large-limb'd beasts she grown effete and old Hardly bears small ones now and little worth Which as it must needs be an infallible sign of her Age so it is also of her once being young and having a beginning 3. Now besides that Axiom in Philosophy That what has a beginning will also have an end That Generation shall at last cease upon the face of the earth that ancient fame of the Conflagration of the world gives further witness to Of which direfull fate the Sibylls have sung long since and Pythagoras and Heraclitus given Testimony whom Ovid also has followed And the Stoicks men slow enough to believe great things upon slight grounds have taken it into their Philosophy adding also that the Souls of men subsist till then but that at the last they are extinguished in this Final Conflagration Others phansy a more benigne use of this Fire that it shall purge and fertilize the Earth and prepare it for a more happy Habitation as if the Divine Nemesis had a kinde design for the whole when she seems so cruelly severe to some part of the Creatures and that she did in this not onely an act of Iustice but of skilfull Husbandry burning up the barren ground with all the vermine therein to make the Field the more fruitfull according to that of Virgil in his Georgicks Saepe etiam steriles incendere profuit agros Atque levem stipulam crepitantibus urere flammis Sive inde occultas vires ac pabula terrae Pinguia concipiunt sive illis omne per ignem Excoquitur vitium atque exudat inutilis humor The fruitless field with its dry standing straw 'T is fit sometimes to burn with crackling fire For whether hence the Earth hid virtue draw And oyly moisture or she doth perspire And sweat out all corruption by this Law The bettered soil answers the swain's desire But God forbid that any mortall man should be so bold and unwise as to profess he understands so profound a Mystery of Providence All that I aime at is this That it is not onely the Opinion of Christians but of ancient Heathens and Jews that the Earth at length will be all set on fire and that there will be a period put to this present stage of things which I shall make a solid use of in the behalf of our Religion against them both CHAP. VII 1. His Twelfth Assertion That there will be a Visible and Supernatural deliverance of the Children of the Kingdome of Light at the Conflagration of the World 2. The Reason of the Assertion 3. His Thirteenth Assertion That the last vengeance and deliverance shall be so contrived as may be best fit for the Triumph of the Divine life over the Animal life 4. Whence it is most reasonable the Chieftain of the Kingdome of Light should be rather an Humane Soul then an Angel 5. His last Assertion an Inference from the former and a brief Description of the General nature of Christianity 1. MY Twelfth Assertion is That there shall not onely be a sensible
The three Branches from this Root Humility Charity and Purity and why they are called Divine 3. A Description of Humility 4. A Description of Charity and how Civil Justice or Moral Honesty is eminently contained therein 5. A Description of Purity and how it eminently contains in it what ever Moral Temperance or Fortitude pretend to 6. A Description of the truest Fortitude 7. And how transcendent an Example thereof our Saviour was 8. A further representation of the stupendious Fortitude of our Saviour 9. That Moral Prudence also is necessarily comprized in the Divine life 10. That the Divine life is the truest Key to the Mystery of Christianity but the excellency thereof unconceivable to those that do not partake of it 1. AND now I have advanced the Animal life so high by adding this Middle Nature to it that you may perhaps marvail upon what I shall pitch that may seem more precious and desirable unless it be some wonder-working Faith whereby a man might cast out Devils and command mountains to remove and be carried into the midst of the Sea But it is so far from proving any such like priviledge that the Tumour of the natural Spirit of man would please it self in that I am afraid when I shall describe it he will have no relish at all of it scarce understand what I mean and if he do yet he will look upon it as a dry insipid Notion without any fruit or pleasure therein But however I will declare it to him as well as I can and that nothing may be wanting I shall First give a short glance at the Root of this Divine life also which is an Obediential Faith and Affiance in the true God the Maker and Original of all things From this Faith Apostate Angels and lapsed Mankind are fallen but the Soul of the Messias ever stood upright wading through the deepest Temptations that humane Nature could be encumbred with 2. But this Holy and Divine life to such as have an eye to see will be most perceptible in the Branches thereof though to the Natural man they will look very witheredly and contemptibly These Branches are Three whose names though trivial and vulgar yet if rightly understood they bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be pronounced by the tongue of men or Seraphims and in brief they are these Charity Humility and Purity which where-ever they are found are the sure and infallible marks or signes of either an unfallen Angel or a Regenerate Soul These we call Divine Vertues not so much because they imitate in some things the Holy Attributes of the Eternal Deity but because they are such as are proper to a Creature to whom God communicates his own nature so far forth as it is capable of receiving it whether that Creature be Man or Angel and so becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For such a Creature as this and Christ was such a Creature in the highest manner conceivable has conspicuously in it these three Divine Vertues namely Humility Charity and Purity 3. By Humility I understand such a Spirit or gracious property in the Soul of man or any Intellectual Creature as that hereby he does sensibly and affectionately attribute all that he has or is or can do to God the Author and Giver of every good and perfect gift This is the highest piece of Holiness and the truest and most acceptable sacrifice we can offer to God thus lively and freely to acknowledge that all we have is from him From whence we do not arrogate any thing to our selves nor contemptuously lord it over others In this Grace is comprehended an ingenuous Gratitude which is the freest and most Noble kind of Iustice that is A full renouncing of all Self-dependency a firm and profound Submission to the Will of God in all things and a Disgust or at least a Deadness to the glory of the World and the applause of men 4. By Charity I understand an Intellectual Love by which we are enamoured of the Divine Perfections such as his Goodness Equity Benignity his Wisdome also his Iustice and his Power as they are graciously actuated and modified by the forenamed Attributes And I say that to be truly transformed into these Divine Perfections so far forth as they are communicable to Humane nature and out of the real sense of them in our selves to love and admire God in whom they infinitely and unmeasurably reside is the truest and highest kind of Adoration and the most grateful Praising and Glorifying God that the Soul of man can exhibit to her Maker But in being thus transformed into this Divine image of Intellectual Love our Mindes are not onely raised in holy Devotions towards God but descend also in very full and free streams of dearest Affection to our fellow-Creatures rejoycing in their good as if it were our own and compassionating their misery as if it were our selves did suffer and according to our best judgement and power ever endeavoring to promote the one and to remove the other And this most eminently conteins in it whatever good is driven at by Civil Iustice or Moral Honesty For how should we injure those for whose real welfare we could be content to die 5. By Purity I understand a due moderation and rule over all the Joyes and Pleasures of the Flesh bearing so strict an hand and having so watchful an eye over their subtil enticements allurements and so firme and loyal affection to that Idea of Celestial Beauty set up in our Mindes that neither the Pains of the Body nor the Pleasures of the Animal life shall ever work us below our Spiritual Happiness and all the competible enjoyments of that life that is truly Divine And in this conspicuously is contain'd whatever either Moral Temperance or Fortitude can pretend to For ordinarily he is held Temperate enough that can but save his brains from gross sottishness and his Body from diseases but this Purity respects the Divine life it self and requires such a Moderation in all the affairs of the Flesh that our Bodies may still remain unpolluted Temples and meet Habitations for the Spirit of God to dwell in and act in whether by way of Illumination or Sanctification and Animation to interiour duties of Holiness And as for Fortitude it is plain that this Purity of the Soul having mortified and tamed the exorbitant lusts and pleasures of the Body Death will seem less formidable by far and this mortal Life of lesser value 6. But the greatest Fortitude of all is when Love proves stronger then Death it self even in the deepest and most bitter sense of it and not so much the weakness and insensibleness of the Body nor yet the full carreer or furious heat and hurry of the naturall Spirits makes Pain and Death more tolerable but the pure courage of the Soul her self animated onely by an unrelinquishable
a generous sense of Political Iustice a severe profession of Temperance and a great affectation of Knowledge especially of things to come But as for Political Iustice and Civil Agreement and Concord which he seems often to be very sensible of and earnestly to exhort the Cities to where he went no less then this can be entertained in the very Kingdome of Satan which if it were divided against it self could not stand And for his vehement affectation of Knowledge it is evident that it is a mere branch of the Natural life and such as is as competible to the Apostate Spirits nay more by far then to an ordinary good man and Apollonius his Temperance aiming but at this which is so low and vile how far short does it fall of what is truely Heavenly and Divine This therefore is observable in him that if he quitted one Entanglement of the Animal life it was the more fully and willingly to be fettered by another 3. But the strongest chain of darkness that he was caught in is that of Pride which though it be made of more subtil and small links yet holds us longer captive then any This is that which blemishes the History of his Life more then any Immorality else whatsoever For to what but this can be reduced that scornfull and ridiculous Prayer he made to Apollo at Antioch that he would turn the countrey-people into Cypress-trees that the winde taking their branches they might at least by that means make some sound they being as yet quite mute and not able to discourse with so sage a Philosopher To what but this can we impute that magnificent answer he gave the keeper of the bridge as he passed into Mesopotamia when he was demanded what merchandizes he brought To whom he reply'd That he brought along with him Iustice Temperance Fortitude Continence Tolerance Magnanimity and Constancy He addes Modesty to the rest but it was ill plac'd in so flaunting a display of his own praises To what but this can you referre his cavilling with the sober questions ask'd him by the Captain of the guards on the confines of Babylon where he takes upon him as if himself was King of every country he came into 4. But what need we recite particulars his whole Life being nothing else but a lofty strutting on the stage of the Earth or an industrious trotting from one Nation of the World to another to gather Honour and Applause to himself by correcting the Customes of the Heathen or renewing their fallen Rites and playing the uncontrollable Reformer whereever he pleas'd Which is a very pleasant thing to flesh and bloud Besides the bold visits he gave to Princes and Potentates with the greatest confidence and ostentation of his own Vertues that could be imagined making himself the measure of others worth insomuch that he would not do the ordinary homage to Bardanes King of Babylon til he was certified whether his Vertues deserved it or no. With whom as also with other Princes he treated of Political affairs not detrecting to intermeddle with the present administration of Justice But this unexpected audacity of his proved ever succesful he alwaies by I know not what luck or power swaggering himself into Respect by despising the both pomp and persons of the greatest So that he was ever haile fellow well met with the highest Kings and Emperours they being ever taken with great admiration of his Wisdome And therefore Bardanes is brought in in the Story courting of him at last and earnestly intreating the beggerly Philosopher to take his lodging in his Palace shewing him all the glory and pomp of his Kingdome offering him great summes of gold and precious stones The former whereof though he refused yet he could not well abstain from fingering the latter under pretence forsooth that there was some strange Philosophick virtue in them as also that they should be an offering to the Gods at their return into their own country 5. So also Phraotes King of India is said to receive him with very great Respect he carrying him to bathe himself in his Royal bath and after receiving him at a Feast and placing him next himself above his Nobles Beside the great Honour he had from Iarchas and the rest of the Brachmans to whom the King of India wrote in his behalf Where in conference with those Sages he was plac'd in Phraotes his chair of State forbad also to rise up at the coming in of the King of Media with whom at that banquet which I have already mentioned he having some contestation the King became at last so much his friend that he was almost uncivilly importunate to see him at his own Court in Media at his return 6. Adde unto these his busy intermedling in the affairs of the Roman Empire his large Political conferences with Vespasian his abetting conspiracies against Nero and Domitian his learned discourses with the Babylonian Magi concerning whom he told Damis that they were not so perfect but that they wanted the benefit of some of his instructions as he confessed that something he learned from them his campling and cavilling with the Gymnosophists who though they seemed not so great Wizzards yet were not less vertuous then either the Brachmans or himself and lastly his plausible language and great Eloquence he making in several places very winning Orations and Exhortations to Morality and the observance of the most behooffull Laws and Institutes such as would tend most to Civility and the Peace and Security of the People 7. From all which it is most evident That a naturall sense of Honour and Gallantry was the wing and Spirit that made Apollonius such a great stickler in his time and that he being of a lofty and generous nature apt to reach out at high things the Kingdome of darkness hook'd him in to make an Instrument of him for their own turn and so to dress up Paganism in the best attire they could to make it if it were possible to vie with Christianity and that there should be nothing wanting to this Corrival of Christ the Indian Brachmans pronounced him of that eminency that he deserved to be reputed and honoured as a Deity both living and dead as I have already related to you 8. But if the Excellency of his Person be better examined he will be found so far from being in the rank of a God that there can be no more acknowledged of him then that he was of the better sort of Beasts that is that he was a mere natural man onely dressed up and disguised by his Pythagorick diet and habit and a Magical power of doing of Miracles as is demonstrable from the whole tenour of his Story there being nothing in it that relishes or savours what is above the Animal life From whence we may safely conclude there is nothing in him Divine CHAP. XII 1. The Contrariety of the Spirit of Christ to that of Apollonius 2. That the History of Apollonius be it true or
concerning the Contempt of Death that he so gravely imparts to Damis and Demetrius encouraging them to suffer any thing for the cause of Philosophy hypocritical and ridiculous So whifling and ludicrous is every thing of Apollonius if compared with that solid Truth and real Excellency that is discoverable in Christ. BOOK V. CHAP. I. 1. Of the Resurrection of Christ and how much his eye was fixed upon that Event 2. The chief Importance of Christ's Resurrection 3. The World excited by the Miracles of Christ the more narrowly to consider the Divine quality of his Person whom the more they looked upon the more they disliked 4. Whence they misinterpreted and eluded all the force and conviction of all his Miracles 5. Gods upbraiding of the World with their gross Ignorance by the raising him from the dead whom they thus vilified and contemned 6. Christ's Resurrection an assurance of man's Immortality 1. WE have done with the Passion of Christ we come now to his Resurrection and Ascension and First his Resurrection Concerning which it is observable That our Saviour's eye was fix'd upon nothing more then it He prophesying of it in his life-time under that Parable of destroying the Temple and then raising of it up within three daies meaning the Temple of his body as also in the application of that strange Accident that befell Ionas For as Jonas was three daies and three nights in the Whales belly so the son of man should be three daies and three nights in the belly of he Earth He deferred also the divulging of his Transfiguration in the mount till his Resurrection as not being of any such efficacy to beget Faith in the people till this also had happened unto him 2. Now the grand importance of this so wonderfull an Accident consists chiefly in these Three things First In that it is a very eminent Triumph of the Divine life in the Person of Christ. Secondly In that it is so plain an assurance of a blessed Immortality And Thirdly In that it is so sure a Seal and so clear a Conviction of the truth and warrantableness of all the Miracles Christ did in his life-time 3. That our Saviour Christ was the most illustrious Example of the Divine life that ever appeared in the world cannot be denied by any but such as are blinde and have no eyes to behold that kind of splendour But that the judgement of the world might be the more notoriously baffled God assisted this Divine worth with many strange Miracles that they might more fixedly and considerately contemplate this so holy and lovely a person But the more it seems they looked upon him the more they disliked him the whole World being so deeply lapsed into the Animal life the Jews themselves not excâ—pted that they had no knowledge nor relish of the Divine Nay they had an Antipathy against him as the wise man expresses it He is grievous unto us even to behold His life is not like unto other mens his waies are of another fashion He was made to reprove our thoughts 4. Wherefore they having so settled an hatred against him all the Miracles that he did or whatsoever happened miraculously unto him did but set a more venemous edge of their spleen against him From whence it was easie for them to misinterpret and elude every thing imputing his casting out Devils to a contract with Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils The Testimony from Heaven That he was the Son of God to the delusion of evil Spirits that would lapse them into Idolatry His feeding the multitudes in the Wilderness to Witchcraft and Sorcecery and his raising of men from the dead to the nature of some Lethargical or obstupifying disease that may seem to make a man devoid of life for four daies together The Eclipse of the Sun indeed was a very strange thing if the darkness was in the Sun it self but they might remember at least from the relations of others that it was strangely obscured for a whole year together about the death of Iulius Caesar and so interpret this at the Passion as a mere casual coincidence of things or that some delusive Spirits intercepted the light of the Sun in favour of the great Magician whom they thought just to crucifie betwixt those other two Malefactors 5. But he whom they numbred amongst the transgressours and took to be the vilest of men because he was not recommended by any thing that the Animal life likes and applauds as Nobleness of Birth the power of popular Eloquence Honour Wealth Authority high Education Beauty Courtship Pleasantness of Conversation and the like he is I say notwithstanding this general contempt from men very highly prized by him who is the infallible Judge whose waies are not as our waies nor his thoughts as our thoughts But that he might conform our apprehensions to his own raised Iesus Christ from the dead bringing that passive contemptible Divinity that lodged in him into a deserved victory and triumph exprobrating to the blind world the ignorance of that Life that is most dear and precious to himself making him alive whom they maliciously killed and preparing a way to an universal Homage for him who was universally scorned and became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the off-scouring of all though his Spirit Life and Nature was of more worth then all the things of the World beside 6. Nor is this Resurrection of Christ only a particular honour and high Testimony given to the person of Christ who was so splendid an Habitation of the Divine life but it is also an assurance of a blessed Immortality to all those that will adventure to follow his Example that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. And therefore he is not said here to rise alone but in token of what a general concernment his Resurrection was the Monuments of some lately-deceased Souls flew open and themselves appeared to several in the Holy City Which things were a palpable Prohetical prefiguration of that blessed Immortality that Christ has purchased for all men that believe in him and obey him CHAP. II. 1. The last End of Christ's Resurrection the Confirmation of his whole Ministry 2. How it could be that those chief Priests and Rulers that hired the Souldiers to give out that the Disciples of Christ stole his body away were not rather converted to believe he was the Messias 3. How it can be evinced that Christ did really rise from the dead and that it was not the delusion of the some deceitfull Daemons 4. The first and second Answer 5. The third Answer 6. the fourth Answer 7. The fifth Answer 8. The sixth and last Answer 9. That his appearing and disappearing at pleasure after his Resurrection is no argument but that he was risen with the same Body that was laid in the grave 1. THE last End of Christ's Resurrection is the Confirmation of his whole Ministry For assuredly the Jews dealt with him as with some
utmost of that Light which was in those two grand Boasters which compar'd with that in Christ bears not so much proportion as the flame of a stinking Lamp to the glorious lustre of the Sun Insomuch that if they had not been both by themselves and others either equalized to or preferred before our Saviour I should not so much as have vouchsafed to have made any Comparison betwixt them or ever to have mentioned them in my Writings CHAP. IX 1. Mahomet far more orthodox in the main points of Religion then the above-named Impostours 2. The high pitch this pretended Prophet sets himself at His journey to Heaven being waited upon by the Angel Gabriel His Beast Alborach and of his being called to by two Women by the way with the Angels interpretation thereof 3. His arrival at the Temple at Jerusalem and the reverence done to him there by all the Prophets and holy Messengers of God that ever had been in the world 4. The crafty political meaning of the Vision hitherto 5. Mahomet bearing himself upon the Angel Gabriel's hand climbes up to Heaven on a Ladder of Divine light His passing through Seven Heavens and his commending of himself to Christ in the Seventh 6. His salutation of his Creatour with the stupendious circumstances thereof 7. Five special favours he received from God at that congress 8. Of the natural wilyness in Enthusiasts and of their subtile pride where they would seem most humble The strange advantage of Enthusiasme with the rude multitude 9. And the wonderfull success thereof in Mahomet Other Enthusiasts as proud as Mahomet but not so successfull and why 1. THE Third pretended Prophet and Head of the Nations is Mahomet who though he haply be not so moralized a man or at least not so cautious as these Two we last spoke of but more openly entangled in the pleasures of the Flesh if he be not belied then these two Sadducees were and more able to enjoy himself in those pleasures yet be it luck or choice or mere policy he seems more orthodox in the grand points of Religion then they he holding not only the Existence of a God and of Angels and Spirits but also the Immortality of the Soul and a solemn Judgment to come wherein every man shall receive according to what he has done in the flesh whether it be good or evil 2. The Success of this pretender has been so wonderfully great in the world that I think it not amiss to make somewhat a longer stay upon him then upon the two former We shall therefore take notice what pitch he sets himself at and after endeavour to level him and reduce him to his due place If we will then believe his own testimony we shall find him so much favoured by God and the Heavenly Powers as to be carried up into the highest Heavens at least by Vision But he tells the story of himself as if it was a real transaction viz. That once about midnight the Angel Gabriel knocked at his door and told him that he should travail up to Heaven for God Almighty would speak with him That the Angel brought along with him a milkùwhite Beast called Alborach something bigger then an Ass but less then a Mule which the Angel bad Mahomet get upon but the Beast kicking and refusing his Rider the Angel asked him why he did so for he never did nor ever could receive upon his back a better man then Mahomet But Alborach answered he would not admit him unless he would promise to procure him an entrance into Paradise which Mahomet promising he got up and the Angel led the Beast by the rains of the bridle till they were come to Ierusalem Now as they were in their way upon their journey Mahomet heard the voice of a certain woman crying to him aloud Mahomet Mahomet but the Angel forbad him to answer and when they had gone further another woman called him after the same manner but the Angel commanded him to hold his peace And that afterward he asked the Angel what these women were to which the Angel replied that the First was the Promulgatress of the Iewish the Second of the Christian law and that if he had answered to the first woman all the Mauri had become Iews if to the second Christians 3. When they had come to the gate of the Temple at Ierusalem that Mahomet lighted off from his beast Alborach and that he and the Angel went into the Temple where all the Prophets and Messengers of God that ever came into the world met him and saluted him saying Ioy to the Messenger and honourable Prophet of God Afterwards waiting on him in great pomp to the Chappell Mihrab with much reverence they desired him that he would pray for them all which when he had done they besought him also that he would be mindfull of them when he came into the presence of God This done they all went away and Mahomet and the Angel were left alone in the Temple 4. By which crafty figment Mahomet assuredly meant nothing else but a justification of himself for beginning a Third Sect distinct from the Religions of Iews and Christians and the recommendation of himself to the World as the greatest Prophet that ever yet appeared on earth But we are not come to the height of the Vision yet 5. The Angel and Mahomet afterwards coming out of the Temple found a Ladder made of Divine light which reached from Earth to Heaven whereby they both Mahomet bearing himself upon the Angels hand ascended up thither passing through seven Heavens The first of pure Silver where Adam was the second of Gold where Noah the third of a certain precious Gemme wherein was Abraham the fourth of Smaragdus wherein Ioseph the fifth of Adamant wherein Moses the sixth of Carbuncle wherein Iohn the Baptist was found and the seventh of Celestial light wherein was Iesus Christ. All these venerable personages welcomed Mahomet with loving salutations and kind embraces and commended themselves to him but in the seventh Heaven Mahomet seems to commend himself to Christ. The infinite numbers monstrous figures and immense bignesse of Angels that he sets off his Vision by for the greater astonishment of his Followers I thought good to omit as being too vile and tedious and he is not got to his journies end yet 6. The Angel Gabriel takes leave of him in this seventh heaven telling him he may goe no further with him but that God alone now must be his guide Mahomet therefore holding on his journie was carried on the tops of incredible heights and sublimities wading through much water and deep snow insomuch that he had been quite spent had not a voice refreshed him saying Mahomet come hither and salute thy Creatour He following therefore the sound of this voice saw so great a Light that he was almost blinded therewith For the Face of God was cover'd with veiles of Celestial light seventy miles thick to which he approached within the space
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
gross Parachronism For it is plain this Spouse is to be married to Christ after the destruction of the City by fire as it appears both by the order of these Visions and by chap. 19. v. 2 3. But the burning of Rome by Totilas was after Constantine's time The beginning of the Millennium Grotius affixes to an Edict of Constantine's which Eusebius speaks of and wherein there is mention made of the Ligation of Satan This makes a pretty shew as also his interpreting the reign of the Martyrs with Christ of that honour they had done them at their Monuments But it is to be considered in how short a time that honour was turned into Idolatrous reproach as also how the thousand years according to his account are expired above three hundred years agoe from whence commences the Devil's being let loose Which we cannot term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little time in respect of the Millennium it being no less then a third part and it is no good sense if it be not understood in respect of it But which is still worse while he interprets the Devil's being let loose of the invasion of the Ottoman Family upon Christendome he reminds us of the great victories the Saracens had who were as very Devils as the Turks and yet had vexed the Christian world much before the year 800. So that according to this account the Devil was let loose in the midst of the Millennium and has been loose almost a Millennium already which therefore in respect of the Millennium cannot be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon this false Hypothesis hangs the conceit of the Turks besieging Constantinople to be the begirting of the holy City by the numerous armies of Gog and Magog For the Greeks themselves styled Constantinople New Sion as Grotius has noted But it is plain the Exposition is a mere hallucination because the holy and beloved City in the Prophecie is not taken God interposing by fire from Heaven and sweeping all away by that finall judgement But the Turks have taken this Sion and have peaceably possessed it these two hundred years I shall conclude with the new Ierusalem the Lambs Bride adorned for her husband which Grotius interprets of the Catholick Church made now more splendid with outward ornaments by the care and cost of Princes Which in my apprehension is no good sense Marriage rather signifying the bringing in some people to Christ that were not united to him before or at least the appearing of a people that was before hid then the external adorning of them that were already the known and professed people of Christ. Besides that the times that Grotius points at are the most unlike that new Ierusalem which is the Church recovered to her Apostolical Symmetry again and to be measured by the golden reed of the Angel and which runs all upon Twelves to shew that it is purely Apostolick and has no other foundation nor structure then Christ and his Apostles For the whole solid Content thereof Length Breadth and Height is twelve thousand furlongs the breadth of the wall also and the height thereof is measured by Twelve So that there is nothing in this new Ierusalem but what is pure and Apostolical which is not so in the garishly-adorned Church that Grotius looks at Besides that it is said there was no Temple there whenas every Church is a Temple under the Roman Hierarchie 10. I might have examined his Expositions of the Vials also with other passages wherein I could have discovered the like errours and mistakes But what I have instanced in already is sufficient to shew upon what unnatural distorted nay I may say impossible applications they are cast that would attempt the interpreting of the Apocalypse without the guide of Synchronisms taken from the innate Characters of the Visions themselves but by the benefit of that Guide how easie and natural sense is made of every Vision and how perfectly answerable to History and Events as is manifest in the Expositions of Mr. Mede Whom I have not preferred thus before Grotius out of any ill will or disrespect to that Miracle of his Age for Learning and Ingenuity but merely out of love to the Truth as I am verily perswaded Grotius has framed his Interpretations but withall which is a further commendation of him out of a very deep sense of the advantages of Peace and out of a Spirit of Sweetness Candor and Humanity for which I do believe him singular and eminent And verily if I were not conscious to my self that the very same spirit did in some measure act me in this discovery of his mistakes that did him in committing of them I mean the sense of Peace and Common good of the Church I had rather be in his Errors accompanied with Humanity and Kindness of Spirit then be in a Truth that must needs be attended with Salvageness Ferocity and Fury But as the Truth I stand for is above Grotius's mistakes so I hope the good of my design will not appear inferiour to his after you have considered the Benefit of Mr. Mede's interpretations of the Apocalypse as well as the Truth thereof CHAP. XVII 1. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not implie That most of the matters in the Apocalypse appertain to the Destruction of Jerusalem and to Rome Heathen 2. The important Usefulness of this Book for the evincing of a Particular Providence the Existence of Angels and the ratification of the highest points in Christianity 3. How excellent an Engine it is against the extravagancy and fury of Fanatick Enthusiasts 4. How the Mouths of the Iews and Atheists are stopped thereby 5. That it is a Mirrour to behold the nature of the Apostasie of the Roman Church in 6. And also for the Reformed Churches to examine themselves by whether they be quite emerged out of this Apostasie with the Author's scruple that makes him suspect they are not 7. What of Will-worship and Idolatry seems still to cleave to us 8. Further Information offered to us from the Vision of the slain Witnesses 9. The dangerous mistakes and purposes of some heated Meditatours upon the Fifth Monarchy 10. The most Usefull consideration of the approach of the Millennium and how the Time may be retarded if not forfeited by their faithlesness and hypocrisie who are most concerned to hasten on those good daies 1. AND truly the Benefit of the Apocalypse so interpreted as Mr. Mede has expounded it is invaluable For the Visions are so perfectly patly applicable to acknowledged History this way that he goes that he that will not believe the Prophecies fulfilled in those things he produces cannot believe the fulfilling of any Prophecies at all whenas on the other side if the Applications were no more weighty nor clearer and fitter then they are Grotius's way this Book of Prophecies would be utterly Useless it being in the power of no man that is not extremely credulous to be satisfied with
strife about their vain and useless Opinions and Ceremonies This I believe we will be prone enough to acknowledge against others namely in those dominions wherein Popery has so great a stroke but it is more to our advantage to examine also what is amiss at home For it does not follow because the Number of the Beast is not upon us that we do not Bestianize nor is it the purple spots but the disease that is mortiferous But the case is as if a man not yet knowing Sheep from Goats should be told that those in such a pasture that had such a Mark or figure upon them were Goats It were a fond thing for him to think that this mark or figure were so of the essence of a Goat but that when in another place he met with a creature so shaped of the like bigness and with such a cry as a Goat has he might take the boldness to pronounce that that was a Goat too though the abovesaid Marks were wanting Wherefore let us impartially consider whether we be yet pure Sheep or no. If the Witnesses be dead in both a Moral and Political sense amongst us that is if we follow the name or authority of any man and be ruled more by that then the plain Scriptures if we are not content with such a Faith as is plain out of them and was the Faith of the Church when it was Symmetral if by fulsome and course Antinomianisme by the doctrine of the Needlesness or Impossibility of being good and of living according to the Precepts of Christ we hinder the Scripture from being alive in us and by mingling conceits of our own and imperiously imposing of them upon others hazard with some the belief of the whole and keep others out of such place and authority as naturally falls to their share though never so cordial and exemplary Christians according to the old Symmetral pattern we having thus transgressed that holy ancient and Apostolick Number 12 by our new-fangled additions and adding also Persecution thereto do as certainly become or continue part of the Beast as the Goat is a Goat without the above-said mark and figure upon him Nor shall we ever be quit from the crime of slaying the Witnesses till we lay aside all heat and pride in preferring our own Opinions whereby we do but make void the weighty Precepts of Life and make the Commandments of God of none effect by our Traditions engaging the affections of the people in things that are unprofitable and inuring them to lie cool to the indispensable Law of Christ. Which is truely to slay the Witnesses and to let them lie stark dead in the streets And while those that govern govern for themselves and love to feel their own power and forget that the very Rule of their Government is the comfort and ennoblement of the spirits of the people that they may be free and knowing faithful Christians and Subjects and that whatever any one has it is given him for the good of another and not for the satisfaction of his own vain lusts while such miscarriages as these are in either Ministery or Magistracy Supreme or Subordinate in what measure these are in that measure is Moses and Aaron Zerobabel and Ieshua the Old Testament and the New Testament slain and cast out dead into the streets and all Power let it change into what frame it will but the playing of the Leviathan in the waters of the Sea making the deep boil before him and leaving an hoary tract of froth after him boasting himself in his Power and Title that he is the Prince of the children of Pride 9. Wherefore that Millennial Happiness that some men talk so loud of is not in demolishing of all Ranks and Orders of Superiority in Church or State which things are natural and necessary but in the right administration of affairs in both by those Orders of men Who if they would reform all things according to the Apostolick Rule and institute such a Discipline as would countenance the indispensable life of God not the unprofitable humors of rash and fallible men and every one in their rank would pay their duties of support and succour to the people that every man that is honest and vertuous might live according to his quality in a Christian comfortable way the Tributes of Honours and Titles to such Orders of men are but their just due and become as well usefull as ornamentall to the world It is therefore but a Fanatick or Satanick fury in such that under pretence of ushering in the Fifth Monarchy as they call it would destroy all Orders and Ranks in Church and State as if the Wrath of man could work the Righteousness of God when neither these Orders themselves have any unholiness in them nor the Persons haply in possession are less Saints then they that would pull them down For if the enriching a man's self by the destruction of others entitle a man to Saintship the greatest Robbers are in the readiest way to enter into the Holy of Holies But such Zelots as these what miserable Redeemers they are like to prove is too sadly prefigured by that Iewish faction at Ierusalem more intolerable by far to the Inhabitants then the Enemy that besieged them Wherefore the gaping after a Fifth Monarchy in this sense can be nothing else but the thirsting after spoil and bloud many men being stimulated thereto by the secret sting of the old Serpent in Envy to the Church of Christ hoping to root out the Gospel by destroying of setled Authority and by starving the Ministery and so to bring in a rabble of Fanatical Superstitions or Atheistical Prophanenesses The most certain prevention whereof in my judgment is the Reduction of the Church by those that are in Authority to such a frame as is purely Apostolical For then the constitution of things will be so sacred and unexceptionable that it will awe and keep off the Villainy and Boldness of such men that are otherwise encouraged by the conspicuous intermixture of things false Idolatrous and impious to flie against all at once and to rend all into pieces Besides that they row with the stream and the tide of Divine vengeance will carry them along which will ever and anon flow in upon the Church till a true and sincere Reformation For there is no Stability to be expected till that City be raised whose not only Foundation is laid in Twelve but whose Gates Tribes Angels the breadth and height of the wall and the solid Content of the whole City are nothing else but the Replication still of Twelve throughout that is to say till that Church appear that is purely Apostolical in Life and Doctrine 10. Which times being so very near at hand as appears by compute of Prophecie it should be a great encouragement for every one to look thither-ward and to shake off that Dulness and Lethargicalness that has possess'd the world so long as if it would never
Truth whose Foundation is no less firm then what is built upon these undeniable Grounds That there is a God and a Perfect and Particular Providence That there are Angels and Spirits of men really distinct from their Bodies and That the one as well as the other are lapsable Which things I have demonstrated partly in this present Treatise partly in other Writings and I appeal to all the World if they have any thing solid to oppose against what I have writ Moreover That this Lapse of Men and Angels is their forsaking of the Divine Life and wholy cleaving to the Animal without any curb or bounds whereby as well the fallen Angels or Devils as Man himself are become as much as respects the inward life mere Brutes being devoid of that touch and sense of the Divine Goodness And therefore their Empire is generally merely like that of the Beasts according to Lust and Power where the stronger rules with Pride and Insolency over the weaker and so the Devils being a degree above men of more wit and power then they it naturally falls to their shares to tyrannize over Mankind who were in the same condemnation with themselves having become Rebels to God as well as they 3. And it is but a piece of Wisdome and Justice in that great Judge and Dramatist God Almighty to permit this to be for a season And therefore the generality of the World were to be for a time under the Religion and Worship of Devils who were wild and enormous Recommenders of the mere Animal life to the sons of men without any bounds or limits themselves in the mean time receiving that tribute of abused Mortals which was most agreeable to their Pride and Tyrannical natures that is Religious Worship and Absolute Obedience as I have proved by many Examples in History 4. And that God should stand silent all this time is no wonder partly from what I have intimated already and partly because he is out of the reach of any real injury in all this as also because the Object of this irregular Fury of both Men and Devils in which they please themselves so much is but the Effect of that one Power from whence are all things or some shred or shadow of the Divine Attributes For I have shewn fully enough That all the Branches of the Animal life are good and laudable in themselves and that only the Unmeasurable Love and Use of them is the thing that is damnable The great Rebellion therefore of both Men and Angels is but a phrantick dotage upon the more obscure evanid and inconsiderable operations or manifestations of that Power which hoots into all 5. In this low condition is held the Kingdome of Darkness who maugre all their Lawlesness and Rebellion do ever lick the very dust of his feet from whom they have revolted For there is no Might nor Counsell against the Eternal God but his Will shall stand in all That all-comprehending Wisdome therefore was not outwitted by these Rebels but she suffered them to introduce a Darkness out of which herself would elicite a more marvellous and glorious Light and let them prime the tablet with more duskish colours on which she was resolved to pourtray the most illustrious beauty that the eyes of man could desire to look upon 6. And that there is a Lapse of Men and Angels is very manifest That of Man is so plain that not only the better sort of Philosophers such as the Pythagoreans and Platonists but the making of Laws and appointing of Punishments and mens general confession of their Proneness to Vice and Wickedness doth abundantly testifie And that there are wicked Spirits or evil Genii as well as good the Religion of the Pagans and the Confession of Witches and the Effects of them in the possessed are a sufficient argument 7. Now that Wisdome as I have said that orders all things sweetly is not in the least measure baffled by this Misadventure of the fall of Angels and Men but looks upon it as fit fuel for a more glorious triumph of the Divine Life And that noted Aphorisme amongst the Pythagoreans who laid no Principles for mean ends comes in fitly here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Worser is made for the service and advantage of the Better And the Kingdome of Darkness no question by Him that rules over all is very dextrously subordinated to the greater advantage of the Kingdome of Light it yielding them a due exercise of all their Faculties in the behalf of the Divine life which God most justly does magnifie above all things as also a most successfull victorie and triumph So that the Period of Ages ought to end so exact a Providence attending things as a very joyfull and pleasant Tragick Comedie This the Reason of man will expect upon supposition that there is a God and Providence as most certainly there is both especially if one quality of Souls and Spirits be better and more precious then another and the Divine life the most lovely Perfection of all 8. Which is as true as touch to all that have once tasted the Excellency of it and the Ignorance of the blinde is no argument against the certain Knowledge of them that see For one Soul Angel or Spirit though they may be the same in Substance as all Corporeal things are the same in Matter may differs as much from another as Gold Diamonds and Pearls do from common Dirt or Clay or the most exquisite Beauty from the horriblest Monster That therefore that is base shall be rejected and that which is precious and noble shall be gathered up in that day that the Lord shall make up his Jewels 9. And that there will be such a visible Day of Vengeance wherein the whole Earth shall burn with the wrath of God not only the common Fame throughout all Ages and Places of the Final Conflagration of the World and natural Reasons in Philosophy but also a necessity of some universal palpable and sensible Punishment on impudently-prophane and Atheistical People is a warrantable Inducement to believe 10. The great Good therefore that does arise out of this Revolt of Men and Angels is a setting the Activity of the Creation at an higher pitch and making the Emanations of all manner of Life felt more to the very quick exciting and employing all the Faculties and Passions of Souls and Spirits in a greater degree of life and motion with more vigilancy and a more favoury sense of acquired enjoiments then if there had been no such opposition betwixt the Light and Dark Kingdomes 11. Now therefore though God may seem at first to give the Dark Kingdome and Animal life the start of the Divine yet he is in due time by some very effectual means so to raise up so to back and assist the Divine Life against the Powers of Darkness that she may be found to have very visible Victories against the usurpation of Satan over the sons of men Wherefore
and more answerable to the very Phrase of Scripture he is accompanied with Angels as well as Saints some of his Elders being adorned with the glittering title of Seraphims as is to be seen in the Legend of his life entituled Mirabilia Dei as also in his Glass of Righteousness CHAP. XIII 1. An Examination of all possible Grounds of this fanatick Boaster's magnifying himself thus highly 2. That there are no Grounds thereof from either the Matter he delivers or from his Scriptural Eloquence Raptures and Allegories 3. The unspeakable Power and Profit of the Letter above that of the Allegorie instanced in the Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension of our Saviour and his coming again to Iudgement 4. That Allegorizing the Scripture is no special Divine gift but the fruit of either our Natural Phansie or Education 5. That he had no grounds of magnifying himself from any Miracles he did 6. Nor from being any Special Preacher of Perfection or Practiser thereof 7. Of that Imperfection that is seated in the impurity of the Astral Spirit and ungovernable tumult of Phansy in Fanatick Persons 1. BUT enough has been related to shew that transcendent esteem this Enthusiast had both of himself and also would insinuate into others of his own Person and Doctrine Let us now consider what Right or Ground he had to assume so much to himself or others may have to attribute so much unto him And to bring all the Inducements imaginable into view This high conceit of his of being so supereminent a Person must arise either from the Matter he does deliver or his Eloquence or the Raptures he was in when he penn'd down his Revelations as he would have them thought or from the Mysteriousness of his Allegories or from his Evangelizing the Perfection or lastly for that he was prophesied of in the Scriptures as he in whom all things should be fulfilled 2. Now for the main Matter he delivers plainly and above-bord it is the excellency of Love Which is so Essential a Truth to Christianity and plainly inculcated in the Gospel and so effectually recommended that there is no true Christian can miss of it So that we need no new Instructer in that divine Grace much less any inspired Prophet to teach us what is so plain to us already And therefore if there be any thing new in this doctrine of Love it must be such a kind of Love that is new to Christians I mean to true Christians but not to the Gnosticks nor the School of Simon Magus who spoke as magnificently of himself as this Impostor can do possibly And for his Scriptural Eloquence his Raptures and Transportations in the penning down his Writings how that such things arise frequently from Nature and Complexion is abundantly declared in my Enthusiasmus Triumphatus to say nothing of worser Assistences then mere Complexion as also the dexterity of Allegorizing which yet how distortedly he performs I shall note anon 3. In the mean time I hold it well worth our observation how giddy and injudicious those persons are that are so mightily taken with the Mystical sense of such parts of the History of Christ as are most profitable in the belief of the mere Letter such as his Passion Resurrection Ascension his Session at the right hand of God and his coming again to Iudgement when he will change these vile bodies of ours into the similitude of his Heavenly body For making this a mere Representation of something to be performed within us namely his Crucifixion of our mortifying of the old man his Resurrection of our rising to newness of life his Ascension into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God of our entrance into and rule and reign in the Heavenly Being with Christ in the Spirit and his Returning to Iudgement the judging and governing our natural and earthly man with Righteousness and Equity which Allegories or rather not so good is the deepest Wisdome and divinest Revelation that is to be found in this admired Prophet such Allusions I say and Similitudes as these have no more force nor efficacy to urge us or help us on to those Accomplishments they represent then if the History of Christ were a mere Fable But if in stead of making them Resemblances we should use them as Arguments from a true History they have a power unspeakable for the making us good For thus any ingenuous Spirit would melt into remorse when he considers how the Son of God out of mere love and compassion to him was crucified for him and thereby will willingly submit to all the pain of Mortification in a kindly Gratitude to his Saviour And from the belief of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead will be the further animated in his pursuance of the Resurrection to an holy life being assured of Eternal enjoyment of his labours by a blessed Immortality of which also His Ascension into Heaven is a further pledge and his sitting at the right hand of God the greater motive to take off his mind from earthly desires and to think of those things that are above And lastly his certain hope of obtaining that crown of glory which Christ the righteous Judge shall give unto him at the last day I mean that glorified and Heavenly Body will be the greatest ingagement imaginable to spend the strength of his natural body in his service to expose it to all hardships yea to death it self if need so require for the honour of his Saviour and in the mean time to possess it in all Sanctity possible in a gratefull observance of his commands from whom we expect the Redemption of our Bodies 4. Wherefore the Literal meaning of the History of Christ being so powerful and effectual to the making of us good it is a sign of a great deal of folly and levity to dote upon mere Allegories and Allusions that have no force at all in them to move us to Godliness and Vertue or to surmise that there is any thing Spiritual or Divine in the mere allegorizing of the Scripture For there is nothing Divine saving our full assurance of the holy Truths themselves that are delivered in the Gospel whether they be Life or History for this is a spiritual gift indeed But that we conceive that one may represent the other that is only the natural Nimbleness of our Phansy or a Dexterity accruing to us from Use and Education such as I question not but was in Saint Paul who was brought up a Pharisee theâ—efore was well versed in their Midrash or Mystical meaning of the History of the Old Testament which made him so prone to such applications in the New But this was no such special Inspiration or peculiar spiritual Attainment in him above the rest of the Apostles but merely a Cast of his Office a Specimen of his former Education which accustomed him to Allusions and Allegories in the interpreting of the Law So that I much pity those poor souls
Incarnation But the former sense is more plain and passable And for the other place it is nothing but an exhortation to Perseverance from the constancy of the Christian Rulers and Governours who persisted in their Faith to the end and the Apostle tells them hereupon that the Faith is the same still and Christ's assistance the same now that it was then to them and will be ever the same to all true Believers Which surely is all that is meant by Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever For to make yesterday to signifie from everlasting is very rash and cross to the phrase of Scripture Psal. 90. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday and Job 8. For we are but of yesterday and know nothing Which is very true of these new upstart Interpreters 4. But their last and most plausible allegation is that out of the Corinthians Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh yea though we have known Christ after the flesh yet know we him so no more Here they think they have full commission to lay aside the Humane person of Christ from the Example of S. Paul But their mistake is in not knowing the Hebrew Idiom of this place of Scripture For as that excellent Interpreter Hugo Grotius has noted the words are to be rendred yea though we might have known Christ after the flesh that is to say Though I with others might have known Christ after the flesh and conversed with him here upon earth nay have been something a-kin to him as certain boasted themselves it seems at Corinth yet henceforth saith he we should know him after this manner no more but as an Heavenly Prince in whom he has the most interest that is the most nearly renewed into the image of his life Or without this Hebraisme It may be an oblique Monition to the aforesaid persons and have rather the nature of an Exhortation to them then of a Declaration concerning himself which they would be more certainly enforced to take to themselves by how much more plain it was that Paul never knew Christ according to the Flesh. That it has some such meaning as this and not that of our Adversaries is plain from the precedent verse where he expresly retains the Humane person of Christ in his Priestly office For that he saith that he is that one man that died for all not killed by all as I noted above that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that died for them and rose again Which is not sense if it be not understood of the Humane person of Christ. And verse 20 he does plainly profess himself the Ambassadour of the crucified Iesus or Legate of the great Angel of the Covenant Now then we are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Of which there can be no possible meaning that excludes the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly office We have therefore abundantly demonstrated That the Person of our Saviour is not to be laide aside but that he is a Priest for ever according to the Scriptures CHAP. XVI 1. That Hen. Nicolas does plainly in his Writings lay aside the Person of Christ as where he affirms That whatever is taught by the Scripture-learned is false and That all the Matters of the Bible are but Prefigurations of what concerns the Dispensation of his blessed Family 2. Other Citations to the same purpose and his accursed Allegory of Christ's celebrating his Passeover with his disciples whereby he would antiquate and abolish the true Historical knowledge of him 3. Several places where he evidently takes away the Priestly Office of Christ. 4. Others that plainly take away his glorious Return to Iudgement and the Resurrection of the dead in the true and Apostolical sense 1. WE shall now make it as evident that this pretended Prophet we speak of does lay him aside whereby we shall clearly convince the World of his falshood and imposture And this shall be chiefly out of his own Writings Out of which we shall first produce such passages as in a more general manner infer what we aim at As certainly such places doe as expresly declare That whatsoever is taught of Christ out of his Communialty of the Love is all false Whence it does plainly appear That the Articles of the Apostles Creed understood according to the Letter are held false by this inspired Communialty For these Articles are taught by them that are not of Hen. Nicolas his Family In his First Exhortation Chap. 5. he plainly declares That the true Belief in Jesus Christ is not to be found in any people upon Earth that walk without the Communialty of the Love And Chap. 16. Sect. 15 16. he tels us That it is a presumption against God and his Saints that any one out of the Learnedness of the Letter or out of the Imagination of the Knowledge taketh upon him to be a Teacher or Preacher or to institute or intermeddle in any God-service or Worship unless he be an illuminated Elder of the house of the Love And Sect. 17. He does affirm That it is all assuredly false and lies seducing and deceitfull whatever is taught by others out of the Learnedness of the Scripture Again in his Evangely Chap. 32. there also he asserts That to those that are without the Family of Love all the matters of Christianity to them are in Images Figures and Shadows in Similitudes Parables and closed Books Where his meaning is easily understood out of Chap. 30. sect 17. For these Figures he makes Shadows of the true and spiritual things which were heretofore through Iesus Christ come to pass seen heard and preached and have stood for a memorial of the true spiritual things which should in the time to come come to pass namely by this inspired Minister Whereby the History of Christ is made a mere Allegory and prophetick Prefiguration of what is fulfilled in his Dispensation of the Communialty of the Love wherein all becomes fulfilled in Christ whatsoever was written of him as he plainly asserts Chap. 1. sect 10. And he more abundantly declares himself in his Prophecie of the Spirit of Love Chap. 13. That a man out of his natural and Scripture-learned understanding has not any light or knowledge at all of the Christian Mystery yea he is so utterly void of the same that he cannot understand the smallest tittle thereof he may indeed speak out of the written Word but understandeth nothing thereof according to the truth but it is all covered and sealed before him in Similitudes Images Figures and Parables Where again it is easie to infer That this great Prophet holds nothing of the Articles of the Christian Faith to be true in that sense
have vented 4. Who also held That Angels and Devils are onely Good men and Bad men or their Vertues and Vices in whose footsteps this scholar of his Hen. Nicolas treads very carefully as appears from his Revel Dei cap. 14. where he makes the Righteousness the true Spirits or holy Angels As also elsewhere he saith that he that has the seven deadly sins in him is possest of the seven horriblest and destructionablest Devils intimating that the rest of the Vices are Devils also but not so destructionable And he insinuates further in the same place that the Seven Devils cast out of Mary Magdalen were those seven deadly Sins And I am certain that the most knowing of the Family have freely professed that there are no Devils nor Witches nor Angels but those in us Which things being supposed it is necessary either to cast away the Scriptures or else to allegorize them away into a mere moral or mystical sense as these Enthusiasts have done 5. They believing therefore the Existence of neither Angel nor Spirit of necessity they must believe no Immortality of the Soul And that they believe no such thing there is still a further evidence in that he never exhorts any man to Holiness upon that account which yet is he most powerful argument to make men good that can be propounded nor ever makes use of such places of Scripture as imply a blessed Immortality to come after this life in the literal meaning of them His encouraging his followers to comply with any Superstition be it never so uglily idolatrous rather then to expose themselves to danger agrees also well with this Supposition And some have noted that they have alledged this reason for it That the temple of God may not be destroied Whereby they mean their humane persons which they suppose lost irrecoverably in the death of the body And that there may be no doubt at all that this is their opinion I will conclude with a reference to one of his Epistles where he speaks to this very question which he does with so many hacks and hesitations with so much shuffling and doubling and insinuations to the contrary that no rational man can be unsatisfied but that he held it mortal For if he had held it immortal it had been impossible he should have concealed his opinion or intimated any thing to the contrary it being so useful a doctrine for others and so commendable for himself to profess Which obdurate conceit of his made him allegorize away all the Articles of the Creed and so deny the Resurrection of Christ as well as of all others that believe on him and being secure as he thought that he does not now subsist he could not dream of any Christ that could be Head of the Church but that mystical one he insists so much upon the Upright Being of the Love the Perfection of all And verily if there be nothing to come after this life I dare allow him to be as great a Prophet as either himself or his followers desire he should be esteemed 6. He is therefore upon his own Hypothesis very consonant to himself in removing the Humane person of Christ as a thing that has perished one thousand six hundred years ago and in riveting the Godhead into his own person so thwackingly and substantially as that he may give the World to understand that he was as much God as that Christ that died at Ierusalem and that all those that attained to the perfection of the Love were so too that he might abundantly compensate thereby the loss of that one that died upon the Cross having fallen into the hands of merciless sinners This I say is a consistent dream of his and that it is no more but a dream I partly have already and shall still more clearly demonstrate in this present Discourse 7. In the mean time it is very plain that though he sets out himself in such Seraphical language and adorns his own person with such gorgeous Titles as if nothing ever yet appeared in the World so holy and divine yet he is indeed much inferiour to the better sort of Pagans as being nothing more then an Enthusiastick Sadducee or a Fanatick Deist if so much For I wonder what a kind of God he imagins to himself to whom he makes the Senate of Heaven so unmannerly as to use such formes of speech to him as he does Revel Dei cap. 21. Go to then let it even be so O God it is vouchsafed thee that thou shouldest first bring forth a Declaration of thy right But I have no mind to dive any further into this depth of Satan from which I pray God deliver every good Christian CHAP. XVIII 1. The great mischief and danger that accrues to the World from this false Prophet 2. The probable Ferocity of this Sect when time shall serve and eagerness of executing his Bloudy Vision 3. That Familisme is a plot laid by Satan to overthrow Christianity 4. What the face of things in likelyhood would be supposing it had overrun all 5. The Motives that inforced the Authour to make so accurate a Discovery of this Imposture 1. OUT of the Description we have given hitherto we may easily compute the great mischief that accrues to the World from this false Pretender to Revelations whereever his Witchcraft has power to seize the spirit of a man For first That admirable Wisdome of God in the outward frame of Christian Religion as it respects the Person of Christ his endearing Passion his glorious Resurrection and Ascension his comfortable Intercession and his joyful Return to judgement when our Immortality shall be completed in heavenly Glory all this is swept away and therewith our assurance of Eternal Life And besides this that there may be nothing wanting to the perfecting of that monstrous Evil that is hatched in this Family it may prove a Pandora's box to Mankind even in this life if a more benigne Providence do not prevent it For they having as I have told you a full licence from their infallible Prophet to dissemble and aequivocate to comply with any Religion whatever they may multiply hiddenly in great numbers to the hazard of a State or Commonwealth For being taught by their illuminate Elders That there is nothing to be expected after this life it must needs make them hang their lips very longingly after the greatest enjoyments they can of this present World The Possession and Rule whereof their Prophet has promised them with such magnificent words and Enthusiastick Grandiloquence that they cannot but be inflamed into violent attempts upon the first occasion that they shall phansy safe to make use of And what full right do you think will they imagine themselves to have to fly upon all whenas they phansy the Head of their faction to be no less then Christ himself come to judge the World in righteousness 2. Wherefore if some sullen fellow amongst them of a peremptory and imperious Spirit
this was in stead of all other Righteousness to him and that he was reputed as righteous all over now although he were not so at all in any other things 7. Now for Iustification we shall best understand the meaning of the word from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First therefore besides the forensal acception 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to be just Gen. 38.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thamar is more righteous then I. So Eccles. 31.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that loves gold will not be just Secondly it signifies to appear just Psa. 51.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is that thou maist plainly appear or approve thy self to be just And Psal. 143. â— For in thy sight no man living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall appear just Thirdly and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to make just and pure to free from vice and sinfulness Psalm 73. v. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore have I cleansed my heart in vain And Eccles. 18.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec tuam probitatem usque ad mortem differas saies the Translation And Rom. 6.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is dead is freed from sin Also Act. 13.39 And by him all they that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses i. e. Ye are more throughly cleansed and purged from sin and wickedness then you could be ever under the Law of Moses Which is consonant to other passages in Scripture as That the Law makes nothing perfect and again If there had been a Law that could have given life then verily righteousness might have been of the Law And now we have found out a warrantable sense of these words we shall be able more expeditely to discover the sense of the foregoing places of Scripture alledged for this pernicious conceit of a Christians being righteous without any real Righteousness in him 8. Wherefore to that in the 4. to the Romans whose force will be the greater if we adde that also which is written a little before in the 3 chap. v. 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law and what he inferrs also vers 9. That Iews and Gentiles and all are under sin Wherein the meaning of the Apostle is to magnifie as was most fit the ministration of the Gospel and so he signifies to the world that whatsoever is discovered hitherto is imperfect lapsed and ruinous all but weak and sinful before the coming in of Christ even the works of the Law themselves and that smooth external Righteousness of mere Morality and Ceremony So that all the world are found guilty before God and by the deeds of the Law there shall be no flesh justified in his sight For by the Law is but the knowledge of sin vers 20. it gives no strength to perform Wherefore now reckoning nothing upon all these things we are as it were to begin the world again and to endeavour after such a Righteousness as is by Faith in Christ Jesus and not to rest in any thing that may be done by the ordinary power of the flesh but to aspire after that Righteousness which is communicable to us by that Spirit which raised Jesus Christ from the dead But neither Abraham nor any one else can be justified by any carnal righteousness of their own but that highly-spiritual act of Abraham reaching beyond the common rode of Nature who against hope believed in hope that was that which commended Abraham so much to God And thus from the Example of Abraham would the Apostle commend the Christian faith to the world and in particular to the Jews the Offspring of Abraham For at the end of the fourth chapter he makes this use of Abraham's faith being imputed to him for Righteousness that is reputed by God as a very excellent good act as it indeed was that we might also be brought off to believe on him that raised up â—esus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification In which verse are contained the two grand priviledges of the Gospel that is the forgiveness of sins upon the satisfaction of Christs death and the justifying of us that is the making of us just and holy through a sound faith in him that raised Jesus from the dead Which interpretation the 11 verse of the 8 Chapter doth sufficiently countenance But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you viz. to Righteousness as is plain out of the foregoing verse And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse that is The body of death which we desire to be delivered from as the Apostle speaks appears by the presence of Christ in us to be thus deadly a body by reason of sin we feeling for the present nothing but an heavy indisposition to all holinesse and goodnesse in the body and its affections and all sinfulnesse and unclean Atheisticall suggestions from the flesh which is death to the Soul For to be carnally-minded is death So that by reason of the sinfulnesse of our body and the sad heavinesse thereof it appears as deadly and ghastly a thing to us as Mezentius his tying the living and the dead together when once Christ is in us but our Life is then that Righteousnesse which is of the Spirit we finding a comfortable warmth and pleasure in the gratefull arrivals of that holy and Divine sensation But he that raised Christ from the dead will in due time even quicken these our mortall bodies or these dead bodies of ours and make them conspire and come along with ease and chearfulnesse and be ready and active complying Instruments in all things with the Spirit of Righteousness Which belief is a chief Point in the Christian Faith and most of all parallel to that of Abraham's who believing in the Goodness and Power and Faithfulness of God had when both himself and his wife Sara were dry and dead as to natural generation and so hopeless of ever seeing any fruit of her womb who had I say Isaac born to him who bears Ioy and Laughter in the very Name of him and was undoubtedly a Type of Christ according to the Spirit For Isaac is the Wisedom Power and Righteousness of God flowing out and effectually branching it self so through all the Faculties both of mans Soul and Body that the whole man is carried away with joy and triumph to the acting all whatsoever is really and substantially good even with as much satisfaction and pleasure as he eats when he is hungry and drinks when he is dry And thus by our entrance and progress in so holy a
Dispensation are we well approved of by God and being justified thus by faith we have peace with him through our Lord Iesus Christ Rom. 5.1 So that this Iustification is not a mere belief that Christ died for us in particular or that he was raised from the dead whereby anothers Righteousness is imputed to us but a believing in God that he has accepted the bloud of Christ as a Sacrifice for sin and that he is able through the power of the Spirit to raise us up to newness of life whereby we are encouraged to breath and aspire after this more inward and perfect righteousnesse Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the Gospel without any respect of works or former demurenesse of life if so be they will but now come in and close with this high and rich dispensation and be carried on with couragious resolutions to fight against and pull down the man of sin within themselves that this living and new way of real Divine righteousnesse may be set up and rule in their hearts I say if they be encouraged to this holy enterprise by Faith in Christ for the remission of sins and for the power of his Spirit to utterly eradicate and extirpate all inward corruption and wickednesse this Faith is presently imputed to them for Righteousnesse that is they are and are approved by God as dear children of his and as good men and are of the seed of the Promise For they are born now not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh but of the will of God and their will is wholly set upon righteousnesse and true holinesse which they hunger and thirst after as sincerely and eagerly as ever they did after their natural meat and drink and God who feeds the young Ravens is not so cruell as to deny them this celestial food which food they reach at and as it were wrest out of his hands by Faith in the power of his Spirit whereby they account themselves able to doe all things 9. And this is the only warrantable notion that I can finde of being justified by faith Nor do those places above recited prove any other then this For that which seems to make most of all for another viz. Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness may very well be interpreted according to that tenour of sense I have already declared For that is the great and comfortable priviledge of the Gospel that without any respect of former works if so be we do but now believe remission of sins in Christ and believe in his power that justifies the ungodly i. e. that makes just the ungodly and purifies and purges them from all sin and iniquity from which by their own naturall power they could not purged and restores them to inward reall righteousnesse by the working of his Spirit this Faith is imputed for Righteousnesse For they that do thus believe are good and righteous men for matter of sincerity so that they have peace with God through the bloud of Christ and by the power of that Spirit that is now working in them are renewed daily more and more into that glorious image and desirable liberty which arises in the further conquest of the Divine life in them and makes them righteous even as Christ was righteous And now the hardest is satisfied the other places alledged will easily fall of themselves by the application of what has been said concerning this nature of Faith and Iustification 10. As for those places of Scripture that seem to attribute the Righteousness of Christ to us as where he is said to be made unto us wisedom righteousness sanctification and redemption the sense is only this that he works in us wisedom righteousness c. Otherwise it might be inferred that we shall have only an imputative Redemption and that we shall not be really saved and redeemed As for that other As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one man many shall be made righteous I say it is a place against themselves For by Adam we became really sinners and sinful contracting original corruption from his loins therefore by Christ we are to be made really righteous And this was the end of his obedience that was obedient even to the death of the crosse that we being buried with him by baptisme into death like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6. Wherefore there really being no ground in Scripture for this childish mistake and it being as unreasonable that one Soul should be righteous for another as that one Body should be in health for another if I shew that the Scripture it self does expresly require of us that we be righteous and holy in our own persons there is then nothing wanting to the full discovery of this childish and ungrounded conceit of being righteous without any Righteousness residing in us 11. And in my apprehension this very Text of S. Iohn is a clear eviction of this Truth it plainly declaring that they are mistaken who ever conceit themselves righteous without doing righteousnesse or without being righteous in such a sense as Christ himself was righteous There are also several other Testimonies of the Apostles to the same purpose some whereof I have noted already as where he saith That Christ was manifested to take away our sins and that he came to destroy the works of the Devil and that he that is born of God sinneth not because the seed of God abideth in him that is a permanent Principle of Divine life and sense whereby he seeth and abhorreth whatsoever is wicked and unholy And again 1 Ioh. â— Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandements He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandements is a lyar and the truth is not in him but whose keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected Hereby know we that we are in him He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked Like that 2 Tim. 2.19 Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity CHAP. VI. 1. Their alledgement of Gal. 2.16 as also of the whole drift of that Epistle 2. What the Righteousnesse of faith is according to the Apostle 3. In what sense those that are in Christ are said not to be under the Law 4. That the Righteousness of faith is no figment but a reality in us 5. That this Righteousnesse is the New Creature and what this new Creature is according to Scripture 6. That the new Creature consists in Wisedom Righteousness and true Holiness 7. The Righteousnesse of the new Creature 8. His Wisedom and Holinesse 9. That the Righteousness of faith excludes not good Works The wicked treachery of those
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
said Does this offend you What if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before That will be a very strange and stupendious spectacle to you and such as will assure you of my Divinity but withall remove my body so far from you that you cannot then if you would mistake so grosly as to think I speak of this body and bloud I carry now about with me It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life that is to say They are touching the spiritual body which is the inmost Temple of the holy Ghost and which you are in some measure to partake of here and which shall have its compleat refinement when I shall crown you with the perfection of Life Eternal at the last day Or They are simply concerning the Spirit and that Life which I my self am according to my Divinity viz. The Eternal Word in whom is the Life and that Life is the light of men This is that which you are to feed on and to drink into your Souls when you have not my particular bodily presence with you For this Word and Spirit is every where to be taken in by them that breath and thirst after this Heavenly sustenance of their Souls and so is that fulfilled which he declares v. 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him For the eating of the flesh is in some measure partaking of the spiritual body and the drinking of the bloud the imbibing that life therewith that rayes out from the Eternal Word into all purged and purified hearts whereby Christ dwelleth in them and they in him and God in all 3. Again Iohn 7.37 In the last day that great day of the Feast Iesus stood and cryed saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink He that believes on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters Which he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive as the Text it self expounds it And therefore is a good ratification of the Mystical sense of those Prophecies we rehersed out of Esay But these things are spoken more plainly and without a Metaphor Ioh. 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commandements And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Which Precept and Promise is like that of Esay chap. 58. which is that if we seriously compose our mindes to do due acts of obedience to God he will pour out his Spirit upon us Then shall thy light break forth like the morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward He shall guide thee continually and satisfie thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not That is as any spiritual Christian would be apt to interpret the place If thou thirst after Righteousnesse and in the mean time to thy utmost power do the outward functions thereof in thy duties to God and man at length this Spirit of truth will break forth like the morning light within thee and the emanations of the holy Ghost will so throughly refresh thee and strengthen thee that with ease and pleasure thou shalt walk in all the wayes of God which shall be like the flowry Alleys of a Paradise to thee both to thine inward and outward man 4. Not that our endeavours or desires are any obligation to God by way of merit on our part but it is his mercy to the Soul that does in good earnest pant after him For till he has compleated his work in us all our works are worth nothing and whenever they are worth any thing they are not ours but his And to this sense speaks Paul to Titus chap. 3. But after that the kindnesse and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of righteousnesse 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 or poured out upon us as the Original has it abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour Like that of the Prophet Thou shalt be like a watered garden 5. Adde to these Ioh. 3.5 Iesus answered Verily verily I say unto thee Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit And Rom. 8.9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of God he is none of his And vers 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered And also 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you And lastly Ephes. 3.14 For it were infinite to reckon up all places of Scripture that tend to this purpose For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ of whom the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inward man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God who is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us To him therefore be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus throughout all ages world without end Amen CHAP. X. 1. A Recapitulation of what has been set down hitherto concerning the Usefulnesse of the Gospel and the Necessity of undeceiving the world in those points that so nearly concern Christian Life 2. The ill condition of those that content themselves with Imaginary Righteousnesse figured out in the Fighters against Ariel and Mount Sion 3. A further demonstration of their fond conceit 4. That a true Christian cannot sin without pain and torture to himself 1. VVE have now abundantly proved out of places of Scripture The necessity of inward Sanctification and reall in-dwelling Righteousness
of God Be not deceived neither Fornicatours nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Abusers of themselves with mankind nor Thieves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the kingdome of God And Hebr. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And thus we see that all the Happiness of man and his real good is utterly subverted and destroyed by this mischievous imagination of being righteous otherwise then by true and living Righteousness 10. And it is as plain that this imposture will rob God of his Glory as well as defeat man of his Happiness For whether we understand by the Glory of God the Image of God communicable to men as the Image that is the light of the Sun is the glory of the Sun or whether we understand the acknowledgment of that Excellency and Perfection that is in God first deeply conceived in our hearts and then fully and freely professed by our mouths both these are assuredly taken away by this false conceit And of the former there is no doubt being that the Spirit of Righteousness is that very Glory of God or Image of Christ. Wherefore whatever does intercept this does really eclipse the Glory of God And it is as true also of the other For seeing that the most rich and precious Excellencies of the Divine Nature cannot be discovered by the Soul as they ought to be but by becoming Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If thou beest it thou seest it as Plotinus speaks it must needs be that they cannot be worthily admired and extolled by any Soul but such as is Divine that is such a Soul as God has poured the Spirit of Righteousness and true Holiness on without which it is impossible to see God To all which Particulars that concern every private man you may add that great summe of an incomputable damage that respects the Publick For what Peace or Faithfulness can there be amongst men where the professed Mysterie of their Religion is the Explosion of real Righteousness Or what can possibly take place in stead thereof but Fraud and Falshood foul Lusts phrantick Factions rude Tumults and bloudy Rebellions To which you may cast in the loss of our very hopes that the World should ever grow better or that the holy Promises of God should take effect For there is not a more cruel or butcherly weapon for the slaying of the Witnesses nor a more impregnable Fort against the approaching Kingdome of Christ and that millennial Happiness which many good and faithfull Christians expect then this hell-hatch'd doctrine of Antinomianisme CHAP. XII 1. Of the attending to the Light within us of which some Spiritualists so much boast 2. That they must mean the Light of Reason and Conscience thereby if they be not Fanaticks Mad-men or Cheats And that this Conscience necessarily takes information from without 3. And particularly from the Holy Scriptures 4. That these Spiritualists acknowledge the fondness of their opinion by their contrary practice 5. An appeal to the Light within them if the Christian Religion according to the literal sense be not true 6. That the Operation of the Divine Spirit is not absolute but restrained to certain laws and conditions as it is in the Spirit of Nature 7. The fourth Gospel-Power The Example of Christ. 8. His purpose of vindicating the Example of Christ from aspersions with the reasons thereof 1. WE have now gone through the Three first Powers of the Gospel of which Three the last namely The Promise of the Spirit may seem so sufficient of it self to some without any thing further and I am sure does so to others that professedly they take up here and exclude or at least neglect all that advantage that accrues from the History of Christ and hereby do antiquate the Christian Religion These are those great Spiritualists that talk so much of The Light within them and the Power within them and boast that they want nothing without to be their Guide and Support but that they can goe of themselves without any external help For keeping to the Light within them the Power of God and the Spirit of God will assist them and will lead them into all truth And truly I cannot but say Amen to what they declare For I know assuredly that it is most true if they would leave off their canting language and say in down-right terms That keeping sincerely to the dictates of Reason and Conscience and the perpetually denying themselves in such things as they know or suspect to be evil with devout addresses to the Throne of Grace for the assistance and illumination of the Holy Spirit to discover and overcome all Errour Falseness Pride and Hypocrisie that may lurk in their hearts I say I am well assured that this Dispensation faithfully kept to will in due time lead unto all Saving Truth and that such a one at the last cannot fail to become a Christian in the soundest and the fullest sense such as firmly adhered to Christ in the first and most unspotted Ages of the Church But if they will call any hot wild Imagination or forcible and unaccountable Suggestion the Light within them and follow that this is not to keep to Reason and Conscience but to be delivered up to a reprobate sense and to expose a mans self to all the temptations that either the Devil or a mans own Lust or a sordid Melancholy can entangle him in 2. Wherefore by the Light within them they must understand an accountable and rational Conscience within them unless they be perfect Fanaticks or Mad-men or what is worse mere Impostors and Cheats who would pretend to a Conscience but yet irrational and unaccountable to any one and hereby have the liberty of doing what they please being given up at length to nothing but Fury and Lust. And then lastly This Conscience within them is not a thing so absolutely within them that it can take no information from what is without For it is manifest that this Lamp of God that burneth in us is fed and nourished from external Objects For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by things that are made for by these from without are we advertised of his Eternal power and Godhead And as we are thus taught by the outward Book of Nature concerning the Existence of God and his general Providence in the world as to the necessities of life both of Men and Beasts so may we also by external VVritings or Records be more fully informed of a more special Providence of his to the Sons of men concerning the State in the other world and of that Eternal life manifested by Christ. But I grant that it is still this Light within us that judges and concludes after the perusal of either the Volumes of Nature or of Divine Revelation 3. But as he that gives his Mind to Mathematicks Architecture Husbandry
Madness by the formal Pharisee 12. His Proneness to judge the true Christian according to the motions of his own untamed corruptions 13. His prudent choice of the vice of Covetousness 14. The Unreasonableness of his censure of those that endeavour after Perfection 15. His ignorant surmise that no man liveth vertuously for the love of Vertue it self 16. The Usefulness of this Parallelisme betwixt the Reproach of Christ and his true Members 1. AND thus you have seen Christ vindicated from all those several Suspicions and Aspersions laid upon him by malicious and ignorant men whereby they would represent him as not possessed of nor acting from so Noble and Divine a Principle of Righteousness as he himself profest and his Followers have ever witnessed of him In which I confess I have been something more large then might have been expected in pleading the cause of a Person so perfectly pure and innocent But I considering our Saviour Christ not so much in himself as in his members I mean his true members who have one common Spirit with him and how they are liable to the same accusations and misconstructions of spightfull and inconsiderate men that himself was in the flesh I thought it fit more fully to insist upon the clearing and well and rightly interpreting of all the Carriages of Christ that thereby those that call themselves his members may know better how to interpret one another or if they be not so themselves that they may however learn not to judge rashly and inconsiderately of them that are and walk indeed as he walked And that my foregoing pains may be the more effectual to this purpose I shall not stick to second them so far as to shew how men ordinarily cast the same or the like soil and dirt upon the truest members of Christ that they did upon Christ himself 2. And that you may take in this with the more evidence give me leave to prefix in your mind the right Image of a true Christian or living member of Christ. And such an one is he who is a branch of the same Vine has derived into him the same sap and Life partakes of one and the same Divine spirit with Christ the fruit whereof is to love God with all a mans heart and with all his Soul and his neighbour as himself and to doe so to others as he himself would be done to And that I may not name that only which seems nothing in too many mens eyes I add also To know and acknowledge the only true God and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent And surely whosoever has this in its due measure and vigour of life is conscious to himself and finds the sweet of so great and glorious an accomplishment of Mind that whatever the Wit or Humour of man can add to it will seem of little more value then dust and straws we tread under our feet 3. And now I have told you what a true and living Member of Christ is let me also tell you what a false or titular or Pharisaical Christian is And he is this One that has not the Divine Sap or Spirit derived to him as being and growing in and becoming one with the true Vine Christ Jesus and is not possess'd nor is sensible of that Sufficiency Joy and Satisfaction that is in the inward Life of Christ and the Spirit of Righteousness and eternal and undispensable Truth of God But being dead to what is most necessary pretious and saving in Christianity and only alive or mainly to the Spirit of the world loves himself with all his heart and all his soul and God and his Neighbour only for his own sake or rather uses and rides his Neighbour having haltered him or obliged him with some prudentially and judiciously-bestowed courtesies and worships God rather then loves him nè noceat beseeching him that upon a special Dispensation though he be no better then others nor ever intends nor hopes to be better yet that it may be better with him in the end then with other folk Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his Or it may be what is little better then that in stead of the living Righteousness of Christ he will magnifie himself in some humorous pieces of Holiness of his own For he imagines there is a God and that it is safe to make a friend of him one way or other and therefore that his conscience may be the better excused from those things that are more weighty and substantial he will take up things according to his own humour and phansie as fasting twice in the week making long prayers hearing long sermons sticking curiously to some unnecessary uncertain and fruitless opinions concerning God and Religion such as are warrantable neither out of Scripture nor Reason and growing very hot and zealous in the agitation of these things though to the Disturbance of the Church of God and Injury of his Neighbour yet these trinkets and trumperies of his own humour and complexion this Heat this Noise this Zeal these are the Altar Fire and Holocaust wherewith he sacrifices to God and presents himself an Oblationer before the Almighty And all this to be excused from that which is the very End of all Religion and Worship that is the sacrificing of our own corrupt life and acquiring that prize that is set before us the holy Spirit of Righteousness Equity and Purity whose moderation and guidance is the Light of the world and the Life of man 4. And having thus though but loosely and rudely scattered the delineaments of these two opposite professours of Christianity the true Christian and Pharisaical Humorist I shall from hence as from the Cause and Original derive evidence and light to what I shall now propose to you by way of Parallelisme betwixt what our Saviour in his own person suffered of false Accusations and Aspersions and what his true and living Members are obnoxious to from that Spirit of Pharisaisme that has ever and does to this very day rule still in the world And first of the first Accusation that was laid to our Saviours charge viz. Blasphemy He hath spoken Blasphemy Matth. 26. It is apparent the Pharisaical nature being desirous to be excused from destroying and bringing to nothing in ones self all haughty and ambitious Designes Self-seeking Covetousness and Intemperance doth easily endeavour to make amends for this and to pacifie the conscience and approve ones self to God by laying out all our parts in spinning excellent high Subtilties and amazing Mysteries from any hints taken in Scripture and in adorning the nature of God and Religion according to the garishness of a mans own natural Phansie and Nicety of Wit Whence it may come to pass that these Traditionary Pharisees having made it their business to rack their natural unregenerate minds to find some magnificent conceptions as they imagine them to bestow upon the Deity that one freed by Christ
thereof may be no Vertue but rather a Symptome of Pride or affectation of Spartanisme 11. And now in the ninth place as for that Aspersion of Madnesse and Phrensy the true Christian has often cast upon him by the Pharisaical Religionist the Cause of it is plain from either of their natures or from the nature of Madness it self For as Sottishnesse and Dotage is the extinguishing of Reason in Phlegme or Cold so Madness is the disordering discomposing and dissipating the Phansy and Reason in the distemper of Heat Wherefore whereever the Heat exceeds the Sense and Reason of him that speaks or acts there comes in so much of Madnesse as there is of that Excess But as concerning Sense and Reason sith it is all one to be absent as not to appear therefore it must needs follow that those that speak with much zeal vigour things very true in themselves yet to others very incredible or unintelligible must be by them reputed no better then mad-men And hence it was that the Governour told Paul that too much learning had made him mad And hence probably may be the ground of that ordinary saying Nullum magnum ingenium sine admixtura insaniae Partly because no great Wit can well be but with some good measure of natural Heat and Activity of Spirit and partly or rather mainly because the improvement of these parts and wit by subtil search into things have produced such Conclusions so Paradoxical and opposite to the vulgar conceits of men and yet of such evidence of Reason to the Inventors of them that they asserting with heat and confidence the Conclusions to be true to such men as were not capable of the subtilty of the reasons which infer them could not chuse but get to themselves for their pains the reputation of men whose brains were seasoned with some strinklings at least of Madnesse and Phrensy And according to this analogy may it very well be said Nullus insignis Christianus c. That there is no notable Christian that will not seem to have some spice of madness in him especially if he be judged by the formal stiff Pharisee whose Postures and Actions are alwaies kept as it were in an outward wooden frame as a childe in a standing stool his Traditions and accustomary Opinions being as deeply scored and carved in his Memory as the outward and obvious shows of things at the first sight in the world are scralled out in the rude furrows of an Idiots brain And as the unskilfull Rustick would suspect him scarce sound in his senses that should confidently speak any thing that should palpably cross or cancell those gross scrallings the sensible shew of this world has writ in his Imagination so certainly the formal Pharisee would not stick to judge him mad that with zeal and boldness pronounced such things that were not parallel nor agreeable to the Preconceptions and Prefigurations of his prejudiced Mind but most of all if such things as he could get no conception at all of they being not upon the same levell opposite but so high removed that they would be out of his reach of apprehension Surely the more earnest a true member of Christ should be in such points the more mad he would appear in the eyes of the cool prudential Pharisee 12. As for the three last Aspersions that were cast on our Saviour and his true Members are accordingly liable unto the mere formal Christian being judge viz. Debauchery and Looseness of life Lavishments and Prodigality Ambition and Self-Interest I shall briefly dispatch them all And to the first this general consideration appertains By how much every one is weak himself and obnoxious to temptations by so much more suspicious he is that others transgress when there is any thing that may tempt out the corruptions of a man or where there are any Signs or Effects of that which in some persons is naught though those Signs or Effects in themselves are neither good nor bad Here the formal Christian consulting with what is alive and operative in himself viz. his inward corruption judges the best of men after his measure and concludes that how he should be affected what he should doe or suffer in such or such cases that any one placed in the same cases and conditions doth suffer or act the like And the more scandalous and offensive must the conversation of the most perfect and purified be for as much as their Invulnerableness and Insensibleness in the midst of such vanities as others are moved with that are alive unto sin cannot but make them more innocently free and careless in things that of themselves are not really evil 13. As for the matter of Prodigality it is obvious to conceive that Covetousness sitting judge even Frugality it self shall be branded with that name and that Covetousness being so clean and dry and creditable a sin as being so perfectly opposite to the mad roaring garb of the Spend-thrift there will scarce be found a Pharisee that will be so imprudent as not to retain so profitable a Vice Wherefore the Pharisee being covetous the true Christian whom that Noble and Divine nature according to which he is regenerate has made more liberal must needs by him be sentenced as Improvident and Prodigal 14. Lastly for the imputation of Ambition and Self-interest It is no Ambition or Pride earnestly to endeavour as much as in us lies to be renewed into that glorious and divine Image of Christ and to contend to the utmost for the accomplishment of the same For in this Image is very eminently contained that most healthfull and comely disposition of the Mind unaffected Humility For whereas the Image of Christ grows not up but from the destruction and if it were possible perfect annihilation of our own stubborn and stout Will that eagerly and peremptorily ever seeks its own satisfaction and whenever it finds it glories and arrogates to it self the success it must needs be by how much more perfectly the true Image of Christ is recovered in us that by so much the more fully we are freed from all Pride and Arrogancy So that as it cannot be the puff of Pride that should drive us on to endeavour after so high a pitch of Perfection but the Divine breath of God in the Soul no more can that pitch of Perfection once attained to be any cause of Pride sith that Humility is of the very Essence thereof For it is as contradictious and unreasonable as if we should say that we become proud by becoming humble 15. As for Self-interest the accusation is of that nature of the Devil 's against Job Doth Iob serve God for nought Men devoid of the Spirit of Righteousness and unacquainted with the Power and Pleasure of Divine Worth and Grace can phansy nothing there desirable but the external fruits thereof such as Honour and Esteem among men or a future Reward from God Wherefore it must needs be that the Pharisee or outward
be not to act according to it and to act contrary thereto intolerable For it were the wounding and tormenting a principle of life in us or the Spirit of Christ in us whereby we are not only aided and assisted to every good work but take a natural delight therein whereas under the Mosaical law we have no conformity of Spirit to either the purer Moral precepts or any complacency in the luggage of a company of insipid and burdensome Ceremonies and yet the Mosaical Dispensation though it give no strength to perform what it requires yet like Pharaoh's hard task-masters requires the same tale of brick though they withhold the straw 6. And this gives us some light into the nature of the Two Covenants in reference to the Prophecie of Ieremie But it being an argument of very great consideration I will not content my self with so scant an account thereof but make a more copious deduction of the whole matter out of Paul Gal. 4. that we may the more fully understand so important a Mystery and when I have from thence discovered the excellency of the state of the Second Covenant I shall adde such things as tend to the more useful knowledge of the entrance into it and advance in it CHAP. VII 1. The different states of the Two Covenants set out Galat. 4. by a double similitude 2. The nature of the Old Covenant adumbrated in Agar 3. As also further in her Son Ismael 4. The nature of the New Covenant adumbrated in Sarah 5. As also in Isaac her Son and in Israel his offspring 6. The necessity of imitating Abraham's faith that the Spiritual Isaac or Christ may be born in us 7. The grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant wherein it doth consist With a direction by the by to the most eminent Object of our Faith 8. The Second main point wherein this difference consists namely Liberty and that First from Ceremonies and Opinions 9. Secondly from all kind of Sins and disallowable Passions 10. Lastly to all manner of Righteousness and Holiness 1. TEll me ye that desire to be under the Law do ye not hear the Law For it is written that Abraham had two Sons the one by a bond-maid and the other by a free-woman But he who was of the bond-woman was born after the flesh but he of the free-woman was by promise Which things are an Allegorie for these are the Two Covenants the one from the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage which is Agar For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Ierusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children But Ierusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Here the story of Agar and Sarah Ismael and Isaac is made to set out and that very appositely and lively the two different conditions of those that are under the Law and those that are under the Gospel that thereby the advantage and excellency of one above the other being laid open before the eyes of the Galatians they might not hereafter be any more in a tottering and fluctuating condition or sophisticate and adulterate the precious purity of the Gospel with Iudaical superfluities and useless if not now hurtfull Ceremonies but stick fast to Christ alone not going back from him to Moses nor yet mingling Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies with the plainness and sincerity of Christ. In the words we have recited there is a double Similitude We will in each first lay out the particulars of the Protases and then pass on to the Apodoses The particulars of the First are Agar Abraham's bond-woman Ismael the Son of the bond-woman and the manner of the birth of this Son of the bond-woman he was born after the flesh that is according to the ordinary course of Nature Now in the Apodosis Ierusalem that now is that is the Church of the Jews answers to Agar Abraham's bond-woman and those of that Church to Ismael the Son of the bond-woman and to the being born after the flesh the being born out of the outward letter of the Law The particulars in the Second Protasis are Sarah the free-woman and Isaac the Son of Abraham which he had of this free-woman and lastly the manner of his birth it was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not after the ordinary course of Nature but the extraordinary power of God signified in his promise And now in the Apodosis Ierusalem that is from above that is the Church of true Christians answers to Sarah the Free-woman and those of that Church to Isaac the Son of the Free-woman and their being born of the Spirit not of the letter to the being born by promise not according to the flesh And now if we compare the particulars of these two Protases one with another in their due order we shall find a main difference or rather contrariety For Agar and Sarah differ as Bondage and Freedome and Ismael and Isaac as bond and free and the condition of their births as Nature and God And consequently there must arise a real difference or contrariety in the particulars of the Apodoses viz. betwixt the Old terrestrial Ierusalem and the New one from above betwixt the Jew Pharisee or outward Legalist and the true and real Christian and lastly betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit And so to speak compendiously this Text of the Apostle is nothing else but a description of the different conditions of the Two Covenants set out in an historical Allegorie taken from Agar and Sarah and their two Sons c. I shall therefore now fall upon them in that order as I have laid them out 2. And First therefore of Agar the bond-woman which signifies the Covenant of the Law given upon Mount Sinai For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia Which is spoken Synecdochically from a Town there called Agra by Plinie and by Dion Agara and the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek Geographers as Grotius has pertinently observed This allusion therefore to Agar on Mount Sinai where the Law was given does commend to us more handsomely and facilitate the Allegory taken from the story of Agar and Sarah But if there were not this Geographical advantage the Application will be found very sutable and apposite even without it And much of the nature of the Old and New Covenant is hinted at even in the names themselves as in this of Agar which they ordinarily interpret Peregrina What the relation of habitude is betwixt the Soul of man and the things of the Old Covenant is very fitly set down in the meaning of this Name Agar For verily as for those things that were Positive and Ceremonial in the Law of Moses they are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things strange and of no affinity with the Soul and as for those things that are most precious and most indispensably good in the Law of Moses the Soul in
Spirit in us that was in him here on Earth And therefore there will be in our very Souls an high Sympathy and ineffable pleasure and liking of that Nature and Spirit that breaths in all the actions and speeches recorded of our Saviour and a transporting delight in all the Precepts of the Gospel whether delivered by himself or his holy Apostles they will be sweeter then the honey and the honey-combe and more desirable then thousands of gold and silver as the Prophet David speaks 5. Wherefore we are never to be quiet till we find our selves fully enamoured on the very Character and Genius as I may so speak of our blessed Saviour and find our selves so affected as he was affected in the world And therefore we are to adde to our external profession fervent Prayer to God not only to resist temptations or to doe outward good works but that he would also wholly renew our nature in us that our Regeneration may be perfected and that we may be entirely transformed into the lively Image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And this not only at set times but continually as we have opportunity and vacancy from the throng and urgency of worldly affairs For then should we commune with our hearts and meditate on that divine Image and Character The Life of Christ and observe wherein we are most wanting and to what part thereof our affections are the most cool and so with serious and earnest ejaculations to God implore the help and assistance of his Spirit to compleat the good work that he has begun in us and so we shall fulfill that Precept of the Apostle Pray continually that is whether upon the emergency of some temptation or upon self-examinations and devout Meditations 6. And as we are to pray continually so we are to watch continually that is to pass from one transaction to another with circumspection making our very converse with men and affairs in the world an advantage to our main design of improvement in the Divine Life For coming thus out into company and emploiment we have thereby a present exercise of that Grace that is in us and can find thereby the better our own inabilities and defects as also what strength we are of and what proficiency we have made in the way we have chosen And so what we have will be thereby corroborated and what we want being discovered to our selves we know the better to ask it at the hands of God 7. Thus will the work assuredly go on by perpetual Meditations Prayer and Watchfulness And while thou art thus taken up with thy self take heed how thou meddlest with other men And particularly beware of despising the publick Ordinances of thy Church For thou mayst hear the same advice given thee in the open congregations that thou hast assented to as true in thine own Conscience from a faithful and knowing Ministry Which if thou beest what thou pretendest to will delight thy heart both in that it is a Testimony of the Truth and that it may take effect in others by God's blessing as well as in thee Wherefore it is no sign of a New-Covenanter but of a proud and carnal mind and of a wicked designer to vilifie these things 8. Moreover thou art to take this Advertisement along with thee concerning thy converse with men That first thou censure not any man for external matters of an indifferent Interpretation in Diet Apparel or Civil behaviour whether he be more courtly or plain in carriage whether more chearfull or more sad whether he drink wine or refrain from drinking whether he wear good clothes or goe in a meaner dress and so of other things of like nature Thou oughtest I say to passe no censure no not so much as in thy tacit thoughts about these things but esteem every man from what is truly Christian or Unchristian in him And then secondly Thou art carefully to take heed that the just liberty of another lead thee not into any inconvenience by tempting thee to imitate him But thou art strictly to keep to what thou knowest in thine own Conscience to be most for thine own safety that the good work may goe on in thee and that Righteousness may have its firm rooting and full growth But in the mean time thou art to look after thy self as a tender child or sick person who are rightly forbidden such things as grown men and in health take their liberty to make use of These two Cautions will prevent all Scandal whereby thou maiest either harm thy self or be injurious to others 9. Lastly I shall more particularly and expresly recommend to thee the frequent Meditation of these three branches of the Divine Life Humility Charity and Purity together with their deepest Root Faith in God through Iesus Christ. For if this be not taken in thy progress in the Second Covenant may degenerate into a mere accustomary or complexional frame of Morality and have nothing in it that is really Divine I am sure it will not be of that nature as to fit thee for that Eternal salvation that is promised to those that are true Believers And as concerning those Three branches of the Divine Root I would have thee to place them ever in thine eye and examine all the motions and excursions of thy Spirit into outward actions how sutable they are to these and closely observe when thou thinkest thy self so zealously carried out by the moving of one of these Principles if thou dost not run counter to another Nay it may be thy Enthusiastick Heat may carry thee so far as to sin against that very Principle that thou thinkest thy self to be moved by 10. Thus whilst thou affectest too extravagant expressions of thy Humility the discreet and knowing in Religion will thereby find out thy Pride As if thou shouldest not be content to entertain the poor at thy table but thou wilt also wait upon them with a trencher in thy hand bare-headed and doe all the offices of a Servitour to them as if thou wert celebrating the old Saturnalia Look to thy self that there be no touch of Vain-glory in it and that thou dost not desire to be talked of Consider also if it be not an offence against Charity and a scandalizing those that are without who if they can fansie thee sincere will be forcibly invited to deem thee very fanatical and melancholick and that all Religion is nothing else But true Charity doth nothing unseemly 11. When the desire of Purity also puts thee upon the chastisement of thy body doe it so hiddenly that thou maiest not offend against Humility by thy Pharisaical ostentation Wherefore if thou dost give thy mind to the mortification of the flesh shew it not to men in thy sordid clothes nor in thy sour face and hard looks but keep it to thy self as secret as thou canst that he that seeth in secret may reward thee openly 12. Art thou warmed with the sense of Charity which thou
criminall to adde upon their authority any foolish inventions of his own And if these Agents for Religion neither injuring nor defrauding any one of their Civil rights shall be evilly entreated by those they offer to instruct if they abuse them by imprisonment or any other hard dealing or finally put them to death that State or Kingdom to which they belong may require their bloud at their hands as having grosly and barbarously transgressed against the Law of Nations and the common Right of all mankinde that have not forfeited it some way or other As these have not they allowing this Liberty among themselves and to all others that have a sense and conscience of the same Right and being firmly resolved if it should come to a war and they be Conquerours of their ill Neighbours to use no other means to turn their new Subjects from their old Religion but by peaceably and patiently shewing them the vanity thereof and the excellency and solidity of their own Which cannot by any means be called the Propagation of Religion by the Sword when there shall not be so much force put upon them to change their former Religion if they be found conscientious as to compell them to be present at the Solemnities of the New Only they shall swear fealty to their Conquerours and be well indoctrinated in that common Right of Mankinde That no man is to be persecuted for Religion if he have not forfeited that Right by taking upon him the liberty of persecuting others And therefore they may enjoy their Religion if they can still like it upon equal termes with the conquerours as to their private capacities If the Spaniard had made himself master of the Indies upon these conditions and had abstained from his execrable cruelties he might have justified himself to all the World For this had not been to propagate Religion by the sword but to maintain a mans natural right 3. This Theory I think is very sound at the bottome and that it is very clear what ought to be but hugely unpracticable by reason of that general perverseness and corruption of men Yet I thought it worth the while to expose it to view the acknowledgement thereof being the greatest advantage to Chritian Religion that can possibly be conceived there being nothing so effectual for the easie fall of Turcisme and Paganisme into the profession of Christ as this Prinâ—iple we have explained our Religion being not onely solid in it self but incomparably more demonstrable to all Rational spirits then any Religion ever extant in the World Besides though its use will not extend so farre at the first yet it may be something serviceable to these parts of the world whose eyes are more open to Truth then others are And verily in my judgement this Principle I do thus recommend as it seems to me to deserve the reception of all men as true so of all Christians especially not onely upon point of Policy but as more sutable to that spirit they are of abhorring from force and cruelty who are therefore to permit full Liberty of Conscience to all those that do not forfeit it by mixing with their Religion such Principles as are contrary to good manners and civil Right or repugnant to this very Principle of Liberty we speak of 4. Wherefore those that under pretence of Religion would corrupt the people with such doctrines as plainly countenance Vice and tend to the rooting out of the sense of true Honour and Vertue out of a Nation have lost this Common Right we contend for as being infecters and poisoners of the people amongst whom they live and therefore the therefore the publick Magistrate of what Nation or Religion soever has a power to restrain them their doctrine being so dangerous to the welfare of a State and contrary to the light of Nature and suffrage of the wisest men in all places of the World and in all Ages No Religion fraught with such rotten ware as this is to be received in any coast where they would put in but to be kept out by Strangers and suppressed at home 5. Again those also would forfeit this Right of Liberty whose Religion should contain any thing in it that would weaken the State which received it As if there were some such absurd Superstition as upon pretence of an high esteem fo Virginity and extreme abhorrence from warre should urge the emasculation of every third male-child or the luxation or cutting off their fore-finger or thumb whereby the Country would be depopulated and the Inhabitants made unserviceable for the defence thereof there is no question but the Magistrate might inhibit such a Religion as this 6. As he might in the last place all such as have intermixed with them that wolvish and ferine humour of persecuting others for their Religion that would live quietly by them and would not force any one to their own Faith nor disturb the publick exercise of Religion in others For these have no right to be suffered further then at the discretion of the Magistrate nor can more reasonably plead for Liberty then the Wolfe and Fox crave leave to have their kennels or holes in the midst of a Sheepfold or the Owle or Night-Raven to put in their note amidst a Quire of Nightingales 7. But you 'l say all Religions and Sects are such Foxes and Wolves and therefore there is no Liberty of Religion at all to be given Those that are so I confess are at the mercy of the Magistrate as having forfeited their Right Which forfeiture he may exact more or less severely accordingly as he has more or less security that these crafty and wild Creatures may do no mischief But I do not believe that all men that do profess Religion are of this partial nature nay on the contrary I do verily believe That they that are the most truly religious are the most abhorrent from persecution of conscience sake Wherefore as many as are ready to profess and that upon Oath if it be required That it is their judgement and their Practice does not contradict it that no man is to be incommodated in his Civil rights in his Libety Estate or Life for the cause of such a Religion as whose principles teach not to incommodate others and do avow that theirs is such and that they will be as faithful to the Prince or State in which they live as those of his own Religion these having in no wise forfeited their Right of liberty neither this way nor any other by intermingling Practices or Principles against the light of Nature and laudable Morality it were the highest piece of Injustice that can be committed to abridge them of the safe profession thereof CHAP. XII 1. To what Persons and with what Circumstances the Christian Magistrate is to give Liberty of Conscience And the great advantage thereof to the Truth of Christianity 2. That those that are not Christians are not to be admitted into places of trust by the
of Conscience the advantage of an honourable and comfortable subsistence for those that labour in the word and doctrine that is to say he is obliged in all reason and conscience to continue it where it is and to raise it whereever it is wanting And I am very confident it is either gross Fanatical ignorance or the hidden malice of Satan against the kingdome of Christ acting either in profane and Atheistical persons or such as are not cordially Christians that suggests any thing to the contrary For the less any Religion is underpropped by External force the more able ought their Heads and Tongues to be that are only by their learning eloquence and innocency of life to support it And the present Ages having so much wit and so little sense of Piety he that will undertake to give a good account of his Religion and to answer all Opposers though the Scruples and Controversies be but concerning that which is plainly in the Scripture he ought to have leisure and vacancy from the affairs of the World to prepare himself and continue his dexterity in this kinde For that tedious buzz and noise of the Spirit has now I think made it self so ridiculous that no prudent man will listen to such lazy Impostures Every one is to give a reason of his faith but Priests or Ministers more punctually then any their Province being to make good every sentence of the Bible to a rational Enquirer into the Truth of those Oracles Who therefore can sufficiently attend these things and be to seek for bread for himself and his Family How unjust and sordid a temper therefore are those persons of that could be content to leave the Clergy to work for their living Any inferiour fellow may talk and prate phrases and make faces but when a sober man would be satisfied of the grounds from whence they speak we shall hear no news of any thing but the Spirit and railing against carnal Reason though it be no soft flesh but hard and penetrant steel and such as pierces them to the very heart for all their contempt and slighting of it 5. And verily while I consider the unreasonableness and ill consequence of this kinde of Enthusiasme I cannot but think the Vigilancy of the Christian Magistrate should extend to this also amongst other things to suppress and keep under all Sects and Religions that hold of so Fanatick a tenour that is to say that profess they believe against the Christian Faith from the illumination of such a Spirit as they can give no account of viz. such as does not illuminate their Reason whereby their doctrine may be accountable and intelligible to others but only heat them and make them furious against the Christian Church For besides the hazarding of making a whole Nation mad for seriously it is an infectious disease if not the very possession of the Devil there may some damnable plot lie under it against Christianity and the State For it is a more easie thing to heat the Phansies of the vulgar then to inform their Iudgements though this tends to sober edification that to confusion and destruction In brief there are these two very bad things in this resolving of matters into the immediate suggestion of the Spirit not acting upon our Understandings First it defaces and makes useless that part of the Image of God in us which we call Reason and secondly it takes away that special advantage that Christianity has above all other Religions that she dare appeal to so solid a Faculty And therefore he that takes away the use of Reason in Religion undermines Christianity and laies it as low as the basest Superstition that ever appeared in the World 6. Now therefore to return I say To talk at the rate of these blinde Illuminati that do not so much as pretend to any solid satisfaction in what they say requires no study nothing but heat and impudency and a careless insensibility of what they said last or whether one thing will hold with another But he that so speaks as ready to give a reason of what he delivers and indeed of all things that are already delivered in the Scriptures so plainly as that it appears what the meaning is for it is no prejudice that there be some depths beyond the present reach of men this man certainly ought not to be tied up to the cares of the world by being put to labour for his bread but ought to have a liberal certain and honourable allowance But to contemn the Christian Clergy or to endeavour to make them contemptible by impoverishing them and forcing them to base terms of living smels exceeding rank of Prophanenesse Atheisme and Infidelity and the railing at them and calling them Mercenary because they have a just maintenance allowed them is assuredly the voice of that envious Accuser of the brethren who by those villainous reproaches and calumnies would undermine and pull down the Kingdom of Christ in the world by striking at the necessary props and supporters of it the Ministry of the Gospel whose subsistence ought to be independent of the People that may reprove the more freely and that there may be no temptation to either unworthy connivances or to the sophisticating the doctrine of Christ by sweet poison to inveigle the rich and to untie their purse-strings what they thus pay being the price of their own Souls betraied into the hands of such canting Mountebanks 7. Fifthly The Christian Magistrate ought also to continue and erect where there wants publick Schools of Learning For the more knowing his Subjects are the more certainly will they keep to Christianity and the more easily will others come off to the same Faith Nothing comparable to this for the preventing all delusions and impostures in Religion Mahometisme could never have been set on foot but in a rude and illiterate Nation But Christianity got its first foot-hold in the most civilized parts of the world though persecuted and opposed Besides that it is a piece of unspeakable madness to think that any man can be a fit Interpreter of Scripture without that which some in contempt call Humane Learning as Logick or the known Principles of Reasoning I will adde Mathematicks and Philosophy and skill in Tongues and History no man without the knowledge of these can make good the Truth of those holy Oracles to knowing and understanding men And therefore they that decry these helps are either very ignorant or out of their wits or have a treacherous plot against the flourishing of Christianity and would bring in some Fanatick Religion or else are enemies to all Religion whatsoever 8. For tell me O ye high-flown Perfectionists and ye great boasters of the Light within you could the highest Perfection of your inward Light ever shew to you the Histories of past Ages the universal state of the World at present the knowledge of Arts and Tongues without some external helps of either Books or Teachers How then can you
when others in civil respect put it off are the main Effects of that Spirit that distinguisheth you from others of the Nation 3. Is this therefore the great purchase you have obtained by turning your back on Christ and contemning of his Person to grow rude and clownish to all the World beside But methinks I hear you answer again As for this man we know not what is become of him but behold the Spirit is sensibly present amongst us even at this day But I demand by what Signs O we shiver and quake every joynt of us But that is no certain signe of the Spirit of God Was not the winde suddenly turned into the North or had you not an Ephemera or was not your over-excited Choler entangled or turned out of the way by Phlegme or Melancholy What miraculous power is there in all this O but there are also amongst us that have fallen down into a trance that have foamed and swelled till their buttons break off Wherefore of a truth these men could not but be full of the Spirit and this be a Miracle indeed If your Religion oweth not its growth to the tricks of Juglers and Tumblers or to artificial Epilepsies I do confesse it is a Miracle from these Symptomes if Satan himself drives not on the designe For these are plainly the passions of Pythonicks such a kinde of possession as seized the Pagan-Prophets and Priests of old who were no better then the worshippers of Devils whose Oracles Christ has silenced long since Wherefore examine your selves if you glory not in your shame See how you tread look behinde you or rather search within you who is the Prompter or first Mover in this new Scene of things 4. For tell me I beseech you what did your foaming Prophets when they vented themselves discharge into your ears whereby they may be deemed more Divine then those Fanatick Pagans Was not their continual song so soon as they got upon their feet the burning up of all Ordinances From whence therefore could this voice come but out of the flames of hell or what could swell the bodies of your Inspired but the venome and poison of the Devil which at last working up to their mouths he spit out enviously against the worship of Christs Person and all his holy Offices Which is another evidence against you that your pretended Inspirations are not divine but diabolical and that the mystery of Satan worketh amongst you who would fain pull down Him whom of a truth God hath set up to be a King and Priest to the Nations for ever 5. But the sweetest satisfaction of all is that you are so extraordinarily illuminated that you understand all the Mysteries of Christs kingdom better then any one else and can in a supercilious pity bemoan the ignorance of the World or with an imperious bitterness fly in their faces and reproach them for it especially the Teachers of the people that they have not taken up your Allegorical knacks nor know how to give a mystical meaning of the Gospel from the preaching of Iohn the Baptist to the coming of Christ to Judgement But you are indeed so unilluminated as not to understand that such devices as these are merely Allusions of humane Wit and help very little to the enforcing of that they are made to signifie namely Repentance and Mortification of every evil lust and concupiscence and a renovation of our mindes into the perfect image of Christ that his spirit may rule in us and that the works of death and darknesse may be utterly destroied For this Truth is plainly and literally contained in the Scripture so that if your mindes were not more set upon fancies then savoury instruction you need not run a gadding after any new Guide for the attainment of this light And God be thanked many honest plain-hearted Christians that do not swagger and make such a noise with Mystical phrases as you both hear and live according to these Gospel-Precepts using a secret and silent severity upon themselves not acting the rough and hairy Baptist upon others as you do who love to oâ—tentate your self-chosen austerities to the eyes of the world like the Pharisees who made sowr faces for fear the people should not take notice that they afflicted their bodies with fasting What purchase therefore have you got by your Allegorical Mysteries unlesse you have been emboldned thereby to let go the Historical truth of the Gospel and have found your selves much at ease that your belief is not charged with such miraculous things as are written of Christ partly done already and partly to be done at the end of the World For hereby you do proclaim your selves Infidels and that for all your boasting your spirits are so foul and impure that they are no fit receptacles of the holy Christian Faith but that you have levelled your selves as low as Epicures and Atheists who are no more capable of the belief of these things then the Beasts of the Field 6. If it be thus with you I dare appeal unto you whether you keep so precisely to the light within you but that you have consulted with that blinde Guide H. Nicolas and tasted of the treacherous sops of his abhorred Passover whose Fanatick boldness has led the dance to this mad Apostasy Have you not celebrated his detestable Phase who has gone about to perswade the World that the greatest and truest Arcanum of the Lords Supper is Iudas-like to betray their Master to kill Christ according to the flesh that is to lay aside and misbelieve the Truth of his History Ask your own hearts if the warmth of this sop has not so encouraged you nay inflamed you with insufferable bitternesse against the Ministers of Christ as teaching nothing but lies because they have not ceased to believe the Truth Has not this with him that entred in with it so intoxicated you with rage that you have trampled the holy Bible under your feet Is it not this that hath made you so often roar against and revile the Preacher in the Pulpit and disturb the publick Assemblies by your rude and frantick interpellations Which Extravagancies demonstrate by what Spirit you are led and that you are plainly Rebels against Christ and are revolted to the Powers of the dark Kingdom 7. These things I could not forbear to write as being very much pressed in Spirit thereunto For the Light within me that is my Reason and Conscience does assure me that the ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Historical meaning thereof is very solid and true and that the Offices of Christ are never to be antiquated till his visible return to Judgement according to the literal sense of the Creed and that Familisme is a mere Flam of the Devil a smooth tale to seduce the simple from their Allegeance to Christ. And therefore I beseech every man in these daies of Liberty to take heed how they turn in thither especially those that are of an
infallible Oracles and will more easily discern the prevarications of their Teacher But for the greater assurance against any foul play of this kinde his misinterpretations of these Holy Writings to Loosnesse and Libertinism should be the forfeiture of the exercise of his Function 11. Besides I do not speak so much to exclude Preaching as to bring Catechizing and Expounding into more request which are abundantly more useful and edifying Nay I think that some well-tuned strains of unaffected Eloquence at the chief Festivals of the Year and in occasional Exhortations to the people upon observation of what is most amiss amongst them done with a great deal of seriousness and gravity as also at publick Fasts and Thanksgivings were a thing of excellent use and of the more efficacy it being the more seldom But for other days If our Saviour Christs Sermon on the Mount were read with much reverence and emphatick distinctness it being the advice of so sacred and infallible a person in whose mouth there was neither Errour nor Guile who was the Son of God clothed with the formalities of our flesh on purpose to take the chair awhile amongst us and to read us sound and warrantable Lectures of Divinity in whose behalf God the Father condescended to do the Office of a Praeco and commanded silence out of the Clouds saying This is my beloved Son hear him who was so faithful and compassionate a Pastour to his Flock that he laid down his life for his Sheep and so beloved of his Father that he was miraculously raised from the dead and taken up into heaven and lastly who shall visibly descend thence and judge every man according to his works If this Sermon I say of wholsome advice and holy Precepts were read distinctly and reverently to the people how can it but be more edifying and work more upon their spirits for their good then the sophisticated and affected Rhetorick of a fallible Mortal Besides the keeping out the danger of being either choaked with the crooked and spinose Controversies of Polemical Divinity or of being poisoned or intoxicated with the unwholsome sugar-sops of Antinomianism and Libertinism 12. And lastly to answer still more home to the point If thou hast a desire to magnifie thy Ministry in an eximious manner in stead of ostentating thy Gifts exercise and improve thy Graces to the highest thou canst Endeavour to the utmost to be an unblemished Example to thy flock of Humility of Brotherly kindeness of Obedience to the Magistrate of Temperance of exact Iustness in thy dealing of Compassion to the poor and needy Use thy best Prudence to keep Peace and Love amongst thy charge as it becomes Christians and to invite the more able to a charitable relief and help of those that are in want and necessity that no unsupportable distresse may make the lives of our fellow-members comfortless as also privately to reprove those that are guilty of any scandalous miscarriages but with the wisest and discreetest applications that may be that thy Reprehensions as they ought so they may appear to proceed from nothing but from love and from care and conscience of thy duty In which if thou wouldest not lose thine authority and confidence thou must live exactly in the indispensable Laws of Christ thy self nor make these solemn Reproofs but for the breach of such But if thou be really vitious thy self in these or to make thy self seem more holy rebuke for the neglect of some petty mock-vertues of thine own chusing thou shalt not fail to be either odious or ridiculous But here the great Hypocrisie is this That to compensate their neglect in these indispensable and highly-concerning Duties of the Ministry they abound in empty Lip-labour and endeavour to conciliate authority to themselves by their pretended spiritual Gifts of extemporary Praying and Preaching in stead of that unblemished Sanctity of life of useful Prudence in behalf of their Charge and of Christian Goodnesse and Charity And that they may keep up their credit more certainly with the people they lay their foundation wisely namely by giving them to understand that there is no hope of living as we should do or any need thereof and so making their whole flock as rotten as themselves both in Principles and Practice there being none left to reprove the false Prophet by either example of life or contrariety of doctrine he thus secures to himself his authority entire by his admired clack of the Tongue which some call The knack of preaching and praying Which yet where better intended is of as little efficacy as a Tar-bottle hung out on a Thorn-bush if compared with personal application and private information and reproof For that is like the Adfriction of the pastoral medicine to a diseased Sheep without which the formality of the Bottle on the Bush will do no cure let the flock be gathered about it never so solemnly 13. Touching the Communion None are to be excluded therefrom that professe their belief of the Holy Scriptures of the Apostles Creed in the plain literal and Historical sense thereof unless they stand guilty of some gross and scandalous sins which are to be nominated in some known Law concerning this matter and not to be left to the uncertainty of any private Ministers Judgement and do persist therein impenitent and unreclaimed For it were the greatest treachery to the party that could be by admitting him to this Holy Communion to make him more secure in such sins as will be sure while they are unrepented of to exclude him from that Heavenly Communion of Saints for ever Besides the Scandal and Offence to the rest of the serious and sincere-hearted Communicants to whom the sight will appear as ugly as if one having fallen over head and ears into the dirt should in that black miry hue droppingly dirty place himself at table amongst persons of quality whom the Master of the Feast had invited upon some special entertainment And as for the Posture of the Communicant as there are none that are so curious as to reduce it to that in which Christ and his Disciples celebrated his last Supper so none ought to be so captious as to take offence if one receive the Communion kneeling in devotion to God and humble thankfulnesse for that great Benefit that is signified thereby namely the Death of Christ with the Results thereof and the participation of his body and bloud in that sense I have spoken of elsewhere nor if another take it sitting as it is a celebration of a Supper or that he may clear himself of the suspicion of Idolizing the outward Elements of Bread and Wine For it is as well unjust as uncharitable to be at all scandalized at actions that have such innocent and allowable grounds and the most unsufferable at the celebrating of such a Mystery as is wholly made up of love and affection to Christ and to one another I confess an Uniformity would look better in outward shew but
to him and from his being a Sacrifice for sin 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's subverts Christianity 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts and how destructive it is of Christian Religion 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity 11 CAAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopannychites 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down 3. A Preparation to an Answer advertising First of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech 4. Secondly of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie 5. Thirdly of the ambiguity of words in Scripture and particularly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. And lastly of the Corinthians being sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life 7. The Answer out of the last and foregoing Premisse 8. A further Answer out of the first 9. As also out of the second and third where their Objection from verse 32. is fully satisfied 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees I am the God of Abraham c. 15 CHAP. VII 1. A General Answer to the last sort of places they alledge that imply no enjoyment before the Resurrection 2. A Particular Answer to that of 2 Cor 5. out of Hugo Grotius 3. A preparation to an Answer of the Author 's own by explaining what the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie 4. His Paraphrase of the six first Verses of the forecited Chapter 5. A further confirmation of his Paraphrase 6. The weakness of the Reasons of the Psychopannychites noted 19 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Opinion of the Soul 's living and acting immediately after Death was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers because they left out Preexistence an Opinion very rational in it self 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy Jeremy and Job 3. As also God's resting on the seventh day 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ might have been a further inducement 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians 8. That our Saviour did admit or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations namely That the Soul 's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures 21 CHAP. IX 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof 2. The Authors Paraphrase compared with Calvin's Interpretation 3. That Calvin needed not to suppose the Apostle to have writ false Greek 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be declined 5. The Second way of Interpretation 6. A second proof out of Scripture 7. A third of like nature with the former 8. A further enforcement and explication thereof 9. A fourth place 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words Matth. 20.28 25 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 imply That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 28 BOOK II. CHAP. I. HE passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity for the understanding whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down 2. As That there is a God 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary concatenation with the Rational account of all other Beings as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter 31 CHAP. II. 1. That the wise contrivances in the works of Nature prove the Being of a God 2. And have extorted an acknowledgement of a General Providence even from irreligious Naturalists 3. That there is a Particular Providence or Inspection of God upon every individual person Which is his Second Assertion 32 CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances and of their Kinds 2. The Proof of their Existence and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels 34 CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal Life and forsaking the Divine 2. The Fifth That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent 3. The Sixth That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life 4. The Seventh That the Souls of Men are immortal and act and live after death The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception 6. The scope and meaning of External Organs of Sense in this Earthly Body 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle 8. And lastly The accuracy of Divine Providence 35 CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion 37 CHAP. VI. 1. His Tenth Assertion That there will be a final Overthrow of the Dark Kingdome and that in a supernatural manner and upon their external persons 2. The Eleventh That the Generations of men had a beginning and will also have an end 3. To which also the Conflagration of the world gives witness 39 CHAP. VII 1. His Twelfth Assertion That there will be a Visible and Supernatural deliverance of the Children of the Kingdome of Light at the Conflagration of the World 2. The Reason of the Assertion 3. His Thirteenth Assertion That the last vengeance and deliverance shall be so contrived as may be best fit for the Triumph of the
Nature 7. The fourth Gospel-Power The Example of Christ. 8. His purpose of vindicating the Example of Christ from aspersions with the reasons thereof 408 CHAP. XIII 1. That Christ was no Blasphemer in declaring himself to be the Son of God 2. Nor Conjurer in casting out Devils 3. That he was unjustly accused of Prophaneness 4. That there was nothing detestable in his Neutrality toward Political Factions 5. Nor any Injustice nor Partiality found in him 6. Nor could his sharp Rebukes of the Pharisâ—es be rightly termed Railing 7. Nor his whipping the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple tumultâ—ary Zeal 8. Nor his crying out so dreadfully in his Passion be imputed to Impatience or Despair 9. The suspicion of Distractedness and Madness cleared 10. His vindication from their aspersions of Looseness and Prodigality 11. The câ—oâ—ked and perverse nature of the Pharisees noted with our Saviours own Apology for his frequenting all companies 12. That Christ was no Self-seeker in undergoing the Death of the Cross for that joy that was set before him 412 CHAP. XIV 1. The reason of his having insisted so long on the vindicating of the Life of Christ from the aspersions of the Malevolent 2. The true Character of a real Christian. 3. The true Character of a false or Pharisaical Christian. 4. How easily the true members of Christ are accused of Blasphemy by the Pharisaical Christians 5. And the working of their Graces imputed to some vicious Principle 6. Their censuring them prophane that are not superstitious 7. The Parisees great dislike of coldness in fruitless Controversies of Religion 8. Their Ignorance of the law of Equity and Love 9. How prone it is for the sincere Christian to be accounted a Railer for speaking the truth 10. That the least Opposition against Pharisaical Rottenness will easily be interpreted bitter and tumultuous Zeal 11. How the solid Knowledge of the perfectest Christians may be accounted Madness by the formal Pharisee 12. his Proneness to judge the true Christian according to the motions of his own untamed corruptions 13. His prudent choice of the vice of Covetousness 14. The Unreasonableness of his censure of those that endeavour after Perfection 15. His ignorant surmise that no man liveth vertuously for the love of Vertue it self 16. The Usefulness of this Parallelisme betwixt the Reproach of Christ and his true Members 422 CHAP. XV. 1. The Passion of Christ the fifth Gospel-Power the Virtue whereof is in a special manner noted by our Saviour himself 2. That the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness was a prophetick Type of Christ and cured not by Art but by Divine Power 3. That Telesmatical Preparations are superstitious manifest out of their Collections that write of them 4. Particularly out of Gaffarel and Gregory 5. That the Effects of Telesmes are beyond the laws of Nature 6. That if there be any natural power in Telesmes it is from Similitude with a confutation of this ground also 7. A further confutation of that ground 8. In what sense the Brazâ—n Serpent was a Telesme and that it must needs be a Typical Prophecie of Christ. 9. The accurate and punctual Prefiguration therein 10. The wicked Pride and Conceitedness of those that are not touched with this admirable contrivance of Divine Providence 11. The insufferable balsphemy of them that reproach the Son of God for crying out in his dreadful Agony on the Cross wherein is discovered the Unloveliness of the Family of Love 429 CHAP. XVI 1. The End of Christs Sufferings not onely to pacifie Conscience but to root out Sin witnessed out of the Scripture 2. Further Testimonies to the same purpose 3. The Faintness and Uselesness of the Allegory of Chrâ—sts Passion in comparison of the Application of the History thereof 4 The Application of Christs Sufferings against Pride and Covetousness 5. As also against Envy Hâ—â—red Revenge vain Mirth the Pangs of Deaâ—h and unwarrantable Love 6. A General Application of the Death of Christ to the mortifying of all Sin whatsoever 7. The celebrating the Lords Supper the use and meaning thereof 436 CHAP. XVII 1. The sixth Gospel-Power is the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The priviledge of this Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality above that from the Subtilty of Reason and Philosophy 2. The great power this consideration of the Soul's Immortality has to urge men to a Godly life 3. To â—ean themselves from worldly pleasures and learn to delight in those that are everlasting 4. To have our Conversation in Heaven 5. The Conditions of the Everlasting Inheritance 6. Further enforcements of duty from the Soul's Immortality 440 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 here shall be in no 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 Happiness 443 CHAP. XIX 1. That there can be no Religion more powerful for the promoting of the Divine Life then Christianity is 2. The external Triumph of the Divine Life in the person of Christ how throughly warranted and how fully performed 3. The Religious Splendour of Christendome 4. The Spirit of Religion stifled with the load of Formalities 5. The satisfaction that the faithfully-devoted Servants of Christ have from that Divine homage done to his Person though by the wicked 447 CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulness of Christianity for the good of this life witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self 3. Objections against Christianity as if it were an unfit Religion for States Politick 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political with the advantage of that Concession 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government as doth Charity for example 7. Humility Patience and Mortification of inordinate desires 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall 449 BOOK IX CHAP. I. THe four Derivative Properties of the Mystery of Godliness 2. That a measure of Obscurity begets Veneration suggested from our very senses 3. Confirmed also by the common suffrage of all Religions and the nature of Reservedness amongst men 4. The rudeness and ignorance of those that expect that every Divine Truth of Scripture should be a comprehensible Object of their understanding even in the very modes and
contract and covenant in a familiar and kind way one with another And the holy Writers are so far from giving any considerable occasion to title the Gospel by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they frequently set it in opposition thereunto And if at any time they attribute that term to it it is ordinarily not without some softning or mitigating qualification as the Law of Faith not of Works and the Law of liberty Jam. 1.25 So that we see that there is a very sufficient ground why notwithstanding the Jews call'd their Pentateuch and other holy writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law that the primitive Christians should call the Evangelical writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Covenant it usually also signifying Testament to which the Author to the Hebrews alludes chap. 9.17 which comes exceeding near to the nature of a Covenant where one is constituted Heir upon Condition 9. The very Title therefore of that Authentical Volume of our Religion gives some general knowledge of the nature of it if it had been fitly translated out of the Greek But the Latine Christians as well in the old as in the new Testament ever translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Testamentum etiam ubi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominatur as Grotius takes notice whenas God yet cannot die and therefore will never have occasion to make his last Will and Testament have given occasion to our English Translatours to follow them in the Title of this Book and to render it Testament rather then Covenant by which notwithstanding is to be understood Covenant Otherwise if you understand a last Will and Testament what sense will the Old Testament bear CHAP. VI. 1. That there were more Old Covenants then one 2. What Old Covenant that was to which this New one is especially counterdistinguished with a brief intimation of the difference of them 3 4. An Objection against the difference delivered with the Answer thereto 5. The Reason why the Second Covenant is not easily broken 6. That the importance of the Mystery of the Second Covenant engages him to make a larger deduction of the whole matter out of S. Paul 1. IN general therefore our Christian Religion is a Covenant the Terms and Conditions whereof are comprehended in those Books which we ordinarily call The New Testament which were better and more significantly rendred The New Covenant The nature whereof we cannot so well understand unless we reflect back upon the Old Covenants mentioned in the Scripture which preceded this and there being more then one take notice which of them especially this New one is set opposite to That there is mention of more Covenants then one is manifest from Ephes. 2.12 And particularly Circumcision in the book of Moses and the Prophets is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament Acts 7.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And God gave unto Abraham the Covenant of Circumcision 2. But questionless that One most eminent most solemn and most formal Covenant which God made with the Children of Israel beginning it at their going out of Aegypt but perfecting it on Mount Sinai in Arabia this is that Old Covenant chiefly glanced at by them that styled our Religion The New Covenant and they had a very good warrant for it out of the Prophet Jeremy ch 31. v. 31 32. Behold the daies come saith the Lord that I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Iudah Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Aegypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband unto them saith the Lord. But this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those daies saith the Lord I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people Which promise also is recorded in the 54. of Esay And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children So that there is found an Old and a New Covenant set opposite the one against the other by the Prophets own ordering The difference of whose natures consists mainly in this That the Old Covenant is an external Covenant something without a man the other an inwardly-ingrafted principle of Life This is that word which is in our heart as well as in our mouth of which Paul professes himself a preacher and therefore must be the gospel of Iesus Christ. 3. But you 'l say The Evangelists and the Apostles Writings are without too as well as the letter of Moses I but yet for all that it is very manifest and plain that they have not reached the Dispensation of the Gospel that have not attained to an inward principle of life Which being the great distinguishing design of the Gospel we are to look upon it in this design and end and that it has not done its work and is in a manner nothing to us till this be done He that believes in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of water And John 6. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him As the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me Which passages plainly enough import the most intimate principles of life that may be the divine nature being turned as it were in succum sanguinem within us being converted into the juice and nourishment of our Souls 4. But our conversation under the Mosaical Covenant and our frame of Spirit there is but an ordinary accustomary temper or habit of doing or not doing such and such things and consequently all that righteousness but a fleshly rational fabrick of minde which Fear and Custome have carved out in the surface as it were of our Souls which characters by the same instruments are so preserved legible But under the Covenant of Christ nor Fear nor Custome but an inward spirit of life works us into everlasting holiness and a permanent Renovation of nature and Regeneration of the hidden man 5. From whence the reason is to be understood of that difference the Prophet Ieremie intimates betwixt the Old Covenant and the New That the old Covenant was broken by his people but the new one should not be broken For the one being an external yoke and the other the inward pleasure of life and radicate desire of the Soul it is no wonder that what is forced lasts not long but that upon the first opportunity and provoking occasion like unmanaged horses we cast off the burden that so pinches us and galls us in lying so heavy upon us and being no part of us But the perfect Law of liberty becoming as it were our own life and nature our greatest burden would
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
which condition is to be freely and naturally righteous and good that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Divine nature which when we have attained to we may be properly said naturally and without straining to do that which is good and righteous we discover here a very eminent Object of our Faith viz. this Divine power by the help whereof we are to be wrought up into this happy condition of a living inward Righteousnesse that is as near to us as our own Souls and is the life and spirit of our Soul as our Soul is of our Body And thus are we made just by Faith as I have elsewhere intimated viz. by Faith in the power of God whereby he is able to raise Jesus Christ from the dead in us or what is all one whereby he is able to make the Spiritual Isaac grow in our withered and barren wombs and to bring to passe in us that by his assisting Grace which would never have come to passe by the mere strength of Nature This I say is a very eminent and highly-considerable Object of our Christian Faith And the want of this Faith the Prophet may seem to complain of in a mystical sense when he saies Who has believed our report or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed that is Men are very slow to believe that the power of God in Christ is so efficacious as it is to cast down every strong hold of Satan and to kill and slay the body of Sin in us that the spirit of Righteousnesse may be revived and restored in us And thus much briefly of the First point wherein the Second Covenant differs from the First The Second point is this That the state of the Second Covenant is a state of Liberty as that under the First of Bondage 8. And this Liberty consists in these three things especially First In that we are freed from the tedious and voluminous luggage of Ceremonies nor are any longer superstitiously hoppled in the toiles and nets of superfluous Opinions which tend not at all of their own nature to the advancement of the Divine life and the Kingdome of Christ in the world And verily it cannot sink into my minde how Zeal about unnecessary knowledge can be any better then the boiling of the natural heat in the behalf of that which is alike dear nay more dear to Devils and Natural men then to the true Children of God in whom the curious desire of Speculative knowledge is very much extinguished through their ardent thirst after Divine life and sense which will most vividly possesse them upon a due measure of Regeneration or the Resurrection from the dead when we have risen with Christ as well as died with him In the mean time while we are passing through the painful Agony of Mortification all fine Opinions and Curiosities of Religion will lie scattered and neglected about us as toies and gew-gawes by a child that is deadly sick 9. Secondly the Second part of our Liberty consists in this that we are free from Sin They are the very words of the Apostle For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroied that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin And hence I think it is very plain that a man that has had his due progress under the Second Covenant I mean the Gospel of Christ is freed from the rebellion and tumult of the body of sin And that we may not shuffle off so general a notion and elude the force thereof I will particularize He is freed from Pride from Envy from Hatred from Wrath from Grief from Covetousness and from sensual Lust. And some of these are so incompetible with the nature of a Christian as Pride and Envy that they are like the rankest poison not in the least degree consistent with the condition we speak of And though something in reason may be said for Hatred yet I believe it will lie very crosly and unevenly in the heart of a good Christian and I see no need of it whenas Anger and Sorrow that is Pity will supply the place of it And we may observe our Saviour Christ surprized with Anger and melted in Grief and Pity but there is not the least intimation of Hatred in any passage of our Saviours life So that it is the safest and most warrantable to be angry at or pity wicked men not to hate them lest we become in some measure hateful our selves by putting on that so deformed vizard As for sensual Lust and all Voluptuousness it is so conspicuous an Object of mortification that he that does not hit the mark there and strike dead kills nothing at all For it is the most crass and gross enormity of them all and the most scandalous and the most importunate disturber of men that make towards God and the greatest extinguisher of true Faith and Sense in Divine things and so besmears the wings of the Soul as it were with bird-lime that she cannot move upward nor at all release her self from the impediments of the Body nor have any phansy nor conceit of what is Heavenly and Divine But now Pride and Voluptuousness being exterminated it is plain that Covetousness will be set packing for it is ordinarily onely a purveior for those two Vices And those that are the most sordidly covetous are well aware that Mony being able to do all things let men talk what they will they really are not nor can be despicable 10. The Third and last is his Freedome to Righteousness And that this is true is very plain from what has been said before For he being free from that load of unnecessary Ceremonies and from the intanglements of fruitless and superstitious Opinions and from the body of Sin what can now hinder that Divine principle of Regeneration from acting chearfully freely and comfortably For every mountain is cast down and every valley is exalted and all is made plain and even before him that with pleasure ease and joy he may walk in the wayes of that Everlasting Righteousness that Christ brings into the world For the Eternal seed of the Word that is engrafted in him or that living law of Righteousnesse planted in his heart does as naturally guide and actuate him as the Soul does move an unshackled Body and it is no more constraint or bondage in him to do what is truly good and holy then it is to the unregenerate to do that which is natural or vitious And thus have I plainly and truly set before you the Idea of a well-grown Christian that has made his due proficiency under the mighty advantages of the New Covenant the Gospel of Christ that we may know what to aspire to and breath after and that we may never be quiet till we be possessed