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
more Particular answer to that of the 32 of this Chapter where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be either interpreted if the Souls of just men deceased obtain not their glorified or heavenly Bodies For though it were granted that they did in the mean time live and act in Aery vehicles yet that State and Region as the Earth being common to good and bad they had yet obtained no peculiar reward for their hardship and toil here Or else which is the more safe sense by far it may be interpreted at large of the life and subsistency of the Soul after its departure according to the last signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third Premiss And thus is the strength of the main proof of the Psychopannychites utterly enervated 10. But there are other places of Scripture which they misapply to the same purpose as the Answer of our Saviour to the Sadducees question concerning the Resurrection I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Hence our Adversaries would conclude That the Souls of the departed do not live because if they did our Saviour's argument would be invalid for the Resurrection For if Abraham's Spirit were now alive God might be his God though his Body never rise But this is easily satisfied out of the second Premiss By Resurrection there being understood a Life hereafter and the Opinion of the Sadducees being That there is neither Angel nor Spirit nor Life to come he does not exactly tie himself to that particular circumstance of a blessed Immortality that consists in the enjoyment of glorified Bodies but answers more at large concerning the subsistence of Souls of men departed that they are and live and that therefore there are Spirits and so handsomly confutes the whole Doctrine of the Sadducees by that citation out of their own Pentateuch and a skilful application thereof 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 1. THE third and last way of proving the Sleep of the Soul is from such Passages in Scripture as seem to joyn the Hour of our Death immediately with the Day of our Resurrection as in 2 Cor. 5. Where the Apostle seems to intimate that there does nothing intercede betwixt the solution of our Earthly Tabernacle and being clothed with the Heavenly which not being till the Day of Judgment it is a sign that the Soul is in no condition unless that of Sleep till then So likewise in 2 Tim. chap. 1. and chap. 4. In the former he speaks of his Depositum which he intrusts God with till that Day and prays that Onesiphorus may finde mercy at that Day and in the latter he speaks of a Crown of righteousness that the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day as if all were defer'd till then But in my conceit it is a weak kinde of Argument Because the Souls of the Saints receive not their great reward till the Day of Iudgment that therefore they receive nothing at all nay that they are in a worse state then in this life as having lost all Sense of Existence or Being Their opinion to me seems more tolerable then this who though they do not presently mount them up in their Ethereal Chariots to Heaven yet permit them to move and to act in their Aereal Vehicles at a less distance from the Earth But that Last day being a day of that high Solemnity dreadful Glory and Majesty it is no wonder that for the better moving of the Minds of men he so often mentions that time without taking any notice of the interceding Space For thereby it also seems more nigh as a distant Object does to the sight no visible thing coming between 2. Now for the second to the Cor. 5. chap. There be two waies of clearing that difficulty there The one of Hugo Grotius in which a late learned Interpreter of our own does also insist expounding as they may well the third verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus If so be we shall be found in the number of those that are still clothed with these Earthly bodies not stript naked of them by death This Interpretation the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 going afore makes still the more warrantable as also that following phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is used by the Apostle in a parallel case This Exposition utterly destroys all the force of the Psychopannychites Argument taken from this place For whereas the Apostle seems to speak as if immediately upon the solution of this Earthly they were to be invested with a Heavenly Tabernacle which is mainly to be gathered out of the second and fourth verses it is only upon the supposition that the day of the Lord might come while they were yet clothed with flesh 3. But because this Interpretation may seem to be something derogatory to the Apostle's Knowledge as if he were pendulous and uncertain whether the day of Iudgment might not be in his time which some men will not bear I shall propound another that they may take their choice The former seems to have a special advantage in the proper sense of those two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we can but come off well here we shall carry on the rest handsmooth We premise therefore thus much concerning the meaning of those two words That as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies simply to put on a garment so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may well signifie to put on an inward garment For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie within in composition as the Latine word In does in Inducula Inducium and Interula all which signifie an inward Garment and the two former they ordinarily derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this proper signification of the word And as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie to put on an inward garment so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie an addition of an inward garment to an outward for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie in composition as if the sense were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be content to wear an upper garment only but to put on also an inward as we do in winter add an half-shirt or a wastcoat Or if this look like too curious a Criticism let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
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
the Immortality of the Soul the main Branches of the ancient Cabbala was also communicated But it is no where said nor can be conceived That God the Father distinctly from the Son and Holy Ghost gave the Law to Moses but it was an act as all acts ad extra are of the entire Godhead Nor is the Father nor the Holy Spirit excluded in the oeconomie of the Gospel but their Glory is acknowledged coequal and their Majesty coeternal Nor again can the Church ever cease to be under the Belief of Iesus Christ so as that any other God-service should justle that out by its succession For the Belief of the Promises of Christs coming again visibly to Judgement and Crowning his true members with Eternal Life and Glory must of necessity continue till the Promises themselves be fulfilled Which are but phantastically conceived to be fulfilled in the Service of the Love 6. Moreover how can that Dispensation pretend to be the Ministry of the Spirit where men are kept off from believing the inward manifestations of their own Mind where alone they can be properly said to be taught of God and urged to give up all their Light and Consciences to be rul'd at the pleasure of the Elders of his Family This is not to be inspired by God but to be taught merely by men and to be carved and shaped out like a piece of dead Marble by the hand of the Statuary So wholy unlike the Dispensation of the Spirit is this Oeconomie of the Service of the Love Beside that it is a piece of Rapine and Robbery to appropriate that to their Family which is the Peculiar of every true Believer in Christ who assuredly have the assistance of the Holy Spirit as I have proved at large in the following parts of my Discourse 7. But if any one will adventure to affirme That after this dead Forme of Religion and external flattery of the Person of Christ which has continued too-many Ages there will succeed a more general Reign of the Spirit of Life and experimental knowledge of his Sceptre and Power in us subduing all his enemies there under his feet and renewing the World in true Righteousness and Holiness it is that which I in no wise oppose nay I must confess I have a fatal and unalterable propension to think it to be true and that this may be that Regnum Spiritús which the Cabbalists of old did presage and does begin with the Reviving of the Witnesses in the Apocalypse of S. Iohn Of which things I have already spoke But in the mean time this is not the special work of any one man but like the Vision of Ezekiel where Breath comes from the four Winds of Heaven upon the bones already covered with sinews flesh and skin and behold they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great Army an orderly Company such as the Church of Christ ought to be For this Internal power of the Spirit will not annul or destroy the External Frame of Christian Religion as it referrs to the Offices of the Person of Christ the Head of his Church as these Satanical Impostors would pretend but rectifie and corroborate it and make it more irreprehensibly and enravishingly beautifull as there was more lustre in those raised Bodies after the Spirit of life had entred into them then when they were mere dead carkasses 8. Besides if we did conceive that this Dispensation of Christ in the Spirit was to be in a more special manner promoted by the Ministry of some one Person it does not at all follow that H. Nicolas is the man and not onely so but I am confident I shall make it manifest that it is impossible that it should be he Which I shall have sufficiently performed when I have demonstrated that he is nothing at all of that which he pretends to be but only a mere mistaken Enthusiast if not worse which was the last part of my Purpose And this I conceive is fully evinced by proving him to have laid aside all the Offices of the Person of Christ as he is Man and intercepted all the hopes of his Visible Return to Judgement in the clouds of Heaven and of rewarding all true Believers with that glorious Crown of Life in an Heavenly Body at the last day Which things are so clear in Scripture that the Scripture it self must loose its authority if these things once loose their belief as is manifest by what we have said already in this present Treatise And therefore he that denies these things it is plain he is not inspired of God but is a Minister and Factor for the Devil CHAP. XV. 1. That the Personal Offices of Christ are not to be laid aside That he is a Priest for ever demonstrated out of sundry places of Holy Writ 2. That the Office of being a Iudge is also affixed to his Humane Person proved from several Testimonies of Scripture 3. Places alledged for the excluding Christ's Humanity with Answers thereto 4. The last and most plausible place they do alledge with an Answer to the same 1. NOW that the Humane person of Christ as I may so call it is not to be laide aside is evident not to repeat what I have elsewhere alledged from the whole Epistle of the Author to the Hebrews For he that there is said to be an high Priest for ever is that very man who was crucified on the Cross at Ierusalem who was said to be like unto his brethren in all things that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things appertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that tempted And it is further clear that it is this very man we speak of in that he is said to be born not of the Tribe of Levi but of the Tribe of Iuda chap. 7.14 and yet he is there declared a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec Read the whole Chapter nothing can be more clearly asserted then the Everlasting high-Priesthood of this man who sanctifying the People with his bloud suffered without the gate Which are such particularities as must needs affix the Eternal high-Priesthood to the Humane person of Christ. Again in that he is said to suffer but once it is apparent that it is to be literally understood of his Humane person And every priest standeth dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down at the right hand of God c. And yet more fully in the foregoing Chapter For Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entreth into
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
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
Magician and Impostour who though he did very strange things whilst he lived yet if he were once judicially tried condemned and put to death they did not make any question but that it would be with him as with other Malefactours the trouble of him would end with his life as is usually observed in matters of this kind otherwise it would be a great flaw in Providence and the generations of men would not be able to subsist for the insolencies of Witches and Sorcerers But God thus extraordinarily and miraculously interposing his power in raising Iesus from the dead gave the most certain and most confounding Testimony against the malicious cruelty of the Jewes if we may call that Malice which the love and Candour of Christ in the midst of his bitter sufferings named only Ignorance that possibly could be given For their judicial proceedings are hereby not only in an extraordinary way made suspicable and taxed of injustice but by such a miraculous means that it is manifest that none other but God himself is their Accuser as well as the Acquitter of the innocent whom they put to death and did so throughly martyr that none but the hand of God could recover him to life The same therefore of so notable an Accident the chief of the Jews very well knowing and that it would if believed demonstrate that all he did or said before in his life-time was right and from an undeniable principle that the people might not receive him for their Messias now whom three daies agoe they had crucified hired the Souldiers that watched his Monument to tell abroad that his Disciples stole him away by night while they were asleep 2. But here haply some may demand how it came to pass that these chief Priests and Rulers being so punctually informed by the Souldiers which watched the sepulchre of Christ that he was risen from the dead were not converted to the Faith themselves and convinced that Iesus was indeed the expected Messias But we may very well conceive that what might prove very effectual to move others to believe in Christ might yet take no hold upon them Partly because they were further engaged in this bloudy and direfull Tragedy then others were and having a deeper sense of honour and repute with the people then of the favour of God and love to the Truth they might in a desperate and obdurate condition venture as the saying is over shoes over boots being more willing to expose themselves to any thing then to that shame and reproach that would attend the acknowledgment of so hainous an errour And then partly because though this Accident may seem very strange yet they might conceit that it was not above the power of Evil Spirits to perform who might change themselves into the lustre of Angels of light and therefore that it was but a greater temptation upon them to try their faithfulness and obedience to the Law of Moses For what would not they think rather then find themselves guilty of so grand ignorance as not to know the promised Messias when he came into the World and of so gross a crime as to be murderers of him that from Heaven was declared the Son of God 3. But out of this Solution you 'l say arises as great a Difficultie as the former viz. How we can be ascertained that Christ is really raised from the dead Because some delusive Spirits might open his Sepulchre and carry him away and afterward appear in his shape making use of his Body to shew to Thomas or changing their own vehicles into the likeness of flesh and bones so that no man's sense may discover any difference But to this many things may be answered and 4. First That that which may be an Exception or Evasion in any case is of consequence in no case For what does there at any time really happen but Evil Spirits have a power to imitate so near that our Senses may well be deceived Secondly Though they have this power in themselves yet I deny that they can exert it when and so far as they please and therefore God would not permit them to add so irresistible credit to the whole Ministry of Christ by this last Miracle if Christ had not really been the Messias but he being the Messias it was no delusion of theirs but a real transaction by that hand that is Omnipotent 5. Thirdly Every thing was exactly as if he had risen from the dead the Watch saw the Earth-quake and the stone rolled from the door of the Sepulchre by an Angel from Heaven Peter look'd in and beheld the linen cloaths lying by themselves the Body of Christ was missing there He appeared to his Disciples elsewhere he discoursed with them eat drunk with them they felt his flesh and put their very fingers into his wounds What greater demonstration then this could there be that he was really risen from the dead And therefore by men indifferent it must needs be acknowledged to be so though there be a possibility of being otherwise 6. Fourthly Those Miraculous things either happening to him or done by him while he was alive they being so real as they were must needs beget Faith in the unprejudic'd that this Accident was real also For is it so strange a thing that that Divine power should raise Christ from the dead that enabled him to raise Lazarus out of the Grave when he had been four daies buried to say nothing of his other Miracles and those evident Testimonies from Heaven that he was the Son of God For though there was some room left for the shuffles and subterfuges of the blinded Jews yet to those that are free and piously disposed the Resurrection of Christ compared with what either supernaturally was done by him or happened to him in his Life and at his Passion they do so binde and strengthen one another that there is no place left for misbelief 7. Fifthly Besides the Testimony of the Angels that told Mary Magdalen Ioanna and others that Christ was risen and that they did fondly to seek the living amongst the dead our Saviour's owne Prophesie concerning his rising the third day could not but make the thing undoubtedly sure to his Disciples and all such as were concerned in it and had believed on him before whereby they became zealous assertors and witnessers of it to the World 8. Sixthly and lastly All these things happening thus extraordinarily and supernaturally to a person that professed himself the Messias at that very time that the Jewish Prophesies foretold the Messias would come it is an unanswerable Demonstration that this was he and that therefore all things that he did spoke or happened unto him were no vain Illusion but Reality and Truth 9. Neither does his appearing and disappearing at pleasure and coming in to his Disciples when the doors were shut at all weaken the truth of his Resurrection and vital actuating that very Body that lay in the grave For he gave
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
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
the Love sect 3. and 7. See him also upon the Beatitudes sect 6. And it is no wonder we hear nothing of that Reconciliation made by the Cross of Christ for he does plainly aver sect 34. That the true being in the Love is that peace with God and man mentioned Ephes. 2.14 and the true Testament that standeth fast for ever And Exhortation chap. 12.44 Remission of sins is gained only by submitting to the House of the Love The same that David George boasted of his doctrine Therefore my beloved children change ye not nor turn away your selves from the House of Love For there is in the same the stool of grace to an everlasting remission of sins over all such as cleave thereon and to a peace and rest of the life to all such as humble them there-under By such slips and omissions as these those that are not very dull of perception may easily spel out his meaning Which yet is more clear by other places of his Evangely chap. 13. Where he setleth the Everlasting Priesthood not upon Christ's person but makes this Kingly Priest no person at all but a thing a state or condition of him and his followers here upon earth And therefore he calls there this mystical Christ The Lords Sabbath The seventh day in the Paradise of God The perfection c. And chap. 22. he makes the entrance of Christ into heaven and his visible ascending up thither and sitting at the right hand of God and sending down the holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost which was a real effect of his eternal Priesthood and Intercession with God for his Church nothing but the appearing of him according to the Spirit out of the Heavenly Being in their Minds or Souls upon which he sent down his Spiritual or Heavenly Powers Wherefore this Mystical Christ is the only high Priest that he acknowledgeth and will allow him no otherwise then in this mystical and spiritual sense to be an everlasting and true Christ of God See the place of which you will assure your self I have given the right sense if you compare it with chap. 26. sect 10 11 12. where he more plainly affirms That it is the upright being of the Love Christ after the Spirit which he calls the true light which is that high Priest that abideth for ever at the right hand of God in the Heavenly Being Which phrase Heavenly Being alwaies signifies morally or mystically with him and means something within us And yet he has the impudence to alledge Acts 1. v. 11. where Christ is said to ascend into Heaven literally and naturally so called his disciples gazing upon him as he went up Thus you see how industriously nay how madly and rashly he shuffles out the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly Office every where And as he will have the Heaven or most Holy within us so will he have his Sacrifice and Passion within us too Introduct chap. 8.38 Where doe any now saith he keep the Supper of Christ where they break distribute and eat the bread which is the true Body of Christ to a remembrance of Christ that he hath suffered in us for the sins cause the death of the Cross and so his death is published till he come in his glory Where it is plain that the Crucifixion of Christ is a mystery in us and it is insinuated a duty too For the Body and the Flesh of Christ is Christ according to the History Which Christ according to the Flesh is to be slain in us if we celebrate the Passeover aright and thus we must publish his death till he come in glory that is in the Spirit 4. And truely no other is his glorious coming to judgment with this Sect then this Mystical and Spiritual coming which was the second part I intended to pursue which I question not but I shall make as clear as noon-day Of this there are so many Testimonies and so pregnant that the only fear is of being too copious in the proof of this matter Revel Dei cap. 7. There his illuminate Elders together with his Family of Love are the Heavens in which Christ the Son of God comes gloriously and triumphantly to judgment to reign with God and his righteousness everlasting upon earth Which plainly excludes the ending of the World and that coming of Christ that all Christians expect And chap. 15. sect 6. he affirms that in this Eighth day which is the day of the Spirit of Love all the dead that are deceased in the Lord Iesus Christ do rise from the death and all Generations of Heaven and Earth do become judged in the judgement of God with equity Again in his Introduct Chap. 1. he saith That now the true glorious God who is the Resurrection and the Life revealeth his Saints out of his bosome where since the time they fel asleep they have rested untill this day of the Love because they should now in these last times in the resurrection of the righteous be manifested with Christ in glory to a righteous judgement of God on the earth And chap. 12. he there also affirms That in this day of the Love there appear and come to us livingly and gloriously all God's Saints which in times past died and fell asleep in God And chap. 22. there he also tells us how that in sure and firm hope of everlasting life the upright believers have rested in the Lord Iesus Christ till the appearing of his coming which is now in this day of the Love revealed out of the heavenly Being with which Iesus Christ the former Believers of Christ who were fallen asleep rested or died in him are now also manifested in glory being raised from the dead to the intent that they should reign alive with him over all his enemies To which you may add what he has wrote chap. 16. in his Prophecy of the Spirit of Love Make you to flight make you to flight yea get you now all out of the way ye enemies of the Lord and of his service of the Love and give the Lord with his holy ones the roome yet shall ye not escape the vengeance of God For he saith the Lord cometh to judge betwixt the Family of the Love and the rest of the world where-through the Earth is now moved the Heavens troubled the Elements melt with heat and the token of the coming of the Son of man appears in Heaven with which rumour or rushing noise of the power of God and his holy ones the last trumpet doth also presently give forth her sound through whose blast of her vehement sound and through the appearing of the coming of Christ the dead shall stand up and arise unto the judgement of God who having revenged the bloud of his holy ones that the sinners have spilt and shed upon the earth he puts this pure Family in peaceable Possession thereof that they may reign there-over or judge the same with righteousness from henceforth world without
are competible to Jesus whom we worship and to him only 1. THE first mark of the Messiah was his Rejection that he should be rejected of the Jews but those places that foretel his Killing more strongly implying his Rejection we need add nothing particular thereof That the Messiah was to be slain and be a Sacrifice for sinne besides that full and copious prediction of Isaiah is clear out of Daniel who saith that after sixty nine weeks the Messiah was to be cut off and then adding afterwards that in the half of the seventieth week he should make the sacrifice to cease it is plain that his Death and ceasing of the Jewish sacrifices and oblations were in one Week and that thereupon his Death was a Sacrifice whereby those Iudaical Oblations were antiquated For it is well known that the Temple and their Oblations continued about forty years after the Passion of Christ so that it cannot be understood of the outward destruction of the Temple and Prohibition of Sacrifices and therefore it must be understood of the nulling of the Validity and Authority of them their Law of sacrificing being abrogated by that transcendent Sacrifice of the body of our blessed Saviour upon the Cross. For there is nothing else that can be imagined to cease or take away the Iudaical Sacrifices in the midst of the last Week but that To these we might adde Psalm 22. and Zachar. 12.10 but what has been alledged already is more then enough 2. Let us now rather see what has been foretold of his Resurrection from the dead And in my mind that is a very clear Prediction thereof Psalm 16. v. 8. where David being transported in his Spirit by a divine power writes higher matters then are competible to any but the true David the Messiah himself I have set the Lord alwaies before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulness of Ioy and at thy right hand there are Pleasures for evermore This is so natural a description of one raised out of the Grave before he corrupt there and ascending into the presence of God in the Heavens to enjoy Eternal Life that nothing can be more express But David was never raised out of the grave himself but his flesh saw corruption Wherefore it appears that it was a Prophecie of some other viz. the Messiah of whom David was a Type 3. The Ascension of the Messiah is lively prefigured Psalm 68. The chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is amongst them as in Sinai in the holy place Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led Captivity captive thou hast received gifts or men for the rebellious also that the Lord God may dwell among them If this be applied unto Christ the sense is easie especially if you take notice how the Lord was amongst them in Sinai that is there was one chief Angel whom some would have to be Christ which sustained the person of God who might have the name of Adonai as Christ also has and is styled the Angel of the Covenant Malachi 3.1 In lieu of him is here the Messiah himself attended with many Squadrons of Angels and receiving gifts of his Father to communicate to the World that God might dwell amongst them that they might be brought in to be of his Church 4. This Prophecie also plainly points at his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but there are also other places that make it still more clear as Psalm 110. The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool and then vers 4. The Lord has sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck The Jews themselves of old acknowledged this Psalm to be a Prophecie of the Messiah and the first and fourth verses are such that they can bear no other sense but that the Messiah was to be greater then David and to be a King Priest and Intercessour at the right hand of God for ever Also Psalm 45.6 Thy throne O God is for ever and ever the Sceptre of thy Kingdome is a right Sceptre Thou lovest righteousness and hatest iniquity therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of Gladness above thy fellows Him that the Psalmist speaks of here he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it cannot signifie an ordinary King or Magistrate because he saies his throne is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is for ever absolutely as R. Moses Aegyptius expounds that Phrase Wherefore most justly does the Chaldee Paraphrast make this Psalm a Prophecie of the Messiah whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Divinity is plainly expressed in these verses I have recited I will add one place more out of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 9. v. 6. For unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderfull Counseller The mighty God The everlasting Father The Prince of peace of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdome to order and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and for ever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will doe this I do not doubt but that this Prophecie is in some sort referrable also to Hezekiah and hits upon him first but the main scope of it is the Messiah and that therein his Divinity and the Eternity of his Kingdome is set out both the Testimony of the Chaldee Paraphrast the Translation of the Septuagint and the expressions in the Prophecie according to the Hebrew Text is evidence enough For they translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his name shall be called Wonderfull Counseller The mighty God The everlasting Father The Prince of peace after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which exposition cannot possibly be sense if referred to Hezekiah but agrees very well with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Messiah Besides the English translation Of the increase of his Government and Peace there shall be no end is so exactly according to the Hebrew that it is plain all the expressions are not competible to Hezekiah and Grotius himself who loves to stretch the sense of every particular expression of these kind of Prophecies to the person they first aim at yet he acknowledges ingenuously that they are more fitly and more plainly applicable to the Messiah Which to any indifferent man is satisfaction enough that they were meant of him especially if he consider that the ancient Iews who may well be thought to understand the Genius of their own Prophets the
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
reap For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting 5. The aim therefore of the Apostle is not to extenuate or discountenance real Vertue and Righteousnesse but to point us to it and shew us where it may be had Not in dayes or years not in New Moons or Festivals not in Circumcision nor in the dead letter of the Law but in Christ and the Spirit of God in the renewed Image of God in the new birth in the new life in the second Adam from Heaven in the new Creature But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world For in Christ Iesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature Which the Apostle elsewhere cals the new man That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man that is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the Spirit of your minde And that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse that is not in external Ceremonial holiness or outward sanctimonious shew but in the regeneration of the inward Spirit to a new life from the very heart And again Colos. 3. vers 9. Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him where there is neither Greek nor Iew circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian bond nor free but Christ is all and in all 6. This new Creature then is nothing else but the Image of God in the Soul of man So witness both these Texts The new man which after God is created in Knowledge Righteousness and true Holiness The very same that Plato speaks at once in his Theaetetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be like God is to become Holy Iust and Wise. But because most men even the old Adam in us take themselves to be holy just and wise it will be seasonable here to see what Iustice Holinesse and Wisedom this is that is in the new Creature 7. And who can tell it so well as he that is it Matth. 5. Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement But I say unto you that whosoever ◠angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement and whosoever shall say unto his brother Racha shall be in danger of the Councell but whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be in danger of hell-fire Ye have heard that it was said by them of old Thou shalt not commit adultery But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Again it was said of old Forswear not thy self But I say unto you Swear not at all but let your communication be Yea yea and Nay nay for whatsoever is more then these cometh of evil Ye have heard it also said An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you Resist not evil Ye have heard also Thou shalt love thy neighbour but hate thine enemy But I say unto you Love your enemies Bless them that curse you Do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despightfully use you and persecute you Behold the exact and unblameable Righteousnesse that is in the regenerate Soul far above the doctrine or thoughts of either the Legal Pharisee or mere Moralist External Righteousness in the outward man or to be internally just as far as corrupt Reason suggests is but filthy rags in respect of this Righteousnesse Christ requires of us and the new Creature doth bring into us once grown up to its due stature in us Let every man examine himself by this Rule 8. And as this Iustice is far above yea sometimes contrary to the Justice of the Natural man for with him to hate his enemies to recompense evil with evil is just so the Holiness is far transcending the Holinesse of either the ancient or modern Scribes and Pharisees and Zelotical Ceremonialists For all outward Ceremonies of Time or Place of Gesture or Vestments Rites or Orders they are all but Signes and Shews but the Body is Christ. Lastly that the natural man phansie not himself Wise as who is not of all precious things the most forward to appropriate that to himself that he phansie not himself Wise before he be Holy and Iust let him examine his Wisedom by that square in the third Chapter of S. Iames's Epistle Who is a wise man and endowed with knowledge amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of Wisedom But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisedom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work But the Wisedom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie The Righteousnesse then of the new Creature is a Righteousness far above the letter of Moses's Law though exactly performed it 's Holiness more resplendent then the Robe of Aaron and all his Priestly attire or whatsoever Ceremonies else God hath instituted or man invented it 's Wisdome far above all the thin-beaten subtilties of either the wrangling Sects or disputacious Schools without contention or bitter contradiction 9. So that it is plain from the constant scope of the Apostle both in this Epistle and every where else That he does not vilifie true Vertue and Morality but drives at an higher pitch and perfection thereof and that the Righteousness of Faith which he prefers before the Righteousness of Works is not by way of exclusion of Good Works out of the Righteousness of Faith but of urging us to exacter and more perfect works of Righteousnesse then could be performed under the dispensation of the Law How wicked a treachery therefore is it against the Church of Christ and how impudent a piece of boldness in those false Teachers that would bear men in hand That this doctrine of the being approved in the eyes of God by a dry and dead Faith devoid and destitute of all real sanctity and holiness is not only a Christian truth but the most choice and principal doctrine in all Christianity when there is not any footstep of any such thing in all the Instructions and Informations of either Christ or his Apostles CHAP. VII 1. That no small measure of Sanctity serves the turn in Christianity 2. As appears out of Scriptures already alledged 3. Further
no better a dispensation then under the Law is plainly a Stranger to them For the Law conveies no life but all congruity sympathy and vital affinity must arise out of a Principle of life And hence it is that the Law makes nothing perfect and that Righteousness cannot be of the Law as I have above intimated out of the Apostle The Law therefore giving no life a mere Legalist is even a stranger to those things he practices and imitates under the Law and acts so as the Parot speaks by external imitation not from a due inward Faculty Secondly This Agar her condition was a bond-woman and what I pray you is it to be in bondage or not sui juris but to be constrained to act ad nutum alterius And in this condition are all those that are under the Law For they do not act according to a free inward and living Principle in them but are fain to be curb'd and fettered by an outward imposition which is perfect and proper bondage And there is no bondage but to doe or suffer otherwise then a man would himself 3. Thirdly Of this Agar is begot Ismael What 's that Ismael may signifie these two things viz. either one that has only a knowledge of God by hearsay from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 audire and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deus or so far as some external letter conveies it to him resolving all his faith in things concerning God into an outward Scripture only and haply is so earthly and carnal that he would scarce believe there were a God unless it were for the Scripture Or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedire from obeying God in a servile and external forc'd way For Obedience implies some kind of reluctancy or that that which we obey in goes something against the hair with us but yet in obedience to the Commander we doe it nevertheless as being bound to obey And this is most of all proper to them under the first Covenant For that Law not giving life there is no Principle of life and natural and genuine compliance of the Soul of man with the spirituality of the Law under the First Covenant and therefore that of the Law which he endeavours to perform must needs go cross to him and it will be merely the obedience to the Precept not the love of the thing that will make him endeavour the performance And this is the true condition of Agar's Son Ismael And it would not be unseasonable to add also that he is a great and fierce Disputer upon the letter a notable Polemical Divine and his ignorance and untamedness of his carnal heart makes him very bold and troublesome his hand is against every man and every mans hand against him as the Scripture witnesses of him But I will not insist upon these things Fourthly and lastly This Ismael the Son of Agar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was begotten and born after the flesh or according to the ordinary and accustomary power of Nature And such an one is he that is merely under the First Covenant He is not born of the Spirit or regenerated 〈…〉 nary power and assistance of God which he that is un 〈…〉 Covenant takes hold of by Faith in the Promise but toiles and tugs with that Understanding and ordinary Naturall power is in him of externally conforming himself to the proposed Rule and under this poor dispensation when he is come to the best of this his either birth or growth he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is but Flesh and not Spirit For that which is born of the Flesh that is of our own natural abilities is but Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit that is of God and his Divine seed in us that is Spirit the true Spiritual man the Lord from Heaven Heavenly in a Mystical sense But this under the Law is but the Son of the Flesh or the Earth is not a Son of that Ierusalem that is from above the Heavenly Ierusalem which is the Mother of as many as are real and true Christians For this is Sarah the Free-woman but the old Ierusalem is in bondage with her Children as the Apostle plainly tells us 4. And thus far have I described the condition or nature of the Old Mosaical Covenant so far forth as is intimated in the Text. I proceed now to the Second or New Covenant under Christ. And the first Particular in the Protasis here is Sarah Domina a Free-woman libera à vitiis ac ritibus as the Interpreter speaks very well one that is not commanded into obedience by others but is sui juris does what she pleases and so she may very well for nothing pleases her but what is good and therefore fit to be done For Sarah or the New Ierusalem from above is of one Spirit and one mind with Christ. And this is the true Church of Christians in whom the body of sin being dead they are free from it as the Apostle speaks to the Romans being quit thereof they walk freely and safely etiam custode remoto that surly Paedagogue the Law no longer dogging them at the heels For whatever it can suggest from without the Spirit of God whispers to them from within or indeed that living Form of all holinesse and righteousnesse the Image of Christ recovered in them guides them as easily and as naturally to as our external Senses guide our Natural man in this outward and visible world This therefore is the condition of the Church of Christ and every true member of it at least arrived to its due maturity and perfection that every Soul there is as Sarah Domina as a Queen Regent in her little world her self acting nothing forcedly but freely as from a living principle and keeping those under her in due order and subjection Which condition undoubtedly the Scripture does point at in such phrases as these He hath made us Kings and Priests and elsewhere You are a Kingly Priesthood and the like 5. Secondly Of this Sarah was born Isaac which signifies Laughter and is a signe of Chearfulness and Ioy. Because he that is a true Christian acts and walks with joy and chearfulnesse in the waies of holinesse and righteousnesse And herein is he mainly distinguished from Ismael who acts merely out of obedience to an external form and so forces himself against the hair to do or omit that which were it not that he was bound in obedience to do or omit he would take the boldnesse to neglect his inward principle being contrary to it As for example he would revenge did not the Law forbid him he would immerse himself into all manner of Sensual pleasures were he not aw'd as an hungry dog by the lash and penalty of the Law and so in other things But the Soul of a true Christian in whom Isaac is born does not act what is good or omit what is evil out of any force or fear of
Libertinism as you may see more at large in that Chapter 5. Wherefore it appears out of what already has been said That there are Terms to be performed on out part in this New Covenant as well as there are Promises on God's part and that Christianity is no such loose remiss and inert Religion as some Deceivers would make it which we shall make still more plain from several other testimonies of Scripture Matth. 11. The Kingdome of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Whence is plainly intimated that no lazy or careless endeavours will carry us on to the enjoiment of the Promises of the Covenant As elsewhere He that laies his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdome of God And Luke 13.24 Strive to enter in at the streight gate For I say unto you many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able Because streight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life but wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that goe in thereat As it is in the parallel place of S. Matthew Which plain places of Scripture one would think should awake those filthy dreamers out of their mischievous conceits opinions whereby they would make us believe the Evangelical dispensation is so soft and delicate a thing that there is no laying of the hand to the plough no crouding or striving but that we shall be carried to heaven on that easie featherbed of unactive Faith or fanatick Libertinism Whenas the Evangelical Oracles tell us that we are to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling that we are to run and to wrastle to fight and to resist even unto bloud 1 Cor. 9.24 Know ye not that they that run in a race run all but one receiveth the prize So run that ye may obtain And every one that strives for the victory is temperate in all things Now they doe it to obtain a corruptible crown but we an incorruptible I therefore so run not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the air But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I my self should become a cast-away And yet S. Paul was as chosen a vessel as the choicest of these pieces that befool themselves so with self-flattery that they think they have found an easier way to Salvation then Paul himself knew that think they shall get the victory and the crown by not fighting against their own corruptions but by beating the Air with knackish forms of gracious speeches and vain grandiloquence that tends to nothing but the masking of their own Hypocrisie and unfaithfulness in the Covenant and to the seduction and ruine of others 6. But S. Paul however they would abuse some passages in him to the favouring of their ill cause is an utter disclaimer of such false doctrine and does yet more expresly tell us That the promises of the Gospel are conditional This is a faithfull saying saith he to Timothy 2 Epist. chap. 2. If we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us If we deal unfaithfully in the Covenant yet he is faithful and cannot deny himself He will stand to his Covenant in all the intents and purposes thereof whether to punishment or reward And Rom. 8. There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Iesus but their qualification presently follows that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and ver 8. They that are in the flesh cannot please God But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you and if this Spirit be in you the body is dead unto sin And again If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live And ver 16. The Spirit it self bears witness with our spirits that we are the Children of God And if Children then Heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also glorified with him Which plainly implies that the Inheritance of Heaven or Kingdome of glory is a conditional Kingdome or Inheritance And not to speak of Kingdoms we shall not so much as have remission of sins but upon condition Matth. 6.14 15. For if ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses What can be more evident then this CHAP. IX 1. What it is really to enter into this New Covenant 2. That the entring into this Covenant supposes actual Repentance 3. That this New Covenanter is born of water and the Spirit 4. The necessity of the skilfull usage of these new-born Babes in Christ. 5. That some Teachers are mere Witches and Childe-Suckers 1. WE have therefore undeniably demonstrated That this New Gospel-Covenant is a conditional Covenant and but that Hypocrisie and Impietie has made mens souls so degenerate that Sense and Non-sense is alike to them they would from the very sound and signification of the word perceive that there are mutual Terms and Conditions implied or else it could be no Covenant This therefore being premised we shall the better understand what is that due affection and qualification of mind that is required of him that would enter into this Covenant or what it is whereby he has really entred into it For it is not a mere Historical Faith or Belief of those things that are in the New Testament and an acknowledgment that they all tend to the peace and salvation of man and that he is obliged to live up to the utmost of his power to those holy Precepts that are there conteined but further there is a love and liking of the said Precepts as well as a desire of the enjoiment of the promise of Eternal life and a sincere resolution of endeavoring to live as near as he can according to those Evangelical Rules and a chearfull expectation of Divine assistance that God will enable him by the cooperation of his Holy Spirit to make such due progresses in life and Godliness as shall become an unfeigned professour of Faith in Christ Jesus 2. He that upon the perusal of the Records of the Gospel as they are found in the New Testament or by what other way soever the substance thereof is communicated to him and so upon information of his errours and mistakes whether in opinion or practice is thus affected as we have declared it is manifest that he has already repented him of his sins and errours and is in a real mislike of his former Conversation so far forth as it was unconformable to the mind of Christ. So that the state
Reprobationers have defined it namely That God has irresistibly decreed from all Eternity to bring into Being innumerable Myriads of Souls of men exceeding far the number of them that shall be saved who as without their own consent they were thus thrust into the World so let them doe what they will are certainly determined to unspeakable torment so soon as they go out of it and at the last day shall be adjudged to an higher degree of misery so great and so exceeding that all the racks and tortures that the Wit or Cruelty of the most enraged Tyrants could ever invent or execute would be ease and pleasure in Comparison of it and that these Pangs and Torments shall remain fresh upon them for ever and ever 8. This is the Representation of that sour Dogma Which to Reason is as contradictious as if one should name a square Circle or black Light and as harsh and horrid to the eares of the truly-Regenerate into the nature of God who is Love it self as the highest blasphemie that can be uttered Nor is the nature of those that are irreligious enough so much estranged from the Knowledge of God but that they think if there be any at all he cannot be such a one that laid such dark plots from all eternity for the everlasting misery of his poor impotent and unresisting Creature that never did any thing but what the Divine Decrees determined he should doe and therefore was alwaies the Almighties obedient servant For which at last he must be condemned to eternall punishment by him whom he did ever obey The serious and imperious obtrusion of such a dismal Conceit as this for one of the greatest Arcanums of Religion will make the free Spirit and over-inclinable to Prophaneness confidently to conclude That the whole frame of Religion is nothing but a mere Scar-crow to affright Fools and that there is no Hell at all since such Innocent Persons and constant Obeyers of the Divine Decrees must be the Inhabiters ot it CHAP. III. 1. The true Measure of Opinions to be taken from the designe of the Gospel which in general is The setting out the exceeding great Mercy and Goodness of God towards mankinde 2. And then Secondly The Triumph of the Divine Life in the Person of Christ in the warrantableness of doing Divine Honour to him 3. Thirdly The advancement of the Divine Life in his members upon Earth 4. The Fourth and last Rule to try Opinions by The Recommendableness of our Religion to Strangers or those those that are without 1. I Might adde several other Opinions in several parts of Christendome that tend very much to the defeating and eluding the serious End and purpose of Religion but before I go any further I shall set down the main designes of the Gospel of Christ that we may have a more plain and sure Rule and Measure to try all Opinions by The designe therefore of the Gospel in general is the magnifying of the Goodness and Loving-kindness of God that he has afforded mankinde so glorious a light to walk by so effectual means to redeem them from the love of the perishing vanities of this present world and to recall them back again to himself and to the participation of the ineffable joyes pleasures of his celestial Kingdom For God so loved the World that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the World through him should be saved And Titus 3. For we our selves also were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another But after that the Kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour To which sense also the Apostle speaks Ephes. chap. 2. And you who were dead in trespasses and sins Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the Aire the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our fleshly minde and were by nature the children of wrath even as others But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Iesus That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Iesus Christ. To which lastly you may adde Tit. 2.11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world c. These Scriptures give plain testimony of this more general designe of the Gospel 2. The next designe is an external exaltation of the Divine Life that did so mightily and conspicuously appear in the Person of our Saviour Christ as I have already abundantly declared How the mystery of Christianity comprehends in it chiefly this designe of exalting into Triumph the Divine Life above the Animal and Natural and that either externally in the religious worship we do our Saviour and is done even by Hypocrites and wicked Persons or else internally in the advancing of true Faith and Holiness in his living members and sincere followers of his doctrine Philip. 2. Let the same minde be in you which was in Christ Iesus Who being in the forme of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God But emptied himself and took upon him the forme of a servant and was made in likeness of men And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore hath God also exalted him and given him a name above every name That at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father And Hebr. 1. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oile of gladness above thy fellows that is to say hath exalted thee to this due honour and rule having put all things under his feet Angels themselves not excepted as S. Peter tells us 1 Epist. 3.22 Who is gâ—ne into Heaven
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