and Wickedness are none of God's Creation but are Obliquities and Aberrations from those Rules and Laws he implanted in us and therefore as it is impossible the Soul should have any proper agreement with sin because 't is none of its Nature so she must needs on the other hand sensibly embrace and acquiesce in the Principles and Precepts of Holiness from that Vital Cognation they bear to her own Moral Being There is no capacious and generous Mind but will find it self wonderfully affected and inamour'd with the loveliness of Christianity there being nothing found but Principles of the highest worth and nobility and whatever else may speak true excellency and perfection The Gospel is nothing but God manifested in the Flesh an eternal Mind clothed with the condescensions of Humane Nature shewing us the Beauty and Pulchritude of that life from which we had so foully apostatiz'd and degenerated and confirming and re-establishing that Happy league which was once between our Souls and Righteousness By the tenor of which sacred Institute we are obliged to great measures and degrees of Holiness to Sobriety and Temperance Chastity and Purity to be strict observers of the Rules of Justice and Equity full of good nature and the desirable fruits of tenderness and compassion in a word we are injoyned no other things in Religion than what the best and bravest spirits the World ever knew have always accounted the flower and summity of Rational Natures And do not all considering Men find the greatest ease and satisfaction of Mind in the exercise of these things And whence comes this Heavenly calm and serenity of Soul but only from that gratefulness and symmetry that is between such things and our Intellectual Man so that the more earnestly we attend to them the more fully are we transformed into their lovely Image and likeness True Christianity is so far from debasing that on the contrary it infinitely exalts them by setting them at a true proportion to their proper Objects and raising them to such a state as all wise Men have ever acknowledged the highest Happiness and Perfection of the Soul of Man I have now shown the fitness and sutableness of the Gospel to the end for which it was designed in that it is furnished with all those Arguments of Credibility that may beget Assent in Rational Persons but its aptness and accomodateness to that great purpose of Men's salvation may further be demonstrated in that 2. Secondly It is so attemper'd to Humane Nature that Men shall certainly believe and yet no violence done to their Wills For Men being Moral Agents must be dealt withall according to their Natural Powers and Faculties and this makes the Method of saving Humane Souls by the Gospel to be indeed a Work of Wisdom and Counsel whereas if God should by his Omnipotency force them to a Belief and Obedience of it it would not have been so much an effect of Wisdome as of absolute and uncontrollable Power Now herein appears the Glory of Divine Wisdome in the choice of such means and ways as shall effectually bring to pass its end and purpose and yet no violence and force offered to that Nature in whose behalf it acts As therefore to assert that there is no necessity of the assistance of the grace and spirit of God in our progress in Virtue and Holiness but that Men may be good by the strength of the Powers of Nature is directly repugnant to the frame of Christianity delineated in the Holy Scriptures and the sense of the Universal Apostolick Church of Christ so to think that the Operation of God's Spirit upon the Hearts of Men is by an External Impetus and Force is no less precarious and absurd than the other is wicked and abominable I shall therefore wave the first of these as not being at all concerned with it but directly supposing the contrary and only discourse so far of the concourse and energy of the Spirit of God upon the minds will and affections of Men as is evidently declared in the Holy Scriptures And here I humbly conceive that the Sacred Writings do no where declare the concurrence or operation of the Spirit of God upon Men's Souls to be by an Omnipotent Power at large such as was shown in the Creation of the World or Resurrection of the Dead and which supposes us so altogether passive as not to be in the least measure capable of promoting or hindring our own good for this were to destroy that noble faculty of Humane Souls their Will and render all their Actions fatal and necessary Whereas the Christian Religion was intended to heal and cement to joyn and confirm the dislocated and disordered powers of our Souls not to take them away to perfect and compleat not to extirpate and eradicate their very Nature and Being No Man acknowledges the actions of Brutes or Engines or the results of our Animal and irrational powers capable of Moral Goodness because they act fatally and necessarily and such would the actions of Mankind be if they were produced by an irresistible Power A power and assistance then it is certain God has given us and that of his Holy Spirit under the Gospel but the manner of his Operation is not absolute and unconditionate but hypothetical like the great conciliating and formative Principle of God in Nature requiring certain terms and previous Dispositions and Qualifications without which it is as vain to hope for the compleat efformation of Christ within us as to expect the Rudiments of the Body of an Animal to be formed out of a piece of Brass or Marble For though we do not distrust the Power of God but believe he is able to raise himself up Children out of the very stones of the Fields and to change and alter the Natures of things as he pleases yet since we find him framing and guiding them not according to Will and Power alone but according to the Counsel of his Will we are likewise ascertain'd that in the conducting Humane Souls to Heaven God works sutably to their Natures and Capacities and in such an orderly Way and congruous Method as supposes the Presence of an Infinite Wisdome and Counsel in the Management of it And this not only appears from the consideration of the frame of Humane Nature which in its choicest part is wholly Intellectual and therefore not to be forced by an outward violence but moved and drawn as the Scriptures speak with bands of love and cords of a man that is by Rational means and perswasive Arguments whose force and strength must lye in their Congenerousness and sutableness with the Ancient Idea's and Inscriptions of Truth upon our Souls but is likewise manifest 1. From the resistibility of the Operations of the Spirit of God And for a demonstrative and convictive Evidence of this we need look no further than the preaching of the Son of God while he conversed with the World and dwelt amongst us who though he were
continuance in goodness to his own solitary effort or powers but to the benign and auspicious influence of the Divine grace and spirit It is he that forms in us the Life and Nature of God that makes us Holy Righteous and Good enlightning the Eyes of our Minds that we may see the inestimable riches of the Gospel and convinces us of the Truth of the Great Promises of Salvation It is He that daily by a Vital Energy purges and refines the minds of Men from all filthiness and uncleanness and consecrates their hearts as Holy Temples unto God It is he that continually burns up and consumes our unruly lusts and breathes upon the Sacred Life of God in our Souls fanning it into a flame of love that we dwell in God and God in Us. Through his mighty Power we are secured from our Spiritual Enemies leading us with a Pillar of a Cloud by Day and a light of Fire by Night till he bring us to Heaven the true Land of Canaan But in all this the Divine Spirit does not pull and draw us like stocks and stones nor offer any irresistible violence to our wills nor must we expect that God should do all the work for us while we sit still but we must do it for our selves only he has graciously promised to concur and lend us his hand and his assistance Work out your salvation says the Apostle with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his good pleasure or according to your desire that is God stands ready to help you with Power and Ability to do it according to your desire or as you desire it of him and we are to take care that we actuate that Power which of his gracious bounty he confers upon us Which very thing makes us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with God as the Apostles are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labourers together with God in the Dispensation of the Gospel Having now discovered the Great Influence of the Divine Goodness and Wisdome in the Work of Man's Salvation it remains likewise that I now shew how the Power of God has interessed and concerned it self in the same For the Apostle tells the Corinthians that he Preached Christ to them not only the Wisdome but the Power of God And again to them who are saved the preaching of the Cross is the Power of God Now this Power manifested it self 1. In raising our Blessed Saviour from the Dead Thus St. Paul says that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the Dead that is God did own and publickly declare him to be his beloved Son in that powerful manner of raising Him from the Dead And again he calls it the mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the Dead For when the Jews had crucified our Saviour the Cause of the Gospel as to all Humane Appearance lay dead and buried with him as a lost and undone Cause insomuch that the Disciples themselves were brought to this We trusted it had been he that should have redeemed Israel so little hopes and expectations had they of a new state of things when they saw their great Master dead upon the Cross But suffering Virtue being so illustrious an object of the Divine Providence God who owned and approved our Lord Jesus all the time of his life would not now suffer his Credit and Reputation to lye at stake being dead and therefore notwithstanding the malice of the Jews and the envious diligence of the spirits of Darkness asserts and maintains the Truth of his Mission by bringing him up to life again The impious care and industry of his Enemies made the glory of our Saviour's Innocence so much the more clear and conspicuous they look upon him as an Impostor and having heard him afore speak of his Resurrection they endeavour by all means to hinder it that they might blast his Memory and bury his Honour with Disgrace therefore they roll a great Stone to the Mouth of the Sepulchre sealing it probably with the Signet of Pilate and setting a Band of Souldiers to watch about his Grave But God that loved his Son Jesus to his Death and took the care of Him when he was laid in the Grave disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Jews and made their malicious contrivances subservient Testimonies to the Truth of his Resurrection A mighty Angel comes down from Heaven at whose Presence and awful Majesty the Keepers trembled and the Earth it self was moved and rolls away the Stone and sits upon it and the stupendious Power of the Divinity shakes the Territories of Night and slumber and dismantles the Prisons of the Grave and restores to our Saviour that Life the Jews bereaved him of notwithstanding all their fraudulent Practices and Machinations A palpable Indication of the mighty and efficacious Power of God who alone can call the things that are not and quicken and enliven the Dead beyond all Humane Thoughts and Apprehensions 2. The Power of God in the Gospel has been very notable in the Destruction of the Devils Kingdom When Mankind began to apostatize from God and fall into Idolatry he gave them over to the Tyranny and Dominion of the Prince of Darkness as a just Punishment of their wilful Adhesion to his Counsels and Inspirations and for Reasons reserved in the Depth and Abyss of Divine Providence permitted all the World save that he selected himself a Church out of the Posterity of Abraham to be abused by the Devil and to lye under that servitude and slavery till the coming of Christ into the World But when the Son of Righteousness was risen the Nations of the Earth soon saw and walked in his light and the Prediction of our Blessed Saviour became verified and fulfilled in the Ruine of the Devils Kingdome whose lapse and fall was like lightning from Heaven For notwithstanding the mutual Combinations and Confederacies of the Kings and Potentates of the Earth against the Lords anointed and his Disciples and Followers notwithstanding the furious Rage of Satan in stirring up and raising many cruel and bloody Persecutions against the Church yet the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed so far that the whole Roman Empire at last became Christian whereby the Devil utterly lost his hold his Oracles being silent and his whole Worship destroyed And surely had not the Christian Religion been of God it could never have so Universally prevailed against such Potent opposition of Men and Devils The hand and Power of God was visibly and eminently discovered in the ample Diffusion and high success of the Gospel which from such weak and small Beginnings ran and was glorious captivating the Minds of Men to the obedience of Christ's Laws and bringing the World under the Scepter of his Kingdome Which Destruction of the Devils Rule and Dominion over Mankind being
he makes an excellent Metaphysical Discourse and proves the Unnaturalness and Unreasonableness of Idolatry by such Principles as were common to and Universally received by the Intellectual nature of Man And indeed a Rational conviction seems more clear and evident than a miraculous One by how much the Innate Idea's and Dictates of the Understanding are more sure and constant than the perplexed motions of a Versatile Imagination And we find that the Jews evaded the force of our Saviour's Miracles by saying they were done by the power of the Devil and though Lazarus come to them from the Dead yet they did not believe but sought to murder him and a perverse spirit will find various Artifices to elude the Assent which a Miracle commands from us But now Humane Reason being in all Men one and the same it is more likely to prevail when advantageously propounded from that antecedent sutableness and Harmony there is between it and all Truth And without doubt our blessed Saviour himself seems to intimate that the Assent which is extorted upon the working of Miracles is much less generous and Noble than that which is gained from the Understanding by the Native evidence and beauty of Truth Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe whereas the Facility of the Samaritanes is commended who believed on Jesus upon his own Discourse though he did no Miracle among them And besides all this Christ says expresly that the very Nature and frame the Sanctity and Majesty of the Doctrine he propounded was alike sufficient to render the Jews inexcusable as the unparallel'd Works he performed in their Presence If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Again If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did they had not had sin Wherefore to us who have Moses and the Prophets the Discourses of our Blessed Saviour and the Writings of his Apostles transmitted if we shall yet be incredulous it is as likely and probable we shall still continue so though one come to Us from the Dead For 1. We have already all things pertaining to life and godliness perspicuously delivered in the Holy Scriptures and this Doctrine at the first delivery of it was sufficiently confirmed and attested by Miracles and Supernatural Actions the History of which is made as credible to us as any Records of things can be which we our selves were not Spectators of Now if we can believe any Histories of former Ages any Records of Times past we have the same Reason to believe the History of the Gospel and he that sincerely credits that will be as much confirmed in the Religion he professes by those Miracles he finds long ago wrought to evidence its Divine Authority as if they were done now at this present before his eyes Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed 2. To desire new Miracles for the begetting of Faith is to question the Wisdome of God in the Contrivance of the Gospel For either the Scriptures are sufficiently confirmed and attested by the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles to beget Faith and Credence in any unprejudiced and disinteressed Person or they are not If they are it is in vain to require the Reproduction of Miracles in its behalf If they are not we then call in question the wisdome of God as if he either knew not the Natures and Constitutions of Men or did not foresee what was sufficient to work belief in them 3. The perpetuating Miracles for every Man's Conviction would destroy and make useless their Rational Faculties For the Christian Religion is a manifestation of the highest Reason that ever the World had any cognizance of and all its Parts and Doctrines are every way fitted to Rational Capacities But now Miracles being only Convictive to sense if for the confirmation of every Article of Religion there must be the concurrent Testimony of a Miracle all Appeal to our Reason and Intellectual Faculties were useless and supervacaneous 4. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead was a notable suffrage and testimony of his Divine Mission It is the highest instance of Divine Providence watching over and carefully superintending the Person of our Holy Lord and Master which though it permitted Him to fall into the Hands of wicked and cruel Men who bereaved him of his Innocent Life yet forsook him not in Death and the Grave but justified and approved the Design and Cause he managed in the World by dismantling those Infernal Prisons and bringing Him up to life again And this the Apostle takes as an eminent Declaration of the Divinity of Jesus who though according to that mortal and frail state he took upon him in the World became a Man of the Seed of David yet in regard of that Spiritual and Celestial condition which he obtained by the Resurrection from the Dead was manifestly declared the glorious and powerful Son of God For we cannot think that God would do so much for an Impostor or that the Divine Power would so highly concern it self in raising him from the Dead and thereby owning him in so singular and eminent a manner if he had not spoken in his Name and done all things by his Authority and Commission 5. Another Instance of the Divine Approbation of the Doctrine of our Saviour appears in sending down the Holy Ghost after his Ascension into Heaven This Mission of the Holy Spirit Christ promised his Disciples before he left the World and signally performs it upon the Day of Pentecost And this very thing is brought by the Author to the Hebrews as an Indubitable Confirmation of the Gospel How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness approving and owning the Doctrine of his Son Jesus both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will God is brought in here as a Witness to the Truth of the Gospel and his Testimony is the Mission of the Holy Ghost by whom the Apostles were inabled and furnished with divers gifts and miraculous Powers for the conviction of the World that Jesus was the beloved Son of God and Saviour of Mankind And this Redargution of the World was made a part of the Advocateship of the Holy Spirit by our Lord When he is come he will reprove the World of sin because they believe not on me that is he shall take upon him the defence of my cause and convince the World of their great sin in slaying me a true Prophet who came to declare the will of God unto them Of righteousness because I go to my Father and ye see me no more that is he should make it appear that I was just and innocent
not opposed to Evangelical but to Thetical or Positive But to give some further light to this business we may consider these two things 1. That the sincere Practice of Morality is a part of the Condition required of us under the Gospel in order to our Justification For unless the Practice of Moral Virtue be no part of the Divine Will revealed to Us in the Gospel it must necessarily follow that so far as it is made a Condition of the Covenant of the Gospel so far it is required in order to the Justification and Acceptation of our Persons before God For though we are said in Scripture to be justified by Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ yet we are not to understand by this an empty bare and naked Faith but such a Faith as is perfected and consummated by Love which the Apostle Saint James expresses by Works that is such a Faith as is not meerly Notional and inactive but productive in the Soul of a New and sincere Obedience And what more frequent Instances does the Scripture bring of our Faithful Conformity to the Will of God than in our Constant Exercise and Practice of Moral Virtue Insomuch that Saint Paul sayes that those who neglect the sincere observance of Morality and Virtue will easily be induced to turn Hereticks and deny the Faith Holding faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack So indispensably necessary is a Virtuous Conversation to our Participation of the Blessed Life and Nature of GOD that no Man can be understood to be a Partaker of the Divine Nature who does not live soberly righteously and godly in the World For what sign does he give of a Spirit renewed and changed into the Compassionate Nature of the Lord Jesus who can willingly pain and grieve and afflict his Brother What Specimen does he produce of a sincere Conformity to the Eternal Laws of Justice and Righteousness who can knowingly and wittingly over-reach and defraud his Neighbour Or what Evidence does he offer of a Mind desirous to be renewed into a state of Angelical Purity and Holiness who makes it his business and seeks for all Occasions to gratifie his Carnal Appetite in the full enjoyment of all Sensual Pleasures that may be had without manifest Diseases Or is it possible to conceive the Life and Nature of GOD that Life of Universal Holiness and Purity Justice and Goodness without the Exercise of these and such like Virtues 2. That the Maturity and Ripeness of Religion consists in having a sensible Discernment of Good and Evil in a Moral sense The full knowledge of the Mysteries of Christianity as the Author to the Hebrews tells Us belongs to them that are of full age that is such as are arrived to the Perfection and Maturity of Religion and these Persons he describes in the next words to be such as have a Vital relish and sensible Discernment of good and evil Who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil That there are Natural Differences between good and evil is as evident and apparent as the Difference between health and sickness For as health is nothing but the right and Natural Constitution of all the Parts of the Body and Sickness the Oppression Distortion and Deviation from it So is it in the Soul of Man It s true and proper Nature is that healthful Temper and Constitution wherein God at first Created it But now Sin and Evil is a forcing it into a Preternatural State the driving it into a Disease and Distemper and the putting its Powers and Faculties into Jarring and Discord And that these Differences are nothing but the Vital relishes and sensations of the Soul of Man in that double Capacity and Resolution of Rational and Animal or in the Sacred Dialect of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward and outward Man or the Flesh and Spirit I think is as evident to any Considering and Judicious Person Now this Maturity and Ripeness of Religion discovers it self 1. In a particular knowledge of the Difference between Good and Evil so as to be able to distinguish what is from the Flesh and Animal and what from the Spirit and Rational Life 2. In a ready Application of this to all the Passages of our Lives For that Blindness of mind the Apostle speaks of to which the Gentiles as a just Punishment of their former carelesness were given up does fully express the Necessity of this Discriminative Sense and Discerning between Good and Evil. For when once the Criterion or Perceptive Faculty has lost its Tenderness and Sensibility and the Mind becomes Reprobate then Darkness and Light Good and Evil Bitter and Sweet are all one Then it is as in the above mentioned place Men are dedolent and past feeling and having no other Law but that of the Corporeal Life become insatiable in Impiety and work Wickedness with greediness which surely as it is the most deplorable condition the Soul of Man can fall into so ought most carefully to be avoided by endeavouring after a particular Distinction and clear knowledge of the Notices Emanations and Suggestions of the Flesh and Spirit And as this inward Sense is not to be stifled so neither to remain useless and idle but to extend it self and have an Influence upon all our Actions It must be fanned and kept alive by sincere Devotion and a constant and Habitual Practice of Virtue by which at length it will become a Powerful and Vital Principle begetting in us a true relish of Righteousness and Holiness that we may not only talk and maintain an Artificial and Mechanical Religion consisting of Words or the running the same Circle of outward Performances and Duties but may be really regenerated and formed into a new Nature and act out of choice and from the innate Loveliness and Beautifulness of Virtue For by bringing our Actions to this Test and Rule and applying them to the Natural Difference and Distinction of Good and Evil it will keep us from all deliberate Violations of the Laws and Prescriptions of Holiness By this Wickedness and Sin will appear in its Natural Dress and Genuine Colours and its Ugliness and Deformity be rendred so manifest that our Wills and Affections will not easily be drawn into a Compliance with it and the various Passages of our Lives freed and discharged from the least Appearance of Evil. FINIS BOOKS Printed for and sold by Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Churchyard DR More 's Reply to a late Answer to his Antidote against Idolatry with the Appendix 8 o. H. Mori Opera Theologica Fol. Spenceri dissertatio de Vrim Thummim 8 o. Frederici Lossii Observationes Medicae Octavo Speed's Epigrammata Juvenilia in 4 Partes divisa Encomia Seria Satyras Jocosa Octavo Doctor William Smith's Unjust Man's Doom Octavo Two Sermons at the Assizes in Suffolk Oct. Two Sermons at Norwich May 3. and May 29. 1676. Quarto Mr. Hallywell's Discourse of the Excellency of Christianity Oct. Account of Familism as it is revived and propagated by the Quakers Oct. Some Opinions of Mr. Hobbes considered in a second Dialogue between Philautus and Timothy Oct. Breerwood's Enquiries into the Diversities of Languages Oct. Mr. Allen's Mystery of Iniquity unfolded or the false Apostles and Authors of Popery compared c. Oct. Animadversions on Mr. Ferguson about Justification Oct. Friendly Address to the Nonconformists beginning with the Anabaptists 8 o. Mr. Lamb's stop to the course of Separation Oct. Sherlock's Discourse of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Octavo Defence and Continuation of the Discourse c. Octavo Answer to a scandalous Pamphlet entituled a Dialogue between Satan and Sherlock Quarto Dr. Worthington's Great Duty of Self-resignation to the Divine Will Oct. Mr. Hotchkis Discourse of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to Us and our Sins to Him Oct. Gage's Survey of the West Indies 8 o. Dr. Goodall's Vindication of the Colledge of Physicians Oct. Smith's Pourtract of old Age. Oct. Webster's History of Metals Quar. Dr. More 's Remarques upon two late Ingenious Discourses the one an Essay of the Gravitation and Non-gravitation of fluid Bodies the other Observations touching the Torricellian experiment 8 o. Sydenham's Observationes Medicae 8 o. An Account of Mr. Ferguson's Common-Place-Book in two Letters between Mr. Sherlock and Mr. Glanvil Quar. Dr. Grew's Comparative Anatomy of Trunks together with an Account of their Vegetation grounded thereupon Octavo THE END Rev. 3.14 Jam. 3.14 15. 1 Tim. 3.16 Col. 1.26 1 Cor. 2.7 1 Joh. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 3.2 4. Joh. 11.52 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 4.10 Gen. 22.12 1 Cor. 1.24 1 Cor. 2.7 1 Cor. 2.6 1 Cor. 2.14 1 Pet. 1.12 Isai 63.15 * Sine hoc holocausto poterat Deus tantum condonasse peccatum sed facilitas veniae laxaret habenas peccatis effrenibus quae etiam Christi vix cohibent passiones quae vix sceleratos animos à voluptatum faece avellunt Cyprian sive Author libri de Cardinal Christi Oper. Serm. 14. Sic Zanch. lib. 2 de Incarnat c. 3. q. 1. Etsi verò Deus servare nos poterat solo suo Imperio peccata simpliciter ex suâ misericordiâ condonando noluit tamen Phil. 2.6 7 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 2.23 Mar. 14.33 Mat. 26.38 Luk. 9.51 Joh. 18.5 Mat. 11.28 1 Joh. 5.3 Princ. of Nat. Rel. lib. 1. c. 3. Ezek. 33.11 Mr. Mede 2 Cor. 5.19 Luk. 1.74 1 Tim. 4.10 1 Tim. 2.4 Heb. 2.9 Joh. 3.17 lib. 6. contr Cels p. 315 lib. 4. c. 76. Luk. 24.47 Act. 3.19 1 Joh. 2.1 1 Cor. 1.21 Exod. 20.19 1 Joh. 3.16 Gen. 3.15 Heb. 4.15 Heb 2.16 17 18. Gen. 21.17 Vid. Deut. 4.33.36 Dr. Lightfoot 2 Pet. 1.16 17. Joh. 3.2 Mat. 11.21 Acts 17. Joh. 4.18 v. 42. Joh 15.22 24. Joh. 20.29 Rom. 1.4 Ch. 2.3 4. Joh. 16.8 9 10. Luk. 24.25 Act. 10.43 See Dr. More 's Enchiridion Ethicum Eph. 1.11 Hos 11.4 Luk. 7.30 Joh. 12.37 Joh. 6.66 Mat. 23 37 Ezek. 24.13 vid. Isai 65.12 Mar. 6.5 6. Act. 7.51 Phil. 2.12 13. 2 Cor. 6.1 1 Cor. 3.9 Rom. 1.4 Eph. 1.20 Lib. 4. Epist 43. Joh. 5.29 Dr. Hammond 1 Tim. 1.19 Heb. 5.14 Eph. 4.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 4.19
consider that in the contrivance conduct and management of the Gospel there is a clear and manifest demonstration of the Infinite Goodness Wisdome and Power of God I. A manifestation of Infinite Goodness The Heavens and the Earth and all the capacities of Immense space declare an Infinite Goodness but the clearest and most sensible demonstration of it is in this Mystery of the Gospel wherein that boundless love which has dispersed it self through all the orders and degrees of life shines forth with a full and perfect lustre and glory Here it is that we behold that Love which liberally fills and sustains all things more powerfully exerting its Blessed Nature in cementing the Ruines and rearing up the Foundations of a new World for as in the first Creation an Eternal and Energetical love diffused it self in the Production of whatever was made so the same Goodness moves as it were a second time in the stupendious renovation of lapsed Souls in the Evangelical Mystery and Oeconomy Which Truth may yet receive a further Evidence by these Gradations 1. The more perfect any life is the more it desires to diffuse and communicate it self God is love says St. John and he is the highest and most perfect life now love is the most diffusive and communicative Principle in all the World and the firmer any being is radicated in love the nearer approaches it makes to that most excellent life and nature of God whose beneficence and kindness the whole Creation tastes of Self-love or the love of the Carkass the Bodily life restrains and contracts the free Exertions of the Mind and therefore the Apostle sets it as a note of degeneracy narrowness and anxiety when Men shall be lovers of themselves and corporeal pleasures in opposition to that Universal and Intellectual love which is the great Law of Rational Beings and by which our Minds are made wide as the World and carried forth in Benignity and Kindness to all the Creatures as they more or less partake of the Divine Life and Nature God is infinite Goodness and all the Creatures are but the issues and emanations of his exuberant Fecundity and Life and do more intimately depend upon him than Faculties and Actions upon the Principles from whence they flow It was not necessity or need nor any greedy and thirsty desire of receiving praise and glory from them that was the cause of the production of Men and Angels but only the Fulness of God's own Goodness which alone moved him to that chearful Approbation of the Works of his Hands when he saw his own life diffused in such variety of Beings And if we will do honour to God and speak according to our own faculties we may add life to this Demonstration from the inward sense and experience of every good Man who never finds a more inward joy and satisfaction of spirit than when he is carried out in desires and aspirations of Benignity and Kindness towards the whole Creation Nor does he look upon this as any Argument of Righteousness that he is at any time in a more happy state and condition than others for he could be willing that all the World were as happy as himself did he not see strong and evident Reasons in the wise Administration of Providence why it should not be so Something of this excellent Temper we find in those Passionate Eruptions of Spirit recorded in the Scriptures of Holy men who seem to be altogether transformed into love Blot me out of thy Book says Moses and I could be content to be accursed from Christ says St. Paul for my Brethrens sake Nay I am verily perswaded that he who is once throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love would be contented to be eternally separated from the Presence of God so that he might be without sin if by that means the whole Intellectual Creation might be made happy Now if we can reason any thing of God from those Perfections we find in our selves we must needs conclude the highest and most perfect life to be most diffusive and communicative of it self 2. Goodness is so much the more excellent as the Objects are more noble about which it is conversant All things feel the effects of Divine Goodness according to their different Measures and Proportions and by how much the Rational life hath more objective reality than the sensitive by so much are the Emanations of Goodness of more worth and excellency communicated to the one than those diffused upon the other As a Man is a more noble Creature than a Brute so is the Goodness concerned with him higher and of greater value than that exercised upon a Beast God is the Father of Spirits and for that very Reason will not be implacable and irreconcileable to his own dear off-spring but though he chastise and scourge them for their bold and audacious revolt from his blessed Nature yet will not cast off for ever but in his sorest corrections remembers mercy Hence is that Prophetical Speech of the end of Christ's Death that it should be for the gathering together the scattered Sons of God though the Souls of Men had voluntarily forsaken God and travelled into a strange Land though their Iniquities had scattered them into far distant places from their own Home yet an everlasting Goodness followed them still and carefully sought the Reduction of those disobedient Sons of God who had divided and separated themselves from him 3. By how much the more fatal desperate and universal the evil is by so much the more glorious is the Goodness imployed in the recovery of the Creature from it Sin and wickedness is the misery not of a part only but of the whole Race of Mankind and this their Degeneracy became so fatal that it brought Darkness and Death it self upon all their better Faculties and placed them in an utter Incapacity for ever of recovering themselves by their own solitary power and effort into that state of immortality and life which sin had deprived them of Death passed upon all men says St. Paul for that or forasmuch as all have sinned So that all Mankind by their fall from God were under the Reign Dominion and Power of sin and death and out of this thraldome and captivity no Man could extricate and deliver himself whereby their condition became very deplorable and desperate But Divine Goodness that it might shew it self more conspicuously and gloriously to the World has brought on a more chearful scene of things under the Gospel rescuing Men from the Power of sin and death and delivering them from the Tyranny of the Devil through the meritorious Death and Passion of Jesus Christ who by his Glorious Resurrection hath fully declared himself a Powerful Conqueror of all his Enemies assuring Mankind of their re-enjoyment of Immortality and redeeming them from their Captivity under the Empire of Sin and Death and translating them into the peaceful Kingdome of Life and Righteousness Now as the
desperateness of the Disease magnifies the skill of the Physician so the fatal and universal Degeneracy of the Sons of Men commends the transcendent love of God in their Recovery and Redemption Greater love than this can no Man show than to lay down his Life for his Friend but herein has God commended his love to us in that while we were Enemies to God and righteousness and strangers to his life Christ dyed for us Such is that Testimony and Witness which our Saviour bears to Divine Love and Goodness every word of which is strangely emphatical So in such a wonderful and transcendent manner God the great Lord of all Beings who stands not in need of any of his Creatures but is Infinite Fulness and Happiness to Himself loved first and without any Motive or Occasion of this love given from us herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us the World not only the particular Nation of the Jews with whom formerly he entred into Covenant but the whole Race of Mankind Christ becoming a Propitiation for our sins says the Apostle the best Interpreter of himself 1 Joh. 2.2 and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World that he gave delivered unto Death freely and that upon no other Motive or Invitation but that of his own Eternal Goodness and Love his only begotten Son not a Servant or an Angel not an adopted but his own Natural Son that Son who is one with himself and in whom he is well pleased as the obedience of Abraham was more grateful to God when he with-held not his Son his only Son from him The whole Gospel is a Design and Contrivance of Infinite Love and Goodness a palpable Pledge and Assurance of which was the sending of Jesus Christ from Heaven He that spared not his own Son says the Apostle as if he had said The delivering up of our Lord Jesus Christ to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of Men is so high a Demonstration of Infinite Love that it begets in us a confident Assurance and full Perswasion that the same goodness will not fail of bestowing upon us whatever may possibly contribute to our everlasting Happiness as far as our Natures are capable of The summe of all is this that to Infinite Goodness we owe not only the Production but the continual Preservation of our Beings not only the freeing us from a certain Misery and a just and deserved Punishment but the receiving us into grace and favour and investing us with a Happiness much bigger than our hopes and expectations even the Eternal enjoyment of Himself in Heaven And that this should be wrought and effected by Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God who left the Sacred Mansions of Heaven and veiled his Glory under a clould of Flesh and Blood and while he lived upon Earth endured the contradictions of sinners the bitter reproaches of vile and ungodly Men and at last suffered an Ignominious and accursed Death upon the Cross What is it but an everlasting Monument of Divine Goodness such a high Demonstration of Infinite Love as may well make us cry out with wonder and amazement Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 2. Secondly in the Frame and Mystery of the Gospel there is a clear Demonstration of Infinite Wisdome To them who are called says the Apostle Christ the Power and the Wisdom of God i. e. Though the preaching of the Gospel were a stumbling block to the Jews and accounted but foolishness by the Greeks the one expecting their Messiah to be an earthly Prince and dreaming of nothing but worldly Felicity and the other counting it not worth the hearing because not agreeing with the Principles of that vain Philosophy they had addicted themselves to yet to those who were docible tractable and obedient there appeared an Infinite Wisdome and an Eternal Understanding they could not look into it but they beheld as the same Apostle speaks the mysterious and recondite wisdome of God which he ordained before the World that is whose sacred plot and contrivance was not then framed or laid when it was first promulgated and manifested to the World but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding from all Eternity 'T is true the loveliness and glory of this great Wisdome appears not so evidently to all partly from their own carelesness and negligence in not arriving to that measure and degree of Holiness which may fit and qualifie them for a clear discerning of it Hence the Apostle says that he speaks wisdome among them that are perfect such as were well grown in the practice of the Offices and Duties of Christianity such as had senses exercised to discern good and evil Heb. 5.14 and partly through the great Corruption Depravity and Degeneracy of the minds of others which put them into an utter Incapacity and Impossibility while they remain such of understanding Divine and Heavenly Truths for the natural animal or sensual man receives not the things of the spirit of God But where these Impediments are removed and the spirits of Men aptly disposed for the Reception of so great a Blessing such Persons behold with enravishment and joy the exact strokes and perfect lineaments of an Eternal Wisdome Which Wisdome appears 1. In the Admirableness of the Contrivance of the Gospel Christianity carries with it such evident Proofs of an Incomprehensible Wisdome that those sagacious Creatures the Angels imploy themselves in searching into it And surely it must needs be an admirable piece of Wisdome and a wonderful Contrivance that must draw those Blessed Creatures to look into it Now the Wonderfulness and Admirableness of the Evangelical Plot and Contrivance for the Salvation of Humane Souls shews it self 1. In finding out a way whereby God might demonstrate both his just and implacable hatred of sin and his exuberant Love and Goodness in saving Men. Sin is no part of God's Creation nor any thing of the true Nature of the Soul but an extraneous and adventitious Being brought first into the World by the Devil the great Enemy of Mankind It is the Destruction and Ruine of the Workmanship of God's own hands and being so infinitely contrary to his Sacred Life and Nature it is no wonder if he bear an irreconcileable hatred against it and seek by all means the driving it quite out of the World But although God by reason of the Infinite Purity and Holiness of his Nature could not look with any favourable eye upon sin yet his Almighty Love pitied his Creatures and his bowels yerned over them being as it were grieved and troubled at the heart that they should be miserable for ever Wherefore God through his Eternal Wisdome resolved upon a course which should both effectually extirpate and eradicate sin and evil out of the World and yet reduce those strayed souls which through it had revolted from his blessed
claps of Thunder together with the prodigious sound of a Trumpet rending and tearing the Heavens so that Moses himself exceedingly fear'd and trembled But the Gospel being wholly a design of Mercy and Love carries with it no terrors and affrightments but is composed of the kind invitations of Peace and comfort the Mount Sion wherein the resplendent glory of the first-born is displayed shining only with the gentle beams of an attractive and pleasing light and Jesus the blessed Mediator of this New Covenant with his extended Arms proclames his willingness to embrace and receive the World which he has reconciled to God with his own blood This is that Oeconomy which the Apostle calls the foolishness of preaching not as if it were so in it self but because 't is a way of condescending wisdome wherein God stoops down to our apprehensions and frames things so as we may understand them and receive an infinite benefit by them For Man partly from the frame and constitution of his Nature consisting of Body as well as Soul but much more from his fall and descent into this lower life becomes wonderfully affected with gross Phantasms and Exterior Representations Whence it comes to pass that we do more easily and frequently conceive of things as they appear to sense than as they are in themselves when apprehended by a more discerning Principle Wherefore the Infinite Wisdome of God that makes not its Operations in a way of Absolute soveraignty and immensity of Power forcing the Creatures against those inbred Principles she hath placed in them but sweetly and powerfully directs them in a steady way of congruity and proportionateness to the natures of things being to work out Man from this low contracted state the sad Region of sin and Death to a participation of Immortality and more free emanations of Divine life contrived a way most sutable and agreeable to the shallow capacities and faculties of Humane Souls God would not appear to us in a flame of fire nor speak by an Angel in a body of pure Air but in the Form of a Servant clothed with our Humane Flesh and subject to all the harmless Passions of our Nature that he might more kindly disenslave us from the cruel Tyranny of sin and Satan For let us but consult with our own Reasons whether this be not a greater Incitation and more powerful inducement to Men to believe and obey the Declarations of the Divine Will to exhibit to them some extraordinary and remarkable Person that should by the fullest demonstrations and sensible signs prove himself to be the Eternal Son of God and by sweetly compulsive Motives even to the suffering a barbarous and shameful Death attract Humane Minds to the Imitation of his Virtues and following his steps than that God should by any of those forementioned ways manifest himself in effects of Benignity or Displeasure The whole Nation of the Jews discover the sense of Mankind in such a case when being affrighted with the terrors accompanying the descent of God upon the Mount they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we dye For 1. Considering the world partly from themselves and partly from the cunning of Satan so much addicted and given over to the belief of sense had not Christ visibly appeared and conversed with Men the Gospel could never have captivated Humane Understandings with such irresistible evidence or wrought in them such a full perswasion of the things it taught as we see it hath done Should the great Pillars of the Christian Faith I mean the Apostles and Disciples of the Holy Jesus have laid its first ground-work upon the hearing of some voice or perswaded their Auditors as Numa Pompilius and some other Heathen Law-givers from the converse they had with some Angel that their Doctrine was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to them from Heaven and had God for its Author yet how hardly would Men have embraced it upon these accounts especially considering those imminent and apparent Dangers they were likely to incur upon the profession of it How ill resented is that great Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour Self-denyal and Resignation among vulgar spirits and how difficult a thing is it to bring off degenerated Hearts from the Interests of the World and is it likely then that Men should be so prodigal of their dearest Blood as to sacrifice it to an uncertain Rumour and Report which every Impostor is able to pretend But to see the meek Lamb of God made in our own likeness having left the sacred Mansions of Light and Glory and clothed himself with our frail Mortality to behold him I say testifying by many Miracles and irrefragable Arguments through the whole course of his abode on Earth and at last taking it upon his Death that he was the Son of the ever-living God and came down from Heaven to make known to Men that God was reconciled to the World through him this must needs strike our Imaginations more forcibly than whatever else the wit of Man could possibly conceive 2. The Gospel was intended to transform and work our Natures into that which is the flower and perfection of the Divine life that is an universal love to call off our minds from those little Interests they are apt to espouse by looking upon themselves as so many particular Beings divided and separated from the rest of the World and created only for themselves and their Private concernments and to beget in them an universally extensive charity by widening their Capacities to the Dimensions of the whole Creation By which we are taught not to think it enough that our love ascend in copious flames to Heaven unless it likewise descend in due measures and degrees upon all Mankind And indeed it is impossible for a Man that is throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love to have any self designs in opposition to the general good of the whole World but he must needs be infinitely desirous and pleased to see the life and nature of God communicated to all Beings capable of receiving of it And this love is so strong and vigorous that it firmly unites it self to all in whom it finds any true likeness and resemblance of the Divine Image and so far endears them to it self as to constrain us to lay down our lives for the Brethren But certainly this Flame could never have burnt so bright if it had not been raised and quickned by that sensible demonstration of inimitable affection in the Death of the Holy Jesus For what greater incouragement could there be to oblige and unite Mens souls to one another than that their love should first be kindled from Heaven by that great and unparallel'd Exemplar of noble Charity who laid down his life to expiate the crimes of his own and his Fathers Enemies 2. Of a congruity and complyance with the state and condition of Mankind both in respect of 1. Moral
2. Natural Evils First in respect of Moral Evils The degeneracy and fall of Mankind from God made them Slaves and Vassals to sin and Satan for the busie Tempter being not able to work upon them by external force and violence drew their wills into consent by craft and specious solicitations till at last he had so far enlarged his Kingdom as to bring the whole Race of Mankind under his Dominion Wherefore the Gospel being designed to free Men from that unnatural Bondage and to restore them to their true liberty it does in all points confront the ways and methods by which their Captivity was compassed and effected It had been a small matter by a high hand and by an Infinite Power at large to have destroyed the Devils Kingdom but herein appeared an excellent Wisdome so to lay the Ground and Foundation of this glorious purpose of the salvation of the World that the Politick Prince of Darkness might be taken in his own craftiness and lose this his Empire and Dominion by the same methods by which he at first obtained it The Woman being first in the Transgression and bringing sin and Death upon all her Off-spring that Divine Wisdome that draws light out of darkness and Order out of Confusion decreed that the seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head that is that Christ who is the Seed of the Woman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Nature and his Members who are so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by spiritual engraftment into him should dispossess the Devil of that Power Soveraignty and Principality which he holds over the World by sin According to this early Declaration of Men's Recovery Jesus Christ the true Seed of the Woman comes into the World and by walking exactly contrary to his Enemy restores to the World what they lost by the first Adam And whereas the Devil managed his Kingdom of sin and Death with all imaginable Tyranny and Insultation over poor Mortals our Blessed Jesus was so far from requiring Humane Blood to be sacrificed to him that out of a deep sense of our Calamity he parted with his own Blood for the life of the World A more effectual and agreeable course could never have been taken than this that the Captain of our salvation should visibly appear and conquer the Kingdom and Powers of Darkness in that Nature which the first Adam ruin'd and destroyed Secondly in respect of Natural Evils Though it be no disgrace nor shame to be made a Man yet he that deeply reflects upon Humane life shall find it at the best very calamitous and standing in need of much Pity and Compassion We are born into the World helpless and weak and as if we did presage our own future miseries the first actions of our life are spent in crying and tears Our very Bodies are a sad load and burden upon our Spirits inclining them to many foolish lusts and passions subject to many Pains Diseases and Death insomuch that many good and holy Men have in passionate streins bewailed their stay and continuance here on Earth Woe is me that I sojourn in Meseck and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar and O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death Now none can so affectionately pity nor so intimately resent the distress of another as he that hath smarted and suffered under the same calamity Therefore says the Apostle We have not an High-Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities by reason of the great distance disproportion and sublimity of his Nature but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin that is manifested and declared himself to be a true Man by being subject to all the harmless affections and infirmities of humane flesh and blood forasmuch therefore as he became our Brother by taking upon him the same Natural condition he must needs be throughly apprehensive and sensible of our state and so the more apt to sympathize with and commiserate poor Mortals and by that powerful soveraignty to which he is exalted act for us and send down relief from Heaven to us For though the Infinite Essence of God pervade the whole World and all the Creatures live within it and therefore must needs feel and know the inmost Energies Motions and stillest Actings of all Beings yet it affords not such a sensible comfort to Humane minds as to behold the Son of God taking upon him our Nature and by that Union and Proximity assuring us of his Tenderness and Compassion towards us For he took not on him the nature of Angels being unwilling to be so far removed from us but took on him the Seed of Abraham Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted 3. A third thing which demonstrates the excellency of Divine Wisdome in the dispensation of the Gospel consists in the fitness and sutableness of it to the end for which it was designed For things are so much the more excellent by how much the congruity and fitness is greater for the accomplishing their end and purpose Now the great intent and design of God in the Gospel being as I have said the everlasting blessedness of Humane Souls the more congruously and fitly disposed it shall be found to be for the obtaining this effect the greater is the glory of the Divine Wisdome interessing and concerning it self about it This aptness and sutableness is seen 1. In that the Gospel is furnished with all those Arguments that are requisite to approve it self worthy of Belief to all Rational Persons To this two things are necessary 1. The attestation of God himself 2. Rational evidence and conviction For whatever is attested of God and hath his Seal affixed to it is by the general consent of all Men to be looked upon and entertained as infallibly true Veracity being an Essential Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature St. Paul discoursing of the mystery of Godliness tells us that Christ and Christianity was justified by the spirit i. e. owned approved and recommended to the World by the spirit of God And this God's recommendation of our blessed Saviour to the World as a Person commissioned and invested with full Authority to declare his will unto Mankind was done at several Times and in divers manners 1. At the Baptism of our Saviour Mat. 3.16 17. when the Heavens were opened and the spirit of God descended upon him and a Voice from Heaven proclaiming him the beloved Son of God in whom he was well pleased And this manner of Divine Revelation by a Voice from Heaven as it was the most ancient so the most honourable way of God's communicating his will to Mankind Exod. 20.22 Ye have seen that I have talked with you from Heaven For what
though condemned as a Malefactor and that I was owned and approved of God in that he visibly took me up into Heaven Which plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit in such a wonderful manner whenas he had been withdrawn from the Jews as to those extraordinary and Prophetical gifts for the space of four hundred years was a Testimony clear as the Sun that Jesus was the true Messias the beloved Son of GOD and therefore that they ought to have believed on Him 6. Lastly Christ was approved by the Spirit of Prophecy Their want of understanding and incredulity of the Prophetick Oracles was that for which our Saviour upbraided his two Disciples O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Whereby we are informed that the Prophets had long ago given not only a character and description of the Person but of the Doctrine Death Burial and Resurrection of the Messiah and these Prophecies being so directly applicable to Jesus and to none else it was an unquestionable proof that he was the true Messiah and that the World ought to believe on him This Argument St. Peter makes use of against the Jewes To him give all the Prophets witness q.d. If you believe not us the Apostles of Jesus yet believe your own Prophets who unanimously point out and refer to this Jesus whom we preach to you And thus St. Paul pleads for the Gospel Act. 26.22 that he taught no other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come By all these several ways it is very apparent that God hath born witness to Christianity and approved and owned the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the first thing required to the credibility of the Gospel namely the Attestation of God himself 2. The Second is Rational Evidence and Conviction The most Noble Faculties of the Soul of Man are the Understanding and the Will and that Religion bear a Rational Evidence and Conviction it must be fitted with Arguments that must convince the Understanding and perswade the Will to a due Reception and entertainment of it Now the proper Object of the Understanding is Truth from whence it follows that Christianity must be true that it may be believed For the Truth of Religion I shall refer to those Learned Authors who have purposely handled that Argument and brought as clear Evidence as the thing it self is capable of And he that cannot believe without a Mathematical certainty declares himself to be very absurd and disingenuous and may upon the same grounds as well expect the same Demonstrative Evidence for the affairs of Humane life or to prove the Truth of the Chronicles of the Kings of England or France that is he is so strangely unreasonable as to desire such proof as the nature of the things will not bear though in the mean time he have the highest evidence and most unquestionable assurance of the Truth of Religion that the thing it self is capable of that is a Moral certainty For the Mind of Man may be as indubitably assured of the Truth of a Moral Proposition as of a Mathematical or Physical one although there be not the same way of Probation in all As for Example This is a self-evident Truth in Morals and needs no other light but that of its own to gain Assent That in those things which we have not seen nor experienced our selves we ought to believe them that say they have seen and experienced provided they live up to their profession and are not moved to it by secular respect Which if it be not assented to we must be Scepticks even in ordinary affairs and transactions of Humane life we must not believe there is such a Place as Constantinople nor credit any thing but our own Eyes and Ears and say in a larger sense than ever the Psalmist did that all men are lyars See more of this in Bishop Wilkins Principles of Natural Religion Now for the Will that Religion may have a full and compleat entertainment in the Soul of Man there must be something likewise to work upon that Wherefore to make a thing eligible it must have the appearance of Good that is it must have a sutableness congruity and harmony with the Intellectual Nature of Man and a tendency to promote the perfection thereof And such is the Christian Religion in its whole Frame and Contexture For let us consider who it is that owns and has interessed himself as the Blessed Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy even the Eternal Logos and Wisdome of God that Almighty Mind which has closely contracted and deeply seal'd upon all Intellectual Agents that large and diffusive wisdome that is seen in all the Parts of Heaven and Earth And to think that Christianity should be in any of its Parts unreasonable is to imagine this to be the only Unreasonable thing that ever the Divine Wisdome was the Author of and this alone of all his numerous Off-spring to be unlike the Father The Gospel does in the most intimate manner derive it self from Christ the Eternal Son of God and is especially owned and superintended by him as being the repairing that work which he alone made and which he alone can rectifie and to imagine that an Infinite Reason should propound any thing to us that were unreasonable is as fond as to say that cold can flow from fire or darkness positively ray from the bosome of light Jesus Christ did not bring a Religion into the World to perplex our minds and dazle our understandings but for the real good and behoof of the lapsed Creation to form our minds according to his own Image and to regenerate our spirits into a living nature of Truth and Righteousness which Design were utterly lost if there were not in Christianity a perfect symphony congruity and agreeableness with our Intellectual Natures Besides let any Man but consider how the Will is allured and solicited to Action and he shall find that it is then the most vigorously tempted forth when something is propounded which has a Natural sutableness and harmony with those Constitutive Principles of which we are made but on the contrary it is naturally averse to and not at all concerned with that to which it hath no vital sympathy or concord Which is an evident sign that Christianity is not only agreeable to but perfective of our Rational Powers What can be more agreeable to the true Nature of Man than Righteousness What more sutable to his higher and Diviner Faculties than Truth and Goodness These beautiful and glorious Forms shone bright in our Souls before Vice and Sin had covered and overspread them and forced our Minds into a Preternatural state Now Christianity is design'd for the Recovery of Us to our Pristine Health and Rectitude and tends to the enlargement of our better Powers and the Recovery of them from that narrow and contracted state sin and evil had brought them to Vice
the Essential wisdome of his Father and his Discourses full of Life and Power who himself was transcendently anointed with the Spirit of God and able and willing to bestow the same according as the needs and necessities of Men required yet Jesus the Author and finisher of the salvation of Men was not always succesful but oft-times that precious and Immortal seed which he sow'd fell upon a Rock and there were some that rejected the Counsel of God against themselves and Many believed not on him and others went back and walked no more with him Shall we say now that the Spirit of God did not accompany those excellent Sermons of Jesus Christ If it did his Energy and Operation was not Absolute and Unconditionate since it was repulsed and took no effect on many Or is it not rather plain that the cause lay in the stubborness and obstinacy of their own wills according as Christ himself tells the Jews I would but ye would not A like form of Speech God uses to their rebellious Ancestors Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged that is I have done my part towards it but thou wouldst not do thine Nor can I imagine if the work of Men's Conversion depended so wholly upon the Power of God that no precedent Qualifications were necessary to invite the Spirit of God to fall to work why Men's obstinate incredulity should debar Christ from working Miracles as we find it did or why he should not require a tractable frame of mind as a precedent Qualification for the exertion of his Almighty Power in the cure of spiritual as well as corporal diseases Nay the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour were so far from imagining an irresistible Power accompanying the outward Word that St. Stephen tells the Jews they did resist the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did 2. From those Arguments the Spirit of God makes use of under the Gospel wherein Men are treated with according to their Rational Natures and wrought off from Vice and sin to a firm and permanent adhesion to Virtue by kindness and love by hopes and fears by the inevitableness of impendent mischiefs and by the security of future rewards Which Oeconomy had been altogether supervacaneous if God had engaged his Omnipotent Power to make Men good Under the Gospel we are perswaded to Holiness and Righteousness by the easiness pleasantness and satisfaction of such a state to which our minds being once arrived they feel a full and entire Acquiescence and ineffable joy a Pleasure resulting from the connaturality and agreeableness of those Beautiful Forms with the inmost sense of our own Souls And because the dispositions of Mankind are various and different some being incouraged to Action out of a Principle of Gratitude and innate Nobility others not easily won but by Advantage and Interest others again not without menaces of a severe and uneasie Discipline therefore God in the Evangelical Dispensation hath interwoven the most effectual and cogent Arguments to meet with each of these tempers in Men. To the first he propounds the consideration of the Death and Passion of his only begotten Son who being in the form of God and dwelling in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Glory yet out of that dear and ineffable love and compassion which he always bare to the race of Mankind was content to banish himself from those Blessed Regions and put on our Servile Scheme being born into the World a helpless Infant subject to perpetual sorrows and afflictive circumstances leading an obscure and contemptible life befriended of few and at last dying upon that uneasie Bed of sorrows the Cross that so his Death might be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World Which cannot but enravish every Ingenuous Breast and fill it with the highest and most faithful love to so kind and compassionate a Saviour But there being almost as few of this sort of Men as there were of old of those that embraced Virtue for it self and esteemed it eligible though divested of all appendant Rewards therefore that Eternal Wisdome which has interessed it self in the Frame and Conduct of the Gospel propounds an advantageous Portion to the sincere and unblameable Professors of Piety and Holiness and assures them that their labour shall not be in vain but that their sorrows shall find refreshment their hardships and difficult enterprises ease and pleasure and their faithful Perseverance in Righteousness be recompenced with the Happiness of possessing glorified and Immortal Bodies in the highest Heavens And if it shall happen the minds of Men to be deaf to all the charms of Gratitude and Advantage to the Allectives of good Nature and Interest and there be no way left to awake them out of their stupidity but by the Voice of Thunder then Jesus Christ the Soveraign of Men and Angels is represented to Us in Scripture coming in the Clouds of Heaven attended with Thousands of Angels to take Vengeance on those that have not known God nor obeyed his Laws and Commands And by his Powerful Operation the Seeds and Principles of Fire shall be excited and that quick and Active Element insinuate and pervade all the Commissures and Parts of the Earth and a Deluge of Flame as once of Waters shall overspread the Face of the World Into which sulphureous and burning Lake the Devil and his Angels and all those who in this life delight in wickedness and cast the fear of God behind their backs shall be plunged to Eternal Ages These are the Arguments which are dispersed up and down and urged in the Holy Scriptures as so many tyes and bands to engage us to a faithful and peremptory prosecution of the indispensable Laws of Righteousness and Truth and which as well in their own Nature as in the manner and way of their Proposal do evidently declare that they are not fatal and necessary but moral Instruments of propagating and diffusing the Life and Nature of God and as all other Rational means of Perswasion may by an obstinate and perverse spirit be slighted and contemned And certainly the Nature of the thing it self requires it should be so for if the whole conduct of Mens souls in order to their salvation were nothing but the effects and emanations of a peremptory and uncontrollable Power there would be no place left for those large Encomium's of Wisdome in this great affair Wisdome being Inventrix Mediorum and then most of all discovers its excellency in fixing and determining upon such ways as shall operate effectually and yet congruously and agreeably to the Nature of Men Moral Agents requiring Moral Instruments to allure and invite them to Action But lest any Man should carelesly mistake me and think that what I have said tends to the invalidating and weakning our belief of the Powerful Assistance of the Spirit of God I do confidently affirm That no Man ought or can attribute his beginning progress and
in so great a measure already accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel and that Powerful Assistance that attended it from Heaven shall receive its full and final completion when the Mountain of the Lord's house is exalted upon the tops of the Mountains and all Nations flow unto it that is when both Jews and Gentiles shall unite themselves under the Banner of the crucified Jesus And now that I am discoursing of that signal overthrow of the Devil's Kingdome by Christianity or the Gospel under the Powerful conduct of the Lord Jesus whereby he became dispossessed of his Usurped Dominions and those who had so long time been his Slaves and Vassals returned to the Loyalty and Obedience they owed to their Natural Soveraign I cannot forbear to insert a Conjecture of the Pious and Learned Mr. Mede concerning the American or New World That those Countries were first Inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times and not before yea perhaps some Ages after there being no signs or foot-steps found amongst them or any Monuments of older Habitation as there is with us That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel and the Cross of Christ in every part of this old World so that he could in no place be quiet for it and foreseeing that he was like at length to lose all here bethought himself to provide him of a Seed over which he might reign securely and in a Place Vbi nec Pelopidarum facta neque nomen audiret That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations dwelling upon the Northern Ocean whither the sound of Christ had not yet come and promising them by some Oracle to shew them a Country far better than their own which he might soon do pleasant large where never Man yet inhabited he conducted them over those Desart Lands and Islands which are many in that Sea by the way of the North into America which none would ever have gone had they not first been assured there was a passage that way into a more desirable Country Namely as when the World Apostatized from the Worship of the true God God called Abraham out of Chaldee into the Land of Canaan of him to raise him a Seed to preserve a light unto his Name So the Devil when he saw the World Apostatizing from him laid the Foundations of a new Kingdome by deducting this Colony from the North into America where since they have increased into an innumerable Multitude And where did the Devil reign more Absolutely and without Controll since Mankind fell first under his clutches And here it is to be noted that the story of the Mexican Kingdome which was not founded above 400. Years before ours came thither relates out of their own Memorials and Traditions that they came to that Place from the North whence their God Vitzliliputzli led them going in an Ark before them and after divers Years Travel and many stations like enough after some Generations they came to a Place which the sign he had given them at their first setting forth pointed out where they were to finish their Travels build themselves a City and their God a Temple which is the Place where Mexico was built And though the Devil in those Quarter and such other Parts of the World seem to Lord it alone over abused Mankind without any controll and opposition yet the Son of God to whom the uttermost Parts of the Earth are promised for an Inheritance will at length lay a Powerful claim to his own Possessions and take out of the hands of his Grand Enemy by the pure and uncorrupt Propagation of the Gospel that Soveraignty which he exercises over those Desolate People For as Christ in the Days of his Flesh by his Powerful and efficacious Word commanded the Devils out of their usurped Habitations in the Bodies of Men as a Praeludium of that Universal Conquest he should hereafter obtain so will he after such Periods of Divine Providence fixed and determined by his All-comprehensive Wisdome go forth with his Legions of Light and recover those wretched Mortals out of the Hands of the spirits of Darkness by whom they have been captivated and seduced at their Will Nor is this a bare Airy Notion or Fancy but a thing to be hoped and prayed for upon very Rational Grounds it being nothing but the enlargement of the Kingdome of Truth and Righteousness and the Dissemination of that Holy and Blessed Life of God to which Mens Souls have a Natural Cognation though for the present bent and forced out of their true state and Position 3. The Power of God will Discover it self in a very eminent manner in raising all Holy Men from the Dead and rewarding their faithful services with Immortality and Life at the last Day The last enemy that shall be destroyed says the Apostle is Death And when God shall think fit to put an end to the Generations of Men and conclude the Scene of the affairs of this World then shall the Holy Jesus descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Trumpet of God and the Dead shall be raised and presented each one in the Visible and Individual Personality they bare in this World before the Judgment-Seat of Christ to receive for the things done in their Bodies whether good or bad and they that have done good shall come forth to the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Which final sentence at the Conclusion of that dreadful Appearance shall be executed accordingly the Wicked being plunged into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone but the Righteous through the gracious Bounty and stupendious Operation of their merciful Redeemer shall be taken up into the Regions of Immortality and life where their Corruptible Bodies shall put on Incorruption and be transformed into the similitude of the Glorious Body of the Son of GOD through that mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself And though this Transcendent state and Portion may very well be thought too big for our humble Hopes and Expectations and exceed all that we can do or suffer yet since God is pleased of his Infinite Bounty to promise we have no Reason to distrust his Faithfulness and Truth in the Performance of it since he has moreover given us a palpable Pledge and Assurance of it in the Resurrection of our Blessed Saviour from the Dead and because he lives we may be confident we shall live also Christ is risen from the Grave having conquered Death by dying and is ascended into the pure and peaceable Habitations of Glory therefore all his Members who are united to Him in the inseparable bands of Faith and Love shall feel the effects of his Powerful Life in immortalizing their very Bodies which shall then be absorpt into the Great Vortex of Eternity where both Body and Soul shall be deckt with such a refulgent