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A27438 Of revelation and the Messias a sermon preached at the publick commencement at Cambridge, July 5th, 1696 / by Richard Bentley ... Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742. 1696 (1696) Wing B1942; ESTC R5633 15,739 38

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upon them and breathed a new warmth and vigour through all the powers of Body and Soul when by the influx of divine light the whole scene of Christ's heavenly kingdom was represented to their view so that their hearts were ravished with joy and their imaginations turgid and pregnant with the glorious ideas then surely if ever their stile would be strong and lofty full of allusions to all that is great and magnificent in the kingdoms of this world But then in other passages of the same Prophets as it were on purpose to hint to us the true meaning of the former the Messias is describ'd plainly without poetical colours to be a person of low condition to have no form nor comeliness in him a man acquainted with sorrows and numbred among transgressors and by other characters so clear and express that some of the Jewish Rabbies to elude so strong a conviction have maintain'd and propagated an absurd opinion as if two Messiah's were foretold by the Prophets the one a triumphant monarch and the other an unfortunate and afflicted person What will not perverse and refractary minds take hold of rather than submit to an unwelcome truth It is evident then that the kingdom of Christ so magnified in the Prophetick stile is a spiritual kingdom And yet to be free and ingenuous we must own that the whole nation of the Jews mistook the meaning of those passages Even our Saviour's own disciples were not exempted from the common error And the whole posterity of that people are pertinacious in it to this day which to many is a mighty prejudice against the credit of the Gospel What as if it were such a matter of astonishment that they obstinately adhere to the literal sense which promises them a temporal kingdom with worldly honours and pleasures an interpretation both specious in it self and agreeable to their proud hopes and carnal apprehensions which are miserably defeated and disappointed in Jesus There seems to be nothing so very unnatural and unaccountable in this But then that very Disappointment so far it is from being an objection that to a sagacious mind and uncorrupt judgment it self is a convincing proof that he was truly the Messias For let us reflect upon the state of those times 'T is certain in fact that the whole nation was possest with an inveterate persuasion that the Messias was then a coming And 't is as certain that Iesus the Son of Mary profest himself that Messias Let us argue now upon human reasons and the common principles of action If he was not the true Messias we are then to consider him as an ordinary Jew of mean quality and education Now to give any tol●rable account why such a one should pretend himself to be the Messias there are but two ways possible Either he was acted by ambitious designs which he hoped to compass by that impost●●e or by a complexional and natural enthusiasm verily imagining himself to be the Messias I suppose I scarce need to say that both these suppositions are fully confuted by every word and action of his life But what I now observe is this that upon either of those principles whether Ambition or Enthusiasm he would certainly have acted the part of the Messias in such a character as men then asscribed to him according to the popular expectation and the received notion of those times Now the whole Nation expected that the Messias was to be a great General to rescue them from the Roman power and to restore the kingdom to Israel 'T is certain then that upon either of those motives he would have blown the trumpet to rebellion and attempted their deliverance Ambition would have animated him to it as the only way to his hopes and wishes or if Enthusiasm had inspired him what would he not have promised and assumed to himself to fight the battles of the Lord to execute vengeance upon the Heathen to bind their Kings with chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron Such were the designs of Barcocab and some other impostors of old setting up to be the Messias they put their followers in arms and proclaimed liberty to the people Not so the blessed Jesus but when the multitude would have made him their King he withdrew himself even by miracle to avoid it He did not summon to arms but to repentance and newness of life He had a kingdom indeed but not of this earthly Ierusalem but of that which is above He was truly their deliverer but not from the Roman yoke but from the more slavish yoke of the Law from the more wretched bondage to sin and death Was this the air and language of Ambition Was this the meen and spirit of Enthusiasm Nay rather does not Nature her self cry out and declare that for one of his low condition and vulgar education to profess himself the Messias in so surprizing a manner in a character so unthought of by an interpretation of Prophecies so spiritual and divine so infinitely better than the literal meaning against the universal prejudice of the nation and the hopes and sollicitations of his very followers was certainly a thing more than human an invincible testimony that he was really the Christ and his doctrine from God and not of men But our Adversaries have another objection still behind and our answer thereto will put an end both to it and to the present discourse And this objection is borrow'd from the Law of Moses which say they having a promise of eternity annexed to it to be an everlasting covenant a perpetual statute a covenant of an everlasting Priesthood ought of necessity to be continued and confirmed by the true Messias whereas Iesus endeavoured to abolish it and thereby wholly subverted the credit of his own pretensions But we answer in our Saviour's declaration that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it We are to distinguish then between the moral part of the Mosaic Law and the political and ceremonial As to the Rites and Ceremonies 't is apparent they had no intrinsic nor moral holiness in them no natural tendency to promote the happiness of men nay rather they were inconvenient and grievous a yoke of bondage and servile discipline which none were able to bear Even the rewards and penalties which enforced their observation did not naturally flow and result from them as effects from proper causes but they were miraculously added to them by the sole virtue of the divine promise 'T is true they were fit and proper for the ends of their institution to be types and shadows of better things to come to preserve the people from Idolatry by allowing no intercourse nor commerce with other nations But 't is evident for that very reason as well as many more that those ceremonies were neither calculated for eternity nor modelled for mankind in common So that when the reasons of their sanction no longer continued when the things they typically represented were come to pass when the wall of partition was to be removed and according to the Prophecies all nations to be called to Christ and the ends of the earth to be his possession they must needs be antiquated and abolished like scaffolds that are removed when the buildings are finished since under that new state none of them had any further use and several of them became impossible to be observed And so for the Political institutions of Moses 't is plain they were accommodated to the circumstances of affairs and the necessities of time and place not absolutely the very best but the best that those ages of the world and the genius of that people would bear As for instance the toleration of Polygamy and causeless Divorces these were indulged them not as most pleasing to their Law-giver but because of the hardness of their hearts in the words of our Saviour because they were too stiff-necked and headstrong to admit of a shorter bridle These civil ordinances therefore when better precepts were once proposed and accepted in their place must of necessity drop and die of themselves and become obsolete without any repeal just as the temporary edicts in war and the agreements of the cartel do expire of their own accord when the peace is concluded But then the Moral part of the law of Moses which is the sap and marrow the soul and substance of the whole that indeed is of eternal and universal obligation But then who can say that this is abrogated and cancelled by Iesus so far from that that every branch of it is ingrafted and incorporated into his Gospel In this best of senses therefore the Mosaic Law is confirmed and fulfilled by our Saviour For Morality is a thing immutable and unless human nature it self should be new molded by our maker vice and virtue must be always what they have been So foolish was the cavil of the Deists against our Saviour's descent from Heaven because he gave no other Lectures of Morals than what Nature and Reason had taught before Nay if he had taught us the reverse of those Morals this had been an objection indeed But in that even the divinity of his doctrine most eminently appears that the finger of God upon the tables of our hearts and the pens of the inspired Writers in the volume of the Gospel have prescribed us one and the same lesson As for Us whose employment it is to teach that lesson to others let us but express it also in our own lives and conversations let us but add that credit to our doctrine that reputation to our profession so may we expect to bring over all our adversaries to the truth and power of Religion so may we expect when we give the account of our talents to be received with that blessed approbation Well done thou good and faithfull servant enter thou into the joy of thy Master FINIS Rom. 3. 2. Luk. 7. 19. Matth. 13. 25. Matth. 10. 36. James 1. 27. Deut. 34. Matth. 19. 26. Rom. 4. 11. Gen. 1. 31. Gen. 4. 7. 1 Joh. 1. 8. Rom. 3. 9. 23. Ib. v. 19. Rom. 8. 22. Heb. 1. 3. Rom. 10. 14. Rom. 3. 29. Rom. 9. 4. Rom. ● 11 12. Rom. 1. 18 20 21. Rom. 3. 20. 1 Pet. 1. 20. Matth. ● 17. Matth. 19. 8. P. 4.
that nation were of all others the most sutable to the design of the Messias For since it was fit and necessary that Prophecies should foretell of him long before his coming that his pedegree and extraction should be accurately deduced through a long series of Ancestors and other such marks be assigned of him that men might know This was He what more proper to those purposes than the state of the Jews that peculiar people secluded and distinguish'd one tribe from another and the whole from all the rest of Mankind by the very frame of their polity So that the Genealogies were less confused the Histories and Prophecies more faithfully recorded and the accomplishment of all more certain and illustrious than they could have been in any other Nation upon Earth all of which within that long compass of time were blended together by mutual commerce and mutual conquest and other omnifarious causes of mixture and confusion And then as to that other surmise that God would have proposed fair and equal means of general salvation and not upon such narrow and insufficient terms as an actual Faith in the person of Jesus a condition impossible to the much greater part of Mankind we acknowledge it to be true infallibly true Faith in Christ Jesus the only way to Salvation since the preaching of the Gospel so as whosoever rejects that when it is duly declared to him and refuses his assent and obedience to it can have no portion in the Kingdom of Heaven But for those that never once heard of the Lord of Life that 's an undecided case which we do not determine For who has authority to give sentence where God and Scripture are silent Thus far we are assured there that let the future condition of those be as God pleases at least he will not condemn them for invincible ignorance For there is no respect of persons with Him but as many as have sinned without Law shall perish without Law The meaning whereof is that the Gentile world shall not be judged and condemned for the breach of the law of Moses which never was given them but for sins against the law of Nature and the common light of Conscience We may inferr then by parity of argument That as many as shall sin without the Gospel shall perish without the Gospel that is not because they believed not in Jesus whom they had not the least notice of but they will be tried and sentenced for sins against natural Reason for things within their power and capacity because when they knew God they glorified him not as God because they held the truth in unrighteousness so that they are without excuse But if the Deist shall still insist that though we have justified God from the calumny as if he would condemn the Gentiles for want of impossible Faith yet still he maintains it to be unjust and incredible that while one small part of Mankind enjoys the favour of the Gospel all under the state of Nature shall have the hard measure of Summum Ius must be all damn'd by rigid inflexible Justice without equity or mercy without any act of pardon or the least room for Repentance if he will rather obstinately believe or hope or wish that the God of tender compassions who loveth all things that he hath made who will not require much where little has been given cannot be so extreme with the Gentile world as to mark all that is done amiss and yet to slight and overlook those shining examples of vertue not unfrequent among them If this be all he sticks at God forbid that on this single account he should exclude himself from the Communion of Faith We can allow him this opinion as at worst a charitable error as some indication of a large heart and a generous love of Mankind But then he must always remember that even those virtuous Heathens whom he would so gladly place in some part of Heaven can be saved on no other account than by the merits and mediation of Jesus their Saviour For without his satisfaction there is no remission of sins nor acceptation of repentance and without remission of sins by the deeds of the Law and natural Righteousness no flesh can be justified in the sight of God They are saved therefore if they be saved at all by the sole benefit of Christ though in this life they could not know nor thank their Benefactor For though they lived in the earliest ages of time long before his Incarnation yet even then they might be purified by the blood of the Lamb manifested indeed in latter times but pre-ordained before the foundation of the world so that from the first origin of it he might extend and impart to all that were worthy the efficacy of his Merits and the privileges of Faith and Grace and a share in the inheritance of Glory and Immortality II. And now we may expect that our Adversaries will put off the garb and character of Deists and make a new attempt for the fortune of the day under the arms and conduct of the Jews It must be granted on all hands that the Messias whensoever he is manifested to the world must appear in that very manner as the Jewish Prophets describe him All the characters must hit and correspond one to another the same features the same lineaments visible in both the one the shadow and picture and the other the substance Now say they it is evident from the Prophets That the Messias is to be a temporal Prince to sit on the throne of David his royal ancestor and to make Ierusalem the seat of an universal and perpetual Empire But the character of Jesus is as different from this description as a stable from a palace 'T is true we Christians endeavour to shew a similitude between them by figurative interpretations of Scripture which we call the spiritual and mystical sense but they call arbitrary and precarious as having no foundation in the native and naked Letter which is not to be racked and wrested from its obvious meaning little credit being to be given to such extorted confessions Thus far our Objectors But I suppose the Prophetick language and character is better understood than that this surmise should pass without a just answer Indeed if it were in this case alone that the expressions of the Prophets need a figurative interpretation the exception might appear fair and plausible But it cannot be denied that on many other occasions besides the matter of the Messias their discourse after the genius of the Eastern nations is thick set with metaphor and allegory the same bold comparisons and dithyrambick liberty of stile every-where occurr Which is an easie and natural account besides the more secret reasons that the Holy Spirit might have why the kingdom of Messias though really spiritual and not of this world is so often dressed and painted by them with the glories of secular Empire For when the spirit of God came