explain things which lye at a vaster distance from it and to which it bears less proportion If neither the Nature of God or of our Souls or of Matter of whose Existence we have the most scientifick evidence are to be comprehended by our narrow and shallow Intellects why may we not justifie the belief of such things of whose Truth and reality the Scripture instructs us though we cannot conceive the manner how they are or indeed how they can be And if men will not be talk'd and huff'd out of the persuasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reasons ascertain them though they cannot answer all the difficulties they are accosted with in their enquiries about them much less will Christians be Hector'd out of the belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the conception of them 'T is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God though it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are The highest assurance of the reality of any thing is Gods affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent to its Truth though we can frame no adequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our conceptions To bring down the Doctrines of Religion to the Model of Reason is wholly to overthrow belief and to pay no more respect to the Authority and Testimony of God than we would to that of a Worm like our selves If there were no obscurity and difficulties in the Notions of Gospel-Truths where would our submission and Humility be which are the qualifications that do most recommend us to God and upon this account especially because they prepare the Mind for Faith and give check to all bold and curious enquiries 'T is enough that we can by rational proofs demonstrate the Bible to be the Word of that God whose Veracity is proportionate to his Sapience and both of them infinite nor is it needful that its Doctrines should further adjust themselves to our Understandings And indeed as to the Doctrine we have been discoursing not only the Apostle styles it a great Mystery but Christ himself seems to adjâ—rn the perfect knowledg of it till the glorified state At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in in me and I in you Joh. 14.20 Yet seeing the Holy Ghost hath been pleased not only to assert an Intimate Union between Christ and Believers but hath condescended to illustrate it by so many similitudes and seeing many things that are Mysterious and unsearchable till God reveal them are afterwards of no difficult conception providing we regulate our apprehensions of them by the Word I shall therefore having arraign'd and overthrown the false Notions of this Spiritual Union venture to assign a true and I hope also an Intelligible Notion of it Now this I shall attempt by these several steps and degrees 1st The highest and closest Union is between those things that are actuated by one Spirit dwelling and moving in them Adhesion of parts is not so noble an Union as information by one and the same Spirit If the vegetative juice be precluded admission into any branch it is no longer in a proper sense United to the Root notwithstanding its Physical continuity to the other Branches When the Animal spirits forsake any Member in the Organick Body it is immediately as if it were not knit to the Head though it remain not only connected to the adjoyning parts by Muscles and Sinews but ligu'd to the Acropolis by Nerves and Arteries The strictest and most proper Union is that which emergeth from actuation by the same spirit 'T is this that renders the inferior Members as much coherent with the Head as the superior are because they are all acted by the same Animal spirits which as they are prepared in the Brain so they have their flux thence to all the Regions of the Body and their reflux back thither again Thus the soul though she keep her residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is really joyned to all the Body because of the commerce that is between the Head where her Imperial Court is and the rest of the Members through the ministry of the Animal spirits 2dly Things at the greatest distance and between which there is no physical continuity may be acted by the same Spirit providing he be immense and infinite That Spirit who through the Infinite perfection of his Essence is every where may both inhabite and produce similar operations in those subjects that are locally distant the one from the other Though a Finite spirit cannot at the same time influence and act distinct and distant Subjects if there be not either a continuity or a contiguousness between them yet an Infinite Spirit may 3dly 'T is Christ as Mediator that Believers are United to The Mystical Union is between Him and Believers as he is a Middle Person between Them and his Father Our Moral Union with the Father in way of complacential love is through our Spiritual Union with the Son by the renovation of the Holy Ghost 4. The Holy Ghost did in a singular manner operate upon and reside in the Humane Nature of Christ. Though Christ was Holy by Essence in respect of his Divine Nature yet he was Holy by Consecration and Unction with the Spirit in respect of his Humane Though it was only the Son that did assume our Nature into subsistence with himself yet it was the Spirit that positively adorned and furnished that Nature with Grace 'T is true it is not of easie apprehension how the operation of the Holy Ghost should interpose in the same person between the one Nature and the other but it is as true that we have it plainly affirmed in the Scripture which is the highest assurance we can have of any thing 'T is one of the deep things of God which we ought to submit to with an humble Faith and not to enquire after it with a presumptuous boldness The Testimonies to this purpose are many but I shall only refer the Reader to two or three viz. Isa. 11.1 3. Joh. 3.34 Luk. 4.1 5thly The Holy Ghost is the Immediate Renewer and Sanctifier of the Elect. All the saving Illumination all the Gospel conviction all the Vital quickening all the Regenerating Virtue that we come under at any time have or are made the Subjects of they are from the Spirit of God and the Efficacious subjective operation of the Holy Ghost in and upon us Our birth and progress in Holiness are to be ascribed to Him as the Efficient Cause and Immediate Worker 'T is for this Reason that the Third Person in the Trinity is so frequently styled the Holy Spirit For that Title doth not so much refer to the Essential Purity of his Nature as to the sanctifying operations which are assigned to him in the Oeconomy of Mans Redemption This I shall not now divert to the proof of 't is enough that the
Scripture bears witness to it in a thousand places nor can the contrary Opinion be espoused and asserted without a Virtual renouncing the Gospel 6thly 'T is from by and through Jesus Christ as Mediator that the Spirit whether it be with respect to his Immediate seisure of us and dwelling in us or with reference to any of his saving operations is given to and bestowed upon us As God never dispensed any Grace to the Sons of Adam but in and by the person of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head of the Church so the Communion of the Spirit who is our Immediate Sanctifier is from and through Christ. His Spirit he is by Him he is promised His bodily absence He supplies and of His fulness He takes and communicates to us Ye have received an Unction from the Holy One saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 2.20 Though the giving the Spirit be ascribed to the Father as He with whom the Authoritative disposure and appointment of all Divine extrinsick operations lodg yet with respect to Immediate Mission his sending is attributed to Christ whose Spirit upon this account as well as others He is called Hence the Ancients style him Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ and Vis Vicaria the power by which he is present to our souls Spiritus nos Christo confibulat the Spirit buttons us to Christ that I may use Tertullian's phrase The Holy Ghost supplies Christ's place here in the World and through him the Lord Jesus Christ is present with his Church till the consummation of all things and by Him he dwells and walks in his People The Spirit is Christs purchase for his People and his Donative to them The Holy Spirit was given to Christ as a reward of his Obedience and Death to be by him communicated to men Jesus Christ as Mediator is Authorised by the Father to dispense Grace to whom he will 7ly Through the communication of the Spirit from Christ to us and immediately upon his taking the possession of us the Nature of Christ the Seed of God and a vital living principle comes to be formed in us For though the Donation of the Spirit to us and his possessing of us precede the Geniture of the New Man in priority of Nature forasmuch as the Cause must be conceived before the Effect yet the inhabitation of the Spirit and the production of a New Creature and spiritual Being in us are perfectly simultaneous as to time Now through the formation of this Seed of God in us we become partakers of the same spiritual Nature that Christ was We do hereby not only beat the Image of the Heavenly but are changed into the same Image This is Christ formed in us And this New Spiritual Being and Internal power becoming incorporated and made One with our souls it is as a Vital Form in us And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth by transforming the soul attemper it to universal Obedience so one of its first operations is an exercise of Faith upon Jesus Christ. And this being that which entitles us in a peculiar manner to fresh communications of Grace and supplies of the Spirit of Jesus as well as that which interests us in his meritorious Righteousness we are therefore not only said to live by Faith but Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by it Thus by the guidance and conduct of Scripture we are by short steps and Regular Ratiocinations arrived at such an Idea and Notion of Believers Union with Christ as is both plain in it self and easie to be understood providing that men be not obstinate against Evidence Nor have I wrested or suborned any Sacred passage to give Testimony in this cause all I have made use of being such as voluntarily offer themselves without any force or distortion put upon them And for such as are mustred against us I have either gain'd them back to our side or shewed that their Testimony doth no ways oppose what we plead for Were I now sure that my Reader would not tire I might draw out this discourse to a greater length but as I have not the confidence to entertain Guests longer than I can afford them entertainment worthy of them so I am not so disingenuous as to treat men with words when thoughts and material remarques fail If after all this which I have said any shall still be found quarrelling at the Unintelligibleness of Believers Union with Christ I think we may justly either complain of their perverseness or blame their Hebetude To such as are not refractory to Scripture-Light and to the easie deductions which our Intellectual Faculties in their Rational exercise do draw from Revelation there is enough said to make it understood as for others I leave them to the punishment of their own obstinacy Instead therefore of filling up pages by producing Testimonies of Ancient Modern Divines or of calling in the Authority of the Church of England I shall shut up all with a few passages out of Dr. Patrick's Mensa Mystica And this I the rather do being inform'd that the Opinion of this Dr. weighs more with Mr. Sherlock than either the Canon of a Convocation or the Decree of a General Council The Passages with which much of what I have delivered is not only coincident in sense but in words are these As the highest and closest Union is that which is made by one Spirit and Life moving in the whole so the Union between Christ and his Members is by one Life As things at the greatest distance may be United by one Spirit of Life actuating them both so may Christ and we though we enjoy not his bodily presence Although Christ in regard of his corporal presence be in the Heavens which must receive him untill the time of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 Yet he is here with us always even to the end of the World Math. 28.20 in regard of his holy Spirit working in us By this he is sensible of all our needs and by the Vital Influences of it in every part he joynes the whole Body fitly together so that he and it make one Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 And that this Union is wrought by the Spirit which every true Christian hath dwelling in him 1 Cor. 6.17 Rom. 8.9 the next v. 13. will tell you we are Baptised into one Body by one Spirit This Spirit is always needful being that which maintains our life It is the very bond and ligament that tyes us to Christ. For our Union is not only such a Moral Union as is between Husband and Wife which is made by love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a Natural Union as is between Head and Members the Vine and Branches which is made by One Spirit or Life dwelling in the whole FINIS ERRATA I find upon a Review of these Sheets that several Errors and mistakes and those of divers kinds have crept into them Some
of the Bible The ancient Heathens reproaching the Primitive Christians that they grounded all their Doâ—â—rine upon meer Belief that their Religion consisted In sola ratione credendi and that their simple Faith was all they had to trust to The Christians complained of the Charge as a gross and impudent Calumny appealed to Reason for Proof of their Belief and offered to joyn Issue with them upon that Title And as they that owe their Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God to Report Principles of Education or the Felicity of their Birth and the Clime where they were born receive the Scripture upon no better Motives than the Turks do the Alcoran So if pretended Inspiration may pass for a Demonstration of the Truth of what every bold Pretender will obtrude upon us We expose our selves not only to the Belief of every Groundless Imagination but of innumerable Contradictions For not only the grossest Follies but Doctrines palpably repugnant both to Reason and one another have been delivered by Enthusiasts and pretended Inspirato's I readily grant that the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Souls and Consciences of men to the Truth of the Scripture is the most convincing Evidence that such Persons can have of it's Divinity But 1 st The Holy Ghost convinceth no man as to the Belief of the Scripture without Enlightning his mind in the Grounds and Reasons upon which it's proceeding from God is evidenced and established There is no Conviction begot by the Holy Ghost in the Hearts of men otherwise than by rational Evidence satisfying our Understandings through a discovery of the Motives and Inducements that ascertain the Truth of what he would convince us of 2. No mans particular Assurance obtained thus in way of Illumination by the Holy Ghost is to be otherwise urged as an Argument of Conviction to another than by proposing the Reasons which our Faith is erected on The way of such Mens Evidence is communicable to none unless they could kindle the same Rayes in the Breasts of others that have Irradiated their own and therefore they must deal with others by producing the grounds of their Conviction not pleading the manner of it And that an other is convinced or persuaded by them depends wholly upon the weight and Momentousness of the Reasons themselves not on the manner that such a person came to discover them For should he have arrived at the discerning them by any other Mean they had been of the same Significancy to the Conviction of an Adversary 3. The Holy Ghost as a distinct Person in the Deity is not a Principle demonstrable by Reason Seeing then it is by the Scripture alone that we are assured of the Existence of the Divine Spirit as a distinct Person in the Godhead therefore his Testimony in the Hearts and Consciences of men to the Scripture cannot be allowed as a previous Evidence of it's Divinity To prove the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost when we cannot otherwise prove that there is a Holy Ghost but by the Testimony of the Scripture is to argue Circularly and absurdly I know the Papists to be even with the Protestants for the Circle we charge on them in their proving the Church by the Scriptures and the Scripture by the Church do pretend to fasten the same way of Circular Argumentation upon us in that we prove the Spirit by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Spirit Whereas even those Protestants who contend that the Spirit and Scripture do mutually prove one another may easily acquit themselves from a Circle Seeing whatever Proof the Scripture and Spirit mutually Minister to one another it is in Diverso genere The Scripture proves the Spirit either in way of Witness by plainly testifying that there is such a Being as the Divine Spirit or Objectively and by way of Argument bringing into Light such Truths as can be conceived to proceed from none other save 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Holy Ghost But then the Spirit proves the Scripture not in way of a naked Witness nor in way of Argument but under the notion of an Efficient Cause Elevating and preparing our Understandings to discern the Lineaments Characters and Signatures of Divinity which God hath impressed upon the Scriptures which through that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is upon our Minds we many times do not at all discern much less do we at any time discern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without it Or else by giving Efficacy to Scripture Truths in and upon our Hearts and Consciences so that the Word arriving with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the effectual Working of his Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual Sense and Taste of the things themselves And this Spiritual Gust that I may use Origen's Phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diviner thing and more Convincing than any Demonstration For the Word of God as well as God himself is best known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Intellectual Touch as the Philosopher sayes But as I have said already this is no convincing Proof to an Adversary nor doth the evidence of it reach further than the party immediately concerned And therefore our Recourse must be to Arguments of another Nature In brief when we have to do with such as either Question or Deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture we are to prove it by Ratiocination from common Principles received amongst Mankind and by Topicks that lye even and proportionated to Intellectual Nature And here Reason is justly magnified as hugely Subservient to Religion in that it demonstrates the Divine Authority of the Scripture upon which our Faith as to all particular Articles and Duties of Religion is grounded Not do I doubt but that Reason can acquit it self in this Undertaking to the Conviction of all that are not wilfully obstinate and for such I know no means either sufficient or intended by God to satisfie them Many great Men both Ancient and Modern as well at Home as Abroad have already laboured and to good purpose in this Theme Nor can there be much added by any to what is already said much less am I likely to do it Neither is it my Intention to treat this Subject at large but rather to touch at the Heads of Arguments than handle them And I suppose this will sufficiently answer my Designe which is to vindicate the Non-Conformists from the Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclayming it from all Concern in Religion and deserving to be charged with the Reproach which Julian slanderously fastned upon the Primitive Christians that they had no Ground for their Faith but that their Wisdom was only to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Method I shall here confine my self to shall be First To justifie the Necessity of some Supernatural Revelation in order to
Heb. 1.14 I say besides all this they are in a special manner cemented to him by pure flames and holy ardors Those blessed Spirits through that more perfect knowledg which they have of the attractive beauties and excellent perfections of Christ partly by the means of their more illuminated intellects partly through their immediate attendance upon his glorious person especially from their being above all temptations that may divert their minds from so amiable an object and being free from all impure Lusts that may damp their flames do cleave to him with a Love more defecated and pure as well as more intense elevated than we can who are so far beneath them in the quality of our Nature and whose Understandings are still so much benighted with ignorance and obnubilated with the vapours of Lust and whose residence is so remote from the place of perfection as well as happiness I do not determine whether their happiness be improved and their perseverance in holiness secured by Jesus Christ though if so there is a field of occasion and Motives to promote and exalt their love to him ariseth thence But declining to define any thing in that matter there are enforcements enough besides by which their sallies of Love to the Lord Jesus are allured charmed forth For 1st Whatsoever they do or have received from the exuberant goodness and pregnant fecundity of their Creator they have it all by from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Person of the Son as the immediate Operator and Dispenser of it For the order of operation in the blessed Trinity as to external works corresponds unto and followeth the order of subsistence Hence though the Fabrick and Creation of all things be ascribed to the Father as to Authority and Order Heb. 1.1 and to the Spirit as to disposition and ornament Joh. 26.13 yet they are peculiarly attributed to the Son as to immediate operation Col. 1.15 16 17. 2dly The Glory of God being the alone object of the desires of the Heavenly Host it cannot otherwise be but that the honour which ariseth to God by the restitution of man through the interposure of the Son as Mediator must enflame those pure Spirits with love to him through whose undertaking that Glory is compassed and effected Nor is the Mysterious contrivance of Mans recovery a Theme which with a Religious curiosity they only look into 1 Pet. 1.12 but they both celebrate this plot of Love and Wisedom with Hallelujahs and express their acknowledgments for the Glory which thereby redounds to their blessed Maker in affections resembling the description given us of their Nature Psal. 104.4 to the Person of the Mediator 3dly Man belonging to the same classis of Creatures though of a different species with the Angels the compassion which these Courtiers of the great King bear to the sublunary part of the Rational System whereof we have an evidence and instance in the joy that possesseth them upon the Conversion of a Sinner Luk. 5.10 may be lookt upon as another incentive of their love to Christ. We being separated from the Love of God through the loss of the Divine Image forfeited thereupon the kindness and friendship of the Angels but being restored to conformity and favour with God by Jesus Christ there immediately ensues an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a redintegration of friendship between them and us Nor do I question but that the consideration that it is by Christ that they and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reconciled and brought into Oneness together doth help to kindle their love to him And as there is an adhesion of the Angels to Christ by love so on the other hand he embraceth them with complacency and delight For as there is nothing to be found in them why he should look upon them with displeasure so the sanctity of their Nature and their ministring with readiness not only about his Throne but in the affairs wherein he employs them abroad in the World lead him to behold them with approbation and love And though none of their Homages equal his perfections whom they address their Services to yet their faileurs being no ways the results of an impotence contracted by sin but the inseparable appendants of the finiteness of their Natures he readily accepts them The covering their faces with their wings being in testimony of their infinite distance is as welcome to him and doth as much oblige his Love as their acclamations and celebration of his praise There being then a Love-Union betwixt Christ and the Holy Angels I hope that I may infer from hence that the Union between Christ and Christians is both something else and more sublime I cannot think that any who have read their Bible and believe it dare affirm but that besides the Oneness which we have with the Lord Jesus through his participating of our Nature which the Angels have no share in but that there is also a further Union between him and us of which as the Angels do no ways partake so neither are they capable 3dly That the Mystical Union between Christ and Christians consisteth not in a reciprocalness of Affections may be yet further demonstrated from this namely because according to that Notion of Union Believers are no less United to the Father than to the Son yea they are United first to the Father ere to the Son And I am apt to think that there needs not any more to be said against an Hypothesis but that t is pregnant with consequences of so mischievous a tendency Admit once Believers to be United after the same manner to the Father as they are to Christ and we immediately justle the Lord Jesus out of the place of Mediator That there is an Union of Love between the Father and Believers the Gospel doth every where display in most amiable and bright colours Hence that of the Apostle He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 As Love is the only Attribute of the Divine Nature which is alone put to give us an Idea and Notion of God so to be Love is represented after a manner peculiar to God as the Father The Love of the Father was the first spring and source of our recovery and of all the means of accomplishing and bringing it about It was the Fathers Love that contrived a way to recover us when we had forfeited all right to Happiness and were neither careful nor in a condition to regain it When there were no Motives in us to invite his Love his Love it self was in their room And how great was his Love when he gave him whom he so dearly loved for a Ransom of those who were guilty of sin which he so greatly hated The transcendency of his Love is the greatest Obstacle to the belief of it After that his Love had travailed with plots of Mercy to poor Sinners in what noble and amusing effects did it exert it self See Joh. 3.16 Rom. 5.8
passage in the Bible in it self unintelligible I cannot imagine any use that it should be off or that it should answer any end which we must needs suppose so wise an Agent as God had in the giving of it forth Besides when we discourse of the Serviceableness of Reason towards the attainment of the Sense and meaning of the Scripture we put a vast difference betwixt discerning the Literal Grammatical and Historical sense of it and the discerning it in a saving Spiritual manner I know our Divines sometimes express this as if they distinguished betwixt the Grammatical or Literal and the Spiritual sense But their intendment is not to diversifie the things themselves and what is understood in such places but the manner and way in which they are understood Though the Natural man may discover the true and genuine intendment of a text no less may be than he that is born of God yet their perception is not of one and the same kind nor do they understand it after one the same manner Though the Sense therefore be Physically the same yet in the way of discovering it there is a Moral difference The meer Rational mind may discern the literal Sense of Scripture propositions but without a supernatural Irradiation from the Spirit of life there can be no saving knowledge of them The Spirit which breathed out the Scripture at first is in this Sense the only Interpreter of it And as the Text is his so also is the Gloss. He that unveiled the Object must enlighten the eye for we need as much the spirit of Wisdom for the one as the Spirit of Revelation for the other See among many other places Eph. 1.17 1 Cor. 2.11 12. 1 John 2.20 and 5.20 John 6.48 Psal 119.18 27. But seeing the Socinians and Remonstrants preclude the necessity of the influence of the spirit of God upon the mind in order to the understanding the meaning of the Scripture either one way or an other and forasmuch as diverse who are not willing to be catalogued amongst them do yet in this fight under their banners I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce something in proof of it 1 We have the Testimony of the Scripture that Reason without auxiliary beams can never discern Spiritual things Spiritually The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Natural man we are neither to understand the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the babe the Infirm the Weak For though such be often unskilfull in the Word of Righteousness neither able to frame due conceptions of the mysteries of the Gospel nor throughly disposed to a due savouring of them nor fully capable of improving them to all the holy ends and in all the usefull deductions and inferences to which they are designed and to which they are admirably accommodated Yet the things of the Spirit of God are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolishness to them Nor are we by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to understand only the Sensual man or one that is wholly sunk into the Animal Life and enslaved to the satisfaction of his corrupt appetites and inordinate fleshly desires seeing the natural man in this place is directly opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spiritual or regenerate man and to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wise and the Scribe to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Disputer and the Princes of this World qui dominabantur in scholis Who bare sway rule in the Schools But by the Natural man we are to understand the meer Rational man even him that doth most excolere animam Cultivate his Intellectuals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the person endowed with meer humane Wisedom as the Greek Scholiast says Now what is affirmed concerning this Souly man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither can he know them There is not only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dimsightedness but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an impotency through a disproportion in his faculty with respect to them They are seen in another light than he is endowed with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are spiritually discerned They are known only by a divine irradiation and conquering sun-beam of the Spirit of life upon the mind And therefore God is said to shine into our hearts to give the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 light i. e. the clear and evident manifestation of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 2. We have the attestation of Reason which tells us that nothing is well known but by that which hath a just analogy to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every thing is best understood by that which bears a resemblance of it Things of sense and life are only known by vital Sentient Faculties Vegetables do not admit every particle that comes to nourish them but only such as bear a proportion to their own pores Where there is not a congruity betwixt the Subject and the Object the Object can never be discerned in its true light As the eye cannot behold the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it have some resemblance of the Sun in it self no more can any Man understand the things of God in a due manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless he be made to partake of of the Divine Image Every thing acts in a way consimilar to its own Nature and therefore let the Objects be never so spiritual the natural man can never know them in a way analogous to them i. e. spiritually but only in a natural way that alone being homogeneous to himself We are told in philosophy that quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis every thing is received in a way agreeable to that which receiveth it And therefore where there is nothing but a natural Mind it can act no otherwise than in a Natural way In a word without a vital alliance cognation to Spiritual things we can never understand them in a Spiritual saving Manner I take these two here in an aequipollent sense without medling with the question whether there be no difference betwixt knowing Gospel truths in a Spiritual manner and the knowing them in a Saving 3 If we be in the alone Virtue of our Rational Faculties adapted to a due discerning the things of the Spirit of God and that i◠their proper light I see no reason why an unregenerate man should be more stiled blind in reference to the Word of God than in reference to Euclids Elements or Aristotles Organon Nor indeed why he should be esteemed so inept for that as for these I might add in the fourth place that according to the
determine their import is the context and subject Matter Hence the Hebrews have a saying that he preverts the Word from its true intendment who doth not observe what precedes and what follows And the Civil Law tells us that incivile est tota Lege non inspecta ex una ejus tantum parte proposita judicare velle de toto legis sensu It is an irrational thing to judge of the whole Law by consulting only one part of it Scripture texts hang together in a chain of mutual dependance and to know the Sense of one Scripture requireth a due consideration of many And though some passages of the Bible be in themselves difficult yet there is such light reflected on lent to them in other places that the meaning of God in them may be sufficiently understood And this is what our Divines generally intend when they say that Scripture is the Interpreter of Scripture God in the enditing the Bible hath spoken with that perspicuity accommodation of himself to our Capacity that we may know what he aimes at and intends and if any Texts be obscure and dark yet by those rays of Light which they borrow from other places their sence and meaning may be easily understood Nor is there one Text alledged by the Anonymous Author of Philosophia Scripturae Interpres after all his operose and impertinent wrangling to prove the Scripture ambiguous and obscure which may not be plainly unfolded either by a due observation of the subject matter and Context or by comparing it with parellel places where the same things are declared in equivalent Terms but with more clearness and evidence without the least necessity of recourse to Philosophy as the Standard of sensing the Bible Nor is the forementioned Book any thing else but a plea for Socinianism only instead of Reason we have Philosophy advanced to a Dictatorship over the word of God and Des-Cartes made master of the Chair And wheras Mons r. Wolzogius in a pretended reply to the said Author hath constituted the Custom and usage of Speech the only Rule of Interpreting Scripture I must crave leave to say that he confounds what he ought to have distinguished namely the Rule of expounding the word with the media of Interpretation And besides a knowledg of the usage of words in common speech is rather adapted to help us in the Verbal sence of Scripture usually called Version or Translation than in the Exegetical and real Sense vulgarly and truly stiled exposition And withal there are many things which God designs our instruction in by Words and Phrases as they lie in the Systeme of the Bible and in a Habitude to the things there treated of which they were never in Forraign Authors or customary Speech among men applyed to the manifestation of Scripture is avowedly the best expositor of it self God by framing it in the manner he hath done by giving it such a Texture and by inculcating the same things in the greatest variety of expressions hath made it self the alone measure by which it is fully to be understood and hath taken upon himself to be suorum eloquiorum optimus Interpres Now the line that in order to our attaining the sense of Scripture we are to be guided by is this That Scripture Phrases Propositions Paragraphs Sections c. do actually signifie every thing which in such a disposition and Texture with reference to the subject matter and context and in Analogy to the Systeme of the whole Bible they can signifie I do not say that they always excite that sense of themselves in the heart and mind of the Reader but my meaning is that they are then only rightly apprehended and the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them fully attained when this latitude of signification is alow'd them There are no empty frigid phraseologies in the Bible but where the expressions are most splendid and lofty there are Notions and things enough to fill them out God did not design to endite the Scripture in a pompous tumid stile to amuse our fancies or meerly strike to our Imaginations with the greater force but to instruct us in a calm and sedate way and therefore under the most stately dress of words there always lyes a richer quarry of things and Truths Words being invented to express natural things and humane thoughts the utmost signification they can possibly bear proves but scanty and narrow when they are apply'd to the manifesting Spiritual and celestial Objects The serviceableness of this Notion against Jews Socinians Arminians and others lies in the view of every discerning person and the advantage I promise my self from it Chap. 3. hath led me to suggest it here How are the most plain and magnificent Testimonies in proof of Christs being the Messiah the true God Reconciling us by his death mans inability to Good the necessity and efficacy of renuing Grace c. enervated by affixing some low secondary and metaphorical meaning to them or by turning the Scripture into meer Hyperboles Allegories rampant and empty Schemes of Speech Nor secluding this from being the measure of our judging of the sence of Scripture is it possible to arrive at any Certaâ—nty about the meaning of it If it do not actually signifie all and every thing which with respect to the subject matter the context the agreement of one part with another and every part with the whole it can signifie there is not one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assignable by which we can make a judgment what it doth signifie God being Omniscient knows what all words are by men ordained to denote and what import they have in their combinations one with another and in the several textures into which they may be disposed being Wise he can pitch upon such Words and digest them into that frame as is most adapted to beget a Conception and apprehension of those things in us which he would instruct us in the knowledg and win us to the belief and obedience of And being Veracious Good and Faithful it is repugnant to his Nature to design the imposing on us or the leading us into Errors and Fallacies Men either through unaccquaintedness with the just Valor of Words or through Ignorance of the Nature of things or through oscitancy and neglect in the Election of Terms may diliver themselves in expressions both too lofty for the things they intend and dissonant to their own Conceptions but all these being inconsistent with the Divine perfections we dare admit no such thing in reference to him It is the character of the Spirit of man to speak much and in effect to say little but 't is the Caracter of the Holy Spirit to speak little and therin to comprehend much nor do we throughly penetrate into Scripture Misteries without enlarging our Conceptions beyond the letter The Stile of the most reputed Oratours is for the most part too pompous flatulent for the subjects they treat of neither the Images
yet there in effect and were accordingly intended may briefly be thus justified 1. In that to preclude this is to render the Word of God of no significancy to any particular person seeing 'tis by this method alone that general precepts promâ—ses and Comminations are applicable to single Individuals Nor can any one Universal direction be otherwise brought down to a particular case 2. God in instructing us how we are to demean our selves towards his Word doth it in Terms and Phrases which are peculiar to such as Discourse ratiocinate and deduce Conclusions from acknowledged Principles See Rom. 3.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore we conclude Rom. 6.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise reckon ye also your selves 1 Cor. 2.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual Act. 17.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they searched the Scriptures namely whether the things which the Apostles deduced from the Testimonies of Moses and the Prophets had foundation in them yea or not 1 Thes. 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things Hence we are enjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rightly to divide the word of Truth 2 Tim. 2.15 and to Prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the analogy of Faith Rom. 12.6 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to convince by argument and demonstration gainsayers And 't is said of Paul that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he reasoned wth the Jews out of the Scriptures Acts 17.2 And of Apollos that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he mightily in the way of ratiocination convinced the Jews demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Acts 18.28 Nor was it possible by any text of the Old-Testament for the Apostles to prove Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah but by argumentation trains of deductions There was no other way or Method by which this could be don but by shewing from Moses and the Prophets that to whomsoever such properties Characters c. agrâ—ed such a one behoved to be the Messiah and then evincing from History and Experience that all these Characterisms centred in and agreed to Jesus of Nazareth And in this way the Apostles proceeded in their dealing with the Jews by producing places out of their own Scriptures where the Properties Signatures Characteristical notes of the Person Natures Offices and Work of the Messiah were foretold and described and by which the Faith of the Church was guided to him and on which the World was bound to receive him and then in shewing that all these agreed to were verified of and met in our Lord Jesus as their Center they concluded that he was infallibly the person concerning whom the Promises were made unto the Fathers And this leads me to the 2d argument in proof of that we have undertaken to justifie namely the Method which the Inspired Writers observed in the conviction of Jews and Heathens There can be no fallacy where we act conformably to such a pattern nor can that be disclaimed as Sophistical in others which we find practiced by the Sacred Penmen without impeaching both the Wisedome and Truth of God by whom they were inspired To allow it to have been lawful for them to argue by Consequences and yet in the mean time to deny it to others is to be perverse partial and humoursome and to lodg it as an accusation on Them that they mistook in the course they steered is not only to justifie the Jews in their unbelief and the Heathen in their Idolatry but to blaspheme the Holy Spirit by whom they were acted and conducted in what they did Now that this was the Method which the Apostles observed in their demonstrating many of the chief Articles of the Christian Faith may be made good by many instances scattered up and down the New-Testament See Act 9.22 Act 18.28 Act 15.8 9. Act 17.16.17 Act 2.16 17 18. Act 3.22 23. Rom. 1.20 Rom. 3.9 to 21. Gal. 3.10 1 Cor. 15.4 5 6 7. Joh. 1.33 34. In all these places not to name more nor to urge the suffrage of the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in whom this way of procedure manifests it self in every Chapter and paragraph We must acknowledg that they not only argued by consequences but that if their Arguments were digested into syllogisms there will be only one proposition found that is of Revelation the other being assumed either from Reason or Sense Besides the attestation of Apostolical practice in this matter we have also the example of our blessed Saviour to convince us not only of the lawfulness but to assure us of the obligation that lyes upon us of accounting all that for the Word of God which can by any train of Natural deduction be concluded from it If men were not resolved to be obstinate this alone were enough to issue the debate and to advance what we are pleading for beyond all jurisdiction of being gainsaid It is by way of argumentation and by consequences that he proves the Divinity of his Person Mat. 22.44 45. The Quality and Authority of his Office John 5.39 45 46. John 10.25 37 38. Luke 7.20 21 22. The necessity of the Death and sufferings of the Messiah Luke 24 26.27 The Resurrection of the Dead in General Mat. 22.31 32. All his Reasonings in the forecited places should they be reduced into a Logical Form will be found to bear upon one only Scripture premiss the other being constantly either a proposition drawn from natural Light or from the evidence of Sense And to affirm that the Ratiocinations of Christ and the Apostles though they joyned one premise from Reason or experience to another from Scripture were nevertheless conclusive because the Proposition from Reason by their very using of it became upon the account of the infallible authority they were clothed with a part of Divine Revelation I say to affirm this is ridiculous and impertinent For had they intended to have immediately concerned their authority in what they said Argumentation from an acknowledged Scripture Truth had been both needless and superfluous Where the whole evidence depends upon the Authority of the immediate Speaker a naked assertion is not only sufficient but most becoming Let the Authority of a person be what it will yet so far as in transacting with others he recurrs to arguments either from Reason or the Testimony of an other so far in that instance he plainly declines his Authority Nor did all these with whom Christ and the Apostles dealt in way of Argumentation acknowledg any such authority by vertue of which whatsoever they said in such a case became immediately a part of Divine Revelation to have belonged to them When the Scribes and Pharisees confessed Christ in the way and Method of proving the Resurrection to have said well Marc. 12.28 Luke 20.39 They did not thereby intend the acknowledgment of Christ as a prophet sent from God or that any authority upon that account resided in him For that they disclaimed but it was the Authority of God Exod.
wonderfully to befriend the Atheists for if all that which we observe in the World supposing the Existence of matter and Motion might result from the meer laws of mechanism I do not see but that persons Atheistically disposed may goe a degree farther and affirm both the self-existence of matter and that motion was appendent to it its Idea no more excluding motion than it includes Rest. Neither will I dwell upon his Notion of the Conflict between the Flesh and Spirit which the Scripture so emphatically mentions namely that it is nothing but the repugnance of those motions which the Body by its Spirits and the Soul by her Will endeavour to excite at the same time in the Glandula pinealis or little Kernel where he supposeth the Soul to be harboured and seated As if the whole conflict which the Holy Ghost so solemnly describes under the Notion of a War betwixt the Law of our members and the Law of our mind Rom. 7.23 and the lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh Gal. 17. were nothing else but that the Kernel in the midst of the Brain being driven on one side by the Soul and on the other by the Animal Spirits which are minute bodies it thence comes to pass that those impulses being oftentimes contrary the stronger hinders the operation of the weaker When the Corporeal Spirits by their rude Joggings of the glandulous Button endeavour to excite in the Soul a desire of any thing and the Soul repels it by the Will she hath to avoid the same thing This constitutes the War betwixt the Law of the Members and the Law of the Mind I am apt to think that the Author of the Defence and continuation of the Ecclesiastical Polity had this in his eye when he undertakes to resolve all the Joyes refreshings Fears Sorrows c. of a people he is pleased to stile Phanaticks by the laws of Mechanism and principles of Anatomy And it is not unlikely but that Mr. Sherlock before he addressed to the Philosophy of Christs Satisfaction for so he is pleased to call it had throughly digested the Philosophy of this Combate we have been speaking of and having accommodated the latter to mechanical Principles he may very well mould the other to a compliance with the Hypothesis of Socinus To wave all these and many more Tenets in the Cartesian Philosophy which very little befriend Religion I shall at present only call forth two principles of Monsieur Des-Cartes which he superstructs all his Philosophy upon and which if I greatly mistake nor are likely to disserve Religion beyond any thing occurring in the Aristotelick Philosophy The first shall be that famous thing called Dubitatio Cartesiana for which he is justly impeached of shaking the foundations of the house of Wisdom and laying a ground for Universal Scepticism The Sum of his Notion is briefly this that in our enquiry after Truth we are not only to unhinge and suspend our assent from all or any of those things which we formerly believed but that we are to demean our selves towards them as if they were false that is as himself paraphraseth it we are no more to believe them than if they were so Like as a needle placed between two Magnets at a distance proportionable to the different forces of the contrary Movents remains in an aequilibration without a propension to the one more than the other so in our researches of Truth the Mind is to bind up its assent for a time from affirming a thing either to be true or false And this Dubitation or suspension of the Judgment he carries to that extent that he hath not so much as allowed us the postulatum of Archimedes viz. ground whereupon to set our foot For he not only supposeth our Senses to be fallacious where the Object is remote the Organ tinctured and indisposed and the Medium inept but even where there is a concurrence of all those things which are commonly required to the certainty of Sensation Yea he asketh us how we know that we were not created at first of such a frame as to be in all things invincibly obnoxious to errour what assurance we have but that some evil Genius Wise powerfull and malicious doth haunt and impose upon us in all our consultations either by mingling false colours in seeing or altering the undulations of the air in Hearing or by communicating various impressions to the Nerves different shocks to the brain and agitations to the glandula pinealis or by impregnating the Imagination with false Idea's or infecting true ones with false tinctures or by variously modifying and changing all the textures and motions of the Animal Spirits or by disordering all the ranks and files of our Ideas and discomposing all the Vestigia of things which are imprest upon so soft and dissipable a substance as the Brain Now how far these reasonings extend and what an unhappy and troublesome Guest such a Genius were if other men could not with as much facility lay this Devil as Des-Cartes hath raised him is easy to imagine A wariness in pronouncing concerning natural things where though there be many things certain which ought not to be called in question yet there are many things doubtful of which we ought not precipitantly to determine was allowed by all the old philosophers and was especially practised by Plato and his successours in the Old Academy whence arose the Academick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or suspension of Assent But the Cartesian dubitation reacheth further yea they extend it so far as to doubt whether there be a god or not Yea that we ought to question the Existence of the Deity And that if we would philosophise to any purpose concerning the Being of God we must not only call into question but for a time suppose it false that there is one as a Cartesian lately proposed it in publick questions at Leyden We have a further evidence of the extent and tendency of this Dubitation vouchsafed us by the Author of Philosophia Scripturae Interpres who claiming the same right of questioning all things in Divinity till he should arrive at something certain and evident that Des-Cartes hath in philosophy doth at last issue it in making Faith wait at the elbow of Reason and in constituting Philosophy the Standard of Theology Yea we have a more deplorable instance of this unbounded Dubitation in the Anonymous Author of Tractatus Theologicopoliticus supposed to be Benedictus Spinosa who being throughly tinctured with this and the rest of the Cartesian principles hath in pursuance of them endeavoured in effect to undermine and subvert all Supernatural Revelation I cannot but commend the ingenuity of Henricus Regius who having imbib'd this Cartesian principle and foreseeing that it would be charged as leading to Scepticism he very candidly confesseth it and withal add's that it is impossible by any principles in Nature to avoid a perpetual Hesitation and I
the Soveraign Will and Wisdom of God who hath supernaturally revealed them But besides through their lying out of the roads and paths of Reason there remains also a Physical disproportion as well as a Moral betwixt them and our Faculties notwithstanding their being revealed And upon this account there cannot be a more proper means of administring relief to our intellectual Faculties about them than to refract accommodate and attemper them to our minds by dexterously cloathing them with all that external sensibility which their Natures will admit through borrowing Light from things material and known to illustrate them 3 Whatever be the philosophy of Memory which for ought I know hath as much of Riddle Mystery in it as any one thing in Nature hath This much is certain that not only through a Moral indisposition we find our memories more leaky as to Divine things than any else but through our very natural frame we are less retentive of and more in danger of forgetting the Notions and Ideas of Spiritual things than of those that are Corporeal So that upon this account as well as the two former viz. the preserving the remembrance of spiritual Objects with the more facility it becomes not only a matter of Relief and Advantage but even sometimes of necessity to convey them to the Understandings of men and commit them to their Memories by having linkt and knit them to Material Objects I know no better Method to preserve supernatural things in the Memories of Men than their being expressed by such things as we constantly converse with and are like so to do while we have our abode in the World Pleasure Delight were another cause of the first Introduction usurpation of Metaphors Augustine proposeth it as a Question not easily to be resolved why the same Things delivered in plain and perspicuous Language are not found so pleasing as when set out and adorned with Metaphors Cicero than whom no man could either speak better or judg what was well spoken being himself inimitable both in the art of moving and instructing as knowing not only all the Topicks both of convincing and perswading but also throughly understanding the philosophy of the Passions and the several avenues to the hearts of men gives this Reason for it Quod omnis translatio quae quidem ratione sumpta est ad sensus ipsos admovetur maxime oculorum qui est acerrimus Because every Metaphor that is proper exposeth the Things that are spoken of to the senses especially to that of the Eyes which of all the senses is the quickest Besides Metaphors if duely and wisely used beget Admiration and there is nothing doth more impress or affect us than that which some way or other commends it self to us as Admirable Hence Aristotle say's That if we would write eloquently and to perswade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is also no small pleasure to have the same things represented under different Forms of Speech and to have a variation given to the same thoughts which the mingling Metaphors with plain Language admirably doth I need not add the delight there is in having our minds diverted to other objects and that not only without taking them off from the subjects we undertake to explain but so as by these diversions they are still made more easy and intelligible to us and the main intention is still pursued even when there seems to be the greatest deviation from the Theme All which not to mention more as they gave rise to the First use of Metaphors whether in common or more elaborate discourses so they serve to justify their usurpation in the handling of subjects relating to Faith and Piety But there needs no other authorization of Metaphors on Divine Thems's but the Holy Ghosts having so frequently made use of them in declaring the Mysteries of our Religion God by his unfolding himself and his Mind to us in several kinds of Metaphorical Terms hath not only allowed but sanctified our Use of the like No Schemes of Speech which the Divine Spirit hath made use of to instruct us in the Doctrines of Faith and by which the sacred Scriptures do touch our hearts and make themselves Mistress of our affections can be reflected upon without impeaching the Wisedom and Faithfulness of God who hath preceded us in them And if the practice of the Ancients and Example of the Fathers may be admitted as a pattern which 't is lawful to imitate a little commerce with them will instruct us that they indulged themselves a Latitude herein beyond what is to be met with in any Modern Authors I readily grant that as in the Exposition and application of Scripture-Metaphors we are to take the highest care that they be not perverted to a sense to which they were never intended so in the usurpation of other Metaphors by way of Imitation and parallel of what we find in the holy leaves a due Sobriety ought to be observed Nor have I any Apology much less Defence to make for the audacity and phantasticalness of some men in this matter 'T is enough to declare the Rules which ought to be attended to without arraigning the Ignorance and Folly of any man in this affair Yet this I may say that miscarriages in this particular are not only incident to persons of the Non-conforming perswasion but there are some dutiful sons of the Church as void of wit modesty and decorum herein as others are Some entring upon the Ministry without Piety and others without Learning and too many undertaking that sacred Function without any due sense either of the Sanctity and Majesty of the Mysteries of Religion or the purity of Christian Morals having withall neither any knowledg of Nature nor acquaintance with the Rules of Rhetorick do expose not only their own Folly but disparage and prophane the Adorable Mysteries of the Christian Faith by their sluttish and bold Metaphors And which is more deplorable though they escape not reproach yet they are not capable of instruction I disclaim being the Advocate of any such and wish that through an affectation of seeming Witty to Vulgar Heads they had not rendred themselves ridiculous to such as are Wise and Rational and that under pretence of rendring the abstruse Things of the Gospel familiar and easy to the weakest Capacities they had not both contaminated and disgraced them Amongst the many Rules laid down by Rhetoricians for our government in the usage of Metaphors I reckon these the most Remarkable 1 They must not be obscure and Unintelligible but accommodated to the Understandings of those we address to The glass must not be so besmeared with paint as to shut out the light nor the cortex so thick as that there is no coming at the Sense Aristotle forbids all remote and hardy Metaphors even in common Oratory unless they be prefaced with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If it be lawful to use such a Metaphor or if the comparison may be admitted
and Continuation thought he had sufficiently acquitted himself by replying That may be the Sky will fall to morrow and it may be S. Pauls Steeple as soon as it is rebuilt will remove it self to the East-Indies Though he should withal have remembred that the foresaid Learned person had also told him that these things would be made evident when particulars should be instanced in viz. that the Metaphors the Non-conformists are charged with are no other but expressions of Gospel Mysteries not in the Words which mans Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual But the Author of the Defence judg'd it meet there to bear back reckoning that he came off with Triumph enough and sufficiently loaded with the spoyls of his Enemy by raillying upon a may be I shall therefore not account it enough barely to assert that some of the Expressions reflected on in the Writings of the Non-conformists are such as the Holy Ghost himself hath preceded them in the use of and that to the very same Ends and Purposes for which they produce them but seeing nothing less will serve the turn either for the vindicating Them from the imputation of canting or to beget more modesty in their Adversaries I shall present the Reader with some instances where it is so And that I may not be thought to design the disparagement of any Party of men by quoting testimonies from divers of their Authors who rather than not strain up the dreggs of their Choler against the Phanaticks for their phraseologies have even written in derogation of Scripture-phrases and made the Spirit of God the Subject of their derision as well as the Non-conformists I say to avoid this I shall confine my self to Mr. Sherlock alone Faith say's he is very luckily called coming to Christ whence it is very evident that to believe in Christ is to go to him for Salvation which Metaphors of Coming and Going are a very intelligible explication of believing Now what is this but to be guilty as well of prophaning the Scripture as of incivility to the Non-conformists for this very Metaphor is made use of by the Holy Ghost Joh. 5.40 and. 6.35 37 44. to signify believing of which as prophanely as sarcastically our Author stiles it a very intelligible explication But Mr. Sherlock seems to be one of those who never think any thing intelligible when declared in Scripture-Terms I will crave of the Reader to peruse the 104 105 and 106 pages of his Book for I do not love to foul these leaves more than I needs must with passages opprobrious against God as well as men though it be only to expose and confute them and then to tell me whether the very Scripture-expressions in their proper sense be not made to bear a Share in his Contempt and Scorn Though the Receiving of Christ be a phrase which the Holy Ghost expresseth Faith in him and the belief of his Word and Doctrine by Joh. 1.11 12. and 3.32 33. and 17.8 Act. 1.41 and 8.14 and 17.11 Col. 2.6 1 Thes. 2.13 yet that doth not secure it from the lash of our Authors pen. It may seem strange that they will not allow men to speak the things of God in the Terms Phrases which the Holy Ghost teacheth But where the things of the Spirit of God are first disliked 't is no marvail that his expressions come to be dislik'd also But surely the exposing them to make their Readers sport what ever of wit it argues it declares a prophane sawciness One would think that the Scripture expressing Faith in Christ by Trust Eph. 1.12 13. Men without obloquy might do the like but that phrase also is made the pleasure of Mr. Sherlocks scorn and the use of it turned into open ridicule Now we have Christ sayes he in mockage and derision we must Trust and lean upon him Distrust of our selves dependence on Christ for continual supplies against entanglements from sin and the World are not only made our Duty though not so as to supersede our own watchfulness and best endeavours but the latter is certainly the great priviledg of Believers Nor doth the New Covenant excell the Old in any thing more than in this that God hath herein undertaken to watch over us by his Spirit and to continue those soveraign supplies of Grace to us whereby we shall be kept unto salvation And besides what may be tendred in Justification of this from the Wisedome of God with whose Sapience it seems not consistent finally to leave us after he hath engraven his Image upon us considering that he prevented us with his Grace and Mercy when we were in our Pollutions The Faithfulness of Christ to whose care Believers are in a special manner committed Joh. 17.12 and 18.9 pleads also for it Yea The Scripture likewise gives in its express Testimony to this purpose 2 Tim 1.12 assuring us that on our being found in an attendance upon Instituted means and in the exercise of those Duties and endeavours which are required of us God will work in us both to will and Do Philip. 2.13 and keep us by his own power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.15 Yet this Mr. Sherlock hath some venemous spawn to bestow upon and the Phanaticks must upon this account be made the the Subjects of his sly but petulant mockage And now sayes he we have thus brought our souls to Christ we must commit them to his trust to take Charge of them and save them and if they perish it will be his fault and he must give account of it And as if there were not prophaness Satyr enough in this the Words of the Holy Ghost must be brought in to bear a Share in his scorn and contempt Thus St. Paul did says he 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that day Could he not be content to expose the Non-conformists without involving the Scripture in the same Condemnation Or was St. Pauls case and theirs so much the same that he knew not how to wreak himself upon them without making Him suffer under the same imputation I confess Mr. Sherlock is not the onely man who seems displeased with St. Paul for besides that one tells us his Style is often the most obscure he ever read another makes it a part of a Guild-Hall declamation that the 9 th Chapter to the Romans is studied more than our Saviours Sermon on the Mount and that the firebrands of the Church have used to fetch all their heat from St. Pauls writings and have thought themselves tolerated if not encouraged by his Example to dispute every thing ibid. p. 10. In which words there is not onely a false and invidious supposition that there are some of the Phanaticks who prefer St. Pauls writings to the neglect of the Gospels and other Sacred Books but there is withall a
efficacious operation of the Holy Ghost so through our being United to Him he becomes not according to Mr. Sherlock a Quickning Head and a Vital Root of Influences to us He is says he only styled our Head because invested with Authority to Govern us by his Laws and our Vnion with Him as such consists only in an acknowledgment of his Authority and in Subjection to his commands Hence the making the Person of Christ a Fountain of Grace is reflected upon by our Author in words full of contempt and scorn And by our Fellowship with Christ which the Sacred Writers so Emphatically speak of we are told there is only meant such a Political Union as is betwixt a Prince and his Subjects between Superiours and Inferiors Hence also that Fulness of Grace which is said to reside in Christ is declared by our Author to be nothing but his revealing the Gospel to us which may well be called Grace because it contains so many excellent promises and our receiving out of his Fulness Grace for Grace is paraphrased to denote no more but our being perfectly instructed by Him in the will of God Hence likewise Christs being styled our Life is glossed to import only his publishing the Word of Life to us which contains the most express promises of a blessed Immortality and the most easy and plain directions how to attain it Now I do not deny the things revealed and commanded in the Gospel being both Good in themselves and suited to the Reason and Interest of Mankind and also enforced by the most attractive Motives which we can either desire or Imagine but that men in the alone strength of their Natural Faculties may perform many External Duties and in that manner also that we who judg only according to appearance are thereupon to account them Holy yea that nothing but supineness lustful prejudice consuetude in sin a being immersed into the Animal Life can hinder them from so doing But I deny that any Act or Duty hath the proper Form and Nature of Holiness or is so denominated in the Scripture but what both proceeds from an Antecedent Habit or Principle of Holiness in the persons by whom they are performed and an Immediate influence from Christ in the virtue of our Union with Him as our Quickning-Head Vital Root living Spring in the actual performance of them 'T is he that worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2.13 and without him we can do nothing that is Formally Good or acceptable to God John 15.3 That exclusively of an antecedent Habit and seed of Grace communicated to us and Resident in us and of fresh Influences from Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit we are neither Subjectively Holy nor do perform any one thing which the Scripture bestows the Denomination of Holiness upon hath not only been Demonstrated against the Pelagians both by Ancient and Modern Writers but defined in several Councils and Synods And therefore Both these being discharged out of Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of our Union with Christ his Doctrine concerning it is so far from having any Influence upon the promotion of True Holiness that it lyes in a Repugnancy to it and makes it impossible to Christians Let us suppose Men satisfied of the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and accordingly in the Dogmatical Belief of them let us suppose them also perswaded of the Reasonableness and Equity of Gospel-Precepts and that upon the promises and threatnings which accompany and enforce them they are not only inclined and resolved to obey them but that they actually perform the Material parts of all Moral Duties and Acts of Instituted Worship which is the most we can conceive of the persons for whose Union with Christ Mr. Sherlock pleads and indeed more than truly they can be entiled to yet all this admitted I say that providing we will take our Measures of the Nature of Holiness from the Declarations which God hath given of it and not from the ill-digested Notions of the Pelagians and Socinians about it Gospel Holiness is not only disbanded out of the whole of this but undermined subverted by it For as much as the Gospel judgeth nothing to be true Holiness but what presupposeth the Grace of Regeneration as that which adapts to it and implyes a causal Concomitancy of Actual Grace as that which doth immediately influence it Moral Virtue it may be but Christian Holiness 't is not And thus I have declared who they are that stand united to Christ and that our Hypothesis so far as it relates to the Subjects of this Union doth no ways countenance a prophane Course or frown upon a Holy Life And have also demonstrated how the Hypothesis erected by our Author in opposition to it is as it respects that Extreme of this Relation many ways guilty of such an unhappy pernicious tendency § 4. Having declared whom we mean by Believers who are the subjects of this Union we are Discoursing about and having manifested that there is nothing in the Character of the Persons assum'd into this Relation of Oneness with Christ that in the least undermines Holiness or befriends a course of Impiety We are next to fix and determine what we intend understand by Christ who is the other Extreme of this Relation of Union and to whom Believers in the Virtue of it become ligu'd and copulated I confess I should heretofore have esteem'd the engaging in such a service a mee prodigality of Words and Time but the Ignorance and Disingenuity of Mr. Sherlock doth render it a this time a necessary Undertaking Nor can I otherwise either vindicate the Non-conformists from the unjust representation which in this matter he gives of them nor correct the mistakes and prevarications which in assigning the import of the Name and Term Christ I find him guilty of First then neither in the Question before us nor in any other whatsoever doth Christ signify the Name of an Office I expected to have met with Sense whatever I might have mist in the Writings of a Person pretending to so great accuracy as Mr. Sherlock doth and that whatever quarrel he had against any Text in the Bible or the received Rules of Argumentation yet that he would not have fallen out with the Accidence and Syntax If either he had not ability or would not allow himself leasure to write Reason and Truth yet he should have been careful to have avoided Nonsence To affirm that Christ is Originally the Name of an Office or to speak of the Duties and Actions of an Office as our Author doth argues him that I may express it with the greatest modesty I can to have forgotten his Grammar as well as his Logick As every Concrete Term imports a Form Quality or something analogous to these Administring a Denomination so it always implies a Subject denominated from them Though there be Actions belonging to Officers and Actions which Persons
the cause ground motive with relation to which the things interceded for are procured Christs interposure as Mediator between God and Man took its rise from and bore upon a compact between the Father and Him that he should be Incarnate and give his Life a Ransom for many This the Holy Ghost doth most emphatically instruct us in 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 8.6.9.15 12.24 which are all the places where he is in express Terms so styled Now had not the susception of our sins preceded as the Antecedent impulsive cause of Christs sufferings he could neither be said to be made Sin for us nor to bear them nor to have them laid upon him nor to dye for our Offences nor to be our Ransom Nor could the inflicting of sufferings upon him have been either good in it self or an act of Rectoral Justice in God or have had any tendency to his glory or to the honour of his Law or to deterr Sinners from offending yea preclude once the consideration of sin as the meritorious cause of the Agonies which Christ underwent and the Love Wisedom Justice and Rectorship of God are obnoxious to reflexions and stand lyable to be impeached And if it be once obtain'd that our sins are the Meritorious impulsive cause of Christs Death his susception of our Guilt will necessarily follow For Guilt being nothing but an Obligation to punishment it being impossible to conceive such a habitude betwixt a person and sin that it should be the meritorious impulsive cause of his punishment and yet he not be under an obligation to punishment it plainly follows that guilt must be supposed antecedent to a demerit of punishment Guilt and punishment being Relates he that is obnoxious to the latter must be previously under the imputation of the former as Bishop Andrews expresseth it Christ was first made sin in respect of the Guilt and then a Curse in respect of the punishment Serm. of Justification on Jer. 23.6 Where Sin is so charged as to expose a person to a demerit of punishment there is an obligation to it where there is such an obligation to it there is in some sense or other Guilt Those very arguments whereby we overthrow the Popish Dogm of Believers being discharged from the Guilt of Sin but not the punishment do equally disprove Christs undergoing the punishment of Sin without susception of the Guilt In brief 1. Through a convention betwixt the Father and Son our sins are so charged upon and transfered to Christ as to be exacted of him and he hath submitted to the Demerit of them so as to undergoe the penalty in the substance and kind of it though not in the Adjuncts and Consequential accidents which would have accompanied it upon such weak finite depraved subjects as we are that we should have undergone 2. Through Christs interposing as Surety and Mediator by suffering in our stead God hath so vindicated his own Honour asserted the Authority of his Commands and satisfied the ends of Law and Government that he accepts of what Christ hath done and suffered as full satisfaction to his Law and in consideration thereof without any reflexion upon his Attributes or subversion of his Rectorship he makes a tender of pardon to us 3. God having admitted the interposure of Christ on our behalf having inflicted sufferings upon him as a punishment for our sins and having accepted those sufferings as a Sacrifice of Atonement for the expiation of our Guilt and having also agreed with his Son and declared in the Covenant of Grace the Terms on which we are made partakers of the benefits thereof we upon a performance of these conditions come to have all that Christ did and suffered as our Mediator imputed to us in a Law-sence That is the Law owns that Christ intervening in our room hath answered all its demands so that God in consistency with its exactions may be both just in himself and yet be our Justifier And this being all that we intend by a Legal Union with Christ namely that by the Covenant of Redemption Christ so becomes our Surrogate as to have our sins in a Law-sence imputed to Him and that we through fulfilling the Terms of the Covenant of Grace have all that which He as substituted in our place and stead did and suffered imputed in a Law-sense to us He must not only disclaim Christs being Mediator in any proper sense but renounce the whole Gospel that denys it Having not only declared but justified that there is a Legal Union between Christ and Believers and having also stated and defined what it is and wherein it consists all that remains incumbent upon me relating to this Head is to shew that the whole of a Christians Union with the Lord Jesus is not comprehended in this nor hereby expressed And 1st There are many Scripture Texts manifestative of an Oneness that the Saints have with Christ which a Legal Union doth not come up to the heighth and grandeur of As there is not any one thing in the Gospel which the Holy Ghost hath judged meet to express in greater variety of phrase than the mystery of our cohesion with Jesus Christ so this Legal Union can no ways sustain the weight of most of them 'T is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to entertain us with pompous words or to treat us with Hyperbolical expressions when he is declaring to us the Mysteries of Faith to which he not only requires our assent but hath made much of our comfort and duty dependent upon them Who can think that a Legal Union is all that the Holy Ghost intends by our being one Spirit with the Lord and being ingraffed into Him as Branches are into a stock or root cemented to Him as the building is to the Foundation incorporated with him as our Aliment and Food is with our fleshly substance ligu'd and connected to him as the Bodily Members are to their Natural and Vital Head I know all these expressions are Metaphorical yet I also know that they must be declarative of something that is not only real but whose greatness it is not easy to conceive As the variety of Metaphors which the Spirit makes use of to decipher it by declare its importance so the quality of them serves to intimate that it is not meerly a Legal Union If there be no other Oneness between Christ and sincere Christians but that which we have been discoursing of there could not be a Symbole worse chosen to express it by there being no Analogy between what the phrases originally signifie and that which they are designed and brought to illustrate 2dly Those things being distinct and different whose ideas are so the formal Conception of our Legal Union with Christ being hugely different from the Notion which we have of our Spiritual Union with Him it plainly follows that our Mystical coherence to Him imports some thing besides a Legal Oneness Now that the Idea which we have
him being presupposed our submitting to the Ordinance and Institution of Baptism is a visible profession of it 'T is not enough that we are perswaded of the Truth of the Christian Religion and that we secretly embrace it but we are publickly to own it and to tell the World that we are of such a Belief As Baptism presupposeth Repentance which respects our turning to God as our End and Faith which implye's our owning Christ as our Way so our being Baptised into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is a solemn declaring to the world our coming to God by Jesus Christ through the Sanctification Influence and Conduct of the Spirit Nor is our naked promise so Authentick as when we publickly seal to the Articles required of us 'T is both a Badg and Symbol of our profession and a Bond Obligation upon us to discharge the Duties which our profession of Christianity calls us to Hence it is called an Answer towards God which as it supposeth the demands of the Covenant so it proclayms our undertaking to perform them 4. The Union of the Catholick Visible Church consisting in a joynt profession of the same Lord Faith and Baptism there doth therefore upon a Persons submitting to the Ordinance of Baptism such a Relation to the whole Catholick Visible Church emerge as that he is rendred a compleat Member of the Church under the consideration of Catholick Visible By this as by a solemn Rite we become visibly separated from the World and enrolled amongst those who have consigned over and consecrated themselves unto the service and obedience of Father Son and Holy Ghost So far is our Union with the Visible Church by means of Baptism from being the Medium of our Union with Christ that it is our dedicating our selves to Christ by this August ceremony which constitutes us compleat Members of the Church under the Notion of Visible Secondly As to the Argument Levied from the Lords Supper I reply these things 1. The Supper of the Lord though a Sacrament of Union yet it cannot be the first Medium of our Union with the Church seeing none have a right to it but such as are already Church-Members Men are first to approve themselves sincere Christians before they are to approach the Holy Table Only those that have Fellowship with God in Christ have a title of participating at this Christian Eucharistical Feast Much less is it the Medium of our Political Union with Christ it being only through a previous subjection of our Consciences to his Authority that we celebrate this Ordinance 2. As by Baptism we publickly avow our taking upon us the profession of Christianity so by the Lords Supper we ratify our perseverance and renew our engagements of being the Lords By coming to his Table we proclaym our selves of his Famimy and declare our resolution of continuing to be his Followers and Retainers 'T is a profession of our being in Covenant with him and that we will remain constant and faithful in it 3. Though as I have already said it can neither be the Medium of our Union with the Church nor with Christ yet it is both a Symbol of the one the other 'T is an eminent badge of that Union which is and ought to be among Christians Our eating at the same Table is an argument of our being of one and the same Family Forasmuch as we all eat of one Loaf that is the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10.17 we do thereby intimate that we are one Body and Members of the same Christ. Yet at such a distance doth this lye from evincing our Union with Christ to be by means of our union with the Church that indeed nothing else than an Antecedent union with Christ can give us a Right to partake of this Sacred Supper or of Fellowship and Communion with the Church in it Thus the Reader may see that even on the supposition that our Union with Christ is meerly a Political Union or such a Relation only as is between a Prince and his Subjects yet that it is immediate and not by the means of an Antecedent Relation to the Christian Church Having then dispatched the first thing which I laid down in opposition to Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis That wherein my concernment next lyes is to prove that the Union between Christ and Christians is not meerly Political And if I be but able to acquit my self in this undertaking the whole of Mr. Sherlocks Notion in reference to the Union of Christ to Christians is subverted and overthrown And it being here that we have our Authors most Heroick Adventures and where especially he seems to speak as standing on his Tiptoes it is but fit that he should be the more peculiarly attended to In opposition therefore to his Assertion that the Union of Christians with Christ is only a Political Union that is such an Union as is between a Prince and his Subjects I Advance this Antithesis that a Political Relation doth not adequately express that Oneness which the Scripture so augustly celebrates as interceding betwixt Christ and Believers This directly contradicts Mr. Sherlocks third and fourth Conclusions which indeed are coincident For to affirm that the Union betwixt Christ and the Christian Church is a Political Union that is such an Union as is between a Prince and his Subjects which is his third proposition and to say that our Fellowship and Communion with God according to the Scripture-Notion signifies what we call a Potical Union which is his fourth are according to the best understanding of Enunciations I have coincident and equipollent propositions Now in discoursing this we are to take all our measures from the Scripture and to regulate our conceptions by it alone For this Union between Christ and Christians is one of those Mysteries which no Ideas congenite with us nor objective discoveries in the works of Creation and Providence could have conducted us to the knowledg of 'T is a Truth which our Intellectual Faculties in their Immediate exercise could never have discerned nor hath it any connexion with the things which we naturally know to be collected and deduced from them Though by attending to Revelation we may come to frame an intelligible Notion of it yet as it is considered in it self and with reference to other Doctrines of Faith on which it depends we could never have form'd any apprehensions of it if the Gospel had not previously declared and revealed it Now the first Argument in proof that our Union with Christ is more than Political shall be levied from those Symbolick Metaphors and Terrene Figures and Images by which the Holy Ghost is pleased to express it I have in the fore going Chapter assigned this as one Reason among others why God who doth all things in Infinite Wisdom declares the Mysteries of Faith under Earthly Parables and Symbols namely that Spiritual Things which lye remote from our Understandings may
we contend for he could not have chosen Terms more plain full and Emphatical to declare it than those by which he hath expressed it in the foregoing places And the same subtilties that are used to persuade the World that what we alledg is not the true meaning of them would equally serve to pervert their sense were that the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them which we affirm There are two passages which I reckon eminently manifestative of the Intimate Conjunction that is between Christ and Christians which I shall at this time borrow some Light from and reflect some upon in reference to the Matter before us The first is that of Paul Heb. 3.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of ou◠confidence stedfast unto the End I know that Modern Interpreters do generally suppose the name Christ to be taken here Metonymically viz. for the benefit of Christs Mediation but I judg that the Apostle intends a great deal more by our partaking of Christ than meerly so The Syriack renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are mingled i. e. united to Christ. Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is it to be partakers of Christ He and we are made One He the Head we the Body Coheirs and Incorporated with Him And accordingly he makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of our confidence to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith by which says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are begotten and consubstantiated with him i. e. intimately and truly United to Him That an Union with Christ by some tye and ligature beyond what a bare owning of his Authority denotes is here intended in our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being made partakers of Christ the use of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the same Apostle from whence the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes induceth me to believe When Paul would express Christs participating of the Humane Nature or of Flesh and Blood he doth it in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems clearly to conduct us to the meaning of the expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are now upon As he became no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by the assumption of our Nature into Union with his Divine person so we do no otherwise become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by participation of the same spirit that inhabited the Humane Nature of Christ which is the Bond and Medium of that Union which we plead for between Christ and Christians The other expression which I judg declarative of a higher Union between Christ and us than what a Political Relation doth imply is his being styled our Life Life is said to be in Christ not only formally as in its subject but causally as in its fountain Nor is he only called the Word of Life and the Prince of Life but he is expresly said to be our Life Col. 3.4 And Paul witnesseth of himself that he lived through Christs living in Him Gal. 2.20 Now that he should be styled our Life meerly with reference to his bringing Life and Immortality to light in the Gospel is too jejune a sense to sustain the weight of the Phrase I do not deny but that the Gospel is the Word of Life and that it is so styled in the Scripture Nor do I bring into debate Christs being in a proper and eminent sense the alone Author as well as the Subject of it Only I affirm that the making his revealing the Gospel which discovers the Glad Tidings of Life and the Terms of it to be the only reason of the Appellation given to him which we are now discoursing is to impose a Notion upon the expression which is too scanty and narrow to answer the Majesty and Grandeur of it And as the Context even to any who do but superficially view it will not admit this to be its full import so the Apostles expression of Christs living in him which seems a commentary and paraphrase upon it doth plainly overthrow this from being the sense of it Nor will it suffice to say that he is our Life in a Moral sense because our Life of Grace here and of Glory hereafter are owing to the Sacrafice of his Death as their procuring cause 'T is true that both our Holiness and Happiness respect Christs Meritorious Life and Death as their price but yet this neither comes up to the Loftiness nor exhausts the fulness of that expression He is our Life much less is there any thing in this Gloss that bears affinity to his living in us The only sense which bears a proportion to the Words is this That as Natural life proceeds from and must be ascribed to the Soul as its spring principle so all spiritual Life is owing to Christ as immediately acting us by his quickning Spirit Of our selves saith the Learned Bishop Reynolds we are without strength without love without life no power no liking no possibility to do good nor any principle of Holiness or Obedience in us 'T is Christ that strengthens us that wins us that quickens us by his Spirit to his Service Christ is the Principle and Fountain of Holiness as the Head is of sense or motion And this he maketh to be one eminent part of the meaning of that place He that hath the Son hath Life 1 Joh. 5.12 though Mr. Sherlock is not only pleased to tell us that it signifies no such thing but treats those who do so paraphrase it with words full of contempt and scorn But to resume what I was upon forasmuch as no Vital Principle doth or can operate but as it is united to the subject that is to be quickned by it Christ being then the Principle of our spiritual life there must be an Union of Christ with us as the spring and foundation of his Influence upon us No one thing can be supposed the principle and source of life to another without admitting a previous Union between them The third and last Argument whereby Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of a Political Union may be combated and if I mistake not utterly defeated is levied from the Vinculum and Bond by which the Scripture reports Christ and Believers to be copulated and brought into cohesion one with another As every Union implies such a Relation in the virtue whereof there resulteth an Oneness between the connected Extremes so as the Nature and Quality of the Unitive Principle or Cement is such is the Genius of the Union it self and of the oneness that thereupon emergeth Now by consulting the Scripture which alone ought to regulate and bound our conceptions in the Matter before us we find the Spirit to be the Vital Ligature of the conjunction and coherence that is between Christ and Christians The very Spirit that resides in Christ being communicated to us we do thereby in a secret but sublime and real manner become knit and ligu'd
q. 5. and they will satisfie them This is all that I shall offer at present in opposition to Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis nor should I have said so much but that it is here where we have his most Heroick adventures and where he seems all along to speak as strutting and standing on his tiptoes 'T is here that he flings down the Gantlet to all the World and treads the Stage with no less state and majesty than as if he intended to erect lasting Trophies to himself for having baffled the received Opinion of the whole Christian Church And 't is here that most particularly I have accepted his Challenge and bid him battel on his ground and at his own weapons and as to the issue of the Encounter I leave it to the Reader to pronounce betwixt him and me This I do affirm that as I have not declined him in any thing where he seem'd to argue like a Man and a Schollar so I must beg his pardon if in some things I have forborn him and given back forasmuch as I was not willing to be under the temptation of exposing him too much And upon this very inducement I thought once to have overlookt his Argument taken from the Nature of the Sacraments which he brings in proof that all the Union between Christ and Christians is meerly political but upon second thoughts I am resolved to say something to it least by being left in the way it should put some to a stand though it should put none to a retreat We have already encountered the same forces in another field and being defeated there there is the less likelyhood of their standing it long out here As we have disabled this Medium from serving our Author against the Immediate Union of Christ with Believers so we will now venture to see what strength is in it against the common Opinion of the Christian Church about the Nature quality of the Union that is between Him and them Now I take it for granted says he that there can be no better way to understand the Nature of our Union with Christ than to consider the Nature of those Sacraments which were designed as the Instruments and signs of our Union with Him and if we will take that account the Scripture gives of them all the Union they signifie is a publick and visible profession of our Faith in Christ and subjection to Him as our Lord and Saviour and a sincere conformity of our hearts and lives to the Nature and Life of Christ. Thus Baptism is a publick profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel of Christ own his Authority and submit to his Government And the Lords Supper is a Federal Rite which answers to the Feasts or Sacrifices under the Law whereby we renew our Covenant with the Lord and vow obedience and subjection to him c. For answer Baptism and the Lords Supper being Ordinances instituted by Christ in a Habitude to the whole tenour of the New Covenant as it mutually obligeth both on Gods part and outs accordingly they may be considered either as they respect us or as they respect God who hath instituted and ordained them As they respect us they are both Symbols of our Profession and solemn engagements upon us to Duty As they respect God who hath appointed them they are representations of the mercies of the Covenant and Ratifying seals of it But to speak a little particularly to each of them First to Baptism Baptism as it is the outward way and means of our Initiation into the Lord Jesus Christ and of our matriculation into the Catholick Visible Church so it is the great representation of the inward washing of Regeneration and of our being renewed by the Holy Ghost The effusion of the Spirit being often likened to the pouring forth of water See Isa. 44.3 4 5. Ezek. 36.25 26 27. Joh. 3.5 Joh. 7.38 Heb. 10.22 So in Baptism it is most excellently signified and represented The Spirit saith Dr. Patrick is very well signified by water for as that cleanseth purifieth from filth so the Spirit of God is the sanctifier of Gods people purging and cleansing their hearts from all impurities Now the Spirit being no otherwise the spring and principle of all our Sanctification but as he is the Bond and Vinculum of our mystical Union with Christ out of whose fulness we receive all the Grace which we are made partakers of therefore Baptism being a representation of the effusion of the Spirit it is also an adumbration of the Union which we plead for 2ly As to the Lords Supper As the Lords Supper is a visible Symbol and Badg of our abiding in Christ into whom by Baptism we were Initiated and an obligation to all the Duties of growth and progress in Christianity so it is really exhibitive of Christ to us and a representation of our Spiritual Union with Him As the Bread and Wine could not in any congruity of speech be called the Body and Blood of Christ if they were not exhibitive of them so our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Sacramental sense can signifie no less than our being spiritually incorporated with him The Cup of Blessing saith the Apostle which we bless is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 And as by one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body so we are all made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 Our very Author tells us not aware that thereby he overthrows his whole Hypothesis that the Lords Supper is a spiritual feeding on Christ an eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood which signifies the most intimate Union with him that we are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone Eph. 5.30 The Apostle in the place that Mr. Sherlock refers to doth in way of illustration of the Union between Christ and Christians allude to the Oneness which was between Adam and Eve Now that was greater than the Oneness between any other Husband or Wife in the World for she was not only of the same specifick Nature with Him and knit to him in a Matrimonial tye by God himself but she was extracted and formed out of his very Body and so is the fitter Symbol of the Intimate Union that is between Christ and Believers And thus I hope I have not only wrested this weapon out of Mr. Sherlocks hand but struck through his cause with it § 13. It being acknowledged on all sides that there is an Union between Christ and sincere Christians and it being now declared and made manifest what it is not I might here wind up without proceeding any further or undertaking to assign the true and just Notion of it Nor is Religion exposed by our affirming some of its Mysteries to be incomprehensible Our Reason fails us when we attempt to give an account of our selves and the obvious phaenomena of Nature and therefore we may well allow it unable to
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Longin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 27. De Doct. Christ. 3. de Orat. Rhet. 3. cap. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 28. Vbi supra Def. continuat p 163. Eph. 5.4 Eth. lib. 4. cap. 8. In Psalm 7. speaking of metaphors Allegories Truth and Innocence vindicated p. 17. p. 161. Pag. 20 ubi supra Pag. 104. Edit first Pag. 105. Discourse concerning the principles and practices of the Latitudinarians Mr. Calamy's Sermon on Tit. 1.8 9 p. 5. Pag. 22. Page 240. Page 112. page 144. Page 244. See Dr. Owen on Heb. vol. 2. Exercit. 8. Page 6. Page 6. Page 7. Discourse concerning the true Reason of the sufferings of Christ. Cap. 8. Socin de Christo Servat cap. 15. Catech. Racov min. p. 43. Smalc de Divin Christi cap. 23. Ostorod Instit. Relig. Christian. cap. 40. Crell contr Grot. cap. 10. Volkel de vera Relig. cap. 38. P. 322. P. 320. P. 324. P. 44. P. 89. Contr. Molin cap. 8. § 7. See amongst others Isa. 53.5 6. 1 Pet. 2.24 Gal. 3.13 and Dr. Stillingfleets vindication of them from the exceptions of Crellius cap. 2. ubi supra Contr. Meisner p. 250 Cont. Grot. cap. 1. Vid. inter alios Crel Resp. ad Grot. cap. 3. p. 322. Page 320. Page 315. Page 320. Pa. 334 335. Page 108. Page 109. P. 207. P. 216 217. Nam quid aliud Christi Evangelium quam veritaes Gratia quibus vitam aeternam adipiscamur Socin in Joan. 1. vers 15. Ex qua plenitudine om es hauserunt quatenus omnes eandem Doctrinam de gratia Christi veritate ex Jesu hauserunt amplexi sunt Schliching in Joh. 1.16 Significat hic Joannes Evangelista se alios discipulos Domini Jesu salutarem doctrinam Evangelii non a Joanne Baptista sed ex inexhausta plenitudine Domini Jesu hausisse Wolzog. ibid. Page 8.110 see also p. 238. Page 88 89. p. 10. Page 10. Leviath cap. 20. Pa. 338.348 Pa. 351.352 P. 351 353 Pa. 351 352 P. 350. P. 349. 2 Cor. 5.17 1 Joh. 4.13 P. 350 P. 146.147 P. 146.147 Qui videtur esse in me cum revera non sit alioqui ferret fructum Piscat in hoc P. 349. Page 349. P. 159. P. 165. P. 213. P. 187. P. 216. P. 217. P. 231. P. 5. 8. p. 201. P. 147. P. 148. P. 145. P. 146 147 Page 11.12 See in Gal. 3.16 Pareus Liranus Cajet Corn. a Lapide Rutherford on the Covenant p. 312. On 2 Cor. 12.12 see Dr. Owen of the Holy Spirit p 454.455 P. 145. P. 146. P. 147. Nam sicut ex vite sunt palmites sic ex Magistro nascuntur discipuli sicut in vite sunt palmites i. e. adhaerent palmiti sic Magistro adhaerent discipuli doctrinam Ejus amplectentes profitentes in Joan. 15.2 Page 201. Christi persona constat conficitur ex Deo homine cum ipse Christus sit verus Deus verus homo quia omnis res illarum rerum naturam veritatem in se continet ex quibus conficitur Prosp. Leo epist. ad Flav. Vid. Derod de Substantia Accident Art 4. N. 293. Page 194. Page 197. Camerarius Lerees Digby White Glisson de Nat. Subst c. cap 28. P. 200. P. 200. Ibid. Apolog. cap. 13. De Nat. Deor. lib. 3. In Gen. qu 55. Quanto verius de Diis vestris animalia muta naturaliter judicant mures hirundines milvi non sentire eos sciunt rodunt insultant insident ac nisi abigatis in ipso Dei vestri ore nidificant pag. 175. Edit Oxon 1631. p. 103. On Rom. â—8 3 p. 46.67 and 51. Dogmat. Theolog Tom. 2. lib. 1. cap. 3. p. 147. Disp. select part 1. p. 752. Vid. Eustath in Homer vol. 2. p. 920. 1334. p. 289. Sponsor faederis appellatur Jesus quod nomine Dei nobis sposponderit i. e. fidem fecerit Deum faederis promissiones servaturum esse Non vero quasi pro nobis spospoÌ„derit Deo nostrorumve delictorum solutionem in se receperit in loc p. 289. See Heb. 6.16 17 18 19 See Appellatur sponsor quia spospondit ultro in se suscepit praestare omne id quod Justitia Lex Sancta Dei quae nec mutari nec abnegari nec dissimulari potuit exigebat ut fieret si bona Testamenti pax vita salus nobis donari nostra fieri debebant Momma de variâ conditione statu Eccles. Tom. 1. cap. 1. p. 8. p. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hic sumo a neutro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non solet sequester se interponere inter eos qui unum sunt i. e. qui bene conveniunt Grot. in loc Non unius partis sed duarum earumque dissidentium Jacob Capel Receptâ significatione vulgari usu loquendi factum est ut is qui pacem inter duos quocunque modo conciliet Mediator appelletur de Servat p. 1. c. 7. 3. Treatise viz. The Vanity of the Creature the sinfulness of Sin and the Life of Christ p. 480. p. 197. p. 195. p. 142. p. 143. p. 144. p. 149. p. 156. p. 186. p. 147. p. 197. p. 142 143. p. 143 144. See p. 198. p. 165. p. 163 164. p. 165 166. p. 165. p. 163.165 Hoc ipsum Papatûs paulatim sensim introducti fundamentum esse videtur in 1 Joan. cap. 1. v. 2 3 4. p. 142 143. p. 40. p. 153 154. p. 56. p. 156. p. 186. Hom. 8. in 1 Cor. Non dicit Paulus fideles unum esse panem sed ab uno pane ducit similitudinem Dissert de Miss cap. 3. Quoniam unus est panis unum corpus nos illi multi sumus Nos enim ex uno illo pane participamus Bez. in Loc. p. 157 158 159. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vocantur eá omnia quae nos Christo devinciunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ea omnia per quae membra sub hoc capite sibi cohaerent Jam vero commissiâ—rae per quas Christo capiti jungimur per quas Christi influxus ad nos derivatur sunt spiritus dona ejusdem spiritus praesertim fides quae manus est quâ apprahenduntur spiritualia beneficia in Col. 2.19 3. Treatises p. 407. Idem ibid. p. 144. p. 103. p. 172 173. Ita suum spiritum seu animum cum Domino conjungit ac si unus idem cum ipso esset quatenus se totum illi regendum tradit sic amici dicuntur iidem cor unum anima una propter constantem concordiam amorem perfectum consensum Schlichting De Trinit lib. 8. cap. 4 5 6. p. 185 186. p. 181 182. Aqua Genitalis p. 31. v. 84. p. 99.100 p. 102. p. 103. p. 104.