the New Covenant has already been shewn An explicit belief of these is absolutely required of all those to whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and Salvation through his Name proposed The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths whereof none that is once known to be such may or ought to be disbelieved For to acknowledge any Proposition to be of Divine Revelation and Authority and yet to deny or disbelieve it is to offend against this Fundamental Article and Ground of Faith that God is true But yet a great many of the Truths revealed in the Gospel every one does and must confess a man may be ignorant of nay disbelieve without danger to his Salvation As is evident in those who allowing the Authority differ in the Interpretation and meaning o several Texts of Scripture not thought Fundamental In all which 't is plain the contending Parties on one side or tother are ignorant of nay disbelieve the Truths delivered in Holy Writ unless Contrarieties and Contradictions can be contained in the same words and Divine Revelation can mean contrary to it self Though all divine Revelation requires the obedience of Faith yet every truth of inspired Scriptures is not one of those that by the Law of Faith is required to be explicitly believed to Justification What those are we have seen by what our Saviour and his Apostles proposed to and required in those whom they Converted to the Faith Those are fundamentals which 't is not enough not to disbelieve Every one is required actually to assent to them But any other Proposition contained in the Scripture which God has not thus made a necessary part of the Law of Faith without an actual assent to which he will not allow any one to be a Believer a Man may be ignorant of without hazarding his Salvation by a defect in his Faith He believes all that God has made necessary for him to believe and assent to And as for the rest of Divine Truths there is nothing more required of him but that he receive all the parts of Divine Revelation with a docility and disposition prepared to imbrace and assent to all Truths coming from God And submit his mind to whatsoever shall appear to him to bear that Character Where he upon fair endeavours understands it not How can he avoid being ignorant And where he cannot put several Texts and make them consist together What Remedy He must either interpret one by the other or suspend his Opinion He that thinks that more is or can be required of poor frail Man in matters of Faith will do well to consider what absurdities he will run into God out of the infiniteness of his Mercy has dealt with Man as a compassionate and tender Father He gave him Reason and with it a Law That could not be otherwise than what Reason should dictate Unless we should think that a reasonable Creature should have an unreasonable Law But considering the frailty of Man apt to run into corruption and misery he promised a Deliverer whom in his good time he sent And then declared to all Mankind that whoever would believe him to be the Saviour promised and take him now raised from the dead and constituted the Lord and Judge of all Men to be their King and Ruler should be saved This is a plain intelligible Proposition And And the all-merciful God seems herein to have consulted the poor of this World and the bulk of Mankind These are Articles that the labouring and illiterate Man may comprehend This is a Religion suited to vulgar Capacities And the state of Mankind in this World destined to labour and travel The Writers and Wranglers in Religion fill it with niceties and dress it up with notions which they make necessary and fundamental parts of it As if there were no way into the Church but through the Academy or Lyceum The bulk of Mankind have not leisure for Learning and Logick and superfine distinctions of the Schools Where the hand is used to the Plough and the Spade the head is seldom elevated to sublime Notions or exercised in mysterious reasonings 'T is well if Men of that rank to say nothing of the other Sex can comprehend plain propositions and a short reasoning about things familiar to their Minds and nearly allied to their daily experience Go beyond this and you amaze the greatest part of Mankind And may as well talk Arabick to a poor day Labourer as the Notions and Language that the Books and Disputes of Religion are filled with and as soon you will be understood The Dissenting Congregations are supposed by their Teachers to be more accurately instructed in matters of Faith and better to understand the Christian Religion than the vulgar Conformists who are charged with great ignorance How truly I will not here determine But I ask them to tell me seriously whether half their People have leisure to study Nay Whether one in ten of those who come to their Meetings in the Country if they had time to study them do or can understand the Controversies at this time so warmly managed amongst them about Justification the subject of this present Treatise I have talked with some of their Teachers who confess themselves not to understand the difference in debate between them And yet the points they stand on are reckoned of so great weight so material so fundamental in Religion that they divide Communion and separate upon them Had God intended that none but the Learned Scribe the disputer or wise of this World should be Christians or be Saved thus Religion should have been prepared for them filled with speculations and niceties obscure terms and abstract notions But Men of that expectation Men furnished with such acquisitions the Apostle tells us I Cor. I. are rather shut out from the simplicity of the Gospel to make way for those poor ignorant illiterate Who heard and believed promises of a Deliverer and believed Jesus to be him Who could conceive a Man dead and made alive again and believe that he should at the end of the World come again and pass Sentence on all Men according to their deeds That the poor had the Gospel Preached to them Christ makes a mark as well as business of his Mission Mat. XI 5. And if the poor had the Gospel Preached to them it was without doubt such a Gospel as the poor could understand plain and intelligible And so it was as we have seen in the Preachings of Christ and his Apostles FINIS Printed for A. J. Churchil in Pater-Noster-Row A View of Universal History from the Creation to 1695. Wherein the most Remarkable Persons and Things in the known Kingdoms and Countries of the World are set down in several Columns by way of Synchronism according to their proper Centuries and Years In 16 Copper Plates By F. Talents A. M. A compleat Journal of both Houses of Parliament throughout the whole Reign of Q. Elizabeth By Sir Symonds Dewes Knight Fol. Notitia Monastica Or A History of all the Religious Houses in England and Wales c. 8vo By Tho. Tanner The Resurrection of the same Body asserted from the Tradition of the Heathens the Ancient Jews and the Primitive Church With an Answer to the Objections brought against it By Humph. Hody D. D. Octavo Bishop Wilkins of Prayer and Preaching enlarged by the Bp. of Norwich and Dr. Williams Octavo The Gentleman's Religion with Grounds and Reasons of it 20. By a Private Gentleman Dr. Patrick's New Version of all the Psalms of David 120. To be sung in Churches Gen. III. 17-19
words v. 47. 54. Verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day The sum of all which Discourse is that he was the Messiah sent from God And that those who believed him to be so should be raised from the Dead at the last day to Eternal Life These who he spoke to were of those who the day before would by force have made him King And therefore 't is no wonder he should speak to them of himself and his Kingdom and Subjects in obscure and Mystical terms and such as should offend those who looked for nothing but the Grandeur of a Temporal Kingdom in this World and the Protection and Prosperity they had promised themselves under it The hopes of such a Kingdom now that they had found a man that did Miracles and therefore concluded to be the Deliverer they expected had the day before almost drawn them into an open Insurrection and involved our Saviour in it This he thought fit to put a stop to they still following him 't is like with the same design And therefore though he here speaks to them of his Kingdom it was in a way that so plainly bauk'd their Expectation and shock'd them that when they found themselves disappointed of those vain hopes and that he talked of their eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood that they might have Life the Jews said v. 52. How can this man give us his flesh to eat And many even of his Disciples said It was an hard saying who can bear it And so were scandalized in him and forsook him v. 60. 66. But what the true meaning of this Discourse of our Saviour was the Confession of St. Peter who understood it better and answered for the rest of the Apostles shews When Jesus asked him v. 67. Will ye also go away Then Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of eternal life i. e. Thou teachest us the way to attain Eternal Life And accordingly We believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God This was the eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood whereby those who did so had Eternal Life Sometime after this he enquires of his Disciples Mark VIII 27. Who the People took him for They telling him for Iohn the Baptist or one of the old Prophets risen from the Dead He asked what they themselves thought And here again Peter answers in these words Mark VIII 29. Thou art the Messiah Luke IX 20. The Messiah of God And Mat. XVI 16. Thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God Which Expressions we may hence gather amount to the same thing Whereupon our Saviour tells Peter Mat. XVI 17 18. That this was such a truth As flesh and blood could not reveal to him but only his Father who was in Haven And that this was the Foundation on which he was to build his Church By all the parts of which passage it is more than probable that he had never yet told his Apostles in direct words that he was the Messiah but that they had gathered it from his Life and Miracles For which we may imagine to our selves this probable Reason Because that if he had familiarly and in direct terms talked to his Apostles in private that he was the Messiah the Prince of whose Kingdom he preached so much in publick every where Iudas whom he knew false and treacherous would have been readily made use of to testifie against him in a matter that would have been really Criminal to the Roman Governour This perhaps may help to clear to us that seemingly abrupt reply of our Saviour to his Apostles Iohn VI. 70. when they confessed him to be the Messiah I will for the better explaining of it set down the passage at large Peter having said We believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God Iesus answered them Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is a reply seeming at first sight nothing to the purpose when yet it is sure all our Saviour's Discourses were wise and pertinent It seems therefore to me to carry this sense to be understood afterwards by the eleven as that of destroying the Temple and raising it again in three days was when they should reflect on it after his being betray'd by Iudas You have confessed and believe the truth concerning me I am the Messiah your King But do not wonder at it that I have never openly declared it to you For amongst you twelve whom I have chosen to be with me there is one who is an Informer or false Accuser for so the Greek word signifies and may possibly here be so translated rather than Devil who if I had owned my self in plain words to have been the Messiah the King of Israel would have betrayed me and informed against me That he was yet cautious of owning himself to his Apostles positively to be the Messiah appears farther from the manner wherein he tells Peter v. 18. that he will build his Church upon that Confession of his that he was the Messiah I say unto thee Thou art Cephas or a Rock and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Words too doubtful to be laid hold on against him as a Testimony that he professed himself to be the Messiah Especially if we joyn with them the following words v. 19. And I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven And what thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and what thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Which being said Personally to Peter render the foregoing words of our Saviour wherein he declares the Fundamental Article of his Church to be the believing him to be the Messiah the more obscure and doubtful and less liable to be made use of against him But yet such as might afterwards be understood And for the same reason he yet here again forbids the Apostles to say that he was the Messiah v. 20. From this time say the Evangelists Jesus began to shew to his Disciples i. e. his Apostles who are often called Disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the Elders Chief Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day These though all marks of the Messiah yet how little understood by the Apostles or suited to their expectation of the Messiah appears from Peter's rebuking him for it in the following words Mat. XVI 22. Peter had twice before owned him to be the Messiah and yet he cannot here bear that he should Suffer and be put to Death and be raised again Whereby we may perceive how little yet Jesus had explained to the Apostles what Personally concerned himself They had been a good while witnesses of his Life and Miracles
believe him to be the Messiah And though they with others expected a Temporal Kingdom on Earth might yet rest satisfied in the truth of their Master who had honoured them with being near his Person that it would come without being too inquisitive after the time manner or seat of his Kingdom As men of Letters more studied in their Rabbins or men of Business more versed in the World would have been forward to have been Men great or wise in Knowledge or ways of the World would hardly have been kept from prying more narrowly into his Design and Conduct Or from questioning him about the ways and measures he would take for ascending the Throne and what means were to be used towards it and when they should in earnest set about it Abler men of higher Births or Thoughts would hardly have been hindred from whispering at least to their Friends and Relations that their Master was the Messiah And that though he concealed himself to a fit Opportunity and till things were ripe for it yet they should ere long see him break out of his Obscurity cast off the Cloud and declare himself as he was King of Israel But the ignorance and lowness of these good poor men made them of another temper They went along in an implicite trust on him punctually keeping to his Commands and not exceeding his Commission When he sent them to Preach the Gospel He bid them Preach The Kingdom of God to be at hand And that they did without being more particular than he had ordered or mixing their own Prudence with his Commands to promote the Kingdom of the Messiah They preached it without giving or so much as intimating that their Master was he Which men of another Condition and an higher Education would scarce have forborn to have done When he asked them who they thought him to be And Peter answered The Messiah the Son of God Mat. XVI 16. He plainly shews by the following words that he himself had not told them so And at the same time v. 20. forbids them to tell this their Opinion of him to any body How obedient they were to him in this we may not only conclude from the silence of the Evangelists concerning any such thing published by them any where before his Death but from the exact Obedience three of them paid to a like Command of his He takes Peter Iames and Iohn into a Mountain And there Moses and Elias coming to him he is transfigured before them Mat. XVII 9. He charges them saying See that ye tell no man what you have seen till the Son of Man shall be risen from the dead And St. Luke tells us what punctual Observers they were of his Orders in this case Chap. IX 36. They kept it close and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen Whether twelve other men of quicker Parts and of a Station or Breeding which might have given them any Opinion of themselves or their own Abilities would have been so easily kept from medling beyond just what was prescribed them in a matter they had so much Interest in and have said nothing of what they might in Humane Prudence have thought would have contributed to their Master's Reputation and made way for his advancement to his Kingdom I leave to be considered And it may suggest matter of Meditation whether St. Paul was not for this reason by his Learning Parts and warmer Temper better fitted for an Apostle after than during our Saviour's Ministry And therefore though a chosen Vessel was not by the Divine Wisdom called till after Christ's Resurrection I offer this only as a Subject of magnifying the Admirable Contrivance of the Divine Wisdom in the whole Work of our Redemption as far as we are able to trace it by the foot-steps which God hath made visible to Humane Reason For though it be as easie to Omnipotent Power to do all things by an immediate over-ruling Will and so to make any Instruments work even contrary to their Nature in subserviency to his ends Yet his Wisdom is not usually at the expence of Miracles if I may so say but only in cases that require them for the evidencing of some Revelation or Mission to be from him He does constantly unless where the confirmation of some Truth requires it otherwise bring about his Purposes by means operating according to their Natures If it were not so the course and evidence of things would be confounded Miracles would lose their name and force and there could be no distinction between Natural and Supernatural There had been no room left to see and admire the Wisdom as well as Innocence of our Saviour if he had rashly every where exposed himself to the Fury of the Jews and had always been preserved by a miraculous suspension of their Malice or a miraculous rescuing him out of their Hands It was enough for him once to escape from the men of Nazareth who were going to throw him down a Precipice for him never to Preach to them again Our Saviour had multitudes that followed him for the Loaves Who barely seeing the Miracles that he did would have made him King If to the Miracles he did he had openly added in express words that he was the Messiah and the King they expected to deliver them he would have had more Followers and warmer in the Cause and readier to set him up at the Head of a Tumult These indeed God by a miraculous Influence might have hundred from any such Attempt But then Posterity could not have believed that the Nation of the Iews did at that time expect the Messiah their King and Deliverer Or that Iesus who declared himself to be that King and Deliverer shewed any Miracles amongst them to convince them of it Or did any thing worthy to make him be credited or received If he had gone about Preaching to the multitude which he drew after him that he was the Messiah the King of Israel and this had been evidenced to Pilate God could indeed by a Supernatural Influence upon his mind have made Pilate pronounce him Innocent And not Condemn Him as a Malefactor Who had openly for three Years together preached Sedition to the People and endeavoured to perswade them that he was the Messiah their King of the Blood-Royal of David come to deliver them But then I ask whether Posterity would not either have suspected the Story or that some Art had been used to gain that Testimony from Pilate Because he could not for nothing have been so favourable to Iesus as to be willing to release so Turbulent and Seditious a Man to declare him Innocent and cast the blame and guilt of his Death as unjust upon the Envy of the Jews But now the Malice of the Chief Priests Scribes and Pharisees the Headiness of the Mob animated with hopes and raised with miracles Iudas's Treachery and Pilate's care of his Government and the Peace of his Province all working
True God our Saviour found the World But the clear Revelation he brought with him dissipated this Darkness made the One Invisible True God known to the World And that with such Evidence and Energy that Polytheism and Idolatry hath no where been able to withstand it But where ever the Preaching of the Truth he delivered and the Light of the Gospel hath come those Mists have been dispelled And in effect we see that since our Saviour's time the Belief of One God has prevailed and spread it self over the face of the Earth For even to the Light that the Messiah brought into the World with him we must ascribe the owning and Profession of One God which the Mahumetan Religion had derived and borrowed from it So that in this sense it is certainly and manifestly true of our Saviour what St. Iohn says of him I Iohn III. 8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil This Light the World needed and this Light it received from him That there is but One God and he Eternal Invisible Not like to any visible Objects nor to be represented by them If it be asked whether the Revelation to the Patriarchs by Moses did not teach this and why that was not enough The Answer is obvious that however clearly the Knowledge of One Invisible God maker of Heaven and Earth was revealed to them Yet that Revelation was shut up in a little corner of the World amongst a People by that very Law which they received with it excluded from a Commerce and Communication with the rest of mankind The Gentile World in our Saviour's time and several Ages before could have no Attestation of the Miracles on which the Hebrews built their Faith but from the Iews themselves A People not known to the greatest part of mankind Contemned and thought vilely of by those Nations that did know them And therefore very unfit and unable to propagate the Doctrine of One God in the World and diffuse it through the Nations of the Earth by the strength and force of that Ancient Revelation upon which they had received it But our Saviour when he came threw down this Wall of Partition And did not confine his Miracles or Message to the Land of Canaan or the Worshippers at Ierusalem But he himself preached at Samaria and did miracles in the Borders of Tyre and Sydon and before multitudes of People gathered from all Quarters And after his Resurrection sent his Apostles amongst the Nations accompanied with Miracles which were done in all Parts so frequently and before so many Witnesses of all sorts in broad day-light that as I have often observed the Enemies of Christianity have never dared to deny them No not Iulian himself Who neither wanted Skill nor Power to enquire into the Truth Nor would have failed to have proclaimed and exposed it if he could have detected any falshood in the History of the Gospel or found the least ground to question the Matter of Fact published of Christ and his Apostles The Number and Evidence of the Miracles done by our Saviour and his Followers by the power and force of Truth bore down this mighty and accomplished Emperour and all his Parts in his own Dominions He durst not deny so plain Matter of Fact Which being granted the truth of our Saviour's Doctrine and Mission unavoidably follows notwithstanding whatsoever Artful Suggestions his Wit could invent or Malice should offer to the contrary 2. Next to the Knowledge of one God Maker of all things A clear knowledge of their Duty was wanting to Mankind This part of Knowledge though cultivated with some care by some of the Heathen Philosophers Yet got little footing among the People All Men indeed under pain of displeasing the Gods were to frequent the Temples Every one went to their Sacrifices and Services But the Priests made it not their business to teach them Virtue If they were diligent in their Observations and Ceremonies Punctual in their Feasts and Solemnities and the tricks of Religion The holy Tribe assured them the Gods were pleased and they looked no farther Few went to the Schools of the Philosophers to be instructed in their Duties And to know what was Good and Evil in their Actions The Priests sold the better Pennyworths and therefore had all the Customs Lustrations and Processions were much easier than a clean Conscience and a steady course of Virtue And an expiatory Sacrifice that attoned for the want of it was much more convenient than a strict and holy Life No wonder then that Religion was every where distinguished from and preferred to Virtue And that it was dangerous Heresy and Prophaneness to think the contrary So much Virtue as was necessary to hold Societies together and to contribute to the quiet of Governments The Civil Laws of Commonwealths taught and forced upon Men that lived under Magistrates But these Laws being for the most part made by such who had no other aims but their own Power reached no farther than those things that would serve to tie Men together in subjection Or at most were directly to conduce to the Prosperity and Temporal Happiness of any People But Natural Religion in its full extent was no where that I know taken care of by the force of Natural Reason It should seem by the little that has hitherto been done in it That 't is too hard a thing for unassisted Reason to establish Morality in all its parts upon its true foundations with a clear and convincing light And 't is at least a surer and shorter way to the Apprehensions of the vulgar and mass of Mankind That one manifestly sent from God and coming with visible Authority from him should as a King and Law-maker tell them their Duties and require their Obedience Than leave it to the long and sometimes intricate deductions of Reason to be made out to them Which the greatest part of Mankind have neither leisure to weigh nor for want of Education and Use skill to judge of We see how unsuccessful in this the attempts of Philosophers were before our Saviour's time How short their several Systems came of the perfection of a true and compleat Morality is very visible And if since that the Christian Philosophers have much outdone them yet we may observe that the first knowledge of the truths they have added are owing to Revelation Though as soon as they are heard and considered they are found to be agreeable to Reason and such as can by no means be contradicted Every one may observe a great many truths which he receives at first from others and readily assents to as consonant to reason which he would have found it hard and perhaps beyond his strength to have discovered himself Native and Original truth is not so easily wrought out of the Mine as we who have it delivered ready dug and fashon'd into our hands are apt to imagine And how often at Fifty or Threescore years
old are thinking Men told what they wonder how they could miss thinking of Which yet their own Contemplations did not and possibly never would have helped them to Experience shews that the knowledge of Morality by meer natural light how agreeable soever it be to it makes but a flow progress and little advance in the World And the reason of it is not hard to be found in Men's Necessities Passions Vices and mistaken Interests which turn their thoughts another way And the designing Leaders as well as following Herd find it not to their purpose to imploy much of their Meditations this way Or whatever else was the cause 't is plain in fact Humane reason unassisted failed Men in its great and proper business of Morality It never from unquestionable Principles by clear deductions made out an entire Body of the Law of Nature And he that shall collect all the Moral Rules of the Philosophers and compare them with those contained in the New Testament will find them to come short of the Morality delivered by our Saviour and taught by his Apostles A College made up for the most part of ignorant but inspired Fishermen Though yet if any one should think that out of the sayings of the Wise Heathens before our Saviour's time there might be a Collection made of all those Rules of Morality which are to be found in the Christian Religion Yet this would not at all hinder but that the World nevertheless stood as much in need of our Saviour and the Morality delivered by him Let it be granted though not true that all the Moral Precepts of the Gospel were known by some Body or other amongst Mankind before But where or how or of what use is not considered Suppose they may be picked up here and there Some from Solon and Bias in Greece Others from Tully in Italy And to compleat the Work let Confutius as far as China be consulted And Anacarsis the Scythian contribute his share What will all this do to give the World a compleat morality That may be to Mankind the unquestionable Rule of Life and Manners I will not here urge the impossibility of collecting from men so far distant from one another in time and place and languages I will suppose there was a Stobeus in those times who had gathered the Moral sayings from all the Sages of the World What would this amount to towards being a steady Rule A certain transcript of a Law that we are under Did the saying of Aristippus or Confutius give it an Authority Was Zeno a Lawgiver to Mankind If not what he or any other Philosopher delivered was but a saying of his Mankind might hearken to it or reject it as they pleased Or as it suited their interest passions principles or humours They were under no Obligation The Opinion of this or that Philosopher was of no Authority And if it were you must take all he said under the same Character All his dictates must go for Law certain and true Or none of them And then If you will take any of the Moral sayings of Epicurus many whereof Seneca quotes with esteem and approbation for Precepts of the Law of Nature You must take all the rest of his Doctrine for such too Or else his Authority ceases And so no more is to be received from him or any of the Sages of old for parts of the Law of Nature as carrying with it an obligation to be obeyed but what they prove to be so But such a Body of Ethicks proved to be the Law of Nature from principles of Reason and reaching all the Duties of Life I think no body will say the World had before our Saviour's time 'T is not enough that there were up and down scattered sayings of wise Men conformable to right Reason The Law of Nature was the Law of Convenience too And 't is no wonder that those Men of Parts and studious of Virtue Who had occasion to think on any particular part of it should by meditation light on the right even from the observable Convenience and beauty of it Without making out its obligation from the true Principles of the Law of Nature and foundations of Morality But these incoherent apohtegms of Philosophers and wise Men however excellent in themselves and well intended by them could never make a Morality whereof the World could be convinced And with certainty depend on Whatsoever should thus be universally useful as a standard to which Men should conform their Manners must have its Authority either from Reason or Revelation 'T is not every Writer of Morals or Compiler of it from others that can thereby be erected into a Law-giver to Mankind and a dictator of Rules which are therefore valid because they are to be found in his Books under the Authority of this or that Philosopher He that any one will pretend to set up in this kind and have his Rules pass for authentique directions must shew that either he builds his Doctrine upon Principles of Reason self-evident in themselves or that he deduces all the parts of it from thence by clear and evident demonstration Or must shew his Commission from Heaven That he comes with Authority from God to deliver his Will and Commands to the World In the former way no body that I know before our Saviour's time ever did or went about to give us a Morality 'T is true there is a Law of Nature But who is there that ever did or undertook to give it us all entire as a Law No more nor no less than what was contained in and had the obligation of that Law Who ever made out all the parts of it Put them together And shewed the World their obligation Where was there any such Code that Mankind might have recourse to as their unerring Rule before our Saviour's time If there was not 't is plain there was need of one to give us such a Morality Such a Law which might be the sure guide of those who had a desire to go right And if they had a mind need not mistake their Duty But might be certain when they had performed when failed in it Such a Law of Morality Jesus Christ hath given us in the New Testament But by the later of these ways by Revelation We have from him a full and sufficient Rule for our direction And conformable to that of Reason But the truth and obligation of its Precepts hath its force and is put past doubt to us by the evidence of his Mission He was sent by God His Miracles shew it And the Authority of God in his Precepts cannot be questioned Here Morality has a sure Standard that Revelation vouches and Reason cannot gainsay nor question but both together witness to come from God the great Law-maker And such an one as this out of the New Testament I think the World never had nor can any one say is any where else to be found Let me ask any one who is forward to
think that the Doctrine of Morality was full and clear in the World at our Saviour's Birth Whether would he have directed Brutus and Cassius both Men of Parts and Virtue the one whereof believed and the other disbelieved a future Being to be satisfied in the Rules and Obligations of all the parts of their Duties If they should have asked him where they might find the Law they were to live by and by which they should be charged or acquitted as guilty or innocent If to the sayings of the Wise and the Declarations of Philosophers He sends them into a wild Wood of uncertainty to an endless maze from which they should never get out If to the Religions of the World yet worse And if to their own Reason he refers them to that which had some light and certainty but yet had hitherto failed all Mankind in a perfect Rule And we see resolved not the doubts that had risen amongst the Studious and Thinking Philosophers Nor had yet been able to convince the Civilized parts of the World that they had not given nor could without a Crime take away the Lives of their Children by Exposing them If any one shall think to excuse humane Nature by laying blame on Men's negligence that they did not carry Morality to an higher pitch and make it out entire in every part with that clearness of demonstration which some think it capable of He helps not the matter Be the cause what it will our Saviour found Mankind under a Corruption of Manners and Principles which Ages after Ages had prevailed and must be confessed was not in a way or tendency to be mended The Rules of Morality were in different Countries and Sects different And natural Reason no where had nor was like to Cure the Defects and Errors in them Those just measures of Right and Wrong which necessity had any where introduced the Civil Laws prescribed or Philosophy recommended Stood not on their true Foundations They were looked on as bonds of Society and Conveniencies of common Life and laudable Practises But where was it that their Obligation was throughly known and allowed and they received as Precepts of a Law Of the highest Law the Law of Nature That could not be without a clear knowledge and acknowledgment of the Law-maker and the great Rewards and Punishments for those that would or would not obey him But the Religion of the Heathens as was before observed little concerned it self in their Morals The Priests that delivered the Oracles of Heaven and pretended to speak from the Gods Spoke little of Virtue and a good Life And on the other side the Philosophers who spoke from Reason made not much mention of the Deity in their Ethicks They depended on Reason and her Oracles which contain nothing but Truth But yet some parts of that Truth lye too deep for our Natural Powers easily to reach and make plain and visible to mankind without some Light from above to direct them When Truths are once known to us though by Tradition we are apt to be favourable to our own Parts And ascribe to our own Understandings the Discovery of what in truth we borrowed from others Or at least finding we can prove what at first we learnt from others we are forward to conclude it an obvious Truth which if we had sought we could not have missed Nothing seems hard to our Understandings that is once known And because what we see we see with our own Eyes we are apt to over-look or forget the help we had from others who first shewed and pointed it out to us as if we were not at all beholden to them for that Knowledge Which Being of Truths we now are satisfied of we conclude our own Faculties would have lead us into without any assistance And that we know them as they did by the strength and perspicuity of our own minds only they had the luck to be before us Thus the whole stock of Human Knowledge is claimed by every one as his private Possession as soon as he profiting by others Discoveries has got it into his own mind And so it is But not properly by his own single Industry nor of his own Acquisition He studies 't is true and takes pains to make a progress in what others have delivered But their pains were of another sort who first brought those Truths to light which he afterwards derives from them He that Travels the Roads now applauds his own strength and legs that have carried him so far in such a scantling of time And ascribes all to his own Vigor little considering how much he ows to their pains who cleared the Woods drained the Bogs built the Bridges and made the Ways passable without which he might have toiled much with little progress A great many things we have been bred up in the belief of from our Cradles and are Notions grown Familiar and as it were Natural to us under the Gospel we take for unquestionable obvious Truths and easily demonstrable without considering how long we might have been in doubt or ignorance of them had Revelation been silent And many are beholden to Revelation who do not acknowlede it 'T is no diminishing to Revelation that Reason gives its Suffrage too to the Truths Revelation has discovered But 't is our mistake to think that because Reason confirms them to us we had the first certain knowledge of them from thence and in that clear Evidence we now possess them The contrary is manifest in the defective Morality of the Gentils before our Saviour's time and the want of Reformation in the Principles and Measures of it as well as Practice Philosophy seemed to have spent its strength and done its utmost Or if it should have gone farther as we see it did not and from undenyable Principles given us Ethicks in a Science like Mathematicks in every part demonstrable this yet would not have been so effectual to man in this imperfect state nor proper for the Cure The bulk of mankind have not leisure nor capacity for Demonstration nor can carry a train of Proofs which in that way they must always depend upon for Conviction and cannot be required to assent till they see the Demonstration Wherever they stick the Teachers are always put upon Proof and must clear the Doubt by a Thread of coherent deductions from the first Principle how long or how intricate soever that be And you may as soon hope to have all the Day-Labourers and Tradesmen the Spinsters and Dairy Maids perfect Mathematicians as to have them perfect in Ethicks this way Hearing plain Commands is the sure and only course to bring them to Obedience and Practice The greatest part cannot know and therefore they must believe And I ask whether one coming from Heaven in the Power of God in full and clear Evidence and Demonstration of Miracles giving plain and direct Rules of Morality and Obedience be not likelier to enlighten the bulk of Mankind and set them right
in their Duties and bring them to do them than by Reasoning with them from general Notions and Principles of Humane Reason And were all the Duties of Humane Life clearly demonstrated yet I conclude when well considered that Method of teaching men their Duties would be thought proper only for a few who had much Leisure improved Understandings and were used to abstract Reasonings But the Instruction of the People were best still to be left to the Precepts and Principles of the Gospel The healing of the Sick the restoring sight to the Blind by a word the raising and being raised from the Dead are matters of Fact which they can without difficulty conceive And that he who does such things must do them by the assistance of a Divine Power These things lye level to the ordinariest Apprehension He that can distinguish between sick and well Lame and sound dead and alive is capable of this Doctrine To one who is once perswaded that Jesus Christ was sent by God to be a King and a Saviour of those who do believe in him All his Commands become Principles There needs no other Proof for the truth of what he says but that he said it And then there needs no more but to read the inspired Books to be instructed All the Duties of Morality lye there clear and plain and easy to be understood And here I appeal whether this be not the surest the safest and most effectual way of teaching Especially if we add this farther consideration That as it suits the lowest Capacities of Reasonable Creatures so it reaches and satisfies Nay enlightens the highest And the most elevated Understandings cannot but submit to the Authority of this Doctrine as Divine Which coming from the mouths of a company of illiterate men hath not only the attestation of Miracles but reason to confirm it Since they delivered no Precepts but such as though Reason of it self had not clearly made out Yet it could not but assent to when thus discovered And think itself indebted for the Discovery The Credit and Authority our Saviour and his Apostles had over the minds of Men by the Miracles they did Tempted them not to mix as we find in that of all the Sects of Philosophers and other Religions any Conceits any wrong Rules any thing tending to their own by-interest or that of a Party in their Morality No tang of prepossession or phansy No footsteps of Pride or Vanity Ostentation or Ambition appears to have a hand in it It is all pure all sincere Nothing too much nothing wanting But such a compleat Rule of Life as the wisest Men must acknowledge tends entirely to the good of Mankind And that all would be happy if all would practise it 3. The outward forms of Worshipping the Deity wanted a Reformation Stately Buildings costly Ornaments peculiar and uncouth Habits And a numerous huddle of pompous phantastical cumbersome Ceremonies every where attended Divine Worship This as it had the peculiar Name so it was thought the principal part if not the whole of Religion Nor could this possibly be amended whilst the Jewish Ritual stood And there was so much of it mixed with the Worship of the True God To this also our Saviour with the knowledge of the infinite invisible supream Spirit brought a Remedy in a plain spiritual and suitable Worship Iesus says to the Woman of Samaria The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the True Worshippers shall worship the Father both in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to worship To be Worshipped in Spirit and in Truth With application of Mind and sincerity of Heart was what God henceforth only required Magnificent Temples and confinement to certain Places were now no longer necessary for his Worship Which by a Pure Heart might be performed any where The splendor and distinction of Habits and pomp of Ceremonies and all outside Performances might now be spared God who was a Spirit and made known to be so required none of those but the Spirit only And that in publick Assemblies where some Actions must lie open to the view of the World All that could appear and be seen should be done decently and in order and to Edification Decency Order and Edification were to regulate all their publick Acts of Worship And beyond what these required the outward appearance which was of little value in the Eyes of God was not to go Having shut out indecency and confusions out of their Assemblies they need not be solicitous about useless Ceremonies Praises and Prayer humbly offered up to the Deity was the Worship he now demanded And in these every one was to look after his own Heart And know that it was that alone which God had regard to and accepted 4. Another great advantage received by our Saviour is the great incouragement he brought to a virtuous and pious Life Great enough to surmount the difficulties and obstacles that lie in the way to it And reward the pains and hardships of those who stuck firm to their Duties and suffered for the Testimony of a good Conscience The Portion of the Righteous has been in all Ages taken notice of to be pretty scanty in this World Virtue and Prosperity do not often accompany one another And therefore Virtue seldom had many Followers And 't is no wonder She prevailed not much in a State where the Inconveniencies that attended her were visible and at hand And the Rewards doubtful and at a distance Mankind who are and must be allowed to pursue their Happiness Nay cannot be hindred Could not but think themselves excused from a strict observation of Rules which appeared so little to consist with their chief End Happiness Whilst they kept them from the enjoyments of this Life And they had little evidence and security of another 'T is true they might have argued the other way and concluded That Because the Good were most of them ill treated here There was another place where they should meet with better usage But 't is plain they did not Their thoughts of another Life were at best obscure And their expectations uncertain Of Manes and Ghosts and the shades of departed Men There was some talk But little certain and less minded They had the Names of Styx and Acheron Of Elisian fields and seats of the Blessed But they had them generally from their Poets mixed with their Fables And so they looked more like the Inventions of Wit and Ornaments of Poetry than the serious perswasions of the grave and the sober They came to them bundled up amongst their tales And for tales they took them And that which rendred them more suspected and less useful to virtue was that the Philosophers seldom set on their Rules on Men's Minds and Practises by consideration of another Life The chief of their Arguments were from the excellency of Virtue And the highest they generally went was the exalting of humane