the Work for which he hath sent me To confirm them in this Faith and to enable them to do such Works as he had done he promises them the Holy Ghost Iohn XIV 25 26. These things I have said unto you being yet present with you But when I am gone the Holy Ghost the Paraclet which may signifie Monitor as well as Comfortor or Advocate which the Father shall send you in my Name he shall shew you all things and bring to your remembrance all things which I have said So that considering all that I have said and laying it together and comparing it with what you shall see come to pass you may be more abundantly assured that I am the Messiah and fully comprehend that I have done and suffered all things foretold of the Messiah and that were to be accomplished and fulfilled by him according to the Scriptures But be not filled with grief that I leave you Iohn XVI 7. It is expedient for you that I go away For if I go not away the Paraclet will not come unto you One Reason why if he went not away the Holy Ghost could not come we may gather from what has been observed concerning the Prudent and wary carriage of our Saviour all through his Ministry that he might not incur Death with the least suspicion of a Malefactor And therefore though his Disciples believed him to be the Messiah yet they neither understood it so well nor were so well confirmed in the belief of it as after that he being crucified and risen again they had received the Holy Ghost And with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit a fuller and clearer Evidence and Knowledge that he was the Messiah And were enlightned to see how his Kingdom was such as the Scriptures foretold though not such as they till then had expected And now this Knowledge and Assurance received from the Holy Ghost was of use to them after his Resurrection when they could then boldly go about and openly Preach as they did that Iesus was the Messiah confirming that Doctrine by the Miracles which the Holy Ghost impowered them to do But till he was dead and gone they could not do this Their going about openly Preaching as they did after his Resurrection that Iesus was the Messiah and doing Miracles every where to make it good would not have consisted with that Character of Humility Peace and Innocence which the Messiah was to sustain if they had done it before his Crucifixion For this would have drawn upon him the Condemnation of a Malefactor either as a stirrer of Sedition against the Publick Peace or as a Pretender to the Kingdom of Israel And hence we see that they who before his Death preached only the Gospel of the Kingdom that the Kingdom of God was at hand As soon as they had received the Holy Ghost after his Resurrection changed their stile and every where in express words declare that Iesus is the Messiah that King which was to come This the following words here in St. Iohn XVI 8-14 confirm Where he goes on to tell them And when he is come he will convince the World of Sin Because they believed not on me Your Preaching then accompanied with Miracles by the assistance of the Holy Ghost shall be a Conviction to the World that the Iews sinned in not believing me to be the Messiah Of Righteousness or Justice Because I go to my Father and ye see me no more By the same Preaching and Miracles you shall confirm the Doctrine of my Ascension and thereby convince the World that I was that Iust One who am therefore ascended to the Father into Heaven where no unjust Person shall enter Of Iudgment Because the Prince of this World is judged And by the same assistance of the Holy Ghost ye shall convince the World that the Devil is judged or condemned by your casting of him out and destroying his Kingdom and his Worship where ever you Preach Our Saviour adds I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now They were yet so full of a Temporal Kingdom that they could not bear the discovery of what a kind of Kingdom his was nor what a King he was to be And therefore he leaves them to the coming of the Holy Ghost for a farther and fuller discovery of himself and the Kingdom of the Messiah For fear they should be scandalized in him and give up the hopes they had now in him and forsake him This he tells them v. 1. of this XVI Chapter These things I have said unto you that you may not be scandalized The last thing he had told them before his saying this to them we find in the last Verses of the precedent Chapter When the Paraclet is come the Spirit of Truth he shall witness concerning me He shall shew you who I am and witness it to the World And then Ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning He shall call to your mind what I have said and done that ye may understand it and know and bear Witness concerning me And again here Iohn XVI after he had told them they could not bear what he had more to say he adds v. 13. Howbeit when the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth and he will shew you things to come He shall glorifie me By the Spirit when he comes ye shall be fully instructed concerning me And though you cannot yet from what I have said to you clearly comprehend my Kingdom and Glory yet he shall make it known to you wherein it consists And though I am now in a mean state and ready to be given up to Contempt Torment and Death So that ye know not what to think of it Yet the Spirit when he comes shall glorifie me and fully satisfie you of my Power and Kingdom And that I sit on the right hand of God to order all things for the good and increase of it till I come again at the last day in fulness of Glory Accordingly the Apostles had a full and clear sight and perswasion of this after they had received the Holy Ghost And they preached it every where boldly and openly without the least remainder of doubt or uncertainty But that they understood him not yet even so far as his Death and Resurrection is evident from v. 17 18. Then said some of the Disciples among themselves What is this that he saith unto us A little while and ye shall not see me And again a little while and ye shall see me and because I go to the Father They said therefore what is this that he saith a little while We know not what he saith Upon which he goes on to Discourse to them of his Death and Resurrection and of the Power they should have of doing Miracles But all this he declares to them in a Mystical and involved way of speaking as he tells them himself v. 25. These things
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
Law are a Law unto themselves Which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their Consciences also bearing witness and amongst one another their thoughts accusing or excusing By which and other places in the following Chapter 't is plain that under the Law of Works is comprehended also the Law of Nature knowable by Reason as well as the Law given by Moses For says St. Paul Rom. III. 9. 23. we have proved both Iews and Gentiles that they are all under sin For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Which they could not do without a Law Nay whatever God requires any where to be done without making any allowance for Faith that is a part of the Law of Works So the forbidding Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge was part of the Law of Works Only we must take notice here That some of God's Positive Commands being for peculiar Ends and suited to particular Circumstances of Times Places and Persons have a limited and only temporary Obligation by vertue of God's positive Injunction such as was that part of Moses's Law which concerned the outward Worship or Political Constitution of the Jews and is called the Ceremonial and Judaical Law in contradistinction to the Moral part of it Which being conformable to the Eternal Law of Right is of Eternal Obligation and therefore remains in force still under the Gospel nor is abrogated by the Law of Faith as St. Paul found some ready to infer Rom. III. 31. Do we then make void the Law through Faith God forbid yea we establish the Law Nor can it be otherwise For were there no Law of Works there could be no Law of Faith For there could be no need of Faith which should be counted to men for Righteousness if there were no Law to be the Rule and Measure of Righteousness which men failed in their Obedience to Where there is no Law there is no Sin all are Righteous equally with or without Faith The Rule therefore of Right is the same that ever it was the Obligation to observe it is also the same The difference between the Law of Works and the Law of Faith is only this that the Law of Works makes no allowance for failing on any occasion Those that obey are Righteous those that in any part disobey are unrighteous and must not expect Life the Reward of Righteousness But by the Law of Faith Faith is allowed to supply the defect of full Obedience and so the Believers are admitted to Life and Immortality as if they were Righteous Only here we must take notice that when St. Paul says that the Gospel establishes the Law he means the Moral part of the Law of Moses For that he could not mean the Ceremonial or Political part of it is evident by what I quoted out of him just now where he says The Gentiles that do by nature the things contained in the Law their Consciences bearing witness For the Gentiles neither did nor thought of the Judaical or Ceremonial Institutions of Moses 't was only the Moral part their Consciences were concerned in As for the rest St. Paul tells the Galatians Cap. IV. they are not under that part of the Law which v. 3. he calls Elements of the World and v. 9. weak and beggarly elements And our Saviour himself in his Gospel-Sermon on the Mount tells them Mat. V. 17. That whatever they might think he was not come to dissolve the Law but to make it more full and strict For that that is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is evident from the following part of that Chapter where he gives the Precepts in a stricter sense than they were received in before But they are all Precepts of the Moral Law which he reinforces What should become of the Ritual Law he tells the Woman of Samaria in these words Iohn IV. 21. 23. The hour cometh when you shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him Thus then as to the Law in short The Civil and Ritual part of the Law delivered by Moses obliges not Christians though to the Jews it were a part of the Law of Works it being a part of the Law of Nature that man ought to obey every Positive Law of God whenever he shall please to make any such addition to the Law of his Nature But the Moral part of Moses's Law or the Moral Law which is every where the same the Eternal Rule of Right obliges Christians and all men every where and is to all men the standing Law of Works But Christian Believers have the Priviledge to be under the Law of Faith too which is that Law whereby God Justifies a man for Believing though by his Works he be not Just or Righteous i. e. though he came short of Perfect Obedience to the Law of Works God alone does or can Justifie or make Just those who by their Works are not so Which he doth by counting their Faith for Righteousness i. e. for a compleat performance of the Law Rom. IV. 3. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness v. 5. To him that believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness v. 6. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works i. e. without a full measure of Works which is exact Obedience v. 7. Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered v. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin This Faith for which God justified Abraham what was it It was the believing God when he engaged his Promise in the Covenant he made with him This will be plain to any one who considers these places together Gen. XV. 6. He believed in the Lord or believed the Lord. For that the Hebrew Phrase believing in signifies no more but believing is plain from St. Paul's citation of this place Rom. IV. 3. where he repeats it thus Abraham believed God which he thus explains v. 18-22 who against hope believed in hope that he might become the Father of many Nations According to that which was spoken so shall thy seed be And being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness By which it is clear that the Faith which God counted to Abraham for Righteousness was nothing but a firm belief of what God declared to him and a steadfast relying on him for the accomplishment of what he had promised Now this says
have heard it out of his own mouth And That had been his Publick Doctrine to his followers Which was openly preached by the Apostles after his Death when he appeared no more And of this they were accused Acts XVII 5-9 But the Iews which believed not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company and set all the City in an uproar And assaulted the House of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people And when they found them Paul and Silas not they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the Rulers of the City crying these that have turned the World upside down are come hither also whom Jason hath received And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caefar saying that there is another King one Iesus And they troubled the People and the Rulers of the City when they heard these things And when they had taken Security of Jason and the other they let them go Though the Magistrates of the World had no great regard to the talk of a King who had suffered Death and appeared no longer any where Yet if our Saviour had openly declared this of himself in his Life-time with a train of Disciples and Followers every where owning and crying him up for their King the Roman Governour of Iudea could not have forborn to have taken notice of it and have made use of their Force against him This the Jews were not mistaken in and therefore made use of it as the strongest Accusation and likeliest to prevail with Pilate against him for the taking away his Life It being Treason and an unpardonable Offence which could not scape Death from a Roman Deputy without the Forfeiture of his own Life Thus then they Accuse him to Pilate Luke XXIII 2. We found this fellow perverting the Nation and forbidding to give Tribute to Caesar saying that he himself is the Messiah a King Our Saviour indeed now that his time was come and he in Custody and forsaken of all the World and so out of all danger of raising any Sedition or Disturbance owns himself to Pilate to be a King after having first told Pilate Iohn XVIII 36. That his Kingdom was not of this World And for a Kingdom in another World Pilate knew that his Master at Rome concerned not himself But had there been any the least appearance of truth in the Allegations of the Jews that he had perverted the Nation forbidding to pay Tribute to Caesar or drawing the People after him as their King Pilate would not so readily have pronounced him Innocent But we see what he said to his Accusers Luke XXIII 13 14. Pilate when he had called together the Chief Priests and the Rulers of the People said unto them You have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the People and behold I having examined him before you have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof you accuse him No nor yet Herod for I sent you to him and lo nothing worthy of death is done by him And therefore finding a man of that mean Condition and innocent Life no mover of Seditions or disturber of the Publick Peace without a Friend or a Follower would have dismissed him as a King of no consequence as an innocent man falsely and maliciously accused by the Jews How necessary this Caution was in our Saviour to say or do nothing that might justly offend or render him suspected to the Roman Governour and how glad the Jews would have been to have any such thing against him we may see Luke XX. 20. The Chief Priests and the Scribes watched him and sent forth spies who should feign themselves just men that might take hold of his words that so they might deliver him unto the Power and Authority of the Governour And the very thing wherein they hoped to entrap him in this place was paying Tribute to Caesar which they afterwards falsely accused him of And what would they have done if he had before them professed himself to have been the Messiah their King and Deliverer And here we may observe the wonderful Providence of God who had so ordered the state of the Jews at the time when his Son was to come into the World that though neither their Civil Constitution nor Religious Worship were dissolved yet the Power of Life and Death was taken from them Whereby he had an Opportunity to publish the Kingdom of the Messiah that is his own Royalty under the name of the Kingdom of God and of Heaven Which the Jews well enough understood and would certainly have put him to Death for had the Power been in their own hands But this being no matter of Accusation to the Romans hindred him not from speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven as he did Sometimes in reference to his appearing in the World and being believed on by particular Persons Sometimes in reference to the Power should be given him by the Father at his Resurrection And sometimes in reference to his coming to Judge the World at the last day in the full Glory and completion of his Kingdom These were ways of declaring himself which the Jews could lay no hold on to bring him in danger with Pontius Pilate and get him seized and put to Death Another Reason there was that hindred him as much as the former from professing himself in express words to be the Messiah and that was that the whole Nation of the Jews expecting at this time their Messiah and deliverance by him from the Subjection they were in to a Foreign Yoke the body of the People would certainly upon his declaring himself to be the Messiah their King have rose up in Rebellion and set him at the Head of them And indeed the miracles that he did so much disposed them to think him to be the Messiah that though shrouded under the obscurity of a mean Condition and a very private simple Life and his passing for a Galilean his Birth at Bethlehem being then concealed and he not assuming to himself any Power or Authority or so much as the Name of the Messiah yet he could hardly avoid being set up by a Tumult and proclaimed their King So Iohn tells us Chap. V. 14 15. Then those men when they had seen the Miracles that Iesus did said This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the World When therefore Iesus perceived that they would come to take him by force to make him King he departed again into a Mountain himself alone This was upon his feeding of Five Thousand with five Barley Loaves and two Fishes So hard was it for him doing those miracles which were necessary to testifie his Mission and which often drew great multitudes after him Mat. IV. 25. to keep the heady and hasty multitude from such Disorder as would have involved him in it and have disturbed the course and cut short the time of his Ministry and drawn on him the Reputation
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
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
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