obtains so his Kingdom comes with effect and when it shall rest universally upon his Followers then shall come salvation and strength the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ Rev. 12.10 c. 11.15 for the Kingdoms of the World shall become his and he shall reign for ever and ever This is the Summ and Accomplishment of all these glorious Prophecies concerning the Kingdom of the Messiah That the Knowledge of the Lord shall fill the Earth as the Waters cover the sea Isa 11.4 The plentiful effusion of this spirit upon the primitive Christians made them hope for the speedy accomplishment of these Predictions and speak of the perfection of Christ's Kingdom as near at hand But so great a Reformation was a work of time and Christ had foretold not only a failing of the spirit of Christianity but a reviving of the Kingdom of darkness an Apostasie from the Faith such a return of the ejected prejudices and depravation of Religion as should undermine the very Foundations 1 Tim. 4.1 c. and subject men again to the ignorant infidelity anxious Superstition abominable Idolatry and foolish Lusts of the benighted Pagans But that himself in due time will again set up his Kingdom and restore to his Followers 2 Tim. 1.7 the spirit of power of love and a sound mind make truth righteousness and peace to reign and so break the Empire of Satan that he shall never be able to erect it more In the mean while he hath left with us his Heavenly Doctrine and holy Life as an Antidote against those delusions which are the passages to and the very Sinews and Strength of Satan's Kingdom whether Pagan or Antichristian and powerfully to inculcate the contrary truths which constitute the genuine Spirit of Christianity building men up into the Image of God and into the Glorious Kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ First Sensuality and the Love of Sin is the inlet of errour the root and sap of false Religion but Purity and the Love of Righteousness inculcated in the Doctrine and Life of Jesus is the Friend of Truth and Wisdom and the way to be filled with the knowledge of God. They who love their Lusts cannot love the truth that is contrary to them nor endure the light that discovers their vile deformities An impure mind is unmeet to receive the knowledge of a pure and holy God and a guilty mind cannot bear it The effect of such knowledge upon impure spirits is dread and that quickly converts into Superstition For a guilty Conscience like a drowning man that catches hold of every twig embraces every expedient offered to compound with an offended God and will do any thing to please save only the rendring that holy obedience that he requires of him If atonement may be made by Sacrifice the Altars shall flame and smoke continually their Flocks and Herds be all devoted they will make if possible Rivers of Oyl to run from the Sacrifices yea they will not spare their own Bowels but give the fruit of their body Mich. 6.6 an expiation for the sin of their Soul. They will not fail to build Temples and adorn Shrines nor to visit them devoutly nor think much of a costly and painful devotion if they may have but hope to fatisfy God for the arrears they are in to his Justice And when they have labour'd it hard they begin to hope it may do and that God will surely be pleas'd that they have done so much to gain his favour 2 Thess 2.11 And just it is with God to send them strong delusion and give them over to the belief of lies who loved not the truth nor were obedient to it But the Spirit of Obedience is the Spirit of Children to be followers of God makes us dear to him and the doers of his will shall know the Doctrine this is the Lesson which Christ inculcates A pure mind hath a lively perception of truth is very apprehensive of Errours dishonourable to God and that deface his Image and such purity it is that the Doctrine and Life of Jesus travel to produce all Knowledge is of no further value than as ministring to proceeding from or accompanied with it All the Sacrifices of the wicked are declared an abomination but the delight of God is in those that love him and do his Commandments for they shall be loved of God he will manifest himself unto Joh. 14.21 22 23. and make his abode with them Secondly Sense and Imagination Fondness for external shew and pomp is the way of Superstition and false Religion but the love of spiritual worship and a rational service is the spirit of Christ and that way of his Kingdom God is a Spirit and chiefly to be worshipped with ours And although so long as we are cloathed with Flesh our Religion must have a Body as well as Soul yet by an uninstructed fondness for the Bodily part Men have ever departed from God into dotage and superstition and rendred themselves a prey to the powers of darkness This is the mistake of the vulgar especially or of Souls as mean and unimproved as theirs though hang'd with better trappings By this fondness for representation pomp and solemnity the Patriarchal Rites which were few and grave grew up at length into a theatrical and magnificent Religion that required a great Ministry and a huge body of Rubricks for the exact performance of it For now the height and magnitude and shape of the Altar the number of its steps and horns and innumerable things of like sort entred into Religion and exercised the servile Superstition of the Worshipper At this door came in Images with all their train of Foppish and Idolatrous Ceremonies and became stumbling blocks to the souls of men and snares to the feet of the unwise the singular diligence of the Artificer helping forward the ignorant to more superstition This devising of Idols was the beginning of spiritual Fornication the invention of them the corruption of life Wisd 14. The proneness of the Jews to revolt unto the way of the Heathen the fondness of those that became Christians for their old Rites whether of Paganism or Judaism the great multitude of these early obtaining in the Christian Church together with the necessity that the Apostles and first Reformers found of indulging for a time the accustomed Rites and Ceremonies these are convincing demonstrations of the power of this Childish fondness for somewhat sensible and pompous in Religion and of the danger of falling into false Religion by multiplying Rites to the subverting of spiritual worship or laying the stress of Religion on such bodily service But Christianity teacheth a spiritual worship and rational service viz. that of the Mind illuminated with true Knowledge and quickned with a lively sense of God and referring all unto him And the very bodily part is either the spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise or the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments
against the most pernicious errours and restoring true Religion as they are contain'd in the Sermons and occasional Discourses of Jesus recorded by the Evangelists and by considering how Jesus inculcated and abetted this holy truth as a pattern to us how we should hold and profess and propugne such his Doctrine Secondly By exhibiting the true spirit and genius of the Christian Life and Practice collected from the Example of Jesus And that first By drawing the great lines of his Life as the admirabâ—â— pattern of ours Secondly By appâ—ying the light of this Example for oâ—r Instruction in the necessity nature extent and excellency of true holiness Thirdly By shewing what obligation and encouragement the Life of Christ contains to render us followers of him concluding with an Exhortation to that purpose THE PATTERN Of Pure and Undefiled RELIGION CHAP. I. Containing the Principles of Christian Doctrine JEsus being a Teacher sent from God Sect. 1 to restore true Religion levell'd his Doctrine principally against those Errours contrary thereunto which yet Mankind was very prone to fall into and inculcated those prime and fundamental truths which make up the genuine Spirit constitute the Essence and are as it were the Informing Soul of true and undefil'd Religion As First Concerning the Nature and Government of God. He that lay in the bosome of the father Joh. 1.18 hath reveal'd him to us Whom Men rather conceived of as a powerful than as a good Being a God of wrath and the object of their dread rather than a God of perfect Wisdom and Goodness the object of their love and holy imitation One whom they might possibly appease by Gifts and atone by servile performances little apprehending in the mean while that He was most easy to reconcile and forward to do them good and sufficiently pleased if they were but willing to be made happy by him This was the degenerate and mis-shapen notion of God that inform'd the Religion of the World and render'd it servile superstitious unsavoury and uncomfortable As for the Jews God was their King and they consider'd him as the Lord of their Hosts dreading his Power and limiting his goodness Whilst they reverenc'd his Sanctuary hallow'd his Sabbaths and paid his tyth and oblations they were safe under his Almighty Protection and to them possibly he might make some allowance and bear with the transgressions of his peculiar people but the Nations of the World they look'd upon as the people of his Wrath and either devoted to destruction or not regarded by him who whatever goodness he had in his nature had appropriated that to the Jews only Jesus therefore who hath shew'd us plainly of the Father inculcates worthy apprehensions of God teaching us to conceive of him as the Father of Mercies as kind to the unthankful and freely good towards all and that Universal Love the most generous and fervent Charity the most tender Bowels of Pity these are his true Image and make us like God the children of our Father which is in Heaven Math. 5.44 He therefore tells the Jews that God loved not them only but the whole World and that to such degree as he sent his only Son into it for the Salvation of all that should become willing to be saved by him Joh. 3.16 That He came to seek and save that which was lost and that Repentance and remission of Sins should be preach'd in his Name to All People without exception Luk. 24.47 that God is gracious and reconcileable in his nature and that there is Joy in Heaven at the conversion of a sinner Luk. 15.7 10. In a word the true notion of God is that he is indeed to be Reverenc'd for his excellent Greatness but that he is especially to be loved for his Goodness as being the excellent pattern of all that is good and original of all perfection whom to know is Life Eternal to be like him is to be as perfect as we are capable and to see God our supream felicity and that Vision is the portion of his Children that strive to imitate the Being they Adore and Love that Copy out his Purity his Righteousness and Mercy they shall be blessed for they shall see God Mat. 5. such are the excellent notions of God which the Doctrine of Christ inspires banishing those narrow and stingy mean and servile conceptions of him that had infected the minds and vitiated the Religion of Jews and Gentiles and which Mankind are exceeding prone to fall into Secondly Jesus in his preaching Sect. 2 did especially inculcate the truth of divine Worship with what things God is pleas'd and what is the Worship and Homage he requires of us dispelling the gross Ignorance and dangerous Errours both of the Jews and Gentiles God he tells them is a Spirit and will be worshipped in spirit and truth with the Mind and Soul without shadows and ceremonies Joh. 4.23 as he will not be honour'd with Images so he little regardeth any external performances That he values neither place nor time but every where and at all times he will have Men call upon him holding up pure hands with sincere and fervent minds That he preferreth Mercy to Sacrifice and is only glorify'd by our being fruitful in good works Joh. 15.8 that the Gentile Image-worship was abominable and the Jews Ceremonies trifles and the Pharisaick superstition intolerable with God. To turn Religion into noise and shew to place it in Fringes and Phylacteries in distinguishing opinions or unprofitable speculations in regard to Altars and Shrines to difference of meats and days and such like Traditions of Men this was an offence and scandal that moved the Spirit the meek and gentle Jesus and made him reprove sharply and lash severely the abetters of it Math. 23. Especially they having advanced these trifles and superstitions into the place of Justice Mercy and Faith and the greater things of the Law and made void the Commandments of God through their traditions There is nothing our Saviour tells us entring into the Man that can defile him in the estimate of God but the evil things that proceed out of the heart these defile the man Mark 7.18 nor can any thing on the other hand avail him but what proceeds from a mind full of God and is a genuine fruit of the true knowledge of him That true Religion and true Happiness its natural issue consist in and are the results of a due temper of mind the poor in spirit the penitent Mourners the meek Math. 5.3 c. the merciful the pure and peaceable these are the true Worshippers and truly happy Men. That God needeth not our Prayers to inform him of our wants or to move his pity nor are we heard the sooner for our much speaking but that our due apprehensions concerning God and humble confidence in him fervent application of our Soul towards him and a ready obsequiousness to his Will these render us capable of his Blessings and secure them to us
ut jam tumens saeviens placaretur Caecil in Minut. Foelic And with the Philosophers themselves their most labour'd Discourses did not conclude strongly but inferred only a feeble hope and a disputable probability They proved Man capable of Immortal Happiness but a mind overgrown with corruption depress'd with guilt and a terrible dread of the Divine Majesty could not strongly conclude that God will finish that Capacity and confer so great a Blessing nay could scarce entertain a thought or desire of it God therefore sent his Son from Heaven that he might bring life and immortality to light to make a plain discovery of the important truths relating to Eternal Life and to make Faith of them in an easy and convincing method rational and sure in it self and yet aptly accommodated to the meanest understandings God hath pledged his veracity for the truth of what Jesus taught in this matter by the Miracles which he and his followers wrought and confirmed our Faith by raising him from the dead His Resurrection is a demonstration of the possibility and certainty of ours and a pledge of his coming to judge the World. And if we believe not we make God a Lyar because we receive not the Record that God gave of his Son and this is the record that God hath given to us Eternal Life and this life is in his Son 1 Joh. 5.11 12. Moreover the Declaration of the Divine Goodness and the propitiation and redemption through the bloud of Jesus by exciting our love of God and creating a hope in him do facilitate our Belief of this his gracious Promise how vast soever the contents of it be Thirdly It was also necessary in order to the restoring of true Religion to reveal and declare the object of Worship the true but to the generality of Mankind unknown God whom they served not at all or ignorantly worshipped The service of innumerable Patron deities as immediate superintendents of humane affairs had jostled out the service of the supream God who had no publick offices nor proper Rites appropriated to him and the worship of wrong objects alienated the minds of the Worshippers from the true one They served Creatures so much more than the Creator and gave his glory in such sort unto them that 't was impossible for understandings so anxiously superstitious and given to Idolatry strongly to intend the true Deity or to retain any tolerable knowledge of him The worship proper to God was rendered to Angels or Heavenly Intelligences and to the Sun Moon and Stars their reputed Seats or Temples to Aerial Spirits the Messengers and Ministers of the Celestial ones and to Baalim or the Cannonized Ghosts of departed men and such too according to the report of their own Writers whose Lives had nothing worthy of God in them And what was still worse the Spirits of darkness these Enemies of God and Man exacted divine honours from their ignorant Vassals who offered to them the dearest pledges of their Lives and Fortunes they sacrificed their Sons and Daughters unto Devils Psal 106.37 They served these with mournful barbarous cruel and unnatural Rites as authors of evil they atoned them that they might not hurt His ne noceant c. Arnob. adv gent. l. 7. or might drive evil from them Yea they pay'd their homage not only to intelligent beings but to Images and Shrines to inanimate and irrational Creatures to bruit Beasts and to the most vile and mischievous of them to Dogs Oppida tota canem venerantur c. Juvenal Sat. 15. and Serpents and Crocodiles Yea they superstitiously venerated every thing that look'd high or great or strange lofty Trees thick Groves and dark Grots great Rivers Lakes and Ponds were regarded as having Divinity in them Lucus frequens arboribus altissimis specus in magnam laxitatem excavatus animam quâdam Religionis suspicione percutient Magnorum fluminum capita veneramur Stagna quaedam vel opacitas vel immensa altitudo sacravit Senec. Epist 41. To such madness doth superstition indulged carry men to such reprobation of mind are they liable who depart from the spiritual service of God and by sensible objects of worship change his Glory into a Lye who first serve the Creature beside and then more than the Creator who is Blessed for ever Whilst the minds of men were thus debased with unworthy and distracted with various objects of worship God set up his memorial with the people of Israel and taught them to direct their worship aright to the Maker of all things the Possessor of Heaven and Earth Who also was the God that redeem'd them from Aegyptian Slavery by terrible wonders and a mighty power that appeared gloriously on Mount Sinai that went before them in the Pillar of Cloud and Fire that afterwards sat down between the Cherubims as on a Throne and dwelt in the Temple as in a Royal Palace the God and King of Israel The Laws he gave and the Rites he appointed them had this name intent to be signs and bands of unity between God and them to direct their worship to the true object and to restrain them from wandring after the Gods of the Nations that were round about them But as this remedy was appropriated to one people so neither did it effectually cure their Idolatry but they continued still fond of the way of the Heathen and made frequent Apostasies into it God therefore in the fullness of time sent out of his Bosom his Son That Eternal Word and Prince of Angels neither unbegotten like God nor created like Man who unites the Creator and the Creature and is the Mediator betwixt them as Philo describes him Phil. Jud. lib. de Haered rer divin This eternal Lord and Heir of all things who presided over the Israelites in the Cloudy Pillar who appeared to Moses and the Elders on the Mount burning with Fire who exhibited a glorious presence in the Tabernacle and Temple and delivered infallible Oracles from between the Cherubims he in the fullness of time tabernacled in our Flesh and dwelt among men as one of them and exhibited a more true and divine Sheckina or presence for his glory was as became the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth Joh. 1.12 In him the Father was manifested and revealed by him who hath expresly commanded all men to repent of their Idolatry and to worship God only to direct their Prayers to God in Heaven and not to seek him in any symbol on Earth nor through any medium but that of his Eternal Son Heb. 1.3 Colos 2.9 Joh. 10.30 39. who is the brightness of his glory the express image of his person in whom the Godhead dwells the Father being in him and he in the Father so that the Father and he are one Right reason confesseth the Unity of God inasmuch as he being supream knows no equal and being All-sufficient needs no Partner and necessity of Existence can't
him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth 1 Joh. 1.6 If we walk contrary to his Example we frustrate the design of his appearance we reproach the Wisdom of God that sent us from Heaven this Light of Life and if he had not come and spoken to us it had been far better for us for then we had had no Sin in comparison of that heavy load of guilt that will sink and crush every ungodly and wicked Professor of the Christian Name But if we would adorn our Profession and honour the Author and reap the Fruits of it we must walk as Children of the light Ephes 5.8 or as we are exhorted Rom. 13.12 Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the Armour of Light let us walk honestly as in the day not in Rioting and Drunkenness not in Chambering and Wantonness not in Strife and Envying but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fullfil the Lusts thereof And that to enforce the Apostle's Exhortation with his own Argument knowing the time Rom. 13.11 that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our Salvation nearer than when we believed That the time is coming when the Members of Christ shall be universally filled with his Spirit and our Blessed Lord be more worthily imitated by and glorified in his Saints is an Article of the pious Belief and hope of good Christians The Prophecies concerning the excellent effects of his holy Religion have not yet had their accomplishment in any tolerable sense and yet are too plain to be any other ways evaded than as the Jews may equally avoid the Predictions from whence we prove that the Messiah is already come For it is not enough to say with them that our selves are in the fault that the Prophecies cannot be accomplished and hinder the production of that beautiful Issue which Christianity according to the Divine Predictions labours and travels withal For those Prophecies are express that it shall be delivered of that happy Birth and bring forth by the Power of God. Who will set his hand to this work and cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up and cleanse the iniquity of his people and cause the Captivity of Judah and Israel to return and bring them health and cure by revealing unto them the abundance of peace and truth Jer. 33.6 7 8 14 15 c. For behold the days come saith the Lord that I will perform that good thing which I have promised and this Prediction as it follows is sure as the Covenant of the day and night firm and irreversible as the Ordinances of Heaven and Earth This Epiphany of the Branch and Reign of Righteousness Truth and Peace the New Testament-Prophecies teach us to expect at the close of the Christian oeconomy as the Consummation and finishing Scene thereof When Christ shall plead his own Cause against the powers of darkness against Sin and Satan which have hitherto reigned and so break their Empire in pieces that it shall never be able to erect it self more And now to infer the Conclusion this Salvation is nearer than when we believed Rev. 14.15 18 19. the night of Pagan and Antichristian darkness is far spent the Harvest of the Reformation is already past and we have encouragement to hope the Vintage is approaching when all the Grapes of Sodom shall be gathered and cast into the Wine-Press of the wrath of God when Christ shall intirely purge his holy Religion from all depravation and inspire all that profess it with the true Spirit and fill them with the genuine Fruits thereof Hebr. 10.24 Let us therefore consider our selves and one another to provoke to love and good works so much the more as we see that day approaching By a diligent conforming our selves to the mind and life of Christ shewing forth the Excellencies of his Spirit and Conversation we shall prepare the way of the Lord and walk as those that look for and love his appearance By this we shall verify our Prayers that his Kingdom may come and confirm in our selves and others the hope of its approaching For when the Spirit that rested on Christ shall abide on the generality of his Followers and his Life be manifested in theirs then shall our blessed Saviour be satisfied concerning the travel of his Soul and glorified in his Saints Then shall his Kingdom come as we daily pray and his Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Amen Even so come Lord Jesus for thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever FINIS