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
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
Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man i. e. The lame man restored by Peter stand here before you whole This is the stone which is set at nought by you builders which is become the head of the Corner Neither is there Salvation in any other For there is none other name under Heaven given among men in which we must be saved Which in short is that Iesus is the only true Messiah Neither is there any other Person but he given to be a Mediator between God and Man in whose Name we may ask and hope for Salvation It will here possibly be asked Quorsum perditio hoec What need was there Of a Saviour What Advantage have we by Iesus Christ It is enough to justifie the fitness of any thing to be done by resolving it into the Wisdom of God who has done it Whereof our narrow Understandings and short Views may utterly incapacitate us to judge We know little of this visible and nothing at all of the state of that Intellectual World wherein are infinite numbers and degrees of Spirits out of the reach of our ken or guess And therefore know not what Transactions there were between God and our Saviour in reference to his Kingdom We know not what need there was to set up a Head and a Chieftain in opposition to The Prince of this World the Prince of the Power of the Air c. Whereof there are more than obscure intimations in Scripture And we shall take too much upon us if we shall call God's Wisdom or Providence to Account and pertly condemn for needless all that that our weak and perhaps biaffed Vnderstandings cannot Account for Though this general Answer be Reply enough to the forementioned Demand and such as a Rational Man or fair searcher after Truth will acquiesce in Yet in this particular case the Wisdom and Goodness of God has shewn it self so visibly to common Apprehensions that it hath furnished us abundantly wherewithal to satisfie the Curious and Inquisitive who will not take a Blessing unless they be instructed what need they had of it and why it was bestowed upon them The great and many Advantages we receive by the coming of Iesus the Messiah will shew that it was not without need that he was sent into the World The Evidence of our Saviour's Mission from Heaven is so great in the multitude of Miracles he did before all sorts of People which the Divine Providence and Wisdom has so ordered that they never were nor could be denied by any of the Enemies and Opposers of Christianity that what he delivered cannot but be received as the Oracles of God and unquestionable Verity Though the Works of Nature in every part of them sufficiently Evidence a Deity Yet the World made so little use of their Reason that they saw him not Where even by the impressions of himself he was easie to be found Sense and Lust blinded their minds in some And a careless Inadvertency in others And fearful Apprehensions in most who either believed there were or could not but suspect there might be Superiour unknown Beings gave them up into the hands of their Priests to fill their Heads with false Notions of the Deity and their Worship with foolish Rites as they pleased And what Dread or Craft once began Devotion soon made Sacred and Religion immutable In this state of Darkness and Ignorance of the true God Vice and Superstition held the World Nor could any help be had or hoped for from Reason which could not be heard and was judged to have nothing to do in the case The Priests every where to secure their Empire having excluded Reason from having any thing to do in Religion And in the croud of wrong Notions and invented Rites the World had almost lost the sight of the One only True God The Rational and thinking part of Mankind 't is true when they sought after him found the One Supream Invisible God But if they acknowledged and worshipped him it was only in their own minds They kept this Truth locked up in their own breast as a Secret nor ever durst venture it amongst the People much less amongst the Priests those wary Guardians of their own Creeds and Profitable Inventions Hence we see that Reason speaking never so clearly to the Wise and Vertuous had never Authority enough to prevail on the Multitude and to perswade the Societies of Men that there was but One God that alone was to be owned and worshipped The Belief and Worship of One God was the National Religion of the Israelites alone And if we will consider it it was introduced and supported amongst that People by Revelation They were in Goshen and had Light whilst the rest of the World were in almost Egyptian Darkness without God in the World There was no part of Mankind who had quicker Parts or improved them more that had a greater light of Reason or followed it farther in all sorts of Speculations than the Athenians And yet we find but one Socrates amongst them that opposed and laughed at their Polytheism and wrong Opinions of the Deity And we see how they rewarded him for it Whatsoever Plato and the soberest of the Philosophers thought of the Nature and Being of the One God they were fain in their outward Professions and Worship to go with the Herd and keep to the Religion established by Law Which what it was and how it had disposed the mind of these knowing and quick-sighted Grecians St. Paul tells us Acts XVII 22-29 Ye men of Athens says he I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious For as I passed by and beheld your Devotions I found an Altar with this Inscription TO THE VNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you God that made the World and all things therein seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands Neither is worshipped with mens hands as though he needed nay thing seeing he giveth unto all life and breath and all things And hath made of one Blood all the Nations of Men for to dwell on the face of the Earth And hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their Habitations That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel him out and find him though he be not far from every one of us Here he tells the Athenians that they and the rest of the World given up to Superstition whatever Light there was in the Works of Creation and Providence to lead them to the True God yet they few of them found him He was every where near them yet they were but like People groping and feeling for something in the dark and did not see him with a full clear day-light But thought the Godhead like to Gold and Silver and Stone graven by Art and man's device In this state of Darkness and Error in reference to the
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
Nature Whose Perfection lay in virtue And if the Priest at any time talked of the Ghosts below and a Life after this it was only to keep Men to their Superstitious and Idolatrous Rites Whereby the use of this Doctrine was lost to the credulous Multitude And its belief to the quicker sighted who suspected it presently of Priest-craft Before our Saviour's time the Doctrine of a future State though it were not wholly hid yet it was not clearly known in the World 'T was an imperfect view of Reason Or perhaps the decay'd remains of an ancient Tradition which rather seemed to float on Mens Phansies than sink deep into their Hearts It was something they knew not what between being and not being Something in Man they imagined might scape the Grave But a a perfect compleat Life of an Eternal duration after this was what entred little into their thoughts and less into their perswasions And they were so far from being clear herein that we see no Nation of the World publickly professed it and built upon it No Religion taught it And 't was no where made an Article of Faith and Principle of Religion till Jesus Christ came Of whom it is truly said that he at his appearing brought light and immortality to light And that not only in the clear Revelation of it And in instances shewn of Men raised from the Dead But he has given us an unquestionable assurance and pledge of it in his own Resurrection and Ascention into Heaven How hath this one truth changed the Nature of things in the World And given the advantage to Piety over all that could tempt or deter Men from it The Philosophers indeed shewed the beauty of Virtue They set her off so as drew Mens Eyes and approbation to her But leaving her unendowed very few were willing to espouse her The generality could not refuse her their esteem and commendation But still turned their Backs on her and forsook her as a match not for their turn But now there being put into the Scales on her side An exceeding and immortal weight of Glory Interest is come about to her And Virtue now is visibly the most enriching purchase and by much the best bergain That she is the perfection and excellency of our Nature That she is her self a Reward and will recommend our Names to future Ages is not all that can now be said for her 'T is not strange that the learned Heathens satisfied not many with such airy commendations It has another relish and efficacy to perswade Men that if they live well here they shall be happy hereafter Open their Eyes upon the endless unspeakable joys of another Life And their Hearts will find something solid and powerful to move them The view of Heaven and Hell will cast a slight upon the short pleasures and pains of this present state and give attractions and encouragements to Virtue which reason and interest and the Care of our selves cannot but allow and prefer Upon this foundation and upon this only Morality stands firm and may defy all competition This makes it more than a name A substantial Good worth all our aims and endeavours And thus the Gospel of Jesus Christ has delivered it to us 5. To these I must add one advantage more we have by Jesus Christ and that is the promise of assistance If we do what we can he will give us his Spirit to help us to do what and how we should 'T will be idle for us who know not how our own Spirits move and act us to ask in what manner the Spirit of God shall work upon us The Wisdom that accompanies that Spirit knows better than we how we are made and how to work upon us If a wise Man knows how to prevail on his Child to bring him to what he desires Can we suspect that the Spirit and Wisdom of God should fail in it though we perceive or comprehend not the ways of his Operation Christ has promised it who is faithful and just And we cannot doubt of the Performance 'T is not requisite on this occasion for the inhancing of this benefit to enlarge on the frailty of our Minds and weakness of our Constitutions How liable to mistakes how apt to go astray and how easily to be turned out of the paths of Virtue If any one needs go beyond himself and the testimony of his own Conscience in this point If he feels not his own errors and passions always tempting and often prevailing against the strict Rules of his Duty He need but look abroad into any Age of the World to be convinced To a Man under the difficulties of his Nature beset with Temptations and hedged in with prevailing Custom 't is no small encouragement to set himself seriously on the courses of Virtue and practise of true Religion That he is from a sure hand and an almighty arm promised assistance to support and carry him through There remains yet something to be said to those who will be ready to Object If the belief of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah together with those concomitant Articles of his Resurrection Rule and coming again to Judge the World be all the Faith required as necessary to Justification to what purpose were the Epistles written I say if the belief of those many Doctrines contained in them be not also necessary to Salvation And if what is there delivered a Christian may believe or disbelieve and yet nevertheless be a Member of Christ's Church and one of the Faithful To this I Answer That the Epistles were written upon several occasions And he that will read them as he ought must observe what 't is in them is principally aimed at find what is the Argument in hand and how managed if he will understand them right and profit by them The observing of this will best help us to the true meaning and mind of the Writer For that is the Truth which is to be received and believed And not scattered Sentences in Scripture-Language accommodated to our Notions and Prejudices We must look into the drift of the Discourse observe the coherence and connexion of the Parts and see how it is consistent with it self and other parts of Scripture if we will conceive it right We must not cull out as best suits our System here and there a Period or a Verse as if they were all distinct and independent Aphorisms and make these the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith and necessary to Salvation unless God has made them so There be many Truths in the Bible which a good Christian may be wholly ignorant of and so not believe which perhaps some lay great stress on and call Fundamental Articles because they are the distinguishing Points of their Communion The Epistles most of them carry on a Thread of Argument which in the stile they are writ cannot every where be observed without great Attention And to consider the Texts as they stand and bear a part
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