Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A58795
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The Christian life. Part II wherein the fundamental principles of Christian duty are assigned, explained, and proved : volume I / by John Scott ...; Christian life. Part 2
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Scott, John, 1639-1695.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing S2050; ESTC R20527
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226,080
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proposed by God to perswade us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2. Cor. 7.1 So also the Doctrine of our future Punishment is levell'd against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men Rom. 1.18 And as for those Doctrines which concern the Transactions of our Saviour they are all proposed to us as Arguments to perswade us to Piety and Vertue For 't was for this cause that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 't was for this purpose that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 't was for this end that he rose from the dead that thereby he might prevail with us to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 and 't is for this end that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God that thereby he might encourage us to come to God by him Heb. 7.2 and in a word for this cause he hath told us he will come to Judgment to reward every man according to his works that thereby he might stir us up to Sobriety and Vigilance and to all holy conversation and Godliness Mat. 24.42 compared with 2 Pet. 3. verse 11. Thus you see all the Doctrines of Religion are only so many Topics of divine Perswasion whereby God addresses himself to our Hope and Fear and every other Affection in us that is capable of Perswasion to excite us to comply with the eternal Obligations of Morality and there is no one Article in all our Religion that is matter of mere Speculation or that entertains our Minds with dry and empty Notions that have no Influence on our Wills and Affections For since the Design of Religion in General is to bind and fasten our Souls to God we may be sure that there is no Part of it but what doth in some measure contribute hereunto Since therefore 't is moral Goodness that God chiefly recommends to us by the Perswasions of Religion we may be sure that what his Arguments do chiefly perswade us to that his Commands do chiefly oblige us to II. FROM Scripture it is also evident that the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion is to improve and perfect men in moral Goodness We find the Jewish Religion exceedingly abounded with positive Precepts for such were all those sacred Rites and Solemnities of which the Bark and Outside of that Religion consisted of all which 't is true what the Psalmist saith of Sacrifices in particular thou desirest not Sacrifices thou delightest not in burnt Offerings Psal. 51.16 that is thou takest no delight in them upon the score of any internal Goodness that is in them but desirest them merely as they are instituted means and Instruments of Moral Goodness For so many of the Rites of the Mosaic Law were instituted in opposition to the Magical Vnclean and Idolatrous Rites of the Eastern Heathen As particularly that Prohibition of sowing their Fields with mingled Seed Lev. 19.19 in Opposition to that Magical Rite which the Heathens used as a Charm for Fructification So also that Command of sprinkling the Blood of their Sacrifices upon the Ground like Water and covering it with Dust in Opposition to that Idolatrous Rite of gathering the Blood into a Trench or Vessel and then sitting round it in a Circle whilst they imagined their gods to be licking it up And to name no more of this kind the Prohibition of seething a Kid in his Mothers Milk Exod. 23.19 was in Opposition to a Custom of the Ancient Heathen who at the Ingathering of their Fruits were wont to take a Kid and seeth it in the milk of its Dam and then in a Magical Procession to sprinkle all their Trees and Fields and Gardens with it thereby to render them more fruitful the following Year Besides all which you may find a World of other Instances in Maimonides More-Nevoch lib. 3. who tells us that the Knowledg of the Opinions and Customs of these Eastern Heathens was porta magna ad reddendas praeceptorum causas the great Rationale of the Mosaic Precepts and that multarum legum rationes causae mihi innotuerint ex cognitione fidei rituum Cultus Zabiorum i. e. that by being acquainted with the opinions and customs of those Eastern Heathens he understood the grounds and reasons of many of the Laws of Moses More-Nevoch lib. 3. cap. 29. So that tho these Precepts were not Moral yet were they set up as so many Fences by God to keep his People from stragling into those Heathen Immoralities AGAIN there are other Rites of their Religion which were instituted to shadow out the Holy Mysteries of the Gospel the great Design of which Mysteries was to invite and perswade men to comply with the eternal Laws of Morality Thus their Laws of Sacrifice were instituted to represent to them the great Transactions of their future Messias his Incarnation and immaculate Life his Death and Resurrection Ascension and Intercession at the right hand of God So also their Festival Laws and particularly their Laws of Jubilee were made to shadow out the Doctrines of our Redemption and eternal Life and their powring out Water in their Sacrifices and their Ritual Purgations from uncleanness were intended for obscure Intimations of the Effusion of the holy Spirit and the Doctrine of Remission of Sins all which Doctrines carry with them the most pregnant Invitations to Piety and Vertue Lastly THERE are other Rites of that Law which were appointed to instruct them in Moral Duties For God finding them not only a perverse but a dull and sottish People as those generally are that have been born and bred in Slavery apprehended that the most effectual way to instruct them would be by Signs and material Representations even as Parents do their Children by Pictures And accordingly in Isaiah 28.10 he tells us that he gave them line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little with a stammering tongue i. e. he look'd upon them as Children and so condescended to their Weakness and spake to them in their own Dialect And this way of instructing them by outward and visible Signs being much in use in the Eastern Countries and more especially in Egypt whose manners they were infinitely fond of was of all others the most probable and taking And accordingly a great part of the Jewish Rites consisted of Hieroglyphics or visible Signs by which their minds were instructed in the Precepts of Morality Thus by Circumcision God signified to them the necessity of mortifying their unchast Desires by their Legal Washings he intimated to them their Obligation to cleanse themselves from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit yea this as St. Barnabas in his Epistle tells us was the Intent of all that Difference of Meats in the Jewish Law which pronounced Swines flesh unclean to instruct them
that being far off from him they are out of his reach and beyond the Danger of his Thunderbolts and that he is too far removed from them either to succour them when they want his Aid or to punish them when they deserve his Displeasure which must needs extinguish both their Hope and Fear which are the Master-Springs of their Religion And tho we should believe him to be present with us yet unless we also believe that he hath a full Inspection into all our Actions and Affairs we shall have no Regard to him For if he sees not into our Affairs how can he succour and relieve us And if he cannot relieve us to what end should we hope in him depend upon him or pray to him And unless he hath a perfect Insight into all our Actions how should he reward or punish us and if he cannot reward us what should encourage if he cannot punish us what should terrifie us to our Duty to him But if we look upon him as a Being that is always with us and where ever we are surrounds us wirh his boundless Presence that includes and penetrates every part of our Substance sees into our inmost Thoughts and Purposes and ransacks every Corner of our Souls with his allseeing Eye and hath a through and perfect Prospect of all our Affairs and Concerns we cannot without infinite Force to our Reason forbear fearing and reverencing serving and adoring him IV. To fasten the Obligations of Religion upon us it is also necessary that we believe that God continually orders and disposes of all things that he is the Spring of all the Motions of this great Machine of the World that sets every Wheel and Cause agoing and by his all-commanding Influence maintains directs and over-rules their Motions and that there is nothing happens in the World whether by Nature or Chance or Design but by his Ordination and Disposal that even those natural Causes which are necessarily determined to such particular Courses and Effects are influenced and conducted by him and that whensoever they stray from their Courses suspend or precipitate their Motions or move counter to their natural Tendencies it is by his Order and Direction that 't is he who drives and guides the heavenly Bodies impresses the Degrees and chalks out the Paths of their Motions and by his own Almighty Hand turns round those stupendous Wheels in a perpetual Revolution For so the Scripture tells us that he makes his Sun to shine upon the good and bad Mat. 5.45 that it is at his Beck and Command that those vast Bodies of Light exhale the Vapours of the Earth and Sea and dissolve them down again in Hail and Rain and Snow For so we are told that 't is he who covers the Heavens with Clouds and prepares the Rain for the Earth that sends forth his Commandment unto the Earth and giveth Snow like Wool and scattereth the hoar Frost like Ashes and casteth forth his Ice like Morsels and sendeth forth his Word and melteth them and causes the Wind to blow and the Waters flow Psalm 147.8 15 16 17 18. that the Fire and Hail and Snow and Vapours and stormy Winds do fulfil his Word Psalm 148.8 And in a word that 't is by his Order and Influence that the Earth sends up its Sap into the Seeds and Roots of Herbs and Corn and Plants and causes them to spring and grow and that all Animals do propagate their Kind and still replenish the Store-houses of Nature for so we are told that he cloaths the Grass of the Field and arrays the Lillies in all their glory Mat. 2.28 29 30. and that he causes the Grass to grow for the Cattel and Herb for the use of Man that he may bring forth Food out of the Earth Psal. 104.14 AND then as for fortuitous and casual Events which depend upon Accidental and irregular Causes as a Mans being hit with an Arrow let fly at random or brained with a Stone falling from the Top of an House we must believe that they are all ordered directed and over-ruled by God so as that to him there is nothing casual or contingent and tho there are many things happen of which there was no Necessity in their immediate Causes yet do they as necessarily depend upon the Will and Power of the first Cause of all as the Rising and Setting of the Sun and Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea So that how fortuitous soever these things may be in respect of the Design and natural Tendency of second Causes yet none of them ever happen besides the Purpose and Intention of God who foresees and designs them before they come to pass and directs and levels them to his own most wise and holy Ends and Purposes For so the Arrow which the Soldier let fly at Random was levelled by God at Ahabs Breast so that his Death was Chance in respect of the Soldier who shot the Arrow but Design in God who directed it and accordingly Prov. 16.33 we are told that the Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And so in the Case of Chance-Medley when a Man accidentally kills another without any Design or Intention tho it be mere Accident in him 't is Council and Design in God who as the Scripture expresses it delivers the Man he slays into his Hand Exod. 21.13 And then Lastly As for those Events which happen by the Design of free and rational Agents it is necessary we should believe that they are all over-ruled by God too that whatever befalls us in this World whether it be by the good or ill Design of Men or Angels is for good and just and holy Ends either permitted or determined by the sovereign Disposer of all Events so that without his wise Permission or Determination neither Angels nor Men nor Devils can do us either good or hurt that every good thing we receive from them only passes to us through their Hands from God and that they are only the Channels and Conveyances of the overflowing Streams of his infinite Bounty and that when ever we suffer any ill from them they are but the Rods in Gods Hand wherewith he chastens and corrects us that he hath the over-ruling Disposal of all the Ills which they inflict upon us and can render their Stings a Sovereign Balm and their ranckest Poyson Medicinal to us so that their Malice being in Gods Disposal can effect nothing but what he will have it and if it doth us hurt 't is his Executioner but if he pleases it shall do us good and like Leaches applied by a skilfull Physician shall draw away our Disease while it is sucking our Blood For so God made the Malice of Joseph's Brethren the means of his Advancement in Egypt and by the Covetousness of Judas and Cruelty of the Jews advanced the holy Jesus to his own right Hand and executed his Purpose to redeem Mankind Thus God over-rules the Actions of Men