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A67561
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An apology for the mysteries of the Gospel being a sermon preached at White-Hall, Feb. 16, 1672/3 / by Seth, Lord Bishop of Sarum.
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Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing W815; ESTC R38484
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24,128
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100
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the Father in him That declared the Mission and Emanation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son and that always spoke of him as a person distinct And that these three are one In a word He that was the Author of these and all other Mysteries whereof we have been speaking did not put the issue of believing upon his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but upon an undeniable and unrefuseable Criterion If I do not the works of my Father believe me not but if I do though ye believe not me believe the works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye may know by Demonstration as well as believe that I am in the Father and he in me He did not only bear witness to himself although he died in testimony of his Doctrine He had not only the glorious Company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs for his Witnesses But he called Heaven and Earth to witness He subpena'd whatever was in Heaven and Earth and in the Sea and in all deep places to bear testimony to him There were three that bore witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit those three which he affirmed to be one The Angels ministred unto him The Devils trembled and fled before him Plants and Animals the Winde and Sea obeyed him The Stars in their courses or rather out of their courses militated for him To give testimony to Consummatum est at the time of his Death the Sun was eclipsed the Moon being at the Full. To indicate the place of his Nativity at the time of his Birth a new Star was made on purpose Health and Sickness Life and Death and Hades gave in their testimonies by their obedience to his word Yet once more he shook the Heavens and sent down the Holy Spirit upon his followers he shook the Earth also he tore the Rocks and opened the Graves and at his powerfull voice the bodies of the Saints arose And lest it should be said He raised others but himself he could not raise As he finished the Great Mystery of Christianity by his Death so also he proved the truth of it by his Resurrection As he died for our Sins so he rose again for our Justification for our Justification is in the Belief of that and all other the Mysteries of Christianity These and many more are heads of Arguments which whoever duly considers and understands will certainly believe the Gospel propter veritatis Evidentiam 2. It remains only to shew that whosoever doth truly believe the Gospel shall infallibly be saved Propter Bonitatis or Virtutis Excellentiam Because it is the Power of God to salvation to every one that believeth In speaking of which Argument I need not go about to prove that the Power of the Gospel is the Power of God in which respect it is called the Hand or Arm of the Lord the Sword of the Spirit the Grace of God bringing Salvation and the like Neither shall I stand upon a Comparison of the Gospel with the Grecanical or Judaical Institutions a man may believe all that ever was written by Philosophers and yet doubt whether there is or can be such a thing as Salvation yea or no. A man may believe whatever is explicitely and expresly delivered in the Law of Moses and yet not be saved But my intention is barely and nakedly this By a short Reflexion upon the Way and Method of the Actions of Mankinde and the Discoveries and Contents of the Gospel well known to those that hear me to manifest the truth of this Proposition That every man that believeth the Gospel i. e. that truly and actually abideth in that belief shall infallibly be saved Because whosoever frames his Actions according to the Rules and Principles the Precepts and Prescriptions of the Gospel shall infallibly be saved And because it is of the nature of man to frame his Actions according to his Actual and persevering Judgement and Belief The Nature and Essence of man consists in his Understanding and for a man not to follow the stedfast and constant the actual and final dictate of his Understanding is impossible in Nature and indeed implies a Contradiction He that believes that there is neither God nor Devil Heaven nor Hell Salvation nor Damnation And that he hath not an Immortal Soul i. e. a Soul to save such a man If at least he hath attained to those great accomplishments of Rudeness and Incivility will make it his business to fill up his measure of Debaucheries and Impieties will think it Brave perhaps and Witty to Blaspheme God and scoff at Religion will make it a matter of Gallantry and noble Courage and Resolution to challenge God to damn him or bid the Devil take him Body and Soul will spend his time in Revelling and Drunkenness in Chambering and Wantonness Expecting and hoping to die like a beast he will be sure to live like one And in conclusion will finde himself disappointed of this glorious hope this goodly noble manly expectation and that his Miscreancy and the errour of his Judgement hath betrayed him into eternal misery Whilest on the other side he that believes the Declarations and Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel will have his fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life He that firmly and stedfastly believes that the Soul which Actuates his body is an Immortal Being a subsistence which shall and must endure to all eternity That after Death he must appear before the Tribunal of God and Christ to answer for the things done in the body That from thence he shall be transmitted to a state either of Eternal Happiness or Eternal Misery either to be entertained in the Vision of God in the fellowship of Saints and Angels with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory Or secluded from the sight of God and treated with the Devil and his Angels with torment unconceivable unexpressible and that to all Eternity This man if he might gain all the Profits and Honours and Pleasures if he might decline all the afflictions of this world will not lose his own Soul Frustra blanditiae venitis ad hunc frustra nequitiae venitis ad hunc Considering that light and momentany things bear no proportion to the exceeding weight and moment of those which are Eternal he will forthwith endeavour to lay hold upon Eternal Life and make haste to escape the Wrath to come And to that end he will devour all difficulties and neglect no means or opportunities He that believes that the only way to Happiness is the way to Holiness That without holiness no man shall see God That no unclean thing shall enter there That the Impious the Unjust the Intemperate the Lascivious continuing so shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven This man will endeavour to purifie himself to mortifie all his carnal lusts and affections to cleanse himself from all filthiness of Flesh
alwayes will be Prejudices against the Gospel and an imagination in some persons that Ministers and Christians ought to be ashamed of it is so deplorably manifest that I need not insist upon either the proof or declaration of it That it is and hath been alwayes so it is not only the unhappy complaint of the present Age but hath been of every Age and Generation since the first Promulgation of the Gospel And that it will be so we have an infallible assurance from Christ and his Apostles That the latter dayes shall be times of Infidelity and departure from the Faith that there will be Scoffers at the Gospel and cruel Mockers we have the assurance of the Apostles St. Paul St. Peter and St. Iude. That when the Son of man shall come to judge the World he shall hardly finde Faith on the Earth we have the Prediction of our Lord Christ himself Briefly and summarily our Lord Christ in several places of the Gospel declares and supposes that many will be offended at him that they will be ashamed of him and of his words both of his Person and of his Gospel Our Apostle declares that he himself is not ashamed exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed commends Epaphroditus that he was not ashamed St. Peter exhorts those that suffered for the Gospel not to be ashamed If there had not been an imagination in the world that they ought to have been ashamed to what end were all these Declarations Commendations Exhortations concerning being not ashamed 2. I pass therefore to the second thing propounded to enquire what is the special Object of these Prejudices or what are those things contained in the Gospel whereof in an especial manner it is imagined that we ought to be ashamed Though the whole System of the Gospel lies under Prejudices yet not all parts of it alike some more than other and some by reason of the other The whole Gospel is generally dividable into 1. Historical Narrations 2. Moral Institutions and Motives 3. Dogmatical Mysteries These are delivered sometimes distinctly and severally and sometimes they are combined and mixed together That there was such a person as Christ that he was born of Mary that Ioseph was his reputed Father The manner of his Life and of his Death his Actions and his Teachings are matters meerly Historical That this reputed Son of Ioseph was indeed the Son of God conceived by the Holy Ghost born of a Virgin and the like have in them a Combination of the Mystery together with the History of the Gospel I stand not to shew how the Morality is sometimes simply delivered and sometimes in Combination with the Mysterious parts of the Gospel 1. Now concerning those parts of the Gospel which are merely and simply Historical and Moral I suppose they cannot be here intended Because that to such persons as the Romans were men pretending to Reason and Philosophy they afford no colour for an imagination that a Minister or Christian ought to be ashamed Supposing the truth of what is there delivered whereof I have spoken heretofore what was there in the Birth or Life or Death the Conversation or Actions ordinary or extraordinary of Christ or his Apostles whereof in the opinion of a Philosopher a Christian ought to be ashamed Was it the meanness of Christs Nativity That he was the reputed Son of Ioseph who was of a mean and despicable Occupation Was it that he lived an Ambulatory kinde of life teaching and disputing concerning good and evil happiness and unhappiness in the Synagogues and in the Temple and the Streets and Markets and in the Wilderness every where Preaching the Doctrine of the Kingdom Or lastly Was it because of the occasion and manner of his Death because he was Condemned and Executed by his Countrey-men upon an accusation of corrupting the People and making an Innovation in Religion upon pretence of holding intercourse with God Every one of these circumstances had been coincident in Socrates long before the time of the writing of this Epistle to the Romans He was the Son of Sophroniscus as poor a man as Ioseph a Carver of Images in Stone his Mother was a Midwife His Conversation was Ambulatory discoursing and reasoning at all times and in all places in Academia in Lycaeo in Foro in places of walking and of publick Exercise when he ate or drank or played in the Camp the Market or the Prison with all the men he met withall concerning Virtue and Vice and the summum bonum concerning Wisdom and Folly And he had been condemned and executed by the Athenians upon the very same pretences which were objected against our Saviour Yet all these disadvantages had not hindred Socrates at that time after about 500 years from the Admiration and almost Adoration of all men pretending to Philosophy and Wisdom not only amongst all the rest of the Gentile World but even amongst the Romans also And therefore the mere Historical part of the Gospel could minister no colour of suspicion why a Minister or a Christian should be ashamed of it 2. Moreover the same may be said of those parts of the Gospel which are merely Practical and Moral The Precepts concerning Piety and Justice and Temperance in all the several branches of them and the motives to them The Morality of the Gospel infinitely excells the Institutions of any of the Heathen Philosophers all that they could object against it was its too great purity and holiness that it puts a violence and stretch upon Humane Nature causing men to strain after degrees of purity and sanctity unpracticable and unattainable It excells all the Precepts and Institutes of the Jews Christ made a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even of the Moral Law of Moses and tells us that the Righteousness of Christians must exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and the Apostle comparing the entire Systems of the Mosaical and Christian Oeconomies in reference to Christian Duties and the motives to them justly pronounces that the Christian hath received a better Covenant founded upon better Promises 3. It remains therefore that the peculiar and special Object of those Prejudicate imaginations whereby it is concluded that Ministers and Christians ought to be ashamed are the Articles of mere Belief Dogmatical Mysteries of the Gospel At the expence of your time and patience in a long discourse to tell you what are the Mysteries of the Gospel were to suppose that in compliance with the barbarity of later times you had neglected to be instructed in your Catechism and had need that one should teach you what are the first Elements of Christianity My design engages me no further than only to name them and that also very briefly In the two first Chapters to the Corinthians we finde our Apostle handling this Argument largely and ex professo And there he reduces the whole mystery to two words namely the Cross of Christ he tells them