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A48888
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The reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures
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Locke, John, 1632-1704.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing L2751; ESTC R22574
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121,736
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314
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accounted worthy to obtain that World and the Resurrection from the Dead neither marry nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more for they are equal unto the Angels and are the SONS OF GOD being the Sons of the Resurrection And he that shall read St. Paul's Arguing Acts XIII 32 33. will find that the great Evidence that Jesus was the Son of God was his Resurrection Then the Image of his Father appeared in him when he visibly entred into the state of Immortality For thus the Apostle reasons We Preach to you how that the Promise which was made to our Fathers God hath fulfilled the same unto us in that he hath raised up Iesus again As it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee This may serve a little to explain the Immortality of the Sons of God who are in this like their Father made after his Image and Likeness But that our Saviour was so he himself farther declares Iohn X. 18. Where speaking of his Life he says No one taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again Which he could not have had if he had been a Mortal Man the Son of a Man of the Seed of Adam Or else had by any Transgression forfeited his Life For the wages of Sin is Death And he that hath incurred Death for his own Transgression cannot lay down his Life for another as our Saviour professes he did For he was the Just One Acts VII 57. and XII 14. Who knew no sin 2 Cor. V. 21. Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth And thus As by Man came Death so by Man came the Resurrection of the Dead For as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive For this laying down his Life for others our Saviour tells us Iohn X. 17. Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again And this his Obedience and Suffering was rewarded with a Kingdom which he tells us Luke XXII His Father had appointed unto him And which 't is evident out of the Epistle to the Hebrews Chap. XII 2. he had a regard to in his Sufferings Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Which Kingdom given him upon this account of his Obedience Suffering and Death He himself takes notice of in these words Iohn XVII 1-4 Iesus lift up his eyes to Heaven and said Father the hour is come glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie thee As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him And this is Life Eternal that they may know thee the only true God and Iesus the Messiah whom thou hast sent I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians Chap. II. 8-11 He humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name That at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth And that every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord. Thus God we see designed his Son Christ Iesus a Kingdom an Everlasting Kingdom in Heaven But Though as in Adam all die so in Christ all shall be made alive And all men shall return to Life again at the last day Yet all men having sinned and thereby come short of the Glory of God as St. Paul assures us Rom. III. 23. i.e. Not attaining to the Heavenly Kingdom of the Messiah which is often called the Glory of God as may be seen Rom. V. 2. XV. 7. II. 7. Mat. XVI 27. Mark VIII 38. For no one who is unrighteous i. e. comes short of perfect Righteousness shall be admitted into the Eternal Life of that Kingdom As is declared 1 Cor. VI. 9. The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And Death the Wages of Sin being the Portion of all those who had transgressed the Righteous Law of God The Son of God would in vain have come into the World to lay the Foundations of a Kingdom and gather together a select People out of the World if they being found guilty at their appearance before the Judgment-seat of the Righteous Judge of all men at the last day instead of entrance into Eternal Life in the Kingdom he had prepared for them they should receive Death the just Reward of Sin which every one of them was guilty of This second Death would have left him no Subjects And instead of those Ten Thousand times Ten Thousand and Thousands of Thousands there would not have been one left him to sing Praises unto his Name saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever God therefore out of his Mercy to Mankind and for the erecting of the Kingdom of his Son and furnishing it with Subjects out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation proposed to the Children of Men that as many of them as would believe Iesus his Son whom he sent into the World to be the Messiah the promised Deliverer And would receive him for their King and Ruler should have all their past Sins Disobedience and Rebellion forgiven them And if for the future they lived in a sincere Obedience to his Law to the utmost of their power the sins of Humane Frailty for the time to come as well as all those of their past Lives should for his Son's sake because they gave themselves up to him to be his Subjects be forgiven them And so their Faith which made them be baptized into his Name i.e. Enroll themselves in the Kingdom of Iesus the Messiah and profess themselves his Subjects and consequently live by the Laws of his Kingdom should be accounted to them for Righteousness i.e. Should supply the defects of a scanty Obedience in the sight of God Who counting this Faith to them for Righteousness or Compleat Obedience did thus Justifie or make them Just and thereby capable of Eternal Life Now that this is the Faith for which God of his free Grace Justifies sinful Man For 't is God alone that justifieth Rom. VIII 33. Rom. III. 26. We have already shewed by observing through all the History of our Saviour and the Apostles recorded in the Evangelists and in the Acts what he and his Apostles preached and proposed to be believed We shall shew now that besides believing him to be the Messiah their King it was farther required that those who would have the Priviledge Advantages and
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