continuance in goodness to his own solitary effort or powers but to the benign and auspicious influence of the Divine grace and spirit It is he that forms in us the Life and Nature of God that makes us Holy Righteous and Good enlightning the Eyes of our Minds that we may see the inestimable riches of the Gospel and convinces us of the Truth of the Great Promises of Salvation It is He that daily by a Vital Energy purges and refines the minds of Men from all filthiness and uncleanness and consecrates their hearts as Holy Temples unto God It is he that continually burns up and consumes our unruly lusts and breathes upon the Sacred Life of God in our Souls fanning it into a flame of love that we dwell in God and God in Us. Through his mighty Power we are secured from our Spiritual Enemies leading us with a Pillar of a Cloud by Day and a light of Fire by Night till he bring us to Heaven the true Land of Canaan But in all this the Divine Spirit does not pull and draw us like stocks and stones nor offer any irresistible violence to our wills nor must we expect that God should do all the work for us while we sit still but we must do it for our selves only he has graciously promised to concur and lend us his hand and his assistance Work out your salvation says the Apostle with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his good pleasure or according to your desire that is God stands ready to help you with Power and Ability to do it according to your desire or as you desire it of him and we are to take care that we actuate that Power which of his gracious bounty he confers upon us Which very thing makes us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with God as the Apostles are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labourers together with God in the Dispensation of the Gospel Having now discovered the Great Influence of the Divine Goodness and Wisdome in the Work of Man's Salvation it remains likewise that I now shew how the Power of God has interessed and concerned it self in the same For the Apostle tells the Corinthians that he Preached Christ to them not only the Wisdome but the Power of God And again to them who are saved the preaching of the Cross is the Power of God Now this Power manifested it self 1. In raising our Blessed Saviour from the Dead Thus St. Paul says that Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the Dead that is God did own and publickly declare him to be his beloved Son in that powerful manner of raising Him from the Dead And again he calls it the mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the Dead For when the Jews had crucified our Saviour the Cause of the Gospel as to all Humane Appearance lay dead and buried with him as a lost and undone Cause insomuch that the Disciples themselves were brought to this We trusted it had been he that should have redeemed Israel so little hopes and expectations had they of a new state of things when they saw their great Master dead upon the Cross But suffering Virtue being so illustrious an object of the Divine Providence God who owned and approved our Lord Jesus all the time of his life would not now suffer his Credit and Reputation to lye at stake being dead and therefore notwithstanding the malice of the Jews and the envious diligence of the spirits of Darkness asserts and maintains the Truth of his Mission by bringing him up to life again The impious care and industry of his Enemies made the glory of our Saviour's Innocence so much the more clear and conspicuous they look upon him as an Impostor and having heard him afore speak of his Resurrection they endeavour by all means to hinder it that they might blast his Memory and bury his Honour with Disgrace therefore they roll a great Stone to the Mouth of the Sepulchre sealing it probably with the Signet of Pilate and setting a Band of Souldiers to watch about his Grave But God that loved his Son Jesus to his Death and took the care of Him when he was laid in the Grave disappointed the hopes and expectations of the Jews and made their malicious contrivances subservient Testimonies to the Truth of his Resurrection A mighty Angel comes down from Heaven at whose Presence and awful Majesty the Keepers trembled and the Earth it self was moved and rolls away the Stone and sits upon it and the stupendious Power of the Divinity shakes the Territories of Night and slumber and dismantles the Prisons of the Grave and restores to our Saviour that Life the Jews bereaved him of notwithstanding all their fraudulent Practices and Machinations A palpable Indication of the mighty and efficacious Power of God who alone can call the things that are not and quicken and enliven the Dead beyond all Humane Thoughts and Apprehensions 2. The Power of God in the Gospel has been very notable in the Destruction of the Devils Kingdom When Mankind began to apostatize from God and fall into Idolatry he gave them over to the Tyranny and Dominion of the Prince of Darkness as a just Punishment of their wilful Adhesion to his Counsels and Inspirations and for Reasons reserved in the Depth and Abyss of Divine Providence permitted all the World save that he selected himself a Church out of the Posterity of Abraham to be abused by the Devil and to lye under that servitude and slavery till the coming of Christ into the World But when the Son of Righteousness was risen the Nations of the Earth soon saw and walked in his light and the Prediction of our Blessed Saviour became verified and fulfilled in the Ruine of the Devils Kingdome whose lapse and fall was like lightning from Heaven For notwithstanding the mutual Combinations and Confederacies of the Kings and Potentates of the Earth against the Lords anointed and his Disciples and Followers notwithstanding the furious Rage of Satan in stirring up and raising many cruel and bloody Persecutions against the Church yet the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed so far that the whole Roman Empire at last became Christian whereby the Devil utterly lost his hold his Oracles being silent and his whole Worship destroyed And surely had not the Christian Religion been of God it could never have so Universally prevailed against such Potent opposition of Men and Devils The hand and Power of God was visibly and eminently discovered in the ample Diffusion and high success of the Gospel which from such weak and small Beginnings ran and was glorious captivating the Minds of Men to the obedience of Christ's Laws and bringing the World under the Scepter of his Kingdome Which Destruction of the Devils Rule and Dominion over Mankind being
THE SACRED METHOD OF Saving Humane Souls BY JESUS CHRIST By Henry Hallywell Minister of the Gospel at Ifeild in Sussex 1 Cor. II. vii But we speak the wisdome of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdome which God ordained before the World unto our Glory LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1677. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader THere are very few Books of what quality soever though it be but an ordinary Pamphlet that passes the Press without some fair bespeaking the Reader wherefore in conformity to the Custome I am to advertise Thee that the Design of these following Papers is to shew the excellency of the frame and constitution of the Gospel or that Sacred Method by which God brings Men to Heaven by his Son Jesus Christ which very thing to the considering and judicious is a testimony sufficient of the Divinity of it there being such abundant evidence of the choicest Attributes of the Deity his Goodness Wisdome and Power in the contexture of it For when I consider who is the Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy namely the Blessed Son of God that Eternal Logos who has expressed such an Infinite Wisdome in the frame of Heaven and Earth I cannot but think that what is there so largely diffused and spread abroad is as it were summ'd up and contracted into a living Image and beautiful Representation in the frame of the Gospel And certainly the Introduction of the Christian Religion and the regenerating the World by it being set off in the Scriptures by the glorious Appellative of Creation and Jesus the Blessed Author and Finisher of it stiling himself the beginning of the Creation of God i. e. of the Evangelical Dispensation the spirit of God does clearly intimate to us that the Goodness Wisdome and Power of the Divinity are more eminently and transcendently displayed in the Recovery of Mankind by the Gospel than in their first Production So that if it be a Piece of our Duty as certainly it is to think the most honourably and magnificently of the works of God's hands it were a sinful debasing that sacred Project and Contrivance which was laid before the Foundation of the World to let our conceptions of it dwindle into some poor and trifling Design and make such a pitiful Representation of it as shall be unworthy that Eternal Wisdome the Creatress of all things to interess it self withal For nothing is more sure than that the Gospel is so contrived as may most of all do honour to God and promote the welfare and happiness of Mankind And upon this Ground and Foundation I have built the following Discourse which whoever will take the pains to peruse I desire him to lay aside his Prejudices and not to charge every thing that he shall find disagreeing with his present sentiments and perswasions with the opprobrious and invidious term of Heresie For by this means it comes to pass that Religion is made only to serve an Interest and wait upon a Faction and the grand Interest of Christianity is indeed hugely disserved by such oblique Arts and unwarrantable Insinuations It shews Men indeed to be affected with a mighty Zeal but it is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that bitter zeal which the Apostle tells us is an effect of that wisdome that descends not from above but is earthly sensual devilish But I am very incurious of the censures of angry and peevish Men being secure in the sense of having endeavoured to do honour to God by begetting in Men right Apprehensions of his Nature and according to my mean Ability promoted the Offices and Duties of a Virtuous life by shewing the necessity of them in order to our everlasting Happiness And with this Advertisement I remit the Reader to the Discourse it self Farewell IMPRIMATUR Hic Liber cui Titulus The Sacred Method of c. GEO. HOOPER R mo D no Arch. Cant. à Sac. Dom. 21. Nov. 1676. THE SACRED METHOD OF Saving Humane Souls BY JESUS CHRIST THE Christian Religion is frequently called by Saint Paul a Mystery wherein it is very probable he might allude to the Mysterious Rites of the Gentile Superstition as the Eleusynia or some such secret and mysterious Actions of the Pagan Religion And in opposition to these the Apostle declares to the World a higher Mystery and teaches us that Christianity in all respects exceeds the most sacred and venerable Actions of Paganisme For although the Heathen Mystagogi pretended a high and noble design and boasted the end of their Sacred Mysteries to be the leading and conducting the Initiati to the Presence and Fruition of the worshipped Deity or in plainer terms the everlasting Blessedness of Mens Immortal Souls the sole priviledge and prerogative of the Christian Mystery the Gospel of the Son of God yet they failed infinitely in the way and means of accomplishing this so excellent a purpose the whole procedure being bottom'd upon an uncertain Foundation and doubtful evidence and no better than an Histrionical Representation brought on by those delusive Spirits who affected a Divine Honour whereby instead of perfecting and bettering they really vitiated and debauched the minds of Men and made their most recondite and sacred Rites little better than practices of Filthiness and Uncleanness In which regard the Christian Oeconomy is justly stiled by the Apostle a Mystery of Godliness whose end is not only the highest perfection of Humane Souls but every where in all its parts breathes the exactest holiness and purity of Body and Soul as the only way to attain an Immortal Blessedness and Felicity By this Mystery then of the Gospel we are not to understand a dark and intricate Riddle contrived only to amuze and dazle the minds of Men and which when explicated and unfolded has no greater likelihood of benefiting the knower than Samson's Riddle of feeding the Philistines but we are to conceive by it a sacred and recondite Method of saving Humane Souls that is of purifying their minds to such degrees and measures as may render them capable of an entrance into the highest Heavens Great is the Mystery of Godliness i. e. the Way and Method of saving Mankind by the Gospel is indeed wonderful and admirable For the sacred plot of the Gospel was not then framed or laid when it was promulgated and manifested to the World but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding from ages and generations and is expresly called by the same Apostle the mysterious and recondite wisdome of God which he ordained before the World whose projection and contrivance was from the out-goings of Eternity So that in this Affair of the Gospel we are not to look for any thing mean low and shallow but for something which may be worthy of God an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a design which may evidently and clearly display the highest Perfections of God its Author For the better illustration of which we may
consider that in the contrivance conduct and management of the Gospel there is a clear and manifest demonstration of the Infinite Goodness Wisdome and Power of God I. A manifestation of Infinite Goodness The Heavens and the Earth and all the capacities of Immense space declare an Infinite Goodness but the clearest and most sensible demonstration of it is in this Mystery of the Gospel wherein that boundless love which has dispersed it self through all the orders and degrees of life shines forth with a full and perfect lustre and glory Here it is that we behold that Love which liberally fills and sustains all things more powerfully exerting its Blessed Nature in cementing the Ruines and rearing up the Foundations of a new World for as in the first Creation an Eternal and Energetical love diffused it self in the Production of whatever was made so the same Goodness moves as it were a second time in the stupendious renovation of lapsed Souls in the Evangelical Mystery and Oeconomy Which Truth may yet receive a further Evidence by these Gradations 1. The more perfect any life is the more it desires to diffuse and communicate it self God is love says St. John and he is the highest and most perfect life now love is the most diffusive and communicative Principle in all the World and the firmer any being is radicated in love the nearer approaches it makes to that most excellent life and nature of God whose beneficence and kindness the whole Creation tastes of Self-love or the love of the Carkass the Bodily life restrains and contracts the free Exertions of the Mind and therefore the Apostle sets it as a note of degeneracy narrowness and anxiety when Men shall be lovers of themselves and corporeal pleasures in opposition to that Universal and Intellectual love which is the great Law of Rational Beings and by which our Minds are made wide as the World and carried forth in Benignity and Kindness to all the Creatures as they more or less partake of the Divine Life and Nature God is infinite Goodness and all the Creatures are but the issues and emanations of his exuberant Fecundity and Life and do more intimately depend upon him than Faculties and Actions upon the Principles from whence they flow It was not necessity or need nor any greedy and thirsty desire of receiving praise and glory from them that was the cause of the production of Men and Angels but only the Fulness of God's own Goodness which alone moved him to that chearful Approbation of the Works of his Hands when he saw his own life diffused in such variety of Beings And if we will do honour to God and speak according to our own faculties we may add life to this Demonstration from the inward sense and experience of every good Man who never finds a more inward joy and satisfaction of spirit than when he is carried out in desires and aspirations of Benignity and Kindness towards the whole Creation Nor does he look upon this as any Argument of Righteousness that he is at any time in a more happy state and condition than others for he could be willing that all the World were as happy as himself did he not see strong and evident Reasons in the wise Administration of Providence why it should not be so Something of this excellent Temper we find in those Passionate Eruptions of Spirit recorded in the Scriptures of Holy men who seem to be altogether transformed into love Blot me out of thy Book says Moses and I could be content to be accursed from Christ says St. Paul for my Brethrens sake Nay I am verily perswaded that he who is once throughly baptized into this spirit of Universal love would be contented to be eternally separated from the Presence of God so that he might be without sin if by that means the whole Intellectual Creation might be made happy Now if we can reason any thing of God from those Perfections we find in our selves we must needs conclude the highest and most perfect life to be most diffusive and communicative of it self 2. Goodness is so much the more excellent as the Objects are more noble about which it is conversant All things feel the effects of Divine Goodness according to their different Measures and Proportions and by how much the Rational life hath more objective reality than the sensitive by so much are the Emanations of Goodness of more worth and excellency communicated to the one than those diffused upon the other As a Man is a more noble Creature than a Brute so is the Goodness concerned with him higher and of greater value than that exercised upon a Beast God is the Father of Spirits and for that very Reason will not be implacable and irreconcileable to his own dear off-spring but though he chastise and scourge them for their bold and audacious revolt from his blessed Nature yet will not cast off for ever but in his sorest corrections remembers mercy Hence is that Prophetical Speech of the end of Christ's Death that it should be for the gathering together the scattered Sons of God though the Souls of Men had voluntarily forsaken God and travelled into a strange Land though their Iniquities had scattered them into far distant places from their own Home yet an everlasting Goodness followed them still and carefully sought the Reduction of those disobedient Sons of God who had divided and separated themselves from him 3. By how much the more fatal desperate and universal the evil is by so much the more glorious is the Goodness imployed in the recovery of the Creature from it Sin and wickedness is the misery not of a part only but of the whole Race of Mankind and this their Degeneracy became so fatal that it brought Darkness and Death it self upon all their better Faculties and placed them in an utter Incapacity for ever of recovering themselves by their own solitary power and effort into that state of immortality and life which sin had deprived them of Death passed upon all men says St. Paul for that or forasmuch as all have sinned So that all Mankind by their fall from God were under the Reign Dominion and Power of sin and death and out of this thraldome and captivity no Man could extricate and deliver himself whereby their condition became very deplorable and desperate But Divine Goodness that it might shew it self more conspicuously and gloriously to the World has brought on a more chearful scene of things under the Gospel rescuing Men from the Power of sin and death and delivering them from the Tyranny of the Devil through the meritorious Death and Passion of Jesus Christ who by his Glorious Resurrection hath fully declared himself a Powerful Conqueror of all his Enemies assuring Mankind of their re-enjoyment of Immortality and redeeming them from their Captivity under the Empire of Sin and Death and translating them into the peaceful Kingdome of Life and Righteousness Now as the
desperateness of the Disease magnifies the skill of the Physician so the fatal and universal Degeneracy of the Sons of Men commends the transcendent love of God in their Recovery and Redemption Greater love than this can no Man show than to lay down his Life for his Friend but herein has God commended his love to us in that while we were Enemies to God and righteousness and strangers to his life Christ dyed for us Such is that Testimony and Witness which our Saviour bears to Divine Love and Goodness every word of which is strangely emphatical So in such a wonderful and transcendent manner God the great Lord of all Beings who stands not in need of any of his Creatures but is Infinite Fulness and Happiness to Himself loved first and without any Motive or Occasion of this love given from us herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us the World not only the particular Nation of the Jews with whom formerly he entred into Covenant but the whole Race of Mankind Christ becoming a Propitiation for our sins says the Apostle the best Interpreter of himself 1 Joh. 2.2 and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole World that he gave delivered unto Death freely and that upon no other Motive or Invitation but that of his own Eternal Goodness and Love his only begotten Son not a Servant or an Angel not an adopted but his own Natural Son that Son who is one with himself and in whom he is well pleased as the obedience of Abraham was more grateful to God when he with-held not his Son his only Son from him The whole Gospel is a Design and Contrivance of Infinite Love and Goodness a palpable Pledge and Assurance of which was the sending of Jesus Christ from Heaven He that spared not his own Son says the Apostle as if he had said The delivering up of our Lord Jesus Christ to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of Men is so high a Demonstration of Infinite Love that it begets in us a confident Assurance and full Perswasion that the same goodness will not fail of bestowing upon us whatever may possibly contribute to our everlasting Happiness as far as our Natures are capable of The summe of all is this that to Infinite Goodness we owe not only the Production but the continual Preservation of our Beings not only the freeing us from a certain Misery and a just and deserved Punishment but the receiving us into grace and favour and investing us with a Happiness much bigger than our hopes and expectations even the Eternal enjoyment of Himself in Heaven And that this should be wrought and effected by Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God who left the Sacred Mansions of Heaven and veiled his Glory under a clould of Flesh and Blood and while he lived upon Earth endured the contradictions of sinners the bitter reproaches of vile and ungodly Men and at last suffered an Ignominious and accursed Death upon the Cross What is it but an everlasting Monument of Divine Goodness such a high Demonstration of Infinite Love as may well make us cry out with wonder and amazement Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 2. Secondly in the Frame and Mystery of the Gospel there is a clear Demonstration of Infinite Wisdome To them who are called says the Apostle Christ the Power and the Wisdom of God i. e. Though the preaching of the Gospel were a stumbling block to the Jews and accounted but foolishness by the Greeks the one expecting their Messiah to be an earthly Prince and dreaming of nothing but worldly Felicity and the other counting it not worth the hearing because not agreeing with the Principles of that vain Philosophy they had addicted themselves to yet to those who were docible tractable and obedient there appeared an Infinite Wisdome and an Eternal Understanding they could not look into it but they beheld as the same Apostle speaks the mysterious and recondite wisdome of God which he ordained before the World that is whose sacred plot and contrivance was not then framed or laid when it was first promulgated and manifested to the World but lay hid in the bosome of an Infinite Understanding from all Eternity 'T is true the loveliness and glory of this great Wisdome appears not so evidently to all partly from their own carelesness and negligence in not arriving to that measure and degree of Holiness which may fit and qualifie them for a clear discerning of it Hence the Apostle says that he speaks wisdome among them that are perfect such as were well grown in the practice of the Offices and Duties of Christianity such as had senses exercised to discern good and evil Heb. 5.14 and partly through the great Corruption Depravity and Degeneracy of the minds of others which put them into an utter Incapacity and Impossibility while they remain such of understanding Divine and Heavenly Truths for the natural animal or sensual man receives not the things of the spirit of God But where these Impediments are removed and the spirits of Men aptly disposed for the Reception of so great a Blessing such Persons behold with enravishment and joy the exact strokes and perfect lineaments of an Eternal Wisdome Which Wisdome appears 1. In the Admirableness of the Contrivance of the Gospel Christianity carries with it such evident Proofs of an Incomprehensible Wisdome that those sagacious Creatures the Angels imploy themselves in searching into it And surely it must needs be an admirable piece of Wisdome and a wonderful Contrivance that must draw those Blessed Creatures to look into it Now the Wonderfulness and Admirableness of the Evangelical Plot and Contrivance for the Salvation of Humane Souls shews it self 1. In finding out a way whereby God might demonstrate both his just and implacable hatred of sin and his exuberant Love and Goodness in saving Men. Sin is no part of God's Creation nor any thing of the true Nature of the Soul but an extraneous and adventitious Being brought first into the World by the Devil the great Enemy of Mankind It is the Destruction and Ruine of the Workmanship of God's own hands and being so infinitely contrary to his Sacred Life and Nature it is no wonder if he bear an irreconcileable hatred against it and seek by all means the driving it quite out of the World But although God by reason of the Infinite Purity and Holiness of his Nature could not look with any favourable eye upon sin yet his Almighty Love pitied his Creatures and his bowels yerned over them being as it were grieved and troubled at the heart that they should be miserable for ever Wherefore God through his Eternal Wisdome resolved upon a course which should both effectually extirpate and eradicate sin and evil out of the World and yet reduce those strayed souls which through it had revolted from his blessed
Life and Nature to a participation of it again And this he hath done by sending his own Son into the World to become an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of all Mankind For should God have cast Men off for ever and thrown them into Hell though he had still been Just and Righteous in his Actions and declared but a high dislike of that which his Essential Holiness could never patronize or countenance yet his Goodness and Love had not so conspicuously and gloriously appeared On the other hand should God have received the World into grace and favour forgiving their Iniquities without any previous satisfaction for sin though he might have done this without any breach of the Eternal Purity and Justice of his Nature yet he had not so sensibly affected the minds of Men with his just aversation of sin nor so effectually discovered to them his Anger and Displeasure against all evil and wickedness But now in the Death of Jesus Christ God has reconciled Goodness and Holiness Justice and Mercy punishing sin and yet saving the sinner Behold therefore and wonder at the Ineffable Goodness and Transcendent love of God! Could not Man redeem his Brother and give unto God a Ransome for him No surely for that Sacrifice that is presented and offered up to God must be without spot and blemish but when the Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men he beheld them all gone aside and become filthy so that there was not one that did good no not one But if this might not be yet could not God have declared his will to us by an Angel by a Voice from Heaven or by uniting himself to the Angelical Nature Certainly he might but none of these ways could have been with such endearing circumstances with such sensible Testimonies of dear Compassion and Benignity as enravish ingenuous Minds into sutable Returns and expressions of love Jesus Christ therefore the Delights of his Father the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image and character of his Person took flesh and dwelt among us He that was in the form of God clothed with all the Majesty and Glory of the supramundane life yet emptyed himself of all this unspeakable Felicity and took upon him the form of a Servant i. e. an Earthly or a body of flesh and blood in opposition to that state which he before called the form of God and being found in that servile scheme he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross What higher expressions of love can Humane Understandings possibly conceive than these The endearing love of Friends could never give any greater evidence of it self than that they lay down their lives one for another but such was the transcendent love of Jesus that he dyed for Rebels for Apostates from that sacred life of God to which alone the Soveraign Command and Rule both of Heaven and Earth does of right belong Behold him a Man of sorrows exposed to the envy hatred and malice of the cruel and unbelieving Jews and yet so inwardly affected with tenderness and commiseration towards them that he omits nothing which a Heart enflamed with love and compassion could do to make them happy And though God in his Eternal Wisdome foresaw the accursed Disposition of the Jewish Nation who as they had been heretofore thirsty after the blood of the Prophets and righteous Men so now would never leave till they had satiated their Revenge in the Blood of his only begotten Son yet he delivers him up into their hands for so the Apostle speaks that they had taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that was given out of the protecting hand and providence of God to the will of his Enemies A love which the Tongues of Men and Angels are never able sufficiently to express And as the Infinite love of God appears in this way of saving Men by Christ Jesus so his severity and hatred against sin is no less manifest and conspicuous for in that God spared not his own Son but delivered him up to Death it is a sufficient proof and Argument of his utter Detestation of all sin and evil No circumstance of his bitter Passion but speaks forth the heavy wrath and indignation of God against sin When he came into the Garden of Gethsemane where began the first Scene of his Tragical Passion the Scripture tells us that he was sore amazed and very heavy and this inward grief and ineffable trouble of his soul he expresses in that Passionate speech to his Disciples My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death not only extensively such as must last till Death it self do end it but likewise intensively so great as is usually at the very point of Death And whence arose this sorrow It was not out of any cowardly fear of pain and death for knowing all things that should come upon him yet with a firm constancy and sedate Resolution of mind he comes to his implacable Enemies at Jerusalem and when he was betrayed in the Garden he willingly offers himself into their hands I am he Though certain it is our Blessed Saviour bearing about him our Humane Nature was likewise subject to all the harmless Passions and affections of it and was so far from that Stoical stubbornness and insensibility that his Passive and tender Constitution filled him with grief and yielded to the fear of pain and Death Nor did his sorrow proceed from any displeasure of God against his Person for he being perfectly obedient and fully and exactly conformable to his Fathers will it could not be that he should groan under the anger and wrath of God Nor was it altogether Bodily pains that made him so but there was something extraordinary As 1. A withdrawing the sensibleness of Divine Assistance from him As the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion though not disjoyned from the World yet for a time deserted the World by withdrawing his light from it And although this withholding the sensibleness of the Divine Presence was done without any Aversation and dislike of the Person of our blessed Lord which not only before but at that very instant was tenderly beloved of God yet the Apprehension of it could not but make him bemoan his case in that sad exclamation My God my God why or how hast thou forsaken me 2. Because then all the Powers of Hell and darkness were let loose upon him The Prince of Darkness with his accursed Legions did then as we may reasonably suppose appear to him in the most affrighting and dreadful forms and by the Permission of Divine Providence exerted and tryed the utmost of their Insulting Rage in these their last and most furious Assaults the Conquest and Victory over whom being to be atchieved not by the Divine Power but by the Piety and Obedience of our Saviour he falls into an Agony and an Angel descends from
and may be consistent with the Nature of Rational Creatures and that it may appear there is nothing wanting on God's part to make them happy Wherefore those who deny to the greatest part of Mankind such a Participation of the assistance and grace of God as may place them under a capacity of obtaining Heaven seem to me to question the reality and sincerity of God's Design and Intention of saving all the World by Christ Jesus For if the purpose of God in sending Jesus Christ into the World was that he should tastâ— death for every man and that the World through him might be saved it was likewise undoubtedly a part of this purpose that they should all be qualified and impowered with such ability the faithful actuating of which should certainly attain that end for which it was designed And that God should intend the salvation of all Mankind and promulgate this his Intention and alarm the hopes and expectations of all the World and yet deny them that without which they cannot be saved is utterly irreconcileable with those apprehensions which we ought to have of the Divine Nature 2. That all Men might thereby be accountable to God No Man can be accountable for any more than he has received and if there were any number of Men to whom the Gospel were faithfully preached and the means of salvation made known and yet were always left destitute of a power and ability of believing and acting according to the prescriptions of it they would be so far from being left without excuse or having their mouths stopped that their Apology would be as reasonable as if God should expostulate with them for not creating the World or raising the Dead For if they never were so much as put â—nto a capacity of believing how can they be justly punished as Infidels But because the righteous Governor of Heaven and Earth cannot but do that which is just and equal and that all men to whom God has communicated the Gospel shall be accountable to him for it therefore we are assured that all of them at some time or other were endued with such a measure and degree of God's powerful assistance as should inable them to do what he required of them and so as he would accept of This is the condemnation says our Blessed Saviour Joh. 3.19 not that all the World was in a state of Darkness but that Light that is the Gospel is come amongst them and by It they are put into a capacity not only of discovering but of coming out of their sins and they loved darkness rather than light that is preferred the satisfaction of their own corrupt lusts before a sincere obedience to the will of God And methinks the Righteousness of God's Dispensation with Men in this kind is evidently prefigured in that Parable of the Vineyard Isai 5. which is alike applicable to the state of things under the Gospel as it was then to the Jewish Church the planting it in a fruitful soil the careful manuring and cultivation of it implying all necessary means for the increase and growth of Men in grace and vertue whereby might very well have been expected such Wine as might chear and exhilarate the heart of God and man but when after all this pains it brought forth nothing but wild Grapes then God determines upon the just destruction of it and for the Equity and Justice of this Procedure appeals to the Consciences of Men What could have been done more that I have not done But against this it is objected that if all Men under the Gospel are put into a capacity of salvation whence then comes the different entertainment of it and Why is it that all Men are not effectually convinced and wrought upon by it For the solution of this difficulty I shall return 1. That of Origen that to an effectual perswasion there is required not only that the Perswader offer such things as are apt to beget belief but likewise a sutable disposition and tractable frame in him that is to be perswaded So that the Reason why many Men do not entertain and believe the Gospel is not that the Gospel is unfurnished of perswasory Arguments or that God is wanting in any thing on his part but because they reject and refuse those things which do in others and might in them if it were not for their own obstinacy produce faith and belief As says the Father the most eloquent Orator that ever spake may perswade in vain where he meets with a stubborn and refractory disposition It is sufficient therefore that the Gospel suggests and offers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such rational Arguments and Motives as are proper to beget Belief in Moral Agents but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswasibility or the Act of being perswaded is a work of Mens own For proof of which the Father cites these Scriptures Gal. 5.8 Perswasion cometh not of him that calleth you And Isai 1.19 20. If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land but if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the Sword Which account Origen seems to have taken out of Irenaeus Facere enim proprium est benignitatis Dei fieri autem proprium est hominis Naturae Si igitur tradideris ei quod est tuum id est fidem in eum subjectionem percipies ejus artem eris perfectum opus Dei. Si autem non credideris ei fugeris manus ejus erit causa imperfectionis in te qui non obedisti sed non in illo qui vocavit 2. The Assistance and aid of the grace and spirit of God under the Gospel is not by Omnipotency or Power at large but such a concurrence as leaves to Men the liberty of their own wills as is manifest from several places of the sacred Scriptures Joh. 5.40 Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life Though our blessed Saviour spake as never Man spake and wrought such Miracles as never Man did beyond which nothing can be offered to make the Gospel credible yet those contumacious Jews would not receive him And of the Pharisees and Lawyers it is said Luk. 7.30 That they rejected the counsel of God against themselves that is the merciful purpose or design of God towards them in making provision for their salvation as well as the rest of the Jews 3. It is necessary that some allowance be made for our infirmities For though a mighty Power engage it self on our behalf yet if God should be extreme to mark what is done amiss if he should take advantage of every frailty and miscarriage who then could be saved Hence it is that our merciful God considering our frame and remembring the imperfection of Humane Nature is willing to abate and strike off much of our account upon that stock and treats with us not according to the degrees of an Angel but the measures of a Man not after the highest rigor
though condemned as a Malefactor and that I was owned and approved of God in that he visibly took me up into Heaven Which plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit in such a wonderful manner whenas he had been withdrawn from the Jews as to those extraordinary and Prophetical gifts for the space of four hundred years was a Testimony clear as the Sun that Jesus was the true Messias the beloved Son of GOD and therefore that they ought to have believed on Him 6. Lastly Christ was approved by the Spirit of Prophecy Their want of understanding and incredulity of the Prophetick Oracles was that for which our Saviour upbraided his two Disciples O Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Whereby we are informed that the Prophets had long ago given not only a character and description of the Person but of the Doctrine Death Burial and Resurrection of the Messiah and these Prophecies being so directly applicable to Jesus and to none else it was an unquestionable proof that he was the true Messiah and that the World ought to believe on him This Argument St. Peter makes use of against the Jewes To him give all the Prophets witness q.d. If you believe not us the Apostles of Jesus yet believe your own Prophets who unanimously point out and refer to this Jesus whom we preach to you And thus St. Paul pleads for the Gospel Act. 26.22 that he taught no other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come By all these several ways it is very apparent that God hath born witness to Christianity and approved and owned the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the first thing required to the credibility of the Gospel namely the Attestation of God himself 2. The Second is Rational Evidence and Conviction The most Noble Faculties of the Soul of Man are the Understanding and the Will and that Religion bear a Rational Evidence and Conviction it must be fitted with Arguments that must convince the Understanding and perswade the Will to a due Reception and entertainment of it Now the proper Object of the Understanding is Truth from whence it follows that Christianity must be true that it may be believed For the Truth of Religion I shall refer to those Learned Authors who have purposely handled that Argument and brought as clear Evidence as the thing it self is capable of And he that cannot believe without a Mathematical certainty declares himself to be very absurd and disingenuous and may upon the same grounds as well expect the same Demonstrative Evidence for the affairs of Humane life or to prove the Truth of the Chronicles of the Kings of England or France that is he is so strangely unreasonable as to desire such proof as the nature of the things will not bear though in the mean time he have the highest evidence and most unquestionable assurance of the Truth of Religion that the thing it self is capable of that is a Moral certainty For the Mind of Man may be as indubitably assured of the Truth of a Moral Proposition as of a Mathematical or Physical one although there be not the same way of Probation in all As for Example This is a self-evident Truth in Morals and needs no other light but that of its own to gain Assent That in those things which we have not seen nor experienced our selves we ought to believe them that say they have seen and experienced provided they live up to their profession and are not moved to it by secular respect Which if it be not assented to we must be Scepticks even in ordinary affairs and transactions of Humane life we must not believe there is such a Place as Constantinople nor credit any thing but our own Eyes and Ears and say in a larger sense than ever the Psalmist did that all men are lyars See more of this in Bishop Wilkins Principles of Natural Religion Now for the Will that Religion may have a full and compleat entertainment in the Soul of Man there must be something likewise to work upon that Wherefore to make a thing eligible it must have the appearance of Good that is it must have a sutableness congruity and harmony with the Intellectual Nature of Man and a tendency to promote the perfection thereof And such is the Christian Religion in its whole Frame and Contexture For let us consider who it is that owns and has interessed himself as the Blessed Author of the Evangelical Oeconomy even the Eternal Logos and Wisdome of God that Almighty Mind which has closely contracted and deeply seal'd upon all Intellectual Agents that large and diffusive wisdome that is seen in all the Parts of Heaven and Earth And to think that Christianity should be in any of its Parts unreasonable is to imagine this to be the only Unreasonable thing that ever the Divine Wisdome was the Author of and this alone of all his numerous Off-spring to be unlike the Father The Gospel does in the most intimate manner derive it self from Christ the Eternal Son of God and is especially owned and superintended by him as being the repairing that work which he alone made and which he alone can rectifie and to imagine that an Infinite Reason should propound any thing to us that were unreasonable is as fond as to say that cold can flow from fire or darkness positively ray from the bosome of light Jesus Christ did not bring a Religion into the World to perplex our minds and dazle our understandings but for the real good and behoof of the lapsed Creation to form our minds according to his own Image and to regenerate our spirits into a living nature of Truth and Righteousness which Design were utterly lost if there were not in Christianity a perfect symphony congruity and agreeableness with our Intellectual Natures Besides let any Man but consider how the Will is allured and solicited to Action and he shall find that it is then the most vigorously tempted forth when something is propounded which has a Natural sutableness and harmony with those Constitutive Principles of which we are made but on the contrary it is naturally averse to and not at all concerned with that to which it hath no vital sympathy or concord Which is an evident sign that Christianity is not only agreeable to but perfective of our Rational Powers What can be more agreeable to the true Nature of Man than Righteousness What more sutable to his higher and Diviner Faculties than Truth and Goodness These beautiful and glorious Forms shone bright in our Souls before Vice and Sin had covered and overspread them and forced our Minds into a Preternatural state Now Christianity is design'd for the Recovery of Us to our Pristine Health and Rectitude and tends to the enlargement of our better Powers and the Recovery of them from that narrow and contracted state sin and evil had brought them to Vice
the Essential wisdome of his Father and his Discourses full of Life and Power who himself was transcendently anointed with the Spirit of God and able and willing to bestow the same according as the needs and necessities of Men required yet Jesus the Author and finisher of the salvation of Men was not always succesful but oft-times that precious and Immortal seed which he sow'd fell upon a Rock and there were some that rejected the Counsel of God against themselves and Many believed not on him and others went back and walked no more with him Shall we say now that the Spirit of God did not accompany those excellent Sermons of Jesus Christ If it did his Energy and Operation was not Absolute and Unconditionate since it was repulsed and took no effect on many Or is it not rather plain that the cause lay in the stubborness and obstinacy of their own wills according as Christ himself tells the Jews I would but ye would not A like form of Speech God uses to their rebellious Ancestors Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged that is I have done my part towards it but thou wouldst not do thine Nor can I imagine if the work of Men's Conversion depended so wholly upon the Power of God that no precedent Qualifications were necessary to invite the Spirit of God to fall to work why Men's obstinate incredulity should debar Christ from working Miracles as we find it did or why he should not require a tractable frame of mind as a precedent Qualification for the exertion of his Almighty Power in the cure of spiritual as well as corporal diseases Nay the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour were so far from imagining an irresistible Power accompanying the outward Word that St. Stephen tells the Jews they did resist the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did 2. From those Arguments the Spirit of God makes use of under the Gospel wherein Men are treated with according to their Rational Natures and wrought off from Vice and sin to a firm and permanent adhesion to Virtue by kindness and love by hopes and fears by the inevitableness of impendent mischiefs and by the security of future rewards Which Oeconomy had been altogether supervacaneous if God had engaged his Omnipotent Power to make Men good Under the Gospel we are perswaded to Holiness and Righteousness by the easiness pleasantness and satisfaction of such a state to which our minds being once arrived they feel a full and entire Acquiescence and ineffable joy a Pleasure resulting from the connaturality and agreeableness of those Beautiful Forms with the inmost sense of our own Souls And because the dispositions of Mankind are various and different some being incouraged to Action out of a Principle of Gratitude and innate Nobility others not easily won but by Advantage and Interest others again not without menaces of a severe and uneasie Discipline therefore God in the Evangelical Dispensation hath interwoven the most effectual and cogent Arguments to meet with each of these tempers in Men. To the first he propounds the consideration of the Death and Passion of his only begotten Son who being in the form of God and dwelling in the Immortal Mansions of Light and Glory yet out of that dear and ineffable love and compassion which he always bare to the race of Mankind was content to banish himself from those Blessed Regions and put on our Servile Scheme being born into the World a helpless Infant subject to perpetual sorrows and afflictive circumstances leading an obscure and contemptible life befriended of few and at last dying upon that uneasie Bed of sorrows the Cross that so his Death might be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the World Which cannot but enravish every Ingenuous Breast and fill it with the highest and most faithful love to so kind and compassionate a Saviour But there being almost as few of this sort of Men as there were of old of those that embraced Virtue for it self and esteemed it eligible though divested of all appendant Rewards therefore that Eternal Wisdome which has interessed it self in the Frame and Conduct of the Gospel propounds an advantageous Portion to the sincere and unblameable Professors of Piety and Holiness and assures them that their labour shall not be in vain but that their sorrows shall find refreshment their hardships and difficult enterprises ease and pleasure and their faithful Perseverance in Righteousness be recompenced with the Happiness of possessing glorified and Immortal Bodies in the highest Heavens And if it shall happen the minds of Men to be deaf to all the charms of Gratitude and Advantage to the Allectives of good Nature and Interest and there be no way left to awake them out of their stupidity but by the Voice of Thunder then Jesus Christ the Soveraign of Men and Angels is represented to Us in Scripture coming in the Clouds of Heaven attended with Thousands of Angels to take Vengeance on those that have not known God nor obeyed his Laws and Commands And by his Powerful Operation the Seeds and Principles of Fire shall be excited and that quick and Active Element insinuate and pervade all the Commissures and Parts of the Earth and a Deluge of Flame as once of Waters shall overspread the Face of the World Into which sulphureous and burning Lake the Devil and his Angels and all those who in this life delight in wickedness and cast the fear of God behind their backs shall be plunged to Eternal Ages These are the Arguments which are dispersed up and down and urged in the Holy Scriptures as so many tyes and bands to engage us to a faithful and peremptory prosecution of the indispensable Laws of Righteousness and Truth and which as well in their own Nature as in the manner and way of their Proposal do evidently declare that they are not fatal and necessary but moral Instruments of propagating and diffusing the Life and Nature of God and as all other Rational means of Perswasion may by an obstinate and perverse spirit be slighted and contemned And certainly the Nature of the thing it self requires it should be so for if the whole conduct of Mens souls in order to their salvation were nothing but the effects and emanations of a peremptory and uncontrollable Power there would be no place left for those large Encomium's of Wisdome in this great affair Wisdome being Inventrix Mediorum and then most of all discovers its excellency in fixing and determining upon such ways as shall operate effectually and yet congruously and agreeably to the Nature of Men Moral Agents requiring Moral Instruments to allure and invite them to Action But lest any Man should carelesly mistake me and think that what I have said tends to the invalidating and weakning our belief of the Powerful Assistance of the Spirit of God I do confidently affirm That no Man ought or can attribute his beginning progress and