dare affirm if all this be true that Justification as it is opposed to the accusation of the Law its charging us with Guilt and its passing sentence of Condemnation against us thereupon doth not admit a proper sense in the whole Scripture but must every where be construed Metaphorically and that the import of it is not that we are properly and in a Law-sense justified but that such benefits accrue to us by Remission of sin as if we were so According to the sentiments of our Author we are only pardoned but by reason of some Allusion betwixt the Advantages redounding to us by Forgiveness and the priviledges immunities and benefits which ensue upon a proper justification we are therefore Metaphorically said to be justified It were to bid defiance to the Scripture in a hundred places to say that we are not at all justified yet in effect their Principles imply no less For by stating the whole of our assoilment from the accusation of the Law in Remission they indeed say that we are not justified only we are improperly said to be so because of some Correspondence betwixt the one and the other in the exceeding great and excellent Benefits which by Forgiveness of sin redound to us Justified in a proper sense we are not only the Name of Justification is transferred to Remission of sin because of some Analogy in the Effects and Consequences of the one to the other This our Author is so ingenuous sometimes as to acknowledg for he tell 's us That to affirm that the Merit of Christs Death is ours to free us from the Guilt and Punishment of our sins and his Active Obedience to the Will of God his Righteousness is ours for our Justification consists in the wresting of Metaphorical Expressions to a proper Sense Let the Candid Reader now judg who they are that exercise their Wits in finding out Metaphorical Senses in the plainest Scriptures and in perverting the clearest Texts into Metaphors and Allegories and who not daring openly to decry and renounce the Gospel take a course to undermine it They proclaim us guilty when indeed they themselves are the chief Criminals And accuse their Brethren at adventure without ever considering that the Charge returns upon themselves CHAP. III. Of the Vnion of Believers with Christ. SECT I. I Am come at length to the ventilation of that which I principally designed and which in my undertaking to accost Mr. Sherlock I had chiefly in prospect And as I am not without hope that what hath been tendred upon the former Themes will not be altogether displeasing so I reckon that what is now to be discoursed will both receive Light and be sustained as well by treating as the arranging them in the order I have done Nor is it only Matter of complaint to find the received Doctrines of the whole Christian as well as Protestant Church publickly impeached and arraigned but 't is matter of wonder how by persons nor only living in the Communion of an Orthodox Church but enjoying great emoluments by virtue of their station and interest therein it comes both to be so and to be connived at by those whose Duty it is upon many accounts to express their resentment To suffer those principles which we not only believe but superstruct our hope and comfort upon to be publikely invaded because in the opposition given to them the reputations of those are endeavoured to be abated whom for other causes we think we have reason to dislike is not an allowable Apology before Men much less will it serve as a just plea before God To permit the Articles of our Belief not only to be questioned but contradicted and run down with all the Satyr and Contempt that can be imagined meerly because some of the Non-conformists are at the same time made the Triumph of their Derision and Drollery who do so is not wisely done to say no worse of it For by the publication of such Discourses under the stamp of their Authority who are entrusted with the Care Defence and Preservation of Religion and through the universal connivance of the Fathers and Dignitaries of the Church since their Publick venting it cannot be otherwise expected but that the Church of England in general will come to be reputed guilty of the Principles asserted and even such as are Innocent will be made to suffer in the esteem of the World amongst the Nocent Especially Forreigners who can take no other measure of the whole but what they draw from the approved Writings of particular and Individual members no whole having any existence but what it hath in its parts will be tempted to judg otherwise of the Church of England than is either for her Interest or Honour that they should And besides whilst these New Doctrines stand propagated under the countenance and security of an Imprimatur there is little likelyhood that the heats and ruptures between Them and dissenting Brethren should be extinguished or made up but that instead thereof they will grow to be further enflamed and widened There is no man how modest or zealous of peace soever he be who will much care to maintain Communion with that Church that hath both departed from her own established Doctrine and that of the whole Catholick Church also 'T is a very incongruous Method of promoting Unity and an odd way of providing for the safety of the Church to suffer persons of known Learning Holiness Gravity and Moderation and such as dissent from her only in matter of Formes of Ecclesiastical Government and Rites and Modes of Worship to be treated with all the Scorn Contempt and whatever else the Fall of Adam hath stained the World with and all this for any thing that yet appears meerly for maintaining her own anciently received and yet Legally estalished Doctrine Were the matter controverted only Scholastical niceties or enquiries of lesser Moment yet it were both for their own Honour who manage them the Interest of the Church where their concernment lyes that they should be debated with Candour and Modesty And that mutual esteem and Charity of affections might be preserved under different apprehensions of judgment And that though the Opinions were not Reconcileable yet there might no Variance arise through invidious representations of one another betwixt the persons differently sensing How much also the Church of England by suffering her publick Articles and established Doctrines to be assaulted by any of her Members who hath but the pride and boldness to do so exposeth her self to the clamour of the Papists is easy to be conjectured For hereby she retains no common standard of Religion by which it may be understood what she holds And this if I be not misinformed hath been mustered up by a Romanist urged in a private Discourse to a Person of Learning beyond the possibility of a satisfying Reply Did the Fathers and Dignitaries of the Church only resolve on this Neutrality till the Non-conformists were worded or
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual And as I have endeavoured to regulate all my Conceptions by Scripture and Reason so whatever Proposition shall be made appear to lye in a Repugnancy to these I am ready openly to retract it If any shall attaque these Discourses with Reviling Reproachful Language I do declare before-hand that I reckon my self superseded from Replying I will combat no man at these weapons nor do I think it a reputation 〈◊〉 any to Rail how much in Fashion soever it is though he should be able to do it in fine Language How often Mr. Sherlock hath contradicted himself and by what falsifications he hath imposed Principles on the Non-conformists which they never held how he treats the Sacred Writers with as much contempt as he doth T. W. and Burlesques the Scripture no less than others have done Virgils Poems how he hath renounced the Doctrine of the Church of England and borrowed his Glosses on the Bible as well as his Dogmatical Notions from the Socinians how Illogical he is in all his deductions and slandereth his Adversaries by undue Inferences should have been the Theme and Argument of this Preface and accordingly I had digested Materials for it but the Book being swell'd to too great a bulk already and there being others engaged against the same Author within whose Province these things must needs lye as having undertaken the arraignment of his whole Discourse I do wave the prosecution of them all at this time And shall detain the Reader no longer than to tell him that since the Printing off the first Chapter which treats of the Interest of Reason in Religion there is come to my hands a Treatise of Humane Reason in which there are many iâ—l things though as it often happens they be well said I know not an Opinion more pernicious in its Consequences than that Men may be as safe in the Event by embracing Turcism as Christianity and as secure of happiness in their Errours as others are in the Truths which they do espouse Should Persons conspire to overthrow all Revelation they could not fall upon a Method more likely to effect it than by endeavouring to persuade the World that there are things equally as strange in the Bible as in the Alcoran 'T is enough that our Reason may serve us if duely attended to and pursued to discern that this or that Religion is false nor are we therefore to be judged Innocent because we neglect the Exercise of it in making the Discovery No man can embrace a false Religion but by a Criminal Deviation from Reason and who will admit one Transgression to take Sanctuary in another That whole Treatise proceeds upon a false Hypothesis namely that as mens belief of the Scripture is owing to the conduct of Reason so they may disbelieve it by the same Guidance Corrupt Ratiocinations are recommended by the Name of Humane Reason and being once cloathed with this Livery every Foolery as well as Abomination appeals to them if not for its justification at least for its being but a Venial offence No man ceaseth to be an Offender in Morals nor doth he therefore deserve pardon because he hath the concurrence of his judgment in what he does Though no man can chuse or prosecute what his understanding continues to represent to him as Evil yet its failâ—ur in point of duty neither alters the Essential Nature of things nor makes his condition more safe for acting under the conduct of it Some men would have no restraint laid upon their Vnderstandings because they will submit to none in their lives and they would have their corrupt Ratiocinations in Doctrinals as Venial as they seem in reference to Manners to presume the gratifying of their Lusts to be 'T is to be hop'd that for the undeceiving such as are already imbu'd with the principles of it and for the preventing others from being â—ainâ—ed and inveigled some one or other will bring the whole under an Examen In the interim I shall adventure to say that 't is as weak in regard of the Reasonings which occur in it as it is pernicious in its tendency Farewell THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in Religion INtroduction 1. Motives influencing to the handling of this subject 2. The Import of Reason 3. What 's meant by Religion 4. The serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the Existence of a Deity with an account of the Topicks on which it proceeds 5. It s usefulness in proving the Divinity of the Scripture with the several Media which it makes use of to this purpose 6.7 Of the Authority of the Scripture as emerging from its Divine Original 8. Our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God Divine and Infallible seeing built upon Media that are so 9. The serviceableness of Reason in our attaining the sense and meaning of the Word with an account of the Measures which we are herein to be guided by 10. Of Scripture-Consequences and the usefulness of Reason in making the Deductions 11. What appertains to Reason in reference to Doctrines which besides the Foundation they have in Revelation have also evidence in the Light of Nature this exemplified with respect to the Immortality of the Soul and the certainty of Providence 12. The concernment of Reason in defending the whole of Religion from the Clamors and Objections of Gainsayers 13. Nothing contradictious to Right Reason to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith Many things obtruded for Principles of Reason which are not so The prejudice done Religion by mistaken Philosophy pursued and declared in various instances 14. CHAP. II. Of the Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors THe Inducements upon which some men endeavour to discharge all Disputes in and about Religion The Grounds of their Quarrelling at Metaphors with an account of the reasons of my discoursing this Theme 1. No Forms of speech used by the Holy Ghost but what are proportioned to the end for which they are made use of The Bible adorned with all sorts of Figurative Expressions Some fancy more Tropes in the Bible than there are Mr. Sherlock among others guilty of this 2. The Nature of a Metaphor what Tropes it hath affinity with the Rules and Lines by which it is distinguished from them 3. The Reason why God who doth all things according to infinite sapience hath so often adopted Metaphorical Terms to declare himself and the Things of his Kingdom in and by 4. When an Expression is to be accounted Metaphorical 5. How to attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors 6. An Enquiry into the use of other common Metaphors with an account of their usefulness and the Measures that are to be attended to in the Vsurpation of them 7. The Non-conformists injuriously charged for their Vsage of Metaphors the Contempt thrown upon them falls often with the same weight upon the Holy Ghost None so Guilty of turning Religion into
Doctrine of the Ancient Church besides the external Revelation of the Word there was also an internal Inspiration of the Spirit supposed necessary in order to the understanding of it in a saving manner And in this the Church of England not to speak of Forraign Churches hath hitherto harmonised with the Ancients For though a few are and have been otherwise minded yet they are as far from deserving the name of the Church of England as an excrescency is from obtaining the name of the Body upon which it grows The way and manner how the Spirit assists us in the understanding of spiritual things spiâ—itually I shall not at this time enquire largely after only in brief we may conceive of it thus 1 There is either through the immediate in dwelling of the Spirit or through the Communication of new principles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ablation of every thing extraneous a dissipation of those fuliginous vapours that both obnubilate the mind and do imbuere Objectum colore suo By the purification of the Heart the Understanding is clarified Scales drop off from our Eyes and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Governing Faculty becomes purged from those prepossessions prejudices and Lusts which obstructed its perceptive Powers 2 By the Spirit of Life in the new Birth the subject is elevated and adapted to the Object Grace renders the mind idoneous for and consimilar to Truth The Eye is not so much relieved by the prospective and Telescope as the Understanding is by Grace 3 There is a suggesting of Media for the Elucidating of Truth A reviving in the Memory clear texts to illustrate such as are dark 4 There is frequently an irradiation of the Word it self An attiring and clothing it with a garment of Light that is impatient either of Cloud or Shadow And upon the whole the Soul both feels and is transformed into what it knows Its apprehensions are no longer dull and languid but vigorous and affective As every thing relisheth according to its contemperation to the palate so the mind being seasoned with Goodness tastes a pleasure and delight and feels an efficacy in what it understands It sees things in a steddy Light and exerts its self in all suitable operation both in matter of internal acts and outward Duties However though we contend that the Spirit of Wisdom is absolutely necessary for the Understanding the sense of Scripture-propositions in a Spiritual saving manner yet we do not deny but that the meer Rational mind may discern the Literal Sense of the Word in a way congruous to its own state and condition It is true even with reference to the perception of the bare Literal sense that the person renewed in the Spirit of his Mind is greatly advantaged above the Unregenerate Man For the Spirit of God makes us of quick Understanding in the fear of the Lord. Isay. 11.2 3. The mind is defecated from those impure fogs and mists of Lust and Passion which greatly hinder and prejudice the Understanding in the perception of Natural Truths and much more of Supernatural and Divine Grace both helps us to use Reason aright for the discovering the true meaning of Scripture Enunciations and furnisheth us with a holy Sagacity of smelling out what is right and true and what is false and perverse and especially by impressing implanting and working in us the thing revealed it confirms us in and causeth us rather immediately to feel than logically to discern the sense of such and such a place Yet I know none who affirmeth that to conceive the sense of Theological propositions the supernatural Light of the Spirit is absolutely necessary For if it were thus Infidels which reject them would not disclaim them as False and Incredible but as unconceivable and unintelligible Yea thousands destitute of the Divine Unction have in a theorical way actually understood the Bible All that have usefully commented on the Scripture were not born of God The means conducive to the Understanding of the true sense of Scripture are besides Humility Teachableness frequent Reading of the Bible and prayer an acquaintance with the Signification and use of Words the Nature and kinds of Rhetorick with the Rules and conditions of Argumentation c. Three things occur to to our consideration in enquiry after the sense and meaning of any Book The mind of the Writer the Words in which he declares it and the connexion habitude and relation betwixt the Words spoken and the Mind of the Speaker What ever there is often in Men yet in God there is never a separation betwixt the Judgment himself hath of things and that which the words he maketh use of manifest and import He can declare nothing as our Duty but what indeed is so what himself judgeth so to be Men having then by common consent agreement established that such and such conceptions shall be united with such Words accordingly whenever such a word is heard or read such a conception doth arise in our minds and if at any time we would make known to others such a Cogitation such words do presently occurr to express it by To arrive therefore at the knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures There is nothing required on the part of the Object but that it be intelligibly written and that the words in which it is given forth signifie according to the Institution Use and Custom of mankind For as one sayeth Scriptura non esset Scriptura nisi verbis ex usu significantibus scripta extaret And here the knowledg of the Etymology of Words their usage in Exotick Authors is of great import but that which is chiefly to be attended to in the sensing of Scripture is their use in Sacred Writers God is many times pleased to restrain or enlarge the signification of Words as in His Wisdom he judgeth meet Hence many Terms taken up from other Disciplines Artes and usages are peculiarly applied and confined to denote things otherwise than they do there whence they are borrowed God useth rather a practical and Oeconomical way of speaking than a Theorical and Acroamatical Nor do Scripture Enunciations signifie philosophically as in Dialectical Schools but practically according to their Use in Families and common converse And unless there be very urgent Grounds to the Contrary we are to determine the signification of Words not with respect to their Etymologie and Grammatical propriety or their usurpation in Schools but according to their popular Use Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma loquendi Many a Text otherwise plain hath been rendred abstruse and unintelligible by mens glossing it in analogie to their Metaphysical notions and querks fathering those nice and subtile fancies to Terms occurring in the Scripture which they find the Schoolmen have applied them to in their wanton luxurious and Aenigmatical Debates Yea the same Words are in Scripture used sometimes in a larger sometimes in a narrower signification And in such cases the only Rule to
Allegories and Metaphors as the Modern Conformable Clergy 8.9.10 CHAP. III. Of the Union of Believers with Christ THe Concernment of the Church of England in reference to some Discourses lately Published on this subject 1. What seems most especially to have influenced Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter 2. The Doctrine of the Nonconformists not fram'd to befriend men in a course of Vngodliness Mr. Sherlock's is 3.4 The Notion of Vnion in General stated with an account of the arduousness of resolving the Nature of Common Vnions 5. 'T is the Person of Christ that Believers are Vnited to 6. The Vnion we are enquiring after consists not in the specifical Oneness which is betwixt Christ and us through his having assumed Humane Nature 7. Nor doth it consist in any mixture of his Bodily substance with ours through a Carnal feeding on him 8. A personal Vnion disclaym'd 9. Not meerly a Legal Vnion and yet a Legal Vnion between Christ and those given to him of God justified 10. 'T is not barely a Love-Vnion 11. Christians not Vnited to Christ by means of a previous Vnion with the Church 12. What ever it be 't is more than a Political Union 13. An Intelligible Notion of it assigned and the whole shut up CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in RELIGION Sect. I. THe Interest which all Christians have in the Truths of the Gospel doth sufficiently Authorize a Concernedness in every Believer that they be neither directly Invaded nor secretly Supplanted And the more Important the Doctrines are either in themselves or with Respect to their Influence on the Hopes and Comforts of such as Believe and Profess Christianity the less chargeable as Importune is he who Engageth either in the Explication or Defence of them Besides the Name of William Sherlock and the Quality of Rector of St. George Buttolphâ—Lane London which the Author Characters himself by I understand nothing of the Person whose Writings I am now to Incounter and I wish for his own sake as well as the Truths that I had no further Occasion of knowing him than as his Interest lies in the Church of England But having vouchsafed the World a further Discovery and Manifestation of himself by a Stated Opposition of the Immediate Union of Believers to Christ and their being justified by the Imputation of his Righteousness Truths wherein the whole of our Concernment and Expectation consists He must not Resent it Amiss if while we are Examining what he would Obtrude upon us in these and some other things we Regulate our Conceptions of him in relation to what he Intimates to us of his Principles in those Matters The Prefixed Imprimatur of Doctor Parker would tempt one to Suspect that all this is done not only under the Connivance but with the Approbation of more than we are aware of I confess Men are filled with Surprizal and Amazement that it should be so considering the Manifest Repugnance of our Authors Principles not only to the Opinions of private Doctors of the Church of England but the Declared Articles of the â—aid Church Though it be Unjust to Ascribe the Sentiments of every private Writer to the Society whereof he is a Member yet when Errors are Vented under Allowance others besides the Authors become Accountable for them The Quality of the Licenser and the Relation he stands in to a greater Person in whose Behalf in all these things he is Reputed to Act would seem to Plead that the Fame and Dignity of the Church of England as well as the Interest of Truth bespeaks some Vindication from her Ecclesiastical Rulers or Dignified Members in these Matters Or it is easie to be imagined who will Suffer under the Imputation and Dishonour of them In the mean time a sober Inquiry into and Disquisition of these Points may I hope be pursued without Offence to any especially being managed without passionate Heats or Invidious Reflections Invectives and Satirs do not only disparage Religion in general but betray the Cause in whose Behalf they are used Nor are they Adapted to proselyte any but such who have forfeited the Use of their Judgments and Resigned themselves to the Conduct of Impudence Noise and Clamour For my self I profess such an Aversation to the Method some of our Modern Writers take in Treating their Adversaries that I shall not so much as insinuate Suspicions or raise Misprisions of the Tendency of the Notions here contended against further than the Unfolding and Pursuing them to their Springs necessitates me And if thereby any who wear the Livery of the Church of England shall be found to do the Work of the Assembly at Cracovia I cannot help it unless I should betray the Cause I am pleading for Yet I do hereby no ways intend to List even those among them whose Principles they have imbib'd Remembring what one said of the Milesians that may be they were no Fools though they did the same things which Fools are wont to do However 't is fit to be declared upon whose Foundations they Build and with whose Buttresses they support their Fabrick and withall that it falls too evidently under the Prospect of every discerning Person who are like to Reap the Harvest of these kind of Sowings Now though I might be thought sufficiently to acquit my self by continuing on the Defensive and only examining the Reasons which have swayed Mr. Sherlock to depart from the Common Judgments of other Men and though this would be the easiest Undertaking and in the Judgment of every indifferent Person enough both to Undeceive such as are already Misled and to pre-arm others against the Danger yet Designing the same universal Usefulness to the Reader as if I were not confined to Reply to anothers Book I shall together with an Answer to my Adversaries Exceptions endeavour to State and Establish the Doctrines in whose Defence I appear and withal Attaque him in the Opinions he Erects against them Nor am I without Hope that I shall find the Generality of those who are stiled Conformists as well as those who are termed Non-Conformists notwithstanding their Disciplinary Controversies Candid and Favourable The things here contended for are the Joynt-Concernment of both and the Opinions opposed are inconsistent with and Destructive to the Hitherto Received Doctrine of that Party as well as this If I receive no other Fruit of this Interposure but the Awakening others to more Matur'd Productions I shall not Repent my Labour the putting a Common Adversary to a stand till greater Forces Rally being of some account though the Victory be Reapt by other Hands Sect. 2. As to the Method here observed 't is such as I judge Rational being not only Adapted to the Discovery and Vindication of Truth the Unmasking and Conviction of Errour but accommodated to the Instruction and Benefit of the Reader which would be greatly obstructed by following our Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is it
rationally in surrendring themselves to the guidance of it The Article it self may be plainly revealed and yet not only the reason and mode of it lye altogether hid but the thing it self may over-power our Faculties and dazle them with its Majesty and Splendour 1. Reason is often non-plust and puzled about its own proper Objects and the phaenomena of Nature and shall we think it a competent judge of Objects it was never adapted for It is below many of the Works of God and therefore much more below Mysteries of Revelation See this Argument elegantly and strenuously handled by Bradwardine de causa Dei lib. 1. c. 1. Here are many things which we ought to admire but must never hope fully to understand Our work here is to believe not to enquire 2. If our minds will not submit to a Revelation until they see a reason of the proposition they do not believe or obey at all because they do not submit till they cannot chuse Faith bears not upon demonstration but upon the Authority and Veracity of the speaker and therefore to believe nothing but what we do comprehend is not to believe but to argue and is Science not Faith Ye that will believe in the Gospel what you please and what ye think fit ye will not believe you renounce the Gospel saith Austin to the Manichees for you believe your selves not it 3. To believe nothing but what we can fully comprehend is to remonstrate to the Wisdom and Power of God at least to challenge to our selves an Omniscience proportionable to the Divine Wisdom and Omnipotence 4. The Rule and Measure of Faith must be certain but no mans Reason universally is so because one Mans Reason rejects what anothers assents to Every man pretends to right Reason but who hath it is hard to tell If it be lawful for one man to reject a plain Revelation in one particular because he cannot comprehend it why may not a second do the same with reference to Revelation in another particular As the Socinians by making their Reason judge of what they are to believe will not admit many of the prime Articles of the Gospel so the Philosophers would make their Reason judge of what they should receive their Reason would not admit the Gospel at all 5. The certainty of Revelation is preferred to all other Evidence and we are commanded to subject our Reason to the Authority of God in the Scripture and by consequence Reason cannot be the positive Measure of Religion The Sacred Writers do every where remit us to the Scripture it self as the Rule of Faith and not at all to the Tribunal of Reason Herein are the Socinians justly impeachable for though sometimes they acknowledge Religion to be above Reason as we lately heard yet at other times they speak in a very indifferent Manner By Reason alone saith Smalcius can we define what is possible and what is impossible in matters of Faith See to the same purpose Ostorod Instit. cap. 6. Schlicting de Trinit advers Meisner p. 67. c. Hence that of Socinus that he would not believe Christ to have satisfied for our sins though he should read it not only once but often in the Scripture and that the Infallibility of the Revealer had not been enough to establish it supposing Christ to have said it and to have risen from the Dead to declare his own Veracity unless he had declared it by its Causes and effects and so shewn the possibility of it To which agrees a passage of Smalcius in reference to the Incarnation of the Son of God that he would not submit to it though he should meet with it not only often but in express Terms in the Bible I wish others did not say the same in effect But while they renounce Doctrines upon no other account but their incomprehensibleness or because we cannot fully fathom them they must give us leave to think whose principles they have drunk in and whose cause they plead Thus have I discoursed the whole Interest of Reason in Religion and as I know not that I have said any more in this Matter than what is generally maintained by all the sober Nonconformists so I hope I may say that the charge which some men have fastned upon us as if we wholly renounced Reason in all Concernments of Religion and that no Contradiction can astonish or stagger us and that this is the foundation and support of the Credit of the party especially amongst Vulgar Hearers is a false aspersion groundless calumny and an impudent Crimination And though I do not think that it savour's of over-much Modesty that a few young Theologues of the Church of England if indeed they be so should monopolize to themselves the name of Rational Divines yet for my own part I neither envy them the Title nor have any quarrel with them upon that account it being indeed their want of Reason that I find fault with And as it hath generally been the unhappiness of others who have too much boasted of and relyed upon Reason to fall into the most irrational sentiments so I do not see but that it is in a very great measure the misfortune of our New Rationalists As the Philosophers of old made Reason their only Rule and yet most of their Religious opinions whether in reference to Faith Worship or Moral Obedience were perfectly Irrational And as the Socinians pretend to pay more than an ordinary veneration to Reason and yet there are none in the world whose Tenets lye more cross to the Fundamental Maxims of it than some of theirs do For to give Religious Adoration to a meer Creature for such they allow Christ only to be to deny God the fore knowledge of future contingents to ascribe passions and affections to God in the manner they are incident to us are such Repugnancies to Reason that a man had need renounce that as well as Revelation ere he can admit them So I account it of easie proof that many of the Darling Notions about Original Sin Converting Grace the Nature of Regeneration and Justification it self c. of our pretended late Rational Divines are as well repugnant to Reason as they are to Scripture CHAP. II. Of the Import and Vse of Scripture-Metaphors SECT I. SOme men having espoused corrupt designs in reference to the Truths of the Gospel are in pursuance thereof led to Methods which may subserve and countenance their Undertakings For the End being fixed Means must be found out and adapted for the compassing of it Now among other little arts and contrivances supposed conducible to their Undertaking I find some late Writers improving their skill and industry especially in these two things First under pretence of banishing all wrangling brawling and vain talking they study to cashier and discharge all Disputes in and about Religion and 't is become their Interests upon two accounts so to do 1. That they may have the liberty to vent
what they please without running the hazard of being contradicted 2. Because finding themselves unable to justifie what they would obtrude upon the World unless it be in a Dramatick Drolling way they think it fit under the plea of dislike to a pugnacious disputing humour to except against all Logical and Scholastical Methods of treating things as knowing the weapons they are sure to be foiled at Did they only disallow quarrelling about Opinions which neither serve to render us sounder Christians nor better men and which were both at first commenced and are still maintain'd out of interest or did they only impeach the fetching of Topicks from Aristotle or Aquinas and the arguing with the same confidence from the Decretals as from the four Evangelists I should highly commend both their Wisdom and Zeal But while what-ever crosseth Socinus or Pelagius is immediatly branded as vain and empty speculations and Pauls Epistles are censured with little less modesty than they arraign the Writings of the School-men I must suppose them engaged in a design against the Gospel which they are not willing as yet publickly to own If they account that I impose upon them in this matter I shall upon the least intimation direct them to the Authors I aim at and the places whence I derived my information But in the mean time out of respect both to the interest of Religion and their Reputation I shall forbear The second is their arraigning Words Phrases and modes of speech wherein what they dislike is intended Hence are their Clamours concerning Metaphors even against such as the Holy Ghost condescendeth to use in order to the instructing us as well of our State as Duty Where the authority and credit of Men is meerly concerned I love not to quarrel with any about Terms and expressions further than as they have an Influence upon things and providing I were at an agreement with them in the latter I should as well give as claym a great liberty in the former But when both the Wisdom of God stands impeached and under the palliation of quarrelling with Terms Phrases the chief Doctrines of the Gospel are supplanted it then becomes the Duty of those who have a Zeal for his Honour and the Truth once delivered to the Saints to declare their resentment The unfolding the Nature Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors as it is in it self a laudable undertaking so there are two things which at present render it needful and expedient 1. The vindication of the Non-Conformists who are publickly charged for turning Religion into unaccountable Phansies and Enthusiasm's drest up with empty Schemes of speech and for embracing a few gawdy Metaphors Allegories instead of the substance of true and real Righteousness So that if you will believe a late Authour herein lyes the Material difference between the sober Christians of the Church of England and the Modern Sectaries that while those express the precepts Duties of the Gospel in plain and intelligible Terms these trifle them away by childish Metaphors and Allegories and will not talk of Religion but in barbarous and uncouth Similitudes And as another expresseth it That the mystery of Phanaticism consists in the wresting Metaphorical and Allusive expressions to a proper sense And as the former person phraseth it Abusing Scripture expressions not only without but in contradiction to their sense 2. The defence and vindication of the Doctrines of the Gospel many of which are undermined under the pretence of renouncing luscious and fulsome Metaphors Thus the Immediat Union of Believers to Christ is disclaimed as being built only upon Metaphors perversely sensed our spiritual impotency and inability to Good is contended against as being inferred from a Mis-understanding of that Metaphorical expression viz. Our being dead in Trespasses and Sins Our being meerly passive in the first communication of grace to us or Regeneration is likewise indicted as a falsity built upon a mistake of the meaning of our being Created to good Works which is a Metaphorical phrase It were endless to recount the many Doctrines which the Church of Christ hath in all ages been in the persuasion and belief of that are by this new artifice of crying out Luscious and rampant Metaphors subverted and overthrown The due stating therefore the Nature and import of Metaphors is become not only a seasonable but a necessary piece of Service I can very well allow that in Philosophy where the Quality and Nature of things do not transcend and over-match words the less Rhetorical ornaments especially the fewer Metaphors providing still that the phrase be pure and easie the better But in Divinity where no expressions come fully up to Mysteries of Faith and where the things themselves are not capable of being declared in Logical and Metaphysical Terms Metaphors may not only be allowed but are most accommodated to the assisting us in our conceptions of Gospel-mysteries § 2. But before I proceed further on this subject there are some few things which I desire to premise whereof the first is this The Holy Ghost in giving forth the Scripture hath usurped no Words Tropes Phrases Figures or Modes of speech but what are proportioned to his End namely the instructing us in Faith and Obedience To think otherwise is either to impeach his Wisdom as if he knew not what forms of speech in order to such an End were best to declare himself in or else his Goodness in not vouchsafing to speak to us in those terms which he knew to be most adapted to promote our knowledge of the Things which he had made it our duty to be acquainted with The Scripture stile can neither in the whole nor in any part of it be reflected upon without offering reproach to God who as well guided the sacred Amanuenses in the words and expressions they revealed things in as in the things themselves they did reveal The 2 d. is this that the Bible is replenished and adorned with all sort of figurative expressions There are hardly any Tropes or Figures in Rhetorick of which numerous Examples do not occurr in the Holy Writ Some Tropes confer a grandeur others an elegancy to the stile where they are met with and some reconcile an easiness to the things that are treated of Now among other Rhetorical Tropes to be found in the Bible I hardly know any of which we have more examples than of Metaphors in which God by similitudes borrowed from known and obvious things intimates to us the usefullest and sublimest Truths In such kind of phrases he condescends to lisp those Mysteries to us which would never be so well understood by any other way of expressing them Now though in this case we not only may but ought to call such to an account who abuse Scripture-Metaphors to a perverse sense yet we must always preserve the reputation of the Metaphor it self How tender in this Matter some late Authors have been we shall afterwards more largely declare I shall at
pulchritude and suavity to an Oration so they hugely conduce to our more easy conception of the things treated of Nor doth this obtain so much any where as in Mysteries of Faâ—th for they through a greatness and Majesty peculiar to themselves do so far transcend all expressions that in order to their being duely conceived they require a being accommodated attempered to the weakness of our Faculties in Allusions Metaphors such like Pâ—â—aseologies in which they are display'd by sensible Resemblances but more of this afterwards 4. Those of the differently-minded in matters of Discipline Ecclesiastical Order from the Church of England who seem especially guilty of an affectation of Metaphors Allusions and Allegories in their Popular and Didactical discourses for all of that sort are not Criminal in this Matter do appear to me to have imbib'd it from the most fam'd Writers of the Church of England Nor were it a difficult Undertaking to declare when Inordinacy and excess this way as well as Pedantick quibling with Letters and Syllables turning the Scripture into clench and paraphrasing Texts by the sound and chink of Words and feeding the People with the Chiming of Terms took its rise and commenced and who were the chief promoters of it And in reference to the more ancient amongst the Non-Conformists who are charged in this Matter why may not the plea of Tacitus in behalf of Seneca that he had Scribendi genus temporis illius auribus accommodatum that they accustomed themselves to a stile suâ—ted to the Genius and Gusto of the Age be allowed And for the younger sort though I suppose there are but few of them that can be justly charged with it yet if there be any such it may be said that they owe it either to the Unhappiness of their Converse with an ill sett of Books or that they as well as the former do it in complyance with the Capacities of their Heareâ—s who can neither be edified nor affected by any other stile However as the Phantastical trifling with Words and Syllables and the Boyish affectation of Cadencies is wholly grown into difuse and distast as unbecoming the Sanctity of the Mysteries we treat of the Majesty of God in whose Name we speak and the Gravity of the Ministerial Function so I hope a care will likewise possess us in reference to the other viz. that we coyn no Metaphors of our own to express things by but what are modest cleanly and carry a due Proportion Analogy and Similitude to the things they are brought to illustrate But our Adversaries must in the mean time pardon us if we be not so fond of their Effeminate amorous stile as to introduce it into the Pulpit For indeed it savours more of the style of the Grand-Cyrus Cleopatra Parthenissa c. than any style that the Doctrines of Faith and Precepts of Morality have been heretofore delivered in I will take the liberty for once to say that their Preaching with an air more brisk and unconcerned and a countenance more debonair and lightsome than becomes those who would work Compunction in others or reconcile their Hearers to Mortification together with their polisht artificial dress of Words hardly admitting a Quotation from Scripture for fear of spoyling their Oratory seem as justly lyable to blame as the Methods and Modes which they not only censure but traduce others for § 3. I intend not to discourse of Scripture Rhetorick in General nor of the various kinds of Figures as well as Tropes that the sacred style is adorned with This task hath been prosperously undertaken by Glassius Flac. Illyricus Alstedius Westhemerus c. in Latine and not many years ago Mr. Lukin laid out his endeavours this way in English not to mention others who have done something in this matter It is to Metaphors alone that I confine and circumscribe my thoughts yet I am not without hope that by explicating of them Light will be administred to the better Understanding of other Scripture-Tropes Anciently Tropes were not so throughly distinguished the one from the other neither were those several Names invented to design them by nor were the Lines Measures Bounds Cognations and Habitudes of each a part and to one another so described and set forth as now they are And this may serve as an Apology for Aristotle's confounding Synechdoches and Allegories with Metaphors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which occasioned Cicero to observe that Aristotle used the Term Metaphor in a larger acceptation than after Rhetoricians are wont to take it Augustine defines a Metaphor to be the traduction of a Word from its proper signification to a sense that doth not originally and properly belong to it Terms thus applyed are called by Hermogenes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because inverted and transferred from their proper meaning to a significaon which doth not primarily belong to them A Metaphor then is a Form of speech whereby one thing is put for another to illustrate it It is the traduction of a Word from its immediate and proper sense and the extending it to the denotation of some other thing upon the account of some similitude or proportion betwixt the one and the other It hath this in common with Metonymies Synechdoches and Ironies that in all of them things are misnamed and words transferred from what they peculiarly denote to manifest something else But herein they differ an Irony is the usurping of a word to an Intention opposite to what it seems to imply and is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a speaking by Contraries which may be easily discerned either by the thing it self which is spoken or by some circumstance or other in the Oration A Metonymie is the mis-naming of things or the putting of one thing for another when though they have a connexion as Correlates yet absolutely considered the one is not of the Nature and Essence of the other Thus the Cause is Frequently put for the Effect and the Effect for the Cause the Subject for the Adjunct and the Adjunct for the Subject The Act or Affection conversant about any Object for the Object it self and the Object sometimes for the Act the Sign for the thing Signified and the thing Signified for the Sign c. A Synechdoche is a Form of speech where by one thing that is of the Essence of another or that hath a necessary Connexion with it is put for that other to which it hath such a cognation and affinity Thus the Gender is put for the Species and the Species for the Gender The Integral for a Part and a Part for the Integral the Species for the Individuum and the Individuum for the Species c. But a Metaphor is the Stiling of one thing by the Name of another which as they have no necessary connexion absolutely considered so they stand in no such relation but that the one may be apprehended without the other only because of some Similitude or proportion the one is
For as Aristotle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truth is always at peace with Truth be they of what nature or kind soever Therefore where the imposing a proper sense upon any Scripture Words or Phrases will obtrude upon us any Dogme or practice repugnant to the Rational Faculty that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to principles of natural Light there we are to substitute a tropical one Forasmuch then as the interpreting those Texts of Scripture to a proper sense which attribute Eyes Hands Feet c. To God were to superstruct a Doctrine upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles that is repugnant to the common notices which we have by the light of Reason of the nature of God therefore all such phrases must be acknowledged to be metaphorical The like judgment is to be made of all those Scriptures wherein the names and affections of brute Beasts are attributed to Men the things immediately and originally signified by those words and names lying in a direct contradiction to rational Natures Upon the same account must that phrase Mat. 8.28 Let the Dead bury the Dead be acknowledged to contain as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the entire proposition so a metaphor in the first Term Dead There are innumerable Instances more of this Nature namely where we are compelled to recurr to a Metaphorick sense upon the account of the inconsistency of a proper one with principles of Philosophy and Maximes of Reason Now as these are the lights and measures of discerning when a Scripture is to be interpreted in a proper sense and when not for whatever Rules besides are assigned to this purpose they may be reduced to one of these so I know none more regardful of them in the sensing and expounding of Scripture than those stiled Nonconformists are And should any of them be found to transgress in this matter it ought to be ascribed to the ignorance vanity of the particular persons that are herein criminal nor is the Party answer for it as being no ways concerned seeing the common Principles upon which they are led to dissent from the present establishment of the Church of England in its Ceremonies and Discipline have not the least influence upon them in this affair Were our adversaries impartial in their censures the excess and exorbitancy in this particular will be found to lye among themselves For if any be guilty of introducing a Mystick Theology out of Plato and Proclus and of Allegorising the Scripture according to a pretended Cabala they are the men Nor do any else that I know of make such Phantastical applications of Scripture to purposes distant from its own as those who stile themselves sons of the Church of England do But indeed 't is not truth nor zeal for God but malice and interest that sway 's some men in their discourses and Writings The Non-conformists are the persons against whom they are prejudiced and of whom they never think but with forestalled Judgments or Biassed Passions and therefore they only must be loaded both by wresting the most innocent passages in their Writings to a perverse sense and meaning and by transferring imputing to them the Fooleries of others with every thing else that may render them contemptible § 6. That there are many Figures in Scripture and that many things are spoken in Metaphorical Terms in condescension and accommodation to our Capacities that there are certain Measures by which we may distinguish between things Metaphorically and Properly spoken hath been already declared The next enquiry is by what means we may attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors There are no Schem's of speech that are more liable to be mistaken and wrested to a perverse sense than Metaphors are The instances in which one thing may resemble another are so many and the power of Imagination so great that in nothing may a man sooner prevaricate than in expounding Metaphorical Terms and Phrases The consideration therefore as well of this as that the Non-Con-formists are particularly arraigned of abusing Scripture expressions not only without but incontradiction to their sense and of prating in Scripture Forms of speech without having any Notion of the things they signify hath prevailed with me to discourse this more particularly I take at present for granted that every Scripture-Proposition whether the Terms of it be Figurative or Proper hath a certain and determinate sense which it is designed and adapted to convey to us Every expression in the Bible as well Allegorical and Metaphorick as Proper is every way apt to instruct us in the case that 't is made use of Nor needs there any other proof of this but what is levyed from the Wisdome and Goodness of God his End in all the Forms that he speaks to us in being to teach and inform us I also suppose it beyond all suspect and debate at least among persons that are not wild and Phrantick that where the Terms are Metaphorical yet the Truths expressed by them are Real 'T is a high blasphemy against the Spirit of God to imagine the Scripture a meer dress of words employ'd about nothing As every Scripture-Phrase is intended to manifest somthing that is true and real so for the most part the noblest and most sublime Truths lye under Metaphorick expressions Metaphors are not used to impregnate our Minds with gawdy Phantasms but to adjust the Mysteries of Religion to the weakness of our Capacities I Shall not here repeat what I have elsewhere pâ—oved namely that every Text of Scripture hath a Literal sense For as that is the literal sense of a place where words are used properly which flows from their Natural and Immediate signification so the Literal sense where words are imploy'd Tropically is that which ariseth from their Figurative acceptations I also suppose it universally acknowledged at least in Words though too many depart from it in effect that we ought to conform our opinions and expositions to the sense of the Scripture and not wrest Scripture-Words to them We are not to frame to our selves Idea's of Religion and then to accommodate the Scripture to their defence and patronage This is to teach God what he should have said not to learn what he hath I shall only further Subjoin in way of Premise that in unfolding a Metaphor our Terms ought to be proper and not Metaphorical I readily grant that it is of great advantage towards the enlightning our minds in the sense of a Metaphorical Scripture to consult other Scripture passages where the same Terms are Metaphorically used especially where all things are parallel but still the meaning of the Metaphor is to be ultimately declared in Words that are Proper For Metaphors properly signifying one thing and being applyed to signify another only because of some resemblance we are therefore in our sensing of Metaphors to remove the Metaphorical Term and to substitute in its room that word which Properly signifies
Texts which they use thus to perveâ—t I shall rather instance in some of their darling Notions the very maintaining of which obligeth them to turn a great many of the plainest Texts in the Bible into meer Metaphors I am sensible what a Charge I have entred against them and do plainly foresee how it will be resented therefore I shall endeavour to give indisputable and uncontroulable Evidence in Justification of it The First Medium and Topick I particularly own my self indebted to an Opinion of Mr. Sherlocks for there being none of the Church of England so far as I know that ever vented the Notion before The Offices says he of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ but the several parts and Administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom His Intercession signifies the Administration of his mediatory Kingdom the power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive Sins Were it my Humour to Treat an Adversary with severity I would do more than say that Mr. Sherlock by making Christs Office of King but one part and Administration of His Mediatory Kingdom Writes not with that accuracy at all times which some men ascribe to him Had a motion of a Friend of his obtained viz. that Men should be Obliged by Act of Parliament to write Sense as well as Truth I can not see but that an Action at Law might have lay'n against him if some of those Persons he so often Raillies upon had thought fit in Revenge for his Reflections to have commenced it What ever care he hath taken to write Truth he hath not been so careful here as he ought to write Sense But this I wave Nor shall I digress into any large Debate of that Question Whether the Priestly office of Christ be included in his Regal Or Whether though not separated in their Subject the Person of Christ they be not in their Natures Objects Acts and Effects distinguished the one from the other Only thus in brief If moral Powers which are distinguished by their Objects Acts manner of Operation and the Effects which thereupon ensue be different faculties and powers then the Sacerdotal and Regal Offices of Christ which are moral Faculties and Powers with which he is invested by God for certain Ends being thus differenced they must consequently be distinct Offices the one no way included superseded or swallowed up by the other Now that it is thus may be easily Demonstrated For 1 their Objects are distinct The object of the exercise of the Priestly Office is God This not only the Apostle informs us in the account he gives of the Nature and Institution of Priesthood Heb. 5.1 where he tells us that the actings of a Priest in the exercise of his Office respects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but elsewhere Ephe. 5.2 This the common Notion which man-kind hath of it together with the whole Oeconomy of the Aaronical Priesthood and Christs being a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck who was a Priest in a proper sense do evince But now the Object of Christ's Regal Power is Man As King he Acts in the Name and on the behalf of God with and towards us And as his Power and Authority over the Church is confessed by the very Socinians to be a Regal Power so his being vested in and with such a Power doth necessiarily imply his readiness to make use of it for the Churches Good What inward Thoughts men entertain of Christ I know not but to declare Him a King who as such is only able but not willing to help his People is not much to his commendation as inagurated in such an Office yea it is more Honourable to be represented as willing and not able than as able and not willing 2 They differ in their Acts. The Acts of Christs sacerdotal Office are Oblation and Intercession which as they both respect God as their Object it being God not us that Christ offered himself to as a Sacrifice and God not us that he intercedes with So they differ from the Acts of his Regal Office which are Legislation the Communication of the Spirit the Destruction of his and our Enemies and the like Nor are these any where called the Intercession of Christ as Mr. Sherlock falsely imagines Indeed His intercession as upon the one hand it is founded on his Oblation and Sacrifice being nothing but the representation of his meritorious Passion a continuation of His Sacerdotal Function so on the other hand it hath its Effects towards us by vertue of the interposition of some Acts of His Kingly Office For these Offices being all Vested in the same Person and having all the same general End and belonging all unto the work of Mediation it cannot otherwise be but that their Acts must have a mutual Respect to one another yet still the Priestly Office to which Intercession appertains is formally distinct from His Kingly Nor are the Acts of his Regal Office ever called His Intercession though as to the applying the benefits of His Advocation there be the Interposure and Exertion of His Kingly Power To say as Mr. Sherlock doth That Christs offering himself a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of Kingship is not only to Socinianise but expresly to contradict the Scripture in an hundred places Yea the very next words of the Text he refers to which represents it as an Act of Obedience which I think is no Regal Act do oppose it This Command have I Received of my Father Though Originally it was an Act of Liberty and Choice in the Son of God to condescend by his Contract with the Father to render himself liable to Die yet having once Covenanted and undertaken to give himself a Ransome it was an Act of Debt and Obedience so for do Though with respect to those that Instrumentally took away his Life he had a Physical Power to have preserved it yet with respect to God with whom He had transacted to give himself an Offering for Sin he had no moral Power or Right to with-hold himself from Dying To affirm as Mr. Sherlock also doth that Intercession signifies the administration of Christ's Mediatory Kingdom The Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive Sins is both false in it self and borrowed word for word from the Socinians The Intercession of Christ consists neither in a power of expâ—ating sin nor of conferring forgiveness but in a representation of his Sacrifice for the procurement of the actual communication of the fruits of his Death unto them for whom he had given himself a Ransom Expiation of Sin was perfected before Christ went into Heaven Heb. 1.3 and 9.12 and therefore cannot lye in his Intercession which is an act of his Priestly Office consequent to his entring into the Holy Place In a word neither is intercession any Act of Christ's Regal Power nor is the bestowing of the Forgiveness of Sins any Act of his Priestly Function The Scripture plainly Attributes
supposing this be true the inference of his being only a Metaphorick Priest is not to be avoided and consequently all the Texts where he is any wayes stiled a Priest are to be understood only Metaphorically For if his Priestly and Kingly Offices be not distinct either his Regal Office must be reduced to and included in his Sacerdotal which our Author will not affirm and if he should he would only gain by it the making Christ a Metaphorick King instead of a Metaphorick Priest or else his Sacerdotal Office must belong to and be included in his Regal being only a readiness to exercise that Authority and Power for his Church which as a King appertains to Him And if so then those innumerable places of Scripture which report Christ to be a Priest to have given himself a Sacrifice to God for us to have expiated Sin to have made atonement and to have rendred God propitious are every one of them Metaphorical I have insisted the longer on this Opinion of Mr. Sherlock concerning Christs Priestly Office being only a different part and administration of his Mediatory Kingdome 1 st to make it appear that by Charging Socinianism upon some of our late pretended Rational Divines we do not transform them into any thing but what they are The truth of the imputation rather than the foulness seems to be that which makes them angry As the Historian tels us of Tiberius that he was both the readier to believe the more offended at something which was said of Him because it was the true report of his guilt so I wish it were not as much the Justness as the Odiousness of the Character of Socinian which renders some men stingy But 2 ly the main reason of my insisting upon these passages was to demonstrate that whereas they arraign the Non-Conformists for turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors the crime lodgeth especially with themselves and that the principles which they have Espoused are not otherwise defensible but by turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors So that here Clodius accusat maechos And providing Mr. Sherlock will abide by his Notion That the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ I do here undertake to prove by easy trains of deduction that for one Text capable of a proper sense which the Phanaticks pervert by imposing a Metaphorick one upon it he lyes under a necessity if he will preach or write consequentially to his Tenets of wresting twenty in the same manner § 10. But this is not the only opinion imbib'd by our Author which I impeach as pregnant with this mischief His Notion of Justification being attended with the same inconvenience nor is it any ways maintainable but by perverting innumerable Texts from their plain and natural sense to a Metaphorick In the prosecution of this Charge I shall first give a true representation of his thoughts about Justification and then endeavour to demonstrate that besides what else lyes against him it is accompanied with this fatal unhappiness of turning a great part of the Bible into meer insignificant and empty Metaphors His sentiments then in reference to Justification are these That we are only Justified by our believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. That the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life have no other Influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace That is God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs life and the sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind wherein he promiseth pardon of Sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel so that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal Cause of our Justification but the Righteousness of his life death is the meritorious Cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous rewarded as Righteous persons The Covenant of Grace which God for Christs sake hath made pardoning our past sins follies and rewarding a sincere though imperfect Obedience The Gospel by its great arguments motives and powerfull assistances forms our minds to the Love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently Righteous and the grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience which according to the Rigor and severity of the Law could deserve no reward This I take to be a true account of Mr. Sherlocks Judgement about Justification and I have quoted it in his own words that he may neither complain of his being imposed upon nor the Reader question the Truth and sincerity of this representation And as whosoever consults the pages I referr to will find that I treat my adversary with faithfulness so if they compare them with some other places where he hath declared himself with less Modesty they will have reason to say that I have exposed his Opinion in the favourablest manner I could Now I design not any accurate ventilation of this great Theme nor any severe research into Mr. Sherlocks faileurs in the manage of it nor a Critical survey of his neglect of Truth as well as Modesty in treating his Adversaries about it nor yet his partiality in arraigning only the Non-conformists when he could not but know that the most Eminent Persons that ever the Church of England bred as well as the Generality of Protestant Divines are equally involved having appeared in the Defence of that very Notion of Justification which he so invidiously represents and tragically declaime's against those for The full handling of Justification stands reserved for other hands who in due time will retrive the spoyles wherewith our Author hath enriched his Wardrobe and strip him of the Lawrels wherewith he hath adorned his Temples I shall only bestow one stricture upon him and then apply to the proof of the inconvenience I have already charged his Opinion with and for which in this place I cited it In brief then I see not how the Covenant of Grace is any ways owing to the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life providing that Mr. Sherlock will be constant to and write consonantly to some of his other principles For if the Natural Notions which men have of God assure them that he is very Good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace as our Author elsewhere tells us I say supposing this to be true I see not how the Righteousness of Christs life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and Follies for as much as his Essential Goodness obliged him to it I take it for a principle of Reason that nothing can be merited which is due upon an Antecedent Title Merit in its essential Notion importing an acquisition of a Right which we had not before there can be no room for it in reference to that which we stood entitled to by the natural goodness of
railed into silence yet this is not reconcileable to the Wisdom to omit the Zeal which we are willing to believe them to be endowed with For besides that the Trust reposed in them is not answered by their looking on so long 't is more than likely that if the minds of men come once to be tinctured with these Notions an interposure then will be like the applying a remedy when the Disease is incurable Unhappy Principles when once throughly imbib'd are not found so easy for men to devest themselves of Though persons esteem it no reflection upon their Parts nor disparagement to their Understandings to change their Opinions once especially if they obtained our Belief before we were in a capacity to examine them yet few are willing to proclaim their Weakness so far as to change their Judgments often particularly when the things again to be receded from did not solicite their Faith till they were of age and thought them selves of ability to enquire into them And if an implicite apprehension of the Concurrence of our chief Doctors collected from their Silence should be found to have influenced any to submit to these Notions beyond what the glosses with which their Authors varnish't them could do their declining so long to declare themselves is yet worse to be accounted for § 2. But waving the Interest of the Church of England in those Truths which our Author manageth an opposition to and Her Concernment more than Ours to appear in the Defence and Vindication of them from the rude and bold though weak assaults of Mr. Sherlock I shall rather enquire into what seems more especially to have given Birth to our Adversaries Notion of the Union of Believers with Christ and to have influenced him to denounce War against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter And not to insist upon what our Author is pleased to alledg as the Reason of it whereof cha 1. sect 2. seeing I do rather judg That a pretext than the true Motive It seems to me to derive its spring higher and to own its self to another Opinion espoused by some of our late Writers which however artificially glossed doth indeed damm up all the sources of Grace and Holiness and is no way defensible but by renouncing all Immediate Union betwixt Believers and Christ and disclaiming Him from being a Head of influence to any In brief then the Root and Stem from which our Authors Opinion in this matter hath shot forth and sprung is this namely That there is no infused Principle of Grace communicated to us from Christ as our Life and Head by the efficacious operation of the Spirit but that whatsoever is so stiled in vulgar Talk is only the result of our natural Abilities assisted and seconded by the Moral influences of the Gospel That Mr. Sherlock is throughly baptized into thâ—s Pelagian and Socinian Principle though he may sometimes mask himself in declaring it I shall endeavour to Demonstrate by presenting the Reader with some passages which occur in his Book When Dr. Owen had upon a certain occasion said That the Humane Nature of Christ if it could be conceived as separated from the Deity could afford no spiritual supply but only in a Moral way our Author is pleased to reply in way of Sarcasm and Irony that That is a very pittiful way indeed intimating in effect that there is no other way by which supplyes of Grace are communicated to us Nor doth he only Railly upon the foresaid Learned Person for styling Christ the Fountain of all Grace p. 213. but he plainly tells us that by Grace for Grace which we are said to receive out of Christs fulness there is no more to be understood but onely a clear and perspicuous Revelation of the Divine Will in the Gospel because it proclaims so many excellent Promises A gloss evidently borrowed from Socinus Schlichtingius and others of that Tribe which I thought fit to intimate not only to prevent his glorying in another mans line but that the world may know what copy he useth sometimes to write after Hence it is that he will have Christ to be styled our Life only because he hath preached the Word of Life and declared the true and only way to Life and Happiness And because he hath Power and Authority to bestow Immortal Life upon all his sincere followers Of kin and affinity to these is his affirming God to have by various ways attempted the recovery of mankind but with little success till at last he sent his Son into the World who by more plainly publishing the Word of Life and by his more easy directions and nobler Promises reformed the World after that long and sad experience had proved all those Ways ineffectual which the Divine Goodness out of a restless Zeal and concernment for the recovery of Mankind had fallen upon Hence not only the Methods of Divine Grace are denyed to consist in the production of any new Principles by an omnipotent irresistible Power But the asserting a necessity of infused Principles to regenerate our Natures relieve our Weakness and adapt us to live to God is represented by our Author a making us to be Acted like Machines by the Irresistible Power of the Grace and Spirit of God And to declare us passive in the reception of the first Grace is said to render all the Rules and Directions prescribed us by God vain and foolish P. 354. I purpose not here to discourse the nature of Regeneration nor the consistency of Efficacious Grace with humane Liberty nor how the producing Faith in us by a power infallible in its Effects and which is never actually defeated is so far from being subversive of our Rational Freedom that it promotes as well as preserves it Nor shall I urge how if Regeneration be nothing but the result of the exertion of our Faculties through an-application of Gospel-Precepts and Promises to our minds for influence and conduct that the Holy Ghost hath not only suggested things ordinary and obvious to us under an Embarass of lofty Hyperbolical and swelling words but instead of enlightning us in the Nature of the work of Conversion beyond what the Phlosophers have done he hath only envelopt it in thick Darkness and cast it into further obscurity the chief Terms declarative of it in the Scripture if that supposition be once admitted being only Rampant fulsome Metaphorical expressions of Amendment of Life Nor shall I debate what is required of us in way of Duty in order to our Regeneration and how that whatsoever so is exacted as to the Matter and substance of it lyes within the Sphere and Circle of our Natural Abilities As nothing but charming lusts false delusions Carnal Interests foolish prejudices indulging the appetites of the Animal life and attending to the titillations of the flesh can hinder men from the performance of what God in subserviency to his communicating of Grace at
Nations 3 dly Because a person may be cast out from actual Communion with the whole visible Church and yet remain a disciple of Christ and a true Believer And that this hath been the lot of some of the best servants of God might be made manifest in diverse Instances if it were either necessary or lay now before me 4 Because no adult person especially such as are not sprung of Christian and Covenant-parents either hath or can plead a right of admission into the visible Church of Christ who both doth not live to God and of whose so doing there is not some previous Moral Certainty and Evidence Interest in Christ by Faith is the Foundation of all that Interest which any Man rightfully hath in the Church as a Member of it It is through a Relation and habitude to Him as our Vital Head that we come to be knit together as Members of the same Body So far is our Communion with the Church from being the Fountain and spring of our Holiness that as it s our being Holy that entitles us to the Communion with the Church before God so it is our seeming to be so that entitles us to her communion before Men. So that upon the whole our Authors Gloss of the Churches being understood by the True Vine proving contradictious to it self repugnant to the Reason of Mankind in the measures by which they judg concerning the sense of a Proposition as well as inconsistent with and irreconcileable to the Context and withal Novel I hope he will find few Proselytes to it and fewer Advocates for it And as the Arguments upon which he hath built it are no other than vain and trifling Pretences so the most plausible of them have been already replyed to and the futilousness of the rest shall hereafter if necessity do so require be made manifest I shall shut up this with Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase of the Text whom I suppose none of the Conforming-Clergy will either upbraid with Ignorance or deny him to equal Mr. Sherlock both in the knowledg of Divinity and the Docttrine of the Church of England I am the True Vine and my Father is the Husband Man is thus Glossed by him I am the True Generous Fruit bearing Vine Jer. 22.1 my Blood as the blood of the Grape shall Rejoyce the Heart of God and Man Jud. 9.12 And my Father who hath thus planted me in this World here below hath the whole ordering of all that belong to me and every Branch every Believer every Member of my Mistical Body And accordingly he understands our abiding in the Vine ver 5. to be in the Virtue of Grace communicated from Christ to us Having discharged the Church and the Doctrine of the Gospel from being signified by the Name Christ as that Word and Name denotes the Term to which Believers are united it remains that we declare what is the true import and just meaning of it with respect to the room it hath in the present Question And here by the Name of Christ we understand the person of Christ nor is any thing else intended properly by it in the whole Gospel Supposing that secondarily and in way of Trope it occur sometimes used to imply the Doctrine of the Gospel and may be sometimes to signify the Christian Church yet that primarily and properly it doth not denote the Person of Christ is a blasphemous wild Imagination That Christ is a Person was never denied by any unless it be the Quakers who neither know what the Idea of Person is which they deny him to be nor what themselves intend in the acknowledgment they make of Him The Arrians and Socinians deny the Divinity of his Person the Manichees of old disclaimed the real Manhood of His Person The Nestorians asserted two Persons in him as well as two Natures but that he was a Person some one way or other hath been always granted till a Generation hath of late arisen who neither understand whereof they speak nor what they renounce But the Enquiry is What we mean by the person of Christ to which Believers must be united And this we are obliged the rather to declare our selves about seeing Mr. Sherlock is pleased to Character us as having here out-done all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez Pag. 200. First then By the Person of Christ we understand more than his being a meer Man There are a sort of Gentlemen who though they own the Personality of Christ yet they wholly renounce the Divinity of His Person And to give them their due 't is upon the supposition of his being a meer Man that they allow him to be only a Political Head to his Members Nor is this any thing but a just pursuance of their former Principle for not admitting Him to be God 't is impossible that he should be a Head in respect of Vital Influences to any And I wish that among the many Expositions of Scripture-Texts which our Author hath transcribed from them he had not in complyance with them perversely sensed even such places wherein their design is to undermine the Deity of the Son of God I would not be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his Glosses of Col. 1.19 Col. 2.3 and 2.8 Joh. 14.20 Joh. 1.14 which are the very same that the Socinians impose upon those places be admitted we have some of the main proofs of it wrested out of our hands Secondly Though by the Person of Christ to whom we are United we understand more than a meer man yet we also affirm that he is truly and properly a Man As we do not Un-God him with the Arians and Socinians so neither do we Un-man him with the Marcionites and Manichees As he is truly and Essentially God and not meerly styled so upon the account of his wonderful Conception the Sanctity of His Life His Power of working Miracles His Resurection from the Dead His Rule and Care over the Church and the like so He is as truly and essentially Man having assumed the whole and entire Humane Nature with whatsoever belongs to it as a necessary Affection or Adjunct He had both a true Organical Body and was not a meer Spectrum or Phantasm in the shape and form only of a Man as Marcion and Manes blasphemously imagined and had also a true Humane Rational Soul nor was the Deity meerly instead thereof supplying its Office to the Body as Apollinaris with equal folly and perversness asserted Thirdly We do by the Person of Christ to which we are United intend and understand more than his God-head and Man-hood abstractedly and separately considered And if this be The outdoing all the Metaphysical subtilties of Suarez which our Author Chargeth us with that we have found out a Person for Christ in this sense distinct from his God-head and Man-hood we think not to have done would have been as far from Wit as Truth A deep and mysterious Doctrine
to Gods love of complacency is fram'd to overthrow Election Efficacious Grace the perseverance of Believers and to render the New Covenant no better than the Old and our standing in Christ as lubricous as our standing in Adam was And therefore I hope Mr. Sherlock will pardon me if I do not readily subscribe to him in this forasmuch as I know it repugnant to the Articles of the Church of England not to mention what else it is The unchangeableness of his Love of Benevolence which took its Motives from himself and can no more be inconstant than the Divine Nature is doth strongly infer the preserving those qualifications in us which are the immediate foundations of his love of complacency supposing that he hath once wrought them For the bestowing of those upon us in order to this that he might delight in us being the aim and design of his Eternal Love of Good Will it naturally follows that the Immutability of his kindness ensures his watching over and maintaining them when once he hath wrought them in and communicated them to us In brief Christs heart is wonderfully knit in love to the renewed and sanctified soul Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says he Cant. 4.9 The word there used occurrs no where else in the Scripture and signifies to have won engaged seized upon or rob'd one of his heart 'T is a term borrowed from a passionate Lover who is not Master of his own heart another having gotten the possession of it He that loved us at no less rate than dying for us when we were Enemies cannot but be affectionately linkt to us having once washen us in his Blood and renewed us to his likeness by his Grace On the other hand though the love of a gracious Soul to Christ can neither equal his in its degrees nor any way rival it in the freeness earlyness or instances of discovery yet it is so far reciprocal that upon conviction of Reason conduct of Judgment and the propension of the New Nature it cleaves to and embraceth him The sincere Christian not only reckons Christ an object chiefly worthy of his love but by exiliency egress and expansion of Soul after him he endeavours a Conjunction and Union with him From hence comes that liquefaction and languor of heart to enjoy him and to receive his impressions hence proceeds that consignment of our Wills to his from hence also there springs a concernment for his interest more than for our own All the reciprocal love and friendship of the World are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idols and Images of Love and Friendship being compared with what intercedes between Christ and Christians Now this Love-Union we not only own but plead for and do state our happiness in the perfection of it Nor is there any thing that recommends Heaven more to us than that our souls shall be there enflamed with and united by holy ardors to One so infinitely amiable in his own perfections and so unspeakably deserving our purest flames for his free and preventing as well as his exuberant and superlative love to us This Conjunction through a ligature and bond of love manifested in imitation and uniform obedience betwixt Christians the Lord Jesus Christ is often mentioned in the holy leaves But yet I cannot assent to those who state the whole of Believers Union to the person of the Mediator meerly in a reciprocalness of affections 1. Because one Christian should at this rate be as much One with another as he is with Christ which the Scripture will not allow us to submit our assent to as not being reconcileable to those grand lofty and emphatical expressions which the Holy Ghost peculiarly appropriates to declare the Unity which intervenes between Christ and Christians That there is an Union of Affections between one Christian and another I suppose will not be denyed nor is he indeed a Christian who hath not a witness of it in himself and who doth not in the several ways wherein it is displayable endeavour to give evidence of it to the world 'T is this Love Union amongst Christians which our Lord Jesus so solemnly prayed for Joh. 17.21 'T is this which he hath enjoyned his Disciples as his New Commandment and which he hath appointed to be the bond of perfection unto them Joh. 13.34 Col. 3.14 'T is this which is represented as an evidence both of our Love-Union with God 1 Joh. 4.12 and of our implantation into Christ by Regeneration 1 Joh. 3.14 'T is this that was the glory of the Primitive Saints Acts 4.32 and for which the very Heathen both admired them and payed them an Internal veneration In a word 't is this whereby all the Members of Christ being first copulated to Him as to a Vital living Head and being Harmonious in the belief of all the Essential Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel come to be principally knit together among themselves And where this is not a politick confederacy and a wicked conspiration there may be but such an Union as ought to be amongst Christians there is not But how high noble and necessary soever this Union is which intervenes betwixt one Christian and another yet it is not equipollent to the Union which occurrs between Christ and Believers Nor do I hereby only mean that they differ gradually in some accident or other for so even the Moral Union betwixt Christ and Christians differs from the Moral Union of Christians among themselves the source and spring the Motives and Arguments the degrees dimensions acts and instances of Manifestation being not universally the same either in the love that Christ beareth to Believers or in the flames which they cherish and maintain towards him with those that obtain in the love of one Child of God to another but my meaning is that they differ specifically and in kind And in proof of this I desire no more but that Persons would without prepossession prejudice examine such Texts as Joh. 15.1 2 3 4 5. 1 Cor. 12.27 Rom. 8.1.9 10. Gal. 2.20 Joh. 6.5 6. not to mention more where the Union betwixt Christ and Believers is represented illustrated and if he can find any thing in the Love-Union of one Christian with another that beareth a proportion and Analogy with what is there declared concerning the Union of the Lord Jesus with Believers I am mistaken 2. Because the Holy Angels would be every way as much connected and ligu'd to Christ as Believers are were no more to be understood by this coherence but a conjunction by way of Affection or did this adequately express the Notion of it For besides the subjection that the Angels are in to Christ as their Lord and Governour 1 Pet. 3.22 and the attendance which in pursuance thereof they give at his Throne Isa. 6.1 2. together with that adoration and worship which they pay him Heb. 1.6 and their readiness to minister in whatsoever services he enjoyns them about his Church
Scripture bears witness to it in a thousand places nor can the contrary Opinion be espoused and asserted without a Virtual renouncing the Gospel 6thly 'T is from by and through Jesus Christ as Mediator that the Spirit whether it be with respect to his Immediate seisure of us and dwelling in us or with reference to any of his saving operations is given to and bestowed upon us As God never dispensed any Grace to the Sons of Adam but in and by the person of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head of the Church so the Communion of the Spirit who is our Immediate Sanctifier is from and through Christ. His Spirit he is by Him he is promised His bodily absence He supplies and of His fulness He takes and communicates to us Ye have received an Unction from the Holy One saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 2.20 Though the giving the Spirit be ascribed to the Father as He with whom the Authoritative disposure and appointment of all Divine extrinsick operations lodg yet with respect to Immediate Mission his sending is attributed to Christ whose Spirit upon this account as well as others He is called Hence the Ancients style him Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ and Vis Vicaria the power by which he is present to our souls Spiritus nos Christo confibulat the Spirit buttons us to Christ that I may use Tertullian's phrase The Holy Ghost supplies Christ's place here in the World and through him the Lord Jesus Christ is present with his Church till the consummation of all things and by Him he dwells and walks in his People The Spirit is Christs purchase for his People and his Donative to them The Holy Spirit was given to Christ as a reward of his Obedience and Death to be by him communicated to men Jesus Christ as Mediator is Authorised by the Father to dispense Grace to whom he will 7ly Through the communication of the Spirit from Christ to us and immediately upon his taking the possession of us the Nature of Christ the Seed of God and a vital living principle comes to be formed in us For though the Donation of the Spirit to us and his possessing of us precede the Geniture of the New Man in priority of Nature forasmuch as the Cause must be conceived before the Effect yet the inhabitation of the Spirit and the production of a New Creature and spiritual Being in us are perfectly simultaneous as to time Now through the formation of this Seed of God in us we become partakers of the same spiritual Nature that Christ was We do hereby not only beat the Image of the Heavenly but are changed into the same Image This is Christ formed in us And this New Spiritual Being and Internal power becoming incorporated and made One with our souls it is as a Vital Form in us And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth by transforming the soul attemper it to universal Obedience so one of its first operations is an exercise of Faith upon Jesus Christ. And this being that which entitles us in a peculiar manner to fresh communications of Grace and supplies of the Spirit of Jesus as well as that which interests us in his meritorious Righteousness we are therefore not only said to live by Faith but Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by it Thus by the guidance and conduct of Scripture we are by short steps and Regular Ratiocinations arrived at such an Idea and Notion of Believers Union with Christ as is both plain in it self and easie to be understood providing that men be not obstinate against Evidence Nor have I wrested or suborned any Sacred passage to give Testimony in this cause all I have made use of being such as voluntarily offer themselves without any force or distortion put upon them And for such as are mustred against us I have either gain'd them back to our side or shewed that their Testimony doth no ways oppose what we plead for Were I now sure that my Reader would not tire I might draw out this discourse to a greater length but as I have not the confidence to entertain Guests longer than I can afford them entertainment worthy of them so I am not so disingenuous as to treat men with words when thoughts and material remarques fail If after all this which I have said any shall still be found quarrelling at the Unintelligibleness of Believers Union with Christ I think we may justly either complain of their perverseness or blame their Hebetude To such as are not refractory to Scripture-Light and to the easie deductions which our Intellectual Faculties in their Rational exercise do draw from Revelation there is enough said to make it understood as for others I leave them to the punishment of their own obstinacy Instead therefore of filling up pages by producing Testimonies of Ancient Modern Divines or of calling in the Authority of the Church of England I shall shut up all with a few passages out of Dr. Patrick's Mensa Mystica And this I the rather do being inform'd that the Opinion of this Dr. weighs more with Mr. Sherlock than either the Canon of a Convocation or the Decree of a General Council The Passages with which much of what I have delivered is not only coincident in sense but in words are these As the highest and closest Union is that which is made by one Spirit and Life moving in the whole so the Union between Christ and his Members is by one Life As things at the greatest distance may be United by one Spirit of Life actuating them both so may Christ and we though we enjoy not his bodily presence Although Christ in regard of his corporal presence be in the Heavens which must receive him untill the time of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 Yet he is here with us always even to the end of the World Math. 28.20 in regard of his holy Spirit working in us By this he is sensible of all our needs and by the Vital Influences of it in every part he joynes the whole Body fitly together so that he and it make one Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 And that this Union is wrought by the Spirit which every true Christian hath dwelling in him 1 Cor. 6.17 Rom. 8.9 the next v. 13. will tell you we are Baptised into one Body by one Spirit This Spirit is always needful being that which maintains our life It is the very bond and ligament that tyes us to Christ. For our Union is not only such a Moral Union as is between Husband and Wife which is made by love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a Natural Union as is between Head and Members the Vine and Branches which is made by One Spirit or Life dwelling in the whole FINIS ERRATA I find upon a Review of these Sheets that several Errors and mistakes and those of divers kinds have crept into them Some