and common Acceptation which strikes no small stroke in the regulating of the conceptions of the wisest Men about the signification of words nothing else is intended by Moral vertues or Duties of Morality but the observation of the Precepts of the second Table Nor is any thing else designed by those Divines who in their writings so frequently declare that it is not morality alone that will render men acceptable to God Others do extend these things further and fix the denomination of moral firstly upon the Law or Rule of all those Habits of the Mind and its Operations which afterwards thence they call moral Now this Moral Law is nothing but the Law of Nature or the Law of our Creation which the Apostle affirms to lye equally obligatory on all men even all the Gentiles themselves Rom. 2. 14 15. and whereof the Decalogue is summarily expressive This Moral Law is therefore the Law written in the hearts of all men by Nature which is resolved partly into the Nature of God himself which cannot but require most of the things of it from Rational Creatures partly into that state and condition of the nature of things and their mutual Relations wherein God was pleased to create and set them These things might be easily instanced and exemplified but that we must not too much divert from our present occasion And herein lyes the largest sense and Acceptation of the Law Moral and consequently of Moral Vertues which have their Form and Being from their Relation and conformity thereunto Let it be then that Moral Vertues consist in the universal observance of the requisites and Precepts of the law of our Creation and dependance on God thereby And this description as we shall see for the substance of it is allowed by our Author Now these Vertues or this conformity of our minds and actions unto the Law of our Creation may be in the light and reason of Christian Religion considered two wayes First as with respect unto the substance or Essence of the Duties themselves they may be performed by men in their own strength under the conduct of their own Reason without any special assistance from the Spirit or Sanctifying Grace of Christ. In this sense they still bare the name of Vertues and for the substance of them deserve so to do Good they are in themselves useful to Mankind and seldome in the Providence of God go without their reward in this World I grant I say that they may be obtained and acted without special assistance of Grace Evangelical though the wiser Heathens acknowledged something Divine in the communication of them to Men. Papinius speaks to that purpose Diva Jovis solio juxta comes undeper Orbem Rara dari TerrÃsque solet contingere virtus Seu Pater Omnipotens tribuit sive ipsa capaces Elegit penetrare Viros But old Homer put it absolutely in the will of his God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus we grant moral vertue to have been in the Heathen of old For this is that alone whereby they were distinguished amongst themselves And he that would exclude them all from any interest in moral vertue takes away all difference between Cato and Nero Aristides and Tiberius Titus and Domitian and overthrows all natural difference between good and evil which besides other abominations that it would plentifully spawn in the World would inevitably destroy all humane Society But now these moral vertues thus performed whatever our Author thinks are distinct from Grace may be without it and in their present description which is not imaginary but real are supposed so to be And if he pleases he may exercise himself in the longsome disputes of Bellarmin Gregory de Valentia and others to this purpose innumerable not to mention Reformed Divines lest they should be scornfully rejected as Systematical And this is enough I am sure to free their Religion from Villany who make a distinction between Moral Vertue and Grace And if our Author is otherwise minded and both believe that there is Grace Evangelical â—â—â—â—ever there is Moral Vertue or that Moral Vertues may be so obtained and exercised without the special assistance of Grace as to become a part of our Religion and accepted with God and will maintain his Opinion in Writing I will promise him if I live to return him an answer on one only condition which is that he will first answer what Augustine hath written against the Pelagians on this Subject Again these moral Vertues this observance of the Precepts of the Law of our Creation in a consonancy whereunto originally the Image of God in us did consist may now under the Gospel be considered as men are principled assisted and enabled to and in their performance by the Grace of God and as they are directed unto the especial end of living unto him in and by Jesus Christ. What is particularly required hereunto shall be afterwards declared Now in this sense no man living ever distinguished between Grace and Vertue any otherwise than the cause and the effect are to be or may be distinguished much less was any Person ever so Bruitish as to fancy an inconsistency between them For take Grace in one sense and it is the efficient cause of this Vertue or of these Vertues which are the effects of it and in another they are all Graces themselves For that which is wrought in us by Grace is Grace as that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit To this purpose something may be spoken concerning Grace also the other term whose ambiguity renders the Discourse under consideration somewhat intricate and perplexed Now as the former term of Moral Vertue owed its Original to the Schools of Philosophy and its use was borrowed from them So this of Grace is purely Scriptural and Evangelical The World knows nothing of it but what is declared in the Word of God especially in the Gospel for the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. All the Books of the Ancient Philosophers will not give us the least light into that notion of Grace which the Scripture declares unto us As then we allowed the sense of the former term given unto it by its first coyners and users so we cannot but think it equal that men be precisely tyed up in their conceptions about Grace unto what is delivered in the Scripture concerning it as having no other Rule either to frame them or judge of them And this We shall attend unto Not that I here design to treat of the nature of Gospel Grace in general but whereas all the Divines that ever I have read on these things whether Ancient or Modern and I have not troubled my self to consider whether they were Systematical ones only or otherwise qualified allow some distinctions of this term to be necessary for the right understanding of those passages of Scripture wherein it is made use of I shall mention that or those only which are
this is unquestionably of the highest nature if true and such as might justly render the whole Profession of those who are guilty of it suspected And this is again renewed by our Author who to charge home upon the Non-Conformists reports the saying of Flâ—ius Ilyricus a Lutheran who dyed an hundred yeâ—rs ago namely that bona opera sunt pernitiosa ad salutem though I do not remember that any such thing was maintained by Illyricus though it was so by Amsdorsius against Georgius Major But is it not strange how any man can assume to himself and swallow so much confidence as is needful to the mannagement of this charge The Books and Treatises published by men of the perswasion traduced their daily preaching witnessed unto by multitudes of all sorts of people the open avowing of their duty in this matter their principles concerning sin duty holiness vertue righteousness and honesty do all of them proclaim the blackness of this calumny and sink it with those who have taken or are able to take any sober cognizance of these things utterly beneath all Consideration Moral duties they do esteem commend count as necessary in Religion as any men that live under Heaven It is true they say that on a supposition of that performance whereof they are capable without the assistance of the Grace and Spirit of God though they may be good in their own nature and useful to mankind yet they are not available unto the salvation of the souls of men and herein they can prove that they have the concurrent suffrage of all known Churches in the world both those of old and these at present They say moreover that for men to rest upon their performances of these moral duties for their Justification before God is but to set up their own Righteousness through an Ignorance of the Righteousness of God for we are justified freely by his Grace neither yet are they sensible of any opposition to this Assertion For their own discharge of the Work of the Ministry they endeavour to take their rule pattern and instruction from the precepts directions and examples of them who were first commissionated unto that work even the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ recorded in the Scripture that they might be used and improved unto that end By them are they taught to endeavour the declaring unto men all the Counsel of God concerning his Grace their Obedience and Salvation and having the word of Reconciliation committed unto them they do pray their hearers in Christs stead to be reconciled unto God to this end do they declare the unsearchable riches of Christ and comparatively determine to know nothing in this world but Christ and him crufied whereby their preaching becometh principally the word or Doctrine of the Cross which by experience they find to be a stumbling block unto some and foolishness unto others by all means endeavouring to make known what is the riches of the glory of the mysterie of God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself praying withal for their Hearers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory would give unto them the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of their understanding being enlightned they may learn to know what is the hope of his Calling and what the Riches of the Glory of his inheritance in the Saints and in these things are they not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God unto salvation By this Dispensation of the Gospel do they endeavour to ingenerate in the hearts and souls of men Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. To prepare them also hereunto they cease not by the preaching of the Law to make known to men the Terror of the Lord to convince them of the nature of sin of their own lost and ruined condition by reason of it through its guilt as both Original in their Natures and Actual in their lives that they may be stirred up to fly from the wrath to come and to lay hold on eternal life and thus as God is pleased to succeed them do they endeavour to lay the great Foundation Jesus Christ in the hearts of their Hearers and to bring them to an interest in him by believing In the farther pursuit of the work committed unto them they endeavour more and more to declare unto and instruct their Hearers in all the Mysteries and saving Truths of the Gospel to the end that by the knowledge of them they may be wrought unto Obedience and brought to Conformity to Christ which is the end of their Declaration and in the pursuit of their duty there is nothing more that they insist upon as far as ever I could observe than an endeavour to convince men that that Faith or Profession that doth not manifest it self which is not justified by works which doth not purifie the heart within that is not fruitful in universal Obedience to all the Commands of God is vain and unprofitable letting them know that though we are saved by Grace yet we are the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus to good works which he hath ordained for us to walk in them a neglect whereof doth uncontrollably evict men of Hypocrisie and falseness in their Profession that therefore these things in those that are Adult are indispensably necessary to salvation Hence do they esteem it their Duty continually to press upon their Hearers the constant observance and doing of whatsover things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are comely whatsoever things are of good report letting them know that those who are called to a participation of the Grace of the Gospel have more higher stronger obligations upon them to Righteousness Integrity Honesty usefulness amongst men in all moral duties throughout all Relations Conditions and Capacities than any others whatever For any man to pretend to write plead that this they do not but indeed do discountenance Morality and the Duties of it is to take a liberty of saying what he pleases for his own purpose when thousands are ready from the highest experience to contradict him And if this false supposition should prove the soul that animates any Discourses let men never so passionately admire them and expatiate in the commendation of them I know some that will not be their Rivals in their Extasies For the other things which those Books are mostly filled withal setting aside frivolous trifling exceptions about Modes of Carriage and common phrases of speech altogether unworthy the review or perusal of a serious Person they consist of such exceptions against expressions sayings occasional reflections on Texts of Scripture Invectives and impertinent calling over of things past and by-gone as the merit of the Cause under contest is no way concerned in And if any one would engage in so unhandsome an employment as to collect such fond speeches futilous expressions ridiculous expositions of
and the hearts of others considering aright the terror of the Lord and the manifold aggravations wherewith all their sins are attended do more particularly express these things before and to the Lord when indeed nor they nor any other can declare the thousandth part of the vileness and unworthiness of sin and sinners on the account thereof shall they be now despised for it and judged to be men meet to be hanged If this Author had but seriously perused the Confessions of Austin and considered how he traces his sin from his nature in the womb through the Cradle into the whole course of his life with his marvellous and truly ingenious acknowledgements and aggravations of it perhaps the Reverence of so great a name might have caused him to suspend this rash and I fear impious Discourse For the particular instances wherewith he would countenance his Sentiments and Censures in this Matter there is no difficulty in their removal Our Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us to call the most secret workings of sin in the heart though resisted though controlled and never suffered to bring forth by the names of those sins which they lye in a tendency unto and men in their Confessions respect more the pravity of their natures and the inward working and actings of sin than the outward perpetrations of it wherein perhaps they may have little concernment in the world as Job who pleaded his uprightness integrity and righteousness against the charge of all his friends yet when he came to deal with God he could take that prospect of his Nature and heart as to vilifie himself before him yea to abhor himself in dust and ashes Again Ministers who are the Mouths of the Congregation to God may and ought to acknowledge not only the sins whereof themselves are personally guilty but those also which they judge may be upon any of the Congregation This assuming of the persons of them to whom they speak or in whose name they speak is usual even to the Sacred Writers themselves So speaks the Apostle Peter 1 Epist. 4. 3. For the time past of our lives may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquetings and abominable idolatries He puts himself amongst them although the time past of his life in particular was remote enough from being spent in the manner there described And so it may be with Ministers when they confess the sins of the whole Congregation And the Dilemma of this Author about the truth or falshood of these Confessions will fall as heavy on St. Paul as on any Non-Conformist in the world For besides the acknowledgement that he makes of the former sins of his life when he was injurious a Blasphemer and Persecutor which sins I pray God deliver others from and the secret working of in-dwelling sin which he cryes out in his present condition to be freed from he also when an Apostle professeth himself the chiefest of sinners Now this was either true or it was not if it was not true God was mocked if it were our Author could have directed him to the fittest place to have made his acknowledgements in What thinks he of the Confessions of Ezra of Daniel and others in the name of the whole people of God Of David concerning himself whose self-abasements before the Lord acknowledgements of the guilt of sin in all its Aggravations and Effects far exceed any thing that Non-Conformists are able to express As to his Instances of the Confession of injustice uncleanness and extortion it may be as to the first and last he would be put to it to make it good by express particulars and I wish it be not found that some have need to confess them who cry at present they are not as these Publicans Vncleanness seems to bear the worst sound and to lead the mind to the worst apprehensions of all the rest but it is God with whom men have to do in their Confessions and before him What is man that he should be clean and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Behold he putteth no trust in his Saints and the Heavens are not clean in his sight and how much more abominable and filthy is man who drinketh in iniquity like water Job 15. and the whole Church of God in their Confession cry out We are all as an unclean thing and all our Righteousnesses are as filthy raggs Isa. 54. There is a Pollution of Flesh and Spirit which we are still to be cleansing our selves from whilst we are in this world But to what purpose is it to contend about these things I look upon this Discourse of our Author as a signal instance of the power of prejudice and passions over the minds of men For setting aside the consideration of a present influence from them I cannot believe that any one that professeth the Religion taught by Jesus Christ and contained in the Scripture can be so ignorant of the terror of the Lord so unaccustomed to thoughts of his infinite Purity Severity and Holiness such a stranger to the Accuracy Spirituality and Universality of the Law so unacquainted with the sin of Nature and the hidden deceitful workings of it in the hearts minds and affections of men so senseless of the great guilt of the least sin and the manifold inexpressible aggravations wherewith it is attended so unexercised to that self-abasement and abhorrency which becomes poor sinners in their approaches to the holy God when they consider what they are in themselves so disrespective of the price of Redemption that was paid for our sins and the mysterious way of cleansing our souls from them by the blood of the Son of God as to revile despise and scoff at men for the deepest humblings of their souls before God in the most searching and expressive acknowledgements of their sins that they do or can make at any time The like Account may be given of all the charges that this Author manâ—ageth against the men of his indignation but I shall return at present to the Preface under consideration In the entrance of his Discourse being as it seems conscious to himself of a strange and wild intemperance of speech in reviling his Adversaries which he had either used or intended so to do he pleads sundry things in his excuse or for his justification Hereof the first is his zeal for the Reformation of the Church of England and the settlement thereof with its Forms and Institutions these he saith are countenanced by the best and purest times of Christianity and established by the Fundamental Laws of this Land which yet as to the things in contest between him and Non Conformists I greatly doubt of as not believing any fundamental Law of this Land to be of so late a date to see this opposed by a Wild and Fanatick rabble rifled by Folly and Ignorance on slender and frivolous pretences so often and so
on the Minds Consciences or judgements of men to think or judge otherwise of what is imposed on them than as their nature is and doth require only they are obliged unto their Usage Observance and Practice which is to put us into a thousand times worse condition than the Jews if Instances of them should be multiplyed as they may lawfully 〈◊〉 every year seeing it much more quiet◠the mind to be able to resolve its thought◠immediately into the Authority of Go◠under its Yoke than into that of man I◠therefore we are freed from the one by our Christian Liberty we are so much more from the other so as that being made free by Christ we should not be the servants of men in things belonging to his Service and Worship From this discovery here made of the nature of Christian Liberty our Author makes some deductions p. 98 99. concerning the nature of Religious Worship wherein he tells us that the whole substance of Religious Worship is transacted within the mind of man and dwells in the heart and thoughts the soul being its proper Seat and Temple where men may Worship their God as they please without offending their Prince and that External Worship is no part of Religion it self I wish he had more clearly and distinctly expressed his mind in this matter for his Assertions in the sense the words seem to bear are prodigiously false and such as will open a door to Atheism with all Villany and Confusion in the World For who would not think this to be his intention Let men keep their minds and inward thoughts and apprehensious right for God and then they may practise outwardly in Religion what they please one thing one day another another be Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians yea Mahometans and Christians any thing every thing after the manner of the Country and Laws of the Prince where they are and live the Rule that Ecebolius walked by of old I think there is no man that owns the Scripture but will confess that this is at least if not a direct yet an interpretative rejection of the whole Authority of God And may not this Rule be quickly extended unto Oaths themselves the bonds and Ligaments of humane Society For whereas in their own formal nature they belong to the Worship of God why may not men pretend to keep up their Reverence unto God in the internal part of them or their esteem of Him in their Invocation of His Name but as to the outward part accommodate it unto what by their Interest is required of them so swearing with their Tongues but keeping their Mind at Liberty If the Principles laid down be capable of any other more tolerable sense and such as may be exclusive of these Inferences I shall gladly admit it at present what is here deduced from them seems to be evidently included in them It is true indeed that Natural Moral or Internal Worship consisting in Faith Love Fear Thankfulness Submission Dependance and the like hath its constant Seat and Residence in the Souls and Minds of men but that the wayes whereby these Principles of it are to be outwardly exercised and expressed by Gods Command and Appointment are not also indispensably necessary unto us and parts of his Worship is utterly false That which principally in the Scripture comes under the notion of the Worship of God is the due observance of his outward Institutions which Divines have upon unquestionable grounds contended to be commanded and appointed in general in the second Commandment of the Decalogue whence all particular Institutions in the several seasons of the Church are educed and resolved into the Authority of God therein expressed And that account which we have here given us of outward Worship namely that it is no part of Religion it self but only an Instrument to express the inward Veneration of the mind by some outward action or posture of the body as it is very difficultly to be accommodated unto the sacrifices of old or the present Sacraments of the Church which were and are parts of outward Worship and as I take it of Religion so the being an instrument unto the purpose mentioned doth not exclude any thing from being also a part of Religion and Worship it self if it be commanded by God to be performed in His Service unto His Glory It is pretended that all Outward Worship is only an exteriour signification of Honour but yet all the parts of it in their performance are Acts of Obedience unto God and are the proper Actings of Faith Love and Submission of Soul unto God which if they are not His Worship and parts of Religion I know not what may be so esteemed Let then Outward Worship stand In what Relation it will to Inward Spiritual Honour where God requires it and commands it it is no less necessary and in dispensably to be performed than any part of Inward Worship it self and is a no less important duty of Religion For any thing comes to be a part of Religious Worship outwardly to be performed not from its own nature but from its respect unto the command of God and the End whereunto it is by him designed So the Apostle tells us that with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness and with the Mouth Confession is made un◠Salvation Rom. 10. Confession is but the exteriour signification of the Faith that is i◠our hearts but yet it is no less necessary to Salvation than Faith it self is to Righteousness And those who regulate their Obedience and Religious Worship by the Commands of God knowing that which way ever they are signified by inbred Light or superadded Revelation it is they which give their Obedience its formal nature making it Religious will not allow that place and use of the outward Worship required by God Himself which should exclude it from being Religious or a part of their Religion But upon the whole matter our Author affirms that in all Ages of the World God hath left the Management of His Outward Worship unto the Discretion of Men unless when to determine some particulars hath been usefull to some other purpose pag. 100. The management of Outward Worship may signifie no more but the due performance of it and so I acknowledge that though it be not left unto mens discretion to observe or not observe it yet it is too their Duty and Obedience which are their Discretion and their Wisdom But the management here understood is opposed to Gods own determination of particular Forms that is His especial Institutions and hereof I shall make bold to say that it was never in any Age so left to the Discretion of men To prove this Assertion Sacrifices are singled out as an Instance It is known and granted that these were the most solemn part of the Outward Worship of God for many Ages and that there was a general consent of Mankind unto the use of them so that however the greatest part of the