they could be of no moment or avail with God who is the searcher of Hearts and delights rather in the Sacrifice of a clean and humble Spirit than in the fat of Rams or the blood of Bulls and Goats which could not put away Sin any otherwise than in a Typical way as they pointed at that great Sacrifice which was in God's appointed time to be offered up for the Sins of the whole World neither could they Atone for that uncleanness or insincerity of Mind with which those Sacrifices themselves were offer'd up or those other Mosaick Ceremonies performed These were the two reasons why Justification could not be obtained by the works of the Law of Moses but neither was the Law of Nature sufficient for this purpose not that it was not perfect in it self for every Law is thus far perfect That it obliges no farther to punishment than it does to obedience and so the same Apostle tells us Rom. 2. 14 15. That the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their Hearts their Conscience also bearing witness and their Thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another But though the Law of nature be perfect in it self that is it requires nothing of us but what is truly and intrinsically good Nay nothing but what all things considered is most for our advantage â—t exacts no more punishment than it requires Obedience it Commands nothing which is naturally impossible to be performed which no Law can be supposed to do yet considering the many Temptations and Infirmities to which we are obnoxious it is morally impossible but at some time or other it will so come to pass that what through in inadvertency Temptation or Frailty we shall step aside out of the milky way of Innocence and Truth into the forbidden paths of Lust and Errour and it is certain that no man ever did hitherto nor will ever hereafter live in perfect Innocence except our Saviour himself who was created in the utmost perfection of the humane Nature assisted and improved by a most intimate presence and union of the Divine So that in this case a Sin being once committed it is necessary in order to our Justification that is to our being freed from the punishment which is consequent upon it for the guilt can never be wholly washed away any more than it is possible for that never to have been which is already past I say it is necessary that this Justification be attained one of these five ways for there can no other be thought of First We may please our selves with a conceit that the Innocence of our past lives may a tone and satisfie for the offence committed but this cannot be because that Innocence how great soever is no more than what we were obliged to before so that having done no more than our Duty we have nothing left by way of supererrogation to make amends for what we have done amiss and set the account right again between God and our selves Secondly We may hope that our Repentance will be available with God and that he will set our Sorrow against our Sin and let the former expiate for the latter and it is certain that the very next thing to Innocence is Repentance and that God will not despise a broken and a contrite Heart but still it is equally certain that whereever there is Repentance there is Guilt and whereever there is Guilt the right of punishment still remains in him against whom the offence is committed if he have not actually remitted it already or at least obliged himself by promise that he will do it But then Thirdly The third way from which some might peradventure promise to themselves to be justified or pardoned for their Offences is by the Obedience of the remaining part of their Life but this will not do neither for a reason already mentioned namely because that Obedience is no more than we are obliged to pay and so has nothing to spare by way of Expiation for all or any of those Transgressions which we have committed and though it be true that this Obedience is a certain sign that our Repentance is sincere which will for that reason be sure to be the more available with God yet whatever motive or Inducement it may be to his Goodness it lays no such Obligation upon his Justice as that his right to punishment will be by this means destroyed But then if you consider how great the frailty and infirmity of humane Nature is and how lyable-our very Duties are to a mixture of Guilt and Imperfection by the coldness and indifference of their Performance by the want of a due fervour and ardency of Mind and by the wandering of our thoughts and affections towards unsuitable Objects and desires in the very midst of our Devotion and much more in the usual course of our Lives that Obedience how great soever it may Comparatively be when we set it in opposition to that of other men yet in it self it is so far from being able to expiate for the Sins and Follies of our past Life that it will upon account of its own defects stand in great need of another Expiation Wherefore these three ways being found so insufficient for the Justification of a Sinner for the reasons already mentioned the Fourth possible expedient that may be thought of in order to this end is that of God's free pardoning and remitting of Sin as an act of meer Goodness without any expiation or satisfaction performed by us either in our own proper Persons or in that of our Proxy But it seemed best to his infinite Wisdom to make use of this fifth and last way that is to accept of a Proxenetical or Vicarious expiation in our stead not that the other way had any Repugnancy in it to any of the Divine Attributes for it is the undoubted right of all Personalities whatsoever to remit those injuries which are done to themselves but as I conceive especially for these three reasons besides others which may very well be unknown to us and are only discernable to his unsearchable wisdom First Because as the Authour to the Hebrews tells us c. 9. v. 22. Almost all things are by the Law purged with Blood and without shedding of Blood there is no Remission the Jews therefore which was also more or less the case of all the Heathen world being used in their Religious rites to appease God's wrath by Sacrifices and by the shedding of Blood and this by the express Command of God himself it would have been an excuse to them not to believe the Gospel nor to accept of that pardon and remission which it offered if Justification had been proposed upon any other terms than those oâ— shedding of Blood besides that without this they would have had no reason to forsake the Mosaick platform of
Divine Grace by considering only in a Philosophical way the power of God and his ability to produce those effects which exceed any humane Efficiency or Skill and by attending to the nature of that Doctrine which Christ is said to have Taught which conduced so much to the Benefit and advantage of Mankind compared with that human or traditionary Testimony which has been handed down to us through so many Centuries of years by Men of unquestionable Credit and Virtue who neither had nor could propound any design of temporal advantage to themselves but on the contrary met with Trouble and Persecution and expcted to meet with no other for their Pains I say upon these Grounds any reasonable Man may of himself believe that there was such a Person as Jesus Christ Born of a pure Virgin who lived a most Holy and Exemplary Life wrought very many and very great Miracles and Wonders among Men who was the Promulger and Preacher of a most wise useful and Glorious Gospel to the World who Died upon the Cross to Seal and ratifie that Covenant which he had made between God and Men and who after his Crucifixion arose again from the Dead and ascended in a Glorious and Triumphant manner into Heaven having obtained a compleat Victory over Death and Sin where he still continues performing the Office of an everlasting Mediator and making a perpetual Intercession for us all This may be believed barely upon the Credit of that Historical Testimony which is given to it but if by Faith we mean a practical and saving Belief of these Truths which by being set home upon our hearts and being always present upon our Minds shall have a lasting and a powerful influence upon our Lives this as I conceive cannot be had or hoped for without the special influence of the Grace of God for the same Reasons upon which I have already asserted an habitual Goodness not to be obtained without the assistance and influence of the same Spirit And therefore when Peter made that Confession Matth. 16. 16. Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Jesus answered v. 17. Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona For Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Not that it was Impossible to come to the Knowledge of this in any degree without asupernatural Revelation For several of the Jews did from the greatness of his Miracles and the Wisdom of his Doctrine suspect and partly believe him to be the Prophet that was to come by which they meant either the Messias or his Forerunner and the Centurion who cannot be thought to have received his Information by any such Miraculous way when he saw our Saviour giving up the Ghost and considered the dreadful Agony of Nature at the instant of his Passion said of a truth this was the Son of God But such a Belief as Peter had of this Truth that is a practical and deeply rooted Sense of the Truth of what he said whereby his heart was changed and his affections subdued and his whole Man captivated into the Obedience of Christ and his Gospel this cannot be revealed by Flesh and Blood which is apt to suggest thoughts and invite to practices of a quite contrary Nature but it is owing to the Grace of God and to the supernatural Illuminations and Influences of the Divine Spirit working upon those who have experienced the new Birth and are become Regenerate and Born again into newness of Life by the adoption of Grace Thus have I endeavoured to explain the operations of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of Men and especially of the Faithful so as neither to make them useless with Pelagius nor irresistable with Calvin nor unintelligible with some of our Modern Writers who are cry'd up by their Adherents for nothing more then that they understand not what they say or Write nor the other what they Read or hear and who do on both hands exactly fulfil that witty and Judicious Character which Lucretius gives of Heraclitus and his admirers Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter Inanes Quam de grates inter Graias qui vera requirunt Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque Inveris quae subverbis latitantia cernunt Veraque constituunt quae bellè tangere possunt Aures lepido quae sunt fucata sonore But now that I may not seem in what I have Written upon this weighty Question to depart from the Sentiments of the Church of England to whose Authority I shall always pay as I am in Duty obliged a most profound respect I will here Transcribe those Articles of Hers in which this point is Concerned which are these three which follow ARTICLE X. Of Freewill The Condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot Turn and prepare himself by his own natural Strength and good works to Faith and calling upon God Wherefore we have no Power to do good Works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will In which Article it is plainly imply'd both that we have some natural strength and that we are capable of performing some good Works though that strength be so imperfect that we cannot by the sole Power and Virtue of it prepare and turn our selves to Faith and calling upon God neither are those Works pleasant and acceptable to God in themselves by reason of that mixture of imperfection with which they are attended and because they are interwoven with many bad ones of both which Causes of their non-acceptation I have already spoken without the assistances of Grace by which the Crudities of the carnal and concupiscible Life in us are attenuated and exalted which would otherwise ascend in gross and malignant Fumes darkning the understanding and depraving the will so as neither the one could discern its Duty with that Clearness nor the other execute it with that entire Resignation of it self to the conduct and governance of Reason and with that inward Fervo◠Chearfulness and Sincerity which is necessary to make our performances acceptable and well-pleasing in the sight of God and which is that which this Article calls a good will to which as well in its Being as continuance and preservation the Grace of God is of necessity required Neither would our good works though assisted and improved by these supernatural auxiliaries from above be acceptable and pleasant in his sight that is so as to be subservient to the great ends of Happiness and Salvation because in themselves they are no more than what by the Laws of Reason and self-Preservation we are obliged to do and because they are allay'd and tempered by so many Misdemeanours whose Guilt all our after-amendment can never wash away if it were not for the Blood of Christ which God has accepted as an Attonement and Propitiation for our Sins and for the
God would teach us to know our end and the number of our days that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom that is that he would teach us to reflect upon the shortness of our lives and the frailty of our natures that we might improve that little time we have here to the best advantage And this I think is a sufficient answer to Beverovicius his Question An terminus vitae sit mobilis without all that laborious canvassing of the business which is to be found in the Epistles of those Learned men who at his request undertook a resolution of that Problem especially Voetius and Salmasius I have nothing further to add unless it be that I would desire the Calvinists to consider seriously with themselves whether they who declaim so loudly against the Church of Rome which I believe as well as they to be an Idolatrous Church are not guilty of Idolatry themselves for they worship an Angry Revengeful and Implacable Being instead of a Merciful and Gracious Nature a Rash and Cruel Deity instead of a Wise and Just which if I understand any thing is to direct their worship to a false Object for certainly the attributes of God are not really distinct from God himself and therefore to worship false Attributes must be of necessity to worship a false God However I am very tender of chargeing them with Idolatry especially since they pretend to hate and detest it so much only I desire them to consider of it and I cannot forbear declaring thus much that I think it is to no purpose to worship the God of the Calvinists who cannot be moved from his Decrees by any Prayers or intreaties and who if he be the Author of any good to us in this life or of any happiness to any of us in that which is to come yet it is not out of any Principle of goodness in his nature but purely out of an Arbitrary determination of his mind and in plain English an unaccountable humour I have referred towards the latter end of these Papers to an Appendix which I designed concerning the Extension of the Divine Substance but I have considered that question very largely in some other Papers wherein I have attempted an explanation of the Doctrine of the Trinity which I intend when I have reviewed to publish Farewell AN Apologetical Preface IN VINDICATION Of the Discourse Entituled The middle way betwixt Necessity and Freedom I Am so well perswaded of the truth of what I have written and of the honesty of my design in writing it that I shall need to make no other Apology for its Publication than that I conceive it might be useful to the world and I hope the event will prove that I was not mistaken The consideration of those Texts of Scripture wherein God is said to have hardened or blinded or deceived men is the subject of the following Discourse as it has been already to very little purpose of many larger Volumes while some are so nice that they will not allow in any of these Phaenomena any more than a divine Permission by leaving men wholly to the conduct and guidance of their own unruly Passions and corrupt Affections and to the blasting influences of degenerate and wicked Spirits And others are so hardy as to ascribe all to the arbitrary will of God founded upon no reason but a boundless Soveraignty and dominion over all things The first of these is so dilute and cold a way of interpreting those places where so much of activity and positive Concurrence seems plainly to be ascribed to God that if such activity can possibly be reconciled to the common notions which we are used to entertain of the divine nature and attributes and to the standing measures of truth goodness and justice It ought by no means to be admitted because such a way of Interpretation when there is no need does instead of doing good do a great deal of mischief in the world by insinuating the Scripture to be more obscure than it is and by that means giving too much encouragement to the wild Interpretations of Enthusiastick or designing men Whereas the Scripture being the universal law of Life the standing rule of faith and practice amongst men that it may be the more effectual to those good purposes for which it was designed it ought to be rendred as plain and intelligible as may be neither ought we ever to recur to a figurative sense so as for example when such or such an action or such or such an effect is ascribed to God in Scripture to say that he only permits that action to be done or that effect to come to pass unless where the literal and first meaning will not do But yet notwithstanding this way of interpretation how weak and insufficient soever it be in its self which I think I have abundantly discovered in the following papers Yet being made use of upon pious reasons to salve the credit of the divine Justice and goodness and to make the revealed will of God more unisone and agreeable to the natural reason of men it is our duty not to decline it without a becoming Reverence and to treat the Authours or abettors of it with all imaginable respect and Honour But as for that other way which resolves all into the arbitrary pleasure of God who is according to these men a very arbitrary Being and damns his Creatures in the other world with as little reason as he hardens them in this it is an opinion so horrid and so impious so derogatory to the honour of God so expresly levell'd against the happiness of men attended on all hands with such dismal consequences of inevitable Ruin and Despair that if it could not be avoided but this must needs be granted to be the natural sense and only true meaning of the Scripture in those places which either one way or other do concern this point I should think it my duty to renounce and abominate that Book wherein such prodigious Doctrines were contained not only so destructive to the interest but so contrary to the common and received notions of mankind of which it is impossible for us to rid our selves and which are themselves on all hands granted to be an unquestionable sort of Revelation Now if an expedient can be found out by which both of the aforementioned inconveniences shall be avoided which may consist with a more natural and easie way of expounding Scripture which will do no violence to the attributes of God or the common sentiments of mankind which shall make Religion to be at once an intelligible and highly reasonable thing and shall at once vindicate it from the scoffs of Atheists who are its professed Enemies and from the reproaches of the Calvinists who are its pretended Friends I hope to discover so wholesome and safe a passage between two dangerous extreams by both of which the Authority of the Scripture suffers by the one from the obscurity or rather downright Inconsistency
much affectation may raise a little more particularly to insist upon The First is that of Nebuchadnezzar The Second of Ahab The Third of Absalom The Fourth of Judas Iscariot For the first of them that is to say the instance of Nebuchadnezzar I have taken notice that though St. Jerom in his Commentary upon that Chapter of Daniel wherein that Story is related have with great Judgment rejected the fond conceit of those Ancient Interpreters who would needs turn the whole business into an Allegory yet that he himself is every whit as guilty in the other extream by taking all things in the literal sense Now that I may not seem to differ without reason from the opinion of so learned a Father I will repeat his very words which are these speaking of Nebuchadnezzar's Transformation into a Beast Quis enim amentes homines non cernat instar brutorum animantium in agris vivere locisque silvestribus ut cuncta praeteream cùm multò incredibiliora graecae Romanae Historiae accidisse hominibus prodiderint Scyllam quoque Chimeram Hydram at que Centauros aves feras flores arbores stellas lapides factos ex hominibus narrent fabulae quid mirum est si ad ostendendum potentiam Dei humiliandum regum superbiam hoc Dei judicio sit patratum that is Who is there that is ignorant that men opprest with Melancholy to a degree of Madness do use to wander about like Beasts in the Fields and Desarts Nay when the fables of the Heathen Poets do tell us such incredible Stories of Scylla Chimaera Hydra and the Centaures of men transformed into Birds and Beasts and Flowers and Trees and Stars and Stones what wonder is it if God to give a demonstration of his own infinite Power and withall to humble the pride and insolence of haughty Kings should work so great a change as this by transforming Nebuchadnezzar nto one of the Beasts of the Field In which words it is plain that he seems first doubtful what to do and therefore expounds this event only of a Melancholy and lonely way of life in Fields and Groves and Desarts like to that of Beasts But afterwards by the example of such like transformations recorded to Posterity in the Greeek and Roman story he is induced to believe that such a change was literally wrought But now if those prodigious Metamorphoses did really never happen as they are reckoned by Palaephatus a very ancient Writer among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things that are not and ought not to be believed in the grammatical and dry sense and are all generally expounded by the ancient Mythologists into a moral meaning then no argument can be fetched from thence to justifie this pretended change of Nebuchadnezzar and consequently if St. Jerom have nothing else to produce in favour of so strange an opinion we may with modesty enough dissent from his Authority so far as it is grounded only upon that reason and it does not appear that he has any other Foundation Wherefore the truth of the whole matter which hath not yet that I know of been sufficiently explained by any Interpreter whatsoever seems to me to beas follows Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon had behaved himself with that Pride Insolence and Tyranny towards his Subjects oppressing them without any sense of humanity or regard to Justice and forgetting from whom and to what purposes he had received his Power that God gave him over as a Prey to the Pride and Haughtiness of his own mind insomuch that he began now not only to oppress the meaner Herd as he had done before but to exercise his Cruelty upon the great ones themselves those that had been the former Partners and Associates with him in his Exactions and Severities upon the lower sort wherefore as in a common Calamity they all agreed to acknowledge him no longer for their Soveraign but instead of that they drove him from men that is they deposed him from his Royal Throne to dwell with the Beasts of the Field and to eat Grass as Oxen that is they had no more regard of him than as of an ordinary person or fellow Subject with them This is the meaning of Dan. 4. v. 16. Let his heart be changed from man's and let a Beast's heart be given unto him that is let him be utterly devested of his reasonable or humane nature and let a Beast's heart be given unto him that is let him be given up as a Prey to the Exorbitant fury of his Passions and let those Passions be improved into all manner of savage Rapaciousness and Cruelty as in Carnivorous animals and Beasts that live by preying upon their Fellows and it is said let a Beast's heart be given unto him because the heart is the seat of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is usually esteemed the seat of Anger and Revenge and of all the irascible Powers of the Soul The same is likewise the true and undoubted Interpretation of his hairs being grown like Eagles feathers and his Nails like Birds Claws v. 32. For it is manifest these things can never be understood in the literal Sense for what a Monster would this make of Nebuchadnezzar betwixt a wild Beast and a ravenous Bird that had the heart of a Beast and eat grass as Oxen having his body wet with the dew of Heaven his hairs grown like Eagles feathers and his Nails like Birds Claws But if you apply all these things which are so perfectly inconsistent with one another to denote the inflamation of his passions into all manner of exorbitance and excess there will be at least a symbolical agreement and harmony between them inasmuch as the do all very properly conspire to denote such a cruel and revengeful temper Which things being so very true and so very plain and being a part and consequence of that divine Judgment which Nebuchadnezzar saw more darkly in his Vision and Daniel afterwards declared to be hanging over his head and which he advised him to avert or at least wise to procrastinate by an early Repentance what can be more evident from all this than that such events do sometimes come to pass not meerly by the bare permission but by the immediate hand of God and by a positive determination of the divine will or as the words of the Vision have expressed it in a more prophetick Stile by the decree of the Watchers and by the word of the Holy ones v. 17. Lastly That by eating grass as Oxen is meant his being levell'd with the ordinary crowd of men devested of all his Royal Majesty and greatness I shall now make out as plainly as I have the other for I do not desire to impose my own Fancies upon any man any farther than they shall appear to be consonant to reason and so far they will shift for themselves without any sollicitude or care of mine Dan. 4. v. 12 we find these words of Nebuchadnezzar's Tree The
prevail with them to leave their Sins what can be more just since they are willfully blind against their truest Interest and put such an open affront upon him who has with so much goodness and tenderness so carefully provided for it than that they should be given over to a reprobate mind to do those things that are unseemly and to run on headlong with an impetuous rage and fury upon the mutual destruction of one another If we will not see our interest when it lies so plainly before us we are not certainly to blame Almighty God if upon so great a provocation to him and so many wilful affronts and abuses put upon our selves he shall at length remove it perfectly out of our sight or make us persist in those courses which he may do by virtue of his despotical power over us which tend to our mutual Ruine and Destruction It is very foolish to make the loathsomeness or uncleanness of Adultery that is its grating upon a modest fancy or Imagination a reason why God may not in some cases concur to it as well as to any other fact which has the appearance of Sin but is indeed the effect of an external necessity and fate for the Physical circumstances of Adultery and of a lawful Bed are the same only all the difference is that in one case there is a violence done to the undoubted right and property of another but in the other there is not in the one the order and government of the world upon which all humane affairs have a necessary dependance is disturbed but not in the other and it is nothing else but this difference which makes the one criminal and the other blameless otherwise a man of a nice and dainty humour may apply to himself though never so honestly descended as well as to one begotten in an adulterous coition the sarcastick Epigram of Palladas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It may seem very unsavoury to a squeemish apprehension that the divine substance which pervades all things should be coextended to every Jakes and Dunghill to every rank Brothel-house or fulsome stew that he should be as it were a spectatour at the lascivious dances of the Luperci or at the more execrable Conventicles of the Bacchanalia that he should fill that Theatre where men are thrown to be devoured by Beasts or where they are compelled to sacrifice one another to the barbarous applause of a croud that delights in blood But yet all this while this is so very true that without it there can be no notion of the divine omnipresence no nor of the divine substance neither Nay all his attributes will vanish into nothing for he cannot operate where himself is not and if himself be every where that cannot be conceived without an infinite extension And this if duly considered is the greatest aggravation in the world to all our Sins that they are committed in the divine presence and that we do those things as it were in the company of God Almighty of which in the presence of many of our fellow Creatures we should be horribly ashamed neither can any consideration be so effectual with us for the leading a vertuous and blameless life as to think that he is intimately present to all our actions and all our thoughts all the most secret designs and Imaginations of our hearts of whose power we have most reason to be afraid the transcendent excellence and perfection of whose nature does rightfully challenge the utmost respect and veneration from us to whose goodness we are most obliged and to whose Justice we must give account of our selves It behoves us therefore where ever we go or whatever we are about to consider carefully in whose presence we are To be reflecting frequently within our selves in the language of the Psalmist Psal 139. v. 7 8 c. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there If I make my bed in Hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the Night shall be light about me yea the darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the darkness and the light are both alike to thee or in that of Aratus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of St. Paul In him that is in the large comprehension of the divine extension or space we live and move and have our being which notion if we always take care to preserve waking in our minds we shall not fail to behave our selves as Seneca somewhere in his Epistles has prescribed Epist 10. Sic vive cum hominibus tanquam Deus videat sic loquere cum Deo tanquam homines audiant Let your converse with men be such as if you were always mindful that you are in the presence of God and let your prayers to God be so free from Lust Ambition Covetousness or Revenge that you may not be ashamed to own them before men I come now to the last instance which is of Judas Iscariot in which I shall not engage my self at present in the famous Controversie of future Contingences only these two things I do affirm First That it was beforehand designed by God that one whose name should be Judas should betray his Master Secondly That in the fulness of time Judas Iscariot was by God Almighty necessitated to betray him The first Assertion depends upon these two reasons First That Judas in his name did represent the Nation of the Jehudâ—jim or the people of the Jews to whom he was betrayed and by whom afterwards he was Crucified as the Paschal Lamb was to be slain by the whole Congregation of Israel in the Evening Secondly There was a Typical necessity that his name should be Judas because it was by Judah's advice that Joseph was sold into Egypt for twenty Pieces of Silver as our Saviour by Judas was betray'd for thirty and all men grant that the first of these events was Typical of the latter which was also the reason why Joseph and the blessed Virgin were warned by the Angel to fly into Egypt with the Child Jesus Matth. 2. 15. To avoid the rage and Tyranny of Herod rather than into any other Country that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet Hosea c. 11. v. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of Egypt have I called my Son whose going into Egypt and consequently his calling out of it depended only upon Typical reasons that he might answer the like event of Joseph and that by this he might signifie his calling us out of that spiritual Bondage of which Egypt was a Symbol into the glorious liberty of the
evidently demonstrates a power either of yielding or resisting in him to whom it is offered but this power can never be conceived without a concession of freedom Again St. Paul tells his Corinthians Epist 1. c. 10. v. 13. There hath no Temptation taken you but such as is common to Man But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the Temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it Will he so will he enable us to bear it but how will he bring this good Effect to pass why he will do it partly by the natural Powers and Faculties which he has given us and partly by the blessed Influences of his merciful and good Spirit infused into our Hearts and strengthning the natural force and activity of our Minds But yet after all this we must make our escape our selves he will strengthen us with sufficient might in the inward Man whereby to repel the assault of any Temptation but yet he does not so strengthen us as to destroy that liberty by which we are still in a possibility of yielding and if there were not such a possibility then St. Paul instead of encouraging his Corinthians the more boldly and chearfully to encounter with temptations from this Consideration that they have such Assistances both natural and divine as cannot fail to make their warfare successful might have told them in short that they were now arrived to an impeccable Estate and that they need not trouble their heads any further with any idle apprehensions of the Devil or mistrusts of themselves with any scruples of Conscience from within or any fears of Danger from without for that they were now arrived at a degree of Perfection so high and yet so steady that it was impossible for them to fall away or to commit Sin any more and by this means he might have saved himself and them the needless trouble of a long Epistle Lastly when he tells them that no Temptation hath befaln them but such as is common unto Men it is as good as to say that all men who are not perfectly forsaken by God and hardened into a final impenitence for their former Sins though they are not assisted with those extraordinary influences of the divine Spirit which are peculiar to the Christian world yet they have still such helps both natural and divine as are at least sufficient to subdue any Temptation that can be offered and if they had not they could not be said so properly to be assaulted by a Temptation as compelled by necessity and irresistable fate But to what purpose does our blessed Lord command his Disciples and consequently us to Watch and Pray that we enter not into Temptation when if the Doctrine of Calvin and his Fellows be true that all humane actions are necessary and fatal and that they are predestinated from all Eternity to determine themselves to such and such Objects after such or such a manner in such and such periods of time then it signifies no more to Watch and Pray than to whistle against the Wind out of hopes to divert it into another Quarter We may as well sleep on and take our rest for any good we are like to do by Watching For at this rate all our Watching will be ineffectual all our Prayers to no end or purpose and all our Religion will be vain for the fatal Knots can neither be unti'd nor cut in sunder And whatever has been resolved in the utmost recesses of Eternity must come to pass in the predestinated intervals of time so that the best way for us when all is done will be to sit down passively consented under every thing that can befal us and sing the old Catch on Consort with one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But alas what do I speak of being contented for we can neither be satisfied nor displeased unless when the fit of necessity takes us It is now somewha◠more than sixteen hundred Years agoe since a very wise and a very witty man told the world ira furor brevis est anger is but a shorter kind of Madness but it seems the air of Rome is nothing so sharp and so judicious as that of Geneva and the Italians may cease hereafter to upbraid the Tramontani with want of understanding for had he known so much as the Religionists of our days and in these parts of the world he would have concluded that our whole life was nothing else but one continued frenzy wherein we always sail by the compass of Necessity and flow hither and thither without any Guidance and Conduct of our-selves by the Spring-Tide of uncontroulable fate he would have seen that our very thoughts are straitned and enlarged screw'd up and let down by the Eternal wheels and pulleys and that we speak like Puppets with Bay leaves in our Mouths to so little purpose is it that our Saviour exhorts us to Watch and Pray that we enter not into Temptation when we can do neither of our selves but when the necessity comes upon us we must do both whether we will or no. Duc me parens celsique dominator Poli Quocunque visum est nulla parendi mora est Assum impiger fac nolle comitabor gemens Malusque patiar quod Pati licuit bono But with your leave Cleanthes if the world be govern'd by such a Stoicall or Calvinisticall Fate there can be no such thing as good or Evil in it for Necessity admits of no such moral Distinction If all things come to pass because they cannot be otherwise than they are then he that Prays to God and he that Curses him are equally excused and it is true of the Rich and of all Men what Juvenal thought applicable only to the Poor Jurent licet samotheacum Et nostrorum aras contemnere fulmina pauper Creditur atque deos diis ignoscentibus ipsis For how can God with Justice blame us for stooping to those Laws of Fate which cannot possibly be resisted by us and by which he himself is govern'd For Eadem Necessitas deos irrevocabilis divina pariter atque humana cursus rehit alligat ille ipse omnium conditor ac rector siripsit quidem fata sed sequitur semel paret semper jussit said Seneca according to the opinion of the Stoick and I shall prove immediately that the Calvinists would be bound to defend the same opinion if it were capable as it is not of being defended It is a prodigious thing that an opinion not only so contrary to reason and to truth but to the usual Sentiments of those very men that defend it should ever find so much Countenance or protection among us For show me but one man the hottest Pedestinarian of them all who does not by most of the actions of his Life suppose and assert that freedom which in a fit of disputing he denies and I will yield
or depravation of the will in Man is never idle but is perpetually fruitful with new effects of it self such as those that have been already described Adulteryes Fornications enmities Murders and intemperance And it breaks out as naturally and as violently into such works as these as a red hot Furnace belches out Flames and sparkes or a Spring continually gushes with an endless ebullition of Water Wherefore they that have defined original sin to be the want of that original Righteousness which â—â—ght to have been in us though they do in effect comprehend the whole matter yet they have not exprest it so aptly and significantly as they should have done for the nature of Man is not only void of every thing that is good but also so fruitful and ripely pregnant with all manner of evil that it cannot sit still without doing or designing some mischief or other though it would never so fain They that say original sin is concupiscence have described it by a word which is not far from the business if they would but add further what some will be by no means be induced to allow that whatsoever is in Man whether you consider his understanding or his will his Soul or his Body or all of those together is all of it polluted and laden with this concupiscence or to sum up the whole within a shorter compass that the whole Man all over is nâ—thing else but concupiscence and lust And again in the same book c. 2. s 26. Homo verò nec id quod verè sibi bonum sit pro naturae suae immortalis excellentia ratione diligit ut id studio persequatur nec rationem adhibet in contelium nec mensium intendit sed sine ratione sine consilio naturae inclinationem instar pecudis sequitur That is man by his own reason or understanding cannot chuse that or apply himself to a prosecution after it which is best for himself and suitable to the excellence of his immortal nature He does not call reason into his Counsells neither does he bend his Mind to consider of any thing but utterly destitute of reason and of Council he follows the instincts of nature like a Beast and a little after in the same place Nihil ad probandam arbitrii libertatem facit naturale omnibus bene habendi desiderium noâ— magis scilicet quam in metallis lapidibus ad essentiae suae perfectionem inclinans affectio that is the desire of happiness which is natural to all men does not prove the liberty of the will any more than it proves the same in stones or metalls which tend by degrees by a certain affection or affectation of nature which love to be perfect in all it 's several productions from their first Principles to their just consistence and to the utmost perfection of themselves Ib. c. 3. s 13. Speaking of the good lives of some among the Heathens themselves he sayes Omnibus saeculis extiterunt aliqui qui naturâ duce ad virtutem totâ vitâ intenti essent then a little after adds Exempla igitur ista monere nos videntur ne hominis naturam in totum vitiosam pureims quòd ejus instinctu quidam non modò eximiis fac ac moribus excelluerunt sed perpetuo tenore vitae honestissimè se geserunt Sed hîc succurrere nobis debet inter illam naturae corruptionem esse nonnullum Gratiae Dei locum non quae illam purget sed intus cohibeat Nam si singulorum animos laxis habiens Dominus in libidines quaslibet exultare pâ—rmit teret nemo haud dubiè esset qui non reipsâ fidem faceret verissime in se competere omnia mala quibus universam naturam damnat Paulus Quid enim Téne eorum numero eximas quorum pedes ad sanguineÌ„ effundendum veloces manus rapinis homicidiis foedatae guttura sepulchris patentibus similia linguae fraudulentae venenata labia opera inutilia iniqua putrida let halia quorum animus sine Deo quorum intima pravitates quorum oculi ad insidias animi ad insultandum elati omnes denique partes ad infinita flagitia â—oncinnatae Si omnibus ejusmodi portentis obnoxia est unâ—quaeque anima quemadmodum audacter pronuntiat Apostolus videmus certè quid futurum sit si Dominus humanam libidinem pro suâ inclinatione vagari sinat Nulla est rabiosa bellua quae tam praecipianter feratur nullum est quamlibet rapidum ac violentum flu men cujus adeo impetuosa sit exundatio In electis suis morbos istos curat Dominus eo quem mox exponemus modo in aliis injecto fraeno duntaxat coercet tantùm ne ebulliant quatenus exped re providet ad conservandam rerum universitateÌ„ Hinc alii pudore alii legum metu retinentur ne in multa foeditatis genera prorumpanâ— utcunque suam magna expartâ— impuritateÌ„ non dissimulent alii quia honestam vivendi rationeÌ„ conducere ducant ad eam utcunque aspiraÌ„t Alii supra vulgarem sortem emergunt quo sua majestate alios contineant in Officio Ita sua providentia Deus naturae perversitatem refraenat ne in actum erumpat sed non purgat intus That is there have been some in all Ages who by the conduct of nature have followed Virtue all their lives long and these examples may be thought by some to inferr as if the nature of Man were not wholly corrupt and depraved since by the natural instinct there have been so many who have not only done many good and worthy actions but have persisted in a steady course of Virtue from one end of their lives to the other But here it is to be considered in the midst of all this natural pravity there is still room left for the Grace of God I do not mean a purging and cleansing but only a preventing and restraining Grace for if God should let the Minds of all Men loose every one to pursue every Man his own hearts desire there is no doubt but that every Man would give an experiment in himself of all those evils with which Saint Paul hath charged humane Nature For what how can you pretend to exempt your self from the number of those whose feet are swift to shed blood whose hands are foul with rapine and besmeared with slaughter whose Throats are an open Sepulcher tongues full of deceit and Lips tainted with Poison whose works are unprofitable unjust rotten and deadly whose Mind is without God whose inward parts are very wickedness whose eyes are watchful for Treachery and mischief whose Minds are puft up with insolence and Pride and all whose Members are made and fitted as it were or set on purpose to commit infinite Villanies and crimes without number end or measure and if every Soul be naturally addicted to all these monstrous impieties as the Apostle makes no bones to pronounce it is then we may know for certain what the consequence would be if God