words v. 47. 54. Verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day The sum of all which Discourse is that he was the Messiah sent from God And that those who believed him to be so should be raised from the Dead at the last day to Eternal Life These who he spoke to were of those who the day before would by force have made him King And therefore 't is no wonder he should speak to them of himself and his Kingdom and Subjects in obscure and Mystical terms and such as should offend those who looked for nothing but the Grandeur of a Temporal Kingdom in this World and the Protection and Prosperity they had promised themselves under it The hopes of such a Kingdom now that they had found a man that did Miracles and therefore concluded to be the Deliverer they expected had the day before almost drawn them into an open Insurrection and involved our Saviour in it This he thought fit to put a stop to they still following him 't is like with the same design And therefore though he here speaks to them of his Kingdom it was in a way that so plainly bauk'd their Expectation and shock'd them that when they found themselves disappointed of those vain hopes and that he talked of their eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood that they might have Life the Jews said v. 52. How can this man give us his flesh to eat And many even of his Disciples said It was an hard saying who can bear it And so were scandalized in him and forsook him v. 60. 66. But what the true meaning of this Discourse of our Saviour was the Confession of St. Peter who understood it better and answered for the rest of the Apostles shews When Jesus asked him v. 67. Will ye also go away Then Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of eternal life i. e. Thou teachest us the way to attain Eternal Life And accordingly We believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God This was the eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood whereby those who did so had Eternal Life Sometime after this he enquires of his Disciples Mark VIII 27. Who the People took him for They telling him for Iohn the Baptist or one of the old Prophets risen from the Dead He asked what they themselves thought And here again Peter answers in these words Mark VIII 29. Thou art the Messiah Luke IX 20. The Messiah of God And Mat. XVI 16. Thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God Which Expressions we may hence gather amount to the same thing Whereupon our Saviour tells Peter Mat. XVI 17 18. That this was such a truth As flesh and blood could not reveal to him but only his Father who was in Haven And that this was the Foundation on which he was to build his Church By all the parts of which passage it is more than probable that he had never yet told his Apostles in direct words that he was the Messiah but that they had gathered it from his Life and Miracles For which we may imagine to our selves this probable Reason Because that if he had familiarly and in direct terms talked to his Apostles in private that he was the Messiah the Prince of whose Kingdom he preached so much in publick every where Iudas whom he knew false and treacherous would have been readily made use of to testifie against him in a matter that would have been really Criminal to the Roman Governour This perhaps may help to clear to us that seemingly abrupt reply of our Saviour to his Apostles Iohn VI. 70. when they confessed him to be the Messiah I will for the better explaining of it set down the passage at large Peter having said We believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the living God Iesus answered them Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is a reply seeming at first sight nothing to the purpose when yet it is sure all our Saviour's Discourses were wise and pertinent It seems therefore to me to carry this sense to be understood afterwards by the eleven as that of destroying the Temple and raising it again in three days was when they should reflect on it after his being betray'd by Iudas You have confessed and believe the truth concerning me I am the Messiah your King But do not wonder at it that I have never openly declared it to you For amongst you twelve whom I have chosen to be with me there is one who is an Informer or false Accuser for so the Greek word signifies and may possibly here be so translated rather than Devil who if I had owned my self in plain words to have been the Messiah the King of Israel would have betrayed me and informed against me That he was yet cautious of owning himself to his Apostles positively to be the Messiah appears farther from the manner wherein he tells Peter v. 18. that he will build his Church upon that Confession of his that he was the Messiah I say unto thee Thou art Cephas or a Rock and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Words too doubtful to be laid hold on against him as a Testimony that he professed himself to be the Messiah Especially if we joyn with them the following words v. 19. And I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven And what thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and what thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Which being said Personally to Peter render the foregoing words of our Saviour wherein he declares the Fundamental Article of his Church to be the believing him to be the Messiah the more obscure and doubtful and less liable to be made use of against him But yet such as might afterwards be understood And for the same reason he yet here again forbids the Apostles to say that he was the Messiah v. 20. From this time say the Evangelists Jesus began to shew to his Disciples i. e. his Apostles who are often called Disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the Elders Chief Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day These though all marks of the Messiah yet how little understood by the Apostles or suited to their expectation of the Messiah appears from Peter's rebuking him for it in the following words Mat. XVI 22. Peter had twice before owned him to be the Messiah and yet he cannot here bear that he should Suffer and be put to Death and be raised again Whereby we may perceive how little yet Jesus had explained to the Apostles what Personally concerned himself They had been a good while witnesses of his Life and Miracles
have heard it out of his own mouth And That had been his Publick Doctrine to his followers Which was openly preached by the Apostles after his Death when he appeared no more And of this they were accused Acts XVII 5-9 But the Iews which believed not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company and set all the City in an uproar And assaulted the House of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people And when they found them Paul and Silas not they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the Rulers of the City crying these that have turned the World upside down are come hither also whom Jason hath received And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caefar saying that there is another King one Iesus And they troubled the People and the Rulers of the City when they heard these things And when they had taken Security of Jason and the other they let them go Though the Magistrates of the World had no great regard to the talk of a King who had suffered Death and appeared no longer any where Yet if our Saviour had openly declared this of himself in his Life-time with a train of Disciples and Followers every where owning and crying him up for their King the Roman Governour of Iudea could not have forborn to have taken notice of it and have made use of their Force against him This the Jews were not mistaken in and therefore made use of it as the strongest Accusation and likeliest to prevail with Pilate against him for the taking away his Life It being Treason and an unpardonable Offence which could not scape Death from a Roman Deputy without the Forfeiture of his own Life Thus then they Accuse him to Pilate Luke XXIII 2. We found this fellow perverting the Nation and forbidding to give Tribute to Caesar saying that he himself is the Messiah a King Our Saviour indeed now that his time was come and he in Custody and forsaken of all the World and so out of all danger of raising any Sedition or Disturbance owns himself to Pilate to be a King after having first told Pilate Iohn XVIII 36. That his Kingdom was not of this World And for a Kingdom in another World Pilate knew that his Master at Rome concerned not himself But had there been any the least appearance of truth in the Allegations of the Jews that he had perverted the Nation forbidding to pay Tribute to Caesar or drawing the People after him as their King Pilate would not so readily have pronounced him Innocent But we see what he said to his Accusers Luke XXIII 13 14. Pilate when he had called together the Chief Priests and the Rulers of the People said unto them You have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the People and behold I having examined him before you have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof you accuse him No nor yet Herod for I sent you to him and lo nothing worthy of death is done by him And therefore finding a man of that mean Condition and innocent Life no mover of Seditions or disturber of the Publick Peace without a Friend or a Follower would have dismissed him as a King of no consequence as an innocent man falsely and maliciously accused by the Jews How necessary this Caution was in our Saviour to say or do nothing that might justly offend or render him suspected to the Roman Governour and how glad the Jews would have been to have any such thing against him we may see Luke XX. 20. The Chief Priests and the Scribes watched him and sent forth spies who should feign themselves just men that might take hold of his words that so they might deliver him unto the Power and Authority of the Governour And the very thing wherein they hoped to entrap him in this place was paying Tribute to Caesar which they afterwards falsely accused him of And what would they have done if he had before them professed himself to have been the Messiah their King and Deliverer And here we may observe the wonderful Providence of God who had so ordered the state of the Jews at the time when his Son was to come into the World that though neither their Civil Constitution nor Religious Worship were dissolved yet the Power of Life and Death was taken from them Whereby he had an Opportunity to publish the Kingdom of the Messiah that is his own Royalty under the name of the Kingdom of God and of Heaven Which the Jews well enough understood and would certainly have put him to Death for had the Power been in their own hands But this being no matter of Accusation to the Romans hindred him not from speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven as he did Sometimes in reference to his appearing in the World and being believed on by particular Persons Sometimes in reference to the Power should be given him by the Father at his Resurrection And sometimes in reference to his coming to Judge the World at the last day in the full Glory and completion of his Kingdom These were ways of declaring himself which the Jews could lay no hold on to bring him in danger with Pontius Pilate and get him seized and put to Death Another Reason there was that hindred him as much as the former from professing himself in express words to be the Messiah and that was that the whole Nation of the Jews expecting at this time their Messiah and deliverance by him from the Subjection they were in to a Foreign Yoke the body of the People would certainly upon his declaring himself to be the Messiah their King have rose up in Rebellion and set him at the Head of them And indeed the miracles that he did so much disposed them to think him to be the Messiah that though shrouded under the obscurity of a mean Condition and a very private simple Life and his passing for a Galilean his Birth at Bethlehem being then concealed and he not assuming to himself any Power or Authority or so much as the Name of the Messiah yet he could hardly avoid being set up by a Tumult and proclaimed their King So Iohn tells us Chap. V. 14 15. Then those men when they had seen the Miracles that Iesus did said This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the World When therefore Iesus perceived that they would come to take him by force to make him King he departed again into a Mountain himself alone This was upon his feeding of Five Thousand with five Barley Loaves and two Fishes So hard was it for him doing those miracles which were necessary to testifie his Mission and which often drew great multitudes after him Mat. IV. 25. to keep the heady and hasty multitude from such Disorder as would have involved him in it and have disturbed the course and cut short the time of his Ministry and drawn on him the Reputation
and thereby being grown into a belief that he was the Messiah were in some degree prepared to receive the Particulars that were to fill up that Character and answer the Prophesies concerning him Which from henceforth he began to open to them though in a way which the Jews could not form an Accusation out of The time of the accomplishment of all in his Sufferings Death and Resurrection now drawing on For this was in the last Year of his Life he being to meet the Jews at Ierusalem but once more at the Passover who then should have their will upon him And therefore he might now begin to be a little more open concerning himself Though yet so as to keep himself out of the reach of any Accusation that might appear Just or Weighty to the Roman Deputy After his Reprimand to Peter telling him That he savoured not the things of God but of man Mark VIII 34. He calls the People to him and prepares those who would be his Disciples for Suffering Telling them v. 38. Whoever shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful Generation of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels And then subjoyns Mat. XVI 27 28. two great and solemn Acts wherein he would shew himself to be the Messiah the King For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall render every man according to his works This is evidently meant of the Glorious Appearance of his Kingdom when he shall come to Judge the World at the last day Described more at large Mat XXV When the Son of Man shall come in his Glory and all the holy Angels with him then shall be sit upon the THRONE of his Glory Then shall the KING say to them on his right hand c. But what follows in the place above quoted Mat. XVI 28. Verily verily there be some standing here who shall not tast of Death till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom Importing that Dominion which some there should see him exercise over the Nation of the Jews was so covered by being annexed to the preceding v. 27. where he spoke of the Manifestation and Glory of his Kingdom at the day of Judgment That though his plain meaning here in v. 28. be that the appearance and visible exercise of his Kingly Power in his Kingdom was so near that some there should live to see it Yet if the foregoing words had not cast a shadow over these later but they had been left plainly to be understood as they plainly signified that he should be a King And that it was so near that some there should see him in his Kingdom This might have been laid hold on and made the matter of a plausible and seemingly just Accusation against him by the Jews before Pilate This seems to be the reason of our Saviour's inverting here the order of the two Solemn Manifestations to the World of his Rule and Power thereby perplexing at present his meaning and securing himself as was necessary from the malice of the Jews which always lay at catch to intrap him and accuse him to the Roman Governour And would no doubt have been ready to have alledged these words Some here shall not tast of Death till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom against him as Criminal had not their meaning been by the former Verse perplexed and the sense at that time rendred unintelligible and not applicable by any of his Auditors to a sense that might have been prejudicial to him before the Roman Governour For how well the Chief of the Jews were disposed towards him St. Luke tells us Chap. XI 54. Laying wait for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him Which may be a reason to satisfie us of the seemingly doubtful and obscure way of speaking used by our Saviour in other places His Circumstances being such that without such a Prudent carriage and reservedness he could not have gone through the Work which he came to do Nor have performed all the parts of it in a way correspondent to the Descriptions given of the Messiah and which should be afterwards fully understood to belong to him when he had left the World After this Mat. XVII 10 c. He without saying it in direct words begins as it were to own himself to his Apostles to be the Messiah by assuring them that as the Scribes according to the Prophecy of Malachy Chap. IV. 5. rightly said that Elias was to Usher in the Messiah So indeed Elias was already come though the Jews knew him not and treated him ill Whereby They understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist v. 13. And a little after he somewhat more plainly intimates that he is the Messiah Mark IX 41. in these words Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my Name because ye belong to the Messiah This as I remember is the first place where our Saviour ever mentioned the name of Messiah and the first time that he went so far towards the owning to any of the Jewish Nation himself to be him In his way to Jerusalem bidding one follow him Luke IX 59. who would first bury his Father v. 60. Iesus said unto him let the dead bury their dead but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God And Luke X. 1. Sending out the Seventy Disciples he says to them v. 9. Heal the sick and say the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you He had nothing else for these or for his Apostles or any one it seems to Preach but the good News of the coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah And if any City would not receive them he bids them v. 10. Go into the streets of the same and say Even the very dust of your City which cleaveth on us do we wipe off against you Notwithstanding be ye sure of this that the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you This they were to take notice of as that which they should dearly answer for viz. That they had not with Faith received the good Tidings of the Kingdom of the Messiah After this his Brethren say unto him Iohn VII 2 3 4. The Feast of Tabernacles being near Depart hence and go into Judea that thy Disciples also may see the works that thou doest For there is no man that does any thing in secret and he himself seeketh to be known openly If thou do these things shew thy self to the World Here his Brethren which the next Verse tells us did not believe in him seem to upbraid him with the inconsistency of his carriage as if he designed to be received for the Messiah and yet was afraid to shew himself To whom he justified his Conduct mentioned v. 1. in the following verses by telling them That the World meaning the
large here by St. Luke it is plain that the Answer of our Saviour set down by St. Matthew Chap. XXVI 64. in these words Thou hast said And by St. Mark Chap. XIV 62. in these I am Is an Answer only to this Question Art thou then the Son of God And not to that other Art thou the Messiah Which preceded and he had answered to before Though Matthew and Mark contracting the story set them down together as if making but one Question omitting all the intervening Discourse Whereas 't is plain out of St. Luke that they were two distinct Questions to which Iesus gave two distinct Answers In the first whereof he according to his usual Caution declined saying in plain express words that he was the Messiah though in the latter he owned himself to be the Son of God Which though they being Iews understood to signifie the Messiah Yet he knew could be no Legal or Weighty Accusation against him before a Heathen and so it proved For upon his answering to their Question Art thou then the Son of God Ye say that I am They cry out Luke XXII 71. What need we any further witnesses For we our selves have heard out of his own mouth And so thinking they had enough against him they hurry him away to Pilate Pilate asking them Iohn XVIII 29-32 What Accusation bring you against this man They answered and said if he were not a Malefactor we would not have delivered him up unto thee Then said Pilate unto them Take ye him and Iudge him according to your Law But this would not serve their turn who aimed at his Life and would be satisfied with nothing else The Iews therefore said unto him It is not lawful for us to put any man to death And this was also That the saying of Iesus might be fulfilled which he spake signifying what Death he should dye Pursuing therefore their Design of making him appear to Pontius Pilate guilty of Treason against Caesar Luke XXIII 2. They began to accuse him saying We found this Fellow perverting the Nation and forbidding to give Tribute to Caesar saying that he himself is the Messiah the King All which were Inferences of theirs from his saying he was the Son of God Which Pontius Pilate finding for 't is consonant that he examined them to the precise words he had said their Accusation had no weight with him However the Name of King being suggested against Jesus he thought himself concerned to search it to the bottom Iohn XVIII 33-37 Then Pilate entred again into the Iudgment-Hall and called Iesus and said unto him Art thou the King of the Iews Iesus answered him Sayest thou this of thy self or did others tell it thee of me Pilate answered am I a Iew Thine own Nation and the Chief Priest have delivered thee unto me What hast thou done Iesus answered My Kingdom is not of this World If my Kingdom were of this World then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Iews But my Kingdom is not from hence Pilate therefore said unto him Art thou a King then Iesus answered Thou sayest that I am a King For this end was I born and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear witness to the Truth Every one that is of the Truth heareth my voice In this Dialogue between our Saviour and Pilate we may Observe 1. That being asked whether he were the King of the Iews He answers so that though he deny it not yet he avoided giving the least Umbrage that he had any Design upon the Government For though he allows himself to be a King yet to obviate any suspicion he tells Pilate His Kingdom is not of this World And evidences it by this that if he had pretended to any Title to that Country his followers which were not a few and were forward enough to believe him their King would have fought for him if he had had a mind to set himself up by force or his Kingdom were so to be erected But my Kingdom says he is not from hence Is not of this fashion or of this place 2. Pilate being by his words and circumstances satisfied that he laid no Claim to his Province or meant any Disturbance of the Government was yet a little surprized to hear a Man in that poor Garb without Retinue or so much as a Servant or a Friend own himself to be a King And therefore asks him with some kind of wonder Art thou a King then 3. That our Saviour declares that his great business into the World was to testifie and make good this great Truth that he was a King i. e. in other words that he was the Messiah 4. That whoever were followers of Truth and got into the way of Truth and Happiness received this Doctrine concerning him viz. That he was the Messiah their King Pilate being thus satisfied that he neither meant nor could there arise any harm from his pretence whatever it was to be a King Tells the Jews v. 38. I find no fault in this man But the Jews were the more fierce Luke XXIII 5. saying He stirreth up the people to Sedition by his Preaching through all Jewry beginning from Galilee to this place And then Pilate learning that he was of Galilee Herod's Jurisdiction sent him to Herod to whom also the Chief Priest and Scribes v. 10. vehemently accused him Herod finding all their Accusations either false or frivolous thought our Saviour a bare Object of Contempt And so turning him only into Ridicule sent him back to Pilate Who calling unto him the Chief Priests and the Rulers and the People v. 14. Said unto them Ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the People And behold I having examined him before you have found no fault in this man touching these things whereof ye accuse him No nor yet Herod for I sent you to him And so nothing worthy of Death is done by him And therefore he would have released him For he knew the Chief Priests had delivered him through envy Mark XV. 10. And when they demanded Barrabbas to be released but as for Jesus cryed Crucifie him Luke XXIII 22. Pilate said unto them the third time Why What evil hath he done I have found no cause of death in him I will therefore chastise him and let him go We may observe in all this whole Prosecution of the Jews that they would fain have got it out of Iesus's own mouth in express words that he was the Messiah Which not being able to do with all their Art and Endeavour All the rest that they could alledge against him not amounting to a Proof before Pilate that he claimed to be King of the Jews or that he had caused or done any thing towards a Mutiny or Insurrection among the People for upon these two as we see their whole Charge turned Pilate again and again pronounced him innocent For so he did a fourth and a fifth
time bringing him out to them after he had whip'd him Iohn XIX 4. 6. And after all When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing but that rather a Tumult was made he took Water and washed his hands before the multitude saying I am innocent of the Blood of this just man see you to it Mat. XXVII 24. Which gives us a clear reason of the cautious and wary Conduct of our Saviour in not declaring himself in the whole course of his Ministry so much as to his Disciples much less to the Multitude or the Rulers of the Jews in express words to be the Messiah the King And why he kept himself always in Prophetical or Parabolical terms He and his Disciples Preaching only the Kingdom of God i. e. of the Messiah to be come And left to his Miracles to declare who he was Though this was the Truth which he came into the World as he says himself Iohn XVIII 37. to testifie and which his Disciples were to believe When Pilate satisfied of his Innocence would have released him And the Jews persisted to cry out Crucifie him Crucifie him Iohn XIX 6. Pilate says to them Take ye him your selves and Crucifie him For I do not find any fault in him The Jews then since they could not make him a State-Criminal by alledging his saying that he was the Son of God say by their Law it was a Capital Crime v. 7. The Iews answered to Pilate We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God After this Pilate was the more desirous to release him v. 12 13. But the Iews cried out saying If thou let this man go thou art not Caesar 's Friend Whosoever maketh himself a King speaketh against Caesar. Here we see the stress of their Charge against Jesus whereby they hoped to take away his Life viz. That he made himself King We see also upon what they grounded this Accusation viz. Because he had owned himself to be the Son of God For he had in their hearing never made or professed himself to be a King We see here likewise the reason why they were so desirous to draw from his own mouth a Confession in express words that he was the Messiah viz. That they might have what might be a clear Proof that he did so And last of all we see the reason why though in Expressions which they understood he owned himself to them to be the Messiah yet he avoided declaring it to them in such words as might look Criminal at Pilate's Tribunal He owned himself to be the Messiah plainly to the Understanding of the Iews But in ways that could not to the Understanding of Pilate make it appear that he laid claim to the Kingdom of Iudea or went about to make himself King of that Country But whether his saying that he was the Son of God was Criminal by their Law that Pilate troubled not himself about He that considers what Tacitus Suetonius Seneca de Benef. l. 3. c. 26. Say of Tiberius and his Reign will find how necessary it was for our Saviour if he would not dye as a Criminal and a Traytor to take great heed to his words and actions that he did or said not any thing that might be offensive or give the least Umbrage to the Roman Government It behoved an Innocent Man who was taken notice of for something Extraordinary in him to be very wary Under a jealous and cruel Prince who encouraged Informations and filled his Reign with Executions for Treason Under whom words spoken innocently or in jest if they could be misconstrued were made Treason and prosecuted with a Rigor that made it always the same thing to be accused and condemned And therefore we see that when the Iews told Pilate Iohn XIX 12. That he should not be a Friend to Caesar if he let Iesus go For that whoever made himself King was a Rebel against Caesar He asks them no more whether they would take Barrabbas and spare Iesus But though against his Conscience gives him up to Death to secure his own Head One thing more there is that gives us light into this wise and necessarily cautious management of himself which manifestly agrees with it and makes a part of it And that is the choice of his Apostles exactly suited to the design and fore-sight of the Necessity of keeping the declaration of the Kingdom of the Messiah which was now expected within certain general terms during his Ministry And not opening himself too plainly or forwardly to the heady Jews that he himself was the Messiah but leaving it to be found out by the Observation of those who would attend to the Purity of his Life and the Testimony of his Miracles and the Conformity of all with the Predictions concerning him without an express promulgation that he was the Messiah till after his Death His Kingdom was to be opened to them by degrees as well to prepare them to receive it as to enable him to be long enough amongst them to perform what was the work of the Messiah to be done and fulfil all those several parts of what was foretold of him in the Old Testament and we see applyed to him in the New The Iews had no other thoughts of their Messiah but of a Mighty Temporal Prince that should raise their Nation into an higher degree of Power Dominion and Prosperity than ever it had enjoyed They were filled with the expectation of a Glorious Earthly Kingdom It was not therefore for a Poor Man the Son of a Carpenter and as they thought born in Galilee to pretend to it None of the Iews no not his Disciples could have born this if he had expresly avowed this at first and began his Preaching and the opening of his Kingdom this way Especially if he had added to it that in a Year or two he should dye an ignominious Death upon the Cross. They are therefore prepared for the Truth by degrees First Iohn the Baptist tells them The Kingdom of God a name by which the Jews called the Kingdom of the Messiah is at hand Then our Saviour comes and he tells them of the Kingdom of God Sometimes that it is at hand and upon some occasions that it is come but says in his Publick Preaching little or nothing of himself Then come the Apostles and Evangelists after his Death and they in express words teach what his Birth Life and Doctrine had done before and had prepared the well-disposed to receive viz. That Iesus is the Messiah To this Design and Method of Publishing the Gospel was the choice of the Apostles exactly adjusted A company of Poor Ignorant Illiterate Men who as Christ himself tells us Mat. XI 25. and Luke X. 21. Were not of the Wise and Prudent Men of the World They were in that respect but meer Children These convinced by the Miracles they saw him daily do and the unblameable Life he lead might be disposed to
believe him to be the Messiah And though they with others expected a Temporal Kingdom on Earth might yet rest satisfied in the truth of their Master who had honoured them with being near his Person that it would come without being too inquisitive after the time manner or seat of his Kingdom As men of Letters more studied in their Rabbins or men of Business more versed in the World would have been forward to have been Men great or wise in Knowledge or ways of the World would hardly have been kept from prying more narrowly into his Design and Conduct Or from questioning him about the ways and measures he would take for ascending the Throne and what means were to be used towards it and when they should in earnest set about it Abler men of higher Births or Thoughts would hardly have been hindred from whispering at least to their Friends and Relations that their Master was the Messiah And that though he concealed himself to a fit Opportunity and till things were ripe for it yet they should ere long see him break out of his Obscurity cast off the Cloud and declare himself as he was King of Israel But the ignorance and lowness of these good poor men made them of another temper They went along in an implicite trust on him punctually keeping to his Commands and not exceeding his Commission When he sent them to Preach the Gospel He bid them Preach The Kingdom of God to be at hand And that they did without being more particular than he had ordered or mixing their own Prudence with his Commands to promote the Kingdom of the Messiah They preached it without giving or so much as intimating that their Master was he Which men of another Condition and an higher Education would scarce have forborn to have done When he asked them who they thought him to be And Peter answered The Messiah the Son of God Mat. XVI 16. He plainly shews by the following words that he himself had not told them so And at the same time v. 20. forbids them to tell this their Opinion of him to any body How obedient they were to him in this we may not only conclude from the silence of the Evangelists concerning any such thing published by them any where before his Death but from the exact Obedience three of them paid to a like Command of his He takes Peter Iames and Iohn into a Mountain And there Moses and Elias coming to him he is transfigured before them Mat. XVII 9. He charges them saying See that ye tell no man what you have seen till the Son of Man shall be risen from the dead And St. Luke tells us what punctual Observers they were of his Orders in this case Chap. IX 36. They kept it close and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen Whether twelve other men of quicker Parts and of a Station or Breeding which might have given them any Opinion of themselves or their own Abilities would have been so easily kept from medling beyond just what was prescribed them in a matter they had so much Interest in and have said nothing of what they might in Humane Prudence have thought would have contributed to their Master's Reputation and made way for his advancement to his Kingdom I leave to be considered And it may suggest matter of Meditation whether St. Paul was not for this reason by his Learning Parts and warmer Temper better fitted for an Apostle after than during our Saviour's Ministry And therefore though a chosen Vessel was not by the Divine Wisdom called till after Christ's Resurrection I offer this only as a Subject of magnifying the Admirable Contrivance of the Divine Wisdom in the whole Work of our Redemption as far as we are able to trace it by the foot-steps which God hath made visible to Humane Reason For though it be as easie to Omnipotent Power to do all things by an immediate over-ruling Will and so to make any Instruments work even contrary to their Nature in subserviency to his ends Yet his Wisdom is not usually at the expence of Miracles if I may so say but only in cases that require them for the evidencing of some Revelation or Mission to be from him He does constantly unless where the confirmation of some Truth requires it otherwise bring about his Purposes by means operating according to their Natures If it were not so the course and evidence of things would be confounded Miracles would lose their name and force and there could be no distinction between Natural and Supernatural There had been no room left to see and admire the Wisdom as well as Innocence of our Saviour if he had rashly every where exposed himself to the Fury of the Jews and had always been preserved by a miraculous suspension of their Malice or a miraculous rescuing him out of their Hands It was enough for him once to escape from the men of Nazareth who were going to throw him down a Precipice for him never to Preach to them again Our Saviour had multitudes that followed him for the Loaves Who barely seeing the Miracles that he did would have made him King If to the Miracles he did he had openly added in express words that he was the Messiah and the King they expected to deliver them he would have had more Followers and warmer in the Cause and readier to set him up at the Head of a Tumult These indeed God by a miraculous Influence might have hundred from any such Attempt But then Posterity could not have believed that the Nation of the Iews did at that time expect the Messiah their King and Deliverer Or that Iesus who declared himself to be that King and Deliverer shewed any Miracles amongst them to convince them of it Or did any thing worthy to make him be credited or received If he had gone about Preaching to the multitude which he drew after him that he was the Messiah the King of Israel and this had been evidenced to Pilate God could indeed by a Supernatural Influence upon his mind have made Pilate pronounce him Innocent And not Condemn Him as a Malefactor Who had openly for three Years together preached Sedition to the People and endeavoured to perswade them that he was the Messiah their King of the Blood-Royal of David come to deliver them But then I ask whether Posterity would not either have suspected the Story or that some Art had been used to gain that Testimony from Pilate Because he could not for nothing have been so favourable to Iesus as to be willing to release so Turbulent and Seditious a Man to declare him Innocent and cast the blame and guilt of his Death as unjust upon the Envy of the Jews But now the Malice of the Chief Priests Scribes and Pharisees the Headiness of the Mob animated with hopes and raised with miracles Iudas's Treachery and Pilate's care of his Government and the Peace of his Province all working
Naturally as they should Iesus by the admirable wariness of his Carriage and an extraordinary Wisdom visible in his whole Conduct weathers all these Difficulties does the Work he comes for uninterruptedly goes about Preaching his full appointed time sufficiently manifests himself to be the Messiah in all the Particulars the Scriptures had foretold of him And when his hour is come suffers Death But is acknowledged both by Iudas that betrayed and Pilate that condemned him to dye innocent For to use his own words Luke XXIV 46. Thus it is written and thus it behooved the Messiah to suffer And of his whole Conduct we have a Reason and clear Resolution in those words to St. Peter Mat. XXVI 53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall presently give me more than twelve Legions of Angels But how then shall the Scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be Having this clue to guide us let us now observe how our Saviour's Preaching and Conduct comported with it in the last Scene of his Life How cautious he has been in the former part of his Ministry we have already observed We never find him to use the Name of the Messiah but once till he now came to Ierusalem this last Passover Before this his Preaching and Miracles were less at Ierusalem where he used to make but very short stays than any where else But now he comes six days before the Feast and is every day in the Temple Teaching And there publickly heals the Blind and the Lame in the presence of the Scribes Pharisees and Chief Priests The time of his Ministry drawing to an end and his hour coming he cared not how much the Chief Priests Elders Rulers and the Sanhedrim were provoked against him by his Doctrine and Miracles He was as open and bold in his Preaching and doing the Works of the Messiah now at Ierusalem and in the sight of the Rulers and of all the People as he had been before cautious and reserved there and careful to be little taken notice of in that place and not to come in their way more than needs All now that he took care of was not what they should think of him or design against him for he knew they would seize him But to say or do nothing that might be a just matter of Accusation against him or render him Criminal to the Governour But as for the Grandees of the Iewish Nation he spares them not but sharply now reprehends their miscarriages publickly in the Temple where he calls them more than once Hypocrites As is to be seen Mat. XXIII And concludes all with no softer a Compellation than Serpents and Generation of Vipers After this serve Reproof of the Scribes and Pharisees being retired with his Disciples into the Mount of Olives over against the Temple And there fore-telling the Destruction of it His Disciples ask him Mat. XXIV 3 c. When it should be and what should be the signs of his coming He says to them Take heed that no man deceive you For many shall come in my Name i. e. taking on them the Name and Dignity of the Messiah which is only mine saying I am the Messiah and shall deceive many But be not you by them mislead nor by Persecution driven away from this Fundamental Truth That I am the Messiah For many shall be scandalized and Apostatize but he that endures to the end the same shall be saved And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the World i e. The good News of me the Messiah and my Kingdom shall be spread through the World This was the great and only Point of Belief they were warned to stick to And this is inculcated again v. 23-26 and Mark XIII 21-23 with this Emphatical Application to them in both these Evangelists Behold I have told you before-hand remember ye are fore-warned This was in his Answer to the Apostles Enquiry concerning his Coming and the end of the World v. 3. For so we translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must understand the Disciples here to put their Question according to the Notion and way of speaking of the Iews For they had two Worlds as we translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The present World and the World to come The Kingdom of God as they called it or the time of the Messiah they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the World to come which they believed was to put an end to this World And that then the Just should be raised from the Dead to enjoy in that new World a Happy Eternity with those of the Jewish Nation who should be then living These two things viz. The visible and powerful appearance of his Kingdom and the end of the World being confounded in the Apostles Question Our Saviour does not separate them nor distinctly reply to them apart But leaving the Enquirers in the common Opinion answers at once concerning his coming to take Vengeance of the Iewish Nation and put an end to their Church Worship and Common-wealth Which was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they counted should last till the Messiah came And so it did and then had en end put to it And to this he joyns his last coming to Judgment in the Glory of his Father to put a final end to this World and all the Dispensation belonging to the Posterity of Adam upon Earth This joyning them together made his Answer obscure and hard to be understood by them then Nor was it safe for him to speak plainer of his Kingdom and the Destruction of Ierusalem unless he had a mind to be accused for having Designs against the Government For Iudas was amongst them And whether no other but his Apostles were comprehended under the name of his Disciples who were with him at this time one cannot determine Our Saviour therefore speaks of his Kingdom in no other stile but that which he had all along hitherto used viz. The Kingdom of God Luke XXI 31. When you see these things come to pass know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand And continuing on his Discourse with them he has the same Expression Mat. XXV 1. Then the Kingdom of Heaven shall be like unto ten Virgins At the end of the following Parable of the Talents he adds v. 31. When the Son of Man shall come in his Glory and all the holy Angels with him then shall he sit upon the Throne of his Glory and before him shall be gathered all the Nations And he shall set the Sheep on his right hand and the Goats on his left Then shall the KING say c. Here he describes to his Disciples the appearance of his Kingdom wherein he will shew himself a King in Glory upon his Throne But this in such a way and so remote and so unintelligible to a Heathen Magistrate That if it had been alledged against him it would have seemed rather the Dream of a crazy Brain than the
Contrivance of an Ambitious or Dangerous man designing against the Government The way of expressing what he meant being in the Prophetick stile which is seldom so plain as to be understood till accomplished 'T is plain that his Disciples themselves comprehended not what Kingdom he here spoke of from their Question to him after his Resurrection Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Having finished these Discourses he takes Order for the Passover and eats it with his Disciples And at Supper tells them that one of them should betray him And adds Iohn XIII 19. I tell it you now before it come that when it is come to pass you may know that I am He does not say out the Messiah Iudas should not have that to say against him if he would Though that be the sense in which he uses this Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am more than once And that this is the meaning of it is clear from Mark XII 6. Luke XXI 8. In both which Evangelists the words are For many shall come in my Name saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am The meaning whereof we shall find explained in the parallel place of St. Matthew Chap. XXIV 5. For many shall come in my Name saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the Messiah Here in this place of Iohn XIII Jesus fore-tells what should happen to him viz. That he should be betrayed by Iudas adding this Prediction to the many other Particulars of his Death and Suffering which he had at other times foretold to them And here he tells them the reason of these his Predictions viz. That afterwards they might be a confirmation to their Faith And what was it that he would have them believe and be confirmed in the belief of Nothing but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was the Messiah The same reason he gives Iohn XIII 28. You have heard how I said unto you I go away and come again unto you And now I have told you before it come to pass that when it is come to pass ye might believe When Iudas had left them and was gone out he talks a little freer to them of his Glory and his Kingdom than ever he had done before For now he speaks plainly of himself and his Kingdom Iohn XIII 31. Therefore when he Judas was gone out Iesus said Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is also glorified in him And if God be glorified in him God shall also glorifie him in himself and shall straitway glorifie him And Luke XXII 29. And I will appoint unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that ye may eat and drink with me at my Table in my Kingdom Though he has every where all along through his Ministry preached the Gospel of the Kingdom and nothing else but that and Repentance and the Duties of a good Life Yet it has been always the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven And I do not remember that any where till now he uses any such expression as My Kingdom But here now he speaks in the first Person I will appoint you a Kingdom And in my Kingdom And this we see is only to the Eleven now Iudas was gone from them With these Eleven whom he was now just leaving he has a long Discourse to comfort them for their loss of him And to prepare them for the Persecution of the World And to exhort them to keep his Commandments and to love one another And here one may expect all the Articles of Faith should be laid down plainly if any thing else were required of them to believe but what he had taught them and they believed already viz. That he was the Messiah John XIV 1. Ye believe in God believe also in me v. 29. I have told you before it come to pass that when it is come to pass ye may believe It is believing on him without any thing else Iohn XVI 31. Iesus answered them Do you now believe This was in Answer to their professing v 30. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee By this we believe that thou comest forth from God John XVII 20. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word All that is spoke of Believing in this his last Sermon to them is only Believing on him or believing that He came from God Which was no other than believing him to be the Messiah Indeed Iohn XIV 9. Our Saviour tells Philip He that hath seen me hath seen the Father And adds v. 10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me The words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self But the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the works Which being in Answer to Philip's words v. 9. Shew us the Father seem to import thus much No man hath seen God at any time he is known only by his Works And that he is my Father and I the Son of God i. e. the Messiah you may know by the Works I have done Which it is impossible I could do of my self but by the Union I have with God my Father For that by being in God and God in him he signifies such an Union with God that God operates in and by him appears not only by the words above-cited out of v. 10. which can scarce otherwise be made coherent sense but also from the same Phrase used again by our Saviour presently after v. 20. At that day viz. after his Resurrection when they should see him again ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you i. e. By the works I shall enable you to do through a Power I have received from the Father Which whoever sees me do must acknowledge the Father to be in me And whoever sees you do must acknowledge me to be in you And therefore he says v. 12. Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he also do because I go unto my Father Though I go away yet I shall be in you who believe in me And ye shall be enabled to do Miracles also for the carrying on of my Kingdom as I have done That it may be manifested to others that you are sent by me as I have evidenced to you that I am sent by the Father And hence it is that he says in the immediately preceding v. 11. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me If not believe me for the sake of the works themselves Let the Works that I have done convince you that I am sent by the Father That he is with me and that I do nothing but by his Will and by vertue of the Union I have with him And that consequently I am the Messiah who am anointed sanctified and separate by the Father to
have I spoken to you in Proverbs i. e. In General Obscure Aenigmatical or Figurative terms All which as well as Allusive Apologues the Jews called Proverbs or Parables Hitherto my declaring of my self to you hath been obscure and with reserve And I have not spoken of my self to you in plain and direct words because ye could not bear it A Messiah and not a King you could not understand And a King living in Poverty and Persecution and dying the Death of a Slave and Malefactor upon a Cross you could not put together And had I told you in plain words that I was the Messiah and given you a direct Commission to Preach to others that I professedly owned my self to be the Messiah you and they would have been ready to have made a Commotion to have set me upon the Throne of my Father David and to fight for me that your Messiah your King in whom are your hopes of a Kingdom should not be delivered up into the hands of his Enemies to be put to Death And of this Peter will instantly give you an Example But the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Parables but I shall shew unto you plainly of the Father My Death and Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Ghost will speedily enlighten you and then I shall make you know the Will and Design of the Father What a Kingdom I am to have and by what means and to what end v. 27. And this the Father himself will shew unto you For he loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from the Father Because ye have believed that I am the Son of God the Messiah That he hath anointed and sent me Though it hath not been yet fully discovered to you what kind of Kingdom it shall be nor by what means brought about And then our Saviour without being asked explaining to them what he had said And making them understand better what before they stuck at and complained secretly among themselves that they understood not They thereupon declare v. 30. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee 'T is plain thou knowest mens Thoughts and Doubts before they ask By this we believe that thou comest forth from God Iesus answered Do ye now believe Notwithstanding that you now believe that I came from God and am the Messiah sent by him Behold the hour cometh yea is now come that ye shall be scattered And as it is Mat. XXVI 31. and shall all be scandalized in me What it is to be scandalized in him we may see by what followed hereupon if that which he says to St. Peter Mark XIV did not sufficiently explain it This I have been the more particular in That it may be seen that in this last Discourse to his Disciples where he opened himself more than he had hitherto done and where if any thing more was required to make them Believers than what they already believed we might have expected they should have heard of it there were no new Articles proposed to them but what they believed before viz. That he was the Messiah the Son of God sent from the Father Though of his manner of proceeding and his sudden leaving the World and some few particulars he made them understand something more than they did before But as to the main design of the Gospel viz. That he had a Kingdom that he should be put to Death and rise again and ascend into Heaven to his Father and come again in Glory to Judge the World This he had told them And so had acquainted them with the Great Council of God in sending him the Messiah and omitted nothing that was necessary to be known or believed in it And so he tells them himself Iohn XV. 15. Henceforth I call ye not Servants for the Servant knoweth not what his Lord does But I have called ye Friends for ALL THINGS I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you though perhaps ye do not so fully comprehend them as you will shortly when I am risen and ascended To conclude all in his Prayer which shuts up this Discourse he tells the Father what he had made known to his Apostles The Result whereof we have Iohn XVII 8. I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and THEY HAVE BELIEVED THAT THOV DIDST SEND ME Which is in effect that he was the Messiah promised and sent by God And then he Prays for them and adds v. 20 21. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also who shall believe on me through their word What that Word was through which others should believe in him we have seen in the Preaching of the Apostles all through the History of the Acts viz. This one great Point that Jesus was the Messiah The Apostles he says v. 25. know that thou hast sent me i. e. are assured that I am the Messiah And in v. 21. 23. he Prays That the World may believe which v. 23. is called knowing that thou hast sent me So that what Christ would have believed by his Disciples we may see by this his last Prayer for them when he was leaving the World as well as by what he Preached whilst he was in it And as a Testimony of this one of his last Actions even when he was upon the Cross was to confirm this Doctrine by giving Salvation to one of the Thieves that was crucified with him upon his Declaration that he believed him to be the Messiah For so much the words of his Request imported when he said Remember me Lord when thou comest into thy Kingdom Luke XXIII 42. To which Jesus replied v. 43. Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou be with me in Paridise An Expression very remarkable For as Adam by sin left Paradise i. e. a state of Happy Immortality Here the believing Thief through his Faith in Iesus the Messiah is promised to be put in Paradise and so re-instated in an Happy Immortality Thus our Saviour ended his Life And what he did after his Resurrection St. Luke tells us Acts I. 3. That he shewed himself to the Apostles forty days speaking things concerning the Kingdom of God This was what our Saviour preached in the whole Course of his Ministry before his Passion And no other Mysteries of Faith does he now discover to them after his Resurrection All he says is concerning the Kingdom of God And what it was he said concerning that we shall see presently out of the other Evangelists having first only taken notice that when now they asked him v. 6. Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel He said unto them v. 7. It is not for you to know the Times and the Seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive Power after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you And ye shall be witnesses unto me unto the utmost parts of the Earth Their great business was to be Witnesses to Iesus of his Life Death Resurrection and Ascension which put together were undeniable Proofs of his being the Messiah Which was what they were to Preach and what he said to them concerning the Kingdom of God As will appear by what is recorded of it in the other Evangelists The day of his Resurrection appearing to the two going to Emmaus Luke XXIV They declare v. 21. what his Disciples Faith in him was But we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel i.e. We believed that he was the Messiah come to deliver the Nation of the Iews Upon this Iesus tells them they ought to believe him to the Messiah notwithstanding what had happened Nay they ought by his Suffering and Death to be confirmed in that Faith that he was the Messiah And v. 26 27. Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself How that the Messiah ought to have suffered these things and to have entred into his Glory Now he applies the Prophesies of the Messiah to himself which we read not that he did ever do before his Passion And afterwards appearing to the Eleven Luke XXIV 36. He said unto them v. 44-47 These words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning me Then opened he their Vnderstandings that they might understand the Scripture and said unto them Thus it is written and thus it behoved the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day And that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Ierusalem Here we see what it was he had preached to them though not in so plain open words before his Crucifixion And what it is he now makes them understand And what it was that was to be preached to all Nations viz. That he was the Messiah that had suffered and rose from the Dead the third day and fulfilled all things that was written in the Old Testament concerning the Messiah And that those who believed this and repented should receive Remission of their Sins through this Faith in him Or as St. Mark has it Chap. XVI 15. Go into all the World and Preach the Gospel to every Creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved But he that believeth not shall be damned v. 20. What the Gospel or Good News was we have shewed already viz. The happy Tidings of the Messiah being come v. 20. And they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following What the Word was which they preached and the Lord confirmed with Miracles we have seen already out of the History of their Acts Having given an Account of their Preaching every where as it is recorded in the Acts except some few places where the Kingdom of the Messiah is mentioned under the name of the Kingdom of God Which I forbore to set down till I had made it plain out of the Evangelists that That was no other but the Kingdom of the Messiah It may be seasonable therefore now to add to those Sermons we have formerly seen of St. Paul wherein he preached no other Article of Faith but that Iesus was the Messiah the King who being risen from the Dead now Reigneth and shall more publickly manifest his Kingdom in judging the World at the last day what farther is left upon Record of his Preaching Acts XIX 8. At Ephesus Paul went into the Synagogues and spake boldly for the space of three months disputing and perswading concerning the Kingdom of God And Acts XX. 25. At Miletus he thus takes leave of the Elders of Ephesus And now behold I know that ye all among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more What this Preaching the Kingdom of God was he tells you v. 20 21. I have kept nothing back from you which was profitable unto you but have shewed you and have taught you publickly and from House to House Testifying both to the Iews and to the Greeks Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ. And so again Acts XXVIII 23 24. When they the Jews at Rome had appointed him Paul a day there came many to him into his Lodging To whom he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them concerning Iesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from Morning to Evening And some believed the things which were spoken and some believed not And the History of the Acts is concluded with this Account of St. Paul's Preaching And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired House and received all that came in unto him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Iesus the Messiah We may therefore here apply the same Conclusion to the History of our Saviour writ by the Evangelists And to the History of the Apostles writ in the Acts which St. Iohn does to his own Gospel Chap. XX. 30 31. Many other signs did Iesus before his Disciples And in many other places the Apostles preached the same Doctrine which are not written in these Books But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his Name What St. Iohn thought necessary and sufficient to be believed for the attaining Eternal Life he here tells us And this not in the first dawning of the Gospel when perhaps some will be apt to think less was required to be believed than after the Doctrine of Faith and Mystery of Salvation was more fully explained in the Epistles writ by the Apostles For it is to be remembred that St. Iohn says this not as soon as Christ was ascended For these words with the rest of St. Iohn's Gospel were not written till many Years after not only the other Gospels and St. Luke's History of the Acts but in all appearance after all the Epistles writ by the other Apostles So that above Threescore Years after our Saviour's Passion for so long after both Epiphanius and St. Ierome assure us this Gospel was written St. Iohn knew nothing else required to be believed for the attaining of Life but that Iesus is the Messiah the Son of God To this 't is likely it will be objected by some that to believe only that Iesus of Nazareth is the Messiah is but an Historical and not a Justifying or Saving Faith To which I Answer That I allow to the makers of Systems and their followers to invent and use what distinctions they please and to call things by what names they think fit But I cannot allow to them or
accounted worthy to obtain that World and the Resurrection from the Dead neither marry nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more for they are equal unto the Angels and are the SONS OF GOD being the Sons of the Resurrection And he that shall read St. Paul's Arguing Acts XIII 32 33. will find that the great Evidence that Jesus was the Son of God was his Resurrection Then the Image of his Father appeared in him when he visibly entred into the state of Immortality For thus the Apostle reasons We Preach to you how that the Promise which was made to our Fathers God hath fulfilled the same unto us in that he hath raised up Iesus again As it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee This may serve a little to explain the Immortality of the Sons of God who are in this like their Father made after his Image and Likeness But that our Saviour was so he himself farther declares Iohn X. 18. Where speaking of his Life he says No one taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again Which he could not have had if he had been a Mortal Man the Son of a Man of the Seed of Adam Or else had by any Transgression forfeited his Life For the wages of Sin is Death And he that hath incurred Death for his own Transgression cannot lay down his Life for another as our Saviour professes he did For he was the Just One Acts VII 57. and XII 14. Who knew no sin 2 Cor. V. 21. Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth And thus As by Man came Death so by Man came the Resurrection of the Dead For as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive For this laying down his Life for others our Saviour tells us Iohn X. 17. Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again And this his Obedience and Suffering was rewarded with a Kingdom which he tells us Luke XXII His Father had appointed unto him And which 't is evident out of the Epistle to the Hebrews Chap. XII 2. he had a regard to in his Sufferings Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Which Kingdom given him upon this account of his Obedience Suffering and Death He himself takes notice of in these words Iohn XVII 1-4 Iesus lift up his eyes to Heaven and said Father the hour is come glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie thee As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him And this is Life Eternal that they may know thee the only true God and Iesus the Messiah whom thou hast sent I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do And St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians Chap. II. 8-11 He humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name That at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth And that every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord. Thus God we see designed his Son Christ Iesus a Kingdom an Everlasting Kingdom in Heaven But Though as in Adam all die so in Christ all shall be made alive And all men shall return to Life again at the last day Yet all men having sinned and thereby come short of the Glory of God as St. Paul assures us Rom. III. 23. i.e. Not attaining to the Heavenly Kingdom of the Messiah which is often called the Glory of God as may be seen Rom. V. 2. XV. 7. II. 7. Mat. XVI 27. Mark VIII 38. For no one who is unrighteous i. e. comes short of perfect Righteousness shall be admitted into the Eternal Life of that Kingdom As is declared 1 Cor. VI. 9. The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And Death the Wages of Sin being the Portion of all those who had transgressed the Righteous Law of God The Son of God would in vain have come into the World to lay the Foundations of a Kingdom and gather together a select People out of the World if they being found guilty at their appearance before the Judgment-seat of the Righteous Judge of all men at the last day instead of entrance into Eternal Life in the Kingdom he had prepared for them they should receive Death the just Reward of Sin which every one of them was guilty of This second Death would have left him no Subjects And instead of those Ten Thousand times Ten Thousand and Thousands of Thousands there would not have been one left him to sing Praises unto his Name saying Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever God therefore out of his Mercy to Mankind and for the erecting of the Kingdom of his Son and furnishing it with Subjects out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation proposed to the Children of Men that as many of them as would believe Iesus his Son whom he sent into the World to be the Messiah the promised Deliverer And would receive him for their King and Ruler should have all their past Sins Disobedience and Rebellion forgiven them And if for the future they lived in a sincere Obedience to his Law to the utmost of their power the sins of Humane Frailty for the time to come as well as all those of their past Lives should for his Son's sake because they gave themselves up to him to be his Subjects be forgiven them And so their Faith which made them be baptized into his Name i.e. Enroll themselves in the Kingdom of Iesus the Messiah and profess themselves his Subjects and consequently live by the Laws of his Kingdom should be accounted to them for Righteousness i.e. Should supply the defects of a scanty Obedience in the sight of God Who counting this Faith to them for Righteousness or Compleat Obedience did thus Justifie or make them Just and thereby capable of Eternal Life Now that this is the Faith for which God of his free Grace Justifies sinful Man For 't is God alone that justifieth Rom. VIII 33. Rom. III. 26. We have already shewed by observing through all the History of our Saviour and the Apostles recorded in the Evangelists and in the Acts what he and his Apostles preached and proposed to be believed We shall shew now that besides believing him to be the Messiah their King it was farther required that those who would have the Priviledge Advantages and
Deliverance of his Kingdom should enter themselves into it And by Baptism being made Denizons and solemnly incorporated into that Kingdom live as became Subjects obedient to the Laws of it For if they believed him to be the Messiah their King but would not obey his Laws and would not have him to Reign over them they were but greater Rebels and God would not Justifie them for a Faith that did but increase their Guilt and oppose Diametrically the Kingdom and Design of the Messiah Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works Titus II. 14. And therefore St. Paul tells the Galatians That that which availeth is Faith But Faith working by Love And that Faith without Works i.e. the Works of sincere Obedience to the Law and Will of Christ is not sufficient for our Justification St. Iames shews at large Chap. II. Neither indeed could it be otherwise For Life Eternal Life being the Reward of Justice or Righteousness only appointed by the Righteous God who is of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity to those only who had no taint or infection of Sin upon them it is impossible that he should Justifie those who had no regard to Justice at all whatever they believed This would have been to encourage Iniquity contrary to the Purity of his Nature and to have condemned that Eternal Law of Right which is Holy Just and Good Of which no one Precept or Rule is abrogated or repealed nor indeed can be whilst God is an Holy Just and Righteous God and Man a Rational Creature The Duties of that Law arising from the Constitution of his very Nature are of Eternal Obligation Nor can it be taken away or dispensed with without changing the Nature of Things overturning the measures of Right and Wrong and thereby introducing and authorizing Irregularity Confusion and Disorder in the World Which was not the end for which Christ came into the World But on the contrary to reform the corrupt state of degenerate Man And out of those who would mend their Lives and bring forth Fruit meet for Repentance erect a new Kingdom This is the Law of that Kingdom as well as of all Mankind And that Law by which all Men shall be judged at the last day Only those who have believed Iesus to be the Messiah and have taken him to be their King with a sincere Endeavour after Righteousness in obeying his Law shall have their past sins not imputed to them And shall have that Faith taken instead of Obedience Where Frailty and Weakness made them transgress and sin prevailed after Conversion in those who hunger and thirst after Righteousness or perfect Obedience and do not allow themselves in Acts of Disobedience and Rebellion against the Laws of that Kingdom they are entred into He did not expect 't is true a Perfect Obedience void of all slips and falls He knew our Make and the weakness of our Constitutions too well and was sent with a Supply for that Defect Besides perfect Obedience was the Righteousness of the Law of Works and then the Reward would be of Debt and not of Grace And to such there was no need of Faith to be imputed to them for Righteousness They stood upon their own legs were Just already and needed no allowance to be made them for believing Jesus to be the Messiah taking him for their King and becoming his Subjects But whether Christ does not require Obedience sincere Obedience is evident from the Laws he himself pronounces unless he can be supposed to give and inculcate Laws only to have them disobeyed and from the Sentence he will pass when he comes to Judge The Faith required was to believe Iesus to be the Messiah the Anointed who had been promised by God to the World Amongst the Iews to whom the Promises and Prophesies of the Messiah were more immediately delivered Anointing was used to three sorts of Persons at their Inauguration Whereby they were set apart to three great Offices viz. Of Priests Prophets and Kings Though these three Offices be in Holy Writ attributed to our Saviour yet I do not remember that he any where assumes to himself the Title of a Priest or mentions any thing relating to his Priesthood Nor does he speak of his being a Prophet but very sparingly and once or twice as it were by the by But the Gospel or the Good News of the Kingdom of the Messiah is what he Preaches every where and makes it his great business to publish to the World This he did not only as most agreeable to the Expectation of the Iews who looked for their Messiah chiefly as coming in Power to be their King and Deliverer But as it best answered the chief end of his Coming which was to be a King and as such to be received by those who would be his Subjects in the Kingdom which he came to erect And though he took not directly on himself the Title of King till he was in Custody and in the hands of Pilate yet 't is plain King and King of Israel were the Familiar and received Titles of the Messiah See Iohn I. 50. Luke XIX 38. Compared with Mat. XXI 9. And Mark XI 9. Iohn XII 13. Mat. XXI 5. Luke XXIII 2. Compared with Mat. XXVII 11. And Iohn XVIII 33-37 Mark XV. 12. Compared with Mat. XXVII 22. Mat. XXVII 42. What those were to do who believed him to be the Messiah and received him for their King that they might be admitted to be partakers with him of this Kingdom in Glory we shall best know by the Laws he gives them and requires them to obey And by the Sentence which he himself will give when sitting on his Throne they shall all appear at his Tribunal to receive every one his Doom from the mouth of this Righteous Judge of all Men. What he proposed to his Followers to be believed we have already seen by examining his and his Apostles Preaching step by step all through the History of the four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles The same Method will best and plainest shew us whether he required of those who believed him to be the Messiah any thing besides that Faith and what it was For he being a King we shall see by his Commands what he expects from his Subjects For if he did not expect Obedience to them his Commands would be but meer Mockery And if there were no Punishment for the Transgressors of them his Laws would not be the Laws of a King that had Authority to Command and Power to Chastise the disobedient But empty Talk without Force and without Influence We shall therefore from his Injunctions if any such there be see what he has made Necessary to be performed by all those who shall be received into Eternal Life in his Kingdom prepared in the Heavens And in this we cannot be deceived What we have from his own Mouth
hath given to them that obey him Acts XVII 30. Paul tells the Athenians That now under the Gospel God commandeth all Men every where to REPENT Acts XX. 21. St. Paul in his last Conference with the Elders of Ephesus professes to have taught them the whole Doctrine necessary to Salvation I have says he kept back nothing that was profitable unto you But have shewed you and have taught you publickly and from house to house Testifying both to the Iews and to the Greeks And then gives an account what his Preaching had been viz. REPENTANCE towards God and Faith towards our Lord Iesus the Messiah This was the Sum and Substance of the Gospel which St. Paul Preached and was all that he knew necessary to Salvation viz. Repentance and believing Iesus to be the Messiah And so takes his last farewel of them whom he should never see again v. 32. in these words And now Brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his Grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified There is an Inheritance conveyed by the Word and Covenant of Grace but it is only to those who are Sanctified Acts. XXIV 24. When Felix sent for Paul that he and his Wife Drusilla might hear him concerning the Faith in Christ Paul reasoned of Righteousness or Justice and Temperance the Duties we owe to others and to our selves and of the Judgment to come Till he made Felix to tremble Whereby it appears that Temperance and Iustice were Fundamental parts of the Religion that Paul professed and were contained in the Faith which he Preached And if we find the Duties of the Moral Law not pressed by him every where We must remember That most of his Sermons left upon Record were Preached in their Synagogues to the Jews who acknowledged their Obedience due to all the Precepts of the Law And would have taken it amiss to have been suspected not to have been more Zealous for the Law than he And therefore it was with reason that his Discourses were directed chiefly to what they yet wanted and were averse to the knowledge and imbracing of Jesus their promised Messiah But what his Preaching generally was if we will believe him himself we may see Acts XXVI Where giving an Account to King Agrippa of his Life and Doctrine he tells him v. 20. I shewed unto them of Damascus and at Ierusalem and throughout all the Coasts of Iudea and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for Repentance Thus we see by the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles that he required of those who believed him to be the Messiah and received him for their Lord and Deliverer that they should live by his Laws And that though in consideration of their becoming his Subjects by Faith in him whereby they believed and took him to be the Messiah their former Sins should be forgiven Yet he would own none to be his nor receive them as true denizons of the New Ierusalem into the inheritance of Eternal Life but leave them to the Condemnation of the Unrighteous who renounced not their former Miscarriages and lived in a sincere Obedience to his Commands What he expects from his Followers he has sufficiently declared as a Legislator And that they may not be deceived by mistaking the Doctrine of Faith Grace Free-Grace and the Pardon and Forgiveness of Sins and Salvation by him which was the great End of his Coming He more than once declares to them For what omissions and miscarriages he shall Judge and Condemn to Death even those who have owned him and done Miracles in his Name when he comes at last to render to every one according to what he hath DONE in the Flesh Sitting upon his Great and Glorious Tribunal at the end of the World The first place where we find our Saviour to have mentioned the day of Judgment is Ioh. V. 28 29. in these words The hour is coming in which all that are in their Graves shall hear his i. e. the Son of God's Voice and shall come forth They that have DONE GOOD unto the Resurrection of Life And they that have DONE EVIL unto the Resurrection of Damnation That which puts the distinction if we will believe our Saviour is the having done good or evil And he gives a reason of the necessity of his Judging or Condemning those who have done Evil in the following words v. 30. I can of my own self do nothing As I hear I judge And my Iudgment is just Because I seek not my own Will but the Will of my Father who hath sent me He could not judge of himself He had but a delegated Power of Judging from the Father whose Will he obeyed in it and who was of purer Eyes than to admit any unjust Person into the Kingdom of Heaven Matt. VII 22 23. Speaking again of that day he tells what his Sentence will be depart from me ye WORKERS of Iniquity Faith in the Penitent and Sincerely Obedient supplies the defect of their Performances and so by Grace they are made Just. But we may observe None are Sentenced or Punished for Unbelief but only for their Misdeeds They are Workers of Iniquity on whom the Sentence is Pronounced Matt. XIII 14. At the end of the World the Son of Man shall send forth his Angels And they shall gather out of his Kingdom all Scandals and them which DO INIQVITY And cast them into a Furnace of Fire There shall be wailing and gnashing of Teeth And again v. 49. The Angels shall sever the WICKED from among the IVST and shall cast them into the Furnace of Fire Matt. XVI 24. For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels And then be shall Reward every Man according to his WORKS Luke XIII 26. Then shall ye begin to say We have eaten and drunk in thy Presence and thou hast taught in our Streets But he shall say I tell you I know you not Depart from me ye WORKERS of Iniquity Matt. XXV 21-26 When the Son of Man shall come in his Glory and before him shall be gathered all Nations He shall set the Sheep on his right hand and the Goats on his Left Then shall the King say to them on his Right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Foundation of the World For I was an hungred and ye gave me Meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in Prison and ye came unto me Then shall the Righteous Answer him saying Lord When saw we thee an hungred and fed thee c. And the King shall answer and say unto them Verily I say unto you In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man i. e. The lame man restored by Peter stand here before you whole This is the stone which is set at nought by you builders which is become the head of the Corner Neither is there Salvation in any other For there is none other name under Heaven given among men in which we must be saved Which in short is that Iesus is the only true Messiah Neither is there any other Person but he given to be a Mediator between God and Man in whose Name we may ask and hope for Salvation It will here possibly be asked Quorsum perditio hoec What need was there Of a Saviour What Advantage have we by Iesus Christ It is enough to justifie the fitness of any thing to be done by resolving it into the Wisdom of God who has done it Whereof our narrow Understandings and short Views may utterly incapacitate us to judge We know little of this visible and nothing at all of the state of that Intellectual World wherein are infinite numbers and degrees of Spirits out of the reach of our ken or guess And therefore know not what Transactions there were between God and our Saviour in reference to his Kingdom We know not what need there was to set up a Head and a Chieftain in opposition to The Prince of this World the Prince of the Power of the Air c. Whereof there are more than obscure intimations in Scripture And we shall take too much upon us if we shall call God's Wisdom or Providence to Account and pertly condemn for needless all that that our weak and perhaps biaffed Vnderstandings cannot Account for Though this general Answer be Reply enough to the forementioned Demand and such as a Rational Man or fair searcher after Truth will acquiesce in Yet in this particular case the Wisdom and Goodness of God has shewn it self so visibly to common Apprehensions that it hath furnished us abundantly wherewithal to satisfie the Curious and Inquisitive who will not take a Blessing unless they be instructed what need they had of it and why it was bestowed upon them The great and many Advantages we receive by the coming of Iesus the Messiah will shew that it was not without need that he was sent into the World The Evidence of our Saviour's Mission from Heaven is so great in the multitude of Miracles he did before all sorts of People which the Divine Providence and Wisdom has so ordered that they never were nor could be denied by any of the Enemies and Opposers of Christianity that what he delivered cannot but be received as the Oracles of God and unquestionable Verity Though the Works of Nature in every part of them sufficiently Evidence a Deity Yet the World made so little use of their Reason that they saw him not Where even by the impressions of himself he was easie to be found Sense and Lust blinded their minds in some And a careless Inadvertency in others And fearful Apprehensions in most who either believed there were or could not but suspect there might be Superiour unknown Beings gave them up into the hands of their Priests to fill their Heads with false Notions of the Deity and their Worship with foolish Rites as they pleased And what Dread or Craft once began Devotion soon made Sacred and Religion immutable In this state of Darkness and Ignorance of the true God Vice and Superstition held the World Nor could any help be had or hoped for from Reason which could not be heard and was judged to have nothing to do in the case The Priests every where to secure their Empire having excluded Reason from having any thing to do in Religion And in the croud of wrong Notions and invented Rites the World had almost lost the sight of the One only True God The Rational and thinking part of Mankind 't is true when they sought after him found the One Supream Invisible God But if they acknowledged and worshipped him it was only in their own minds They kept this Truth locked up in their own breast as a Secret nor ever durst venture it amongst the People much less amongst the Priests those wary Guardians of their own Creeds and Profitable Inventions Hence we see that Reason speaking never so clearly to the Wise and Vertuous had never Authority enough to prevail on the Multitude and to perswade the Societies of Men that there was but One God that alone was to be owned and worshipped The Belief and Worship of One God was the National Religion of the Israelites alone And if we will consider it it was introduced and supported amongst that People by Revelation They were in Goshen and had Light whilst the rest of the World were in almost Egyptian Darkness without God in the World There was no part of Mankind who had quicker Parts or improved them more that had a greater light of Reason or followed it farther in all sorts of Speculations than the Athenians And yet we find but one Socrates amongst them that opposed and laughed at their Polytheism and wrong Opinions of the Deity And we see how they rewarded him for it Whatsoever Plato and the soberest of the Philosophers thought of the Nature and Being of the One God they were fain in their outward Professions and Worship to go with the Herd and keep to the Religion established by Law Which what it was and how it had disposed the mind of these knowing and quick-sighted Grecians St. Paul tells us Acts XVII 22-29 Ye men of Athens says he I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious For as I passed by and beheld your Devotions I found an Altar with this Inscription TO THE VNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you God that made the World and all things therein seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands Neither is worshipped with mens hands as though he needed nay thing seeing he giveth unto all life and breath and all things And hath made of one Blood all the Nations of Men for to dwell on the face of the Earth And hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their Habitations That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel him out and find him though he be not far from every one of us Here he tells the Athenians that they and the rest of the World given up to Superstition whatever Light there was in the Works of Creation and Providence to lead them to the True God yet they few of them found him He was every where near them yet they were but like People groping and feeling for something in the dark and did not see him with a full clear day-light But thought the Godhead like to Gold and Silver and Stone graven by Art and man's device In this state of Darkness and Error in reference to the
in that is to view them in their due light and the way to get the true sense of them They were writ to those who were in the Faith and true Christians already And so could not be designed to teach them the Fundamental Articles and Points necessary to Salvation The Epistle to the Romans was writ to all that were at Rome beloved of God called to be Saints whose Faith was spoken of through the World Chap. 1. 7 8. To whom St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians was he shews Chap I. 2. 4. c. Vnto the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Iesus called to be Saints with all them that in every place call upon the Name of Iesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Iesus Christ That in every thing ye are enriched by him in all utterance and in all knowledge Even as the Testimony of Christ was confirmed in you So that ye come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of the Lord Iesus Christ. And so likewise the second was To the Church of God at Corinth with all the Saints in Achaia Chap. I. 1. His next is to the Churches of Galatia That to the Ephesians was To the Saints that were at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Iesus So likewise To the Saints and faithful Brethren in Christ at Colosse who had Faith in Christ Iesus and love to the Saints To the Church of the Thessalonians To Timothy his Son in the Faith To Titus his own Son after the common Faith To Philemon his dearly beloved and fellow-labourer And the Author to the Hebrews calls those he writes to Holy Brethren partakers of the Heavenly Calling Chap. III. 1. From whence it is evident that all those whom St. Paul writ to were Brethren Saints Faithful in the Church and so Christians already And therefore wanted not the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion without a belief of which they could not be saved Nor can it be supposed that the sending of such Fundamentals was the reason of the Apostle's Writing to any of them To such also St. Peter writes as is plain from the first Chapter of each of his Epistles Nor is it hard to observe the like in St. Iames and St. Iohn's Epistles And St. Iude directs his thus To them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Iesus Christ and called The Epistles therefore being all written to those who were already Believers and Christians the occasion and end of writing them could not be to Instruct them in that which was necessary to make them Christians This 't is plain they knew and believed already or else they could not have been Christians and Believers And they were writ upon Particular Occasions and without those Occasions had not been writ and so cannot be thought necessary to Salvation Though they resolving doubts and reforming mistakes are of great Advantage to our Knowledge and Practice I do not deny but the great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there and scattered up and down in most of them But 't is not in the Epistles we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith where they are promiscuously and without distinction mixed with other Truths in Discourses that were though for Edification indeed yet only occasional We shall find and discern those great and necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Saviour and the Aples to those who were yet strangers and ignorant of the Faith to bring them in and convert them to it And what that was we have seen already out of the History of the Evangelists and the Acts where they are plainly laid down so that no body can mistake them The Epistles to particular Churches besides the main Argument of each of them which was some present Concernment of that particular Church to which they severally were address'd do in many places explan the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion and that wisely by proper Accommodations to the Apprehensions of those they were writ to the better to make them imbibe the Christian Doctrine and the more easily to comprehend the Method Reasons and Grounds of the great work of Salvation Thus we see in the Epistle to the Romans Adoption a Custom well known amongst those of Rome is much made use of to explain to them the Grace and Favour of God in giving them Eternal Life to help them to conceive how they became the Children of God and to assure them of a share in the Kingdom of Heaven as Heirs to an Inheritance Whereas the setting out and confirming the Christian Faith to the Hebrews in the Epistle to them is by Allusions and Arguments from the Ceremonies Sacrifices and Oeconomy of the Jews and Reference to the Records of the Old Testament And as for the General Epistles they we may see regard the state and exigencies and some peculiarities of those times These Holy Writers inspired from above writ nothing but Truth and in most places very weighty Truths to us now for the expounding clearing and confirming of the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it But yet every Sentence of theirs must not be taken up and looked on as a Fundamental Article necessary to Salvation without an explicit belief whereof no body could be a Member of Christ's Church here nor be admitted into his Eternal Kingdom hereafter If all or most of the Truths declared in the Epistles were to be received and believed as Fundamental Articles what then became of those Christians who were fallen asleep as St. Paul witnesses in his First to the Corinthians many were before these things in the Epistles were revealed to them Most of the Epistles not being written till above Twenty Years after our Saviour's Ascension and some after Thirty But farther therefore to those who will be ready to say May those Truths delivered in the Epistles which are not contained in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles and are therefore by this Account not necessary to Salvation be believed or disbelieved without any danger May a Christian safely question or doubt of them To this I Answer That the Law of Faith being a Covenant of Free Grace God alone can appoint what shall be necessarily believed by every one whom he will Justifie What is the Faith which he will accept and account for Righteousness depends wholly on his good Pleasure For 't is of Grace and not of Right that this Faith is accepted And therefore he alone can set the Measures of it And what he has so appointed and declared is alone necessary No body can add to these Fundamental Articles of Faith nor make any other necessary but what God himself hath made and declared to be so And what these are which God requires of those who will enter into and receive the Benefits of
the New Covenant has already been shewn An explicit belief of these is absolutely required of all those to whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and Salvation through his Name proposed The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths whereof none that is once known to be such may or ought to be disbelieved For to acknowledge any Proposition to be of Divine Revelation and Authority and yet to deny or disbelieve it is to offend against this Fundamental Article and Ground of Faith that God is true But yet a great many of the Truths revealed in the Gospel every one does and must confess a man may be ignorant of nay disbelieve without danger to his Salvation As is evident in those who allowing the Authority differ in the Interpretation and meaning o several Texts of Scripture not thought Fundamental In all which 't is plain the contending Parties on one side or tother are ignorant of nay disbelieve the Truths delivered in Holy Writ unless Contrarieties and Contradictions can be contained in the same words and Divine Revelation can mean contrary to it self Though all divine Revelation requires the obedience of Faith yet every truth of inspired Scriptures is not one of those that by the Law of Faith is required to be explicitly believed to Justification What those are we have seen by what our Saviour and his Apostles proposed to and required in those whom they Converted to the Faith Those are fundamentals which 't is not enough not to disbelieve Every one is required actually to assent to them But any other Proposition contained in the Scripture which God has not thus made a necessary part of the Law of Faith without an actual assent to which he will not allow any one to be a Believer a Man may be ignorant of without hazarding his Salvation by a defect in his Faith He believes all that God has made necessary for him to believe and assent to And as for the rest of Divine Truths there is nothing more required of him but that he receive all the parts of Divine Revelation with a docility and disposition prepared to imbrace and assent to all Truths coming from God And submit his mind to whatsoever shall appear to him to bear that Character Where he upon fair endeavours understands it not How can he avoid being ignorant And where he cannot put several Texts and make them consist together What Remedy He must either interpret one by the other or suspend his Opinion He that thinks that more is or can be required of poor frail Man in matters of Faith will do well to consider what absurdities he will run into God out of the infiniteness of his Mercy has dealt with Man as a compassionate and tender Father He gave him Reason and with it a Law That could not be otherwise than what Reason should dictate Unless we should think that a reasonable Creature should have an unreasonable Law But considering the frailty of Man apt to run into corruption and misery he promised a Deliverer whom in his good time he sent And then declared to all Mankind that whoever would believe him to be the Saviour promised and take him now raised from the dead and constituted the Lord and Judge of all Men to be their King and Ruler should be saved This is a plain intelligible Proposition And And the all-merciful God seems herein to have consulted the poor of this World and the bulk of Mankind These are Articles that the labouring and illiterate Man may comprehend This is a Religion suited to vulgar Capacities And the state of Mankind in this World destined to labour and travel The Writers and Wranglers in Religion fill it with niceties and dress it up with notions which they make necessary and fundamental parts of it As if there were no way into the Church but through the Academy or Lyceum The bulk of Mankind have not leisure for Learning and Logick and superfine distinctions of the Schools Where the hand is used to the Plough and the Spade the head is seldom elevated to sublime Notions or exercised in mysterious reasonings 'T is well if Men of that rank to say nothing of the other Sex can comprehend plain propositions and a short reasoning about things familiar to their Minds and nearly allied to their daily experience Go beyond this and you amaze the greatest part of Mankind And may as well talk Arabick to a poor day Labourer as the Notions and Language that the Books and Disputes of Religion are filled with and as soon you will be understood The Dissenting Congregations are supposed by their Teachers to be more accurately instructed in matters of Faith and better to understand the Christian Religion than the vulgar Conformists who are charged with great ignorance How truly I will not here determine But I ask them to tell me seriously whether half their People have leisure to study Nay Whether one in ten of those who come to their Meetings in the Country if they had time to study them do or can understand the Controversies at this time so warmly managed amongst them about Justification the subject of this present Treatise I have talked with some of their Teachers who confess themselves not to understand the difference in debate between them And yet the points they stand on are reckoned of so great weight so material so fundamental in Religion that they divide Communion and separate upon them Had God intended that none but the Learned Scribe the disputer or wise of this World should be Christians or be Saved thus Religion should have been prepared for them filled with speculations and niceties obscure terms and abstract notions But Men of that expectation Men furnished with such acquisitions the Apostle tells us I Cor. I. are rather shut out from the simplicity of the Gospel to make way for those poor ignorant illiterate Who heard and believed promises of a Deliverer and believed Jesus to be him Who could conceive a Man dead and made alive again and believe that he should at the end of the World come again and pass Sentence on all Men according to their deeds That the poor had the Gospel Preached to them Christ makes a mark as well as business of his Mission Mat. XI 5. And if the poor had the Gospel Preached to them it was without doubt such a Gospel as the poor could understand plain and intelligible And so it was as we have seen in the Preachings of Christ and his Apostles FINIS Printed for A. J. Churchil in Pater-Noster-Row A View of Universal History from the Creation to 1695. Wherein the most Remarkable Persons and Things in the known Kingdoms and Countries of the World are set down in several Columns by way of Synchronism according to their proper Centuries and Years In 16 Copper Plates By F. Talents A. M. A compleat Journal of both Houses of Parliament throughout the whole Reign of Q. Elizabeth By Sir Symonds Dewes Knight Fol. Notitia Monastica Or A History of all the Religious Houses in England and Wales c. 8vo By Tho. Tanner The Resurrection of the same Body asserted from the Tradition of the Heathens the Ancient Jews and the Primitive Church With an Answer to the Objections brought against it By Humph. Hody D. D. Octavo Bishop Wilkins of Prayer and Preaching enlarged by the Bp. of Norwich and Dr. Williams Octavo The Gentleman's Religion with Grounds and Reasons of it 20. By a Private Gentleman Dr. Patrick's New Version of all the Psalms of David 120. To be sung in Churches Gen. III. 17-19