Nevertheless since by manifest Analogy of Reason the Case of Magistrates or publick Persons may here come into Consideration Therefore in the Second Place â—a Command may be Considered as descending from a Magistrate or Publick Person upon Persons under his Jurisdiction and so I affirm that the Supreme Magistrate in the making of Laws or giving out Commands stands not under any obligation from his Office to frame those Laws to the Good or Advantage of any Particular Persons but only of the Community or Majority of the People which are properly the Trust Committed to Him So that if his Reason or Conscience upon the best Information he can get tells Him that the making of such or such a Law tends to the good of these and that so apparently that without it they would be unavoidably hurt in matters of the greatest Moment if this Law now becomes an occasion of Sin to some particular Persons its being so is wholly accidental and extrinsick to the design of the Law and consequently concerns not the Civil Magistrate nor makes Him chargeable with those Sins in the least For surely where the Publick good of all or most of the People comes into Competition with the Private good of some Particulars so that both cannot possibly be served by the same means There Charity as well as bare Reason will teach that the Private must stoop to the Publick rather than the Publick be made a Sacrifice to the Private In God's Government of the World it is the Publick concern of Mankind that there should be Summer and Winter in their respective Seasons and yet there are Millions of Sick and Weak Persons to whose distempers the approach of either of those Seasons will prove certainly Mortal Is it now think we rational that God should suspend a Summer or a Winter only to comply with the distemper of those Crazy Bodily-Weak Brethren and thereby to incommode all the World besides The case is much alike here However this indeed must be confessed that if the Magistrate or Supreme Power should make a Law which he knew would be a direct occasion of Sin to the Generality or Majority of his People the making of such a Law would be in Him a Sin and a Breach of his Trust but still I affirm that his Office obliges Him only to provide for the good of the main Body of his People and if it so falls out that Particulars come to have an Interest distinct from or opposite to that he is not during such its opposition at all bound to regard or Provide for it Nor to answer for the Inconveniences which may attend such Persons either in their Civil or Spiritual Concerns And thus much concerning the second Thing proposed which was to shew what it is to Wound or Sin against a Weak Conscience namely that it is either to grieve it or to embolden it to Sin And if it be now objected against this that the Text calls a Sinning against a Weak Conscience a Sinning against Christ to whom we can no ways properly be said to administer any occasion or inducement to Sin I answer that this expression of Sinning against being applyed to Christ imports only a grieving or disobeying Him Though as it is applyed to the Weak Conscience it signifies the other Thing too It being not unusual in Scripture for the same word to be repeated in the very same sentence under a diverse signification Having thus finished the two first Things I come now to the Third and last which is to set down those Conclusions which by way of Consequence and Deduction naturally result from the foregoing Particulars Which Conclusions are these 1. That no Man having been brought up or for any length of time continued in the Communion of a Church Teaching and Professing the true Religion if he have but also the common use of his Reason can justly plead Weakness of Conscience in the Sence in which it was here used by the Apostle 2. That as such Weakness of Conscience can upon no sufficient ground be Actually pleaded so upon much less can it be continued in 3. That supposing it might be both pleaded and continued in yet the Plea of it ought by no means to be admitted by the civil Magistrate in prejudice of any laws either actually made or to be made by Him for the General good of his People Of each of which in their order First And first for the first of these That no Man c. This conclusion is of so much force and use rightly applyed that it is a wonder it has not been more insisted upon against those who disturb the Church with this Plea for as much as it would wholly cashier and pluck it up by the very Roots And Men mistake the Method of disputing with these pretenders to Weak Consciences now adays not considering that the very supposition that they either have or can have 〈◊〉 â—eak Conscience ought by no means to be granted them nor are we to debate with them how far and to what degree this their Weakness ought to be yielded to but absolutely to deny that amongst us and under our circumstances there is any such thing St. Paul indeed speaks of such a Conscience in those first times of Preaching the Gospel and accordingly urges a compliance with it but where the cases are wholly different there the Privileges applicable to both cannot be the same In both these places in which this Apostle treats of this matter I shew that the Persons to whom he addresses Himself were but new Converts Some of which were just converted and come off from Judaism whose Reverence to the Law of Moses had been sucked in by them with their very Milk and been still kept up in the Minds of all that People to that strange heighth almost of Adoration that it is no wonder if their Opinion of the continuance of that Law even â—fter Christ's Death and their Ignorance of its Abrogation were for a time invincible And for the other sort of new Converts they were such as had been converted from Heathenism and Idolatry and consequently looked upon every thing in use amongst those Heathens with a suspicion and a jealousy so strong that considering the Weakness of Humane Nature it was impossible presently to remove it and therefore they were in Charity for some time to be complyed with For as the prejudices and prepossessions of Education are exceeding hardly removed and broke so being once broke the Aversions of the Mind from them running into the other extreme are altogether as impetuous and as hardly governable by impartial Reason whereupon shadows are oftentimes mistook for substances whilst Men through immoderate fearfulness first create to themselves appearances of Evil and then fly from them But what is all this to the Case of those now adays amongst us who from their Cradle have or migâ—â— have had the Principles of True Religion instilled into them who have still grown up in a Church
that Christ was a Supplanter of the Authority of Moses and an Enemy to the Law And here for answer to this I grant that Christ designed the Abrogation of their Ceremonial Law and yet for all this I affirm that Christ made good that Word of his to the utmost That He came not to destroy the Law but to fullfil it For we must know that to destroy a Constitution and to abrogate or meerly to put an end to it are very different To destroy a thing is to cause it to cease from that use to which it is designed and to which it ought to serve But so did not Christ to the Ceremonial Law the design of which was to foresignify and point at the Messiah who was to come So that the Messiah being come and having finished the Work for which he came the use of it continued no longer for being only to relate to a thing future when that thing was past and so ceased to be future the Relation surely grounded upon that Futurity must needs cease also In a Word if to fullfil a Prophecy be to destroy it then Christ by abrogating the Ceremonial Law may be said also to have destroyed it A Prophecy fullfilled is no longer a Prophecy the very Subject Matter of it being hereby took away So a Type is no longer a Type when the Thing typified comes to be actually exhibited But the Jews who strip'd all these things from any Relation to a Spiritual Design thought that their Temple was to stand for ever their Circumcision and Sabbaths to be perpetual their New-Moons never to Change and the difference of Meats and of clean and unclean Beasts to be unalterable For alas poor ignorant Wretches All their Religion as they had made it was only to hate Hoggs and to Butcher Sheep and Oxen. A Religion which they might very well have practised had they Sacrificed to no other God but their Belly Having thus shewn the Unreasonableness of the Jews exceptions against Christ. I come now to 3. The Third and Last Thing which is to shew that they had great Reason for the contrary High Arguments to induce them to receive and embrace him for their Messias It is not the business of an hour nor of a Day to draw forth all those reasons which make for this Purpose and to urge them according to their full Latitude and dignity and therefore being to speak to those who need not be convinc'd of that which they believe already I shall mention but Two and those very briefly 1. The First shall be taken from this That all the signs and marks of the Messias did most eminently appear in Christ of all which signs I shall fix upon one as the most Notable which is the Time of his Coming It was exactly when the Scepter or Government was departed from Iudah according to that Prophecy of Iacob And at the end of Daniel's weeks at which time he foretold that the Messiah should come Upon a Consideration of which one of their own Rabbies but fifty years before Christ said that it was impossible for the coming of the Messiah to be deferred beyond fifty Years A proportion of time vastly different from that of above sixteen hundred and yet after this also they can hear no news of such a Messiah as they expect The same Daniel also affirms that after the coming and cutting off of the Messiah the City and the Temple should be destroyed As clear therefore as it is that the City and Temple are destroyed so clear is it that their Messiah came before that destruction From all which we may well insist upon that charge made against them by our Saviour Ye Fools ye can discern the Face of the Sky and of the Heavens but how is it that ye do not discern this time A time as evident as if it were pointed out by a Sun Beam upon a Dial. And therefore the modern Jews being pinched with the force of this Argument fly to their old stale Evasion That the promise of the time of the Messiah's coming was not absolute but conditional which Condition failing upon the great Sins of the Jews the time of his coming has been accordingly deferr'd But this Answer signifies nothing For the very design of the Messiah's coming was to take away Sins and be a Propitiation for them even according to their own Rabbies words and confession And therefore it is ridiculous to make the Jews Sins the hindrances of his coming when he made the Atonement of Sins the chief Reason why he should come In a word if the Messiah was to come within such a certain period of time which time is long since expired and while the City and Temple were yet standing which shortly after Christ's coming were demolished then either that Iesus was the Messiah or let them shew some other about that time to whom that Title might better belong 2. A second Reason shall be taken from the whole course and tenour of Christ's behaviour amongst the Jews Every Miracle that he did was an act of Mercy and Charity and designed to Cure as well as to Convince He went about doing good he conversed amongst them like a walking Balsom breathing Health and Recovery wheresoever he came Shew me so much as one Miracle ever wrought by him to make a Man Lame or Blind to incommode an Enemy or to revenge Himself Or shew me any one done by him to serve an Earthly Interest As for Gain and Gold he renounced it Poverty was His fee and the only recompence of all His Cures And had he not been sold till he sold himself the High Priests might have kept their thirty pieces of Silver for a better use Nor was Fame and Honour the bait that allured Him For he despised a Kingship and regarded not their Hosanna's He embraced a Cross and declined not the Shame And as for Pleasure and Softness of Life He was so far from the least approach to it that He had not where to lay his Head while the Foxes of the World had very warm places where to lay theirs He lived as well as wrought Miracles Miracles of Austerity Fasting and Praying long Journies and course Receptions so that if we compare his Doctrine with his Example His very Precepts were Dispensations and Indulgences in comparison of the Rigors He imposed upon himself Let that Jew therefore who shall except against Christ as an Impostor as they all do declare what carnal or secular Interest he drove at and if not what there is in the Nature of Man that can prompt him to an endurance of all these Hardships to serve no Temporal end or advantage whatsoever For did ever any sober Person toil and labour and at length expose himself to a cruel Death only to make Men believe that which he neither did nor could believe Himself And so by dying in and for a lye must procure himself Damnation in the next World as well as Destruction in this But if
Stronger and flame out Brighter and Brighter till at length having lead us through this Vale of Darkness and Mortality it shall bring us to those happy Mansions where there is Light and Life for evermore Which God the great Author of Both of his Infinite Mercy vouchsafe to us all To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for ever more Amen A SERMON Preached at Westminster-Abbey May 29. 1670. MATT. V. 44 But I say unto you Love your Enemies BEfore we descend to the Prosecution of the Duty Enjoined in these words It is requisite that we Consider the Scheme and Form of them as they stand in Relation to the Context They are ushered in with the Adversative Particle But which stands as a note of Opposition to something going before and that we have in the immediately preceeding Vers. Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt Love thy Neighbour and hate thy Enemy But I say unto you Love your Enemies Which way of speaking has given Occasion to an Enquiry whether the Duty here Enjoined by Christ be opposed to the Mosaick Law or onely to the Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees and their Corrupt Glosses thereupon some having made this and the next Chapter not only a fuller Explication and Vindication of the Mosaick Law but an Addition of higher and perfecter Rules of Piety and Morality to it For the better clearing of which Point I conceive that the matter of all the Commandments the fourth only as it determines the time of Gods solemn Worship to the seventh day excepted is of Natural Moral Right and by Consequence carries with it a necessary and eternal obligation as riseing from the unalterable Relation that a Rational Creature bears either to God His Neighbour or Himself For there are certain Rules of Deportment Suggested by Nature to each of these which to deviate from or not come up to would be irrational and Consequently Sinful So that such Duties can by no means owe their first obligation to any New Precept given by Christ but springing from an Earlier stock obliged Men in all Ages and Places since the World began Forasmuch as that General Habitude or Relation upon which all particular Instances of Duty are founded which Men bore to God their Neighbour and themselves upon account of their being Rational Creatures was Universally and Equally the same in all So that for a Man to hate his Enemy or to be revengeful or to be angry without a Cause or to swear Rashly or by Looks Words or Actions to behave himself Lasciviously were without question always Aberrations from the Dictates of Rightly Improved Reason And consequently in the very Nature of the Things themselves Unlawful For if there were not a Natural Evil and Immorality in the aforesaid Acts nor a goodness in the contrary But that all this Issued from a positive Injunction of the one and Prohibition of the other what Reason can be assigned but that God might have Commanded the said Acts and made them Duties instead of forbidding them which yet certainly would be a very strange or rather monstrous Assertion but nevertheless by a necessity of sequel unavoidable From whence I conceive it to be very clear that if the several particulars commanded or forbidden by Christ in that his great Sermon upon the Mount had a Natural Good or Evil respectively belonging to them Christ thereby added no New Precept to the Moral Law which Eternally was and will be the same as being the Unalterable Standard or Measure of the Behaviour of a Rational Creature in all its Relations and Capacities For we must not Think that when the Law either by Precept or Prohibition takes notice only of the outward Act and the Gospel afterwards directs it self to the thoughts and desires the Motives and Causes of the said Act or again when the Law gives only a General Precept and the Gospel assigns several particular Instances reducible to the same General Iâ—junction that therefore the Gospel gives so many New Precepts Corrective or Perfective of the aforesaid Precepts of the Law No by no means for it is a Rule which ever was and ever ought to be allowed in Interpreting the Divine Precepts That every such Precept does Vertually and Implicitly and by a Parity of Reason contain in it more than it expresly declares which is so true that those Persons who impugn the Perfection of the old Moral Precepts and upon that Account oppose the Precepts of Christ to them do yet find it necessary to maintain that even the Precepts of our Saviour Himself ought to extend their obligation to many more particulars than are mentioned in them and yet are not to be looked upon as at all the less perfect upon that Account Which Rule of Interpreting being admitted and made use of as to the Precepts of the New Testament why ought it not to take place in those of the old also And if it ought as there can be no shadow of Reason to the contrary I dare undertake that there will be no need of multiplying of New Precepts in the Gospel as often as the Papists and Socinians have a Tuâ—â— to serve by them For surely every New Instance of Obedience does not of necessity inferr a New Precept and for that Reason we may and do admit of several of the former without any need of asserting the latter The Unity of a Precept is founded in the General Unity of its object and every such General Comprehends many Particulars The very Institution of the Two Christian Sacraments is rather the Assignation of two new Instances of Obedience than of two new Precepts For Christ having once Authentically declared that God would be Worshipped by those two solemn Acts the Antecedent General Precept of Worshipping God according to his own Will was sufficient to oblige us to these two particular Branches of it being thus declared and indeed to as many more as should from time to time be suggested to our Practise For otherwise if the multiplication of new particular Iâ—stâ—â—ces of Duty should multiply Preceptâ— too it would render them innumerable which would be extreamly absurd and ridiculous And now all that has been here alledged by us against the Necessity of holding any new Precepts added to the Old Moral Law as it obliged all Mankind whether notified to them by the Light of Natureâ— only or by Revelation too I reckon may as truely be affirmed of the Law of Moses also still supposing it a True and Perfect Transcript of the said Moral Law as we have all the Reason in the World to believe it was for were it otherwise it would be hard to shew what Advantage it could be to the Iewish Church to have that Law delivered to them but on the Contrary it must needs have been rather a Snare than a Privilege or Help to them as Naturally giving them Occasion to look upon that as the most perfect
draught of their Duty when yet it required of them a lower degree of Obedience than Nature had before obliged them to it being a thing in it self most Rational to suppose the latter declaration of a Legislators mind to be still the fuller and more Authentick And therefore if other duties had been incumbent upon the Jewish Church by the Law of Nature besides what were contained in the Law of Moses it is not Imaginable how they could avoid the Omission of those Duties while they acquâ—â—sced in the Directions of Moses as a full and sufficieâ—â— Rule of Obedience and had so mâ—â—â— Reason so to do Which yet surely must have rendred the whole Mosaick dispensation by no means agreeable either to the Wisdom or Goodness of God towards His Chosen People For though indeed the Moral Law as a Covenant promising Life upon Condition of absolute indefective obedience be now of no use to justify Sin having disabled it for that use through the Incapacity of the Subject yet as it is a Rule directing our Obedience and a Law binding to it it still Continues in full force and will do as long as Humane Nature endures And as for the Aâ—solute perfection of it in the Quality of a Rule directing and a Law obliging can that be more amply declared and irrefragably proved than as it stands stated and represented to us in the vast latitude of that Injunction Deut. 6. â— and Levit. 19.18 Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength and with all thy Mind and thy Neighbour as thy self I say is there any Higher degree of Obedience which the Nature of Man is Capable of yielding to his Maker than this Nevertheless there are some Artists I must confess who can draw any thing out of any thing who answer That these words are not to be understood of Absolutely all that a Man can do but of all that he can be engaged to do by the Law as proposed under such an Oeconomy namely as enforced with Temporal Promises and Threatnings so that upon these Terms to Love God with all the Heart c. is to Love Him with the Utmost of such an Obedience as Laws seconded with Temporal Blessings and Curses are able to produce But to this I answer First That the Argument bears upon a supposition by no means to be admitted to wit that the Law of Moses proceeded only upon Temporal Rewards and Punishments Which is most false and contrary to the constantly received Doctrine of the Christian Church and particularly of the Church of England as it is declared in the sixth of Her Articles But Secondly I add further That the obliging Power of the Law is neither founded in nor to be measured by the Rewards and Punishments anâ—â—xed to it but by the sole Authority of the Law-giver springing from the Relation which he bears of a Creator and Governour to Mankind and Consequently of the entire dependance of Mankind upon Him by vertue whereof they owe Him the utmost service that their Nature renders them Capable of doing him And that I am sure is Capable of Serving Him at a â—igher Rate than the Consideration of any Temporal Rewards or Punishments can raise it to since oftentimes the bare Love of Vertue it self will carry a Man further than these can but however it is certain that Eternal Rewards can do so which yet add nothing to our Natural Powers of Obeying though they draw them forth to an higher pitch of Obedience And can we then Imagine that God would sink his Law below these Powers by Leaveing some degree of Love and Service to Himself absolutely within the strength and Power of Man which He did not think fit by the Mosaick Law to oblige Him to when yet our Saviour Himself promised Eternal Life to One upon supposal of his Performance of this Law Luke 10.28 This certainly is very strange Divinity But after all some may possibly reply Does not the Gospel enjoin us that Perfection and Height of Charity which the Law never did in Commanding us to lay down our Life for our Brother 1 Ioh. 3.16 To which I Answer That this is a Precept by no means absolute and universal but always to be Limited by these two Conditions viz. First That the Glory of God and Secondly That the Eternal Welfare of the Soul of our Brother indispensably requires this of us upon the supposal of either of which I affirm it was as really a Duty from the Beginning of the World as it was from that very time that the Apostle wrote these words the very Common Voice of Reason upon these Terms and under these Câ—rcumstances dictating and enjoining no less as founding it self upon these two Self-Evident and undeniable Principles viz. That the Life of the Creaâ—â—re ought when Necessity calls to be Sacrificed to the Glory of Him who gave it and Secondly that we ought to prefer the Eternal good of our Neighbour or Brother before the highest Temporal good of our selves Which manifestly shows that this High Instance of Charity as extraordinary as it appears did not at length begin to be a Duty by any Evangelicâ—â— Sanction but was so ever since there was such Creatures in the World as Men and Consequently that all both Iews and Gentiles whether they actually knew so much or no would have sinned against this Duty of Charity should they have refused to promote the Glory of their Maker or Prevent the Destruction of their Brother 's Immortal Soul being called thereto by quitting this Temporal Life for the sake of either And Consequently that this is no such New Precept to be reckoned by Anno Domini but as old as the obligations of Charity and of Right Reason discoursing and acting upon the Dictates of that Noble Principle And now to apply this General Discourse to the Particulars mentioned in this Chapter I affirm that Christ does by no means here set Himself against the Law of Moses as a Law either faulty or imperfect and upon those Accounts needing either Correction or Addition but only opposed the Corrupt Comments of the Scribes and Pharisees upon the Law as really Contradictions to it rather than Expositions of it And that for these following Reasons First Because the words in this Sermon mentioned and opposed by Christ are manifestly for the most part not the words of the Law it self but of the Scribes and Pharisees As for instance Whosoever shall Kill shall be in danger of the Iudgment And again in the next Verse He shall be in danger of the Council They all referr to the Pharisees way of expressing themselves which manifestly shews that it was their Doctrine and Words which He was now disputing against and not the Law it self which this is by no means the Language of Secondly That Expression That is was said by those of old time was not uttered by Christ in his own Person but by way of
that a Soveraign could suffer from his Subjects Scorning all Revenge as more below him than the very Persons whom he might have been revenged upon he gloried in nothing so much as in giving Mercy the upper hand of Majesty it self making Amnesty his Symbol or Motto and Forgiveness the peculiar signalizing Character of his Reign herein Resembling the Almighty Himself as far as mortality can who seems to claim a greater Glory for Sparing and Redeeming Man than for Creating Him So that in a word as our Saviour has made Love to our Enemies one of the Chiefest badges of our Religion so our King has almost made it the very mark of our Allegiance Thus even to a Prodigy Merciful has he shewn Himself Merciful by Inclination and merciful by Extraction merciful in his Example and merciful in hiâ— Laws and thereby expressing the utmost dutifulness of a Son as well as the highest Magnanimity and Clemency of a Prince while He is still making that good upon the Throne which the Royal Martyr his Father had enjoined upon the Scaffold where He dyed pardoning and praying for those whose malice he was then falling a Victim to And this with a Charity so unparallell'd and a devotion so â—ervent that the Voice of his Prayers 't is to be hoped drowned the very Cry of his Blood But I Love not to dwell upon such Tragedies save only to illustrate the height of one Contrary by the height of another and therefore as an humble follower of the Princely Pattern here set before us I shall draw a Veil of silence over all especially since it surpasses the Power of Words sufficiently to set forth either the greatness of the Crimes forgiven or of the mercy that forgave them But to draw to a close We have here had the highest and the hardest Duty perhaps belonging to a Christian both recommended to our Judgment by Argument and to our Practice by Example and what remains but that we submit our Iudgment to the one and govern our Practice by the other And for that Purpose that we beg of God an Assistance equal to the Difficulty of the Duty enjoyned for certainly it is not an ordinary measure of Grace that can conquer the opposition that Flesh and Blood and corrupt Reason it self after all its convictions will be sure to make to it The greatest miseries that befall us in this World are from Enemies and so long as Men naturally desire to be happy it will be naturally as hard to them to Love those who they know are the grand Obstacles to their being so The Light of Nature will convince a Man of many Duties which it will never enable him to perform And if we should look no further than bare Nature this seems to be one cut out rather for our Admiration than our Practice It being not more difficult where Grace does not Interpose to cut off a Right Hand than to reach it heartily to the Relief of an inveterate Implacable Adversary And yet God expects this from us and that so peremptorily that he has made the Pardon of our Enemies the Indispensable Condition of our own And therefore that Wretch whosoever he was who being pressed hard upon his Death-Bed to Pardon a notable Enemy which he had answered That if He died indeed he Pardoned Him but if He lived He would be Revenged on Him That Wretch I say and every other such Image of the Devil no doubt went out of the World so that he had better never have come into it In fine after we have said the utmost upon this Subject that we can I believe we shall find this the Result of all That He is an happy Man who has no Enemies and he a much happier who has never so many and can Pardon them God preserve us from the one or enable us to do the other To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen False Foundations removed AND True ones laid for such Wise Builders as design to build for Eternity IN A SERMON Preached at St. Mary's Oxon before the University Decem. 10. 1661. MATT. VII 26 27. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine and doth them not shall be likened unto a foolish Man which built his House upon the Sand. And the Rain descended and the Floods came and the Winds blew and beat upon that House and it fell and great was the fall of it IT seems to have been all along the Prime Art and method of the great Enemy of Souls not being able to root the Sense of Religion out of Mens hearts yet by his Sophistries and Delusions to defeat the Design of it upon their Lives and either by empty Notions or false perswasions to take them off from the main business of Religion which is Duty and Obedience by bribing the Conscience to rest satisfyed with something less A project extremely sutable to the corrupt Nature of Man whose chief or rather sole quarrel to Religion is the severity of its Precepts and the Difficulty of their Practice So that although it is as Natural for him to desire to be happy as to breath yet he had rather lose and miss of happiness than seek it in the way of Holiness Upon which Account nothing speaks so full and home to the very inmost Desires of his Soul as those Doctrines and Opinions which would perswade him that it may and shall be well with him hereafter without any Necessity of his living well here Which great Mystery of Iniquity being carefully managed by the utmost skill of the Tempter and greedily embraced by a Man 's own Treacherous affections lies at the bottom of all false Religions and eats out the very Heart and Vitals of the True For in the strength of this some hope to be saved by Believing well some by Meaning well some by Paying well and some by shedding a few insipid Tears and uttering a few hard words against those Sins which they have no other Controversy with but that they were so unkind as to leave the Sinner before he was willing to leave them For all this Men can well enough submit to as not forceing them to abandon any one of their Beloved Lusts. And therefore they will not think themselves hardly dealt with though you require Faith of them if you will but dispense with Good Works They will abound and even overflow with good Intentions if you will allow them in quite contrary Actions And you shall not want for Sacrifice if that may Compound for Obedience nor Lastly will they grudge to find Money if some body else will find Merit But to Live well and to Do well are Things of too hard a Digestion Accordingly our Saviour who well knew all these false hopes and Fallacious Reasonings of the Heart of Man which is never so subtle as when it would deceive it self tells his hearers that all these little trifling Inventions will avail them
which protests against Idolatry and Superstition and enjoins nothing that has any just appearance of such things upon it but offers to vindicate every thing practised and enjoyned by it from any such imputation these Men surely can have no Reason to entertain those Jealousies and Prejudices which possessed Men who had been bred up all their days in Iudaism or Idolatry and were but newly converted from it Especially if we add this also that the Goodness of God makes nothing our Duty either to believe or practise but what lies plain and obvious to any common apprehension which will not be wanting to it self Which things since the Church Inculcates to all within it teaching them to know by all the ordinary means of Knowledge whatsoever it is their Duty to know it is evident that no Man amongst us can justifiably plead Weakness of Conscience in that seâ—â—e in which their Consciences were Weak whom St. Paul deals with either in that Epistle of his to the Romans or in this to the Corinthians For can any Man living in the Church alledge any tolerable cause why he should be Ignorant of his Catechism a thing so short and plain and yet so full as to all things necessary to be believ'd or practised by a Christian that common Sence and common Industry may make any one a Master of it The summ of all therefore is this That he only can plead Weakness of Conscience upon Scripture Grounds who is excusably Ignorant of some Point of Duty or Privilege He only is excusably Ignorant whose Ignorance is not the Effect of his Will That Ignorance only is not so which is caused either by want of Ability of Understanding or of Opportunities and Means of Knowledge But he who has the common use of Reason has sufficient Ability and he who lives in a Church Professing the true Religion has sufficient Opportunity and Means of knowing whatsoever â—oncerns him either to know or do From a joint Connexion and an unavoidable Coherence of which Propositions one with another it clearly appears that it is not Weakness but Want of Conscience which is the true Distemper of those Persons who at this day disturb the Church Secondly The second Assertion or Conclusion was this That as such Weakness of Conscience can upon no sufficient ground be actually pleaded so upon much less can it be continued in This must needs be confessed by all that a Weak Conscience in the Apostle's sence is an Imperfection and consequently ought by all means to be removed or laid down For as certainly as growth and proficiency in Knowledge under the means of Grace is a Duty so certainly is it a Duty not to persist in this Weakness of Conscience which has its foundation only in the defect of such Knowledge So that St. Paul himself who is here willing that for the present it should be complyed with elsewhere upbraids and reprehends Men sharply for continuing under it As in the 1 st of Cor. the 3 d Chap. and the 〈◊〉 and 3 d. verses He calls such Babes and such as were to be Fed with Milk and not with Meat And to shew yet further the Imperfection of this Estate he says that upon this account he could not treat them as Spiritual Persons but as Carnal The same Reprehension he repeats in Heb. 5.12 Where he again upbraids them with this Appellation of Babes telling them that whereas for the time they ought to have been Teachers of others they continued in their Spiritual Childhood so long that they had need that one taught them again which were the first principles of the Oracles of God And to shew that these were such Weak Consciences as we are here discoursing of in the 14 th v. He opposes them to such as were of full Age and that by reason of use had their Senses exercised to discern both Good and Evil. The want of which discernment is properly that thing wherein this Weakness of Conscience does consist Whereupon the Apostle in the next Chapter calls upon such to go on to Perfection which surely implies that this their present Condition was not the Perfection which they were to rest in And it were worth the while in our Contest with the Pretenders to Weak or Tender Consciences amongst us to enquire of them how long they think it fit for them to continue Weak and whether they look upon their Weakness and Ignorance as their Free-hold and as that which they resolve to keep for term of Life and to live and die Babes in the Knowledge of the Religion they Profess to to grow up into Childhood and at length go out of the World Infants and Weaklings of Threescore or Fourscore Years Old This certainly they must intend for so far are they from looking upon that Weakness or Tenderness of Conscience which they plead as an Imperfection and consequently to be out grown or removed by them that they own it as a Badge of a more Refined and Advanced Piety and of such a growth and Attainment in the ways of God that they look down upon all others as Christians of a lower form as Moral Men and Ignorant of the Mystery of the Gospel Words which I have often heard from these Impostors and which infallibly shew that the Persons whom St. Paul dealt with and those whom we contend with are not the same kind of Men for as much as they own not the same Duty But that it seems which was the Infancy and Defect of those Persons must pass for the perfection and really is the design of these And whereas St. Paul said to the former that if they doubted they were damned if they ate these for ought appears account it Damnation not to doubt where doubting of their Duty may prove a serving of their Interest I proceed now to the third and last Conclusion Which is this That supposing this weakness of Conscience might be both pleaded and continued in yet the Plea of it ought by no means to be admitted by the Civil Magistrate in prejudice to any Laws either Actually made or to be made by Him for the General Good of his People This was sufficienâ—ly manifest in what I laid down before to wit that the Magistrate is 〈◊〉 ways obliged to frame his Laws to the good of any particular Persons where it stands separate from the good of the Community or Majority of the People Which consideration alone though it be sufficient to discharge the Magistrate from any obligation to admit of such Pleas yet there are other and more forcible reasons why they are by no means to be admited I shall assign two in General First The first taken from the Ill and Fatal Consequences which inevitably ensue upon their Admission Secondly The other taken from the Qualification and Temper of the Persons who make these Pleas. As for the Ill Consequences springing from the admission of them though according to the fertile Nature of every absurd Principle they are indeed innumerable
and a free uncontrolled Passage into all things Intelligible We shall then surmount these Beggarly Rudiments and mean helps of Knowledge which now by many little steps gradually raise us to some short Speculation of the Nature of Things Our knowledge shall be then Intuitive and above Discourse not proceeding by a long Circuit of Antecedents and Consequents as now in this Vale of Imperfection it is forced to do but it shall then fully inform the whole Mind and take in the whole Object by one single and substantial Act. For as in that Condition we shall Enjoy the Happiness so we shall also imitate the Perfection of Angels Who out-shine the rest of the Creation in nothing more than in a transcendent ability of Knowing and Iudging which is the very Glory and crowning Excellency of a created Nature Faith it self shall be then accounted too mean a thing to accompany us in that Estate for being only conversant about Things not seen it can have no Admittance into that Place the peculiar Privilege of which shall be to convey to us the Knowledge of those Things by Sight which before we took wholly upon Trust. And thus I have given you some account First of the Mysteriousness of the Gospel and then of the Reasons of it and that both from the Nature of the Things themselves which are treated of in it as also from those Great Ends and Purposes which God in His Infinite Wisdom has designed it to From all which discourse several very weighty Inferences might be drawn but I shall collect and draw from thence only these Three As First The High Reasonableness of Men's relying upon the judgment of the whole Church in General and of their Respective Teachers and Spiritual Guides in Particular rather than upon their own Private judgments in such Important and Mysterious Points of Religion as we have been hitherto discoursing of I say upon the judgment of those who have made it their Constant Business as well as their Avowed Profession to acquaint themselves with these Mysteries so far as Humane Reason can attain to them and that in order to the Instruction and Information of Others Certain it is that there is no other Profession in the World besides this of Divinity wherein Men do not own something of a Mystery and accordingly reckon it both highly Rational and absolutely Necessary in many cases to resign and submit their own Judgments to the Judgments of such as Profess a skill in any Art or Science whatsoever For whose Judgment ought in all Reason to be followed about any Thing His who has made it his whole Work and Calling to Understand that Thing or His who has bestowed his whole Time Parts and Labour upon something else which is wholly Foreign to it and has no Cognation at all with it But there is not only Reason to perswade but also Authority to oblige Men in the Present Case For see in what Notable Words the Prophet asserts this Privilege to the Priesthood under the Mosaick Oeconomy Mal. 2.7 The Priests lips says he should preserve Knowledge and the People should seek the Law at his mouth adding this as a reason of the same For says he He is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts For which words no doubt this Prophet would have passed for a Man of Heat now a days for in Good earnest they run very high and look very severely upon our so much applauded or rather doated upon Liberty of Conscience and are so far from casting the least Eye of favour upon it that they are a more direct and mortal Stab to it than all the Pleas Arguments and Apologies I could ever yet read or hear of have been a Defence of it Nor does the same Privilege sink one jot lower under the Christian Constitution For as we have already shewn that the Gospel is full of Mysteries so 1 Cor. 4.1 the Ministers of the Gospel are declared the Stewards of these Mysteries and whatsoever any one dispenses as a Steward he dispenses with the Authority and in the Strength of an Office and Commission and I believe it will be hard to Prove that a Minister of the Gospel can be obliged to dispence or declare any Thing to the People which the People are not upon his Declaration of it equally bound to Believe and Assent to An Implicite Faith indeed in our Spiritual Guides such as the Church of Rome holds I own to be a great Absurdity but a Due Deference and Submission to the Judgment of the said Guides in the discharge of their Ministry I affirm to be as great a Duty And I state the measures of this Submission in a Belief of and an Obedience to All that a Man's Spiritual Guide shall in that Capacity declare and enjoyn provided that a Man does not certainly know or at least upon very great and just grounds doubt any thing to the contrary which Two conditions I allow ought always to be supposed in this Case and then if no objection from either of these shall interpose I affirm that every Man stands obliged by the Duty he owes to his Spiritual Pastor to believe and obey whatsoever his said Pastor shall by vertue of his Pastoral Office deliver to him In a word if Men would but seriously and impartially consider these Three Things First That the Gospel or Christian Religion is for the most Part of it made up of Mysteries Secondly That God has appointed a certain Order of Men to declare and dispense these Mysteries And Thirdly and Lastly That it was His Wisdom thus to order Both these Certainly Men would both treat the Gospel it self more like a Mystery and the Ministers of the Gospel more like the Dispensers of so high and Sacred a Mystery than the Guise and Fashion of our Present Blessed Times disposes them to do that is in other Words Men would be less confident of their own Understandings and more apt to pay a Reverence and Submission to the Understandings of those who are both more Conversant in these matters than they can pretend to be and whom the same Wisdom of God has thought fit to appoint over them as their Guides For the contrary Practice can proceed from nothing but an High Self-Opinion and a Man's being Wise in his own conceit which is a sure way to be so in no Bodies else In fine every one is apt to think himself able to be his own Divine his own Priest and his own Teacher and he should do well to be his own Physician and his own Lawyer too And then as upon such a Course he finds himself speed in the Matters of this World let him upon the same reckon of his success in the other Secondly We learn also from the foregoing Particulars the gross Unreasonableness and the manifest Sophistry of Men's making whatsoever they find by themselves not Intelligible that is to say by Humane Reason not Comprehensible the measure whereby they would Conclude the same also to
looking too deep into them or dwelling too long upon them And these are not properly framed to serve the Church either in the knotty dark and less pleasing parts of Religion but are fitted rather for the Airy Joyful Offices of Devotion such as are praise and Thanksgiving Iubilations and Halleluja's which though indeed not so difficult are yet as pleasing a Work to God as any other For they are the Noble Employment of Saints and Angels and a lively resemblance of the Glorified and Beatifick State in which all that the Blessed Spirits do is to rejoice in the God who made and saved them to sing his Praises and to adore his Perfections Again there are others of a melancholy reserved and severe Temper who think much and Speak little and these are the fittest to serve the Church in the Pensive Afflictive Parts of Religion in the Austerities of Repentance and Mortification in a Retirement from the World and a settled Composure of their Thoughts to self-reflexion and meditation And such also are the ablest to deal with troubled and distressed Consciences to meet with their doubts and to answer their Objections and to ransack every Corner of their shifting and fallacious hearts and in a word to lay before them the true State of their Souls having so frequently descended into and took a strict Account of their own And this is so great a Work that there are not many whose Minds and Tempers are Capable of it who yet may be serviceable enough to the Church in other Things And it is the same Thoughtful and reserved Temper of Spirit which must enable others to serve the Church in the hard and controversial parts of Religion Which sort of Men though they should never rub Men's Itching Ears from the Pulpit the Church can no more be without than a Garrison can be without Souldiers or a City without Walls or than a Man can defend Himself with his Tongue when his Enemy comes against Him with his Sword And therefore great pity it is that such as God has eminently and peculiarly furnished and as it were cut out for this service should be cast upon and compell'd to the Popular Speaking Noisy part of Divinity it being all one as if when a Town is besieged the Governour of it should call off a Valiant and expert Souldier from the Walls to sing Him a Song or Play Him a Lesson upon the Violin at a Banquet and then turn him out of Town because He could not sing and play as well as He could fight And yet as ridiculous as this is it is but too like the irrational and absurd Humour of the present Age which thinks all sence and Worth confined wholly to the Pulpit And many Excellent Persons because they cannot make a Noise with Chapter and Verse and Harangue it twice a Day to factious Trades-Men and Ignorant Old Women are esteemed of as Nothing and scarce Thought worthy to eat the Church's Bread But for all these false Notions and wrong measures of Things and Persons so scandalously prevalent amongst us Wisdom as our Saviour tells us is and will be justified of Her Children But then again there are others besides these who are of a Warmer and more fervent Spirit having much of heat and fire in their Constitution And God may and does serve his Church even by such kind of Persons as these also as being particularly fitted to Preach the Terrifying Rigours and Curses of the Law to obstinate daring Sinners Which is a Work as absolutely Necessary and of as high as Consequence to the good of Souls as it is that Men should be driven if they cannot be drawn off from their Sins that they should be cut and launced if they cannot otherwise be Cured and that the Terrible Trump of the last Iudgment should be always Sounding in their Ears if nothing else can awaken them But then while such Persons are thus busied in Preaching of Iudgment it is much to be wished that they would do it with Iudgment too and not Preach Hell and Damnation to Sinners so as if they were pleased with what they preached No let them rather take heed that they mistake not their own fierce Temper for the mind of God for some I have known to do so and that at such a Rate that it was easy enough to distinguish the Humour of the Speaker from the Nature of the Thing he spoke Let Ministers threaten Death and Destruction even to the very worst of Men in such a manner that it may appear to all their sober Hearers that they do not desire but fear that these dreadful Things should come to pass let them declare God's Wrath against the hardened and impenitent as I have seen a Iudge Condemn a Malefactor with Tears in his Eyes for surely much more should a dispenser of the Word while he is pronouncing the infinitely more killing Sentence of the Divine Law grieve with an inward bleeding compassion for the misery of those forlorn Wretches whom it is like to pass upon But I never knew any of the Geneva or Scotch model which sort of Sanctifyed Reprobationers we abound with either use or like this way of Preaching in my Life but generally Whips and Scorpions Wrath and Vengeance Fire and Brimstone made both Top and Bottom Front and Rear First and Last of all their Discourses But then on the Contrary there are others again of a Gentler a Softer and more Tender Genius and these are full as serviceable for the Work of the Ministry as the former sort could be though not in the same way as being much fitter to represent the Meekness of Moses than to Preach his Law to bind up the broken hearted to speak Comfort and Refreshment to the weary and to take off the Burden from the heavy Laden Nature it self seems peculiarly to have fitted such for the dispensations of Grace And when they are once put into the Ministry they are as it were marked and singled out by Providence to do those benign Offices to the Souls of Men which Persons of a rougher and more vehement Disposition are by no means so fit or able to do These are the Men whom God pitches upon for the Heraulds of his Mercy with a peculiar Emphasis and felicity of Address to proclaim and issue out the pardons of the Gospel to close up the wounds which the Legal Preacher had made to bath and supple them with the Oyl of Gladness and in a word to Crown the sorrows of Repentance with the Joys of Assurance And thus we have seen how the Gospel must have both its Boanarges and its Barnabas Sons of Thunder and Sons of Consolation the first as it were to Cleanse the Air and Purge the Soul before it can be fit for the Refreshments of a Sunshine the Beams of Mercy and the Smiles of a Saviour David had shewn himself but a mean Psalmist had his skill reached no further than to one Note and therefore Psal. 101. 1
exhibits himself to the Sons of Men is that he is King of Kings and that the Governours of the Earth are his Subjects Princes and Emperours his Vassals and Thrones his Footstools and Consequently that there is no Absolute Monarch in the World but One. And from the same also it follows that there is nothing which Subjects can justly expect from their Prince but Princes may expect from God And nothing which Princes Demand from their Subjects but God in a higher manner and by a better Claim requires from them Now the Relation between Prince and Subject essentially involves in it these two things First Obedience from the subject to all the Laws and just Commands of his Prince And accordingly as Kings themselves have a Soveraign over them so they have Laws over them too Laws which lay the same obligation upon Crowned heads that they do upon the meanest Peasant For no Prerogative can bar Piety No Man is too Great to be bound to be good He who weilds the Scepter and shines in the Throne has a great Account to make and a great Master to make it to And there is no Man sent into the World to Rule who is not sent also to Obey Secondly The other thing imported in this Relation is Protection Vouchsafed from the Soveraign to the subject Upon which account it is that as God with one hand gives a Law so with the other he Defends the Obedient And this is the highest Prerogative of Worldly Empire and the brightest Jewel in the Diadems of Princes that by being Gods immediate Subjects they are His immediate Care and intituled to his more Especial Protection that they have both an Omniscience in a peculiar manner to wake over them and an Omnipotence to support them And that they are not the Legions which they Command but the God whom they Obey who must both guard their Persons and secure their Regalia For it is He and He only who giveth Salvation unto Kings The Words of the Text with a little Variation run naturally into this one Proposition which containing in it the full sence of them shall be the subject of our following Discourse viz. That God in the Government of the World exercises a peculiar and extraordinary Providence over the Persons and Lives of Princes The Prosecution of which Proposition shall lie in these four things First To shew upon what account any Act of God's Providence may be said to be peculiar and extraordinary Secondly To shew how and by what means God does after such an extraordinary manner save and deliver Princes Thirdly To shew the Reasons why He does so And Fourthly And Lastly To draw something by way of Inference and Conclusion from the whole Of all which in their Order And First For the first of these which is to shew upon what account any Act of God's Providence may be said to be Peculiar and Extraordinary Providence in the Government of the World acts for the most part by the mediation of second Causes which though they proceed according to a Principle of Nature and a settled Course and Tenour of Acting supposing still the same Circumstances yet Providence acting by them may in several Instances of it be said to be extraordinary upon a threefold account As First When a thing falls out besides the Common and Usual Operation of its proper Cause As for instance it is usual and natural for a Man meeting his Enemy upon full advantage to prosecute that advantage against him and by no means to let him escape Yet sometimes it falls out quite otherwise Esau had conceived a mortal Grudge and Enmity against his Brother Iacob yet as soon as he meets Him he falls upon him in a very different way from that of Enemies and embraces him Ahab having upon Conquest got Benhadad his Inveterate Enemy into his hands not only spares his Life but treats him kindly and lets him go That a Brother unprovoked should hate and a stranger not obliged should love is against the usual Actings of the Heart of Man Yet thus it was with Ioseph and no doubt with many others in which and the like cases I conceive things so falling out may be said to come to pass by an Extraordinary Act of Providence it being manifest that the Persons concerned in them do not act as Men of the same Principles and Interests under the same Circumstances use to do For Interest we say will not lye nor make a Man false to Himself whatsoever it may make him to Others Secondly Providence may be said to Act Extraordinarily when a thing falls out beside or Contrary to the Design of expert politick and shrewd Persons contriving or Acting in it As when a Man by the utmost of his Wit and Skill projects the Compassing of such or such a thing fits means to his End lays Antecedents and Consequents directly and appositely for the bringing about his Purpose but in the Issue and Result finds all broken and baffled and the Event contrary to his Intention and the order of Causes and Counsels so studiously framed by him to produce an effect opposite to and destructive of the Design driven at by those Means and Arts. In this case also I say we may rationally acknowledge an Extraordinary Act of Providence For as much as the Man himself is made instrumental to the effecting of something perfectly against his own Will and Iudgment and that by those very ways and methods which in themselves were the most proper to prevent and the most unlikely to bring to pass such an Event The World all the while standing amazed at it and the Credit of the Politician sinking for that nothing seems to cast so just a Reproach even upon Reason it self as for Persons Noted for it to act as Notably against it Thirdly and Lastly Providence may be said to act in an Extraordinary way when a thing comes to pass visibly and apparently beyond the Power of the Cause immediately imployed in it As that a Man dumb all his Life before should on the suddain speak as it is said that the Son of Craesus did upon the fight of a Murther ready to have been Committed upon the Person of his Prince and Father That a small Company should rout and scatter an Army or in the Language of Scripture that one should chase an hundred and an hundred put Ten Thousand to flight That Persons of mean parts and little or no Experience should frustrate and over-reach the Counsels of old beaten through-paced Politicians These effects I say are manifestly above the Ability and stated way of working belonging the Causes from whence they flow Nevertheless such things are sometimes seen upon the great Stage of the World to the Wonder and Astonishment of the Beholders who are wholly unable by the Common method and discourses of Reason to give a Satisfactory Account of these strange Phaenomena by resolving them into any thing Visible in their immediate Agents In which case therefore I conceive
one expect a Welcome if not coming to his Own And coming also not to Charge but to Enrich them not to share what they had but to Recover what they had Lost and in a word to change their Temporals into Eternals and bring an overflowing performance and fruition to those who had lived hitherto only upon promise and expectation But it fell out much otherwise His Own received Him not Nor indeed if we look further into the World shall we find this Usage so very strange or wonderful For Kindred is not Friendship but only an Opportunity of nearer converse which is the true Cause of and natural inducement to it It is not to have the same bloud in ones Veins to have lain in the same Womb or to bend the knee to the same Father but to have the same Inclinations the same Affections and the same Soul that makes the Friend Otherwise Iacob may supplant Esau and Esau hate and design the Death of Iacob And we constantly see the Grand-Seignior's Coronation-Purple dipt in the Bloud of his Murthered Brethren Sacrificed to Reason of State or at least to his own unreasonable fears and suspicions But Friends strive not who shall kill but who shall die first If then the Love of kindred is so small surely the Love of Countrey-Men and Neighbours can promise but little more A Prophet may without the help of his Prophetick Spirit foresee that he shall have but little honour in His own Country Men naturally malign the Greatness or Vertue of a Fellow-Citizen or a Domestick they think the nearness of it upbraids and obscures them It is a trouble to have the Sun still shining in their Faces And therefore the Jews in this followed but the Common practice of Men whose emulation usually preys upon the next Superior in the same family company or profession The bitterest and the loudest scolding is for the most part amongst those of the same street In short there is a kind of ill disposition in most Men much resembling that of Dogs they bark at what is high and remote from them and bite what is next Now in this second part of the Text in which is represented the Entertainment which Christ found in the World expressed to us by those Words His own received Him not we shall consider these three things 1. The Grounds upon which the Jews rejected Christ. 2. The Unreasonableness of those Grounds And 3. The great Arguments that they had to the Contrary As to the First of these to reckon up all the Pretences that the Jews alledge for their not acknowledging of Christ would be as endless as the Tales and Fooleries of their Rabbies A sort of Men noted for nothing more than two very ill Qualities to wit that they are still given to invent and write Lyes and those such unlikely and incredible Lyes that none can believe them but such as write them But the Exceptions which seem to carry most of Reason and Argument with them are these Two First That Christ came not as a Temporal Prince Secondly That they look'd upon him as an Underminer and a Destroyer of the Law of Moses 1. As for the First It was a Perswasion which had sunk into their very Veins and Marrow a Perswasion which they built upon as the Grand Fundamental Article of all their Creed That their Messiah should be a Temporal Prince nor can any thing beat their Posterity out of it to this day They fansied nothing but Triumphs and Trophees and all the Nations of the Earth licking the Dust before them under the Victorious Conduct of their Messiah They expected such an One as should disenslave them from the Roman Yoke make the Senate stoop to their Sanhedrim and the Capitol do homage to their Temple Nay and we find the Disciples themselves leaven'd with the same Conceit their minds still ran upon the Grandeurs of an Earthly Soveraignty upon Sitting at Christ's right and left hand in His Kingdom banqueting and making merry at His Table and who should have the greatest Office and Place under him So Carnal were the Thoughts even of those who owned Christ for the Messiah but how much more of the rest of the Jews who contemn'd and hated him to the same degree So that while they were feeding themselves with such fancies and expectations how can we suppose that they would receive a Person bearing himself for the Messiah and yet in the poor habit and profession of a mean mechanick as also preaching to them nothing but Humility Self-denial and a Contempt of those Glories and Temporal felicities the enjoyment of which they had made the very design of their Religion Surely the frustration of their hopes and the huge contrariety of these things to their beloved preconceived Notions could not but enrage them to the greatest disdain and rejection of his Person and Doctrine imaginable And acordingly it did so For they scorned persecuted and even spat upon him long before his Crucifixion and no doubt between Rage and Derision a Thousand Flouts were thrown at him As what shall we receive a thread-bare Messiah a fellow fitter to wield a Saw or an Hatchet than a Scepter For is not this the Carpenter's Son And have we not seen him in his shop and his Cottage amongst his pittiful Kindred And can such an One be a fit Person to step into the Throne of David To redeem Israel and to Cope with all the Roman Power No it is absurd unreasonable and impossible and to be in bondage to the Romans is nobler than to be freed by the hand of such a Deliverer 2. Their other Grand exception against him was that he set himself against the Law of Moses Their Reverence to which was so Sacred that they judged it the unchangeable Rule of all Humane Actions and that their Messiah at his coming was to impose the observation of it upon all Nations and so to establish it for ever Nay and they had an equal Reverence for all the parts of it as well the Judicial and Ceremonial as the Moral and being naturally of a gross and a thick conception of things perhaps a much greater For still we shall find them more zealous in tything Mint and Rue and Cummin and washing pots and platters where chiefly their mind was than in the Prime Duties of Mercy and Justice And as for their beloved Sabbath they placed the Celebration of it more in doing nothing than in doing Good and rather in sitting still than a rescuing a Life or saving a Soul So that when Christ came to interpret and reduce the Moral Law to its inward Vigor and Spirituality they whose Soul was of so gross a make that it was scarce a Spirit presently defied him as a Samaritan and an Impostor and would by no means hear of such strange impracticable Notions But when from refining and correcting their Expositions and sence of the Moral Law he proceeded also to foretel and declare the approaching destruction of their
Temple and therewith a Period to be put to all their Rites and Ceremonies they grew impatient and could hold no longer but sought to Kill him and thereby Thought that they did God good service and Moses too So wonderfully it seems were these Men concern'd for God's honour that they had no way to shew it but by rejecting his Son out of deference to his Servant We have seen here the two great exceptions which so block'd up the Minds and Hearts of the Jewish Nation against Jesus Christ their True Messiah that when He came to His Own His Own rejected and threw Him off I come now in the next place 2. To shew the weakness and unreasonableness of these Exceptions And First For Christ's being a Temporal Monarch who should subdue and bring all Nations under the Jewish Scepter I answer That it was so far from necessary that it was absolutely impossbile that the Messiah should be such an one and that upon the Account of a double supposition neither of which I conceive will be denyed by the Jews themselves 1. The First is the professed Design of His Coming which was to be a Blesing to all Nations for it is over and over declared in Scripture that in the seed of Abraham that is in the Messiah all Nations of the Earth should be blessed But now if they mean this of a Temporal blessing as I am sure they intend no other then I demand how this can agree with his being such a Prince as according to their description must conquer all People and enslave them to the Jews as Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water as their Vassals and Tributaries and in a word liable upon all occasions to be insulted over by the worst condition'd People in the World A worthy blessing indeed and such an one as I believe few Nations would desire to be beholden to the seed of Abraham for For there is no Nation or People that can need the coming of a Messiah to bless them in this manner since they may bless themselves so whensoever they please if they will but send Messengers to some of their Neighbours wiser and powerfuller than themselves and declare their Estates and Country at their service provided they will but come and make them slaves without calling them so by sending Armies to take Possession of their Forts and Garrisons to seize their Lands Moneys and whatsoever else they have and in a word to oppress beggar and squeeze them as dry as a Pumice and then trample upon them because they can get no more out of them Let any people I say as they shall like this apply to some Potent Overgrown Prince whom the fools his Neighbours shall have made so and I dare undertake that upon a word speaking they shall find him ready to be such a Messias to them at any Time And yet this was all that the Gentile World could gain by those Magnificent Promises of the Messiah as Universal a Blessing as the Prophets had foretold he should be if the Jews Opinion concerning the Nature of his Kingdom over the rest of the World should take place But since they judge such a kind of Government so great a Blessing to Mankind it is pitty but they should have a large and lasting Enjoyment of it themselves and be made to feel what it is to be peeled and polled fleeced and flayed taxed and trod upon by the several Governments they should happen to fall under and so find the same usage from other Princes which they had so liberally designed for them under their supposed Messiah As indeed through the just Judgment of God they have in a great measure found ever since the Crucifixion of Christ. Second The other supposition upon which I disprove the Messiah's being such a Temporal Prince is the unquestionable Truth of all the Prophecies recorded of Him in Scripture many of which declare only his Sufferings his Humility his Low Despised Estate and so are utterly incompatible with such a Princely Condition Those two the first Psal. 22. the other in Isai. 53. are sufficient proofs of this 'T is not to be denied indeed that several have attempted to make them have no respect at all to the Messiah but still the Truth has been superiour to all such attempts The Jewish Rabbies for the most part understand them of the whole Body of the People of Israel And one we know amongst our Christian Interpreters though it will be hard to Christen his Interpretation who will needs have this whole 53 d. Chap. of Isai. to relate only to the Prophet Ieremy in the first and Historical Sense of it Little certainly to the service of Christianity unless we can think the properest way for confirming our Faith especially against its mortal Adversaries the Jews be to strip it of the chief supports which the Old Testament affords it But every little fetch of Wit and Criticism must not think to bear down the whole stream of Christian Catholick Interpreters and much less the apparent force and evidence of so clear a Prophecy And therefore to return to the Rabbies themselves the most Learned of them after all such fruitless attempts understand those Prophecies only of the Messiah But then being fond of his Temporal Reign and Greatness some of them have invented the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of two several Messiahs Messiah Ben David and Messiah Ben Ioseph One whereof was to be Potent and Victorious the other Low Afflicted and at length Kill'd A bold unheard-of Fiction and never known to the Ancient Jewish Church till the Modern Rabbies began to Doat and Blaspheme at all Adventures But there is no shift so Senceless and Groundless which an obstinate adherence to a desperate Cause will not drive the Defenders of it to It is clear therefore that all the Pretence which the Jews have of the Temporal Reign and Greatness of their Messiah is sufficiently answered and cut off by these two Considerations For to argue with them further from the Spirituality of the Messiah's Kingdom as that the end of it was to abstract from all Carnal Earthly Sensual Enjoyments as the certain hinderers of Piety and underminers of the Spirit would be but a begging of the Question as to the Jews who would contend as positively that this was not to be the intent of it And besides the truth is their Principles and Temper are so hugely estranged from such Considerations that a Man might as well read a Lecture of Musick or Astronomy to an Ox or an Ass as go about to perswade them that their Messiah was only to plant his Kingdom in Men's Hearts and by infusing into them the Graces of Humility Temperance and Heavenly Mindedness to conquer their Corruptions and reign over their Carnal Affections which they had a great deal rather should reign over them And thus much for answer to their first Exception Secondly I come now to shew the Unreasonableness of the other grounded upon a Pretence