justified upon terms of perfect and intire obedience there is now no other way but this That the promise by the Faith of Christ be given to all them that believe i. e. this Evangelical method of justifying sincere believers Besides the Jewish Oeconomy was deficient in pardoning sin and procuring the grace and favour of God it could only awaken the knowledge of sin not remove the guilt of it It was not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin all the 〈◊〉 of the Mosaick Law were no further available for the pardon of sin than merely as they were founded in and had respect to that great sacrifice and expiation which was to be made for the sins of mankind by the death of the Son of God The Priests though they daily ministred and oftentimes offered the same sacrifices yet could they never take away sins No that was reserved for a better and a higher sacrifice even that of our Lord himself who after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God having completed that which the repeated sacrifices of the Law could never effect So that all men being under guilt and no justification where there was no remission the Jewish Oeconomy being in it self unable to pardon was incapable to justifie This S. Paul elsewhere declared in an open Assembly before Jews and Gentiles Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this man Christ Jesus is preached unto you forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses 13. FOURTHLY He proves that Justification by the Mosaick Law could not stand with the death of Christ the necessity of whose death and sufferings it did plainly evacuate and take away For if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain If the Mosaical performances be still necessary to our Justification then certainly it was to very little purpose and altogether unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to send his own Son into the World to do so much for us and to suffer such exquisite pains and tortures Nay he tells them that while they persisted in this fond obstinate opinion all that Christ had done and suffered could be of no advantage to them Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not again intangled in the yoke of bondage the bondage and servitude of the Mosaick rites Behold 〈◊〉 Paul solemnly say unto you That if you be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing For I testifie again to every man that is Circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace The summ of which argument is That whoever lay the stress of their Justification upon Circumcision and the observances of the Law do thereby declare themselves to be under an obligation of perfect obedience to all that the Law requires of them and accordingly supersede the vertue and efficacy of Christ's death and disclaim all right and title to the grace and favour of the Gospel For since Christ's death is abundantly sufficient to attain its ends whoever takes in another plainly renounces that and rests upon that of his own chusing By these ways of reasoning 't is evident what the Apostle drives at in all his discourses about this matter More might have been observed had I not thought that these are sufficient to render his design especially to the unprejudiced and impartial obvious and plain enough 14. LASTLY That S. Paul's discourses about Justification and Salvation do immediately refer to the controversie between the Orthodox and Judaizing Christians appears hence that there was no other controversie then on foot but concerning the way of Justification whether it was by the observation of the Law of Moses or only of the Gospel and the Law of Christ. For we must needs suppose that the Apostle wrote with a primary respect to the present state of things and so as they whom he had to deal with might and could not but understand him Which yet would have been impossible for them to have done had he intended them for the controversies which have since been bandied with so much zeal and fierceness and to give countenance to those many nice and subtil propositions those curious and elaborate schemes which some men in these later Ages have drawn of these matters 15. FROM the whole discourse two Consectaries especially plainly follow I. Consect That works of Evangelical obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification By works of Evangelical obedience I mean such Christian duties as are the fruits not of our own power and strength but God's Spirit done by the assistance of his grace And that these are not opposed to Faith is undeniably evident in that as we observed before Faith as including the new nature and the keeping God's commands is made the usual condition of Justification Nor can it be otherwise when other graces and vertues of the Christian life are made the terms of pardon and acceptance with Heaven and of our title to the merits of Christ's death and the great promise of eternal life Thus Repentance which is not so much a single Act as a complex body of Christian duties Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out So Charity and forgiveness of others Forgive if ye have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father also will forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive yours Sometimes Evangelical obedience in general God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him If we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin What priviledge then has Faith above other graces in this matter are we justified by Faith We are pardoned and accepted with God upon our repentance charity and other acts of Evangelical obedience Is Faith opposed to the works of the Mosaick Law in Justification so are works of Evangelical obedience Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Does Faith give glory to God and set the crown upon his head Works of Evangelical obedience are equally the effects of Divine grace both preventing and assisting of us and indeed are not so much our works as his So that the glory of all must needs be intirely resolved into the grace of God nor can any
ages that is washed off quickly in the Holy Font and an eternal debt paid in an instant For so sure as the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea so sure are our Sins washed in this Holy floud for this is a Red Sea too these waters signifie the bloud of Christ These are they that have washed their Robes and made them white in the bloud of the Lamb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bloud of Christ cleanseth us the Water cleanseth us the Spirit purifies us the Bloud by the Spirit the Spirit by the Water all in Baptism and in pursuance of that Baptismal state These three are they that bear record in Earth the Spirit the Water and the Bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these three agree in one or are to one purpose they agree in Baptism and in the whole pursuance of the assistances which a Christian needs all the days of his life And therefore S. Cyrill calls Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Antitype of the Passions of Christ it does preconsign the death of Christ and does the infancy of the work of Grace but not weakly it brings from death to life and though it brings us but to the birth in the New life yet that is a greater change than is in all the periods of our growth to manhood to a perfect man in Christ Jesus 18. Fifthly Baptism does not only pardon our sins but puts us into a state of Pardon for the time to come For Baptism is the beginning of the New life and an admission of us into the Evangelical Covenant which on our parts consists in a sincere and timely endeavour to glorifie God by Faith and Obedience and on God's part he will pardon what is past assist us for the future and not measure us by grains and scruples or exact our duties by the measure of an Angel but by the span of a man's hand So that by Baptism we are consigned to the mercies of God and the Graces of the Gospel that is that our Pardon be continued and our Piety be a state of Repentance And therefore that Baptism which in the Nicene Creed we 〈◊〉 to be for the remission of sins is called in the Jerusalem 〈◊〉 The Baptism of Repentance that is it is the entrance of a new life the gate to a perpetual change and reformation all the way continuing our title to and hopes of forgiveness of sins And this excellency is clearly recorded by S. Paul The kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man hath appeared Not by works of righteousness which we have done that 's the formality of the Gospel-Covenant not to be exacted by the strict measures of the Law but according to his mercy he saved us that is by gentleness and remissions by pitying and pardoning us by relieving and supporting us because he remembers that we are but dust and all this mercy we are admitted to and is conveyed to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laver of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost And this plain evident Doctrine was observed explicated and urged against the Messalians who said that Baptism was like a razor that cuts away all the sins that were past or presently adhering but not the sins of our future life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Sacrament promises more and greater things It is the earnest of future good things the type of the Resurrection the communication of the Lord's Passion the partaking of his Resurrection the robe of Righteousness the garment of Gladness the vestment of Light or rather Light it self And for this reason it is that Baptism is not to be repeated because it does at once all that it can do at an hundred times for it admits us to the condition of Repentance and Evangelical mercy to a state of Pardon for our infirmities and sins which we timely and effectually leave and this is a thing that can be done but once as a man can begin but once he that hath once entred in at this gate of Life is always in possibility of Pardon if he be in a possibility of working and doing after the manner of a man that which he hath promised to the Son of God And this was expresly delivered and observed by S. Austin That which the Apostle says Cleansing him with the washing of water in the word is to be understood that in the same Laver of Regeneration and word of Sanctification all the evils of the regenerate are cleansed and healed not only the sins that are past which are all now remitted in Baptism but also those that are contracted afterwards by humane ignorance and infirmity not that Baptism be repeated as often as we sin but because by this which is once administred is brought to pass that pardon of all sins not only of those that are past but also those which will be committed afterwards is obtained The Messalians denied this and it was part of their Heresie in the undervaluing of Baptism and for it they are most excellently confuted by Isidore Pelusiot in his third Book 195 Epistle to the Count Hermin whither I refer the Reader 19. In proportion to this Doctrine it is that the Holy Scripture calls upon us to live a holy life in pursuance of this grace of Baptism And S. Paul recalls the lapsed Galatians to their Covenant and the grace of God stipulated in Baptism Ye are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ that is heirs of the promise and Abraham's seed that promise which cannot be disannulled encreased or diminished but is the same to us as it was to Abraham the same before the Law and after Therefore do not you hope to be 〈◊〉 by the Law for you are entred into the Covenant of Faith and are to be justified thereby This is all your hope by this you must stand for ever or you cannot stand at all but by this you may for you are God's children by Faith that is not by the Law or the Covenant of Works And that you may remember whence you are going and return again he proves that they are the Children of God by 〈◊〉 in Jesus Christ because they have been baptized into Christ and so put on Christ. This makes you Children and such as are to be saved by Faith that is a Covenant not of Works but of Pardon in Jesus Christ the Author and Establisher of this Covenant For this is the Covenant made in Baptism that being justified by his grace we shall be heirs of life eternal for by grace that is by favour remission and forgiveness in Jesus Christ ye are saved This is the only way that we have of being justified and this must remain as long as we are in hopes of Heaven for besides this we have no hopes and all this is stipulated and consigned in Baptism and is of force after our 〈◊〉 into sin and risings again In
satisfie his curiosity but is certain never to enter that way It is like enquiring into fortunes concerning which Phavorinus the Philosopher spake not unhandsomely They that foretell events of destiny and secret providence either foretell sad things or prosperous If they promise prosperous and deceive you are made miserable by a vain speculation If they threaten ill fortune and say false thou art made wretched by a false fear But if they foretell adversity and say true thou art made miserable by thy own apprehension before thou art so by destiny and many times the fear is worse than the evil feared But if they promise felicities and promise truly what shall come to pass then thou shalt be wearied by an impatience and a suspended hope and thy hope shall ravish and deflower the joys of thy possession Much of it is hugely applicable to the present Question and our Blessed Lord when he was petitioned that he would grant to the two sons of Zebedee that they might sit one on the right hand and the other on the left in his Kingdom rejected their desire and only promised them what concerned their duty and their suffering referring them to that and leaving the final event of men to the disposition of his Father This is the great Secret of the Kingdom which God hath locked up and sealed with the counsels of Eternity The sure foundation of God standeth having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his This seal shall never be broken up till the great day of Christ in the mean time the Divine knowledge is the only 〈◊〉 of the final sentences and this way of God is unsearchable and past finding out And therefore if we be solicitous and curious to know what God in the counsels of Eternity hath decreed concerning us he hath in two fair Tables described all those sentences from whence we must take accounts the revelations of Scripture and the book of Conscience The first recites the Law and the conditions the other gives in evidence the first is clear evident and conspicuous the other when it is written with large characters may also be discerned but there are many little accents periods distinctions and little significations of actions which either are there written in water or fullied over with carelesness or blotted with forgetfulness or not legible by ignorance or misconstrued by interest and partiality that it will be extremely difficult to read the hand upon the wall or to copy out one line of the eternal sentence And therefore excellent was the counsel of the Son of Sirach 〈◊〉 not out the things that are 〈◊〉 hard for thee 〈◊〉 search the things that are above thy strength 〈◊〉 what is 〈◊〉 thee think thereupon with reverence for it is not 〈◊〉 for thee 〈◊〉 see with thine eyes the things that are in secret For whatsoever God hath revealed in general concerning Election it concerns all persons within the pale of Christianity He hath conveyed notice to all Christian people that they are the sons of God that they are the 〈◊〉 of Eternity coheirs 〈◊〉 Christ partakers of the Divine nature meaning that such they are by the design of God and the purposes of the manifestation of his Son The Election 〈◊〉 God is disputed in Scripture to be an act of God separating whole Nations and rejecting others in each of which many particular instances there were contrary to the general and universal purpose and of the elect nations many particulars perished and many of the rejected people sate down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven and to those persons to whom God was more particular and was pleased to shew the scrowls of his eternal counsels and to reveal their particular Elections as he did to the twelve Apostles he shewed them wrapped up and 〈◊〉 and to take off their confidences or presumptions he gave probation in one instance that those scrowls may be cancelled that his purpose concerning particulars may be altered by us and 〈◊〉 that he did not discover the bottom of the Abysse but some purposes of special grace and 〈◊〉 design But his peremptory final 〈◊〉 Decree he keeps in the cabinets of the eternal ages never to be unlocked till the Angel of the Covenant shall declare the unalterable universal Sentence 3. But as we take the measure of the course of the Sun by the dimensions of the shadows made by our own bodies or our own instruments so must we take the measures of Eternity by the span of a man's hand and guess at what God decrees of us by considering how our relations and endearments are to him And it is observable that all the confidences which the Spirit of God hath created in the Elect are built upon Duty and stand or fall according to the strength or weakness of such supporters We know we are translated from death to life by our love unto the Brethren meaning that the performance of our duty is the best consignation to Eternity and the only testimony God gives us of our Election And therefore we are to make our judgments accordingly And here I consider that there is no state of a Christian in which by virtue of the Covenant of the Gospel it is effectively and fully declared that his sins are actually pardoned but only in Baptism at our first coming to Christ when he redeems us from our 〈◊〉 conversation when he makes us become Sons of God when he justifies us 〈◊〉 by his grace when we are purified by Faith when we make a Covenant with Christ to live 〈◊〉 ever according to his Laws And this I shall suppose I have already proved and explicated in the Discourse of Repentance So that whoever is certain he hath not offended God since that time and in nothing transgresseth the Laws of Christianity he is certain that he actually remains in the state of Baptismal purity but it is too certain that this certainty remains not long but we commonly throw some dirt into our waters of Baptism and stain our white robe which we then put on 4. But then because our restitution to this state is a thing that consists of so many parts is so divisible various and uncertain whether it be arrived to the degree of Innocence and our Innocence consists in a Mathematical point and is not capable of degrees any more than Unity because one stain destroys our being innocent it is therefore a very difficult matter to say that we have done all our duty towards our restitution to Baptismal grace and if we have not done all that we can do it is harder to say that God hath accepted that which is less than the conditions we entred into when we received the great Justification and Pardon of sins We all know we do less than our duty and we hope that God makes abatements for humane infirmities but we have but a few rules to judge by and they not infallible in themselves and we yet
prostituted themselves to lewd embraces those especially that attended at the Temples of Venus to dedicate some part of their gain and present it to the Gods Athanasius has a passage very express to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The women of old were wont to sit in the Idol-Temples of Phoenicia and to dedicate the gain which they got by the prostitution of their bodies as a kind of first-fruits to the Deities of the place supposing that by fornication they should pacifie their Goddess and by this means render her favourable and propitious to them Where 't is plain he uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fornication in this very sence for that gain or reward of it which they consecrated to their Gods Some such thing Solomon had in his eye when he brings in the Harlot thus courting the young man I have peace-offerings with me this day have I paid my Vows These presents were either made in specie the very mony thus unrighteously gotten or in 〈◊〉 bought with it and offered at the Temple the remainders whereof were taken and sold among the ordinary sacrificial portions This as it holds the nearest correspondence with the rest of the rites here sorbidden so could it not chuse but be a mighty scandal to the Jews it being so particularly prohibited in their Law Thou shalt not bring the hire of an Whore into the house of the Lord thy God for any Vow for it is an abomination to the Lord. 6. THESE prohibitions here laid upon the Gentiles were by the Apostles intended only for a temporary compliance with the Jewish Converts till they could by degrees be brought off from their stiffness and obstinacy and then the reason of the thing ceasing the obligation to it must needs cease and fail Nay we may observe that even while the Apostolical decree lasted in its greatest force and power in those places where there were few or no Jewish Converts the Apostle did not stick to give leave that except in case of scandal any kind of meats even the portions of the Idol 〈◊〉 might be indifferently bought and taken by Christians as well as Heathens These were all which in order to the satisfaction of the Jews and for the present peace of the Church the Apostles thought necessary to require of the Converted Gentiles but that for all the rest they were perfectly free from legal observances obliged only to the commands of Christianity So that the Apostolical decision that was made of this matter was this That besides the temporary observation of those few indifferent rites before mentioned the belief and practice of the Christian Religion was perfectly sufficient to Salvation without Circumcision and the observation of the Mosaick Law This Synodical determination allayed the controversie for a while being joyfully received by the Gentile Christians But alas the Jewish zeal began again to ferment and spread it self they could not with any patience endure to see their beloved Moses deserted and those venerable Institutions trodden down and therefore laboured to keep up their credit and still to assert them as necessary to Salvation Than which nothing created S. Paul greater trouble at every turn being forced to contend against these Judaizing teachers almost in every Church where he came as appears by that great part that they bear in all his Epistles especially that to the Romans and Galatians where this leaven had most diffused it self whom the better to undeceive he discourses at large of the nature and institution the end and design the antiquating and abolishing of that Mosaick Covenant which these men laid so much stress and weight upon 7. HENCE then we pass to the third thing considerable for the clearing of this matter which is to shew that the main passages in S. Paul's Epistles concerning Justification and Salvation have an immediate reference to this controversie But before we enter upon that something must necessarily be premised for the explicating some terms and phrases frequently used by our Apostle in this question these two especially what he means by Law and what by Faith By Law then 't is plain he usually understands the Jewish Law which was a complex body of Laws containing moral ceremonial and judicial precepts each of which had its use and office as a great instrument of duty The Judicial Laws being peculiar Statutes accommodated to the state of the Jew's Commonwealth as all civil constitutions restrained men from the external acts of sin The Ceremonial Laws came somewhat nearer and besides their Typical relation to the Evangelical state by external and symbolical representments signified and exhibited that spiritual impurity from which men were to abstain The Moral Laws founded in the natural notions of mens minds concerning good and evil directly urged men to duty and prohibited their prevarications These three made up the intire Code and Pandects of the Jewish Statutes all which our Apostle comprehends under the general notion of the Law and not the moral Law singly and separately considered in which sence it never appears that the Jews expected justification and salvation by it nay rather that they looked for it meerly from the observance of the ritual and ceremonial Law so that the moral Law is no further considered by him in this question than as it made up a part of the Mosaical constitution of that National and Political Covenant which God made with the Jews at Mount Sinai Hence the Apostle all along in his discourses constantly opposes the Law and the Gospel and the observation of the one to the belief and practice of the other which surely he would not have done had he simply intended the moral Law it being more expresly incorporated into the Gospel than ever it was into the Law of Moses And that the Apostle does thus oppose the Law and Gospel might be made evident from the continued series of his discourses but a few places shall suffice By what Law says the Apostle is boasting excluded by the Law of works i. e. by the Mosaic Law in whose peculiar priviledges and prerogatives the Jews did strangely flatter and pride themselves Nay but by the Law of Faith i. e. by the Gospel or the Evangelical way of God's dealing with us And elsewhere giving an account of this very controversie between the Jewish and Gentile Converts he first opposes their Persons Jews by nature and sinners of the Gentiles and then infers that a man is not justified by the works of the Law by those legal observances whereby the Jews expected to be justified but by the faith of Christ by a hearty belief of and 〈◊〉 with that way which Christ has introduced for by the works of the Law by legal obedience no flesh neither Jew nor Gentile shall now be justified Fain would I learn whether you received the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith that is whether you became partakers of the miraculous powers of the
Holy Ghost while you continued under the legal dispensation or since you embraced the Gospel and the faith of Christ and speaking afterwards of the state of the Jews 〈◊〉 the revelation of the Gospel says he before saith came we were kept under the Law i. e. before the Gospel came we were kept under the Discipline of the legal Oeconomy shut up unto the faith reserved for the discovery of the Evangelical dispensation which should afterwards in its due time be revealed to the World This in the following Chapter he discourses more at large Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law i. e. Ye Jews that so fondly dote upon the legal state Do ye not hear the Law i. e. Understand what your own Law does so clearly intimate and then goes on to unriddle what was wrapt up in the famous Allegory of Abraham's two Sons by his two Wives The one Ishmael born of Hagar the Bond-woman who denoted the Jewish Covenant made at Mount Sinai which according to the representation of her condition was a servile state The other Isaac born of Sarah the Free-woman was the Son of the promise denoting Jerusalem that is above and is free the mother of us all i. e. The state and covenant of the Gospel whereby all Christians as the spiritual children of Abraham are set free from the bondage of the Mosaic dispensation By all which it is evident that by Law and the works of the Law in this controversie the Apostle understands the Law of Moses and that obedience which the legal dispensation required at their hands 8. WE are secondly to enquire what the Apostle means by Faith and he commonly uses it two ways 1. More generally for the Gospel or that Evangelical way of justification and salvation which Christ has brought in in opposition to Circumcision and the observation of those Rites by which the Jews expected to be justified and this is plain from the preceding opposition where Faith as denoting the Gospel is frequently opposed to the Law of Moses 2. Faith is taken more particularly for a practical belief or such an assent to the Evangelical revelation as produces a sincere obedience to the Laws of it and indeed as concerned in this matter is usually taken not for this or that single vertue but for the intire condition of the New Covenant as comprehending all that duty that it requires of us than which nothing can be more plain and evident In Christ Jesus i. e. under the Gospel neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision 't is all one to Justification whether a Man be circumcised or no What then but Faith which worketh by love which afterwards he explains thus In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature a renewed and divine temper of mind and a new course and state of life And lest all this 〈◊〉 not be thought plain enough he elsewhere tells us that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping the Commandments of God From which places there needs no skill to infer that that Faith whereby we are justified contains in it a new disposition and state both of heart and life and an observation of the Laws of Christ in which respect the Apostle does in the very same Verse expound believing by obeying of the Gospel Such he assures us was that very Faith by which Abraham was justified who against all probabilities of reason believed in God's promise he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong c. that is he so firmly believed what God had promised that he gave him the glory of his truth and faithfulness his infinite power and ability to do all things And how did he that by acting suitably in a way of intire resignation and sincere obedience to the divine will and pleasure so the Apostle elsewhere more expresly by Faith he obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went This Faith he tells us was imputed to Abraham for righteousness that is God by vertue of the New Covenant made in Christ was graciously pleased to look upon this obedience though in it self imperfect as that for which he accounted him and would deal with him as a just and a righteous Man And upon this account we find Abraham's faith opposed to a perfect and unsinning obedience for thus the Apostle tells us that Abraham was justified by faith in opposition to his being justified by such an absolute and compleat obedience as might have enabled him to challenge the reward by the strict Laws of Justice whereas now his being pardoned and accepted by God in the way of a mean and imperfect obedience it could not claim impunity much less a reward but must be intirely owing to the Divine grace and favour 9. HAVING thus cleared our way by restoring these words to their genuine and native sence we come to shew how the Apostle in his discourses does all along refer to the Original controversie between the Jewish and Gentile-Converts whether Justification was by the observation of the Mosaic Law or by the belief and practice of the Gospel and this will appear if we consider the persons that he has to deal with the way and manner of his arguing and that there was then no other controversie on foot to which these passages could refer The Persons whom he had to deal with were chiefly of two sorts pure Jews and Jewish Converts Pure Jews were those that kept themselves wholly to the Legal Oeconomy and expected to be justified and saved in no other way than the observation of the Law of Moses Indeed they laid a more peculiar stress upon Circumcision because this having been added as the Seal of that Covenant which God made with Abraham and the discriminating badge whereby they were to be distinguished from all other Nations they looked upon it as having a special efficacy in it to recommend them to the divine acceptance Accordingly we find in their Writings that they make this the main Basis and Foundation of their hope and confidence towards God For they tell us that the Precept of Circumcision is greater than all the rest and equivalent to the whole Law that the reason why God hears the Prayers of the Israelites but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gentiles or Christians is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the vertue and merit of Circumcision yea that so great is the power and efficacy of the Law of Circumcision that no man that is circumcised shall go to Hell Nay according to the idle and 〈◊〉 humour of these Men they fetch down Abraham from the Seat of the Blessed and place him as Porter at the Gates of Hell upon no other errand than to keep circumcised Persons from entring into that miserable place However nothing is more evident than that Circumcision was the Fort and Sanctuary wherein they ordinarily placed their security
and accordingly we find S. Paul frequently disputing against circumcision as virtually comprizing in their notion the keeping of the whole Jewish Law Besides to these literal impositions of the Law of Moses the Pharisees had added many vain Traditions and several superstitious usages of their own contrivance in the observance whereof the People plac'd not a little confidence as to that righteousness upon which they hoped to stand clear with Heaven Against all these our Apostle argues and sometimes by arguments peculiar to them alone Jewish Converts were those who having embraced the Christian Religion did yet out of a veneration to their ancient Rites make the observance of them equally necessary with the belief and practice of Christianity both to themselves and others These last were the Persons who as they first started the controversie so were those against whom the Apostle mainly opposed himself endeavouring to dismount their pretences and to beat down their Opinions level with the ground 10. THIS will yet further appear from the way and manner of the Apostles arguing which plainly respects this controversie and will be best seen in some particular instances of his reasonings And first he argues that this way of justification urged by Jews and Jewish Converts was inconsistent with the goodness of God and his universal kindness to Mankind being so narrow and limited that it excluded the far greatest part of the World Thus in the three first Chapters of his Epistle to the Romans having proved at large that the whole World both Jew and Gentile were under a state of guilt and consequently liable to the divine sentence and condemnation he comes next to enquire by what means they may be delivered from this state of vengeance and shews that it could not be by legal observances but that now there was a way of righteousness or justification declared by Christ in the Gospel intimated also in the Old Testament extending to all both Jews and Gentiles whereby God with respect to the satisfaction and expiation of Christ is ready freely to pardon and justifie all penitent believers That therefore there was a way revealed in the Gospel whereby a man might be justified without being beholden to the rites of the Jewish Law otherwise it would argue that God had very little care of the greatest part of men Is he God of the Jews only is he not also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also Seeing it is one God which shall 〈◊〉 the Circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith Jew and Gentile in the same Evangelical way The force of which argument lies in this That that cannot be necessary to our Justification which excludes the greatest part of mankind from all possibility of being justified and this justification by the Mosaick Law plainly does a thing by no means consistent with God's universal love and kindness to his Creatures Hence the Apostle magnifies the grace of the Gospel that it has broken down the partition-wall and made way for all Nations to come in that now there is neither Greek nor Jew Circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian nor 〈◊〉 no difference in this respect but all one in Christ Jesus all equally admitted to terms of pardon and justification in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness being accepted with him 11. SECONDLY He argues that this Jewish way of Justification could not be indispensably necessary in that it had not been the constant way whereby good men in all Ages had been justified and accepted with Heaven This he eminently proves from the instance of Abraham whom the Scripture sets forth as the Father of the faithful and the great Exemplar of that way wherein all his spiritual seed all true Believers were to be justified Now of him 't is evident that he was justified and accepted with God upon his practical belief of God's power and promise before ever Circumcision and much more before the rest of the Mosaick Institution was in being Cometh this blessedness then upon the Circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also For we say that Faith was reckoned unto Abraham for righteousness How was it then reckoned when he was in Circumcision or in uncircumcision Not in Circumcision but in uncircumcision And he received the sign of Circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had being yet uncircumcised c. The meaning whereof is plainly this That pardon of sin cannot be entailed upon the way of the Mosaick Law it being evident that Abraham was justified and approved of God before he was Circumcised which was only added as a seal of the Covenant between God and him and a testimony of that acceptance with God which he had obtained before And this way of God's dealing with Abraham and in him with all his spiritual children the legal Institution could not make void it being impossible that that dispensation which came so long after should disannul the Covenant which God had made with Abraham and his spiritual seed CCCCXXX years before Upon this account as the Apostle observes the Scripture sets forth Abraham as the great type and pattern of Justification as the Father of all them that believe though they be not Circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also and the father of Circumcision to them who are not of the Circumcision only but also walk in the steps of the Faith of our Father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised They therefore that are of Faith the same are the children of Abraham And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through Faith preached before the Gospel this Evangelical way of justifying unto Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed So then they which be of Faith who believe and obey as Abraham did shall be blessed pardoned and saved with faithful Abraham It might further be demonstrated that this has ever been God's method of dealing with mankind our Apostle in the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews proving all along by particular instances that it was by such a Faith as this without any relation to the Law of Moses that good men were justified and accepted with God in all Ages of the World 12. THIRDLY He argues against this Jewish way of Justification from the deficiency and imperfection of the Mosaick Oeconomy not able to justifie and save sinners 〈◊〉 as not able to assist those that were under it with sufficient aids to perform what it required of them This the Law could not do for that it was weak through the flesh till God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful 〈◊〉 to enable us that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And indeed could the Law have given life verily righteousness should have been by the Law But alas the Scripture having concluded all mankind Jew and Gentile under sin and consequently incapable of being
not be eaten not only for the former reason but because God had designed it for particular purposes to be the great Instrument of Expiation and an eminent type of the Blood of the Son of God who was to dye as the great expiatory Sacrifice for the World Nay it was re-established by the Apostles in the infancy of Christianity and observed by the Primitive Christians for several Ages as we have elsewhere observed 5. THE other Precept was concerning Circumcision given to Abraham at the time of God's entring into Covenant with him God said unto Abraham Thou shalt keep my Covenant c. This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy Seed after thee every Man-child among you shall be circumcised and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore-skin and it shall be a token of the Covenant betwixt me and you God had now made a Covenant with Abraham to take his Posterity for his peculiar People and that out of them should arise the promised Messiah and as all foederal compacts have some solemn and external rites of ratification so God was pleased to add Circumcision as the sign and seal of this Covenant partly as it had a peculiar fitness in it to denote the promised Seed partly that it might be a discriminating badge of Abraham's Children that part whom God had especially chosen out of the rest of Mankind from all other People On Abraham's part it was a sufficient argument of his hearty compliance with the terms of this Covenant that he would so chearfully submit to so unpleasing and 〈◊〉 a sign as was imposed upon him For Circumcision could not but be both painful and dangerous in one of his Years as it was afterwards to be to all new-born Infants whence 〈◊〉 complained of Moses commanding her to circumcise her Son that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an husband of bloods a cruel and inhumane Husband And this the Jewes tell us was the reason why circumcision was omitted during their Fourty Years Journy in the Wilderness it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the trouble and inconvenience of the way God mercifully dispensing with the want of it 〈◊〉 it should hinder their travelling the soarness and weakness of the circumcised Person not comporting with hard and continual Journies It was to be administred the eighth day not sooner the tenderness of the Infant not well till then complying with it besides that the Mother of a Male-child was reckoned legally impure till the seventh Day not later probably because the longer it was deferred the more unwilling would Parents be to put their Children to pain of which they would every Day become more sensible not to say the satisfaction it would be to them to see their Children solemnly entred into Covenant Circumcision was afterwards incorporated into the Body of the Jewish Law and entertained with a mighty Veneration as their great and standing Priviledge relied on as the main Basis and Foundation of their 〈◊〉 and hopes of acceptance with Heaven and accounted in a manner equivalent to all the other Rites of the Mosaic Law 6. BUT besides these two we find other positive Precepts which though not so clearly expressed are yet sufficiently intimated to us Thus there seems to have been a Law that none of the Holy Line none of the Posterity of Seth should marry with Infidels or those corrupt and idolatrous Nations which God had rejected as appears in that it 's charged as a great part of the sin of the old World that the Sons of God matched with the Daughters of Men as also from the great care which Abraham took that his Son Isaac should not take a Wife of the Daughters of the Canaanites among whom he dwelt There was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jus Levirationis whereby the next Brother to him who died without Issue was obliged to marry the Widow of the deceased and to raise up seed unto his Brother the contempt whereof cost Onan his Life together with many more particular Laws which the story of those Times might suggest to us But what is of most use and importance to us is to observe what Laws God gave for the administration of his Worship which will be best known by considering what worship generally prevailed in those early Times wherein we shall especially remarque the nature of their publick Worship the Places where the Times when and the Persons by whom it was administred 7. IT cannot be doubted but that the Holy Patriarchs of those days were careful to instruct their Children and all that were under their charge their Families being then very vast and numerous in the Duties of Religion to explain and improve the natural Laws written upon their minds and acquaint them with those Divine Traditions and positive Revelations which they themselves had received from God this being part of that great character which God gave of Abraham I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment To this they joyned Prayer and Invocation than which no duty is more natural and necessary more natural because it fitly expresses that great reverence and veneration which we have for the Divine Majesty and that propensity that is in Mankind to make known their wants none more necessary because our whole dependance being upon the continuance and constant returns of the Divine power and goodness 't is most reasonable that we should make our Daily addresses to him in whom we live move and have our being Nor were they wanting in returns of praise and solemn celebrations of the goodness of Heaven both by entertaining high and venerable thoughts of God and by actions suitable to those honourable sentiments which they had of him In these acts of worship they were careful to use gestures of the greatest reverence and submission which commonly was prostration Abraham bowed himself towards the ground and when God sent the Israelites the happy news of their deliverance out of Egypt they bowed their Heads and worshipped A posture which hath ever been the usual mode of adoration in those Eastern Countries unto this day But the greatest instance of the Publick Worship of those times was Sacrifices a very early piece of Devotion in all probability taking its rise from Adam's fall They were either Eucharistical expressions of thankfulness for blessings received or expiatory offered for the remission of sin Whether these Sacrifices were first taken up at Mens arbitrary pleasure or positively instituted and commanded by God might admit of a very large enquiry But to me the case seems plainly this that as to Eucharistical 〈◊〉 such as first-fruits and the like oblations Mens own reason might suggest and perswade them that it was fit to present them as the most natural significations of a thankful mind And thus far there might be Sacrifices in the
tempers who made their Will their Law and Might the standard and rule of Equity Attempting to return back to the holy Mount Heaven had shut up their way the stones of the Mountain burning like fire when they came upon them which whether the Reader will have faith enough to believe I know not Jared being near his death advised his Children to be wise by the folly of their Brethren and to have nothing to do with that prophane generation His son Enoch followed in his steps a man of admirable strictness and piety and peculiarly exemplary for his innocent and holy conversation it being particularly noted of him that he walked with God He set the Divine Majesty before him as the guide and pattern the spectator and rewarder of his actions in all his ways endeavoured to approve himself to his All-seeing eye by doing nothing but what was grateful and acceptable to him he was the great instance of vertue and goodness in an evil Age and by the even tenor and constancy of a holy and a religious life shewed his firm belief and expectation of a future state and his hearty dependence upon the Divine goodness for the rewards of a better life And God who is never behind-hand with his servants crowned his extraordinary obedience with an uncommon reward By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God And what that faith was is plain by what follows after a belief of God's Being and his Bounty Without faith it is impossible to please him For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that 〈◊〉 is a 〈◊〉 of them that diligently seek him What this translation was and whether it was made whither into that Terrestrial Paradise out of which Adam was expelled and banished and whereunto Enoch had desired of God he might be translated as some fancy or whether placed among the Stars as others or carried into the highest Heavens as others will have it were nice and useless speculations 'T is certain he was taken out of these mutable Regions and set beyond the reach of those miseries and misfortunes to which a present state of sin and mortality does betray us translated probably both Soul and Body that he might be a type and specimen of a future Resurrection and a sensible demonstration to the World that there is a reward for the righteous and another state after this wherein good Men shall be happy sor ever I pass by the fancy of the Jewes as vain and frivolous that though Enoch was a good Man yet was he very mutable and inconstant and apt to be led aside and that this was the reason why God translated him so soon lest he should have been debauched by the charms and allurements of a wicked World He was an eminent Prophet and a fragment of his Prophecy is yet extant in S. Jude's Epistle by which it appears that wickedness was then grown rampant and the manners of men very corrupt and vicious and that he as plainly told them of their faults and that Divine vengeance that would certainly overtake them Of Methuselah his Son nothing considerable is upon Record but his great Age living full DCCCCLXIX Years the longest proportion which any of the Patriarchs arrived to and died in that very Year wherein the Flood came upon the World 15. FROM his Son Lamech concerning whom we find nothing memorable we proceed to his Grand child Noah by the very imposition of whose Name his Parents presaged that he would be a refreshment and comfort to the World and highly instrumental to remove that curse which God by an Universal Deluge was bringing upon the Earth he 〈◊〉 his Name Noah saying This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed he was one in whom his Parents did acquiesce and rest satisfied that he would be eminently 〈◊〉 and serviceable to the World Indeed he proved a person of incomparable sanctity and integrity a Preacher of righteousness to others and who as carefully practised it himself He was a just man and perfect in his generation and he walked with God He did not warp and decline with the humour of the Age he lived in but maintained his station and kept his Line He was upright in his Generation 'T is no thanks to be religious when it is the humour and fashion of the Times the great trial is when we live in the midst of a corrupt generation It is the crown of vertue to be good when there are all manner of temptations to the contrary when the greatest part of Men goe the other way when vertue and honesty are laughed and drolled on and censured as an over-wise and affected singularity when lust and debauchery are accounted the modes of Gallantry and pride and oppression suffered to ride in prosperous triumphs without controll Thus it was with Noah he contended with the Vices of the Age and dared to own God and Religion when almost all Mankind besides himself had rejected and thrown them off For in his time wickedness openly appeared with a brazen Forehead and violence had covered the face of the Earth the promiscuous mixtures of the Children of Seth and Cain had produced Giants and mighty Men men strong to do evil and who had as much will as power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus describes them a race of men insolent and ungovernable scornful and injurious and who bearing up themselves in the confidence of their own strength despised all justice and equity and made every thing truckle under their 〈◊〉 lusts and appetites The very same character does Lucian give of the Men of this Age speaking of the times of Deucalion their Noah and the Flood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Men exceedingly scornful and contumelious and guilty of the most unrighteous and enormous actions violating all Oaths and Covenants throwing off kindness and hospitality and rejecting all addresses and supplications made to them For which cause great miseries overtook them for Heaven and Earth Seas and Rivers conspired together to pour out mighty Floods upon the World which swept all away but Deucalion only who for his prudence and piety was left to repair Mankind And so he goes on with the relation consonant to the account of the Sacred story This infection had spread it self over all parts and was become so general and Epidemical that all Flesh had corrupted their ways and scarce any besides Noah left to keep up the face of a Church and the profession of Religion Things being come to this pass quickly alarm'd the Divine Justice and made the World ripe for vengeance the patience of God was now tired out and he resolved to make Mankind feel the just effects of his incensed severity But
Opinions some making him contemporary with Abraham others with Jacob which had he been we should doubtless have found some mention of him in their story as well as we do of 〈◊〉 others again refer him to the time of the Law given at Mount Sinai and the Israelites travels in the Wilderness others to the times of the Judges after the settlement of the Israelites in the Land of Promise nay some to the reign of David and Solomon and I know not whether the Reader will not smile at the fancy of the Turkish Chronologists who make Job Major-domo to Solomon as they make Alexander the Great the General of his Army Others go further and place him among those that were carried away in the Pabylonish Captivity yea in the time of Ahasuerus and make his fair Daughters to be of the number of those beautiful young Virgins that were sought-for for the King Follies that need no confutation 'T is certain that he was elder than Moses his Kindred and Family his way of sacrificing the Idolatry rise in his time evidently placing him before that Age besides that there are not the least foot-steps in all his Book of any of the great things done for the 〈◊〉 deliverance which we can hardly suppose should have been omitted being examples so fresh in memory and so apposite to the design of that Book Most probable therefore it is that he lived about the time of the Israelitish Captivity in Egypt though whether as some Jews will have it born that very Year that Jacob came down into Egypt and dying that Year that they went out of Egypt I dare not peremptorily affirm And this no question is the reason why we find nothing concerning him in the Writings of Moses the History of those Times being crowded up into a very little room little being recorded even of the Israelites themselves for near Two Hundred Years more than in general that they were heavily oppressed under the Egyptian Yoke More concerning this great and good Man and the things relating to him if the Reader desire to know he may among others consult the elaborate exercitations of the younger 〈◊〉 in his Historia Jobi where the largest curiosity may find enough to satisfie it 22. AND now for a Conclusion to this Occonomy if we reflect a little upon the state of things under this period of the World we shall find that the Religion of those 〈◊〉 Ages was plain and simple unforced and natural and highly agreeable to the common dictates and notions of Mens minds They were not educated under any forreign Institutions nor conducted by a Body of numerous Laws and written Constitutions but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them tutor'd and instructed by the dictates of their own minds and the Principles of that Law that was written in their hearts following the order of Nature and right Reason as the safest and most ancient Rule By which means as one of the Ancients observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they maintained a free and uninterrupted course of Religion conducting their lives according to the rules of Nature so that having purged their minds from lust and passion and attained to the true knowledge of God they had no need of external and written Laws Their Creed was short and perspicuous their notions of God great and venerable their devotion and piety real and substantial their worship grave and serious and such as became the grandeur and majesty of the Divine being their Rites and Ceremonies few and proper their obedience prompt and sincere and indeed the whole conduct of their conversation discovering it self in the most essential and important duties of the humane life According to this standard it was that our blessed Saviour mainly designed to reform Religion in his most excellent Institutions to retrieve the piety and purity the innocency and simplicity of those 〈◊〉 and more uncorrupted Ages of the World to improve the Laws of Nature and to reduce Mankind from ritual observances to natural and moral duties as the most vital and essential parts of Religion and was therefore pleased to charge Christianity with no more than two positive Institutions Baptism and the Lord's Supper that Men might learn that the main of Religion lies not in such things as these Hence Eusebius undertakes at large to prove the faith and manners of the Holy Patriarchs who lived before the times of Moses and the belief and practice of Christians to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Which he does not only assert and make good in general but deduce from particular instances the examples of Enoch Noah Abraham Melchisedeck Job c. whom he expresly proves to have believed and lived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altogether after the manner of Christians Nay that they had the name also as well as the thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he shews from that place which he proves to be meant of Abraham Isaac and Jacob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touch not my Christians mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm And in short that as they had the same common Religion so they had the common blessing and reward SECT II. Of the MOSAICAL Dispensation Moses the Minister of this Oeconomy His miraculous preservation His learned and noble education The Divine temper of his mind His conducting the Israelites out of Egypt Their arrival at Mount Sinai The Law given and how Moral Laws the Decalogue whether a perfect Compendium of the Moral Law The Ceremonial Laws what Reduced to their proper Heads Such as concerned the matter of their Worship Sacrifices and the several kinds of them Circumcision The Passover and its typical relation The place of Publick Worship The Tabernacle and Temple and the several parts of them and their typical aspects considered Their stated times and 〈◊〉 weekly monthly annual The Sabbatical Year The Year of Jubilee Laws concerning the Persons ministring Priests Levites the High-Priest how a type of Christ. The Design of the Ceremonial Law and its abolition The Judicial Laws what The Mosaick Law how divided by the Jews into affirmative and negative Precepts and why The several ways of Divine revelation Urim and Thummim what and the manner of its giving Answers Bath-Col Whether any such way of revelation among the Jews Revelation by Dreams By Visions The Revelation of the Holy Spirit what Moses his way of Prophecy wherein exceeding the rest The pacate way of the spirit of prophecy This spirit when it ceased in the Jewish Church The state of the Church under this Dispensation briefly noted From the giving of the Law till Samuel From Samuel till Solomon It s condition under the succeeding Kings till the Captivity From thence till the coming of Christ. The state of the Jewish Church in the time of Christ more particularly considered The prophanations of the Temple The Corruption of their Worship The abuse of the Priesthood The Depravation of the Law by false glosses
Their Oral and unwritten Law It s original and succession according to the mind of the Jews Their unreasonable and blasphemous preferring it above the written Law Their religious observing the Traditions of the Elders The Vow of Corban what The superseding Moral Duties by it The Sects in the Jewish Church The Pharisees their denomination rise temper and principles Sadducees their impious Principles and evil lives The Essenes their original opinions and way of life The Herodians who The Samaritans Karraeans The Sect of the Zealots The Roman Tyranny over the Jewes 1. THE Church which had hitherto lyen dispersed in private Families and had often been reduced to an inconsiderable number being now multiplied into a great and a populous Nation God was pleased to enter into Covenant not any longer with particular Persons but with the Body of the People and to govern the Church by more certain and regular ways and methods than it had hitherto been This Dispensation began with the delivery of the Law and continued till the final period of the Jewish state consisting only of meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation In the survey whereof we shall chiefly consider what Laws were given for the Government of the Church by what Methods of revelation God communicated his mind and will to them and what was the state of the Church especially towards the conclusion of this Oeconomy 2. THE great Minister of this Dispensation was Moses the Son of Amram of the House of Levi a Person whose signal preservation when but an Infant presaged him to be born for great and generous undertakings Pharaoh King of Egypt desirous to suppress the growing numbers of the Jewish Nation had afflicted and kept them under with all the rigorous severities of tyranny and oppression But this not taking its effect he made a Law that all Hebrew Male-children should be drowned as soon as born knowing well enough how to kill the root if he could keep any more Branches from springing up But the wisdom of Heaven defeated his crafty and barbarous 〈◊〉 Among others that were born at that time was Moses a goodly Child and whom his Mother was infinitely desirous to preserve but having concealed him till the saving of his might endanger the losing her own life her affection suggested to her this little stratagem she prepared an Ark made of Paper-reeds and pitched within and so putting him a-board this little Vessel threw him into the River Nilus committing him to the mercy of the waves and the conduct of the Divine Providence God who wisely orders all events had so disposed things that Pharaohs daughter whose name say the Jews was Bithia Thermuth says Josephus say the Arabians Sihhoun being troubled with a distemper that would not endure the hot Bathes was come down at this time to wash in the Nile where the cries of the tender Babe soon reached her ears She commanded the Ark to be brought a-shore which was no sooner opened but the silent oratory of the weeping Infant sensibly struck her with compassionate resentments And the Jews add that she no sooner touched the Babe but she was immediately healed and cried out that he was a holy Child and that she would save his life for which say they she obtained the favour to be brought under the wings of the Divine Majesty and to be called the daughter of God His Sister Miriam who had all this while beheld the scene afar off officiously proffered her service to the Princess to call an Hebrew Nurse and accordingly went and brought his Mother To her care he was committed with a charge to look tenderly to him and the promise of a reward But the hopes of that could add but little where nature was so much concerned Home goes the Mother joyful and proud of her own pledge and the royal charge carefully providing for his tender years His infant state being pass'd he was restored to the Princess who adopted him for her own son bred him up at Court where he was polished with all the arts of a noble and ingenuous education instructed in the modes of civility and behaviour in the methods of policy and government Learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians whose renown for wisdom is not only once and again taken notice of in holy Writ but their admirable skill in all liberal Sciences Natural Moral and Divine beyond the rate and proportion of other Nations is sufficiently celebrated by foreign Writers To these accomplishments God was pleased to add a Divine temper of mind a great zeal for God not able to endure any thing that seemed to clash with the interests of the Divine honour and glory a mighty courage and resolution in God's service whose edge was not to be taken off either by threats or charms He was not afraid of the Kings commandment nor feared the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible His contempt of the World was great and admirable sleighting the honours of Pharoah's Court and the fair probabilities of the Crown the treasures and pleasures of that rich soft and luxurious Country out of a firm belief of the invisible rewards of another World He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter chusing rather to suffer 〈◊〉 with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt for he had respect unto the recompence of reward Josephus relates that when but a child he was presented by the Princess to her Father as one whom she had adopted for her son and designed for his successor in the Kingdom the King taking him up into his arms put his Crown upon his head which the child immediately pull'd off again and throwing it upon the ground trampled it under his feet An action which however looked upon by some Courtiers then present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 portending a fatal Omen to the Kingdom did however evidently presage his generous contempt of the grandeur and honours of the Court and those plausible advantages of Soveraignty that were offered to him His patience was insuperable not tired out with the abuses and disappointments of the King of Egypt with the hardships and troubles of the Wilderness and which was beyond all with the cross and vexatious humors of a stubborn and unquiet generation He was of a most calm and treatable disposition his spirit not easily ruffled with passion he who in the cause of God and Religion could be bold and fierce as a Lion was in his own patient as a Lamb God himself having given this character of him That he was the meekest man upon the Earth 3. THIS great personage thus excellently qualified God made choice of him to be the Commander and conducter of the Jewish Nation and his Embassador to the King of Egypt to demand the enfranchisement of
his people and free liberty to go serve and worship the God of their Fathers And that he might not seem a mere pretender to Divine revelation but that he really had an immediate commission from Heaven God was pleased to furnish him with extraordinary Credentials and to seal his Commission with a power of working Miracles beyond all the Arts of Magick and those tricks for which the Egyptian Sorcerers were so famous in the World But Pharaoh unwilling to part with such useful Vassals and having oppressed them beyond possibility of reconcilement would not hearken to the proposal but sometimes downright rejected it otherwhiles sought by subtil and plausible pretences to evade and shift it off till by many astonishing Miracles and severe Judgments God extorted at length a grant from him Under the conduct of Moses they set forwards after at least two hundred years servitude under the Egyptian yoke and though 〈◊〉 sensible of his error with a great Army pursued them either to cut them off or bring them back God made way for them through the midst of the Sea the waters becoming like a wall of Brass on each side of them till being all passed to the other 〈◊〉 those invisible cords which had hitherto tied up that liquid Element bursting in sunder the waters returned and overwhelmed their enemies that pursued them Thus God by the same stroke can protect his friends and punish his enemies Nor did the Divine Providence here take its leave of them but became their constant guard and defence in all their journeys waiting upon them through their several stations in the wilderness the most memorable whereof was that at Mount Sinai in Arabia The place where God delivered them the pattern in the Mount according to which the form both of their Church and State was to be framed and modelled In order hereunto Moses is called up into the Mount where by Fasting and Prayer he conversed with Heaven and received the body of their Laws Three days the people were by a pious and devout care to sanctifie and prepare themselves for the promulgation of the Law they might not come near their Wives were commanded to wash their clothes as an embleme and representation of that cleansing of the heart and that inward purity of mind where with they were to entertain the Divine will On the third day in the morning God descended from Heaven with great appearances of Majesty and terror with thunders and lightnings with black clouds and tempests with shouts and the loud noise of a trumpet which trumpet say the Jews was made of the horn of that Ram that was offered in the room of Isaac with fire and smoke on the top of the Mount ascending up like the smoke of a Furnace the Mountain it self greatly quaking the people trembling nay so terrible was the sight that Moses who had so frequently so familiarly conversed with God said I exceedingly fear and quake All which pompous trains of terror and magnificence God made use of at this time to excite the more solemn attention to his Laws and to beget a greater reverence and veneration for them in the minds of the people and to let them see how able he was to call them to account and by the severest penalties to vindicate the violation of his Law 4. THE Code and Digest of those Laws which God now gave to the Jews as the terms of that National Covenant that he made with them consisted of three sorts of Precepts Moral Ecelesiastical and Political which the Jews will have intimated by those three words that so frequently occur in the writings of Moses Laws Statutes and Judgments By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws they understand the Moral Law the notices of good and evil naturally implanted in mens minds By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Statutes Ceremonial Precepts instituted by God with peculiar reference to his Church By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judgments Political Laws concerning Justice and Equity the order of humane society and the prudent and peaceable managery of the Commonwealth The Moral Laws inserted into this Code are those contained in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the ten words that were written upon two Tables of Stone These were nothing else but a summary Comprehension of the great Laws of Nature engraven at first upon the minds of all men in the World the most material part whereof was now consigned to writing and incorporated into the body of the Jewish Law I know the Decalogue is generally taken to be a complete System of all natural Laws But whoever impartially considers the matter will find that there are many instances of duty so far from being commanded in it that they are not reducible to any part of it unless hook'd in by subtilties of wit and drawn thither by forc'd and unnatural inferences What provision except in one case or two do any of those Commandments make against neglects of duty Where do they obligue us to do good to others to love assist relieve our enemies Gratitude and thankfulness to benefactors is one of the prime and essential Laws of Nature and yet no where that I know of unless we will have it implied in the Preface to the Law commanded or intimated in the Decalogue With many other cases which 'tis naturally evident are our duty whereof no footsteps are to be seen in this Compendium unless hunted out by nice and sagacious reasonings and made out by a long train of consequences never originally intended in the Commandment and which not one in a thousand are capable of deducing from it It is probable therefore that God reduc'd only so many of the Laws of Nature into writing as were proper to the present state and capacities of that people to whom they were given superadding some and explaining others by the Preaching and Ministery of the Prophets who in their several Ages endeavoured to bring men out of the Shades and Thickets into clear light and Noon-day by clearing up mens obligations to those natural and essential duties in the practice whereof humane nature was to be advanced unto its just accomplishment and perfection Hence it was that our Lord who came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil and perfect it has explained the obligations of the natural Law more fully and clearly more plainly and intelligibly rendred our duty more fixed and certain and extended many instances of obedience to higher measures to a greater exactness and perfection than ever they were understood to have before Thus he commands a free and universal charity not only that we love our friends and relations but that we love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us He hath forbidden malice and revenge with more plainness and smartness obliged us not only to live according to the measures of sobriety but extended it to self-denial and taking
should cause the Sacrifice and the Oblation to cease At the time of Christ's death the veil of the Temple from top to bottom rent in sunder to shew that his death had revealed the mysteries and destroyed the foundations of the legal Oeconomy and put a period to the whole Temple-ministration Nay the Jews themselves confess that forty years before the destruction of the Temple a date that corresponds exactly with the death of Christ the Lot did no more go up into the right hand of the Priest this is meant of his dismission of the Scape-goat nor the scarlet Ribbon usually laid upon the forehead of the Goat any more grow white this was a sign that the Goat was accepted for the remission of their sins nor the Evening Lamp burn any longer and that the gates of the Temple opened of their own accord By which as at once they confirm what the Gospel reports of the opening of the Sanctum Sanctorum by the scissure of the veil so they plainly confess that at that very time their Sacrifices and Temple-services began to cease and fail As indeed the reason of them then ceasing the things themselves must needs vanish into nothing 10. THE third sort of Laws given to the Jews were Judicial and Political these were the Municipal Laws of the Nation enacted for the good of the State and were a kind of appendage to the second Table of the Decalogue as the Ceremonial Laws were of the first They might be reduced to four general heads such as respected men in their private and domestical capacities concerning Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants such as concerned the Publick and the Common-wealth relating to Magistrates and Courts of Justice to Contracts and matters of right and wrong to Estates and Inheritances to Executions and Punishments c. such as belong'd to strangers and matters of a soreign nature as Laws concerning Peace and War Commerce and Dealing with persons of another Nation or lastly such as secured the honour and the interests of Religion Laws against Apostates and Idolaters Wizards Conjurers and false Prophets against Blasphemy Sacriledge and such like all which not being so proper to my purpose I omit a more particular enumeration of them These Laws were peculiarly calculated for the Jewish State and that while kept up in that Country wherein God had placed them and therefore must needs determine and expire with it Nor can they be made a pattern and standard for the Laws of other Nations for though proceeding from the wisest Law-giver they cannot reasonably be imposed upon any State or Kingdom unless where there is an equal concurrence of circumstances as there were in that people for whom God enacted them They went off the Stage with the Jewish Polity and if any parts of them do still remain obligatory they bind not as Judicial Laws but as branches of the Law of Nature the reason of them being Immutable and Eternal I know not whether it may here be useful to remark what the Jews so frequently tell us of that the intire body of the Mosaick Law consists of DCXIII Precepts intimated say they in that place where 't is said Moses commanded us a Law where the Numeral Letters of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Law make up the number of DCXI. and the two that are wanting to make up the complete number are the two first Precepts of the Decalogue which were not given by Moses to the people but immediately by God himself Others say that there are just DCXIII letters in the Decalogue and that every letter answers to a Law But some that have had the patience to tell them assure us that there are two whole words consisting of seven letters supernumerary which in my mind quite spoils the computation These DCXIII Precepts they divide into CCXLVIII 〈◊〉 according to the number of the parts of man's body which they make account are just so many to put him in mind to serve God with all his bodily powers as if every member of his body should say to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make use of me to fulfil the command and into CCCLXV Negative according to the number of the days of the year that so every day may call upon a man and say to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oh do not in me transgress the Command Or as others will have it they answer to the Veins or Nerves in the body of man that as the complete frame and compages of man's body is made up of CCXLVIII Members and CCCLXV Nerves and the Law of so many affirmative and so many negative Precepts it denotes to us that the whole perfection and accomplishment of man lies in an accurate and diligent observance of the Divine Law Each of these divisions they reduce under twelve houses answerable to the twelve Tribes of Israel In the Affirmative Precepts the first House is that of Divine worship consisting of twenty Precepts the second the House of the Sanctuary containing XIX the third the House of Sacrifices wherein are LVII the fourth that of Cleanness and Pollution containing XVIII the fifth of Tithes and Alms under which are XXXII the sixth of Meats and Drinks containing VII the seventh of the Passeover concerning Feasts containing XX the eighth of Judgment XIII the ninth of Doctrine XXV the tenth of Marriage and concerning Women XII the eleventh of Judgments criminal VIII the twelfth of Civil 〈◊〉 XVII In the Negative Precepts the first House is concerning the worship of the Planets containing XLVII Commands the second of separation from the Heathens XIII the third concerning the reverence due to holy things XXIX the fourth of Sacrifice and Priesthood LXXXII the fifth of Meats XXXVIII the sixth of Fields and Harvest XVIII the seventh of Doctrine XLV the eighth of Justice XLVII the ninth of Feasts X the tenth of Purity and Chastity XXIV the eleventh of Wedlock VIII the twelfth concerning the Kingdom IV. A method not contemptible as which might minister to a distinct and useful explication of the whole Law of Moses 11. THE next thing considerable under the Mosaical Oeconomy was the methods of the Divine revelation by what ways God communicated his mind to them either concerning present emergences or future events and this was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle tells us at sundry times or by sundry degrees and parcels and in diverse manners by various methods of revelation whereof three most considerable the Urim and Thummim the audible voice and the spirit of Prophecy imparted in dreams visions c. We shall make some brief remarks upon them referring the Reader who desires fuller satisfaction herein to those who purposely treat about these matters The Urim and Thummim was a way of revelation peculiar to the High Priest Thou shalt put on the breast-plate of Judgment the Urim and the Thummim and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the
the doctrine which these men taught that though they were to love their neighbours that is Jewes yet might they hate their enemies In these and such like instances they had notoriously abused and evacuated the Law and in a manner rendred it of no effect And therefore when our Lord as the great Prophet sent from God came into the World the first thing he did after the entrance upon his publick Ministry was to cleanse and purifie the Law and to remove that rubbish which the Jewish Doctors had cast upon it He rescued it out of the hands of their poysonous and pernicious expositions restored it to its just authority and to its own primitive sence and meaning he taught them that the Law did not only bind the external act but prescribe to the most inward motions of the mind and that whoever transgresses here is no less obnoxious to the Divine Justice and the penalties of the Law than he that is guilty of the most gross and palpable violations of it he shewed them how infinitely more pure and strict the command was than these Impostors had represented it and plainly told them that if ever they expected to be happy they must look upon the Law with an other-guise eye and follow it after another rate than their blind and deceitful Guides did For I say unto you Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you can in no case enter into the Kingdome of God 20. THE other way by which they corrupted and dishonoured the Law and weakned the power and reputation of it was by preferring before it their Oral and unwritten Law For besides the Law consigned to Writing they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Law delivered by word of mouth whose pedigree they thus deduce They tell us that when Moses waited upon God Fourty Days in the Mount he gave him a double Law one in Writing the other Traditionary containing the sence and explication of the former being come down into his Tent he repeated it first to Aaron then to Ithamar and Eleazar his Sons then to the Seventy Elders and lastly to all the People the same Persons being all this while present Aaron who had now heard it four times recited Moses being gone out again repeated it before them after his departure out of the Tent his two Sons who by this had heard it as oft as their Father made another repetition of it by which means the Seventy Elders came to hear it four times and then they also repeated it to the Congregation who had now also heard it repeated four times together once from Moses then from Aaron then from his Sons and lastly from the Seventy Elders after which the Congregation broke up and every one went home and taught it his Neighbour This Oral Law Moses upon his Death-bed repeated to 〈◊〉 he delivered it to the Elders they to the Prophets the Prophets to the men of the great Synagogue the last of whom was Symeon the Just who delivered it to Antigonus Sochaeus and he to his Successors the wise Men whose business it was to recite it and so it was handed through several Generations the names of the Persons who delivered it in the several Ages from its first rise under Moses till above an Hundred Years after Christ being particularly enumerated by Maimonides At last it came to R. Jehuda commonly stiled by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our holy Master the Son of Rabban Symeon who flourished a little before the time of the Emperour Antoninus who considering the unsetled and tottering condition of his own Nation and how apt these traditionary Precepts would be to be forgotten or mistaken by the weakness of Mens memories or the perversness of their wits or the dispersion of the Jews in other Countries collected all these Laws and Expositions and committed them to Writing stiling his Book Mishnaioth or the Repetition This was asterwards illustrated and explained by the Rabbines dwelling about Babylon with infinite cases and controversies concerning their Law whose resolutions were at last compiled into another Volume which they called Gemara or Doctrin and both together constitute the intire Body of the Babylonish Talmud the one being the Text the other the Comment The folly and vanity of this account though it be sufficiently evident to need no confutation with any wise and discerning Man yet have the Jewes in all Ages made great advantage of it magnifying and extolling it above the written Law with Titles and Elogies that hyperbolize into blasphemy They tell us that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the Law for whose sake it was that God entred into Covenant with the Israelites that without this the whole Law would lye in the dark yea be meer obscurity and darkness it self as being contrary and repugnant to it self and defective in things necessary to be known that it is joy to the heart and health to the bones that the words of it are more lovely and desirable than the words of the Law and a greater sin to violate the one than thé other that it 's little or no commendation for a Man to read the Bible but to study the Mishna is that for which a Man shall receive the reward of the other World and that no Man can have a peaceable and quiet conscience who leaves the study of the Talmud to go to that of the Bible that the Bible is like Water the Mishna like Wine the Talmud like spiced Wine that all the words of the Rabbins are the very words of the living God from which a Man might not depart though they should tell him his right hand were his left and his left his right nay they blush not nor tremble to assert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to study in the holy Bible is nothing else but to lose our time I will mention but one bold and blasphemous sentence more that we may see how far these desperate wretches are given over to a spirit of impiety and infatuation they tell us that he that dissents from his Rabbin or Teacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissents from the Divine Majesty but he that believes the words of the wise men believes God himself 21. STRANGE that Men should so far offer violence to their reason so far conquer and subdue their conscience as to be able to talk at this wild and prodigious rate and stranger it would seem but that we know a Generation of Men great Patrons of Tradition too in another Church who mainly endeavour to debase and suppress the Scriptures and value their unwritten Traditions at little less rate than this But I let them pass This is no novel and upstart humour of the Jews they were notoriously guilty of it in our 〈◊〉 days whom we find frequently charging them with their superstitious observances of many little rites and usages derived from the Traditions of the Elders wherein they placed the main of
because it brings afflictions upon us but with love to our supreme Law-giver it is contrary to the natural love we bear to God so understood because it makes him our enemy whom naturally and reasonably we cannot but love and therefore also opposite to the first Appetite of Man which is to be like God in order to which we have naturally no instrument but Love and the consequents of Love 6. And this is not at all to be contradicted by a pretence that a man does not naturally know there is a GOD. Because by the same instrument by which we know that the World began or that there was a first man by the same we know that there is a GOD and that he also knew it too and conversed with that God and received Laws from him For if we discourse of Man and the Law of Nature and the first Appetites and the first Reasons abstractedly and in their own complexions and without all their relations and provisions we discourse jejunely and falsely and unprofitably For as Man did not come by chance nor by himself but from the universal Cause so we know that this universal Cause did do all that was necessary for him in order to the End he appointed him And therefore to begin the history of a Man's Reason and the philosophy of his Nature it is not necessary for us to place him there where without the consideration of a GOD or Society or Law or Order he is to be placed that is in the state of a thing rather than a person but God by Revelations and Scriptures having helped us with Propositions and parts of story relating Man's first and real condition from thence we can take the surest account and make the most perfect derivation of Propositions 7. From this first Appetite of Man to be like God and the first natural instrument of it Love descend all the first obligations of Religion In which there are some parts more immediately and naturally expressive others by superinduction and positive command Natural Religion I call such actions which either are proper to the nature of the thing we worship such as are giving praises to him and speaking excellent things of him and praying to him for such things as we need and a readiness to obey him in whatsoever he commands or else such as are expressions proportionate to our natures that make them that is giving to God the best things we have and by which we can declare our esteem of his honour and excellency assigning some portion of our time of our estate the labours of our persons the increase of our store First fruits Sacrifices Oblations and Tithes which therefore God rewards because he hath allowed to our natures no other instruments of doing him honour but by giving to him in some manner which we believe honourable and apt the best thing we have 8. The next Appetite a man hath is to beget one like himself God having implanted that appetite into Man for the propagation of mankind and given it as his first Blessing and permission It is not good for man to be alone and Increase and multiply And Artemidorus had something of this doctrine when he reckons these two Laws of Nature Deum colere Mulieribus vinci To worship God and To be overcome by women in proportion to his two first Appetites of Nature To be like God and To have another like himself This Appetite God only made regular by his first provisions of satisfaction He gave to Man a Woman for a Wife for the companion of his sorrows for the instrument of multiplication and yet provided him but of one and intimated he should have no more which we do not only know by an after-revelation the Holy Jesus having declared it to have been God's purpose but Adam himself understood it as appears by his first discourses at the entertainment of his new Bride And although there were permissions afterward of Polygamy yet there might have been a greater pretence of necessity at first because of enlarging and multiplying fountains rather than chanels and three or four at first would have enlarged mankind by greater proportion than many more afterwards little distances near the Centre make greater and larger figures than when they part near the fringes of the Circle and therefore those after-permissions were to avoid a greater evil not a hallowing of the licence but a reproach of their infirmity And certainly the multiplication of Wives is contrariant to that design of love and endearment which God intended at first between Man and Wife Connubia mille Non illis generis nexus non pignora curae Sed numero languet pietas And amongst them that have many Wives the relation and necessitude is tristing and loose and they are all equally contemptible because the mind entertains no loves or union where the object is multiplied and the act unfixed and distracted So that this having a great commodity in order to Man 's great End that is of living well and happily seems to be intended by God in the nature of things and instruments natural and reasonable towards Man's End and therefore to be a Law if not natural yet at least positive and superinduced at first in order to Man 's proper End However by the provision which God made for satisfaction of this Appetite of Nature all those actions which deflect and erre from the order of this End are unnatural and inordinate and not permitted by the concession of God nor the order of the thing but such actions only which naturally produce the end of this provision and satisfaction are natural regular and good 9. But by this means Man grew into a Society and a Family and having productions of his own kind which he naturally desired and therefore loved he was consequently obliged to assist them in order to their End that they might become like him that is perfect men and brought up to the same state and they also by being at first impotent and for ever after beneficiaries and obliged persons are for the present subject to their Parents and for ever after bound to duty because there is nothing which they can do that can directly produce so great a benefit to the Parents as they have to the Children From hence naturally descend all those mutual Obligations between Parents and Children which are instruments of Protection and benefit on the one side and Duty and obedience on the other and all these to be expressed according as either of their necessities shall require or any stipulation or contract shall appoint or shall be superinduced by any positive Laws of God or Man 10. In natural descent of the Generations of Man this one first Family was multiplied so much that for conveniency they were forced to divide their dwellings and this they did by Families especially the great Father being the Major-domo to all his minors And this division of dwellings although it
kept the same form and power in the several Families which were in the original yet it introduced some new necessities which although they varied in the instance yet were to be determined by such instruments of Reason which were given to us at first upon foresight of the publick necessities of the World And when the Families came to be divided that their common Parent being extinct no Master of a Family had power over another Master the rights of such men and their natural power became equal because there was nothing to distinguish them and because they might do equal injury and invade each other's possessions and disturb their peace and surprise their liberty And so also was their power of doing benefit equal though not the same in kind But God who made Man a sociable creature because he knew it was not good for him to be alone so dispensed the abilities and possibilities of doing good that in something or other every man might need or be benefited by every man Therefore that they might pursue the end of Nature and their own appetites of living well and happily they were forced to consent to such Contracts which might secure and supply to every one those good things without which he could not live happily Both the Appetites the Irascible and the Concupiscible fear of evil and desire of benefit were the sufficient endearments of Contracts of Societies and Republicks And upon this stock were decreed and hallowed all those Propositions without which Bodies politick and Societies of men cannot be happy And in the transaction of these many accidents daily happening it grew still reasonable that is necessary to the End of living happily that all those after-Obligations should be observed with the proportion of the same faith and endearment which bound the first Contracts For though the natural Law be always the same yet some parts of it are primely necessary others by supposition and accident and both are of the same necessity that is equally necessary in the several cases Thus to obey a King is as necessary and naturally reasonable as to obey a Father that is supposing there be a King as it is certain naturally a man cannot be but a Father must be supposed If it be made necessary that I promise it is also necessary that I perform it for else I shall return to that inconvenience which I sought to avoid when I made the Promise and though the instance be very far removed from the first necessities and accidents of our prime being and production yet the reason still pursues us and natural Reason reaches up to the very last minutes and orders the most remote particulars of our well-being 11. Thus Not to Steal Not to commit Adultery Not to kill are very reasonable prosecutions of the great End of Nature of living well and happily But when a man is said to steal when to be a Murtherer when to be Incestuous the natural Law doth not teach in all cases but when the superinduced Constitution hath determined the particular Law by natural Reason we are obliged to observe it because though the Civil power makes the instance and determines the particular yet right Reason makes the Sanction and passes the Obligation The Law of Nature makes the major Proposition but the Civil Constitution or any superinduced Law makes the Assumption in a practical Syllogism To kill is not Murther but to kill such persons whom I ought not It was not Murther among the Jews to kill a man-slayer before he entred a City of Refuge to kill the same man after his entry was Among the Romans to kill an Adulteress or a Ravisher in the act was lawful with us it is Murther Murther and Incest and Theft always were unlawful but the same actions were not always the same crimes And it is just with these as with Disobedience which was ever criminal but the same thing was not estimated to be Disobedience nor indeed could any thing be so till the Sanction of a Superior had given the instance of Obedience So for Theft To catch Fish in rivers or Deer or Pigeons when they were esteemed ferae naturae of a wild condition and so primo 〈◊〉 was lawful just as to take or kill Badgers or Foxes and Bevers and Lions but when the Laws had appropriated Rivers and divided Shores and imparked Deer and housed Pigeons it became Theft to take them without leave To despoil the Egyptians was not Theft when God who is the Lord of all possessions had bidden the Israelites but to do so now were the breach of the natural Law and of a Divine Commandment For the natural Law I said is eternal in the Sanction but variable in the instance and the expression And indeed the Laws of Nature are very few They were but two at first and but two at last when the great change was made from Families to Kingdoms The first is to do duty to God The second is to do to our selves and our Neighbours that is to our neighbours as to our selves all those actions which naturally reasonably or by institution or emergent necessity are in order to a happy life Our Blessed Saviour reduces all the Law to these two 1. Love the Lord with all thy heart 2. Love thy neighbour as thy self In which I observe in verification of my former discourse that Love is the first natural bond of Duty to God and so also it is to our Neighbour And therefore all entercourse with our neighbour was founded in and derived from the two greatest endearments of Love in the world A man came to have a Neighbour by being a Husband and a Father 12. So that still there are but two great natural Laws binding us in our relations to God and Man we remaining essentially and by the very design of creation obliged to God in all and to our neighbours in the proportions of equality as thy self that is that he be permitted and promoted in the order to his living well and happily as thou art for Love being there not an affection but the duty that results from the first natural bands of Love which began Neighbourhood signifies Justice Equality and such reasonable proceedings which are in order to our common End of a happy life and is the same with that other Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do you to them and that is certainly the greatest and most effective Love because it best promotes that excellent End which God designed for our natural perfection All other particulars are but prosecutions of these two that is of the order of Nature save only that there is a third Law which is a part of Love too it is Self-love and therefore is rather supposed than at the first expressed because a man is reasonably to be presumed to have in him a sufficient stock of Self-love to serve the ends of his nature and creation and that is that man demean and use his own body
servants some were Covetous and would usurp that which by an earlier distinction had passed into private possession and then they made new principles and new discourses such which were reasonable in order to their private indirect ends but not to the publick benefit and therefore would prove unreasonable and mischievous to themselves at last 20. And when once they broke the order of creation it is easie to understand by what necessities of consequence they ran into many sins and irrational proceedings AElian tells of a Nation who had a Law binding them to beat their Parents to death with clubs when they lived to a decrepit and unprofitable age The Persian Magi mingled with their Mothers and all their nearest relatives And by a Law of the Venetians says Bodinus a Son in banishment was redeemed from the sentence if he killed his banished Father And in Homer's time there were a sort of Pirats who professed Robbing and did account it honourable But the great prevarications of the Laws of Nature were in the first Commandment when the tradition concerning God was derived by a long line and there were no visible remonstrances of an extraordinary power they were quickly brought to believe that he whom they saw not was not at all especially being prompted to it by Pride Tyranny and a loose imperious spirit Others 〈◊〉 to low opinions concerning God and made such as they list of their own and they were like to be strange Gods which were of Man's making When Man either maliciously or carelesly became unreasonable in the things that concerned God God was pleased to give him over to a reprobate mind that is an unreasonable understanding and false principles concerning himself and his Neighbour that his sin against the natural Law might become its own punishment by discomposing his natural happiness Atheism and Idolatry brought in all unnatural Lusts and many unreasonable Injustices And this we learn from S. Paul As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient that is incongruities towards the end of their creation and so they became full of unrighteousness lust covetousness malice envy strise and murther disobedient to parents breakers of Covenants unnatural in their affections and in their passions and all this was the consequent of breaking the first natural Law They changed the truth of God into a lie For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections 21. Now God who takes more care for the good of man than man does 〈◊〉 his own did not only imprint these Laws in the hearts and understandings of man but did also take care to make this light shine clear enough to walk by by adopting some instances of the natural Laws into Religion Thus the Law against Murther became a part of Religion in the time of Noah and some other things were then added concerning worshipping God against Idolatry and against unnatural and impure Mixtures Sometimes God superadded Judgments as to the 23000. Assyrians for Fornication For although these punishments were not threatned to the crime in the sanction and expression of any definite Law and it could not naturally arrive to it by its inordination yet it was as agreeable to the Divine Justice to inflict it as to inflict the pains of Hell upon evil livers who yet had not any revelation of such intolerable danger for it was sufficient that God had made such crimes to be against their very Nature and they who will do violence to their Nature to do themselves hurt and to displease God deserve to lose the title to all those good things which God was pleased to design for man's final condition And because it grew habitual customary and of innocent reputation it pleased God to call this precept out of the darkness whither their evil customs and false discourses had put it and by such an extraregular but very signal punishment to re-mind them that the natural permissions of Concubinate were only confined to the ends of mankind and were hallowed only by the Faith and the design of Marriage And this was signified by S. Paul in these words They that sin without the Law shall also perish without the Law that is by such Judgments which God hath inflicted on evil livers in several periods of the world irregularly indeed not signified in kind but yet sent into the world with designs of a great mercy that the ignorances and prevarications and partial abolitions of the natural Law might be cured and restored and by the dispersion of prejudices the state of natural Reason be redintegrate 22. Whatsoever was besides this was accidental and emergent Such as were the Discourses of wise men which God raised up in several Countreys and Ages as Job and Eliphaz and Bildad and those of the families of the Patriarchs dispersed into several countreys and constant Tradition in some noble and more eminent descents And yet all this was so little and imperfect not in it self but in respect of the thick cloud man had drawn before his Understanding that darkness covered the face of the earth in a great proportion Almost all the World were Idolaters and when they had broken the first of the natural Laws the breach of the other was not only naturally consequent but also by Divine judgment it descended infallibly And yet God pitying mankind did not only still continue the former remedies and added blessings giving them 〈◊〉 seasons and filling their hearts with food and gladness so leaving the Nations without excuse but also made a very noble change in the world For having chosen an excellent Family the Fathers of which lived exactly according to the natural Law and with observation of those few superadded Precepts in which God did specificate their prime Duty having swelled that Family to a great Nation and given them possession of an excellent Land which God took from seven Nations because they were egregious violators of the natural Law he was pleased to make a very great restitution and declaration of the natural Law in many instances of Religion and Justice which he framed into positive Precepts and adopted them into the family of the first original instances making them as necessary in the particulars as they were in the primary obligation but the instances were such whereof some did relate only to the present constitution of the Commonwealth others to such universal Contracts which obliged all the World by reason of the equal necessity of all mankind to admit them And these himself writ on Tables of stone and dressed up their Nation into a body politick by an excellent System of politick Laws and adorned it with a rare Religion and left this Nation as a piece of leven in a mass of dow not only to do honour to God and happiness to themselves by those instruments which he had now very much explicated but also to transmit
Holy Jesus perfected and restored the natural Law and drew it into a System of Propositions and made them to become of the family of Religion For God is so zealous to have Man attain to the End to which he first designed him that those things which he hath put in the natural order to attain that End he hath bound fast upon us not only by the order of things by which it was that he that prevaricated did naturally fall short of Felicity but also by bands of Religion he hath now made himself a party and an enemy to those that will be not-happy Of old Religion was but one of the natural Laws and the instances of Religion were distinct from the discourses of Philosophy Now all the Law of Nature is adopted into Religion and by our love and duty to God we are tied to do all that is reason and the parts of our Religion are but pursuances of the natural relation between God and us and beyond all this our natural condition is in all sences improved by the consequents and adherencies of this Religion For although Nature and Grace are opposite that is Nature depraved by evil habits by ignorance and ungodly customs is contrary to Grace that is to Nature restored by the Gospel engaged to regular living by new revelations and assisted by the Spirit yet it is observable that the Law of Nature and the Law of Grace are never opposed There is a Law of our members saith S. Paul that is an evil necessity introduced into our appetites by perpetual evil customs examples and traditions of vanity and there is a Law of sin that answers to this and they differ only as inclination and habit vicious desires and vicious practices But then contrary to these are 〈◊〉 a Law of my mind which is the Law of Nature and right Reason and then the Law of Grace that is of Jesus Christ who perfected and restored the first Law and by assistances reduced it into a Law of holy living and these two 〈◊〉 as the other the one is in order to the other as 〈◊〉 and growing degrees and capacities are to perfection and consummation The Law of the mind had been so rased and obliterate and we by some means or other so disabled from observing it exactly that until it was turned into the Law of Grace which is a Law of pardoning infirmities and assisting us in our choices and elections we were in a state of deficiency from the perfective state of Man to which God intended us 37. Now although God always designed Man to the same state which he hath now revealed by Jesus Christ yet he told him not of it and his permissions and licences were then greater and the Law it self lay closer 〈◊〉 up in the compact body of necessary Propositions in order to so much of his End as was known or could be supposed But now according to the extension of the revelation the Law it self is made wider that is more explicit and natural Reason is thrust forward into discourses of Charity and benefit and we tied to do very much good to others and tied to cooperate to each other's felicity 38. That the Law of Charity is a Law of Nature needs no other argument but the consideration of the first constitution of Man The first instances of Justice or entercourse of man with a second or third person were to such persons towards whom he had the greatest endearments of affection in the world a 〈◊〉 and Children and Justice and Charity at first was the same thing And it hath obtained in Ages far removed from the first that Charity is called Righteousness He hath dispersed and given to the poor his righteousness remaineth for ever And it is certain Adam could not in any instance be unjust but he must in the same also be uncharitable the band of his first Justice being the ties of love and all having commenced in love And our Blessed Lord restoring all to the intention of the first perfection expresses it to the same sence as I formerly observed Justice to our Neighbour is loving him as our selves For since Justice obliges us to do as we would be done to as the irascible faculty restrains us 〈◊〉 doing evil for fear of receiving evil so the concupiscible obliges us to Charity that our selves may receive good 39. I shall say nothing concerning the reasonableness of this Precept but that it concurs rarely with the first reasonable appetite of man of being like God Deus est mortali juvare mortalem 〈◊〉 haec est ad aeternitatem via said Pliny and It is more blessed to give than to receive said our Blessed Saviour And therefore the Commandment of Charity in all its parts is a design not only to reconcile the most miserable person to some participations and sense of felicity but to make the Charitable man happy and whether this be not very agreeable to the desires of an intelligent nature needs no farther enquiry And Aristotle asking the Question whether a man had more need of friends in prosperity or adversity makes the case equal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they are in want they need assistance when they are prosperous they need partners of their felicity that by communicating their joy to them it may reflect and double upon their spirits And certain it is there is no greater felicity in the world than in the content that results from the emanations of Charity And this is that which S. John calls the old Commandment and the new Commandment It was of old for it was from the beginning even in Nature and to the offices of which our very bodies had an organ and a seat for therefore Nature gave to a man bowels and the passion of yerning but it grew up into Religion by parts and was made perfect and in that degree appropriate to the Law of Jesus Christ. For so the Holy Jesus became our Law-giver and added many new Precepts over and above what were in the Law of Moses but not more than was in the Law of Nature The reason of both is what I have all this while discoursed of Christ made a more perfect restitution of the Law of Nature than Moses did and so it became the second Adam to consummate that which began to be less perfect from the prevarication of the first Adam 40. A particular of the Precept of Charity is forgiving Injuries and besides that it hath many superinduced benefits by way of blessing and reward it relies also upon this natural reason That a pure and a simple revenge does no way restore man towards the felicity which the injury did interrupt For Revenge is a doing a simple evil and does not in its formality imply reparation For the mere repeating of our own right is permitted to them that will do it by charitable instruments and to secure my self or the publick against the future by positive inflictions upon
of the Religion there is no change of Government but that Christ is made King and the Temporal Power is his substitute and is to promote the interest of Obedience to him as before he did to Christ's enemy Christ having left his Ministers as Lieger Embassadors to signifie and publish the Laws of Jesus to pray all in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God so that over the obedient Christ wholly reigns by his Ministers publishing his Laws over the disobedient by the Prince also putting those Laws in execution And in this sense it is that S. Paul says Bonis Lex non est posita To such who live after the Spirit there is no Law that is there needs no coercion But now if we reject God from reigning over us and say like the people in the Gospel Nolumus hunc regnare We will not have him to reign over us by the ministery of his Word by the Empire of the Royal Priesthood then we return to the condition of Heathens and persons sitting in darkness then God hath armed the Temporal Power with a Sword to cut us off If we obey not God speaking by his Ministers that is if we live not according to the excellent Laws of Christianity that is holily soberly and justly in all our relations he hath placed three Swords against us the Sword of the Spirit against the unholy and irreligious the Sword of natural and supervening Infelicities upon the intemperate and unsober and the Sword of Kings against the unjust to remonstrate the excellency of Christianity and how certainly it leads to all the Felicity of man because every transgression of this Law according to its proportion makes men unhappy and unfortunate 43. What effect this Discourse may have I know not I intended it to do honour to Christianity and to represent it to be the best Religion in the World and the conjugation of all excellent things that were in any Religion or in any Philosophy or in any Discourses For whatsoever was honest whatsoever was noble whatsoever was wise whatsoever was of good report if there be any praise if there be any vertue it is in Christianity For even to follow all these instances of excellency is a Precept of Christianity And 〈◊〉 they that pretend to Reason cannot more reasonably endear themselves to the reputation of Reason than by endearing their Reason to Christianity the conclusions and belief of which is the most reasonable and perfect the most excellent design and complying with the noblest and most proper Ends of Man And if this Gate may suffice to invite such persons into the Recesses of the 〈◊〉 then I shall tell them that I have dressed it in the ensuing Books with some variety and as the nature of the Religion is some parts whereof are apt to satisfie our discourse some to move our affections and yet all of this to relate to practice so is the design of the following pages For some men are wholly made up of Passion and their very Religion is but Passion put into the family and society of holy purposes and sor those I have prepared Considerations upon the special Parts of the Life of the Holy Jesus and yet there also are some things mingled in the least severe and most affectionate parts which may help to answer a Question and appease a Scruple and may give Rule for Determination of many cases of Conscience For I have so ordered the Considerations that they spend not themselves in mere affections and ineffective passions but they are made Doctrinal and little repositories of Duty But because of the variety of mens spirits and of mens necessities it was necessary I should interpose some practical Discourses more severe For it is but a sad thought to consider that Piety and Books of Devotion are counted but entertainment for little understandings and softer spirits and although there is much sault in such imperious minds that they will not distinguish the weakness of the Writers from the reasonableness and wisdom of the Religion yet I cannot but think the Books themselves are in a large degree the occasion of so great indevotion because they are some few excepted represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life without or art or learning and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love not for them that can consider and love And it is not well that since nothing is more reasonable and excellent in all perfections spiritual than the Doctrines of the Spirit or holy life yet nothing is offered to us so unlearnedly as this is so miserable and empty of all its own intellectual perfections If I could I would have had it otherwise in the present Books for since the Understanding is not an idle Faculty in a spiritual life but hugely operative to all excellent and reasonable choices it were very fit that this Faculty were also entertained by such discourses which God intended as instruments of hallowing it as he intended it towards the sanctification of the whole man For want of it busie and active men entertain themselves with notions infinitely unsatisfying and unprofitable But in the mean time they are not so wise For concerning those that study unprofitable Notions and neglect not only that which is wisest but that also which is of most real advantage I cannot but think as Aristotle did of Thales and Anaxagoras that they may be learned but they are not wise or wise but not prudent when they are ignorant of such things as are profitable to them For suppose they know the wonders of Nature and the subtilties of Metaphysicks and operations Mathematical yet they cannot be prudent who spend themselves wholly upon unprofitable and ineffective contemplations He is truly wise that knows best to promote the best End that which he is bound to desire and is happy if he obtains and miserable if he misses and that is the End of a happy Eternity which is obtained by the only means of living according to the purposes of God and the prime intentions of Nature natural and prime Reason being now all one with the Christian Religion But then I shall only observe that this part of Wisdom and the excellency of its secret and deep Reason is not to be discerned but by Experience the Propositions of this Philosophy being as in many other Empirical and best found out by observation of real and material events So that I may say of Spiritual learning as Quintilian said of some of Plato's Books Nam Plato cum in aliis quibusdam tum praecipue in Timaeo ne intelligi quidem nisi abiis qui hanc quoque partem disciplinae Musicae diligenter perceperint potest The secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven are not understood truly and throughly but by the sons of the Kingdom and by them too in several degrees and to various purposes but to evil persons the whole systeme of this Wisdom is insipid and flat dull as the foot of a rock
Relatives of the Roman Empire neither doth it appear that the Romans laid a new Tribute on the Jews before the Confiscation of the goods of Archelaus Augustus therefore sending special Delegates to tax every City made onely an inquest after the strength of the Roman Empire in men and moneys and did himself no other advantage but was directed by him who rules and turns the hearts of Princes that he might by verifying a Prophecy signifie and publish the Divinity of the Mission and the Birth of Jesus 2. She that had conceived by the operation of that Spirit who dwells within the element of Love was no ways impeded in her journey by the greatness of her burthen but arrived at Bethlehem in the throng of strangers who had so filled up the places of hospitality and publick entertainment that there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the Inne But yet she felt that it was necessary to retire where she might softly lay her Burthen who began now to call at the gates of his prison and Nature was ready to let him forth But she that was Mother to the King of all the creatures could find no other but a Stable a Cave of a rock whither she retired where when it began to be with her after the manner of women she humbly bowed her knees in the posture and guise of worshippers and in the midst of glorious thoughts and highest speculation brought forth her first born into the world 3. As there was no sin in the Conception so neither had she pains in the Production as the Church from the days of Gregory Nazianzen untill now hath piously believed though before his days there were some opinions to the contrary but certainly neither so pious nor so reasonable For to her alone did not the punishment of Eve extend that in sorrow she should bring forth For where nothing of Sin was an ingredient there Misery cannot cohabit For though amongst the daughters of men many Conceptions are innocent and holy being sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer hallowed by Marriage designed by Prudence seasoned by Temperance conducted by Religion towards a just an hallowed and a holy end and yet their Productions are in sorrow yet this of the Blessed Virgin might be otherwise because here Sin was no relative and neither was in the principle nor the derivative in the act nor in the habit in the root nor in the branch there was nothing in this but the sanctification of a Virgin 's Womb and that could not be the parent of sorrow especially that gate not having been opened by which the Curse always entred And as to conceive by the Holy Ghost was glorious so to bring forth any of the fruits of the spirit is joyful and full of felicities And he that came from his grave fast tied with a stone and signature and into the College of Apostles the doors being shut and into the glories of his Father through the solid orbs of all the Firmament came also as the Church piously believes into the World so without doing violence to the virginal and pure body of his Mother that he did also leave her Virginity entire to be as a seal that none might open the gate of that Sanctuary that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet This gate shall be shut it shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it because the Lord God of Israel hath entred by it therefore it shall be shut 4. Although all the World were concerned in the Birth of this great Prince yet I find no story of any one that ministred at it save onely Angels who knew their duty to their Lord and the great Interests of that person whom as soon as he was born they presented to his Mother who could not but receive him with a joy next to the rejoycings of glory and beatifick vision seeing him to be born her Son who was the Son of God of greater beauty than the Sun purer than Angels more loving than the Seraphims as dear as the eye and heart of God where he was from eternity engraven his beloved and his onely-begotten 5. When the Virgin-Mother now felt the first tenderness and yernings of a Mother's bowels and saw the Saviour of the World born poor as her fortunes could represent him naked as the innocence of Adam she took him and wrapt him in swadling cloaths and after she had a while cradled him in her arms she laid him in a manger for so was the design of his Humility that as the last Scene of his life was represented among Thieves so the first was amongst Beasts the sheep and the oxen according to that mysterious Hymn of the Prophet Habakkuk His brightness was as the light he had horns coming out of his hand and there was the hiding of his power 6. But this place which was one of the great instances of his Humility grew to be as venerable as became an instrument and it was consecrated into a Church the Crib into an Altar where first lay that Lamb of God which afterwards was sacrificed for the sins of all the World And when Adrian the Emperour who intended a great despite to it built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in that place where the Holy Virgin-Mother and her more Holy Son were humbly laid even so he could not obtain but that even amongst the Gentile inhabitants of the neighbouring Countries it was held in an account far above scandal and contempt For God can ennoble even the meanest of creatures especially if it be but a relative and instrumental to Religion higher than the injuries of scoffers and malicious persons But it was then a Temple full of Religion full of glory when Angels were the Ministers the Holy Virgin was the Worshipper and CHRIST the Deity Ad SECT III. Considerations upon the Birth of our Blessed Saviour JESVS 1. ALthough the Blessed Jesus desired with the 〈◊〉 of an inflamed love to be born and to finish the work of our Redemption yet he did not prevent the period of Nature nor break the laws of the Womb and antedate his own sanctions which he had established 〈◊〉 ever He staid nine months and then brake forth as a Giant joyful to run his course For premature and hasty actions and such counsels as know not how to expect the times appointed in God's decree are like hasty fruit or a young person snatcht away in his florid age sad and untimely He that hastens to enjoy his wish before the time raises his own expectation and yet makes it unpleasant by impatience and loseth the pleasure of the fruition when it comes because he hath made his desires bigger than the thing can satisfie He that must eat an hour before his time gives probation of his intemperance or his weakness and if we dare not trust God with the Circumstance of the event and stay
is indeed presumed so but it was instituted to be a Seal of a Covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham's posterity a seal of the righteousness of Faith and therefore was not improper for him to suffer who was the child of Abraham and who was the Prince of the Covenant and the author and finisher of that Faith which was consigned to 〈◊〉 in Circumcision But so mysterious were all the actions of Jesus that this one served many ends For 1. It gave demonstration of the verity of Humane nature 2. So he began to fulfil the Law 3. And took from himself the scandal of Uncircumcision which would eternally have prejudiced the Jews against his entertainment and communion 4. And then he took upon him that Name which declared him to be the Saviour of the World which as it was consummate in the bloud of the Cross so was it inaugurated in the bloud of Circumcision For when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising of the Child his name was called JESUS 3. But this holy Family who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God longed till they might be permitted an address to the Temple that there they might present the Holy Babe unto his Father and indeed that he who had no other might be brought to his own house For although while he was a child he did differ nothing from a servant yet he was the Lord of the place It was his Father's house and he was the Lord of all and therefore when the days of the Purification were accomplished they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord to whom he was holy as being the first-born the first-born of his Mother the only-begotten son of his Father and the first-born of every creature And they did with him according to the Law of Moses offering a pair of Turtle-doves for his redemption 4. But there was no publick act about this Holy Child but it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary And at this instant the Spirit of God directed a holy person into the Temple that he might feel the fulfilling of a Prophecy made to himself that he might before his death behold the Lord 's CHRIST and imbrace the glory and consolation of Israel and the light of the Gentiles in his arms for old Simeon came by the Spirit into the Temple and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and prophesied and spake glorious things of that Child and things sad and glorious concerning his Mother that the Child was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel for a sign that should be spoken against and the bitterness of that contradiction should pierce the heart of the holy Virgin-Mother like a Sword that her joy at the present accidents might be attempered with present revelation of her future trouble and the excellent favour of being the Mother of God might be crowned with the reward of Martyrdom and a Mother's love be raised up to an excellency great enough to make her suffer the bitterness of being transfixed with his love and sorrow as with a Sword 5. But old Anna the Prophetess came also in full of years and joy and found the reward of her long prayers and fasting in the Temple the long-looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the Temple and she saw with her eyes the Light of the World the Heir of Heaven the long-looked-for Messias whom the Nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint and their eyes dim with looking farther and apprehending greater distances She also prophesied and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him Ad SECT V. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESVS 1. WHen eight days were come the Holy Jesus was circumcised and shed the first-fruits of his Bloud offering them to God like the prelibation of a Sacrifice and earnest of the great seas of effusion designed for his Passion not for the expiation of any stain himself had contracted for he was spotless as the face of the Sun and had contracted no wrinkle from the aged and polluted brow of Adam but it was an act of Obedience and yet of Choice and voluntary susception to which no obligation had passed upon him in the condition of his own person For as he was included in the vierge of Abraham's posterity and had put on the common outside of his Nation his Parents had intimation enough to pass upon him the Sacrament of the National Covenant and it became an act of excellent Obedience but because he was a person extraordinary and exempt from the reasons of Circumcision and himself in person was to give period to the Rite therefore it was an act of Choice in him and in both the capacities becomes a precedent of Duty to us in the first of Obedience in the second of Humility 2. But it is considerable that the Holy Jesus who might have pleaded his exemption especially in a matter of pain and dishonour yet chose that way which was more severe and regular so teaching us to be strict in our duties and sparing in the rights of priviledge and dispensation We pretend every indisposition of body to excuse us from penal duties from Fasting From going to Church and instantly we satisfie our selves with saying God will have mercy and not sacrifice so making our selves Judges of our own privileges in which commonly we are parties against God and therefore likely to pass unequal sentence It is not an easie argument that will bring us to the severities and rigours of Duty but we snatch at occasions of dispensation and therefore possibly may mistake the justice of the opportunities by the importunities of our desires However if this too much easiness be in any case excusable from sin yet in all cases it is an argument of infirmity and the regular observation of the Commandment is the surer way to Perfection For not every inconvenience of body is fit to be pleaded against the inconvenience of losing spiritual advantages but only such which upon prudent account does intrench upon the Laws of Charity or such whose consequent is likely to be impediment of a duty in a greater degree of loss than the present omission For the Spirit being in many perfections more eminent than the Body all spiritual improvements have the same proportions so that if we were just estimators of things it ought not to be less than a great incommodity to the Body which we mean to prevent by the loss of a spiritual benefit or the omission of a Duty he were very improvident who would lose a Finger for the good husbandry of saving a Ducat and it would be an unhandsome excuse from the duties of Repentance to pretend care of the Body The proportions and degrees of this are so nice and of so difficult determination that men are more apt to
that are uncomely 17. If you will be secure remove your tent dwell farther off God hath given us more liberty than we may safely use and although God is so gracious as to comply much with our infirmities yet if we do so too as God's goodness in indulging liberty to us was to prevent our sinning our complying with our selves will engage us in it But if we imprison and confine our affections into a narrower compass then our 〈◊〉 may be imperfect but will not easily be criminal The dissolution of a scrupulous and strict person is not into a vice but into a less degree of vertue he that makes a conscience of loud Laughter will not easily 〈◊〉 drawn into the wantonnesses of Balls and Revellings and the longer and more impure Carnivalls This is the way to secure our Obedience and no men are so curious of their health as they that are scrupulous of the Air they breathe in But now for our Obedience to Man that hath distinct considerations and apart 18. First All obedience to Man is for God's sake for God imprinting his Authority upon the sons of men like the Sun reflecting upon a cloud produces a Parelius or a representation of his own glory though in great distances and imperfection it is the Divine Authority though character'd upon a piece of clay and imprinted upon a weak and imperfect man And therefore obedience to our Superiours must be universal in respect of persons to all Superiours This precept is expresly Apostolical Be subject to every constitution and authority of man for the Lord's sake It is for God's sake and therefore to every one Whether it be to the King as supreme or to his Ministers in subordination That 's for Civil government For Ecclesiastical this Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account All upon whom any ray of the Divine Authority is imprinted whether it be in greater or smaller Characters are in proportion to their authority to be obeyed to all upon the same ground for there is no power but of God So that no infirmity of person no undervaluing circumstance no exteriour accident is an excuse for disobedience and to obey the Divine authority passing through the dictates of a wise excellent and prudent Governour but to neglect the impositions of a looser head is to worship Christ onely upon the Mount Tabor and in the glories of his 〈◊〉 and to despise him upon Mount Calvary and in the clouds of his inglorious and humble Passion Not onely to the good and gentle so S. Peter but to the harsh and rigid And it was by Divine providence that all those many and stricter precepts of obedience to Governours in the New Testament were 〈◊〉 by instances of Tyrants Persecutors Idolaters and Heathen Princes and for others amongst whom there was variety of disposition there is no variety of imposition but all excuses are removed and all kinds of Governours drawn into the sanction and sacredness of Authority 19. Secondly Not onely to all Governours but in all things we must obey Children obey your Parents in all things and Servants obey your Masters in all things And this also is upon the same ground Do it as unto Christ as unto the Lord and not unto men But then this restrains the universality of obedience that it may run within its own chanel as unto the Lord therefore nothing against the Divine Commandment For if God speaks to us by man transmitting Laws for conservation of Civil society for 〈◊〉 policy for Justice and personal advantages for the interests of Vertue and Religion for discountenancing of Vice we are to receive it with the same Veneration as if God spake himself to us immediately But because by his terrour upon Mount Sinai he gave testimony how great favour it is to speak to us by the ministration of our brethren it were a strange impudence when we desire a proportionable and gentle instrument of Divine commands we should for this very proportion despise the Minister like the frogs in the Apologue insulting upon their wooden King But then if any thing come contrary to a Divine Law know it is the voice of Jacob of the Supplanter not of the right Heir and though we must obey man for God's sake yet we must never disobey God for man's sake In all things else we finde no exception but according as the Superiours intend the obligation and express it by the signature of Laws Customes Interpretations Permissions and Dispensations that is so far as the Law is obligatory in general and not dispensed with in particular so far Obedience is a duty in all instances os acts where no sin is ingredient 20. Thirdly And here also the smalness and cheapness of the duty does not tolerate disobedience for the despising the smallest Injunction is an act of as formal and direct Rebellion as when the prevarication is in a higher instance It is here as in Divine Laws but yet with some difference For small things do so little cooperate to the end of humane Laws that a smaller reason does by way of interpretation and tacite permission dispense than can in a Divine Sanction though of the lowest offices Because God commands duties not for the end to which they of themselves do co-operate but to make sacred his Authority and that we by our obedience may confess him to be Lord But in humane Laws the Authority is made sacred not primarily for it self but principally that the Laws made in order to the conservation of Societies may be observed So that in the neglect of the smallest of Divine Ordinances we as directly oppose God's great purpose and intendment as in greater matters God's dominion and authority the conservation of which was his principal intention is alike neglected But in omitting an humane Imposition of small concernment the case is different it is certain there is not any considerable violence done to the publick interest by a contemptible omission of a Law the thing is not small if the Commonwealth be not safe and all her great ends secured but if they be then the Authority is inviolate unless a direct contempt were intended for its being was in order to that end not for it self as it is in the case of Divine Laws but that the publick interest be safe 21. And therefore as great matters of humane Laws may be omitted for great reasons so may smaller matters for smaller reasons but never without reason for causelesly and contemptuously are all one But in the application of the particulars either the Laws themselves or Custom or the prudence of a sincere righteous man or of a wise and disinterest person is to be the Judge But let no man's confidence increase from the smalness of the matter to a contempt of the Authority for there are some sins whose malignity is accidentally increased by the slightness of
Princes in the conspiracy of Dathan that 's for the Temporal And to encourage this Duty I shall use no other words than those of Achilles in Homer They that obey in this world are better than they that command in Hell A PRAYER for the Grace of Holy OBEDIENCE O Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus by whose Obedience many became righteous and reparations were made of the ruines brought to humane Nature by the Disobedience of Adam thou camest into the world with many great and holy purposes concerning our Salvation and hast given us a great precedent of Obedience which that thou mightest preserve to thy Heavenly Father thou didst neglect thy Life and becamest obedient even to the death of the Cross O let me imit ate so blessed example and by the merits of thy Obedience let me obtain the grace of Humility and Abnegation of all my own desires in the clearest Renunciation of my Will that I may will and refuse in conformity to thy sacred Laws and holy purposes that I may do all thy will chearfully chusingly humbly confidently and continually and thy will may be done upon me with much mercy and fatherly dispensation of thy Providence Amen 2. LOrd let my Understanding adhere to and be satisfied in the excellent 〈◊〉 of thy Commandments let my Affections dwell in their desires and all my other Faculties be set on daily work for performance of them and let my love to obey thee make me dutiful to my Superiors upon whom the impresses of thy Authority are set by thine own hand that I may never despise their Persons nor refuse their Injunctions nor chuse mine own work nor murmur at their burthens nor dispute the prudence of the Sanction nor excuse my self nor pretend 〈◊〉 or impossibilities but that I may be 〈◊〉 in my desires and resigned to the will of those whom thou hast set over me that since all thy Creatures obey thy word I alone may not disorder the Creation and cancel those bands and intermedial links of Subordination whereby my duty should pass to 〈◊〉 and thy glory but that my Obedience being united to thy Obedience I may also have my portion in the 〈◊〉 of thy Kingdom O Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple 1. THE Holy Virgin-Mother according to the Law of Moses at the expiration of a certain time came to the Temple to be purified although in her sacred Parturition she had contracted no Legal impurity yet she exposed her self to the publick opinion and common reputation of an ordinary condition and still amongst all generations she is in all circumstances accounted blessed and her reputation no tittle altered save only that it is made the more sacred by this testimony of her Humility But this we are taught from the consequence of this instance That if an End principally designed in any Duty should be supplied otherwise in any particular person the Duty is nevertheless to be observed and then the obedience and publick order is reason enough for the observation though the proper End of its designation be wanting in the single person Thus is Fasting designed for mortification of the flesh and killing all its unruly appetites and yet Married persons who have another remedy and a Virgin whose Temple is hallowed by a gift and the strict observances of Chastity may be tied to the Duty and if they might not then Fasting were nothing else but a publication of our impure desires and an exposing the person to the confidence of a bold temptation whilst the young men did observe the Faster to be tempted from within But the Holy Virgin from these acts of which in signification she had no need because she sinned not in the Conception nor was impure in the production expressed other Vertues besides Obedience such as were humble thoughts of her self Devotion and Reverence to publick Sanctions Religion and Charity which were like the pure leaves of the whitest Lily fit to represent the beauties of her innocence but were veiled and shadowed by that sacramental of the Mosaick Law 2. The Holy Virgin received the greatest favour that any of the Daughters of Adam ever did and knowing from whence and for whose glory she had received it returns the Holy Jesus in a Present to God again for she had nothing so precious as himself to make oblation of and besides that every first-born among the Males was holy to the Lord this Child had an eternal and essential Sanctity and until he came into the World and was made apt for her to make present of him there was never in the world any act of Adoration proportionable to the honour of the great God but now there was and the Holy Virgin made it when she presented the Holy Child Jesus And now besides that we are taught to return to God whatsoever we have received from him if we unite our Offerings and Devotions to this holy Present we shall by the merit and excellency of this Oblation exhibit to God an Offertory in which he cannot but delight for the combination's sake and society of his Holy Son 3. The Holy Mother brought five Sicles and a pair of Turtle-doves to redeem the Lamb of God from the Anathema because every first-born was to be sacrificed to God or redeemed if it was clean it was the poor man's price and the Holy Jesus was never set at the greater prices when he was estimated upon earth For he that was Lord of the Kingdom chose his portion among the poor of this World that he might advance the poor to the riches of his inheritance and so it was from his Nativity hither For at his Birth he was poor at his Circumcision poor and in the likeness of a sinner at his Presentation poor and like a sinner and a servant for he chose to be redeemed with an ignoble price The five Sicles were given to the Priest for the redemption of the Child and if the Parents were not able he was to be a servant of the Temple and to minister in the inferiour offices to the Priest and this was God's seizure and possession of him for although all the servants of God are his inheritance yet the Ministers of Religion who derive their portion of temporals from his title who live upon the Corban and eat the meat of the Altar which is God's peculiar and come nearer to his Holiness by the addresses of an immediate ministration are God's own upon another and a distinct challenge But because Christ was to be the Prince of another Ministry and the chief Priest of another Order he was redeemed from attending the Mosaick Rites which he came to 〈◊〉 that he might do his Father's business in establishing the Evangelical Only remember that the Ministers of Religion are but God's 〈◊〉 as they are not Lords of God's portion and therefore must dispense it like Stewards not like Masters so the People are 〈◊〉 their Patrons in paying nor
of Religion And beside that the Presence of God serves to all this it hath also especial influence in the disimprovement of Temptations because it hath in it many things contrariant to the nature and efficacy of Temptations such as are Consideration Reverence Spiritual thoughts and the Fear of God for where-ever this consideration is actual there either God is highly despised or certainly feared In this case we are made to declare for our purposes are concealed only in an incuriousness and inconsideration but whoever considers God as present will in all reason be as religious as in a Temple the Reverence of which place Custom or Religion hath imprinted in the spirits of most men so that as Ahasuerus said of Haman Will he ravish the Queen in my own house aggravating the crime by the incivility of the circumstance God may well say to us whose Religion compells us to believe God every-where present since the Divine Presence hath made all places holy and every place hath a Numen in it even the Eternal God we unhallow the place and desecrate the ground whereon we stand supported by the arm of God placed in his heart and enlightned by his eye when we sin in so sacred a Presence 34. The second great instrument against Temptation is Meditation of Death Raderus reports that a certain Virgin to restrain the inordination of intemperate desires which were like thorns in her flesh and disturbed her spiritual peace shut her self up in a Sepulchre and for twelve years dwelt in that Scene of death It were good we did so too making Tombs and Coffins presential to us by frequent meditation For God hath given us all a definitive arrest in Adam and from it there lies no appeal but it is infallibly and unalterably 〈◊〉 for all men once to die or to be changed to pass from hence to a condition of Eternity good or bad Now because this law is certain and the time and the manner of its execution is uncertain and from this moment Eternity depends and that after this life the final sentence is irrevocable that all the pleasures here are sudden transient and unsatisfying and vain he must needs be a 〈◊〉 that knows not to distinguish moments from Eternity and since it is a condition of necessity established by Divine decrees and fixt by the indispensable Laws of Nature that we shall after a very little duration pass on to a condition strange not understood then unalterable and yet of great mutation from this even of greater distance from 〈◊〉 in which we are here than this is from the state of Beasts this when it is considered must in all reason make the same impression upon our understandings and affections which naturally all strange things and all great considerations are apt to do that is create resolutions and results passing through the heart of man such as are reasonable and prudent in order to our own 〈◊〉 that we neglect the vanities of the present Temptation and secure our future condition which will till Eternity it self expires remain such as we make it to be by our deportment in this short transition and passage through the World 35. And that this Discourse is reasonable I am therefore confirmed because I find it to be to the same purpose used by the Spirit of God and the wisest personages in the world My soul is always in my hand therefore do I keep thy Commandments said David he looked upon himself as a dying person and that restrained all his inordinations and so he prayed Lord teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom And therefore the AEgyptians used to serve up a Skeleton to their Feasts that the dissolutions and vapours of wine might be restrained with that bunch of myrrh and the vanities of their eyes chastised by that sad object for they thought it unlikely a man should be transported far with any thing low or vicious that looked long and often into the hollow eye-pits of a Death's head or dwelt in a Charnel-house And such considerations make all the importunity and violence of sensual desires to disband For when a man stands perpetually at the door of Eternity and as did John the Almoner every day is building of his Sepulchre and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death it will concern us to take care that the door leading to Hell do not open upon us that we be not crusht to ruine by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a consignation to us to a sad Eternity For all the pleasures of the whole world and in all its duration cannot make recompence for one hour's torment in Hell and yet if wicked persons were to 〈◊〉 in Hell for ever without any change of posture or variety of torment beyond that session it were unsufferable beyond the indurance of nature and therefore where little less than infinite misery in an infinite duration shall punish the pleasures of sudden and transient crimes the gain of pleasure and the exchange of banks here for a condition of eternal and miserable death is a permutation 〈◊〉 to be made by none but fools and desperate persons who made no use of a reasonable Soul but that they in their perishing might be convinced of unreasonableness and die by their own fault 36. The use that wise men have made when they reduced this consideration to practice is to believe every day to be the last of their life for so it may be and for ought we know it will and then think what you would avoid or what you would do if you were dying or were to day to suffer death by sentence and conviction and that in all reason and in proportion to the strength of your consideration you will do every day For that is the sublimity of Wisdom to do those things living which are to be desired and chosen by dying persons An alarm of death every day renewed and pressed earnestly will watch a man so tame and soft that the precepts of Religion will dwell deep in his spirit But they that make a covenant with the grave and put the 〈◊〉 day far 〈◊〉 them they are the men that eat spiders and toads for meat greedily and a Temptation to them is as welcome as joy and they seldom dispute the point in behalf of Piety or Mortification for they that look upon Death at distance apprehend it not but in such general lines and great representments that describe it only as future and possible but nothing of its terrors or 〈◊〉 or circumstances of advantage are discernible by such an eye that disturbs its 〈◊〉 and discomposes the posture that the object may seem another thing than what it is truly and really S. Austin with his Mother Monica was led one day by a Roman Prator to 〈◊〉 the tomb of Caesar. Himself thus describes the Corps
may soon be washed but to be healed is a work of a long cure 3. Thirdly The Dispositions which are required to the ordinary susception of Baptism are not necessary to the efficacy or required to the nature of the Sacrament but accidentally and because of the superinduced necessities of some men and therefore the Conditions are not regularly to be required But in those accidents it was necessary for a Gentile Proselyte to repent of his sins and to believe in Moses's Law before he could be circumcised but Abraham was not tied to the same Conditions but only to Faith in God but Isaac was not tied to so much and Circumcision was not of Moses but of the Fathers and yet after the sanction of Moses's Law men were tied to conditions which were then made necessary to them that entred into the Covenant but not necessary to the nature of the Covenant it self And so it is in the susception of Baptism If a sinner enters into the Font it is necessary he be stripped of those appendages which himself sewed upon his Nature and then Repentance is a necessary disposition if his Understanding hath been a stranger to Religion polluted with evil Principles and a false Religion it is necessary he have an actual Faith that he be given in his Understanding up to the obedience of Christ. And the reason of this is plain Because in these persons there is a disposition contrary to the state and effects of Baptism and therefore they must be taken off by their contraries Faith and Repentance that they may be reduced to the state of pure Receptives And this is the sence of those words of our Blessed Saviour Unless ye become like one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that is Ye cannot be admitted into the Gospel-Covenant unless all your contrarieties and impediments be taken from you and you be as apt as children to receive the new immissions from Heaven And this Proposition relies upon a great Example and a certain Reason The Example is our Blessed Saviour who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debitor he had committed no sin and needed no Repentance he needed not to be saved by Faith for of Faith he was the Author and Finisher and the great object and its perfection and reward and yet he was baptized by the Baptism of John the Baptism of Repentance And therefore it is certain that Repentance and Faith are not necessary to the susception of Baptism but necessary to some persons that are baptized For it is necessary we should much consider the difference If the Sacrament by any person may be justly received in whom such Dispositions are not to be sound then the Dispositions are not necessary or intrinsecal to the susception of the Sacrament and yet some persons coming to this Sacrament may have such necessities of their own as will make the Sacrament ineffectual without such Dispositions These I call necessary to the person but not to the Sacrament that is necessary to all such but not necessary to all absolutely And Faith is necessary sometimes where Repentance is not sometimes Repentance and Faith together and sometimes otherwise When Philip baptized the Eunuch he only required of him to believe not to repent But S. Peter when he preached to the Jews and converted them only required Repentance which although it in their case implied Faith yet there was explicit stipulation for it they had crucified the Lord of life and if they would come to God by Baptism they must renounce their sin that was all was then stood upon It is as the case is or as the persons have superinduced necessities upon themselves In Children the case is evident as to the one part which is equally required I mean Repentance the not doing of which cannot prejudice them as to the susception of Baptism because they having done no evil are not bound to repent and to repent is as necessary to the susception of Baptism as Faith is But this shews that they are accidentally necessary that is not absolutely not to all not to Insants and if they may be excused from one duty which is indispensably necessary to Baptism why they may not from the other is a secret which will not be found out by these whom it concerns to believe it 4. And therefore when our Blessed Lord made a stipulation and express Commandment for Faith with the greatest annexed penalty to them that had it not He that believeth not shall be damned the proposition is not to be verified or understood as relative to every period of time for then no man could be converted from Insidelity to the Christian Faith and from the power of the Devil to the Kingdom of Christ but his present Infidelity shall be his final ruine It is not therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a Sentence but a 〈◊〉 a Prediction and Intermination It is not like that saying God is true and every man a lier and Every good and every perfect gift is from above for these are true in every instant without reference to circumstances but He that believeth not shall be damned is a Prediction or that which in Rhetorick is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Use because this is the affirmation of that which usually or frequently comes to pass such as this He that strikes with the sword shall perish by the sword He that robs a Church shall be like a wheel of a vertiginous and unstable estate He that loves wine and oyl shall not be rich and therefore it is a declaration of that which is universally or commonly true but not so that in what instant soever a man is not a believer in that instant it is true to say he is damned for some are called the third some the sixth some the ninth hour and they that come in being first called at the eleventh hour shall have their reward so that this sentence stands true at the day and the judgment of the Lord not at the judgment or day of man And in the same necessity as Faith stands to Salvation in the same it stands to Baptism that is to be measured by the whole latitude of its extent Our Baptism shall no more do all its intention unless Faith supervene than a man is in possibility of being saved without Faith it must come in its due time but is not indispensably necessary in all instances and periods Baptism is the seal of our Election and adoption and as Election is brought to effect by Faith and its consequents so is Baptism but to neither is Faith necessary as to its beginning and first entrance To which also I add this Consideration That actual Faith is necessary not to the susception but to the consequent effects of Baptism appears because the Church and particularly the Apostles did baptize some persons who had not Faith but were Hypocrites such as were Simon Magus Alexander the
operate not to the first sanction or entring into the Covenant The seed may lie long in the ground and produce fruits in its due season if it be refreshed with the former and the later rain that is the Repentance that first changes the state and converts the man and afterwards returns him to his title and recalls him from his wandrings and keeps him in the state of Grace and within the limits of the Covenant and all the way Faith gives efficacy and acceptation to this Repentance that is continues our title to the Promise of not having Righteousness exacted by the measures of the Law but by the Covenant and promise of Grace into which we entred in Baptism and walk in the same all the days of our life 8. Sixthly The Holy Spirit which descends upon the waters of Baptism does not instantly produce its effects in the Soul of the baptized and when he does it is irregularly and as he pleases The Spirit bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth whence it cometh nor whither it goeth and the Catechumen is admitted into the Kingdom yet the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation and this saying of our Blessed Saviour was spoken of the Kingdom of God that is within us that is the Spirit of Grace the power of the Gospel put into our hearts concerning which he affirmed that it operates so secretly that it comes not with outward shew neither shall they say Lo here or lo there Which thing I desire the rather to be observed because in the same discourse which our Blessed Saviour continued to that assembly he affirms this Kingdom of God to belong unto little children this Kingdom that cometh not with outward significations or present expresses this Kingdom that is within us For the present the use I make of it is this That no man can conclude that this Kingdom of Power that is the Spirit of Sanctification is not come upon Infants because there is no sign or expression of it It is within us therefore it hath no signification It is the seed of God and it is no good Argument to say Here is no seed in the bowels of the earth because there is nothing green upon the face of it For the Church gives the Sacrament God gives the Grace of the Sacrament But because he does not always give it at the instant in which the Church gives the Sacrament as if there be a secret impediment in the suscipient and yet afterwards does give it when the impediment is removed as to them that repent of that impediment it follows that the Church may administer rightly even before God gives the real Grace of the Sacrament and if God gives this Grace afterwards by parts and yet all of it is the effect of that Covenant which was consigned in Baptism he that desers some may defer all and verifie every part as well as any part For it is certain that in the instance now made all the Grace is deferred in Infants it is not certain but that some is collated or infused however be it so or no yet upon this account the administration of the Sacrament is not hindred 9. Seventhly When the Scripture speaks of the effects of or dispositions to Baptism it speaks in general expressions as being most apt to signifie a common duty or a general effect or a more universal event or the proper order of things but those general expressions do not supponere universaliter that is are not to be understood exclusively to all that are not so qualified or universally of all suscipients or of all the subjects of the Proposition When the Prophets complain of the Jews that they are fallen from God and turned to Idols and walk not in the way of their Fathers and at other times the Scripture speaks the same thing of their Fathers that they walked perversly toward God starting aside like a broken bow in these and the like expressions the Holy Scripture uses a Synecdoche or signifies many only under the notion of a more large and indesinite expression for neither were all the Fathers good neither did all the sons prevaricate but among the Fathers there were enough to recommend to posterity by way of example and among the Children there were enough to stain the reputation of the Age but neither the one part nor the other was true of every single person S. John the Baptist spake to the whole audience saying O generation of 〈◊〉 and yet he did not mean that all Jerusalem and Judaea that went out to be baptized of him were such but he under an undeterminate reproof intended those that were such that is especially the Priests and the Pharisees And it is more considerable yet in the story of the event of Christ's Sermon in the Synagogue upon his Text taken out of Isaiah All wondred at his gracious words and bare him witness and a little after All they in the Synagogue were filled with wrath that is it was generally so but hardly to be supposed true of every single 〈◊〉 in both the contrary humors and usages Thus Christ said to the Apostles To have abidden with me in my temptations and yet Judas was all the way a follower of interest and the bag rather than Christ and afterwards none of them all did abide with Christ in his greatest Temptations Thus also to come nearer the present Question the secret effects of Election and of the Spirit are in Scripture attributed to all that are of the outward Communion So S. Peter calls all the Christian strangers of the Eastern dispersion Elect according to the sore-knowledge of God the Father and S. Paul saith of all the Roman Christians and the same of the 〈◊〉 that their Faith was spoken of in all the world and yet amongst them it is not to be supposed that all the 〈◊〉 had an unreproveable Faith or that every one of the Church of 〈◊〉 was an excellent and a charitable person and yet the 〈◊〉 useth this expression 〈◊〉 faith groweth exceedingly and the charity of every one of you all towards each other aboundeth These are usually significant of a general custom or order of things or duty of men or design and natural or proper expectation of events Such are these also in this very Question As many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ that is so it is regularly and so it will be in its due time and that is the order of things and the designed event but from hence we cannot conclude of every person and in every period of time This man hath been baptized therefore now he is 〈◊〉 with Christ he hath put on Christ nor thus This person cannot in a spiritual sence as yet put on Christ therefore he hath not been baptized that is he hath not put him on in a 〈◊〉 sence Such is the saying of S. Paul Whom he hath predestinated them he also called and whom he
powers to reject any proposition and to believe well is an effect of a singular predestination and is a Gift in order to a Grace as that Grace is in order to Salvation But the insufficiency of an argument or disability to prove our Religion is so far from disabling the goodness of an ignorant man's Faith that as it may be as strong as the Faith of the greatest Scholar so it hath full as much excellency not of nature but in order to Divine acceptance For as he who believes upon the only stock of Education made no election of his Faith so he who believes what is demonstrably proved is forced by the demonstration to his choice Neither of them did 〈◊〉 and both of them may equally love the Article 3. So that since a 〈◊〉 Argument in a weak understanding does the same work that a strong Argument in a more 〈◊〉 and learned that is it convinces and makes Faith and yet neither of them is matter of choice if the thing believed be good and matter of 〈◊〉 or necessity the Faith is not rejected by God upon the weakness of the first nor accepted upon the strength of the latter principles when we are once in it will not be enquired by what entrance we passed thither whether God leads us or drives us in whether we come by Discourse or by Inspiration by the guide of an Angel or the conduct of Moses whether we be born or made Christians it is indifferent so we be there where we should be for this is but the gate of Duty and the entrance to Felicity For thus far Faith is but an act of the Understanding which is a natural Faculty serving indeed as an instrument to Godliness but of it self no part of it and it is just like fire producing its act inevitably and burning as long as it can without power to interrupt or suspend its action and therefore we cannot be more pleasing to God for understanding rightly than the fire is for burning clearly which puts us evidently upon this consideration that Christian Faith that glorious Duty which gives to Christians a great degree of approximation to God by Jesus Christ must have a great proportion of that ingredient which makes actions good or bad that is of choice and effect 4. For the Faith of a Christian hath more in it of the Will than of the Understanding Faith is that great mark of distinction which separates and gives formality to the Covenant of the Gospel which is a Law of Faith The Faith of a Christian is his Religion that is it is that whole conformity to the Institution or Discipline of Jesus Christ which distinguishes him from the believers of false Religions And to be one of the faithful signifies the same with being a Disciple and that contains Obedience as well as believing For to the same sense are all those appellatives in Scripture the Faithful Brethren Believers the Saints Disciples all representing the duty of a Christian A Believer and a Saint or a holy person is the same thing Brethren signifies Charity and Believers Faith in the intellectual sence the Faithful and Disciples signifie both for besides the consent to the Proposition the first of them is also used for Perseverance and Sanctity and the greatest of Charity mixt with a confident Faith up to the height of Martyrdom Be faithful unto the death said the Holy Spirit and I will give thee the Crown of life And when the Apostles by way of abbreviation express all the body of Christian Religion they call it Faith working by Love which also S. Paul in a parallel place calls a New Creature it is a keeping of the Commandments of God that is the Faith of a Christian into whose desinition Charity is ingredient whose sence is the same with keeping of God's Commandments so that if we desine Faith we must first distinguish it The faith of a natural person or the saith of Devils is a 〈◊〉 believing a certain number of Propositions upon conviction of the Understanding But the Faith of a Christian the Faith that justifies and saves him is Faith working by Charity or Faith keeping the Commandments of God They are distinct Faiths in order to different ends and therefore of different constitution and the instrument of distinction is Charity or Obedience 5. And this great Truth is clear in the perpetual testimony of Holy Scripture For Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful and yet our Blessed Saviour told the Jews that if they had been the sons of Abraham they would have done the works of Abraham and therefore Good works are by the Apostle called the sootsteps of the Faith of our Father Abraham For Faith in every of its stages at its first beginning at its increment at its greatest perfection is a Duty made up of the concurrence of the Will and the Understanding when it pretends to the Divine acceptance Faith and Repentance begin the Christian course Repent and believe the Gospel was the summ of the Apostles Sermons and all the way after it is Faith working by Love Repentance puts the first spirit and life into Faith and Charity preserves it and gives it nourishment and increase it self also growing by a mutual supply of spirits and nutriment from Faith Whoever does heartily believe a Resurrection and Life eternal upon certain Conditions will certainly endeavour to acquire the Promises by the Purchase of Obedience and observation of the Conditions For it is not in the nature or power of man directly to despise and reject so 〈◊〉 a good So that Faith supplies Charity with argument and maintenance and Charity supplies Faith with life and motion Faith makes Charity reasonable and Charity makes Faith living and effectual And therefore the old Greeks called Faith and Charity a miraculous Chariot or Yoke they bear the burthen of the Lord with an equal consederation these are like 〈◊〉 twins they live and die together Indeed Faith is the first-born of the twins but they must come both at a birth or else they die being strangled at the gates of the womb But if Charity like Jacob lays hold upon his elder brother's heel it makes a timely and a prosperous birth and gives certain title to the eternal Promises For let us give the right of primogeniture to Faith yet the Blessing yea and the Inheritance too will at last fall to Charity Not that Faith is disinherited but that Charity only enters into the possession The nature of Faith passes into the excellency of Charity before they can be rewarded and that both may have their estimate that which justifies and saves us keeps the name of Faith but doth not do the deed till it hath the nature of Charity For to think well or to have a good opinion or an excellent or a fortunate understanding entitles us not to the love of God and the consequent inheritance but to chuse the ways of the Spirit and
and peace where wearied Souls were to lay their heads and dispose their cares and there to turn them into joys and to gild their thorns with glory That holy tongue which was parched with heat streamed forth rivulets of holy Doctrine which were to water all the world to turn our Deserts into Paradise And though he begged water at Jacob's Well yet Jacob drank at his For at his charge all Jacob's flocks and family were sustained and by him Jacob's posterity were made honourable and redeemed But because this Well was deep and the woman had nothing to draw water with and of her self could not fathom so great a depth therefore she refused him just as we do when we refuse to give drink to a thirsty Disciple Christ comes in that humble manner of address under the veil of poverty or contempt and we cannot see Christ from under that robe and we send him away without an alms little considering that when he begs an alms of us in the instance of any of his poor relatives he asks of us but to give him occasion to give a blessing for an alms Thus do the Ministers of Religion ask support but when the Laws are not more just than many of the people are charitable they shall fare as their Master did they shall preach but unless they can draw water themselves they shall not drink but si scirent if men did but know who it is that asks them that it is Christ either in his Ministers or Christ in his poor servants certainly they could not be so obstructed in the issues of their Justice and Charity but would remember that no honour could be greater no love more fortunate than to meet with an opportunity to be expressed in so noble a manner that God himself is pleased to call his own relief 5. When the Disciples had returned from the Town whither they went to buy provision they wondred to see the Master talking alone with a woman They knew he never did so before they had observed him to be of a reserved deportment and not only innocent but secure from the dangers of Malice and suspicion in the matter of Incontinence The Jews were a jealous and froward people and as nothing will more blast the reputation of a Prophet than effeminacy and wanton affections so he knew no crime was sooner objected or harder cleared than that Of which because commonly it is acted in privacy men look for no probation but pregnant circumstances and arguments of suspect so nothing can wash it off until a man can prove a negative and if he could yet he is guilty enough in the estimate of the vulgar for having been accused But then because nothing is so destructive of the reputation of a Governour so contradictory to the authority and dignity of his person as the low and baser appetites of Uncleanness and the consequent shame and scorn insomuch that David having faln into it prayed God to confirm or establish him spiritu principali with the spirit of a Prince the spirit of Lust being uningenuous and slavish the Holy Jesus who was to establish a new Law in the authority of his person was highly curious so to demean himself that he might be a person uncapable of any such suspicions and of a temper apt not only to answer the calumny but also to prevent the jealousie But yet now he had a great design in hand he meant to reveal to the Samaritans the coming of the Messias and to this his discourse with the Woman was instrumental And in imitation of our great Master Spiritual persons and the Guides of others have been very prudent and reserved in their societies and entercourse with women Hereticks have served their ends upon the impotency of the Sex and having led captive silly women led them about as triumphs of Lust and knew no scandal greater than the scandal of Heresie and therefore sought not to decline any but were infamous in their unwary and lustful mixtures Simon Magus had his Helena partner of his Lust and Heresie the author of the Sect of the Nicolaitans if S. Hierom was not misinformed had whole troups of women Marcion sent a woman as his Emissary to Rome Apelles had his Philomene Montanus Prisca and Maximilla Donatus was served by Lucilla Helpidius by Agape Priscillian by Galla and 〈◊〉 spreads his nets by opportunity of his conversation with the Prince's Sister and first he corrupted her then he seduced the world 6. But holy persons Preachers of true Religion and holy Doctrines although they were careful by publick Homilies to instruct the female Disciples that they who are heirs together with us of the same Hope may be servants in the same Discipline and Institution yet they remitted them to their Husbands and Guardians to be taught at home And when any personal transactions concerning the needs of their spirit were of necessity to intervene between the Priest and a woman the action was done most commonly under publick test or if in private yet with much caution and observation of circumstance which might as well prevent suspicion as preserve their innocence Conversation and frequent and familiar address does too much rifle the ligaments and reverence of Spiritual authority and amongst the best persons is matter of danger When the Cedars of Libanus have been observed to fall when David and Solomon have been dishonoured he is a bold man that will venture farther than he is sent in errand by necessity or invited by charity or warranted by prudence I deny not but some persons have made holy friendships with women S. Athanasius with a devout and religious Virgin S. Chrysostome with Olympia S. Hierome with Paula Romana S. John with the elect Lady S. Peter and S. Paul with Petronilla and Tecla And therefore it were a jealousie beyond the suspicion of Monks and Eunuchs to think it impossible to have a chaste conversation with a distinct Sex 1. A pure and right intention 2. an entercourse not extended beyond necessity or holy ends 3. a short stay 4. great modesty 5. and the business of Religion will by God's grace hallow the visit and preserve the friendship in its being spiritual that it may not degenerate into carnal affection And yet these are only advices useful when there is danger in either of the persons or some scandal incident to the Profession that to some persons and in the conjunction of many circumstances are oftentimes not considerable 7. When Jesus had resolved to reveal himself to the Woman he first gives her occasion to reveal her self to him fairly insinuating an opportunity to confess her sins that having purged her self from her impurity she might be apt to entertain the article of the revelation of the Messias And indeed a crime in our Manners is the greatest indisposition of our Understanding to entertain the Truth and Doctrine of the Gospel especially when the revelation contests against the Sin and professes open hostility to the Lust.
by order of Divine designation was to precede the Publication of Jesus but also upon prudent considerations and designs of Providence lest two great personages at once upon the theatre of Palestine might have been occasion of divided thoughts and these have determined upon a Schism some professing themselves to be of Christ some of John For once an offer was made of a dividing Question by the spite of the Pharisees Why do the Disciples of John fast often and thy Disciples fast not But when John went off from the scene then Jesus appeared like the Sun in 〈◊〉 to the Morning-Star and there were no divided interests upon mistake or the fond adherencies of the Followers And although the Holy Jesus would certainly have cured all accidental inconveniences which might have happened in such accidents yet this may become a precedent to all Prelates to be prudent in avoiding all occasions of a Schism and rather than divide a people submit and relinquish an opportunity of Preaching to their inferiours as knowing that God is better served by Charity than a Homily and if my modesty made me resign to my inferiour the advantages of honour to God by the cession of Humility are of greater consideration than the smaller and accidental advantages of better-penned and more accurate discourses But our Blessed Lord designing to gather Disciples did it in the manner of the more extraordinary persons and Doctors of the Jews and particularly of the Baptist he initiated them into the Institution by the solemnity of a Baptism but yet he was pleased not to minister it in his own person His Apostles were baptized in John's Baptism said Tertullian or else S. Peter only was baptized by his Lord and he baptized the rest However the Lord was pleased to depute the ministery of his servants that so he might constitute a Ministery that he might reserve it to himself as a specialty to baptize with the Spirit as his servants did with water that he might declare that the efficacy of the Rite did not depend upon the Dignity of the Minister but his own Institution and the holy Covenant and lastly lest they who were baptized by him in person might please themselves above their brethren whose needs were served by a lower ministery 2. The Holy Jesus the great Physician of our Souls now entring upon his Cure and the Diocese of Palestine which was afterwards enlarged to the pale of the Catholick Church was curious to observe all advantages of prudence for the benefit of Souls by the choice of place by quitting the place of his education which because it had been poor and humble was apt to procure contempt to his Doctrine and despite to his Person by fixing in Capernaum which had the advantage of popularity and the opportunity of extending the benefit yet had not the honour and ambition of Jerusalem that the Ministers of Religion might be taught to seek and desire imployment in such circumstances which may serve the end of God but not of Ambition to promote the interest of Souls but not the inordination of lower appetites Jesus quitted his natural and civil interests when they were less consistent with the end of God and his Prophetical Office and considered not his Mother's house and the vicinage in the accounts of Religion beyond those other places in which he might better do his Father's work In which a forward piety might behold the insinuation of a duty to such persons who by rights of Law and Custome were so far instrumental to the cure of Souls as to design the persons they might do but duty if they first considered the interests of Souls before the advantages of their kindred and relatives and although if all things else be alike they may in equal dispositions prefer their own before strangers yet it were but reason that they should first consider sadly if the men be equal before they remember that they are of their kindred and not let this consideration be ingredient into the former judgment And another degree of liberty yet there is if our kindred be persons apt and holy and without exceptions either of Law or Prudence or Religion we may do them advantages before others who have some degrees of Learning and improvement beyond the other or else no man might lawfully prefer his kindred unless they were absolutely the ablest in a Diocese or Kingdom which doctrine were a snare apt to produce scruples to the Consciences rather than advantages to the Cure But then also Patrons should be careful that they do not account their Clerks by an estimate taken from comparison with unworthy Candidates set up on purpose that when we chuse our kindred we may abuse our consciences by saying We have fulfilled our trust and made election of the more worthy In these and the like cases let every man who is concerned deal with justice nobleness and sincerity with the simplicity of a Christian and the wisdome of a man without tricks and stratagems to disadvantage the Church by doing temporal advantages to his friend or family 3. The Blessed Master began his Office with a Sermon of Repentance as his Decessor John the Baptist did in his Ministration to tell the world that the new Covenant which was to be established by the Mediation and Office of the Holy Jesus was a Covenant of grace and favour not established upon Works but upon Promises and remission of right on God's part and remission of sins on our part The Law was a Covenant of Works and who-ever prevaricated any of its Sanctions in a considerable degree he stood sentenced by it without any hopes of restitution supplied by the Law And therefore it was the Covenant of Works not because Good works were then required more than now or because they had more efficacy than now but because all our hopes did rely upon the perfection of Works and Innocence without the suppletories of Grace Pardon and Repentance But the Gospel is therefore a Covenant of Grace not that works are excluded from our duty or from cooperating to Heaven but that because there is in it so much mercy the imperfections of the Works are made up by the grace of Jesus and the defects of Innocence are supplied by the substitution of Repentance Abatements are made for the infirmities and miseries of humanity and if we do our endeavour now after the manner of men the Faith of Jesus Christ that is conformity to his Laws and submission to his Doctrine entitles us to the grace he hath purchased for us that is our sins for his sake shall be pardoned So that the Law and the Gospel are not opposed barely upon the title of Faith and Works but as the Covenant of Faith and the Covenant of Works In the Faith of a Christian Works are the great ingredient and the chief of the constitution but the Gospel is not a Covenant of Works that is it is not an agreement upon the stock of Innocence without
Souls let them have the diligence and the craft of Fishers the watchfulness and care of Shepherds the prudence of Politicks the tenderness of Parents the spirit of Government the wariness of Observation great knowledge of the dispositions of their people and experience of such advantages by means of which they may serve the ends of God and of Salvation upon their Souls 7. When Peter had received the fruits of a rich Miracle in the prodigious and prosperous draught of fishes he instantly falls down at the feet of Jesus and confesses himself a sinner and unworthy of the presence of Christ. In which confession I not only consider the conviction of his Understanding by the testimony of the Miracle but the modesty of his spirit who in his exaltation and the joy of a sudden and happy success retired into Humility and consideration of his own unworthiness lest as it happens in sudden joys the lavishness of his spirit should transport him to intemperance to looser affections to vanity and garishness less becoming the severity and government of a Disciple of so great a Master For in such great and sudden accidents men usually are dissolved and melted into joy and inconsideration and let fly all their severe principles and discipline of manners till as Peter here did though to another purpose they say to Christ Depart from me O Lord as if such excellencies of joys like the lesser Stars did disappear at the presence of him who is the fountain of all joys regular and just When the spirits of the Body have been bound up by the cold Winter air the warmth of the Spring makes so great an aperture of the passages and by consequence such dissolution of spirits in the presence of the Sun that it becomes the occasion of Fevers and violent diseases Just such a thing is a sudden Joy in which the spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety and are warmed into Fevers and wildnesses and forfeiture of all Judgment and vigorous understanding In these accidents the best advice is to temper and allay our joys with some instant consideration of the vilest of our sins the shamefulness of our disgraces the most dolorous accidents of our lives the worst of our fears with meditation of Death or the terrours of Dooms-day or the unimaginable miseries of damned and accursed spirits For such considerations as these are good instruments of Sobriety and are correctives to the malignity of excessive Joys or temporal prosperities which like Minerals unless allayed by art prey upon the spirits and become the union of a contradiction being turned into mortal medicines 8. At this time Jesus preached to the people from the Ship which in the fancies and tropical discoursings of the old Doctors signifies the Church and declares that the Homilies of order and authority must be delivered from the Oracle they that preach must be sent and God hath appointed Tutors and Instructors of our Consciences by special designation and peculiar appointment if they that preach do not make their Sermons from the Ship their discourses either are the false murmurs of Hereticks and false Shepherds or else of Thieves and invaders of Authority or corrupters of Discipline and Order For God that loves to hear us in special places will also be heard himself by special persons and since he sent his Angels Ministers to convey his purposes of old then when the Law was ordained by Angels as by the hands of a Mediatour now also he will send his servants the sons of men since the new Law was ordained by the Son of man who is the Mediatour between God and man in the New Covenant And therefore in the Ship Jesus preach'd but he had first caused it to put off from land to represent to us that the Ship in which we preach must be put off from the vulgar communities of men separate from the people by the designation of special appointment and of special Holiness that is they neither must be common men nor of common lives but consecrated by order and hallowed by holy living lest the person want authority in destitution of a Divine Character and his Doctrine lose its energy and power when the life is vulgar and hath nothing in it holy and extraordinary 9. The Holy Jesus in the choice of his Apostles was resolute and determined to make election of persons bold and confident for so the Galilaeans were observed naturally to be and Peter was the boldest of the Twelve and a good Sword-man till the spirit of his Master had fastened his sword within the scabbard and charmed his spirit into quietness but he never chose any of the Scribes and Pharisees none of the Doctors of the Law but persons ignorant and unlearned which in design and institutions whose divinity is not demonstrated from other Arguments would seem an art of concealment and distrust But in this which derives its raies from the fountain of wisdom most openly and infallibly it is a contestation against the powers of the world upon the interests of God that he who does all the work might have all the glory and in the productions in which he is fain to make the instruments themselves and give them capacity and activity every part of the operation and causality and effect may give to God the same honour he had from the Creation for his being the only workman with the addition of those degrees of excellency which in the work of Redemption of Man are beyond that of his Creation and first being The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu Lord of the Creatures and Prince of the Catholick Church to whom all Creatures obey in acknowledgment of thy supreme Dominion and all according to thy disposition cooperate to the advancement of thy Kingdom be pleased to order the affairs and accidents of the world that all things in their capacity may do the work of the Gospel and cooperate to the good of the Elect and retrench the growth of Vice and advance the interests of Vertue Make all the states and orders of men Disciples of thy holy Institution Let Princes worship thee and defend Religion let thy Clergy do thee honour by personal zeal and vigilancy over their Flocks let all the world submit to thy Scepter and praise thy Righteousness and adore thy Judgments and revere thy Laws and in the multitudes of thy people within the enclosure of thy Nets let me also communicate in the offices of a strict and religious duty that I may know thy voice and obey thy call and entertain thy Holy Spirit and improve my talents that I may also communicate in the blessings of the Church and when the Nets shall be drawn to the shore and the Angels shall make separation of the good Fishes from the bad I may not be rejected or thrown into those Seas of fire which shall afflict the enemies of thy Kingdom but be admitted into the societies of Saints and the everlasting communion of
thy 〈◊〉 and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the 〈◊〉 of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
justifie that a holy life and a persevering Sanctity is enjoyned by the Covenant of the Gospel if I say in its first intention it be declared that we may as well and upon the same terms hope for Pardon upon a Recovery hereafter as upon the perseverance in the present condition 13. From these premisses we may soon understand what is the Duty of a Christian in all his life even to pursue his own undertaking made in Baptism or his first access to Christ and redemption of his person from the guilt and punishment of sins The state of a Christian is called in Scripture Regeneration Spiritual life Walking after the Spirit Walking in newness of life that is a bringing forth fruits meet for Repentance That Repentance which tied up in the same ligament with Faith was the disposition of a Christian to his Regeneration and Atonement must have holy life in perpetual succession for that is the apt and proper fruit of the first Repentance which John the Baptist preached as an introduction to Christianity and as an entertaining the Redemption by the bloud of the Covenant And all that is spoken in the New Testament is nothing but a calling upon us to do what we promised in our Regeneration to perform that which was the design of Christ who therefore redeemed us and bare our sins in his own body that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness 14. This is that saying of S. Paul Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you Plainly saying that unless we pursue the state of Holiness and Christian communion into which we were baptized when we received the grace of God we shall fail of the state of Grace and never come to see the glories of the Lord. And a little before Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of Faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water That 's the first state of our Redemption that 's the Covenant God made with us to remember our sins no more and to put his laws in our hearts and minds And this was done when our bodies were washed with water and our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience that is in Baptism It remains then that we persist in the condition that we may continue our title to the Covenant for so it follows Let us hold fast the profession of our Faith without wavering For if we sin wilfully after the profession there remains no more sacrifice that is If we hold not fast the profession of our Faith and continue not the condition of the Covenant but fall into a contrary state we have forfeited the mercies of the Covenant So that all our hopes of Blessedness relying upon the Covenant made with God in Jesus Christ are ascertained upon us by holding fast that profession by retaining our hearts still sprinkled from an evil conscience by following peace with all men and holiness For by not failing of the grace of God we shall not fail of our hopes the mighty price of our high calling but without all this we shall never see the face of God 15. To the same purpose are all those places of Scripture which intitle us to Christ and the Spirit upon no other condition but a holy life and a prevailing habitual victorious Grace Know you not your own selves Brethren how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates There are but two states of being in order to Eternity either a state of the Inhabitation of Christ or the state of Reprobation Either Christ is in us or we are reprobates But what does that signifie to have Christ dwelling in us That also we learn at the feet of the same Doctor If Christ be in you the body is dead by reason of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness The body of Sin is mortified and the life of Grace is active busie and spiritual in all them who are not in the state of Reprobation The Parallel with that other expression of his They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts If sin be vigorous if it be habitual if it be beloved if it be not dead or dying in us we are not of Christ's portion we belong not to him nor he to us For whoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God that is every Regenerate person is in a condition whose very being is a contradiction and an opposite design to Sin When he was regenerate and born anew of water and the spirit the seed of God the original of Piety was put into him and bidden to encrease and multiply The seed of God in S. John is the same with the word of God in S. James by which he begat us and as long as this remains a Regenerate person cannot be given up to sin for when he is he quits his Baptism he renounces the Covenant he alters his relation to God in the same degree as he enters into a state of sin 16. And yet this discourse is no otherwise to be understood than according to the design of the thing it self and the purpose of God that is that it be a deep ingagement and an effectual consideration for the necessity of a holy life but at no hand let it be made an instrument of Despair nor an argument to lessen the influences of the Divine Mercy For although the nicety and limits of the Covenant being consigned in Baptism are fixed upon the condition of a holy and persevering uninterrupted Sanctity and our Redemption is wrought but once compleated but once we are but once absolutely intirely and presentially forgiven and reconciled to God this Reconciliation being in virtue of the Sacrifice and this Sacrifice applied in Baptism is one as Baptism is one and as the Sacrifice is one yet the Mercy of God besides this great Feast hath fragments which the Apostles and Ministers spiritual are to gather up in baskets and minister to the afterneeds of indigent and necessitous Disciples 17. And this we gather as fragments are gathered by respersed sayings instances and examples of the Divine mercy recorded in Holy Scripture The Holy Jesus commands us to forgive our brother seventy times seven times when he asks our pardon and implores our mercy and since the Divine mercy is the pattern of ours and is also procured by ours the one being made the measure of the other by way of precedent and by way of reward God will certainly forgive us as we forgive our brother and it cannot be imagined God should oblige us to give pardon oftner than he will give it himself especially since he hath expressed ours to be a title of a
spirit c. Blessed are they that mourn c. Blessed are the meek c. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst c. Blessed are the merciful c. Math. 5. 1 2 3 4 1. THe Holy Jesus being entred upon his Prophetical Office in the first solemn Sermon gave testimony that he was not only an Interpreter of Laws then in being but also a Law-giver and an Angel of the new and everlasting Covenant which because God meant to establish with mankind by the mediation of his Son by his Son also he now began to publish the conditions of it and that the publication of the Christian Law might retain some proportion at least and analogy of circumstance with the promulgation of the Law of Moses Christ went up into a Mountain and from thence gave the Oracle And here he taught all the Disciples for what he was now to speak was to become a Law a part of the condition on which he established the Covenant and founded our hopes of Heaven Our excellent and gracious Law-giver knowing that the great argument in all practical disciplines is the proposal of the end which is their crown and their reward begins his Sermon as David began his most divine collection of Hymns with Blessedness And having enumerated Eight Duties which are the rule of the spirits of Christians he begins every Duty with a Beatitude and concludes it with a Reward to manifest the reasonableness and to invite and determine our choice to such Graces which are circumscribed with Felicities which have blessedness in present possession and glory in the consequence which in the midst of the most passive and afflictive of them tells us that we are blessed which is indeed a felicity as a hope is good or as a rich heir is rich who in the midst of his Discipline and the severity of Tutors and Governours knows he is designed to and certain of a great inheritance 2. The Eight Beatitudes which are the duty of a Christian and the rule of our spirit and the special discipline of Christ seem like so many paradoxes and impossibilities reduced to Reason and are indeed Vertues made excellent by rewards by the sublimity of Grace and the mercies of God hallowing and crowning those habits which are despised by the world and are esteemed the conditions of lower and less considerable people But God sees not as man sees and his rules of estimate and judgment are not borrowed from the exteriour splendour which is apt to seduce children and cousen fools and please the appetites of sense and abused fancy but they are such as he makes himself excellencies which by abstractions and separations from things below land us upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they are states of suffering rather than states of life for the great imployment of a Christian being to bear the Cross Christ laid the Pedestal so low that the rewards were like rich mines interred in the deeps and inaccessible retirements and did chuse to build our 〈◊〉 upon the torrents and violences of affliction and sorrow Without these Graces we 〈◊〉 get Heaven and without sorrow and sad accidents we cannot exercise these Graces Such are 3. First Blessed are the Poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven Poverty of spirit is in respect of secular affluence and abundance or in respect of great opinion and high thoughts either of which have divers acts and offices That the first is one of the meanings of this Text is certain because S. Luke repeating this Beatitude delivers it plainly Blessed are the poor and to it he opposes riches And our Blessed Saviour speaks so suspiciously of riches and rich men that he represents the condition to be full of danger and temptation and S. James calls it full of sin describing rich men to be oppressors litigious proud spightful and contentious which sayings like all others of that nature are to be understood in common and most frequent accidents not regularly but very improbable to be otherwise For if we consider our Vocation S. Paul informs us That not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith And how hard it is for a rich man to enter into Heaven our great Master hath taught us by saying it is more easie for a Camel to pass through a needle's eye And the reason is because of the infinite temptation which Riches minister to our spirits it being such an opportunity of vices that nothing remains to countermand the act but a strong resolute unaltered and habitual purpose and pure love of 〈◊〉 Riches in the mean time offering to us occasions of Lust fuel for Revenge instruments of Pride entertainment of our desires engaging them in low worldly and sottish appetites inviting us to shew our power in oppression our greatness in vanities our wealth in prodigal expences and to answer the importunity of our Lusts not by a denial but by a correspondence and satisfaction till they become our mistresses imperious arrogant tyrannical and vain But Poverty is the sister of a good mind it ministers aid to wisdome industry to our spirit severity to our thoughts soberness to counsels modesty to our desires it restrains extravagancy and dissolution of appetites the next thing above our present condition which is commonly the object of our wishes being temperate and little proportionable enough to nature not wandring beyond the limits of necessity or a moderate conveniency or at 〈◊〉 but to a free 〈◊〉 and recreation And the 〈◊〉 of Poverty are single and mean rather a sit imploiment to correct our levities than a business to impede our better thoughts since a little thing supplies the needs of nature and the earth and the fountain with little trouble minister food to us and God's common providence and daily dispensation cases the cares and makes them portable But the cares and businesses of rich men are violences to our whole man they are loads of memory business for the understanding work for two or three arts and sciences imployment for many servants to assist in increase the appetite and heighten the thirst and by making their dropsie bigger and their capacities large they destroy all those opportunities and possibilities of Charity in which only Riches can be useful 4. But it is not a 〈◊〉 poverty of possession which intitles us to the blessing but a poverty of spirit that is a contentedness in every state an aptness to renounce all when we are obliged in duty a refusing to continue a possession when we for it must quit a vertue or a noble action a divorce of our affections from those gilded vanities a generous contempt of the world and at no hand heaping riches either with injustice or with avarice either with wrong or impotency of action or affection Not like Laberius described by the Poet who thought nothing so criminal as Poverty and every spending of
partakers of thy Purities give unto us tender bowels that we may suffer together with our calamitous and necessitous Brethren that we having a fellow-feeling of their miseries may use all our powers to help them and ease our selves of our common sufferings But do thou O Holy Jesu take from us also all our great calamities the Carnality of our affections our Sensualities and Impurities that we may first be pure then peaceable living in peace with all men and preserving the peace which thou hast made for us with our God that we may never commit a sin which may interrupt so blessed an atonement Let neither hope nor fear tribulation nor anguish pleasure nor pain make us to relinquish our interest in thee and our portion of the everlasting Covenant But give us hearts constant bold and valiant to confess thee before all the world in the midst of all disadvantages and contradictory circumstances chusing rather to beg or to be disgraced or 〈◊〉 or to die than quit a holy Conscience or renounce an Article of Christianity that we either in act when thou shalt call us or always in preparation of mind suffering with thee may also reign with thee in the Church Triumphant O Holy and most merciful Saviour Jesu Amen DISCOURSE X. A Discourse upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESVS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity 1. WHen the Holy Jesus had described the Characterisms of Christianity in these Eight Graces and Beatitudes he adds his Injunctions that in these Vertues they should be eminent and exemplar that they might adorn the Doctrine of God for he intended that the Gospel should be as Leven in a lump of dough to season the whole mass and that Christians should be the instruments of communicating the excellency and reputation of this holy Institution to all the world Therefore Christ calls them Salt and Light and the societies of Christians a City set upon a hill and a 〈◊〉 set in a candlestick whose office and energy is to illuminate all the vicinage which is also expressed in these preceptive words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven which I consider not only as a Circumstance of other parts but as a precise Duty it self and one of the Sanctions of Christianity which hath so confederated the Souls of the Disciples of the Institution that it hath in some proportion obliged every man to take care of his Brother's Soul And since Reverence to God and Charity to our Brother are the two 〈◊〉 Ends which the best Laws can have this precept of exemplary living is enjoyned in order to them both We must shine as lights in the world that God may be glorified and our Brother edified that the excellency of the act may 〈◊〉 the reputation of the Religion and invite men to confess God according to the sanctions of so holy an Institution And if we be curious that vanity do not mingle in the intention and that the intention do not spoil the action and that we suffer not our lights to shine that men may magnifie us and not glorifie God this duty is soon performed by way of adherence to our other actions and hath no other difficulty in it but that it will require our prudence and care to preserve the simplicity of our purposes and humility of our spirit in the midst of that excellent reputation which will certainly be consequent to a holy and exemplary life 2. But since the Holy Jesus had set us up to be lights in the world he took care we should not be stars of the least magnitude but eminent and such as might by their great emissions of light give evidence of their being immediately derivative from the Sun of Righteousness He was now giving his Law and meant to retain so much of Moses as Moses had of natural and essential Justice and Charity and superadd many degrees of his own that as far as Moses was exceeded by Christ in the capacity of a Law-giver so far Christianity might be more excellent and holy than the Mosaical Sanctions And therefore as a Preface to the Christian Law the Holy Jesus declares that unless our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is of the stricter sects of the Mosaical Institution we shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Which not only relates to the prevaricating Practices of the Pharisees but even to their Doctrines and Commentaries upon the Law of Moses as appears evidently in the following instances For if all the excellency of Christianity had consisted in the mere command of Sincerity and prohibition of Hypocrisie it had nothing in it proportionable to those excellent promises and clearest revelations of Eternity there expressed nor of a fit imployment for the designation of a special and a new Law-giver whose Laws were to last forever and were established upon foundations stronger than the pillars of Heaven and Earth 3. But S. Paul calling the Law of Moses a Law of Works did well insinuate what the Doctrine of the Jews was concerning the degrees and obligations of Justice for besides that it was a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of Faith and so the sence of it is formerly explicated it is also a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of the Spirit and it is understood to be such a Law which required the exteriour Obedience such a Law according to which S. Paul so lived that no man could reprove him that is the Judges could not tax him with prevarication such a Law which being in very many degrees carnal and material did not with much severity exact the intention and purposes spiritual But the Gospel is the Law of the spirit If they failed in the exteriour work it was accounted to them for sin but to Christians nothing becomes a sin but a failing and prevaricating spirit For the outward act is such an emanation of the interiour that it enters into the account for the relation sake and for its parent When God hath put a duty into our hands if our spirits be right the work will certainly follow but the following work receives its acceptation not from the value the Christian Law hath precisely put upon it but because the spirit from whence it came hath observed its rule the Law of Charity is acted and expressed in works but hath its estimate from the spirit Which discourse is to be understood in a limited and qualified signification For then also God required the Heart and interdicted the very concupiscences of our irregular passions at least in some instances but because much of their Law consisted in the exteriour and the Law appointed not nor yet intimated any penalty to evil thoughts and because the expiation of such interiour irregularities was easie implicite and involved in their daily Sacrifices without special trouble therefore the old Law
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him 〈◊〉 He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the 〈◊〉 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of 〈◊〉 and Life
our Family to be turned out of doors and our whole Estate aliened and cancelled especially we being otherwise obliged to provide for them under the pain of the curse of Infidelity And indeed there is much reason our defences may be extended when the injuries are too great for our sufferance or that our defence bring no greater damage to the other than we divert from our selves But our Blessed Saviour's prohibition is instanced in such small particulars which are no limitations of the general Precept but particulars of common consideration But I say unto you resist not evil so our English Testament reads it but the word signifies avenge not evil and it binds us to this only that we be not avengers of the wrong but rather suffer twice than once to be avenged He that is struck on the face may run away or may divert the blow or bind the hand of his enemy and he whose Coat is snatched away may take it again if without injury to the other he may do it We are sometimes bound to resist evil every clearing of our innocence refuting of calumnies quitting our selves of reproach is a resisting evil but such which is hallowed to us by the example of our Lord himself and his Apostles But this Precept is clearly expounded by S. Paul Render not evil for evil that is be not revenged You may either secure or restore your selves to the condition of your own possessions or fame or preserve your life provided that no evil be returned to him that offers the injury For so sacred are the Laws of Christ so holy and great is his Example so much hath he endear'd us who were his enemies and so frequently and severely hath he preached and enjoyned Forgiveness that he who knows not to forgive knows not to be like a Christian and a Disciple of so gentle a Master 3. So that the smallness or greatness of the instance alters not the case in this duty In the greatest matters we are permitted only to an innocent defence in the smallest we may do so too I may as well hold my coat fast as my gold and I may as well hide my goods as run away and that 's a defence and if my life be in danger I must do no more but defend my 〈◊〉 Save only that defence in case of life is of a larger signification than in case of goods I may wound my enemy if I cannot else be safe I may disarm him or in any sence disable him and this is extended even to a liberty to kill him if my defence necessarily stands upon so hard conditions for although I must not give him a wound for a wound because that cannot cure me but is certainly Revenge yet when my life cannot be otherwise safe than by killing him I have used that liberty which Nature hath permitted me and Christ hath not forbidden who only interdicted Revenge and for bad no desence which is charitable and necessary and not blended with malice and anger And it is as much Charity to preserve my self as him when I fear to die 4. But although we find this no-where forbidden yet it is very consonant to the excellent mercy of the Gospel and greatly laudable if we chuse rather to lose our life in imitation of Christ than save it by the loss of another's in pursuance of the permissions of Nature When Nature only gives leave and no Law-giver gives command to defend our lives and the excellence of Christianity highly commends dying for our enemies and propounds to our imitation the greatest Example that ever could be in the world it is a very great imperfection if we chuse not rather to obey an insinuation of the Holy Jesus than with greediness and appetite pursue the bare permissions of Nature But in this we have no necessity Only this is to be read with two cautions 1. So long as the assaulted person is in actual danger he must use all arts and subterfuges which his wit or danger can supply him with as passive defence flight arts of diversion entreaties soft and gentle answers or whatsoever is in its kind innocent to prevent his sin and my danger that when he is forced to his last defence it may be certain he hath nothing of Revenge mingled in so sad a remedy 2. That this be not understood to be a permission to defend our lives against an angry and unjust Prince for if my lawful Prince should attempt my life with rage or with the abused solemnities of Law in the first case the Sacredness of his Person in the second the reverence and religion of Authority are his defensatives and immure him and bind my hands that I must not 〈◊〉 them up but to Heaven for my own defence and his pardon 5. But the vain pretences of vainer persons have here made a Question where there is no seruple And if I may defend my Life with the sword or with any thing which Nature and the Laws forbid not why not also mine Honour which is as dear as life which makes my 〈◊〉 without contempt useful to my friend and comfortable to my self For to be reputed a Coward a baffled person and one that will take affronts is to be miserable and scorned and to invite all insolent persons to do me injuries May I not be permitted to fight for mine Honour and to wipe off the stains of my reputation Honour is as dear as life and sometimes dearer To this I have many things to say For that which men in this question call Honour is nothing but a reputation amongst persons vain unchristian in their deportment empty and ignorant souls who count that the standard of Honour which is the instrument of reprobation as if to be a Gentleman were to be no Christian. They that have built their Reputation upon such societies must take new estimates of it according as the wine or fancy or custom or some great fighting person shall determine it and whatsoever invites a quarrel is a rule of Honour But then it is a sad consideration to remember that it is accounted honour not to recede from any thing we have said or done It is honour not to take the Lie in the mean time it is not dishonourable to lie indeed but to be told so and not to kill him that says it and venture my life and his too that is a forfeiture of reputation A Mistresses's favour an idle discourse a jest a jealousie a health a gayety any thing must ingage two lives in hazard and two Souls in ruine or else they are dishonoured As if a Life which is so dear to a man's self which ought to be dear to others which all Laws and wisePrinces and States have secured by the circumvallation of Laws and penalties which nothing but Heaven can recompense for the loss of which is the breath of God which to preserve Christ died the Son of God died as if this were so contemptible a
repairs not my estate the first makes it in me to be unjust the latter declares me malicious and revengeful If I demand an eye for an eye his eye extinguished will not enlighten mine and therefore to prosecute him to such purposes is to resist or render evil with evil directly against Christ's Sermon But if the postulation of sentence be in order only to restore my self we find it permitted by S. Paul who when for the 〈◊〉 sake he forbad going to Law before unbelievers and for the danger and temptation's sake and the latent irregularity which is certainly appendent to ordinary Litigations he is angry indefinitely with them that go to Law yet he adviseth that Christian Arbitrators be appointed for decision of emergent Questions And therefore when the Supreme Authority hath appointed and regularly established an Arbitrator the permission is the same S. Paul is angry that among Christians there should be Suits but it is therefore he is chiefly angry because Christians do wrong they who should rather suffer wrong yet that they should do it and defraud their brother which in some sence enforces Suits that 's it he highly blames But when injustice is done and a man is in a considerable degree defrauded then it is permitted to him to repeat his own before Christian Arbitrators whether chosen by private consent or publick authority for that circumstance makes no essential alteration in the Question but then this must be done with as much simplicity and unmingled design as is possible without any desire of rendring evil to the person of the offender without arts of heightning the charge without prolongation devices and arts of vexation without anger and animosities and then although accidentally there is some appendent charge to the offending person that is not accounted upon the stock of Revenge because it was not designed and is not desired and is cared for to prevent it as much as may be and therefore offer was made of private and unchargeable Arbitrators and this being refused the charge and accidental evil if it be less than the loss of my sufferance and injury must be reckoned to the necessities of affairs and put upon the stock of his injustice and will not affix a guilt upon the actor I say this is true when the actor hath used all means to accord it without charge and when he is refused manages it with as little as he can and when it is nothing of his desire but something of his trouble that he cannot have his own without the lesser accidental evil to the offender and that the question is great and weighty in his proportion then a Suit of Law is of it self lawful But then let it be remembred how many ways afterwards it may become unlawful and I have no more to add in this Article but the saying of the son of Sirach He that loves danger shall perish in it And certainly he had need be an Angel that manages a Suit innocently and he that hath so excellent a spirit as with innocence to run through the 〈◊〉 temptations of a Law-suit in all probability hath so much holiness as to suffer the injury and so much prudence as to avoid the danger and therefore nothing but a very great defalcation or ruine of a man's estate will from the beginning to the end justifie such a controversie When the man is put to it so that he cannot do some other duty without venturing in this then the grace of God is sufficient for him but he that enters lightly shall walk dangerously and a thousand to one but he will fall foully It is utterly a fault among you said S. Paul because ye go to Law one with another It is not always a crime but ever a fault and an irregularity a recession from Christian perfection and an entertaining of a danger which though we escape through yet it was a fault to have entred into it when we might have avoided it And even then when it is lawful for us it is not expedient For so the Apostle summs up his reprehension concerning Christians going to Law We must rather take wrong rather suffer our selves to be defrauded and when we cannot bear the burthen of the loss then indeed we are permitted to appeal to Christian Judges but then there are so many cautions to be observed that it may be the remedy is worse than the disease I only observe this one thing that S. Paul permits it only in the instance of defraudation or matter of interest such as are defending of Widows and Orphans and Churches which in estimation of Law are by way of fiction reckoned to be in pupillage and minority add also repeating our own interests when our necessities or the support of our family and relatives requires it for all these are cases of Charity or duty respectively But besides the matter of defraudation we find no instance expressed nor any equality and parallel of reason to permit Christians in any case to go to Law because in other things the sentence is but vindictive and cannot repair us and therefore demanding Justice is a rendring evil in the proper matter of Revenge Concerning which I know no 〈◊〉 but in an action of Scandal and ill report But because an innocent and an holy life will force light out of darkness and Humility and Patience and waiting upon God will bring glory out of shame I suppose he who goes to Law to regain his credit attempts the cure by incompetent remedies if the accusation be publick the Law will call him to an account and then he is upon his defence and must acquit himself with meekness and sincerity but this allows not him to be the actor for then it is rather a design of Revenge than a proper deletery of his disgrace and purgative of the 〈◊〉 For if the accusation can be proved it was no calumny if it be not proved the person is not always innocent and to have been accused leaves something foul in his reputation and therefore he that by Law makes it more publick propagates his own disgrace and sends his shame farther than his innocence and the crime will go whither his absolution shall not arrive 10. If it be yet farther questioned whether it be lawful to pray for a Revenge or a Punishment upon the offender I reckon them all one he that prays for punishment of him that did him personal injury cannot easily be supposed to separate the Punishment from his own Revenge I answer that although God be the avenger of all our wrongs yet it were fit for us to have the affections of brethren not the designs and purposes of a Judge but leave them to him to whom they are proper When in the bitterness of soul an oppressed person curses sadly and prays for vengeance the calamity of the man and the violence of his enemy hasten a curse and ascertain it But whatever excuses the greatness of the Oppression may
days and buried and corrupted Elias and Samuel and all the Prophets and the succession of the High Priests in both the Temples put all together never did so many or so great Miracles as Jesus did He cured Leprous persons by his touch he restored Sight to the blind who were such not by any intervening accident hindering the act of the organ but by nature who were born blind and whose eyes had not any natural possibility to receive sight who could never see without creating of new eyes for them or some integral part cooperating to vision and therefore the Miracle was wholly an effect of a Divine power for nature did not at all cooperate or that I may use the elegant expression of Dante it was such à cui natura Non scaldò ferro mai ne battè ancude for which Nature never did heat the iron nor beat the anvil He made crooked lims become straight and the lame to walk and habitual diseases and inveterate of 18 years continuance and once of 38 did disappear at his speaking like darkness at the presence of the Sun He cast out Devils who by the majesty of his person were forced to confess and worship him and yet by his humility and restraints were commanded silence or to go whither he pleased and without his leave all the powers of Hell were as infirm and impotent as a withered member and were not able to stir He raised three dead persons to life he fed thousands of People with two small fishes and five little barly-cakes and as a consummation of all power and all Miracles he foretold and verified it that himself would rise from the dead after three days sepulture But when himself had told them he did Miracles which no man else ever did they were not able to reprove his saying with one single instance but the poor blind man found him out one instance to verify his assertion It was yet never heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind 5. Secondly The scene of his Preaching and Miracles was Judaea which was the Pale of the Church and God's inclosed portion of whom were the Oracles and the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ was to come and to whom he was promised Now since these Miracles were for verification of his being the Christ the promised MÉSSIAS they were then to be esteemed a convincing argument when all things else concurring as the Predictions of the Prophets the Synchronisms and the capacity of his person he brought Miracles to attest himself to be the person so declared and signified God would not suffer his People to be abused by Miracles nor from Heaven would speak so loud in testimony of any thing contrary to his own will and purposes They to whom he gave the Oracles and the Law and the Predictions of the Messias and declared before-hand that at the coming of the Messias the blind should see the lame should walk and the deaf should hear the lepers should be cleansed and to the poor the Gospel should be preached could not expect a greater conviction for acceptation of a person than when that happened which God himself by his Prophets had consigned as his future testimony and if there could have been deception in this it must needs have been inculpable in the deceived person to whose errour a Divine Prophecy had been both nurse and parent So that taking the Miracles Jesus did in that conjunction of circumstances done to that People to whom all their Oracles were transmitted by miraculous verifications Miracles so many so great so accidentally and yet so regularly to all comers and necessitous persons that prayed it after such Predictions and clearest Prophecies and these Prophecies owned by himself and sent by way of symbol and mysterious answer to John the Baptist to whom he described his Office by recounting his Miracles in the words of the Prediction there cannot be any fallibility or weakness pretended to this instrument of probation applied in such circumstances to such a people who being dear to God would be preserved from invincible deceptions and being commanded by him to expect the Messias in such an equipage of power and demonstration of Miracles were therefore not deceived nor could they because they were bound to accept it 6. Thirdly So that now we must not look upon these Miracles as an argument primarily intended to convince the Gentiles but the Jews It was a high probability to them also and so it was designed also in a secondary intention But it could not be an argument to them so certain because it was destitute of two great supporters For they neither believed the Prophets foretelling the Messias to be such nor yet saw the Miracles done So that they had no testimony of God before-hand and were to rely upon humane testimony for the matter of fact which because it was fallible could not infer a necessary conclusion alone and of it self but it put on degrees of perswasion as the 〈◊〉 had degrees of certainty or universality that they also which see not and yet have believed might be blessed And therefore Christ sent his Apostles to convert the Gentiles and supplied in their case what in his own could not be applicable or so concerning them For he sent them to do Miracles in the sight of the Nations that they might not doubt the matter of fact and prepared them also with a Prophecy foretelling that they should do the same and greater Miracles than he did they had greater prejudices to contest against and a more unequal distance from belief and aptnesses to credit such things therefore it was necessary that the Apostles should do greater Miracles to remove the greater mountains of objection And they did so and by doing it in pursuance and testimony of the ends of Christ and Christianity verified the fame and celebrity of their Master's Miracles and represented to all the world his power and his veracity and his Divinity 7. Fourthly For when the Holy Jesus appeared upon the stage of Palestine all things were quiet and at rest from prodigy and wonder nay John the Baptist who by his excellent Sanctity and Austerities had got great reputation to his person and Doctrines yet did no Miracle and no man else did any save some few Exorcists among the Jews cured some Demoniacks and distracted People So that in this silence a Prophet appearing with signs and wonders had nothing to lessen the arguments no opposite of like power or appearances of a contradictory design And therefore it perswaded infinitely and was certainly operative upon all persons whose interest and love of the world did not destroy the piety of their wills and put their understanding into fetters And Nicodemus a Doctor of the Law being convinced said We know that thou art a Doctor sent from God for no man can do those 〈◊〉 which thou doest unless God be with him But when the Devil saw what great
concernment to God's glory to gain the Gentiles than to retain the Jews and yet if it had not the Apostles were bound to bend to the inclinations of the weaker rather than be mastered by the wilfulness of the stronger who had been sufficiently instructed in the articles of Christian liberty and in the adopting the Gentiles into the Family of God Thus if it be a question whether I should abate any thing of my external Religion or Ceremonies to satisfie an Heretick or a contentious person who pretends Scandal to himself and is indeed of another Perswasion and at the same time I know that good persons would be weakned at such forbearance and estranged from the good perswasion and Charity of Communion which is part of their Duty it more concerns Charity and the glory of God that I secure the right than twine about the wrong wilful and malicious persons A Prelate must rather fortifie and encourage Obedience and strengthen Discipline than by remisness toward refractory spirits and a desire not to seem severe weaken the hands of consciencious persons by taking away the marks of difference between them that obey and them that obey not and in all cases when the question is between a friend to be secured from Apostasie or an enemy to be gained from Indifferency S. Paul's rule is to be observed Do good to all but especially to the houshold of Faith When the Church in a particular instance cannot be kind to both she must first love her own children 12. Eighthly But when the question is between pleasing and contenting the fancies of a Friend and the gaining of an Enemy the greater good of the Enemy is infinitely to be preferred before the satisfying the unnecessary humour of the Friend and therefore that we may gain persons of a different Religion it is lawful to entertain them in their innocent customs that we may represent our selves charitable and just apt to comply in what we can and yet for no end complying farther than we are permitted It was a policy of the Devil to abuse Christians to the Rites of 〈◊〉 by imitating the Christian Ceremonies and the Christians themselves were before-hand with him in that policy for they facilitated the reconcilement of Judaism with Christianity by common Rites and invited the Gentiles to the Christian Churches because they never violated the Heathen Temples but loved the men and imitated their innocent Rites and only offered to reform their Errors and hallow their abused purposes and this if it had no other contradictory or unhandsome circumstance gave no offence to other Christians when they had learned to trust them with the government of Ecclesiastical affairs to whom God had committed them and they all had the same purposes of Religion and Charity And when there is no objection against this but the furies or greater heats of a mistaken Zeal the compliance with evil or unbelieving persons to gain them from their Errors to the ways of Truth and sincerity is great prudence and great Charity because it chuses and acts a greater good at no other charge or expence but the discomposing of an intemperate Zeal 13. Ninthly We are not bound to intermit a good or a lawful action as soon as any man tells us it is scandalous for that may be an easie stratagem to give me laws and destroy my liberty but either when the action is of it self or by reason of a publick known indisposition of some persons probably introductive of a sin or when we know it is so in fact The other is but affrighting a man this only is prudent that my Charity be guided by such rules which determine wise men to actions or omissions respectively And therefore a light fame is not strong enough to wrest my liberty from me but a reasonable belief or a certain knowledge in the taking of which estimate we must neither be too credulous and easie nor yet ungentle and stubborn but do according to the actions of wise men and the charities of a Christian. Hither we may refer the rules of abstaining from things which are of evil report For not every thing which is of good report is to be followed for then a false opinion when it is become popular must be professed for Conscience sake nor yet every thing that is of bad report is to be avoided for nothing endured more shame and obloquy than Christianity at its first commencement But by good report we are to understand such things which are well reported of by good men and wise men or Scripture or the consent of Nations And thus for a woman to marry within the year of mourning is scandalous because it is of evil report gives suspicion of lightness or some worse confederacy before the death of her husband the thing it self is apt to minister the suspicion and this we are bound to prevent And unless the suspicion be malicious or imprudent and unreasonable we must conceal our actions from the surprises and deprehensions of suspicion It was scandalous amongst the old Romans not to marry among the Christians for a Clergy-man to marry twice because it was against an Apostolical Canon but when it became of ill report for any Christian to marry the second time because this evil report was begun by the errors of Montanus and is against a permission of holy Scripture no Lay-Christian was bound to abstain from a second bed for fear of giving scandal 14. Tenthly The precept of avoiding Scandal concerns the Governours of the Church or State in the making and execution of Laws For no Law in things indifferent ought to be made to the provocation of the Subject or against that publick disposition which is in the spirits of men and will certainly cause perpetual irregularities and Schisms Before the Law be made the Superiour must comply with the subject after it is made the subject must comply with the Law But in this the Church hath made fair provision accounting no Laws obligatory till the people have accepted them and given tacite approbation for Ecclesiastical Canons have their time of probation and if they become a burthen to the people or occasion Schisms Tumults publick disunion of affections and jealousies against Authority the Laws give place and either fix not when they are not first approved or disappear by desuetude And in the execution of Laws no less care is to be taken for many cases occur in which the Laws can be rescued from being a snare to mens Consciences by no other way but by dispensation and slacking of the Discipline as to certain particulars Mercy and Sacrifice the Letter and the Spirit the words and the intention the general case and the particular exception the present disposition and the former state of things are oftentimes so repugnant and of such contradictory interests that there is no stumbling-block more troublesome or dangerous than a severe literal and rigorous exacting of Laws in all cases But when Stubbornness or a Contentious
a great calamity within a little while after the Spirit of God had sent them two Epistles by the ministery of S. Paul their Cities were buried in an Earthquake and yet we have reason to think they were Churches beloved of God and Congregations of holy People The PRAYER OEternal and powerful God thou just and righteous Governour of the world who callest all orders of men by Precepts Promises and Threatnings by Mercies and by Judgments teach us to admire and adore all the Wisdome the effects and infinite varieties of thy Providence and make us to dispose our selves so by Obedience by Repentance by all the manners of Holy living that we may never provoke thee to jealousie much less to wrath and indignation against us Keep far from us the Sword of the destroying Angel and let us never perish in the publick expresses of thy wrath in diseases Epidemical with the furies of War with calamitous sudden and horrid Accidents with unusual Diseases unless that our so strange fall be more for thy glory and our eternal benefit and then thy will be done We beg thy grace that we may chearfully conform to thy holy will and pleasure Lord open our understandings that we may know the meaning of thy voice and the signification of thy language when thou speakest 〈◊〉 Heaven in signs and Judgments and let a holy fear so soften our spirits and an intense love so 〈◊〉 and sanctifie our desires that we may apprehend every intimation of thy pleasure at its first and remotest and most obscure representment that so we may with Repentance go out to meet thee and prevent the expresses of thine anger Let thy restraining grace and the observation of the issues of thy Justice so allay our spirits that we be not severe and forward in condemning others nor backward in passing sentence upon our selves Make us to obey thy voice described in holy Scripture to tremble at thy voice expressed in wonders and great effects of Providence to condemn none but our selves nor to enter into the recesses of thy Sanctuary and search the forbidden records of Predestination but that we may read our duty in the pages of Revelation not in the labels of accidental effects that thy Judgments may confirm thy Word and thy Word teach us our Duty and we by such excellent instruments may enter in and grow up in the ways of Godliness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen SECT XV. Of the Accidents happening from the Death of Lazarus untill the Death and Burial of JESVS Bartimeus healed of blindnesse Mark 10. 46. And as he went out of Iericho with his Disciples and a great number of people blind Bartimeus sate by the high way begging 47. And when he heard that it was Iesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Iesus thou son of David have mercy on me Lazarus raysed from death Ioh. 11. 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with gravecloths and his face was bound about with a napkin Iesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go 45. Then Many of the Iewes which came to Mary and had seen the things which Iesus did believed on him 1. VVHile Jesus was in Galilee messengers came to him from Martha and her Sister Mary that he would hasten into Judaea to Bethany to relieve the sickness and imminent dangers of their Brother Lazarus But he deferred his going till Lazarus was dead purposing to give a great probation of his Divinity Power and Mission by a glorious Miracle and to give God glory and to receive reflexions of the glory upon himself For after he had stayed two days he called his Disciples to go with him into Judaea telling them that Lazarus was dead but he would raise him out of that sleep of death But by that time Jesus was arrived at Bethany he found that Lazarus had been dead four days and now near to putrefaction But when Martha and Mary met him weeping their pious tears for their dead Brother Jesus suffered the passions of piety and humanity and wept distilling that precious liquor into the grave of Lazarus watering the dead plant that it might spring into a new life and raise his head above the ground 2. When Jesus had by his words of comfort and institution strengthened the Faith of the two mourning Sisters and commanded the stone to be removed from the grave he made an address of Adoration and Eucharist to his Father confessing his perpetual propensity to hear him and then cried out Lazarus come forth And he that was dead came forth from his bed of darkness with his night-cloaths on him whom when the Apostles had unloosed at the command of Jesus he went to Bethany and many that were present believed on him but others wondring and malicious went and told the Pharisees the story of the Miracle who upon that advice called their great Council whose great and solemn cognisance was of the greater causes of Prophets of Kings and of the holy Law At this great Assembly it was that Caiaphas the High Priest prophesied that it was expedient one should die for the people And thence they determined the death of Jesus But he knowing they had passed a decretory sentence against him retired to the City 〈◊〉 in the Tribe of Judah near the desart where he stayed a few days till the approximation of the Feast of Easter 3. Against which Feast when Jesus with his Disciples was going to Jerusalem he told them the event of the journey would be that the Jews should deliver him to the Gentiles that they should scourge him and mock him and crucifie him and the third day he should rise again After which discourse the Mother of 〈◊〉 's Children begg'd of Jesus for her two Sons that one of them might sit at his right hand the other at the left in his Kingdom For no discourses of his Passion or intimations of the mysteriousness of his Kingdom could yet put them into right understandings of their condition But Jesus whose heart and thoughts were full of phancy and apprehensions of the neighbour Passion gave them answer in proportion to his present conceptions and their future condition For if they desired the honours of his Kingdom such as they were they should have them unless themselves did decline them they should drink of his Cup and dip in his Lavatory and be washed with his baptism and sit in his Kingdom if the heavenly Father had prepared it for them but the donation of that immediately was an issue of Divine election and predestination and was only competent to them who by holy living and patient suffering put themselves into a disposition of becoming vessels of Election 4. But as Jesus in this journey came near Jericho he cures a blind man who sate begging by the way-side and espying Zaccheus the chief of the Publicans upon a tree that he being low of stature might upon that advantage of station see Jesus passing by he invited
heathless body become fuel to a fever and increase the distemperature from indisposition to a sharp disease and from thence to the margent of the grave But it was otherwise in Saul whom Jesus threw to the ground with a more angry sound than these persecutors but Saul rose a Saint and they persisted Devils and the grace of God distinguished the events The PRAYER O Holy Jesus make me by thy example to conform to the will of that Eternal God who is our Father merciful and gracious that I may chuse all those accidents which his Providence hath actually disposed to me that I may know no desires but his commands and his will and that in all afflictions I may fly thither for mercy pardon and support and may wait for deliverance in such times and manners which the Father hath reserved in his own power and graciously dispenses according to his infinite wisdom and compassion Holy Jesus give me the gift and spirit of Prayer and do thou by thy gracious intercession supply my ignorances and passionate desires and imperfect choices procuring and giving to me such returns of favour which may support my needs and serve the ends of Religion and the Spirit which thy wisdom chuses and thy Passion hath purchased and thy grace loves to bestow upon all thy Saints and servants Amen II. ETernal God sweetest Jesu who didst receive Judas with the affection of a Saviour and sufferedst him to kiss thy cheek with the serenity and tranquillity of God and didst permit the souldiers to bind thee with Patience exemplary to all ages of Martyrs and didst cure the wound of thy enemy with the Charity of a Parent and the tenderness of an infinite pity O kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth embrace me with the entertainments of a gracious Lord and let my Soul dwell and feast in thee who art the repository of eternal sweetness and refreshments Bind me O Lord with those bands which tied thee fast the chains of Love that such holy union may dissolve the cords of vanity and confine the bold pretensions of usurping Passions and imprison all extravagancies of an impertinent spirit and lead Sin captive to the dominion of Grace and sanctified Reason that I also may imitate all the parts of thy holy Passion and may by thy bands get my liberty by thy kiss enkindle charity by the touch of thy hand and the breath of thy mouth have all my wounds cured and restored to the integrity of a holy Penitent and the purities of Innocence that I may love thee and please thee and live with thee for ever O Holy and sweetest Jesu Amen Considerations upon the Scourging and other Accidents happening from the Apprehension till the Crucifixion of JESUS Christ brought before the Highpreist Iohn 18 12. Then the Band and the Captain and the Officers of the Iews took Iesus and bound him 25. And lead him away to Annas first for he was father-in-Father-in-law to Cajaphas which was Highpreist that same yeare Christ arraigned before Herod Luk. 23. 7. 8. 11. And assoone as he knew that he belonged to Herods jurisdiction he sent him to Herod 8. And when Herod saw Iesus he was exceeding glad 11. And Herod with his men of war set him at nought and mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him againe to Pilate 1. THE house of Annas stood in the mount Sion and in the way to the house of Caiaphas and thither he was led as to the first stage of their triumph for their surprise of a person so feared and desired and there a naughty person smote the 〈◊〉 Jesus upon the face for saying to Annas that he had made his Doctrine publick and that all the people were able to give account of it to whom the Lamb of God 〈◊〉 as much meekness and patience in his answer as in his answer to Annas he had 〈◊〉 prudence and modesty For now that they had taken Jesus they wanted a crime to object against him and therefore were desirous to snatch occasion from his discourses to which they resolved to tempt him by questions and affronts but his answer was general and indefinite safe and true enough to acquit his Doctrine from suspicions of secret designs and yet secure against their present snares for now himself who always had the innocence of Doves was to joyn with it the prudence and wariness of Serpents not to prevent death for that he was resolved to suffer but that they might be destitute of all apparence of a just cause on his part Here it was that Judas received his money and here that holy Face which was designed to be that object in the beholding of which much of the celestial glory doth consist that Face which the Angels stare upon with wonder like infants at a bright Sun-beam was smitten extrajudicially by an incompetent person with circumstances of despight in the presence of a Judge in a full assembly and none reproved the insolency and the cruelty of the affront for they resolved to use him as they use Wolves and Tigres with all things that may be destructive violent and impious and in this the injury was heightned because the blow was said to be given by Malchus an Idumaean slave and therefore a contemptible person but far more unworthy by his ingratitude for so he repayed the Holy Jesus for working a Miracle and healing his ear But so the Scripture was fulfilled He shall give his body to the smiters and his cheeks to the nippers saith the Prophet Isay and They shall smite the cheek of the Judge of Israel saith Micah And this very circumstance of the Passion Lactantius affirms to have been foretold by the Erythraean Sibyll But no meekness or indifferency could engage our Lord not to protest his innocency and though following his steps we must walk in the regions of patience and tranquillity and admirable toleration of injuries yet we may represent such defences of our selves which by not resisting the sentence may testifie that our suffering is undeserved and if our Innocency will not preserve our lives it will advance our title to a better and every good cause ill judged shall be brought to another tribunal to receive a just and unerring sentence 2. Annas having suffered this unworthy usage towards a person so excellent sent him away to Caiphas who had formerly in a full council resolved he should die yet now palliating the design with the scheme of a tribunal they seek out for witnesses and the witnesses are to seek for allegations and when they find them they are to seek for proof and those proofs were to seek for unity and consent and nothing was ready for their purposes but they were forced to use the semblance of a judicial process that because they were to make use of Pilate's authority to put him to death they might perswade Pilate to accept of their examination and conviction without farther enquiry But such
endeavour is the Sacrifice which God delights in that in the firmament of Heaven there are little Stars and they are most in number and there are but few of the greatest magnitude that there are children and babes in Christ as well as strong men and amongst these there are great difference that the interruptions of the state of Grace by intervening crimes if they were rescinded by Repentance they were great danger in the intervall but served as increment of the Divine Glory and arguments of care and diligence to us at the restitution These and many more are then to be urged when the sick person is in danger of being swallowed up with over-much sorrow and therefore to be insisted on in all like cases as the Physician gives him Cordials that we may do charity to him and minister comfort not because they are always necessary even in the midst of great sadnesses and discomforts For we are to secure his love to God that he acknowledge the Divine Mercy that he believe the Article of Remission of sins that he be thankful to God for the blessings which already he hath received and that he lay all the load of his discomfort upon himself and his own incapacities of mercy and then the sadness may be very great and his tears clamorous and his heart broken all in pieces and his Humility lower than the earth and his Hope indiscernible and yet no danger to his final condition Despair reflects upon God and dishonours the infinity of his Mercy And if the sick person do but confess that God is not at all wanting in his Promises but ever abounding in his Mercies and that it is want of the condition on his own part that makes the misery and that if he had done his duty God would save him let him be assisted with perpetual prayers with examples of lapsed and returning sinners whom the Church celebrates for Saints such as Mary Magdalen Mary of Egypt Asra Thasis Pelagia let it be often inculcated to him that as God's Mercy is of it self infinite so its demonstration to us is not determined to any certain period but hath such latitudes in it and reservations which as they are apt to restrain too great boldness so also to become sanctuaries to disconsolate persons let him be invited to throw himself upon God upon these grounds that he who is our Judge is also our Advocate and Redeemer that he knows and pities our infirmities and that our very hoping in him does indear him and he will deliver us the rather for our confidence when it is balanced with reverence and humility and then all these supernumerary fears are advantagious to more necessary Graces and do more secure his final condition than they can disturb it 11. When Saint Arsenius was near his death he was observed to be very tremulous sad weeping and disconsolate The standers by asked the reason of his fears wondring that he having lived in great Sanctity for many years should not now rejoyce at the going forth of his prison The good man confessed the fear and withall said it was no other than he had always born about with him in the days of his pilgrimage and what he then thought a duty they had no reason now to call either a fault or a misery Great sorrows fears and distrustings of a man 's own condition are oftentimes but abatements of confidence or a remission of joys and gayeties of spirit they are but like salutary clouds dark and fruitful and if the tempted person be strengthened in a love of God though he go not farther in his hopes than to believe a possibility of being saved than to say God can save him if he please and to pray that he will save him his condition is a state of Grace it is like a root in the ground trod upon humble and safe not so fine as the state of flowers yet that which will spring up in as glorious a Resurrection as that which looks fairer and pleases the sense and is indeed a blessing but not a duty 12. But there is a state of Death-bed which seems to have in it more Question and to be of nicer consideration A sick person after a vicious and base life and if upon whatsoever he can do you give him hopes of a Pardon where is your promise to warrant it if you do not give him hopes do you not drive him to Despair and ascertain his ruine to verifie your proposition To this I answer that Despair is opposed to Hope and Hope relies upon the Divine Promises and where there is no Promise there the Despair is not a sin but a mere impossibility The accursed Spirits which are sealed up to the Judgment of the last Day cannot hope and he that repents not cannot hope for pardon And therefore if all which the state of Death-bed can produce be not the duty of Repentance which is required of necessity to Pardon it is not in such a person properly to be called Despair any more than it is Blindness in a stone that it cannot see Such a man is not within the capacities of Pardon and therefore all those acts of exteriour Repentance and all his sorrow and resolution and tears of emendation and other preparatives to interiour Repentance are like oil poured into mortal wounds they are the care of the Physician and these are the cautions of the Church and they are at no hand to be neglected For if they do not alter the state they may lessen the judgment or procure a temporal blessing and if the person recover they are excellent beginnings of the state of Grace and if they be pursued in a happy opportunity will grow up into Glory 13. But if it be demanded whether in such cases the Curate be bound to give Absolution I can give no other answer but this that if he lie under the Censure of the Church the Laws of the Church are to determine the particular and I know no Church in the World but uses to absolve Death-bed Penitents upon the instances of those actions of which their present condition is capable though in the Primitive Ages in some cases they denied it But if the sick person be under no positive Censure and is bound only by the guilt of habitual vice if he desires the Prayers of the Church she is bound in charity to grant them to Pray for Pardon to him and all other Graces in order to Salvation and if she absolves the Penitent towards God it hath no other efficacy but of a solemn Prayer and therefore it were better that all the charity of the Office were done and the solemnity omitted because in the earnest Prayer she co-operates to his Salvation as much as she can and by omitting the solemnity distinguishes evil livers from holy persons and walks securely whilst she refuses to declare him pardoned whom God hath not declared to be so And possibly that form of Absolution which the Churches
the dead which an Infidel might easily not only question but deny but from what was sufficiently evident and 〈◊〉 to the meanest Idiot his planting and propagating Christianity in the World For it is not says he in the power of a mere man in so short a time to encircle the World to compass Sea and Land and in matters of so great importance to rescue mankind from the slavery of absurd and unreasonable customs and the powerful tyranny of evil habits and these not Romans only but Persians and the most barbarous Nations of the world A reformation which he wrought not by force and the power of the sword nor by pouring into the world numerous Legions and Armies but by a few inconsiderable men no more at first than Eleven a company of obscure and mean simple and illiterate poor and helpless naked and unarmed persons who had scarce a shooe to tread on or a coat to cover them And yet by these he perswaded so great a part of mankind to be able freely to reason not only of things of the present but of a future state to renounce the Laws of their Country and throw off those ancient and inveterate customs which had taken root for so many Ages and planted others in their room and reduced men from those easie ways whereinto they were hurried into the more rugged and difficult paths of vertue All which he did while he had to contend with opposite powers and when he himself had undergone the most ignominious death even the death of the Cross. Afterwards he addresses himself to the Jew and discourses with him much after the same rate Consider says he and bethink thy self what it is in so short a time to fill the whole world with so many famous Churches to convert so many Nations to the Faith to prevail with men to forsake the Religion of their Country to root up their rites and customs to shake off the Empire of lust and pleasure and the Laws of vice like dust to abolish and abominate their Temples and their Altars their Idols and their Sacrifices their profane and impious Festivals as dirt and dung and instead hereof to set up Christian Altars in all places among the Romans Persians Scythians Moors and Indians and not there only but in the Countries beyond this World of ours For even the British Islands that lie beyond the Ocean and those that are in 〈◊〉 have felt the power of the Christian Faith Churches and Altars being erected there to the service of Christ. A matter truly great and admirable and which would clearly have demonstrated a Divine and Supereminent Power although there had been no opposition in the case but that all things had run on calmly and smoothly to think that in so few years the Christian Faith should be able to reclaim the whole World from its vicious customs and to win them over to other manners more laborious and difficult repugnant both to their native inclinations and to the Laws and principles of their education and such as oblig'd them to a more strict and accurate course of life and these persons not one or two not twenty or an hundred but in a manner all mankind and this brought about by no better instruments than a few rude and unlearned private and unknown tradesmen who had neither estate nor reputation learning nor eloquence kindred nor Country to recommend them to the world a few Fishermen and Tent-makers and whom distinguished by their Language as well as their Religion the rest of the world scorn'd as barbarous And yet these were the men by whom our Lord built up his Church and extended it from one end of the world unto the other Other considerations there are with which the Father does urge and illustrate this argument which I forbear to insist on in this place VII Sixthly The power and authority convey'd by this Commission to the Apostles was equally conferr'd upon all of them They were all chosen at the same time all equally impowred to Preach and Baptize all equally intrusted with the power of binding and loosing all invested with the same mission and all equally furnished with the same gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost Indeed the Advocates of the Church of Rome do with a mighty zeal and fierceness contend for S. Peter's being Head and Prince of the Apostles advanced by Christ to a supremacy and prerogative not only above but over the rest of the Apostles and not without reason the fortunes of that Church being concerned in the supremacy of S. Peter No wonder therefore they ransack all corners press and force in whatever may but seem to give countenance to it Witness those thin and miserable shifts which Bellarmine calls arguments to prove and make it good so utterly devoid of all rational conviction so unable to justifie themselves to sober and considering men that a man would think they had been contrived for no other purpose than to cheat sools and make wise men laugh And the truth is nothing with me more shakes the reputation of the wisdom of that learned man than his making use of such weak and trifling arguments in so important and concerning an Article so vital and essential to the constitution of that Church As when he argues Peter's superiority from the mere changing of his name for what 's this to supremacy besides that it was not done to him alone the same being done to James and John from his being first reckoned up in the Catalogue of Apostles his walking with Christ upon the water his paying tribute for his Master and himself his being commanded to let down the Net and Christ's teaching in Peter's ship and this ship must denote the Church and Peter's being owner of it entitle him to be supreme Ruler and Governour of the Church so Bellarmine in terms as plain as he could well express it from Christ's first washing Peter's feet though the story recorded by the Evangelist says no such thing and his foretelling only his death all which and many more prerogatives of S. Peter to the number of no less than XXVIII are summoned in to give in evidence in this cause and many of these too drawn out of Apocryphal and supposititious Authors and not only uncertain but absurd and fabulous and yet upon such arguments as these do they found his paramount authority A plain evidence of a desperate and sinking cause when such twigs must be laid hold on to support and keep it above water Had they suffered Peter to be content with a primacy of Order which his age and gravity seemed to challenge for him no wise and peaceable man would have denied it as being a thing ordinarily practised among equals and necessary to the well governing a society but when nothing but a primacy of Power will serve the turn as if the rest of the Apostles had been inferiour to him this may by no means be granted as being expresly contrary to the positive
Four Thousand debauched and profligate wretches The Apostle replied that he was a Jew of Tarsus a Free-man of a rich and honourable City and therefore begg'd of him that he might have leave to speak to the People Which the Captain readily granted and standing near the Door of the Castle and making signs that they would hold their peace he began to address himself to them in the Hebrew Language which when they heard they became a little more calm and quiet while he discoursed to them to this effect 7. HE gave them an account of himself from his Birth of his education in his youth of the mighty zeal which he had for the Rites and Customes of their Religion and with what a passionate earnestness he persecuted and put to death all the Christians that he met with whereof the High Priest and the Sanhedrim could be sufficient witnesses He next gave them an intire and punctual relation of the way and manner of his conversion and how that he had received an immediate command from God himself to depart Jerusalem and preach unto the Gentiles At this word the patience of the Jews could hold no longer but they unanimously cried out to have him put to death it not being fit that such a Villain should live upon the Earth And the more to express their fury they threw off their Clothes and cast dust into the Air as if they immediately designed to stone him To avoid which the Captain of the Guard commanded him to be brought within the Castle and that he should be examined by whipping till he confessed the reason of so much rage against him While the Lictor was binding him in order to it he asked the Centurion that stood by whether they could justifie the scourging a Citizen of Rome and that before any sentence legally passed upon him This the Centurion presently intimated to the Governor of the Castle bidding him have a care what he did for the Prisoner was a Roman Whereat the Governor himself came and asked him whether he was a free Denizon of Rome and being told that he was he replied that it was a great priviledge a priviledge which he himself had purchased at a considerable rate To whom S. Paul answered that it was his Birth right and the priviledge of the place where he was born and bred Hereupon they gave over their design of whipping him the Commander himself being a little startled that he had bound and chained a Denizon of Rome 8. THE next Day the Governor commanded his Chains to be knock'd off and that he might throughly satisfie himself in the matter commanded the Sanhedrim to meet and brought down Paul before them where being set before the Council he told them that in all passages of his life he had been careful to act according to the severest rules and conscience of his duty Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God untill this day Behold here the great security of a good man and what invisible supports innocency affords under the greatest danger With how generous a confidence does vertue and honesty guard the breast of a good man as indeed nothing else can lay a firm basis and foundation for satisfaction and tranquillity when any misery or calamity does overtake us Religion and a good conscience beget peace and a Heaven in the Man's bosome beyond the power of the little accidents of this World to ruffle and discompose Whence Seneca compares the mind of a wise and a good man to the state of the upper Region which is always serene and calm The High-Priest Ananias being offended at the holy and ingenuous freedom of our Apostle as if by asserting his own innocency he had reproached the justice of their Tribunal commanded those that stood next him to strike him in the Face whereto the Apostle tartly replied That GOD would smite him Hypocrite as he was who under a pretence of doing Justice had illegally commanded him to be punished before the Law condemned him for a Malefactor Whereupon they that stood by asked him how he durst thus affront so sacred and venerable a Person as Gods High Priest He calmly returned That he did not know or own Ananias to be an High Priest of God's appointment However being a Person in Authority it was not lawful to revile him God himself having commanded that no man should speak evil of the Ruler of the People The Apostle who as he never laid aside the innocency of the Dove so knew how when occasion was to make use of the wisdom of the Serpent perceiving the Council to consist partly of Sadduces and partly of Pharisees openly told them that he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee and that the main thing he was questioned for was his belief of a future Resurrection This quickly divided the Council the Pharisees being zealous Patrons of that Article and the Sadducees as stifly denying that there is either Angel that is of a spiritual and immortal nature really subsisting of it self for otherwise they cannot be supposed to have utterly denied all sorts of Angels seeing they own'd the Pentateuch wherein there is frequent mention of them or Spirit or that humane Souls do exist in a separate state and consequently that there is no Resurrection Presently the Doctors of the Law who were Pharisees stood up to acquit him affirming he had done nothing amiss that it was possible he had received some intimation from Heaven by an Angel or the revelation of the H. Spirit and if so then in opposing his Doctrine they might fight against God himself 9. GREAT were the dissentions in the Council about this matter in so much that the Governor fearing S. Paul would be torn in pieces commanded the Souldiers to take him from the Bar and return him back into the Castle That night to comfort him after all his frights and fears God was pleased to appear to him in a vision incouraging him to constancy and resolution assuring him that as he had born witness to his cause at Jerusalem so in despite of all his enemies he should live to bear his testimony even at Rome it self The next Morning the Jews who could as well cease to be as to be mischievous and malicious finding that these dilatory proceedings were not like to do the work resolved upon a quicker dispatch To which end above Forty of them entred into a wicked confederacy which they ratified by Oath and Execration never to eat or drink till they had killed him and having acquainted the Sanhedrim with their design they intreated them to importune the Governor that he might again the next day be brought down before them under pretence of a more strict trial of his case and that they themselves would lye in ambush by the way and not fail to dispatch him But that Divine providence that peculiarly superintends the safety of good men disappoints the devices of the crafty
of her incomparable beauty by the help of Simon the Magician a Jew of Cyprus ravished her from her Husbands bed and in defiance of all law and right kept her for his own Wife To these qualities he had added bribery and covetousness and therefore frequently sent for S. Paul to discourse with him expecting that he should have given him a considerable summ for his release and the rather probably because he had heard that S. Paul had lately brought up great summs of money to Jerusalem But finding no offers made either by the Apostle or his friends he kept him prisoner for two years together so long as himself continued Procurator of that Nation when being displaced by Nero he left S. Paul still in prison on purpose to 〈◊〉 the Jews and engage them to speak better of him after his departure from them 4. TO him succeeded Portius Festus in the Procuratorship of the Province at whose first coming to Jerusalem the High-Priest and Sanhedrim presently began to prefer to him an Indictment against S. Paul desiring that in order to his Trial he might be sent for up from Caesarea designing under this pretence that some Assassinates should lie in the way to murder him Festus told them that he himself was going shortly for Caesarea and that if they had any thing against S. Paul they should come down thither and accuse him Accordingly being come to Caesarea and sitting in open Judicature the Jews began to renew the Charge which they had heretofore brought against S. Paul Of all which he cleared himself they not being able to make any proof against him However Festus being willing to oblige the Jews in the entrance upon his Government asked him whether he would go up and be tried before him at Jerusalem The Apostle well understanding the consequences of that proposal told him that he was a Roman and therefore ought to be judged by their Laws that he stood now at Caesar's own Judgment-seat as indeed what was done by the Emperor's Procurator in any Province the Law reckoned as done by the Emperor himself and though he should submit to the Jewish Tribunal yet he himself saw that they had nothing which they could prove against him that if he had done any thing which really deserved capital punishment he was willing to undergo it but if not he ought not to be delivered over to his enemies who were before-hand resolved to take away his life However as the safest course he solemnly made his appeal to the Roman Emperor who should judge between them Whereupon Festus advising with the Jewish Sanhedrim received his appeal and told him he should go to Caesar. This way of appealing was frequent amongst the Romans introduced to defend and secure the lives and fortunes of the populacy from the unjust incroachments and over-rigorous severities of the Magistrates whereby it was lawful in cases of oppression to appeal to the people for redress and rescue a thing more than once and again setled by the Sanction of the Valerian Laws These appeals were wont to be made in writing by Appellatory Libels given in wherein was contained an account of the Appellant the person against whom and from whose Sentence he did appeal But where the case was done in open Court it was enough for the Criminal verbally to declare that he did appeal In great and weighty cases appeals were made to the Prince himself and that not only at Rome but in the Provinces of the Empire all Proconsuls and Governours of Provinces being strictly forbidden to execute scourge bind or put any badge of servility upon a Citizen or any that had the priviledge of a Citizen of Rome who had made his appeal or any ways to hinder him from going thither to obtain justice at the hands of the Emperor who had as much regard to the liberty of his Subjects says the Law it self as they could have of their good will and obedience to him And this was exactly S. Paul's case who knowing that he should have no fair and equitable dealing at the hands of the Governour when once he came to be swayed by the Jews his sworn and inveterate enemies appealed from him to the Emperor the reason why Festus durst not deny his demand it being a priviledge so often so plainly setled and confirmed by the Roman Laws 5. SOME time after King Agrippa who succeeded Herod in the Tetrarchate of 〈◊〉 and his Sister Bernice came to Caesarea to make a visit to the new-come Governour To him Festus gave an account of S. Paul and the great stir and trouble that had been made about him and how for his safety and vindication he had immediately appealed to Caesar. Agrippa was very desirous to see and hear him and accordingly the next day the King and his Sister accompanied with Festus the Governour and other persons of quality came into the Court with a pompous and magnificent retinue where the prisoner was brought forth before him Festus having acquainted the King and the Assembly how much he had been solicited by the Jews both at Caesarea and Jorusalem concerning the prisoner at the Bar that as a notorious Malefactor he might be put to death but that having found him guilty of no capital crime and the prisoner himself having appealed to Caesar he was resolved to send him to Rome but yet was willing to have his case again discussed before Agrippa that so he might be furnished with some material instructions to send along with him since it was very absurd to send a prisoner without signifying what crimes were charged upon him 6. HEREUPON Agrippa told the Apostle he had liberty to make his own defence To whom after silence made he particularly addressed his speech he tells him in the first place what a happiness he had that he was to plead before one so exactly versed in all the rites and customs the questions and the controversies of the Jewish Law that the Jews themselves knew what had been the course and manner of his life how he had been educated under the Institutions of the Pharisces the strictest Sect of the whole Jewish Religion and had been particularly disquieted and arraigned for what had been the constant belief of all their Fathers what was sufficiently credible in it self and plainly enough revealed in the Scripture the Resurrection of the dead He next gave him an account with what a bitter and implacable zeal he had formerly persecuted Christianity told him the whole story and method of his conversion and that in compliance with a particular Vision from Heaven he had preached repentance and reformation of life first to the Jews and then after to the Gentiles That it was for no other things than these that the Jews apprehended him in the Temple and designed to murder him but being rescued and upheld by a Divine power he continued in this testimony to this day asserting nothing but what was perfectly agreeable to Moses
in that to the Ephesians at this Day This Epistle is still extant forged no doubt 〈◊〉 S. Hierem's time who tells us that it was read by some but yet exploded and rejected by all Besides these there was his Revelation call'd also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or his Ascension grounded on his ecstasie or rapture into Heaven first forged by the Cainian Hereticks and in great use and estimation among the Gnosticks Sozomen tells us that this Apocalypse was owned by none of the Ancients though much commended by some Monks in his time and he further adds that in the time of the Emperour Theodosius it was said to have been found in an under-ground Chest of Marble in S. Paul's house at Tarsus and that by a particular revelation A story which upon enquiry he found to be as false as the Book it self was forged and spurious The Acts of S. Paul are mentioned both by Origen and Eusebius but not as Writings of approved and unquestionable credit and authority The Epistles that are said to have passed between S. Paul and Seneca how early soever they started in the Church yet the falshood and fabulousness of them is now too notoriously known to need any further account or description of them SECT IX The principal Controversies that exercised the Church in his time Simon Magus the Father of Hereticks The wretched principles and practices of him and his followers Their asserting Angel-worship and how countermin'd by S. Paul Their holding it lawful to sacrifice to Idols and abjure the Faith in times of persecution discovered and opposed by S. Paul Their maintaining an universal licence to sin Their manners and opinions herein described by S. Paul in his Epistles The great controversie of those times about the obligation of the Law of Mofes upon the Gentile Converts The Original of it whence The mighty veneration which the Jews had for the Law of Moses The true state of the Controversie what The Determination made in it by the Apostolick Synod at Jerusalem Meats offered to Idols what Abstinence from Bloud why enjoyned of old Things strangled why forbidden Fornication commonly practised and accounted lawful among the Gentiles The hire of the Harlot what How dedicated to their Deities among the Heathens The main passages in S. Paul's Epistles concerning Justification and Salvation shewed to have respect to this Controversie What meant by Law and what by Faith in S. Paul's Epistles The Persons whom he has to deal with in this Controversie who The Jew's strange doting upon Circumcision The way and manner of the Apostles Reasoning in this Controversie considered His chief Arguments shewed immediately to respect the case of the Jewish and Gentile Converts No other controversie in those times which his discourses could refer to Two Consectaries 〈◊〉 this Discourse I. That works of Evangelical Obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification What meant by works of Evangelical Obedience This method of Justification excludes boasting and intirely gives the glory to God II. That the doctrines of S. Paul and S. James about Justification are fairly consistent with each other These two Apostles shewed to pursue the same design S. James his excellent Reasonings to that purpose 1. THOUGH our Lord and his Apostles delivered the Christian Religion especially as to the main and essential parts of it in words as plain as words could express it yet were there men of perverse and corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the Faith who from different causes some ignorantly or wilfully mistaking the doctrines of Christianity others to serve ill purposes and designs began to introduce errors and unsound opinions into the Church and to debauch the minds of men from the simplicity of the Gospel hereby disquieting the thoughts and alienating the affections of men and disturbing the peace and order of the Church The first Ring-leader of this Heretical crue was Simon Magus who not being able to attain his ends of the Apostles by getting a power to confer miraculous gifts whereby he designed to greaten and enrich himself resolved to be revenged of them scattering the most poisonous tares among the good wheat that they had sown bringing in the most pernicious principles and as the natural consequent of that patronizing the most debauched villainous practises and this under a pretence of still being Christians To enumerate the several Dogmata and damnable Heresies first broached by Simon and then vented and propagated by his disciples and followers who though passing under different Titles yet all centred at last in the name of Gnosticks a term which we shall sometimes use for conveniency though it took not place till after S. Paul's time were as endless as 't is alien to my purpose I shall only take notice of a few of more signal remark and such as S. Paul in his Epistles does eminently reflect upon 2. AMONGST the opinions and principles of Simon and his followers this was one That God did not create the World that it was made by Angels that Divine honours were due to them and they to be adored as subordinate mediators between God and us This our Apostle saw growing up apace and struck betimes at the root in that early caution he gave to the Colossians to let no man beguile them in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puft up by his fleshly mind and not holding the head i. e. hereby disclaiming Christ the head of the Church But notwithstanding this warning this error still continued and spread it self in those parts for several Ages till expresly condemned by the 〈◊〉 Council Nay Theodoret tells us that in his time there were still Oratories erected to the Archangel Michael in those places wherein they were wont to meet and pray to Angels Another Gnostick principle was that men might freely and indifferently eat what had been offered in sacrifice to Idols yea sacrifice to the Idol it self it being lawful confidently to abjure the Faith in time of persecution The first part whereof S. Paul does largely and frequently discuss up and down his Epistles the latter wherein the sting and poison was more immediately couched was craftily adapted to those times of suffering and greedily swallowed by many hereby drawn into Apostasie Against this our Apostle antidotes the Christians especially the Jewish Converts among whom the Gnosticks had mixed themselves that they would not suffer themselves to be drawn aside by an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God That notwithstanding sufferings and persecutions they would hold fast the profession of the Faith without wavering not forsaking the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is the Gnostick Hereticks remembring how severely God has threatned Apostates that if any man draw back his Soul shall have no pleasure in him and what a fearful thing it is thus to fall into the hands of the living God 3. BUT
immediately known 5. WE are then next to consider what determination the Apostostolick Synod at Jerusalem made of this matter For a Council of the Apostles and Rulers being immediately convened and the question by Paul and Barnabas brought before them the case was canvassed and debated on all hands and at last it was resolved upon by their unanimous sentence and suffrage that the Gentile Converts were under no obligation to the Jewish Law that God had abundantly declared his acceptance of them though strangers to the Mosaical Oeconomy that they were sufficiently secured of their happiness and salvation by the grace of the Gospel wherein they might be justified and saved without Circumcision or legal Ceremonies a yoke from which Christ had now set us free But because the Apostles did not think it prudent in these circumstances too much to stir the exasperated humour of the Jews lest by straining the string too high at first they should endanger their revolting from the Faith theresore they thought of some indulgence in the case S. James then Bishop of Jerusalem and probably President of the Council propounding this expedient that for the present the Gentile Converts should so far only comply with the humour of the Jews as to abstain from meats offered to Idols from bloud from things strangled and from fornication Let us a little more distinctly survey the ingredients of this imposition Meats offered to Idols or as S. James in his discourse stiles them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pollutions of Idols the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly denoting the meats that were polluted by being consecrated to the Idol Thus we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the LXX render it polluted bread upon God's Altar i. e. such probably as had been before offered to Idols So that these meats offered to the Idols were parts of those Sacrifices which the Heathens offered to their Gods of the remaining portions whereof they usually made a Feast in the Idol-Temple inviting their friends thither and sometimes their Christian friends to come along with them This God had particularly forbidden the Jews by the Law of Moses Thou shalt worship no other God lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and go a whoring after their Gods and do sacrifice unto their Gods and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice And the not observing this prohibition cost the Jews dear when invited by the Moabites to the Sacrifices of their Gods they did eat with them and bowed down to their Gods Sometimes these remaining portions were sold for common use in the Shambles and bought by Christians Both which gave great offence to the zealous Jews who looked upon it as a participation in the Idolatries of the Heathen Of both which our Apostle discourses elsewhere at large pressing Christians to abstain from Idolatry both as to the Idol-feasts and the remainders of 〈◊〉 Sacrifice From the former as more immediately unlawful from the latter the Sacrificial meats sold in the Shambles as giving offence to weak and undiscerning Christians For though in it self an Idol was nothing in the world and consequently no honour could be done it by eating what was offered to it yet was it more prudent and reasonable to abstain partly because flesh-meats have no peculiar excellency in them to commend us to God partly because all men were not alike instructed in the knowledge of their liberty their minds easily puzled and their consciences intangled the Gentiles by this means hardned in their idolatrous practises weak brethren offended besides though these things were in their own nature indifferent and in a mans own power to do or to let alone yet was it not convenient to make our liberty a snare to others and to venture upon what was lawful when it was plainly unedifying and inexpedient From blood This God forbad of old and that some time before the giving of the Law by Moses that they should not eat the flesh with the bloud which was the life thereof The mystery of which prohibition was to instruct men in the duties of mercy and tenderness even to brute beasts but as appears from what sollows after primarily designed by God as a solemn fence and bar against murther and the effusion of humane bloud A Law afterwards renewed upon the Jews and inserted into the body of the Mosaick precepts From things strangled that is that they should abstain from eating of those Beasts that died without letting bloud where the bloud 〈◊〉 not throughly drained from them a prohibition grounded upon the reason of the former and indeed was greatly abominable to the Jews being so expresly sorbidden in their Law But it was not more offensive to the Jews than acceptable to the Gentiles who were wont with great art and care to strangle living Creatures that they might stew or dress them with their bloud in them as a point of curious and exquisite delicacy This and the foregoing prohibition abstinence from bloud died not with the Apostles nor were buried with other Jewish rites but were inviolably observed for several Ages in the Christian Church as we have elsewhere observed from the Writers of those times Lastly From Fornication This was a thing commonly practised in the Heathen World who generally beheld simple Fornication as no sin and that it was lawful for persons not engaged in wedlock to make use of women that exposed themselves A custom justly offensive to the Jews and therefore to cure two evils at once the Apostles here solemnly declare against it Not that they thought it a thing indifferent as the rest of the prohibited rites were 〈◊〉 it is forbidden by the natural Law as contrary to that chastness and modesty that order and comeliness which God has planted in the minds of men but they joyned it in the same Class with them because the Gentiles looked upon it as a thing lawful and indifferent It had been expresly forbidden by the Mosaick Law There shall be no Whore of the daughters of Israel and because the Heathens had generally thrown down this fence and bar set by the Law of nature it was here again repaired by the first planters of Christianity as by S. Paul elsewhere Ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus for this is the will of God even your Sanctification that you should abstain from fornication That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God Though after all I must confess my self inclinable to imbrace 〈◊〉 his ingenious conjecture that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fornication we are here to understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the harlots hire or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the offering which those persons were wont to make For among the Gentiles nothing was more usual than for the common women that
to John the Baptist. Hence reputed our Lord's Brother in the same sence that he was reputed the Son of Joseph Indeed we find several spoken of in the History of the Gospel who were Christ's Brethren but in what sence was controverted of old S. Hierom Chrysostom and some others will have them so called because the Sons of Mary Cousin-german or according to the custome of the Hebrew Language Sister to the Virgin Mary But Eusebius Epiphanius and the far greater part of the Ancients from whom especially in matters of fact we are not rashly to depart make them the Children of Joseph by a former Wife And this seems most genuine and natural the Evangelists seeming very express and accurate in the account which they give of them Is not this the Carpenter's Son Is not his Mother called Mary and his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Jude and his Sisters whose Names says the foresaid Hippolytus were Esther and Thamar are they not all with us whence then hath this man these things By which it is plain that the Jews understood these Persons not to be Christ's Kinsmen only but his Brothers the same Carpenter's Sons having the same relation to him that Christ himself had though indeed they had more Christ being but his reputed they his natural Sons Upon this account the Blessed Virgin is sometimes called the Mother of James and Joses for so amongst the Women that attended at our Lord's Crucifixion we find three eminently taken notice of Mary Magdalen Mary the Mother of James and Joses and the Mother of Zebedees Children Where by Mary the Mother of James and Joses no other can be meant than the Virgin Mary it not being reasonable to suppose that the Evangelists should omit the Blessed Virgin who was certainly there and therefore S. John reckoning up the same Persons expresly stiles her the Mother of Jesus And though it is true she was but S. James his mother-in-Mother-in-law yet the Evangelists might chuse so to stile her because commonly so called after Joseph's death and probably as Gregory of Nyssa thinks known by that Name all along chusing that Title that the Son of God whom as a Virgin she had brought forth might be better concealed and less exposed to the malice of the envious Jews nor is it any more wonder that she should be esteemed and called the Mother of James than that Joseph should be stiled and accounted the Father of Jesus To which add that Josephus eminently skilful in matters of Genealogy and descent expresly says that our S. James was the Brother of Jesus Christ. One thing there is that may seem to lye against it that he is called the Son of Alphaeus But this may probably mean no more than either that Joseph was so called by another Name it being frequent yea almost constant among the Jews for the same Person to have two Names Quis unquam prohibuerit duobus vel tribus nominibus hominem 〈◊〉 vocari as S. Augustin speaks in a parallel case or as a learned Man conjectures it may relate to his being a Disciple of some particular Sect or Synagogue among the Jews called Alphaeans from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting a Family or Society of devout and learned Men of somewhat more eminency than the rest there being as he tells us many such at this time among the Jews and in this probably S. James had entred himself the great reputation of his Piety and strictness his Wisdom Parts and Learning rendring the conjecture above the censure of being trifling and contemptible 3. OF the place of his Birth the Sacred story makes no mention The Jewes in their Talmud for doubtless they intend the same Person stile him more than once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of the Town of Sechania though where that was I am not able to conjecture What was his particular way and course of life before his being called to the Discipleship and Apostolate we find no intimations of in the History of the Gospel nor any distinct account concerning him during our Saviour's life After the Resurrection he was honoured with a particular Appearance of our Lord to him which though silently passed over by the Evangelists is recorded by S. Paul next to the manifesting himself to the Five Hundred Brethren at once he was seen of James which is by all understood of our Apostle S. Hierom out of the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarens wherein many passages are set down omitted by the Evangelical Historians gives us a fuller relation of it viz. that S. James had solemnly sworn that from the time that he had drank of the Cup at the Institution of the Supper he would eat Bread no more till he saw the Lord risen from the dead Our Lord therefore being returned from the Grave came and appeared to him commanded Bread to be set before him which he took blessed and brake and gave to S. James saying Eat thy Bread my Brother for the Son of Man is truly risen from among them that sleep After Christ's Ascension though I will not venture to determine the precise time he was chosen Bishop of Jerusalem preferred before all the rest for his near relation unto Christ for this we find to have been the reason why they chose Symeon to be his immediate Successor in that See because he was after him our Lord's next Kinsman A consideration that made Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee though they had been peculiarly honoured by our Saviour not to contend for this high and honourable Place but freely chuse James the Just to be Bishop of it This dignity is by some of the Ancients said to have been conferred on him by Christ himself constituting him Bishop at the time of his appearing to him But it 's safest with others to understand it of its being done by the Apostles or possibly by some particular intimation concerning it which our Lord might leave behind him 4. TO him we find S. Paul making his Address after his Conversion by whom he was honoured with the right hand of fellowship to him Peter sent the news of his miraculous deliverance out of Prison Go shew these things unto James and to the Brethren that is to the whole Church and especially S. James the Bishop and Pastor of it But he was principally active in the Synod at Jerusalem in the great controversie about the Mosaick Rites for the case being opened by Peter and further debated by Paul and Barnabas at last stood up S. James to pass the final and decretory sentence that the Gentile-Converts were not to be troubled with the bondage of the Jewish Yoke only that for a present accommodation some few indifferent Rites should be observed ushering in the expedient with this positive conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thus judge or decide the matter this is my sentence and determination
besides this Simon and his followers made the gate yet wider maintaining an universal licence to sin that men were free to do whatever they had a mind to that to press the observance of good works was a bondage inconsistent with the liberty of the Gospel that so men did but believe in him and his dear Helen they had no reason to regard Law or Prophets but might do what they pleased they should be saved by his grace and not according to good works Irenaeus adds what a man would easily have inferred had he never been told it that they lived in all lust and filthiness as indeed whoever will take the pains to peruse the account that is given of them will find that they wallowed in the most horrible and unheard of bestialities These persons S. Paul does as particularly describe as if he had named them having once and again with tears warned the Philippians of them that they were enemies of the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things And elsewhere to the same effect that they would mark them that caused divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which they had learned and avoid them for they that were such served not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly by good words and fair speeches deceiving the hearts of the simple This I doubt not he had in his eye when he gave those Caveats to the Ephesians that fornication and all uncleanness and inordinate desires should not be once named amongst them as became Saints nor filthiness nor unclean talking being assured by the Christian doctrine that no whoremonger nor unclean person c. could be saved that therefore they should let no man deceive them with vain words these being the very things for which the wrath of God came upon the children of disobedience and accordingly it concerned them not to be partakers with them Plainly intimating that this impure Gnostick-crue whose doctrines and practices he does here no less truly than lively represent had begun by crafty and insinuative arts to screw it self into the Church of Ephesus cheating the people with subtil and flattering insinuations probably perswading them that these things were but indifferent and a part of that Christian liberty wherein the Gospel had instated them By these and such like principles and practices many whereof might be reckoned up they corrupted the Faith of Christians distracted the peace of the Church stained and defiled the honour and purity of the best Religion in the World 4. BUT the greatest and most famous Controversie that of all others in those times exercised the Christian Church was concerning the obligation that Christians were under to observe the Law of Moses as necessary to their Justification and Salvation Which because a matter of so much importance and which takes up so great a part of S. Paul's Epistles and the clearing whereof will reflect a great light upon them we shall consider more at large In order whereunto three things especially are to be enquired after the true 〈◊〉 of the Controversie what the Apostles determined in this matter and what respect the most material passages in S. Paul's Epistles about Justification and Salvation bear to this Controversie First we shall enquire into the true state and nature of the Controversie and for this we are to know that when Christianity was published to the World it mainly prevailed among the Jews they being generally the first Converts to the Faith But having been brought up in a mighty reverence and veneration for the Mosaick Institutions and looking upon that Oeconomy as immediately contrived by God himself delivered by Angels setled by their great Master Moses received with the most solemn and sensible 〈◊〉 of Divine power and majesty ratified by miracles and entertained by all their forefathers as the peculiar prerogative of that Nation for so many Ages and Generations they could not easily be brought off from it or behold the Gospel but with an evil eye as an enemy that came to supplant and undermine this ancient and excellent Institution Nay those of them that were prevailed upon by the convictive power and evidence of the Gospel to embrace the Christian Religion yet could not get over the prejudice of education but must still continue their observance of those legal rites and customs wherein they had been brought up And not content with this they began magisterially to impose them upon others even all the Gentile Converts as that without which they could never be accepted by God in this or rewarded by him in another World This controversie was first started at Antioch a place not more remarkable for its own greatness than the vast numbers of Jews that dwelt there enjoying great immunities granted them by the Kings of Syria For after that Antiochus Epiphanes had destroyed 〈◊〉 and laid waste the Temple the Jews generally flocked hither where they were courteously entertained by his successors the spoils of the Temple restored to them for the enriching and adorning of their Synagogue and they made equally with the Greeks free-men of that City By which means their numbers encreased daily partly by the resort of others from Judaea partly by a numerous conversion of Proselytes whom they gained over to their Religion Accordingly Christianity at its first setting out found a very successful entertainment in this place And hither it was that some of the Jewish Converts being come down from Jerusalem taught the Christians that unless they observed Circumcision and the whole Law of Moses they could not be saved Paul and Barnabas then at Antioch observing the ill influence that this had upon the minds of men disturbing many at present and causing the Apostasie of some afterwards began vigorously to oppose this growing error but not able to conjure down this Spirit that had been raised up they were dispatched by the Church at Antioch to consult the Apostles and Governours at Jerusalem about this matter Whither being come they found the quarrel espoused among others by some Converts of the Sect of the Pharisees of all others the most zealous assertors of the Mosaick rites stifly maintaining that besides the Gospel or the Christian Religion it was necessary for all Converts whether Jews or Gentiles to keep to Circumcision and the Law of Moses So that the state of the controversie between the Orthodox and these JudaiZing Christians was plainly this Whether Circumcision and the observation of the Mosaick Law or only the belief and practice of Christianity be necessary to Salvation The latter part of the question was maintained by the Apostles the former asserted by the Judaizing Zelots making the Law of Moses equally necessary with the Law of Christ and no doubt pretending that whatever these men might preach at Antioch yet the Apostles were of another mind whose sentence and resolution it was therefore thought necessary should be