and inflam'd with a Holy Affection in a lowly Imitation of the Divine Zeal wherewith God performs all his Holy Ordinations Thus as Princes they have power with God because they offer him their Petitions according to his Established Rules of Government and his own Holy Will concerning the things wherein they pray to him Now the understanding these Rules was extraordinary and infallible to the Prophets and Servants of God inspir'd by him but to us in ordinary by the light of the Word of God by the Laws of True and Right Reason in deductions from that word And in which word and the deductions from it if we are not mistaken the Efficacy will be certain because if we ask according to his will we are sure he heareth us and that we have in some true sense the Petitions we ask of him This is so valuable a Rule of prayer that Daniel though so great a Man of Vision yet betook himself to this ordinary means of Instruction in the mind of God Dan. 9. By Books of Holy Records and general Chronology he knew that the time of the Babylonish Captivity was near its Expiration and so set himself to prayer and was crown'd with this wonderful success and acceptance Thus prayers prevail with God and yet without any change in him there being a Configuration or Concurrence of all things according to his own unchangable Will His Counsels of old that are Faithfulness and Truth are remonstrated to him by the humble servent desires of his servants that knew them to be his Counsels and who are ordered by the same counsels to enquire or beseech him by prayer according to them and therefore by his spirit the spirit of prayer He draws the parallel lines to his own Intentions upon their Hearts Desires and Affections I have pursued this the further because it gives a solution to that Doubt how God without any change in himself hears prayers and also assures us this prayer being so remarkable as to be twice us'd in the same words most certainly bears it self upon some certain principle from which we may argue to general practise The principle it rests upon must be this There is an Establish'd order betwixt the wrath and displeasure of God His Fury and Vengeance and the Nations or Families not knowing not calling on his Name and this is known by very light of Nature His Wrath according to unchangable Laws is always prepar'd against those that forsake him and that Duty they owe to him as Nations It had been else a great presumption upon God and Breach of Charity to the Nations so to pray against them which may also give us account of all those Dreadful Imprecations and Curses David and other Prophets and Holy men pour out against their own Enemies and the Enemies of their people They are founded in their being Enemies to God his True Worship Love and Service and as such their Final Destruction was decreed against them by the most Righteous Laws of Divine Government made known unto those Holy men and so they prayed for it as publique persons and not out of private Wrath and Revenge but this by the way I proceed now in the main Argument And this principle I am upon That the Wrath of God is against the Nations that are without National Religion lyes deeper in a First and more Original principle viz. There is an Obligation a great Duty lying upon Nations as Nations to know and worship the True God For else why should God find fault why should he be angry when none had resisted his Will From hence it is That there is a Natural Order established by God between his Love and Favour and a People and their publique True Religion because it is the Observation of a Duty and the Observation of Duty is the fitting us for Blessing and â—avour as the neglect and Transgression of Duty cannot be without wrath and displeasure For thus God hath placed Life and Death one over against another yet so that Life and Blessing are always first even as Duty is always before sin For God never made Death and Destruction even as he never could be the cause of sin but they come in by the Failing of our Duty and so of that Life and Blessedness entail'd on our Duty Yet the Obligation to National True Religion is much more evident from these Holy men praying down Wrath upon them that know not God and that call not on his Name then it could have been from the praying for his Favour to them that did know him and that did call on his Name because his Favour might have been vouchsafed upon Terms much below our substantial and inviolable Duty As many of the Jewish Rites might be Arguments for and Pledges of Gods gracious Regard to the people he had so distinguish'd when the want of those signs would not have argued to the effusion of his Wrath and Vengeance there being no natural or positive Duty lying upon any but the Jews to such observances There may be many Arguments for the Bounty and Favour of God from External Rites appointed by him and observ'd by his people though indeed these all refer to their Essential Duty and argue nothing without it Yet the contrary will not enforce to the opposite Degrees of Wrath and Indignation because they are not observ'd when no substantial Duty is violated Vncircumcision that keeps the Law may have in the main the same security from wrath with Circumcision that keeps the Law also Seeing then there is so great wrath against those that know not God that call not on his Name It assures us the Duty the Obligation and the Reason of it lye deep that the omission is so subjected to the Divine Revenges and it is in this A society without Religion is a High contempt of God a making flesh our arm and departing from the Lord and so from his Favour and Blessing A principality without an Inscription a Dedication to the Glory of God to which all things are to be devoted is like the building a Tower up to Heaven A sin like the sin of Herod when he let that Sacrilegious Applause sink into him and gave not the Glory to God and therefore subjects men to be at any time smitten and blasted by God who has said Those that honour him he will honour but all else shall be lightly esteem'd whether Nation or Person It is not therefore only the Judgment upon the Irreligion of particular persons of particular Families that is here intended though this is included and suppos'd but especially upon the Irreligion of Societies knitting and strengthning themselves without the True God upon Principalities exalting themselves and not by and with the Almighty and Supreme Majesty On the other side if there be a Duty an Obligation of being publiquely Religious there is a Blessing upon it according to that Fundamental Principle He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder
Reason or Doctrine of Religion edifies or emboldens Conscience For although Conscience was made for the Divine Truth and Law of God which is the Truth and not for Scandal it was made so even and true to it that they which love this Law have great peace and nothing can scandalise or offend them that is either seduce or hurt them yet in this very Seat in this very Throne of the Divine Law in this Temple of God in this place of the Holy this Tribunal of the Soul that ought to be the Sanctuary of Truth and Righteousness and as a Tabernacle of Testimony does Scandal exalt it self as if it were from God and from thence it gives its Oracles but Conscience thus debauched and prostituted bears no more proportion to true Conscience than Antichrist does to Christ and is therefore a pseudo-Conscience an Anti-Conscience Conscience falsly so called 7. Scandal always dashes its own Principles of deceived Reason and false Doctrine upon some true and grand Principle of Reason and Doctrine of Religion For though every Truth of God is great yet there are of the first magnitude on account of which oppos'd the Spirit of God brands it Scandal more remarkably and hereupon though the Sin derived from Scandal may in it self seem small yet in regard of some stable Law of Religion made void and thereby Sin introduced it is a very great Sin though in a matter of its own Nature sometimes indifferent Now it cannot be otherwise but Scandal must thus dash upon Truth because as I have said it herein differs from simple Temptation that its rest is upon some false Principle of Reason or Doctrine of Religion it frames mischief by a Law and it must needs be that every false Principle and Doctrine must rush against some true one and though no Truth of God be small or Sin little and Scandal is always proportionable yet the wisdom of Scripture hath appropriated the name of Scandal to the violation of some grand Principle As I shall now in the next place for the further explaining of Scandal observe those Pillars of the Divine Truth and Law against which it throws and bruises the Scandalised Soul as the Sacred Books shall instruct us 1. The Eternal Being and Holy Government of God in the World according to those Righteous Just and Good Laws he hath given and according to which he will Judge and make Retribution to all Men at that great day is the Fountain and most Fundamental Principle of Religion So then whatever upon pretence of Reason and just cause undermines the Faith abates the Aws or dispirits the Obedience agreeable to so supreame a standard of all these is the Original and final Scandal Here all Scandal begins in the decay of the Faith and Fear of God and hither it returns It ends in a further loss of God and this upon offence taken that too much is required without reason This is that Eternal Rock of Truth at which whoever stumbles must needs be hurt wounded and grieved Thus was I grieved in my Heart and pricked in my Reins Psal 73. 21. saith the Psalmist on this very occasion Whoever falls violently against it it breaks him whoever contests to remove it and burdens himself with it it falls upon him and grinds him to Powder And yet against this speculative and practical Atheism hath in all Ages hardened it self and by shews of Reason and high Spirit been heaving and pecking at it and casting Scandals in all Mens way Gods retirement as they fancy it into the thick covering of the Clouds and the pleasure of Jâ—b 21. 14. walking in the Circuit of Heaven and not coming down in visible shapes of Glory and Power have given to ungodly Men the Boldness and a counterfeit of Argument to dispute against his Being and Government I say a counterfeit of Argument for with an Apparition of Reason from hence and an Insolency of Wickedness they Conjure down they Moâ—mo of Religion and the Goblin of Conscience as they esteem them Atheism hath always spoken stout Words against God saying to God Depart from us we desire not the knowledge Mal 3. 13. of thy ways What is the Almighty that we should serve him Or what profit is it if we should pray unto him Job 21. 14. It hath of old lifted up Men against God and stretched out their hand against the Almighty so that they have run upon God even upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler to mischief themselves to the utmost In the very days of Job there was this Counsel of the Job 10. 3. and 21. 16. and 22. 18. wicked as if it was the result of debate and serious consideration in a Senate of Atheists as if they had made the Experiment and found upon proof there was no advantage in serving God and no Man came by the worse in despising him It is not the invention of one Age of this last Age as if it might pride it self in finding it out Scripture hath not thought it against its Interests to record the strength of the Cause as it was managed of old in those Elder days of Job in the last days of the Old Testament in the time of the Prophet Malachi But over-runs it with a Flood of Truth and Eloquence even as God does as he pleases with a Deluge of Wrath. Yet present Impunity and the seeming confusion of Providence in the prosperity of the ungodly and the afflicted State of good Men hath been always a stumbling Block to sudden and short consideration Job significantly calls it Gods shining on the Councel of the Wicked as if it Job 10. 3. gave it a Lustre and Countenance Even good Men till they went into the Sanctuary of God and looked to the end of things have found it a Scandal The Psalmist acknowledges His Feet were almost gone and his Feet well Psal 73. 2. nigh slipped when he saw the Prosperity of the Wicked and Waters of a full Cup of affliction wrung out to the Godly Yet upon full discussion of the case he confesses it his Folly Ver. 22. and Ignorance So Foolish was I and Ignorant I was as a Beast before thee The wise King observed the Hearts of Eccles 8. 11. the Sons of Men fully set them in to do Evil because Sentence on an Evil Work was not speedily Executed God by his Patience sustaining and making wicked Men stand Exod. 9. 16. even when they deny him is the occasion of their more dreadful fall for their Foot will slide in due time to their Eternal Ruine how slack soever God is misdeemed he will be a swift Witness of his own Being and Truth and the Avenger of his own Glory Now so far as any Man hath either in secret Suspicions or in the silent Murmurs of his Soul said There is no God or vanquished the prevailing Awes of God so that Conscience hath been emboldened or edified or so much as silenced or dumb
wholly naked and uncovered of any pretence according to acknowledged Principles of Natural Religion and the Word of God yet they are not without the Shelter of some Scandal and if they are driven out of all else they yet retire under this It is an undesirable state for a free-born Understanding and Will to be under Subjection there is something Tyrannick and Oppressive in it that they may not know and chuse what is best for themselves and so there is a resolvedness in corrupt Nature to do whatever goes out of its own Mouth The Apostle observes The Carnal Mind is Enmity to the Law of God it is not subject to it neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. It is always offended at it it always pretends some Cause against it and if there be no other that it is too Arbitrary A pretence a shew of Reason seems necessary to a Rational Mind and Will that is so made under the power of Truth and Goodness it cannot sin but by being deceived and grasping at some forbidden appearing Good Hence even the Devils think their Case justifies an eternal quarrel against God their Misery is to them a just Cause But the various Degrees Kinds and Shapes of Scandal are so many so confused so perplexing that the very view of it would enforce a thinking Soul to cry out I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord as the Patriarch Jacob in a Prophetick Prospect upon Dan out of whom some have fansied Antichrist should arise describes him as one would describe Scandal and therefore near enough to Antichrist that Man of Scandal and Son of Perdition that yet will be as Dan Judge over the Tribes of Israel Scandal is a Serpent by the Way an Adder in the Path that biteth the Horse heels so that his Rider shall fall backward most mischievous Ruine Considering therefore the Danger the Multitude of Scandals We wait for thy Salvation O Lord. Scandals then in particular Persons and Cases are Infinite but the more general may be reduced In Persons of no sense no true love to Religion 1. To the almost Universal Insolency of Wickedness in Humane Nature bearing away with the force and authority of so bad Example all before it And if defended by Atheistick Boldness wicked men clap their hands among themselves and multiply words against God they go in Company Job 43. 7. one with another and fulfill or justifie and make good the judgment of the Vngodly They drink scorning like Water and add Rebellion to their sin 2. To the Ignorance Sottishness and Unconcernedness in Religion of Vulgar Minds which rests under such Shadows as these God is Merciful and will not Damn his Creatures All have their Faults even the Best the Wisest and the most Religious There is more ado than needs Religion drives Men out of their Wits 3. To a False a Formal Religion Damnable Heresies or a Superstition in place of Religion raging with great shew of Zeal and Devotion against True Religion which while men bloodily pursue they think they do God good service From those that are more serious in the True Religion these Scandals especially arise 1. All Immoralities impure Interest of Ambition Pleasure or Coveteousness are very Offensive and expose Religion both to Strangers and even among themselves it being so very difficult or almost impossible in this Scandalis'd state to sever in our Censures Religion it self from the miscarriages of those that profess it men will know the Religion and not only the men by the Fruits they bring forth though Religion be the first and most severe in condemning what ever is bad and so should be judg'd only by it self 2. The great and many and sharp Differences among those that are the Professors of Religion made most remarkable by the high Feuds and furious Rencounters that give sport to the Enemies of it in traducing it and every way enfeeble it among themselves are great Scandals 3. The strange Antipathy in Religious persons against permitting the due Liberty to Conscience in things indifferent or in all things that are not expresly commanded or forbidden by God that men either upon the known Principles of Natural Religion or their own Principles and acknowledged Consequences from them cannot deny which is many ways destructive of the true power of Religion wherever it takes being the Scandal of acting against Sense or Conscience The Apostle as hath been shewn so remarks upon and is however a great discouragement to the entrances into and loss of Reputation to the profession of it by the Clashes between those that cannot comply because they Doubt and those that either will not believe them when they say they Doubt or think them not able to understand whether they doubt or not or would drive them against the express Rule of the Apostle though it be allowed they do doubt Thus I have described Scandal in which the whole unconverted Nature of man is Seated though some are deeper than others in it The very best men are under the Remains of it and are never perfect from it till in the state of Just Spirits made perfect where Scandal cannot enter In Hell it remains for ever even under the Convictions of Everlasting punishment There is an Eternal Dislike and Discontent at a Reply against God and his Government as not worthy of love and submissive Reverence but to be rebelled against in the very midst of those Convictions Could there be that humble deference so due to God it would be Repentance and Recovery to Heaven And now the misery of Scandal runs along with it All Disobedience to the Divine Commands which are Eternal Life is Scandal in the Deception first and after falls down into the miserable state in which it always remains but never ends expressed by the Worm that never dies the Fire never quenched the weeping wailing and gnashing of Teeth for ever Every one that maketh and he that receiveth the lye of Scandal are cast into the Lake that burneth with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death but he that maketh that â—ye sinks deepest for though they are so miserable so great a Woe is to them that receive it yet still Woe in an Eminency to him by whom Scandal cometh hath been pronounced by the Lord and cannot be reversed And now I am more immediately and nearly to fall upon what concerns us in a way of Practice from the consideration of Scandal 1. Let us seriously apprehend the great Folly of taking hold of Scandal and making advantage of it against any of the Rules and Laws of Religion It is no other than sucking in a Common Infection or Contagion because it is common or taking into our selves a Reason or a pretence of Reason to be Eternally undone and miserable because the most are so The Scandalising and the Scandalised World perish together they that bring the Pestilentitial Contagion that runs deep in their own Veins and they that draw it in to themselves from
fanciful Distinction of themselves under Christ as an ordinary Chief of a Party and not as the Divine Head of the whole Body in the Catholick Truth Even as he erred that vulgarly called Christ Good not knowing him to be God the Supremely Solely Good Quest Are they all true Converts that are of the Church Answ All that are indeed the Church are so but all that may appertain to the Church are not so as all that were of Israel were not Israel There is a visible Profession that is too often not sincere yet this makes Men Of or belonging to the Church but not truly The Church Many are so called that are not chosen But all that are truly The Church are also truly called and truly Converts not only outwardly and visibly the Church but inwardly and invisibly so too whose praise is not of Men but of God In the mean time they that are onely of the Visible Church have the Means of Grace and are not thrown out of that Register of God's People till the Final Judgment cuts them off A very great Benefit in it self Quest Is not the Church then so Catholick or General as the Profession of the True Religion is Answ The Catholickness of the Church as hath been often inculcated is its Union to God and Christ and that in sincerity As to the general Profession though the number of it be as the Sand of the Sea a Remnant only shall be saved For God will finish the Account and cut it short in Righteousness for a short work will the Lord make in the Visible Church There shall be an often eating or brousing it off a retrenching of it again and again it shall cast the Leaves of its meer Professors as the Teyle-tree or Oak when yet their Substance is in them the Holy Seed are the Substance of it Isa 6. ult not losing them it loses nothing Quest In what sense is it then said The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Answ It is undoubted none can fail while they are the Church while united to Truth to the God of Truth to Christ the Way the Truth and the Life It is also certain from this high Declaration there always shall be a Church in the World so united Hades or Mortality shall not prevail over it and how much farther it assures the Perseverance of those that are once truly the Church I leave the thing it self to speak It is said They that overcome ar Pillars that never go out of it and They that go out of it were not of it for if they had been indeed of it they would no doubt have continued with it And how the Church it self shall always continue if any True Member of it may perish is not easie to conceive Quest How is the Church ordained by God to actuate Scripture as it is the Record of Catholick Religion Answ The Apostle in his Noble Description of the Church hath laid the Foundations of our Instruction herein in those three Honourable Titles he hath given it 1. That it is the House of the Living God 2. That it is the Pillar of Truth 3. That it is the Ground of Truth Quest Before the Explanation of each of these Titles in the first place I desire it may be determined whether these things are spoken of the Catholick or of a Particular Church the Particular Church of Ephesus Answ Although I have already affirmed That the Catholick Church differs from a Particular True Church only in the Compass and Comprehensiveness of it yet I very willingly represent it over again in this Instance These things are truly applied to the Catholick Church to the Particular Church of Ephesus to every Particular Church nay it reaches down to every single living Member of the Church so far that God makes his abode with him dwells in him he is a Pillar in the House of God the Truth rests and dwells in him and shall be with him for ever so that he is a Ground of Truth and hath more of the Church in him than greater seeming Portions of it that erre from the Truth Quest If you please now to proceed in the Explanation of these Titles and first What is the Importance of the Churches being the House of God for the actuating the Scripture Answ God the most High Possessour and Owner of Heaven and Earth places his Court Family and particular Residence where he pleases and he hath chosen the Church to be this to him This is my Rest here will I dwell for ever for I have desired it Heaven is my Throne Earth is my Footstool where is the House you will build me To this Man will I look that trembles at my Word And where God dwells there he manifests himself As a Master of a Family makes known in his House and Family his Nature Will Laws and Government so God does in his Church In Judah is God known his Name is great in Israel In his Church he shews the Light of his Countenance expects and rewards Services as a Great Master and makes known his Dislikes and Displeasure This is brought to pass in the Church by those many Ways that God hath of bringing his Word to any Places or Persons giving it Reception among them and then stirring up his Children and Servants to hear his Voice to search his Mind and Will and to understand it so that it is as a Voice continually behind them In his Temple therefore in his House every one must needs speak of his Glory His Word cannot lie still for all are concerned to meditate ponder inquire and discourse of it and are by Supreme Management excited so to do and so much as this Exercise in his Word is by any means depressed so far God is withdrawn and the Excellency of the Church-state lost Now of the Church being the House of God there was this great Type God dwelt in the Temple at Jerusalem as in a Palace there was such a Diet of Shew-bread changed every day of Sacrifices of all sorts such Perfumes of Incense and Odours such Officers and Servants attending continually such Resorts of the whole Body of the People to the Court of this Great King and Princely Housholder Together with this State runs along in a mighty Stream Gods shewing his Word to Jacob his Statutes and Judgments to Israel In the New Testament the Pomp and Ceremonial Part is wholly transferred into Spirituality but Spirituality is not lower but higher in the Substance of all that could be figured by these things and the substantial part of that State the Communication of the Word of God is much exalted in the true Christian Church that the Light of One Day is now as much as the Light of Seven was before Thus the Church as the Family of God cannot but actuate his Word Quest What is the meaning of the Church being the Pillar of Truth Does the Church support Truth Answ Not so for it self is built upon the
God Answ I aknowledge the Resolution of this Doubt contains many difficulties in it and cannot be given at once but I shall endeavour so to lead your Questions by every Degree of Answer as may direct into the best method for your satisfaction Quest What I pray you is the first step necessary to be taken in order to the Resolving this Doubt Answ To settle a True Understanding how the Magistrates Power and Authority in Religion made entrance into the World Quest I very much desire to know that and believe it to be of very great Influence into all things that concern the unfolding this Question Answ This then I take to be the best Account of it After the apparent Degeneracy of Humane Nature so that the Laws written in Mens Hearts were evidently defaced and blotted by contrary Practices there was a necessity of forming the great Notions of Natural Religion Godliness Righteousness and Soberness into Laws that Men might be thereby preserved from highest Irregularities and excess under the pretence of being at Liberty or every Man being a Lawgiver to himself Quest I desire you further to Explain how this brought in Magistracy Answ That such Laws might be made and Executed there must be some supreme Legislative and Executive Power in every Community whether placed in one or more whether by the Title of Paternity or Primogeniture whether Hereditary and Successive or Elective whether by Agreement and Covenant primarily or by Submission and Pacts after Conquest These things aâ—e variously ordered by God in his Paramount but secret Government of the World But the Laws of Godliness Righteousness and Soberness are so necessary and Men know them to be so necessary that they cannot be without them nor without some Supreme Legislation and Execution of Laws formed according to them They that are above see a necessity of Governing by them they that are below see a ncecessity of being Governed by the same and therefore submit by Common Consent to some supreme Authority and Subordinate Magistrates under the Supreme to that end Mankind is touch'd by this Impression from God and all that are not are branded as Sons of Belial Quest But how are Princes and Magistrates secured in the Exercise of their Power against those that would not be Subject Answ Besides the Laws of God written in the Heart and promulg'd in the World besides the secret Touches and Motions of Providence and Interlinkings of Common Interest with the Rights of Soveraignty Princes and Soveraign Rulers are both by the Will of God and the Common Consent of Mankind surrounded with Grandeuâ— of Highest Estate that they may draw Subjects into their Service and Dependence upon them by the greatness of their Rewards being both the Fountain of Honour and of Splendor of Condition But especially they are Arm'd with the Power of the Sword intrusted with them by God that by the awe of their Wrath and Vengeance they may bring People into Subjection and a Readiness to Obey Thus they appear as Gods in the World as Living Images of the most High in their Vicegerency according to what is said to them by Inspired Wisdom I have said ye are Gods and Sons of the Most High Quest But why hath it not pleased God to appear himself in this Authority and Power Visibly and Immediately which would cut off all Dispute as to Supreme Right and Male-Administration which do now often disturb the Peace of Government and the People under it or at least why hath he not given Angels a Superiority and Visible Presidency over Kingdoms as that which would much more awe and Compose the World Answ The Wisdom of God hath in all things appeared in attempering things one to another with greatest Equality So he hath thought fit in infinite Wisdom to Govern Men by Men. He hath Committed all Judgment to Christ because he is the Son of Man he will Judge the World at last by that Man whom he hath appointed Christ Jesus Thus he Governs Men all along by the Men of his Right-Hand as Images of himself but more immediately of Christ the Great Son of Man thus in his Word he speaks to Men by Men like themselves And as to the Conceit of Mankind Submitting with greater awe to a Government from Heaven it is but like that of having one from the Dead to speak to them when they have Moses and the Prophets by which if they are not persuaded neither would they be persuaded though one should rise from the Dead nor would they be Governed by one from Heaven that are not Governed by that Humane Majesty and Soveraignty Created by God on purpose for them as is most Evident in those many Rebellions of the People of Israel under so evident a Theocrasie or so immediate a Government of God Quest Is the Power of Magistrates only in those clear and undoubted poiâ—ts of Godliness Righteousness and Soberness Answ Because under the two latter of these there is a vast Compass of the Interests of the Peace and Weal and Honour of Nations in all Traffique and Commerce in provision for safety and security and adjusting of Laws to all these ends there must be a vast Compass also of Power in these extending to all Indifferent things Indifferent till they come to be determined by Princes and Powers but then by the Ordinance of God to be observed according to those Laws determining them this way or that way Quest But I desire you to give yet a closer and stricter Account of the Power of Soveraigns in Religion or Godliness being the main point of of the present Enquiry Answ That I may answer your desire I must consider Religion as it is Natural Religion written in the Hearts of Men as it is Revealed Religion published by extraordinary Ministers and Consign'd to after Ages by inspired Writing or Scripture and lastly as Religion is so or so Circumstantiated and Modelled in the External Administration of it Now by Natural Religion as distinguish'd from Revealed Religion I do plainly intend that Religion whether it be drawn out by the meer force of Natural Conscience without any plain or known Assistances of Revealed Truth or whether it was not known to be Natural Religion till being Revealed Natural Conscience acknowledges it and must needs Confess it to be True Natural Religion or that the wisest and soberest part of Mankind confesses it to be so or whether it be what Natural Religion teaches upon the supposition of Revealed Religion acknowledged and confessed to be from God for then Natural Religion confesses and urges that all Revelations from God that evidence themselves to any Mans mind to be from God should be received with Reverence and submitted to with Obedience In all these cases of Natural Religion I boldly and positively assert the Soveraign Power hath a Right given it by God to Make and Execute Laws according to the Obligations of Natural Religion even as in all Cases of Righteousness and Soberness or Common
King of Kings and Lord of Lords and yet there extraordinary â—inisters in all things wherein they were not Commanded by God preserv'd the Just Rights of Soveraignty Thus the Word of God ought by ordinary Ministers to be faithfully declared by those who are called to do it and if it be so declared it hath and ought to have a Soveraignty above all Earthly Soveraignty both with Princes and Subjects and yet the Publishers of it and they to whom it is Published stand in their Just Distances and in all things pay the Homage due to Soveraignty by Obedience Active wherein they are not Countermanded by God or by Submission to penal Laws and Decrees made against them by the Supream Legislative Power of a Nation wherein they cannot Obey God and the Powers at once because so is the Will of God that they should by suffering for well doing put to silence the Cavils of the Ignorant or Malicious Quest But ought we not to expect that Princes should be the Supream Interpreters of the Mind and Will of God that so their Command and Superiority might be more absolute and because that Government that does not determine the Religion of the Subject cannot have so free a display of it self nor rest so secure as is necessary to Government Answ While the Holy Patriarchs Ruled who by the Laws of Nature more unsullyed so near the Creation by purer Tradition by Divine Revelation vouchsafed to them as occasion required preserv'd Religion Undefiled Supream Authority and Instruction in True Religion Resided in the same Persons yet even then their Authority in Religion was from the Evidences of Divine Truth even as afterwards in Moses Samuel David and Solomon who were both Supream Princes and immediately Commissioned by God as Prophets for wherever Men are Deputed by God either as ordinary or extraordinary Ministers of his Truth the Authority is not in Man but in the Word of God evidencing it self to be the Word of God When therefore the Patriarchal both Power and Holiness expired and the Revolt of Princes and People from True Religion grew greater God begun to Instruct his Church by Messengers sent on purpose and Separated betwixt Princes and Prophets Yea even in the time of so Sacred a Priesthood Established by God himself among the Jews he taught his Church very often by Prophets of an extraordinary and immediate Character And lastly by the Apostles Founded the Christian Church without any Consultation with or Concurrence of the Powers at that time in the World and yet those Apostles taught all Subjection to those very Powers until the whole was settled in the Canon of Scripture Consent with which is now the only Credential of a Teacher appointed by God however he be Ordinated by Men. Quest What is to be Inferred from hence Answ Especially that the Truth of Religion is so independent upon all Humane Soveraignty that it is to be accepted only upon Tryal by its own Evidences and not by those of Humane Authority This Treasure is therefore for the most part entrusted to Earthen Vessels not only to Men but to the Men of unguarded condition that the Excellency of the Power and Evidence of Divine Truth may be more apparently as it always is in it self of God and not of Man Quest What other reason may there be of Separating the Administration of Divine Truth from that of Princely Government Answ â—ecause each Administration requires the whole Attendance of those ingag'd in either except they are at least immediately inspired It is said of the Magistrate he is the Minister of God attending continually on this very Thing To the Elders of the Church â—t is said take heed to the Ministry thou hast received of the Lord that thou fulfil it Give attendance to Reading to Exhortation to Doctrine give thy self wholly to them make full proof of thy Ministry Be Instant Preach the Word in Season out of Season or without Season Publickly and from House to House Quest I desire you now to apply your Discourse to the Administration of Soveraign Powers in modelling and Circumstantiating Indifferent things in Religion what their Power given them by God therein is Answ That I may give you an answer in that I must observe our Saviours Distinction of the Things that are Gods and the things that are Caesars and his charge that the things that are Gods be rendred to him and the things that are Caesars be rendred to Caesar Now none of the things that are Caesars are his first but they are first Gods and given to Caesar by God God then hath intrusted Caesar with the rendring the things that are Gods to God that is to take care that the Obedience due to God according to Godliness Righteousness and Soâ—erness may by the making of Good Laws and by the Vigorous Execution of them be given to God and also that the good intended to whole Humane Nature may be preserv'd to it as a Service of great Acceptance with God for every Governour is the Minister of God for Good to every Man he is the Minister of God for Publick good But in the mean time all these Supream Notions are so Gods that they must not be changed by Magistrates or their Laws but must be rendered intirely to him as he gave them in the Glory of them not Adulterated or Imbas'd And especially in all things that concern God himself more immediately as in the Purity Spirituality of his Nature the Divineness of his Truth and Word the Service and Ordinances of his Worship and whatever he hath herein reserved to himself all these are so his that no Caesar hath any Power in or over them to add or diminish or make the least alteration So that though they may have great Power in many things relating to Religion to the Accommodation of the most External Exercise of it to Government and the Peace of Nations yet as to the very Religious Actions themselves and the Management of them they must be close confin'd to Gods Manifestation of himself how he will be Worshipped and to those things that are absolutely necessary to Moddel and decently to Circumstantiate that Worship and so it is to be rendred to God perfectly according to his own Pattern and the Magistrates Care is that it be so rendred if in things evident to Natures Light the Magistrates Laws have place if only to be known by Revelation the Magistrates Power cannot rise above the means appointed by God that is Instruction producing Faith and Obedience and not Compulsory Laws seeing Natural Reason may be Oblig'd but Faith is the Gift of God Now these things God hath by the Prerogative of his Divine Power reserv'd to himself and they are to be rendred to God distinct from the things of Caesar that is from all Civil things given by God to Coesar and so to be rendred to Caesar Yea even distinct from the Appendant Laws for the securing Justice and Soberness which though they are Gods yet
harmless in comparison but the abomination of idolatry and superstition most loathsome to that infinitely pure and spiritual Nature I come in the next place to consider how far time place distinction of persons in religious worship are within the cognisance of the law and light of Nature For I omit out of choice any discourse of sacrifices which some have contended came in by natural instinct as too copious for the present intendment concluding they were ordained by God chiefly to typifie the true ever breathing sacrifice of Christ which service having performed they expired in it not only repealed by the Evangelick Law but no doubt through the superintendency of Providence grown into disuse throughout the world which together with those strong solid Reasons against their valuableness in themselves given by God Psal 50. 9 10 11 12. Mic. 6. 6 7 8 9. Heb. 9. 10 c. sufficiently argue they were not of natural notion nor of the everlasting Righteousness of that Law Let us therefore waving them go on to debate the dictates of Primitive rules concerning time and I find but two things I can suppose injunctions of so ancient a date pertaining to it 1. That the time be sufficient capacious enough for the receipt of Religious duty and action sufficient for the making ample inquiries and searches into Divine things for the souls commoration and rest upon them for the discharge of Religious business and duty and so suitable and agreeable to the testification of our honour to the supreme Majesty by offering such a proportion of our time together such frequency of returns with the favour of season and redeeming season when it seems to fly from us that in all we may have a liberal space for so grand a business in our more stated and occasional performances 2. That in what concerns publick worship the time be commensurate as in the former particular to all the ends and purposes of publick worship the occasions and advantages of it and particularly that it be known agreed and indicted for that service But for the seventh part of time though undoubtedly pitcht upon with infinite wisdom justice and â—quity in the fourth command respecting Divine honour and business on one side and humane occasion and diversion on the other yet it must certainly be said the original â—allowedness of it is founded in Divine command and must bâ— conveyed by undoubted tradition of that command having no more natural in it than the general compromise of the world in the distribution of Time into Sevens or weeks seldomer than which no reasonable sense of Religion could allow for the recurrency of solemn publick worship mix'd with continued private devotions as in extraordinary to every days service Else I cannot perceive it could be defin'd by the laws of natural understanding For place these two things are also necessary 1. That places be as agreeable as may be to the end secret and retired places for retired and secret worship places of domestick coveniency for Families and publick known and agreed for publick worship 2. That places for Divine Worship have the decency gravity and solemnity that is suitable to such a degree and quality of business as is there to be negotiated not as any part of Divine Worship or so much as having any influential conduciveness upon the mind in such action but solely as the result of humane prudence adjusting every thing to its proper use and service and with the decorum most natural to it For time and place having no influence upon Religious actions more than upon all common humane actions by any peculiar vertue of their own they cannot without a peculiar Sanctification from God with which he by his revealed will acquaints those upon whom he is pleased to enjoin the observation rise any higher than themselves Nor can humane appointment extend them beyond expediency and decency the ordinary rules by which all things civil and humane are squar'd Devotion can mount nothing higher than its own true elevation as to the nature of the thing Devotion I say and zeal ascend up to God yet they leave the things they use behind to rest in their own station It being a Divine power that makes any thing Divine or Sacred or efficacious to any such productions Without this every thing rests upon its own basis of natural aptitude observed and imployed by reason to those ends and purposes whereunto that aptitude serves Time and place rated beyond themselves become injurious to religious services receiving more of the minds attendance and respect than is due to them which being wholly oblig'd to a total sole and single determination upon the Divine Majesty it self must not look off from it but under the peril of moving that jealousie God expresses in the Scriptures and if not thus yet they beget in men injurious thoughts of God as if he dwelt in Temples made with hands and the presence of the Lord of Heaven and Earth confin'd there whereas except by his own choice upon certain reasons as among the Jews all places are alike and He equally accepts those that worship him in spirit and truth He that inhabits Ubiquity is no more offended Joh. 4. 21 23 24. or disdains mean and unadorn'd places for his service than stately Structures To misdeem so of God hath a degree of that folly that would restrain his Omnipresence lest it should be defil'd with the sordidness of some receptions nauseous to us not knowing that Infinite Spirit feels not the passions of body our Saviour made use of any place for Heavenly Discourses and Prayers to observe days or times carries a suspition that he who inhabits eternity and is Lord of time is not all times the same and therefore the Heathen that had corrupted natural Religion watcht for some days as more lucky and avoided others as unluckly in their attendances on their mock-deities Yet doth God allow to men the wise and prudent choice of their own conveniences in his worship both for time or place not presuming to sanctifie any thing to him that he hath not first sanctified to himself for who knows how to chuse for him or who is able to give to him first This must needs be the determination of natural reason if it use its own light and discharge its own trust Having spoken thus briefly of time and place I come to the third thing Distinction or separation of persons for Divine offices how far it is directed by natural Religion under these three Heads 1. In the first Ages of the world Patriarchal Eldership nearness to the Creation and continual acquaintance with the History of Gods Treaties and dealings with men together with the Power Gravity Authority resident in it carried the most fit administration of Divine Things along with it so that the Pontifical Prophetick and Royal Authority accumulated upon them this seems unquestionable in Reason Scripture History and universal tradition 2. After the multiplication of Families into Nations and
be recommended by it in what it reveals beyond it 1. The first thing I shall insist upon is this That even as Natural Religion conduces very much to the worlds Peace that it is Natural Substantial and not Ceremonial so doth it also recommend Christian Religion that it is so far from consisting in Ceremony that it hath no more in number than there were found in innocency There was the tree of the knowledg of good and evil the not eating of which was a symbol of universal obedience There was the tree of Life a Sacrament sealing the Reward of obedience Gen 2. 9. There was the seventh day Sabbath a day of solemn converse with God and meditation of his Works founded upon his rest from Creation and a pledg of everlasting Rest with God Gen. 2. 2 3. In Christianity there is Baptism the seal of the Covenant of Grace entred into on Gods part and ours The Sacrament of the Lords Supper the seal of the full Communication of all the blessings of the Covenant The Christian Sabbath a day dedicated to the service and enjoyment of the Creator-Redeemer giving natural Rest to bodies Religious Festivals to souls in holy imployment and action grounded on his Resurrection and sitting down on the right hand of the Majesty on high called by express title the Lords Day as the Eucharist the Lords Supper and a pawn of the Eternal Sabbatism with our Lord in Glory Now these are so few so easie so familiar so near natural so intelligible that it is plain the Institutor and Founder of them had no pleasure in Ceremonies or that his servants should waste their time or spirits in observing them or imploy their understandings in finding out a Rationale for them although in condescension to men sojourning in flesh and blood he gave such Symbols of his Grace and Presence And so in the fewness the easiness the intelligibleness there is a testimony to them from Natural Religion which else is unconcerned in all the Religious Rites and Ceremonies that are in the world and leaves them to be judged by that proof they can make of themselves either as enjoyned by God or as the results of humane Prudence or National Decency Further it can give no account of them for Natural and Ceremonial Substantial and Ceremonial are opposed one to another This then is the Glory of Natural and Christian Religion which indeed are not two but one that they have least of shade The darker any Religion is the more are the Ceremonies like the shadows of the evening stretched out the clearer the Religion the nearer the perfection of Heaven where there is no shadow at all the less are the Ceremonies like the shades of a high noon in the Summer solstice The depraved heart of man is so easily bewitch'd with Forms and Fopperies calling them significant Ceremonies like saying to the dumb stone awake arise and teach or to their staff declare to us that it is by no means to be trusted lest seeking Hab. 2. 19. Hosea 4. 12. a shady devotion of Ceremonies under the disguise of a solemn one as the Pagans chose Woods and Groves for their sacred performances it lose it self in the thicket not knowing where it is and in the end the true Religion also I cannot see what Religion or Devotion except that which ignorance is the mother of and which cannot be good no more than the heart that uses it can suffer by being easie of access familiar unencumbred the most plain free intelligible institution of the Lords Supper was at length corrupted into the idolatrous Mass by being made horrid as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religion by being solid and substantial is best secur'd from the stroak of the Atheist who accuses it of trick and design for when there are found Ceremonial covers like pious frauds over it and they easily yield to Attack as of no value the Atheist presently challenges all the rest by proportion and renders it suspicious It is best secur'd against the schismatick and unquiet spirit that is truly so for he hath something in unnecessary Ceremony to fasten on and move trouble by It is kindest to the more modest scrupulous person who is upon great Reasons afraid of humane additions to divine worship Ceremony can add nothing to the truly wise and generously Religious person who loves Religion for it self and needs not the childish and Phantastick Gaudery or Gayety of Ceremonies to inamor him of Religion he loves it for its true worth for its native Beauty and substantial excellency It is therefore only fitted to the Hypochondriack Devotionist who loves Religion in such a kind of set solemn dress or to the empty Formalist that must have it so adorned or recommended or to vulgar unlearned and irrational minds who must be catch'd with shows and pompous appearances and kept in amuse that they may be somewhat intent in Religious excercise but with this disadvantage that they seldom pierce further than this surface or take notice of the Religion it self and when at any time these things happen to be exposed they become the scorn and hate of such persons so that they deal rudely with them But now substantial massive Religion yields not to such sort of Attacks but like Rock resists supported with its own substance born upon its own truth And therefore were it not for the excellency of Christian Religion of Divine Revelation in the Scriptures I should rather choose as he said to have my soul among the Wise Rationally Religious Philosophers if such can be found then with any Religion that this day appears in the world not excepting the Romish that hath deturpated and dishonoured the only excellent Religion and as it is Romish is the worse because it is Christian Next to those ponderous self-great and infinitely Rational principles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I should choose to rest only in the undoubted principles and maxims of Natural Religion so excellent that Christianity hath not lost one of them but so gathered up the Fragments that no one thing could be lost as I have already said Besides this Natural this Christian Religion I know nothing but all subjection to principalities and powers according to the Laws of Nations in civil things the gravity and decency of Religious actions according to all Laws of humane Prudence and the custom of Countries If any one should object to the advantage of Ceremonies the state of Religion among the Jews involved and wrapped up in so much Ceremonie It may be answered to him 1. There was so great and presential an evidence of Divine Authority concerning them among the Jews who were only bound to them under that immediate Theocraty exercised over them that as it was absolutely necessary so it was sufficient to bear them up God as the Author continually and frequently appeared to give value to them by his own particular command He was able to bless and impower the meanest Rite to
long mistaken I perceive that God is no respecter of persons but Acts 10. 34. in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness the two Comprehensive parts of this Religion is accepted of him Why then should mankind imbrue their hands and that upon the Account of Religion in the blood of those that are of the same Religion they themselves are or ought to be and hold to contradiction to it What excellent persons were Job his three Friends and Elihu though out of the Family of Abraham I mean out of that part of it where God had more eminently fix'd his Church and out of that line wherein all the Families of the Earth were to be blessed How excellent the Books of their Religion and Ratiocinations upon it though the Friends were mistaken in urging too far as if present Afflictions were a detection from Heaven of Insincerity and applying it to Job That most desirable Book of Holy Scripture was undoubtedly by the special Wisdom of God prepared as a Treatise of Natural Theology rais'd to its own height through the Assistances and Inspirations of the Holy Spirit and wherein most probably the sense of all the Pious Patriarchs kept fresh and pure from Corruption was maintain'd and improv'd upon the proper Reasons of Natural Religion for we meet with no intermixture of positive Precepts or Rites except the Historical Relation of Sacrifices in the beginning and end of the Book An Institution of God by which men were taught in the beginning of the World as soon as sin had entred it to look for Atonement witâ— God through that great Sacrifice of Christ to be offer'd in the end of the world to whom it is most probable Job makes somâ— very significant References though according to the Covertness of so great a mystery at that time But what point of Natural Religion even sense of Natural Corruption and the â—vil of sin of Faith in Divine Mercy and Repentance of Godliness Righteousness Soberness Fidelity Chastity Tempâ—rance Charity and Mercy to the poor is left untouched What point relating to the Worship of God against Atheism Idolatry an Iniquity own'd to deserve punishment from a Judg is not hâ—re stated Job 31. 28. Prayers Praises Holy Meditations Discourses and Attendances on the Word of God for the knowledg of his ways have here their frequent mentions What severe Reproofs Censures and Condemnations of all wickedness do we meet with And which is most remarkable through the whole All is Substantial nothing Ceremonial How lovely is such a Religion Our Saviour observing but some of the lines of it in the young man in the Gospel it is said He look'd upon him and lov'd him Mat. 10. 21. And the Scribe that had so much of the notion of it he commended as not far from the Kingdom of Heaven viz. from True Christianity here and Eternal Salvation hereafter In this Book of Job we have also the true natural way of propagating Religion and reconciling differences in it viz. by Discourse and Argument only heinous offences and plain violations of Duty in Natural Religion are cited to the Magistrates Tribunal I have insisted so long upon this because we have not such another Hypothesis in Scripture such a Body of Natural Religion such a form of sound words concerning it given out by such Masters of Assembly and yet not of that we may call the visible Church at that time else indeed the whole Scripture is full of Natural Religion from one end of it to the other and that which is least in the Kingdom of Christ concerning it is greater than all besides But no doubt there might be many others at that time and all along who were not of the Jewish Proselytism and yet great Instances of this same Natural Piety For if Elijah 1 King 19. 18. who had a less compass to observe in and more probable opportunities of Inquiry and even Inspection yet was ignorant of seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed their knees to Baal but thought himself left alone how much more may lye hid from our almost suspition True worshippers of God according to Natural Religion all along elder times inspired and conducted to it by Divine Illumination Nay who dares be so bold to define there are no such now For though it is most true There is no other name under the whole Heaven given to men whereby they can be saved but Acts 4. 12. the name of Christ yet we are not sure that Name must be expresly known but that the God of pardoning-mercies giving and accepting repentance unto life may by Divine Equity and Favour be interpreted God in Christ in the behalf of men so addressing God as he is truly so in himself Yet ah lass we cannot stretch our charitable hopes so as to think this the case of the generality of the Nations that know not Christ who lye in the valley of the shadow of death not only as ignorant of Christ but as without God the true God in the world Horrible Corrupters of what they naturally know that is of Natural Religion But as there were many Lepers and Widows in the days of those two Prophets Luk. 4. 25. but to one of each were they sent so we may hope there are some Instances of this Divine Bounty and Grace if we can hope so but of few but these secret things belong to the Lord our God and it 's safest not to presume too far on either Deut. 29. 29. side yet by the same Charity we allow Papists that the prevalency of truly Christian principles may Antidote the poyson of Popery so the pregnancy of some natural principles rise up above all the refuse in such Souls but oh Lord thou only knowest Yet some things I dare be bold to affirm 1. That if any man live uprightly as Job according to the Laws of Natural Religion at its full extent and hath the knowledg of Christ offer'd him he will receive it upon the advantageous Recommendations of it in Gods own time and way 2. That if any man so obeys the Precepts of Natural Religion and hath not the Revelation of Christ the want of that Revelation shall not be charged upon him so much as in the consequences of it 3. That whoever understands Natural Religion must needs understand that sin is in the world that man is born like the wild Asses Colt and drinks iniquity like water and Job 〈◊〉 16. 13 14. yet that God is patient speaks once and twice in order to mens Conversion and Repentance That therefore there is place for it in pardoning-mercy of which in God even Humane Nature it self hath a sense Natural Religion cannot be ignorant of this for without it all service of God or Application to him would be in vain and but like the service of Devils Yet I cannot but here take notice There is not such a learned World in Morals as was heretofore among the Graecians
right of Earthly Powers Not the retrenching any of the Freedoms of Natural Religion not the imposing any thing besides and beyond it by power or penalties not the forbidding of Reformation of any corruptions invading it not the embargoing any Revelation from Heaven consisting with or perfecting Natural Religion as all truly such do only the power of requiring all to live in obedience to the punishment of those that disobey Natural Laws But it may be further said God intended Christianity should be brought in not by might not by power but by tâ—e Spirit of the Lord. That Believers in it should seal it not with Pleasures Honours and outward Advantages accruing to them by it but with their blood and sufferings This is also most true it appears God did so intend But still if Magistrates were intrusted by God with making Religion Legal or not Legal by their seal it is plain that Divine Ordination of Magistracy was dishonour'd and debas'd by him that appointed it in that it was not at all taken notice of in so great an affair of the Divine Kingdom And so far as they could judg who did not believe there was a real injury done to Powers and the sufferings of Christians were on that account just For who could know that for so long a time God had suspended that supposed Ordination of his viz. That no Religion should be brought into any State or Kingdom that had not first the favour and license of the Laws and Magistrates of that State and Kingdom But now suppose it is a stated Rule that beyond Natural Religion the Magistrates Power extends not but that being secur'd there is a freedom to Subjects of taking care of their Souls and wherein they have to do with God as of their bodies lives or estates in private concerns or as a Philosopher hath of chusing what he thinks the best system and from the best Authors and that men may freely reason herein still within the confinement of Natural Religion Reverâ—nce of God and all just deferences to men and then Christian Religion had a Legal entrance offering no disregard to Magistracy but taking natural freedom to offer it self wherein its way being so prepar'd it then opens it self with all that Divine Power and Authority that cannot be refus'd but under the great peril of Eternal damnation Thus proportionably the case is the same concerning the Reformation of Christianity from Popery We then that are Christians and Protestant Christians have great reason to keep that door of the just and lawful propagation of Religion not contrariant to Natural Religion as open as we can and to grant a quiet comprehensive of all offers that can be made keeping within Rules of Natural Religion Reason and Prudence it seeming less hazard to admit those inconveniences attendant upon this liberty that through humane corruption run round with every thing than those greater mischiefs of having Christian or Protestant Religion violently kept out Thus I have endeavour'd to clear that there are obligations lying upon men precedent to any right of Humane Authority viz. of duty to God in obeying God rather than men of the Profession Confession and publication of true Religion however men forbid or scorn it of rational communication of truth as the Apostles said We Act. 4. 12. cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard of charity to mens souls in not concealing the tydings of Salvation the Righteousness and Truth of God For certainly David expresses himself according to the Laws of Natural Religion when he says I have preached righteousness in the great congregation I have not refrained my lips Oh Lord thou Psal 40. 9 10 knowest I have not hid thy righteousness in my heart I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation And Moses when he says Give ear Oh ye Heavens and Deut. 32. 1 2 3 I will speak and hear Oh earth the words of my mouth my doctrine shall drop as the rain my speech shall distill as the dew because I will publish the name of the Lord Ascribe ye greatness to our God Yet from hence I do not suppose any man bound to go and preach to the Great Turk either the Laws of Natural Religion against any of the iniquities of that tyranny or follies of that superstition or the just and holy Laws and Truths of Christianity instead of his worse than Aâ—ile Alcoran Every man is to measure his commission and the enablements he hath receiv'd from God for his work and not to venture upon things beyond his line For even the Apostles knew their measures the measure of the rule distributed them by God a measure reaching so far beyond which they did not stretch themselves in that famous place 2 Cor. 10. 13. Every man may compute the probable account his service will turn to in the Glory of God and the Salvation of mens souls Christ teaches him to forbear when it is certain before hand His pearls will be trodden under foot and himself Mat. 7. 6. rent And so I have finished what I think necessary to be spoken upon this Third Argument and pass on to the fourth Argum. 4. Natural Religion may well be the Cement of Vniversal Peace since whatever can comport with the good of the Vniverse or Community is secured by it The Glory of God so far as Community is charged with it The Peace and Welfare of particular persons The orderly Posture of every man in his Station and Rank The just deference to Magistracy and publick Authority The security of publick Peace and Quiet The Advancement of True Religion in Divine Revelation Now in every one of these I will consider what Objections may be made against allowing freedom in Religion upon Natural Religion secur'd and the Answers to them Object 1. Every False Religion or refusal of the True Religion in a Nation not vindicated by due severity upon Offenders is an offence against the Divine Majesty of a National Guilt and brings down National Judgments Answer The government of Conscience being Gods peculiar no earthly Power shall be charged with the obliquities and errors of it any more than with the secret sins of men that are not known or those Distempers of Mind and Spirit which coming into no palpable Instances can neither be convicted nor sentenced by man Now mistakes of men in Religion not cognisable by the light of Nature are to be reckon'd among the Errors of Conscience and so are properly left to Gods Judgment-seat and the Magistrate stands free It is therefore very observable Princes are called nursing-Fathers and Queens nursing-Mothers signifying not a Isa 49. 23. Commanding-Power but a tender insinuating cherishing the Encouragements from them that such an Appellative carryes with it in those that declare it in those that are to receive it The Magistrate discharging this Honourable Trust may acquit himself and the Community
before God from the guilt and destruction of those that may be yet heinously guilty before God as Jonah's Mariners did from the Blood of that Prophet consigned over to the Sea by his own Sentence Oh Lord lay not this mans blood to our charge who have Jon. 1. 14 done all it pleased thee to command us When Soveraigns and Nations have considered the Wisdom Rationality and Heavenliness of Proposals in Religion and setled upon what they find of the highest Character as the Religion of their Nation by Law to be established to which they allow the encouragement of their publick Honours and Maintanance and taken care for the propagation of it by Instructions Arguments Reasons and good Examples they have done all that God expects from them to do and so have delivered their own souls That which was of their free judgment and arbitrement as proper to them as to families and persons to dispose of their own they have placed as they thought upon due consideration most to the glory of God and the good of the people but to deprive men of their native rights or to punish them in their Persons or Estates who are not Offenders against Natural Religion for the sentiments of their minds of which they have only a humane judgment is not a Power wherewith they think themselves invested of God and so forbear it This is indeed the Religion of a Nation of Men a Nation of Christians a Vertuous an Honourable Government and more hopeful to propagate true Christianity than that which writes its Laws in Blood And this is to Rule over men and not over Beasts bound up as men should be with the cords of a man in Natural Religion in what is beyond that as revealed from God with Bands of Love to serve the Publick Blessed are the people who are in such a case blessed is that people whose God is thus the Lord Jehovah Object 2. What Peace can there be in the world amongst private and particular persons while there are several opinions in Religion how many Disputes and Calumnies and Invectives are continually flying up and down by reason of differences in Religion and how much better are all compelled into Vnion Answer All these evils are but so many Arguments of depraved Nature which creates its own occasions out of every thing and if the mischiefs of Compulsion or the ill state even of those parts of thâ— world where the voice of Religion is all one laâ—â—â—â—ge were cast up I doubt they would be found to ballance the worst that can be charged on differences in Religion But yet Natural Religion and most evidently Christian Religion is most severe and positive against all Strife Envy Railings evil Surmisings and bends men upon Peace Love Meâ—kness Quietness Charity towards all men and especially Christians as is after to be shâ—wn and therefore undoubtedly those evil effects where they grow to excess may be restrained by Civil Magistracy as in any other case and the rather that True Religion so much disowning them they are more inexcusable in that cause than any other for though we find Scripture severe in its language in great cases as St. Paul against the Bigots of the Law yet we must also consider the Infallible Spirit that guided Sacred Writers who alone knows how to direct those sharp arrows and what effect they shall take Object 3. This clips off the Royalty and Prerogative of Princes if they have not the command of mens Sentiments or at least of their outward Actions and Practises in Religion Ans The unjust Enlargements of Earthly Power into the Divine Sanctuary hath been always fatal to Princes Vzziah's rude entrances into it were punished by God with infamous Leprosy Herods Letting that sacrilegious acclamation It is 1 Chron. 28. 18 19. Act. 12. 22 23 the voice of a God not of a man sink into him was presently reveng'd with a dreadful hand of Judgment Humane Power is safest keeping it self within the verge of Divine Institution beyond that though it may seem greater yet it becomes only like a swelling wall the bigger it is the more ready to fall or a tottering Fence expatiating to ruine Their Honour is great in being nursing-Fathers if God had intended Civil Magistracy to govern in any Religion but Natural they should have had as certain Rules to act by as they have in Natural Religion Besides what is the good of being great Masters in Religion except in that wherein God hath shewed every man what is good seeing the greater Judgment waits for such Thus the Apostle James James 3. 1. My brethren be not many masters imposers or prescribers in Religion that is do not affect it knowing we shall receive a greater Judgment Object 4. But it is impossible to govern with any security if Governours hold not the Reins of mens Consciences if they have not the Rule of that Helm that turns about so great Bodies of people which way soever they that have that Pylotry please with what vigor and courage are men animated while the Principles and Rewards of Religion are in their hearts and eyes If therefore the Prince rules not in these his Command is but Cypher Answer 1. Religion is too great and noble a thing to be but an Expedient of Government 2. The History of Christianity assures us no Princes have had more obedient Subjects a more valiant Souldiery than Heathen Princes of Christians True Religion knows its obligation to Government and pursues the Laws of it though that Government hath stood distinct from that True Religion And this is the standing-Rule of Christians Object 5. But what Tumults Factions Seditions have been rais'd under Religious pretences when Subjects have not yielded themselves to the Empire of Princes in Religion Answ These evils as they are falsely pretended by men of turbulency to be for the service of Religion so they are unjustly charg'd upon it There can be therefore no severity too great upon those that so abuse so excellent a thing But the sâ—mâ— care that secures against ambition sedition rebellion in one shape will do it in another without taking away lawful liberties Nor is there any remedy so specifick against the great Hypocrisie of covering Rebellion with Religion Faction with Faith as the severest Regiment of men according to the indisputable Laws of Natural Religion and allowance of the greatest Tolleration in what no way contradicts that For then is the artifice strongest when it is planted in the oppression of mens consciences so great an illegality against Natural Principles Take away severe Impositions and what have such Politicians to work upon Object 6. But what a Hydra a many-headed Monster of Opinions will Religion become by such a Toleration Answ 1. Severe Natural Religion enforc'd and strictly pursued will so rebate mens corruptions besides the hopes and expectations of Divine Blâ—ssing accompanying so vertuous a Government that there will be a much greater retrenchment of Opinions than can be
in Hell If we could suppose a Society designedly united without Religion it would be like the Plot for building of Babel an endeavour of such a part of mankind to set up for its self and its own security as it were in defyance of Heaven A Society united in Civils and crumbled into Sects and Divisions in Religion that is in the main substantials of Doctrine Worship and Practice is a Babel as it was under the curse of Confusion of divided Language A disparagement of Religion which can be as it is indeed Religion but one as if its Name were Legion or as if in fundamental points it could not sufficiently evidence it self so as to be known to be the true Lastly a disanulling the ancient Law of Society which is principally for the Union of Religion so that if men could agree in all things else and were yet divided here it were not true humane society but would want the very noblest part or Principle of it Religion which is as a soul or spirit to it Yet too rigorous and severe a constraint of Uniformity is both to forget humane infirmity that does not allow so perfect an union in this world if a rigid Uniformity be indeed perfection and to forget also that every man is a complete Being within himself and makes a perfect Figure as he is alone and therefore to grant nothing to this consideration is rather to crowd men into a Little ease in Religion than to unite them and so pressing them too strait makes them fly out of that uneasie state for more room and dissolves the union that might else have been But in all the principal points of True Religion Union is so necessary that it stands good Humane society is for the sake of Religion yet in this state of Gods patience to the world Commerce and civil Conversation are no more than Property founded in Grace for then we must go out of the world yet still the supreme and prime end of Society is Religion Society in Divine Adorations is the state of Angels and Saints in Heaven It was designed to be the State of Innocency in this world It is a Law that cannot be repealed It is the perpetual Duty of Man Fallen Nature hath a violent inclination to it so that all societyes consent to walk in the name of some God though mistaken in the right object But the word of God and Christianity as they most clearly reveal the True Religion so the necessity of Union in it The publickness of Religion therefore that it is most choosable for the glory of it to God for the good it does to the souls of men for the blessing and acceptance it receives from God I shall plainly make evident from the reason of Scripture 1. For the Glory publick Religion presents to God it is evident although God in his Son and Spirit is a sufficient Spectator and Witness of and infinitely rich in his own Glory in the understanding of and his own eternal praises of himself so that nothing can be added to him yet it is most evident God is pleased to delight in the publickness of his service and the nearest approach of all his Creatures to him and that not in solitary service but the most conjoyn'd as if infinity received Additions of Glory from the openness and publickness of his Worship which yet we know is impossible But it is the abyss of his goodness that he delights in loving all his creatures and being universally known loved and served by them and that in the greatest Union herein that as he himself is the prime Unity and Universality and this is the perfection of his Being so his Creatures sprung from him may return to him in the same Universality and Unity in resemblance of himself which is the highest and truest worship of him In Heaven there is an Innumerable company of Angels and blessed Spirits in one general Assembly to praise and worship God The Scripture excites the praise of all the Earth of all the world of all Lands of all People Tongues Languages Nations Kindred and Families even the Heaven and Earth and things under the Earth and the whole host of them are called in to concert the Glory of God and nothing left out but Death and Destruction which cannot praise him because never made by him And when the Glory of God as it rises from his Creatures is represented at its highest pitch it is thus set out And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne and the Beasts and the Elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb c. And every Creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them I heard saying as it were in one Quire Blessing and Honour and Glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Thus David also musters up the whole Creation to join in the praises of God not to fill up and adorn the Divine Poesie but to shew the indisputable right God hath to the services of all his Creatures and that in those which are not able to pay it immediately by themselves every wise and prudent holy man is to observe that tribute of praise that is as it were marked upon them by the wisdom that made them and to offer it up for them when the service of God is represented as most glorious in its being most publick Every thing therefore in Gods Ordination of Religion tends to publickness Our Saviour will not appear but in the fulness of his Body the Church which does as it were compleat him For it is in this sense his Complement or Fulness though he fills all in all The knowledg of God would cover the earth even as water does the Sea and is restless till it does so the Preaching of the Gospel is to be extended to all Nations to every creature In Prayer there is to be a coming of all flesh to God Praise is to rise up as one pillar of Incense from the whole world The Church especially is to publish the name of the Lord and to ascribe greatness to our God Now the sense of this is that since God hath been pleased to place his Glory in the publickness of Religion in this Universality of it all good men are zealous and earnest to draw in the publick Societies of the world as much as they can to love fear serve pray to God and praise him together God does not allow his servants that out of choice they should retire to the Religion of a Cloyster or a Wilderness or a private separated Assembly as the greatest honour to him but delights in the most publick Assemblies of his Saints servants and creatures for though the reasons here of lye deep in the Divine
Inducements fâ—om Scripture there is the same urgency of Reason for the Day of Judgment passing upon men as in Nations and lesser Communities as upon their single persons for else their actions can never be judged the very complyance with the custom of Nations with the sway of such an Age and time being the reason of many sins and the sinful ways of men are so locked into one another that the Day of Judgment that gives sentence upon all things most righteously comprehends them together even as the Fallen Angels the old World were judged together and in common In Sodom and Gomorrah was given a pre-appeatance of the final Jude 7th Judgment upon the world for the Apostle tellâ— us they were set forth for an ensample and that they suffered the Vengeance of Eternal Fire and we know they suffered in their Community Corah Dathan and Abiram with all their company were involved as in the sin so in the punishment and there is no separation except where Repentance and that with great difficulty hath made it So on the happy side of things Religious Nations and Communities encourage and assist one another in acts of Love Service and Duty to God in Virtue and all Goodness and infold their piety mutually so that on neither side the recompences of Mercy or Justice can be proportioned but as in Community 2. There is the same Reason for the last Judgment passing upon Nations as Nations as for its passing upon private persons as private persons For let any one survey History and he shall find Nations as Nations have escaped the vengeance of God in this world as much as single Persons and the same sort of Revolutions Changes and final Periods have befallen Nations professing God and Christ as those that have been enemies to such Profession as is most apparent in a compare of the Jews or Christian Nations Yea generally those that have been called by the Name of God and Christ have been most speedily punished as those that God hath most especially known of all the Nations of the Earth The Prophet Habâ—kkuk's First Chapter is spent upon this very Subject of that wicked Nation of the Chaldaeans so prosperous above the Jews described in many elegant similitudes and vehemently expostulated from the twelfth verse to the end Whoever shall consider the ancient Romans or the Papacy or the Turkish Empire since the rising of it must needs conclude that to judge Nations as Natiâ—â—â— at last appertains as much to the Paramount Soveraignty oâ—â—â—vine Justice and more than single Persons Nations that have been so great and formidable and Princes swelling with the height of Pride and contempt of God and Religion should in all reason stand in those very Appearances at his Tribunal with their wise Senates mighty Captains Armies and Multitude about them and so be Sentenced and Condemned by the Righteous Judge of all the World the only Potentate the King of Kings Lord of Lords and Prince of Princes even Christ the Son of God in humane Natue else they would not be judged at all as Nations For here neither Love nor Hatred can be known any more to Nations than to single Persons by any thing that is before us There is often one event to all to the Righteous and Merciful and to the Vnjust and Tyrannick Nations to the Good and to the unclean People to them that sacrifice to the True God and to them that sacrifice to Idols There are as many Instances of the severity of God against private particular wicked persons as against such Princes Nations or particular Ages and of his patience and forbearance to the one as to the other There are as great examples of the mercy and favour of God to private particular good men as to pious Nations and Governments and of his severe corrections upon the one as the other The piety therefore and the wickedness of Nations according to their particular Generations equally waits for the last Day even as of single Persons For though there are Periods Judgment sets to it self and when sin is come to its height Judgment stays no longer yet this without a future Judgment will not give satisfaction for the Ages of Prosperity and Greatness the many signal Victories the stupendious Grandeur many very bad Nations and their Princes have arrived at and continued in before the final Calamity hath overtaken them any more than dying at last with great circumstances of pain and horror answers for the worldly prosperity of many a wicked man if after Death there were no Judgment So that especially as to particular Generations there is the same Reason for the Judgment of Nations as of particular Persons 3. If all things were not to be as publickly transacted at the Day of Judgment and to be set upon as open and universal a Theatre as they were acted upon here and that before the Congregation of Heaven and Earth at that day there were not so great reason for an Vniversal Judgment The Privatâ—â—udgment of Souls might suffice Nor could there be any reason 〈◊〉 â—cripture should lay so great weight upon the Resurrection and 〈◊〉 in the very same Bodies at least as to the principal parts and so as that men should be known to be the same persons Why thus If men were not to be presented in the same Circumstances Relations Communities and the most notorious Appearances wherein they conversed and whereby they were most known in the world Let this then be granted and it will rise up to States Governors Senates Princes their Laws and Transactions with the temper of their Times And indeed this setting Persons their places of Habitation their Nation their Times together must needs break out with the greatest lustre of Justice and the Supremacy of Divine Judgment when every thing shall be called to account and represented over again just as it was in this world Things high and low publick and private national and personal but without this all would be dark private obscure and imperfect notwithstanding the gathering all together to that Tribunal For very momentous Causes Circumstances Aggravations or Extenuations of Good or Evil could not be understood The Pride of Sin and Wickedness would not be sufficiently humbled and abased nor despised goodness enough raised and honoured and so would amount to little more than a private Judgment as I said before but Scripture every where instructs us it is the very design of the Day of Judgment to shew and present the whole Scene of things and to seâ— the ballance of them even in all particulars It is the Day not only of the righteous Judgment of God but of the manifestation of it every thing is then composed to shew and Manifestation it is the appearance of Christ whom God will then show in the highest glory of the humane Nature and so that his low despised humbled and crucifyed State shall also be seen and the glory triumph over it to the utter confusion and wailing of
every man shall appear and be judg'd singly by himself Our Resurrection which is the day of our Regeneration of our new life and appearance in Bodies will present us not only single but in our state of Community wherein we were here in the world even from Families to Nations that we may receive the things done in those Bodies as well as in our own Bodies then the Good we have done or omitted to do and the Evil we have withstood or been the occasion of or not prevented when we might shall be severely accounted for by each in their station Each Magistrate shall be surrounded with his sphere of Authority wherein he was set here and judg'd in that And each Minister of Religion justified or condemned in that very Orb wherein he was fix'd as a Star And the several Magnitudes of both Magistrates and Ministers will then be dreadful to them however they have coveted and been Ambitious of them here if they have not inlightned their whole space because their Judgment will be greater Even every man shall be judg'd by his Services to the Publick in his place and station how private soever if it hath never so little exceeded his single capacity And who in his Reason can think God will then account with men for Mint and Cummin small and disputable Things howsoever zealous or rather fond of them they have been in themselves and earnest with others concerning them Those things that have truly center'd in the Glory of God and the Salvation of mens souls in Faith Repentance and a Holy Life in Love and Peace will be of the only moment at that Tribunal This therefore should be the most powerful perswasive upon us to do all the good herein we can in that Community wherein we are fix'd according to our Talent though but a single one much more if our Talents have been Two or Five that we may in that Day of Recompences enter into the joy of our Lord. THE END THE Woe of Scandal OR SCANDAL In its General NATURE and EFFECTS DISCOURS'D As one strongest Argument against Impositions in Religious Things acknowledg'd to be Indifferent LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside 1682. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THAT which I will endeavour in preparation to the following Discourse be to present my Design and Method in stating the Nature of Scandal that it may be more intelligible by being seen first as in a Landscape in this Entry and then to add some Considerations of great strength to each part of that Undertaking that have since arrived to my Thoughts As to the Method I must in my own defence say that I have to do with a Subject in which so much of the deceitfulness of Sin is treasured up of so moveable a consideration as Scripture from its own various shapes offers it to us that it cannot easily be known or trac'd I hope therefore it will be allowed as some part of an Apology that the Thread of my Treating concerning it does not run so even and streight along as it ought Further I must take Sanctuary at the Reader 's Candor for the acceptance of my sincere intention and any degree of performance in so difficult a task I confess the want of the most advantageous Arts of Method and a clear unperplexed Style Yet that I might take the truest measure of so multiform and vague a Notion 1. I have taken hold of it in the most strict and precise Description I could frame as it is applicable to all cases of Sin therein resting especially upon those words Scripture uses to convey the sentiments of it to us Thus Scandal is that by which we are drawn into any sin and off from the course of Duty and Religious Action and so intangled in Guilt disease of Conscience and indangered as to Eternal Happiness under a pretext of Reason or Religion 2. Because I find the Scripture applies the Notion of Scandal especially when some of the grand Principles and Laws of Religion are violated under such pretext I have considered it as referred to those great Principles by such sacred use 3. Because there is a very peculiar and most remarkable use of it in the case of indifferent Things by the Apostle when they are turned into sin by being determined upon in practice with a doubting Conscience besides other ways wherein being used amiss they may become Scandals or occasions of it I have therefore allowed a very peculiar Head of Discourse to that Case 4. Because by deeply considering Scandal and that as our Saviour pronounces Scandals must needs come I found there must be some Primitive Fundamental and Vniversal Scandal that covers the whole State of Sin in general I addressed the last part of my Meditation on the Nature of Scandal to this Primitive Vniversal Scandal And lastly I resume upon the whole a representation of Scandal adjusted to what I found upon each of those forementioned Inquiries after it And herein I hope I may have hung up Lights to discover in some degree and to avoid so dark and mysterious an Evil as Scandal though I have not been able to do it to those degrees I desired or to compose into so happy an Order or so perspicuous an Expression what I had my self clearer apprehensions of Thus far as to the Method Now for the strengthening some parts of this discourse by Considerations that have arrived to my Thoughts since I had set an end to the Treatise it self they have arisen from the close observation of the Contexture of the Lord's Sermon upon Scandal as it is Recorded especially in this 18th of Matthew and Mark 9. and Luke 17. Compared with the Debates of the Apostle to the Romans and the Corinths which are the most eminent Seats of the Doctrin of Scandal we have in all the Scripture Our Saviour therefore whose chief business into the World was his recovery of it from Scandal the Deception and the Ruin of it by giving satisfaction to the Divine Glory for the dishonour done to it by Scandal hath blessed us with as Soveraign Arguments and Instructions against either giving or receiving it Our Lord hath so embraced all sorts and degrees of Scandal within this Sermon that none can be exempted from the force and energy of thosâ— his Arguments Instructions or severe Denunciations But yâ—t that they have a particular poignancy against Scandals within his Church and one more particular kind given by a particular sort of Men and directed against another particular sort of Men will be most evident from the survey I am now to give of his Heaven-born Discourse The occasion of it was the Disciples coming solemnly to him with a grand Quere in which no doubt their Ambition a very ignorant Ambition was deeply concerned Who say they is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven That is as was generally understood at that time in the Kingdom of the Messiah The Lord
Now to the discharge of Conscience in this it s so high Office and Trust it owes to it self and the Soul that it be richly and abundantly furnished with the knowledge of the Divine Will and the Word of God dwelling in it that seeing it is both the Scribe and Doctor or if I may so speak the Bishop of the Soul within it self it be as the good Householder that brings forth out of his Treasury things new and old that it attend to all Means of Instruction for the Kingdom of Heaven entertain all Wisdom lift up its voice for it seek it as Silver and search for it as for hid Treasure And that its influence may be powerful and effective upon the Soul to all Holy and Heavenly Obedience there must be a just preservation of its Authority and good Conduct that so it may promote the Soul into all goodness having gained a high Reputation and Honour by the success it hath had already and the comfort and good expectation it raises within the Soul upon its happy Government For the upright man from this vigor of Conscience holds on his way and grows stronger and stronger and Job 17. 9. Prov. 4. 18. the way of the Just becomes as the shining Light that shines more and more to the perfect day And therefore one of the principal Scandals Scripture remarques upon is this When Conscience upon any Sollicitation upon any Insinuation or Usurpation upon it betrays this Trust and surrenders it self to any other Dictate or Authority but that which is Divine and that shining within it self and so assuring it by its Rationality Goodness Purity Majesty that it is from God To take any thing upon trust from Men that it does not try and examine or to let go any thing it hath so tryed and examined and found good upon any pretence whatever is indeed to be Scandalised that pretence that does so assume over it and prevail with it against it self Scandalises it For the charge of representing to the Soul the Authority of the Divine Laws is committed to the Conscience the supream Moderation is in God and the Divine Law yet it is transmitted into the Soul it enters thither through the Dictates of Conscience whatever then so imposes on Conscience as that it recedes from its Government Scandalises it for the Government of God is lost also thereby And though Conscience cannot justifie a man in any error nor ought to possess a Man with unnecessary scruples yet still the main Government of Conscience deriving it self from God and the true understanding of his Will is by no means to be shaken For Man as a Rational Creature as a Creature of Religion cannot obey God but by the Mediation of Conscience He must know and judge within himself what is the Divine Law and obey it If he does in Conformity to that Will and does not know it it is not true Obedience because it is not Religious it is not reasonable or rationally Religious Obedience The Obedience of God is seated in the Judgment in the Conscience if these Reins are slack and loose if this Golden Bridle be neglected Men know not whither they may run upon what they may be driven and never discover the danger A man cannot distinguish what is from God from what is not if this gust of the Soul be not quick vigorously exercised and left free Conscience may be instructed advised perswaded yea even menaced and terrified by the Applications of the Word of God to it nay it may be over-ruled by Lawful Authority wherein it turns Apostate or Renegade to Natural Religion yet it can never be Lawfully depos'd or put out of Authority The Mystery of Faith the Rule of Obedience the Consolation and Vigor of the Soul are all preserved in a pure Conscience and Shipwracked together with it Now because Conscience is placed by God in this great Trust and Dignity it becomes and it must needs become so great a matter of Scandal as the Apostle discourses when Conscience not duly regarding its own light and inward Sense surrenders it self to a forreign Rule steers it self by a compass out of it self says another shall be wise and see and Dictate for it and so gives up it self in an implicite Faith and blind Obedience Here is Scandal in its Delusive Deceptive Power a Man thinks it modest cautious a point of Honour and Subjection to those that are above him to be carried by an Authority out of himself Conscience hereupon deserts its own Principles and its own place in directing according to them Upon this it falls into all the miserable consequences the mischief of Scandal Conscience is wounded grieved weakned and lies prostrate and without Repentance the work of God in the Natural or new Creation is destroyed and even the Man for whom Christ dyed perishes God hath concredited the Keys of Knowledge and Jurisdiction within the Soul to Conscience alone and I cannot find that it can be at all excused in resigning them into any Hand but his that gave them no not to an Angel from Heaven The Ministers of Religion and Magistrates in their place have these Keys as they are Administred without a Man to offer and press upon him all considerations of his Duty But every Man must see with his own Eyes and not anothers for him he must be enlightned by Beams and Rayes that shine within his own Soul He hath a private double Look upon himself and none may open and shut but Conscience in and with God whoever else does becomes a Father and a Master upon Earth to him in the place of God and Christ Upon this account the Apostle lays down these three Rom. 14. 22 23 great Positions 1. That whatever is not of Faith of a free and full perswasion of Conscience is Sin For though the Natures of things cannot be changed in themselves yet as we are conversant in them it is an undoubted Rule Bonum oritur ex integris causis Every thing conspires to and concerts Good but Evil being a declension and fall from Good every degree of fall or aberration from Good is Evil and this Plenipotence of Conscience committed to it by God is a prime necessary in every good thing and the want of it greatly evil though it hath not an Omnipotence of changing Nature it self 2. From hence it follows he that does and doubts in what he does is condemned in his doing whatever the thing be in it self because to him it is so far Evil that he does it against that Domestick Authority of Conscience 3. He is a happy Man that especially having fallen into doubt in doubtful things is come to so good a Resolution as not to condemn himself in that wherein he allows himself He that hath a good assurance rising neither from Ignorance nor Carelesness is a happy Man by way of Eminency It is a rare and extraordinary happiness and he that hath not but is perplexed with Doubt ought not
new-converted Christian might relapse into by eating in the Idols Temple at the Idols Feast yet the main Point is eating with offence with a Conscience not satisfied the Meats that were pure in themselves but to them appeared impure as is evident by the much different sharpness of Style the Apostle uses in the danger of Idolatry and the Case of the Doubting Conscience The immediate Principle offended against is then The Government Conscience ought to have over Man appointed it by God against which nothing Humane ought to prevail nor can do but with the great mischief of Scandal Besides this there is some other Rule or Principle of Truth guiding Conscience and pressing upon it in case of Scandal for Conscience is not to guide a Man but as it represents to him some Truth to guide it self and him by else as when the Blind lead the Blind both will fall into the Ditch And when this Principle that presses hard upon Conscience and to which Conscience defers it self is over-born then a Man is scandalised The Principle Conscience in the Case of the Romans had lying hard upon it was this Whatever God hath forbidden once as unclean is unclean and is so long unclean till we know that Prohibition is removed The weak Christian did not believe the forbidding some Meats as unclean was removed yet by the countenance of Example in the stronger Christians they were so hardy as to eat while Conscience was unsatisfied and so were scandalised Conscience in the Corinths had this Principle looking it full in the Face To eat in an Idols Right in Honour to Idols is an abomination to God The weak Christian abhorring Idols or to eat in Honour of them did not as yet understand there could be a Separation betwixt the Pollution of the Idol and the Meat or the Temple where he was worshipped yet emboldned by seeing the stronger sit at Meat in an Idols Temple they eat and were inwardly affrighted at the unclean Meat they eat they eat with Conscience of the Idol the Meat as offered to the Idol through the force of Example that is abhorring indeed the Idol and his Meat but withal fearing it as an Evil and looking upon the Meat as impure because sacrificed to an Idol In both these Cases the Apostle levels against the use of Liberty in the stronger against imposing by way of Example to the scandal of the weaker so tender a thing it is to offer but the Lowest Rule of Compulsion in these Cases The Imposer then though but by Example is he that scandalises The Complier against the Sense of his own Mind instructed not by Truth and Reason satisfying him but by Example leading him is the Scandalised Things being thus stated let us observe the Scandal it self how it works in this Case 1. There is an Act of high Disobedience committed against God and his Authority represented by Conscience both in that Conscience deputed by God is deposed and Example set up in its place as also that a Divine Law upon Conscience it self supposed to continue in force is violated for though it should be indeed antiquated yet if Conscience knows not it is so it cannot act of Faith and full perswasion and so sins 2. Conscience is hereupon grieved wounded and loses its due Comfort 3. This begets a Flatness and Formality in all Religious Services 4. A Lukewarmness to Religion in general thus a Man is weakned by his Stumble and Fall he lies prostrate in all Religious Powers 5. Conscience loses its due vigour and exercise of Authority 6. There is danger of Apostacy from Christianity it self or the true Sense of Religion 7. Hereupon the Soul is in danger to be lost and the work of God to be destroyed and he for whom Christ died to perish if not recovered by Repentance Thus it was with the Romans and the Corinths Now to bring this to the Balance with Impositions in Ceremonies or Indifferents in after-Times First Suppose the Sentiments of the Mind and Conscience of many Christians deeply ingag'd and lock'd in this Principle That in the Worship of God no Man may add or diminish so much as to a Point beyond Divine Institution and the most natural Circumstances and necessary Adherencies of all Solemn and Grave Humane Actions That there must be nothing of Humane Device for Edification or Significancy but what is prescrib'd And no Man can deny but this is a safe Position considering both the Stream of Scripture sound Reason and the Experience of all Ages how much mischief hath come stealing up from Ceremonies as high as to Idolatry and Superstition But let us withal allow That though no Man can be the better for using these Indifferents nor the worse for not using them yet there is a Liberty to use them without being the worse for using them if a Man be fully persuaded in his own mind concerning them It must remain yet that according to the Apostles Doctrine every Man that uses them and doubts of their lawfulness with respect to the forenamed Principle is condemned in the using them because not of Faith and so subject to all the just-now-recounted Mischiefs of Scandal And that therefore He that uses them so as to press those that are otherwise minded to a Conformity by his Example if it be no more much more if by Despisings Censures Vexations Penalties he does not walk charitably he sins against Christians wounds their weak Consciences and so sins against Christ in a high Degree and for his Ceremonies the work of God is destroyed and he for whom Christ died perishes if not sav'd by Repentance Now how high does this rise up to the Woe Christ denounces on him by whom Scandals come For it cannot but be suppos'd there are many that are wrought upon against the sense of their own Minds to such a Conformity as wherein they cannot but condemn themselves wherein they seem to allow themselves or do indeed allow themselves so far as the outward Act reaches Who can doubt but in these days there are such as well as in the Days of the first Christians Yea happy are many of those that Conform if they do not condemn themselves wherein they allow themselves and carry the Mischief of their Scandal within themselves silently from others and often secretly from themselves And even where Men stand out against all pressure upon them and will not receive this Dint of Scandal yet it is still a Scandal offered while unaccepted All this now seems so strong against imposing in things of Indifferency for fear of Scandal in them that it is wonder there should be any Imposition known in such things among Christians for fear of Scandal and yet in these very things of Indifferency Scandal hath run like Wild-fire bluster'd and roar'd like a Tempest in these of all things to chuse and that in all Ages within the Christian World and even under Protestancy it self But I aâ— to consider Scandal in a second Rank viz. of
any Man cannot Encounter Scandal and overcome he cannot be the Servant of God the Disciple of Christ Let us then resume the Notion of Scandal and fit it to this general Prospect over Religion I am now upon and we shall find as the Lord speaks that Scandals must come Scandal then is any False Pretence or Appearance whereby Religion or any of the nobler Objects Parts Rules or Reasons of it are expos'd to Disadvantage and Disgust as unreasonable unjust untrue weak and empty morose unlovely and undesirable or the contrary Sin Irreligion and Disobedience to God are gloss'd over and presented as in all regards more choosable and to be desired than Religion and all things so intangled and perplex'd among themselves that Men are seduc'd from the esteem of the Divine Law and Obedience to it and insnar'd in Sin even by that justle and disorder Scandal makes in the several Laws and Rules of Religion among themselves and the blending with them the pretences of Sin upon which great dishonour to God and Religion sharp Conflicts of Conscience within it self Mischief to the Souls of Men and a general Disaffection to Religion ensues And now how this must needs be I shall undertake to shew having only observed First That there are some main Things so necessary for our Knowledge Faith and Practice that they are made exquisitely clear and most easie to be understood He that runs may read them wafaring Men though Fools cannot err therein the entrance of the Word of God concerning them giveth Light it giveth understanding to the Simple Again There are some Things of very great advancement to the Soul and its Happiness that are the reward of a holy humble diligence to know in such a Measure as they ought to be known and of a preceeding Obedience in those so plain things that as the Resurrection of Christ are not shewn to all the People but to chosen Witnesses Thus the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his Covenant What Man is he that feareth the Psal 25. 12 14 c. Lord Him shall he teach in the way that he shall chuse The Meek will he guide in Judgment and the Meek will he teach his way If any Man will do his Will he shall know of John 7. 17. my Doctrine whether it be of God or not On the other side Ignorance and Disobedience to those Divine Truths that are nearest and most plain to us are punished either with concealment of or leaving us to Injudiciousness and Insensibleness in higher Divine Manifestations where also that Injudiciousness and Insensibleness are Condemned For to him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not Luke 8. 18. by improvement and good use shall be taken away even that which he hath And this is the Condemnation for not believing John 3. 19. in Christ that supernatural Revelation because they loved Darkness rather than Light as a Cover for their Evil deeds But besides those plain Truths written with a Sun-beam in Nature it self besides those of clear Revelation there are necessarily some deep Truths concerning the Divine Nature the Attributes of God his Decrees and Acts some Mysteries of Christ of Providence and the Government of the World that command Awe Reverence and Modesty and are not to be fathom'd and fully understood and yet cannot be so divided nor separated from those Truths that are necessary to be known but that the Understanding must and ought to have an observation of and search after them though with Fear and Trembling and with a Wisdom to Sobriety yet to know as much of them as it is made to know by Scripture These things now being premised I come to shew That in the first and best state of Things Scandals might come and that in the corrupt and degenerate state they must come And first how they might come and there must the same Original be assigned to Scandal as there is to Evil and Sin it self for neither Sin nor Scandal can derive themselves from the Holy Wise and Good Creator who made all Things just and even He most upright weighed out the Path of the Just by his own Eternal Perfect Way and made the Angelical and Humane the whole Rational Nature according to it upright and perfect so that there was no Scandal from this first beginning of Things But when God made Creatures of Reason and Understanding and of Free Will and Choice Understanding in the very Nature of it could search and pry and range every way and look not only upon Things that are but by Things that are they could collect Things possible from the Nature of Wise Good and Just they could descry Folly Evil and Wrong and in Happiness and Blessedness they could behold as in privation from them Misery and Unhappiness or the Transcendency and Infiniteness of Happiness and the Degrees below it they could trace and find out the Lines by which there rose up a Supremacy of these and back again by which there was Declination of Degrees from this Azimuth or insuperable Height And as these Understandings are so great so they are suited with Wills and Appetites as great by which they could aspire to be whatever they saw above themselves and to dislike in whatever they found themselves below So that it was possible for them to dislike their first Estates to forsake their proper Mansions or Habitations and leave them as if they were not loughty large and roomthy enough for them Thus the Angels left their Estate in Heaven and Adam his in Paradise aspiring to something higher and this through mutability from misapprehension jealousie and disgust arising from perfect mistake false appearance and mis-judging which is perfect Scandal Thus not being Infinite not being Omniscient nor able to find out the Almighty to perfection nor resting in the Love and Obedience of God in those things most certain evident and undoubted to them but projecting beyond their own Sphere they might come to charge Gods Holiness Goodness and Wisdom foolishly to raise suspitions they were not high and well enough observing how Evil lay from Good they might in Discontent draw the Line of Evil upon Good and charge Imperfection upon Perfection it self they might disorder the most orderly Alliances and confuse the just Distances between Things and Things This they might possibly do except God did interpose with his Immutability of Perfection for them and secure them But God permitting things to liberty this must be possible to fall out This possibility of Change was the Folly God charged the purest Angels with and in regard of which the Heavens were not clean in his sight From the miserable Consequences of this Possibility coming into actual Event the Good Angels were Elected and into them the Bad Angels fell who abode not in the Truth but fell into cursed Scandal and are wrapped up in Scandal fettered in it even in Chains of darkness which are
Christianity Let them sit down and count their danger a Milstone about their Necks and the bottom of the Sea is safer in our Lords Judgment of the Case Wherever the Instruments of Cruelty are in any Habitations upon the account of lesser Differences in Religion Oh my Soul come not thou into their Secret Oh my Honour be not thou united to their Assembly In their Anger they dig down Walls of Defence and Security to Religion Protestant Religion Vnhappy very unhappy is their Anger for it is fierce and their Wrath for it is cruel They divide Jacob and scatter Israel 2. They that are the Authors of Scandal by their great Mistakes in Religion by their unhappy and miserable Falls into Sin by their involving others in their own Sin without considering the sad Consequence and End of both they have this great Aggravation of Guilt that Scandal Mischief and Death have spread from them and faln as a Snare upon others Yet their Guilt is measured by the proportion of the Scandal in its own Nature the malignancy of the Intention the stupid or seared carelesness of the Event but not by the Event it self whether the Scandal prevail upon others or not or whether they that are Scandalised repent or not Because the Guilt of the Scandalised is reckon'd to him by his own Degrees of Light his circumstances of defence against or extream danger of falling into the temptation by his own love of Sin or enmity against the Divine Law in which every Man is the principal Scandaliser to himself and his recovery out of the Scandal depends upon his own Repentance or Obduracy against the means of Repentance The Guilt of the Scandaliser is measured also by his own state in Sin in general his state in relation to that Sin of Scandalising his Continuance in it or Repentance from it and not by what befalls the Scandalised else the Apostle Paul's Salvation had been hopeless without the certain Repentance of all those he compelled to Blaspheme Repentance and Faith in Jesus Christ and the Mercy of God in him are the only means of recovery out of this Snare of Death both to the Scandaliser or Scandalised and a certain means it is to either Before I come to the last Head of this Discourse viz. to draw down the whole Meditation so as that it may be most fitted to Practice I will endeavour to resume the whole diffusive Notion of Scandal into one Uniform Representation descending from the General into the Particulars of it Original Scandal is that dislike and exception the Rational Creature took to the Creator's Supream dispose over it and its disgust to that State wherein infinite Wisdom and Goodness had placed it so that instead of a thankful acquiescency in it to its happiness it hath proved a Fugitive and a Vagabond from it to its Ruine Reason of this at first there could be none but a disdain to have its large Capacities of Understanding confined or dictated to or its Freeborn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bridled or restrained its Liberty of Will manacled or fettered by a Divine Law As if it were not indeed greatest Understanding to be conformed with Truth and noblest Liberty to adhere to Infinite Goodness or as if Understanding were not Understanding if it could not take measures of Truth for it self without God Authoritatively superintending it nor Free-will be Free if it could not chuse wholly for it self and owe no account to God And whether this Scandal is first in the Understanding or Will is not material for the Union is so Vital between them both that what is in one is at the same time and as they say ipso facto in the other The Devil at the same time he abode not in the Truth had as our Saviour tells us swelling Lusts in his Will suitable John 8. 44. to his Prevarication from the Truth The very same may be observed in the fall of Adam there was in one Act a deception upon his Understanding deserting Truth a sensual Eye upon the Fair but forbidden Fruit and the Lusts of the Mind aspiring to an imaginary Gen. 3. 6. more mounted condition than God had placed him in to be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. This then is the first great Scandal at which the Angels and Adam fell a discontent at a state of Obedience and Subjection to God and his Commands how Holy Just and Good soever as if it were too Arbitrary upon Beings that could understand and chuse for themselves to be so limitted They did not like to consider to retain upon their Reasons not only that they had their Beings given them and that their Obedience was an absolute Due to the Creator but that it was Obedience to an Infinitely Good and Faithful Creator truer to the Interest of his Creatures than themselves could be This Scandal therefore prevailing upon them drew along the whole Tain of misery with it Scandalised Spirits always report ill of God and his Laws so far as they are Scandalised and they that are entering into Scandal too contentedly hear ill of him as appears in the Dialogue betwixt the Serpent and the First Man and Woman Spirits utterly lost by Scandal act in defiance of God and are the more enraged by finding the Misery of their Scandal pressing upon them even to despair as we see in the Devils Humane Nature is more modest and tender being succoured by Grace and the promised Seed in our first Parents and their Posterity preserved from the utmost mischief of Scandal by that Great Restorer from Scandal Not perfectly recovered but in a state of second Probation of rising after so great a Fall or being most unhappily again sunk below those hopes and made for ever the prey of Scandal even after Grace offered This State of Humane Nature is waved and various In some things Men are more clear and free in others hooked and staked with Scandal and wherein they are Right in the Generals they are often insnared in the Particulars and so that their freedom in the one giving them more room and space to stir inwraps them more in the Scandal of the other By degrees if not restor'd men lose the modesty and tenderness preserv'd to them by Grace and fall into the very Scandal of the Devils themselves or very near to it However in all Scandal there are some of the Lineaments of Primitive Scandal and the greater the Scandal the more and the more apparent are those strokes of the first Scandal There is in every Scandal an Understanding that will be wiser than God is for it a disgust to self Resignation into the Divine Will There is some Lust that clouds and darkens the Mind and there is some false Principle that imboldens Lust Scandal always wraps up sin with it self else it were not Scandal sin hath always Scandal to introduce it else there could be no sin Although therefore when we come to particular Cases there are many sins lye
God to be the Governour of the World and of his Church He hath been pleased to order the Conveyance of Scriptures into so many Languages by raising up many to travel in the Knowledge of all Tongues and the Keys of them as in the Originals to find out their Meaning and to transfuse them into all other Languages and that by so many of several Ages and Nations as makes all Combination to deceive impossible and Universal Deception next to impossible upon the Translators themselves These things are under his supreme Care It is enough to us there is brought to our Knowledge such an excellent Doctrine rising out of so many Divine Sayings and Discourses that are as so many Stars in the Firmament of Truth clear as the Luminaries of that name in the Heavens Why should we then be more than modestly and humbly concerned to know all the Ages they have pass'd through before they came to us or all the Secrets concerning their Motion and Appearance that he onely knows that calls the Stars by their Names It is enough they evidently and undeniably declare God to us and assure us by their Light by their regular Motion according to the Laws of Truth and Goodness that they are Stars the Greater and the Lesser differing one from another in Glory yet all Stars and of a truly Divine Lustre Certain and not Wandring Quest Let us now hear the Conclusion of this whole Matter Answ It rests in these two things 1. That the Evidences of the Divine Presence in the Scriptures and all the principal Branches thereof are as clear and certain and do satiate the Soul and its Faculties inlightned by the general Influences of the Divine Spirit much more by its sanctifying Efficacy even as the clearest Notions we have of Things do and much above them And that these Evidences are the same in the Original Scriptures and in the Translations for that they are indeed All Original and not capable of any Translation but make even Translation an Original 2. That as Scripture is such a Contexture and makes up such a Book God the supreme Governour of the Church and of the World in general hath always and does always take care of its preservation from such Corruptions as would injure those Evidences of Divine Inspiration he hath ingraven upon it not only upon the Substance but upon the very Contexture and the very same care he hath taken for the Conveyance of it by agreeable Translations to the several Nations in their own Tongue to whom he hath vouchsafed the Scriptures themselves or the Doctrine of them Quest Hath God wrought miraculously to these Ends Answ That need not be asserted but he hath by the ordinary Interposals of Providence watchful in every thing over its own Ends brought all to pass he in Wisdom thought necessary Quest What Visible Means hath Providence used for the securâ—â—g Scriptuâ—es against foul Corruptions Answ Continual and various Copyings of the Original even in the Days of the Writers in the very time of the Inspection and Ministry of the Prophets and Apostles and downwards from them both by Manuscript and Print which various Copies being compared though they have not to the degree of a Mâ—racle agreed in Minutes have yet concerted the Substance Quest What care hath God been pleased to take with regard â—o Translations Answ Very eminent where it needed most For some Ages before the coming of the Messiah it came no doubt by Divine Superintendency which hath the Hearts of Kings in his Hands and turns them as the Rivers of Water into the Heart of a Great and Learned Prince of Aegypt to procure the Translation of the Divine Law into the Greek the then most known Language of the World Seventy two Seniors of the Jews as History most generally agrees the Learnedest in their Native Hebrew were employed in it This Translation was generally and publickly received among the Jews was approved by our Lord and his Apostles in several Quotations Hereby there was at once a Preparation of those Scriptures to the most Publick Notice an Assurance of the true Import of the Hebrew Tongue and an authorised Translation And in the same so known Greek Language wherein are reposed such Treasures of all Literature is added that most Sacred Roll of the New Testament And from that time have there been by the great Industry God hath excited Men to several Versions of the Old and New Testament into a great variety of Languages with strict Expository Researches and Criticisms upon all that concerns either the Readings or the Sense of Words and Phrases as well as the Doctrine contained in them by which there might be a freer Propagation of Sacred Knowledge and a Security against such Corruptions and Mistakes as might efface the Divine Image or any of the Lineaments of it in â—â—ese Records or their Translations however differing as I have said in minuter Things CAP. VIII Of Tradition and Antiquity Quest BY what hath been said Scripture and its Interpretation appear guarded by their own Divineness against all Private and Counterfeit as by Cherubims and a Flaming Sword turning every way But hath there been no Stratagem of the Adversary to undermine Divine Catholick Religion and the Authority of Scripture the Publick Record of Religion with its Publick Interpretation and yet that all these should seem still to rest firm upon their own Base Answ The great Enemy of God and Truth hath been wanting in no Artifice and therefore hath fallen upon that very Method inquired of that what could not be atchieved by denying Scripture by bringing in False Scripture or Private Interpretation monstrous to the Text all such gross Frauds being in some Times and Places exposed and exploded might be more successfully attempted and effected by yoaking Tradition with Scripture a Private Incertain Oracle with a Publick and Certain one and so avowed to be by the Traditionists themselves Quest What is Tradition Answ These four things concur to the making up Tradition 1. That from the Divine Authority of Scriptures and the True Religion of them which as hath been said it acknowledges it borrows not only Countenance but Occasion and more than that a shew of Reason and Necessity for it self 2. That it therefore endeavours to tack and joyn it self to Scripture and the Religion of it as necessary to compleat and fill it up or to provide something more requisite to that Religion that Scripture hath not provided for 3. That it having grown up from no true Root nor risen upon any just Foundation it hath stollen into its Authority and Reverence by being passed from Hand to Hand so long that its Elderliness looks like a Patent for that Authority and Reverence And its Original some Injudicious Devotion at the best not being easie to be trac'd it comes to be supposed or rather superstitiously to be suspected to be Divine and at length like a long-told Lie assuming to be Truth it takes upon it self to be
Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone Quest How then is it said to be the Pillar of Truth And of what Importance is that to the Actuating Scripture Answ As the Laws and Ordinances of Courts and Governments are publickly fixed that every one may know and take notice of them so the Church in all its Members but especially by Deputed Ministers giving themselves wholly to it proclaims preaches and makes offer of the most Publick Notice of the Word of Truth within it self that all the Children and Servants of the Family may be continually catechiz'd and built up therein and Strangers have opportunity to know if they would apply themselves to it Thus it is a Famous City set on an Hill that cannot be hid and therefore its Laws Constitutions Manners cannot but in all reason be inquired of by all that do so much as pass by it It is a Candlestick bearing the lofty Torch of Divine Truth Of this the Pillars of the Temple at Jerusalem and the affixing to them the Rolls of Divine Revelation was an eminent Type and alluded to by the Apostle As therefore from a Prince come forth Edicts Proclamations Manifesto's and Declarations according to Laws which are fastned to Publick Pillars of the Court it self and all open and conspicuous Places of Concourse so are there in the Church the most advantagious Publications of the Divine Truth and Word to all both the Natives and Free-born of the Church it self and Ingenuous Strangers that would hearken out the most Reasonable Proposals of Truth or whom God is pleased to Naturalize to himself Quest What is the meaning of the Church being the Ground of Truth And how does this actuate Scripture Answ It means nothing but the Perpetuity and Continuation of Truth with the Church establishing it self by all that Firmness of Divine Evidence and Reason and on those very Securities taking Possession of the Church as the Ark of its Strength where it self or the God that is Truth it self places the Soles of his Feet as on his unmovable Footstool for ever Of which the Ark in the Holâ—est was a Type the Footstool of the Throne of Mercy the secure Repository of the Tables of the Covenant the Ark of Testimony over which the Shecinah or Glory appeared as inthron'd attended with Cherubims and setting its Feet upon it the place of my Throne and the place of the Soles of my Feet Ezek. 43. 7. For thus the True Church against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail is the unchangeable Rest of Truth It adheres to Truth it buys the Truth and never sells it Truth dwells with it for ever God never suffers it to apostatize from Truth but by the constant holding of the Judgment and retaining the Love and Zeal of the Affections of those that are indeed his Church he hath setled his Word in his Church on Earth even as it is for ever settled in Heaven The Church therefore actuates Scripture by finding out Reasons debating enforcing defending by all Arguments that Truth of Scripture and so persisting in it for ever Quest Cannot then the Church fail Answ It hath been said before the True Church cannot fail For the True Church is as hath been described the House of God the Pillar and Ground of Truth and that which is so cannot fail and God will have such a Church always in the World If any Person City or Nation that seem to have been the Church have this Light eclipsed the â—anâ—lestick removes for it is only a Candlestick for the sake of the Light and the Pillar it self shakes and falls if the Records fixed to it are taken away and the Palace and Court remove with the Prince who is always with his Truth and the lively Motion of it So much Truth therefore and active Display of it so much a Church in any Place and the Truth removing or lying dead the Church removes also or is ready to die in that Place Quest But is there no higher Sense of the Church being the Pillar and Ground of Truth Answ No other but what arises from the most intimate and inseparable Union betwixt the Church and Truth Truth taking an undefailable possession of the Church so that whereever Truth in that Fulness as to lead to Life and Happiness is there is the Church and no where else The True Church then may be stiled a Pillar and Ground of Truth in the highest Sense if rightly understood that is Truth it self that is the unmovable Pillar and everlasting Foundation hath so closely banded the Church with it self that it is One Pillar and Foundation with it Thus the Church may be both the Building and the Rock and Foundation to succeeding Parts and Members of the Church The Building as it self rests upon the Pillar and Foundation of Truth else it can't be the Church The Pillar and Foundation of Truth to the still succeeding and rising Church as it is One with Truth it self to which every True Member first comes and unites and therein to the Church even as every Degree of Building is a Foundation and Support to the still growing Building not in it self but as it is surely cemented to the Foundation regulated by it and partakes its Strength Yet if it swerve never so little from the Foundation it is presently a Deformity and the more it swerves the greater danger of the Ruine of it self and all that rests upon it Quest May not this help to explain that so much disputed Expression of our Saviour Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not preval against it Answ I shall be glad if it may give any Light to it and hope it may For the Apostle Peter making that Confession of the Divinity of Christ not singular but representing the whole Body of Apostles and Christians and being possessed with and by that Truth he confess'd was both part of the Building upon that Rock and as united with that Rock he became Rock it self upon which succeeeding Christians were to be built The Prophets and Apostles are in this Sense Foundations and the Twelve Apostles Twelve Foundations Christ himself being the Corner-stone in whom alone the whole Building even the Apostolick Foundation it self rises in a strict and proper Sense Quest Is there not a good Security then in joyning our selves to the Church to those that have been in the Building before us Answ No otherwise than as we joyn our selves by their Ministry to that Foundation it self which always lies sure upon which they themselves must alone rest if the True Church For by placing our selves not upon them but upon that Common Foundation we are adjusted to the whole Building that was before us that lies regular with that Foundation by the Care of him who is both the Foundation Corner-stone and is also he that built all things even God in Christ Quest We must then seek to
having not so immediate a Respect to him as Godliness or Religion are more under Humane Legislation in the particular adjustments to the General Ends. But both the inward Court of Religion or Divine Truth and Worship it self and the outward Court of Decency and Order are within such Limitations of the Word of God and the Laws of Nature that all indifferent things therein not prescrib'd by God are left to the freedom of every Man by God and no Power of Prescription ought to come there that a Man may not be either incumbered by unnecessary Observances or in danger to mistake them as having any influence into his Worship of God which ought not to have any and can indeed have none that is good Nor lastly be in doubt whether he do not displease God in adding to his Worship But if a Man can see his Freedom in all these it is serving out of Love and being made all things to all Men and going to the utmost he can in Obedience to Magistrates if a Man cannot see his Freedom but doubts of the lawfulness he is under as severe a prohibition of Compliance against his Doubt as in other Cases of Sin For the Sentence is Positive He that Doubteth is Condemned in doing the Indifferent thing he doubteth of and whatever is not of Faith or assurance it is pleasing to God or not displeasing to him is Sin Quest But this Doubt may extend to Civil Things and Indifferences there or to those Rights of Soveraignty and Grandeur of Supream Power God hath invested them with Answ When Obedience is enforc'd in such Things the Magistrate hath this to justifie him he is within his own Territories given him by God he requires the things that are Caesars upon Gods Donation But in Religious things â—e is within Gods Peculiar and so cannot be justified in that enforcement because the things are so peculiarly Gods Quest The great Question now remains what are Subjects to do when Authority stamps it self upon False Religion or enforces Indifferent things against the apprehensions of Conscience concerning their lawfulness so that they cannot Obey but with a doubting Conscience and the danger of that hath been already opened Answ There is one Rule in all these Cases even as it is impossible Laws of Injustice and Licentiousness when Soveraign Powers so Err in Government should change the True and Everlasting Notion of Righteousness or Soberness or those Eternal and Immutable Laws of them in themselves even so impossible it is the Laws of a False Religion should change those of True Natural or True Revealed Religion or the Laws imposing Indifferent things in Religion should take away the Liberty God hath given or the sinfulness of Obeying against Doubt of Conscience when a Man does not see that Liberty That therefore which is Eternal and Unchangeable must be adhered to and obeyed Quest How then is there a Subjection to Magistrates Answ The Subjection then is in this as in all other Errors of Magistracy in Cases of Justice or Soberness not to resist the Power vindicating its Commands by Sufferings and Penalties upon those that cannot actively Obey wherein Religion Justice or Soberness are contradicted which are Gods and must be rendred to him according to themselves who is able to make them recompense who suffer for Righteousness sake as he pleases in this World or most certainly in the Resurrection of the Just But if there were not such an absolute Legislative and Executive Power in every Community thus fixed and unmoveable and accountable only to God the Restless Love of Change would be always disturbing and calling to account Government and every Man take upon him to be a Lawgiver and a Justicier or indeed to be Licencious and Inordinate and as they could Consult and together Collect themselves into a Rebellion would enter into open Hostilities against it and so the ends of Government in the Peace and Order of Humane Societies be quite lost so that till any Principalities sitting on the Seats of Government are so bad as to retain less of the Uses and Ends of Government than they destroy and it can be made apparent endeavours of Change cannot introduce so great and general Mischiefs or that even Anarchy it self cannot introduce greater Mischiefs than that Government is the Author of which hath come to pass in few Instances till then I say we must fear the Lord and the King and not meddle with them who are given to Change For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knows the ruin of them both Quest But what are Christian Subjects to do when Titles of Soveraignty or Legislative or Executive Powers of Laws are Disputed either betwixt various Pretensions of Princes or where the bounds of Power and Rights of Soveraignty and the Liberties and Properties of People are in Controversie Answ I shall no more intermeddle in that than the Doctrine of Christianity does which leaves all those things to the Laws and Constitutions of Nature of Nations and of each Particular Country The Duty of Christians is to those Soveraign Powers whose Authority is Current whose Image and Superscription is upon all things Publick the Powers that are in being are to be Obey'd according to the Ends of Government already Discoursed that is for the Punishment of Offenders for the Executing Judgment betwixt Man and Man for the securing Common Peace in all Godliness and Honesty Our Lord and his Apostles intimate nothing either way to strengthen or weaken the Claim of the Powers then present but declare Obedience to them Prayers and Thanksgivings for them as they then were although they could not have the clearest of Titles Christianity as it is strictly the Religion of Jesus Christ doth not make it self a Divider over Men nor Decide such Controversies which are quite of another Cognisance yet it subverts no Rights it betrays no Liberties justly so called it reverses no Laws of Nature nor rescinds Constitutions and Compacts of Government but teaches Men to do all they can to preserve Common Good and Right determinable upon other Principles Only this the more clear ancient and indisputable the Titles of Princes are the more indisputable Boundaries betwixt Prince and People are kept the greater are the Obligations of Obedience of quiet and peaceable rest in that Obedience of the most vigorous Defence of the Power over us and the greater the Guilt of any of the Sins of Mutiny Faction Sedition Rebellion Quest The Discourse of the Power of Magistrates in Religion hath brought to my thoughts National Religion and a National Church wherein I desire your Instruction Answ I can but apply what I have said in general to this Particular Case which I shall endeavour to do to your satisfaction in these six Propositions Quest What is the first Proposition I am to be Instructed by Answ It is this That to join in True Religion with our Native Country or Nation is such a Law of Nature that cannot be reversed
that that Doctrine is made known to men by the light of nature consequentially and by way of deduction though not originally ingrafted I make no doubt and that these two ways 1. By that obligation to forgive planted in humane nature and the inclinableness of generous minds to it as an Excellency and Glory of Humane Nature and therefore it is most attributable to God seeing all perfection derives from God and is most attributable to him To the Lord Dan. 9. 9. our God belong mercies and forgivenesses He hath declared to man it does so by inserting it as a Nobleness in his heart They therefore that do not esteem it a virtue and of most desirable practise in themselves may upon that very reason dispair of it from God seeing they count it wiser and better not to forgive and whatever is best and wisest is most attributable to God 2. By the patience of God towards sinners which in its most natural Inferences leads to repentance and is salvation Rom. 2. 4 5. 2 Pet. 3. 9. Infinite goodness not being willing that any should perish but all come to repentance and therefore that penitential frame discoverable in humane nature upon ingenuous sense of sin answers this patience of God as the Eye and light as the Ear and sound do one another and both together are a connate Gospel in mans soul If any should think this a derogation from the Mediator he will be satisfied I intend no such when I tell him I esteem all those notions of Natural Religion and Morality as continued to be planted in man are from Jesus Christ the Creator-Redeemer by whom every thing was made that is made who is that true light that is the light of men the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world Natural Religion therefore may well be inlaid John 1. 4 9. with Evangelical Lines since it is all from Christ The Apostles therefore both St. Paul and Peter discourse it as the great sin of men against natural Knowledg and Conscience not to know that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance to despise the riches of his long-suffering and forbearance to account it slackness and not salvation which could not be without the grace of God in a pardon made known by natural light nay indeed all impressions of Natural Religion continuing and moving to good actions after sin are built upon Gods pardoning Mercy because God allows receives no worship from Devils who find no place for repentance David therefore celebrates God thus There is forgiveness Psal 103. 4. with thee that thou mayest be feared that is honoured reverenced worshiped and served which could not be since mans sin if thou didst not forgive Thus evident is the Doctrine of Pardon and Repentance that if there be any such thing as Natural Religion since the fall that must be a noble branch of it The King of Nineveh had a confidence in this Mercy that so peremptory decree of destruction notwithstanding for the allowance Jonah 3. ult of them a quarentine or forty days patience carried a solemn promise of Pardon upon Repentance in the very nature of it else why was not the destruction immediate so he understood and so it proved and therefore it is a worthy part of religious publick discourse in the worship of God 2. The second duty of Natural Religion is prayer to God which our dependance upon God our expectation from him both for the holy and happy state of our minds in vertue and godliness challenges from us the recommendation of our state beyond death into the hand of God as a faithful Creator requires it of us the peaceable and prosperous order and government of the world and of our nearer concerns in it National Domestick Personal provoke us to it Prayer for pardon and reconciliation to God Vows of obedience to him of returns to him by repentance how necessary are they for upon supposition of sin and hopes of pardon the same considerations enter into prayer that do into discourses of God Now this is a duty so natural that not to pray is to restrain John 15. 4. prayer to shut up and imprison a most natural motion and vent of the soul that is ready forcibly to burst out as water consin'd within bounds too close for it David makes addresses to God as by one of his Attributes Oh thou Psal 65. 2. that hearest prayers and therefore hast an universal congregation of suppliants about thee to thee shall all flesh come 3. Praises of God in the divine excellencies of his Nature and Beeing in the glories of Creation and Providence in his Mercies and continual Beneficencies to our selves and all his creatures in his righteousness judgments and severities upon the wickedness that is in the world are a tribute to God so natural that God as our Maker gives all men songs in the night that is continual matter of praise even in the ordinary and extraordinary seasons the whole Creation is one Mouth opened in his glory This is so due and even necessary to be paid that some Naturalists of no great reputation for Devotion have upon the survey of the admirable works of God found his praises even bubbling up from them in Hymns of Praise 4. The holy and reverend mentions of God upon all just and valuable Reasons as in swearing by his Name in Covenants and Pacts in decision of controversies by testimony in asseverations of truth in promises are among the Decrees of this Natural Religion Lastly The universal Sanctification of the Divine Majesty in all our thoughts words and actions that in nothing we may reverse that acknowledgment we make in solemn duties who that calls God the bâ—st and greatest Names of Love and Awe in the highest dâ—grees as Heathens did by the force of Natural Religion can deny or keep back any part of these from God or if any denies them or does contrary to them by impious swearing blaspheming the Name of God or undervalues the awful and tremendous attributes or what evidently and undoubtedly pertains to the Divine Honour and Glory who can say severity upon him is cruelty but a due sacrifice to justice as punishments for blood rapine unnatural lusts are All these then are so plain and evident Duties that they need nothing of further discourse but only a sober reflection upon their own evidence in order to their prevalency in the understanding of men And for the manner of performance besides the very gravity required in such awful actions the prudence of rational nature in its solemn deportments the greatest condecency required to divine things that can arise from nature and not from artifice I know nothing to be added except a caution to rest here and not to suffer the transports and inchantments of a fleshly imagination that is endlesly spinning out it self in forms and modes of divine worship till that worship become not a piece of pageantry only for that were