that they might gain in this Grand one we should quickly see Christendome in most lovely and blessed Circumstances All people that have any thing of sincerity would quickly unite and agree together and as for factious Hypocrites they would be with ease supprest and put out of all capacity of doing mischief This I say might be easily shewn and plainly demonstrated but it needs not there being nothing in the world more undeniably evident CHAP. XXVI The Tenth Inference That an Obedient Temper of Mind is an excellent and necessary Qualification to prepare men for a firm Belief and right understanding of the Gospel of Christ. That it is so by virtue of Christ's promise That it is so in its own Nature This shewed in three Particulars viz. in that 1. It will help us to judge without prejudice concerning the Doctrines contained in the Gospel 2. It will give satisfaction concerning the main Doctrines of Christianity far excelling any that can arise from mere speculation 3. It will secure from the Causes of Errour in those Points that are of weightiest importance Six Causes of such Errours laid down and an Obedient Disposition of mind shewed to secure from each of them TEnthly We learn what is the best Temper and Disposition of mind to bring to the Study of Christ's Gospel in order to our firm belief and right understanding of it Seeing its Design is to make men entirely obedient and truly holy it is evident that a desire so to be is the most excellent and necessary qualification for that purpose Our Saviour saith Iohn 7. 17. If any man will do his will or is willing to do it he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self That is in the first place he shall be throughly satisfied concerning the truth of the Gospel shall be abundantly convinced that the Christian Religion is no Imposture that the Author of it came from Heaven as he declared he did and was sent by God to reveal his Will Such a one when it comes to be sufficiently proposed to him shall heartily embrace the Gospel as containing the true the onely true Religion And therefore observe what he saith Iohn 8. 47. He that is of God heareth God's words ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God That is as if he should say He that is of an obedient Temper and ambitious of doing the will of God shall receive the Doctrine which in his name I preach to him and the reason why you Iews for your parts refuse so to do is because you are insincere and hypocritical It is said Acts 13. 48. That as many of the Gentiles as were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is doubtless in this place to be rendred disposed or in a ready preparedness for Eternal Life believed That is Those which were Proselytes of the Gate who were admitted by the Iews to the Hope of Eternal Life and to have their portion in the Age to come without submitting to their whole law or any more than owning the God of Israel and observing the seven precepts of Noah as Master Mede hath learnedly and with great conviction shewn These being desirous to live Godlily and not prejudiced against the Christian Religion as the Iews generally were did then at Antioch receive the Gospel upon its first being made known to them And of this sort was Cornelius whose conversion to Christianity we read of before in the tenth Chapter Secondly and consequently this sence is also implied in the first cited words of our Saviour viz. That as he which is willing to do God's will shall know that Christ's Doctrine came from him so he shall rightly understand that Doctrine too For it would be to no purpose for him to believe the Gospel to be true if his Faith be not accompanied with an ability to pass a right judgement on the sence of it And therefore he must needs be able to distinguish between the Doctrine of Christ and that which is falsly imposed at any time upon the world as his and fathered upon him by ungodly Heretiques as well as satisfied that what he delivered in the general is the Will of God S. Iohn to this same purpose expresseth himself 1 Epistle 4. 6. He that knoweth God that is practically or is Obedient heareth us he that is not of God or is not willing to obey him heareth not us hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error That is by this obedient temper we are capable of distinguishing betwixt these two Spirits And I say from the Design of the Gospel that being to make men Holy it may be presumed that whosoever considereth it with a desire of being so must needs both believe it to have come from God and also be inlightened in the true knowledge of at least all the necessary Points of it and be enabled to give a particular explicite and understanding assent to them So that it shall not lie in the power of any subtile seducer to rob him of his Faith or to infect him with any Principles that are directly destructive to it or are so plainly in their consequences so as that he shall see it and make that ill use of them as to be perswaded by them to let go his hold of any Fundamental Article of the Christian Religion For our Saviour having so infinitely concerned himself for the destroying of sin in us and to make us partakers of his holiness as to aim at this above all things in all he did and suffered in the world and to make it the whole business of his Gospel we may be certain that those Honest Souls that come to the study of it with a desire of reaping this advantage by it cannot be left destitute of Christ's grace and blessing to make it successful to them for that purpose which it is impossible it should be without a thorow-belief of it and a right understanding of at least all its absolutely necessary and Essential parts This we might be assured of from that consideration though there were no Promise extant of that his grace to such well disposed people as there are diverse others besides that which we have produced But besides this a sincere desire of being obedient and holy must needs of it self very greatly dispose us for the belief and sufficient understanding of the Gospel and be very necessary in order thereunto also For First It will help us to judge without prejudice and partiality concerning it and the particular Doctrines therein contained He whose hearty desire it is to please God in doing his Will will be unbyassed in his judgement in enquiries after it He knows that he cannot make that to be Truth by thinking one way or other which was not before so and that truth will be truth whatsoever he thinks on it And therefore doth not wish that this or that may be so and then endeavour to perswade himself that it is so
THE DESIGN OF Christianity QVI SEQVITUR ME NON AMBULAT IN TENEBRIS Clem. Alexandr Paedag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE DESIGN OF Christianity OR A plain Demonstration and Improvement of this Proposition VIZ. That the enduing men with Inward Real Righteousness or True Holiness was the Ultimate End of our Saviour's Coming into the World and is the Great Intendment of His Blessed Gospel By EDWARD FOWLER Minister of God's Word at Northil in Bedford-shire LONDON Printed by E. Tyler and R. Holt for R. Royston Bookseller to the King 's most Excellent Majesty and Lodowick Loyd MDCL XXI Imprimatur April 17. 1671. Rob. Grove R. P. Dom. Episc. Lond. à sac Dom. To the Reader Reader WHereas there was somewhat above a Twelve-moneth since exposed to Publick view a Free Discourse between the two intimate Friends Theophilus and Philalethes which containeth an Account of some Principles and Practices of certain Moderate Divines c. together with a Defence of them I desire thee to take notice that in this Tractate is pursued the main and Fundamental Reason of that Dialogue As if thou art not a stranger to it thou mayest easily guess by the foregoing Title-page And if thou shalt please to give thy self the trouble of running over the following Pages I hope thou wilt be satisfied that the Doctrines that are chiefly maintained in that Book do most naturally result from and those which are most opposed in it are confuted by the Argument that is here insisted on If thou conceivest that in Demonstrating the establishment of Real Righteousness and True Holiness in the world to be the Ultimate Design of our Saviour's Coming and the Grand and even whole Business of the Christian Institution I have taken upon me to prove a Proposition that is as evidently and imdisputably true as any First Principle I must tell thee that I most heartily wish there were more of thy mind than I doubt there are And that I have been so far from giving my Reader any the least Temptation to suspect the Contrary that I have expresly as thou wilt see shewn That there is nothing in the whole world more clearly apparent than the Truth thereof to such as are not either through Ignorance or Wilfulness very strangely blinded or that have with any seriousness read the New Testament or but a small part of it But though this be so I may not be accused of so idley employing my self in the first Section as if I there held up a Torch to shew the Sun for I have pointed to it by its own light only that is exposed to thy View in a few leaves the summ and substance of that abundant evidence which throughout the Gospel is given us of that great Truth And whosoever shall say that to do this was needless I shall give him my unfeigned thanks would he make me sensible that I am guilty of a mistake in believing otherwise And upon that account rejoyce to be convinced that I have in that business spent time impertinently But alas it is no less undeniable that a Discourse of this nature is necessary and seasonable than that the matter thereof is true For it cannot be at all doubted that the Design of the Christian Religion is by abundance of its Professors very sadly mistaken and that though it is with infinite plainness expressed to be no other than the Reformation of our Lives and Purification of our Natures and is wholly adapted to that purpose the complaint that Tully took up of certain Philosophers viz. that they esteemed their Philosophy Ostentationem scientiae non Legem vitae a boast of science not a law of life may be applied to not a few of those that are called Christians concerning their opinion of Christianity And besides that there are diverse Opinions that too many among us are greatly fond of which make it absolutely certain that they think otherwise than they ought and have entertained unworthy notions of the Design of the Gospel it must be acknowledged that such Practices are likewise observable in the far greater part as are a Demonstration that if they have no false conception of it yet it is but little considered and therefore not thorowly believed by them And this alone is abundantly sufficient to avouch the Usefulness of my undertaking both in that and the two other Sections And till those that Profess themselves Christ's Disciples do more generally become effectually sensible as those of the first Ages were That the Mystery into which they are initiated is purely a Mystery of Godliness and that it is entirely composed of such Principles as tend throughly to instruct Man-kind in the Particulars of that Duty that the Law of their Nature obligeth them to towards their Creatour themselves and their Fellow-creatures together with the most Powerful Motives to Excite and the best means and most successful assistances to enable them to a faithful discharge of them we may never hope to out-live or to see the least abatement of that gross Superstition Fanaticism and Enthusiasm or those mad Enormities and most impious Practices which have now for a very long time sullied and most miserably defaced the beauty obscured nay and even utterly extinguish'd the glory of the Church of Christ have laid the honor w ch she was deservedly once crowned with in the very dust and bring the borridest scandal upon her holy profession and that Blessed Name she is called by But not to detain thee with a tedious Preface thou wilt have no reason to accuse me upon the account of this Discourse of starting and troubling the world with any more Controversies but mayst on the contrary be greatly assured That there cannot be taken a more effectual course to put an end to those we are at this day disturb'd with and to the pernicious effects of all whatsoever than is the right explaining and well improving of the Subject that is here handled For this is to strike at the Grand cause of them they being to be imputed to nothing so much as to the Ignorance of or Non-attendence to the Design of Christianity I will add no more but that if thou shalt please to accept this small performance as ingenuously and candidly as it is meant honestly and believe that it proceeds not from an Humour of Scribling but a sincere desire of doing some service thou wilt be but just to him who is ambitious of nothing so much as of being Instrumental towards the promoting of that most Excellent and infinitely Important Design in thy Heart and Life E. F. The Contents SECT I. That True Holiness is the Design of Christianity plainly Demonstrated CHAP. 1. The nature of true Holiness Described Pag. 5. Chap. 2. A general demonstration that the holiness described is the Design of Christianity by a Climax of seven particulars pag. 12. Chap. 3. A particular demonstration that holiness is the onely design of the Precepts of the Gospel And that they require 1. The most
the Father Phil. 2. 9 10 11. Now by vertue of the Authority he is by this means invested and dignified with and particularly as he is King of his Church hath he sent the Holy Ghost to Sanctifie us to excite us to all holy actions and to assist us in the performance of them Sixthly The Death of Christ doth also apparently promote this great Design as by his patient submitting to it he vindicated God's Right of Sovereignity over all his Creatures and the power he hath to require what he pleaseth and to dispose of them as seems good to him Whereas the First Adam by Contumacy Pride and Rebellion did put an high and unsufferable affront upon the Authority of his Maker and his wretched posterity followed his Example and have by that means done what lay in them to render his Right to their obedience questionable this Blessed Second Adam by acting directly Contrary viz. by Obedience Humility Subjecting himself to the Divine pleasure in the severest expressions and significations of it hath done publiquely and before the world an infinite honour to his Father And his absolute Right of Dominion over his whole Creation and the power he hath to prescribe to it what laws he judges sitting which was before so eclipsed by wicked sinners hath he by this means in the most signal manner manifested and made apparent And of what force this is to promote our Holiness and Universal obedience the dullest capacity may apprehend From what hath been said it appears to be a most plain and unquestionable Case that our Saviour in his Death considered according to each of the notions we have of it had an eye to the great work of making men Holy and that this was the main Design which he therein drove at And I now adde that where as it is frequently affirmed in the holy Scriptures that the End of Christ's death was also the Forgiveness of our sins the Reconciling of us to his Father we are not so to understand those places where this is expressed as if these Blessings were absolutely thereby procured for us or any otherwise than upon Condition of our effectuall believing and yielding obedience to his Gospel Nor is there any one thing scarcely which we are so frequently therein minded of as we are of this Christ died to put us into a Capacity of pardon the actual removing of our Guilt is not the necessary and immediate result of his Death but suspended till such time as the forementioned conditions by the help of his grace are performed by us But moreover it is in order to our being encouraged to sincere endeavours to forsake all sin and to be universally obedient for the time to come that our Saviour shed his blood for the Pardon of it This was intended in his death as it is subservient to that purpose the assurance of having all our sins forgiven upon our sincere Reformation being a necessary motive thereunto Therefore hath he delivered us from a necessity of Dying that we might live to God and therefore doth God offer to be in his Son Jesus reconciled to us that we may thereby be prevailed with to be reconciled to him Therefore was the Death of Christ designed to procure our Justification from all sins past that we might be by this means provoked to become new Creatures for the time to come Observe to this purpose what the Divine Author to the Hebrews saith Chap. 9. 13 14. If the blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Unclean Sanctifieth to the Purifying of the flesh How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit ofsered himself without Spot to God purge your Consciences from dead works for what end it follows to Serve or in order to your Serving the Living God And thus much may suffice to be spoken concerning the Design of our Saviour's Death CHAP. VIII That it is onely the promoting of the Design of making men Holy that is aimed at by the Apostles insisting on the Doctrines of Christ's Resurrection Ascension and coming again to Judgement I Might in the next place proceed to shew that the Resurrection of our Saviour did carry on the same Design that his Precepts Promises and Threatnings Life and Death aimed at but who knows not that these would all have signified nothing to the promoting of this or any other end if he had always continued in the Grave and not risen again as he foretold he would If Christ be not risen saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 13. then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain So that whatsoever our Saviour intended in those particulars the perfecting and final accomplishment thereof must needs be eminently designed in his Resurrection The Apostle Peter tells his Country-men the Jews Acts 3. 21. that To them first God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless them in turning every one of them from his iniquities But farthermore we find the Doctrine of Christ's Resurrection very much insisted on by S. Paul especially as a principle of the Spiritual and Divine life in us and proposed as that which we ought to have not onely a Speculative and Notional but also a Practical and Experimental acquaintance with And he often telleth us that it is our Duty to find that in our Souls which bears an analogy thereunto He saith Phil. 3. 10. That it was his ambition to know or feel within himself the Power of his Resurrection as well as the fellowship of his sufferings to have experience of his being no longer a dead but a living Jesus by his inlivening him and quickening his Soul with a new life And again he saith Rom. 6. 4. that Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism unto Death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life that is Christians being plunged into the Water in Baptism signifieth their undertaking and obliging themselves in a spiritual sence to die and be buried with Jesus Christ which death and burial consist in an utter renouncing and forsaking of all their sins that so answerably to his Resurrection they may live a Holy and a Godly life And it followeth vers 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection that is If we are ingrafted into Christ by Mortification to Sin and so imitate his death we will no less have a Resemblance of his Resurrection by living to God or performing all acts of Piety and Christianity And then from vers 8. to 11. he thus proceeds Now if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall or we will also live with him Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him For in that he died he died unto Sin once or for sin once for
the first sight assured of the truth of the contents of it For no man in his wits can in the least question the Veracity of him whom even natural light assures us can be no other than Truth it self Secondly Those good Principles that the Heathens by the greatest improvement of their Reason could at best conclude but very probable are made undoubtedly Certain to us Christians by Revelation As First That of the Immortality of our Souls The vulgar sort of Heathens who were apt to believe any thing that was by Tradition handed down to them 't is confessed did not seem to doubt of the truth of this Doctrine but to take it for granted which no question is also to be imputed to the special Providence of God and not merely to their Credulity But the more learned and sagacious that would not easily be imposed on nor believe any farther than they saw cause though by Arguments drawn from the notions they had truly conceived of the Nature of Humane Souls they have diverse of them undertaken to prove them Immortal yet could their Arguments raise the best of them no higher than a great opinion of their Immortality Cato read Plato of the Immortality of the Soul as he lay bleeding to death with great delight but that argues not that he had any more than great hopes of the truth of it Socrates did so believe it that he parted with this life in expectation of another but yet he plainly and ingenuously confessed to his friends that it was not certain Cicero that sometimes expresseth great confidence concerning the truth of it doth for the most part speak so of it that any one may see that he thought the Doctrine no better than probable He discourseth of it in his book de Senectute as that which he rather could not endure to think might be false than as that which he had no doubt of the truth of And after he had there instanced in several Arguments which he thought had weight in them for the proof thereof and expressed a longing to see his Ancestors and the brave men he had once known and which he had heard of read and written of he thus concludes that whole Discourse If I erre in believing the Souls immortality I erre willingly neither so long as I live will I suffer this errour which so much delights me to be wrested from me But if when I am dead I shall be void of all sense as certain little Philosophers think I do not fear to have this errour of mine laught at by dead Philosophers But now the Gospel hath given us the highest assurance possible of the truth of this Doctrine Life and immortality are said to be brought to light by it He who declared himself to be the Son of God with power gave men a sensible demonstration of it in his own person by his Resurrection from the Dead and Ascention into Heaven And both by himself and his Apostles who were also indued with a power of working the greatest of Miracles for the confirmation of the truth of what they said did very frequently and most plainly preach it Secondly The Doctrine of Rewards and Punishments in the life to come which is for substance the same with the former according to our behaviour in this life the learned Heathens did generally declare their belief of which they grounded upon the Justice Holiness and Goodness of the Divine Nature They considered that Good men were often exercised with great calamities and that bad men very frequently were greatly prosperous and abounded with all earthly felicities And therefore thought it very reasonable to believe that God would in another life shew his hatred of Sin and love of Goodness by making a plain discrimination between the conditions of vertuous and wicked persons by punishing these and rewarding those without exception But this though it was in their opinion a very probable argument yet they looked not on it as that which amounted to a Demonstration For they could not but be aware That that Doctrine which was so generally received by them viz. That Vertue is in all conditions a Reward and Vice a Punishment to it self did very much blunt the edge of it And that other very harsh one That all things besides Vertue and Vice are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither good nor evil did render it as the perfect Stoicks did seem too well to understand too too insignificant But I must confess that Hierocles who as hath been said did not admit that notion but in a very qualified sence saith of those that think their Souls mortal and consequently that vertue will hereafter have no reward that when they dispute in the behalf of vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they rather talk wittily than truly and in good earnest The excellent Socrutes himself when he was going to drink off the fatal drug thus said to those that were then present with him I am now going to end my days whereas your lives will be prolonged but whether you or I upon this account are the more happy is known to none but God only intimating that he did not look upon it as absolutely certain that he should have any Reward in another world for doing so heroically vertuous an act as chusing Martyrdom for the Doctrine of the Unity of the Godhead But now what is more frequently or clearly declared in the Gospel than that there will be Rewards and Punishments in the world to come sutable to mens actions in this world than that Christ will come a second time to judge the world in righteousness and that all must appear before his Iudgment-seat to receive according to what they have done whether it be good or whether it be evil 2 Cor. 5. 10. Thirdly That mens sins shall be forgiven upon true Repentance from the consideration of the Goodness and Mercy of God the Heathens were likewise perswaded or rather hoped But we Christians have the strongest assurance imaginable given us of it by the most solemn and often reiterated promises of God himself and not onely that some or most but also that all without exception and the most heinous impieties upon condition of their being sincerely forsaken shall in and through Christ be freely forgiven to those that have been guilty of them Fourthly The Doctrine of God's readiness to assist men by his special grace in their endeavours after Vertue could be no more at the best than probable in the judgement of the Heathens but we have in the Gospel the most express promises thereof made to us for our infinitely great encouragement Tully in his Book de Naturâ Deorum saith that their City Rome and Greece had brought forth many singular men of which it is to be believed none arrived to such a height nisi Deo juvante but by the help of God And after he tells us that Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu Divino unquam fuit No excellent man was ever made so
on mens wills to use their utmost endeavour to subdue their lusts and to acquire vertuous habits yet this grace is not such as that there is no possibility of refusing or quenching it Nor is it fit it should seeing mankind is indued with a principle of freedom and that this principle is as Essential as any other to the Humane Nature I will add that this is one immediate cause of the unsuccessfulness of the Gospel to which it is very much to be attributed Namely mens strange and unaccountable mistaking the Design of it Multitudes of those that profess Christianity are so grosly inconsiderate not to say worse as to conceive no better of it than as a Science and a matter of Speculation And take themselves though against the clearest evidences of the contrary imaginable for true and genuine Christians either because they have a general belief of the truth of the Christian Religion and profess themselves the Disciples of Christ Jesus in contradistinction from Iews Mahometans and Pagans and in and through him alone expect salvation Or because they have so far acquainted themselves with the Doctrine of the Gospel as to be able to talk and dispute and to make themselves pass for knowing People Or because they have joyned themselves to that party of Christians which they presume are of the Purest and most Reformed Model and are zealous sticklers for their peculiar forms and discriminating sentiments and as stiff opposers of all other that are contrary to them Now the Gospel must necessarily be as ineffectual to the rectifying of such mens minds and Reformation of their Manners while they have so wretchedly too low an opinion of its Design as if it really had no better And so long as they take it for granted that its main intention is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make them Orthodox not Vertuous it cannot be thought that they should be ever the more Holy nay 't is a thousand to one but they will be in one kind or other the more unholy for their Christianity And lastly There are several untoward opinions very unhappily instilled into professors of Christianity which render the Truths of the Gospel they retain a belief of insignificant and unsuccessful as to the bettering either of their hearts or lives as infinitely apt and of as mighty efficacy as they are in themselves for those great purposes 2. Secondly Whereas it was said also that the Generality of Heathens live in diverse respects better lives than do multitudes and even the Generality of those that profess Christianity it is so far from being difficult to give a satisfactory account how this may be without disparaging our excellent Religion that it is to be expected that those people should be even much the worse for it that refuse to be bettered by it It is an old Maxime that Corruptio optimi est pessima The best things being spoiled do prove to be the very worst And according to this nothing less is to be looked for than that degenerated Christians should be the vilest of all persons And it is also certain that the best things when abused do ordinarily serve to the worst purposes of which there may be given innumerable Instances And so it is in this present case S. Paul told the Corinthians that he and the other Apostles were a savour of death unto death as well as of life unto life And our Saviour gave the Pharisees to understand That for judgement he was come into the world that those that see not might see and that those that see might be made blind that is That it would be a certain consequent of his coming not onely that poor ignorant Creatures should be turned from darkness to light but also that those which have the light and shut their eyes against it should be judicially blinded And the forementioned Apostle in the first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans saith of those that held the truth in unrighteousness that would not suffer it to have any good effect upon them through their close adhering to their filthy lusts that God gave them up to the most unnatural villainies permitted them to commit them by withholding all restraints from them and likewise gave them over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a reprobate mind So that from the just judgment of God it is I say to be expected that depraved Christians should be the most wicked of all people And therefore it is so far from being matter of wonder that those that will not be converted by the Gospel should be so many of them very horribly prophane that it is rather so that all those which having for any considerable time lived under the preaching of it continue disobedient to it should not be such In the purest ages of the Church were degenerated Christians made in this kind most fearful Examples of the Divine Vengeance And so utterly forsaken of God that they became if we may believe Irenaeus Tertullian and others of the Antient Fathers not one whit better than Incarnate Devils Nor were there to be found in the whole world in those days and but rarely since such abominable and most execrable Caytiffs as they were I have sometimes admired that humane nature should be capable of such a monstrous depravation as several stories recorded of them do bespeak them to have contracted But 3. Thirdly If we must needs judge of the efficacy of the Gospel for the making men Holy by its success herein Let us cast our eyes back upon the First ages of Christianity and then we shall find it an easie matter to satisfie our selves concerning it though we should understand no more of Christianity than the effects it produced in those days For though there were then a sort of people that sometimes called themselves Christians that were as was now said the most desperately wicked Creatures that ever the earth bare yet these were esteemed by all others that were known by that name as no whit more of their number than the Pagans and Iews that defied Christ. And their Religion was a motly thing that consisted of Christianity Iudaism and Paganism all blended together and therefore in regard of their mere profession they could be no more truly called Christians than Iews or Pagans Or rather to speak properly they were of no Religion at all but would sometimes comply with the Iews and at other times with the Heathens and joyned readily with both in persecuting the Christians And in short the Samaritans might with less impropriety be called Iews than these Gnostiques Christians 'T is also confessed that the orthodox Christians were calumniated by the Heathens as flat Atheists but their only pretence for so doing was their refusing to worship their false Gods And they likewise accused them of the beastliest and most horrid practices but it is sufficiently evident that they were beholden to the Gnostiques for those accusations who being accounted Christians did by their being notoriously guilty of
them give occasion to the enemies of Christianity to reproach all the professors of it as most silthy and impure creatures I know it is commonly said that those Calumnies proceeded purely from the Heathens malicious invention but it is apparent that those vile Hereticks gave occasion to them But that the Christians were so far from being guilty of such monstrous crimes that they did lead most inoffensive and good lives doth abundantly appear by the Apologies that diverse of the Fathers made to the Heathen Emperors and people in their behalf Iustin Martyr in his Apology to Antoninus Pius hath this saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It is our interest that all persons should make a narrow inquisition into our lives and doctrine and to expose them to the view of every one And he afterwards tells that Emperor That his people had nothing to lay to their charge truly but their bare name Christians And again That they which in times past took pleasure in unclean practices do live now that they are become converts to Christianity pure and chast lives They which used magical arts do now consecrate and devote themselves to the eternal and good God They which preferred the incomes of their money and possessions before all things else do now cast them into the common stock and communicate them to any that stand in need They which once hated each other and mutually engaged in bloody battles and according to the custom would not keep a common fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with those that were not of the same tribe now live lovingly and familiarly together with them That now they pray for their very enemies and those which persecute them with unjust hatred they endeavour to win to them by perswasions that they also living according to the honest precepts of Christ may have the same hope and gain the same reward with themselves from the great Governour and Lord of the world Athenagoras in his Apology saith thus to the Emperors Aurelius Antoninus and Aurelius Commodus As very gracious and benign as you are to all others you have no care of us who are called Christians for ye suffer us who commit no evil nay who as shall hereafter appear do behave our selves of all men most piously and justly both towards God and your Government to be vexed to be put to flight from place to place and to be violently dealt with And then he adds some lines after If any of you can convict us of any great or small crime we are ready to bear the most severe punishment that can be inflicted upon us And speaking of the Calumnies that some had fastened upon them he saith If you can find that these things are true spare no age no sex but utterly root us up and destroy us with our wives and children if you can prove that any of us live like to beasts c. And there is very much to the same purpose in Tertullian's Apology Where he tels the Roman Governours That they dealt otherwise with the Christians than with any other whom they accounted Malefactors For whereas they tortured others to make them confess the faults they were accused of they tortured these to make them deny themselves to be Christians And that having no crime besides to lay to their charge which carried the least shew of truth their professing themselves to be no Christians would at at any time procure for them their absolution And to this objection that there are some Christians that do excedere à regula disciplnae depart from the rules of their Religion and live disorderly here turneth this answer Desinunt tamen Christiani haberi penes nos But those that do so are no longer by us accounted Christians And by the way let me recite Rigaltius his short note upon this passage At perseverant hodiè in nomine et numero Christianorum qui vitam omnem vivunt Antichristi But those now adays do retain the name and society of Christians which live altogether Antichristian lives And proceeds he Tolle publicanos c. Take away Publicans and a wretched rabble which he musters together et frigebunt hodiernorum Ecclesiae Christianorum and our present Christian Churches will be lamentably weak small and insignificant things From these few citations out of the Apologies of the forementioned Fathers to which may be added abundance more of the same nature both out of them and others we may judge what rare success the Gospel had in the first ages and what a vast difference there is between the Christians of those and of these daies that is between the Christians that were under persecution and those that since have lived in ease and prosperity When the Christian Religion came to be the Religion of Nations and to be owned and encouraged by Emperors and Rulers then was the whole vast Roman Empire quickly perswaded to march under its Banner and the very worst of men for fashions sake and in expectation of Temporal Advantages came flocking into the Church of Christ. Nay the worse men were and the less of conscience they had the more forward might they then be so to do the more haste they might make to renounce their former Religion and take upon them the Profession of Christianity And no sooner was the Church set in the warm sun-shine of worldly Riches and Honours but it is apparent she was insensibly over-run with those noisome vermine which have bred and multiplyed ever since even for many Centuries of years in her If any shall doubt whether the forementioned Fathers might not give too good a character of the Christians whose cause they pleaded I desire them to consider whether or no it be imaginable that they should so do seeing their enemies to whom they wrote their defences of them could easily they living among them have discovered the falsity of their commendations And we find them frequently appealing to the Heathens own Consciences whether they themselves did not believe that to be no other than the truth which they said of them And moreover we have them ever and anon triumphing over them and provoking them to shew such effects of their Philosophy and way of Religion as they themselves could witness were produced by the Gospel of Christ. Nay and we have their Adversaries themselves giving them a very high Character Tertullian in his forementioned Apology saith that Pliny the second who was a persecutor of Christians wrote thus to the Emperour Trajan from the Province where he ruled under him viz. That Besides their Resolute refusing to offer Sacrifice he could learn nothing concerning their Religion but that they held Meetings before day to sing praises to Christ and God and to engage their Sect in solemn Leagues forbidding Murther Adultery Deceit Disloyalty and all other wickednesses And in a now extant Epistle of his to that Emperor we find him giving him this information viz. That some that had renounced Christianity and now worshipped his
that all that have the conduct of Souls committed to them should do the like S. Paul exhorted Timothy first to take heed to himself and then to the Doctrine and the former advice was of no whit less necessity and importance than was the latter For as woful experience assureth us a Minister of a careless and loose life let his parts and ability in preaching be never so great nay though he should behave himself never so faithfully in the Pulpit and be zealous against the very vices he himself is guilty of which would be very strange if he should must needs do more hurt incomparably than he can do good And though as some of them will tell them it is the Peoples duty to do as they say and not as they do yet is there nothing more impossible than to teach them effectually that Lesson Mankind as we had before occasion to shew is mightily addicted to imitation and Examples especially those of Governors and Teachers have a greater force upon people ordinarily than have Instructions but chiefly bad Examples in regard of their natural proneness to vice than good Instructions Had not the Apostles expressed as great a care of what they did as of what they said how they lived as how they preached Christianity would without doubt have been so far from prevailing and getting ground as it hath done that it could not have long survived its Blessed Author if it had not bid adiue to the world with him Most men do what we can will judge of our Sermons by our Conversations and if they see these bad they will not think those good nor the Doctrines contained in them practicable seeing they have no better effect upon those that preach them And besides no man will be thought to be serious and in good earnest in pressing those duties upon others which he makes no conscience of performing himself Nay every man's judgement in Divine things may warrantably be suspected that is of a wicked and vicious Life And those that are conscious to themselves that they are not able to pass a judgement upon Doctrines may not be blamed if they question their Minister's Orthodoxy while they observe in him any kind of Immorality and see that he lives to the satisfaction of any one Lust. For the promise of knowing the Truth is made onely to such as continue in Christ's words that is that are obedient to his Precepts And I adde that such a one 's talks of Heaven and Hell are like to prevail very little upon his Auditors or to be at all heeded by the greatest part of them while they consider that the Preacher hath a soul to save as well as they And therefore the love that they bear to their lusts with the Devil's help will easily perswade them that either these things are but mere sictions or else that the one may be obtained and the other escaped upon far easier terms than he talks of But as for those few in whom the sense of true Vertue and Piety have made so deep an impression as that they have never the slighter opinion of the necessity thereof in regard of their Minister's wicked Example the prejudice that they cannot but conceive against him renders his discourses insipid and unaffecting to them and so they ordinarily take all opportunities to turn their backs upon him and at length quite forsake him And then if they are not as understanding as well meaning people are too easily drawn away from all other Churches when they have left their own and become a prey to some demure and fairly pretending Sectary And I am very certain from my own observation that no one thing hath so conduced to the prejudice of our Church of England and done the separating parties so much service as the scandalous lives of some that exercise the Ministerial Function in her The late Excellent Bishop of Down and Connar hath this memorable passage in a Sermon he preached to the University at Dublin If ye become burning shining Lights if ye do not detain the Truth in unrighteousness if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit your Doctrine will be true and that truth will prevail But if you live wickedly scandalously every little Schismalick will put you to shame draw Disciples after him and abuse your flocks and feed them with Coloâ—…ynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the chair appointed for your Religion But to hasten to the dispatch of this unpleasant Topick wicked ministers are of all other ill-livers the most scandalous for they lay the greatest stumbling block of any whatsoever before mens souls and what our Saviour said of the Scribes and Pharisees may in an especial manner be applyed to them viz. that they will neither enter into heaven themselves nor yet suffer them that are entering to go in so far are they from saving themselves and those that hear them But I would to God such would well lay to heart those sad words of our Saviour Luke 17. 1 2. It is impossible but that offences will come but woe unto him through whom they come it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the Sea c. And those words are not more effectual to scare them than are these following of a Heathen viz. Tully concerning vicious Philosophers to shame them into a better life saith he in his Tusculan Questions the second book Quotusquisque Philosophorunâ—… invenitur qui sit ita moratus c. What one of many Philosophers is there who so behaves himself and is of such a mind and life as Reason requireth which accounteth his Doctrine not a boast of Science but a law of life which obeyeth himself and is governed by his own precepts We may see some so light and vain that it would have been better for them to be wholly ignorant and never to have learn d any thing others so covetous of money thirsty of praise and honour and many such slaves to their lusts ut cum eorum vitâ mirabiliter pugnet oratio That their lives do marvellously contradict their Doctrine Quod quidem mihi videtur esse turpissimum c. Which to me seems the most filthy and abominable of all things For as he which professing himself a Grammarian speaks barbarously and who being desirous to be accounted a Musician sings scurvily is so much the more shame-worthy for his being defective in that the knowledge and skill of which he arrogates to himself so a Philosopher in ratione vitae peccans miscarrying in his manners is in this respect the baser and more wretched Creature that in the office of which he will needs be a Master he doth amiss artemque vitae professus delinquit in vitâ and prosessing the art of well-living or of teaching others to live well is faulty and miscarrieth in his own life Could this excellent Heathen thus inveigh against wicked Philosophers what Satyre can be tart and
Example as both he and his Apostles have often enough assured us he did were more seriously considered it could not possibly be that the Design of his Gospel and that wherein consists the Power of Godliness and Soul of Christianity should be by so many so very miserably mistaken as we see it is The Conclusion WHat remaineth now but that we sedulously and with the greatest concernedness betake our selves to find that which hath been proved to be the Design of Christanity accomplish'd in our Hearts and Lives That we endeavour above all things in the World to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called and that our Conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ And by that means make it appear to our selves and others that we are not in the number of those wretched Souls on whom the knowledge of the most incomparable Religion is merely thrown away and bestowed to very ill or to no purpose That we place the Kingdom of God not in Word but in Power and our Christianity not in letting our Tongues loose but in bridling both them and our exorbitant Affections That we make less Noise be less Disputacious and more Obedient That we Talk and Cavil less and Be and Live better As well knowing that an Objecting quarrelsome and wrangling humour serves to no better end than eating out the heart and life of all true Religion Let us Exercise our selves unto Reall and Substantial Godliness and in keeping our Consciences void of offence both towards God and towards men and in Studying the Gospel to inable us not to Discourse or onely to Believe but also and above all things to Do well Let us esteem Christianity a Principle of such Vigour Spriteliness and Activity as to be assured of nothing more than that it cannot possibly Be where it doth not Act and that the lives of those that are indued with it cannot but bear witness to the Force of it Let us do what lyeth in us to Convince our Atheists that the Religion of the Blessed Jesus is no Trick or Device and our Wanton and Loose Christians that it no Notional business or Speculative Science by letting them see most Excellent effects produced in our selves by it By shewing them how Sober and Temperate how Chaste how severely Just how Meek and Peaceable how Humble how Patient and Submissive to the Will of God how Loving and Charitable what Contemners of this World and Confiders in God we are enabled to be by the Power of it Let us declare that we are not mere Professours of Faith in Christ Jesus by doing Acts worthy of such a Faith That we are not barely Relyers on Christ's Righteousness by being Imitatours of it by being righteous as he was righteous That we do truly believe the Christian Doctrine by chearfully complying with the Christian Precepts Hereby let us know that we do indeed know him that we keep his Commandments By our care thus to do shall our minds as hath been shewn be inlightned in all Necessary Truth It was by their care to Do the Will of God that the Primitive Christians obtained the right Knowledge of it And there is no such Method for the acquiring of all useful knowledge as this is By this means shall we also be kept Constant in the True Profession of the Faith The Obedient is the only Christian that is out of danger even of a Total Apostacy nor can there be any sure hold of any one that is not Obedient He whose Great Design it is to keep the Commandments of God and his Son Jesus is the onely Solid Stable and Settled man Our Saviour hath likened him unto a Wise man which built his house upon a Rock which notwithstanding that the rain descended and floods came and the winds blew and all beat upon it fell not because it was founded upon a Rock And on the contrary he hath compared those that hear but do not his sayings to a Foolish man which built his house upon the Sands which when assaulted by a Tempest fell and great was the fall of it 'T is no strange thing to see a very highly Professing if he be not as conscienciously Living a Christian tossed up and down like a wave of the Sea and carried away with every Wind of Doctrine but so will not the Obedient Person be He may 't is confessed alter his opinion in the less weighty and more obscurely delivered Points but those which belong to the main body and substance of Christianity and are plainly revealed as all such are he will inseparably adhere to By this means will our Knowledge be sanctisied and made useful but without the care of Obedience it will be utterly unprofitable nay of very hurtful and mischievous Consequence Whatsoever Christian knowledge is not impregnated with answerable Goodness but is unaccompanied with Christian Practice is not onely an insipid and jejune but also a flatulent thing that in stead of nourishing is apt to swell and extremely puff up the Souls of men I mean to make them proud and highly opinionated of their own worth censorious and contemners of other People and of a conceited and pragmatical a contentious and unpeaceable behaviour And there iâ—…no man but may observe too too many of our great pretenders to Christianity unhappily Exemplifying and demonstrating by their practices this sad truth By this means shall we convince Gain-sayers more than by any Arguments But they are never like to be perswaded that our Iudgements are Orthodox while they perceive our Conversations to be Heretical Wicked men are an infinite discredit to any party they side with and do it mighty disservice I wish we of the Church of England did not know this by very woful Experience And on the other hand a good life cannot but be of exceeding great force to draw Dissenters to the embracing of our Religion We see that mere Pretences to great Sanctity do strangely make Proselytes to several Forms that have nothing besides to set them ofâ—… and commend them And as for obstinate Persons who are peremptorily resolved that they will by no means be prevailed with to come over to us they will however be greatly disabled from reproaching our Religion when they are convinc'd that it hath excellent effects on the Professours of it Or at least neither their Reproaches nor any Attempts whatsoever against it could then ever have success or be able to do any thing to its considerable prejudice Nor would that idle and sensless talk whereby some Hot-headed people endeavour to prove us an Anti-Christian Church be by many if by any listened to could they discern among us more Christian Lives could they be once satisâ—…ied that we esteem it our Principal interest and concernment to make our selves and others really and Substantially good So is the Will of God saith S. Peter that with well-doing ye may put to Silence the Ignorance of foolish men By this means shall we pass