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A27438 Of revelation and the Messias a sermon preached at the publick commencement at Cambridge, July 5th, 1696 / by Richard Bentley ... Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742. 1696 (1696) Wing B1942; ESTC R5633 15,739 38

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Of Revelation and the Messias A SERMON Preached at the Publick Commencement AT CAMBRIDGE Iuly 5 th 1696. By RICHARD BENTLEY D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary and Library Keeper to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by I. H. for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1696. 1 PET. III. 15. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the Hope that is in you BY the Hope that is in us we do understand here as in other places of Scripture not only the bare Hope strictly so called but the Faith too of a Christian. Whence it is that in the Syriac version of the text and in some ancient Latin copies the word Faith is added to the other the hope and the Faith that is in you And indeed if we consider Hope as a natural passion we shall find it to be always attended and ussher'd in by Faith For 't is certain there is no Hope without some antecedent Belief that the thing hoped for may come to pass and the strength and steadiness of our Hope is ever proportional to the measure of our Faith It appears therefore why the word Hope in the text may with sufficient propriety of speech comprehend the whole Faith of a Christian and that when the Apostle exhorts us to be ready always to answer every man that asks the reason of our Hope 't is the same as if he injoined us to be never unprepared nor unwilling to reply to any doubts or questions about the grounds of the Christian Faith At the date of this Epistle the whole World with relation to the text might be consider'd under one general division Jews and Gentiles First the Jews To whom the Oracles of God were committed and who from thence had the information and expectation of the Messias These when they asked a Christian the reason of his Hope were themselves already persuaded that the Messias would come and the only controversie between them was Whether Iesus was He according to the message of Iohn the Baptist Was Iesus he that should come or must they look for another Secondly the Gentiles who having no means of knowledge besides mere natural Reason could have no notions nor notices of this expected Messias These therefore when they demanded the reason of a Christian's Hope were first to be acquainted with the purpose and promise of God to send the Messias were to be instructed about the reasons and designs of that great embassy about his quality and office and all the circumstances of his Person and then was the proper time to shew That Iesus was He that the description of the Messias was truly exhibited and represented in His character and the ancient prophecies all accomplish'd in His actions and events 'T is not for nothing that the Apostle so presseth this advice in the text Be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in you As if he had foretold That there would be no age of the Christian world wherein this preparation would be superfluous It hath pleas'd the divine Wisdom never yet to leave Christianity wholly at leasure from opposers but to give its professors that perpetual exercise of their industry and zeal And who can tell if without such adversaries to rouse and quicken them they might not in long tract of time have grown remiss in the duties and ignorant in the doctrines of Religion Perhaps before this time even some of the Records of it might have perish'd by mens negligence as the Jews had like to have lost their Law if divine Providence had not preserved one copy of it in the Temple It is while men sleep while they live in peace and security and have no enemies to contest with that the great Enemy comes and sowes tares among the wheat But of all the ages since the coming of Christ I suppose this present has least reason to complain for want of work and imployment in defence of Religion Here are not only the two parties in the text Jews and Gentiles still in the world to engage with but even in the midst of Christianity are the most dangerous designs form'd against it as if our Saviour's prediction of particular families were to be verified too of the whole Church That its worst enemies should be they of its own Houshold There are a sort of persons baptized indeed into the Christian Faith and educated in the profession of it but in secret I wish I might say so nay even openly they oppose and blaspheme it repudiating at once the whole authority of Revelation and debasing the sacred Volumes to the rank of ordinary Books of History and Ethicks The being of God and a Providence they profess to believe to acknowledge a difference between Good and Evil to be verily persuaded of another Life to come and to have their expectations of that state as their behaviour is in this Nay even the whole system of Christian Morals they can willingly embrace but not as a collection of divine Statutes and Ordinances sent us by an express from Heaven but only as usefull rules of life discoverable by plain Reason and agreeable to natural Religion So that they cannot see the mighty occasion that should invite even the eternal Son of God from the bosom of the Father to act so mean and calamitous a part upon the stage of this sorry world What need of so great a master to read mankind lectures of Morals which they might easily learn without any teacher 'T is true they are often told of some sublime mysterious doctrines deliver'd by him which they own would ne'er have been thought of by natural Reason But then that is so far from recommending to them the importance of his errand from Heaven that for that very reason they deny the truth of his message For whatever comes imperiously in the name of divine Mystery and soars above the pitch of humane knowledge whatsoever things they cannot fathom and grasp through all the causes designs modes and relations of them as the notion of the Messias his incarnation mediation satisfaction all these they reject and explode as incomprehensible to pure Reason which they set up as the only principle and measure of belief In all this these persons act the part and place themselves in the condition of Gentiles whom we may imagine in the text to ask the reason of a Christians hope since the whole body of these mens Religion is no more than what even Heathens attain'd to the modern Deism being the very same with old Philosophical Paganism only aggravated and damn'd with the additional crime of Apostacy from the Faith But besides this these very persons will on other occasions personate the Jews too those other enquirers suppos'd in the text and dispute with Jewish objections against the Christian Religion though they no more believe the matter of those objections than the thing they object against like Celsus and Iulian of old that