Epistles excepting those only to particular Persons are written to the Holy Brethren To the Churches of God that are sanctified in Jesus Christ And to all that call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus And hereupon we may discern as in a late Book hath been well discoursed that the Holy Scriptures are as it were a Trust committed to every Christian and he is to be so true to his charge as by no means to part with it Yea these Sacred Writings are our Lord's Will and Testament by which a Man becomes an Heir through Jesus Christ And if so then He that is Heir of an Estate hath surely no less right to the Conveyances that make over the Estate than he hath to the Estate itself And therefore if in common Estates upon Earth it will be every Man's Prudence to secure to himself the Deeds upon which the Estates depend In this Heavenly Inheritance it will be every Man 's not Prudence only but Duty to preserve to himself the Writings that conveigh it The reason is because though a Man may without blame somtimes part with an Inheritance on Earth yet with That in Heaven he cannot without the Imputation of Folly and Wickedness and even the exposing of his own Soul to Sale and Servitude The Pleadings of some Men viz. That the permitting the Scriptures to be in the Hands of the common People is the cause of Schisms and Heresies would have more weight with it if in the Ages most fruitful of Schisms and Heresies the Learned had not had therein as great a share as not to say a greater than any others and if where the Vulgar have of late in this matter seem'd most guilty we had not too much reason to believe That even Those who most complain of them have by their secret Emissaries seduced them on purpose into Errors and divided them into Parties when otherwise they would have walked in straiter Paths and been more at Unity amongst themselves But though there hath been by some an ill use made of the Scriptures yet God to whom These Things long before were not hid thought them not reason enough for hindring the Writing of his Will or for the withholding it when written from the Hands of any And his Goodness and Wisdom is herein manifested in that the ill effects which would have proceeded from the not writing his Laws or the denying them to the Eye of the Vulgar would in all probability have been far more and greater than from the contrary And the good effects of their being written and allow'd to the use of all Men are by the blessing of God much greater than the bad Consequences now are Theoph. Inferr'd also may be the Reasonableness that these Laws should endure without Abrogation or Change so long as the World shall stand The Gospel is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Everlasting Gospel Rev. 14.6 Such as never shall cease nor be as to the Laws of it in any case Repeal'd And upon this account it is that the Time from our Lord's Ascension to the End of the World or his Coming to Judgment is called the Last Days in Holy Writ A great many years indeed have passed since these Laws were given by our Lord and a great many more possibly may pass before the Dissolution of the World shall be but yet these are the Last Days because we are not to expect another Dispension nor another Lawgiver For it is He that will be with us in his Laws and by his Spirit unto the End of the World. Better Laws cannot be given None can Imagine how there should be any Other more sutable to Infinite Holiness Justice and Goodness in Him that gives them or more agreeable to the Nature and Soul of Men to whom they are given And so if the Gospel wherein these Laws are be called Everlasting if the Time that shall be to the End of the World together with that which hath already been since these Laws were given hath the Appellation of the Last Days upon the account that a further Declaration of God's Will is not to be expected we from our foregoing Discourse may easily perceive that abundant Reason there is why it so should be And whosoever they be that shall make the Breach of any of the Divine Laws either to be none or a less fault now than in former Ages it was under a Pretence that our Nature groweth weaker every Day than other and must therefore have its Allowances in Disobedience for so they seem too plainly to affirm who say Hodie pro fornicatione neminem esse deponendum quia fragiliora sunt nostra Corpora quà m olim erant Distinct 82 in Gloss do fouly reflect upon our Lawgivers perpetual institution and make those Sacred Precepts which should govern the evil Inclinations of Men to be in effect over-ruled by them which is a thing so extreamly ill that the World must be weak indeed when it is not odious to a Religious Ear. Eubul Your Inferences Theophilus are Right and I cannot at present think of another But that must not hinder your further going on with them Theoph. I have done what I promised following every one of yours with another But if you have made an end your ceasing is my excuse and may well be so Eubul To draw then to a Conclusion of this our Subject I hope in the Consideration of the Divine Laws we have not exceeded the bounds of our Duty by inquiring further than we ought to do Theoph. I think I justly may absolve you from any such fault now committed For though it be a fault over-curiously to pry into the Laws of our Lord as if all the Reasons of them were to be understood by us and though where we do not understand many things in Relation to them we are to acquiesce by persuading ourselves that they are in every respect Holy and Just yet where the reasons of them lie open to view or at least by an Humble and Devout search into them may easily be found out there it will be well-becoming us and no more than Duty to look into them That the Excellences of them may be discern'd by us and that our Love of them and Gods Glory from them may be the more raised and magnified And indeed Eubulus in all your words I have perceived nothing but what is agreeable to so humble a search and so pious an end And I acknowledge myself as much edified thereby so likewise much obliged to you Eubul The Design of our Discourse hath been good And that I trust will cast a Vail upon what Defects soever may have been in it And if it hath administred to your Satisfaction or in the Apostle's words but stirr'd up your pure Mind by way of Remembrance I shall account its doing so to be sufficiently my Reward A good Work it would be Theophilus if upon occasion we could prevail abroad for a due esteem and love of these sacred Laws Men are apt to
all Indignities without Endeavours of vindicating himself though he had the power of doing it small Encouragement there would have been for our complying with his Example had he not said Resist not Evil but whosoever shall smite thee on the Right Cheek turn to him the other also Love your Enemies Bless them them that curse you Do good to them that hate you And pray for them that despitefully use you that ye may be the Children of your Father who is in Heaven Certainly had there been only the Example of our Lord without any thing else we should not Theophilus have known how to interpret some Actions But if in the Example which he hath set his Will and Design should have been told the Matter of his Actions would have put on the Nature of a Law and so would have bound us to imitation not as Example so much as Law. Whence I suppose Theophilus it is plain that the Example of none no with Reverence I speak it not of our Blessed Lord himself do as of themselves lay any Obligations upon us and consequently our Imitation of Holy Men is to go no further than their Example hath the Divine Laws for its Rule and Warrant 2. The Perfection of the Laws of Christ which reacheth to all Moral Actions and even to the Thoughts of our Hearts sheweth us the same thing also Nothing is there that is just and good but the Precepts of the Gospel do enjoyn it Nothing that is unrighteous but is forbidden there And in this sense in is that the Law of God is said to be exceeding broad Psal 119. Now to say that there may be Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in the Laws of Christ is to make those Laws imperfect which pierce in every thing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and the Joynts and Marrow and which proceed from Him who is infinitely Wise and so cannot be thought to be any way deficient But to say that such or such an Example is good because it includeth in it that goodness which the Laws of our Lord do enjoyn is to grant that the Law is Superiour to the Example and though there should have been no such Example would have required the matter of it to have been done Theoph. But pray Eubulus what shall we think of the Example of the Church in some things which we account necessary to be done from her Practice when yet there is no Command in Holy Scripture for the doing them I will instance only in two things though I might in more to wit The Baptizing of Infants and the setting apart the First Day of the Week as Holy. It may seem that either we are mistaken when we press the necessity of these things or else that there are some things necessary which the Precepts of our Lord do not reach unto Eubul But yet Theophilus even in these things we are not swayed merely by the Example of the Church without great Reason moving Her to the constant Observance of them And though there be no direct Command for these things yet if they may with good probability be inferred from Holy Writ if there be a Congruity in them to some Laws given unto the Jews so far as Reason and Enquity enforced those Laws and if there be likewise some things in the New Testament that more than a little intimate the doing of them we may observe them upon the same Grounds that the Church observed them and not only from her Example Though truly her Example downwards even from her First Age may add Authority to the Considerations now mention'd in that she is a Society which above all others in the World hath the Aids and Direction of the Holy Spirit who is the Guide unto all Truth If we look upon your first Instance of Baptizing Infants there is a Command that all Nations should be Baptized God enlarging his Covenant to all Mankind which was confined to the Jews before Though truly even the Covenant which was made with Abraham of which Circumcision was the Seal was of an Evangelical Nature and belonged to him chiefly as he was the Father of the Faithful and to his Spiritual no less than to his Fleshly Race And if Children before and in the time of the Old Law were capable of the Covenant why not in the time of the Gospel where is much greater Love manifested unto Men than ever there was in the Jewish State And while Divine Love is more abundant to all Sorts and Conditions of Men shall poor and helpless Children suffer a Diminution in it Especially when our Blessed Lord was pleased to take them in his Arms to rebuke those that kept them from him and to pronounce that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven There is so much cause to think that the Priviledges of Children are not only continued but increased under the Gospel that to make us to be of another Mind it may seem necessary that there should have been a Command on purpose not to Baptize them And what Prejudice think we would it not have wrought in the Jews towards Christianity if their Children who were taken into Covenant under Moses should have been excluded the Covenant under Christ Or should it be said that God hath Mercy in store for them as Infants why if the inward Grace be vouchsafed unto them should the outward Seal of such Grace be denied them who if they be fit for the Kingdom of Heaven are sure not unfit for the Font As for your other Instance of setting apart the First Day of the Week as Holy Natural Religion will tell us that some time is to be allowed to the Service of God And Revealed Religion hath acquainted us that God by a Command to the Jews the Reason of which is fetch'd from the very beginning of the World had determined the seventh part of Time to be continued as his own Peculiar The Equity of which Portion of Time in that it respected the Resting of Cattel as well as of Men the Church still owneth as not knowing a better than what God himself had appointed But the Day of Christs Resurrection by reason of the Exceeding Greatness of Gods Power and Love shewed in it surpassing that Day which immediately succeeded the Creation and having been signalized by the Apostles and other Believers meeting together upon it not once by Chance or another time as it happened but frequently by Choice Our Lord also honouring their coming together by his own Presence and by the wonderful Presence of the Holy Ghost sent upon them on that Day and its being probable likewise that the Observation thereof was by the Order of the Apostles or otherwise there would not have been such early Discipline as the Laying by in Store Collections for the Saints on that Day nor would the Day itself in so short a time have been established throughout the whole Church still every Hour encreasing and further it being no less
his Son the Jews did Rule by their own Laws and so the Scepter was not departed from Judah at the coming of our Lord into the World. I will mention only one Prophecy more which from the unexpected Methods and the quick and various Workings of Providence may be very delightful and that is the Prophecy of Esai concerning his Burial Chap. 53. He made his Grave with the Rich in his Death But how shall this be For the Custom of the Romans required that He and the other Two should continue on the Cross exposed there to the Fowls of the Air to be eaten or to be consumed leisurely by the Air and Weather That this Prophecy should be fulfilled God so orders it that the Jews who were the Authors of his Death should though they wish'd no good to him be the Promoters of his Burial Thus that the Bodies might not remain on the Cross upon the Sabbath day which was then a great day the Jews besought Pilate that they might be taken away and had their desire granted But though this were granted them yet still the Prophecy was in a fair way not to be fulfilled For among the Jews there was a place on purpose to bury Malefactors in And so our Lord must have been buried with the Thieves and then how could he be said to make his Grave with the Rich in his Death That therefore this might be effected Joseph of Arimathea a Rich Man and honourable Counseller comes and begs Christ's Body of Pilate Pilate possibly having a regard to him as he was a Wealthy Man and in good esteem and not well knowing how to deny the Body of Jesus to Burial whom he had declared to be free from fault though he had afterwards condemned him order'd the Body to be given to Joseph Who after it was wound up in fine Linnen and Spices laid it in a New Sepulchre which he in his Garden had hewen out of a Rock for his own Tomb. And so contrary to the use of the Romans he was Buried and contrary to the use of the Jews he was Buried not with Malefactors but in a Creditable Sepulchre with the Rich. In such an Eminent and surprising Manner will God bring about his own Counsels and hath accomplished this Prophecy There are also many other Prophecies directly shewing forth the Resurrection Ascension and other things relating to our Lord in which a Religious and Contemplative Soul may find a Rich and Glorious Repast But these I at present will omit and will only take notice of what I hinted before viz. That some other parts of Holy Writ in themselves very delightful do yet afford us a further Delight and are in a sort Prophetical by including the Image of greater things to come Such were the Israelites coming out of Egypt which signified our Lords Coming out from thence The Rock in the Wilderness pouring out Water which Rock was Christ Jonas's being three Days and three Nights in the Whales Belly and afterwards thrown up which imported our Lords being so long in the Grave and then Rising Isaac's Living after Abraham had in intention Sacrificed him which betokened our Lords Resurrection Agar and Sarah which were an Allegory of the Two Covenants Canaan Jerusalem and Mount Sion which were Types of a Country City and Church above And many more such as These which what a true and sutable pleasure do they give to one whose Heart is fixed on Sacred things Theoph. While we look from hence backwards it may indeed hugely delight us to see the Shadows of our future Happiness While from thence we look forwards it may take us wholly up in Love and Joy to behold those Shadows reduced into Realities which for the Excellence in themselves and the infinite advantage they give unto us have been altogether worthy of such Presignifications And truly Eubulus of quite another Strain were those speeches which the Heathen Oracles gave when they were consulted about things to come The Ambiguous Signification of their Words denoted Sophistry and Cunning rather than Prescience And hence it is no wonder that they were not forward of themselves to Prophesie since when sought unto for knowledge of future Events they were thus put to their Shifts For the Devil can but guess what will be by comparing present affairs with what are past And though his guesses may more encline to certainty than the guesses of Men for we may suppose him to have a far greater insight into former years and the successes of things in them than any Man can have yet for his Reputation Sake with his Votaries he durst not speak things positively but always in a dubious Sense that if they fell out otherwise than was at first thought another Latent meaning might rather make Men blame their own Dimsightedness towards the Oracle than the Oracle's towards the futurities enquired after There are I must confess very perspicuous and important Prophecies in the Books of the Sybils And I will not say but God in his Goodness might inspire those Women for the giving out some Oracles which as rightly suting with the Revelations of the Gospel might afterwards the more sway with the Nations But many of these Prophecies were by the Pious Fraud of some Persons not Written till after things were come to pass With a design no doubt to bring a greater honour to what in appearance was so plainly foretold Thus the Oracles which were ascribed to the Cumean Sibyl were in great measure written by the Jews before our Saviour came into the World. Those which are Extant under the Name of the Erythrean Sibyl are for the most part spurious as being Written by some that lived more than an Hundred Years after our Lord. But instead of greater there is less credit as in such dealing it usually falls out both to the Jewish and Christian affairs mention'd by them Varro so far as there are Acrosticks in them denies their Truth Cicero for the same reason contends that they were rather from Human Study than Divine Inspiration And Celsus will have many things to be foisted in by the Christians So that the Reputation of the whole is hereby much diminished And indeed it is with a rational Man a very great argument against them that many Oracles there are so particular and direct that the Holy Scriptures themselves are in some things less particular and direct And who can think that God would more plainly reveal himself to uncouth Women among the Nations than to Holy Men among his own People to whom as a Pledge of his Favour above all others the Sacred Oracles as the Apostle speaketh were committed Eubul You do the Prophecies of the Holy Scripture no more than right while you prefer them above all others There is no Deceit in them The Time in which they were written is well known And was long before the things Prophesied came to pass The Jews who were the greatest Enemies to our Lord cannot deny the Truth of them
your Discourse Viz. That so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating to Faith that no one Living can conceive how they should be And so our understandings which are the sole Judges of other things are so far from being relied on here that they must be wholly laid aside 2. Granting that the Precepts of Christianity are very full and enjoyn'd to a greater Spirituality than in Older Time yet the Severities of them are unreasonable to us as we are Men reducing us to such streights as cannot be gone through without a great deal of uneasiness if at all And though there be none who will not commend a pure Air yet if it be so pure as not to be breathed in without much difficulty there is no reason it should be over Delighted in and Loved Eubul I know there are some who in good earnest dare thus urge against the Laws of our Lord but they are Men of corrupt minds and by their ill Lives are sway'd to talk after this manner lest they should appear to have Opinions any whit better than their Practice A shame it is that any in a Christian Common-wealth where Christianity affords so many outward benefits to them should without severe punishment be permitted to speak against the Laws of Christ But when such a vile Liberty is so much usurped it will be but meet with Truth to defend these Laws And I will with your leave endeavour to do it the more largely that I myself may have the more in readiness what to reply upon occasion to this sort of Men. Theoph. Be that your design then so that I share with you in the benefit Eubul In answer therefore to their first Objection viz. That so far is the Christian Law from being more clearly given that it requires us to admit of some things relating unto Faith that no one Living can conceive how they should be And so our understandings which are the sole Judges of other things are so far from being relied on here that they must be wholly laid aside we say That however the matter of our Faith is beyond our reach yet the Precept of believing is plain and and what our Faith is to be we are very clearly instructed in Holy Writ And what absurdity will it be if at the thoughts of some Mysteries the Son of God being Conceived by the Holy Ghost and Born of a Virgin and such like we cease with that Blessed Virgin to enquire How these things can be and make our Understandings yield to our Faith as She did when she quietly rested with no more than those Words Behold the Handmaid of the Lord be it unto me according to thy Word And wherein will it misbecome us if in the thoughts of the Hypostatick Union of the Infinite and Eternal God with our Frail and Mortal Nature we cry with St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How are his ways past our finding out This is not to throw away our Understandings but only to reduce them to the Obedience of Faith which will be their perfection The Gospel Theophilus doth teach us the Obedience of the whole Man All the Members of the Body are to become the Members of Christ by being conformed to his Laws and also all the faculties of the Soul are to own his Sovereignty The Will is to be pliant and ready to what he enjoyns and the Affections are to be regulated into the being Holy and Obedient And do we think that the Vnderstanding is to be lawless and yield no Obedience But what Obedience can it shew other than a Submission to the Boundless and Inconceivable Wisdom and Knowledge of God confessing that itself is weak and dimsighted in Comparison thereof Certainly it is but meet to think that God is a Being which is far above our Conceptions and that he can do what our understandings cannot measure and so it is not un-becoming us to acknowledge some things in Christ as the Objects of our Faith which yet our Understandings cannot fathom For our Blessed Lord is in the greatest height the Wisdom of his Father So as that the Holy Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do only desire with a Reverential stooping to look into these things as being fit for Admiration and beyond their Knowledge and therefore they may well surpass the most acute and largest Conceptions of Men. There is indeed a very great Room for Reason in our Holy Religion which claims admittance into the Hearts of Men by Arguments as great and strong as any considering Man would desire There being no rational grounds to think that the Evangelists and Apostles did publish Falshoods in their Writings but the greatest reason for our belief that what they have Written is True and Divine But then when by Reason we have admitted of the Truth and Divinity of the Scriptures we are not to imagin that we can comprehend every particular thing therein contain'd with the same Understanding by which we conceive the Truth of the Scriptures in general And yet the same Reason by which we admit of the Truth of the Holy Scriptures in general doth prove very fully the Truth of all Particulars therein contain'd though we cannot understand them Yea yet further Every even the most difficult Mystery there gives us so much the use of our Reason and Understanding as to think that it is but Reasonable the Chief of the Ways and Methods of God for such the Nature of our Lord his Conception Life Death and Resurrection are should be above our weak Capacities Which may shew methinks very well the Arrogance of some Men who to make the Law of Faith the more easie would bring all the Mysteries of the Gospel down to the Level of Human Conceptions And the Profaneness of others who would make the Height of these Mysteries to be the Disparagement and Blemish of the Holy Laws Or in a Word who will not Believe the one that they may not Practise the other I would not compare these great Mysteries with small things But yet to these Men I may say that every thing in Nature which they look upon and know that it is if I should ask them how it comes to be so they mul◠〈◊〉 that they are Ignorant of it How comes a little un-colour'd Moisture in the same Turf to be formed into Herbs of different Qualities and Shapes That it is so they see plainly but the How of it if I may so speak they understand not And it would be a Madness to deny that there are such Herbs because they cannot conceive how they came to be so And is it not a strange piece of Obstinacy That when these Men are baffled in Ten thousand things which they see before their Eyes to have a real Being they will deny these spiritual Mysteries meerly because they cannot comprehend how they should
and in Mercy accepted by God. But the Scripture accounts of it as a thing not ordinary and as it were out of the usual course Let us except that one instance of the Thief on the Cross which is to be looked upon as a special and un-common Example and therefore it stands by itself in the whole Book of God And we shall find the Gospel to promise in the usual Current of it Eternal Rewards to that Obedience only which hath Perseverance joyned with it and which lasts unto not begins at the end of Life He that endureth to the end shall be saved and be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life Such considerations as these Theophilus for the true Conception of Faith and Repentance are requisite abroad where so many either do not understand them rightly or else are willing by false arguings to make them serve for quite other than Christian Ends. And to Vs they may be of use at least so far as to stir up our Grief that the favour of our Lord in the Pardoning of Sins should by any be abused to their greater Condemnation Theoph. They not only encline me to grieve for these miserable Men who are so much their own Enemies but do also give me a pleasure in conceiving these instances of Holy Writ mentioned by you more fully and to better advantage than before I did That knowledge being most of all others delightful to me and satisfactory which ariseth from the Laws of our Lord or which is instrumental to the better understanding and practising of them Eubul I am sure These Laws of Faith and Repentance are well worthy our Love as for the Excellence of their Effects so for the Sacredness of their Matter What an inward pleasure is it to conceive the Son of God leaving the Glory of Heaven to live upon Earth and become one among the Sons of Men How may it engage all the Powers of the Soul into a Divine Love while we contemplate him in in the Garden sweating as it were great drops of Blood and shedding afterwards the remainder thereof upon the Cross amidst bitter pains for our Sake This is indeed in itself matter of the sadest kind But in respect of Vs what Wonder and Joy may it not excite But then if we by Faith look upon our Lord as he is Ascended into Heaven to prepare Mansions for us and as he shall come again in the Clouds with great Glory that where He is there We may be also with what an Holy Splendour will our understandings be entertain'd Men are usually taken with great things State and Grandeur though such in appearance only draw the Eyes of the most if really such they be and do carry in them true Worth as here they eminently do they engage the Hearts also of the Wise and the Good. Truly our Faith from the Sweet and Admirable matter it is fraught with may well work by Love Love not only to God and Men but even to the Law likewise by which it is enjoyn'd Such Majesty as is included in our Faith is not I confess to be found in Repentance which consists chiefly in those Actions that are Humble and Lowly But how comely is it that an offending Soul should be humbled before an offended God who at such Submission and Sorrow condescends and accepts it with the greatest Love A Face which hath so Holy a Sadness in it and is wet with such Religious Tears cannot but appear amiable Yea even to the Person who thus repenteth there ariseth a secret Satisfaction in the midst of Sorrow and it is none of the least Chearings to him that he can grieve in earnest for his Sins against so gracious a Father And thus much Theophilus may suffice for the Consideration of the Laws themselves And if like Those who walking over pleasant Fields and flowery Meads as not content alone with Delights in the Way will look back and bring into one prospect what successively and by parts did so much please them we shall turn our Eyes back upon these Laws and behold them in the Bulk which singly were so excellent they will afford us a new Delight in the Review There is none of them that is unsuty and disagreeing to another They are not like that Face whose Features by themselves were beauteous but united were uncomely but they are such as increase each others Lustre and shew a Symmetry altogether Divine Theoph. It is so Eubulus When I consider the Laws which require Duties to God I am the more in love with those which enjoyn my Behaviour towards Men. And when I weigh those that relate to others and myself those towards God appear more advantageously to me and I presently am excited to put them into practice by reverencing loving and praising Him who hath given such Laws unto us Every particular Precept towards God towards Men towards myself enkindles my Affection towards the rest and they Altogether do highly set off and commend to my Love every Particular And this our Love to the Divine Law is not like our Love in many other cases which when we recollect ourselves and betake us to serious Thoughts goes less For the gaining Acceptance and esteem no need is there of those Artifices that the Religious Institutions among the Heathens had which from Hieroglyphicks Fables pompous and divers Superstitions were served up rather to the Imaginative Faculty than to the Understanding and made to please not the Wise so much as the Multitude The Christian Laws fear not the most piercing and critical Eyes looking into them They discovering the greatest Excellency to him who hath the quickest Sight and profoundest Judgment joyn'd with an Upright Mind And therefore our Love to them gets new Strength from Consideration as having Right Reason for a Foundation from which like an House built upon a Rock it may stand strongly and not be cast down nor abated for any Wind or Waters that may come against it Eubul And truly Theophilus I find it a very great Inducement for the raising our Love to these Laws that They of themselves are grievous unto none but as the Manna was are in a sort fitted to every Palate unless to those that are grievously vitiated Who is it that ever had just cause to repent he had yielded Obedience to them To whom in the exercise do they not bring Content and Satisfaction If at any time they seem to create Trouble to a Man it is rather because others trangress them than because he himself observeth them A thing which cannot be said of other Laws Some of those which are profitable for the Community are not so for some particular Men who for the publick Good must be content to bear some private Inconveniences and some advantageous to a few Persons may not be so to a Nation in general Neither is there any thing in its own Nature truly Good which is omitted in their Injunctions nor any thing in
think and somtimes they may think right that in relation to the Commands of Masters and Governors they could do better than what they are enjoyn'd to do And yet notwithstanding they will yield Obedience as judging it but reasonable That not always what is best but what best pleaseth those who are in Power is to be done But better they cannot do than that which the Laws of our Lord require His Will never stands in Opposition to what is in itself really best because he is pleased with nothing but that which is holy just and good Which sure may create a very great Satisfaction in us whilst we submit to his Laws and may render those his Laws of very high account with us But yet for all this his Laws and Himself too are much disesteem'd and the mean regard which they generally find hath made me with sorrow to think upon those Words of Arrian's Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Men saith he have built Altars and Temples to Triptolemus who shew'd them the way of Agriculture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But to Him who finds out and gives Light to the Truth of Things directing Men not merely to preserve Life but to Live well and as Men ought to do Who of you all Dedicates a Temple to his Honour or so much as thanks God upon his Account All this cannot I confess be said with relation to our Lawgiver Temples are built unto him and Praises are offered unto God who sent him into the World. But are they not with a great many as an outward shew rather than the Expressions of inward Devotion and unfeigned Thankfulness While they obey not the Laws of Him whom they thus celebrate and to use our Lord 's own words do draw near unto him with their Lips when their Heart is far from him Most Men are willing to have our Lord their Priest to Attone for their Sins and for Novelty and Entertainment they can be content to have him their Prophet too But as a King and Lawgiver they care not for him and are backward to submit to his Scepter and Laws Yet surely his Scepter is a Righteous Scepter and his Commands not grievous but such as are fitted to Human Nature and its Interests in this World that the Man may seem unwilling to be Happy either here or hereafter who refuseth Obedience unto them It was a true word of the People concerning our Lord That never Man spake as he spake His Words were with Authority bringing a Convincingness along with them And shall Men now be deaf to them Frequently did our Saviour use that Exhortation shall I call it or Command or both He that hath Ears to hear let him hear As much as to say Of so great importance are the things I declare unto you that if ever a more than ordinary Attention was requisite now it is Well it were if it could not be said of Multitudes That there is a Price put into their Hands and they have no Heart to it Theoph. Let me add Eubulus that the great expectation which was of this our Lawgiver and his Laws may prevail much for Mens Obedience to them Towards Him the Faces of the Jews even from Moses's time and upwards were bent The coming of Shiloh was earnestly waited for And He after so many Propbecies made of him had the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Him that Cometh or the Coming King as is very frequently to be seen in the Evangelists And when the Ages past were so intent upon his Coming when there were so many Types and Predictions of him which under his Government betokened the greatest Happiness unto Men shall Men now He is come esteem meanly of Him and his Laws And this when to those who will impartially weigh and consider things He is not a jot less worthy than all the Expectations of a great People for many more than a thousand Years and those many Figures and Prophecies of him imported him to be Yea when He is excellent beyond the Conceptions of Men Angels themselves desiring with Reverence to look into these things When also All Men are no less concern'd in Him now than the Jews formerly were How ill will it look after all this if Men shall slight his Person and refuse Obedience to his Laws which if a Man observe he shall not only live in them but live happily to all Eternity Eubul Your Persuasive for Reverence and Honour to the Person of our Lawgiver and for Submission and Obedience to his Laws is very strong Yet methinks I would not more urge for an Observance of than for an hearty Love unto those his Laws Though truly where there is a faithful Observance there will be a true Love of them also Their Righteousness and Goodness will presently manifest themselves to those who are Conscionably Obedient And as our Lord saith Wisdom is justified of her Children so these Laws which may in reality be termed Wisdom as proceeding from Him who is Wisdom itself will justifie their own Excellencies to the Thoughts of those who observe them and by Them will be vindicated against all Gainsayers and Disobedient Ones I will end all with this Prayer That God by shedding abroad his Love into our Hearts would encrease our Love daily more and more to his Laws That we may cheerfully obey Him in this World and be everlasting rewarded by Him in the next DISCOURSE the Sixth The Contents NOt a few think themselves secure in their actings if they can shew that some good Men in Holy Writ or some well accounted of since have done the like Examples of Good Men to be imitated no further than they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant They can of themselves lay no Obligation upon us The Holy Men we read of in Scripture were not sent into the World to be a Rule to all Others in the Things they acted The Vncertainty of Examples very great Their Insufficiency None of the Actions of our Blessed Lord from his Example merely and without a Law did lay any Obligation upon us to Imitate them The Laws of Christ reach to all Moral Actions No Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in those Laws Inferences concerning the Examples in Holy Writ In those things where the Law of God is Silent Prudence is to be our Guide Examples though of themselves they lay no Obligation upon us are yet of use Those which bear the Image of the Laws of Christ are given us for Incentives and Encouragements of our Obedience When Divine Laws are question'd as to their Sense Examples upon occasion may be Interpretations of them By Examples we may be instructed to do our Duties in a decent and becoming way Decency added unto Sincerity may make its reward the greater Examples are Registred in Holy Scripture for the Honour of those whose they were Our Condition the more sure than it would have been if we
Mens Constancy and Perseverance What Christian Sorrow expressed at the Defection of any What tender-heartedness shewed towards those who after a Fall are repentant And in them all what Attractives are there for our Love I have somtimes thought that should a Person to whom the True God is unknown read or hear the earnest Exhortations the many taking Suggestions which in Holy Scripture are used for the engaging Men to Obedience he would judge that surely God is much advantaged thereby or otherwise he would not be so very desirous of it This I am sure we may with Truth say that were it possible our Obedience could add to the Blessedness of the Almighty he could not use more winning Speeches for the obtaining of it than now he doth But therefore because we can no way profit Him by the Observance of his Laws and because it is our own very great advantage if we do observe them how sweetly prevalent may so many persuasives seem unto us And how with an holy Gratitude may we say Lord what is Man that thou hast such regard unto him That thou givest him Line upon Line Exhortation upon Exhortation and continuest an uncessant care over him for the securing him unto Happiness Theoph. It is fit indeed that such Exhortations should be followed with Devotions Praises unto God who is so Gracious unto Men and Prayers that we may never suffer such persuasives to be fruitless upon us And it may fairly lead you Eubulus to the Devotional Part of Holy Scripture in the last place to be spoken unto Eubul This we shall find to be truly excellent also For it consisted of such Services as in their intent were fit for Men to pay unto their God. None of their Holy Feasts was there but was in Memory of some Signal Favour And as it was their pleasure to rejoyce thus before their Lord and Holy Benefactor so it may likewise be our pleasure to read of their Religious doing it Had the Creation of the World been understood by the Heathens Juvenal would not have derided the Jews as such Queîs Septima quaeque fuit Lux Ignava vitae partem non attigit ullam Who lost the Seventh part of their Time and improved it to no End of Life And if Plutarch had known the design of their carrying Boughs of Trees in their Feast of Tabernacles he would not in a Scoffing Manner have called it the Jewish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Odious comparing it with that intemperate Feast of Bacchus in which the Bacchides ran about with Javelins wrapped round with Ivy termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Sacrifices were Visible Prayers or Praises or Expiations in all of them the End was truly Excellent and no one of them had such Rites as required Secresie for a Shelter from an honest and Chast Eye And hence possibly it was that God forbad Groves to be near his Altar as having by their Shades and Recesses given occasion to those Uncleannesses which too frequently attended the Worship of the Heathens Neither ever did or durst any tacita libare acerra inaperto vivere voto ask those things which it were a shame Men should hear But the Scope of their Petitions was Gods Blessing in the way of Righteousness And as in these things their Religious Services were quite of a different Colour from those of the Nations and in every thing might have worn this Impress Holiness to the Lord so it is very remarkable what Humility and Submission of Spirit attended their Devotions when God laid Afflictions upon them It is the Lord let him do what pleaseth him saith Eli. I was Dumb I opened not my Mouth because Thou didst it saith David Though he kill yet will I put my Trust in Him saith Job Herein likewise very different from the Heathen who in their Sufferings were forward to accuse their Gods venting their Griefs in undecent Invectives against them But when we read of those sacred Heights of Devotion which some of their Holy Men rose unto how must we be affected how divided betwixt Love and Delight Our Souls are embruted if we be not almost transformed into the same Seraphick Temper with them who to use the words of one of them have thought One day in Gods Courts better than a Thousand Desiring nothing in Heaven but God nor any thing on Earth in Comparison of Him. And such Devotion how yet further is it improved by our Blessed Lord who hath continued all Night therein who hath Consecrated himself by Prayer a Sacrifice for the whole World and hath offered up upon his Cross Supplications with strong Cries and Tears hoth for Himself and Vs Who is it can avoid the being wholly possest with Love who contemplateth our Saviour at the Right Hand of God in a mighty way Mediating for us Though at a distance from us yet openly on our behalf urging his Merits Passion and Death and presenting our Prayers unto his Father Which that they may be the more acceptable he himself while on Earth hath given us a most perfect Prayer as a Patte n for our Imitation and a Form for our Use suitable to the greatest Ardour of Piety that Mortality is capable of Hath sent likewise from Heaven the Holy Spirit to make Intercessions for us with Groans that cannot be uttered joyning with us from within and giving our Prayers such a Fervour and Powerfulness as is not to be equall'd by Words Devotion raised to such Perfection as the having our Blessed Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it is so highly amiable that it requires only the being truly known for the being sincerely loved You have Theophilus in short measures an account of the Divine Law as the word Law may be taken in the wider sense Theoph. How acceptable the account you have given me is I cannot more truly say than by telling you I could have very willingly heard it much longer Yea so delightful are these other parts of Holy Writ that they afford a great pleasure even to some who are less Observers of the Preceptive Part than they ought to be I have known who have been very well versed in the Bible and could reherse if need were the chief things contain'd therein when yet their Practice hath been as lame as if they knew not a Letter there Eubul These Persons quite mistake what they read while they find a Pleasure therein without a respect to the Divine Law properly as such All the other parts of Scripture are as before was said some way or other in order to the Preceptive Part and if there be who understand them otherwise they go contrary to the Mind and Will of their Author But yet how can any one enjoy a Pleasure from that History which God hath caused to be written as an Encouragement to Obedience and not be encouraged at the same time to be Obedient himself Or how acknowledge the Divine Justice in the Punishment of Disobedience and
hereby rectifies and sets all strait again He can in This behold as at a distance the Irregularities of others and solace himself that he is out of the reach of bad Example And though a true reflecting on the Covetousness Pride Ambition and such like Evils which prevail so much abroad and on the Troubles which they betray those unto whose Vices they are and somtimes those whose Vices they are not doth raise some concernedness and grief within him yet he perceives a satisfaction not altogether unlike unto his who seeing others toss'd on troubled Waves is himself safe at Land Or who discerning whole Armies engaged in Fight is secure himself from the Danger And not only so but by such Meditation he dresses and adorns his Soul for an Holy Converse with God and secretly enjoys the Communion of Blessed Spirits in things so resined and Heavenly that no Earthly pleasure is to be compared with them Theoph. I wish this seemed not to have been the Pleasure and Priviledge of the Ages past chiefly and for the most part little to appertain unto Us who have so far degenerated from the Saints of Old that we find much tediousness in that which they placed their greatest delight and spent most of their time in When some of Them have laid down their Lives amidst Torments for their Religion we think much to spend some serious Thoughts about the things which relate to our Eternal Welfare yea we look upon it as a Task and Trouble to meditate even upon the infinite Love of God to us and can hardly do it though but for a few Minutes without Weariness and Distraction Eubul Our Lawgiver may justly take it ill from us that when we can with earnestness fix our Thoughts the greatest part of our Lives upon poor Earthly Things which perish in the using we should be backward to Contemplate his Laws which alone bring a durable Peace unto us and would requite us abundantly if even all our time should be employ'd in them Theoph. Happy it would be if Men could be prevail'd upon to Love their own Happiness and to place their Thoughts thereon A thing this is which one would think should not need many persuasions to move them to do it But they mistake Trifles for Happiness and leave the Fountain of Waters to trust in broken Cisterns Eubul To such Men as These are I would urge only this one thing Let them betake themselves to frequent and serious Considerations and if upon due search into the Holy Scriptures and an humble and constant repairing unto God by Prayer that he would open their Eyes for the discerning the wondrous things of his Law they shall repent of their Pains as being either lost or not well requited let them then forsake the Divine Laws and seek elsewhere for Peace and Rest But if after such Search and such Prayers any should forsake these Laws might not our Lord say unto them as Pharaoh said unto Hadad 1 Kings 11.22 What hast thou lacked with me that thou seekest to return into thine own Country What is it that you have wanted with me Could greater Love be shew'd you More Holy and Righteous Laws be given you Or more desireable Rewards be held forth unto you That you should leave me and return to the World where you will find nothing but Dissatisfaction We may with Truth say unto Men That there are the greatest Excellences in the Laws of our Lord and an Happiness yeilded by them which no where else can be found But whoever shall with Reverence and Singleness of Heart look into them may say of them as the Queen of Sheba said of Solomon 1 Kings 10.6.7 8. It was a true Report that we heard of the great Wisdom and Goodness that were in these Laws We believed not until we came and our Eyes had seen it and behold the half was not told us The Wisdom and the Excellency of them exceedeth the Fame which we heard Happy O Lord are thy Children Happy are thy Servants that stand continually before thee and hear thy Wisdom And thus Theophilus according to your desire we have closed the Seventh Evening Theoph. I wish that all my Days might be spent as much to my advantage as these Seven have been Eubul I doubt not but they will to so much the more by how much Practice is better than Discourse DISCOURSE the Eighth Concerning the Deformity of Disobedience to the Divine Laws Quis est tam dissimilis homini qui non moveatur offensione Turpitudinis Cic. de Fin. l. 5. The Contents DIsobedience is a Pollution It brings Disorder into a Man. It tends to make the Almighty to minister to his Creatures in the vilest Offices How God cannot be made to serve How he may He is pleas'd in Holy Writ to speak after the manner of Men that so He may condescend to our Vnderstandings and excite our Affections How He is made to serve in His Holy Name How in His Works The Creation sensible of this Slavery and God very much displeas'd with it Disobedience of an Extensive Nature It affects a kind of Eternity It 's highly Disingenuous God necessitates none to Disobedience Why He will not force Men into Obedience Why he generally cuts them not off THEOPHILVS I Had thought Eubulus when last I bid you Good-Night to have left to your choice the Matter of this Evenings Talk. But reflecting on the Excellency of the Divine Laws and the great Happiness that Men have in them my Thoughts at length run on to the Consideration of Disobedience thereunto Sure said I if these Holy Laws are in themselves so amiable and do make him who observeth them to be with the King's Daughter all Glorious within the disobeying of them is in itself Odious and renders the Man inwardly very Deform'd I pray you therefore Eubulus let this Vngrateful Thing be the Subject of one Discourse It may not be devoid of Profit to us since the Foulness of This if throughly discerned will possibly no less one way secure our Obedience than the Beauty of the Divine Precepts will another way allure it EVBVLVS INdeed Theophilus Sin Iniquity or Wickedness or whatever Name besides evil Actions have all of which are nothing else but Disobedience or Transgression of the Law are Character'd in Holy Scriptures by Pollution and Filthiness And as a Signification of such Defilement were those Numerous Washings under the Old Law. And those Sacrifices which had the Sins of the People confessed over them were by reason of those Sins so polluted that they were commanded to be burnt out of the Camp and they who burnt them there were by them in such manner defiled that they could not return into the Camp till they had wash'd their Cloaths and bath'd their Flesh in Water Levit. 16.28 And answerable hereunto did the Prophets afterwards speak Wash me throughly from mine Iniquity and cleanse me from my Sin Psal 51.2 They were defiled with their own Works Psal 106.39 Though
they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant They can of themselves lay no Obligation upon us The Holy Men we read of in Scripture were not sent into the World to be a Rule to all Others in the Things they acted The Vncertainty of Examples very great Their Insufficiency None of the Actions of our Blessed Lord from his Example merely and without a Law did lay any Obligation upon us to Imitate them The Laws of Christ reach to all Moral Actions No Examples of Goodness beyond what is included in those Laws Inferences concerning the Examples in Holy Writ In those things where the Law of God is Silent Prudence is to be our Guide Examples though of themselves they lay no Obligation upon us are yet of use Those which bear the Image of the Laws of Christ are given us for Incentives and Encouragements of our Obedience When Divine Laws are question'd as to their Sense Examples upon occasion may be Interpretations of them By Examples we may be instructed to do our Duties in a decent and becoming way Decency added unto Sincerity may make its reward the greater Examples are Registred in Holy Scripture for the Honour of those whose they were Our Condition the more sure than it would have been if we had had none in whose Steps we might tread By comparing Examples with our Rule we shall quickly find whether they will hold Good for our Practice or no. P. 175. The Contents of the Seventh Discourse COncerning the Divine Law as taken in a larger Sense Of the Historical part of Scripture particularly of the Creation All other Opinions concerning the Being of the World are cold and unaffecting Of the Fall of Man. It gives Light to many things which otherwise we should never have known the reason of The sad effects of our Fall are in great measure corrected by God's Mercy and made Comfortable to us Many things in the dark and mingled with falsities in profane Authors we may from hence more clearly discern Sacred History shews forth God's immediate Hand and plainly tells us that he punished and rewarded for such and such reasons Of the History of our Redemption How wonderful it is and what a Sacredness runs through all the Circumstances of our Lord's Conception Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension The great evidence of these things Of the Prophetical part of Scripture Especially of those Prophecies relating to our Blessed Saviour As Divine Truth is eminently seen in all of them so the quick and various workings of Providence for the fulfilling of some of them are very delightful The Predictions of the Heathen Oracles much different from these The Sibylline Prophecies of suspected Credit Of the Adhortative part of Holy Writ God hath used the most Taking words for the prevailing with Men for Obedience In the Gospel there is nothing wanting that may work upon the Soul of Man. Of the Devotional part of Sacred Scripture It consisteth of such Services as were fit for Men to pay unto their God and needed not Secresie to shelter them from an Honest Ear or Chast Eye Devotion raised to a much greater perfection by having our Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it Those persons quite mistake what they read in Sacred Scripture who find a pleasure therein without any respect to the Divine Law properly as such What we are to think of those who are conscientiously Obedient to the Divine Law but yet find not that Delight therein which Earthly things do frequently give them and who hereupon are very apt to interpret their Love to God's Precepts to be unsincere and such as will be rejected The great reasonableness and Benefit of Holy Meditation P. 210. The Contents of the Eighth Discourse DIsobedience is a Pollution It brings Disorder into a Man. It tends to make the Almighty to minister to his Creatures in the vilest Offices How God cannot be made to serve How he may He is pleas'd in Holy Writ to speak after the manner of Men that so He may condescend to our Vnderstandings and excite our Affections How He is made to serve in His Holy Name How in His Works The Creation sensible of this Slavery and God very much displeas'd with it Disobedience of an Extensive Nature It affects a kind of Eternity It 's highly Disingenuous God necessitates none to Disobedience Why He will not force Men into Obedience Why he generally cuts them not off P. 257. The Contents of the Ninth Discourse THe Plea of those is vain who say they never sinned maliciously against the Almighty nor wish'd his Greatness and Power to be less The Difference betwixt Rebellion against God and that against a Temporal Prince Disobedience a defilement in whomsoever it is Not the same Pollution in all Sins What the Sins of Good Men are and how known to be theirs The Sins of wicked Men of a deep Dye wherein they differ from those of pious Men. The Difference between wicked Men How of the worst sort some are more open some more secret in their Sins How the Sins of the less evil sort are to be measur'd The same fairness of Converse not equally innocent unto many A Sin may be a pardonable one to some when the very same to the Eye and Opinion of Men will not be so to others What we are to think of the Heinous Sins of Good Men Registred in Holy Scripture No reason from them for wicked Men to think better of their own Sins God will not esteem the Sins of his Children which are in themselves as great as and the same with the Sins of other Men to be therefore the less because they are committed by those who are his Children How to make a Judgment of our own Sins P. 288. ERRAT Pag. 282. lin 21. read them for him THE TRUE NATURE OF THE Divine-Law AND OF DISOBEDIENCE thereunto c. The Contents THE Occasion of the Discourse What is to be understood by the Divine Law. The Difference between the Law of Old and That which was given afterwards The Laws which enjoyn'd Duties towards God were such as we would in Right Reason wish should be towards a Prince and Lawgiver Concerning some Laws which might seem to have no real Goodness in them but Cruelty rather And others which seemed to proceed from the Will of God meerly as Supream without any Reason and consequently without any Love to his Creatures Of the Precepts which require Fear and are enforced upon the account that God is Terrible How these can consist with Love which casteth out Fear The Laws which a Rational Man would desire for the Welfare of Society are those which are enjoyn'd by God. Such likewise are those that respect ourselves Why the Law is called The Ministration of Death by St. Paul. What he meaneth when he saith He was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and he died And how the Mosaick Law is termed A Yoke which
from the Creation of the World which in the greatest Goodness was effected from the Continuance of God's Favour when Man had fallen and from the manifold Loving Kindnesses which he had shewed to his People in general and to Good Men in particular And therefore this good King could burst forth in earnest Exhortations to others O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the Faithful For your third Duty viz. Gratitude which you would have to be shewed to a Lawgiver are all those Injunctions and Incitements of Praising God which are scattered almost every where in the Holy Scriptures And no other Design had those Sacrifices which were unbloody than that Men should with Thankfulness acknowledge God as Supream 'T is said Levit. 7.12 If he offer it for a Thanksgiving as much as to say Thankfulness is to be offered unto God. And what more prevailing Motive could there be for the Obeying this Precept than that whatever was possessed was of God's Bounty It was He that gave unto the Israelites all that they look'd upon as their Wealth and Property And therefore they were to honour the Lord with their Substance and with the First-Fruits of their Increase That is They were in Gratitude to render back somthing of what he had bestowed upon them Not that he needs any thing of that which Men can return unto him but that their Thankfulness may be expressed in what manner they are able to do it And this their Gratitude might be the greater in that God secured his Gifts unto them by his Laws allotting to every Tribe its proper Portion and distributing that Portion amongst the Heads of particular Families That Discords at first might not hinder their Possessions and that Avarice and Ambition might not afterwards break into them For what was thus divided by Lot the Disposal of which was wholly from God was not to be alienated to other Tribes nor to other Families of the same Tribe The Property of the Land remained firm only the Use and Incomes of it might be sold for a season which yet might at any time be redeemed and if it were not redeemed it necessarily reverted to the ancient Owners at the Year of Jubile And hereupon Industry was encouraged and Peace established and they sate under their in a most proper sense Own Vines and Fig-trees none making them afraid Nay God had not only bestowed upon the Seed of Jacob all that they enjoyed but even They themselves were also wholly from Him. In Kindnesses from Men the Man is supposed to have a Being before And that we are Men and have an understanding Soul is not properly the Gift of any Man to us But God hath as I may so speak given us Ourselves as well as other things and so our Gratitude to Him is to be so much higher than to others by how much Life and Being are better than Possessions Yea by how much what we enjoy are more his Gifts unto us than they can be the Gifts of any others For the Propriety of them is for ever his and his Providence will never part with the Guidance and Direction of them And therefore though others should give them us it is his Bounty through their Hands How then might Those in the Judaick State love the Laws which have immediate Relation to God as a Lawgiver How full of Reason are they Is there not the greatest Beauty in them Which could it be discern'd by our outward Eyes who is it could see and not love them And surely what appears truly beautiful to the Eye of the Soul i. e. to clear and deliberate Thoughts will call no less for love but much more Intellectual Beauty being much to be preferr'd before that which is Sensible And if I may once more Paraphrase this Expression of the Psalmist O how I love thy Law Methinks it implyeth thus much Nothing in the World is there that shall hinder me from loving it I prefer it before all other things however esteemed they be by Men. Were it left to my choice whether I would have any of these Laws repealed or whether I would fear love and be grateful unto God or not though no Punishments should be inflicted if I did not do it there should not be one Law the less for my Duty towards my God and Lawgiver Nor should any thing how pleasant or advantageous soever it be buy off my Observance of his Laws So dear is their Practice and so delightful their Speculation to me Theoph. I see and acknowledge the Excellence of these Laws and do really think them worthy the high Character which this Royal Person gave and the great Love which he expressed to them But Eubulus of those Laws which in their Observance had relation to God immediately Some were such as might seem to have no real Goodness in them but Cruelty rather E. G. The shedding so much Blood of Men in Circumcision of Beasts in Sacrifice Others though not Cruel might yet seem to proceed and are by many thought so to do from the Will of God as Supream without any discernible Reason for their being enjoyn'd and consequently without any Love to his Creatures For what Love can be seen there where no Reason can be assigned why such and such things are commanded or forbidden And who is it then that can love such Laws Of this sort were those that forbad the wearing of Linnen and Woollen in the same Garment The Ploughing with an Ox and an Ass together And the use of such and such Creatures for Food and others not unlike unto these And then further The Laws that require Fear are such as are enforced upon the account that God is Terrible And where so great Terribleness is at the bottom of these Laws how could they be so much loved For as the Apostle saith Perfect Love casteth out Fear And where Laws do require so much Fear the Love to them must needs be the less Pray Eubulus tell me Are these to be excepted from our Psalmist's Love Or if not how can it be truly said he loved them Eubul For the satisfying of you in these things and first for your first Objection to wit That of those Laws which in their Observance had relation unto God immediately some might seem to have no real Goodness in them but Cruelty rather as the shedding so much Blood of Men in Circumcision and of Beasts in Sacrifice it will not I suppose be unmeet that these things be considered 1. That the Law which hath so much love here expressed to it is as I before hinted to be understood of the Moral Law chiefly For this hath a real and intrinsick Goodness in it It is just and good that God as he is our God and Lawgiver should be feared loved and have Gratitude shew'd to him 2. As to those other Laws of Circumcision and Sacrifices though in themselves considered they are not Morally good yet considered with relation to all the good
for so themselves style the Advent of the Messias from Isai 62.2 3. And an Ordinance for ever it was as for ever had relation to the First Age of the World But was not to endure beyond what the Nature thereof would well permit Not for ever and ever as taking in the Age of the VVorld under the Messias And truly we may in a manner say that the Law is not Vilified and Destroy'd by our Lord any more than a House is when from being rough and imperfect it is finished with the greatest Wisdom and Adorned with the most Rich Materials Christianity being the Judaick Religion Heightned and Spiritualiz'd Our Lawgiver himself saith He came not to Destroy the Law and the Prophets And his mentioning the Prophets together with the Law seemeth unto me to be a good explication of what I am now Speaking We do not nor can we think that when Divine Prophecies are come to pass they are vilified and destroy'd Rather say we that they are compleated and that the Compleating them is the Honour and Crown of them If then our Lord hath not destroy'd but by his Coming made good those Prophecies which were of him Why should it be said that he hath Destroyed the Ceremonial Law rather than Fulfilled it Especially when That Law was in great measure as a Type and Prophesie of Him. It is not indeed any more to be so observed as to be reduced in Practice because He whom it did Prefigure hath been Present and Lived among Us just as the expectation of a Prophecie ceaseth when what was Predicted is come to pass But then it hath its use still as also the fulfilled Prophesie have and we are to look both upon the one and the other with a great deal of Reverence and Respect As the Coming of our Blessed Lawgiver and the Purity and Spiritualness of his Government have Crowned and Compleated Them so They do now stand as faithful and evident Witnesses of the Truth of his Coming and of the perfection of his Laws Eubul You have well improved what I said and were a Jew not obstinate in his hatred to our Lord he could not but be sway'd by such considerations Theoph. But let not me hinder you from Speaking to the Second thing to wit That such and only such Laws are injoyn'd by our Lawgiver as have in them an intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one Eubul You hindred me not To this therefore we say That the Laws which relate unto God are all of a Refined Nature requiring that his Worship be performed in Spirit and in Truth and are such as shew forth his Spiritualness his Purity his Omniscience and other his Glorious Attributes While we are Commanded to approach unto him with our Hearts and to have them clean and uncorrupt before him the Law hath an inward goodness in it in that it requires us to be Holy as he whom we serve is Holy. And it nourisheth in us right apprehensions of God that his Nature is not Gross and Bodily but that he is present with us and is a discerner of our thoughts A thing which could not be said of some of those actions which in Moses's Law had Relation to Gods immediate Service For wherein could the Spirituality of Gods Nature be inferred from the Blood of Beasts and their Flesh being offered up unto him How could we from these Rites in themselves consider'd be instructed in the Holiness Goodness and Mercy of God These Acts of Worship might seem to be of a Carnal and Gross Nature and though there be places enough in the Old Testament that speak forth God to be a Spiritual and Immaterial Being to be Holy and Good yet from these parts of his Service look'd upon in themselves alone Men could not learn so much Theoph. But Eubulus there are Two Precepts of Christianity respecting Gods immediate Service which may seem not to have any thing of internal Goodness in them and those are the Dipping or Sprinkling of Children with Water in Baptism and the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For what Affinity doth there appear between true Goodness and the Eating a Bit of Bread and Sipping a little Wine Between true Goodness and the Sprinkling a little Water Eubul I deny not Theophilus what you say but then you must Remember the whole that was said viz. That only such Laws are enjoyn'd which have an intrinsick Goodness in them or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one By Baptism we are initiated into the Church of Christ becoming Members to him our Head and have the guilt of Sin wash'd away Baptism being instituted for the Remission of Sins Acts 2.38 And we are also thereby made partakers of the benefits of Christs Death into which we are Baptized Rom. 3.6 In which Rite our Lawgiver as in every thing he exceeded what was done before hath amplified his Seal by making it applicable to both Sexes when in Circumcision it was impressed only upon one Thus also the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Holy Sacrament are done in Remembrance of the Death and Passion of our Lord. And this Remembrance of him is upon the Account that he hath laid down his Life for Mankind and for ourselves in that Number And so as oft as we do this Worthily and as we ought to do we are afresh entituled to that Salvation which by his Death he hath purchased for us and have God the Father Reconciled unto us Now these are excellent Ends and that to these Ends both Baptism and the Lords Supper were instituted we are expressly told in Holy Writ without any Clouds and Darkness without so much as a word that may have a double or doubtful signification that whoever runs may read Which cannot be said of Sacrifices and some other Significant Rites among the Jews For although they were Types of our Lord as hath been said yet they were not known so to be by the generality of the People And truly it doth not a little Commend the Precepts of Baptism and the Lords Supper that in these great Acts of our Faith our Lawgiver is so far pleased to condescend to our Senses as to make the things that may be Seen and Tasted to be the Conveighers of such inestimable Favours Water and Bread and Wine are indeed things of ordinary use But in so being they import these Divine Priviledges to belong not to the Rich only and the Great but to the Meaner Sort also And very rightly suted they are to the ends for which they were instituted The Washing away of Sins is well signified by the Cleansing of our Bodies with Water And Christs Wounded Body and Spilled Blood are better represented by the lowly Elements of Bread broken and Wine poured out than by more costly and rich Materials they would have been For we are to Remember
that appears either answerable to the Title of Spirit which is given to these Laws by reason as you say of God's Holy Spirit preventing and enabling us in our Obedience or expressive of the Constitution of a Christian in which Spirit is added to Soul and Body Eubul I hope Theophilus you do not think that the Assistances of the Holy Spirit are such things as put by our Endeavours and nourish our Sloth They are Assistances and so they do suppose that we ourselves should do somthing For were all to be performed by the Holy Spirit without the intervention of our Actions we must call them by some other Name for they could not properly be termed Assistances And therefore it is that what our Lord doth accomplish for us by his Grace through the Holy Ghost he enjoyneth us by his Command to do as of our own Power He worketh in us to will and to do but yet we are to work out our own Salvation He strengtheneth us but we are to strive The Victory is from Him but the Fighting must be ours And so it is very true what you said viz. That our Work seems not to be the less to us for the Assistances which he gives we must be altogether as industrious and earnest as if the whole were to be done by ourselves and nothing at all by Him. But because when we have done all which we are able to do we can see much of Human Weakness in our Actions and but little of Divine Strength shall we therefore conclude that the Assistances of the Spirit have been none or at most very mean and nothing worthy of the Character which is given them What Theophilus if the Holy Spirit in his aiding us will so comply with the Natural Powers of our Souls that we cannot discetn his Actings from our own What if he in a silent and gentle manner shall suggest things to our Understandings shall secretly sway our Wills and move our Affections really but yet imperceivably unto us Let us not because he draws us with the Cords of a Man say that we are not drawn at all If when we have done our best we seem to ourselves to be weak and to have done far less than we should have done it possibly is none of the least Aids of the Spirit that we can discern our own weakness and desire to please God even beyond our Abilities His Grace can be and it this way is very properly made perfect in our Weakness I dare be bold to say that he is not prompted from above who shall deny that there are Divine Assistances because there is not a Demonstration to the Soul that there are such Nay it may seem expedient that ordinarily they should be secret and imperceptible For should they commonly be otherwise Men would be too apt to rely upon them and thereby do less themselves because they see what their Aids are Or it may be they would grow conceited and abuse the helps of Gods Holy Spirit to the overthrow of the Excellent Grace of Humility Out of Mercy therefore the Blessed Spirit may Insensibly give his Aids unto Men that so by a constancy in their endeavours they at last may attain unto a greater perfection of all Graces and may the surer enjoy his Love by their Humility Theoph. But Eubulus if the Holy Spirit should in his Assistances move upon the Soul in this insensible way how could it be known that there were any Assistances at all And if it could not be known where would the Excellency of these Laws be from such a Motive as we are uncertain of Eubul There would be certainty enough of it from the Scriptures Revealing that such Assistances there are although we should not know the manner of them nor the times in which they are afforded But yet Theophilus these Spiritual Aids are not always indiscernible neither They oftentimes are seen by their effects though in their actings they were unperceiv'd And when a Mans Life is changed and he that heretofore was Dissolute and Wicked is now become Sober and Religious Or when in a constant course of Piety and Devotion he from his Childhood hath escaped the enticements of Satan and pollutions of the World we and he himself also though those Assistances have not been discerned may no less know that the Holy Spirit hath been present with him than we know that there is a Wind when we hear the Sound thereof though we see not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth And yet further Theophilus after faithful Obedience to the more Silent and Gentle Motions of the Holy Spirit it is not altogether unusual to have inward and sacred Joys darted into the Soul which as they are Rewards for Fidelity in the years past so are they likewise more sensible Helps for higher degrees of Piety in the years to come and prelibations of that unspeakable Joy which Holy Men shall be filled with hereafter in Heaven If there be not such discernible Assistances more frequent in the World it is either because Men do not duly close with the Holy Spirit in his Ordinary and Secret Aids or because they indulge a Sad and Melancholy Temper which shuts them out of the Soul or because God sees them not requisite for a great many Persons But yet the Laws of our Lord may notwithstanding be truly said to have more strong Assistances afforded than under the Old Law there were and deservedly to be entitled so much to the Spirit from the Secret Helps which the Holy Spirit offers unto all that are willing to obey Theoph. I was willing to urge you somthing the more upon this Head because the Holy Spirit is signally the Honour of the Evangelical Laws and because many are forward to talk slightly of his Assistances upon the account that they are not Visible to the Eye nor gross enough to be touch'd Eubul I heartily pity the State of these Men since none are more surely in the way to Misery than those that laugh at the Aids to Happiness especially when held out by a Divine Hand But let us go to the Third and last Motive for the securing of Obedience to these Laws which is their having such Loving Invitations and Affectionate Expressions of Kindness joyn'd with them Come unto me saith our Lord all ye that Labour and are heavy Laden and I will give you rest Where by those that Labour and are heavy Laden I suppose that They are not only to be understood who perceive the burden of their Sins and see the necessity of Grace from their Misdoings Our Lord here calls Men not only to Comfort but also to Teach and Instruct them that they may come to an Acknowledgment of their Sins which in their own Nature are a Weight and Burden although they be not yet perceived so to be After the manner of those who Rev. 3.17 were Wretched and Miserable and Poor and Blind and Naked when they felt no such thing So that all Men
Neighbours one to another Nothing can possibly prevail more upon Rational Men for Obedience to Princes than that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacred Ministers of God. That Damnation shall be received if resistance be made And that the Conscience within is to be preferr'd before the Fear of Wrath without And surely Princes may well embrace the Name and maintain the Practice of Christianity which thus secures them of the Hands and Hearts of their Subjects What stronger Motives can there be for Peoples Respect and Love to their Ministers than that they are Stewards of the Mysteries of God upon their account That in Christs stead they beseech them to be reconciled unto God And that they are set apart for this very thing to wit the promoting the welfare of their Souls and how prevalent such Motives have been we may learn from the Galatians carriage towards St. Paul who would if possible have plucked out their own Eyes and given them unto him Neither are the Duties of Pastors urged with less Weight The Church's being purchased by the Blood of God is the argument for their Feeding it and they are charged before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall Judge the Quick and the Dead to do it The consideration of which what Heart would it not affect For Mutual Love and Delight between Those whom Wedlock hath joyn'd it is an highly sacred Motive That Marriage is so far honour'd as to become Mysterious in the Signification of Christ the Bridegroom and the Church his Spouse and of that Vnion which is between them never to be dissolved And how admirably may the Hardness of Mens Hearts be overcome by such a Consideration as this And how is the Credit of those who are the Weaker Sex provided for by not being permitted now to be cast off upon every trivial Distaste For that Mysterious Signification which we said Marriage is enobled with doth plainly hint that the Bond thereof is to continue firm and unbroken and that the Faithful Affections both of the One and the Other in the Wedded Pair will certainly with other Virtues after this Life be rewarded living in a manner for ever in that Divine Love they did here represent Fathers must be tender to their Children and not provoke them to Wrath from that winning Motive that they have a Father in Heaven who they desire may not be pitiless and wrathful to them And Childrens Obedience is quickned by its being in the Lord Which Expression doth not only hint the Extent of their Obedience and how far it should reach but doth shew also that God is concern'd in it and doth observe whether it be truly perform'd or no. And the taking notice of the Fifth Commandment as being the first that hath a Promise annex'd unto it and the improving that Promise of Earthly and Temporal Blessings into Spiritual and Eternal is a very high Encouragement of the Duty The Faithfulness of Servants hath Motives admirably strong to wit That they do Service to Christ while they do it conscionably to their Masters That He sees their Diligence or Loitering when their Masters cannot And that He will reward whatsoever good thing any Man doth no less though he be bound than if he were free And Masters have a Motive equally as strong for their Gentleness and Goodness towards their Servants from their having a Master in Heaven with whom is no respect of Persons Which imports that the Authority which a Master hath on Earth shall not in Heaven or at God's Bar stand him in any stead if he bear it hardly and frowardly towards his Servant Lastly For the Duty of Neighbours one to another What more taking Motive can there be for their Love and Peaceableness than that they are as lively Stones built up a Spiritual House Absurd it would be if in our Buildings the Materials should be at variance and will it not be much more so in Gods Building where Jesus Christ is the chief Corner-Stone They are excited to love one another as being Brethren in a far more Noble Relation than that of Nature Thy Brother saith St. Paul in more than one place for whom Christ died And what an effectual and kindly Operation may this have in all those Matters of Discord which may arise among Neighbours and Friends Shall such or such an Offence make me an Enemy to him for whom Christ hath died Shall any Worldly Concern overturn that Love and break that Vnion which Christ hath Cemented and Established with his own most precious Blood A mighty Inducement for the love of Neighbours this Though not proper to this Relation alone but running through all the foregoing ones The higher place in every one of them being not too high and the lower one not too low to admit the Name of Brother And so all the Duties thereof may be promoted and the more benignly carried on by this Motive I thought it not amiss Theophilus in short thus to hint the Excellent Motives which the Gospel affords as proper to every particular Law by itself consider'd And they are as I said either purely Evangelical as flowing some way or other from the Mystery of our Redemption which could not have been known had it not been divinely revealed or else such as are to a much greater Persuasiveness urged than ever they were before Theoph. They prevail so much with me that methinks were I in the meanest of these Relations or could I by turns be each part in them all I could love every Law belonging to them for the apposite and excellent Motives which to every Law are annex'd But Eubulus you have not yet given me any taste of those Motives which respect the Laws to a Mans Self in particular Eubul But since you seem to desire it I will. And while I recount them in my thoughts somtimes though I approve of any thing that leads to Virtue be it even in the meanest of Philosophers yet I have a low esteem of the very highest of their Encouragements if compared with these of our Lord. For the keeping of our Bodies free from Intemperance and Vncleanness can there be any thing more prevailing than that they are Members of that Body to which Christ is the Head That they are Temples of the Holy Ghost That they are bought with a price even with the Blood of Christ And that they will not be lost when they are laid in the Earth but will be raised up again from the Dead And he who is wiling to weigh these things rightly How can he take the Members of Christ and make them the Instruments of Vncleanness the Receptacles of Luxury and Excess How can he pollute that Temple which the Holy Ghost doth Consecrate and delight to reside in How can he answer it if be defiles that Body which is not his own yea which our Saviour hath Cleansed with his Blood as well as Bought And with what Face can he abuse That
Incorruption they are Sown in Dishonour they shall be raised in Glory They are Sown in Weakness they shall be raised in Power they are Sown Natural Bodies they shall be raised Spiritual This is plainly spoken and not only so but is confirmed by our Lords own Rising from the Dead and becoming the First-Fruits of them that Slept Which implies that as the Harvest followeth the First-Fruits so shall our Christian Friends with all other Holy Men follow our Lord in his Resurrection It is very remarkable that the Holy Scripture gives to the whole Church as united with its Head The Name of Christ Thus 1 Cor. 12.12 As the Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body SO ALSO IS CHRIST Whence there may seem an holy Necessity that our Religious Friends should rise from the Dead They are parts of the Church and as the Church and Christ are one He could not be said to be wholly risen unless They likewise should rise from the Dead If there be no Resurrection of the Dead saith the Apostle then is Christ not risen which is true also in this sense His Resurrection would be incompleat and in effect no Resurrection should not his Church which is his Body rise after him What need is there then of so many Lamentations and of such Floods of Tears Why should we be dejected at the Graves of our Friends which we may look upon as the places from which they will arise rather than as the places wherein they are buried And what may yet further contribute to the appeasing of our Sorrow is their rising again never to be sick more Never any more to leave us but to enjoy us and to be enjoyed by us in an Eternity of Happiness For it cannot reasonably be thought that those particular Friendships which were founded in Virtue will not hereafter be continued in Heaven especially since a Religious Faithfulness and Constancy in Affection shall have a good share in the Everlasting Rewards which are there given So that we shall have our Friends again and much more ours than ever they were before Neither even at the present is our Communion with them dissolved by their Death For that Bond which unites us one to another and to our Head is Spiritual and so Death which only divides the Soul from the Body makes no real separation of the Christian who is dead from the Christians who are alive For they who still continue Members of the same Head do also continue Members one of another And the same good Will which our Friends as Christians had to us while they lived we may safely believe they have after they have left us Such as consisteth in the making Supplications unto God that it may be well with us both in Life and Death and in rejoycing at those Spiritual Blessings which are held out unto us for the obtaining that Happiness which they before us have reach'd unto Why then should we grieve as though they were quite lost unto us As though all our Interest in them were buried in their Graves and all that Virtuous Kindness they bore us were wholly extinct We rather may rejoyce that their Love towards us and other Christians is increased and more perfect as their own Happiness is increased and themselves are more perfect Theoph. What you say might administer unto Patience were it not that the Fears of an Hell and the Apprehensions that it may be worse with them now they are dead than it was when they were alive did not so often interpose Eubul But why should we suffer such Fears and Apprehensions to interpose in relation to those Friends who have loved Religion and Virtue and made them visible in their Lives Precious in the sight of God is the death of such And as for those daily Slips and Failures which proceed only from that Weakness which is common to all Mankind they from the Sincerity which hath been in the Heart shall be forgiven Indeed there are some Persons for whom our Hopes cannot be so great and we are not to be blamed if our Griefs be of a larger measure in the Deaths of these But yet we are by no means to pass sentence ourselves upon them but must leave them to stand or fall to their own Master And the same God that commands us to be charitable means that we should be so not only to the Living but the Dead also And if he so strictly enjoyns our Charity towards them we have some reason to hope he will not deny unto them his own Mercy This is certain that however the evil Lives of some Men may render the Thoughts of Death less comfortable to themselves and others yet through our dear Lord's Dying for us Death is in reality become an harmless thing to us as we are Christians and we may Triumphantly use the words of St. Paul O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory Thanks be unto God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Nay though Death to our Bodily Eyes hath Terrour in its Face and is attended with Worms and Corruption yet the same Apostle reckons it a part of the Church's Dowry 1 Cor. 3.22 Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or Life or DEATH or Things present or Things to come all are yours and the same we may esteem it to be in relation to our departed Friends You have seen Theophilus the excellent Motives for Patience on every Hand and for Obedience also to the other Laws that more nearly concern ourselves And truly the conceiving of a Man whose outward actions are all Clean and Chast whose inward Thoughts are Pure and Holy who can part with even Lawful Enjoyments rather than be insnared by them who is contented with his Lot not anxious for the years to come and cheerfully bearing up under present sufferings the conceiving I say of such an one so every way perfect is very pleasant to the thoughts and we cannot sooner think of him than we must Love him the Laws then that form the Man to be such must needs be no less fitted for our Love and Delight and these sure will much be heightned from such pleasing and weighty Inducements Theoph. I 'll confess to you Eubulus from this short account which you have given all my Affections are turn'd into a Love of these Sacred Laws except only that there is some room in my Soul left for Reverence and Admiration of them And I hope while I speak the same Words that the Pious Mr. Herbert did I speak to the utmost the same Truth also viz. That I would not part with one Leaf of these Holy Laws might I have the whole World in Exchange They are able to make would Men permit them an Heaven upon Earth while Peace and Joy and Love would be in the Community and an Holy Calmness and Inexpressible Pleasure in every private Breast Eubul And may such be
more noble things than John was used to shall in this respect be greater than He and more honoured than Any that lived before him Theoph. How pleasant a Prospect are these things to a Christian And who could blame him if fixing his Thoughts upon them He should account all other things in the Apostle's words as dung and dross in comparison of them But pray Eubulus Since the Law is so good Assistances so great and Motives so taking how comes it to pass that there should be so many disobedient ones as we almost every where see there are Eubul Too many God knows there are and one reason that there are so many is the superficial Knowledge of these things and oftentimes a gross Ignorance Were the elder sort called to Catechism and some of those who fail not seeing the Church once a week I doubt we should find them though Men in Stature to be yet but Children in Understanding perfect it may be and it may be not in the words of the Creed and the Commandments but Strangers to the sense Theoph. But not a few who are well instructed in the Divine Laws are yet of Lives bad enough Eubul It is a truth what you say though a sad one to be told Yet while there is so much Natural Pravity in the Heart of Men and so many Temptations abroad it is not difficult to guess the reason For Christian Religion though it often-times overcomes our Natural Corruptions yet doth not wholly root them out and evil Inclinations will sway a great many from their Duty The Rewards which our Lawgiver promiseth are chiefly future and spiritual and Men such is their Earthliness are generally for those things that are present and can be seen And when those shall strongly solicit and make shews of great Profits or Pleasures or Honours it is no wonder that Multitudes are led away by them Add to this That the Proofs of Christianity are not such as will compel Mens assent unto them whether they will or no but are to be inculcated often upon their Hearts that they may there be firmly rooted Now this requires Pains and Industry and if many Men are for Sloth and Ease and do account the weighing and considering of things to be harder and more tedious than bodily Labour we may quickly discern wherefore it is that the Laws of our Lord are so little observed And truly the Actings of the Holy Ghost with Men which are not ordinarily according to the fulness of his Power but so as may be resisted are in the present case worthy our Consideration He by his Motions within us doth persuade and silently he proposeth our Welfare suggesting the true means of obtaining it and furnishing us with Strength and Aids from above if we will admit of and close with them but he doth not usually with an irresistible Power constrain us And hence are those Expressions in Holy Writ of quenching and resisting the Spirit which if he acted according to the greatness and extent of his Might could not be quenched nor resisted Now when Men are left to chuse what Paths they will take when they must come in as it were to the help of the Lord against their own Corruptions and those Pleasures of Sense which as the forbidden Apple did look fair and to be desired it may not seem strange that these are chosen and the Divine Precepts neglected Neither is Christian Religion to be faulted as if it did not provide means sufficient for the retaining Men in Obedience It provides so far as is consistent with their Virtue which brooks not Force and would be lost had it not the Will along with it And from what hath been said Theophilus you may guess how it comes to pass that though the Laws are so good Assistances so great and Motives so taking there yet are so many that continue in Disobedience But we must not make our Walk to be the Injury of our Health It is a moist Air and yonder Clouds look black upon us An happy Night therefore to my Theophilus DISCOURSE the Fifth The Contents THough the Generality of Men be Wicked and by occasion of these Laws being given shall suffer the greater Torments hereafter yet it would not thereupon have been better that these Laws should not have been given The impious folly of those Men who are willing to flatter themselves with God's being so much a God of Mercy as that he will not destroy them though they walk contrary to his Laws An Explication of I am the Light of the World. Why Miracles were confined to the first Ages of the Church That Prophecy made good viz. The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb c. The great Goodness of God in making these Laws to reach so wide as the whole World. His great Wisdom and Mercy in putting these his Laws into Writing and enjoyning the frequent Reading and Preaching of them The Reasonableness that these Laws should endure without Abrogation or Change so long as the World shall stand The great expectation which was of this our Lawgiver for so many Ages and in every respect his answering of it may prevail much for Mens Obedience to his Laws The Righteousness and Goodness of these Laws will manifest themselves to those who are sincerely Obedient THEOPHILVS THE last part Eubulus of your Yesterdays Discourse occasion'd a more than ordinary thoughtfulness in me The Lives of Christians I reflected upon and they almost every where appeared unto me little less than a contradiction to the Laws of Christ Where is not Piety towards God neglected Vnrighteousness and Deceit towards Men not carried on Enmity and Hatred not nourish'd Intemperance and Vnchastity not abounding And how rare are upright and faithful Persons to be found In the midst of these my Thoughts I was struck with those Words of the Apostle 2 Pet. 2.21 It had been better for them not to have known the way of Righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the Holy Commandment deliver'd unto them And the not walking according to the Laws of the Gospel however the Name of Christ be openly profess'd I look upon to be a Turning from the Holy Commandment And though I still acknowledg'd and for ever shall acknowledge the Divine Laws to be Holy and Good and the Blessing promised to them to be the highest expression of God's Love to Mankind yet at last I fell to think whether the Wickedness of the Generality of Men had not brought it to that pass that considering the greater Torments they shall hereafter suffer by occasion of these Laws being given and the Gospel's being Reveal'd it would not have been better that these Laws should not have been given and the Gospel not have heen Reveal'd unto Men. I will not justifie my Thought as if it were Innocent it seemed to me and still seems Irregular But for the time it was so lodg'd within me that I could not easily remove it EVBVLVS NEither will I commend
Christ it is not because these Laws do not extend unto Them but because They refuse them The Goodness of God is not the less for not being entertain'd by the Generality of Men. Were it with an Impartial Eye look'd upon it might excite the Praises of all Men. That now every Nation is in the sight of God of equal account with the Land of Judea Every City that will truly own and obey his Laws is esteem'd no less than Jerusalem and every Temple where true Devotion is offered up where the Laws of Christ are un-corruptly declared and his Sacraments duly Administred as highly valued by him as the Gates of Sion and the Temple there And as he respects not One Nation before another so neither is He a respecter of Persons The Poor Man shall not be despised because he is Poor but shall have his Obedience kindly accepted and fully Rewarded Neither shall the Rich be Envy'd or Rejected because he is Rich but shall find our Lord Faithful and Just in the Valuing and Recompensing the Observance of his Laws So that we may say with David possibly in a larger Sense than he meant of Lands Nations and People which in Holy Writ are often limited to the Tribes and Families of the Jews the Regions and Cities of Palestine O be joyful in the Lord all ye Lands serve the Lord with Gladness and come before his presence with a Song Let the People Praise thee O God yea let all the People Praise thee For having given such Excellent Laws to all People thou wilt judge the folk righteously and with thy especial favour govern all the Nations upon Earth Hear ye all ye People give Ear all ye Inhabitants of the World both Low and High Rich and Poor one with another the Goodness of God is the same to you all in these his Holy Laws Praise him therefore and Magnifie him for ever Eubul And have we not also from hence Theophilus an instance of Gods Wisdom and Mercy in putting these his Laws into Writing and enjoyning the frequent Reading and Preaching of them What are for all the World and do belong to all Nations how distant soever could not so conveniently have been dispersed for the good of all had they been confined to some Mens Breasts only Whereas now in their being written they can the more easily and punctually be known And from their being translated into all Languages and speaking in those Languages the same thing God is pleased happily to reverse the Confusion of Tongues at Babel Had they been left merely to an Oral Tradition we by reason of the Passions Prejudices Interests and to say the best the weakness of the Memories of Men should have had little security for their being preserved uncorrupt if yet they would have been preserved at all The Instance is sad but not impertinent to be mention'd how by this Traditional way the Knowledge of God and his Laws were in not many Hundred Years after the Flood in effect wholly lost not retrieveable but by new Revelations and the Constituting as it were a new Ecclesiastick State in Abraham and his Posterity to which for a not unlike Reason he afterwards saw it requisite to write his Laws in the Mount. Besides how would they have escaped amidst the Enthusiasms of many who pretend unto fairer Revelations than any of these Written Laws Which shews the great Wisdom of God in committing these his Laws unto Writing and may also shew Us that no Laws which are not Written are to be accounted His how Divine soever they may be pretended For why these should be put in Writing for the securing them from the corrupt Passions and personal Weaknesses of Men and others of no less Authority and Concern as is pretended than These should be left merely to the Breasts and Tongues of some Men who are of like Passions and Deficiencies with others I must confess Theophilus I understand not Nor is Gods Mercy less shewn than his Wisdom in that now we are not to go we know not whither to seek the Will of God that we may obey it but have his Laws near us and at hand in every place As God said to the Israelites Deut. 30.13 so may it now be said to all Men These Laws are not hidden from thee neither are they far off They are not in Heaven that thou shouldst say Who shall go up for us into Heaven and bring them unto us that we may hear them and do them Neither are they beyond the Sea that thou shouldst say Who shall go over the Sea for us and bring them unto us that we may hear them and do them But they are nigh unto thee in thy Mouth and in thy Heart that thou mayst do them Nigh they are and not a Family but may have them always lie open to their view not a particular Person but may have them as a Treasure in his Chamber or Closet Neither doth God only take care that these his Laws should be made known by being Written but he hath also commanded that they being Written should be Preached For those Precepts Preach the Word be Instant in season and out of season Reprove Rebuke Exhort with all long-Suffering and Doctrine are not Temporary ones given to Timothy and in Him to cease but such as are to be practised by Ministers to the end of the World. They must not be negligent to put Men always in Remembrance of these Laws though they be already known but still Line must be upon Line and Precept upon Precept here a little and there a little A very great Mercy of God it is Theophilus that he will have his Laws though they be written to be yet thus frequently Preach'd that none may perish for want of Knowledge And a Mercy it is no less that though his Laws be Preached he yet hath caused them to be written putting them into the Hands of every Christian That in case False Teachers should arise as 't is foretold there will we may have wherewithal to discover and disprove them And truly the having the Holy Scriptures in their Hand and Eye is a Priviledge that one would wonder any should endeavour to take away from the People since it always by the Bounty of God belong'd unto them Under the Old Testament the Divine Laws were to be bound upon the Hands of the People and to be as it were Frontlets between their Eyes to be written also on the Posts of their Houses and on their Gates so far were they from being withheld Under the New Testament we find that the Writings of the Evangelists were not composed for the use of the Apostles only but for every Christian also in particular As may in good sort be seen by our Saviour's Sermon in the Mount which was not spoken to the Disciples as Ministers but as private Christians For at his Preaching it there were no Apostles they not being made nor sent till afterwards We find also that all the
had had none in whose Steps we might tread By comparing Examples with our Rule we shall quickly find whether they will hold Good for our Practice or no. THEOPHILVS YOU have finished Eubulus what you intended concerning the Divine Laws But I hope you have not therein put an end to Discourses of a like Nature Religious and Sacred So much have you won upon me by your Five last that should you be willing to rest I would crave leave for this once at least to excite you forwards Or should you enter upon new matter that standeth at any distance from Religion how Ingenious soever it might be I would presume to stop your Course EVBVLVS ALthough the things that are Holy may be administred unto by things which in their Nature are not so and even by Lower Objects may afford Recruits to a Mind long engaged in Diviner Speculations yet since you are so much taken with These as to account them your Refreshments as well as Business your so good Inclinations I will no way stint Theoph. And why Eubulus should not Christians especially those that have Time and Leisure often make Religion and the great Concerns thereof to be the matter of their Discourse as well as Plato and Cicero and some others made the Immortality of the Soul the Contempt of Death the bearing of Troubles bravely and other things not unlike these to be the Subject of theirs These things were I may say their Divinity and though their Reasonings were in the dark and themselves uncertain amidst their Disquisitions yet they esteemed them to be the chief things that made the Life of Man happy I see not why it should be otherwise with us who have greater Assurances of the Truth of our Divinity and as to our Welfare and Happiness are therein not less but more concern'd than they were Eubul I would think that many there are who are more frequent and fervent in the thoughts of these things than you seem to think they are But Christianity being that which chiefly instructs the Heart and which for the better excluding of Hypocrisie and Vain-glory doth contain Precepts that in some Acts enjoyn secresie therefore I suppose a great many willing rather in reality to be than to appear Religious are not so forward to talk of the things which yet they truly love Theoph. I will not be against any Interpretation that carries Charity towards other Men. I yet may be allow'd to fear that to some their Religion is the less confirm'd in their thoughts from their constant avoiding in their words any thing that tendeth thereunto Not to say that some by shunning one Rock have split upon another putting on too much the Guise of Profaneness while they have abandon'd the Garb of Hypocrisie But you and I shall not between ourselves be suspected of any such Vanity and being thus in private are free from the Censures of others also if we bend our Talk towards sacred Things I therefore request of you that in persuance of your former Discourses you would consider the Examples of Pious Men Registred in Holy Scriptures which are esteem'd by many of little less force than the Divine Laws and ranked with them are made in part the Rule of our Actions Eubul I shall the more willingly yield unto this your Request because too much is attributed to the Examples of others And not a few are they who think themselves secure in their Actings if they can shew that some good Men in Holy Writ or some well accounted of since have done the like Theoph. Truly Eubulus I have myself taken notice that some things which look'd upon in themselves would be acknowledged not to be right yet considered as done by such and such Persons as if their doing them had put a new Nature into them will be well thought of and often without any scruple at all will be imitated Eubul And hence it is that a great many are uncertainly good and more are too surely evil in their practice Theoph. How far then Eubulus may the Examples of good Men be imitated by us Eubul E'en no further Theophilus than they have the Laws of Jesus Christ for their Rule and Warrant Which will be manifest to any one who will impartially consider these two things 1. That Examples as of themselves can lay no Obligation upon us 2. That the Perfection of the Laws of Christ is so great that they reach to all Moral Actions and even to the Thoughts of our Hearts Theoph. I will be very attentive to you and I hope you expect not my further Intreaties for your progress Eubul First then That Examples as of themselves can lay no Obligation upon us And this in a twofold respect From want of Authority in the Persons partly and partly from the uncertainty and insufficiency of their Example From a want of Authority in the Persons first The Holy Men we read of in Scripture were not sent into the World to be a Law to all others in the things they acted If we look upon the Patriarchs together with the Prophets what was there in them that might shew that every thing they did was to be a Rule to the whole Nation of the Jews then and to all Mankind afterwards They had indeed Authority enough for the engaging Obedience to what they said Moses received from God the Laws which he gave And his delivering them with these words God spake or Thus saith the Lord or some such like form and confirming the truth of them also by Miracles was Argument sufficient for their being observed And the Holy Prophets carrying Testimony of their being divinely inspired might claim Attention and Observance to their Prophecies in whatever related to practice But what Authority did all their Actions bear for Imitation All of them were Men of like Passions with us and their Persons were much of a different sort from the greatness of the things they wrote Moses had somthing in him that was worse than his slowness of speech for he spake unadvisedly with his Lips. What failures David and Solomon had what passions Jonah towards his God we know Ezekiel who had the most Visions of any is more often than any call'd the Son of Man lest he as is thought should have forgotten his own Meanness And St. Paul that he might not be exalted above measure and that others also might not think too highly of him had a Messenger of Satan sent to buffet him And if we should run through all the Personal Failings of Holy Men the Authority from their Example would be found to be little or none As St. Paul saith of himself and the other Apostles We have this Treasure in Earthen Vessels that the Excellency of the Power may be of God and not of us so may it also be said of Moses and the Prophets They were but as a mean Cask to the Will of God which was inclosed in them and by them delivered unto others and their own Persons and
Holiness he never approved of them And his Will in the Laws of his Son is and always will be highly dear unto him And therefore in all cases how little hopes of success soever there be and at all times how hazardous soever they may appear is to be stuck unto by us 4. Those Actions which under the Old Testament were altogether innocent are not all of them without scruple to be imitated by us who are Christians Such I suppose was Moses's slaying the Egyptian who strove with the Hebrew Man Exod. 2.12 Ehud's running his Dagger into Eglon Judges 3.22 Elijah's calling down Fire from Heaven for the consuming of the Captains and their Fifties 2 Kings 1.10 David's causing the Ammonites to be put under Saws and Harrows of Iron and to pass through the Brick-Kiln 2 Sam. 12.31 And his cursing his Enemies as in his Psalms we frequently hear him do In some of these Instances if not in all we are to look to an extraordinary Spirit yet not disagreeing to the Mosaick State impelling the Actors and therefore it is very unsafe to bring them to the common Rules of Life now under the Gospel It might justly be objected against a private Man that should go about to do as Moses did Who made thee a Ruler or a Judge over us And Ehud's Deed how little Warrant is it for Attempts of the like Nature We know whom our Lord checked for desiring they might do as Elias had done with these words Ye know not what Spirit ye are of The Son of Man came not to destroy but to save Luk. 9.54 And David's Carriage towards the Conquer'd Ammonites who will say it may to the worst of Enemies be imitated And his so frequent Execrations of his Enemies may they not be said to proceed from a Prophetick Spirit and to be Predictions wrapt up in the Form of a Curse But who now may pretend to such a Spirit And not having the same Spirit how may they presume to do the same thing Look we to the Rule under the Gospel and there we shall find the Precepts that are given us to be of a mild and soft temper and the Spirit that actuates those Precepts in our Souls to be gentle and sweet-natured Not unlike unto the Dove whose Resemblance he took when he descended in a Bodily Shape We are to Love our Enemies to Bless them that Curse us to do good to them that hate us And Servants and Inferiours are to be subject to their Masters and Superiours not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward It is not unworthy Observation that in the whole Gospel there are no Precepts that relate to the carrying on a War because if our Saviour's Laws be obey'd sincerely on all Hands there will be no occasion for Fighting Now where the State and Laws are New as under our Lord in great measure they are some things that were innocent and commendable under a former State may not be so unto us For these Laws are to last so long as the World standeth whereas the Laws that authorized some of those Examples even now spoken of were only Impulses of the Spirit for that time alone in which they were done Yea the Laws which were most properly belonging to the Mosaick Institution and endured the longest were in great measure but in order unto our Saviour's more perfect Institution which was to come and which is styled The Everlasting Gospel because its Laws shall never cease to bind us as was before observed 5. No Actions of Holy Men that express not the Substance of a Divine Law are necessarily to be imitated by us For if our Imitation of Examples in Sacred Writings be to have the Laws of Christ for its Rule and Guidance then those Examples which do not any way express those Laws although they be not contrary to them lay no Obligation upon us for our imitating them Hence that Posture which our Saviour and his Disciples were in at the first Institution of his Supper since it was not belonging to the Substance of the Command of their Consecrating Bread and Wine and Giving them and of others Receiving them at their Hand doth not oblige us There is none can understand any Posture from the Command Do this in Remembrance of me and there is no Command on purpose for any Posture to be observed Why then should there be so much Discord in the Church of Christ about it It were well we could not say Men more earnestly contend about an indifferent Circumstance of the Duty than they make Conscience of the Duty itself And from what hath been said Theophilus we may see how great and dangerous their Errour is who raise Examples so high as to make them together with the Laws of our Lord the Rule of our Actions when those Laws alone and of themselves are so Nothing say they is to be done but what is warranted by some Command or Example in Holy Writ Which what is it but a derogating from the Divine Law to add over-much unto Examples and to give some Men who have their Eyes too much set upon Examples an occasion therefrom to take oftentimes a greater Latitude than the Sacred Precepts will allow When the Law of God is silent as to any particular Action and doth not forbid it it is to be supposed we are left at liberty to do or not to do it Neither need we seek to an Example for our Warrant but our Prudence with respect only to that general Law Whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God is to be our Guide For those Examples which are not directly expressive of the Laws of God arose at first from the Prudence of the Agents and why may not We upon the same Grounds do the same Things Or why should an Example be of more Authority with us than that Prudence from which it sprung and which lieth in common to all Men for the ordering a great part of their Lives Certainly the wholly excluding the Dictates of Prudence where no Law of God layeth any prohibition upon us and the joyning of Examples together with the Divine Precepts without any mark of Difference as if they were of equal sway with them may be of pernicious Consequence to the Practice of Men and hath already been too too much instrumental unto the quarrelling with the wholsom Discipline and Constitutions of our Church and the disturbing of that Peace which ought to be more among Christians than others but which hath been less in the midst of them than it hath been even with Those who in the Psalmist's words are Strangers unto Peace Theoph. But if Examples lay no Obligation upon us any further than as they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant pray Eubulus of what use are they And to what end have we any thing more in Holy Writ than the Laws thereof These of themselves engaging us to all the Duties that any Examples can point us
unto Eubul We may say with the Apostle in general That all the Examples in sacred Scripture yea even those that are bad as well as those that are more commendable for they were all ordered by the self-same Spirit to be set down there have their good uses and are profitable either for Doctrine or for Reproof or for Correction or for Instruction in Righteousness that the Man of God may be throughly furnished to every good work But more particularly we say 1. That those Examples which plainly bear the Image of the Laws of Christ are given us for Incentives and Encouragements of our Obedience to those Laws Though our Rule be perfect yet it will more prevail upon us when it brings an Example with it to shew that it hath been obeyed by others and may be by us We are apt to think that our Task is difficult and beyond our Strength In Mercy therefore and Love God hath been pleased to Register the Actions and Lives of some Men to shew us that what he requireth of us is not impossible to be done Why should we think it an hard thing to have Faith in God when Abraham hath believed in Him and taught that it is a Duty which may be performed by us Why should we esteem it unreasonable to be patient in Adversity when we Read of the Patience of Job in greater Evils than as yet we have suffered or are like to suffer We may Cheerfully set about the Duty of Mortification and Self-Denial from the knowledge of St. Paul's keeping under his Body and bringing it into Subjection But the Chief Example of all is our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ And God hath required his Obedience both Active and Passive not only that he thereby might Merit for us but also that he might Manifest the Reasonableness of his Laws and might Excite our Obedience by his own Example Who can justly refuse to be Meek and Lowly when He who Commands us to be so was so Himself though he were a King Who is it will deny to Love his Enemies when our Lord who enjoyns us thus to do did the same thing yea Loved Us ourselves when we were Enemies unto Him That we should not be Weary nor Faint in our Minds under the Troubles that may befal us for Religions Sake we are bid to consider Him who endured such contradiction of Sinners against himself and to look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the Shame And what greater Allurements can there be for our Obedience to his Laws than that He who made these Excellent Laws did himself Live according unto them and was in all respects such as he would have VS to be If his Commands move us not how can we withstand his Example Theoph. His Example is Strong But may not the Perfection thereof he being God as well as Man make us despair of ever reaching it rather than encourage us to endeavour towards it Eubul In case any should so think God hath afforded us Patterns amongst Those who have nothing but what is Human in their Natures and we are to be followers of Them as They have been of Christ Though truly Those Actions of our Lord which belong'd unto him chiefly as he was a Man such as were the Expressions of his Meekness Patience Self-Denial Affiance in God and such like we may imitate immediately from Himself and have no need that any should interpose betwixt Us and Him as an Example of the same things For who can Practise those Vertues and Graces in a manner more befitting our Imitation than He hath done He was made in the likeness of Men and was in all points Tempted even as we are so that we may exactly see our own Duty in his Behaviour Only He was without Sin and though we cannot while we are in this World attain unto the Perfection of being wholly free from Sin as He was yet it is but meet the Copy which is set us should be Exact and Accurate That thereby we might not rest in Low Degrees but might still be excited to rise higher Nay even those Actions of our Lord which proceeded more from his Divine than Human Nature are for the most part not so much out of our reach but they may yield us somthing for our Imitation And they were not Written barely as Narratives without any respect to our Practice They carried in them a Conformity to the Laws which he gave and we are excited to give Obedience to those his Laws in that while he acted most like God he had a respect unto Them and did then express the matter of Them as well as when he acted most like Man. In his Miraculous Actions there were the Piety the Kindness and the Compassion which he requires of us as Men mixed with his Power as he was God. And so far they are Incentives to our Duties We cannot indeed feed a Multitude by a Miracle but we can give Food to the Hungry according to our Abilities We cannot Heal the Sick by a Word but we can Administer to their Necessities We cannot make the Lame to Walk and the Blind to See but we can be Legs to the One and Eyes to the Other in our way by giving Support and Direction to them Unto this Goodness and Pity these Miraculous Actions of our Lord do prompt us and hence the Church of Christ though it could not reach the Miracle of our Lords Fast for Fourty Days yet thought itself bound to the Piety of it and as far as it well could to the Abstinence of it also So likewise his Actions which proceeded from his Prerogative as he was a Prince which I said we must not imitate have somthing that may admit of an Analogy betwixt our Actions and Them And may stir us up unto that Practice which we as Christians are bound unto Thus his Driving the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple and overturning the Tables of the Money-Changers encourageth us to be Zealously affected in a good Matter and to oppose every thing that is Evil so far as lieth in our Sphere Thus also his Mediatory Actions may be Excitements to us earnestly to interceed with God for the Eternal Welfare of Others in an Humble and Submissive way not forgetting our own Meanness while we do it and remembring also that what we do in this kind is no more than what is our Duty to do You see Theophilus that our Lords Example even in the Actions that are above the Ordinary Level as well as in those which chiefly represented his Human Nature is a Motive to Us for Obedience to his Laws I may further also say viz. That not only the Examples of some Holy Mens Actions in Sacred Writings which as to the whole were good but Those also which as to some things are short of the measure and below the Standard of Goodness are written for the stirring us up
Box of Ointment on the Head of our Lord That wheresoever the Gospel should be preached in the whole World there also should this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her Mat. 26.13 In the same manner are the good Actions of Holy Men preserved in the Scripture that they may be told as a Memorial of them wheresoever these Sacred Writings shall come and so long as they shall last which shall be to the End of the World. Moses shall for ever be celebrated who refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh 's Daughter choosing rather to suffer Afflictions with the People of God than to enjoy the Pleasures of Sin for a Season Abraham's Faith shall never cease to be praised till Faith itself shall cease and be turned into Vision Gideon Barak Sampson Jephtha David also and Samuel and all the Prophets and Apostles shall for their faithful Deeds be had in Everlasting Remembrance Such Honour have all God's Saints And though they be happy in the enjoyment of the Recompence of Reward and may seem not to need any of that praise which Earth can give yet surely it cannot but be esteemed an high Favor from God unto them while they are Blessed in Heaven to be Honourable on Earth and Celebrated themselves here while they are praising God there Had we ourselves Theophilus no use and benefit from these examples yet their being Registred as an Honour to the Persons that lived so well is sufficient reason for their being written Though truly in this their Honour we may reap a great deal of satisfaction For those Righteous Actions which God hath so much honoured Them for we may justly conclude He will be well pleased with in Vs Since He is no Respecter of Persons in every Nation he that feareth Him and worketh Righteousness being accepted with him 'T is true indeed we cannot expect that God will give Divine Authority to any more Books than the Bible and write our Names in them But He hath other ways of Rewarding Holy Livers on Earth besides enrolling them in a Sacred Volume that shall last as long as the World. He can give us Honour and Prosperity while we Live and can Embalm us also in a lasting Name when we are dead And though he should not do this yet we read of another Book of God in which the Names and all the good Actions of Faithful Men are recorded and which at the last day will be opened when every man shall receive according to his works The Righteous Deeds of Holy Men being preserved in the Books of Scripture may put us in mind of this other Book And the Honour which they have of being never forgotten in this world encourageth us to the like Holy and Just Actions that we may be remembred in the world to come Theoph. God grant we may at last be remembred there and then I shall little care though the same Earth that covers my Body bury my Memory also Though yet the Honour of Living in Sacred Writings after Death and of being made instrumental to other Mens virtuous Deeds and to the more comely performing of them I acknowledge to be very great And since God is pleased to make a Good Name and the Being for Ages Exemplary to be a Reward of a well-led Life I will not blame Those why by rightly ordering their Lives have an Eye to such a Reward Eubul I am sure we have a great deal of Reason to account it a Blessing that we have had so many patterns of Virtue set us by which we are the better capacitated for being Happy ourselves and being also Examples unto others The Faith indeed of Abraham is thought by some to have been the more excellent and even to have given him the Name of the Father of the Faithful upon the account that he had no precedent Example of any ones Believing in God He dwelling in Vr of the Chaldees where they were all Idolaters But supposing this were so and that therefore our Faith cannot have the accomplishment of Father Abrahams because we have Him and many Others our Examples Yet our Condition in our Faith is much the more sure unto us than it would have been if we had had none in whose steps we might tread For who of us would have done as Abraham did We may therefore praise God in that he hath caused us to be Born into the World after so many excellent Persons whose Examples may direct us further than of our Selves we could have gone And albeit we shall not have the Honour to receive others into our Bosome when in Heaven as Abraham doth yet if we can the more easily have a place in his and be our Selves in some measure Leaders of other Men thither we shall have no reason to complain of any want of Happiness but a great deal of cause to rejoyce that the way to Heaven was made so plain and that we had so many encouragements in it not to faint And with reference unto this The Church hath piously ordered that we should bless Gods H. Name for all his Servants departed this Life in his Faith and Fear Beseeching him to give us Grace so to follow their Examples that with Them we may be partakers of his Heavenly Kingdom Theoph. A great Esteem and Love Eubulus we may have for the Examples of Holy Men but it must at last End in the Esteem and Love of the Laws of Christ which include in them all the Good that the best Examples of Men ever have shewn or can shew Eubulus It must so Theophilus For all those actions of Men and Women famous in their Generations The Practice of Righteousness and Mercy of Munificence and Liberality of Temperance and Sobriety of unfeigned Devotion and Piety towards God all of which every Man hath a Tongue to praise are but imperfect draughts of these Holy Laws I say imperfect Draughts Because no Man our Blessed Lord alone excepted hath ever yet risen to that height of Excellence which they require Very pleasing they are as they are represented in the Lives of Good Men though they there are not unlike a Beautiful Face drawn to great disadvantage and with many unbecoming Shades But could we see them without failure exprest in the demeanor of any Man and had Eyes clear enough to behold them we should confess that they were a Sight too good for Earth However in the commendable actions of Men with the imperfections of Mortality if we would but reflect thus to wit The Constancy of that Man is a pleasant thing to behold The Righteousness of this Man is truely Comely Mercy and Goodness here is a real Ornament to the Actor Friendship and Kindness there How amiable are they The Flourishing of Society in Peace and Industry and all publick Virtues The Affections and Tenderness of Parents The Submission and Dutifulness of Children The Dwelling of Brethren together in Unity And the Affability and Usefulness of Neighbors to each
other Who is it can look upon and not be highly pleased in them But all These are nothing else but the Excellencies of the Laws of our Lord And shall we not Reverence shall we not Love them If I say we would in the Laudable actions of Men though much distant from the Perfection of the Laws of Christ often cast our Thoughts upon those Laws acknowledging the Beauty to belong unto them which in all these things is really derived from them it would be no more than a due Expression of Esteem and Love towards them and at the best much â—â—ow their Excellency Meet therefore surely it is when we have a Mind to do any thing and have an Example of the same ready in Sacred Scripture that we think not ourselves presently authoriz'd thereby to do it Some actions even of good Men who are now happy in Heaven having not been always nor altogether Good. Let us make the Precepts of the Gospel to be our Touchstone and by comparing the Example with the Rule we shall quickly find whether it will hold good for our Practice or no. Choose we either those Examples of Holy Writ which in the whole or those which in some part of them are the Image of a Divine Law and thereupon have a perpetual Rectitude Yet in these later be sure to avoid that part of the Example which is transgressive of the Command As for those which had a Warrant only for the Time in which they were done they lay no more obligation upon us now than Circumcision and Sacrifices do but are wholly to be shunn'd And those which the Law of God is silent in and which are therefore merely indifferent we may justly esteem ourselves no more bound by them than we are to wear a Seamless Coat or to lye along every time we eat unless Human Laws shall upon Prudential accounts enjoyn the doing them And then for other Examples Theophilus not recorded in Scripture They also are to be Examined by the Rule If in any thing they deviate from the Laws of Christ we are not to follow them though they be grown the Practice of Many and of some who may seem to be more Understanding and Religious than most of their Neighbors Always bearing in mind that the Best have their Errors and Frailties and that the most dangerous Errors in Religion are for the most part if not always usher'd in with Semblances of Holiness more than ordinary which to wise Men do often betray themselves by being over-acted But the Divine Laws are in every respect sincere and perfect and will lead us into no paths but such as will undoubtedly bring us unto Happiness They have no Interest to set up besides the Glory of God and the everlasting Welfare of Souls And will bear the being search'd into themselves as well as they require that other things be proved by them We may through them find out the failures of many specious Actions and Pretences but may despair in any example to see those Excellences which are not in far greater measures in Them. And Thus Theophilus as well as I could I have answered your Request In the doing of which I cannot reasonably be thought to have detracted any thing from Sacred Examples by having made them wholly dependent on Sacred Laws Were there generally a greater Caution used in Those and a greater Love shewed to These Men would walk more Surely Themselves and would set far better Copies unto Others Theoph. I dare say none of those Holy Men who have left us their good Examples would think those good Examples injured by what you have said Since their greatest Care in them was to obey God's Law And their greatest Pleasure from them was to have done it This your kindness Eubulus together with your other shall I hope find that Entertainment with me which you would wish And among the Virtues which they tend to promote I will see that Friendship and Gratitude shall not be wanting DISCOURSE the Seventh The Contents COncerning the Divine Law as taken in a larger Sense Of the Historical part of Scripture particularly of the Creation All other Opinions concerning the Being of the World are cold and unaffecting Of the Fall of Man. It gives Light to many things which otherwise we should never have known the reason of The sad effects of our Fall are in great measure corrected by God's Mercy and made Comfortable to us Many things in the dark and mingled with falsities in profane Authors we may from hence more clearly discern Sacred History shews forth God's immediate Hand and plainly tells us that he punished and rewarded for such and such reasons Of the History of our Redemption How wonderful it is and what a Sacredness runs through all the Circumstances of our Lord's Conception Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension The great evidence of these things Of the Prophetical part of Scripture Especially of those Prophecies relating to our Blessed Saviour As Divine Truth is eminently seen in all of them so the quick and various workings of Providence for the fulfilling of some of them are very delightful The Predictions of the Heathen Oracles much different from these The Sibyllin Prophecies of suspected Credit Of the Adhortative part of Holy Writ God hath used the most taking words for the prevailing with Men for Obedience In the Gospel there is nothing wanting that may work upon the Soul of Man. Of the Devotional part of Sacred Scripture It consisteth of such Services were fit for Men to pay unto their God and needed not Secresie to shelter them from an Honest Ear or Chast Eye Devotion raised to a much greater perfection by having our Lord and the Holy Spirit so nearly concerned in it Those persons quite mistake what they read in Sacred Scripture who find a pleasure therein without any respect to the Divine Law properly as such What we are to think of those who are conscientiously Obedient to the Divine Law but yet find not that Delight therein which Earthly things do frequently give them and who hereupon are very apt to interpret their Love to God's Precepts to be unsincere and such as will be rejected The great reasonableness and Benefit of Holy Meditation THEOPHILVS I Remember Eubulus that as by the Word Law you understood the Preceptive Part of the Bible which you have hitherto discoursed of so you did not exclude from it what ever else is contained in Holy Writ EVBVLVS YEs Theophilus we may in a larger Sense understand this also And indeed since all Scriptures have some way or other a respect to the Precepts thereof therefore the Word Law doth oftentimes import the whole Scripture as is manifest in these places John 10. It is written in your LAW I have said ye are Gods. And Cap. 12. We have heard out of the LAW that Christ abideth for ever and Cap. 15. It is written in their LAW they hated me without a cause All which places are not in the
Understanding when we read them fulfilled in our Lords being conceived of the Holy and born of a Virgin Mother And truly the Prediction Micah 5.2 Of his being born at Bethleem may move us with a more than ordinary delight when we consider how strangely God's Providence was engaged for the fulfilling it All that Taxing which was laid upon the Jewish Nation by Augustus and which required every one to repair to his own City to be Taxed may appear in a special manner to be order'd by God for the bringing Mary unto Bethleem to be delivered of her Son. It was a great way that Joseph and Mary were to go From N zareth in Galile to the City of David in Judea And it might seem ill to have hapned unto Mary at a time when her Condition rather required Rest than was fit for so great a Journey and this too as is not improbable in the depth of Winter But God somtimes is accomplishing his own Will and great things for us when Affairs appear to be cross and unhappy Yea and can order the Councils of Princes at a great distance from them to carry on these Designs which He in his Providence hath laid but which never entred their Hearts to imagine And so it is here We see no means how Mary should have been at Bethleem delivered of her Son there had not the Taxation at that very Time been enjoyn'd Which may shew that She and Joseph had no Thoughts of fulfilling a Prophecy by their journey thither But hence it was that the Son of David was born in the City of David and Divine Wisdom had ordered that of this Man it should be said He was Born there If we look to those Prophecies which were of our Lord's Suffering and Death they are such as may give us a great deal of satisfaction in a Crucified Saviour That of Esai is very express in Chap. 53. He is despised and rejected of Men a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief He hath born our Griefs and carried our Sorrows He was wounded for our Transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities How exactly is his Picture as it were drawn by this Prophet and how pleased may we be with the Likeness though it represents him in Grief and Sorrows So likewise in Daniel Chap. 9.26 After sixty two Weeks shall the Messias be cut off but not for himself Which things are also a good and just Interpretation of our Lord's Behaviour under his Sufferings For should he not have suffered in our stead but died only as our Example and as a Testimony of the Truth of his Doctrine as Socinus and his Followers would have it some things I speak it reverently would not have born a good Colour nor at all have been reconcileable to that Perfection which we must own to be in our Lord. I will instance in one and that is his Sweat in the Garden Consider this without the thoughts of his dying for our Sins and say whether it betrays not too great a fear of Death whether there may not seem to have been greater Instances of undaunted Courage from some Heathen Heroes and from some who have born the Name of Christians than from Christ himself That He should be so much concern'd at a single Death when he knew he died for an Example to others of not fearing Death upon a good occasion what from these Mens Opinions can we think of it But then when we consider that He was wounded for our Transgressions that he struggled with the Wrath of God which was due to all Men and was never to have end that he trod the Wine-press alone and none was with him The uncommonness of his Sweat which was as great drops of Blood may shew forth the greatness of the Burthen that was laid upon him and may make us to wonder at the Power that could at all bear up under such Pressures but by no means to accuse him of Timorousness because his Garments are thus died with Blood. So great and reverend is that Action or Passion rather of our Lord with respect to his Suffering in our stead which otherwise will require a good Invention to make it appear not mean. Add to this that Expression of his My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Had he died only for an Example unto us and a Confirmation of the Truth of what he declared why should he thus have cried out Should we ourselves be called to die for our Holy Religion I cannot say that we might lawfully thus cry unto God We ought rather to submit unto his Will with hopes that he had not forsaken us Somthing else then must be the cause of these his words viz. The pouring out of the full Vials of Gods Wrath upon Him as upon one that bare the Iniquities of us all And this will render his words highly apposite unto and expressive of his Passion which otherwise might seem beyond it So that though we are to conceive of our Lord's Death as an Example unto us for he is said to suffer for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps yet as in his Life there are some things above an Example so in his Death likewise there are which are placed beyond our Imitation We may imitate his Meekness and Patience and Love to Mankind but the height of his Sufferings for the Sins of the World we cannot And some Expressions betokening the Greatness of his Passion whether from his Words or Bloody Sweat must stand alone as highly agreeable to the State of his Agony but not so fit for any besides Himself Thus amiable are these Prophecies to the Considerate Reader not only in so exactly foretelling his Sufferings and Death and thereby vindicating the Honour of our Religion against the Jews who upbraid us with those his Sufferings and Death but also in shewing forth a true Beauty in the now-mention'd Deportment of our Saviour which an horrid Opinion of some who call themselves Christians doth tend to make very unbecoming Nor may the Prophecies of the manner of his Death be less satisfactory unto us to wit They pierced my Hands and my Feet Psal 22.17 And Zach. 12.10 They shall look upon me whom they have pierced For how rightly are these fulfilled in his suffering the Roman Crucifixion the Jews having no sort of Punishment in which the Undergoers were thus pierced And this Death being inflicted by the Roman Power directs us to the Satisfaction of another Prophecy viz. The Scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come But the Power of Life and Death which is the most proper Signification of Scepter being wholly taken from the Jews and exercised in Judea by the Romans may shew that the Messias was come before according to that Prophecy And very remarkable it is that though Jerusalem before our Lord's Birth was Conquered by Pompey the Great yet throughout the Life of Hircanus the High Priest the Reign of Herod the Great and Archelaus
And some of these Enemies from the expressness of those Prophecies which respect our Saviours sufferings have been forced to say that there is to be a Suffering Messias as well as a Glorious one though they will not allow the True Messias who is both the One and the Other to be either Theoph. I could desire to be continually fixed on the thoughts of the Prophetick part of Scripture so divinely pleasant is it from the lively Representation of great and sacred things in after-times revealed I doubt not but there will be a true Beauty in that other part of holy Scripture which you termed the ADHORTATIVE Eubul If great Love intermingled with great Art in the enforcing of it can give a Beauty and what can give a greater Beauty than these it is truly amiable And indeed God who knoweth our Frame and Make and can tell what Words will most Sway the Affections of Men hath seemed to let go none that may prevail with them to be such as they ought to be Somtimes enforcing his Exhortations from the Greatness of his Favours the Excellences of his Laws the Natural Desires and Aversations of Men their Forgetfulness and such like I almost wonder how any of the Jews of Old could be Disobedient when they read such Words as these Ask now of the Days that are past since the Day that God Created Man upon the Earth and ask from the One side of Heaven unto the Other whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is or hath been heard like it Did ever People hear the Voice of God speaking out of the mid'st of the Fire as Thou hast heard and Live Or hath God assayed to go and take him a Nation from the midst of another Nation by Signs and Wonders and a Mighty Hand Thou shalt therefore keep his Statutes He led thee through the great and terrible Wilderness where there was no Water and he brought thee forth Water out of the Rock of Flint He fed thee there with Manna which thy Fathers knew not Thy Raiment waxed not Old upon thee neither did thy Foot swell these Forty years Therefore shalt thou keep the Commandments of the Lord thy God. And where an Exhortation is set home by the recounting of such mighty Favours it cannot sure but prevail There is nothing usually will take more with a Man than the Reputation of being Wise and Vnderstanding The Excellency of Man consisting in nothing more than in a Power of Discerning and Acting what is good On this ground therefore it is that God builds his Exhortation Keep saith he and do these Statutes and Judgments for this is your Wisdom and Vnderstanding in the sight of the Nations Deut. â— 6 And since a Man will bear any thing better than the Name of Fool and accounteth it a great Discredit to act weakly and below a Man Therefore God so often in Scripture termeth Disobedience Folly and speaketh thus to Transgressors O ye Fools when will you learn Wisdom How long ye simple Ones will ye love Simplicity and Fools hate Knowledge Turn you at my Reproof I look upon Peace and Plenty to be as it were a visible Exhortation and a Persuasive that is palpable and may be felt But because these do somtimes steal away the Heart and are apt to render the Man forgetful of his Gracious Benefactor God in infinite Goodness is pleased to strengthen this Exhortation by Cautioning us when we have eaten and are full not to forget Him to take heed to ourselves and to keep our Souls diligently lest we forget the things which our Eyes have seen and lest we depart from the Lord our God all the days of our Life But should any be so heedless or perverse as not to be prevail'd upon by such Exhortations as these how can they hold out against God's pathetical Pleading with them Thus Ezek. 18 Ye say The Way of the Lord is not equal O House of Israel is not my Way equal are not your Ways unequal If ye offer the Lame and the Sick is it not evil Offer it now unto thy Governour will He be pleased with thee or accept thy Person saith the Lord of Hosts A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master If I then be a Father where is mine Honour If a Master where is my Fear Malac. 1. I will plead with you saith the Lord and with your Childrens Children will I plead For pass over the Isles of Chittim and see and send unto Kedar and consider diligently and see if there be any such thing Hath a Nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods But my People have changed their Glory for that which profiteth not Be astonished O ye Heavens at this and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord of Hosts For my People have committed two Evils They have forsaken me the Fountain of Living Waters and hewed them out Cisterns broken Cisterns that can hold no Water Jer. 2. Theoph. These are highly moving And in my Opinion no less is that of quickning Mens Obedience even by the better Carriage of Beasts and Fowls I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me The Ox knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Masters Crib But Israel doth not know my People doth not consider Isai 1. I hearkned and heard but thy spake not aright no Man repented him of his Wickedness saying What have I done Yea the Stork in the Heavens knoweth her appointed times and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the time of their coming but my People know not the Judgment of the Lord Jer. 8. He will be yet much lower than the Beasts and Fowls who seeing himself out-gone by them will not be ashamed and quicken his pace Eubul There are innumerable other Schemes of Speech which God Almighty useth as if he would not omit so much as one Figure or Topick of sacred Oratory by which the wicked Hearts of Men might be bent to their good And truly all the gracious Methods which under the Legal Dispensation he hath chosen for Persuasives are in force now under the Gospel for the engaging us to Obedience it being through the Blood of Christ that so much Care and Love was then shewed Only what were made Excitements to the Jews are now with the change of some Circumstances enlarged and do belong to the whole World. As for those Exhortations which are more strictly comprized in the Gospel what may we say of them or rather what may we not The New Covenant is so wholly in itself a Persuasive set off with the highest Expressions of Divine Wisdom and Love that where IT alone will not prevail all other Arguments may seem fruitless But that there may nothing be wanting which may work upon the Soul of Man what affectionate Beseechings are there added What earnest Invitations given How are pure Minds stirred up by way of Remembrance What fervent Prayers are made for
Words are not to be thought properly to agree unto him Thus doth he in a favourable Sense Isai 45.11 Concerning the Work of my Hands Command ye me Sovereignty we know Essentially belongs unto Him and He can as soon lose his Being as He can That But that He may the more win upon us He thus expresseth Himself as if He had said you shall not find me Lofty towards You But so far condescending as in your Reasonable Requests to serve you Thus also he is said to be Angry to Repent to be pressed with Mens Sins as a Cart is pressed with Sheaves Not that there can be in Him any such thing as the Passion of Anger or of Repentance or of Grief for then there would be some alteration and change in God Which cannot be to the better because he is infinitely Blessed nor to the Worse because then He would lose of his Perfection And so no alteration can there be in Him at all and therefore the expressing himself thus in Scripture is the more to prevail with us The intent of what I have said is this To wit That God may be said though not properly yet after the way of Human Speech to be made to serve by Mens Disobedience And those his Words in Isaiah are as much as if he had said Thou hast done what in thee lies to make me serve by thy Sins Which way of Speech is highly moving by shewing that could he have been brought under and made to serve they by their untoward Carriages had done enough to effect it Had he been a Man this would have been the fruit of his Favours to Them this their Gratitude to Him. And truly Wicked Men do in a sort effect that the most High shall serve them even in his Person by putting him off from time to time and causing Him to attend their Leisure Thus when He as St. John speaks stays at the Door and Knocks earnestly calling upon them to turn unto him that they may Live they are not yet at Leisure with Felix they are apt to say Go thy way for this time when we have a Convenient Season we will send for Thee After so many years are past or when such businesses are done or such designs accomplished or such Sins acted then it may be they will hearken unto him and is not this a making him Serve when he must thus wait their Motions as if their Wills were Superiour unto his and he were rather to observe Them then They Him Theoph. It is abundantly sufficient for the setting forth the hatefulness of Disobedience that it tends to invert the Universe and to reduce Him into Servitude whose very Being it is to be Supream of the World. Neither is the Violation of the Sacred Laws the less odious because it doth not actually effect this The Perfection of Gods Nature which cannot in reality suffer the least Diminution doth not render the Nature of That the less Foul which were it possible to do it would trample upon his Majesty and make him Serve Eubul But I think Theophilus that God's being made to Serve by Mens Sins may have a more proper Signification if we consider Him not as to his Person and Nature but as to his Name and Works The former as hath been said cannot be more or less Glorious than they are but the later may be Exalted or Deprest among Men had in Honour or Vilified in their Words and Practice And after this manner God in Sacred Writ is said to be magnified though in himself he be so Great that his Greatness can admit of no Addition O Magnifie the Lord with me saith the Psalmist that is as the next Words have it Let us exalt his NAME together And thus Exalted and Magnified he may be by being had in Reverence inwardly of those who draw near unto Him and outwardly by being celebrated in a Religious Manner in the Hearing and View of Men. Thus likewise may he be Less'ned or brought Lower for while we are call'd upon to Magnifie and Exalt the Lord it would be a fruitless Exhortation unless it were possible that God should be thus Undervalued and Vilified among Men. He is brought under when Men do use his Holy Name for the promoting those Designs which are contrary to his Infinite Purity and Righteousness He is also made to Serve when his Works are prest for the carrying on of Evil Actions contrary to that of Job 36.24 where we are bid to remember that we Magnifie his Works Theoph. I acknowledge what you say to be so But should more cheerfully do it would you insist somthing largelier on these Things Eubul As for his Holy Name Theophilus how do they make the Almighty to Serve their Turns only when they use it for the appearing in some Actions to be Religious not that they may bring any true Glory unto God but that they may advance their Secular Interest or their Reputation among Men Or yet worse when they shall pretend Piety for the more secure acting of Wickedness abusing the Holy One into a Mist as it were which they 'l throw before Mens Eyes that they may not be discerned in their shameful Deeds And the same thing do they when for the obtaining their own unjust Cause they shall procure others to Swear that which is not so or when they shall lend their own false Oaths for the advantage of their Friend or the Damage of their Enemy Or when in some Evil Actions which they have been Guilty of they shall make dreadful Imprecations that God would Exemplarily punish them if they be not Innocent as to the Thing they are charged with presuming it will not be unto them according as they have Cursed Add to this The frequent Vsurping of Gods Sacred Name upon almost every trivial occasion to Vows or Oaths or to a Vain swaggering and the shameful Credit of not appearing to be strict and religious When that Great Name the Reputation of which God stands so much up for and which is the greatest Argument in our Exigences for our prevailing with Him for Aid What wilt thou do to thy Great Name when that which should establish all Truth in the World is hal'd to the confirming the quite contrary When that at which the Devil trembles shall be forced for the carrying on of his Hellish Service do they not bring the Great and Holy God into the worst of Slaveries into that which his Soul doth perfectly loath Theoph. By what Stains can we sufficiently conceive the Foulness of Disobedience I have small reason to think that what is so deform'd in relation to God's Name will be any jot the better in relation to his Works Eubul Altogether as odious is it in These as in the Other Look we first Theophilus upon Men who as they are Men are the Chief of God's Works on Earth his Image being lively imprest upon Them only and we shall find that the transgressing of the Divine Precepts doth debase Them
Freedom This I doubt not but those words the whole Creation groaneth do signifie not only Men but the rest of the Creatures also which have been for so long a time abused to Unrighteousness Theoph. If thus it be in respect of the Creatures whose Being as to a great part of them is of the more insensible sort we may be sure that He who is a Jealous God of his Honour is more neerly concern'd Eubul Yes Theophilus he is throughly Sensible how Vnworthily in the Creations Thraldom he hath been dealt with and therefore all these things must have the Pollution which hath been thrown upon them to be purged off The Heavens shall pass away with a great Noise and the Elements shall Melt with Fervent Heat and all the Works therein shall be Burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 and so shall be purified from their Corruption and Stains For v. 12. it is said We look for a new Heaven according to his Promise and a New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness all which Expressions though by some they be made to signifie the Dissolution of the Jewish State and the Establishment of the Gospel of Christ in the World yet certainly they have relation to the Last Day the Day of Judgment also if not only unto That And the Fire is denoted as to destroy the Vain Works of Men on the Earth so likewise to purifie those parts of the Creation which have by Men been abused unto Sin and Vanity Theoph. Were the Foul Nature of Disobedience rightly discern'd surely Eubulus all Men would abhor it For could any one on this side Hell be willing to bring such Servitude on God such Thraldom on the Creation and thereby such unspeakable Deformity on Themselves Eubul Such Evils are there in Disobedience that when we think the worst of it we think not bad enough but we have as yet only in part seen it of such an Extensive Nature is this hateful Thing that it would spread itself beyond all Time and Place And so the Actors of it although somthing shorereach'd they be in their Deeds yet are not so in their Will and Desires Yea they may truly be said to affect a kind of Eternity in their Sins The Pleasures of Wickedness in which they make God to Serve as hath been said how sorry are they that they are of no greater a length And did they but know how to do it how forward would they be to stretch them out into an Infinite Duration and bind the Almighty all the way to minister to their Polluted Conversations If Conscience within doth check them full gladly would they remove it for ever out of their Breasts that it might disturb them no more And Him who in Heaven is the Lord of All they would either wholly Dethrone and Dispossess of all his Sovereignty or else would entrust him with it no farther than to Serve their Humours as they upon occasion should call for it Theoph. Pray give a particular Instance or two of what you now say Eubul Take Theophilus the Malicious Man first he cannot it may be do much against them whom he Hates but he hath a Will to punish them Eternally knew he but how And this methinks those severe Curses too much speak out when he Dreadfully upon any Displeasure bids God to Damn Them and as far as his Words and Wishes will do it gives them over unto the Devil to be taken Neither is it any better with the Ambitious Man. He would be always rising above others and the Great God must for ever administer to his Proud Wishes and Designs If he at any time be disappointed in his Hopes and Enterprises he inwardly rageth and is in effect sorry that the Power of the Highest is not so much at least in his Hand as that he may exalt himself above all other Men and continue there without any fear of ever being Lower thus far God must always Serve him and when he should be accustom'd for some time to the greatest Height on Earth we have reason to think he would next wish to be the Supream of Heaven too and to extort the whole Power from the Creator of the World. Some Men perhaps would think that what I have spoken borders too much upon Fancy but Theophilus in Reality it doth not And well for us it is That there is a God above who will not let go his Power That his Laws are fixt and that his Authority in them will never can never be overthrown Happy are we that Heaven will always be his Gift and Hell be never otherwise than in his Disposals Alas what should we do if we and all things else were in the power of some Men How miserable would their Malice and ill Nature make us to be on Earth Upon what light Offences should we be sent quick into Hell How would Heaven lie open to Pride and Ambition How all the Work of our Redemption be trodden under foot And those sacred Laws in so much Righteousness and Mercy given us by our Lord how turn'd into Confusion Nothing is so evil but might they have their Wills God's Power should serve for the accomplishing and perpetuating of it And not only his Holy Name and his Works but his Person and Glorious Attributes should be brought under and made Vassals to their wicked Imaginations and uncontroul'd Impiety Theoph. What could Disobedience do more if God were an Intruder in the World If he used his Power in an Oppressive way and if Man were least of all Creatures fitted for his Service Eubul Here it is Theophilus that Disobedience hath its Loathsomness For so far is the Almighty from being an Intruder that there was no God formed before him neither shall there be any after him nor is there any besides him He is the only Potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords and so he usurps the Right of none affects no unjust Power The Heavens and the Earth were the Works of his Hands nor hath he ever made over his Right to any other None then can say that he intruded into the World and by Injustice holds the Dominion thereof Neither doth he Rule in an Oppressive way At the first â—â—nstrain'd by no necessity nor owing any thing to any one and needing the Services of none but prompted by his own Goodness alone He through his Power gave Being unto Men. When he had this done He honoured them with the Dominion over all Things in this Lower World but much more he honour'd them in making them such who could discern Him that Created them and could do him Service Indeed the meanest Creatures upon Earth however sensless in their Natures do yet serve God Even Snow and Hail Wind and Storm fulfil his Word but then they know not that they fulfil it and so their Obedience in respect of themselves is less worthy God may more truly be said to serve himself of them according to the Expression of the Prophet Jer. 34.10 than they be said properly
to serve him But Men he indued with a Reasonable and Intelligent Soul by which they conceive what it is they do and why they do it And so having a sense of themselves and their own state and in some sort also of the Greatness and other Infinite Excellences of the Lord whom they serve Their Obedience alone of all Earthly Creatures may be termed the Grace of Obedience and They only have the Honour to be in strictness and propriety of Speech serviceable and obedient unto God. Yea when Men had deserv'd the Punishment of Death by breaking the Command of God He in infinite Mercy and Wisdom contriv'd a way for the saving them from Destruction by the pretious Death of his Son. And in relation hereunto He hath by that his Son given them Commands that are not grievous Laws that are righteous and good perfective of their Nature and truly useful to Society He vouchsafes Assistances from Heaven for the Performance of them and promises Everlasting Salvation after Death to those who sincerely observe them And lastly He sustains and preserves them even while they sin against Him when they could not breath did not his Providence afford them Air nor live did not he give them Bread So that God may say to These as he did to his Vineyard Isai 5. Judge I pray you between Me and Them What could have been done more unto them that I have not done And for which of all these good Works do you throw Servitude upon me What should more excite your Honour to me as a Father your Fear to me as a Master and your Love to me as a Friend than these things And if I am your Father where is mine Honour If I am your Master where is my Fear And if I am your Friend as none possibly can be more is this your Kindness to your Friend Do you thus requite the Lord ye foolish People and unwise to make him to serve by your Sins Theoph. You said truly that here it is that Disobedience hath its Loathsomness For where Disingenuity and Ingratitude do rise so high as here they infinitely do what deeper Stain can there possibly be And as one would wonder how any should be willing to carry it so ill towards a gracious God who hath beyond Expression deserved well of them so one would no less wonder that it could ever enter into the Heart of Man to say That God by his Decrees hath necessitated them to Disobedience That He cannot justly find fault because who is it that hath resisted his Will Eubul A Man would admire indeed that any should be so absurdly unreasonable For who would ever designedly bring himself into Dishonour and be the chief cause of that which is most odious in his own Eyes This no wise Man no nor one but tolerably in his Wits would ever do Let us but Attribute that Wisdom to Him whom we acknowledge to be infinitely Wise which in these Circumstances would never be wanting to any Man who hath Common Sense and Reason and we may be quickly satisfied that God compelleth no one to Vilifie his Holy Name his Image and his other Works and to bring them into the Service of the Devil to the great Satisfaction and Delight of that his Enemy Let us not therefore say It is through the Lord that we have done thus for we ought not to do the things which he hateth Let us not say He hath caused us to Err for the Lord hateth all Abomination and they that fear God love it not as the Son of Sirach excellently speaketh Chap. 15. Vers 11 12 13. Or as the Holy Ghost himself saith in St. James Let no Man say when he is tempted unto Evil he is tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with Evil neither tempteth he any one But every Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own Lust and enticed Chap. 1.13.14 God hath no need of the Sinful Man and he hateth Evil even while it shall seem to be done that good may come And whosoever shall say let us do Evil that Good may come the Apostle telleth us their Damnation is just How can any one then imagine that God should necessitate Men to those Sins that strike directly at his Honour And bring him as far as possible and would yet further bring him could it be done into the worst of Servitudes Theoph. They highly dishonour God who by their Disobedience do carry themselves Contemptuously But yet those Persons who make Him Himself to be the moving Cause of all this do the more dishonour him because they represent him as such an one who is not worthy of better Services than Wicked Men would Subject him unto Most Horrid abusers they Both are of the most Righteous and Holy God. But why if I may lawfully enquire so far will he permit such things against Himself Why will he not rather force Men into due Obedience or else Cut them off A Wise Governor on Earth when he sees himself struck at his Favours abused his Laws vilified yea the Ruin of his Person wished will think the present time not too soon to punish such Notorious Offenders And while God letteth those alone who thus Sin against him using no restraints towards them nor making them Exemplary in their Punishments may he not seem to act below the Wisdom of Prudent Governours among Men Are not the Criminals encouraged to continue in their Wickedness And others also drawn by their Example into the same Excess of Iniquity And may not Gods Government of the World hereby seem remiss Eubul There is a great deal of difference Theophilus between God and Those who are Governors upon Earth The Frail Condition of These in the possibility of their Persons being really brought into Servitude or destroy'd and their Governments being weakned or wholly overthrown requireth often times the speedy Punishment of Those who are Notorious Offenders But God in his Person is secure from all the Evils that can be wish'd or attempted against him And however his Government may in appearance be less'ned yet in reality his Power and Dominion can never be endangered or diminished For as before was said he is infinitely perfect and so is no way subject to any Change for the Worse and therefore there is no need that God should make that haste to restrain or punish the Disobedient as Earthly Princes must oftentimes in Prudence do Add to this That many of those Sins against God which deserve the severest Punishments though they by no means can be for the Welfare of Society on Earth yet do not immediately strike at and disturb the Peace of the Community or at most not in any eminent degree And so the Necessity of Human Affairs doth not presently call for God as a Revenger Yet notwithstanding these things we may with Truth say Theophilus That some of those who do with an high Hand sin against Him God somtimes makes Examples of his Wrath and in them
probable that except the Apostles had in this thing sufficiently understood the Will of their Lord they would not have been the Authors of the Change of that Day which for Reason of Equity as well as Ceremony was so strictly observed for so many Ages in the Jewish Church we may upon these accounts and others such as These and not from the Churches Example only acknowledge the setting apart of the first Day of the Week to be of great Moment And the more in that the Two great Adverse Parties to Christianity the Jews and Heathens were so rightly opposed hereby In the Observing one Day in Seven the first Christians ran counter to the Heathens by the acknowledging Him to he their God who in Six Days made the World and Rested the Seventh In the keeping Holy the First Day of the Week they profess'd openly against the Jews that they worshipp'd God not as a Redeemer out of Egypt but as the Father of Jesus Christ who on that Day Rose from the Dead and was our Redemption in so wonderful a Manner as that the Redemption from Egypt was only a Shadow of it In both your Instances Theophilus there is indeed the Practice of the Church but then there is a great deal more beside so much as sheweth that in great probability and in the best Judgment she can make they are things of more than Ordinary Consequence and to be Solemnly Observed by all who would sincerely approve themselves unto God. And not unlike possibly may be said in some other things which we have the Church's Example for but no positive Command from God For her Example is founded upon such Rational and Religious Considerations and so Consonant unto the Divine Laws as do affix very much Honour to her Practice and do Recommend it as necessary if not in the Highest Degree yet so as not to be disobey'd by Vs nor thrown off by Her. So that we may conclude that in the imitating of any Example we are to have respect to the Law and to the Testimony to Examine it whether it be Repugnant to the Rule or not If it be Repugnant thereunto how Specious soever it may seem and how much soever Cried up it be we must by no means imitate it The Perfection of the Gospel Laws forbids it Theoph. It seemeth very agreeable to Reason and Truth what you have said And would you therefrom as you well may give some particular Judgment of the Examples in Holy Writ I should account it among your kindnesses to me Eubul That Admirable Person Dr. Sanderson in his Lecture De Piorum Exemplis hath done what you desire But that our Walk may not want Discourse and that I may not seem unwilling to gratifie you so far as I am able what I can remember from Him and think of elsewhere that will be pertinent you shall have There is no need of saying any thing of those Actions which in Holy Scripture are Sentenced as Evil ones How good soever the Actors otherwise have been such their Doings have evidently been Breaches of Gods Law and so are by no means to be imitated But then for other Examples we may say 1. That Those which have no Mark of Condemnation put upon them are not thereby presently to be drawn into Imitation For Holy Penmen shewing themselves Faithful Historians in delivering Matters truly but not taking upon them the Persons of Judges in Condemning every thing that is amiss some of these Actions possibly may be against the Laws of our Lord. The Drunkenness of Noah Lot's offering his Daughters to the abuses of the Sodomites Joseph's Swearing by the Life of Pharaoh and such like are not Condemned but who will say they are to be Imitated Nor Secondly are these Examples which have Praise given to them without further search to have our Imitation Some of them were Extraordinary Actions as was Phineas's Smiting the Man of Israel and the Midianitish Woman in the Act of Whoredom through the Belly with a Javelin and so are not to be extended beyond the Time and Circumstances in which they were done Some of them were Mixed Actions only in one part of them Praiseworthy in the Other against the Laws of our Lord. Such was the Midwives Example in speaking of the Hebrew Womens Child-births Exod. 1.19 As also was that of the Vnjust Steward Luke 16.8 A Lye there was in the One as well as Piety and Injustice in the Other as well as Prudence And we are taught that even the Glory of God is not to be promoted by our Lye and that no Evil is to be done that good may come thereof Thirdly Nor yet are those Actions which have been in order to Signal Ends and by the especial Providence of God have attain'd those Ends an absolute Warrant for our imitating them I instance in the Fact of Jacob and his Mother Rebecca in the getting the Blessing from Esau the Elder Son. A Promise God had made to Rebecca that the Elder should serve the Younger And on Jacob's having the Blessing of his Father the Welfare of the whole Race which proceeded out of his Loins and was the chosen People of God might seem in a manner to depend The Blessing is sought for through deceitful Means and is obtain'd The Father when he knoweth of all doth not reverse the Blessing as seeing the Hand of God in the thing and God confirmeth the Blessing to Jacob and his Posterity The Manifest and Strong Providence of God in this Example will not Authorize our doing like unto it though in concerns if such there could be altogether as high and great as These were The Reason is The Expressions of Gods Will through Christ in the New Testament are to be preferr'd before the Instances of his Providence in the Old. His Providence can order the irregular Actions of Men unto Ends that are good and by them can bring about those things which he hath design'd But His Will cannot by reason of its Perfection command any unrighteous Deed to be done as if his End could not be obtain'd without it And His Will in the Gospel being fully and clearly reveal'd by Him who was in the Bosom of his Father and so knew his whole Mind That Will of his is now to be our Rule and esteemed by us in our Practice before any Actings of his Providence either that have been heretofore or that shall be hereafter This we may do improve so far as in us lies the evil Actions of others into the good of ourselves and them and to the Glory of God For in so doing we shall imitate the Wisdom and Providence of God which is holy But we may never do evil Actions ourselves nor encourage others to do them upon the account that God hath made them somtimes instrumental to good Ends. For they are not in themselves a jot the better for the having been thus used to those Ends. God hath indeed in his Wisdom well improved them but in his
shew the Unspeakable Love of God unto us and to instruct us in such a pureness of Devotion towards him as becomes Creatures of Rational Souls to exercise towards their Creator and infinitely Loving Father To instruct us also in such an Amiableness of Deportment towards Men as shall shew that they are heartily loved by us These things cannot be the Design of an Envious and Evil Nature No nor yet of wordly Praise or Profit Not of Profit for they taught the way of being Rich towards God Of laying up of Treasures in Heaven which was the refusing the Mammon of Unrighteousness by giving Alms to the Poor and forsaking Houses and Lands for the Sake of Christ Neither were these Politick Precepts to Teach Men to despise these things that the Teachers themselves might be the more enriched by them for They by their own Example no less than by Precepts had shewed that those wordly things were meanly to be accounted of They forsook all and followed Christ And surely they did altogether as little design Praise to themselves for all which they said or did they spake and acted for the Glory of God. The Pharisees they Condemned for looking after the Praise of Men Matth. 6. And others they infixed a Note of Discredit upon for Loving the Praise of Men more than the Praise of God. They wrote down Precepts for the avoiding of applause in our good actions yea so far were they from the seeking after Praise themselves that they Registred their own and Companions Failings At the Betraying of Jesus all his Disciples cowardly forsook him and fled Matth. 26. And this is writ by one who himself forsook him and fled as well as the rest And St. Peter's denying of his Master is at large described by St. Mark who was his Intimate and Friend And the whole is approved of by St. Peter who had the viewing of St. Mark 's Writings and as is thought by some did dictate the Matter of them From these considerations there is no reason to think that the Penmen of the New Testament wrote Falshoods or things that they did not throughly know to be true Add to these the unlikelyhood that poor Fishermen for such the Disciples as to the greater part were and the rest not much better could raise such a Story of their own Heads so agreeable to the Predictions of the Old Testament and yet false or that they would have done it so contrary to the expectation of the Jews and to their own expectation also a little before Who thought of nothing more than of a Messias who as a King should deliver them from their Earthly Enemies Especially when Indignities Reproaches loss of all Comforts yea of Life itself fell upon them for what they Attested and might have been avoided by their Silence or denying it Such Evils might indeed terrifie Truth and render it forsaken but that they should encourage a feigned thing and bear up Mens Spirits for the spreading of a Lye who is it can imagine Certainly no Man can with any shew of Reason do it Who shall yet further consider that none could possibly be greater encouragers of Speaking Truth than the Apostles were in all their Writings nor greater Enemies to false Speaking than They. For they forbid it under pain of Eternal Damnation Nothing must enter into the New Jerusalem which maketh a Lye And all who do so must have their part in the Lake that burneth with Fire and Brimstone which is the Second Death These are some of those many proofs which confirm the Truth of Scripture Story and whoever is willing notwithstanding such Rational Evidence to disbelieve it is I doubt of such ill Principles and Morals that it is his interest such History should not be true For then there would be no Hell after this Life which should there be one he is conscious to himself would be very hot to Him. Theoph. He would deserve it should be so And none will be forward to pity his Misery who shall thus shut his Ears upon the message of his Happiness But Eubulus the Prophetick part of Scripture is next to have your Eye Eubul The Prophetick is in its way Historical also different only in this Historical tells you what hath been Prophetick tells you what will be and if it be fulfilled long since and written it passeth into a more surprizing sort of History We are much delighted in the account of former Times and not less desirous to know what will be in future And when that which hath been predicted cometh exactly so to pass we are the more taken with it because the Times to come more properly belong unto God and we look upon it as his immediate Hand if any thing be thus made know And hence it is that whatsoever hath the name of a Prophecie needeth nothing else to gain attention and to set itself off amongst the vulgar who in this respect could the less be found fault with were they not too forward to look upon every idle Prognostication as a Prophecie till at last they see the things to be false and themselves to be ridiculous from their Credulity But if ordinary short liv'd Predictions shall be thus attended unto with what delight may those be entertain'd which were of greater note and which God hath ordained as a part of Holy Writ to be Monuments of his Prescience to all Generations I will instance only in those Prophecies which respected our Blessed Saviour so long before his coming which may wonderfully delight us in the exceeding exactness of their being fulfilled what Heart will not be affected that reads the Prophecie of Esay c. 9. so very express concerning our Lord He speaks of Him in it as if he were already come To us a Child is Born to us a Son is given Highly pertinent to him in whom the promises are Yea and Amen and through whom God calleth those things that are not as though they were In which also there is a strange Propriety of Expression as to his Nature To us a Child is Born as Man he could be so to us a Son is given as he was God he could only be Given and not Born. The Time of our Lords Coming so rightly answering to the weeks of Daniel according to which also the Jews expected the Coming of the Messias about the Time our Redeemer came may well be our delight and the more because the wicked Jews seeing Daniel to stand the Christians in so much stead by his Prophecies have since that time made a new division of their Law into Prophetas and Hagiographos and have excluded Him from the number of Prophets and given him none of the highest places among the others whom they made to be of a lower Rank than the Prophets were These Prophecies Behold a Virgin shall bring forth a Son Esai 7.14 And the Lord hath created a new thing in the Earth a Woman shall compass a Man Jer. 31.22 How pleasant are they to the