therefore all the Three Hypostases being alike offended at Sin and alike prone to pardon the Sinner and recover him to Obedience contrived such a way of declaring their pardon as might shew their highest dislike of sin and win most upon the Sinner by moving his affections to a serious Sorrow and Remorse Wherefore the Divine complotment was this That the Eternal Son of God should be made Flesh and to testifie the Hatred of God to Sin and his Love to mankind should be sacrificed for an Atonement for the sins of the world Then which a greater Engine cannot be imagined to move us to an Abhorrence of sin and to the Love of his Law that thus redeemed us and wrought our reconciliation with the Father To whom being as I may so say the Head in the Divinity and of all things and having in his Paternal right the First power of punishing and pardoning this Pacification is naturally directed For it is as if a Father of a Family or the Prince of a Nation having a minde to pardon some Malefactor that he might not seem too prone to Mercy and so encourage men to Rebellion should plot with his Eldest Son to be an earnest Intercessor in the behalf of the party when yet the Son disrelisheth the crime of him he intercedes for as much as his Father did There is the same Reason in the Intercession of Christ with the Eternal Father saving that it was with more earnestnesse and greater agony even unto death and of farre higher consequence But that such an Intercession and Pacification as this should be made up in the solitary Scene of one Person is impossible 5. Wherefore the denying of either the Divinity of Christ or the Trinity seems a Subversion of the Christian Religion And not onely so but that Fanatical piece of Magnificency of some Enthusiasts who would make their Union with God the same with that of Christ's For then were they truly God and Divine Adoration would belong unto them or if not it is a sign they are not God and that therefore Christ is not Either of which confounds or destroys our Religion But if you demand what the Difference is betwixt the Union of Christ and Ours with the Divinity I have intimated it before In one the Divinity is Forma informans in the other but Forma assistens in the one it is as Lux in Corpore lucido in the other as Lumen in Corpore diaphano The Divinity in Christ is as the Light in the Sun the Divinity in his Members as the Sun-shine in the Aire 6. And this distinction and due distance being kept which some saucy and high-flown Enthusiasts do not observe there is yet scope and encouragement enough for them to strive to be full as good as they pretend I am sure farre better then they are there ordinarily being no difference betwixt them and the meanest Christians but that their Tongues are swelled with greater tumor and turgency of speech and their Minds filled with more vain phantasyes and exorbitant Lunacyes whenas the other speak conformably to the Apostolick Faith and with less noise live more honestly But that no less Union with God then Real and Physical Deification must make them Good is a sign they are stark naught and that Pride has laid wast their Intellectuals For is not that Spirit that created and framed all things able to reforme us unto the most unblamable pitch of Humility Self-denial Dependency upon God Love of our neighbour Obedience to Magistrates Faith Temperance and Holiness without being any more Hypostatically united with us then with the Earth Sea Sun Moon and Starres and the Natural parts of the Creation Wherefore we conclude That to assert That the Union of any true Christian with God is the Same with that of Christ's is a bold useless and groundless Opinion and inconsistent with and destructive of the Christian Religion 7. We have seen How Necessary and Essential to Christianity the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is and consequently of the Trinity without which the other cannot be rightly conceived and therefore we do not onely disapprove of those frivolous slanders and cavils that would brand that Sacred Mystery with the infamous note of Paganisme but highly magnifie and humbly adore the Providence of God that that Truth should be kept so long warme and be so carefully polished by those Heathens that knew not the main Use thereof or to what end the Tradition was delivered to the ancient Patriarchs Prophets or holy Sages of old in either Aegypt or Iudaea from whence Pythagoras and Plato had it and prepared those parts of the World where their Philosophy had taken foot-hold to an easy reception of Christianity but this we have glanced at elsewhere CHAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopannychites 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down 3. A Preparation to an Answer advertising First of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech 4. Secondly of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie 5. Thirdly of the ambiguity of words in Scripture and particularly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. And lastly of the Corinthians being sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life 7. The Answer out of the last and foregoing Premisse 8. A further Answer out of the first 9. As also out of the second and third where their Objection from verse 32. is fully satisfied 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees I am the God of Abraham c. 1. WE proceed now to the Third and Last Point propounded which is Concerning the state of Souls departed which we assert not to sleep that is not to be void of all Operation and Sense of Joy or Punishment but that they have a Knowledge and Apprehension of their own condition be it Good or Bad. Which Article I hold as undoubtedly True though not so indispensable as the Two former and though not so Necessary yet exceeding Convenient to be entertain'd It being a great Abater to our zeal and fervency in Religion to think that in the end of our life we shall be dodged and put off by a long senseless and comfortless Sleep of the Soul under the sods of the Grave for many hundreds if not for some thousands of years Besides an indulgence to such a Dulness and Heartlesness of Spirit as to be content to intermit the Functions of Life for so long a time may at last work the Soul into a sottish mistrust of ever being awaked and make her conclude the Mystery of Christianity within the narrow verges of this mortal life as David George and other Enthusiasts did who were more in love with many Wives then with any Article of Faith that promised such pleasures as might not be reaped in this Flesh. 2. But we are here to deal not with such vain Fanaticks but with severely-devoted Sons of
Bloud as common and unholy as that of the malefactors that were crucified with him the Wrath of God being not all atoned as they say by his suffering because it is unjust that an Innocent man should be punished for those that are guilty But what Unjustice is done to him that takes upon him the debt or fault of another man willingly if he pay the debt or bear the punishment provided that he that may exact or remit either will be thus satisfied 10. But such trivial and captious intermedlers in matters of Religion that take a great deal of pains to obscure that which is plain and easie deserve more to be flighted and neglected then vouchsafed any answer For all their frivolous Subtilties and fruitless intricacies arise from this one false ground That the Soveraign Goodness of God and his kind condescensions and applications to the affections of man are to be measured by Iuridical niceties and narrow and petty Laws such as concern ordinary transactions between man and man But let these brangling Wits enjoy the fruits of their own elaborate ignorance while we considering the easie air and sense of Sacrifices in all Religions shall by this means be the better assured of the natural meaning of it in our own CHAP. XIV 1. That Sacrifices in all Religions were held Appeasments of the Wrath of their Gods 2. And that therefore the Sacrifice of Christ is rather to be interpreted to such a Religious sense then by that of Secular laws 3. The great disservice some corrosive Wits doe to Christian Religion and what defacements their Subtilties bring upon the winning comeliness thereof 4. The great advantage the Passion of Christ has compared with the bloudy Tyranny of Satan 1. HOW General the Custome of Sacrificing was in all Nations of the World is a thing so well known that I need not insist upon it and That their Sacrifices were accounted an Appeasment of the Wrath of the Gods and Expiation for their faults is also a Truth so conspicuous that it cannot be denied Hence these Sacrifices we speak of were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Placamina Februa Piamina Much of this nature you may read in Grotius De Satisfactione Christi cap. 10. where he does not only make good by many Expressions and Examples That the Sacrifices of the ancient Heathen pacified the Anger of the Gods but also which is nearer to our purpose That the Punishment of those that were thus reconciled and purged was transferred upon the Beast that was sacrificed for the clearing whereof he alledges many citations and these two amongst the rest One out of Cato Cum sis ipse nocens moritur cur victima pro te Since thou thy self art guilty why Does then thy Sacrifice for thee die The other out of Plautus Men ' piaculum oportet fieri propter stultitiam tuam Ut meum tergum stultitia tuae subdas succedaneum that is to say Is it fit that I should be made a piacular Sacrifice for your foolishness that my back should bear the stripes that your folly has demerited 2. Wherefore this being the sense of the Sacrifices we speak of in all the Religions in the World it is more fit to interpret the Death of Christ who gave himself an Expiation for the sins of the World according to that sense which is usual in the mysteries of Religion then according to the entangling niceties and intricacies of secular laws 3. But as for those busie and Pragmatical spirits that by the acrimonie of their wit eat off the comely and lovely gloss of Christianity as aqua Fortis or rather aqua Stygia laid on polish'd metal what thanks shall they receive of him whom yet they pretend to be so zealous for the most winning and endearing circumstances of his exhibiting himself to the World being so soiled and blasted by their rude and foul breath that as many as they can infect with the contagion of their own Errour Christianity will be made to them but a dry withered branch whenas in it self it is an aromatick Paradise where the Senses and Affections of men are so transported with the Agreeableness of Objects that they are even enravished into Love and Obedience to him that entertains them there And nothing can entertain the Soul of man with so sweet a Sorrow and Joy as this Consideration That the Son of God should bear so dear a regard to the World as to lay down his life for them and to bear so reproachfull and painfull a Death to expiate their sins and reconcile them to his Father 4. But this is not all the Advantage he had to win the Government of the World unto himself For not only his exceeding Love to Mankind was hereby demonstrated but the cruel and execrable nature of that old Tyrant the more clearly detected For whereas the Devil who by unjust usurpation had got the Government of the World into his own hands tyrannizing with the greatest cruelty and scorn that can be imagined over Mankind thirsted after humane bloud and in most parts of the World as I have already shewn required the sacrificing of men which could not arise from any thing else but a salvage Pride and Despight against us This new gracious Prince of God's own appointing Christ Iesus was so far from requiring any such villainous Homage that himself became a Sacrifice for us making himself at once one Grand and All-sufficient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Piamen to expiate the Sins of all Mankind and so to reconcile the World to God CHAP. XV. 1. An Objection concerning the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun at our Saviour's Passion from it s not being recorded in other Historians 2. Answer That this wonderfull Accident might as well be omitted be several Historians as those of like wonderfulness as for example the darkness of the Sun about Julius Caesar's death 3. Further That there are far greater Reasons that Historians should omit the darkness of the Sun at Christ's Passion then that at the death of Julius Caesar. 4. That Grotius ventures to affirm this Eclipse recorded in Pagan writers and that Tertullian appeal'd to their Records 5. That the Text does not implie that it was an universal Eclipse whereby the History becomes free from all their Cavils 6. Apollonius his Arraignment before Domitian with the ridiculousness of his grave Exhortations to Damis and Demetrius to suffer for Philosophy 1. WE have seen how Reasonable the History of Christ's Passion is neither do I know any thing that may lessen the Credibility of it unless it be the miraculous Eclipse of the Sun Not that the Eclipse it self is so incredible but that it may seem incredible that so wonderfull so generally-conspicuous an Accident of Nature should be recorded by none but by the Evangelists themselves Learning and Civility in those times so universally flourishing and there being no want of Historians to recount such things This Objection makes a great shew at first but
his Church cannot cease himself not ceasing to be but he is a Priest and King for ever according to the Prophecies CHAP. IV. 1. Our Saviour's strict injunction of Purity from whence it is also plain that the Love he commends is not in any sort fleshly but Divine 2. Several places out of the Apostles urging the same duty 3. Two more places to the same purpose 4. The groundless presumption of those that abuse Christianity to a liberty of sinning 5. That this Errour attempted the Church betimes and is too taking at this very day 6. Whence appears the necessity of opposing it which he promises to doe taking the rise of his Discourse from 1 Iohn 3.7 1. THE third Branch of the Divine Life is Purity In the urging whereof both Christ and his Apostles being so earnest it is plain that that Love which they recommend to the World can be no suspected affection like that which the canting language of the Enthusiasts may justly be thought to favour but that it is that pure and holy Love indeed which deservedly we have styled Divine And how severely this Purity we speak of is required I shall give you some few but very sufficient instances Matth. 5.27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not commit adultery But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart And if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish then that thy whole body should be cast into Hell And if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee c. What more serious and earnest monition can there be made to Continence and Abstinence from sensual pleasures then this of our Saviour who upon no less penaltie then the torments of Hell interdicts us all looseness and uncleanness forbidding us all preludious preparations to the foul acts of Lust and not permitting so much as an imaginary scene of illicit transactions to which our will could really assent if opportunity were offered 2. And we shall find the Apostles insisting in the footsteps of their Master in this matter 2. Corinth 6. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separated saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you And I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God And 1 Thessalon 5. The God of peace sanctifie you wholy and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Iesus Christ. And in the former chapter ver 3. For this is the will of God even your sanctification that ye should abstain from fornication That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour not in the lust of concupiscence as the Gentiles that know not God And 1 Corinth 6. ver 13. Now the bodie is not for fornication but the Lord and the Lord for the bodie And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also quicken us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And a little after Flee fornication Every sin that a man doth is without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body What know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your bodie and in your Spirit which are God's Also Coloss. 3.5 Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Fornication Uncleanness immoderate affection evil Concupiscence and Covetousness which is Idolatry For which things sake the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience Parallel to which is that Ephes. 5.3 Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us but fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness let it not be so much as once named amongst you as becomes saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Be not you therefore partakers with them And 1 Corinth 6.9 Know ye not the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Be not deceived neither fornicatours nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdome of God 3. I have made a more ample collection of the enforcements of this duty of Purity and Sanctity then I intended and yet I cannot abstain from adding of two more the one out of S. Peter 1 Epist. ch 2. Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. The other out of him which I have already so often cited Rom. 13.12 The night is far spent and the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambring and wantonness not in strife and envying But put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof 4. I have now abundantly shewn how plainly and explicitly Christ and his Apostles urge all men that are hearers of the Gospel to be carefull and conscionable doers of the same that they should be holy even as Christ was holy in all manner of conversation that they are bound to endeavour and aspire after the participation of the Divine life and all the Branches thereof Humility Love and Purity hating even the garment spotted by the flesh as the Apostle Iude speaks And how this Holiness and Righteousness is required of them with no less seriousness and earnestness then upon the forfeiture of their eternal Salvation if they do not act according to those Precepts Insomuch that I stand amazed while I consider with my self that hellish and abominable gloss that some have put upon the Gospel as if it were a mere school of loosness and that the end of Christs coming into the world was but to bring down a commission to the sons of men whereby they might be enabled to sin with authority I am sure with all desirable security and impunity nothing
whom their dying Lord left that sacred legacy of mutual love sealing it on their mindes with his own stupendious example who being so high above them yet stooped to the shameful and bitter death of the Cross that they might love one another so ardently and entirely that if need required they would not stick to lay down their lives one for another His firm belief in the Providence of God and his special assistance to them that fight his battels His moderate love of this present World and certain expectation of the immediate enjoyments of the Happiness of the other life upon the quitting of this The consideration I say of all these things will arme our Christian souldiery let them be in their private demeanour as milde and humble as tame and lamb-like as you please with such miraculous valour and courage that I cannot but presage that that Benediction of Moses will not fail to attend their enterprizes Five of them shall chase an hundred and an hundred of them shall put ten thousand to flight For the Lord will go before them and the God of Israel will be their Rereward What Nation therefore can grapple with such a people as this For there is neither Strength nor Counsel against the Almighty BOOK IX CHAP. I. 1. The four Derivative Properties of the Mystery of Godlinesse 2. That a measure of Obscurity begets Veneration suggested from our very senses 3. Confirmed also by the common suffrage of all Religions and the nature of Reservednesse amongst men 4. The rudenesse and ignorance of those that expect that every Divine Truth of Scripture should be a comprehensible Object of their understanding even in the very modes and circumstances thereof 5. That Contradictions notwithstanding are to be excluded out of Religion 6. And that the Divinity of Christ and the Triunity of the Godhead have nothing contradictious in them 1. WE have now finished the four Primary Properties of the Mysterie of Godlinesse having treated of the Obscurity Intelligiblenesse of the Truth and Usefulnesse thereof and have already intimated that there arise from these four other properties which if you please you may call Derivative as from the Obscurity of this Mystery arises Venerability from the Intelligiblenesse Communicability from Truth a Power of gaining Assent and lastly from Usefulnesse an affectionate prizing of it and a Zeal or desire of promoting the knowledge and virtue of it in the World as much as we can It remains therefore that we speak something of these but with all brevity possible 2. That a due measure of Obscurity makes a Mystery the more venerable is a Truth suggested to us by several observations How Shades and Silence affect our very Senses every one can witness who is not of so course a contexture of Body that onely gross and fierce Objects can move him But he whose Senses are more passive and delicate can with pleasure relate how he is affected when he enters into some shady and invious VVood or Grove the thickness of whose Trees and redoubled Shadows stops his sight and hopes of ever passing through all that growes on that Sacred ground but what he sees he approves of as delightful and conceives a peculiar pleasure in that confused divination or obscure representation of things there where his Eyes cannot reach nor his Feet approach The Silence also of the place encreases the solemness thereof in which as Plutarch saies well there is something profound and mysterious And for this very reason the shadiness and stilness of the Night ordinarily seems a very venerable object to those whose Senses are so quick and fine that they can feel and rellish all manner of mutations in Nature which impress enriched the Poets Phansie with that expression Noxque tenebrarum specie reverenda tuarum 3. The common Suffrage also of all Religions gives with us who have alwaies affected something not easily Intelligible at first sight And their Temples were so built as to have their Adyta some more Sacred and inaccessible places in them And we may further observe that Sparingness of speech and Reservedness in men does naturally conciliate reverence to them For there is still something behind in them impervious and inaccessible which if they would impart they might lessen their respect and become more contemptible For it is very obvious to humane Nature to brood some strange over-weening conceit of those things they know not and to neglect and slight that which they know These are Thieves that willingly leave the house when they have carried away all the treasure But perpetual expectation continues respect And what makes matter if the bottom of the Well be fathomless if the Water we reach be but pure and useful Wherefore those that contend for such an absolute plainness and clearness in all points of Religion shew more of clownishness and indiscretion then of wit and judgement and their zeal is not so much for Truth as out of Pride Vain-glory they taking it very ill that any thing in the Mysterie of Godliness should be so mysterious as that their conceited Reason should not be able to comprehend it 4. But I demand of those great Pretenders to Reason who would usurp or monopolize that Title to themselves in matters of Religion By what Faculty can they demonstrate that the Divine Oracles should mention nothing to us but what is the adequate Object of our Understandings and that we shall not be puzzled in our endeavouring to comprehend the modes and circumstances of that General Truth which they propose to us For the General proposal may be useful to us whenas the curiosity of Circumstances may serve for nothing but the feeding of our foolish desire of devouring all Truth we can meet with and priding our selves in the booty I speak this in reference to the most obscure Articles of our Religion touching the Triunity of the Godhead and the Divinity of Christ. For that the Holy Scripture does affirm both I have already sufficiently shown And being that they come to us with the same authority that the whole new Testament does we cannot with any face deny the assertions and yet profess our selves Christians For the adverse party have no plea but the Incomprehensibleness of the manner of the thing which allegation is most unjust and ridiculous For that which comes to us by Divine Revelation is as certain as our Senses But our Senses do assure us of such things as no faculty can conceive how they are such as our Senses warrant them to be As for example The immediate Union of Matter with Matter and The power we have by Will and Thought to move any member of our Body These things we know to be but are as incomprehensible as any thing that the Scripture has declared of the Triunity of the Godhead or Christ's Divinity And therefore all their Arguments against those two Articles are weak and vain For it is sufficient that for those useful purposes I have often
6. Which sad Scene of things cannot but move any thoughtful Christian that does in good earnest wish well to his Religion to sift out if it be possible the true Causes of his lamentable condition of Christendome and what are the Impediments that hinder the Gospel which of it self is so powerful an Instrument as it is of Salvation from taking effect with out selves or from having freer passage into other Countries that are yet Pagan That it is our Sinnes every well-meaning man will be ready to reply But the question still remains there being amongst us the most effectual Engine that the Wisdome of God could contrive for the destroying of Sin out of the world why there is no more execution done thereby against the power of Sin and the Kingdome of Darkness then there is The enquiry therefore must be what tampering there has been with this Engine what adding or taking from it to spoil its efficacy what mistakes of the use thereof and the like For that there is something most wretchedly amiss in the use of the Gospel throughout all Christendome is very plain in that the Purpose of it is almost totally frustrated every where and Prophaneness Infidelity and Atheisme have in a manner seized the hearts of all Which most men are ready to confess some with a true Christian sorrow or hearty indignation others with a tacit joy or exteriour flearing as being glad their corrupt thoughts and practices have the countenance of so many suffrages 7. To omit therefore such Principles as are unintelligible and are for ever seal'd up out of our sight let us look upon what is intelligible and visible Let us produce such Causes into view which no man can deny but that they are as general as these horrid diseases and are extremely inclining if not absolutely effectual and necessitating the Christian world into this abominable condition it is found in at this day and many Ages before CHAP. II. 1. The most fundamental Mistake and Root of all the Corruptions in the Church of Christ. 2. That there maybe a Superstition also in opposing of Ceremonies and in long Prayers and Preachments 3. That self-chosen Religion extinguishes true Godliness every where 4. The unwholsome and windy food of affected Orthodoxality with the mischievous consequences thereof 5. That Hypocrisy of Professours fills the World with Atheists 6. That the Authoritative Obtrusion of gross falsities upon men begets a misbelief of the whole Mystery of Piety 7. That all the Churches of Christendome stand guilty of this mischievous miscarriage 8. The infinite inconvenience of the Superlapsarian doctrine 1. WHerefore freely to profess what I think in my own conscience to be true The most universal and most fundamental Mistake in Christendome and that from whence all the Corruption of the Church began and is still continued and increased is that conceited estimation of Orthodox opinions and external Ceremony before the indispensable practice of the Precepts of Christ and a faithful endeavour to attain to the due degrees of the real Renovation of our inward man into true and living Holiness and Righteousness in stead whereof there is generally substituted Curiosity of Opinion in points imperscrutable and unprofitable Obtrusion of Ceremonies numerous cumbersome and not onely needless but much unbeseeming the unsuspected modesty of the Spouse of Christ who should take heed of symbolizing any way with Idolatry which is spiritual Adultery or Fornication For while the Heart goes a whoring after those outward shows and an over-value be put upon them the inward life of Godliness will easily be extinguished and Love to the indispensable Law of Christ grow cold and dead Nay they that have the greatest zeal and fierceness as I may so speak towards Religion there is invented such an heap and cumbersome load of external performances that such a Zelot as this may spend all his strength upon the mere Outworks of Piety before he can come near to take the Fort Royal or enter the Law of perfect Liberty the Divine Life which consists in true Humility perfect Purity and sincere Charity For all such Ceremonies make but a show in the flesh nor can reach to the Regeneration of our Mindes into the unfeigned Love of our brethren Whence the most seemingly religious this way may be the most accursedly cruel and unjust the most implacable and uncharitable that can be And yet according to that false model of Religion that humane invention has set out to the world he may both take himself and others also may take him to be Seraphically pious though in the judgment of Christ and of his true Church he lie in the gall of Bitterness and bond of Iniquity 2. And in other parts of Christendome where the pomp of Ceremonies and exteriour Superstition is not so much urged though a man at first sight might hope that things would be much better yet experience will teach him that there is little amendment and that the Causes of Degeneracy of gross Hypocrisy and Wickedness are even as operative and as well appointed to work their effect there as in other places For this also is Superstition to place our Religion in opposing external Ceremonies and to think every man the more pious by how much the more zealous he is against them Wherefore our affections being drawn out in this hot Antipathy our hearts grow cold to the indispensable duties of the Gospel which are Love Patience Meekness and brotherly-Kindness with the rest of those fruits that demonstrate that the Tree of life that the Life of Christ is planted in us and that the Spirit of God abideth in us Besides that we are to remember that we may idolize long Prayers and frequent Preachments and that they may make up an external Religion to us in stead of that Godliness that is indispensable and internal and an ever-flowing fountain of all comely and profitable Actions and deportments towards God and towards men 3. I say therefore that this Self-chosen Religion in all the parts of Christendome though it be but such as a wicked man may perform as dexterously and plausibly as the most truly righteous and regenerate being so highly extolled and recommended to the people is almost an irresistible temptation to make them really and morally wicked For that natural inclination and appetite in mankinde to Religion being satisfied or eluded by this unwholsome food they can have no desire to that which is true Religion indeed and will be very glad to be excus'd from it it being more hard at first to embrace or practice whence it is in a manner necessary for them to let it alone 4. And they will the more easily abstain from it there being another poisonous Vâ—and that swells them so that they are ready to burst again which is that highly-esteemed Knowledge called Orthodoxness or Rightness of Opinion Of which the Apostle Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth This seems so glorious in their eyes that they phansy themselves
Reprobationers have defined it namely That God has irresistibly decreed from all Eternity to bring into Being innumerable Myriads of Souls of men exceeding far the number of them that shall be saved who as without their own consent they were thus thrust into the World so let them doe what they will are certainly determined to unspeakable torment so soon as they go out of it and at the last day shall be adjudged to an higher degree of misery so great and so exceeding that all the racks and tortures that the Wit or Cruelty of the most enraged Tyrants could ever invent or execute would be ease and pleasure in Comparison of it and that these Pangs and Torments shall remain fresh upon them for ever and ever 8. This is the Representation of that sour Dogma Which to Reason is as contradictious as if one should name a square Circle or black Light and as harsh and horrid to the eares of the truly-Regenerate into the nature of God who is Love it self as the highest blasphemie that can be uttered Nor is the nature of those that are irreligious enough so much estranged from the Knowledge of God but that they think if there be any at all he cannot be such a one that laid such dark plots from all eternity for the everlasting misery of his poor impotent and unresisting Creature that never did any thing but what the Divine Decrees determined he should doe and therefore was alwaies the Almighties obedient servant For which at last he must be condemned to eternall punishment by him whom he did ever obey The serious and imperious obtrusion of such a dismal Conceit as this for one of the greatest Arcanums of Religion will make the free Spirit and over-inclinable to Prophaneness confidently to conclude That the whole frame of Religion is nothing but a mere Scar-crow to affright Fools and that there is no Hell at all since such Innocent Persons and constant Obeyers of the Divine Decrees must be the Inhabiters ot it CHAP. III. 1. The true Measure of Opinions to be taken from the designe of the Gospel which in general is The setting out the exceeding great Mercy and Goodness of God towards mankinde 2. And then Secondly The Triumph of the Divine Life in the Person of Christ in the warrantableness of doing Divine Honour to him 3. Thirdly The advancement of the Divine Life in his members upon Earth 4. The Fourth and last Rule to try Opinions by The Recommendableness of our Religion to Strangers or those those that are without 1. I Might adde several other Opinions in several parts of Christendome that tend very much to the defeating and eluding the serious End and purpose of Religion but before I go any further I shall set down the main designes of the Gospel of Christ that we may have a more plain and sure Rule and Measure to try all Opinions by The designe therefore of the Gospel in general is the magnifying of the Goodness and Loving-kindness of God that he has afforded mankinde so glorious a light to walk by so effectual means to redeem them from the love of the perishing vanities of this present world and to recall them back again to himself and to the participation of the ineffable joyes pleasures of his celestial Kingdom For God so loved the World that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the World through him should be saved And Titus 3. For we our selves also were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another But after that the Kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour To which sense also the Apostle speaks Ephes. chap. 2. And you who were dead in trespasses and sins Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the Aire the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our fleshly minde and were by nature the children of wrath even as others But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Iesus That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Iesus Christ. To which lastly you may adde Tit. 2.11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world c. These Scriptures give plain testimony of this more general designe of the Gospel 2. The next designe is an external exaltation of the Divine Life that did so mightily and conspicuously appear in the Person of our Saviour Christ as I have already abundantly declared How the mystery of Christianity comprehends in it chiefly this designe of exalting into Triumph the Divine Life above the Animal and Natural and that either externally in the religious worship we do our Saviour and is done even by Hypocrites and wicked Persons or else internally in the advancing of true Faith and Holiness in his living members and sincere followers of his doctrine Philip. 2. Let the same minde be in you which was in Christ Iesus Who being in the forme of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God But emptied himself and took upon him the forme of a servant and was made in likeness of men And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the death of the Cross. Wherefore hath God also exalted him and given him a name above every name That at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father And Hebr. 1. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oile of gladness above thy fellows that is to say hath exalted thee to this due honour and rule having put all things under his feet Angels themselves not excepted as S. Peter tells us 1 Epist. 3.22 Who is gâ—ne into Heaven
of Christ and mournful and melting Tunes proper to these Songs composed by the Church Which Passion-songs would be also usefull upon Communion-dayes they containing in them Devotional desires and resolutions of crucifying our affections and lusts and of faithful love to Christ and to one another which are the Great things that the Passion of Christ points us to and would enforce upon us Wherefore the Morning-singings on a Communion-day may very well be supplied by these Passion-songs But at the Receiving of the Communion while the Bread and the Cup pass about some Psalmes of David that appear most proper and that declare the great Goodness and Mercies of God or some Songs of the Churche's composing appropriate to the purpose full of thankfull acknowledgments and holy resolutions may be sung all the time in more chearful Tunes such as the Ascension-songs and Resurrection-songs are sung in All which Songs of the Church are to urge duty upon men and press on holiness upon considerations naturally flowing from the belief of the things we do solemnize If to the singing of these skilfully-composed Songs and choice Psalmes there were added also the help of an Organ for the more certain regulating of this singing part of Devotion and the more affectionate performance thereof it will not be easie to imagine what is wanting to a due and unexceptionable filling up of all comely circumstances of that Publick worship that is fit to be practised by professed Christians unless you would bring in also Images and Pictures 17. But to speak my sense and judgment of things freely The mere placing of Images or Statues in a Church is a very bold and daring Spectacle but the bowing towards them or praying with bended knees and eyes devoutly lift up to them is intolerable if Pagan Idolatry be so nay in some regard worse that is more irrationall and ridiculous forasmuch as these Statues are not supposed to be the Receptacle of the Spirit of him they pray to So that their way of Devotion is utterly groundless senseless and sottish as well as impious and Idolatrous Pictures I must conâ—ess are a more modest Representation and the consideration of the vile reproaches some foul mouths have heretofore and do sometimes still cast upon the crucified Iesus may tempt the devotional Lovers of his Person to a conceit that if there were a Representation of his Crucifixion in picture and that they bowed to it at their coming into the Church it were but an innocent satisfaction to themselves so publickly to do their homage to their Saviour in that Representation that he is most scorned and reproached in and but a just compensation to him for the reproaches that vile and wicked persons cast out against him But to this I answer first That the determining our Worship to any part of the Church would look like the turning of our Christian Meeting-Houses into Temples contrary to what is written I saw no Temple there And then in the second place Though the fetches of mans Wit are very fine and subtile in these cases yet it is expresly said that God is a jealous God and there are many scrupulous and jealous men as well in Christendome as out of Christendome and therefore a practice that is not right in it self and so exceeding scandalous to others ought by no means to obtain in the publick Worship of Christians If there be any permission of Pictures therefore in the Church it must not be for worship but for ornament which they will scarce be without considerable cost nor that cost again well placed unless there be some Edification by them And therefore I doe not conceive how they will be tolerable at all without some proper Inscriptions also adjoyned As upon the Picture of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ some such Inscription as that of Saint Paul If you be risen with Christ seek those things that are above Upon the Picture of the Passion of Christ some such as these When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me Those that are of Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Greater love hath no man then this that he lay down his life for his friends This is my commandement that as I have loved you so you would likewise love one another And thus every Piece which are not to be many should have their proper Inscriptions without which they should not be permitted in the Church as being fit for nothing but to amuze the sight But now they are no sooner seen but they set a mans Mind awork and cause him to think of the most important meaning of the chief passages of the History of Christ. Of which none are more effectuall then that of his Passion which together with the Passion-songs and Tunes and Organs may wound the Heart of a man and let out more corrupt bloud at one touch then the faint hackings of a dry Discourse of an hour or two long Which helps and ornaments of Publick worship will fill up all the numbers of all warrantable splendour and comeliness and keep out if precisely kept to all shadow and suspicion of either Superstition or Idolatry But if any should be so weak or scrupulous as to take offence at so unexceptionable use of Pictures in the Church and particularly if our Religion should be the less recommendable thereby to either Iews or Turks whose conversion we are not onely to desire but with seriousness and faithfulness to apply our selves to at least to remove all scandals and stumbling-blocks out of their way rather then any such dispensable Punctilios should hinder the enlargement of Christs Kingdome in the essential Soveraignty thereof comprehended in the express Precepts of the written Word a full Pencil of white directed by Charities own hand should wipe out all these well-meant delineations and Inscriptions and to compensate the loss that one of S. Paul should succeed If any man seem to be contentious we have no such custome neither the Churches of God 18. To conclude Such is the Truth and Simplicity of Christian Religion that if the authority of the Church think good to recommend any Additional circumstances of divine Worship they must not be for ineffectual Pomp and Show but for real Use and Edification affecting such a beauty and comeliness as Nature does in living Creatures whose pulchritude is the result of such a Symmetry of Parts and tenour of Spirits as implies vigour and ability to all the functions of life And truly there should be no more Ceremony in the Church then the Use thereof may be obvious to understand and the Life and Power of Holiness may throughly actuate that our Minds may not be amused lost sunk in or fixed upon any Outward things here but be carried from all Visible pomps to the love and admiration of our Blessed Saviour in Heaven and of that Heavenly and Divine Life that he came into the world to beget in
of Pythagoras and Plato and inserted into the doctrine of the Church by the ancient Fathers who most of them were Platonists But to this I answer That it is very highly improbable that the Fathers borrowed the Mystery of the Trinity from the School of Plato which you shall easily understand when we have so far as serves to our purpose explained the doctrine of the Platonical Triad which is briefly thus 2. There are Three Hypostases say they in the Deity namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The Good or First self-originated Goodness Intellect or the Eternal Mind and lastly Soul or Spirit Their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they distinguish all Three after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Good Intellect Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The First One. One All. One and All. If we would ease our Apprehension here by the help of our Phansy we might compare the First to Simple and pure Light the Second to Light variegated into Colours as in the Rainbow the Third to those Rayes of light for all is Light that receive and carry down these Colours to the ground and impress them and reflect them from some standing pool or plash of water Again the First Hypostasis is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially the Good Causally the Intellect The Second is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially Intellect Causally Soul Participatively the Good The Third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially Soul that is Love and Operation Causally Matter and the World Participatively the Good and Intellect 3. Now for the Union of the Three Hypostases we shall understand the accuracy thereof by degrees As first That the proper life and energie as I may so say of each Hypostasis is not contein'd within it self but like a vocal and audible Sound in a still silent Night perpetually re-ecchoes through the whole Deity Or as when a Song of Three parts is sung each Musician enjoys the harmony of the whole But this I must confess looks more properly like Communion then perfect Union we step therefore a degree further and affirme That as Body and Soul is conceived to make up one man and this Individual Body and this Individual Soul to make up this Individual man so these Three Hypostases to make up one Individual Deity their Union and Actuation one of another being infinitely and unspeakably more perfect then in any other Being imaginable And as the Motions of the Body are perceptible to the Soul of man and the Impressions of the Soul upon the Body would be perceptible to it if it had of it self a Faculty of Perception So likewise by this ineffable close Union and mutual Actuation of the Three Hypostases all their proper Energies become fully perceptible to one another And the Life of the first so infinitely and unexpressibly gratifying the Second and Both the Third by an immutable necessity and congruity of nature it is evident they can have but One Will which is as it were the Heart the Centre or Root of the Deity the Eternal Self-originated Good But thirdly and lastly These three Hypostases are not One onely by this actuating Union which may seem to admit of a real separability but there is also a real Unity or Identity in them the distinction among them being as Tatianus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like the Rayes of the Sun in respect of the Sun or if you will as the Centre Rayes and Surface of a Globe which implyes a Contradiction to be conceived without them or as the Faculties of the Soul are to the Soul which are as inseparable from her as she is from her self The Union therefore of them all and the Emanation of the Second and Third from the First being so Necessary Natural and Inevitable For the First can be no more without the Second or the Second without the Third then the Sun can be without his Rayes or the Soul without her Faculties there is no scruple say they but we may call all this the Godhead or Deity the Second and Third coming so unavoidably out of the First Root and being so inseparable from it And therefore there is nothing here properly Creature Creation being a free act and if not Creature what can it be but God 4. And since from these Three are all things that are made and in their hands is the guidance of all things Nothing less then Divine Adoration can of right belong unto them For though there may be some allay of Excellency in their descent from the First yet they being all our Creators and Governors none ought to fall short of Divine worship 5. This is a brief Summe of the Platonists Doctrine concerning the Triunity of the Godhead Which as it seems in it self Rational enough so it is not obnoxious to several bold cavils that over-daring Wits make against the Sacred Mystery of the Trinity alledging against Distinction of Persons without difference of Essence That there are only Three Logical Notions attributed to one single and individual nature and against Three Essences of the same Nature That it looks like an unnecessary and groundless repetition and That that great Chasma betwixt God and Matter will be as wide as before That it is unconceivable but the Last being of the same nature with the First that it should be also Prolifical and so in infinitum That these Three must of necessity be Three Gods if any of them be God because they are all exquisitly of the same Kind whenas in the Platonick Triad the First is only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some have also ventured to affirm in the Christian Trinity Now I say all being so easy and unexceptionable in the Platonical speculation of this Mystery it seems almost impossible but that if the Fathers had borrowed this Notion of the Trinity from the Platonists they would have explain'd it in this more facile and plausible way 6. But you 'l object That though it may seem more Rational in it self yet it might not be so happily applied to Places of Scripture and that 's the reason why the Fathers though they took the Mystery from Plato in the gross yet did not particularly explain it after the way of the Platonists But without doubt there is not only no place of Scripture that plainly clashes with the above-described Mystery but sundry Places that may be very speciously alledged for it It is plain that as the Second Hypostasis in Platonisme is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in Christianity called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if Wisdome and Intellect were acknowledged his proper Character in both They might also plausibly enough draw to their sense what Christ speaks John 14.28 My Father is greater then I
Theorems The One is Concerning the Animal life and the Divine The other is Concerning the Condition of the World upon these times and before the Prince of the Kingdome of Light began that great enterprise of redeeming of lapsed mankind out of the bondage of Satan 3. Concerning the First it is likely some will be forward to enquire What is this Animal life and what the Divine that this must so pompously triumph over the other and why if the one be so much more pretious in the eyes of God then the other is does he not without so long ambages and tiresome circumstances enthrone her at once giving her her due honour without delay and mistaken and lapsed Souls that happiness they are capable of without so tedious and irksome trouble The rudeness and unmannerliness of this latter Question or rather bold and unskillful Expostulation provokes me beyond the laws of Method to dispatch it before the former especially we wanting nothing further to answer it then what is supposed in the very Expostulation viz. That the Divine life is more transcendently excellent and precious then the Animal life is 4. But as Transcendent as it is if we understand it aright that of it which is kept from us is not any thing of it self but an high and precious modification of our own Minds whereby we become unspeakably Good and Happy and are made thereby capable of enjoying God the Highest Good that is conceivable But the Divine life in God is impassible and cannot by any means be disturb'd diminished or incommodated any way and That Life in us viz. that Divine modification of our Souls when it is not in us is not at all and therefore by not being bears no calamity nor indeed being in us does it feel any either pain or pleasure gratification or discontent For it is the Soul it self that has the sense of all and 't is She that feels this Divine sense or life but there is no Sense feels it self else there would be as many Persons as Senses Wherefore the Divine life it self is not injured troubled nor pain'd by any impatiency or expectance of that Honour and Triumph that is intended 5. Secondly That estate that the Souls of the Blessed at last arrive to which is the crowning of the Divine life in them with Glory and Immortality is so Excellent and Transcendent a Condition that it is very just and congruous that no free Agent should ever arrive to it but through a competent measure of Tribulation and Distress as a Tryal of that Loyal affection he owes to so fair and lovely an Object And if the Waies of Providence be something tedious and tiresome in bringing the Souls of men to this haven of rest and quietness yet because we are so certainly and highly rewarded at the last if self-Self-love do not blind our eyes we cannot but confess that the whole progress was very becoming and decorous and that things were carried on as they ought to be as Aristotle notes of Poetical History where laborious and calamitous Vertue ever at last attains to Victory and Glory And therefore in that regard the Philosopher prefers the reading of Epick Poets before Historians because they write of Affairs as they ought to be but Historians only as they are which do often seem not to be so well as they should be But Fools and Children as the Proverb is are unfit Spectators of things in motion and transaction they knowing not at all whither they tend And it is no wonder if the stupid World be much amuzed at Providence till that great Dramatist God Almighty draw on the Period towards the last Catastrophe of things For then certainly Heaven and Earth will ring with this Plaudite or Acclamation Verily there is a Reward for the righteous doubtless there is a God that judges the Earth But it is a wayward and impatient Temper in us that we will neither expect nor approve that Method in the full course of Providence which the most curious and judicious Phansies have set out to the great Gratification of our Faculties though but in feigned History as if Humane contrivance could be more just and exact then Divine Wisdome it self Wherefore I say again That assuredly at the last Passive and Perseverant Vertue shall ascend her Triumphant Chariot and be drawn through the wide Theatre of the world in all imaginable pomp and glory 6. Thirdly There is not only a due price set upon the Reward by this long Trial and Probation but there are Peculiar Vertues very noble and laudable that are exercised therein which might for ever have lien asleep without this occasion Such are Heroical Fortitude unconquerable Patience sedulous and watchfull Prudence dexterous and subtile Invention and clear and solid management of Reason against the perverse suggestions or more impudent declarations of the Sophisters of the dark Kingdome Besides we are in a more sensible School of profound Humilitie and Submission to the will of God in all things and have the opportunity cast upon us of so strong Trials of our Loyaltie in the times of Desertion that the remembrance of that Fidelitie cannot but make us find our selves far more dear to God and raise an ineffable Joy and Content to our Minds that we have had such Occasions to shew our Faithfulness and Constancy to him whom our Soul loveth Wherefore from the going on thus by degrees there seems to arise a natural accrewment of greater Happiness But to require of God that he should at once command the Soul into that state that it is thus kindly to ripen into in succession of time is to expect that the Seasons of the Year should be thrown headlong one upon another on an heap and that there neither should be Buds nor Blossoms though they have their peculiar Use Beauty and Fragrancy but that it should be Autumne all the year long as I have answered already in the like case But the Divine Wisdome is the best dispenser of his Goodness who to set all the Powers of Nature aworking brings in Monsters as well as Hercules into the world that Valour may have a proportionate Object And were not the Kingdome of Darkness it self some way usefull and did not some Homage or other to the high Soveraignty of Divine VVisdome and Goodness I dare pronounce it would not subsist one moment but be quite exterminated out of Being 7. Fourthly and lastly There being nothing detrimented but our selves if we be detrimented by this delay of our Happiness as I have already demonstrated and our selves being lapsed and revolted from God it is very just that we do a very competent Penance in that regard that that Divine excellency that we are to return to may not be dishonoured by so vile and cheap a prostitution and too easie and sudden reconcilement For though God be at once reconciled to us in his Son yet it does not excuse us from undergoing a due order of Penalties before we enjoy the
I have noted above that Mundus and Iupiter in the Pagan Philosophy is one and the same And Plutarch speaks expresly concerning the Aegyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they account the World or Universe to be the same with the prime God or First Cause of all things Him the Aegyptians worshipped under the name of Serapis who being asked by Nicocreon King of Cyprus what God he was the Oracle gave this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such is my Godhead as to thee I tell The Heaven 's my Head the Seas my Belly swell The Earth's my Feet my Ears lye in the Aire My piercing Eye 's the lamp of Phaebus fair From which Hypothesis is most easily understood what is meant by that Enigmatical Inscription in the Temple of Sais in Aegypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am all that was and is and is to come and my veil no mortall ever did yet uncover A venerable Riddle under which there lyes not one grane of Truth unless there be nothing but modified matter in Being But thus to make the World God is to make no God at all and therefore this Kinde of Monotheisme of the Heathen is as rank Atheisme as their Polytheisme was proved to be before CHAP. III. 1. The last Apologizers for Paganisme who acknowledge God to be an Eternal Mind distinct from Matter and that all things are manifestations of his Attributes 2. His Manifestations in the External World 3. His Manifestations within us by way of Passion 4. His more noble emanations and communications to the inward Mind and how the ancient Heathen affixed personal Names to these several Powers or manifestations 5. The reason of their making these several Powers so many Gods or Goddesses 6. Their Reason for worshipping the Genii and Heroes 1. THE last and best sort of Apologizers for Paganisme are those who profess one Eternal Spiritual and Intellectual Being the Governour and Moderatour of all things Such as Plutarch a Pagan Priest defines God to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore God is a Mind or Intellect an Abstract Forme or Being pure from all Matter and disintangled from whatever is passible Which he sets down according to the mind of Socrates Plato and his own The most subtil therefore and ingenious among the Heathen defend themselves thus We acknowledge say they One Eternal Deity infinitely Holy and Benigne Omniscient Omnipotent which is the First Cause and Original of all things in the world as well Spiritual as Corporeal and that there is nothing in the world but what is a Manifestation of the Presence and precious Attributes of this one Deity And therefore we look upon the vast capacity of the wide Universe as a most august and most Sacred Temple of His Divine Majesty who fills and possesses every part thereof every appearance to our outward Senses every motion and excitation within our own bodies every impression upon our Mindes being nothing else but so many Manifestations of either the Wisdome the Goodness the Power the Justice or the Wrath of that One God whose appearances we are every where ready to adore 2. Whether therefore our Eyes be struck with that more radiant lustre of the Sun or whether we behold that more placid and calme beauty of the Moon or be refreshed with the sweet breathings of the open Aire or be taken up with the contemplation of those pure sparkling lights of the Starres or stand astonished at the gushing down-falls of some mighty River as that of Nile or admire the height of some insuperable and inaccessible Rock or Mountain or with a pleasant horrour and chilness look upon some silent Wood or solemn shady Grove whether the face of Heaven smile upon us with a chearfull bright azure or look upon us with a more sad and minacious countenance dark pitchy Clouds being charged with Thunder and Lightning to let fly against the Earth whether the Aire be cool fresh and healthful or whether it be soultry contagious and pestilential so that while we gasp for life we are forc'd to draw in a sudden and inevitable Death whether the Earth stand firm and prove favourable to the industry of the Artificer or whether she threaten the very foundations of our buildings with trembling and tottering Earth-quakes accompanied with remugient Echoes and ghastly murmurs from below whatever notable emergencies happen for either Good or Bad to us these are the Ioves and Vejoves that we worship which to us are not many but one God who has the onely power to save or destroy and therefore from whatever part of this magnificent Temple of his the World he shall send forth his voice our Hearts and Eyes are presently directed thitherward with Fear Love and Veneration 3. Nor does our Devotion stop here or rather stray only without but those more notable Alterations and Commotions we find within our selves we attribute also to him whose Spirit Life and Power filleth all things And therefore those very Passions of Love and Wrath on the former whereof dependeth all that kindly sweetness of affection that is found in either the friendship of men or love of women as on the latter all the pompe and splendour of warre these with the rest of the Passions of the Soul we look upon as the Manifestations of His Presence who worketh every where for our Solace Punishment or Trial. 4. Nor can we omit those more noble Communications of His and Heavenly emanations into our Minds such as are Wisdome Iustice Political Order and the like all which with the former and an innumerable companie more which we have passed by the Religion of our Ancestours fram'd into Personal Gods and Goddesses calling Wisdome Minerva Justice Dice or Themis Political order Eunomia to Love is to be referred Cupid and Venus to Wrath Mars and the Furies That Power which shaketh the Earth is termed Enosichthon The Sea they call Neptune the Aire Iuno the Sun Apollo the Moon Diana the Earth Vesta the Corne Ceres Wine Bacchus and so of the rest 5. Of which certainly there can be no other Reason then that the ancient Instituters of Paganisme were so Enthusiastically transported in the single contemplation of every Divine power or Manifestation in the world that being rapt with admiration of the great consequence thereof they were resolved in their Devotional thoughts and Meditations to dwell on every one singly alone and not to huddle up all those Excellencies in one general worship they having so reverent esteem of every Attribute of God that they thought it sufficient of it self to constitute a Deity And therefore they understood by these Personal Appellations whether Male of Female for God say they is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Deity under This or That manifestation of himself in the world according to which they gave him a proper name as if he were a different person when as it is but with him
external force and violence but by the wonderfull Wisdom of God discoverable in the Gospel there being such winning compliances and condescensions to the Faculties of Man and so powerfull endearments upon his Affections that at the first hearing it is able to carry away the ingenuous captive into obedience to it with joy in their hearts and tears in their eyes their whole man melting into an easie pliableness to this new gracious law in the sense of so great Joy Love and Sorrow besides their being surprized with a just slighting or indignation against the Religions they were formerly ingaged in for either their beggerly Elements or abominable Sacrifices and Ceremonies 2. For whatsoever is defective in any Christ makes a full supply and where their Rites are execrable and detestable he treads quite contrary there to both the foul obscenities and bloody cruelties of Satan But what Propensions in Mankind were more warrantably natural he gratifies them in a truer and higher manner then ever they were yet in the World So that of a very truth Christianity is not only the Compleatment and Perfection of Iudaisme but also of universal Paganisme the Summe or Substance of whatever was considerable in any Religion being comprehended in the Gospel of Christ which was reserved to the last Periods of time as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or summing up of all that went before as the Apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Ephesians That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might summe up all together in Christ whether things in Heaven or things in Earth 3. For as for Things in Heaven whether it be the Objects of the worships of the Heathen namely their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men canonized for Gods and their Heroes or the trust they had in their Dii Medioxumi in the mediation and intercession of their Daemons or whatsoever obscure hopes they had of enjoying the life of the Gods themselves in Heaven after the dissolution of the Body all these things are more compendiously and yet more truly plainly and warrantably comprehended in Christ. As also the Things in Earth as the Jewish Sacrifices and the Pagans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so many and so curious Ceremonies of expiation and purification they are all more fitly and more effectually contained in the Sacrament of Baptisme and in the celebration of the Death of our Saviour then in any of the Rites of the Nations 4. And truly all things are so shrewdly levelled at the Religion of the Heathens in the transactions of Christ and matters belonging to him that he may rather seem to be meant for them then the Jews themselves though they had the first refusal of him so that the counsel of God is made evident as well in the Contrivance as the Effect thereof And this may serve for a General hint concerning the Nature and Composure of Christianity 5. But we shall not content our selves therewith but descend to a more Particular account applying the Grounds which we have laid down to all the Considerable matters contained in the History of Christ which we shall refer to these Heads His Birth His Life His Crucifixion His Resurrection His Ascension 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Intercession Principality over Men and Angels His Mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles The Success of all this in changing of the affairs of the World and ruining of the Kingdome of the Devil His visible returning again to Iudgment to take vengeance of the wicked and to compleat Redemption to the faithfull crowning all their labours and sufferings with Glory and Immortality and reestablishing of them in those Paradisiacal Ioys which they had forfeited and fallen from by the Envy and Subtilty of the Devil Of all these we shall speak with what brevity we can BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 1. That Christ's being born of a Virgin is no Impossible thing 2. And not only so but also Reasonable in reference to the Heroes of the Pagans 3. And that this outward birth might be an emblem of his Eternal Sonship 4. Thirdly in relation to the Sanctity of his own person and for the recommendation of Continence and Chastity to the world 5. And lastly for the completion of certain prophesies in the Scriptures that pointed at the Messias 1. COncerning the Birth of Christ or whatsoever else happened miraculously to him or was done by him I conceive I shall give a sufficient account if I shew not only their Possibility but their Reasonableness And it is not at all Impossible that a Virgin should bring forth a Son if we understand the meaning of that term aright which signifies a Woman that never had any thing to doe with a Man For it implies no Contradiction for her to conceive from some other hidden cause and therefore at least the Omnipotent Power of God can bring it to pass For whether is it easier to create all things of nothing to make Plants and Animals to spring out of the Earth without the help of either Male or Female or to prepare the wombe of a woman so as to make her conceive without the help of a man Wherefore to deny the Possibility thereof is to deny the Existence of God in the world 2. But it is not only Possible but Reasonable For besides that in general it is fit that so extraordinary a person as our Saviour in his coming into the World should be accompanied with miraculous indications of his eminencie there is a peculiar accommodation in this of his being conceived and born by a supernatural Power to those either true stories or strong suspicions of the Pagans who did so easily believe that their famous Heroes whose memory continued so long with them and was so sacred that they did divine honours to them were not sprung of mortal race but were ex stirpe Deorum as you have already heard which is in a most true and eminent manner accomplished in the Birth of our Saviour 3. Again Christ considered out of the body he being not a mere humane Soul but being truly livingly and really united with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by union the Eternal Son of God Now that being to come to pass which S. Iohn speaks of in the beginning of his Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word was made flesh he that was to be born of Mary the Spouse of Ioseph he being I say the true and genuine Son of God begotten of the Father from all eternity when he was to be born here into the world in time who was so fit to be entitled to his procreation as he that was the Author of his Eternal generation and therefore he was to be born of a Virgin and to be conceived by a supernatural way that his visible Humanity as well as his inward Divinity might have a just occasion of being called the Son of God and that the one might be the Emblem as it were of the other 4. Thirdly you have seen how full of
out Lord save us we perish So natural decorous and becoming are all the Actions and Miracles of Christ. 5. There is only one behinde Instantia monodica as a man may call it an Example not parallel'd in the whole History of the Gospel which is The cursing of the Fig-tree the meaning whereof has puzzled many as the narration it self has scandalized some as if this act was guilty not only of Levity but of a ridiculous kinde of Ferocity with a semblance of Injustice if Injustice can be committed against a Tree For was there any reason that a Tree should be cursed for not bearing fruit when the time of year was not yet for the bearing thereof This seems very odd and preposterous But if it be rightly understood there is nothing more grave more sober nor more weightily mysterious 6. For my own part I make no question but that the genuine meaning of it is this and what it signifies it sets out to the very life viz. That the most acceptable and desireable fruit of the everlasting Righteousness was not then found in the Iudaical dispensation nay I add further That it was never intended that that Tree should bring forth any such fruit but only the fair Fig-leaves of an External and Ceremonial Righteousness and a more overly and Legal kind of Morality but the more perfect fruits of the regenerating Spirit were not to be found there though Christ came into the world to exprobrate to them the want thereof and so to put a period to the Iudaical dispensation so as that it should quite wither away and fall to nothing as we find it come to pass at this very day Which Consideration amongst others that occur in Scripture more evidently confirms what we finde true in effect That according to the Eternal counsell of God Christ was mainly intended for the Gentiles and that breaking this shell of Iudaisme in which he was brooded under so many Types and Shadows he should take his flight thence and after spread his wings from one end of the Earth to the other 7. But this Mystery having something of seeming harshness in it to men of less profound minds such was the sweetness and inoffensiveness of our Saviour's temper that he would neither scandalize them nor grate too hard against the Iudaical Oeconomy which that Nation so highly reverenced and therefore recorded this Truth only in this Enigmatical miracle 8. And thus to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not only usual with the Prophets but practised also by our Saviour himself in other cases as well as in this As in the manner of his healing him that was born blinde John 9. where the Ceremonies he useth seem very uncouth and strange before one knows the meaning of them but rightly understood they must be acknowledged admirably fit for the purpose I mean not for curing of the blinde For what can clay and spittle and the water of a pool avail for the restoring of Sight to one that was born blind but for mysteriously setting out some grand Truths concerning Iesus 9. As that he was the Son of God or that Eternal Word whereby God created the World and framed man of the Earth in token whereof he tempers Clay and Spittle he being about to rectifie and amend the workmanship of his own hands To which Erasmus seems plainly to allude in his Paraphrase upon the place Ejusdem autem Autoris est restituere quod perierat qui condider at quod non erat Besides another Truth of very great importance which is set out to the very life in this Typical cure viz. That we are to expect the Renovation of our minds and our Regeneration from that power that created us That no man can come to Christ as he is a visible person unless the Father that is the Eternal Divinity draw him or as the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians That no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost 10. Now I say That Christ's tempering Clay and Spittle does emblematize the Eternal Deity that created all things and his acting first upon the blinde man so sending of him to the pool of Siloam by which undoubtedly is meant Shilo or the Messias this does plainly figure out the forementioned Truths That those that do come to Christ and faithfully adhere to him are prepared and given to him of God and that by Faith in him they are purg'd and purified from all blindness and filthiness by the assistance of that Spirit which is promised to all that believe in him according to what Christ himself has pronounced He that believeth on me out of his heart shall flow streams of living waters which he understands of the Spirit of which these waters of Siloam are therefore a very fit Figure or Emblem they fitly denoting even from the very name as I have already intimated the clearing and healing Spirit of Christ who is the Shilo or Siloam wherewith we are to be washed and cleansed from that foulness and earthly-mindedness which we had contracted in the state of Nature or First creation before the act of Regeneration has passed upon us 11. We have considered the Miracles of Christ let us give a short glance on his Prophesies In which that which is mainly considerable is that they are very few Which I look upon as a reprehension and reproach of that natural itch in mankind to Divinations and Predictions of which Impostors usually much boast and a Nation of America though more Atheistical then all the rest are so vehemently set upon that they often even grow mad again with that study But very little fell from our Saviour's mouth by way of Prophesie but what was in a manner of indispensable concernment to be foretold Such as his own Sufferings and Resurrection the Destruction of the City the General Iudgment He exercised also his power of Divination in his conference with the woman of Samaria but his applications there were so serious that he forgot the sense of hunger being more pleased with the attempts of her conversion and her Country-men then with the most delicate junkets that could be set before him He foretold also who should betray him but it was to demonstrate that both his Betraying and all his Sufferings else they being foreseen might have been avoided and therefore that he underwent them willingly To which also those Predictions tend When I am lifted up I shall draw all men unto me as also of the good Shepheard laying down his life for his sheep and then presently adding And other sheep I have which are not of this fold meaning the Gentiles who were to be brought in by his Death Which is a plain Demonstration that Christ suffered death voluntarily out of his entire love to the World and that he knew aforehand what an Effectual instrument his Passion would prove for the conversion of the Gentiles to
false argues the exquisite Perfection of the Life of Christ and the Transcendency of that Divine Spirit in him that no Pagan could reach by either Imagination or Action 3. The Spirit of Christ how contemptible to the mere Natural man and how deare and precious in the eyes of God 4. How the several Humiliations of Christ were compensated by God with both sutable and miraculous Priviledges and Exaltations 5. His deepest Humiliation namely his Suffering the death of the Cross compensated with the highest Exaltation 1. WHerefore we shall find the Life of our Saviour quite contrary to his there being nothing recorded in him that is plausible to flesh and bloud no splendour of Parentage no streams of Eloquence no favour of Potentates no affectation of any Peculiarity to himself in any thing but being every where reproached and despised he ceased not to do good without any mans applause And whereas the very Spirit and life of all Apollonius his Actions is a gallant sense of Glory which the Devil befool'd him by so that which perpetually breath'd in the Actions of our Saviour was a passive loving profound Spirit of Humility which is the most certain character of the Divine life of any thing that is 2. So that let the History of Apollonius be wholy true or partly false or wholy false it is all one to me For if it be True this grand example of Divine vertue as he is pretended falls infinitely short of the truth of the Divine life manifested in Christ there being indeed nothing found in Apollonius that is truely Divine But if it be a Figment in whole or in part how transcendent then is that Divine worth in Christ and how lovely and illustrious is the Beauty of his Image that the pens and pencils of the most learned and accomplish'd Pagans cannot draw one line thereof nor give one touch or stroke near his resemblance 3. And indeed how should it ever come into the minde of a mere natural man to think of an humble passive Soul-melting self-afflicting and self-resigning Divinity lodging in any Person or if it did that there was any such great price upon that Spirit more then on that which seems to the world more gallant and generous But certainly this is more precious in the eyes of God then all things in the world beside and whatsoever injury is done to this it is like the touching of the Apple of his own eye And so tender was he over our Saviour in whom this was so transcendently found that he ever compensated his Sufferings with a proportionable Triumph and his willing Submissions and Debasements of himself with an answerable Exaltation 4. And therefore his humble Birth he honoured with the Musick of a Quire of Angels from Heaven and the Homage of the Wise men from the East who brought presents to him as to a new-born King So his long Fasting in the Desart was compensated by the power not onely of curing diseases but of turning water into wine and of miraculously feeding of multitudes in the wilderness As also his refusing of all the pomp and glory of the World which was shewn him from the top of a mountain by the Transfiguration of his person on the top of mount Tabor into so great a glory as all the speciosities of the world could not equalize his face shining as the Sun and his garments being bright as the Light And lastly his being carried from place to place by the hand of Satan as an innocent Lamb in the Talons of an Eagle this Temptation also was amply recompensed by having a palpable power over the Kingdome of Satan and dispossessing Daemoniacks and putting to flight many thousands of Devils at once as you heard concerning him whose name was Legion 5. But the emergency of the greatest Honour that accrew'd to him was from the deepest Sufferings even from his bitter Passion on the Cross Which was fully remunerated by so glorious a Resurrection and Ascension by his Session at the right hand of God and his Exaltation above all principalities and powers whether in Heaven or Earth he being made Head and Soveraign over Men and Angels and indued with a power of crowning all believers with a glorious Immortality at the last day Of all which we shall speak in order shewing the Fitness and Reasonableness of every thing in its place CHAP. XIII 1. The ineffable power of the Passion of Christ and other endearing applications of him for winning the World off from the Prince of Darkness 2. Of his preceding Sufferings and of his Crucifixion 3. How necessary it was that Christ should be so passive and sensible of pain in his suffering on the Cross against the blasphemy of certain bold Enthusiasts 4. Their ignorance in the Divine life and how it alone was to triumph in the Person of Christ unassisted by the advantages of the Animal or Natural 5. That if Christ had died boldly and with little sense of pain both the Solemnity and Usefulness of his Passion had been lost 6. That the strange Accidents that attended his Crucifixion were Prefigurations of the future Effects of his Passion upon the Spirits of men in the World 7. Which yet hinders not but that they may have other significations 8. The third and last Reason of the Tragical unsupportableness of the Passion of Christ in that he bore the sins of the whole World 9. The Leguleious cavils of some conceited Sophists that pretend That it is unjust with God to punish the Innocent in stead of the Guilty 10. The false Ground of all their frivolous subtilties 1. FIrst therefore as concerning his Passion I say it is an enravishing consideration to take notice how this humble Candidate for so great an Empire as I have described applies himself to his design giving an infallible proof not onely of his Power that he is able to protect but of his dear affection and entire Love to his people in that he can undergo so horrid agonies in their behalf and being to win the Kingdomes of the Earth out of the possession of the Devil how he uses no other Engine then the displaying of his own Nature and the endearing Loveliness and Benignity of his own Spirit to shame and confound the ugliness and detestableness of his usurping Competitor Wherefore he did not onely tread counter to the wayes of Satan in Humility and Purity and continual Beneficency in his life-time but further to shew the vast Disparity or Discrepancy betwixt that old Tyrant and this gracious Prince that is so succeed whenas the Devil as you have already heard inflicted unsupportable penances upon his abused Vassals ingaging them to cut and slash their own flesh and frantickly to dismember themselves to whip themselves with knotted cords or stinging nettles to wound themselves with sharp flints to fast macerate themselves so as to pine away in desarts or break their necks down some steep rock or precipice as Acosta reports of them Christ
but the incomparable Dignity of the Person of Christ and the weighty circumstances of Providence that gave such ample testimony to him which made the world turn Christians rather then Apollonians that is made them rather embrace the Gospel then continue in Paganisme though reformed after the neatest and most refined manner by the noblest and gallantest personage that ever was purely Pagan the famous Apollonius 2. But that he may have the field clear to himself it will not be amiss to digress a little further and take notice of some few others that put in for an Equality with him or a Superiority above him and the chief of them are these Three Mahomet David George and the begodded man of Amsterdam whom I dare not venture to bring into the list without a Preface for pardon and excuse for that which looks so like a piece of dishonour and disrespect to our blessed Saviour But Duessa till unstripped will compare with Una you know the story in Spencer and the bold ignorance of some does ordinarily make others take a great deal of pains to explain and evince that which to any indifferent man is usually true at first sight Which kind of undertakings though they be no great arguments of a mans wit yet they are of his faithfulness and sincere love to the Truth which is far better 3. First therefore to speak a little of the two latter David George and him of Amsterdam those two meal-mouth'd Prophets that court the world to follow them by so many mystical good-morrows making the whole Gospel but as one long-winded Fable and themselves the onely inspired and infallible Lights of the World because they phansie they have found the right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it So that their excellency seems to consist mainly in these Two things in a resolved infidelity or stout misbelief of the History of Christ so far as it is Miraculous and a dexterity in a moral Mythology thereof whereby the Gospel is utterly abrogated and more fundamentally destroy'd then the Law of Moses is by the Gospel For there was never any Christian so immodest as to deny the Miracles of Moses and so consequently the Truth of the History of the Old Testament which these do in the New by which you may judge what they do concerning the Old also For it is most likely they believe there were never any such things as Miracles done any where 4. But if they believe there were Miracles let them shew their Reasons why they distrust that what is recorded of our Saviour is but a Fable and let them produce Miracles themselves to demonstrate to us that we believe a falsehood and that God has sent them upon such a special errand as they pretend If they can do no Miracles God is no witness unto them but they witness only of themselves and therefore are mere Fanaticks and distemper'd Enthusiasts having nothing to drive them forwards to so bold and prodigious an enterprise as the superannuating of Christianity and the abrogating of the office of the Person of Christ but the pride and fury of their own inflam'd Spirits and a phantastical conceit of themselves as if God had inlightened them more then all the world besides 5. If according to the impulse of that Spirit of infidelity in them they conceive there never was nor ever will be any Miracles done in the world but that all things are carried according to the course of Nature they betray themselves in this that they are so far from being extraordinarily illuminated that they are more blinde and blockish then every ordinary man that has the fear of God before his eyes and that they are what some suspect them to be a skulking kinde of Epicureans and Atheists But this I dare boldly say that strip their style of all Scripture-phrases and all allusions to the History of Christ and of the old Testament you shall finde nothing affirmed in these Authors that will rise higher then the faith of Epicurus Democritus or Lucretius they positively affirming nothing but what any ordinary moral Pagan would affirm nay not so much as the Better sort that held the Immortality of the Soul 6. But this is the wicked plot of the Devil in this Sect that he clothes their Style with Scripture-language that they may as it were wear the colours of the Kingdome of Light and so covertly destroy or win the Christian Souldiers from their allegiance to Christ and lapse them into the bondage of the dark Kingdome So that that mighty prop of Faith in those precious promises of the Gospel being taken away their heart may fail them in the hour of temptation and they may be wrought by degrees into a full compliance with every transitory pleasure which the natural man relishes whether in riches honour or satisfaction of the flesh and that upon whatever terms the world shall propound it to them So far therefore are those two forward fellows of Delph and of Amsterdam from approving themselves so great lights of the World as they pretend that they are more dark in their Understanding then many of the Heathen who had some kind of glimpse of a world to come believed the Existence of Spirits and the power of Miracles 7. Which Consideration would make a man think that they were not so much as honest through-crackt Enthusiasts but rather knowing Cheats and Impostours who being down-right Epicureans but of something a finer contexture could abuse their rapturous and Enthusiastick complexion to deceive the whole Christian world calling them off from Christ to an admiration of themselves which might be a considerable profit as well as no small pleasure to them and under pretense of teaching them the Great Mystery of the Gospel might endeavour to undermine the Gospel by taking away the Substantial History of it wrapping up ordinary Precepts of life such as any moral Pagan can give concerning Vertue in the mysterious dress of the Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ making the whole Mystery of Christianity nothing but a finely-contrived Fable to set out some trivial moral Truths such as are acknowledged by almost every Atheist and Epicurean and the practice whereof reaches no further then the more advantageous managements of the pleasures and enjoiments of this present life 8. I do not deny but that the frequent use of Scriptural allusions and phrases in their writings may raise in well-meaning men a sense beyond the feeling of them that wrote them But where Faith in Christ is extinct and of those promises that he made so clearly known to the world by his Resurrection and Ascension I conceive that this is an infallible argument that the Divine life is extinct also and that it is from some impurity of Body Soul or Spirits that a man sinks below that belief and that his Vertues then are but Complexional or merely Moral such as are found in a cicurated Beast or some better-natur'd Brute This in all likelihood was the
strife about their vain and useless Opinions and Ceremonies This I believe we will be prone enough to acknowledge against others namely in those dominions wherein Popery has so great a stroke but it is more to our advantage to examine also what is amiss at home For it does not follow because the Number of the Beast is not upon us that we do not Bestianize nor is it the purple spots but the disease that is mortiferous But the case is as if a man not yet knowing Sheep from Goats should be told that those in such a pasture that had such a Mark or figure upon them were Goats It were a fond thing for him to think that this mark or figure were so of the essence of a Goat but that when in another place he met with a creature so shaped of the like bigness and with such a cry as a Goat has he might take the boldness to pronounce that that was a Goat too though the abovesaid Marks were wanting Wherefore let us impartially consider whether we be yet pure Sheep or no. If the Witnesses be dead in both a Moral and Political sense amongst us that is if we follow the name or authority of any man and be ruled more by that then the plain Scriptures if we are not content with such a Faith as is plain out of them and was the Faith of the Church when it was Symmetral if by fulsome and course Antinomianisme by the doctrine of the Needlesness or Impossibility of being good and of living according to the Precepts of Christ we hinder the Scripture from being alive in us and by mingling conceits of our own and imperiously imposing of them upon others hazard with some the belief of the whole and keep others out of such place and authority as naturally falls to their share though never so cordial and exemplary Christians according to the old Symmetral pattern we having thus transgressed that holy ancient and Apostolick Number 12 by our new-fangled additions and adding also Persecution thereto do as certainly become or continue part of the Beast as the Goat is a Goat without the above-said mark and figure upon him Nor shall we ever be quit from the crime of slaying the Witnesses till we lay aside all heat and pride in preferring our own Opinions whereby we do but make void the weighty Precepts of Life and make the Commandments of God of none effect by our Traditions engaging the affections of the people in things that are unprofitable and inuring them to lie cool to the indispensable Law of Christ. Which is truely to slay the Witnesses and to let them lie stark dead in the streets And while those that govern govern for themselves and love to feel their own power and forget that the very Rule of their Government is the comfort and ennoblement of the spirits of the people that they may be free and knowing faithful Christians and Subjects and that whatever any one has it is given him for the good of another and not for the satisfaction of his own vain lusts while such miscarriages as these are in either Ministery or Magistracy Supreme or Subordinate in what measure these are in that measure is Moses and Aaron Zerobabel and Ieshua the Old Testament and the New Testament slain and cast out dead into the streets and all Power let it change into what frame it will but the playing of the Leviathan in the waters of the Sea making the deep boil before him and leaving an hoary tract of froth after him boasting himself in his Power and Title that he is the Prince of the children of Pride 9. Wherefore that Millennial Happiness that some men talk so loud of is not in demolishing of all Ranks and Orders of Superiority in Church or State which things are natural and necessary but in the right administration of affairs in both by those Orders of men Who if they would reform all things according to the Apostolick Rule and institute such a Discipline as would countenance the indispensable life of God not the unprofitable humors of rash and fallible men and every one in their rank would pay their duties of support and succour to the people that every man that is honest and vertuous might live according to his quality in a Christian comfortable way the Tributes of Honours and Titles to such Orders of men are but their just due and become as well usefull as ornamentall to the world It is therefore but a Fanatick or Satanick fury in such that under pretence of ushering in the Fifth Monarchy as they call it would destroy all Orders and Ranks in Church and State as if the Wrath of man could work the Righteousness of God when neither these Orders themselves have any unholiness in them nor the Persons haply in possession are less Saints then they that would pull them down For if the enriching a man's self by the destruction of others entitle a man to Saintship the greatest Robbers are in the readiest way to enter into the Holy of Holies But such Zelots as these what miserable Redeemers they are like to prove is too sadly prefigured by that Iewish faction at Ierusalem more intolerable by far to the Inhabitants then the Enemy that besieged them Wherefore the gaping after a Fifth Monarchy in this sense can be nothing else but the thirsting after spoil and bloud many men being stimulated thereto by the secret sting of the old Serpent in Envy to the Church of Christ hoping to root out the Gospel by destroying of setled Authority and by starving the Ministery and so to bring in a rabble of Fanatical Superstitions or Atheistical Prophanenesses The most certain prevention whereof in my judgment is the Reduction of the Church by those that are in Authority to such a frame as is purely Apostolical For then the constitution of things will be so sacred and unexceptionable that it will awe and keep off the Villainy and Boldness of such men that are otherwise encouraged by the conspicuous intermixture of things false Idolatrous and impious to flie against all at once and to rend all into pieces Besides that they row with the stream and the tide of Divine vengeance will carry them along which will ever and anon flow in upon the Church till a true and sincere Reformation For there is no Stability to be expected till that City be raised whose not only Foundation is laid in Twelve but whose Gates Tribes Angels the breadth and height of the wall and the solid Content of the whole City are nothing else but the Replication still of Twelve throughout that is to say till that Church appear that is purely Apostolical in Life and Doctrine 10. Which times being so very near at hand as appears by compute of Prophecie it should be a great encouragement for every one to look thither-ward and to shake off that Dulness and Lethargicalness that has possess'd the world so long as if it would never
the Divine Wisdome that does not act according to absolute Power but according to the Congruity of the nature of things is to wind off Mankind from the slavery of the Devil and reclaim them from the irregularities of the Animal life to the embracement of the Divine by such a way as is most accommodate to the humane Faculties and Capacities 12. And what do we think could work more kindly upon the Nature of man to disenslave him from the bondage of Satan and to make him close with the Divine life which he had forsaken then to exhibit a very visible Example thereof in some venerable Person who should earnestly exhort mankind to follow his steps and practices and whose Doctrine should be confirmed with sensible Testimonies from Heaven in approbation and exaltation of his person shewing that he is the only Beloved the Darling and Delight of the Eternal God with some such Expression as this from the very clouds This is my beloved Son hear him In brief That his Birth Life and Death should be adorned with such miraculous and supernatural Circumstances that it may be visible to all men that are not willingly blinde that this man was a true and infallible Messenger sent from God Which would be a very forcible battery laid against their outward senses 13. But being that this had been the sadder message by how much more they had been ascertain'd it had been true That they must forsake the exorbitant pleasures of the Animal Life and keep close up to the Divine it was also requisite that they might be assured of a proportionable Reward for so great an Agony as they were to undergoe in mortifying castigating their natural or habitual desires and betaking themselves to the streighter way And therefore it is fit that that Truth that is so obscure and incredible to the generality of men should be made grosly manifest to the meanest capacities I mean the Reward of a blessed Immortality after this Life and the regaining of Heaven or Paradise which lapsed Mankind had lost The Certainty whereof I cannot tell how it may be better assured to them then by the witness of one whom we are sure is infallible and who saies expressly that he came from thence and after Death is to go thither again and does not only tell the World so but proves it to outward sight he being raise out of his Grave after he was perfectly dead and ascending into the Heavens where flesh and bloud cannot inhabit Which is a visible Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality and as feelingly accommodate to the slowest apprehension as if some man of whose honesty the people were indubitably assured should descend from some high Hill where none of the Country had had the hap to have been as yet and should tell them what pleasant Woods and Groves there were there full of all manner of delicious Fruit a true terrestrial Paradise and that it was not so steep or inaccessible as they imagined and therewith should return thither in the very sight of those that questioned the Matter This consideration would reach their very inward Reason and indispensable Interest For they that are the lowest lapsed are not fallen from the sense of their own good and from a desire of everlasting happiness if they find it possible 14. This were enough to make mankinde weary of the Devil 's Tyrannical yoke But in all revolts there ought to be some Head and no person is so fit for such a purpose as he who is able to reward his followers whose Vertues are eminently opposite to the Vices of the Tyrant and whose Rule when he is installed will as little thwart the usual or natural and innocent propensions of the People as may be Wherefore whereas the Devil's Government is notorious for unspeakable Pride Insolency and Cruelty to Mankind as has been at large discovered in those bloudy sacrificings and despightfully misusings of men in a way of Superstition which no man can doubt to have any better Author then Satan himself the Head of this warrantable Revolt must be singularly kind and tenderly and affectionately loving and compassionate to the Generations of men as also very humble and lowly and be so far from requiring such abominable and bloudy homages as the sacrificing of men to him that he would willingly lay down his life for their sake Which must needs prove an unspeakable endearment of the affections of his followers to him and raise in them a more vehement detestation of the Devil's Tyranny But because Love is ineffectual that has no power of doing good this Head becomes the more perfectly compleat if he be found not only so Kind as to be willing to lay down his life for his Subjects but also to be able to save them from all the inconveniences that opposite Power intangled them in whose wages were no better then Eternal death and therefore it was fitting that he should have a power from God of giving Everlasting Life and crowning them with a blessed Immortality at the last day and of saving them from that general Destruction that will in time seize as well on the rebellious Angels as the unreclaimed Souls of men 15. Lastly Those natural innocent Propensions of Mankind are gratified in this Head we speak of if there be such Properties in him as are sutable to their Opinions Practices and Desires in matters of Religion And we know by History that the Heathen were very prone to suspect those that were their eminent Benefactors to have been born of more then humane Race and that they had so high sense of Gratitude toward them that they Deified them after their Deaths and did them divine Honour Adde to this their conceit of the necessity of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the appeasing the Wrath of the Gods and of the convenience of their Dii Medioxumi Wherefore if Divine Providence add these Gratifications also in the choice of the Head she shall appoint for the opposing and beating down the Kingdome of Satan the matter is still more completely fitted and accommodated to the humane Faculties which having been long abused by idle mistakes cannot but be highly transported with joy upon the discovering their true and warrantable Object and so the Nations will finde such a Prince and Leader as the more they behold him and eye him the more they must become enravished by him Divine Wisdome condescending by this contrivance to the utmost curiosity of Courtship to win off poor lapsed Mankind from the Tyranny of Satan to the Kingdome of God 16. This is a short Review of the more Intelligible part of Christianity the Reasonableness whereof I take to be such that I dare appeal to the judgment of any if it be not so worthy of the Divine Wisdome and Goodness and so fitly suited unto the nature and condition of things and the state of men upon earth that it is indispensable but that Providence
some time or other should send into the world such a Prince and Redeemer of his People out of the Captivity of the Devil as we have described who having declared the Promises of Eternal life to his faithful Followers and so raised himself a party against the Powers of the Dark Kingdome should exercise the Creation with this noble and high-concerning Conflict and after a due time of trial of the Faith Resolution Constancy Love and Obedience of his Adherents return visibly again at last according to promise giving Victory Peace and a Blessed Immortality to his own and pouring down Wrath and Vengeance and utter Destruction upon his implacable and contemptuous Enemies This Providential Contrivance I say looking upon it in the Idea is so Congruous and Rational that there is no wise and vertuous man but will easily assent that it will some time or other be set afoot in the World But I shall now endeavour to make good That it is already on foot and that this Period of Providence is begun in the Appearance of Iesus Christ the Son of God and of the blessed Virgin that is That our Christian Religion as it relates to the Person of Christ according as I have propounded it and displaied it in the main Branches thereof is not a mere Idea but a real and actual Truth Which I think will be sufficiently demonstrated if I prove That the expected Messias is come and That the Writings of the New Testament are true For nothing then can defeat our design unlesse a man will be so wild as to pervert the Literal sense of those Writings and turn every thing miraculous there into an Allegory CHAP. XII 1. That the chief Authour of this Mystical Madness that nulls the true and literal sense of Scripture is H. Nicolas whose Doctrine therefore and Person is more exactly to be enquired into 2. His bitter Reviling and high Scorn and Contempt of all Ministers of the Gospel of Christ that teach according to the Letter with the ill Consequences thereof 3. The Reason of his Vilification of them and his Injunction to his Followers not to consult with any Teachers but the Elders of his Family no not with the Dictates of their own Consciences but wholy to give themselves up to the leading of those Elders The irrecoverable Apostasie of simple Souls from their Saviour by this wicked Stratagem 4. His high Magnifications of himself and his Service of the Love before the Dispensation of Moses John the Baptist or Christ himself 5. That his Service of the Love is a Third Dispensation namely of the Spirit and that which surpasses that of Christ with other Encomiums of his doctrine as That in it is the sounding of the last Trump the Descent of the new Jerusalem from Heaven the Resurrection of the dead the glorious coming of Christ to Iudgment and the everlasting Condemnation of the wicked in Hell-Fire 6. That H. Nicolas for his time and after him the Eldest of the Family of the Love in succession are Christ himself descended from Heaven to judge the World as also the true High Priest for ever in the most Holy 1. THere being therefore this only obstacle to our prosperous procedure in this Affair and the spreading of this mystical Madness being most of all from the esteem and Authority of that highly-adored Enthusiast H. Nicolas of Amsterdam I find my self necessitated to make here some stop to discover his enormous doctrines and the groundlesness of them as well to undeceive his seduced Admirers as to justifie my own publick Dislike of him that I may not seem to have been in the least measure either rash or injurious And that we may the better proceed therein I shall first present him to you in all his ruffe and glory adorned with the testimonies of his own style such as he would appear to the World to be and then examine if there be any ground of believing him to be such and lastly offer reasons whereby I shall clearly demonstrate that he is not what he pretends to be 2. And that his Lustre may seem as big as he desires you shall first hear what pittifull things all are that are not found of his Sect if you will believe his censure of them namely That there is no Knowledge of Christ nor of the Scripture but in his Family That without his God-service of the Love all the God-services Wisdome and Doctrine out of the Scripture let them be taught by those that are never so well learned therein is but witchery and blindness And that as many as misbelieve and oppose his Service of the Love are earthly and devilishly minded And that there is no Remission of sins out of his Communialty That it is assuredly all false and lies seducing and deceitfull what the ungodded or unilluminated men out of the Imagination or riches of their Knowledge and out of the Learnedness of the Scriptures bring forth institute preach and teach That all Teachers and Learners out of his Communialty are a false Christianity and the Devil's Synagogue or School yea a Nest of Devils and all wicked Spirits And of their Knowledge compendiously and at once he pronounces It is a false Being the Devil the Antichrist the wicked Spirit the Kingdome of Hell and the Majesty of the Devil No better then this is the most sober and carefull reasoning out of the Holy Scriptures or the simple apprehension of the History of Christ and all his Promises be they by never so sincere and devout Souls if they be not of his blessed Family of the Love who have the luck to be the only-illuminated in the World Of this you may read more fully in his first Exhortation Chap. 15. and 16. Which Ugly and uncharitable Character he gives of all Christians besides his own Family who yet are indeed as you shall hear anon no Christians at all must needs imbitter the Spirits of his professed Followers and envenome them beyond all measure against the Ministry of the Gospel according to the Letter thereof Which yet clearly enough sets out to us the History of Christ his Promises and Precepts neither is there any Mystical meaning that is true that is not literally set down in the Text. So that all their boast is but of Allusions and Phrases nor can they produce any thing that is not already plainly before our eyes in the Letter it self And therefore if they have any choice Secret to themselves it is the Mystery of Infidelity and Unbelief a bold and groundless Presumption that the History is not true 3. Which Presumption makes them so peremptorily conclude all the Scripture-learned under Ignorance none of them hither to having been so nasute as to smell out the least falsity in the oldness of the Letter And therefore that their Novices may not be entangled nor distracted through the simple Belief or plain Doctrine of ordinary Christians he exhorts them not to hearken to nor
believe any other Service or Information but what is administered by the Elders in the house of the Love enjoins them to give up their Understandings wholy to the Eldest of the Family and to give ear to none else but the Teachers of his own Sect. Nay he will not so much as suffer them to appeal to the Light that is within them nor to judge themselves nor be judged by their own Consciences but only by the Elders of the house of the Love concerning whom they must not have the least suspicion of Errour or Unfaithfulness Which is the greatest Tyranny and Slavery upon the Soul of man that can be devised and a shrewd Indication that those Elders will approve and advise things against express Scripture Reason and Conscience And thus is many a poor simple Lamb catched out of the Fold of Christ and carried quite away without recovery into the thickest and remotest Woods and darkest Caverns or Dens to be devoured by this white Wolf who by his gracious speeches heart-melting insinuations soft-soothing language that is oiled and perfumed with nothing but Love first intices the little ones after whom his mouth most of all waters to a great esteem of himself and then utterly extinguishes in them to their Eternal Destruction all that Faith they had in the Person and Promises of our ever-blessed Saviour Which he does by intercepting all aid that the use of Reason and the Knowledge of the Scripture could administer giving them such hard language as we have above recited the civilest aspersion he bestows being the Imagination of the Knowledge but magnifying himself and his Service of the Love that is his own Doctrine above whatever yet appear'd to the sons of men as you shall now hear 4. For he sets himself above Abraham Moses David and all the Prophets above Iohn the Baptist yea above the Person of Christ himself For indeed he will allow that the service of the Fathers in the Covenant of Circumcision until Moses was the Forefront of the true Tabernacle and that Moses in figures and shadows set out the true being of the true sanctuary of God in the Spirit and that to David and the Prophets was shewn the true Being in the Spirit of their sight That Iohn the Baptist was a Preparation by Repentance to an entrance into the Holy of the true Tabernacle and that this Holy of the true Tabernacle is the Service of Christ in the Belief But the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy this he reserves to himself and his Service of the Love Wherein as he boasts is the Perfection of Life the Completion of all Prophecies from the beginning of the World the righteous Judgment of God the Throne of Christ before which all things must needs be manifested the perfect Being of the Godhead and the true Rest of the chosen of God He calls also this his Service of the Love the Last Day and the Perfection and Conclusion of all the works of God Whereby he would intimate it to be an everlasting Seventh day or Sabbath And yet he will have it also the Eighth Day as if he affected an holy-day beyond that of God himself and a time beyond Eternity 5. Again in his Prophecie of the Spirit of Love he sets himself highest in the enumeration of the Three principal Services namely the Service of the Law under God the Father the Service of the Belief under Christ the Saviour and the Service of the Love under the Holy Ghost The affectation of which office he learnt of his master David George as is noted by them that have wrote of these Enthusiasts I omit to speak of lesser Encomiums of his doctrine as That it is the last Trump that sure word of Prophecie that his day of the Love is that new day that the Lord has made abundant in clearness and full of Eternal joy the new Ierusalem descending from Heaven and the Inheritance of the Right-perfection We will conclude all with what he writes in his Revelation of God Behold presently in this day is the Kingdome of the God of Heaven and his Righteousness the godly Majesty and his Glory as also the salvation of Christ and the eternal life appeared in perfect Clearness with great Triumph and Ioy The Resurrection also of the dead the cleansing of the Earth the blessing of all Generations the righteous Iudgment of God the Glorious coming of Christ with all the thousands of Saints and the everlasting Condemnation of all ungodly in the hellish Fire What therefore can you expect more then is accomplished in his Service of the Love and what greater Person can there be then he who sets so glorious a Dispensation on foot on the earth Let us therefore take notice what he makes himself in the midst of this Glory and Pomp which he sets out 6. As if it were a small thing for him to be raised from the dead and to be anointed with the holy Ghost he boasteth further that God has sealed in him the Dwelling of his Glory and of his Holy Name and elsewhere that he is Godded with God and consubstantiated with the Deity and expresly in his Evangely Chap. 34. he declares how God has manned himself with him and Godded him with his Godhead to a living Tabernacle a House for his dwelling and to a seat of his Christ the seed of David and how the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed out of Heaven from the right hand of God and that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ there sitteth one meaning himself in the Habitation of David which judgeth uprightly thinketh upon equity and requireth righteousness and that through him God will judge the compass of the Earth This in his Introduction to the Glass of Righteousness is the right Messias the high Priest for ever in the most holy the noble King of Israel and Iuda that possesses the seat of his Father an everlasting peaceable Prince over the house of Iacob according to the promises But you 'l say this cannot be understood of H. Nicolas but of Christ according as he has wrote elsewhere that there is in his Communialty of the Love a true Iudge Iesus Christ our Lord and King which executes the right Iudgment of his Father according to the truth But we are also to understand that This Christ that sits on the throne of his Father David is the eldest Father of the Family of Love as appears out of his Evangelium Cap. 31. sect 14. and 16. Which places compared with what has been recited it is clear that H. Nicolas is this Christ on the seat of David for his life-time and which is still worse and the seed of endless Madness and Blasphemie that this wild Presumption of the eldest in the Family being the very Christ from Heaven returned to judge the World with equity will be entailed upon their Successors for ever And that the appearance of this Christ may be the more glorious
that are so transported and overcome with those Allusions and Allegorical Reflexions as such high Attainments that they think themselves illuminated above the capacities of all other Mortals being more pleased with the gaudy colours of the Rainbow then with the pure light which is reflected thence Which yet all true Christians plainly see and feel in the simplicity of its own nature without any such cloudy refractions and know that the rest is not the dictate of the Spirit but the mere service of Phansy lending its aid to the setting forth of divine Perceptions And yet this slight sallad is the chief food this pretended Prophet feeds his followers withall and the greatest demonstration of his being extraordinarily called and inspired 5. For as for Miracles he never did any as you may see in that Book of his Life entituled Mirabilia Dei where nothing miraculous is recorded unless a certain Prophetical Dream wherein he seemed to be frighted together with some devotional expressions after he awakened out of it as also a lucky escape out of the hands of his Persecutors who haply being not so vigilant as they might be the phrase of the story makes them struck with blindness and lastly his witty questions and answers to the Priest or Confessor when he was a child wherein he does so fully utter the chief of his Doctrine that he seems as wise at eight years old as ever he was since though he lived to a very considerable Age. But any one that has any insight in things may easily discern that the Discourse was never intended for a true History but a spiritual Romance So that as petty businesses as these are they have no assurance of their truth 6. Now for his Pretensions of being the most eminent Preacher of Perfection it is a mere Boast For whether he means by Perfection Love which is the perfection of the Law it cannot be more clearly and advantageously preached then it is in the New Testament by Christ and his Apostles And what Comparison is there betwixt such a Teacher of Love who being the declared Son of God by Signes and Miracles gave his life out of dear compassion to mankind and a soft Fellow that onely talks fine phrases to the World Or whether he pretend to a more general Perfection in the divine Graces or holy Life whose Root is true Faith in God and his Promises through Christ and the branches Charity Humility and Purity it shall appear anon that as for true Faith he is perfectly fallen from it and that he is as a dead tree pulled up from the root And for the present it is evident also out of his own writings not to charge him with accusations out of others that he is far from being perfect either in Charity Humility or Purity For what greater sign of Uncharitableness then to charge all men that are not of his Communialty to be of the Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and what greater Pride then to prefer himself before Abraham Moses and Christ and make as if he were God himself come to judge the World with his thousands of Saints and Seraphims And lastly what greater Symptoms of Lust Impurity then to be sunk down from all sense and presage of a life to come To say nothing of his complaints in his Glasse of Righteousness of such as came in to spy out their liberty and his lusty animations against Shamefacedness and Modesty in men and women and their shiness to such acts as ordinary Bashfulness is loath to name Which in my apprehension are very foul spots in that Glasse of his as if it had been breathed upon by the mouth of a menstruous Woman 7. But there is also a more subtil Uncleanness from which who is not free if he knew his own weakness he would be ashamed to profess himself perfect and that is the Impurity of the Astral Spirit in which is the Seat and Dominion of unruly Imagination Hence are our Sidereal or Planet-strucken Preachers and Prophets who being first blasted themselves blast all others that labour with the like impurity by their Fanatick Contagion Those in whom Mortification has not had its full work nor refined the Inmost of their natural Complexions are subject to be smitten and overcome by such Enthusiastick storms till a more perfect Purification commit them to the safe custody of the Intellectual Powers Wherefore let this pretended Prophet boast as much as he will of his glorious Resurrection from the dead it is manifest to the more perfect that he has not yet so much as passed through that Death that should have led him to the unshaken Kingdome of Truth and letten him in to the immovable Calmness and serene stilness of the Intellectual World where the Blasts and Blusters of the Astral Spirit cease and the Violence of Phansy perverts not the faithful representations of Eternal Reason For God is not in these fanatick Herricanoes no more then he was in the tempestuous Wind Earthquake or Fire that passed before the Prophet Elias But the Divine Truth is to be found in that still small voice which is the Echo of the Eternal Word not urg'd upon us by that furious Impulse of complexionall Imagination but descending from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow of change This was an Attainment out of this Boasters reach of which he had not the least sense or presage and therefore was wholy given up to the hot scalding Impressions of misguided Phansy in his Astral Spirit Which being strangely raised and exalted in this false light has a power by words or writings to fire others and to intoxicate them with the same heat and noise in their enravished Imagination whereby that still and small voice of Incomplexionate Reason cannot be heard CHAP. XIV 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel groundlesly applied to him 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21 of being That Prophet 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to himself 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet 5. Their arguing for the authority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dispensations with the Answer thereunto 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of but onely affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially it follows not that it is H. Nicolas he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast or worse 1. AND therefore being blinded with the wind and dust of this Fanatick Tempest they are carried on
to so great a piece of Folly as to fansy this mistaken Wight so Sacred and Divine a person as to be prophesied of in the Holy Scriptures But the places that are alledged are so weakly and ineptly applied that it is a further confirmation of their being strangely hood-winked and held down with an over-bearing effascination and witchcraft For how vain a thing is it to make this Man that Angel that preached the Everlasting Gospel whenas that Angelical Preachment was at least seven or eight hundred years before he lived according to all those Interpreters that have endeavoured to give a solid and coherent account of S. Iohn's Prophecy But this is more then I need attempt or it may be can be done to confute this assertion by Chronological demonstration It is sufficient to note that it is groundless a mere phansy unbacked by Reason and Argument whenas on the contrary there is evident Reason against it This person whom they so much adore being rather a Decryer of the Everlasting Gospel then a Preacher of it as shall appear in due time 2. The Second conceit of his being prophesied of in Scripture is fixt upon that of S. John 1. verse 21. where they would have him to be That Prophet viz. an eminent Prophet distinct from Elias and Christ. But it is very discernable how weak an Alledgement this is For first if there were such an eminent Prophet expected distinct from Elias and Christ it does not follow it is he And then again this expectation of the Jewes is no Divine Testimony And thirdly as some Interpreters have noted they expected him before the coming of Elias as Elias before the coming of Christ. Others understood by That Prophet the Prophet Ieremie who is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Prophet of God And lastly amongst the rest that excellent Critick and pious Interpreter Castellio renders it simply a prophet the sense being At least art thou a Prophet See Castellio upon the place So many weaknings are there of this groundless Fiction of his being prophesied of in this place of Scripture 3. But I shall produce a Third place and that of his own chusing Acts 17. where God is said to have appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead This shameless Enthusiast does not stick to apply to himself this place as if he were the man prophesied of therein Whenas it is manifest it is meant of the Person of Christ whom God had corporeally raised from the Grave as a palpable Pledge and Assurance that the World should be judged by him according to the Scriptures Math. 25.31 But supposing the meaning to be that which this fanatick Boaster would have it see what sense it will make with the preceding verse which would be this That God now commands all men every where to repent namely because 1500 years hence he will raise up H. Nicolas from the dead in a moral sense who shall judge the world by his doctrine What Bedlam Madness is this to vent such Expositions of the Holy Writ upon pretence of higher Inspiration then ever was yet in the World The Apostle's exhortation would be as wild sense as if one should earnestly cry unto the people walking in Paul's to run out of the Church as fast as they can because it is ready one thousand five hundred years hence to fall down upon their heads 4. That I may not omit any places that they alledge I will adde also 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. For we know in part and we prophesy in part But when that which is perfect is come then that which is imperfect shall be done away And Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead works and of Faith toward God of the doctrine of Baptisme laying on of hands and of the Resurrection of the dead and of the Eternal judgement From these two places they are wont to gather that the Doctrine of Christ is imperfect and a more perfect Doctrine was to come which is say they the Doctrine of Hen. Nicolas Which argument is as weak and frivolous as blasphemous For it is plain that in the former place he compares not any Doctrine to be set on foot on earth with the present Doctrine of Christ and knowledge of the Apostles but the condition of the knowledge of the Christian Church in this life with that which she shall have in Heaven and therefore he saith Now I know in part but then I shall know even as I am known What does S. Paul mean that he shall know nothing clear till H. Nicolas his time O the madness and impudence of these giddy Interpreters And to the latter Text What would they have us to let go our Christian Creed under pretence of a new Doctrine which is more perfect Yea certainly they would so as will appear more plainly anon But how shamefully they abuse this Scripture to that execrable end is evident from the following verse And this will we do if God permit That is The Apostle himself will deliver that doctrine of Perfection he mentions in the first verse and therefore it is no Prophecy of the Doctrine of H. Nicolas but a more exquisite Declaration of the excellency of Christs Priesthood which is too long and too accurate to fill a short Creed But what pittiful shifts are these deluded Fanaticks put to when they have no better Alledgements then these for their rebellious Errours against Christ 5. I shall conclude my examination of their grounds of believing this Fanatick so great and eminent a Prophet with something a more trim conceit of his followers whereby they would countenance their high opinion they have of him which is hinted also from himself namely That the Series of Times and Providence seem to give witness to the mighty Professions he makes of his own Ministry For as there was for a time a Service of the Law under God the Father and then a Service of the Belief under Christ the Son so likewise the Holy Ghost must have his turn and have his Service and what Service can that be but the Service of the Love To which I answer That if they speak this in good earnest in reference to the three Hypostases of the ever-Blessed Trinity it is plain that that Mystery was not communicated to the World under the Law of Moses but concealed in the hidden Cabbala among the Wise men and Prophets not to be published till Christ for the better clearing and fitter recommending the Theory of his Union with the Eternal Word With the appearance therefore of Christ with whom all the fulness of Divine Wisdome was to be imparted to men a distincter knowledge of the Deity and clearer assurance of
the Love sect 3. and 7. See him also upon the Beatitudes sect 6. And it is no wonder we hear nothing of that Reconciliation made by the Cross of Christ for he does plainly aver sect 34. That the true being in the Love is that peace with God and man mentioned Ephes. 2.14 and the true Testament that standeth fast for ever And Exhortation chap. 12.44 Remission of sins is gained only by submitting to the House of the Love The same that David George boasted of his doctrine Therefore my beloved children change ye not nor turn away your selves from the House of Love For there is in the same the stool of grace to an everlasting remission of sins over all such as cleave thereon and to a peace and rest of the life to all such as humble them there-under By such slips and omissions as these those that are not very dull of perception may easily spel out his meaning Which yet is more clear by other places of his Evangely chap. 13. Where he setleth the Everlasting Priesthood not upon Christ's person but makes this Kingly Priest no person at all but a thing a state or condition of him and his followers here upon earth And therefore he calls there this mystical Christ The Lords Sabbath The seventh day in the Paradise of God The perfection c. And chap. 22. he makes the entrance of Christ into heaven and his visible ascending up thither and sitting at the right hand of God and sending down the holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost which was a real effect of his eternal Priesthood and Intercession with God for his Church nothing but the appearing of him according to the Spirit out of the Heavenly Being in their Minds or Souls upon which he sent down his Spiritual or Heavenly Powers Wherefore this Mystical Christ is the only high Priest that he acknowledgeth and will allow him no otherwise then in this mystical and spiritual sense to be an everlasting and true Christ of God See the place of which you will assure your self I have given the right sense if you compare it with chap. 26. sect 10 11 12. where he more plainly affirms That it is the upright being of the Love Christ after the Spirit which he calls the true light which is that high Priest that abideth for ever at the right hand of God in the Heavenly Being Which phrase Heavenly Being alwaies signifies morally or mystically with him and means something within us And yet he has the impudence to alledge Acts 1. v. 11. where Christ is said to ascend into Heaven literally and naturally so called his disciples gazing upon him as he went up Thus you see how industriously nay how madly and rashly he shuffles out the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly Office every where And as he will have the Heaven or most Holy within us so will he have his Sacrifice and Passion within us too Introduct chap. 8.38 Where doe any now saith he keep the Supper of Christ where they break distribute and eat the bread which is the true Body of Christ to a remembrance of Christ that he hath suffered in us for the sins cause the death of the Cross and so his death is published till he come in his glory Where it is plain that the Crucifixion of Christ is a mystery in us and it is insinuated a duty too For the Body and the Flesh of Christ is Christ according to the History Which Christ according to the Flesh is to be slain in us if we celebrate the Passeover aright and thus we must publish his death till he come in glory that is in the Spirit 4. And truely no other is his glorious coming to judgment with this Sect then this Mystical and Spiritual coming which was the second part I intended to pursue which I question not but I shall make as clear as noon-day Of this there are so many Testimonies and so pregnant that the only fear is of being too copious in the proof of this matter Revel Dei cap. 7. There his illuminate Elders together with his Family of Love are the Heavens in which Christ the Son of God comes gloriously and triumphantly to judgment to reign with God and his righteousness everlasting upon earth Which plainly excludes the ending of the World and that coming of Christ that all Christians expect And chap. 15. sect 6. he affirms that in this Eighth day which is the day of the Spirit of Love all the dead that are deceased in the Lord Iesus Christ do rise from the death and all Generations of Heaven and Earth do become judged in the judgement of God with equity Again in his Introduct Chap. 1. he saith That now the true glorious God who is the Resurrection and the Life revealeth his Saints out of his bosome where since the time they fel asleep they have rested untill this day of the Love because they should now in these last times in the resurrection of the righteous be manifested with Christ in glory to a righteous judgement of God on the earth And chap. 12. he there also affirms That in this day of the Love there appear and come to us livingly and gloriously all God's Saints which in times past died and fell asleep in God And chap. 22. there he also tells us how that in sure and firm hope of everlasting life the upright believers have rested in the Lord Iesus Christ till the appearing of his coming which is now in this day of the Love revealed out of the heavenly Being with which Iesus Christ the former Believers of Christ who were fallen asleep rested or died in him are now also manifested in glory being raised from the dead to the intent that they should reign alive with him over all his enemies To which you may add what he has wrote chap. 16. in his Prophecy of the Spirit of Love Make you to flight make you to flight yea get you now all out of the way ye enemies of the Lord and of his service of the Love and give the Lord with his holy ones the roome yet shall ye not escape the vengeance of God For he saith the Lord cometh to judge betwixt the Family of the Love and the rest of the world where-through the Earth is now moved the Heavens troubled the Elements melt with heat and the token of the coming of the Son of man appears in Heaven with which rumour or rushing noise of the power of God and his holy ones the last trumpet doth also presently give forth her sound through whose blast of her vehement sound and through the appearing of the coming of Christ the dead shall stand up and arise unto the judgement of God who having revenged the bloud of his holy ones that the sinners have spilt and shed upon the earth he puts this pure Family in peaceable Possession thereof that they may reign there-over or judge the same with righteousness from henceforth world without
end So that the completion of all the Prophets ends in the Triumph of Familism the same which David George boasted of himself See also chap. 15. sect 5. Lastly in his Evangely chap. 35.8 Behold in this same day namely of the Love is the Resurrection of the Lords dead come to pass through the appearing of the coming of Christ in his Majesty according to the Scriptures And a little after sect 9. In which resurrection of the dead God sheweth unto us that the time is now fulfilled that his dead or the dead that are fallen asleep in the Lord rise up in this day of his judgement and appear unto us in Godly glory which shall also henceforth live in us everlastingly with Christ and reign upon the Earth Of which the plain sense is That the Souls deceased so many hundred years agoe are alive again in these of the Family of Love and shall reign everlastingly in them with the Mystical Christ on the Earth Which plainly excludes that other Iudgement or Resurrection in the Literal sense as I said before Again chap. 4. sect 15. For this cause our hope standeth now in this day very little on many of the Inhabitants of the world but we hope with joy much more on the appearing of the dead that die in the Lord or are dead in him to wit that they in their resurrection from the death shall livingly come unto and meet with us For all the dead of the Lord and members of Christ shall now live and rise with their Bodies and we shall assemble us with them and they with us to one body in Iesus Christ into one lovely Being of the Love and be altogether concordable in the Love and peace of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XVII 1. His perverse Interpretation of that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting 2. His misbelief of the Immortality of the Soul proved from his forcible wresting of the most pregnant Testimonies thereof to his Dispensation and Ministry here on Earth 3. Their interpreting of the Heavenly Body mentioned 2 Cor. 4. and the unmarried state of Angels to the signification of a state of this present Life 4. That H. Nicolas as well as David George held there were no Angels neither good nor bad 5. Further Demonstrative Arguments that he held the Soul of man mortall 6. How sutable his laying aside of the Person of Christ is to these other Tenets 7. That H. Nicolas as highly as he magnifies himself is much below the better sort of Pagans His irreverent apprehension of the Divine Majesty if he held that there was any thing more Divine then himself 1. FInally as for that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting his exposition is this We confess that the same everlasting life is the true Light of men and that God hath made and chosen him the man thereto that he should live in the same light everlastingly Where by him the man he means the succession of mankind as any one may know that is but a little acquainted with his manner of writing and by everlasting life and the true light of men he means the Light of the Love and the Service thereof which he presages shall abide for ever Which therefore he cals the house of God's dwelling the eternal rest of his holy ones the everlasting fast-standing Ierusalem the true and indisturbable kingdome full of all Godly Power Ioy and of all heavenly Beautifulness wherein the land of the Lord with fulness of Eternal life and lively sweetness is sung from everlasting to everlasting With such sweet Charms and pleasing enchantments does this grand Deceiver lull asleep his little ones into an utter oblivion and perfect misbelief of those precious Promises of Everlasting Happiness made to us by Christ who hath brought Life and Immortality to light 2. For that there is with no other Life but this nor any Immortality of the Soul or blessed Resurrection which consists in the Soul 's being invested with an Heavenly and Spiritual body according to the plain and literal sense of Scripture his gross abuse of those two main proofs thereof 1 Cor. 15. 1 Thes. 4. do plainly demonstrate which he does wildly distort as he doth the rest of the Scripture to a mere prediction of his Service of the Love in which he will have every thing of the last Day and of the Resurrection fulfilled that we may be sure that there is nothing else to be expected but this For in this the last trump sounds Christ appears in the Heavens being come to judgement those very Saints that in time past died and fell asleep in the Lord are now raised up in glory and that with their bodies and livingly come unto and meet with us according to that in 1 Thes. 4. and lastly these raised Saints that is the Family of Love shall thus reign with their mystical Christ upon earth for ever world without end What interpretation of Scripture can more accurately and radically take away all expectation of Christs personal coming to Judgement and the hope of a Blessed Immortality included therein by the resurrection of the dead then this of this bold Author Which we may be the better assured he intends in that his applications are so miserably forced and yet he has no better proofs then these for the ratifying of his Service of the Love For if he thought they did signifie that which all Christians think they do he could fancy no force at all in them for the establishing of his Doctrine but the orthodox meaning seeming to him utterly incredible makes him confident that he has found out the right sense if he deal bonâ fide and takes not the Scripture for a mere Fable which he may abuse as he pleases 3. For we may observe him using the same industry in eluding the force of such places as are plain for an Immortal state after this life even there where he may seem unconcerned if he held the Soul of man Immortal As that 2 Cor. 5. where the Promise of the Heavenly or Spiritual body is evidently set down as appears further out of the last verses of the precedent chapter and yet these Familists are not ashamed to expound it of the most holy of the true Tabernacle in their canting language whereby they mean the perfection of the Love a state in this life as you may see in their Mirabilia Dei. And in the Spiritual Land of peace That which is writ Luk. 20.35 concerning the children of the Resurrection that they are neither married nor given in marriage but are as the Angels of God he applies to the state of the Service of the Love and makes it fulfilled in his life Which is an Allegory so cross and crooked that nothing but an unbelief of the literal sense could ever have put a man upon the framing of it besides that scurvy intimation it bears along with it of community of wives the very same doctrine that David George is said to
Which must needs be a message of great joy to all people that are of an upright and sincere heart CHAP. XIX 1. That Familism is a Monster bred out of the corruptions of Christianity and ill management of affairs by the Guides of the Church 2. The first Particular of ill Management intimated 3. The second Particular 4. The third Particular 5. The fourth 6. The fifth Particular 7. That this false Prophet H. Nicolas was raised by God to exprobrate to Christendome their universal Degeneracy Prophaneness and Infidelity 8. That though the Evil be discovered it is not to be remedied but by returning to the ancient Apostolick Life and Doctrine 1. AND now after my freedome with your competitours for the rule of Christendome the Illuminated Elders of the lovely Communialty of the Love have the patience to hear me in a word or two O ye conspicuous Lights and Guides of the Communialty of Christ. What think you of this hideous Monster that I have so lively set before your eyes From whence came it Whose brat is this foul errour of Familism Methinks I hear you straight reply H. Nicolas his But I demand further how came H. Nicolas to be such a Monster You will immediately return answer out of Micronius That he received his Metamorphosis from David George But I take leave to ask again Who transformed David George into such an Angel of light To which you 'l quickly reply The Devil His back I confess is broad enough to bear all indeed too broad to satisfie the curiosity of my Querie who would gladly know the more particular causes of so monstrous a production in the bowels of Christendome Which if you be ignorant of give me leave a little to informe you and be not displeased if you find much of the fault laid at your own dores For my own part I humbly conceive that you your selves have congested that putrid matter together which neither Sun nor Moon nor any natural Influence of Heaven but the fiery Wrath of God and his enraged eye of Jealousie has given heat and life to This dangerous Monster therefore have you your selves by Provocation of the Divine Vengeance raised up to your selves and given increase to and strength to subsist Which may appear to you from the due consideration of these Particulars following 2. For first You have so corrupted the Simplicity of Christian Religion by your humane inventions and Opinions which are so incredible so unintelligible so against all Sense and Reason and obtruded on the people with so much force and violence and with an authority and necessity equally indispensable to the very Oracles of God that you are constrained thereby to pronounce of that Religion then which nothing is more reasonable That there is no reasonable account to be given of it but that we are to believe it without examination or inquisition into it and thereby debase it and set it as low as Turcism or the most pittifull piece of Paganism that can be produced You inuring therefore the people to believe things upon no account and obtruding such things upon them as no account can be given of prepare them for the entertaining of every bold Impostor that pretends to an infallible Spirit and commends his adulterous ware upon the same title that you doe yours namely that they are so high and transcendent that they are above the reach of carnal Reason condemning every sober inquisition into the Truth as carnal Wherefore if there be but impudency enough assisted with a fiery Enthusiastick style flowered over with Scriptural Phrases and Allusions with deep and vehement protestations of the irresistible power of the Spirit that transports them and carries them on to that Prophetical Ministry they may securely say what they please and never be tried nor distrusted let them speak never so irrationally and inconsistently For the People are already sufficiently inured to things irrational contradictions and unintelligible whereby the perfectest Non-sense must appear to them the most pure Dialect of the Spirit And therefore there will be no stop but they must needs be carried on with such Torrents of Ecstatick eloquence and be washed away from the body of the Church into this or that Fanatick Sect according as the sutableness of their natural humour and opportunity exposes them to their assaults 3. Again When I consider the ineptness of your Allegations out of Scripture for such Opinions as you are so zealous for and the solemn adorning of the margins of your Theological Treatises with such insignificant citations out of the undeniable Oracles of God as that when one examines them he shall find his understanding as much abused as a mans eye-sight is by that mockery of drawing ones hands one from the other and twisting with his thumbs and forefingers as if there were some subtil string betwixt For assuredly the connexion betwixt your Quotations and your Conclusions is utterly as invisible as that imaginary line to the eyes of the sleepy I cannot but look on the Writings of this Enthusiast as an imitation of yours wherein Providence does reproach to you your unfaithfulness to the credulous people in that you would bear them in hand that all is true you obtrude upon them by your multitude of impertinent references to the holy Writ Which artifice this Mock-Prophet has taken up and out-done you in who stuffes his margins so thick with citations as if every Sentence in the Bible strove to put in their suffrage for him according as he boasts of himself That all the Scriptures from the beginning to the end do point at him and his Ministry if rightly understood Whenas if truly examined though his Margins perpetually point towards the Scriptures they do not at all point at him again in any place nor give him the least nod of approbation nor take any notice at all of him 4. Thirdly Whereas the Mystery of Christianity even as it refers to the External person of Christ is the chiefest obligation of mutuall Love that the Wisdome of God could set forth to the world you that are not only Christians but the Guides of Christendom have so entangled this Mystery with your rash and perverse superadditions with your forgeries subtilties and vain comments that it is become nothing else but a shop of Controversies a School of Contention out of which is heard nothing but brawlings and scoldings about useless Opinions nothing has sprung from thence but Hatred Pride Faction yea barbarous Persecutions and Bloudshed your selves blowing the trumpet out of those holy places which were erected for the preaching of the Gospel of Peace and in an Antichristian phrensy sounding an alarm of warre against such as are in Reconciliation with God through the bloud of Jesus Christ which should be the common cement of Christendome and hold all their hearts together in firm Unity and Concord Wherefore you having thus left empty the Tabernacle of David is it any wonder that a Stranger hath thus stept in and taken
much success in the Christian World and though I have faithfully and industriously discovered the matter unto you yet I must profess that I conceive it not in my power nor any ones else to prevent the sad effects thereof That can only be by a true and sincere Reformation of Heart and Minde into the ancient and Apostolick Life and Doctrine For there is nothing so recommendable to Mankinde as the Christian Faith in the native Plainness and Simplicity thereof nor any thing so horrible and detestable as that vizard that the Depravedness of Christendome has put upon it Which Face of things if it continue Atheism having seized on so great a Proportion it is prone to conjecture that what remains may be easily swallowed up of Familism or of some such parallel Plague of the Church and so the right Faith in Christ may quite be laid asleep never to awaken till there is no use thereof I mean till men be affrighted into a belief by an universal Thunder and Lightning from Heaven and the glorious Appearance of the Son of man in the Clouds to recompence the good and to adjudge the wicked to everlasting Fire For the Counsels of God as his Prophecies are two-handed and both of them in some cases have a meaning conditional But as I desire so I hope the best and it is a great ease to my minde that I have so freely declared what I conceive tends so much thereto BOOK VII CHAP. I. 1. That the Subject of the Third part of his Discourse is The Reality of the Christian Mystery 2. That the Reasonableness of Christian Religion and the constant Belief thereof by knowing and good men from the time it is said to have begun til now is a plain Argument of the Truth thereof to them that are not over-Sceptical 3. The Averseness of slight and inconsiderate Witts from all Arguments out of Prophecies with their chiefest Objections against the same 4. That the Prophecies of the Messias in the Old Testament were neither forged nor corrupted by the Jews 5. An Answer to their Objections concerning the Obscurity of Prophecies 6. As also to that from Free Will 7. That all Prophecies are not from the fortuitous heat of mens Phansies but by divine Revelation proved by undeniable Instances 8. A particular reason of true Prophets amongst the Iews with some Examples of true Prophecies in other places 9. A notable Prophecie acknowledged by Vaninus concerning Julius Caesar's being kill'd in the Senate 1. WE are come now to the Third Part of our Discourse wherein the doubtfull Dawnings of this great Mystery we are clearing up will break out into a fuller Light and the Progress of Truth will be like that of Righteousness that shineth more and more till perfect Day The Possible as also Reasonable Idea of Christianity which I have hitherto represented is but as the Seminal Forme of a Plant hid in the seed under ground but we shall now exhibit it as it were to sense shot up into open view and demonstrate That this Possible Idea has already arrived to a Real and actual Existence in the World Which being a matter of so great consequence we will not huddle it up at once nor yet make any steps more for pomp then for use and the fuller conviction of the Truth we are to prove 2. And truly the very first step I shall make or rather have partly made already I hope to any indifferent man will seem not a little considerable We have very amply and intelligibly declared how highly Reasonable the Frame of our Religion is how becoming and consistent all those things are that Christ is recorded to have done or suffered Add therefore to the Reasonableness of the thing it self the constant and perpetual Tradition thereof for true and that it has been so seriously believed in all Ages that as well the Learned as Unlearned as well the Noble as Ignoble have been ready nay have actually laid down their Lives for a witness thereof And methinks no man that is not over-Sceptical but this Consideration should fetch off his assent For the Fame of those things that are seriously reported and constantly believed by knowing and judicious men cannot rationally be called into question unless the things themselves affirmed seem unreasonable or else over-artificial and in too trim and cunning a dress of Reason That the things recorded are very Reasonable I have already demonstrated And how little of the cunning Artifice of either Logick or Rhetorick they partake of I dare appeal to any that peruse them Wherefore if any man persist in his Unbelief the impediment is not in the Mystery offered to him but in himself that has no desire it should be true either out of Pride as not being willing to find himself to have been ignorant hitherto of the true Religion or out of the love of either the Pleasures or Profits of this present World which the Belief of Christianity does naturally curb But we proceed to what is still more close and cogent That the Iews have for this many hundred years expected and do still expect him whom they call their Messias every one knows as also that this name Messias is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence our Religion is denominated Wherefore if I can prove That this Messias is already come and that Iesus whom we worship is that Christ I have then performed the Promise of the Third Part of my Discourse which is to prove That Christianity the Idea whereof I have hitherto described is not a mere Idea but a real Truth Which first I shall attempt from Prophecies after from History the comparing of both which together will be so strong an Argument that to the unprejudiced it cannot appear less then a perfect Demonstration 3. I know some are of so impatient and superficial a Spirit that they vilifie the very name or mention of Prophecies as arguments of no validity because they cannot find themselves at leisure to weigh the force of them But if they will rationally speak against them they must alledge some of these four Objections viz. That either they are often forged or at least corrupted by some wily Politicians to serve some State-design Or are so obscure that there is no certain sense or meaning of them Or if there be that it does not infallibly import that things thus predicted will surely come to pass there being so great dependance of the affairs of the World upon the actings of men Or lastly to strike home that there never was nor ever will be any Prophecies from any extraordinary Inspiration but that some men have very hot Phansies and their minds running on future things vent what they think and their Predictions like Dreams sometimes prove true sometimes false and that the report of those that have hapned true has begot that false perswasion of there being Prophets in the World 4. Such slight Considerations as these doe marvellously gratifie the Light-minded
rightly either Morall or Divine only tumbling out a Rhapsody of swelling words distorted Allegories and slight allusions to the History of Scripture intermingling them or strinkling them ever and anon with the specious name of Love though there be no motive nor reason that urges the thing it self all the while would give out himself such a Master of this Mystery as that Christianity must be super-annuated and all the devotionall Homage due to our Saviour laid aside all his Offices silenced his Passion slighted nay derided his visible Return to Judgement anticipated and eluded his Resurrection and Ascension misbelieved and the promise of Eternal Life swallowed up in the present glorious enjoyments and enrichments of them that will give up their soundness of judgement and reason to be led about with the May-games and Morrice-dances of that sweet Sect that have usurped to themselves the Title of the Family of Love Whenas the Authour of this Faction as I am well enough informed was more likely to prove a Pimp or second Sardanapalus then a true Instructor of the World in so holy a Mystery being infamous for having suspected Females in his House and living splendidly and deliciously above his rank noted for his crimson-Satten doublet and other correspondent habiliments as also for his large Looking-glass wherein he often contemplated his whole begodded Humanity and composing his long beard and stroaking down his Satten sides might strut in admiration of himself that he found the World so favourable to his false Impostures and lastly ridiculous for his women-Scribes and other such like soft doings not to say impure and obscene All which to any man that has but a moderate nasuteness cannot but import that in the title of this Sect that call themselves the Family of Love there must be signified no other love then that which is merely Natural or Animal though the Preacher of this Love-mystery bears himself so aloft and is so high upon the wing that he cannot phansie himself any thing lesse then that Apocalypticall Angel flying in the midst of Heaven and preaching the everlasting Gospel to the Inhabitants of the World And truly this Gospel of Henry of Amsterdam is likely to be as lasting as the generations of men and I may adde as universall as both Men and Brutes 3. Hear O Heavens and hearken O Earth while I pleade the cause of the just one and despised against the rebellious Hypocrites Thus saith the Lord God Behold I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone a tried stone a precious corner-stone a sure foundation and he that believes thereon shall not be ashamed Iudgement also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lyes and the waters shall overflow their hiding-places That this corner-stone and sure foundation is Christ that suffered at Ierusalem we are infallibly informed by those that were truly inspired the blessed Apostles That the refuge of lyes and hiding-place is most naturally applicable to this skulking Family is apparent in that the summe of their Religion is nothing but a bundle of lying Allegories and Canting Terms whereby they deal falsly with men and under the pretence of fine Mystical speeches would thrust out of the World the choicest and most beneficiall Truth that ever was imparted to the Sons of men I mean the Truth of the Gospel in the plain simplicity thereof whereby we are so clearly taught what we are to be to do and to expect And the Storm that shall overtake them and the Deluge that shall fall in upon them in their hidden dwellings shall be those Torrents of Reason and that irresistible conviction from the sincere and true-hearted followers of Christ. Tell me therefore O ye conceitedly-inspired whose phancies have blown you above Gospel-dispensations why do you run into the errour of the Jews and refuse this precious corner-stone this sure foundation and build upon disunited Sand and rotten Quagmires that will bear no weight Why do you lay aside Christ in the truth of his History the most palpable pledge of Divine Providence of God's Reconciliation to men and of future Happiness that ever was exhibited to the World and chuse for your Guide a mere Allegorical Whisler an Idol-Puppet dressed up in words and phrases filched out of the Scripture but perverting and eluding the main scope and most usefull meaning thereof Why have ye forsaken the only-begotten Sonne of God and given your selves up to the deceivable conduct of a mere carnall man and wholy destitute not only of true faith in God and Christ but of all substantial Knowledge and Reason Why are you so rash and giddy as to believe one that only testifies of himself and is so impudent a Plagiary as to offer you no wares but such as he has stolne from you if you pretend to be of the Christian Church and those so poisoned and adulterated that you cannot receive them without the danger of being struck into a misbelief of the truth of Christs Gospel and of revolting from him to whom so many illustrious Prophecies of old so many Miracles done by himself to whom his wonderfull Resurrection from the dead and audible voices from Heaven while he was living gave ample testimony that he was indeed the true Son of God 4. What indearing evidence or argument has this Mercer of Amsterdam given you of true compassion and love to mankinde that you should vaunt him so transcendent a Mystagogus in so divine a Mystery that you equalize him to nay exalt him above Christ and his Apostles Did he not live a lazy easie soft life as other rich Shop-keepers do whenas not only our Saviour himself but also his Apostles lived an hard Asketick life full of dangers and afflictions also from without Let S. Paul speak for the rest for they were in a manner all of them in the same case and might justly expostulate with these high fanatick Pretenders in the same words Are they Ministers of Christ I speak like a fool I am more in labours more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths often Of the Iews received I fourty stripes save one thrice was I beaten with rods once was I stoned thrice I suffered shipwrack a night and a day have I been in the Deep in Iourneyings often in perils of water in perils of Robbers in perils by mine own Countreymen in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the wildernesse in perils at the sea in perils among false brethren in wearinesse and painfulnesse in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakednesse c. To all which you may adde very despightfull and torturous deaths which most of them underwent at last and all this out of a faithfull love to their Lord and Master Jesus Christ and a dear regard to the good and Salvation of mankinde But what was it wherewith this H. N.
obliged the world so that all due homage and divine reverence to the Person of Christ must be laid aside and this bold Impostor silence the constant faith of Christians by his high pretensions of being the Head and Father of such a Family whose Inscription must be Love who with this Family of his is God and Christ and Cherubims and Seraphims Angels and Arch-Angels already busie in their office of judging the quick and the dead and gathering the elect from all the corners of the Earth 5. But in my apprehension at the very first sight he shews himself very injudicious if not malicious in making a difference betwixt the true Houshold of Faith and Family of Love besides his gross and impudent injustice in usurping that badge of honour to himself that was won by another in a field of bloud For as I was going to say what has this H. N. done to merit this title more then in scribling many fanatical Rhapsodies of unsound language abusively borrowed from the sacred Scriptures and in perverting the sense and supplanting the end by his wicked elusions and vain Allegorical evasions and so under pretense of beginning an higher dispensation of Righteousnes and Religion in the world then ever was yet treacherously introducing in stead of true Religion nothing but Sadducisme Epicurisme and Atheisme This voluminous Enthusiasme of his together with the gracing of the Family with the splendour of his crimson habiliments is all I find that can pretend to any contestation or competition with the true Master of Divine Love or to any obligation of his Followers 6. I must confess our Saviour compiled no Books it being a piece of Pedantry below so noble and Divine a person But that short Sentence which he writ with his own most precious bloud As I have loved you so love you one another is worth millions of Volumes though written with the truest and sincerest Eloquence that ever fell from the pen of an Oratour Nor did he wear any gay Clothes but when by force the abusive souldiers put a scarlet robe upon him indespight and mockery Nor was he resplendent in any colours but what was the die of his own bloud in his solemn and dreadful Passion when he was so cruelly scourged when out of agonie of mind he sweat drops of bloud when he was nailed to the Cross and the lance let bloud and water out of his side All which ineffable and unsupportable torments this innocent Lamb of God suffered for no demerit of his for what thank is it to suffer for a factious Impostor or open evil doer but out of mere compassion and hearty love to mankind that he might by this bitter Passion of his and the glorious consequences of it his Resurrection and Ascension gain us to God And now let all men judge if there can be possibly any Authour or pretended Instructer of the World in that holy and divine Love indeed comparable to the Lord Iesus who has given this unparallel'd demonstration of his love unto us CHAP. III. 1. The occasion of the Familists usurpation of the Title of Love 2. Earnest precepts out of the Apostles to follow Love and what kind of Love that is 3. That we cannot love God unless we love our neighbour also 4. An Exposition of the 5 and 6 verses of the 1 chapter of the 2 Epist. of S. Peter 5. Saint Paul's rapturous commendation of Charity 6. His accurate description thereof 7. That Love is the highest participation of the Divinity and that whereby we become the Sons of God And how injurious these Fanaticks are that rob the Church of Christ of this title to appropriate it to themselves 1. HEarken therefore to me yet that would follow after righteousness ye that seek the Lord Look unto the rock whence you were hewen and to the hole of the pit from whence you were digged Look upon him whom ye have pierced and whose bloud is the seed of the Church whose Spouse was taken out of his side as Eve out of the side of Adam Acknowledge your original and recount with your selves the price of your Redemption even the inestimable bloud of that immaculate Lamb Christ Jesus The sense whereof is the strongest cement imaginable to unite us to our Saviour and one unto another But the Church having been given up so long a time to bitter factions and persecutions to warre and bloudshed and all manner of enmity and hostility one against another it is no wonder if a stranger has invaded that Title which she may justly be thought to have either refused or forfeited For my own part I know not how to apologize for either the fond opinions or foul miscarriages of the Wilderness of Christendome But sure I am That the Banner over the true Spouse of Christ is Love That Love is the badge and cognoscence of all his faithful members by which they are known to be His living members indeed That Love and Peace is the last Legacy which was left to the disciples by their dying Lord and Master an inheritance entailed upon all the true sons of God for ever That Love is the fulfilling of the Law and has filled almost every page of the Gospel and all the Writings of the Apostles and when they speak of Faith it is none other Faith then that which worketh by Love 2. Out of the many repetitions and inculcations of this holy and heavenly Vertue I was a gleaning out some to present you withall for an evidence how serious the Gospel of Christ is and how sufficient in the urging of his indispensable duty We go on therefore and adde to what we have already cited these following places Galat. 5.6 For in Iesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love And if Circumcision be nothing without Faith working by Love what can Baptizing or Rebaptizing or any external ceremony be without this true Faith whose life and spirit is Love which the Apostle directs us to And after v. 13 14. For brethren ye have been called unto liberty only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Where this Law of Love is so carefully described that the abuse of this Title to Lust and Libertinisme is plainly excluded against such as talk so much of Love and are but Libertines at the bottom Which caution also is very soberly and prudently put in by S. Iohn Ep. 1. chap. 5. v. 2. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his Commandements Which is a plain demonstration that that Love which Saint Iohn exhorts to so copiously in his Epistle is a Love purely divine and such as no man can be assured he doth practise unlesse he keep all the Commandements of God For even a carnall man may love the Children of
God because he findes them harmless peaceable and beneficiall or because himself is of a good sanguine benigne complexion But this Love in a man that makes not conscience of the Commandements of God is merely animal and natural not proceeding from that community of the Divine Spirit which all the Regenerate participate of but out of complexion and self-love which will adhere to any thing that it feels a naturall comfort from But if this Childe of God prove something spinose and harsh in opposing rebuking or it may be not complying with some dearly-beloved humours of this good-natured sanguine his corrupt bloud will then begin to boyl against the Son of God and return him hatred for his good will 3. And as this blessed Apostle and peculiarly-beloved of our Saviour has made so carefull a caution that the Love he recommends to the world should not slack so low as to draggle in the dirt so has he wisely provided against the Hypocrisie of high-flown Religionists who pretend to be so transported with love to God and his service that they quite forget their neighbour and therefore at the end of the foregoing Chapter he does plainly pronounce that If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And this commandement have we from him that he that loveth God love his brother also Which duty of the Second Table being most hard and the most lâ—able to be cast off through the Hypocrisie of mens hearts the inculcation thereof is most frequent with the Apostles Paul to the Ephesians chap. 4. ver 31. Let all bitternesse and anger and wrath and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice And be ye kinde one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake has forgiven you Be ye therefore followers of God as dear Children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour And Colos. 3.12 Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindenesse humblenesse of minde meeknesse long-suffering Forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as Christ forgave you And above all things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse and let the peace of God rule in your hearts c. Peter also in his first generall Epistle Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently And in his second Epistle ch 1. And besides this giving all diligence adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godlinesse and to godlinesse brotherly kindnesse and to brotherly kindnesse charity 4. The coherence of this golden chain of Divine Graces is so admirable that I cannot passe it by though it be beside my present purpose to speak any thing of the places I cite But we shall not so well understand the fit connexion of these Vertues with themselves nor of the whole link of them with the precedent Text without rectifying the Translation in a word or two The Apostle in the foregoing verses intimates to them how God has provided for them according to his divine power all things appertaining to life and Godlinesse through the knowledge of his Son Iesus Christ who hath called us in glory and virtue and given us exceeding great and precious promises that having escaped the corruption that is in the World through lust we should be partakers of the divine nature and then comes in what has been recited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they have rendred And besides this Which Translation makes no connexion of sense with the former words but is very abrupt nor will the phrase I think bear that meaning It is better sense and more laudable Criticisme to render it thus And therefore forthwith or without any more adoe adde to your faith vertue c. Which latter words are not well rendred neither The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grotius would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be redundant there so that his suffrage is for the English Translation But for my own part I think that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so far from being redundant that it is essentiall to the sentence and interposed that we might understand a greater Mystery then the mere adding of so many Vertues one to another which would be all that could be expresly signified if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were left out But the preposition here signifying causality there is more then a mere enumeration of those Divine Graces For there is also implied how naturally they rise one out of another and that they have a causall dependence one of another Therefore the sense is That God having on his part fitted all things for their Salvation and they having obtained like precious Faith with the Apostle himself that through the efficacy of their Faith they should also acquire Virtue that is Strength and Fortitude For high and noble Promises excite courage and resolution to set upon the difficulties through which they must passe that would obtain the Promises And this encountring with the difficulties that are in a Christian mans way while he is not a talker of Christianity but a reall actour and cordiall endeavourer to follow the Precepts and Example of Christ will beget not verbal but true Knowledge in him that is holy Experience in the wayes of God And in this Experience he is taught how those fleshly and worldly lusts and desires have often deceived him and led him out of the way blinding his judgement by their importunate suggestions and extinguishing or at least dulling those more religious and divine senses of the Soul when their importunities are listened to and their cravings satisfied And therefore this Knowledge and Experience begets Temperance that is a more rigid resolution of curbing and keeping under of all worldly and carnal desires and a peremptory refraining from giving any answer to their impudent beggings and cravings Which things if a man seriously attempt in its due extent and latitude questionless he will put himself upon a very intolerable task and there will be no remedy but Patience which he will find so mightily out of his power that he will be forced upon his knees to the God of heaven to comfort assist and strengthen him in his agony and conflict against his domestick enemies and to support his spirit in so great anguish and pain Whence it is plain that we cannot keep close to the laws of Temperance but that Patience will necessarily emerge therefrom nor be kept in this Spirit of Patience without the invocation and acknowledgment of Divine assistance which is an unquestionable
said Does this offend you What if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before That will be a very strange and stupendious spectacle to you and such as will assure you of my Divinity but withall remove my body so far from you that you cannot then if you would mistake so grosly as to think I speak of this body and bloud I carry now about with me It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life that is to say They are touching the spiritual body which is the inmost Temple of the holy Ghost and which you are in some measure to partake of here and which shall have its compleat refinement when I shall crown you with the perfection of Life Eternal at the last day Or They are simply concerning the Spirit and that Life which I my self am according to my Divinity viz. The Eternal Word in whom is the Life and that Life is the light of men This is that which you are to feed on and to drink into your Souls when you have not my particular bodily presence with you For this Word and Spirit is every where to be taken in by them that breath and thirst after this Heavenly sustenance of their Souls and so is that fulfilled which he declares v. 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him For the eating of the flesh is in some measure partaking of the spiritual body and the drinking of the bloud the imbibing that life therewith that rayes out from the Eternal Word into all purged and purified hearts whereby Christ dwelleth in them and they in him and God in all 3. Again Iohn 7.37 In the last day that great day of the Feast Iesus stood and cryed saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink He that believes on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters Which he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive as the Text it self expounds it And therefore is a good ratification of the Mystical sense of those Prophecies we rehersed out of Esay But these things are spoken more plainly and without a Metaphor Ioh. 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commandements And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Which Precept and Promise is like that of Esay chap. 58. which is that if we seriously compose our mindes to do due acts of obedience to God he will pour out his Spirit upon us Then shall thy light break forth like the morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward He shall guide thee continually and satisfie thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not That is as any spiritual Christian would be apt to interpret the place If thou thirst after Righteousnesse and in the mean time to thy utmost power do the outward functions thereof in thy duties to God and man at length this Spirit of truth will break forth like the morning light within thee and the emanations of the holy Ghost will so throughly refresh thee and strengthen thee that with ease and pleasure thou shalt walk in all the wayes of God which shall be like the flowry Alleys of a Paradise to thee both to thine inward and outward man 4. Not that our endeavours or desires are any obligation to God by way of merit on our part but it is his mercy to the Soul that does in good earnest pant after him For till he has compleated his work in us all our works are worth nothing and whenever they are worth any thing they are not ours but his And to this sense speaks Paul to Titus chap. 3. But after that the kindnesse and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost which he shed on us or poured out upon us as the Original has it abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour Like that of the Prophet Thou shalt be like a watered garden 5. Adde to these Ioh. 3.5 Iesus answered Verily verily I say unto thee Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit And Rom. 8.9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of God he is none of his And vers 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered And also 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you And lastly Ephes. 3.14 For it were infinite to reckon up all places of Scripture that tend to this purpose For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ of whom the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inward man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God who is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us To him therefore be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus throughout all ages world without end Amen CHAP. X. 1. A Recapitulation of what has been set down hitherto concerning the Usefulnesse of the Gospel and the Necessity of undeceiving the world in those points that so nearly concern Christian Life 2. The ill condition of those that content themselves with Imaginary Righteousnesse figured out in the Fighters against Ariel and Mount Sion 3. A further demonstration of their fond conceit 4. That a true Christian cannot sin without pain and torture to himself 1. VVE have now abundantly proved out of places of Scripture The necessity of inward Sanctification and reall in-dwelling Righteousness
Formalist perceiving nothing of pleasure and sweetness in Holiness and Vertue in himself if he observe others much devoted thereunto that he must judge them to make use of those things for some other more pleasant enjoiment as Praise and Applause or a future Reward and that they are not delighted with the things themselves Whenas certainly a true member of Christ and one really regenerate into his Image could no more cease from pleasing himself and enjoying himself in the sense and conscience of this Divine Life and the results thereof all holy and becoming actions then the Natural man can cease from the enjoiments of the Body though he knows ere long his Body shall afford him no more enjoiments And yet I must also add That it is the next door to an Impossibility that one that is become thus Divine should not have his Heart fully fraught with the most precious hopes of future Immortality and Glory He asked life of thee and thou gavest him even a long life for ever and ever 16. I have now finished my Parallelisme betwixt the Revilements cast upon our Saviour and those that his truest Members may be obnoxious to Which pains I think I have not at all misplaced they tending only to the stopping of the mouths of carnal Censurers and the animating sincere Christians that they may not be discouraged from following so excellent an Example by the affronts and reproaches of the World but that they may know their own Innocency Safety and Freedome while they keep in the true way that is in Christ the Son of God who making us free we become free indeed that is free from the deceits of our own lusts and free from the awe and terrour of imperious and superstitious men that would obtrude their own Errours upon us with as much earnestness and make them as indispensable as the infallible Oracles of God We having therefore spoken what things we thought most requisite concerning The Example of Christ we proceed now to his Passion which is the fifth Power of the Gospel CHAP. XV. 1. The Passion of Christ the fifth Gospel-Power the Virtue whereof is in a special manner noted by our Saviour himself 2. That the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness was a prophetick Type of Christ and cured not by Art but by Divine Power 3. That Telesmatical Preparations are superstitious manifest out of their Collections that write of them 4. Particularly out of Gaffarel and Gregory 5. That the Effects of Telesmes are beyond the laws of Nature 6. That if there be any natural power in Telesmes it is from Similitude with a confutation of this ground also 7. A further confutation of that ground 8. In what sense the Brazen Serpent was a Telesme and that it must needs be a Typical Prophecie of Christ. 9. The accurate and punctual Prefiguration therein 10. The wicked Pride and Conceitedness of those that are not touched with this admirable contrivance of Divine Providence 11. The insufferable blasphemy of them that reproach the Son of God for crying out in his dreadfull Agony on the Cross wherein is discovered the Unloveliness of the Family of Love 1. AND truly this fifth Gospel-Power the Passion of Christ is of so great efficacy and concernment that our Saviour seems with more then ordinary delight to have ruminated on the wonderfull effects that it would have in the world John 12.32 And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me signifying thereby what death he should die as the Text witnesses This shews what a powerful Engine our Saviour himself thought his Death would prove to draw all the World after him Which is a demonstration that the Mind of a Christian ought to dwell very much in the meditation of the Death and Passion of Christ. The use whereof appears in another intimation of our Saviour's though more Typical yet the Analogie is so plain that no man can miss it John 3. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so shall the Son of man be lifted up That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life This is so perfect a Representation of our Saviours Passion that I cannot but blame my self for not entring it amongst other Prophecies that I alledged for the Messiah's suffering 2. And it will still appear more plainly that it was intended a Prefiguration or Typical Prophecie of Christ if we consider that Moses was not put upon it by any natural skill as if the Effigies of this Brazen Serpent did by any power of Art or Nature heal the Israelites of their bitings of the fiery flying Serpent But it was an immediate direction of God by whose supernatural power the cure was wrought As the Authour of the Book of Wisdome expresly has noted namely That he that turned towards that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he styles it the sign of Salvation was not saved by the thing that he saw but by him that is the Saviour of all For beside that the whole mystery of Telesmes is but a superstitious foolery much-a-kin to and dependent of that groundless Pretence of such wonderfull influences as the ancient Pagan Ignorance attributed to the Stars the very matter of this Serpent was inconvenient and improper for this Effect as Interpreters on the place have observed To which I might add that there is not any example of any Telesmes that were ever known to cure the diseasement after this sort that is by only looking thereunto And that those that have been made against Scorpions or other hurtfull Creatures they have chaced them out of the place or killed them upon the Spot but if any one were stung by these venomous Serpents there was a tactual application of the Remedy to him that was hurt 3. And yet I will not so much stand upon this as that the whole business of Telesmatical Preparations is superstitious and that they have no Effect by any natural Virtue or Influence This methinks I plainly discover out of their Collections that seem most pleased in the representing of these Curiosities to the eye of the world in their Writings Gaffarel especially who does with plenty of words but no reason at all endeavour to make us believe that the power of Telesmes is natural but I never knew any cause managed with more slight more loose and more frivolous arguments in my daies But out of his own mouth I shall be able to condemn him and upon these two accounts First in that according to his own Conjectures and Relations the erecting and preparing of these Telesmes is as we contend superstitious or paganically Religious and then secondly That the effects of them where they have any are plainly beyond the power of any natural cause 4. As for the first himself does profess that he is of opinion that the first Gods of the Latines which they called Averrunci or Dii Tutelares were no other then these Telesmatical Images And his reason is
them reproach the person of Christ in his highest Agonies on the Crosse and impute that to a sinful weaknesse and imperfection that was but the due effect of the weight of his Sufferings who bore the Sins of the whole world and made an atonement with God for them Yet because he cryed out in the words of that Psalme which is a lively Prophecie of his Sufferings My God my God why hast thou forsaken me therefore must that Fanatick Fool of Amsterdam and his illuminate Elders that boast so much of Perfection be more perfect then the Son of God himself whose certain appearance in the World is so clearly demonstrated out of the ancient Prophecies of the Old Testament and so manifestly ratified by the Miracles recorded in the New 11. I appeal to all men if Satan himself could vent any thing more despightful and scornful against the endearing sufferings of our ever-blessed Saviour who out of tender love to Mankind underwent those dreadful agonies of Death and waded through the heavy wrath of God for sinners then these Wretches have that would recommend themselves to the VVorld under the false Flourish and Hypocritical Title of the Family of Love whereas by antiquating the use of the Passion of Christ and thus villainously reproaching Christ upon the Crosse they demonstrate to all the world that they have not the least sense or skill in so Divine a Mystery but are wicked Apostates from God who is that pure and Divine Love and Underminers of the Kingdome of his Son Jesus Christ In which neither such high-flown Enthusiasts nor any dry churlish Reasoners and Disputers shall have either part or portion till they lay down those Gigantick humours and become as our Saviour Christ who is the unerring Truth has prescribed like little Children for of such as these onely is the Kingdome of Heaven as the Prince of that Kingdome has declared These therefore he embraced and blessed when he was alive these he dying on the Crosse stretched out his armes to receive to these he wept drops of bloud that they might shed tears for these he was scourged that they might chastise the exorbitancy of their own lusts and evil concupiscences for these he shed his most precious bloud that they might die to Sin and live to Righteousnesse by that power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead This is the Foolishness of the Crosse a Scandal not onely for such as are Unbelievers but even to many of them also that would be accounted zealous and knowing Christians CHAP. XVI 1. The End of Christs Sufferings not onely to pacifie Conscience but to root out Sin witnessed out of the Scripture 2. Further Testimonies to the same purpose 3. The Faintnesse and Uselesnesse of the Allegory of Christs Passion in comparison of the Application of the History thereof 4. The Application of Christs Sufferings against Pride and Covetousnesse 5. As also against Envy Hatred Revenge vain Mirth the Pangs of Death and unwarrantable Love 6. A General Application of the Death of Christ to the mortifying of all Sin whatsoever 7. The celebrating the Lords Supper the use and meaning thereof 1. BUT that this is the meaning of Christs Sufferings that is That we should also suffer in the Flesh and mortifie our sinfull members besides what our Saviour himself has intimated in comparing himself to the Brazen Serpent in the VVildernesse the sight whereof did not onely asswage the pain of them that were bitten but take away the poison whence we may reasonably conclude that the looking on Christ on the Crosse is not onely to heal the Stings of Conscience upon sin committed but to destroy the Poison and corruption of Sin out of us that we may not sin any more is plain in that the Apostles themselves also do urge the Use of Christ Crucified to both those ends and purposes Saint Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins But this use of the Crosse namely Propitiation and the Peace of Conscience all men catch at There is more need of producing such places as shew the other use thereof for the Mortification of our sins That of Saint Peter 1 Epist. chap. 4. is very expresse For asmuch therefore as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh arm your selves likewise with the same minde for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God For the time past of our lives may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness lust excesse of wine revelling banquettings and abominable Idolatries To which sense he speaks at least as fully Chap. 2. ver 19. For this is thank-worthy if a man for conscience towards God endure grief suffering wrongfully For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously who his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the tree that we being dead to Sin should live unto Righteousnesse by whose stripes we are healed For ye were as Sheep going astray but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls What can warrant the use of the Crosse for the cure of sins more plainly then this 2. But we will hear also what Saint Paul saith 2 Tim. chap. 2. ver 11. This is a faithful saying If we be dead with Christ then shall we also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us This is most certainly true as well of inward Mortification as of outward trouble and the mention of the death of Christ is to support our Spirits in the enduring of both And Philip. 3. ver 10. That I may know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death viz. That as Christ died upon the Crosse so he might be crucified to the world and all the vain Lusts thereof and those that walk otherwise he cannot but proclaim them enemies to the Crosse of Christ whose God is their belly and whose glory is their shame who minde earthly things ver 18. And Galat. 6.14 But God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ by which the world is crucified to me and I unto the world that is The world is but a dead spectacle to me my affections being dead to it I will close all with that excellent place Rom. 6.3 Know ye not that as
Ghost by his mysterious union with the Eternal Word by his miraculous Resurrection from the dead and by his visible Ascension into Heaven and Session now at the right hand of his Father This is warrant enough to do all Divine homage to our blessed Saviour as to the only-begotten Son of God And truly the Church to give them their due has not been sparing the very constitution of our Religion being so effectual for this purpose For so Divine a Person as Christ was namely The very Son of God and yet condescending to undergoe so horrid a death for the World how could engaged Mankind stint themselves from shewing of all manner of expressions of Love and Devotion toward him 3. Wherefore they erected innumerable magnificent Structures of Temples Chappels and other Religious Edifices and consecrated them to his Name They endowed the Christian Priesthood with ample Riches and Dignities set up Church-musick sung divine Anthems in honour of our Saviour adorned their Churches celebrated his Passion with unexpressible reverence instituted Festivals and filled both Time and Place with such variety of Ornaments that a man might observe that the greatest part of the Splendour and Pomp of Christendom was in reference to their Religion Which certainly would have been a very goodly and lovely spectacle if Superstition Hypocrisie and Ecclesiastick Tyranny could have been kept out 4. But this External Worship and the Ceremonies thereof things equally performable by the evil and the good by the regenerate and mere natural man these took growth enormously and like ranck Weeds choaked the Corn or what happens in full and over-fed bodies in which natural heat and activity is very much lost the huge load and bulk of visible Formalities extinguished the Life and Spirit of Religion 5. But however this outward Homage to our Saviour continued and does continue in a great measure over the face of Christendom to this very day though their expressions are not alike courtly every where Which continuation of Divine Honour done unto him cannot but gratifie his faithfully-devoted Servants they having a deep resentment of the shameful Sufferings their Lord and Master underwent out of his dear love to them and therefore do naturally rejoyce at this Tribute of Divine Adoration the World gives to so holy and sacred a Person it being so sutable a part of compensation of his Humiliation and Reproach Besides that they receive some satisfaction that Divine Providence has so brought it about touching the true Members of Christ whose Principles are so opposite to the Guise of the world and their Persons so contemptible that yet the World are fain with the lowest prostrations to adore that in Christ which they kick about and trample upon so in his despised Members But I will insist no longer on this Theme having spoke enough of it elsewhere We have now shewn the Usefulness of the Mystery of Godlinesse in all holy and religious respects I shall adde only a word or two in reference to things of this Life and so conclude the fourth part of my Discourse CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulnesse of Christianity for the good of this life witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self 3. Objections against Christianity as if it were an unfit Religion for States Politick 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political with the advantage of that Concession 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government as doth Charity for example 7. Humility Patience and Mortification of inordinate desires 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall 1. THat Christianity contributes also to the Happinesse of this present World is evident both from the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles and also from the nature of the thing it self Matth. 6. Where our Saviour having exhorted us not to be over-sollicitous for the things of this Life food and raiment setting before our eyes the care of Divine Providence in Creatures of far lesse price then our selves how the Fowls of the Air are provided for that neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns how gloriously the Lilies of the Field are arraied that neither weave nor spin he concludes That we should not so eagerly and carefully seek after those things as worldly-minded men do But seek ye first the kingdom of God saith he and his righteousnesse and all these things shall be added unto you For your Heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things And Paul to Timothy Godlinesse is profitable for all things having the promise of this life and that which is to come 2. And if we consider the nature of the thing it self there is an accruement of present Happinesse from true Christianity not only by virtue of Promise but even by natural dependence of Causes and Events especially when that Christian frame of Spirit has arrived to any considerable degree of perfection and maturity For there is no such obliging person in the world as a mature and ripe Christian nor any truer Policy then to be obliging Which Temper the more sincere it is the more taking it is and the more sure Fortress against adverse Fortune Wherefore what advantage Humanity has he has it in the greatest measure Besides that his calm and castigate spirit makes him sensible discreet above all expression and of a sagacity beyond all conceit of the unregenerate man His Faithfulnesse also and honest and chearful Industry have their proper blessing attending them And his moderate desires of Riches and Honours and his laudable use of them unblemished with any blot of either sordid Covetousnesse or vain Ostentation prevents or beats back the ill-aimed darts of secret Malice and Envy And if but a meaner share of the things of this world be allotted to him yet his contentments are not the lesse he finding that true which both David and Solomon have pronounced That better is a little that the righteous has then great possessions of the ungodly And when more unsupportable pressures and afflictions fall upon him such as great Fits of Sicknesse Imprisonment and the Approaches of Death his Advantages in this Condition are unspeakably above what any other mortal is capable of For the more these urge his outward man the more his inward is inflamed and excited to the exercise of those powers that are most holy and precious and needing no admonition though so fit and apposite as that of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Circumstances of things themselves will assuredly awaken this Christian Champion to the exertion of all the strength of his Soul and to the successful use of his spiritual weapons wherewith he is armed against the day of battel For
above described does plainly implie Repentance which comprehends in it a rejection of such apprehensions as we now have discovered to be false and an abhorrence from and sorrow for all our misdeeds with a willingness to make satisfaction where we have done wrong if it lie in our power and a proneness to take revenge of our selves in curbing our selves and cutting our selves short of the ordinary enjoiment of such things as are in themselves lawfull they being for the present not so expedient for us but rather hurtfull and dangerous 3. He that is thus affected as we have described and can thus willingly and sincerely close with Christ and receive him as King as well as Priest and Prophet and holds himself bound in duty to live in the World as he lived following his Example in all things and has as I have already said a love and liking of those Graces he has recommended to the World is a fit New-Covenanter For flesh and bloud has not revealed these things unto him but the Spirit of God that remains in him he being born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible the word of God that lives and abides for ever Of this state may be understood that of S. John Whosoever confesses that Iesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God and chap. 5. Whosoever believeth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God And this is that new birth without which there is no entrance into the Kingdome of Heaven namely unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit that is to say born of the Spirit which is figured out in Baptismal water which is the outward sign of this inward Regeneration whereby a man is a capacity of thus Covenanting with God obteins remission of sins in Christ and becomes a real and visible member of his Church 4. And when he is thus born into the Church he is not then taken into the armes of absolute Omnipotency to support him defend him and nourish him but there is much-what the same reason that there is of a young plant newly sprung out of the earth or a young child newly born into the world unless they meet the one with a carefull and skilfull Gardener the other with good Nurses they are both in hazard of being spoiled with one sad accident or other their growth may be hindered if not life extinguished by neglect or untoward handling For the influence of Grace is not always irresistible nor the purpose of it undefeatable but is much-what as the power of Nature and her offerings and attempts towards the perfection of those Species of things she produces as I have also above noted She works alwaies towards the best but may be checked or stopped and the Spirit the Apostle saies may be quenched as well as natural Fire And though Nature freely offers that comfortable principle of life the fresh Aire yet the Lungs of the child may be so stuffed by the unwholsome milk of a wretched and unfaithful Nurse that he cannot receive it to continue life and health but the poor Infant must be forc'd to yield to the importunity of the disease and to dy by their hands who professed to administer life and nourishment to him 5. There is the same reason in those that are as yet Infants in Christianity that have really a life and sense and desire to what is truly good but are not yet come to that growth but that they are to suck from others If they that pretend to nurse them up impart poison in stead of the sincere milk of the Word there is no question but they are in very great danger of losing that life they are newly begotten into and of falling from this New Covenant That there were of old such Nurses or rather Witches that in stead of feeding these Infants suck'd the very bloud and life of Religion out of them several passages in the Epistles of the Apostles do intimate as I have already taken notice namely That they were little Children whom those Impostours would make believe that they might be righteous though they were not righteous as Christ was righteous Which is to squeeze cold poison into their mouths not to suckle them with the saving milk of the Word St. Paul was a more faithfull Nurse and taught Titus to be so too Chap. 3. where after the mention of the entrance into this new Covenant by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the holy Ghost he presently addes This is a faithfull saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works CHAP. X. 1. The First Principle the new-Covenanter is closely to keep to 2. The Second Principle to be kept to 3. The Third and last Principle 1. WHerefore that there be no Recidivation nor standing still but that there may be a due advance and growth in the Christian life the First Principle that the new-Covenanter is to adhere to stedfast and unshaken is this That there is an indispensable obligation in this new Covenant of living up so near as we possibly can to those Precepts of the Gospel that are delivered either by the mouth of our Saviour himself or the holy Apostles and that we are not to allow our selves in any thing that our own consciences tell us is a Sin nor be discouraged as men out of hope if we finde our selves against our own meaning and purpose at any time mistaken but with chearfulness and confidence in the mediation of our Saviour to adde more resolute endeavours and the greater circumspection for the future making even an advantage of our lapses that sudden surprisal or any errour or frailty brought us into for an higher and more speedy advance in the Divine life These two considerations of our indispensable obligation to duty and Christs Intercession and propitiation for us S. Iohn has prudently bound up together 1. Epist. 2. My little children these things I write unto you that you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is a propitiation for our sinnes and not for ours onely but for the sinnes of the whole world Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandements He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandements is a liar and the truth is not in him But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected As this point is exceeding clear as I have more largely proved elswhere so is is most necessary to be believed and to be remembred perpetually that we may keep our selves safe from tasting touching or coming any thing near the sight or sent of that lushious poison of Libertinisme let it be coloured sugared over or perfumed with the most gracious termes or glorious expressions that the deceivable Eloquence of man can put upon it and that we may
Slave under the First that acts not out of a principle of Love and inward Life and liking but out of some external respect and cares not how little he does or what is the frame of his mind so he may but scape being well cudgelled for the present and receive at last the promised wages of his Master But under the Second Covenant the case is quite otherwise For the true Christian there is impatient of Sin merely because it is Sin and bears the same analogie to the sense of his Soul that a wearisome or torturous disease does to the sense of his Body and therefore it is intolerable till he be freed from it and that the more by how much the more assured he is that it is contrary to the will and minde of Christ who came into the world to heal us of our iniquities and to free us from all sin 5. And therefore lastly we are never to rest contended till we find our selves through the power of God arrived to this state and frame of spirit and that in such an height as is competible to humane nature that there may be nothing undestroied that is contrary and opposite to the Life of God in us That that may be fulfilled which is prophesied in Isaiah That they that fight against Israel shall be as nothing and they that strive with him shall perish Thou shalt seek them and shalt not finde them even them that contended with thee they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought CHAP. XII 1. That the destroying of Sin is not without some time of conflict The most infallible method for that dispatch 2. The constant ordering of our external actions 3. The Hypocritical complaint of those for want of power that will not doe those good things that are already in their power 4. The danger of making this new Covenant a Covenant of Works and our Love to Christ a mercenarie friendship 5. Earnest praiers to God for the perfecting of the Image of Christ in us 6. Continual circumspection and watchfulness 7. That the vilifying of outward Ordinances is no sign of a new-Covenanter but of a proud and carnal mind 8. Caution to the new-Covenanter concerning his converse with men 9. That the branches of the Divine life without Faith in God and Christ degenerate into mere Morality The examining all the motions and excursions of our Spirit how agreeable they are with Humility Charity and Purity 10. Cautions concerning the exercise of our Humility 11. As also of our Purity 12. And of our Love or Charity The safe conduct of the faithfull by their inward Guide 1. AND this may serve for a more general direction and encouragement but we shall annex also what is of more particular consideration For we have express'd our selves hitherto as if so soon as a man were under the Second Covenant there needed nothing but the finding out of his Sins for then armed with Faith and Love he could suddenly destroy them But that I may be rightly understood it cannot be without some time of conflict But the stronger he is in these Divine Vertues the Victory will be the easier and the speedier But in the mean time the Flesh will be working against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and Patience and Faithfulness is required on our side that we doe what God already has put into our power And assuredly it is in the power of the new-Covenanter to mortifie all manner of corruptions and immoderate desires in due time by this short and infallible method viz. By a constant denial of their cravings Give a Begger nothing at thy door and he will never visit thee Desire is starved by being unfulfilled A man you know often loses his appetite by staying over-long for his dinner 2. Inordinate Desire will haunt a man like an Ague if we pamper and satisfie it The Devil and the Sop will both down into our bellies at once But thou maiest pine out both Desire and the Devil that lurks in it by a pertinacious Temperance or stopping thy self in thy outward Actions Affect not Vain-glory and applause in thy outward actions or speeches but modestly decline it and Pride will fall in thy Soul In good time thou shall finde Humility rise in thy heart and sweetly shine in thee with her milde light Give not thine Anger vent and it will be extinct like smothered fire Answer not thy Lust or Lasciviousness and it will cease to call unto thee but die as a weed trod down into the ground Dare to doe good though thy base heart gainsay it and pleasure thy very enemies those that hate thee or envy thee For Covetousness and Hatred being thus oft crossed will out of discontent at last quite leave thee 3. But if thou be false to God and thine own Soul in those things which he hath put in thy power and he hath put the outward man plainly in thy power and neglectest the performance of them and yet dost complain of want of strength thou art in plain English an Hypocrite and dealest treacherously with Christ in the Covenant and the Devil and thine own false heart have deceived thee Thou colloguest and flatterest with thy lips and tellest fair stories of the Loving-kindness and free Grace of God in Christ but thy heart is far from him For whosoever names the name of Christ is to depart from iniquity as has been already noted out of the Apostle 4. But now in the second place as we are faithfully to persist in a constant abstinence from outward evil actions and in a perpetual exercise of such as are good so we must by all means have a special care that we take not up our rest in these and so make this new Covenant a mere Covenant of works as if by these external performances we did so oblige Christ as that he were bound to give us Heaven by way of gratitude or of bargain and purchase we dealing craftily herein as poor men doe sometimes with great Persons presenting them with something of small value to get from them a reward of far greater worth they having in the mean time no cordial affection to those they present with their gifts but only baiting the hook to catch a fish Nay I adde further That personal Love and Affection merely upon this account of being externally beneficial to us in dying for us and delivering us from eternal destruction even this does not fill up the End and purpose of the Second Covenant For this were little better then a kind of mercenary Friendship and such as is competible to the mere Natural man for he can love him that does him such a good as his very Animal frame or temper is sensible of But our Love and Friendship with Christ must be still more inward and more intimate we being tied to him not only by the sense of external Benefits but by Unity of Spirit there being the same Life and
and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto him There is a further enumeration of the Angelical classes Colos. 1. where the Apostle speaking of this high exaltation of the Person of Christ he intimates not only the Subjection of the Orders of Angels to him but their Reconciliation to God by him and as some would have it a fuller Confirmation of them in his favour vers 15. Who is the Image of the invisible God the First-born of every Creature For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist And he is the Head of the body the Church He is the Beginning the First-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell And making peace through the bloud of his Crosse to reconcile all things by him unto himself whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven So mighty and wonderfull was the result of the Humiliation of our Saviour and so clear and warrantable an Object is he of Divine Adoration 3. Thus is the Divine Life Triumphant in the Person of Christ the Head of his Church But another main design of the Gospel is That the Divine Life may be advanced in us that is that Faith in God through Christ that Humility Love and Purity may have their due growth in us here that thereby we may be fitted to receive that immortal Crown of Glory which he will bestow upon all true believers at the last day when he shall carry his whole Church with songs of Joy and Triumph into his celestial Kingdome That this is the main purpose of the Gospell I have already sufficiently proved and therefore need adde nothing in this place 4. The fourth and last Rule or Measure of Opinions is The Recommendableness of our Religion to those which are without that is to say We must have a special care of affixing thereto any of our own Inventions or Interpretations of Scripture for Christian Truths which may seem uncouth and irrational to strangers and such as are as yet disengaged For though those that by reason of their education have had full acquaintance with Christianity will adhere to their Religion though it may be corrupted with many false glosses and fond opinions of men as indispensably obtruded as the undoubted Scripture it self yet strangers that are free and unaccustomed to them will not fail to boggle at them and being offered to them also with equal Authority with the very Word of God they will be necessitated to fly back and to relinquish the Holy Truth by reason of the indissoluble intertexture of the gross falshoods they find interwoven with it A thing that is seriously to be considered by all those that bear any love to the Gospel and desire that it may be propagated and promoted in the World For certainly it was intended for a more general good and larger diffusion then has been hitherto by reason of its having fallen into faithless and treacherous hands who make it only an instrument of gaining wealth and power to themselves and of riding the people and not of gaining souls to God CHAP. IV. 1. The general use of the foregoing Rules 2. A special use of them in favour of one anothers persons in matters of opinion 3. The examination of Election and Reprobation according to these Rules And how well they agree with that Branch of the Divine Life which we call Humility 4. The disagreement of absolute Reprobation with the first Rule 5. As also with the third 6 And with the second and fourth 1. THese are the four main Rules which I conceive very usefull to examine either other mens Opinions or our own And if the heat of our spirits or the confidence of others would urge upon us pretended Truths for to admit of open falsities or forgeries for what advantage soever is intolerable that are not subservient to these designs above named we may well look upon them as idle curiosities and if they pretend also to Revelation or Inspiration that it is nothing but Madness and fanatick Delusion But if they do not only not promote but countermine those designs above mentioned they are to be looked upon then not as frivolous but dangerous and impious and so to be declined by all means possible And lastly though they appear such as may contribute something to those designs if followed and embraced yet I must adde also this caution that they are not to be forc'd so as that unless a man will profess them he must be accounted no good Christian. For they coming from a fallible and doubtfull hand they ought not in reason to infringe that undoubted right of Christian liberty the Scripture alone being full enough to perfect a Christian both in life and doctrine 2. There is also a further use to be made of these Rules in favour of one anothers persons though of different Opinions that is by taking notice what good they drive at as well as what evil they tend to which makes much for peace and brotherly kindness and may blunt the edge of eager and bitter zeal that makes the over-fervid Zelot think that he that is of a contrary opinion to him intends nothing but mischief by his opposite doctrine In examining therefore every Opinion we are to observe what design of the Gospel it agrees with as well as what it crosses And that the Use of our Rules may the better appear I shall now shew the practice of them by trying some few Opinions of no small note by this Touchstone For it were an endless business to examine all and needless because by these examples he that lists may examine the rest indeed any that either has been or ever will offer it self to the World in matters of Religion 3. The first that occurrs is such an Election and Reprobation that wholly excludes Free will The Controversie is so well known that I need not state it Applying this doctrine to the four Rules I have set down I find in the Third that it has some compliance with that choice branch of the Divine Life namely Humility and a submission of a mans self and all the World to the will of God It is the Lord let him doe what he pleases And that therefore a serious and humble Soul being much taken up and transported with this consideration may think of nothing else but take this Doctrine to be very Truth nay live and die in it and go to heaven when he has done Whence it were a piece of Satanical Fury to persecute any such Opinionist and want of Charity these living as well as other Christians not to bear as good affection to them as to
I further add touching all this rest of Mankind which I speak of That there is Grace sufficient offered to them some way or other some time or other and that several of them according to their faithfulness to that light and power which God has given them shall be actually saved At which sentence neither the Arminian ought to repine nor the Calvinist For whatever good Arminianism pretends concerning all mankind is exhibited to this part not absolutely elected and to the other part the Goodness of God is greater then is allotted by Arminius And whatever good there is pretended in Calvinism to that part that is absolutely elected the same Goodness is here exhibited and besides that direfull vizard pull'd off that Ignorance and Melancholy had put upon Divine Providence and on the lovely Face of the Gospel 4. I may adde to this That he that finds himself in an extraordinary powerfull manner carried to that which is good may as fully ascribe it to God's free grace as in the Calvinistical Hypothesis and he that has no mind to Goodness cannot lay the fault on God but himself Nor can Satan tempt by that forcible stratagem to either despair or dissoluteness suggesting that if a man shall be saved he shall be saved or if damned he shall be damned and that he can neither help on the one nor hinder the other For unless a man be very deeply radicated in Faith and sincere Obedience I should hold it a piece of fond Self-Flattery to take himself for one of the Elect whenas he may hold of a more seasonable Tenure and act accordingly as a Probationer and when he has got to that irrelapsable condition of those whose Souls are after a manner perfected in Faith and Holiness it will better become him then to entitle God alone to all those Transactions wrought in him and to take up that saying of Jacob Verily God was in this place and I knew it not and name the place he slept in Bethel The Temple of God For such is the body of every Regenerate Christian and especially of the Elect. 5. This Concession of ours thus far as it is most true and certainly not unserviceable for the promoting that thankfull and humble frame of Spirit that would attribute all to the Irresistibleness of free Grace and to the force of their particular and irrevocable Predestination and Election so is it also a mighty safeguard from those dangerous miscarriages that too often happen the other way Wherein there being no mean but one must be either Elect or Reprobate how prone is it out of self-Self-love to take up a stout and peremptory conceit that a man is the Childe of God destinated thereto before the foundation of the World and that he can no more miss to be saved then he did to be born But as for others poor Offalls and Out-casts of the Creation that they can never find out the way to Heaven and Salvation do what they can let them importune God and vex and weary Nature never so much but are like Sampson with his eyes put out brought upon the stage of this World only to make the Philistims merry or at best to be mere foils and blacks to set off the beauty and lustre of the secure Saints who being unavoidably caught as it were in a nooze or fast snare of Salvation laid for them from all eternity so soon as they once phansy themselves taken by the leg do so bounce and dance in the string with that enormity and violence as if they tried by their wild tugs and jerks whether the force of their Corruption or the Decretall thread be the stronger 6. Nay do grow up to such a pitch of Fool-hardiness as to think themselves not possibly able to run themselves out of breath by the most wild and dissolute courses imaginable nor remove themselves one hairs breadth out of God's favour for all this In fine do proceed so far as to acknowledge no Law but their own Lust and the fulfilling their own masterless will and consequently do conclude that they cannot sin Thus imitating a false Pattern and making themselves compendious Puppets or Pocket-medals of that great Idol of theirs for it is no God that wills as they say merely because he wills And so they dance and sport about the imagination of their own heart as the children of Israel in the Law-givers absence did about the molten Calf Thus has this dark Conceit which some rash spirits have endeavoured to make essential to Christianity led many one into secure Libertinism first and after into most desperate Atheism CHAP. VI. 1. The Scholastick Opinions concerning the Divinity of Christ applied to the foregoing Rules 2. As also concerning the Trinity 3. The Application of the Antitrinitarian Doctrine to the said Rules It s disagreement with the third 4. As also with the second 5. The Antitrinitarians plea. 6. An answer to their plea. 7. How grosly the denying the Divinity of Christ disagrees with the third Rule 1. THE next Opinions that occur are those concerning the Divinity of Christ and the holy Trinity And first those of the Schools of which I shall only say in general That though their industry and sincerity of their design may be commendable which was to unite the Humanity of Christ of Hypostatically to the Divinity that there should be no suspicion of Idolatry in doing the highest divine Honour to Him we call the Son of God and that therefore what they drive at is very agreeable to the second Rule we have set down yet for my own part I think they have made so little proficiency to the main End that that one plain expression in Athanasius As the Body and Soul is one man so God and Man is one Christ is better then all their curious definitions of things which reach to no greater Hypostatical union then that of the Body and Soul whenas I dare say if it were searched to the bottom the Union betwixt the Divinity and Humanity in Christ is more one and more exact then that of Soul and Body which they call Hypostatical But they have defined things so unskilfully and perplexedly that though their design be agreeable to our second Rule yet their performance does clash much with the third and fourth Such contradictions or unintelligible spinofities weakening Faith and hindring the passage of the Gospel to them that are without 2. Which may be rightly said also concerning their subtil and inconsistent disquisitions and conclusions touching the Trinity Wherein though their design be in the same respect commendable as before yet they have made the mystery so intricate and contradictious that they weaken the Christian Faith to those that are within and make it less passable and recommendable to strangers and have given occasion thereby to some bold Spirits it being so disadvantageously represented to them to deny the whole Mystery whereby they have purchas'd to themselves the Title of Antitrinitarians 3. Whose Opinion I
having been contracted by our Lapse may justly by Religion be set on our score This Sincere Christian whose Character I have given will be so far from setting the Person of Christ at defiance and vilifying his Passion Intercession and holy Priesthood that he will with the greatest reverence of Devotion that can be imagined love him and adore him and will not quit that sweet Repose of minde he findes in the recounting with himself what an inestimable Friend he has with God for all the Pleasures and greatest Interests of this present life nor presume to be justified by his own Life or Works but by Faith in Christ whom he rejoices to think that he shall see his Judge at the last Day 3. This is the true and sound complexion of a Sincere Christian and he that does not faithfully endeavour to arrive at this state discovers himself to be an halting Hypocrite and one that is no Lover of the Divine Life nor has tasted the sweetness of Sanctity and of the holy Spirit of God nor known the power of his operations He that pretends to be above it he is self-condemned and betraies himself of what Kingdome he is that he is inacted by the envy of Satan against the Kingdome of Christ to antiquate his Offices and to lay aside his Person which he perswades sundry fanatical Souls to do puffing them up with the conceit of Self-perfection on purpose to exclude our Saviour The danger of which errour is no less then the utter forfeiture of their Eternal Salvation For no man shall inherit eternal life but by the donation of the crucified Iesus whom God has appointed Judge at the last day Besides that the very life and moral temper in these Revolters from the Son of God if we compare it with that of the Sincere Christian there is as much difference to them that can tast as betwixt the wilde grape and the sweet So hard a thing is it for either Nature or the Devil to imitate the true tincture of the Spirit of Christ. Their vine is the vine of Sodom and their fruit as the clusters of Gomorrah and their Churches as a field whom the Lord hath blasted there is the smell of the Sulphurous Lake and of the pit of Hell amongst them 4. The last thing I propounded was the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Of which Opinion as the reasons are slender or none at all so the Usefulness thereof to me invisible not knowing that it promotes any End of the Gospel which I can take notice of But that there may be a Millennium as they usually call it or a Long Period of time wherein a more excellent Reign of Christ then has manifested it self yet to the World may take place truly it seems so reasonable in it self and there are such shrewd places of Scripture seem to speak that way that it is hard for an indifferent man to gainsay it But I conceive then that the Renovation of the state of things will be as S. Peter speaks into new Heavens and new Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell wherein real Sanctity and universal Peacefulness shall bear sway wherein the crucified Iesus shall not be onely complemented aloof off and saluted in Statues and Pictures both himself and his Mother and all his Apostles and most eminent Adherents whenas in the mean time Mars Venus and Pluto and other Idols of the Heathen are cordially lov'd and serv'd all Christendome giving themselves enormously to War and Bloudshed to Lust and Luxury to Wealth and Covetousness worshipping these Deities in Spirit and in truth but as the Divine honour done to our Saviours person shall not then cease so the power of His spirit shall be more potently felt for the unpaganizing of the World and for the destroying of this spiritual Idolatry which is the Inordinate Affections and fierce endeavours of the Animal Life and shall implant such a love and liking of the life of Christ that Peace and Righteousness shall overflow all Contentions about Opinions shall then cease they being priz'd onely by the Pride and Curiosity of the Natural man and all the goodly Inventions of nice Theologers shall then cease and all the foolish and perplexing Arguments of the disputacious Schools shall be laid aside and the Gospel alone shall be exalted in that day And truly the Millennium being in such a sense as this stated it is both probable and very desirable and an opinion that agrees with nay such as may very well further all the designes of the Gospel as any one may discern by making application to the Rules I have set down Of which Rules these few Examples may serve to shew the use and to teach a man how to extricate himself from that mighty cumbersomeness of the numerosity of Opinions whether they be suggested from his own thoughts or offer'd by other men For if he applies them to these Rules he will finde most of them either so little to the designes of the Gospel or so much against them that he will account some not worth the sifting others not worthy the naming much less the entertaining by a sober Christian. Which practises and considerations cannot but tend much to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ if diligently observ'd though but by private Christians I shall onely give some brief touch what is proper for the Magistrate to contribute for the Advancement of Christianity and then we shall conclude CHAP. X. 1 That in those that believe There is a God and a Life to come there is an antecedent Right of Liberty of Conscience not to be invaded by the Civil Magistrate 2. Object That no false Religion is the command of God with the Answer thereto 3. That there is no incongruity to admit That God may command contrary Religions in the world 4 5. The utmost Difficulty in that Position with the Answer thereto 6. That God may introduce a false perswasion into the mind of man as well for probation as punishment 7. That simple falsities in Religion are no forfeiture of Liberty of Conscience 8. That though no falsities in Religion were the command of God yet upon other considerations it is demonstrated that the Religionist ought to be free 9. A further demonstration of this Truth from the gross absurdities that follow the contrary Position 1. BEfore we can well understand the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion we must first consider the Common Right of Mankind in this point provided they be not degenerated into Atheisme and Prophaneness For he that believes there is no God nor Reward nor Punishment after this life what plea can he have to Liberty of Conscience or how unproper is it to talk of his Right in matters of Religion who professedly has no Religion at all nor any tie of Conscience upon him to make that wicked profession For Atheisme as it is very coursely false in it self to any man that has the clear exercise of his Reason so is
when others in civil respect put it off are the main Effects of that Spirit that distinguisheth you from others of the Nation 3. Is this therefore the great purchase you have obtained by turning your back on Christ and contemning of his Person to grow rude and clownish to all the World beside But methinks I hear you answer again As for this man we know not what is become of him but behold the Spirit is sensibly present amongst us even at this day But I demand by what Signs O we shiver and quake every joynt of us But that is no certain signe of the Spirit of God Was not the winde suddenly turned into the North or had you not an Ephemera or was not your over-excited Choler entangled or turned out of the way by Phlegme or Melancholy What miraculous power is there in all this O but there are also amongst us that have fallen down into a trance that have foamed and swelled till their buttons break off Wherefore of a truth these men could not but be full of the Spirit and this be a Miracle indeed If your Religion oweth not its growth to the tricks of Juglers and Tumblers or to artificial Epilepsies I do confesse it is a Miracle from these Symptomes if Satan himself drives not on the designe For these are plainly the passions of Pythonicks such a kinde of possession as seized the Pagan-Prophets and Priests of old who were no better then the worshippers of Devils whose Oracles Christ has silenced long since Wherefore examine your selves if you glory not in your shame See how you tread look behinde you or rather search within you who is the Prompter or first Mover in this new Scene of things 4. For tell me I beseech you what did your foaming Prophets when they vented themselves discharge into your ears whereby they may be deemed more Divine then those Fanatick Pagans Was not their continual song so soon as they got upon their feet the burning up of all Ordinances From whence therefore could this voice come but out of the flames of hell or what could swell the bodies of your Inspired but the venome and poison of the Devil which at last working up to their mouths he spit out enviously against the worship of Christs Person and all his holy Offices Which is another evidence against you that your pretended Inspirations are not divine but diabolical and that the mystery of Satan worketh amongst you who would fain pull down Him whom of a truth God hath set up to be a King and Priest to the Nations for ever 5. But the sweetest satisfaction of all is that you are so extraordinarily illuminated that you understand all the Mysteries of Christs kingdom better then any one else and can in a supercilious pity bemoan the ignorance of the World or with an imperious bitterness fly in their faces and reproach them for it especially the Teachers of the people that they have not taken up your Allegorical knacks nor know how to give a mystical meaning of the Gospel from the preaching of Iohn the Baptist to the coming of Christ to Judgement But you are indeed so unilluminated as not to understand that such devices as these are merely Allusions of humane Wit and help very little to the enforcing of that they are made to signifie namely Repentance and Mortification of every evil lust and concupiscence and a renovation of our mindes into the perfect image of Christ that his spirit may rule in us and that the works of death and darknesse may be utterly destroied For this Truth is plainly and literally contained in the Scripture so that if your mindes were not more set upon fancies then savoury instruction you need not run a gadding after any new Guide for the attainment of this light And God be thanked many honest plain-hearted Christians that do not swagger and make such a noise with Mystical phrases as you both hear and live according to these Gospel-Precepts using a secret and silent severity upon themselves not acting the rough and hairy Baptist upon others as you do who love to oâ—tentate your self-chosen austerities to the eyes of the world like the Pharisees who made sowr faces for fear the people should not take notice that they afflicted their bodies with fasting What purchase therefore have you got by your Allegorical Mysteries unlesse you have been emboldned thereby to let go the Historical truth of the Gospel and have found your selves much at ease that your belief is not charged with such miraculous things as are written of Christ partly done already and partly to be done at the end of the World For hereby you do proclaim your selves Infidels and that for all your boasting your spirits are so foul and impure that they are no fit receptacles of the holy Christian Faith but that you have levelled your selves as low as Epicures and Atheists who are no more capable of the belief of these things then the Beasts of the Field 6. If it be thus with you I dare appeal unto you whether you keep so precisely to the light within you but that you have consulted with that blinde Guide H. Nicolas and tasted of the treacherous sops of his abhorred Passover whose Fanatick boldness has led the dance to this mad Apostasy Have you not celebrated his detestable Phase who has gone about to perswade the World that the greatest and truest Arcanum of the Lords Supper is Iudas-like to betray their Master to kill Christ according to the flesh that is to lay aside and misbelieve the Truth of his History Ask your own hearts if the warmth of this sop has not so encouraged you nay inflamed you with insufferable bitternesse against the Ministers of Christ as teaching nothing but lies because they have not ceased to believe the Truth Has not this with him that entred in with it so intoxicated you with rage that you have trampled the holy Bible under your feet Is it not this that hath made you so often roar against and revile the Preacher in the Pulpit and disturb the publick Assemblies by your rude and frantick interpellations Which Extravagancies demonstrate by what Spirit you are led and that you are plainly Rebels against Christ and are revolted to the Powers of the dark Kingdom 7. These things I could not forbear to write as being very much pressed in Spirit thereunto For the Light within me that is my Reason and Conscience does assure me that the ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Historical meaning thereof is very solid and true and that the Offices of Christ are never to be antiquated till his visible return to Judgement according to the literal sense of the Creed and that Familisme is a mere Flam of the Devil a smooth tale to seduce the simple from their Allegeance to Christ. And therefore I beseech every man in these daies of Liberty to take heed how they turn in thither especially those that are of an
persons at great distances off nor doth cease till a due distance after the congress 7. Concerning Preaching that which is most remarkable is this That whereas there are three chief kindes thereof namely Catechizing Expounding a Chapter and Preaching usually so called whereof the first is the best and the last the least considerable of them all this worst and last is the very Idol of some men and the other rejected as things of little worth But assuredly they are of most virtue for the effectual implanting the Gospel of Christ in the mindes of men and of the two as I said Catechizing the better because it enforces the catechized to take notice of what is taught him and what is thus taught him is not so voluminous but that he can carry it away and remember it for ever and withall the most Useful as being the very Fundamentals comprized in the Christian Creed or the first and most natural results from them tending to indispensable duties of life and therefore will alone if sincerely believed and faithfully practised carry a man to Heaven But the next profitable way of Preaching is Expounding of a Chapter provided that he that does so makes it his only business without any vain excursions to shew his reading to render those places of the Chapter that are obscure easie and intelligible to the capacity of the Auditors with some brief but earnest urging of their duties from such passages as most necessarily tend thereto This will make the private Reading of Scripture pleasant to his charge And it will prove the more effectual for their good if he contain himself within the New Testament and fetch only so much out of the Old as will be subservient for the full understanding of the New There is nothing so likely to convince the Conscience as this when men are able to reade and understand the Text of Scripture it self and are sensibly beat upon by the power of that Spirit that is found in those Writings far beyond all the fine Speeches and Phrases of humane Eloquence Which yet is the greatest matter in this Third way of Preaching and the truest use that can be made of it namely not to fill the peoples head with unprofitable or hurtful Opinions but by the artifice of a more florid and flowing style to raise the affections of the Auditors to the love and pursuit of such things as are commanded us by the Precepts of the Gospel I confess therefore This exercise may be of laudable use in such a Congregation where all the people are throughly grounded in the Fundamentals of Christianity and are well skilled in the knowledge of the Bible otherwise if the other Two necessary wayes of Preaching be silenced by this more overly and plausible way it is to the unspeakable detriment of the flock of Christ. Which will happen even then when it is performed after the very best manner How great then is the evil think you when the exercise of their popular Eloquence is nothing but a Stage of ostentation and vain-glory to the Speaker and begets nothing but an unsound blotedness and ventosity of Spirit in his hearers and admirers they being intoxicated with lushious and poisonous Opinions which tend to nothing but the extinguishing of the love and endeavour after true Righteousness and Holiness and the begetting in them a false security of minde and abhorred Libertinisme Had it not been far better that they had rested in the Fundamentals of their Faith comprised in the Apostles Creed with an obligation on their Conscience to live according to the Laws of Christ and his holy Precepts then to be led about and infatuated by the heat and noise of such false Guides 8. Concerning Praying it is an Epidemical mistake That men think extemporary Prayers are by the Spirit and that the Spirit is not in a Set Form Whenas in truth the Spirit may be absent in the highest extemporary heats and present in the use of set Forms where there may appear greater calmness and coolness For the Spirit of Praier does not consist in the invention of words and phrases which is rather a Gift of Nature as the Faculty of extemporary speaking in other cases is proceeding from heat and phansy and copiousness of the Animal Spirits but in a firm belief in God through Christ and in an hearty liking and sincere desire of having those holy things communicated to us that we pray for And therefore he that reads or hears a publick Liturgy read in such a frame of minde as I have described does as truly pray by the Spirit as he that invents words and phrases of his own For there is nothing Divine but this holy Faith and Desire the rest is mere Nature And it is a demonstration how ignorant these men are that talk so loud of the Spirit whenas they cannot so much as discern what is truly Spiritual from what is but Animal and Natural To which you may adde That if none pray by the Spirit but those that invent their own words the whole Congregation are very Spiritless Prayers they all hanging upon the lips of the Minister who alone will be acknowledged to pray by the Spirit Whose pretended assistance is not yet always so powerful as to protect him from the incurring of the danger of Non-sense and of making the Publick Worship of God insipid or else distasteful and loathsome or which is even as ill contemptible and ridiculous 9. Wherefore it is far more safe as it is undoubtedly more solemn to use a publick Liturgy that bears the authority of the whole Church then to venture so holy and devotional a performance upon the uncertainty of any mans private spirit who will be but tempted to ostentate his own conceited Eloquence or forced to discover his own weakness and folly Whenas a set Form will prevent all Pride and knackishness and preserve the publick worship in its due reverence and honour especially where it is contrived with that cautiousness that nothing is expressed therein that engages the Minde in controverted Opinions but speaks according to the known tenour of Scripture undepraved by humane glosses 10. But you will say if a Minister be cut so short in these performances of extemporary Praier and expatiating Preachments how shall he be able to give any eximious Testimony of his abilities in his calling how shall he have the opportunity of shewing his Gifts To which I answer That the end of the Ministry is not the Ostentation of any mans particular Gifts but the Edification of the People which are better edified by diligent catechizing and faithful and judicious expounding of the Scripture then by loose and ranging Discourses out of the Pulpit where he that speaks having taken leave of his short Text may fill the ears of his Auditors with nothing but the noise of his own conceits and inventions whenas in the Exposition of a whole Chapter suppose at a time the peoples mindes will be kept closer to those
power of restoring us to all that we have lost by being under the Usurper 15. That also in this Head all the notable Objects of the Religious propensions of the Nations should be comprized in a more lawfull and warrantable manner 16. That this Idea of Christianity is so worthy the Goodness of God and so sutable to the state of the World that no wise and vertuous Person can doubt but that it is or will be set on foot at some time by Divine Providence and that if the Mâ—ssias be come and the Writings of the New Testament be true in the literal sense it is on foot already 242 CHAP. XII 1. That the chief Authour of this Mystical Madness that nulls the true and literal sense of Scripture is H. Nicolas whose Doctrine therefore and Person is more exactly to be enquired into 2. His bitter Reviling and high Scorn and Contempt of all Ministers of the Gospel of Christ that teach according to the Letter with the ill Consequences thereof 3. The Reason of his Vilification of them and his Injunction to his Followers not to consult with any Teachers but the Elders of his Family no not with the Dictates of their own Consciences but wholy to give themselves up to the leading of those Elders The irrecoverable Apostasie of simple Souls from their Saviour by this wicked Stratagem 4. His high Magnifications of himself and his Service of the Love before the Dispensation of Moses John the Baptist or Christ himself 5. That his Service of the Love is a Third Dispensation namely of the Spirit and that which surpasses that of Christ with other Encomiums of his doctrine as That in it is the sounding of the last Trump the Descent of the new Jerusalem from Heaven the Resurrection of the dead the glorious coming of Christ to Judgment and the everlasting Condemnation of the wicked in Hell-Fire 6. That H. Nicolas for his time and after him the Eldest of the Family of the Love in succession are Christ himself descended from Heaven to judge the World as also the true High Priest for ever in the most Holy 247 CHAP. XIII 1. An Examination of all possible Grounds of this fanâ—tick Boaster's magnifying himself thus highly 2. That there are no Grounds thereof from either the Matter he delivers or from his Scriptural Eloquence Raptures and Allegories 3. The unspeakable Power and Profit of the Letter above that of the Allegorie instanced in the Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension of our Saviour and his coming again to Iudgment 4 That Allegorizing the Scripture is no special Divine gift but the fruit of either our Naturall Phansie or Education 5. That he had no grounds of magnifying himself from any Miracles he did 6. Nor from being any Special Preacher of Perfection or Practiser thereof 7. Of that Imperfection that is seated in the impurity of the Astral Spirit and ungovernable tumult of Phansie in Fanatick Persons 251 CHAP. XIV 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel groundlesly applied to him 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21 of being That Prophet 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to himself 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet 5. Their arguing for the authority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dispensations with the Answer thereunto 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of but only affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially it follows not that it is H. Nicolas he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast or worse 255 CHAP. XV. 1. That the Personal Offices of Christ are not to be laid aside That he is a Priest for euer demonstrated out of sundry places of Holy Writ 2. That the Office of bâ—ing a Iudge is also affixed to his Humane Person proved from several Testimonies of Scripture 3. Places alledged for the excluding Christ's Humanity with Answers therein 4. The last and most plausible place they do alledge with an Answer to the same 258 CHAP. XVI 1. That Hen. Nicolas does plainly in his Writings lay aside the Person of Christ as where he affirms That whatever is taught by the Scripture learned is false and That all the Matters of the Bible are but Presigurations of what concerns the Dispensation of his blessed Family 2. Other Citations to the same purpose and his accursed Allegory of Christ's celebrating his Passeover with his disciples whereby he would antiquâ—te and abolish the true Historical knowledge of him 3. Several places where he evidently tâ—kes away the Priestly Office of Christ. 4. Others that plainly take away his glorious Return to Iudgment and the Resurrection of the dead in the true and Apostolical sense 262 CHAP. XVII 1. His perverse Interpretation of that Article of the Creed concerning Life everlasting 2. His misbelief of the Immortality of the Soul proved from his forcible wresting of the most pregnant Testimonies thereof to his Dispensation and Ministry here on Earth 3. Their interpreting of the Heavenly Body mentioned 2 Cor. 4. and the unmarried state of Angels to the signification of a state of this present Life 4. That H. Nicolas as well as David George held there were no Angels neither good nor bad 5. Further Demonstrative Arguments that he held the Soul of man morâ—al 6. How sutable his laying aside of the Person of Christ is to these other Tenets 7. That H. Nicolas as highly as he magnifies himself is much below the better sort of Pagans His irreverent apprehension of the Divine Majesty if he held that there was any thing more Divine then himself 268 CHAP. XVIII 1. The great mischief and danger that accrues to the World from this false Prophet 2. The probable Ferocity of this Sect when time shall serve and eagerness of executing his Bloudy Vision 3. That Familisme is a plot laid by Satan to overthrow Christianity 4. What the face of things in likelihood would be supposing it had overrun all 5. The Motives that inforced the Authour to make so accurate a Discovery of this Imposture 271 CHAP. XIX 1. That Familism is a Monster bred out of the corruptions of Christianity and ill management of affairs by the Guides of the Church 2. The first Particular of ill Management intimated 3. The second Particular 4. The third Particular 5. The fourth 6. The fifth Particular 7. That this false Prophet H. Nicolas was raised by God to exprobrate to Christendome their universal Degeneracy Prophaneness and Infidelity 8. That though the Evil be discovered it is not to
Faith and Devotion and invigorated Meditations of the other State will so fortifie his spirits and strengthen his minde that in all this affliction he will become more then Conquerour through the power of Christ that enables him to all things And by how much the enjoyments of this present life are diminished the more his thoughts are cast upon those that are to come 3. This brief Intimation shall suffice to shew how serviceable Christianity is for comfort and solace in this present life to every true Christian in his private Capacities But I must not omit to discover also that advantage which a Communialty has by becoming truly Christian. Which I am forced to the rather because some have not stuck to pronounce of Christianity as of a Religion never intended for bodies Politick and very disadvantageous for publick Concerns As if Christian Humility Mortification of the Flesh and Patience of Injuries would so cow and soften a Nation that it would make them as helplesse as innocent and thus betray them to the victorious Fierceness of their invading Neighbours and the Precepts of Charity so indispensably urged but slacken the hands of those that are able to work and fill the whole Land with lazy beggars Such like Cavils as these have some ill-willers not only to Christian Religion but as I suspect to any Religion that would curb their inordinate affections invented and cast abroad but more to the detection of their own ignorance and shame then of any Imperfection or Unfitness in Christianity whereby it may not be the Religion of the most flourishing States and Kingdoms that can be constituted 4. In answer therefore to the proposed Objections I will in the first place acknowledge with them That the Gospel was not intended primarily for the advantages of this Life nor bore in it any Politick design for the administration of Publick affairs of State but for making men in their private capacities good and happy and for working their spirits into such a frame of Life and Holiness as would most certainly assure them of that Joy and Glory that is laid up for Believers in the other World But withall I cannot but take notice By how much it is plain that there is no Political or Worldly Design in the Gospel by so much the more evident it is that there is no deceit nor falshood therein and that it is not the cunning contrivance of some crafty Law-giver but an holy sincere and infallible Testimony of the Will of God concerning the True way of Salvation and of the everlasting Happiness of the Souls of men 5. But though I have been so liberal as to allow them thus much yet I deny That there is any thing in Christian Religion but what is not onely not inconsistent with but highly advantageous to a State or Kingdome that becomes truly Christian. For empty noises and names of things do nothing Wherefore I shall affirme That whatever advantages other Religions may be thought to have for conscientious obedience to the supreme Powers and faithfull dealing betwixt man and man which is the universal scope of all Religions as they are made serviceable to bodies Politick Christianity has these and upon more evident and unquestionable grounds then any Religion else whatsoever For what Religion is there in the World that can give that demonstration of a Life to come that Christianity doth in the Resurrection of our blessed Saviour that infallible pledge of immortal Happiness to all his followers The truth therefore of Christian Religion rightly represented being so irrefutably convincing to both the learned the unlearned the Heart and Conscience not onely of the People but also of the Magistrate will be the more irresistably bound to the performance of their mutual duties one to another The Result whereof is an unviolable Peace and with that all such comforts of Life as the best Laws and Governments pretend to aime at for making a Nation happy 6. Nay I adde further that those things that they object against Christianity are such as if a Nation become truly Christian do most effectually reach the chiefest Ends of Political Government Of which one main one is mutual succour in time of need And what is more proper for this then Charity Nor is there any fear that this proneness to help one another shall relaxate the endeavours of the generality of the body Politick but it only sweetens their care and industry and takes off that torturous solicitude that must naturally attend those that know too well that if they cannot hold up themselves they must certainly perish Which desperate consideration forces them to all possible tricks frauds for Self-Preservation Which uncomfortableness of life and the evil temptations thereof are prevented in a Common-wealth that is truly Christian and consequently sincerely Charitable Neither will Laziness thereby be nourished this same Christian frame of Spirit making them all more ambitious of doing then receiving good according to that noble saying of our Saviour It is a more blessed thing to give then to receive 7. And as it is without controversie that Humility the patient Suffering of injuries and the Mortifying the exorbitant desires of the flesh do tend most certainly in a Polity that is become thus Christian to a constant Peaceableness and a faithful and impartial Administration of Iustice in all things For from whence is Warre and Dissension Violence and Injustice but from the inordinate lusts of the Flesh from Pride and Desire of disproportionable Revenge so is it as true also that they make us not a whit more liable to the invasion of our Enemies as becoming thereby more cow'd or soft in Spirit For a due castigation of the lusts of the Flesh rendreth the Body more healthful and hardy whenas Luxury will certainly make it rotten and effeminate and expose it to all manner of diseases And it is a very unskilful conceit to think that Humility will make them such tame things that the enemy may take them up and carry them away at his pleasure For Christian Humility does not consist in being content to be brought under bondage by men but in not despising others and not arrogating any thing to our selves nor seeking unjust dominion over others for our own pleasure and satisfaction 8. Nor does Patience toward particular injuries inure the Christian at all to be remiss in making resistance against an unjust Invader of his Country and Liberties For the very same Principle namely the Divine Love that prompted him to bear private wrong the damages whereof he could better reckon up will as forcibly urge him to resist such publick Violence done against the body of Christ who are more dear unto him then the apple of his eye and their Concerns as much beyond his private Interest as their Number exceeds his single Person His Love therefore to Christ who died for him and whose Cause then shall really lie at the stake His sincere affection to his fellow-members to