depends on its Capacity of Knowledge and Circumstances it is then naturally in or how far it is liable to be mistaken in it self or impos'd upon by such Agents as will certainly as much as they can deceive it and when and where and how far God will permit or interpose by his special Acts of Information and Perswasion But that God should decree absolutely or will any Evil is an Opinion so full of Absurdities yea and in its tendency so apt to over-throw all Religion that no single probability or other difficulty can perswade a considerate Man to believe it therefore I think I need say no more in this matter 51. And now after all these Considerations I cannot but reflect and consider with Grief the miserable State of Christianity and the Professors thereof as well as of the rest of Mankind of the generality of those that call themselves the Reformed and Protestants as well as of the Papists between whom I can see but very little difference they agree so much still in many the same Unreasonable Doctrines as the Fundamentals of Religion as well as consent in the like wicked Practices as the Upholders and Effects of those Doctrines How much is the World and many the highest Pretenders to Religion in it alienated and changed from True Religion and the Scope and Design thereof in its Primitive Purity and Plainness How much more busie and concern'd are Men in contriving and contending for idle and uncertain Speculations and Niceties than in doing the plain undoubted and necessary Duties of the Gospel Natural Religion or the Practice of Love Goodness Mercy Brotherly Kindness Patience Meekness Humility Truth c They seem much more intent in considering according as every ones Fancy and Education leads him how Men are or may be saved or not saved than in working out their own or in furthering other Mens Salvation Whilst they place the main business in hitting the right notion how Salvation is wrought and in this they are also commonly mistaken they labour very little in conforming to the easily known Will of God according to the Precepts and Pattern he hath given us in the Man Christ Jesus whose pure holy Life seems hard and uneasie to the Rebellious Will but to be saved in the Theory is look'd upon now as more pleasant and desireable And how apt are Men now a-days to judge and condemn one another and that merely on the account of their Differences even in their idle Speculations in which Censures some are so ridged that they will hardly allow any but themselves and a few whose Noses are just of the same length and fashion to have smell'd out the way of Happiness or to be fit for Christian Brotherly Communion with them But we will not be afraid to affirm That whosoever truely loves God and his Neighbour shall certainly be saved or happy nay is pass'd from Death to Life Whosoever does not cannot be happy till he does tho' he may have the finest yea the best System of Divinity in his Head Tho' he have all Faith even to remove a Mountain of Contradictions to believe the greatest Mysteries Absurdities or Nonsense imaginable That one pure simple Act and Habit of Child-like Love to God is really more influencing to persevering Obedience and pleasing to God than the most Catholick Orthodoxy in the World He more truely knows God even by experience that loves him tho' but a Child than the most eloquent and subtile Teacher in the World that does not love But I am afraid nay I think I need not question it that the life of Religion is very much eat out and weakned by those many unreasonable Doctrines Whilst we have it taught either implicitly or expresly That God is the Author of Evil. One that made the greatest part of the Creation for that very end to be inevitably miserable for ever and consequently that they must needs be and continue Sinners to make them so That he is one that loves the Miseries of his Creatures and takes such pleasure in their Pains that he will bear with their Rebellion for ever rather than not have them unhappy That he made the most of them on purpose to shew his Power and Sovereignty in their everlasting Disorders Yea that that little number that he is said to be dearly hired and hardly perswaded to spare are continually afflicted with one Mischief or other from his hand tho' they are seeking him and crying after him continually he is not so ready to hear but often hides himself from them And yet that tho' this little number is sohardly saved they are infallibly sure of Salvation do or not do what they will Who would not rather be astonished and confounded and render'd inactive than influenced to love and obey God by these Doctrines When farther I am told that I cannot keep God's Commandments but that Christ hath keept them for me consequently my keeping them is not so necessary if suppos'd possible and God reckons Christ's Perfect Righteousness to be mine and I am perfect in him tho' I am not like minded all is done for me without me if I can but believe that is fancy so Ah but my Heart misgives me may one that considers say I fear that if Christ hath done all for me without me he will be happy also for me without me and I shall go to Heaven but by Proxy Who will be humbled before God and thankful for his free Beneficence and Forgiveness when we are perswaded that Christ hath purchased it at a full rate of him by his Doings yea and Sufferings for us and we may demand Happiness of God as our due But I fear many such Confidents will be put off with I know you not Nay how do we acknowledge God just and good and ready to forgive when we are perswaded that tho' he does not satisfie himself in punishing us for our Sins yet he will have them punished somewhere or other and rather than any where in the most Innocent Man Jesus on whom they say he laid all the Punishment or Misery due for the Sins of all Men and yet nevertheless most of them are damn'd and all of them die and that he reckon'd him guilty of others Sins tho' he were not so O Justice how unjustly hath the Malice of the Adversary represented the Fountain of Goodness and Justice But what shall the Generality of Mankind do What Encouragement shall they have to their Duty How shall they be stir'd up to seek Life and Happy Immortality especially the poor Convinced Souls that cannot get up so high as to read their Names in the Eternal Decree of Life or see yet much of the Effects thereof in themselves When they are told unless they are of that little number Christ has made Satisfaction for and ten thousand to one whether they be or no all their Repentance is in vain and their best Works are Sins in the sight of God tho' perhaps splendid Ones When they are taught that greater Goodness Justice Mercy Truth c. in one Man is less acceptible to God than much less in another and so God a Respecter of Persons Supposing I cannot perswade my self as I think all Predestinarians do that I am one of the Elect or do not believe that God has absolutely decreed either to save or damn any I am nevertheless convinced of my Sin and Duty as the way of Unhappiness or Happiness and would fain be happy Shall not I do my Duty on a Fancy that God has not decreed the Event or must I despair in it the former were but Madness the latter a miserable Condition But I must leave these things to the Thoughts of the Considerate and to them I would propose this Question What has been the reason that no more of Mankind have embraced Christianity and where has the fault been I think surely Original Goodness has not hinder'd nor has the fault been in the Christian Religion it self or in the want of the Love of Happiness in Mankind I believe you must confess that the generality of its Professors have discredited Christianity and given the World a false Draught or Picture thereof Till which is mended what hopes can we have of the Conversion to Christianity of those who have not from their inconsiderate years its Deformed Doctrines impos'd upon them and the disagreeing Lives of its Professors recommended to them What Expectations can we have of convincing Jews Turks and Pagans when not only the above-named Doctrines and an hundred more perhaps have represented Christianity as full of Contradictions and Absurdities and unsuitable to the Condition and Nature of Man But we even seem to differ in our Notions whether there be One or More Objects of Divine Worship insomuch that if those that have not yet embraced Christianity were to hear our Discourses and Forms of Worship they could not I believe but think that a great part of Christians believe and worship more Gods than One and even enjoin such a Faith and Practice upon pain of Damnation yea some of them having no better Arguments urge it by the Rack of Persecution while their Lives also are as different from Unity in pure Christian Morality Which now adays is distinguish'd from Religion O Times and a Moral Man is spoken of with Contempt in comparison with the Religious as a different Person But I must confess I look upon nothing as a Doctrine of Christianity or think can reasonably be represented as such or proved so to be by Scripture which does not naturally tend to promote Morality or Influence to those Good Manners which become our relation to God and which are convenient and profitable towards the true Interest of Mankind I would that Men would once come to try Doctrines by their natural Inferences and Tendencies then I should hope Truth would more appear But I must here conclude tho' I have been very short on every Particular I have been discoursing as unable now to write all I could wish to say of the Natural of the True Christian and of our Laodicean Religion promising my Reader an Answer to what he shall rationally object against whatever has been said in this Discourse and therewith a fuller Demonstration of things if God give me Life and Opportunity supposing that my whole Life must be spent in labouring against our common Errors if the Appearance of Christ don't bring on their Period sooner FINIS
most fully satisfied and perfectly pleas'd I mean as a Creature can be in acting towards God with a certain noble Neglect of it self as delighting if it had any thing to bring to God rather in giving than in receiving The Creature being but an Image of God it is highly reasonable the Creature should value and esteem it self but as such but should value and esteem God in Truth and Justice as he is that Self-sufficient Being the Creature is but a shadow or Representation of least the Good or Pleasure of the Creature be set in the place of its Cause In Love is found the height of the Creature 's Happiness and the Act of giving in the created Desire always contends with the Passion of receiving the Creature affects and is pleased in the Act of affecting and is again pleas'd with the thoughts that its Affection is welcome or agreeable to the Will of the Affected but that it's God's Will and Pleasure we should love him is a greater reason that we should so do than that we are pleas'd in doing it for God's Will or Pleasure is better and more requisite than ours When we love God best who we know would be loved and so we ought to love and who loves us again or rather first then will be found whatever can be in love possible to the Creature God we rationally believe cannot be profited or have any encrease of pleasure by us or our loving him or loose any by the contrary he being sufficient in himself but as his own Thoughts are in most perfect order as he thinks aright of himself as he is knows himself and his own Will to be most high best c. so he loves and likes that the Thoughts of his Creatures should be orderly or that they should think of him as he is and of themselves as they are and hence as Creatures are many and whoever loves God and is happy thereby cannot but suppose others capable to be and actually are such Agents and Recipients as himself we in loving God for his Benefits must never forget to love him because he is good to others as well as because he is good to us 14. Now as God having all absolute Perfections in himself cannot be suppos'd to have any thing disagreeing in his Will he must needs be suppos'd if he work or make any thing to make it such as becomes him to make that is good and consequently he must be suppos'd to love and approve his Works he cannot be thought to disapprove any thing he himself does and what he makes as his Work cannot be thought unworthy of his Approbation and Good-will tho' he himself is the greatest and only necessary Object to himself And if God who is most wise love and approve his own Works it is highly reasonable we his Works should be determin'd by him to do so too and of God's Works it is reasonable first that we should love our selves as well as we can with such a Love as God loves us and esteem our selves with such an Esteem as God has for us we should be well pleas'd and rejoyce in being what God has made us and be ready to do what ever God wills us to benefit our selves and make us happy and think of our selves just as we are that is as nothing in our selves but as the Shadows Images and Creatures of God and not as God's our selves or not as such whose pleasure is the chief thing Now if we are bound in compliance to the Will of God as well as by interest to our selves to love or wish our selves well and to his Truth and Justice to think of our selves as we are to esteem our selves such as God has made us and be pleas'd in so doing certainly the same Will of God obliges us in conformity thereto to love our Fellow Creatures and be pleas'd with what ever of God's Will or of Goodness or Truth or Loveliness we see in them God loves them as well as he loves us as equally good and excellent with us as they are as much his Creatures who are as much his Images and as near to him as we are and we ought to imitate God as he is imitable He is pleas'd with his own Works as to what he hath made them so we should be pleas'd with and in them as they are his Works we should like his Works and admire him in them delight in beholding his Wisdom in making them and endowing them as well as in what he hath made us And as God is good to his Creatures and loves them that are capable of Happiness with a Love of Beneficence so we should desire also to be good and beneficial to them to endeavour to confer to their Happiness because God wills their Happiness This Love of Benevolence or Act of Good-will to our Fellow Creatures this desire of being good to them because God is so and wills us to be so hath not only the Argument of Duty in Conformableness to God's Will to perswade it but hath also that of pleasure in the very action greater than any is ready to believe that doth not practice it and as it lies not idle in the Mind but is unsatisfied tell it effects some Good if possible to the Object and confers to its Happiness it tends to bring back advantage as it naturally inclines the benefited Person to the like Re-action But this Love of Beneficence when it most nerely imitates God proposing no advantage to self is most excellent and perhaps hath a greater delight attending it than can be found in that Love which is forced by the sight of Good in the Creatures There is also a Love of Gratitude when we love them because their Love and Beneficence to us deserves it this Love is just and so a Duty but it is a less God-like Love being grounded in Creature imperfect self which without the higher Love to keep it right would become evil As to love God himself merely for his Benefits if there can be such a Love would be to make our own Will our own Pleasure the beginning and end of all to make our Will as ours the chief thing and God who is infinitely better than we and other Creatures who are if not better as good but subservient to us which is unreasonable yea the root and foundation of Evil. Now to love God First because he is best and wills that we should love and esteem him as such it being just and good so to do Secondly Because he is good to us is the Author and Giver of all we are and have of good to love him for these Reasons with all our Heart all our Soul and all our Strength that is truely or unfeignedly according to our Knowledge of him and intensly or strongly as we can And to love our Neighbour or Fellow Creature as our Self viz. as truly and for the same Reasons viz. because God loves him as well as us and would have us love him
less esteem of what is uncontroverted the Sum and Substance End and Design thereof Nor have we any reason since we may read the Book it self to look upon the Bible as it is most abused and deform'd by Expositors who if we were to take it from them have represented it to us but as a contradictory or confused Rule 41. For we find many things taught by them who take upon them to expound the Scripture as Doctrines clearly express'd as they say therein that have not only no apt Tendency to the Great End the Love of God and Man but some of them naturally tend or incline to the contrary Which Consideration bringeth me to the last thing I designed to speak to the last Stumbling block I shall endeavour to take out of the Deists way viz. The Consideration of divers Doctrines now confidently taught as Orthodox and main Points of Christian Faith which to render Christianity more reasonable more like it self I shall not only readily disown but endeavour to shew that they cannot reasonably be thought to be Doctrines of the Gospel necessary to Christianity or True That they cannot be accounted for or proved Points of a Rational Faith or truly deduced from the Bible But are Mistakes taken up through Prejudice from Tradition and confirm'd by mistaken Texts of Scripture It being an Evil but common Custom among Men to take up Opinions before they carefully read the Scripture or consider the Agreement or Disagreement of things and then to labour to make the Scripture prove and confirm them endeavouring to bring Scripture to their unreasonable Opinions when they should rather have brought their Opinions from Scripture and Reason Scripture so understood as to be reconcileable to it self and to Right Reason And as this word reconcileable brings into my Mind the notion of Reconciliation which I take to be misunderstood by many I shall first begin with that Point and endeavour to shew the Mistakes about it 42. It is the fancy of some that Christ has reconciled God to Sinners Let us a little consider the matter Reconciliation is a making Friends of some or other at variance When there is Disagreement Enmity or Hate in a Person that did agree love and was a Friend the taking away or changing these for Agreement Friendship and Love is properly Reconciliation Now to say that Christ hath reconciled God to us is as much as to say God was a Friend and did love Man but then became an Enemy and hated him and then was made a Friend and loved him again But this can with no good reason be said of God because he is unchangeable and these things imply a Change Foolish Men are very apt to look upon God to be such a one as themselves now willing one thing then another now angry then pleas'd because they find themselves so But such things are Imperfections incompatible with a Self-sufficient Being God has properly no Passions must be confess'd tho' Men do commonly speak of him as if he had and he is in Scripture so represented sometimes after the manner of Men. But he is the same still has the same Will the same Love to whatever is his own and cannot have less He represents himself as he is hating Sin or that unjust and unhappy Action of the Creatures willing contrary to its Maker's Will but he never hates the Creature his own Work but loves it He cannot be suppos'd to be reconciled to Sin he never loved or can love Injustice To suppose him so reconciled as to approve like or allow Sin in his Creature would be to suppose him to will Evil or contrary to his own Will And he is not reconciled to his Creature because he was never deconciled or an Enemy to it His Goodness and Bounty is over all his Works he is always ready to do Good to his Creatures and make them happy it is they that are Enemies to him and to themselves and to their own Happiness A Man that runs into a Cave and hides himself from the Light and Warmth of the Sun and is perswaded at length to come out and receive the Benefit of its Heat and Splendour may as well say the Sun was angry with him and his his Face and withheld his Beams but now is reconciled to him and shines on him again as to fancy that the Ever-overflowing-fountain of Good withholds his Streams from the Works of his hands He is the most loving Father that is always ready to do Good to his Children but they Rebellious will not always receive it Therefore we may boldly nay we must on good Consideration say that whatever Christ hath done and suffered does not make God any more willing Sinners should obey him or be saved than he was before If he could at any time will Sinners not to obey him he might be suppos'd not to will them to be saved but to will Sinners not to obey him is all one as to will his Will to be done and not done at the same time which is a Contradiction We find foollish Men commonly representing God as one full of Wrath Anger Hatred to his poor silly Fallen Creatures severe furious and hard to be appeas'd but Christ as one full of Love Mercy Pitty Good-will to Sinners but we must not think God to have less Love Goodness Mercy c. than Christ that would be unreasonable when there can be no less than an Infinite Distance between God and the most Perfect Creature in Goodness Mercy Kindness and all Perfections yea as much as God is above Man so much greater must we think is the Mercy Goodness and Love of the Father to Sinners than that of the Son who is but the Image of him that is greater than all God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life The Love of God was the Cause of Christ's both Sonship and Mission and the Cause must be greater than the Effect God could have no external Cause or Motive to love us but loveth us freely for he is Love which can be said of no Second No Man hath greater Love than Christ for he laid down his Life for us even while we were Enemies but he had a Motive to Love greater than from himself viz. his Duty to obey and imitate God his Father Moreover if God has commanded all Sinners to repent believe and be saved he must be supposed to will that they should do so or he deceives them which cannot be admitted If he wills them to repent and be saved he is not their Enemy but their Friend What then you will say did Christ come to reconcile I say with the Scripture to reconcile us to God who were Enemies to him by wicked Works to reconcile us to our best Friend and Father from whom we had gone astray and been prodigal Sons to reconcile us to our Duty yea to our own Happiness which can no way
or abuse it as if they were Men unfit for business when the greatest Debauchees having once signalized their Wickedness in profaning the holy Table of the Lord are Men thought fit for Employments But such Communicants shew themselves no more really to be of the Comprehensive Church they partake with or of any True One whatever the Parson may fancy than theâ— Oaths so strictly imposed to oblige them to be faithful in all Offices makes them so For a Man that makes no Conscience of profaning the Sacred Name of the Most High in his daily Conversation or of any other Immorality cannot be thought to come to the Table of the Holy Jesus but for Fashion or for Interest and he that calls God to witness a hundred times a day to the grandest Lies and as often swears to the Promise he never so much as intends to perform is a Man very unlikely to count himself bound by a solemn Oath And I cannot but admire the profound Policy of those if there are any so cunning who think to oblige Infidels to Fidelity by swearing them as I wonder at the Excess of their Religion who will needs bind Men by Oaths in almost all Offices to things never intended or hardly possible to be done I confess I had thought the Worldly Interest enough to oblige any Man in worldly things and the most likely to bind those who by their Immoralities shew themselves Men of no Conscience and I acknowledge it was my opinion that the pinching of the Pocket by squeezing a Fine or some Corporal Punishment for the Failure in Performance of an Office was more likely to be sensibly felt in this Life by the drowsie Conscienc'd Sinner than the Guilt of fashionable unpunish'd Perjury But still I think a good Man the most likely Person to do his reasonable Duty tho' not obliged by an Oath and a conscientious Man injur'd when he cannot be trusted without invoking the Sacred Name of God in trivial matters 50. I should have thought of concluding here but that a monstrous Opinion at last starts up viz. the old Pagans Doctrine of Fate sprung up in Christianity which Hydra must be beheaded or all is in vain What signifies all I have said To what purpose should we labour to be wise good or penitent If God has not absolutely decreed that we shall go to Heaven all that we can do will be in vain God hath absolutely decreed that a certain small number shall be saved and none else possibly can whatever they do the few thus elected cannot perish but all the rest God hath fore-ordained to Destruction and they cannot possibly be saved saith this Doctrine But if we consider a little this Opinion will appear highly unreasonable even without examining those Texts of Scripture that some fancy do favour it or as the Custom of Disputers is opposing others It is certain that God can never be suppos'd to disown himself or contradict his own Will and therefore we may not think that God does not will the Rational Creatures to behave themselves as such Creatures ought or as it becomes them that is freely to acknowledge own love and obey their Maker but to say God wills the Damnation of any of his Creatures is the same thing as to say he wills they should not behave themselves as becomes their relation to God but that they should persist in setting up their own Wills in opposition to their Creator's For Damnation and persevering Disobedience is the same thing or at least inseparable so that Damnation cannot be will'd or absolutely decreed unless Sin be also so decreed which would be to make God the Author of Sin yea to destroy the notion of Sin for God's Will is the Rule of Duty and if it be God's Will I should sin and be damn'd it is best so to be yea my Duty and so there is neither Sin nor Damnation But as God's Will can't be contradictory to his Will so his Will and his Word cannot differ If God has commanded me to love and obey him and none I think is excepted from that Duty and I suppose he has determined I shall not love and obey him or laid me under a necessity of doing otherwise this is to affirm God the greatest Deceiver and Mocker of his Creatures but this must not nay cannot in reason be imagined of Goodness Nor can it be thought that God should be so indigent or cruel to the Works of his hands poor rail Creatures as to make or suffer them to be miserable for any Satisfaction or Pleasure he can have in their Misery or who can well imagine that if the Creature throw down its Weapons of Rebellion against its Maker and submit yield under him and acknowledge him God will not be ready to forgive and make him happy in Obedience Since Man hath sinn'd nothing can be better than his Repentance and future Obedience his Rebellion can't possibly be as good as Obedience certainly then God cannot will or effectually cause that which is not so good God has done very great things to perswade all to obey and be happy If Obedience or Disobedience were not free but necessary it would cease to be Obedience or Disobedience Men have power to act or suspend their Action till they are perswaded by Argument to act If they will not obey God and be happy 't is their own fault not God's he has given them means of Information as well as Arguments to perswade them God I think is but barely the Permitter of any sort of Evil the Creature is the Cause and Worker thereof and tho' God fore-knows that his Creatures will do Evil he does not by any Fore-knowledge determine that they shall do it or necessitate them or perswade them thereto God does perswade and that strongly to Good no doubt but never to the contrary nor can he be well said to necessitate us to do Good for what a Man cannot but do is no Obedience nor properly his Action God's Decree and his Foreknowledge I think ought to be distinguish'd and his Decree it self also is to be considered two ways viz. either as absolute or as conditional That which he hath absolutely decreed is that which he will certainly effect and can be nothing but Good What he hath conditionally decreed comes to pass but on Supposition of the Conditions and it is left in the Creatures liberty to perform or not perform the Conditions and even the things thus decreed must be suppos'd to be good things that God will do if the Creature will perform the Conditions otherwise not so that God is properly said to decree his own Actions thus or thus The Fore-knowledge of God or what he is said to foresee is no more but what the Creature who always chooseth an appearing Good will think well or ill and so do or not do so that God decrees his own Actions but fore-knows the Creatures Actions And what the Creature at any time thinks well or ill
THE Atheist turn'd Deist AND THE Deist turn'd Christian OR THE REASONABLENESS and UNION OF Natural and the True Christian Religion BY THO. EMES Chirurgo-Medicus LONDON Printed in the Year 1698. Speak every Man Truth with his Neighbour for we are Members of one another Eph. 4.25 AND So speak ye and so do ye as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty Jam. 2.12 ERRATA PAge 3. line 10. for certify read certifie L. 20. for Lier r. Lyar. P. 4. l. 26. for ll read all P. 6. l. last for unbeholding r. un-beholden P. 21. l. 20. for then r. than P. 22. for beholding r. beholden So P. 34. l. 34. P. 43. l. 36. r. Marriage-Constancy P. 45. l. 5. for countervaile r. countervale P. 84. l. 6. for God's r. Gods P. 95. after same add time P. 118. l. 26. blot and after David P. 181. l. 16. for they r. the before Oaths Some of the principal Heads of this Discourse under which divers other things are touched upon Numb 1. WHAT necessary to the End of Man Numb 2. Three Ways whereby we know Truth Numb 3. The nearest Way to prove the Being of God Numb 4. Self what The Necessity of supposing a Divine Being thence proved Numb 5. God knowable by Experience or Sense Numb 6. Self more largely considered and said to be Cogitation or Mind Numb 7. Objections against Cogitation's being the Essence of Self answered Numb 8. God considered more largely and as in himself or essential Attributes Numb 9. The common Notion of Omnipresence false Numb 10. God considered in relation to the Creatures negatively and positively Numb 11. Of the End of God's making things Numb 12. Man's Duty or Religion considered in general Numb 13. The same considered more particularly in Love to God Numb 14. And Love to his Works Numb 15. Love the Foundation of all orderly Behaviour No. 16. The Natural Reason and Sense of the Decâ—logue No. 17. The Goodness and Well-being of the Creaturâ— wherein it consists No. 18. The Ground of Vnhappiness No. 19. The true Notion of Sin and that Sin is a ways an Act and Original Sin as supposâ— distinct from Actual Sin a Mistake the triâ— Notion of it No. 20. The Fall of Man from Innocence naturalâ— known No. 21. The Aggravation or Greatness of Sins Diâ—order No. 22. How the Creature should behave it self on thâ— Conviction of Sin With the Natural Dutâ— of Repentance No. 23. Forgiveness with God apparently discoverabâ—â— by the Light of Nature No. 24. Why God made Creatures capable of Sin No. 25. Free will considered No. 26. What an Arbitrary Command of God and hoâ— reasonable No. 27. All the Commands of God tend to Mans Happiness or Pleasure Disobedience to the contrary neither Obedience nor Disobedience add to or take any thing from God No. 28. That the Creature having once sinn'd is more inclinable to go on sinning than to repent No. 29. Convicted Sinners at first unapt to believe that God will forgive No. 30. The Scope of all God's Dealings with Sinners in order to their Recovery No. 31. Immortality and a future Life discoverable by Reason what Death is and its use since Sin with Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul No. 32. The Resurrection of the Body rationally concluded No. 33. Future Judgment necessary No. 34. Man capable of Repentance and doing his Duty No. 35. The divers Motives and Arguments God has given Men to perswade them to repent and what the compleatest No. 36. Revelation chiefly for enforcing Natural Religion Divers Considerations about Revelation Miracles Faith c. No. 37. Of Christ and his Work No. 38. Of his Person No. 39. All that are saved saved the same way viz. by Christ No. 40. Scripture a Gift of God argued and the need of Revelation No. 41. Some things taught in the World as Doctrines of the Bible not tending to the true End and Scope of Revelation No. 42. As Mistakes about Reconciliation Christ's Death and Sacrifice Propitiation c. No. 43. About Satisfaction No. 44. Mistakes about Punishment God not to be thought the Cause of the Creatures Misery No. 45. Mistakes about Imputation of Sin and Righteousness No. 46. Mistakes about Merit No. 47. About Redemption No. 48. About Intercession No. 49. How the Mediation of Christ becomes â—â—fectual No. 50. Of the Doctrine of Fate or absolute Predestâ—â—nation No. 51. A Reflection on the present State of Christiâ—â—nity 1. THERE are Two Things necessary for Man in order to his attaining the End of his Being To know the Truth And to Will well Or in other words To be Wise and Good As for Knowing the Truth there are two Things wherein this Necessary Wisdom doth chiefly consist The Knowledge of God and the Knowledge of Ones Self And there is one thing wherein Man's Goodness doth consist and that is in the Conformity of his Will to the Will of his Maker to will as God wills The Order of our Knowledge of these two Objects God and Self seems to be this We begin to know our Selves as the Objects of which we are first aware and then we proceed to the Knowledge of God But the Connection of the Knowledg of God and of our Selves is such that we can never know our Selves well tell we arise to the Knowledge of God nor know God as we ought if we know but little of our Selves 2. There are but three Ways I conceive whereby we can have any Knowledge of God our Selves or any thing else 1. By Sense 2. By Reason Or 3. By Revelation By the Knowledge of Sense I do not mean only the Sensation or Perception of Bodies but also and rather the Experience Sense or Conscience we have of our own Thoughts or may have of others All those Notions we have as it were passively received without reasoning and which are as it were the Matter or Ground on which Reason works The second way of Knowledge Reason is the Faculty of arguing or discoursing with our Selves whereby from considering our passive Knowledges or Sensations we arise to get more full Knowledge of things and of what we had no immediate Sensation or Intuition and by getting the Knowledge of some things we proceed by Arguments and get the Knowledge and better Knowledge of others As by considering the Creatures especially our selves we may arise to the knowledge of God and then by considering our Maker we are led back again better to know our selves and from a better knowledge of our selves we get still the clearer knowledge of our Author The third way we may be made acquainted with God our selves or other things viz. Revelation is but as it were a compendious Assistance of the two former An express or particular Instruction from God telling the Creature in short what he would have been either ignorant of or not so soon or easily have known without such an immediate Teaching As for instance What God is and will be found to be what we are ought to
it consequently follows he is sufficient for himself or self-existent tho' I were not And as I must necessarily suppose him because I could not be without him so he must necessarily be self-sufficient or existent tho' I should cease to be From the Consideration of God's being Self-sufficient it appears he is but one for if he be Sufficient another is not necessary and that which is not absolutely necessary or may be suppos'd not to be is not God If one be sufficient of himself another is to no purpose or not necessary one such Being must be suppos'd but there is no need to suppose another If God is one Self-sufficient Self-existent Being he is but one Self or Mind He cannot properly say I Thou and He of himself or of any thing in his Essence but always I nor can we say Thou and Thou or He and He of him if we speak properly and truly Again if he is necessarily Self sufficient he must consequently know himself and will or love himself desire himself be pleas'd and satisfied with himself with the Knowledge and Love of himself and so be a Thinking Being Mind or Person Other either Persons or Things therefore are not necessary to him who is satisfied with himself no not so much as in Imagination Notion or Thought nor needed he produce any of them From God's Knowing and Loving himself ariseth the Notion of the highest Wisdom and Goodness or that he is most Wise and most Good He that is necessarily Self-sufficient and so has more Reality or Being than all other Beings supposing them made must needs in knowing himself have the greatest as well as the only necessary Knowledge and in loving himself have the highest and only necessary Goodness For he that has most of Being most Perfection and Reality is the greatest Object of Knowledge and most desireable most to be loved and while he does not create the only Object of Knowledge and Desire And here ariseth the Notion of God's Essential Justice That he love himself and approve himself because he is most worthy it is most right and just that he love himself chiefly and only necessarily he is not so obliged to love his Creatures when he hath made them he cannot love them as himself because he knows they are not so good nor does he necessarily love them because they are not necessary to be From God's Self-sufficiency is seen also the Notion of his absolute Felicity or perfect Happiness or absolute Perfection admitting no increase or decrease for he that is enough to himself that needs seek nothing out of himself must needs be most happy Again He that is Self-sufficient necessarily so can suffer no Alteration nor can he cause any in himself and hence ariseth the Notion of Eternity an Attribute only belonging and essential to God the consideration of the manner of God's Being as having no Succession or Alteration but being still the same he does not think one thing now another thing anonforgeting one thing while he thinks another as Creatures do who are insufficient to be all they are at once but he is always compleat or sufficient has not something ceasing and another thing succeeding in his Essential Perfections From the Unity or Simplicity of God we are inform'd he is immaterial a Spiritual Being or Mind All the former Considerations imply God to be intelligent and voluntary that is Thinking Now Thinking and Body being two things wholly different the Notions of them being not at all the same God cannot be both if he is one simple or single Being Those that fancy Thinking and Body is the same or that Thinking is or may be some Mode of Body as some certain degree of Rarifaction or Motion would do excellently to certifie us just at how much distance the Particles of a Congeries of Matter must be or how fast they must be stir'd to the Production of Thought One Particle cannot be suppos'd to be rarified or less sollid than another and consequently cannot by Rarifaction attain Thought and how many of them must dance together to that end or what Jigg he would be a curious Master that should discover Till which is done we shall be confident that Knowing Perceiving Desiring or Loving are not Quantity Figure or Motion it being Nonsense to say a Pound or an Ell of Knowledge or Love but different names of the one thing Thinking And Quantity Figure and Motion are not Thinking but essential or belonging to Body so that Thinking and Body are two things Now as has been said God cannot be both these because they are two wholly different things and God is but one God cannot be Body because he knows himself and has no Ignorance in him Body knows not it self to speak improperly in calling it self If Body did know there is no reason why all Body should not know and we have the greatest reason to affirm some Body to be ignorant If God did not know himself he could not be happy wise or so much as intelligent Knowing is Thinking not Body or Quantity therefore God is a Mind and not a Body Father he is not a Mind and a Body for so he would be a Compound or Congeries of divers things or parts Again whatever consists of Body and Mind has some Imperfection and consequently is but a Creature God is all Perfect or Self-sufficient Body is not so much as a Person or Self God cannot be something besides himself or besides his Person Body is but a Thing Mind only and alone is a Person If God's Person Self or Mind is sufficient he is not Body also for Body is not necessary to the Consideration of Mind especially of Self-sufficient Mind nor is it necessary at all being imperfect therefore God neither is nor has a Body Besides God cannot be a Body or a Compound forwhat ever is so may have more or less Body may be more or less or otherwise in Figure or Motion God cannot be more or less or otherwise than he is The greatest or all Body may be suppos'd to receive an Addition and the least to cease to be But God as has been said can have no Alteration or Imperfection or unnecessary thing in his Being therefore Body can be nothing of his Being Finally Body is visible God is invisible Body is finite or so much and no more God is infinite or unbounded not in Extension but which is a better Notion of Infinity he is all Perfection to us incomprehensible for Quantity does not belong to God's Infinity So that to sum up all God consider'd in himself is the Self-sufficient or Self-existent necessary Mind knowing himself loving himself satisfied with himself the only necessary Being in whom is no Diversity or Composition or any thing but what may be supposed in mere Cogitation viz. all Perfect Understanding and Will 9. But if God be an all Perfect Being a meer Mind and not a Body or not so much as partly Body as I think is evident that
Religions for Religion is but one even this one thing and there is not properly any false Religion For if Religion is nothing but the Obligation to will as God wills us to will whatever is not according to God's Will is no Obligation and tho' call'd Religion is not so but a Mistake This therefore To will as God wills we must fix as the general comprehensive Rule of our Obligation Religion or Duty And in order to the Compliance with this Obligation or Payment of this Debt there are these things to be consider'd First We ought to be willing and so endeavour to know what God wills concerning us Then having found in particular what God wills we shall consider how it appears that to will those things that God wills most becomes us is our greatest Obligation and Happiness 13. These things we shall discourse a little more particularly First That we should will to know or be willing to enquire what God wills Having found or rather knowing certainly that God has will'd our Being and consider'd what we find our selves and that God has shew'd himself powerful wise and good in causing us it naturally follows that the Creature finding himself an Agent or capable of acting and inclinable to be doing should some how or other direct his Actions Now in as much as he finds himself imperfect but a Work or Effect of a higher Being exceeding him in Wisdom Goodness and Power it also rationally follows that this Being viz. God his Maker must needs know better than he what he has made him and what is most fit or best for him to do And that he may know and do what is best for him to do he had need as abovesaid be willing to know it For altho' we know many things without or even against the Acts of our Wills yet it is apparent that for want of Will or Desire we don't know many things that we might and ought to know and so also loose some Happiness we might enjoy We find various Subjects of consideration offer'd us and lying before us and we have power to apply our Minds to this or that as more necessary to be considered Now as it is evident that the Will of him that is most wise must needs be best it follows that we ought even on the account of Interest to desire or seek to know it But the Reasonableness and Necessity of such a search will more appear in our finding out by consideration as we may particularly what the Will of God is And here the first Act of Will orderly consider'd in God is in and towards himself without relation to any Creature as he is before and without them and that must needs be Good-will or Love to and Approbation of himself and Pleasure in himself being a sufficient or all-perfect Being Now if he loves approves or is pleas'd with himself above all as he is best and only necessary he wills we should to our Capacity have like Thoughts of him viz. that we should love him approve of him esteem him be pleas'd with him above all that is think of him as he is and not otherwise for to think otherwise is unjust or a Lye That which is most excellent that which is best is to be loved best is most desirable such is God or the first Cause He is that Being that has most yea all absolute Perfections It is just and good for God to love himself best because there can be no better Object And it is just for us to love or desire and esteem him better or more than our selves or any thing else because he is better yea best It lies as an Obligation in Justice that our Desires ought to go out after him and tend to him more than after or to our selves or any thing else not only because he is the only Object that can satisfie where Interest comes in and has our self at the bottom but because he is in himself infinitely more excellent it is his due True Love is of that nature as to go out from self where it finds an Object more excellent and desireable and to prefer the Will of that more excellent Object to its own Will and the Pleasure of that more excellent Object to its own pleasure as distinct from it Where the Creature 's Will most agrees with the Will of its Creator the Creature acts rather because its Maker wills it so to act then because its own advantage is in the Action the Creator and his Will and Pleasure being infinitely more valuable than the Creature 's Will and Pleasure or very Being But the Creature agreeing with the Will of God in loving him best cannot possibly but find its greatest Advantage and Pleasure therein and the more it goes out of self the more it turns its Eye and Desire from its self towards God that infinite Good the less it beholds self and thinks of or acts as for advantage as the more noble the Action is so the more Happiness it finds And if Justice is not enough to perswade us that God is to be loved rather because it is our Duty or his due as he is best in himself than because we have pleasure in loving him the very Happiness or Pleasure will tell us afterwards that it comes most by that just and noble Neglect of seeking it in comparison of God or making him but subservient thereto And indeed the Creatures will seems to be made so large and as it were unproportionable to all the rest in the Creature that it cannot possibly as well as ought not to endeavour to be satisfied with acting in towards and for it self And from this Greatness of the created Desire is seen the supreme Cause Reason and Excellency of the Creature 's Love to God to be because God is in himself most excellent we on this account owe him the the first and greatest Offering and not chiefly because we are happy or our desire filled in so doing the higher Love I mean in a Creature to God is a love of Justice a Duty of being just and true before which if the Love for Interest come it is in the sight of God an unworthy and impure Offering Tho' we are highly obliged to love God out of Gratitude for his Benefits yet if we love God most or think we are obliged to love him most because we receive Good from him we love him for self-sake and consequently love self best tho' it is not best which is the very root of evil in which we belye both God and Self The Creature complying with God's Will always finds its advantage and so also is bound as to a debt to love God in gratitude but self must have but the second place because it is a Creature consequent to the Creator's Will and but an imperfect thing which in its self has also an evident Indication that it is not to be best beloved because of its incapacity of satisfying its own Desire but it is
because it becomes us to imitate God as much as we can and it is good for us so to do This I say is the whole Law naturally written in our Hearts and legible by the Consideration of God what he is in himself and what he is to his Creatures viz. The most perfect or Self-sufficient Being and our most wise good and powerful Author and of our relation to him and our Fellow Creatures 15. Now from this fountain of Love proceed all the orderly streams of our Thoughts and external Actions If we love God as we should or desire as he desires we shall hate to do otherwise fear to do otherwise our aversation and avoiding that which is not right is determin'd by our loving that which is right and when we once truely love God we shall be willing to study his Will that we may not ignorantly act contrary thereto Having found God our Cause Self-sufficient and All-perfect in himself we cannot but acknowledge it fit and proper to be true and acknowledge him such as he is there can be no reason that we should deny what we know to be true it is apparent that he is the Most High the Greatest Being and we are things infinitely less nay nothing of our selves we are but the Effects of the Will of the most wise good powerful Cause on which consideration it is most evidently fit for us to submit to his Guidance and Direction as confiding in his Wisdom Goodness and Power that he knows and wills and can do that which is best for us and to confess the Shortness of our Understandings as we are but Creatures and know infinitely less than he and consequently our Wills cannot be so good as his Hence also it naturally follows that if God has made us good or as becomes the Best Being to make and capable of Good or Pleasure we should be thankful for our Being and rejoyce or take pleasure in considering God's Wisdom Goodness and Power so should we be ready to comply with his Will as Instruments in manifesting and communicating his Power Wisdom and Goodness to our selves and our Fellow Creatures and hate fear and avoid being a Hinderance in any of these Again We are rationally obliged from the Consideration of God and his Will to us in relation to those parts of the Creation he seems to have made for our sakes and use to use them so as we may see most of God's Perfections through them and as we may receive most Good or Pleasure by them and how this is to be done he has made us capable by a little reasoning and attention to find out as his Will which we have all reason to submit to trusting his Wisdom as the absolute Rule wherein he directs us he knowing best how these Ends may be attained and his Goodness that he is willing they should God has made all things to shew his own Perfections to those Creatures he has made capable of seeing them and to make them happy or pleas'd whom he has made capable of Happiness or Pleasure in the use of them We are ready to believe these Creatures have nothing in themselves that can affect us with pleasure but it is the Will of God we should have pleasure in the use of them that thereby we might be brought to him the fountain of all Satisfaction 16. If this Account of the Will of God be not particular enough yet a little farther First It is apparent that having found our Author or Cause that only Self-sufficient and All-sufficient Being we call God the Father of all things we should not only take him for such but that we should have no other in the like esteem or let him have any Corrival in our Thoughts That One single Supream Being must have no Fellow in our Hearts The most exact or perfect Image of him that which he hath made most like unto himself must not be by us exalted into his Throne He is not an Image and whatever is a Representation of him he himself hath made such We must not think therefore of any Second as we think of him the First nor desire Another equally with him He must have the highest place or be the only God both in our Judgments and Affections who is Highest First and Best or we shall be unjust untrue and ungrateful Secondly Nor must we if we are obliged to think aright of him and duly esteem him presume to make of our own fancy any thing as an Image or Resemblance of him we must have no other Representations of God than what he himself hath made He must not by us be misrepresented nor must we reverence bow to or honour any of our Fictions that we may fancy to resemble him no nor whatever does indeed most resemble him with any such honour as is due to him We cannot rationally think any Image exactly like him nor in our Acts of Worship have the same Thoughts of him as we have of any thing his Representation because there can be no Image of him but what he hath made a Creature infinitely distant from him and so far unlike him Nor must we be so foolish as to think that we can offer our Homage more acceptably or to better purpose through any of our devised Mediums than if we come to the Fountain himself of all Goodness and Beneficence Thirdly Neither if we are obliged to prosecute the Ends and Designs of God in the Manifestations of himself must we mention any of his Attributes or Properties whereby he is known to no purpose or idlely For God is no vain or trivial Being nor is there any thing small or of little weight belonging to him who is the Supream or Self-sufficient Being or a Matter lightly or boldly to be play'd with by his Creatures who are even the highest of them unnecessary Beings or nothing in themselves and compar'd with God infinitely beneath him Much less may we dare to take his name into our Mouths who is Goodness and Truth in wishing Evil or asserting Falshood Fourthly And as God always ought to be had in most honourable esteem in our Thoughts and be by us acknowledged to be what he is so consequently we ought to set apart some time for the Profession of our Acknowledgment of our Maker to others that thereby they may be taught stir'd up to and strengthen'd in the same Acknowledgment and due Homage to their Author And that at the same time we all may enjoy the necessary Benefits of a Cessation from the Fatigues of Bodily Works which commonly take up six times as much time in proportion as our mental and more noble Exercises Besides that our whole time is rather numbered by Sevens than by Eights or any other numbers may be seen by the Natural Scale of numbers in Harmony wherein God hath created all things which perpetually runneth to a Seventh and no farther the Eighth being a new First or the First but doubled and which of the seven is
the Seventh is determined from whence we begin Fifthly As God is to have the Supream Honours and Worship as our Cause infinitely above us so even those Creatures God hath made the Instruments of our Being or before us in Excellency and and Dignity should be acknowledged as such and so more worthy than our selves and being honour'd by us this Honour should be shewn and testified by proper Submission to them with other Testimonies whereby we may shew our due esteem Those that we are immediately beholding to tho' but as Instruments for our being or well being those we have been necessitated to depend upon tho' but as means for the continuance of our Being in this life have in all reason due to them from us a debt of Honour Esteem and Regard and those that in any respect are better and more excellent than us can with no Justice be denied the Acknowledgment as we find occasion of what they really are Nor is the giving all our Betters especially those we have had our Dependance on as Parents their due Regard without a natural Tendency to our long and happy Continuance in this Life as they are thereby farther encouraged and provoked to contribute the more to our Felicity and we may also hope for as our Desert the like Honour from our Off-spring or bear the contrary with the less Regret Sixthly And as God has made us all the means of manifesting his Excellencies to one another the Representations or Images of himself it is the highest Presumption and Boldness that we should attempt to put an end to or spoil or put out of sight so excellent an Image of God as he hath made Man And this is first most unreasonable and culpable if practis'd on Self it being every Man's Duty and Interest to be as God would have him and a high Affront and Rebellion to refuse the Gift of Life and Duties thereof and as it were a bold revenging the Crosses of our foolish Wills on the Author of our Life spoiling as much as we can his Work And tho' we may be perswaded that possibly there may not be so much Excellency in some others as in our selves yet we should have so great a Love and Respect to the meanest Man as he is the Image of God an Epitome of the Creation a Lord of the Corporal and a Bond of Corporal and Spiritual Nature wherein God may be seen as in a Map of all his Works that we should not desire or presume to blot out so great a draught of the Divine Painter or deface so great a Representative of his Majesty And as Man is a Lord over the inferiour Creatures under God to put him as much as possible out of his Office his Stewardship or Viceroyalty is an Affront to his Sovereign for which he that does so ought himself to be put so far out of the same capacity tho' he ought not to put himself out which he himself vertually acknowledgeth since doing as one would be done by is a most apparently equitable Rule For if a Man loves Life as a Good as every man in his right mind does and would not that another should take that from him on which as well or ill used depends so much of Happiness or Misery consequently he ought not to take it from another whom God has made a living Man as well as he capable of as much Good as another and in this at least better than he that would break this Rule that he does not purpose like him to be a declared Enemy to his Kind and thereby adjudge his own Life ought rightly and also necessarily to be taken away to prevent a greater Mischief viz. the loss of another Life more valuable than the Life of this declared Despiser and Enemy of God and Man which Reasons do not only convince us that we should do nothing tending to hurt the Life of another but that we should do what in us lies to preserve it as well as our own Seventhly As it is most reasonable we should Esteem and Honour particularly and in especial manner those that have been the means of our Being and not slight and despise them that we should do as we would be done by and do nothing tending to destroy any of our Fellow-rational Creatures but labour to preserve them So also that we may avoid the said Mischiefs and perform the opposite Duties it is reasonable and necessary that in the business of the Propagation of Mankind Man should observe the Laws of Order and Conveniency that is that one Man and one Woman should be joyn'd together in free Love and Constancy and become one in that matter never leaving one the other to joyn with a third That one Man should not use more Women than such a one as a Wife while she lives nor one Woman more Men than her Husband before he is dead is most reasonable from many Considerations tho' Men are so inclinable to Disorders in this Matter and so willing to be blind and not see them As if the promiscuous use of Men or Women be practised it will be the unavoidable Confusion of Relations and Cause of the many evil Consequences thereof Relative Duties cannot be perform'd where Relations are not known As for instance A Child will be sometimes ignorant of his Parents and so will not only omit the Honour Gratitude and Reverence due to them but may sometimes be liable to slight despise contemn or even abuse them or do those things to them which tho' lawful to others not at all to be done to Parents which if ever they come to be known might cause great disquiet of Mind Again By the promiscuous use of Men or Women the Right of Inheritances will often be perverted and confounded one Man's Child will enjoy another Man's Land or Goods the true Heir being unknown a Man shall labour for another's Children and not for his own Again As all Children of Men are more helpless than any other Animals if both parents are not concern'd for them they will many ways be expos'd to Misery in the want of that Care and Love and all the Effects thereof which orderly Parents have for their Children And the Women who are not able to go through their Bringings forth and Breeding up of their Children alone as other Animals would be often exposed with their Children to great Miseries without the constant Help and Care of such a Relation as a Husband and Father ought to be Again if one Man should have divers Women tho' he were as a Husband to them all divers Inconveniencies would follow The Man would love one better than another and so not be equally just to them all for which cause they would not agree or live in Love and Content together they would have Jealousies and Strifes against one another and have many Temptations to Inconstancy when one Man is not enough ordinarily to satisfie the natural Desire of more Women some must be defrauded so on
the other hand if one Woman should have more Husbands and if one Woman does not happen to be enough in the Conceit of her Husband or the Man for his Wife the seldom Enjoyment will render the Satisfaction the greater and better answer all the Ends of Marriage Besides if one Man should have many Wives some others who have as much reason to be allow'd such a Help and Satisfaction must have none whereby Propagation would also be much hindered Again Whoever loves a Woman peculiarly would also have her love him peculiarly so on the other side Which Rule of doing as one would be done by cannot be kept without loving singly No Whoremonger can possibly do as he would be done by he would not have his Wife or Daughters prostituted or common Nor would any Man of reason be willingly expos'd to the many Miserie 's not only of Diseases but of other natural Consequences following that high Injustice of breaking that most solemn Contract Bargain or Oath Men make at their Marriage which need never be made but freely and to one they themselves have chose out of the rest of Men or Women Nor is the Benefit Convenience or Pleasure of single Love and Marriage Constancy small if the choice be well made that is of such as are naturally suitable to or for one another Neither is this State to be equall'd much less exceeded by the extravagant and roving Affections of those that take most liberty in their Actions relating to Propagation But I need say no more these Disorders being seen by all Men to have so great a stroke in the Miseries of Mankind and appear so base to all who behold them in others Only one thing remains which I shall here touch upon and that is the reason of the Disorder or Inconvenience of Marrying our Kindred and that is founded upon the Honour due to a Father and Mother that they in themselves or in their parts should not be profaned made common or inferiour by their Children which nothing but Necessity could ever excuse and which also would unavoidably be by the promiscuous use of Men and Women Eighthly No less evident is the Reason founded in the Order of things and discoverable by the natural Light that we should not either privately or by force take away or pervert the Property of any Good that is our Neighbour's every Man acknowledgeth this unjust in that he himself would not part with that which is his Propriety otherwise than by his Consent Ninthly Not so much as the Good Name of another ought to be taken away or hurt if we will do as we would be done by nor our Fellow Creature represented worse or otherwise than he is to his damage we must not accuse him falsly at all much less in the name of the God of Truth whom to invoke in testifying a Lye is the highest Affront and daring'st Folly Nor can we pretend that we our selves or our Neighbour can have any advantage by a Falshood which by observation we shall find sooner or later tending even to the external damage of one or both but if for a time there seem to be some profit in what hath been inconsiderately call'd an Officious Lye it is but external and at the same time brings an Evil to the Mind greater than that outward seeming advantage can countervaâ—â— Tenthly And that we may be exactly conformable to all these Laws of Order and Equity we are to observe them in our very Desires It is most reasonable our Desires should be conformable to the Will of God as manifested in the order of his Works tending to our Good If we ought not to be unjust untrue or evil to another either God or Man we must not so much as desire so to be for Will to do Evil is the Action of doing Evil and wants only and that but in some cases to be signified externally or to affect another to make it as much Evil as it can be But Love is the fulfilling of the whole Law that which prevents or as much as possible amends these Disorders he that loves God will study to comply with his Will to be just and true to him he that loves his Neighbour as he ought will do him no harm in Body or Mind but labour to do him good in both The absence of all the Good and the presence of all the Evil relateing to our selves and our Neighbour comes from the want of true and regulated Love 17. Now as the Free-will of God is the sole Cause of the Being and Suchness of Being of the Creatures so whatever God hath made cannot be thought to be otherwise than Good from Goodness it self can nothing but Good proceed And tho' it may be said in respect of the Power of God he might have made things otherwise yet in consideration of his Wisdom and Goodness it cannot possibly be said he might have made any thing better without the greatest Presumption and Folly So that whatever God makes any thing such is its Bestness Let us but once know what a thing was as it came from the hands of God and what it is the Will of its Maker it shall be such is its Goodness and the bounds of its Creature Perfection what it shall be I say because it doth not appear that God made things unchangeable but rather in a condition tending to alteration so that tho' it be good yea perhaps best for the Creature to be so and so at one time yet it is good or best at another time to be in some respects otherwise The Intelligent Creature at least Man as he comes from the hands of God appears capable of an increase of Knowledge and of Satisfaction and tho' at first it is very good yet it is capable of better being in that respect and the Good Will of God in making things is not to be consider'd merely in their first Make but as a continual Act reaching to the Creatures whole Duration Now the way of the Creatures well Being better Being yea best possible Being viz. it s most clear beholding the Perfections of God intensest Loving and compleatest Satisfaction in him dependeth on the most Wise good Will and Pleasure of God which must be known as a Rule and Guide unto that end viz. that the Creature will as God wills to its utmost Capacity and be pleas'd with whatever God does who can do nothing but Good This Conformity to the Will of God is the only possible way for the Creature to be as much as it can be pleas'd or happy and so long and so much as it wills no otherwise than God would have it will so long and so much will it be joyous and satisfied as God made it to be in him 18. But if ever the Creature wills otherwise than God wills it must of necessity find the Disorder and Inconvenience of that Will and be uneasie and displeas'd it will certainly be some time or other discontented and uneasie either
sin by willing the contrary For the Illustration of this consider First God's Dominion Soveraignty or Lordship could not otherwise have been acknowledged For if the Creature had not been capable of Sinning it had not been capable of Obeying Obedience to God being nothing but willing what God wills because he wills we should when we can possibly will otherwise and Disobedience to God can be nothing else than willing what God does not will when we may will what he does There is no Obedience properly so call'd or of Mind but what is free nor no Disobedience of Mind but what is spontaneous To Be or Do what we can't but Be or Do is no proper Obedience and not to Be or Do what we can't Be or Do cannot well be call'd Disobedience And God did not make Man capable of Obeying or Sinning that he might Sin but capable of Sinning or Obeying that he might Obey and so acknowledge and shew God's Dominion and Lordship over him Again if Man had not been a Voluntary or Free Being he had been incapable of Pleasure or Happiness which consists in the Satisfaction of Will or having ones Desire and so had had no such occasion of acknowledging God's Goodness Nor farther would he have had the Excellency of Being so much the Image or Representation of God who is a Free Agent or has a Will tho' not indifferent to Good and Evil God's Will being the Rule of Good he cannot but will what he wills nor can he suppose any thing otherwise than it is his Wisdom being absolutely perfect But Man is the Image of God as he is a Free Agent or has a Will capable of willing Good God's Will is his own Rule he being Self-sufficient can have none to obey that is wiser or that can will better Man's Good depends on God as the Shadow on the Substance as the Picture on the Thing painted out When Man 's own will interposes between God and him he so far ceaseth truly to represent God and be happy God's Will which is best is Man's Rule or Exemplar and the Creature can be no more like God than an Image can be to a thing it represents An Image can never be the same thing it self of which it is the Image to say it may is all one as to say it is the Image and not the Image which is a Contradiction nor can any Image be equal or in all respects such as the thing it is the Image of or like it more than in some respects For if we could suppose two things every way alike neither of them could be said to be the Image of the other because the other would with as much reason be said to be the Image of that Nay it would be absurd to talk of a Distinction where we have suppos'd no difference And the Image of a Creature may be more like or nearer an Equality with the Creature it represents than an Image of God can be like God for nothing can be the Image of God but a Creature for there is nothing but God and Creature and between God and Creature there cannot be less than infinite Distance and Inequality which is not between Creature and Creature tho' one be the most perfect the other the most imperfect of Creatures being both finite Nothing I say can be said to be the Image of God but a Creature unless there could be conceived any Third Being between God and the Creature I say farther God cannot be said to be the Image of God or which is the same that which is the Image of God cannot be said in a proper sense to be God for so the Image would either be said to be the Image and yet the same thing it is the Image of which is all one as to say it is the Image and not the Image or what it is and something else than what it is which is a Contradiction But if the Image of God being something Else or Another than what it is the Image of be yet said to be God it is consequentially said to be Another God and such a One who is but an Image of Another which also affirms it in the Consequence at the same time not to be God tho' inconsiderately said to be so For what is in any sense but a Resemblance or Imaginary is not God Things may be said in some respects to be like God but God cannot be said to be like any thing he being First Original Besides nothing in God can be the Image of God because that one thing would not be the Image of God viz. of the compleat Divine Being it being suppos'd to be the Image but of Something Else in God not of All in God it Self if it were not absurd to call it Self there being not more than One Self in God being something suppos'd in God But to conclude this Digression God being altogether Substance and Original there can be nothing Imaginary or but a Copy in him whatever therefore is an Image or Copy of God is but a Creature and whoever affirms the contrary affirms he knows not what a Chimera or his own vain Imagination if not worse But to return again from this occasional Digression If Man could not have will'd Evil he could have had no Temptation to it either from within or without and his Disobedience could not have been so signal and great could it be suppos'd any at all Vertue that is never tried is not so eminent God did not make the Creature capable of supposing something preferable to its Subjection to the Will of its Maker that it might seek such a thing or venture to try whether it were so or no but that it might have occasion to resist and overcome such a Suggestion and own its Dependence without which it had been uncapable of or wanted that Happiness or Pleasure which is found in a sort of Self-denial in doing what is pleasing to a more excellent Person which one loves which is not little as every one may experience the love of Men perhaps being always placed on the account of something seen of excellency in another which is not in one's self and the degree of such Pleasure consists in the degree of Love and the degree of Love in the degree of Excellency in the Object and God is the best of all things that can be loved 25. But here may be objected what by many is asserted That Man is not free to will either Good or Evil. And here some affirm That Man since he hath sinned and remains impenitent is free only to will Evil. Others from more consideration tho' it may seem a Paradox to the former and ought to be well explain'd are perswaded that Man is not free to will Evil but only to will Good Let us for the farther clearing this whole matter consider it fundamentally Good or Pleasure I take to be the same thing and the Pleasure of the Self-sufficient Being is the supream Good he being of
incites him to forgive him If he forgives him the Debter is no longer obliged to pay the Debt or a Debter in that matter if the Creditor will not forgive the poor Man that would and cannot pay he looseth the Condition of Forgiveness with God who will not require what the Creature cannot do God has not been wanting to the Creature he first made him innocent and capable of continuing so as well as of sinning and he has made him capable of repenting and becoming obedient and happy tho' he has sinn'd He has given him a Faculty of considering and reasoning with himself whereby as aforesaid he may be and is whenever he is convinced Now if Man notwithstanding he hath sinn'd shall repent and become as he should be obedient he will also become happy and the end of his Being will be attain'd what-ever means God may please to make effectual to this end 35. And that God has given divers means tending to this end ever since Man hath sinned is plainly seen Every Man hath a Conscience a kind of Court of Judgment in himself accusing more or less as he hath seen his Actions to have been more or less disorderly and telling him he ought to do otherwise Besides the experience of the Disquiet or Unhappiness every Man has as the fruits of his own and other Mens Sins a little consideration will make an Argument to perswade him to repent or do no more such things as make him so uneasie The due Consideration of God and himself will certainly give every Man an Argument enough to perswade him to behave himself according to God's Will even for his own profit But besides this Natural Light of Conviction and these Motives in self to Repentance which are or may be always present with a Man it cannot be thought unbecoming the Goodness and Power of God sometimes himself to make more strong Impressions on the Mind of Man or immediately to cause him to have such or such more serious and right Thoughts He that made us Thinkers may if he please inject particular Thoughts into our Minds without any Medium yet it is not unreasonable to suppose that he may and does often employ the Good Spirits in such Errants to instigate Men to Good as he suffers the Evil ones to tempt to Wickedness The Existence of both which sort of Spirits any one may easily be perswaded to believe from the consideration of his own Mind as a Spirit capable of subsisting without a Body either obedient or disobedient But to distinguish these Thoughts which come into our Minds by the silent Language of Spirits if I may use such an Expression may not be so easie The Good Thoughts are easily known from the Bad the bad must be our own or from Evil Spirits but commonly those that come thus by way of Injection are strong and suddain But to distinguish the Injections from Good Spirits and those from God himself seems more difficult Some will not be pleas'd with these Considerations but those that attend seriously and judiciously to what passes in their own Minds may easily find something of these things But to leave this Digression God has made Man capable of and given him yet more External Motives to Repentance for the rectifying his Disorders as the beholding the Actions of others in whom the Disorders are more easily seen The fond Love of Self may sometime make my own Action seem well to me but an Action in another is judged more impartially but then from the Judgment I make of another I may reflect back again to my self and say If a thing seem uncomely and ill in another I may easily conclude the Action is alike ill in me For instance I presently see the Injustice of another doing any thing that abates my Happiness or takes away any Good from me or confers to my Misery thence I cannot but conclude there is the same Unreasonableness in my hurting him or another But there is yet a more extrinsick way of Conviction and leading to Repentance and that is the express Admonitions and Perswasions of those who have repented and do repent If I have seen the Evil of disagreeing with my Maker the Unhappiness and farther Tendency to Misery of Sin and have left it if I have seen the Reasonableness of loving and obeying God and consequently do it I shall also be desirous that my Fellow Sinner should come to his right Mind What measure of Love to God I have or see I ought to have I shall desire in another The Love of God infallibly influences me not only for God's sake but even for the Creatures sake to love my Fellow Creature and endeavour to perswade him to Repentance Obedience and Happiness Such repenting Sinners have there been in all ages tho' sometimes but a few perswading others and one another to Repentance and such repenting Sinners God may expresly command to preach Repentance and Obedience to others But yet in all these tho' by them many have been perswaded there is still wanting something of the height of external Argument These repenting Sinners have been Sinners sometime and in some measure Sinners still and may possibly err as well as my self and be partial in their Admonitions and Councels and speak more or less than God's Will and above all may sometimes give Examples not agreeing with their Precepts or may change and say and be one thing now another thing anon as the ballance of Good and Evil goes up and down with them Therefore if God will give the greatest and most suitable means to perswade Sinners as it is agreeable to his Wisdom and Goodness to do there ought to be some Infallible Instructer in the Will of God confirm'd to be such beyond all exception giving an Example with his Instructions of perfect Obedience to his Maker a Creature perswading both by Perfection of Precepts and Exactness of Example to the perfect way of Obedience One that hath no false by as for which he may be question'd to be defective of being a perfect Rule to the rest of the Creatures but is capable and sufficient to give the most convincing Arguments to enforce Repentance and Obedience That God has given such a means to reduce Man's disorderly Will we shall consider by and by when the thread of our Discourse brings us to speak of Revelation and the Perfection and Substance of all Revelation Divers repenting Sinners God has expresly commanded and sent to the rest of Mankind to manifest his Will and Pleasure by them and to assure them that they will therein find their own Interest and Advantage 36. And this Consideration brings me at length to the business of Express Revelation which when considered in the Sum and Substance Design and End of it will be found to dictate and enforce no other thing to Men than what we call Natural Religion of which we have been somewhat discoursing It is but as it were a more fair Edition of the same Law
when but deliver'd were accompanied with Circumstances making them at least credible that they might be but when fulfilled they were seen beyond dispute to have been Revelations of God The most principal and full of which Old Testament Predictions related to Christ and his Ministry and were found exactly fulfilled in him and consequently to be of God Which Consideration brings me to the New Testament or the Writings of the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ the Master and Teacher of the Christian Religion which is the main thing I would perswade him that already believes Natural Religion not to be offended at The Doctrinal and Preceptive Part contain'd in these Books I 'm sure none that considers it can in reason dislike it is so rational and natural And tho' the whole Bible teaches in its Precepts principally Natural Religion or Exact Morality yet the Doctrine of Christ as deliver'd down to us by his Apostles and Disciples seems to out-shine whatever was taught before in Clearness and also to out-do all former Manifestations in the Fulness thereof What has he taught or what has he commanded but what is clearly evident and strongly reasonable to any that without Prejudice will use their Reason and consider it and what can be desired to a most perfect Rule of Life more than he hath given in his short yet comprehensive Precepts As to the Historical Part of the New Testament I think I may boldly say it hath in divers Respects the advantage of any other History As the Notableness of the Matters of Fact The Number and Character of the Witnesses Their sufficient Agreement and Harmony in their Testimony The Time and Place of the things done The Reception of this History and Doctrine by succeeding Ages The Change wrought in the World thereby The Succession and Continuation of the Professors of Christianity All which things cannot be suppos'd so to concur in opposition to the Carnal Interest and sinful Inclinations of the World to give credit to a mere Romance or feigned Story He would be as unreasonable that should deny that there was such a Person as Jesus Christ and that he taught so and so and did such and such Miracles with the Consequences thereof as he that should deny that there was such a Person as Charles the First King of England and that there was a Civil War between him and the Parliament But I leave these things having just named them to the Consideration of thinking Readers who if they have any desire to be more fully satisfied in these matters may consult several learned and well known Authors who have handled this matter largely But I shall come to consider as soon as I can some particular things at which the Naturalist seems more justly offended relating to Jesus Christ's Person or Office that so if possible all things may be made clear that the Deist at length may see Christianity most rational and no longer refuse to embrace it But 37. Of Jesus Christ we shall first lay down this Proposition That the greatest most adequate and suitable Means God has given among Men towards their Recovery from Disobedience and the clearest Arguments he hath offered them to perswade them to will as he wills in order to their Happiness he hath given in and by the Man Christ Which I think will appear by the time we have a little consider'd his Work and his Person And concerning the Work of Christ which I think most proper to speak of first I shall lay down this Proposition That the Sum and Substance End and Design of all Christ has done does or will do in relation to Fallen Man's Recovery is to convince Man that he hath done Evil in willing contrary to God's Will and to perswade him to change his Mind and will as God wills for the future to the Manifestation of God's Perfections and Man's Happiness The Ways and Methods Christ took to perform this Work if we consider will appear very rational and suitable to the Nature of Man and the End of his Being First Man is to be fully inform'd of the Truth of things relating to his Disobedience or Obedience Unhappiness or Happiness But Christ hath given the fullest Discovery of the Mind and Will of God in relation to his Creatures He hath given the most fair Edition and Interpretation of God's Laws rectifying the inveterate Mistakes of Mankind He hath discovered the false Glosses and Interpretations sinful Men had put upon the foregoing Revelations of God's Will and reconciled Revelation to the Natural Light in such a manner that those that heard him were forced to confess he spake as never Man spake before And we who have but a short account of what he said have yet enough to shew us that he was as it were the Oracle of Moral Wisdom Such an Excellency appears in his comprehensive Account of the whole Law of God Such an admirable Method in his Directory of the Order of our Desires To be short such a Pre-eminence in all those Sayings we have as coming from his own Mouth that me-thinks an ordinary Considerer may see a Wisdom distinguishable from that of all his Servants tho' some of them at least equall'd him in the Greatness of Miraculous Works He hath both represented God far more clearly than he was before represented what he is and will be found to be to his Creatures and his Creatures what they ought to be to him and one another And particularly Goodness was never so unvailed and made to shine forth before the Goodness of God what it is and will be and the Goodness of Man what it must or should be The Goodness of God was never before seen to be so much greater than the Sin of Man as by this Messenger who comes declaring God most ready to forgive and communicate his Benefits to sinful Men as he would have done had they never sinned if they are but willing to be forgiven and repent That God wills not our Unhappiness as we are inclinable to will Evil to those that cross our Wills He hath taught us to come to God as to a Father expecting infinitely more Goodness beyond our measuring than we can from our Natural Fathers And that we ought to imitate him in Goodness Love Mercy Forgiveness even in that which some have counted a Paradox Loving our Enemies blessing them that curse us and doing Good to those that persecute us and despitefully use us The Men of old were apt to pray against or curse their Enemies and Men now are too much of that Spirit in whom the Love of God does not prevail being ready to think it unreasonable or impossible to love their Enemies But that it is both reasonable and more easie to love our very Enemies than to hate them we may be perswaded by divers Considerations If it be an Excellency to be like God the most perfect and happy Being Christ tells us that he makes his Sun to shine upon the Good and the Bad
and is kind unto the unthankful and the Evil he counsels us to imitate God Who tho' Men be Enemies to him does nothing to them but what may be an Argument to make them his Friends Is Hatred an uneasie Passion Let us love all Men and be at ease Would we have Friends Is it better to have many than few Operative Love reconciles Enemies and heaps Coals of Fire upon their Heads not to burn them but to melt them down into streams of Love We cannot well love our Enemies as such with a Love of Complacency but the working Love of Benevolence if we are good does as much as may be to make our Enemies such as God and we would have them when Hatred does but increase and continue Hatred The Goodness of God leads us inimical Sinners to Repentance and this God-like Behaviour in us is the greatest means we can possibly use and is often found effectual to turn the Arrows of Enmity against us into Beams of Love This reconciling Message of Heaven sent by Jesus Christ to rebellious Mortals the Enemies of God and one another is not without good reason call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Good Speech or Gospel teaching Love and Friendship as the Soul of all Duty and Essence of Happiness This Gospel is not improperly also call'd the Better Testament in comparison with the Old Dispensation of Carnal and Troublesome Ordinances which God suffered the Hebrews as well as other Nations for a long time to labour under This Gospel Dispensation if Men would live to the Purity of it being most easie reasonable and alike suitable to all Men being but compleat or very little more than Exact Morality is that which would rectifie all the Disorders of Mankind that can be amended in this Mortal State Secondly As Christ taught the most plain and reasonable Doctrine so he gave the height of Argument to perswade it such as could be most prevalent on Rational Creatures to gain their Compliance with the Mind and Will of their Maker He has not only convinceingly asserted and proved himself sent of God a mighty Argument to procure the reception of his Message by very many Miracles done by his Means but manifested the things themselves delivered to be God's Message by their Excellency as most becoming God to dictate and most fit for Man to receive If the highest reason be enough to perswade the Will of Man he hath given it I challenge all the most Zealous Jew or Reasoning Deist to shew me one thing that Christ hath indeed taught or his Disciples at his Command which cannot be most rationally accounted for or where he hath imposed upon the Understanding of Man or obliged him to believe or profess any thing that is contradictory or unintelligible or commanded him to do any unreasonable thing or what is against his real Interest Let them shew me that Judaism or Deism is more reasonable and he that can may have great hopes of making me a Proselyte till that is done which I am confident will never be I am resolved to remain a Christian or a Disciple of him who hath given the most fair Copy of Truth relating to God and his Will to Man and relating to Mens present and future Condition wherein I can see no difficulty to any that fairly reasons and looks upon Christianity as it is in it self and not as corrupted and misrepresented by the Fancies and Traditions of Men in the Antichristian Defection Moreover What Christ hath most clearly declared in way of Precept he hath back'd and confirm'd by his Influencing Example his Life being most exactly conformable to his Doctrine in entire Submission and Conformity to the Will of God and constant perseverance therein against the greatest Temptations Earth and Hell could offer thereby asserting by a Home Argument that the doing the Will of God is eligible yea best tho' we should thereby loose all the good things of this life we can loose with Life it self in the grounded hopes of a future State free from all the Evils of Temptation Sin and Unhappiness Which Future State he hath so plainly taught and manifested that by him it may be well said Life and Immortality was brought to light the Immortality of the Soul and a Future Life of Body and Soul together after a Resurrection being Truths left unto him clearly to teach 38. That Christ might thus become a most fit Means or Mediator between God and sinful Men to bring them from Rebellion against God's Will to Obedience to the Will of their Maker it is to be considered what manner of Person Christ must be And first it was necessary that he should be a Man that his Conversation with Men might be most near familiar and unquestionably real A Man like unto us in all things Sin only excepted than which there cannot be conceived a more proper Medium between God and Sinners Nothing can possibly be supposed between God and the Creature There can be no Third or Middle Being that is neither God nor Creature to be a Mediator and God cannot be a Mediator himself because he is one of the Extreams Tho' God is the First Cause or Mover of Man to Repentance he cannot be said to be a Means or Instrumental Cause nor can there be any to use him or send him no nor can he be said to send himself or any one of his Attributes or Properties Nothing of God can in any proper sense be said to be absent from God and between God and Sinners A King may declare his own Will but he cannot be said to send himself on an Embassy A Sinner could not be a compleat Mediator for Sinners are the other extream Repenting Sinners may indeed be a sort of Mediators between God and the Impenitent and have been so as Moses was and others but they are incompleat ones they were but the Servants sent If God would give a compleat Mediator or Embassadour to the World of Sinners he must give such a one as his Son Christ was who tho' he might yea must be a Man like us in all things else Sin must be excepted If he were not a Man truly truly innocent a Second Adam he could not be an exact and perfect Example nor a most unquestionable Witness nor have shew'd that Man might have done his Duty But he must be capable of being tempted to disobey or he could not have been an Example of resisting and obeying None but he that might possibly disobey could yield free Obedience such as is worthy of God's Acceptance God himself who is incapable of being tempted to Sin or of Disobedience cannot be said to obey nor is there any above him to whom he can be obliged If Christ must be innocent and persisting in Obedience he must not be of the common race of Mankind that is take both his Body and Soul mediately from sinful Parents as others do but must as to his Soul the Subject of Sin or Obedience be an
of the Field are mine V. 12. If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the Fulness thereof V. 13. Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats V. 14. Offer unto God Thanksgiving and pay thy Vows unto the most High V. 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 51.16 Thou desiredst not Sacrifice else would I give it thou delightest not in Burnt-offerings V. 17. The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit c. Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning Burnt-offerings or Sacrifices V. 23. But this thing commanded I them saying obey my Voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people c. 1 Sam. 15.22 To obey is better than sacrifice Hos 6.6 God will have mercy and not sacrifice Math. 9.13 If ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Ye would not have condemned the guiltless Spoken to the Jews condemning his Disciples when they being hungry plucked the Ears of Corn but might have been said to them rather when they afterwards more unjustly condemned and slew him Is 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the Burnt-offerings of Rams and the fat of fed Beasts and I delight not in the blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-goats c. And at the 16th Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil Ver. 17. Learn to do well seek Judgment relieve the Oppressed judge the Fatherless plead for the Widow Mich. 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of rivers of Oil Shall I give my first-born for my Transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my Soul He hath shewed thee O Man what is Good And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God But the sacrifices of God Psal 107.22 are sacrifices of Thanksgiving Psal 4.5 Sacrifices of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.5 Spiritual Sacrifices Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ Sacrifices of praise and doing good Heb. 13.15 16. By him therefore let us offer up the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name But to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Sacrifices of love to God and our Neighbour Mark 12.33 And to love him with all the Heart and with all the Understanding and all the Soul and with all the Strength and to love his Neighbour as himself is more than all whole Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices Living Sacrifices Rom. 12.1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service And the Author to the Hebrews chap. 10.5 brings Christ in from Psal 40.6 c. saying to God A Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared me as the Septuagint reads it but the Hebrew hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Ears hast thou digged viz. opened to hear thy Commands not to Sacrifice certainly for saith he in Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God Above when he said Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not neither hadst pleasure therein c. Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God He taketh away the first viz. Sacrifice that he may establish the second viz. doing the Will of God By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all c. Ver. 16. This is the Covenant I will make with them after those days speaking Jer. 31.33 of the New Covenant saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their Hearts and in their Minds will I write them Ver. 17. And their Sins and Iniquities will I remember no more Ver. 18. Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin c. From all which places compared and many more that we might consider it appears that Christ is a Sacrifice or Offering acceptable to God as he does his Will in prosecuting the end of his Mission the bringing Sinners to Repentance and Obedience to God against all opposition even Death it self giving up his Body to Death rather than omit any thing he was to do And Sinners have the benefit of this Sacrifice not as God is appeas'd atton'd or reconciled to Sin or Sinners by any pleasure that can be added to him by beholding the Pain Bloodshed or Death of an innocent Man but rather as they are attoned or reconciled to God and their Duty to him by beholding Christ's Obedience in doing the Will of his Father even under the greatest Sufferings even to Death he could meet with from the opposition of Earth and Hell his Constancy being a convincing Argument that his Doctrine was good and his Life to be imitated a Perswasive to follow him in Gospel or exact Moral Obedience through whatsoever Persecution for Righteousness sake leaving all those external and childish things of the Levitical Priesthood as useless Wherefore as a better Covenant God saith He will put his Laws into their Hearts What Laws The Laws of Offerings and Ceremonies might possibly be put into their Hearts no such Laws as readily come into the Hearts of considering Persons such as we have ver 24. viz. Love and good Works So that the Obedience of Christ is the Christian Sacrifice but not ours by its pacifying God for us Sinners but by our following it as it is an Example in offering up all we are and have in love to God which is our reasonable Duty Christ may also be said to be sacrificed for us as he dedicated and offered up his Life in prosecuting the Good of Sinners by teaching them and perswading them to be reconciled to God He may also be said to be a Sacrifice to the Wrath and Malice of the wicked Jews as they devoted him and gave him up to Death according to the Councel of Caiaphas to prevent the Romans coming upon them on the noise of his being said to be the King of the Jews they supposing as also his Disciples for some time did that he meant then to set up an earthly Kingdom thinking it was better that one Man should die than that the whole Nation should perish
the pleasing sight of as great pains as all his fallen Creatures can possibly suffer he will have it in the Innocent They represent God as one that taketh pleasure in the Death of him that dies in the Death of the Innocent for the Guilty as one much more pleas'd with the Punishment of the Just than of the Transgressor The most blameless Creature that ever was must not be abated one dram of Torment they can devise fancy due or wish to their most wicked Enemies They are not contented Christ should suffer those things merciless and unjust Sinners could lay upon him by means of his Body or what might come by the fear and apprehension thereof what he might suffer in his great Compassion to Sinners and Love to God on the Consideration of Man's Sin and Misery and God's leaving him for a time who loved him so greatly without more than common Assistance under these Sorrows or what he might possibly bear from attempts of Satan but they make God the Active Inflicter of more than all this of the greatest Torment even that of the Damned on that dear Soul who was the greatest Saint making God like a Tyrant like themselves or worse They tell strange Stories of Christ's bearing the weight of his Father's Wrath Burning Wrath Yea I have heard an ignorant but confident Preacher tell his inconsiderate Hearers that Christ was a Sacrifice and roasted in his Father's Wrath and his Agony was Certamen a Contest or Fight and that Christ fought not with Devils not with Men but with his Father But God himself testified the contrary to these bold Fancies by a Voice from Heaven that he was his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased and we can't suppose that God changed his Mind and became displeas'd with him who never sinn'd nor can he be suppos'd to contend fight or be displeas'd with his Father's Will while we grant him without Sin which is another Argument that God's Will was not the cause of his Sufferings for there is no Suffering but from some sort of Displeasure with the case we are in and if Christ were displeas'd with what God did he sinned But we believe God could not be displeas'd with Christ being without any fault at all so neither could Christ be displeas'd with God but he might be displeas'd and uneasie by means of Sinners It must be a hard Heart and impudent Tongue that can believe or affirm that God was wrath with the most Innocent Creature and tormented him when God calls him his Beloved Son God left him indeed to that Cup of the Sorrows of Death occasion'd by the Body inflicted by wicked hands he left him deeply to be sorry for and sympathize with miserable Sinners and to grieve for the breach of his Father's Laws but he never left him without the Knowledge of God's being his God and Father he never had the Misery of Despair Envy Malice Wrath Strong desire of Impossibilities Hate of God c. the chiefest Ingredients of the Damned's Misery Whatever was his fear of that Cup the painful and lingering Death of the Cross which was likely to be so tedious to one who in all probability had not been accustom'd to Sickness or Bodily Pains yet he was not left without the Heavenly Assistance of an Angel to strengthening him Whatever was God's forsaking him he was sure God was his loving Father and that that day he should be in Paradise If God left him to all the Pain and Anguish the cruel Death of Crucifixion or the Apprehension of it might produce in an Innocent Man as he has left many of his Followers to cruel Torments and did not interpose and prevent the Cup of Sufferings by some extraordinary means God can be thought to be no more but the Permitter of the Wicked so far to afflict the Righteous and to work no Miracle to separate Sorrows and Pains from their common Conditions in Humane Nature Christ's Patience under all praying for his Enemies submitting to Death tho' he deserved it not rather than omit his Duty may be of great use to us to set before us the greatest Pattern of Good-behaviour under Sufferings for Righteousness sake and to forewarn us what we must expect if we will be his Followers And whatever was the Cup Christ spake of in his Agony the Author to the Hebrews ch 5.7 8 9. tells us that when he had offered up Prayers and Supplications with strong Crying and Tears unto him that was able to save him from Death he was heard from his fear which may encourage us and tho' he were a Son he learned Obedience by the things that he suffered and being made perfect he became a cause of eternal Salvation To whom to all them that obey him So that if we should suppose Satisfaction possible to be made how full soever this Text tells us we could not be saved alone on the account of what Christ hath done or suffered because something else is yet necessary viz. our Obedience so Christ's doing and suffering is not indeed enough for us and so really no Satisfaction But that God does truely forgive Sinners that I think is so clearly and often declar'd in Scripture it needs not be farther demonstrated and Satisfaction cannot stand with Forgiveness any more than the Word can be found in Scripture 44. Having here discoursed somewhat concerning Sufferings I think it most proper to subjoin my Thoughts about the Common Opinion relating to the Evil call'd Punishment or the Miseries of the Creature consequent on Sin Wherein I think Men are generally mistaken while they look upon God as truely and properly the Inflicter as the sole Cause and Efficient of this Misery of the Sinner and obliged so to be It is no wonder indeed that those Men should be of this opinion who believe God was a Punisher and that a severe One of the Innocent Jesus they forgetting even the Oath of God That the Soul that sinneth shall die the Righteousness of the Righteous shall be upon him and the Wickedness of the Wicked shall be upon him one shall not bear anothers Wickedness as we read at large Ezek. 18. Nor is it strange that any who do not believe the Goodness of God greater than they can conceive or desire should esteem God the Author of some sort of Evil. But for my part I must confess I do not see cause to believe that God is properly and positively a Punisher or the cause of Unhappiness in any of his Creatures much less bound to be so or that any Evil can proceed from the Fountain of all Good or any thing but what 's good from Goodness it self but if God give any thing it must needs be good I would here be understood to speak properly for I know the Scripture Tropically and Figuratively after the manner of Men speaks often to the contrary I do not deny but affirm that the wicked that die impenitent shall be exceeding miserable and suffer Exquisite
loath to repent and try him except she were sure She can't find in her heart to forgive her poor Debters Some-body or other has wrong'd her and she 's resolved to have Satisfaction it is but just So she thinks God must have Satisfaction for her Sins or he can't be just and tho' she has heard a Sin-sweetning-Story that Christ hath made Satisfaction for Sinners she can't believe she is of that number she is not sure she 's one of the small number predestinated Shall I tell her yet more plainly what 's her Disease She loves Sin too much Duty too little her Heart is not inflam'd with Love to God so as to influence all her Actions She has not had him represented to her so Good Merciful Loving Ready to Forgive all freely as indeed he is Besides that Witness for God the Conscience that testifies when Man hath done well or ill is not clear perhaps and according to the measure of Obedience or Disobedience in known Duty will the Comfort or Discomfort generally be to a convicted Soul and faith that there is Forgiveness with God is one Duty without which Comfort is seldom securely enjoy'd Now let us consider has God left or afflicted such Persons No they have left God and hid themselves from him let them but be perswaded to turn to God and believe his Infinite Love and Goodness and love him with all their Hearts and they will quickly find that Perfect Love casts out Fear their Troubles will cease with the restifying their Judgments and changing their Wills Now of all the Miserie 's sinful Creatures are lyable to the Eternal Torments as they are call'd of the Damned in Hell can I think with least reason be thought to come from the hand of the Best Being as the Inflicter or Executioner when these Miseries may well be thought chiefly to consist in the Exasperation and height of those uneasie Thoughts which are the very Acts of Sin as Wrath Envy Hate Despair Desire impossible to be satisfied c. Add unto these their Effects with whatsoever Devils and Immortal wicked Men may be able to inflict upon one another and the most uncharitable Soul can hardly desire a greater Hell for his greatest Enemy But what I have said already of Displeasure merely Mental and that which comes by the means of the Body may be easily applied here if well considered But yet farther methinks it is a very hard Thought to think that God who as the beloved Disciple tells us is Love should hate and take Pleasure or Delight in tormenting his poor foolish frail Creatures or that he should afflict willingly or from his Heart or affect with Grief the Children of Men and that for ever But he must be supposed either to do it willingly and take pleasure in so doing or he cannot properly be said to do it for God cannot with any reason be said to do any thing against his own Will or in which he has not pleasure that cannot be suppos'd of a Perfect or Self sufficient Being nor can any action of the Creature be thought to bring God under a necessity of doing any thing he delights not in and he swears he hath no pleasure in the Death of the Wicked Ezek. 33.11 chap. 18.32 It is the Sinner that will die or chooseth Death he seeks pleasure indeed but he hath it not because he seeks it where it is not to be had viz. in his own foolish disorderly Will distinct from God's Will when God cannot give it him that way it being impossible The Damned doubtless are exceeding uneasie why they have turned from God the Fountain of Pleasure They have lived and died in a course contrary to God's Will contrary to the only possible way of Happiness and God is just in suffering them to have their own choise in leaving them after innumerable Arguments to perswade them to real good to make the Experiment how happy they can be without being beholden to him and it is enough to shew that God approves not of their Sin if he continue their Being his Work under the greatest Misery they can bring themselves into and as they are no more sinful than they themselves and their fellow Sinners can make them so if they have no more Misery than what they can work in themselves and one another it will be proportionable to their Sins and both may be exceeding great God can't be thought to work or cause Despair Wrath Malice Hate and Envy at the greatest Good Extream Discontent at his Will and the Happiness of others fierce furious unsatisfied Desire c. in his Creatures he must not be thought to be the Cause or Agent of those sinful Passions they are all against his Will as he hath clearly manifested And we cannot suppose that God's Justice requires that Sinners for a short life of Rebellion against their Maker in this World should be bound to rebel against him for ever or believe that they can satisfie for some Sins here with a Continuance of all Sins they are capable of in a State of Immortality hereafter No there is no necessity of Unhappiness but what the Sinners own perverse Will brings upon him his disorderly Passions are let loose and to what extremity Passions may be carried out who knows These will be Tormenters if there were no Devils able to vex And where these evil Passions are in their extream how can it be thought that the Bodies such Anxious Souls would delight in can be other than the Occasions of far greater Misery than they were capable of being in this Life wherein some of the Passions disorder'd have brought the Bodies to be very uneasie Concomitants with this Aggravation that they have then no more Death to expect to rid them of that uncomfortable Companion unless we could suppose that Hell it self hath at least this Happiness to be a Remedy for the Diseases of the Body and a Safeguard from all those Evils Sinners could lay upon one another in this life or that their Folly could bring God under a necessity to disown his well-wrought Work their Being and to let them fall into nothing As for the Examples of external Judgments as they are call'd which we have especially in Scripture wherein some may think the immediate Act of God as inflicting is always required when they were more than Preventions of greater Evils the Persons would have run into they may easily be accounted for by supposing Men sometimes left to the power of the Devil the Prince of the power of the Air who seems eagerly covetous to enlarge the Dominion of Hell or to do any kind of Mischief Of this we have an Example in Job Or that God sometimes withdraws his Providential hand from protecting a People or a Person that leaves him and suffers them to fall into the hands of others that are wicked their Enemies As were the Judgments on Israel or others by Inimical Nations in which Instances we can't suppose God does