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
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
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
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
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
own foolish Will that captivates binds holds and concludes us in Slavery to Sin We are Slaves most properly to our own sinful Wills The Ransom or Price is therefore given to us God has given or sent his Beloved Son into the World and he hath done and suffered great things for us to purchase our Love The Father sent his Son to court our Good-will and it cost him his Life with a great deal of Labour and Pains We are God's own by Right and Christ's by Gift in one sense as he is ours in another but we have enslaved our selves in Sin and God does not only demand us again as his but even hires us to be his again that we may be willingly his and serve him whose Service is Liberty Christ hath given himself to redeem us to God not from God by his own Blood that is in perswading us to serve our Natural Lord our Maker he hath lost his Life and we shall be very ungrateful to God and to Christ if we don't surrender our selves when God hath done so much to purchase our Good-will that in loving him we may be happy The serving our own foolish Wills is the greatest Slavery and we serve not the Devil but in Subserviency to our own erring Wills The serving God is Liberty the only and greatest Liberty of a Creature God hath given Christ to do and left him to suffer whatever might tend to our Conviction Repentance and Happiness in Obedience God hath given him to teach and instruct us in his Mind and Will and if this be not enough also to give us an Exact Pattern and Example of so doing and that against the greatest Opposition and Suffering from Opposers and if the Malice and Blindness of any were so great as not to see a Conviction in so Clear Doctrine Fair Example and Great Love that was seen in his Life and lesser Sufferings Love of God in sending him and his Love in an entire Compliance with God's loving Purpose his patient persevering in Good-will to them under his greatest and last Sufferings he could suffer from them may be made the highest and last Argument to make their hard Hearts relent be convinced and and change Which Argument was farther confirmed by God's raising him from the dead and receiving him up to Heaven thereby declaring that though they erringly put him to Death as an Evil Doer yet he was not so in God's account but Just and Good in prosecuting God's Will for the Good of Men against and surmounting the highest Ingratitude If my Friend with admirable Wisdom and Argument councel and direct me how I shall get out of a sad and deplorable Condition he finds me in out of a way wherein I can never be happy shall I not hear him Shall I be so unreasonable as to slight his Councel If he give me a Pattern of himself in doing that wherein he is and I may be happy and farther if he prosecute my Good and seek to reclaim me to the denying of himself slighting and foregoing his own Happiness as much as he justly can or as much as may be an Argument to me to hear him if he undergo Reproach Pains and Sorrow for my Good Farther if he patiently suffer even my unkind and ungrateful Hands to be embrewed in his dear Blood while I count him my Enemy and an Evil Doer and end all with the height of Expressions of Good-will forgiving and desiring God to forgive me would not this be enough to soften or break a Heart of Adamant that should once seriously reflect and consider Christ as such a Friend that hath thus done and suffered and given the most high and admirable Instance of a Creatures Love to Creatures in Subserviency to that greater Love he had to God and ought to have and to manifest in doing the Will of him whose Love must yet be thought to be greatest and to transcend all created Love as much as an Infinite Being is above the Finite as much as the Cause of Christ's Being and Love is before the Effect 48. Another Point in which some Men perhaps as greatly err is that of Christ's Intercession the Manner of which as they suppose is thus Christ represents our Condition and Desires to God with what he hath done and suffered in our stead and so procures of God those good things we stand in need of But that this may appear to be a Mistake let it be considered that it cannot properly be said that Christ represents our Cases to God because God can have nothing made known to him being Omniscient nor has he any need to present his Obedience or mind God of his Sufferings who can never forget nor can we think that Christ has any need to intreat or any Capacity of procuring of God what he is not in himself as ready to give But Christ's Intercession is rather a procuring or perswading us to be willing to receive those good things God is ready if we are but desirous of them freely to give us And this Christ does in that Power and Authority God has given him as the Head and Ruler of the Church by all means suitable to perswade and reduce the disorderly Wills of Men since his Ascension by the Ministry of the Word and Spirit That Christ pray'd to God when on Earth was not to make known his Desires to God or to move him to fulfil them who heard him always even his most secret Desires and was as willing any good as he yea will'd it first which was the reason Christ will'd it but he pray'd for our sakes to shew what God's Will was and his compliance therewith to profess his Conformity to the Will of his Father and give us an Example of Worship in acknowledging God's Omniscience Nor do we pray when we pray aright to perswade God to our Wills but to profess our Conformity to his the Condition of our receiving to stir up and provoke one another thereto and to profess our Desires towards God and our Dependency on him And when we are said to pray to God in the Name or for the Sake of Christ or to come to God by Christ and when God is said to hear us for Christ's sake or do any thing for us for Christ's sake we are not to think that the bare saying for Christ's sake is rightly meant or that God will grant our Requests rather because of his respect to the Will and Pleasure of Christ than from his own Readiness to do us good We must not think it is with God as it is with Men in this Matter who do things for one to please another they more respect which they were not in themselves inclinable to do because God can have no greater Argument than from himself nor can he be put in mind of any thing he forgets or is not ready to give us But we come to God in and by Christ or in his Name on his account or Sake when we believe Christ's Message
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
another committed before I had so much as any act of Will or Being it self 20. So far we have considered Creatures as coming from the hands of God and Good or possible to be changed and become evil in their Actions We now come to consider them as actually evil And it is or may be apparent to any Man that will descend into himself and consider that Man has not always and exactly done as he should but has sometime will'd or does will otherwise than God wills Of this I say we may be soon convinced by our own Experience or Conscience the surest of all Convictions If it be true that as God is all perfect or sufficient in himself so that he hath created things to manifest his Wisdom Goodness and Power c. to the Intelligent Creatures that they may be as happy as they are capable of Being it is most certain First that if I have not considered my self being once capable of Reasoning and so found my Cause and enquired and found what he is admir'd and lov'd him and had thankful Thoughts of him it is not because I was incapable of doing so but because I would not and I have not will'd as becomes me as God wills I should but have sinned Secondly If I have will'd any thing that does not tend to make me as happy as I can be or as much pleas'd with God in himself and in his Works as I should I have will'd otherwise than God wills and so have sinned But I find even after I have found God and somewhat consider'd him I have very much forborn or neglected to consider him and considered other things unworthy such consideration more than him nor have I loved him as the Self-sufficient Being and my Cause ought to be loved but have loved my self or other things unworthy such Love more than him while I am convinced he is better than me or any thing and the Cause things are and are any way condusive to my Good or Pleasure and in so doing as well as in other Instances I find I have sometimes will'd those things which at other times I have found not tending to make me as much as may be happy I have will'd things before I have consider'd or inform'd my self of the Nature and Tendency of them slighting those Directions God has made me capable of receiving from him and so acted or will'd disorderly or otherwise than becomes me I have not always been pleas'd or glad in contemplating God in himself and in his Works and therefore I find I have not always will'd as God wills I know or may soon do that God's Will is best in relation to himself and his Creatures I have been convinced such and such a thing is according to God's Will yet I have done otherwise and chose that which my Judgment informs me is not God's Will thereby asserting my own Will therein better than God's or my Judgment truer than his Again I am convinced when I seriously consider that God's Will is that wherein I can best be pleas'd but I find I have been displeas'd and uneasie in mind many a time either because I have found I chose something not best for me or because for want of Consideration I have thought something good for me and will'd it which I could not possibly have Thus I find infallibly I have will'd otherwise than God wills and so have sinned Here we have from the Light of Nature or our own Reason an evident Conviction of Sin or of Man's Fall and Degeneracy every one may see it in himself and the same we may observe tho' not some ways so apparently in others And all Mankind in general how dark soever their Light and how little soever their Reason is having once attain'd to the use of Reason have been sometimes ready to confess themselves indeed guilty of doing amiss and forced to accuse others as guilty of Evil. What Man is there but that if I do any thing to make him less happy is sensible I do not as I would be done by and so do not my Duty but am a Sinner Now God cannot be suppos'd to make Man thus evil and out of order because he can do nothing but what is good tho' he made Man capable of sinning or going out of order And as Man must needs be suppos'd to come out of God's hands good and orderly but is become evil acting a miss Man must be suppos'd to be fallen and degenerated from his Primitive state 21. The Greatness of Man's Sin in willing otherwise than God wills the Grievousness of his Fault in falling from what God made him is apparent or may be so if we but consider That Man is nothing of himself but is beholden to God for his Being and All. It is therefore most highly unreasonable that Man should deny to acknowledge such a one his Author or dare to contradict or disbelieve his Wisdom and Goodness in acting as if God did not know or would not do what is best for his Creature How unreasonable is it that Man should foolishly and with an ungrateful Stubbornness refuse the Good yea any Good God offers him Had God made him less capable of Good he had been bound to be thankful for any capacity had God denied him some Good he had made him capable of he had been endebted to Love and thank his Maker for any Good he had given him It is a high Slight of the boundless ever-overflowing Fountain of Goodness for Man to refuse any or the greatest Happiness God offers him and whoever does not study God's Will as a Director to Happiness will certainly miss some Good It might be Love to refuse what the Giver would loose or want by giving it or could not well spare but a Slight not to take where the Giver has abundance and will have never the less by giving For Man to refuse any Happiness God offers him is so far to desire not to be beholden to God But he that is most beholden to God is most happy and he that is most happy must consequently be most beholden to him This will remain an everlasting Truth while God and Creatures have a Being Is it not the height of Folly yea Madness as well as Injustice to choose Misery rather than acknowledge one's Maker as the Author of Happiness To desire not to be beholden to God our Cause our Lord and Soveraign is the highest Affront to the highest Majesty and no less than an absurd Endeavour to dethrone him and be of our selves that is be God To substract our selves from our Dependence on his Will and to prosecute our own in Distinction from and Contradiction to his is so unreasonable bold and mad a Presumption as to endeavour to overcome and destroy him so great a Folly and Absurdity as to endeavour the Impossibility of adnihilating the Being of all Beings and consequently our Selves and All. So great a Treason Boldness Perverseness Madness and Injustice is contain'd in Sin
has any evident Argument to perswade the doing or not doing of it but because God commands That which is not evidently a Natural Duty but some Express Command God may please to give the Creature without giving him the reason of it Such a thing also God may oblige his Creature to if he please only for a time But those Duties that result from the very notion of our being God's Creatures as Love Reverence Trust Dependance c. are unchangeable while God is God and the Creatures are Creatures whether God expresly command them or no. But if God shall expresly command his Creature a thing and yet not give the Creature the Reason of it as good to the Creature it must nevertheless necessarily be suppos'd to be good and must so far at least appear to him as that he sees it is not evil or contrary to a natural Duty or former Command And if we consider we shall find it most reasonable and convenient for Man to obey the Will of God not only in things that are apparently agreeable to Man's relation to his Maker and for Man's Benefit but in things he may not readily see the Agreeableness or Benefit of if first he be sure God commands them tho' therein God may seem for the present to limit or abridge Man's Happiness concluding God is wiser and better than the Creature For the Creature is beholden to God for all he has and if God deny him something that he may now fancy a Good he has no more reason to be displeased with God who arbitrarily gave him his Being than because he made him a Man and did not make him an Angel As a Man who should have the Gift of a good Estate from a Person who was no way obliged to him would be thought most unreasonable to deny a small quit Rent as an Acknowledgment to his Benefactor from whence he received the Estate Such a Reservation of at least a Seeming Good from Man was very suitable in his first Creation Make and Excellency as he was in the Likeness of God Lord of all the Inferiour Creatures that he might thereby acknowledge his Subjection and Dependance on God and God's Sovereignty and Dominion over him And yet it must also be affirm'd most for Man's Profit to part with this Acknowledgment tho' the thing he fore-go should be suppos'd a Real and not a Fancied Good for him because he would have kept a vastly greater Good than can be suppos'd in any one particular Creature that is the Satisfaction comes to a dependent Mind in obedience to his beloved Maker and Sustainer with the most pleasing sense of his Love and Favour to him the Sweet Familiarity Presence or Converse with his God which was consequently interrupted or destroyed by Disobedience Yet it may be a question whether what-ever God may be supposed to will Man to abstain from is not in it self inconvenient for him and whether it may not be thought a sufficient tryal of Man's Submission and Acknowledgment when only the Reason of the Command is reserved from him Whatever God has created is certainly Good and for some wise End Those things we call Poysons or which eaten or applied in a small quantity will destroy the Frame of Man's Body are good some way or other but it is not always necessary Man should know the Uses of them If a loving and wise Father a Physician should thus warn his beloved Son Meddle not with that Drugg tho' it hath a pleasant Taste if you eat it 't will kill you giving him no farther account of it or for what use he keeps it Yet this Son would not believe it or be satisfied tell he had tryed the Experiment would he not be highly to blame as discrediting his Father's Truth and Goodness and disobeying his Will How could he come without Shame to his Father for a Remedy So much more is Man blame-worthy if he refuse the Direction of God in the use of the Creatures what way soever he gives it 27. But the keeping all the Commands of God or whatsoever he can be known to will certainly tends to Man's Happiness and tho' he be obliged to abstain from many things good in themselves or rather from the use of them according to his own hasty inconsiderate Fancy yet a general Conformity to the Will of God is so far from being an unpleasant Burthen or Yoak that it is the only way of the greatest Happiness and Pleasure The more obedient the more easie the more joyous a Man is or will soon be And that Man is not perpetually and as much as may be so is because in some thing or other he has disobeyed or yet disobeys or the Disobedience of some other Creature affects him But to be fully obedient is the height of the Creatures Felicity The life of Obedience even at present is not a way of Unpleasantness Sadness and Thraldom but a Path of Pleasure Joy and Liberty There is nothing in doing the Will of God that in it self tends to make a Man uneasie or that hinders his being pleas'd or happy as much as possible and whoever fancieth there is it is from some Mistake as either a Supposition of that to be the Will of God which really is not or that the Actions of the Creature tend to one thing when indeed they tend to another I cannot forbear not only to assert this as that of which I have a most clear Rational Conviction but also to witness it as having here had something of unquestionable Experience And that short Pleasure which a Sinner may take in an unduly enjoy'd Sensual Good in stealing or snatching as it were from God what he would in better Time and Order have given him I have found more than equall'd by the bare Satisfaction in the Thoughts of not having transgress'd were the pleasure of Innocency no longer than the pleasure in Transgressing But in obeying are sometimes even in this life Joys unspeakable as Fore tastes of Joys future full and perpetual accompanying a State of perfect and perpetual Obedience Those that know nothing of these Felicities that are greater than can be in the disorderly Enjoyment or abuse of God's Creatures let them but try the Experiment as I have done of God's Goodness of the pleasure of Divine Love as they easily and freely may and they will be for ever convinced Neither let any think they loose any thing even of the good of the Creatures themselves by being restrain'd or rather directed by whatever Rule God gives us how to use them no he envies us not the greatest Pleasure we are capable of taking in them We cannot be suppos'd while Creatures to be capable of all Pleasure or of full Satisfaction in Creatures God has indeed given Man a quick Sense of Good or Delight even in the use of Bodily things and that not that it should be unsatisfied but the Creatures design'd for Man's use are so numerous that they cannot all be used
themselves uncapable of Forgiveness and Happiness yet it is commonly blind to see God as he is and is more apt to fly from him than come to him measuring God by its own standard it having been very apt to account it Justice to revenge the crossing its Will on those it was able to affect thinks God like it self not considering that the perfect Good-will of God cannot take Pleasure or Satisfaction in the Miseries of his Creatures tho' they are Enemies much less in their Sin or continuing Enmity the formal Cause of their Unhappiness But tho' Man is so apt to look upon God as an inraged Enemy hardly to be appeas'd severe to reckon with the Sinner resolved that the Sinner shall never be happy unless something can be given him to purchase his favour that he values more than the Sinner's Repentance or new Obedience Yet I say tho' Man is so apt to look upon God as such like himself we must affirm that God is not nor can he properly be said to be an Enemy to Man or any of his Creatures as they are to him and to one another He hates or sets himself against nothing but their Sins their Unhappiness wills nothing but what is for their good nor can he but love whatsoever is his own Work as the Beings of all his Creatures are and their Good Order which is their Happiness therefore he cannot but will their Reconcilement to him or to their Duty 30. Now all that God hath done does or will do in order to Man's Recovery from Sin and Misery tends unto this one thing To bring Man again to will as God wills Where ever this is done it is done and the End of God's Dealing with Sinners is accomplished whatever the means were by which it was brought about and so far as we are come towards this so far we are in the way of Salvation or saved To will as God wills or to love our God with all our Heart Soul and Strength and our Fellow Creature as our self is the whole Law that God does so much to perswade Man to keep To will and n'ill the same is perfect Love and Love is manifested by doing the Will of the Beloved In doing the Will of God is Life I mean Happiness not only in this Present State but also in that which is to come 31. And that there is a Life to come and Immortality discoverable clearly even by Reason and divers Notices thereof implanted in Nature we shall a little attempt to shew That Men are mortal and live in this Life but a little while is the experience of the whole World That the Body is subject to decay or the Order of its Motions wherein its Life consists liable to be destroyed and cease and by another as to Life disorderly Motion to be separated and so its Organical Figure to be spoiled and changed all Men perceive by the least Observation But that Death is not a Termination or End of our Being I think will appear by these Considerations First We have no reason to conclude that the End or Design of our Being is fully accomplished in this Life The Manifestations of God's Perfections to Man and Man's Pleasure or Happiness in beholding them the End of Man by reason of Sin are not so clear and so great in this Life as they may be should be and are to be desired God is not seen and enjoy'd by any now as he may be by some but very little The desires of some I may say of all that desire God are not satisfied in this short and sinful State None have unerringly and sufficiently beheld the Divine Excellencies and acknowledged God as he ought to be acknowledged Some have lived and died and hardly ever truely confess'd and own'd their Maker few or none have loved and obeyed him to their capacity and been as pleas'd or happy in him as they may be Therefore it is reasonable to conclude nay we cannot well think otherwise that there is a Life to come wherein the Ends of the Creation shall be accomplished God cannot be thought to let his Works perish without fulfilling his or their true Ends in them The Good those that have been so far convicted of the Disorders of Sin as to repent and change their Minds from willing contrary to God's Will in some measure to will as God wills and to desire that they may do so more yea perfectly and always Those that have some-what beheld God lovely have not yet or in this Life been brought up to so great a degree of Obedience as they are convinced is their Duty nor seen so much of God's Excellence as they desire to see nor been satisfied with the sense of his Love as they would If these their Desires Duties and Happiness are good convenient suitable to the Natures of God and his Creatures as evidently they appear to be certainly God wills them sometime or other to be and that more than the Creature can will them because God is the Supreme Good-will So that it is altogether unlikely that the Good Man should perish and not attain the Good that he is capable of desires is convenient and God wills more than he Nor is it any more likely that the Bad Man he that hath seen no greater Delight than in contradicting the Will and Order of God by the disorderly Enjoyment of the Creatures should perish or cease under so great a Mistake as never to see and be convinced of the Absurdity and Evil of prosecuting his own proper Will as the chief Good as never to find that the way of Happiness is not in acting contrary to the Will of God That God should have an Intelligent Creature never to be made acknowledge his Maker is a thing hard to be thought It is more probable that even the Bad Man will remain one way or other to be convinced of his Disorders of his Rebellion against God Injustice and want of Goodness to his Fellow Creatures The Good Man in this Life seems often to be the Man of Sorrow the Son of Adversity that doth not gather the full-ripe Fruits of his Repentance and Obedience being among a world of unhappy and injurious Impenitents Therefore it is requisite there should be a Future State wherein he may reap in Joy what he has sowed in Tears The Evil Man seems often to be the Man of Joy and Pleasure in this Life he rejoyceth and even glorieth in his Disorders yea in that very great one of afflicting the Man that is better than he Now it is most equal and just that he should some time or other come to see the Good Man before-hand with him rejoycing and happy in God when he is sorowing to see he hath turn'd from the fountain of Joy and Blessedness These things are not accomplished in this Life therefore we must necessarily suppose a Future Again It is certain that no Creature can cause it self or another to cease Nothing but the withdrawing
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
be attained but by Love and Obedience to God And when we return to our Father's House and acknowledge our Folly and Rebellion then we shall find it true that God is our best Friend and was so before we thought of returning It was an Opinion in the Pagan Divinity that their Gods were sometimes angry and must be attoned or reconciled and intreated to do them no Mischief or to be favourable to them and this they thought was to be done by some thing or other which they fancied was more pleasing to the Gods than that which they were angry at was displeasing something or other they liked so much better than doing Good that they were thereby over perswaded to do them such Favours they would not otherwise have done such a pleasure to them in their opinion was the slaying of a Beast and the offering it to them yea the horrid Act of sacrificing Men. But Christians should have a better Opinion of God who are taught that he is Love that is unchangeable Good will Who can imagine that the Blood of a Lamb pour'd out or the wasting of a Bullock on an Altar or the Death yea the Murder of an Innocent Man can be so grateful to the Most High as to make him a Friend when he was suppos'd before to be an angry Enemy Can this be an Argument to prevail with him to alter his Mind and like the Sinner any better What Delight or Advantage can we suppose the Death or Spoiling any Creature can be to the Self sufficient God Tho'd Christ for some Reasons is compar'd to or call'd a Sacrifice we can with no good reason retain the vulgar notion of it or believe that he by his being murder'd appeas'd God's Wrath and made him change from an angry Enemy to a pleased loving Friend or render'd him less disliking the Sins of Men than he was before No the Enmity is in Man against God not in God against Man it is Man that is to be changed not God Besides nothing but a wonderful Prejudice can make us think that the Murder of the most innocent Man the World ever had should be so much more pleasing to the most Just God than all other Sins were displeasing so that That and nothing else could pacifie him or make him willing Men that had sinn'd should yet obey him and be happy Did we but consider we should never have hopes to digest this opinion so many hard things are in the bowels of it If God hath commanded all Men not to kill can we with any sense think that God is at any time pleas'd with the breach of that Command Yea that the most Innocent must needs be murder'd that God might be justly pleas'd with the Guilty yea his Murderers This is to make Wickedness necessary and God pleas'd with it yea implacable without it This is to represent God worse than Man This is to suppose that some must of necessity sin and be damned or else none could possibly be saved Ah poor Judas that never taught'st us such hard things of God must thou needs betray thy Innocent Master and be damn'd that we might be saved who think so hardly of our Maker Why not another that thou might'st be saved or why not we for others that have a better opinion of God But God has without exception forbid all Injustice and especially the shedding Innocent Blood and if Men had believed and obeyed God as they ought and consequently might if they had received Christ's Doctrine and follow'd his Example as it was God's Will and so their Duty there would have been none to have slain Christ but Men would nay must have been saved without any ones committing such a nefarious Fact Yea if the Husband-men had yeilded the Due Fruits at the Approach of the Servants they would have been far from being so wicked as to have murder'd the Son Again if God could have been supposed to will that Christ should be put to Death if the Slaying of Christ had been that without which God would not be pleas'd it had been no Sin in those that did it but some Bodies Duty to kill him and so the notion of their being Murderers or Sinners in that Action had been destroyed But God never commanded any to put him to Death but the Action of those who did it is spoken of in Scripture with the highest Disapprobation But Christ was to be a Sacrifice you will say I answer That the business of Sacrifices is not well consider'd by many hor does the Death of Christ agree with the common notion of a Sacrifice tho' he is in some sense call'd a Sacrifice Christ is call'd a Priest and an Altar and a Sacrifice when one Person cannot possibly be all these in a proper sense The Priests slew the Sacrifices Christ flew not himself or any other nor were those who slew him Priests for that purpose The Priests might without Sin slay the Beasts they offered those that slew Christ had the absolute Prohibition of God in the Sixth Commandment The Offerings with the Levitical Priesthood not being to be thought for any Profit or Pleasure to God Almighty could have no reason except some prosit to Man might come thereby some of them fed the Levites who had no portion among their Brethren a People needing a sufficient number of Teachers of the Moral and Civil Law could they have been contented to be unlike the Nations round about them satisfied with a Spiritual Worship and Pure Theocracy without the more pompous and insignificant Ceremonies but God knowing the Inclination of that People let them have work burthensom enough to keep them from the Abominations of the Heathen had they shewed their Obedience in observing no more than what they were directed in a burden expensive enough to drain their Superfluities and enure them to spare when they should come more to need the Beneficence of one another when they were no longer a Peculiar People But whatever might be the Original Reason of Sacrifices or what apt Tendency there might at any time be found in them to bring Man to his Chief End we do not find that any of the Inhabitants of the Earth except the Hebrews nor they till they came into the Wilderness had any Institutions or Directions about Sacrificing Animals however Mankind Hebrews and others came to be so fond of it for so many Ages But to leave this that we may conceive how Christ may be call'd a Sacrifice let us consider what we find in Scripture as the most Plain Discoveries of God's Mind in relation to Sacrifice by the Prophets and Apostles Psal 50.8 I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy Burnt-offerings to have been continually before me Ver. 9. I will take no Bullock out of thy House nor He-goats out of thy Folds Ver. 10. For every Beast of the Forrest is mine and the Cattel upon a thousand Hills Ver. 11. I know the Fowls of the Mountains and the wild Beasts
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
but his own he can receive no advantage or have any thing purchased of him from Beings that have nothing but what he lent them Whatever God wills the Creature to do becomes presently its bounden Duty what God does not will it may not do There can be no Works of Supererogation as Men foolishly fancy when none can do more than his Duty Adam could not have merited tho' he had not sinn'd nor could have been properly said to have been saved by Works nor can any Man since be said to be so saved for to work Righteousness is that unto which a Man saved from Sin is brought and Perfect Obedience to God is Salvation So that to say a Person is saved by Works is all one as to say he is saved by Salvation or by being saved or that Salvation is the Cause of Salvation We read indeed of being justified by Works which is no more than this a Man that doth such Works as God wills him to do is just or in so doing is become just and so accounted but such a Man hath not to glory before God nor can God be brought in debt to Man or reckon the Reward he gives him that works a Debt tho' Men may reckon it so Man that owes all he hath or can do of good to his Maker who cannot be profited hath nothing to oblige God with or whereby to merit of him Christ himself could not in a proper sense merit of God for himself much less for others he was made under the Law and whatever God will'd him to do was his Duty and he did it and no more if he had done what God did not will he had done more than was right and if he did but just so much he did but just what he ought He was obliged to do the Will of God against all the opposition he met with from Men and Devils he could not without Sin omit any part of his Embassy tho' the People God first sent him to were so rude as to evilly intreat him persecute him and slay him If Christ cannot offer or bring any thing to God that he had not from God or do more than his Duty and so merit for himself much less can he merit for others For were it possible he could love or obey God more than he ought yet his doing could never become anothers doing or so be reckon'd by God There can be no lending of Actions or any thing that will pass for a purchase in Heaven tho' Men may spare and lend things on Earth It is God that most highly merits he from whom the Creatures have all they have and are and can do of good merits a return of all in Love Thankfulness and Obedience but he merits of the Creatures not for them he merits for himself only for his doing is not the Creatures doing and can never be truly so thought God merits of Christ all he has or can do in Obedience to him consequently Christ cannot merit of him having nothing but what he hath received from his God and Father Christ indeed merits of us tho' not for us Love Faith Obedience c. God hath set him over us and made him our Lord and Master and he hath freely done and suffer'd the greatest things a Created Friend could for us when he was no way obliged by us and we are in debt to him so much that we cannot easily be thought to merit of him Men may merit of one another when they may be profited by one another and do some things they are not obliged to by one another Now to conclude this point I confess if the Consideration of Christ's Merits viz. what he merits of us or what we are indebted to him shall prevail with us to repent and obey God as he hath taught us is our Duty we may possibly be said to be saved by Christ's Merits as an instrumental Cause but this is not the common notion of the Merits of Christ or the bottom on which most Christians embark and the greatest Villains sail boldly out into the other World on even from the Gallows if Mr. Ordinary can but teach them to say like Parrots that they hope to be saved by the Merits of Christ tho' they have spent all their time in Wickedness and would return to the same course could they scape the Halter Christ hath been righteous enough for himself and them too and they are thought safe if they can but believe that is have a strong fancy that God accepts of Christ's Obedience and Sufferings instead of theirs The Papists are said to believe a Man may Merit of God by his good Works and we count them erronious for their Opinion never considering that we Protestants believe as much tho' not that you or I can merit of him for our selves yet that another Man which is more strange can merit for us and so fall in with them even in the foolish opinion of Works of Supererogation 47. Another Opinion as groundlesly held among us and near a kin to the former is the common Fancy about Redemption viz. That Christ laid down his Life as a Randsome or Price paid to God to purchase Life and Salvation for us Let us consider the matter Redemption is a buying a thing again that is lost sold and enslaved As for instance a Captive In which Action there are these things to be considered The Redeemer The Redeemed The Price of Redemption And the Person to whom the Price is paid Now as to the Redemption of Sinners the Redeemer in the first and highest Sense is God to wit the Father who has given us his Son Christ the Ransom Christ in a second Sense is call'd our Redeemer because he freely gave himself to set us free from the Slavery of Sin To whom did he give himself a Ransom Not to the Father because First He is the Father 's own and so cannot be given as a Price to him Secondly Because it is the Father that gives him Thirdly Because it is not God that holds us in Slavery or he that is to be hired by something he values as much as our Bondage to let us go free from Sin and become obedient to him No he commands all to obey him and not to serve Sin and does nothing less than hold us in captivity to Iniquity he wills our liberty more than we can yea more than Christ can for as the Father is greater so must his Love necessarily be greater Christ is the Price or Instrumental Redeemer Sinners are the Redeemed but who is it holds us captive in Sin to whom the Price is paid Not God as I have said that would be the greatest Contradiction not Christ he is the Price and wills our Liberty not the Devil as some have thought he has not absolute Power over our Wills Christ was not given to him as a Ransom or he ever on that account agreed to let us go free It can be nothing therefore but our Selves our
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