of it is accompanied with an evitable curse conscience which checks all men for sin suggests to them that either there must be some change in Religion as to this regard to become capable of salvation or that Religion was instituted not out of a designe to save but to curse and destroy They will say perhaps that there are promises of mercy mingled here and there in this Law for those that shall repent of their sins whereof their conscience convinces them And I grant it Miserable had they been if it had not been so For how could they have appeased the disquiets of their conscience But I say the promises of mercy to penitents do not belong to the Contract establish'd between God and them according to which he promised life to those that kept it and denounced a curse to those that should transgress it in the least clause For how can one and the same Covenant be capable of two such contrary clauses Cursed is whosoever shall not observe this Law in all points and Mercy it promised to those that repent of the transgressions which they commit What is repenting but returning to be a good man And what is to be a good man but to observe this Law Therefore Repentance is an observing the Law after a transgression I say an observing it inasmuch as the Repentance be good and durable Whence these two propositions will be found contradictory in one and the same Contract Cursed is whosoever abideth not in all the things of this Law to do them and Whosoever does not abide in all things of this Law is not therefore accursed provided he does not alwayes persevere in his transgression but at length repent of it Now it is not consentaneous to the Wisdom of God to contract an alliance of so repugnant parts But further There will not be onely a contradiction in the denouncing of the Curse but also in the promise of reward For observe how the Law speaks Do these things and thou shalt live that is Observe this Law in all points and thou shalt have life for thy salary of observing it So that he that obtains Life by the Law obtains it by virtue of his observation thereof as a recompense Now Life and the Curse are so oppos'd that he that ha's not life falls into the curse and on the contrary he that is delivered from the curse is instated in the injoyment of life As he that is in health or in the light is thereby exempt from diseases and darkness and contrarily he that is sick or in darkness is necessarily depriv'd of health and light The injoyment or sense of the one consisting in the privation of the other If therefore the same Law says Repent and thou shalt obtain mercy seeing mercy implyes deliverance from the Curse deserved and deliverance from the curse is nothing but the injoyment of life it will follow that by the same contract life will be obtain'd as a recompense of the observation of the Law and nevertheless be a favour too in regard of mercy Which are things directly repugnant and cannot be reconcil'd together These promises therefore belong to another Covenant different from that which saies Do these things and Cursed is he c. and they were the seeds of that other Law which was to succeed in the place of the ancient one and sufficient to bring penitents to salvation in that time and intitle them to Life not by virtue of observation of the Law but through pure mercy yet such as were to be more clearly and abundantly revealed And let them but remark a little what their own Prophet David saies in the 32 Psalme Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guilt When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long Because day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer I have acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the punishment of my sin I appeal to themselves whether this be the language of a man that seeks the quiet of his conscience in those words of the Law Do these things and thou shalt live For the peace of conscience ariseth from the hope of life But when he looks towards the Law he is desperate and hath no peace in his soul His satisfaction is in the forgiveness of his sins and therefore in the assurance of mercy And yet this was David a man according to God's own heart that spoke thus If therefore such a man as he did not obtain life by virtue of this contract Do these things what other dares claim a right upon such terms If no man obtaines the same upon that account is it not necessary that some other Covenant succeed namely that of mercy and grace in the room of that which was ineffectual But we prosecute this too far Let them hear God himself in the 31. Chapter of Jeremy vers 31. Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband to them saith the Lord. But this shall be the Covenant which I will make with the house of Israel After those days saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more Who sees not that he distinguishes the Covenants by these two things First that he will give them the grace to violate the New no more which he did not under the Old And secondly that he will pardon under the New the transgressions of the Old which under it he did not nor could the denunciation of the curse annexed thereunto being irrevocable And what can be said more Does not God in promising a New Law foretell the abrogation of the first And why should he term this Old if it ought to be perpetual since perpetual things never wax old age being a tendency to an end till the thing growing old comes to be to tally extinguish'd But whereunto then serv'd this Law if none could obtain salvation by it Truely as Ceremony was a preparation to that which was to succeed and to give the Israelites some taste and knowledge of it as in
upon him But of this more at lage hereafter But in the next place there is discover'd in the Gospel an incomparably greater depth of Mercy For it is evident he obliges less by pardoning that conceives himself less offended and he conceives himself less offended that apprehends he may pardon without doing himself any injury or diminishing the reputation of his virtue or his courage On the contrary he obliges more that forgives an offense so sensible and atrocious that to make expiation of it there needs a great preceding satisfaction Since therefore the Christian Religion represents the justice of God inexorable and nevertheless tenders absolute remission to men by his mercy of necessity this mercy must be of a more transcendent benignity that swallows up an implacable fury And lastly his Wisdom is admirably resplendent in the Christian Religion whereas in the Jewish as the Jews understand it there is scarce a glimpse of it in all that mystery For if he punish according to the curse dâ—nounced in the Law 't is an act of pure Justice not of Wisdom If he pardon without other satisfactiâ—◠〈◊〉 then the death of beasts 't is a work of pure Mercy and not at all of Wisdom But to finde an expedâ—ent to punish and pardon both together to display his Mercy without derogation from his Justice this is it which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of man was unable to penetrate into and wherein now it is revealed appears an admirable design of Wisdom And now what more natural conclusion can there be then that the Christian-Religion is incomparably more proper to induce men to Piety and Virtue then the Jewish For as we have intimated elsewhere there are three motives alone that incite us thereunto Fear of Punishment Hope of Reward and the Admiration of the excellence of the Nature of God in it self and of the beauty of piety and virtue in which his image is resplendent Now as for the Fear of punishment it is always so much the greater as â—ustice is vigorous and inflexible And therefore the more implacable Religion represents the Justice of God the more powerful is it to reclaim and keep men from vice by the terror of punishment In like maner the Hope of reward ought to be greater where Mercy is greater too For our Conscience bears us witness that 't is on this score we are to expect it And if Admiration of the Perfections which are in God can be to us an efficacious attractive to goodness as indeed there is no true and sincere Piety which is not principally rooted and fixed on this foundation besides the great and incomprehensible Wisdom that is eminent in him the immense depths of his Mercy ought to ingulf all our thoughts and inflame all the affections of our souls with a holy devotion For ever since the time of the first sin all our piety is nothing but a gratitude towards his mercy And lastly for that Contraries mutually illustrate one another the Beauty of Piety and Virtue will be more resplendant by the opposition of Sin the horror of which appears so much the greater as the punishment that attended it is more terrible Now how much this consideration that God hath discharged the vengeance due to the sins of men on the person of his own Son exalts the lustre of all the precedent doctrine we shall not now insist upon for we have not yet consider'd the qualifications of his Person who hath made this satisfaction for our offenses But truely every one may of himself readily judge Lastly The Christian Religion infinitely excels the Jewish in the understanding of the Promises which concern the Messias For what Messias is that which the Jews expect A Triumphant King who by force of arms may subdue the Nations and bring Emperors under his yoak and break Empires in pieces may extend his conquests from East to West and from North to South and fill the whole Earth with the terror of his Legions and advance the Jewish Nation as high as it is now miserably abased For as for many more impertinences which they are otherwise guilty of in this matter I shall forbear to mention them as less intending their shame then their conviction And I cannot but pity them when I observe the race of Israel the Posterity of Abraham and the people once beloved of the Lord to equal and surpass in this all the extravagances of the Mahometans and the Pagan fopperies In that which I have propos'd which is the most tolerable of all their imaginations they sufficiently manifest that they are of the flesh and the world since they apprehend nothing but carnal and mundane things For if their remain'd in them any spark of spiritual Light they would acknowledge that they are compos'd of two Parts Body and Soul and that the body being earthly and material and endued with organs and faculties like to those of beasts do's not come neer the dignity of the nature of the soul which is spiritual inmaterial intelligent next the Nature of Angels and as it were a beam of the very Deity If therefore they expect glory and advantage from the appearance of their Messias it ought to be chiefly in reference to the soul and not for the body saving so far as it is the servant and dependant of the mind Now as we have shewn above in what can the glory of the soul consist but in Wisdom and Virtue And wherein do's wisdom lye but in the knowledge of him who is the Author and Fountain of all Virtue Prudence and Understanding Should he have turned the rocks into Diamonds and the flints trampled on at each step into Gold and Jewels the Snow of the Alpes into Butter and the rivers into milk the Wine of Judah into Nectar and the bread of Asher into Ambrosia and driven all the Kings of the earth fetter'd before his triumphant Chariot into Jerusalem yet all this terrene pompe and magnificence had not been comparable to his lively illumination of minds by the knowledge of the Most-high and to his victory over hearts their passions and appetites For there is so little proportion between the mind and the body that the greatest and most triumphant Emperor of the Earth if vicious and ignorant of things worthy the excellence of man is to be contemn'd in comparison of the most miserable slave that in the servile condition of his body excells him as to the understanding in Virtue and Prudence And I think there is not any so unworthy the being of man that would not choose rather to loose all the Kingdoms of the Earth if he possess'd them and after that even the limbes of his body then the use of Reason which advances him above the equality of beasts Moreover let them speak in conscience whether it be not the sense of their present calamitie and the miserable estate they are reduc'd into by their dispersion throughout the whole world that makes them breath after a Deliverer powerful
dissembled what he thought of the best Form of Government for fear of offending Aristotle I am willing to ascribe my self into the number of them who believe that there is greater apparance that Aristotle was of the Opinion that affirms the Souls immortality and I know many excellent passages may be produc'd out of his Writings which favor it But yet so it is that in other places he seems to lay down principles which are incompatible with the same and some of his most famous disciples have believ'd that he held the contrary Socrates as we find in Plato knows not how to be confident of it and perswades himself by reasons which for the most part are but of slender moment and always speaks of it as of other things with doubting and not determining any thing although through the desire he had that his Soul were immortal he inclined more willingly to this opinion and accounted it of most probability which is Cicero's judgement in his Tusculan Questions And truly I conceive that in all things of this Nature the vulgar had better apprehensions then the Philosophers yea that the Philosophers corrupted the sentiments of Nature which remain'd more lively and genuine in the breasts of the people For they had wit and knowledge enough to frame objections against the common conceptions of men but yet they had not sufficient to resolve them whence their minds became unsetled and wavering Whereas the people who understood not so much subtilty held themselves more firmely to that which was taught them by nature it self and they had received from her though doubtingly in regard of the weakness and ignorance of humane reason As it often falls out that a man that knows nothing in Civil Law and yet hath some natural faculty of understanding better discerns the right of a certain Case then knowing Professors who have their heads full of Statutes and Paragraphs great skill rather perplexing and confounding then resolving them in the knowledge of things But Philosophical disputes being spread from the Scholes into Towns among the people have obscured and disorder'd such natural notions much more then the people by their own ignorance and negligence could have depraved and embroiled the same of themselves However were they much better assured then they are that their Souls do not perish with their bodies yet they must necessarily be extremely ignorant of the estate of them after their separation For how blind so ever the reason of man be in that which concerns the Deity his Nature Perfections and Providence yet the arguments which satisfie us of them are so clear and resplendent in the World that in spight of all the darkness of the humane Intellect there is always some beam that breaks through affording that dubious and confused knowledge we mentioned was found amongst the Nations of the World And how intangled soever the disputes of Philosophers were the rational soul of Man gives always so many proofs of its incorruptibility that the knowledge thereof cannot be totally extinguish'd But as to its estate after this Life it is not onely impossible for men to divine of themselves what it will be by reason of the corruption and irregularity which is befallen their faculties but though the eye of their reason were as clear and luminous as could be desir'd yet they were hardly able to make the least probable conjecture concerning it because God hath written nothing of it in the book of Nature from which we draw all our knowledge But they which are instructed by Religion in the History of the Worlds Original can very easily give account thereof For God having produc'd Man in the Nature of things in such an estate that if he had persisted in it he should not have feared death the revelation of that estate which must follow this Life would have been unprofitable to him who was made in case that the design of his creation had been pursued to live perpetually in the World and never to undergo the separation of his Soul from his Body For that Truth teaches us and likewise reason being informed in this particular either consents to or is convinced of it that it was the Offence which the First Man committed which introduced death into the World To what purpose therefore should God have imprinted in Nature any evidence or token of the estate of man after death since in that first integrity of nature there was no suspition nor shadow of Death it self It is true indeed that God denounced to man that if he degenerated from his integrity he should dye which might have occasion'd some thought in him of the pains which follow death being he knew that his Soul was immortal But the apprehension of punishment after sin and also of that which follows death do's not infer any other of remuneration unless God reveal mercy and hope of pardon after the transgression Which God had not as yet done in the integrity of Nature So that man having from God neither hope of pardon in case he should sin nor any cause to think of death in case he should not sin he had no occasion to raise his mind higher towards a better life But if any one conceives some scruple touching the perpetuity of the life of man upon the Earth if he had not fallen into sin and imagines rather that God after he had lest him for some Ages in the World to practice obedience and virtue would have at last taken him to himself and given a greater recompense then that which he could have injoy'd in a terrestrial felicity he must also confess that to instate man in the injoyment of such remuneration there would have been no need of Death and so that it was not necessarily for him to know what the estate of his Soul after separation from his body should be Moreover whatsoever that compensation would have been which man should have received for his Obedience and Virtue insomuch as it would have been a condition and a glory supernatural some revelation of it must necessarily have been made by another way then nature namely then by the evidences which may be had from consideration of the Works of God and the Government of the World And in truth to hear the Poets and Philosophers speak of it sufficiently evinces that such as have had no other light to guid them in search of these things but that of Nature and Reason have onely groped in the dark For how ridiculous is the description which they make of the Infernal Regions and Elysian Fields Is it not pleasant to behold the Landskip which Virgil hath drawn of them in the sixth Book of his Aeneids where he speaks of Rhadamanthus and the severity of his sentences and forgets not to paint out Tysiphone with her scourges and serpents together with the Furies He also places there hideous Hydra's and I know not what kind of other vile beasts at the gates of Hell and in that horrible prison which he represents twice
he with his posterity lost the knowledge by Sin it would be requisite sutable to that opinion to presuppose that Adam in his first creation was not indued with all moral perfection required in humane nature Which indeed would be an affront to him that formed him But I beseech you do not the praises wherewith David extolls the Law of God constrain us to have a more advantageous esteem of it The Law of the Lord is perfect saith he in the 19. Psalm converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes And in the 119. Psalm he prayes for nothing else but that God â—ould illuminate him in the knowledge of the Law that he might walk in his Commandments as being the rule of all perfection desireable which is also extreme frequent throughout the whole book of his sacreâ— Hymnes But if the Law contains the measure of the most exquisite and accomplisht perfection that can be in humane nature then since the denunciation is express that Cursed is he who abideth not stedfast in all the things of this Law to do them he is undoubtedly subject to the malediction that deviates from this Law and omits or commits the least thing forbidden or commanded by it But a curse denounced by the mouth of God himself cannot but be unconceivably dreadful and hideous In the next place the Gospel teaches that the Law is so inflexible in its rights that 't is impossible after having transgress'd it whether in a small or great matter to be acquitted from punishment so as not to suffer the same either in proper person or in that of some other Which to an intelligent considerer even the Law it self sufficiently testifies For it denounces on the one side an inevitable curse to them that transgress it God himself pronouncing the same from the mountain of Sinai with lightnings and thunders smoke and flashes of Fire and earthquakes On the other side gratuitous remission of offenses is promised to them that have violated it Now what expedient is there to fill up the abysse which is between these extremes Shall that pardon be granted without preceding punishment If so what need was there of such terror at the promulgation of this Law and after to suffâ—â— all those horrible menaces of malediction vanish away thus in smoke Perhaps God powers all the Curse upon the victimes instituted upon himself to be sacrifices of propitiation and 't is true they are termed expiatory a hundred and a hundred times But what a kind of Comedy would it be if God after himself had publish'd his Law with such dreadful majesty should be contented for satisfaction of the transgressing of it with the death of a poor beast Might not that Adage be here applyed Parturiunt montes c. It remaines therefore that those terrible threatnings must either fall upon them that violate the Law or upon some other capable to bear the same substitute in their room that so they may be secur'd from them And the glory of the Law remains hereby more full and intire For Reward being a sequel not more natural to Virtue then Punishment is to Vice the Law which denounces a Curse for transgression and yet does not really inflict the same is as imperfect as that which should promise a reward to its observers and afterwards when it came to the effect frustrate all their expectations As he that should have fulfilled the Law in every point would have cause to complain of it if in case he reaped not the recompense of his piety and virtue so would the Law have cause of complaint if he that violated it did not undergo the penalty of his offence the natural order of things alike requiring both the one and the other And from hence results a thing which turns marvellously to the advantage of the Christian Religion above the Jewish Namely that it represents to us the principal Attributes of God in which his usual wayes consist as his Justice Mercy and Wisdome in a much more eminent degree of excellence For as for his Justice it is nothing but a natural repugnanee that is between him and sin by reason his Nature is good and holy and the essence of sin as they speak consists in iniquity and pollution a repugnance I say which necessarily inclines him to the hatred and abhorrence of sin For he were not God unless he hated Evill Now all Hatred is a vehement desire of revenge and hence it is that in their books this Justice is termed Wrath and Fury and even an ardent Fury Whence we infer that accordingly as God is perfect in himself so he abhors Evil and as he perfectly abhors it so he is equally inclin'd to execute vengeance upon it Wherfore the Christian Religion which teaches that God ha's not saved the World without being revenged I say not without taking satisfaction convenient to his Justice exhibits the same to be consider'd in a more eminent degree then that which holds forth remission without inflicting deserved vengeance For since the hatred of sin is a virtue in God the more implacable this hatred is the greater is the virtue There are indeed three sorts of satisfactions First such as is made to repaire a dammage received as if one should give a Statuary money for having broken an Image in his shop Secondly such as is in order to contenting an incensed Passion as when we strike one by whom we have been offended For though no good accrue to us by his harm yet the passion is contented by being revenged Thirdly a satisfaction of Justice when without regard either to dammage or indignation a crime is expiated by punishment for the sole love of righteousness and the natural order which ought to be in things Now the first hath no place in God for what dammage can arise to him from our offenses Nor the second For he is not subject to our Passions choler and animosity do not discompose his serenity nor agitate him in any manner And if these Passions are oftimes attributed to him in the books of the Prophets 't is by way of similitude with the humane mind as well as repentance or rather according to the similitude which seems to be between the actions us which men do out of choler and those which God does out of justice inasmuch as both the one and thâ—â—ther cause grief or pain to those on whom they are exercised 'T is therefore the third sort of satisfaction or revenge which is competent to God after so peculiar a manner that the more perfect his nature is it must of necessity be equally inexorable And no man can imagine a justice in God capable of leaving the sins of men unpunish'd but he must with all fancy him little abhorring sin and too negligent of the natural order of things Which would be a very unbefitting reflexion
respect the more is he oblig'd to the exercise of Justice in which if he should fail it could not be but he must suffer diminution of his glory Again if there be such a correspondence between Virtue and Beatitude that they cannot be dissever'd without appearance of deformity and irregularity so that the Wisdom of God who does all according to weight number and measure cannot permit the dis-junction of two things so closely united together there is not less between sin and punishment Of which the motions of our minds which are as obscure shadows of the Properties which are in God may be testimonies to our selves For if we have compassion of a miserable man whom we esteem not deserving his misery we are also mov'd with indignation against one that is highly fortunate but unworthy the felicity he injoyes And if we observe an excellent harmony between these two things conjoin'd together Virtue and Felicity so likewise we esteem these two extremely well adapted where we finde them together Vice and Misery So it is incongruous to the same Wisdom of God who committs no dissonance in any of his administrations to permit a separation of these most Natural Relatives To conclude I readily concede that God loves the virtue and holiness of his creatures by reason of its own excellence for how can he but love his own image and also that it is more precious to him then the Felicity consequent to it that is to speak more clearly that it is more well-pleasing to him that his creature be holy and virtuous then that it be happy But at the same rate that goodness and piety are affected by him he detests the creature that despises them And if God be naturally inclin'd to provide for the happiness of man because he is his Creator he is likewise natural inclin'd to execute vengeance upon his Sin inasmuch as he is his Judge And truely I wonder how any can so much cry up the Mercy of God in the impunity of sins to the prejudice of his Justice whereas Historians do so highly extoll the memory of Zaleucus for an act of justice done as it may seem very much to the injury of the virtues of clemency and Mercy This man saith Valerius Maximus having constituted very wholsome Laws in the City of the Locrians one of which condemn'd adulterers to have their eyes pull'd out it hapned that his own son was found guilty of the prohibited Crime and consequently obnoxious to the severity of the punishment attending it But the whole City interceding in the favour of the young man that he might be exempted from the rigor of the Law were a long time denyed till at length Zaleucus being overcome by the Petitions of his Citizens that he might preserve the sight of his Son and the authority of his Laws caus'd one of his own eyes to be pull'd out and one of his Sons thus by an admirable temperament of equity shewing himself both a just Legislator and a merciful Father Why did not he suffer his Law to ly dormant for one day to save both the eyes of his Son for the good of the Commonwealth Or if he would not that his Law should be wholly infringed why did he punish himself when he was no partaker in the fault But his reason was that having establisht Laws he accounted them inviolable and this Act is recorded amongst the most memorable examples of Justice How then can any esteem the eternal laws of God possible to be violated with impunity Therefore either it is impossible for men to attain to the injoyment of Felicity without satisfying the Justice of God or else it is possible for them to attain to it without Repentance Which the common sense of man abhors Object But possibly some may object and ask us Whether the same absurdity will not follow from the Christian Doctrine which teaches necessity of a satisfaction precedaneous to Beatitude For it informs us that men have not made satisfaction in their own persons but in the person of another who was constituted a Pledge in their room and 't is God himself that gave them this Pledge Now the bestowing one to make satisfaction for sins is an effect of infinite mercy and inestimable bounty and yet it was not prevented by the repentance of men but on the contrary prevented their repentance For the gift of sanctification to which repentance pertains is an effect of the satisfaction and a fruit of the merit of Christ How then could God be mov'd to communicate so great a good to men without preceding repentance or without something else equivalent to a satisfaction And if he could love his creatures so much notwithstanding his justice as to give them one to make satisfaction for them to the end they might be capable of repentance and beatitude why could he not give them both repentance and beatitude too without that satisfaction Answ This deserves to be further display'd that so the harmony which is between the parts of Christian Religion may become more conspicuous Satisfaction is to be consider'd in two respects First as it is a punishment of sin and so 't is an act of justice Secondly as it is a means to obtain remission and impunity to those for whom satisfaction is made and in this respect 't is an act of Mercy As for the first seeing it was an exercising of the justice of God upon the sins of men there needed no other previous condition The case stands thus The Creature sin'd and the justice of the Creator takes Vengeance upon it For the second distinction must be made between the Mercy by which God is inclin'd to render his creatures good and happy if nothing withhold him from it and that whereby he really and de facto renders them good and happy Not that these are two Mercies for they are but one but being considered in the first respect the effect which it would produce is intercepted by some obstacle and considered in the second it is follow'd with the effect because an expedient is found out to remove the impediment which strain'd its efficacy If therefore some image of the former sort of Mercy can be found in men it resembles the natural affections which Zaleucus had for his son whose sight without question had he had no other considerations he ardently wish'd might remain safe and perfect His paternal compassions would lead him to this but the sacred authority of his Law obstructed his desires and restrain'd his natural inclinations that he should not do injury to justice Now in reference to the first sort of Mercy we grant that it may be in God towards his sinful creatures without any previous satisfaction or condition of repentance But yet withal it does no injury to justice because it brings nothing to effect The consideration of the Law transgressed by the Creature intercepts it so that man remains in his condemnation For the other which really and effectually confers repentance and
familiarity with the language in which they writ to observe the same attentively For I am confident whatever some say there is not to be found in any Author Greek or Latin so magnificent and pompous an eloquence And if they understand them not in their natural language let them read them considerately in some version performed with care and diligence especially in those which are commonly call'd Living Tongues For though the Greek and Latine languages are in their own authors more rich and copious yet those which live if well manag'd are more plyable to these Translations and take off better the impression and graces of the language of the Prophets and this because they are capable of new words and phrases It will without question appear that all the reproaches profane men cast upon the Holy Books and disparagements of its style and eloquence are frivolous If therefore these Books teach the doctrine of the Trinity as we have shewn they do and are delivered to us by divine Inspiration as is clearer then the Noon-Sun what a folly would it be to go about to examine by reason the mysteries of the Divine Wisdom which it self ha's revealed Now concerning the correspondence these verities have with others unquestionable in the Doctrine which holds them forth it may seem sufficiently declar'd in the preceding discourse Man is fallen into a depth of misery and so is become an object of pity Now in whom can he excite it unless in him that is the Father of Mercy But it was by his sin and so he is an object of justice And from whom is he to expect punishment but from the supreme Judge of the World Will this Mercy display it self in pardon without punishing No that would be to the prejudice of justice Will this justice be executed upon man himself Nor so this would be to exclude all Mercy in which the Almighty takes delight What remains therefore but for God to substitute a pledge in the room of men Now it is requisite that this substitute suffer death and by consequence that he be man And it is requisite that his passion be of an infinite value and for this he must be God for no other is capable of making such a satisfaction And if he who is God be stricken by the hand of God by way of punishment do's it not necessarily follow that there are two distinct persons in God This redemption is unprofitable if it be not efficaciously applyed to man Who shall apply it to him Not himself A blind man might as well open his own eyes or a Carcase raise it self out of the grave And since this work of our salvation is common both to the Father and the Son what is more consentaneous then for them to consummate and apply it by a Virtue which is common to them both Now if it be common to both it is distinct from both How therefore is there not a Third This is that which men chiefly stumble at in the Christian Religion In all other things it is so consistent with reason that its greatest enemies dare not gain-say it In this indeed it is in no wise incongruous with reason provided it be attended to in a due maner we let not loose the bridle to its presumptuous curiosity These principles are likewise common to both the parties into which we have distinguisht all those which profess the Christian Name in Europe at this day If there be some things embrac'd by either which seem absurd to reason or contrary to piety yet it behoveth not forthwith to accuse Christian Religion for it It is meet to try the same by those Books which both equally own and explore them by the common Principles upon which their Religion is built For if they be conformable thereunto they will be found in no wise repugnant to right reason if not they must be held for humane inventions and Religion discharged of the blame CHAP. IX That Jesus is the Messias promised by the Old Testament Also Of the Divinity of the New WHereas we have evinc'd in the preceeding Discourse that the Christian Religion far surpasses in excellence of Doctrine that which the Jews of old profess'd how divine soever it was and consequently that it was substituted in its place it is now sufficiently clear since Jesus is the sole author of it and profess'd himself to be the Messias promised by the Prophets that he is really the person For how could an Impostor have been the interpreter and revealer of so celestial a Doctrine And this is chiefly the means by which he verily ought to be judg'd For 't is a man's Doctrine which manifests what he is Nevertheless our design would not be complete unless we also observ'd here briefly because others have most diligently and amply acquitted themselves in this matter the principal circumstances of his birth his Life and his Death For there ha's not been the least defect therein in relation to all that was heretofore either required or presignified by the Prophets Malachi had writ in these express terms chap. 4. Behold I will send you Eliah the Prophet before the comming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers From this place the Jews still expect the comming of Elias But what appearance is there that Elias himself should be fetcht back from Heaven to converse again here below on Earth That after so long an enjoyment of the felicities above he should return once more into the miseries of life Certainly as it was necessary for him at his reception into Heaven to be devested of the terrestrial qualities of his body and clothed with sutable ones to the place of his new abode so if he should redescende amongst us it would be requisite for him to resume qualities agreeable with a terrene condition and to despoil himself of his celestial glories Now he might well pass from worse to better from an earthly to a heavenly life but to return from better to worse would be a mutation of too much disadvantage Elias therefore was to come just as David was to come for the Prophets promised him also Not that the Son of Jesse and father of Solomon ought to arise from among the dead to repossess the Kingdom of Israel but the Messias of whom David was a type ought to be the conducter and Chieftain of spiritual armies and passing through many dangers and fights obtain peace to his people by his glorious victories Thus ought one to be born who being cloath'd with the spirit of Elias and leading the same manner of life might prepare the hearts of men to receive the Messias by preaching the doctrine of repentance with an extraordinary authority gravity And such was John the Baptist as our Evangelists describe him to us Isaiah had said in the seventh Chapter of his Prophecies Behold a Virgin shall conceive and