Answ By staying the due time upon the Uncontrovertible Doctrines and Commands of Natures Laws yielding full Obedience to God in them trembling to add any thing of baser Alloy to them A Man shall see Revealed Truth shining out upon Natural and joyning it self to it and with it Thus many of the Fathers came over to Christianity And so in all parts of Scripture by rising from the most Fundamental Truths lov'd and obey'd a Man shall ascend by due degrees to those more remote Thus Good Men in the Old Testament waited for the Kingdom of God and upon just Considerations moved upon the Line of Truth from the State of Religion in the Old Testament to that of the New except sometimes a Light shines suddenly round about Men as in extraordinary Conversions Quest You seem then to think False Religion and All Divisions in the True have most nearly sprung up from over-confidence of Things not of the Evidence of Publick and Divine Truth Answ I do so indeed although I know Mens not liking to retain Truth but being bewitched by false Imagination betrays them both to the Plague of Lost and Fallen Spirits warring under the Prince of our disordered Air the Ruler of the Darkness of this World and to the various Arts of Men who corrupt Religion for the Ends they have to serve themselves of by it I know Mens Faculties of Search Inquiry into and Comprehension of Truth are much shrivell'd and shrunk up I know Endless Doubts and Incertainties are brought upon Religion by Darkness and false Appearances to Souls that are so full of all the Reasons and Causes of Delusion within themselves and deserted by the just Judgment of God giving them over to believe a Lie I acknowledge all these Causes of Errour Yet I am assured the close Adherence to God in Truths evidently Divine and not removing farther into a Religious Esteem of Things till upon the same Evidence is the Means under the Conduct of the Holy Spirit to be secure from dangerous Errour or Schism from the true Publick And whatever is not so evidently Publick and Divine is liable to Private Interpretation and so to Errour And when Men are overweening upon Private Interpretation they easily fall into Errour and when they are surly and masterly upon it it moves Wrath Emulation Strife so that both Falshoood and Cruelty have entered in at this Door and rang'd over the World Quest But ought we to stupifie all Inquiry and benumb Judgment in every thing not evidently Divine Answ Not so but to behave our selves humbly and modestly to acknowledge there are vast Tracts of Truth and Knowledge beyond what we know but we must feel the Evidence of them before we can receive them yet to carry our selves with due concession to every Mans Sense that though their Sense cannot nor ought to master us no more ought we to expect ours should them which would exceedingly reconcile or abate Differences and retrench the mischievous Effects the World hath so long groan'd under by so many Religions of Nations Names of Churches and Persons propagating their Private that is not Divine Sense and that with Clamour and too often with rude Force Quest What are the Instances of the Mischief of making Defection from this Publick Catholik Divine Truth for Private Sense Answ The Angels Fall from Heaven was certainly upon Private Sense and Interest Adam's from Innocency and Paradise upon the same the Jews Fall from being the Church and People of God was upon the Idiotism of having Religion for their own All Idolatry and Superstitions of Heathens have risen from hence All the Heresies in the Church have come from an over-love to Private Opinion This is the most damnable Antichristianism of Rome to make its Private Catholick All Persecutions of Heathens Romes Inquisition and Massacres have been inflam'd in this Furnace the love of making Private Publick And in lesser and more unfundamental Points Private Interpretation enfore'd as if it were Publick hath discompos'd the Peace of the Purest and best reformed Churches and not only disturb'd their Peace but stain'd their Purity Quest I seem to my self in all this unhappy Babelism or Confusion of Religion to be very apprehensive for the Glory of God and Religion Answ It is most necessary to be zealous for Divine Glory and for the Honour of Religion that Rivers of Tears should run down our Eyes because of the Injuries done by Men to the Divine Law But yet to be so concern'd as to be scandalised is to forget that God is infinitely more the Publick than we are and therefore to be offended at his Disposes is to make our Private the Publick We must then consider that if God does not miraculously interpose it must needs be so it is no other than the Necessity of the Case Men moving with so great Disadvantages as the Active Soul of Man does in so great a Concern as Religion is in our highest Interest and as thereupon Men will make use of it in the present World it must needs be so There must be Heresies in Religion But that this Mormo or dreadful Apparition may vanish we must remember 1. That to the Soul humble and fearing God all that is of Grand Interest in Faith Worship and Practice is so Publick and evidently Divine that no Man need be ever learning and never come to the Knowledge of the Truth After this God hath given this Employment to those that through Office or Desire set themselves to seek and intermeddle with al Knowledge to travel with advantage to themselves and others in their Inquiries into the whole Compass of Divine Knowledge whatever Difficulty can be supposed to be in things of higher Advance to Salvation is resolv'd to them that do the Will of God as a Reward of their Obedience They shall know the Doctrines that are of God that rise higher towards Heaven than others The due and diligent Search after Wisdom is a Test upon the truly Sincere and well-resolv'd in Religion that have in them another Spirit as Caleb to follow God fully and do not as the Israelites bring up an ill Report on this good Land as if the Difficulties were unconquerable and the Entertainment Hungry and Barren through the many Disputes and Differences in Religion Hereby lastly the Conduct of the Free Spirit is seen leading into all Truth and the Unction of the Holy One by which the True Christian knows all things necessary to him to be known appears most desirable and necessary Thus the Wise and Holy Government of God who brings Light out of these Clouds and Darkness is made manifest and it is to be ascribed to the Infinite Perfection of Light with the Father of Lights who is without any variation or shadow of turning Quest What Rule is then to be observed in the great Diversities of Men in Religion that may most abound to the Honour of Catholick Religion Answ To own and embrace any thing we find in any Man or
the greatest ends and therefore might command what he pleased He therefore added often to such precepts I am the Lord whose Authority could not be disputed whose Benediction could not be deniâ—d or suspected Thus the waters of Jordan were better than 2 Kings 5. 12. Joh. 9. 11. all the Syrian Rivers The clay and spittle and washing in Siloam beyond the most excellent natural Application 2. And yet as if Omnipotency it self could not make them or did not care to make them of any great value they are often exceedingly despised and set at nought of God himself when considered as separated from Divine Blessing Isa 1. 10. 66. 3. and Grace and from moral Obedience and subjection to God 3. They are argued to be childish and low things yea Gal. 4. 3 9. Heb 9. poor and beggarly that there was a necessity they should vanish at a time of Reformation that the servants of God were under them as being under Age that a more manly and excellent state of Religion was to be brought in and did actually come in with the great Doctrine of the Son of God and the superintendency of the Holy Spirit So that it is admirable whence it should proceed that the Christian Church should dote so much and be so languishingly sick after Ceremonies And whereas it is pretended Religious Action looks bare and naked and unadorned when not shaded and graced and covered with Rituals They are only weak and feminine minds that think so The natural Decency Humanity necessarily chuses the National Decency proper to particular Regions and Climates with the weightiness of Religious Actions themselves are sufficient grace and solemnity to them more either obscures or disfigures them into Antickness Phantastry Art or Superstitiousness And therefore indeed much of this sort hath proceeded from the wanton and lascivious imagination of men not loving the chast and pure Worship of God and with holy minds embracing Truth and the Divine excellency of it From whence hath always proceeded much of Division and Feud every one endeavouring to obtrude the Creature of his own fancy in Religion which having nothing of reason to bear it self upon displeases others as much as it pleases himself and must therefore be imperiously enforc'd and if power go along with the Imposition obedience to it is extorted by mulcts and imprisonment and often with cruelty and blood And so much the more that the minds of men impal'd in the love and doâ—age on Ceremonies grow narrow slavish void of the love of God and the generosity of true Religion and from thence easily fall into a self-will'd rigid austere revengeful spirit but the sincere Religion is noble free large merciful and most compassionate So that besides the intrinsick worth the purity and spirituality of a Religion free from Ceremonies it is a great security to peace and quiet True Natural Religion being tyded along by Reason into mens minds enters with much more insinuation and persuasiveness having an interest before-hand renders mens temper more sweet and benign Or if not receiv'd being truly and substantially good deserves punishment proportionable to the offence without any just imputation of unmercifulness For the offence against Natural Religion must be perfect Immorality 2. I come therefore to consummate all in the full agreement of Christian Religion in the revealed parts of it with Natural and I confess it is hard to receive some parts of Christianity naked and unguarded torn off from the rest As a limb by it self cut off from the body is another thing than as it is in the body so is it to run away with this That the Christians worship a God crucified that died as a malefactor that was a Carpenter that liv'd poor in the world and despis'd without observing the whole train and connexion of things the several great instances of Divinely Rational Account for it as it stands in the whole body of Christianity But when we consider in it the most indisputable rules of all Goodness as I have before at large set down the presence of Divine Power in Miracles that we have an inward sense of as Divine both which stand as it were at the gates of wisdom drawing and inviting in minds to behold the inward frame and contrivance and when the correspondency symmetry substance solidity beauty purity of all within is seen then is there sufficient satisfaction against and resolution of former doubts To him that patiently considers the great reasons of things as they stand in Gods Justice it will appear why Humane nature so laps'd so peccant and guilty should be att on'd by a sacrifice offer'd up in that Humane nature wherein obedience to the Divine Holiness should be exemplified in the profoundest submission to increated will and pleasure and in the greatest experiment of it Self-evacuation and even annihilation and beyond this unexpressible sufferings that there might be a compensation to that Justice of God as the great Governour and Legislator offended by sin seeing suffering and punishment follow upon sin and guilt and that this should be performed tho in Humane nature yet by a person who thought it no robbery to be equal with God even the Son of God and that hereby all sensual Phil. 2. 6. worldly glory the great temptation to sin should be slighted turn'd out of its Grandeur and high pretensions in the world and Intellectual Spiritual Heavenly Eternal Glory advanced and prefer'd to its own excellency and esteem by the Saviour of the world who hath therefore brought in all that lively Doctrine of patience under sufferings mortification self-denial contempt of this life so feebly manag'd by Morality in comparison of this as at the same time to shew it not unknown to nature and yet much eclipâ—'d He that seriously looks upon things thus and beholds them with the severest eye of Reason will find that which will indeed perfect and accomplish his Reason and engage it to worship and throw its Crown at the foot of Infinite Wisdom and Grace but nothing to despise nothing to disdain only to be astonished with the Infinite love and condescention of Divine Goodness which yet is like Infinity so to shew it self But that this Particular may be better understood let the Excellency of Christian Religion in its Revelations be discoursed upon these avowed declared and most undoubted Principles in respect to Natural Religion in these three Points 1. That the raising up Natural Religion to its true primitive excellency is one great part of Christian Revelation viz. to settle the true Notions of God and his Attributes the true love fear of delight in desire after God resignation and obedience to him the truly generous kinds of Righteousness love mercy compassion to men the unspotted temperance sobriety purity in a mans self the right Principles Motives Rules and Ends of all these the full-spread Doctrine of Immortality and Eternal Life of pardon of Sin and mercy to Repentants of Repentance it self and
two Cases to be the Expedient against Scandal he therefore perswades the not eating upon these Contingencies as by the by which was a very easie performance for Christian Charity but the Thing he was wholly intent upon was that great Doctrine of not Scandalising for the sake of Indifferent Things These Circumstances easily vanished the main Point remains unmoved They were only a Scheme a momentany and transitory one to display this great Doctrine in and to present it upon When these things grew into a Ritual Religion the Scheme was altered and shifted they grew sinful and were condemned the Doctrine stood yet and for ever stands firm planted upon them Object 4. The Rites used are such as are recommended from Antiquity and were of use of old in the Primitive Church Answ Allow it to be so All that can be collected from thence is but Example wound up to its highest Peg when it does not reach Christ And whenever it does not reach him it does not bind Be ye followers of me as I 1 Cor. 11. 1. am of Christ said the Apostle just about to discourse of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinances or Traditions Those Concurrences All Every where Always must begin in Scripture and be found there else they do but oblige our Prudence not our Conscience Only so far as Antiquity or the Primitive Church inables us to see with our own Eyes the Sense of Scripture or the Determinations of Natural Light and Reason in any Case so far it obliges us in Conscience All else is but the Deference of Modesty and due Regard which cannot weigh against Scandal except we make the Oracles of Antiquity equal to the Heavenly Oracles and then we must demand the same Certainty of the Divine Inspiration of the one as of the other or else we may quickly run into the greatest of Scandals Object 5. The Commands of Lawful Authority take away the Indifferency and make Necessary what was before Indifferent Answ The Question is not Whether Magistrates ought to be obeyed in all things Indifferent for that is readily granted if in all Circumstances they are Indifferent nor whether Rites are Indifferent Things for that is also supposed to be granted but the question must be Whether it is an indifferent thing to give or receive Scandal upon the account of Indifferent Things seeing that may indisputably fall out or the Apostles Discourses fall to the Ground and in one sort of Indifferents as well as others else the Apostles Discourse will be ineffectual to any the like Case Seeing then the Tribunal and Authority of God is higher than of any of the Supreams of this World and that Scandal is cognisable only before him and that whatever incurs Sandal is inseparable from Sin against God it must needs follow that in a Case of Doubt from which a Man cannot acquit himself he cannot obey Men in that without disobeying God who hath declared to him Whatever is not of Faith is Sin and he that doubteth and doth what he doubteth of is Damned that is Condemned within himself and in the thing it self And the Reason in such a Case must be the same as in a Case of Obeying Magistrates against any express Divine Prohibition For though the thing doubted of does much differ if it be indeed indifferent Yet the Prohibition is as plain against doing what is doubted of and what is not of Faith as in any Case Seeing then all Humane Authority must lower its Top to Divine I cannot see but that in Indifferent things in Religion which is Gods peculiar for we speak only of that the Magistrates Power is excluded in case of real doubt of Conscience in which a Man can do nothing but he runs into Gods danger even as in any other case of such danger by reason of Sin And what is offered in Relief will not avail viz. That Obedience to Magistrates is certainly a Duty but whether there be any disobedience to God about such or such Indifferents is in doubt and if the thing be indeed indifferent it is a doubt upon mistake And then there is a disobedience to God in an undoubted Rule and Command to avoid it in a case not only of doubt but of mistake This I say cannot avail Because the measure is not to be drawn betwixt Obedience to Magistrates in all lawful things or things indifferent but betwixt Obedience to Magistrates and Obedience to that Rule of the Word of God in all cases of doubt which is as clear and as little subject to doubt as any Rule whatever Yet does not this evacuate the Power of Magistrates it being restrained to things indifferent in Religion and in Doubt and the Doubt fixed upon a grand Principle of Truth Nor is that of greater satisfaction That in Obedience to Magistrates there are so many degrees of Good and so many of Evil in the Disobedience but in doing well or ill concerning Indifferents there are much fewer Degrees both of the Good and the Evil therefore Obedience to God in so great a Morality as Obedience to Magistrates is always to be preferred before our doing well in Indifferents and the fear of Evil in one to be avoided much rather than the same fear in the other The Reason of Dissatisfaction is this That the Measure is not betwixt the Morality of Obedience to God in obeying Magistrates and doing well or ill about things Indifferent but betwixt the Morality of Obeying God in one of his clear and undoubted Precepts and in another of the same Evidence and Clearness which must needs be one and the same and of the same Rate of Morality Seeing Obedience to God is the Fundamental Morality If it were not thus the Magistrates Prohibition of Sacrifice of the Cup in the Lords Supper must exempt from Obedience to God in those Duties because Obedience to Magistrates is a Moral Duty but the other Ceremonial But it is out of Measure certain Obedience to God is both the top and the bottom of all Morality and although Obedience to Magistrates is a great point of Morality yet Obedience to God is so before it as to be the Measure of it Besides if Obedience to God be to be valued not by his Authority but by weighing the Precepts themselves much more Obedience to Magistrates is to be estimated by the Commands they give of which Indifferents in Religion will never be made out to be worthy to be the Tests either of their Authority or our Obedience whatever unthinking Men have said therein Indeed among the Divine Commands God hath chosen Mercy rather than Sacrifice honouring Parents rather than Corban but it is because he hath so declared in his Word and in Mens Consciences But all the Laws of God do harmoniously Conspire and Subordinate themselves one to another among which Obedience to Magistrates and Preserving the Government and Peace of Conscience are none of the least nor of any contest or distance of unkindness between themselves Whoso
the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledg of the Lord as the waters cover the sea THIS Context is a high and eloquent Declaration of the excellent peaceable and benign Temper that Christianity introduces into the world under the emblem of a general pacification between the mighty and the weak the armed and unarmed the noxious and innocent the oppressive and oppressed parts of the Creation And whether we look upon it as a description rising out of the Rules and Principles whose natural and genuine effect where ever they take will be such as is here drawn out or whether it be also a Prophecy of what shall in some time at least come universally to pass that there shall be such a noble experiment of true Christianity in the world as we have great reason to believe there shall And so whether the effect shall be throughout to conversion and the truly Christian change or whether it shall only smooth and polish many men who have not the true Grace of God within but shall be asham'd in such a land of light to deal Isa 26. 10. perversly and not to behold the majesty of the Lord in that transcendent Goodness and Grace he appears in both in the Commands and great Exemplar of yet so that there shall be a multitude of sincere Converts to that state However we expound either of these they are both alike to the discourse intended it being undoubted that Christanity alwaies lays the grounds and reasons gives the commands and urges the precepts inspires the temper here describ'd and doth most effectively in all times upon many though few comparatively and in all reasonable hope shall upon the generality in some time so prevail in the world that all that Belluine Ferocious and Salvage Temper of men shall be put off and proscribed the world the hearts of men being either truly chang'd by the Grace of God or universally so far convinced by high considerations and over comming light for the knowledg of the Lord shall cover the earth as waters do the sea that at least they will not discover that Leonine and Wolvish Temper that cruelty and venome so natural to mens hearts in this sinful and degenerate state And this extends not only to the superseding the cruelty of action oppression spoyling of goods imprisonment Massacres martyrdoms and all sort of Tortures but to the taking away that poyson of Asps that is in mens lips the Lyon-like teeth of slanders and invective the swords and knives of cruel mockings and Revilings men offer one to another in the management of Religious Controversies For these things the Prophet speaks of are especially to be understood with respect to Religion as men are upon their hatred to true Religion or the mutual differences in it become Lions Leopards and Tygers in their executions Cockatrices Aspes and Scorpions in their bitter words and Anathema's All which according to the influences of Christianity upon mens minds declared in this Prophecy shall be taken out of the world except upon the account of those things alone which will be causes of mens eternal damnation at the Tribunal of God and Christ if the infliction be Spiritual or such iniquities as God hath indeed commanded to be punished by a Judg in this world if the sentence be temporal Of such a change as is here set out the Apostle Paul was a great and remarkable instance whose conversion as it hath been thought a prophetic Pattern of the calling of the Jews so it may be as well thought of this happy transmutation of the world most probably concurrent with it if either be universal as we have reason to hope for he was taken in the very manner of a fierce and wild beast breathing out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord and immediately Acts 9. 1. turned into a meek merciful tender and compassionate Lamb over whom at his conversion there shone a light round about him in resemblance of this knowledg of the Lord that shall cover the earth at the brightness of which they that journeyed with him stood speechless which might allegorize the making tame even those in such a day of Divine Appearance that are no true Converts Now this Apostle as we know ever after breath'd nothing but the Love Meekness and gentleness of Christ in himself and offers in all his writings to inspire it into others as we shall have abundant occasion in the progress of this discourse to observe severe in nothing but what was irreconcilable with this excellent Christian spirit Object Before I pass on I shall only remove one Objection which may seem a very great one viz. That our Saviour saith by way of surprize upon any such expectations Suppose ye that I am come to send or give peace on the earth Think not so I came not to send peace on the earth I Mat 10. 3 4. c. Luke 12. 51. c. tell you nay but rather division and a sword and a fire For I am come to set a man at variance c. and from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided three against two and two against three c. Answ In answer to this we may easily perceive our Saviour in this place speaks neither his own intention and design nor the proper tendency and rational effect of his Doctrine for in that sense he saith to his Disciples attempting to imitate the fiery zealot spirit Ye know not what spirit ye are of for the Son of man comes not in a Chariot of fire to destroy all that will not be of his Religion for he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Luk. 9. 55 56. In this place therefore he only signifies what would arise through the great Corruption of man whose lusts and passions would be apt to swell and rage at so excellent a Doctrine so destructive to sin and to all false Religion defended by long possession and ancient Tradition and composed for the Patronage of mens lusts Hence men would be implacably set against the Religion of Christ and would be divided with extreme hate from those that espoused it as their chief interest and happiness and not be drawn to Apostatize from it though it gathered upon them the spite and rabid Inclinations of the world in general and of their nearest Relations in particular Indeed the prophane and enemies of Christianity are wont to cry out against Religion on such occasions as if it wrought all the mischief in such cases when it is their own wickedness that troubles things as Solomon says The foolishness of man perverteth his way and then his heart
of matter or body in a perpetual transmutation can bear And that this Doctrine also of a future state is to the utmost cannot be denied since nothing can more compleat happiness or misery than the Scripture expressions reach to But I insist no further upon this being in the main substance of it in my account of it a fundamental point of Natural Religion but that God will transact this Judgment by Jesus Christ is indeed perfect Revelation and falls in with the former account given of his Mediatorship and enhanses still this principle as to its greatest certainty so to all its possible height since God in humane nature God in the Mediator Judging the world turns about with greatâ—st consolation to good men and terror to evil men that can be comprehended by humane understanding And so I have endeavoured to make good the second Head of discourse under this first foundation of universal peace Consent in Natural Religion viz. that Christian Religion in what it reveals beyond Natural Religion agrees yet with Natural Religion and is recommended by it and herein I have insisted upon those points of Christian Religion that are truly Christian for those private disputes among Christians were much better silenced within the Gates of Christianity it self in that way wherein they are managed and therefore much more ought not to be declared in Gath nor published in the streets of Ashkelon neither indeed need the points themselves upon which the disputes are For if together with those undoubted Principles of Natural Religion in Doctrine Worship and Practice as they are reveal'd by Christian Religion wherefrom none can make defection but under the most righteous severity of the Magistrate who in those cases bears not the sword in vain I say if together with these the substantial truths and institutions of Christian revealed Religion wherein we are all agreed were presented as the general confession or profâ—ssion of Christians before we come to lanch out into parâ—icular opinions or modes of worship our excellent Râ—ligion would stand much more like a City set on an hill Mat. 5. 14. whose Magnificence and Beauty could not be hid for the benefit both of strangers and its own Citizens since things so great so excellent so agreeable with all the inward sense of mens minds could not be rejected by those that would be accounted men of Mind Soul and Reason and especially there could upon these terms Christianity offers be no possible place for hurting or destroying Christians by any party except men are resolved to lay aside the Man and put on the Lion and Wolf Now by all that hath been spoken upon this point it appears three sorts of Opinions whatever of Christianity they assume to themselves are indeed the injury and horrible scandal of it because they contradict Natural Religion which is an abomination to Christianity 1. That Opinion which adoring our Mediator as having all power in Heaven and Earth allows him an ubiquitary presence and addresses prayers to him allots him all Divine Honours and yet denies him Coeternal God with the Father for this brings in supreme worship love confidence in more than the One God it cloaths Finite with Infinite which is a contradiction to the Law of Natural Religion every where illustrated and confirmed by the Word of God Of this great evil Socinianism Arrianism and the several names of Heresy of that Alliance are guilty 2. That which brings in Image-worship prayers to Saints and Angels which supposes Invisible Beeings though creatures Omniscient and Omnipresent as God that in all places men may lift up hands to them in prayer without doubting of their being lost in their direction to those that are not that they know able to take any notice of them and further which is not the least of the Idolatry it gives them the honour of being absolutely knowable by natural light in the Divine Attribute of hearing prayers that all flesh may come to them viz. in their Knowledg in their Mercy in their Power all which must be absolute as Gods and as evident to reason as in God seeing men have no justifiable revelation to any such purpose the Arto latria or adoration of the bread in the Sacrament is of the same family now however these things are intricated by various pretexts yet as the spectacle in the last especially is horrid to sense so the things to Reason and Natural Conscience and can ne'r be reconciled we have otherwise learnt Christ who in the days of his flesh neither requir'd nor receiv'd worship directed to his body upon any such pretensions Mark 10. 17. Luke 11. 27. 28. John 6. 36. John 20. 17. but refus'd it except when at sometimes the mighty Emanations of his Divinity prostrated men into the Adorations of him 3. Whatever Dogme or Sect of men subvert the very nature of Religion as a Proteus-Thing that sneaks into all shapes and professions according to the earthly powers it appears before fearing men rather than God All things that overturn morality and distinction betwixt good and evil the denial of Spirits a future State as undermining the very Life and Beeing of the Almighty Spirit all Phanatick Principles turning Religion into Raunterism or moving the pillars of humane societies as consisting in submission to principalities and powers in subjection to Laws civil customs and decencies all such things as these and the whole lineage of them however they may presume to Christianize themselves are a just abhorrence to the true Christian Spirit as most contrary to the Law of nature These opinions therefore now named are excluded and shut out of that universal Peace and Quietness I am to speak of under this last Head of the survey of Natural Religion which I now come to viz. The third thing proposed under this first head of Natural Religion and upon which the whole weight of it rests and turns as to the intention of this Discourse is this That Christianity supposes it a firm ground of enjoying the Common Peace and Tranquility in Religion that a man receives and owns all the grand points of Natural Religion Godliness Righteousness Soberness and acknowledges it his duty and makes it his profession to live according to them that he avows no Principles contrary hereunto though he believes and professes to be assur'd of some other Divine Revelations in order to his Eternal Happiness It supposes a man that in all his discourse and action gives abundant security of his fidelity to Natural Religion A man that is no Idolater Atheist Blasphemer of Religion Impugner of Morality that observes the Worship of God in Prayers Praises and Religious Discourses should be free to commend himself to God in what he thinks most agreeable to his will though in distinction from others whom he no way disturbs against rules of Reason Modesty Peaceableness and Humility but only offers the Apology of his own faith yet with meekness and fear and the perswasives â— Pet. 3. 15.
Romans such as Pythagoras Socrates Plato Epicâ—etus Cicero Seneca nor as those of later date Plutarch Porphyry Hierocles Jamblicus But as that one sacrifice abolish'd the Typical yet divinely instituted Sacrifices much more those mock-sacrifices that there are no such now in the more famous Religions in the world as divine Oracles and Prophecies absolv'd and finish'd in Christ and the Apostles silenc'd all those fallacious ones from below so the resplendent light of Natural Religion in the Gospel-revelation since its prevalency in the world and that it is become the Religion of Nations seems to have dazled natural reason that there is not the apparence of it as in former ages but a kind of barbarity hath invaded as a thick darkness the world out of the Goshen of Christianity while the Jews trust to the letter of the Old Testament not 2 Cor. 3. 15. yet unvail'd to them in its glory and further obscur'd by Rabbinick Dotages and Mahometans to the Spite-prophet and his senseless Alchoran set up by Satan and permitted by Divine Justice in opposition to the only true Prophet the Lord of life and glory and his everlasting Gospel All besides these lye obscure and at a distance from us in a manner like a Terra Incognita in Reason and Religion having only some relational glimpses no bodies of their discourse in either A great argument of the Truth of Christian Religion that hath drawn up all Rational Religion Reason and Learning within it self and under its own Horizon For though for a time it pleased God to allow the notable efforts of that sort of learning and in opposition to Christianity one of his unsearchable Judgments as in Porphyry and Hierocles yet being vanquished by the greater light of the Gospel since the days of Constantine it hath never risen in any other parts of the world unchristianiz'd to appear with any remarkable strength But all this doth not diminish so much from Natural Religion as it brings it into question Whether there is now such a thing in the world as Natural Religion without Christianity nay indeed it may be doubted whether notwithstanding or even for the sake of those great Names I just now recorded who were but a sort of Parelian lights to the true light of Natural Religion whether there was ever such a true copy of it as that of the Book of Job in any mans heart life or writings that was without the help of divine Illumination and yet Natural Religion is never the less natural nor the less felt and acknowledg'd to be so When besides such a proportion as is always ready to men not degenerate into beasts being so preserv'd by God that he may not leave himself without witness nor men without Luk. 15. 17. means in order to their conversion and recovery when I say besides this God restores to any man or number of men the perfection of it by his Word or by particular illumination of his mind it is not the less natural even as the prodigals Self he came to was not the less natural Self because he had been so long a fugitive from it and it became necessary to him to be so restor'd so no less is Natural religion natural because it is return'd by revelation after being lost And this carries the great uses indeed of Natural religion that whether it be that part of it by general providence preserv'd to the generality of men or by ordinary means improved or whether by divine Illumination and Revelation it is given as it were anew yet we still find it natural and as it were our own properly belonging to our natures and it comes to us as by way of Reminiscency of what we had once but had lost Thus all the ends of the earth Psal 22. 27. shall remember and turn to the Lord. And as I have now stated things that which may seem a great objection against what I have discoursed of Natural Religion will be more easily reconciled And it is taken out of those places of the Apostle John first what he records in his Gospel that our Saviour said He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father that Joh. 5. 23. 1 Joh. 2. 23. 2 Joh. 9. 10. sent him And in his Epistles Whoever denieth the Son hath not the Father And in his second Epistle Whoever transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God and if any man come and brings not this Doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds By all these sayings laid together it seems undeniable that even the acknowledgment of that first and great principle of Natural Religion The believing in and adoring the one God is made of no value by not acknowledging honouring and believing in Christ the Son which is the principal point of Divine Revelation For the setling therefore this doubt these three Things are to be consider'd 1. That after due Instruction and Explanation of the Doctrine of Christ it is as I have said so united with Natural Religion that who ever hath that in sincerity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set in a posture ready to receive and believe Christianity So that if any one upon Instruction commensurate to the Understanding Christian Religion does not receive it he hath not God he hath not true Natural Religion in that Fundamental point especially if he have had the Preparations of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament as the Jews to whom these words were especially directed had Yet still I suppose this case reserv'd to Divine judgment and not to Humane nor that such an unbeliever may be dealt with by men or by Magistratical Authority as an Athiest man can only deal with him by Remonstrances out of Scripture and reasons flowing from it 2. The severity of the Apostle hath greater force upon those who having receiv'd Christianity apostatize from it transgressing and not abiding in the Doctrine of Christ for it is most certain in the thing it self they have not nor can have Natural Religion that prove Apâ—states from Christianity understood so intimate to it 3. This hath yet much greater force upon those whom the Apostle seems especially in his Epistles to intend those who come with a high pretension of an extraordinary spirit of an immediate Doctrine from Heaven and yet bring not the Doctrine of Christ For there being at that time such infallible proofs and assurances of all sorts to the Apostles and that have descended down from them to us in Sacred History we must needs conclude they might justly Anathematize in the highest degree an Angel from heaven that preacht any other Gospel they were most certain who ever Gal. 1. 8. call'd or proclaim'd Christ Lord were authoriz'd to do so by the Spirit of God and therefore that no man could by the 1 Cor. 12. 3. same spirit declare him accursed seeing that Spirit
could not contradict it self No dream wonder or praediction however fulfilled was Authentick enough to draw the Jews from the true God that Deut. 13. 1. had so supremely demonstrated himself to them nor might any Angel or Spirit that is Immediate Inspiration or Doctrine given by it seduce them from Christ so evidently seal'd to them in the New by God the Father and therefore Gal. 6. 27. all pretensions to the contrary how high soever are to be rejected with detestation They knew All that endeavoured it must know themselves deceivers the greatest crime against Natural Religion and indeed none so subject to Humane Inquiry to their detection or severity when detected as Impostors pretending Divine Revelation Nor to their most Authoritative restraints and repressions as the wild Enthusiast though with more mercy because he is himself so greatly deceiv'd and deluded And next to these an Apostate from Christianity can hardly if at all give such an account of himself to Christian Powers as should clear him from being a most hainous offender against Natural Religion The sum then is this He to whom Christianity is propos'd as faithful and worthy of all acceptation with such assurances of it from Natural Religion and its own evidences as are sufficient to draw any man intelligent and conscientious to it and yet rejects and refuses him that speaks from Heaven to him is to be delivered over to the Judgment of God who will judg the secrets of all hearts by that very Gospel of Truth Rom. 2. 16. He that apostatizes from it when he hath once received it may be justly call'd to the most strict account by Christian Magistrates and as they find reason further censur'd or punish'd it being ordinarily impossible there should be such an Apostate from so excellent a Religion once tasted but with greatest violation of Natural Religion and Conscience he that pretends Divine Revelation against that which hath so ample a pattent from Heaven may most righteously be first discover'd expos'd and after dealt with as the most flagitious self-guilty Deceiver by Christian Rulers who are the Ministers of divine vengâ—â—â—â—e in such cases and Rom. 13. 4. by private Christians for his natural evil works cast out of their whole Society Religious or Civil except he appear an Enthusiastick Phrenetick who in pity to him is to be shut up in a Bethlehem from doing so great injury to himself and others And thus I have finish'd the first Argument concerning the acceptableness of Natural Religion to God our Saviour guiding my self in it by this Rule Viz. The most comprehensive Religion in charity to others while we keep to main foundations in our charity and to the purest strictest Rules in our selves we can attain to is certainly the best and most like that one God and one Mediator the common bosom of love peace hope rest The 2. Arg. Proving Natural Religion is fit to be the center Arg. 2 of common peace and agreement in Religion is this There is an Vniversal Code of Natural Religion of which every man hath a part for himself so that we may all appeal one to another as it were to page and line whether it be not so written in that book of the Law within us Whether such a thing be not our duty and whether we have not sin'd in doing contrary And indeed thus to do is the universal usage of men in all their debates one with another As face answers to face in water so the heart of man to man in this Natural Religion as the parts of Humane body agree in all men so do these proportions and lineaments of souls We may with greater certainty solicite men upon these Principles than evil men tempt one another upon common depravation For corruption though all one in the fountain yet lyes in more several veins than these laws of natural Conscience so that men may be miss'd by those that tempt them out of their proper inclinations to evils as hitt in the wrong vein But there are none of these lines of natural Conscience wanting in any man nor an aptness to be mov'd in them if searcht to the quick they will feel it to conviction though too often not to conversion The Apostle in preaching to Faelix struck him in the Sentiments of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come as in master-veins and knew he must take place as it prov'd in his trembling So in his Discourse Act. 17. he fell upon that universal sense of a Divine Being and his excellent Nature of which he was sure there was a counter-part within them He did not first preach Christ to them a point without them but getting within them in natural Principles he assayed by the continuity and similarness of the one with the other to intwine as with admirable artifice he does those Natural Principles with Christianity Our Saviour indeed dealt with the Jews in more absolute and positive terms because natural conscience lay higher and nearer to supernatural instructions by their acquaintance and familiarity with the Oracles of God committed to them But in dealing with those that had not those Revelations the Prophets and Apostles center their Applications to them in this Vniversal Religion and with great reason and expectation of success As Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar I counsel thee to break off thy sins by righteousness and by shewing mercy to the Dan. 4. 27 poor if it may be a lengthning of thy tranquillity This was Natural Doctrine and fit to be addressed to a Prince never so much a stranger to Divine Revelation For this is a Religion known to all the world and therefore that in which all may most reasonably unite This is that a Magistrate may with greatest Authority demand conformity to of his subjects and they oblig'd to obey as the King of Niniveh most justly enjoin'd publick Joâ— 3. 7. Humiliation and repentance in the case of so great and iminent Judgment For every Magistrate is suppos'd as a Magistrate to have good knowledg of this Law of which he as a man hath a copy as the Kings of Israel had of the revealed Law and in which as they in that he ought to be conversant that he may be just that ruleth over men ruling in the fear of 2 Sam. 23. 3. God Of this also every subject hath a copy that he may know his duty and observe it Hence therefore Vniversal conformity is an unquestionable obligation when he that commands and they who are to obey have both the same just weights and measures committed to them one in order to Rule and Government the other in order to Obedience and Subjection such as cannot disagree no more than sealed weights and measures in general Traffick and which each have a standard of and may except inexcusable ignorance negligence or injustice be in the fault have an immediate recourse to But beyond this what of Compulsion there can be I do not understand Every Revelation is received
may have heard the fame of it with their ears It is the way found out and declared by him that made weights for the winds and ballance for the clouds It is the way of the fear of the Lord the beginning of Wisdom and departing from evil the true understanding There lyes the peace of Natural Religion It is the way of Christianity seen and publisht by Christ Jesus the Way the Truth and the Life That 's the peace of Christian Religion And it is certainly the proper excellency of Christian Religion and its very intention to bring this way both as Natural and Christian to light to lay the grounds of it to give the Rules and Measures of it to sweeten mens tempers to the good nature of it That every one in a clear and still air not darkned with Clouds full of Thunder and terrible with the Lightning of dreadful Laws and Bloody Executions may see may be wary in the choice of his conduct of himself to his unchangeable state and may therefore have light have room have still and silence in which he may weigh every thing prove every thing Now that which I have now declar'd is a way most agreeable to the Word of God and that Reason which respects either all mankind or all Christians This is the Contrivance of Christianity's providing That the Wolf and the Lamb may dwell together that the Lion may lye down with the Kid that the child may play on the hole of the Asp that there may be no hurting or destroying in all Gods Holy Mountain That Knowledg of God and True Religion may have the same scope and freedom that the waves have in the Sea Christianity hath always the Grounds ready by it and with it And to present them in their Rational Possibility is a Vindication of Divine Justice Righteousness and Goodness an Offerture to man to be happy Nor will the Platform be always Vtopian the days will come when it shall pass into life power and effect Now whenever this shall be in its Glory that Degeneracy of mankind that curse that lyes upon the earth that vail of the covering spread upon the face of all Nations that severe indignation of God against Humane Nature shall be removed The Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh the light of one day shall be as the light of seven All flesh shall see the Glory of the Lord together So come come thus Lord Jesus Even so Amen I have thus far made a Lamentation upon the General State of the World in relation to Religion which till some such mighty Influence come down from Heaven as I have intimated upon it is like to be for a Lamentation For the dark places of the Earth will be full of the Habitations of Cruelty and it is certain the Habitations of Cruelty will be furnished with the Instruments of Cruelty And therefore Oh my Soul come not into their secret unto their Assembly my Honour be not thou united for in their anger they slay and destroy and in their self-will they dig down walls Cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel Their drink-offerings of Blood will I not offer nor take their name of Religion into my mouth I shall therefore leave them and address the close of this Discourse to the Saints that are in the earth and to the Excellent in whom is all my Delight And in the first place it calls us to the Review of the Excellent Christian Religion even as Natural Religion all essence all substance trace it throughout all its Doctrine Worship Rules of Life they are all by their very Goodness plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find knowledg there is nothing froward nor perverse in them its bands of peace are not politick or worldly Intrigues no Ceremonial Symbolism or Ritual Shibboleth but ponderous Verities and Divine Love All the shew or appearance any Religion can make is but a ray borrowed from its Divine perfection a derivation from its light or from Natural Religion which is it self for pure Natural Religion is Christian Religion if you suppose a soul without sin mounting from its Creature-probaâ—ionership to its highest perfection as Adam if not having 〈◊〉 from Paradise to Heaven And Christian Religion is Natural Religion suppose the soul fallen and rising back from its Apostacy to that perfection by the Redeemer 2. Let me apply this Discourse to the Comprimise of all Differences betwixt Protestants and particularly in our English Christian Nation not defining any Controversal Point but urging to that end such undoubted Principles as I have insisted upon in this Discourse 1. That supposing a National Church cannot be made out to satisfaction yet Christian Kingdoms are so considerable a point of Scripture-Prophecy that it cannot be denied So far therefore as National Worship can be agreeable to a mans Conscience making inquiry and most curious search into the Word of God both as to his Duty and to his Liberty also and possible Freedom from Scruple every Christian is oblig'd to Glorifie God in the publick services of him and Confession of the Faith of Jesus Christ with his native Country Suppose a man should retire to particular private Congregations to supply what he may find wanting in the National Constitution to compleat all the Duties of Christian Communion and the advantages of it yet still he is bound to promote and encourage National Religion so far as it extends to avoid as much as is possible all Divisions and profest separation from it by putting the fairest Construction and the kindest hopes upon those things that seem doubtful and as little infringing the Authority of Laws as may be consistent with sentiments of Conscience and a due enjoyment of that liberty God hath given men of judging for their own souls as in his sight viz. in those things that are not Laws of Natural Religion and so indisputable or those Grand Points of Christianity in which a Christian can have no allowance in all things else a Christian hath a liberty but so that he must not use that his liberty as a cloake of maliciousness but as the Servant of God give due Honour to 1 Pet. 2. 16. all I would therefore propose these three Considerations to draw men to the greatest Conjunction with National Religian that can by any means be reconcil'd with good Conscience towards God Considerat 1. That if we examine things by Scripture there are many abatements from the supposeable evil of external Observances of which we may lawfully make our utmost Advantages to so great a Good as our Professed Conjunction with National Religion while substantially good though the High Places I 1 Kings 15. 14. mean things equivalent in our opinion be not taken away as in the times of the Excellent Kings of Judah First then as fundamental to this case I suppose these two things Equiponderating one another 1. The high Character of National Christian
in Hell If we could suppose a Society designedly united without Religion it would be like the Plot for building of Babel an endeavour of such a part of mankind to set up for its self and its own security as it were in defyance of Heaven A Society united in Civils and crumbled into Sects and Divisions in Religion that is in the main substantials of Doctrine Worship and Practice is a Babel as it was under the curse of Confusion of divided Language A disparagement of Religion which can be as it is indeed Religion but one as if its Name were Legion or as if in fundamental points it could not sufficiently evidence it self so as to be known to be the true Lastly a disanulling the ancient Law of Society which is principally for the Union of Religion so that if men could agree in all things else and were yet divided here it were not true humane society but would want the very noblest part or Principle of it Religion which is as a soul or spirit to it Yet too rigorous and severe a constraint of Uniformity is both to forget humane infirmity that does not allow so perfect an union in this world if a rigid Uniformity be indeed perfection and to forget also that every man is a complete Being within himself and makes a perfect Figure as he is alone and therefore to grant nothing to this consideration is rather to crowd men into a Little ease in Religion than to unite them and so pressing them too strait makes them fly out of that uneasie state for more room and dissolves the union that might else have been But in all the principal points of True Religion Union is so necessary that it stands good Humane society is for the sake of Religion yet in this state of Gods patience to the world Commerce and civil Conversation are no more than Property founded in Grace for then we must go out of the world yet still the supreme and prime end of Society is Religion Society in Divine Adorations is the state of Angels and Saints in Heaven It was designed to be the State of Innocency in this world It is a Law that cannot be repealed It is the perpetual Duty of Man Fallen Nature hath a violent inclination to it so that all societyes consent to walk in the name of some God though mistaken in the right object But the word of God and Christianity as they most clearly reveal the True Religion so the necessity of Union in it The publickness of Religion therefore that it is most choosable for the glory of it to God for the good it does to the souls of men for the blessing and acceptance it receives from God I shall plainly make evident from the reason of Scripture 1. For the Glory publick Religion presents to God it is evident although God in his Son and Spirit is a sufficient Spectator and Witness of and infinitely rich in his own Glory in the understanding of and his own eternal praises of himself so that nothing can be added to him yet it is most evident God is pleased to delight in the publickness of his service and the nearest approach of all his Creatures to him and that not in solitary service but the most conjoyn'd as if infinity received Additions of Glory from the openness and publickness of his Worship which yet we know is impossible But it is the abyss of his goodness that he delights in loving all his creatures and being universally known loved and served by them and that in the greatest Union herein that as he himself is the prime Unity and Universality and this is the perfection of his Being so his Creatures sprung from him may return to him in the same Universality and Unity in resemblance of himself which is the highest and truest worship of him In Heaven there is an Innumerable company of Angels and blessed Spirits in one general Assembly to praise and worship God The Scripture excites the praise of all the Earth of all the world of all Lands of all People Tongues Languages Nations Kindred and Families even the Heaven and Earth and things under the Earth and the whole host of them are called in to concert the Glory of God and nothing left out but Death and Destruction which cannot praise him because never made by him And when the Glory of God as it rises from his Creatures is represented at its highest pitch it is thus set out And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne and the Beasts and the Elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb c. And every Creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them I heard saying as it were in one Quire Blessing and Honour and Glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Thus David also musters up the whole Creation to join in the praises of God not to fill up and adorn the Divine Poesie but to shew the indisputable right God hath to the services of all his Creatures and that in those which are not able to pay it immediately by themselves every wise and prudent holy man is to observe that tribute of praise that is as it were marked upon them by the wisdom that made them and to offer it up for them when the service of God is represented as most glorious in its being most publick Every thing therefore in Gods Ordination of Religion tends to publickness Our Saviour will not appear but in the fulness of his Body the Church which does as it were compleat him For it is in this sense his Complement or Fulness though he fills all in all The knowledg of God would cover the earth even as water does the Sea and is restless till it does so the Preaching of the Gospel is to be extended to all Nations to every creature In Prayer there is to be a coming of all flesh to God Praise is to rise up as one pillar of Incense from the whole world The Church especially is to publish the name of the Lord and to ascribe greatness to our God Now the sense of this is that since God hath been pleased to place his Glory in the publickness of Religion in this Universality of it all good men are zealous and earnest to draw in the publick Societies of the world as much as they can to love fear serve pray to God and praise him together God does not allow his servants that out of choice they should retire to the Religion of a Cloyster or a Wilderness or a private separated Assembly as the greatest honour to him but delights in the most publick Assemblies of his Saints servants and creatures for though the reasons here of lye deep in the Divine
then calling out of every Nation Converts into particular Societies and Congregations I shall make an Essay to level the line of them to Nations and Kingdoms as they are united into such Conspicuous and Illustrious Bodies of Mankind with their Principalities so form'd so compacted and not only a Diffus'd Catholick Church or small and invisible Congregational Churches 1. The Kingdom of Christ can no way attain that Greatness which it is prophecyed and foretold it shall attain if it does not allow Nations as Nations to associate themselves in the profession of it if it only gives Right to private and particular Churches or Congregations and a Diffusive Church that can no way congregate which though great in its Spiritual Union yet arises to no visible Greatness but as it moving into all parts of the world congregates it self according to any of the Laws or Advantages of Humane Society it falls into and finds prepared for it The Messiah then can never as is prophecyed of him have his portion divided him with the great nor divide the spoyl with the strong but must rest in a very low and under-condition of small private and particular Assemblies of his servants professing him but a National Christian Religion a Religion as Famous as the name of the most populous Cities and the greatest Princes and their Territories in honour to the Lords anointed must not be allowed no not according to his own Designation For though the Eminency of the Doctrine and the Appearance of God with it does infinitely surmount all created Greatness yet many places of Scripture compare the Honour and Glory of Christ as a Prince over Nations with other Soveraignties and prefer his not only in regard of the Heavenliness and Eternity of it but as it obtains an Interest and Command in the world For it is a Government over Nations as Nations over the Laws and Principalities of Nations and not of one only but many Nations not indeed in the way of Worldly power but Divine perswasion Evidences of Truth and Reason Vertue of Holiness and Goodness are the Scepter of this Kingdom the weapons of this Power and this Mountain shall grow greater and greater till all the Prophecies are exactly fulfill'd in the Soveraignty of Christ and the lowest subjection of all Kingdoms to him the greatest Mountains disappearing and becoming nothing before him when the fulness of the Jews and Nations are come into him Thus it is a Mountain set upon the top of the Mountains not only in the Eminency of its Doctrine but the professed subjection of the Governments of the world that are in Scripture call'd Mountains to it for his Truth Meekness and Righteousness sake But if Nations receiving and flowing into Christianity sink it presently into particular private Assemblies as it was while under persecution and that it should be of no more publique Honour than at such times the Mountain of the Lords house should not be above the Hills but shaded by them and that according to the very Constitution of Christianity it self for the Supremacies stand aloft but the profession of Christ retires into privacies yea the worship of the True God Creator of Heaven and Earth which after the appearance of the Son of God in the world is only in Christ must be so far from being exalted as is everywhere signified that it must be abated and brought low by the Depression and falling down of the Mosaick Frame for then it was setled upon one of the Principalities of the world and though it be now more diffus'd yet if it not only be not but ought upon its own principles to be Established in and upon the publick profession of a Nation It has not nor can have such an Eminency as among the Jews when it had the Awfulness and Majestickness of a Kingdom devoted to that true Worship making it thereby of much greater notice in the World And if Religion may be National even as Nations themselves are united in a way of order so must National Religion also be by order compos'd into its Nationalness and this by the Rules of Scripture and Right Reason But let this be no pretence to that Tyranny in Christian Religion that great Usurpation of Popery for it is a Sacrilegious Displacing the Honour from Christ upon oftentimes a most unworthy Mortal those Princes then that are Minores Coronae that lessen themselves by giving their Kingdom and power to the Beast must needs diminish the Honour of their profession of Christianity seeing they have so far stripp'd themselves of their Principalities that they have them not to dedicate to Christ The retaining their Honour unvouch'd unviolate by any creature and presenting to the Honour of Christianity a Supremacy unprostitute is the true Glory done by Christian Princes to Christianity 2. If there were not the Liberty allowed to Nations to espouse Christianity to their Government and to receive the Honour to themselves of being Religious and Christian as Nations the Condition of Nations were worse than that of the Jews under the Law For now People as in the Body of a Nation may not be so happy as to have the Lord for their God They may not crown themselves with the chief Glory of Nations viz. True Religion Moses we know often magnifies the State of the Jews to themselves in this particular viz. the Excellency of their Religion He uses it as a great Argument that God loved the Nation He told them it was their Wisdom and Honour before the rest of the Nations round about them who had reason to defer to them that they were a great and a wise Nation an understanding people that had such Deut. 4. 8 c. Statutes and Judgments Now seeing Christian Religion hath the undoubted Evidences of Wisdom Truth and Goodness not only so superior to all the Religions in the world as to be the only true Religion but much superior to that under Administration of the True Religion it self among the Jews It must needs be the happiness of Nations to enfranchise it as the publick National Religion by the same Authority whereby they make valid any other Law or Act so as to become the act of the Publick And we have reason to believe those many expressions of Ephes Eph. 2. 14. c. 3. 6. 2. 14. c. 3. 6. Breaking down the Partition Wall and admitting all Nations to be the People of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body together are intended not only to signifie that they may unite in lesser Congregations but in the fullness of National Associations else they are not received into the same freedoms and immunities that the Jews had nor could Aegypt and Assyria be so equal with Israel that Israel should be but a third with them whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless all alike with no more variation than Aegypt my People Assyria the work of my Hands and Israel my Inheritance Isa 19. We may find Christianity intended to embrace all
and Divine Reasons are the only way of introducing it into Nations Beyond this is nothing but Popish Antichristian Ambition or wild and cursed Enthusiasm with all their salvage effects 2. Where there is National Religion even the National Authority is first Christianiz'd so that there is no Headship no Foundation but Christ and his Laws taking place upon a National State in profession of him If the Christianity then be removed by falshood taking place instead of Truth the Nationalness stays but the Religion the Candlestick is removed the Church is departed from it and retires where it may be enjoyed in its own Truth The form of the Church is the very same with that of the Catholick Church and Congregations As it is National the Headship Organization is no other than National but no more than the City of Corinth or other Cities or Regions made a Church of Corinth or those other Churches no more do National Laws or Magistracy make the National Religion Christianity if received settles there if not received or afterwards expulsed leaves Laws Magistracy Cities to themselves and so it deals with Churches or Forms of them of what kind soever 3. All Union in True Religion is free rational voluntary It owns no compulsion of Laws or Magistracy except in things morally good or evil so that in this only is the difference from National Agreement in other things that of Religion is voluntary and by consent Princes and Governors may be nursing Fathers and Mothers by honorary Rewards and Encouragements they may give all freedom to the true Worship of God and protect it by Laws they may fâ—nce it in with the strict observation of all moral observances they may offer and take care for the perswasions of Religion to be addressed to all their Subjects Many such demonstrations of their Love to true Religion are allowed by God but despotically to command or compel is not of the nature of True Christian though National Religion Christs Kingdom not being of this world refuses even the Magistrates Sword much more that of private force for the propagation of its most proper Interests Our Saviours Religion hates all things of violence and cruelty it is not of its Spirit he does all by instruments of his own And if Nations have made their Religion yea the Religion of Christ an essential of their Government yet if it be not according to the rule of Christ Obedience to and the good opinioof that Government is a lower and lesser Interest than Truth and O bedience to Christ Christ never intended Christianity for a Politick Engine or Expedient yet for the conservation of Government in its full Rights there is not a more concernful point of Christian Religion than the whole Doctrine of Patient Suffering with its reasonableness though it is unhappy for those Rulers that put Christians upon the exercise of it unhappy is that Power that is sealed to with Martyrs Sufferings Yet every man owes to God a strict account why he is not of the National Religion what reasons counterballance to him the great reasons given for National Religion and therein shall receive his Sentence from Christ If any upon just reasons desert a Congregation though but of two or three as I have at large set out is a little Sanctuary reserved to them by Christ with a faithful promise of his presence where it cannot be enjoyed in greater which are else though with some disadvantages in all other regards to be preferred for their publickness and not without great reasons to be refrained from or deserted If the Reasons are not of weight they stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ who are guilty of a Schism against the Laws of Christianity the Laws of Natural Religion the Laws of Humane Society and that according to the malignancy of it To draw this Discourse now to a Conclusion let me subjoyn some Rules by way of Inference of certain good effect to the management of so great an Interest as I have represented National Religion Rule 1. That the Religion offered for National should in the substantials of it be all of clear and undoubted evidence from the Word of God and sound reason from it and in indifferents or necessarily adhering circumstances prepared by so publick a Spirit as to project least of doubt and scruple that as Articles of Faith should be so fram'd as to beget no dividing Controversie but leave room to the particular Judgments of Men where points absolutely necessary are secured so all things of external mode or form should be so freely and generously design'd that every mans particular apprehension may be most at liberty without which the probabilities of the National Religion are surpris'd Rule 2. That in Circumstantials of Religion what is prepared and setled so that it cannot be alter'd by any private dispose nor allowed to any private choice without scandal to the publick Every man should consider his Liberty of Conscience on one side as on the other to preserve himself from scruple as in the Apostles instance of eating There is liberty on one side to eat all things but this does not determine to a necessity of eating that were not liberty If therefore there be a good reason an expediency not to eat the liberty is more conserv'd in not eating than in eating So it is in the use or not use of all indifferent things Where then as to the case we are now upon the advantages for publique Religion incline this way or that way to the use or not use of Indifferent Things It is our greatest liberty to move our selves that way and not to be deterr'd with the suspition of the loss of it by so doing This seems to be the Prophet Zachariahs resolution concerning the Fasts wherein those that would have them laid down and others would keep them still a foot differ'd He first shews them of no value with God then bids them love the Truth and Peace Zach. 8. 10. For though outward Forms Uniformity or Variety in them are of no account in themselves with God but either way in the Uniformity or the Variety They that serve God in spirit and truth are accepted of him yet the angry dissents and disagreements that dis-joyn the minds of men and disable the Union of Divine Worship is like the covering the Altar with tears of complaint and makes the offering unacceptable That there may be the Unity God is delighted in without Uniformity is plain by the Harmony of the Evangelists in their History of our Saviour where there is perfect Unity yet without Uniformity it is plain too by a consideration of Gods smelling a savour of rest in the services of the Church Universal where there is great Variety yet Unity But the contentions and quarrels that often arise about these things are the great causes of Gods displeasure what may most cure them is then most to be desired and chosen but what that is I will not be so bold as to prescribe
evil nor find it so mixt with the good as to admit of no separation And what is wanting in the publick worship of that which Christ hath ordained and commanded does not necessitate the total departure from that publick Worship when the very Institution is not chang'd by that want for the true Christian may make up that want in privater Duties Thus they that feared the Lord spake often to Mal. 3. 16. one another without separation from the Church 3. There is a free use granted by Christ of all things indifferent or a freedom on each sides to do oâ— not to do where no moral evil adheres or disobedience to some express Command of Christs attends either part If then Religion be not drawn out of those necessary things wherein Divine Wisdom Goodness and Truth have plac'd it and Traditions thereupon become Doctrines which constantly carries alâ—ng a rejecting the Commands of God or a lower esteem of them for those Traditions sake if there be no moral evil or indecency nor that a too great cumber be drawn upon Religious Acts every thing is by the Laws of Christ left to its own indifferency as Reason invites or perswades on either side to the doing or not doing All which sets men free from a Jewish yoke in these cases and is the true Christian Liberty Eating or not eating keeping a day or not keeping it Buying in a market and going to a feast without asking any question for Conscience sake without fear of the danger of moral defilement in those things that other mens sins defile only to themselves if we keep our selves pure are plainly the Liberty Christ hath published to us every Creature of God is pure and not to be rejected but received with thanksgiving no sin of man can pollute it to any but himself And this consideration may state to us the whole matter that relates to order and decency That order which God hath establisht in nature it self that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are written with a Sun-beam upon things themselves are out of all dispute God is the Author of them and not of the contrary confusion or indecency That order which is the prudential contrivance of men though not the same in all places times and to all persons as the former yet ought to be chearfully complied with as what is necessary to a National union in and administration of publick Religion both as to Officers and Things seeing nothing can be setled without order Accordingly we find the wise and pious Governours among the Jews taking care and the people submitting to such Ordinations and all under Divine Approbation The Order that is meerly of Humane position and arbitration moves the greatest doubt standing in things that have only the thin pretexts of Antiquity to give them some venerableness or that they are usages already in being or that they add the Imaginary decency that Ceremonies set out Humane actions with Now as to this they that have the power of imposing are equally to weigh the value of Religion it self and what that may suffer for the sake of this order and a great account lyes upon them before God but for those that are under subjection I add further As to this sort of order I can only say this that supposing it no way turn'd into Doctrine as the Pharisees not eating with unwashen hands but declar'd against as such the consequences of observing or not observing are to be ballanc'd and so the practise of every conscientious man to be determined On one side stands the freedom of using this order as an advantage to do good the consideration of the peace of Nations the National defence made more unite against false Religion at the price of Conformity to those more Arbitrary Impositions On the other side stands a just fear for the purity of Religion being either obscured or the freedom of it incumbered or for the reputation of Religion which often suffers by those unnecessary adherencies as if they entered into the nature of Religion it self I must yet allow the preference in my own judgment to that side by which National Religion is most served but with the full perswasion that God receives both if over-bitter zeal on either side be not offensive to him and with the concession that National Religion were more happy if more free but if love adjust to each their due allowance the services of both will be found with great acceptance in the common National Religion as I doubt not their hands would be in the defence of it against the Invasion of a National false Religion But if any be over-rigid or severe on either part they may receive the full rewards of their own society or party but they lessen the higher recompences of doing the most publique good The strictest Laws either this way or that way in these things are of mens own making and exacting so from them only they have their reward who are zealous beyond their own knowledg and the goodness of the matter From all that hath now been said under this Rule I collect 1. That they that cannot agree to the publickly encouraged constitution of a Nation should yet point their worship as much as they can towards it They should comply with all that is good in it so far as they can be recieveâ— without launching beyond their judgments Thus Christianity was made as publique in all places by the Apostles as they could by adjoyning it to any principle of Truth or to the natural sense of Religion they found any where St. Paul gave solemn thanks to God in the midst of all that sailed with him though a bad sort of men Thus he Preached the true God and Christ at Atkens upon their Inscription To the unknown God upon the Fundamentals of National Theology upon the wise saying of a Poet of their own He thought it best to acknowledg all that was good in the most faulty state of Religion as an advantage to convince what was bad and disagreeing to that good and gaining men to unite with that whole element of Truth and Goodness with which any sparks kindled in them already were so closely allied as to gain them to the whole How much nearer then and closer may Christians and of the Reformed Christianity fall in one with another if we valued what we agree in at a higher rate as certainly we ought to do then what we differ about 2. The way to make National Religion most National is by comprehending all the differences that can be reconcil'd with true Religion while they that dissent in some things receive one another with a good peaceable holy and publick temper of mind as the great Argument and Inducement of which we should all pray for the acceptance of the holy services of all that call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Apostle distinguishes Christians but immediately unites them again both theirs and ours They and
we whatever smaller distinctions make the they and the we are both one in our Lord Jesus Christ We ought therefore to pray for the common benefit of all so united though not bound up in the same form with us for a gracious audience and reception of their and our Worship of God that so the Spirit of Love and Vnion in the main may convey all our services into one before God where indeed if they are as he requires they meet stripp'd of all their outward Circumstances Form and Ceremony Faith and Obedience being alone able to mount thither with them And services so raised can by no means be spar'd for small differences in a National Religious Interest for the Angels of all such behold the Face of our Father in Heaven If Darius though a Heathen Prince had such a sense of the virtue Ezr. 6. 10 of that true Religion he was not of as to engage those of so great difference from him in their sense of God to pray for the peace of the King and his Sons how much more should we who are all of the same true Faith and Worship and know the Force and Energy of it by great acts of Favour to one another in those things wherein we cannot be wholly one yet all joyn in praying for the acceptance of one anothers services and the services of the whole Nation whereof we are not only Civil but Religious Members And if we are truly Religious shall be so accounted with God yet with the abatement of our sinful differences and divisions How should we therefore unite that we may lose none of the things that we have wrought but may receive a full reward Rule 6. It is the happiness of our Nation that if any man truâ—y understands considers and pronounces of our National Religion It stands in the Scripture making us wise to Salvation In Faith in Jesus Christ Repentance Love of God Fear of the Divine Majesty all Acts of Justice Love Mercy Compassion true sincere Preaching the whole Word of God Prayer use of Sacraments the Lords-day Religious Discourses Conferences Catechetical Instructions and Education of Youth in the knowledg of Religion Restraint of Atheism Irreligion Intemperance and Sensuality generally and throughout the Nation Compulsion of the very worst of men to acknowledge a Deity and his Worship for what is hypocrisie in them may turn to the salvation of good men These are the things I say again that are truly our National Religion all things pertaining to Order Decency outward Form or Mode are but the Vehicle the conveyance of that True Religion if the main Ends of which be obtain'd viz. That these Religious Acts are perform'd but with that peace and freedom from confusion Confusion destructive of all publick Actions and with that Honourableness that is agreeable to the state of every Nation and this Nation particularly in the simplicity of Religious Worship It is enough and whatever on these accounts is commanded in our National Religion I freely own and acknowledge as reconcilable with these Characters forbearing such who though agreeing in all main things upon sincere endeavours to understand them so cannot acquiesce in them as so who deserve compassion These things ought to be no Partition-Wall in our National Worshipping of God one with another nor can they without great rigor and censor ousness very evil in the sight of God be condemned in those who for the sake of Substantial National Religion the publickness and more universal benefit of it wherein they are most truly zealous pay obedience to the Rules of them Rule 7. Let us all strive labour preach hear and pray and even suffer in the Reformation of our selves and endeavours to Reform all others according to the most excellent Rules of our most Holy Religion professed in this Kingdom as our National Religion that it may be found to Praise Honour and Glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ and be thought worthy to stand before the Son of Man at his coming before whom nothing but the Gold and precious Stones of Substantial Truth and Goodness can stand all else will be burnt off as Hay and Chaff by the fire of that day and they that have been hot and contentious for them be saved only as by Fire with difficulty and loss And in the mean time that our Vnion and Love in the True Religion may be to us an assurance of the Divine Favour and presence of his protection and blessing that neither our Candlestick may be removed nor our Nation the present place of it be taken away for generally both are removed one with the other or soon after one another Rule 8. Let no man be discouraged from the most zealous Affectionate joyning himself to and promoting National Religion because oâ— that veneration due to the Name of The Church and Churches according to the Scripture For a Nation united in True Christian Religion differs no more in the strictest notion from a Church than a Body of men united and consecrated to God according to the Law of Nature differs from a Society united and consecrated to God according to an Institution that is no more than an Institution planted in Nature differs from an Institution given by Revelation For one is the Appointment of God of old from the very Foundations of Humane Society The other after the Fall of Nature and the Inability of it to its end An Institution therefore does not repeal a Natural Law but takes care it should be fulfill'd and compleated in its chiefest End Israel was a Church to God being so devoted to him by his own Institution and it was a Holy Nation according to the Original Exod. 19. 6. Law being elevated by the Institution to its true perfection as a Nation The Christians to whom the Apostle Peter wrote As they were a Church according to the Institution of Christ so they were a Holy Nation as he stiles them succeeding into the place of that whole Jewish Nation Consecrated to God by the Law of Nature upon Nations though but strangers scattered abroad yet to show the 1 Pet. 1. 1â— great value God has of a Nation devoted to him they are stiled A Holy Nation The Institution of the Catholick Church as the seat 1 Pet. 2. 9. of the True Religion of Jesus Christ makes a Nation united in that True Religion both a Church as that Catholick Church hath thereby a Residence in it and much more than those fore-mentioned scatter'd Jews a Holy Nation as it is Nationally resign'd up to God in the True Religion according to the Law of Nature made perfect by the Institution Where then a Nation is united in the Truth of Christian Doctrine the Purity of Divine Worship the Holy Rules of Practise the Catholick Love of all Christians Baptized into the same Body made to drink into that one Spirit In Pastors and Teachers Ministring the same Gospel the Apostles infallibly deliver'd and seal'd with Miracles All
Adultery and Peters Denial of his Lord the one was plain Temptation the other Scandal arising from the to him uninterpretable Suffering of our Saviour though both were great and grievous Sins 3. Scandal is a Temptation to some great Sin or course of Sin For though the least Sin introduc'd upon the Counterfeit of Religion and Reason is truly Scandal and partakes in its Woe Yet those Scandals of daily almost unavoidable Incursion in this imperfect State are broken in their deadly effect by the daily and general Repentance and desire of Pardon and Faith in the Blood of Jesus all true Converts live in the Practice of Who can understand his Scandals Deliver thou me from secret ones may every good man pray But keep back thy Servant from Insolent Scandals that they may not have Dominion so that I be Innocent and free from the great Transgression The sins that Scandal precipitates upon may be either in the refusal disavowment rejection or despight to some of the prime manifestations of God in the World in Infidelity or Unbelief or some great Enormity of Practice and it may be absolv'd and finished in some Notorious Act of Sin or may run through the whole Course of a mans Life in an habitual State of sin or Transgression of the Rule that he acts in all a-long Lives and dies in this Snare of Satan in this Captivity under him It may be partial only there being a reserve of the Soul preserv'd by Grace by which the renewed Soul recovers it self as the Apostles were Offended or Scandalis'd in Christ on the Night of his Passion and Peter in a fouler manner and yet theirs even his Faith did not fail They and he most Eminently escap'd out of the broken Snare But men devoid of any Principle of true saving Grace are though in several degrees lock'd within the Scandal and cannot be rescued out of it but by a Renovation to Repentance the first Repentance Yea even the best men under the power of Scandal as we now discribe it are for the present inwrap'd and involv'd so that the whole man seems to fall and the whole strength for that time so far as is visible is taken Captive Now by all this that hath been spoken it is undeniable that a Man is never Scandalised but when he sins he is not Offended in this Scripture-sense but when he himself Offends To be justly displeas'd with other mens sins or defiling Religion with impure mixtures is not to be Offended but when a man himself displeases and offends God and against his Duty 4. Scandal in wraps in Sin and the dreadful consequents of it for in the mischief and deadly issue of Sin is the complemental nature and notion of Scandal It is in the way of Righteousness onely that there is Life and in the Path-way thereof that there is no Death none of the beginnings and first strokes of it of the avant Couriers of Death It is Wisdom alone that is Health to the Navel and Marrow to the Bones whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are Peace But the ways of Scandal so closely united with Sin though they seem right in a Man 's own Eyes yet are all along the ways of Death and most evidently so in their end Guilt Divine displeasure Perplexity Anguish of Mind Grief if the Sin be felt however a wound a stripe upon Conscience and a mark of that stroke of that wound and stripe whether felt or not that can never be worn off but by Repentance and Faith in the Blood of Christ Weakness Inability loss of Vigour to a Holy Life 〈◊〉 Action and often down right Apostacy are the Fruit◠〈◊〉 Scandal for every Sin is a prejudice a mortification 〈◊〉 dead works upon the Consciâ—nce dispiriting it to Holiâ—â—â—â— more and more It is the way of Righteousness that is strength to the upright and the joy of the Lord therein is his double strength Through Scandal Men stumble and fall are discouraged and lye down at length out of Choice and with resolution to continue where they are as most easie Qui jacet in terris non habet unde cadat Upon all this ensues at last Eternal Death if not prevented by Repentance 5. Scandal is covered under some plausible pretence or disguise of a principle of Reason or Doctrine of Religion For Reason being an efflux from God the Sovereign Reason and Light from the Father of Lights any true principle of true Reason and rightly applyed is undoubtedly a Divine Oracle and would justifie any pretension grounded upon it Now in all Cases wherein Divine Revelation is refused or avowedly forced from the genuine Sense because either the Revelation or all Natural Interpretation will not serve the turn of Scandal but detects and exposes it it then flyes under an umbrage of Reason as separated from such Revelation or sets it up to limit and control such Revelation But if it professes to own the Scripture it then serves it self of Divine Revelation but wrested and mis-applyed for the higher the Authority is that is vouched and pretended the deeper the Scandal as we may see in the Pharisees the greatest both Masters and Bondmen of Scandal that ever were in the World except the Galley Slaves of it in the Romans Antichristianisme and they were so because they were defended and flanked on all sides as they miserably deluded themselves with the Authority of the Old Testament the Law and the Prophets together with the to them equall or indeed superiour awful Traditions of the Elders by which they circumscribed and kept under the Authority and Sense of Scripture as the Papists do at this day by like Traditions and Faith of their Church Now all these as they would have it joyned in perpetuating the Ceremonial Law as irreversible by God himself and settling an indefeisible state of Inheritance in the true Religion upon the Jews alone without the calling of the Gentiles to be the People of God but as their meer Proselytes All these as they deemed represented a Messiah of quite another Figure another Character than our Saviour and therefore he as they concluded must needs be an Impostor and his Doctrine Blasphemy upon which Rock of offence the Vessel of their Church and even Nation it self besides their particular Souls was most dismally Shipwrack'd But not only things of so good a Title and Claim as the Jewish Religion are counter-scarf'd with a Doctrine but even such vile things as Balaam taught eating things Sacrificed to Idols in honour of the Idol and committing Fornication when contrived into Scandal must have a Doctrine for them For so the Spirit of God calls it the Doctrine of Balaam In Scandal even Jezabel puts on the Vail of a Prophetess and calls her self so and under it teaches and seduces which may abate to us the wonder of Romes calling it self a Church and its Adulteries Sorceries and Idolatries Catholick Christian Religion 6. Scandal by such a Principle of
Reason or Doctrine of Religion edifies or emboldens Conscience For although Conscience was made for the Divine Truth and Law of God which is the Truth and not for Scandal it was made so even and true to it that they which love this Law have great peace and nothing can scandalise or offend them that is either seduce or hurt them yet in this very Seat in this very Throne of the Divine Law in this Temple of God in this place of the Holy this Tribunal of the Soul that ought to be the Sanctuary of Truth and Righteousness and as a Tabernacle of Testimony does Scandal exalt it self as if it were from God and from thence it gives its Oracles but Conscience thus debauched and prostituted bears no more proportion to true Conscience than Antichrist does to Christ and is therefore a pseudo-Conscience an Anti-Conscience Conscience falsly so called 7. Scandal always dashes its own Principles of deceived Reason and false Doctrine upon some true and grand Principle of Reason and Doctrine of Religion For though every Truth of God is great yet there are of the first magnitude on account of which oppos'd the Spirit of God brands it Scandal more remarkably and hereupon though the Sin derived from Scandal may in it self seem small yet in regard of some stable Law of Religion made void and thereby Sin introduced it is a very great Sin though in a matter of its own Nature sometimes indifferent Now it cannot be otherwise but Scandal must thus dash upon Truth because as I have said it herein differs from simple Temptation that its rest is upon some false Principle of Reason or Doctrine of Religion it frames mischief by a Law and it must needs be that every false Principle and Doctrine must rush against some true one and though no Truth of God be small or Sin little and Scandal is always proportionable yet the wisdom of Scripture hath appropriated the name of Scandal to the violation of some grand Principle As I shall now in the next place for the further explaining of Scandal observe those Pillars of the Divine Truth and Law against which it throws and bruises the Scandalised Soul as the Sacred Books shall instruct us 1. The Eternal Being and Holy Government of God in the World according to those Righteous Just and Good Laws he hath given and according to which he will Judge and make Retribution to all Men at that great day is the Fountain and most Fundamental Principle of Religion So then whatever upon pretence of Reason and just cause undermines the Faith abates the Aws or dispirits the Obedience agreeable to so supreame a standard of all these is the Original and final Scandal Here all Scandal begins in the decay of the Faith and Fear of God and hither it returns It ends in a further loss of God and this upon offence taken that too much is required without reason This is that Eternal Rock of Truth at which whoever stumbles must needs be hurt wounded and grieved Thus was I grieved in my Heart and pricked in my Reins Psal 73. 21. saith the Psalmist on this very occasion Whoever falls violently against it it breaks him whoever contests to remove it and burdens himself with it it falls upon him and grinds him to Powder And yet against this speculative and practical Atheism hath in all Ages hardened it self and by shews of Reason and high Spirit been heaving and pecking at it and casting Scandals in all Mens way Gods retirement as they fancy it into the thick covering of the Clouds and the pleasure of Jâ—b 21. 14. walking in the Circuit of Heaven and not coming down in visible shapes of Glory and Power have given to ungodly Men the Boldness and a counterfeit of Argument to dispute against his Being and Government I say a counterfeit of Argument for with an Apparition of Reason from hence and an Insolency of Wickedness they Conjure down they Moâ—mo of Religion and the Goblin of Conscience as they esteem them Atheism hath always spoken stout Words against God saying to God Depart from us we desire not the knowledge Mal 3. 13. of thy ways What is the Almighty that we should serve him Or what profit is it if we should pray unto him Job 21. 14. It hath of old lifted up Men against God and stretched out their hand against the Almighty so that they have run upon God even upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler to mischief themselves to the utmost In the very days of Job there was this Counsel of the Job 10. 3. and 21. 16. and 22. 18. wicked as if it was the result of debate and serious consideration in a Senate of Atheists as if they had made the Experiment and found upon proof there was no advantage in serving God and no Man came by the worse in despising him It is not the invention of one Age of this last Age as if it might pride it self in finding it out Scripture hath not thought it against its Interests to record the strength of the Cause as it was managed of old in those Elder days of Job in the last days of the Old Testament in the time of the Prophet Malachi But over-runs it with a Flood of Truth and Eloquence even as God does as he pleases with a Deluge of Wrath. Yet present Impunity and the seeming confusion of Providence in the prosperity of the ungodly and the afflicted State of good Men hath been always a stumbling Block to sudden and short consideration Job significantly calls it Gods shining on the Councel of the Wicked as if it Job 10. 3. gave it a Lustre and Countenance Even good Men till they went into the Sanctuary of God and looked to the end of things have found it a Scandal The Psalmist acknowledges His Feet were almost gone and his Feet well Psal 73. 2. nigh slipped when he saw the Prosperity of the Wicked and Waters of a full Cup of affliction wrung out to the Godly Yet upon full discussion of the case he confesses it his Folly Ver. 22. and Ignorance So Foolish was I and Ignorant I was as a Beast before thee The wise King observed the Hearts of Eccles 8. 11. the Sons of Men fully set them in to do Evil because Sentence on an Evil Work was not speedily Executed God by his Patience sustaining and making wicked Men stand Exod. 9. 16. even when they deny him is the occasion of their more dreadful fall for their Foot will slide in due time to their Eternal Ruine how slack soever God is misdeemed he will be a swift Witness of his own Being and Truth and the Avenger of his own Glory Now so far as any Man hath either in secret Suspicions or in the silent Murmurs of his Soul said There is no God or vanquished the prevailing Awes of God so that Conscience hath been emboldened or edified or so much as silenced or dumb
Midianites Numb 25. 17 18. inclos'd cramp'd and vex'd them first with the Guilt rising up in the Face of Conscience and then with the miserable Consequence of the sudden Wrath of God revealed from Heaven against them This was the Stumbling-block of Iniquity the wicked Man in Ezekiel puts before his Face even the Idols he had upon his Heart These were the stumbling-blocks with the wicked God would cut off and remove in the Prophet Zephaniah This was one principal Point of Scandal the Apostle discourses of to the Corinthians in the Case of Eating 1 Cor. 8. 10. things offered unto Idols and that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament so eminently remarques for Balaam's Doctrine of Scandal The great Abomination and Lie that deceives the World in the Book of the Revelation is the detestable Rev. 2. 14. Antichristian Idolatry the notorious Scandal of the Christian World both within it self and before the Jews Turks and even Pagans who see their own Brutishness acted under that excellent Name This is so great a Point that God hath departed from the Brevity of that Majestick Law in the Second Commandment for the guarding his Worship as with a Flaming Sword every way because in a Case wherein Humane Nature is so prone to fall Whether therefore it be the dividing the Divine Honour to any other though under the Name of Reverence to him as the Original or Supreme or whether it be the carving a Worship for God he does not prescribe for himself whatever be the Dccency or Expediency to help the Devotion whether of the Learned or Unlearned it becomes Scandal and a Snare to those that are so impos'd upon And seeing though the weakness of Passion be far off from God he owns himself jealous we have reason to mistrust every thing when he is so seeing not only foul Debauches but even what is most innocent in all other Cases is suspected in that Hezekiah in the sense of this broke in pieces so venerable a Relique as the Brazen Serpent not only a Ceremony of 2 Kings 18. 4. Miraculous Cure but a Type of Christ and degraded it into a meer piece of Brass when he saw the Israelites scandalising at it and tempted by it to impure Glances When our Saviour perceived so clean and harmless an Usage as Mat. 15. 1. Washing before Meat creeping into a piece of Religion how severely he disown'd it and was careless of the causeless scandalising of the Pharisees by his Doctrine concerning it because he knew there was True and Real Scandal in that Rite so abus'd And when all is said that can be said the Heavenly Pattern is that in Divine Worship and that only of which it can be said That nothing in it can scandalise that is justly scandalise except we think God's Jealousie was a Jewish Style wholly now out of date And yet how hath this Scandal this Stone of Stumbling this Gin and Snare always lain in the way of Humane Imagination and prevail'd upon it As if God living in the Retirement of a Spiritual Nature did not understand how himself was to be address'd by Men nor knew the Points of Honour due to his own Glorious Nature as is most Fashionable and Modish in the World Men take upon them to distinguish things better by the Breeding they have had in this Earthly Country they think God so much a Stranger as not to know how to appoint for himself when Men have to do with him as if what might be well accepted in Heaven would not yet be current upon Earth Here Images Pictures Elevations Adorations of the Host with innumerable Rites and Ceremonies are necessary to beget Devotion due to God the Saviour they will serve Here they that can best judge what is most Stately have determin'd God must not make himself so cheap as immediately to receive Prayers and Supplications or by his Son only as the Mediatour Angels and Saints must intercede and then who can deny them their share of Honour Religion will be neglected and dâ—spised if it have not Sets-off besides it self and the necessary Decency of Humane Actions There must be something unusual to dress it up and amuse But all this is no more than the Greens and Flourishes laid over a Trap to hide it and invite the unwary Passenger God that understands himself so perfectly as to know what will please him understands all Men too and needs not that any should tell him of Man for he knows what is in Man and he hath pronounced it What is higly esteemed among Men is abomination in the sight of God He hath Isa 15. 9. said it In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men All outward Pomp is but drawing nigh with Lips when the Heart is far off To worship God is to give him the Glory of his own Perfections and not to make him such a One as our selves God is a Spirit and they that worship must worship him in Spirit Joh. 4 24. and Truth in his Spirituality and Truth not in their own Carnality and vain Shew It is not to Paint or Pourtray or Carve a Deity as the Heathen that chang'd the Truth of God into a Lie and the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the Image of Coruptible Man and other baser Creatures because they thought it best and yet worse than that into Names of greatest Infamy and flagitious Turpitudes All frivolous Rites represent Divinity small and impertinent to the Great loss of the Glory due to that terrible Name The Lord our God One great End of Worship is the Conforming the Soul to the Divine Nature by Approaches to and Exercises of the Mind upon it but if this be mis-shapen the Soul is made more unlike to God Blessed for ever as the same Heathen became more licentious by the Pourtraictures they gave their Gods A trivial Temper of Mind naturally results from a trivial Worship even as it forms it first and often meeting it there it daily returns from it confirmed and improved The Sincere Worship directed to in the Gospel is that Glass in which we behold the Glory of the Lord and are changed 2 Cor. 3. ult into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Loosness of Life hath been always noted to be the Fruit of a Corrupt Worship It is naturally so and God curses it to be so God gave Idolaters up to their Lusts and an Injudicious Mind They that Worship him aright according to his Word Psal 36 8. and 6â— â— adhere to him and by regular Conduits drink Life from the Fountain of Life and derive from the River of his Pleasures they are abundantly satisfied with the Goodness of his House even of his Holy Temple They that Worship God after their own Imaginations do but drink out of their own broken or defiled Cisterns that hold no Water and therefore draw nothing but Wind and Air or
Corruption They walk in the Light of their own Sparks and have only this at Gods hand to lie down in sorrow Besides that God in just displeasure sends down upon them the Revenges of an abused and injur'd Power and Godhead Now all this expresses the Heighth both of the Deception and Mischief of Scandal 4. The fourth great Principle of Truth is the absolute and indispensible Necessity of Holiness both in Heart and Life without which no Man shall see the Lord Against which Heb. 12. 24. there lies no such Scandal or cause of Offence as inward and inherent Lust and inordinate Appetite which is obstinately set to obtain its Satisfaction and is no way to be tam'd but by beinâ— cut off though it be the Right Hand or Right Foot or even the Right Eye The Love of God Mark 9. 43. and his Law is the best Security against this Scandal and daily Mortification and Crucifixion of the Old Man with Ephes 4. 22. its sinful Lusts and Affections Pretences from Reason or Doctrines of Religion there can be none in this Case to those who acknowledge either Christianity or Morality But Men are carried down the violent Stream of ungovern'd Passion and that falls into the wide Sea of general Corruption and Bad Example which looks most like an Authority There are the Palliations and Excuses of Sin which may serve in a time of Peace and Carnal Security but cannot so delude Conscience as to be in a strict sense Scandal The continual Practice of Sin hardens the Heart sears benumbs and stupifies all inward Sense and cancels the Awe of those ingraven Laws and revealed Commands of God for a time but cannot either deny their Just Power or challenge them of Unreasonableness So that if any where Men are forc'd to take Refuge at the Atheistick denial of Religion it self or to blind Conscience with Superstitious Acts which seem to commute and make satisfaction for Sin Or if Men are resolved to blind their Eyes and obstruct all Sense they may make the Profession of True Religion a Cover to Sin as they that cry Lord Lord and Mat. 7. 22. the Temple of the Lord are we that name the Name of Jer. 7. 4. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Christ with great ostentation and so may deceive their own Souls but to hold out against either the Challenges of Divine Truth or of their own Reflexions is impossible So that upon the whole matter Predominant Lust from within and Bad Example from the so abounding Iniquity of all sorts of Men the Falls of Good Men the Miscarriages of Hypocrites and insincere Professours of Religion are the greatest Scandals or Stumbling-blocks in the Ways of Holiness to those that are not insnared in the afore-named Scandals But although the necessity of Holiness is above the reach of strict and proper Scandal yet it is the very Center of all Scandal in the effect of it for then a Man is indeed scandalised when the Salt of Divine Truth when the Spirit of Truth can have no power nor efficacy upon him because of that Scandal to season the Heart nor govern the Life and Action in the Love Fear and Obedience of God and Jesus Christ But if it be possible for any Man to understand in his Heart and Life what he does not promise by Profession or if he seem to deny any Principle of Truth and does not understand in his Heart and Life the Extent and Force of his Denial but hath better Principles that are an Antidote and Counter-poyson to any Mistakes in the Doctrine of Religion he is not scandalised with the great Mischief of Scandal But that Man is scandalised that through False Principles or the denial of True ones wants their Power and Vertue upon his Affections and Actions For no Truth is for Notions sake but to make truly good the Heart and Practice the very Confession with the Mouth is to recoil back into the Soul and make that better and to move forward and ingage the Life along with it 5. It is a grand Pillar of the Truth of Religion That we love our Neighbour as our selves and that he that loves 1 John 4. 21. God should love his Brother also And there is not there cannot be any Law of Religion wherein the Equity the Love Favour and Compassion of the Lord our God and of Jesus Christ our Saviour towards Humane Nature does more evidently recommend it self It is the Justification of the Religion of the Scriptures to be the True Religion And as the Love of God to Man his Philanthropy does shine out more illustriously in the Gospel so does the Law and Doctrine of this Love of Christians to one another and not only to Christians but to all Men And in this as of greatest concernment thâ— Gospel is so abundant and its Discourses of so great weight that it is made another Hemisphere of Religion to the Love of God The one is the first and Mat. â—1 38 39. great Commandment and the second is like to it It is the Law and the Prophets it is the whole Law It is irreconcilable Rom. 13. 8 9. to the Love of God not to love our Brother It is 1 Joh. 3. 15. such a Degree of Murther that whoever is guilty of cannot have Eternal Life abiding in him It is the great Mark 1 Joh. 3. 14. We have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren So many are the Arguments and so strong the Obligations to this Duty that they cannot be recounted all may be summed up in that God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love is born of God dwelleth in God and God in him Now that this Love is fix'd in an Uniformity of Opinions or points of outward order in the Worship of God is most unreasonable to believe for besides the impossibility to reconcile all the innocent Varieties that are in Humane Nature though it be Christian humane Nature in their Sentiments and Elections in these things the things themselves are not of that amount as to be the proper rest of this Divine Love or that if it misses these Poles it should therefore cease to be the Axis upon which the Catholick Society of Christians and Christian unity turns for that in the very Nature of the thing must be substantial Christianity it self And this is indeed the Great Schism to be divided in Affection from Christians it is a wonder how it could be otherwise understood seeing smaller differences are frequently by the Apostle considered and allowed for without the least allowance for Christians not loving one another Christianity carries no Gall even towards utmost Strangers upon the account of its being the true Religion much less towards those that are truly Christians though not each uniform with one another in all things The great Scandals against this Love are private Men think it justifiable not to love those that have injured them but this Case hath been considered
every Quarter with Mischiefs How much better then is it that indifferent things in Religion were taken away even while the World standeth than that they should be kept up as the Sconces of Scandal For Indifferent Things let not the Work of God be destroyed nor any for whom Christ dyed in danger to Perish the more we esteem our Church our Religion our Worship of God the better and purer they are the more it is pity any should be divided from it should be so far scandalised as to be Schismaticks from it either in our account or if it be that Sin in the real danger of it and of perishing in it The more excellent our Church is the more the Apostles Rules take hold of us Let not the good of our Church be evil spoken of as if it was Ceremonial Let us not lose any from our Church for Meat and Drink Increase not the Woe of Scandal any way for so mean Things as Indifferents Let us not indanger our selves into the Woe of him by whom Scandal comes for Elements But besides all these Considerations there is not so absolute a security in adding any thing under any Name whatever to the pure Worship of God any more than to his Word lest we be found Lyars to him mismatching with it what will not endure the Fire Greatest Peace have they that Prov. 30. 5 6. love thy Law O Lord and that only nothing shall offend them in nothing will they offend others Observing Rites that had been Divine was not so safe to the first Christians having to do with Rites that had been corrupted Idolatrously and Superstitiously proved very Fatal Ceremonies are but Shaddows Superstition easily pervades that little thin Essence they have They have not the Right of being Gods Creation to bring them off to lye lower than their Corruption and commend them There is no such Cause to be over-zealous of such things in regard of which a late * Father Simmons 's Critical History Romanist hath said The true Religion of the Church of England differs little from the Romish in outward appearance The Argument strikes all ways if our Constitution be so good and injur'd not at all by Ceremonies let us as Christ Seek and save that which is lost those we look upon as the least that believe in Christ let them not be lost for Ceremonies The Love and Compassion of a Saviour triumphs towards these least easily Offended narrow-soul'd morose suppose them Smoaking Flax bruised Reeds yet despise them not if Christians if Protestants Their Angels behold the Face of the Father of Christ in Heaven Let them not be Offended Scandalised from Union with our National Church for Ceremonies If on the other side our Ceremonies in Gods account should be blemishes of our Church and Imperfections or if they may be turned into such by an ignorant use of them or if they cause Divisions and Scandals if the Mischiefs of those Scandals fall upon Strangers to true Religion and keep them at distance All these considerations weigh heavy against a Zeal for them But if none of these can be laid to their Charge yet if Men doubt concerning them what must they do How shall they escape that of the Apostle He that doubteth is Damned if he Eats Whatever is not of Faith is Sin Why should this be hazzarded for Indifferents And when the Tyde of Advantages Preferments Publick Approbation are on one side Deprivation of all those Censures and Penalties on the other who dares answer for many Men that they do not offer Violence to their Principles much more venture over their Doubts And yet in those very Doubts has the Apostle laid his Doctrine Or Lastly Wo can reasonably suppose Men would stem this Tyde that is against them if they had not real Conscientious Doubts or higher than Doubts to contest with in prejudice of their Complyance Upon the whole then I cannot but conclude Imposing Indifferent Things in Religion by a violent Example much more by severe Ways is very contrary to the Apostles Doctrine in that Case and that upon Reasons that till I see them answered I must suppose unanswerable I have now thus far discoursed of Scandal in the more strict and particular Cases Scripture hath given us the notices of but in the remaining Heads to be treated of I shall consider it in that largest and most comprehensive Grasp of it Religion in general And there is nothing that requires greater Wisdom and the prepossessions of a more Religious Prudence than to sit and count the Charge of undertaking serious Piety as the Lord hath bidden us in relation to one Branch of Scandal Persecution so with respect to the whole Negotiation of Scandal in the World It is the great both Wisdom and Goodness of God in the Scripture that he hath given full and ample warning before hand of all the Disadvantages we are to encounter in our Faith Love and Obedience to him as when we are assured There shall be False Prophets There must be Heresies There shall be Persecution There shall be an Apostacy or general Defection from True Symmetral Christianity within Christianity it self And so in the present Case it must needs be that Scandals come For the Knowledge of these things is one greatest Defence against the Evil predicted as also against the staggering of our Minds concerning the Truth of Religion it self Let any man then enquire and search this thing out both in Scripture and close Reason and he will find Scandals must come though he may at first think Religion if it be so great and excellent as is given out of it should not be darkned and clouded with Scandal but stand clear from it and it be impossible it should be any way liable to it Now that it is in it self Just and Right even to Perfection it self is every where recorded and published of it Wisdom speaks excellent things and the opening its Lips are Prov. 8. 6. Right Things It speaketh Truth and Wickedness is an abomination to its Lips All its Words are in Righteousness and nothing froward or perverse in them They are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find Knowledge The Righteousness of thy Testimonies is everlasting give me Vnderstanding and I shall live Gods Precepts are right concerning All Things and secure from every False Way Psal 119. 104. c. His Law is the Truth By the Word of his Lips Men are kept from the Paths of the Destroyer Amidst all the scandalising Psal 17. 4. Hos 14. 11. and intangling Works of Men The Ways of the Lord are all right if Men have but right Feet right Intentions Affections and Motions And yet when all this is granted let any Man cast the thing in his severest Thoughts and he will find it impossible as things are Religion should be free from Scandal and that therefore as if any Man cannot deny himself he cannot be Christ's Disciple so if
can we have of it Quest But how can it be but there must be Tradition seeing there were so many Things spoken and done more than the Scripture contains or the World it self could contain if they were all written These then being known in the first Times have been conserv'd by Tradition Tradition made valuable by those of Honourable Name among Christians and their Discourses of Christianity Answ Granting such things so preserv'd suppose them the Actions and Words of our Saviour himself yet if not written by Inspired Penmen they are not recommended as obligatory upon After-ages For whatever was necessary that we might believe and have Eternal Life was so written and that not only just so much as might serve Necessity for that the One Gospel of St. Joâ—â— might serve to That it self witnesses but also be matter of Bounty and Abundance so that out of that greater World of Truth than our World could receive there was so much selected as was bountifully sufficient and abundant to all Intents and Purposes of Clearness Certainty Enforcement upon the Affections Variety continual Exercise and Delight that so every Christian might be throughly furnished to every good Work to all things that pertain to Life and Godliness As for all that Christ did and spake or that the Apostles spake or did by Infallible Guidance and Immediate Assistance if it be not written a Veil is drawn over it and a Cloud hath received it out of our sight It is a secret thing that belongs not to us but is sealed up from us like the things which the Thunders uttered in the Revelation And indeed the Wisdom of Providence seems to have dealt with all such Sayings or Actions as with the Body of Moses all Monuments of Worth and Certainty after Scripture in relation to them are concealed from us There is a great Darkness upon the History of that Time lest we should superstitiously venerate in place of that which is divinely written and preserved to us the things that were not prepared for our Learning and so to us but as a Body not divinely inspired that is a Body without a Soul All too fierce Disputes about them are therefore raised only by Sathan the Enemy of Light and Truth to no other purpose than that about the Body of Moses that is to found an occasion of Superstition and silently to whisper Scripture is not sufficient And yet we see with what an eager Zeal Men are set upon such Researches not satisfied with the Proportion of Manna allowed by God but even as the Israelites that gathered much had nothing over so may it be truly said of those that would abound beyond Scripture in that which pertains to the true guidance of Conscience That they have nothing over and what they will needs keep as such corrupts Quest Is there Reason sufficient to support this Sentiment Answ This great Reason If we had undoubted but not inspired History of that Time it could not be like the Evangelistick History or the Actes of the Apostles to us we should in some things want the Application and Direction to our use dictated by Divine Wisdom in others the unerring Censure of even Apostolick Actions as in that of the Apostle Peter Galat. 2. 11. Now because our Consciences would be apt to be drawn into subjection to things of so great Reputation and yet there would be no Divine Authority to draw them nor Infallible Authority to support them in which Cases it is the Absolute Will of God they should not be in subjection God hath therefore in his Providence left that time so much in the dark that we may trust in his written Word only For separate Immediate Divine Presence from the Prophets and Apostles themselves and there remains nothing at the highest but the Wisdom and Prudence of Understanding and Good Men applying General Rules to particular Cases Times Places and Events as they for that time could best judge and yet besides the variation of Circumstances in every Age they themselves were as Men subject to mistakes as Nathan about David's building the Temple as Paul assaying to go into Bithynia to like Passions with other Men as in the Contention betwixt Paul and Barnabas to like Temptations as in the Miscarriage of Peter before referred to All they did and said not shining with immediate Light from Heaven must be tried in the Light of what themselves together with all the other Penmen of Scripture had written They themselves therefore acting or speaking by way of Prudence or general Assistance must be tried by themselves acting or speaking according to Revelation and special Assistance in which only they are and ought to be Authoritative Quest But it still remains There might be some things that were not so sit for vulgar Knowledge and so were Secreted into Tradition apart from Scripture and that Tradition deposited with Trusty Men who should successively so deposite it that it might at convenient Seasons be brought forth as Goliah's Sword from behind the Ephod Answ None like it indeed to serve a purpose But to satisfie Reason and Conscience nothing so improper For first let these Traditionaries give clear Expositions and such as are worthy to be acquiesced in of the Prophetick or otherwise Dark Places of Scripture If they cannot do that where is the Wisdom above the Vulgar and why did not Tradition without Scripture inclose those mysterious Visions of the Revelation from Popular Inspection But the things Tradition is imploy'd indeed in are quite of another Nature either the Prelation of Men in Church-Office and Dignity or some Rites of Worship that should change Devotion into Superstition or lull it into Ignorance or some Canons that turn Religion into Trade or Doctrines suited to that End or which serves to all such purposes a Tradition to call back all Scripture out of the Written Word into Oral Tradition by locking it up in a Tongue unknown to the generality of Christians And yet if there were any seemingly Purer or more Contemplational Traditions seeing they are not inrolled into Scripture they must as hath been said give such Evidences of themselves as Divine Revelation hath or be at their highest but Enthusiasm and Fanaticism Quest But what Esteem is to be had of the Writings and Iransactions of the Ancients whom we call Fathers Doctors of the Church Men of eminent Holiness great Abilities Confessors and Martyrs of Christianity Answ It may be easily judg'd by what hath been said already that they must be brought to Scripture laid at its Feet and submitted to its Acceptance whether according to its true Sense or not For if the Apostles when the Holy Spirit was not upon them could not exceed Humane how much less can any of a lower Class pretend The Fathers therefore had so great an Awe of Scripture that they did not assume any thing to themselves or their Writings or yield any thing to the Persons or Writings of those of the same Time with them but
digest their Reason and take in the Light they judge by so as to make it their own else if they cannot find their Reasons nor acquit themselves from doubt they must suspend For a Christian is Commanded by his Lord to call no Man upon Earth Master or Father Quest What is the meaning of that Answ It is this very Thing that we should receive nothing as Doctrine or Indisputable Truth or Precept upon any Man's Word that does not offer such Reason and Authority from God and his Word that we our selves see Reason not to receive it as the Word of Man but of God Quest But is it not said that they that have the Rule over us watch for our Souls as they that must give an Account for the same If we are not to believe them and surrender our Judgment to theirs how can they give an Account Answ They that Rule over us watch for our Souls and must give an Account as Ezekiel's Prophets and Watchmen by giving Warning laying Truth before us offering the sincere Word of God in all Cases the success of which upon Souls Converted and Saved is their Crown and Glory and their unsuccess lookes like a sorrow to see those Souls lost for whom they laboured in vain and spent their strength upon them for nought yet so that if they have been faithful though without success their reward is with the Lord and their Work with God But notwithstanding this every Man is so to account for his own Soul that the very success is not a Blind Obedience to Rulers but as is said a Receiving the Word not as the Word of Men but as it is indeed the Word of God And if these Watchmen neglect their Duty or Seduce instead of Teaching Men are to apply to better Means afforded by God and if they do not they still die in their Iniquity and following their Blind Leaders fall into the Pit which is an unanswerable Argument that we may trust in no Man but in God only For if an implicit Faith could be a saving Faith it should save those that followed such Guides though they themselves were justly Condemned in not discharging their Trust Quest But were not the Apostles and Prophets to be Trusted at a higher rate than thus Answ No There were such evident Marks of Divine Doctrine always given by God to those that desired to Know Love and Obey him that even the very Prophets and Apostles were not to be received without them nor to be believed but according to them nay to be plainly Anathematiz'd if they varied from it Christians were therefore to judge to try the Spirits to search the Scriptures whether the things spoken were so to have recourse to undoubted Principles of Truth that were as standards to all that came after besides the Unction from the Holy One whereby they were inabled to know all things necessary to Salvation Quest But is not all Humane Teaching and Instruction hereby taken away and what becomes of the Ministry the Eldership of the Church and their Rule Answ They are all hereby Established for they are the Ordination of God to this very purpose to make Men see to bring them Light to clear things to them that by the awakening their Judgments the summoning and collecting their Principles they may see with their own Eyes the ways of God and Religion the Holy Spirit graciously adjoyning it self to their Ministry They have no Dominion over their Faith but are helpers of thier Joy that is they facilitate and make pleasant the knowledge and assurances of Religion and they Rule by Exhorting Admonishing Rebuking Comforting and even Commanding in the Evidences of Divine Authority on Account of which they are to be obey'd and highly esteemed for their Works sake Notwithstanding all this no Man is excluded from his own Office to himself for every particular Christian is in some Sense a Congregation and Preacher to himself as Solomon his Conscience hath the Keys binds and looses within it self nay Christians are not excluded from Rule in the Church when they have the Word of God on their side they may plead and reason with their Mother Hos 2. 2. When they have more understanding than their Teachers or the Rulers Rule not according to the Word of God they that speak according to the Law and the Testimony even Rule their Rulers and prove the more noble Organs of the Church when those that should Rule it are as the Idols Eyes that see not Ears that hear not or as the Idol Shepherd a Blast is upon their Right hand and Right-eye that their Arm is clean dried up and their Eye utterly darkened the most naked unfurnished Christian with outward Accomplishments that yet knows the Word of God is among the Prophets in such a time of necesity CAP. XII Of Schism and Scandal Quest FRom the precedent Discourse of the Church I conceive the truest Notion of Schism may be deduced I desire you therefore to Explain what the true Nature of Schism is Answ The Question concerning the Nature of Schism follows very pertinently upon the right settlement of the Nature of the Church now the whole Being of the Church consisting in its Union to God and Christ in Love according to the Truth of his Word and that it receives all its Members into Union with it self by their being first united as it self is Schism which is Division must needs in its strictest and most formal Notion be a Division from that Truth wherein the whole Church is one and so from the Love consequent upon such an Union Quest What is that Truth of the Word of God in which the Church is One Answ The Truth of the Doctrine of God or the Unity of the Faith of the Son of God in things to be believed and the Truth of his Law and Commands in things to be done Quest How is the Love of the Church Vnited in these Answ It is a Love in the Truth and hereby we know we Love the Brethren when we Love God and keep his Commandments John Epist 2. No Love how great soever is Christian-love nor Union how close soever Christian-union if it be not in the Truth and Commandments of God From whence it necessarily follows the Schism that is a Schism from the Church must be a Disunion from the Faith of the Scriptures and the Love springing from that Faith and there is no danger of any other Schism from the Church as it is a Church Quest How does Schism differ from Heresie Answ Heresie in the highest Sense and worst Sense of it is a Disunion from Truth in some Fundamental and Grand Concernment of Religion either in the Doctrine or Commands of God so that a Man is subverted and sinneth and must needs be Condemned of a Separation from the Assembly of Truth both by himself and the Thing it self and that both as to Faith and Christian-love he is so separated Schism is a Disunion in some less momentous parts
it lying Foursquare and being solid square measure for so it must be if the Length Bredth and Height are all equal Answ I did not at all forget it but suffered your Questions to lead through all I less design'd that they might come to the Principal Character of the True Religion and the True Church so exactly adequate to one another Quest Will you then more fully explain this Similitude Answ That I may the better do it I must repeat it from the very Ground and Bottom of it which is that God makes use as he pleases of all the Knowledge and Science that is in the World to Minister to Divine Knowledge in which he principally intends to Instruct as being most absolutely necessary for all of what condition soever As then Mathematicks is the most Demonstrative Science and some things in it are of most retired and fine Speculation so are others most known and necessary to all imployed in Mechanicks Thus God hath been pleased to deposite some Prophetick Truths in the most mystick parts of that Learning and some of the more general use in the most known and acquainted parts of it now those that are more secret and not so necessary I shall leave to those that are most fitted thereunto But what is most plain and imports what is most necessary for all I will insist upon As then Number and Measure are means Ordained for Humane Nature and principal Instruments of Reason to come to the most certain knowledge of things and to be secured they are and continue what they justly ought to be so True Religion is thereupon presented to us under exact Number and Measure falling in one with another the Number Twelve multiplied into a Square Cube of Twelve thousand Furlongs And as the Foursquare Figure does so bind and is so compact with it self that it cannot receive the least Addition but with the loss of its Square nor the least Diminution but under the same Forfeiture thus True Religion is so perfectly it self that it can neither be added to nor diminished from but with a proportionable loss of it self God was pleased upon this account to chuse this Figure for the Altar under the Law for the Breast-Plate of Judgment this was the Measure of Solomons Oracle how far the Measures in Ezekiel agree I leave The Heathen by Natural Wisdom had such a Sense of the so Just to it self Foursquare that they called a Good Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Foursquare Man And lastly as Solid Square Measure is in all parts of it and throughout every part exactly Square and gives the most certain account of the whole content of a Body so is True Religion in all its Parts exactly so it self and every Part of every Part is reduced to the same exactness for so the Length Bredth and Height of it are equal and so is the True Church exactly adequated to True Religion The Faith is therefore said to be at once delivered to the Saints because it can receive no New Measures and it is called the Common Salvation or Doctrine of it because the Universal Standard is one This then is the Measure of a Man and the Measure of the Angel For by that Wisdom that is natural to a Man in which Beasts have no share that is to Number and Measure is made plain to us Angelical Number and Measure that is the Number and Measure of True Religion as the Angel delineated it beginning in the Apostolical Twelve and Multiplied by it self to an exact Square Figure or Measure Square in the whole product Square in every particular part and of that just content And with this exact Number Twelve so Foursquare agreed the Altar Temple and they that worshipped therein when the outward Court was left out of Measure to be trodden under Foot by Heathenish Idolatry and Superstition disguis'd under Popish Christianity of which whenever it shall be perfectly freed it shall appear in that Glory here describ'd All richest Pearl pure Gold most transparent Jasper that is Brightest Clearest Truth and of the exact Apostolical Number and Measure Quest Is there no farther Improvement to be made of this Divine Symbole the Foursquare City Answ There is when I have first observed to you false-False-Religion is out of all Square just Measure and even Number it is a constant and perpetual Odd wandring from True Religion and the justness of it to it self and that both in Doctrine Worship Rules of Life and Discipline so that it is impossible in it to Measure one thing from and by another or any one point of any of these by it self uneven in the whole Product uneven in every part uneven in the Root The most significant Emblem of the Popish-Church which having the Fundamentals of Christianity hath yet lost the Apostolical Twelve by innumerable most irregular and wild Additions and deformed every Single Article of Truth by most disagreeable Corruptions of it and therefore as a Man most Learned in Numbers hath demonstrated the Number 666 a Number no way to be reduced to a Foursquare Figure is the most Fit and Significant Hieroglyphick of it and indeed of all False-Religion that must have something of Truth to make it a Religion but as it is false is an Odd from that Truth Quest Let me now desire the most plain and useful Application of this Parabolick Scheme Answ You shall have it and it consists in observing Four Prime Characters of the True Christian Religion that may be as Four Equal sides of this Foursquare and of the Church adjusted to it from each of which may be measured to each of the rest and the Equality or Inequality will discover the Truth or Falshood of all that is brought to the Tryal 1. The Transcendant Holiness Goodness and Purity of the Doctrine Precepts of Worship Rules of Life Discipline is one side of this Christian-square with which whatever does not Square is convicted not to be of that Doctrine and Religion whether it look towards God in all the Highest most Honourable Apprehensions of him suitable Discourse Worship Love and Obedience or whether it look towards Men in all Justice Righteousness Mercy Compassion Charity Benevolence Beneficence and these as they respect all the particular Offices of Life Publick of Magistrates Subjects or Private as of Parents Children Husband Wife Master or Servants The Peace and Welfare of Mankind are treasur'd up in the Law of Christ or lastly whether it look to a Man 's own Person in Soberness Purity Continency in the Thoughts the Words the Actions The Honour and best State of the Mind and Body are provided for by this Doctrine that is after Godliness not only in the World to come but in this Life Whatever now does not agree with these wholesom words is detected not to be Christian which is all Truth Virtue and Praise 2. There being nothing more intimate to Man in this fallen state than the Sense of Guilt and knowledg that he is a
not strictly of that Seed with immediate Revelations But when all these were corrupted as they were in the generality of Mankind God withdrew himself by degrees as the Glory did from the Temple in Ezekiel till there was nothing left but the Darkness of Tradition fearfully debauch'd false Deductions from Nature's Light and worse than that the Devils Oracles in the room of Gods so that there was in the generality of the Nations a second and more desperate Fall of Mankind from the true Religion the Jewish Church and a small Proselytisme to that only excepted Quest What Examples are there of Gods continuing Favour to any parts of Mankind out of Abrahams Family justifying him as not departing from men till they departed from him Answ Melchisedek no descendent from Abraham was King of Righteousness and King of Peace at the same time the Church was placed in Abrahams Seed Laban was not wholly revolted from true Religion But especially Job and his Friends of the Posterity of Esau were eminent Instances of the Favour of God that whole Book of Job testifying that being helped by Holy Tradition together with occasional Revelations they held the Light of Nature at its own Purity Quest How long did the Nations that deserted God continue under that dismal obscurity Answ Till that Blessed Seed in whom all the Families of the Earth were to be Blessed and who was the desire of all Nations came and shone as the Sun of Righteousness upon the whole World Quest How was the Light of Revelation conveyed to the People of God in Elder Times Answ In divers Ways and Manners in more immediate Appearances in Visions Dreams Prophesies in inward Illumination by a Voice In all which there were when ever they were truly from God such mighty Evidences of Divinity as over-ballanc'd all doubt Together with these were the ordinary and familiar Instructions of Patriarchs and Holy Men grounded upon Natural and Revealed Religion Quest How did God conclude his Manifestations of himself in the way of immediate Revelation Answ By speaking in the last Days by his Son and the Apostles immediately Commissioned by him sealing up Vision and Prophesie in the fullness and Complement of Truth Quest Did God take any care for the securing the Monuments of his Truth given out by Revelation Answ Yes very early how early we know not but beyond Controversie in the first forming the Jewish Church into a setled Body he began the more sure and certain way of committing his Word and Will to Writing and for the Honour of it set the Copy with his own Hand and continued it till the whole Revelation was compleat Passant Revelation or Oral Tradidition not being sure enough Quest Wherein is the Written Word more sure than the Word in passing Revelation or Tradition Answ The Word committed to Writing stands unalterable Divine Providence watching over what was Written to keep it the same All Covenants and Treaties all Monuments of Knowledge have been thus secured transmitted into all Parts and consigned to after Ages Appeals in Cases of doubt are more safely made to what is Written and every one concerned has a ready and open way to Examine and in all Cases to be resolved Quest Have all Nations since the Days of the Blessed Seed been Communicated with these Revelations Answ There hath been a Freedom given to Communicate them and a Right in all Nations to demand the benefit of them granted by God and Christ to them but there are many sad Accounts to be given why this Universal Grace to Mankind has not yet taken Effect 1. The unaccountableness of the Methods of Gods Government of the World in the Efficacies of his distinguishing Goodness even when things seem equally disposed to the advantage of one as of another 2. The Experiment made upon so great a part of Mankind that have the Gospel justifies God in not effectually conveying it to others who would make as ill an use of it The Idolatry Superstition of some the sottish Ignorance Sloath and neglect of others The Cruelty and Barbarity exercised by Christians upon one another and the unanswerable living to it in all Sects make plain the great perverseness of our degenerate Nature and how Nations that have not the Gospel would have abused it if they had had it 3. But especially the great Enmity to and Contempt of the Heavenly Doctrine great Nations are inviron'd with against the approaches of it so far as it has come within their notice as among Jews Turks and Pagans are a very obvious Reason why they receive not the benefit of the Gospels free promulgation Quest What then is the immediate Reason why so many Nations that have the Light of Nature to guide them and the Jews that have the Scriptures of the Old Testament have been the one great Enemies to all Scripture Revelations and the other to the new Testament Answ Because Nations that have the light of Nature stay not themselves upon that which is clear and evidently Divine and Publick in Natures Law but either by unnatural Collections and miserable wrestings of its Principles or flying to false and dark Revelations fortifie themselves in falshood or misapplyed Truth As to the Jews it is very plain they were bemisted with the private Interpretation they had affixed to the Old Testament so that they could not see the clear easie and certain Trains of the same Publick and Divine running betwixt the Old and the New but the Rudiments in the Old being more kind to the Cabal or Cypher of their self-interested Sense they venerated them and hated the Perfection and Life in the New that would not at all bear their privy Gloss although both Scriptures had the same Credentials from Heaven and carried the same Publick Sense So great is the Delusion of Private Quest But how comes it to pass that even among those that enjoy the Light of the Gospel the Scriptures and profess the same Christianity nay the most Refined and Reformed Christianity there are so great Differences and Divisions Answ All proceeds from the same unhappy Spring Men cannot endure to rest in the Clear and Certain Oracles of Truth but by forc'd Additions Misinterpretations violent Detorsions forsake that which is Publick and Divine for that which is Private and their own and are greatly offended and too often enraged that others do not concur with them Quest It seems then the best Method of keeping off from Errour is to rest upon the most undoubted Points of Truth before we remove from them to any thing further Answ It is undoubtedly so Religion in all the Branches of it having suffered much more by forreign and disagreeable Additions than by wary Suspensions For hereby a Man keeps himself from False Religion and stands ready and open to receive Truth Quest But how then should a Man make forward from Natural Religion to Revealed or from what he does not understand to what he may in time come to see very good Proof for