For these he ordinarily appoints fewer Means and obliges particular Persons to greater diligence if they will have them that they may not fail of those few ordinary Means But God is yet further more sparing in his Provisions when the benefits expected exceed the power of Nature 2 Kings V. 12 S. John IX 7 11. Numb V. 17 18 c. No water but that of Jordan was allowed the power of curing Naamans Leprosie No Pool but that of Siloam could recover the blind mans sight No Water but that of Jealousie prepared according to the Rules of his own appointment could discover the Adulteress It is sufficient in this Case that the methods prescribed by him be generally in the Power of the Persons concerned and they are sufficiently in their Power if by any Moral diligence or by any lawful condescendence they may be obteined § XXIV I BELIEVE our Adversaries will object that these are Reasons rather than Testimonies But it may be when they shall examine their Testimonies more narrowly they will find that they will not be applicable to our present circumstances any farther than parity of reason will make them hold and that these are the properest Reasons for judging of the application And however this method of Conversion here described do fit our Brethrens Systems who speak only of the Conversion of professed initiated Christians from a bad or careless to a good and considerate way of living suitably to their Profession yet it will certainly better fit those Conversions mentioned in the Scriptures from a state of Judaism and Gentilism to a belief and Profession of the Christian Religion Now if this be the Case not only the Grace of Conversion is to be expected in this Ministry and that of a Conversion not from one Life to another but only from one Religion to another it will thence appear how little comfort can be expected from an attendance on this Ordinance without the Sacraments For what comfort can it be only to believe the Christian Religion true without performance of the Conditions prescribed by it Or to know what the Conditions are without ability to perform them Or to know where this ability may be had if we do not make use of Means to come by it Nay to make application even to our Brethrens Systems what comfort were it to be convinced of the necessity of a holy Life nay to be under the greatest and most serious sense of this necessity if they want that further Grace which is necessary to enable them to practise Holiness Conditional Promises cannot indeed be valued as Promises to them who find themselves unable to perform the Conditions And therefore if this ability to perform Conditions be only to be expected from the Sacraments this will be sufficient to weaken that extreme confidence which many place in the Word preached without the Sacraments § XXV AND that this first Grace of Perswasion is all that can in reason and Prudence be expected from the Word Preached our dissenting Brethren themselves may understand if they shall be pleased further to consider 7. that this does fully answer the design of the Word Preached The end of all Popular Discourses is only to perswade and direct to perswade the Auditory to aim at the End proposed by the Orator and to direct them to the most Prudent Means for obteining that End And therefore if God do so far assist the Word preached in his name by his Ministers as to make it effectually perswasive to such as are not deficient to themselves and withal the Word Preached direct them further where they may be furnished with all things necessary for reducing their Convictions to Practice this will abundantly answer the end of the Word Preached If he be withal pleased to assist them further in the actual Practice of what they are perswaded to be necessary to be practised by them yet that will not concern him as a Proposer of his own Will nor consequently as he uses Preaching as a Means suitable for that purpose but under another Notion and therefore will be most proper for another Ordinance I confess he might have used Words that should at once perform what they represent as he did in the Creation and continues to do in the Consecration of the Eucharist not to the changing of the nature of the Elements but to the producing those Graces in the use of them which so much exceed the nature of those Elements But where we have no more express intimation of his actual pleasure than we have here there we have no better way of judging what he is pleased to do than by judging what he is by his design obliged to do And whatever may be his design in other words as those now mentioned yet certainly no more than I have said is rational to be expected in Words of address to Persons and especially when those Words are urged with the usual ordinary Arts of Perswasion as Preaching is as practised by Ministers § XXVI BUT because one great occasion of mistake in this whole affair is that the Spirit is conceived to accompany the Word Preached therefore 8. it were well our Adversaries would be pleased to consider Whether by the Spirit he meant only an influence of the Spirit or the Divine Person of the Spirit himself If the Person of the Spirit were given and ordinarily given to qualified Hearers of the Word Preached by vertue of the Ordinance of Preaching and this as often as they come duly qualified for hearing it I should then confess that the Spirit thus given would serve all Ends of the Sacraments and make them unnecessary to such Persons For the Spirit thus given would be a Principle of Divine Life in them and therefore must renew and regenerate and sanctifie them It must unite them to Christ for this Vnity is the Unity of the Spirit and as they who have not the Spirit of Christ are none of his so they who have it must be his This must therefore intitle them to all that he has done and suffered for them It must purifie them by his blood It must make him live and abide in them It must convey his influences to them It must be a Spirit of Adoption in them crying Abba Father and assuring them that they in particular are the Sons of God And what other favours can be expected from the Spirit which is given in Baptism It must make them one Body with him And that is all that our partaking in one Bread can do or at least will necessarily infer whatever other favour may be expected in the Eucharist And if we may expect new degrees of influence from it as often as we come prepared Hearers of the Word Preached what further interest can we have to be promoted by receiving the Lords Supper that can either oblige us to receive it or be taken for a likely reason why Christ should require it from us who requires nothing from us in the Gospel but what
external Profession of Christianity But that now there is no necessity of this seeing the several Parties are all agreed in this in the external Profession of the Christian Religion That indeed the Reasons here urged for shewing the danger of withdrawing from the publick Assemblies do only concern the Christian Religion in general not any particular Party of it in contradistinction to others That the Reason why Separaters were supposed to be in a state of Death was because such their separation divided them from Christ who is their Life That this derivation of Life was from Christ himself and Christ alone according to whatever Hypothesis we understand it whether of the Palestines or Hellenistical Jews For the Jews generally expected that the true Messias should be the Author of Life to them and accordingly it is urged by St. John not to discriminate one Christian Communion from another but to discriminate the Christian Communion from the Antichristian that is indeed the Professors of the true Christ from the Professors of those who falsely pretended to his name For certainly the Antichrists in St. John seem to be the same with the false Christs prophesied of by the true a Matt. xxiv 24 Mark xiii 22 Christ himself in the Gospel and concerning those our Saviour himself had warned them that they should pretended to be Christs themselves and therefore that they should b Matt. xxiv 5.23 Mark xiii 6.23 Luk. xvii 23 xxi 8 come in his name because they would take his name upon them And indeed the current of the reasoning of the whole Epistle does seem plainly to suppose this Notion § XXIII As to the Notion therefore of the ordinary Jews c Vid. Maimon in Chap. x. Sanhedr Edit Pocoâ—k p. 159. Coch in Exc. Gem. Sanhedr Cap. 11. p. 317. Buxtorf Syn. Jud. c. 50. in which they ascribed Life to the Messias all that they could mean by it could only be that portion in the first Resurrection in the times of the Messias when they should live long and happily in Earth but however should dye at length and possibly afterwards a Portion in the second Resurrection when they should not eat nor drink but enjoy pleasures wholly intellectual Though I cannot tell whether the ordinary Palestine Jews did believe any thing concerning the second Resurrection The Scribes pronouncing him blessed who should d Luk. xiv 15 eat bread in the Kingdom of God and the Sadduces Question concerning the Woman who had married seven Brethren e Matt. xxii 28 Mar. xii 23 Luk. xx 33 Whose wise she should be of them in the Resurrection seem to imply the state only of the first Resurrection And even this Notion we find to have been derived to the Primitive Christians no doubt from their former Sentiments concerning the Messiah then expected among the Jews and applied to our Saviour when they believed him to be the true Messias who had been promised to them But because the generality of those who were converted to the Christian Religion were of a more Philosophical genius and were better pleased with the Mystical than the Literal expositions of their Law as indeed being that which then had generally the greatest influence on their conversion therefore the Life likely to be expected by them and most likely to be valued by them was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only as that might signifie a Life during the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Messias who was to be the Prince of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom the modern Jews make to be mortal himself but as it signifies a Life for ever For indeed the Doctrine then received concerning the Messias himself was that he should f Joh. xii 34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as not to die at all nay this was received as the sense of the Law no doubt according to the Mystical and Cabalistical sense of it which had been given of it by their sublimer Doctors Wherein are they also seconded by some of the modern g Vid. Coch in Sanhedr ubi suprà p. 365. Doctors themselves how consonantly to the sense of their Brethren I leave them to determine § XXIV Now according to these Philosophical Hellenistical Jews of the Dispersion who were influenced by the School of Alexandria this Notion of Life was properly to be expected only from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore St. John h 1 Joh. i. 1 calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his Epistle and in his Gospel he tells us that i Joh. i. 4 in him that is in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was Life Which agrees exactly with the Philosophical Systemes of those times For 1. They granted a Mystical Life belonging to the Soul as well as a Natural one belonging to the Body and this opposed to a Mystical Death which was only capable of agreeing to immortal Beings And 2. As they made this Mystical Death to consist not in a cessation of Being but a separation from God so by the Rule of the same proportion they made the Life opposed to it to consist in an Vnion of the Soul with God who was thought to have the same influence in quickening the Soul as the Soul had for quickening the Body These two things are the express Doctrine of the Pythagoreans if a In Aur. Carm. Hierocles may be believed and of the b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trism Poem c. 1. Aegyptians if the counterfeit Trismegistus represent their Doctrine faithfully 3. The God with which the Soul was capable of being united immediately was not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was conceived to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no certain seat in the Vniverse and therefore uncapable of being enjoyed by Mortals but by the mediation of the Son just as the Apostle tells us that he inhabits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the c 1 Tim. vi 16 Light unapproachable that no man hath d Joh. i. 18 seen God at any time that no man e 1 Tim. vi 16 either hath or can see him But the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the resemblance of his Father the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Author to the f Heb. i. 3 Wised vii 22 Hebrews therefore in being joyned to him they were made capable of contemplating and enjoying the perfections of the Father as far as it was possible for a creature to do so And therefore g John i. 18· the only begotten Son is said to reveal him to us and we are said to see his glory in the face h 2 Cor. iv 6 of Jesus Christ and our Saviour himself tells St. Philip that he who had seen i Joh. xiv 9 him had seen the Father also And hence that Doctrine of the Philosophers and from them of Origen and the Alexandrians however mistaken by later Fathers that the Father was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Light so they who joyn in the external Profession of him are said to have Life to walk in the Truth and in the Light and on the contrary that they who deserted this Party externally professing him are therefore said not to have the Son nor those priviledges which are only to be had by him but on the contrary to be in falshood to be in darkness to be in the World and in Death for that very reason I have shewed that if they should be mistaken in a matter of this nature their very recovery it self how penitent soever they should prove is described as very hazardous so hazardous as that no slight reasons nor slight conveniences can make amends for it I have shewn that they have no Promise that their own Prayers should be heard for any Spiritual good thing whilest they continue in that condition nor that the Prayers of any others should be heard in their behalf I have shewn that the sin against the Holy Ghost which is so usually dreadful to our Brethrens Consciences is most likely to be incurred by this Practice of leaving the Communion of the Church But I must not recapitulate what I have there discoursed as the several Heads under which I discoursed them gave way I only add some few things now which were not so naturally reducible to the former Topicks § II That of Heb. vi is a Text which our Brethren find extremely afflictive to them when they are under anguishes of Conscience I heartily wish they would seriously consider how much more their separation may expose them to the danger of it than those uncertain guesses at the temper of their own Spirits which according to their way of management does usually occasion their fearful apprehensions concerning it I have already observed that it is the great design of the Writer of this Epistle to secure the Hebrews to whom he writes it from falling away to their old Profession of Judaism And accordingly as the greatest part of the Epistle is spent in Dispute in proving the Christian Religion true from the Notions then received amongst the Jews themselves concerning Mystical Judaism which he applies to the Christian Religion so the frequent excursions which he makes as he has occasion to apply the several Parts of his Discourse are plainly to confirm them in the visible Christian Communion For otherwise his whole Discourse had signified little if they might have had liberty of professing this Mystical Judaism as they had done formerly and as he plainly supposes the Jews to do still when he argues from those Mystical Notions as things acknowledged by them in the Jewish Communion § III And the like might have been observed concerning all those Parts of Scripture which are written professedly against the Errors and Seducers of those times that the design of such Discourses is not as our Brethren usually take it to be to secure them from falling from a good Life but primarily from falling from the true Religion and that Party wherein the true Religion was professed and if on such occasions any thing be spoken of their Lives it is only as a good Life might secure them from Seduction or as their departure would occasion their living ill either as the Doctrine of the Seducers tended to defend an ill Life as generally their Notions did concerning Christian Liberty or as their wavering and inconstancy to Parâ—â—es might take them off from any serious belief of any Religion at all at least from any vehement concern for any one Party when the owning of it should engage them in sufferings as God knows we see it does by too many present experiments in the many Divisions for which I am at present concerned And indeed all their pains had been needlessly imployed if our Adversaries Notion of a Church had been intended What need had there been to have been so solicitous for an invisible Church consisting of Elect which could never fail how much soever they had neglected them And why should they have been jealous of them of whose present condition they often speak as well as themselves could desire if they had thought they could not fall from that Grace which they had once received Certainly our Brethren themselves cannot understand these things of any other Church than a visible one wherein these Elect Persons were not so distinguishable from others who were not Elect which might engage for a solicitousness for all when they knew not who they were that were in danger Besides the Apostles Discourses do plainly suppose some to have fallen and that so notoriously as that others might beware of their example and the Persons themselves could not deny a change from what they had been formerly But if they might have had the benefit of their Faith and Repentance and their Moral invisible Dispositons in another Party their fall could never have been so notorious § IV But whatever it might have been in other places yet plainly the fall here described is from their Baptismal Profession from that condition into which they were initiated by those Fundamental Rites mentioned in the beginning of the Chapter particularly those external ones of Baptism and Imposition of hands Heb. vi 2 And if men would but expound the Scriptures as they do other Books of the same Antiquity that is explain the terms of Art in the same sense they did from whom they were taken and as they did for whose information they were designed there could be little doubt of it The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Illumination here was plainly the very term used by the Christians in St. Justin Martyrs time for Baptism Ver. 4. Nor can it be admired that the Christians should call their own Mysteries by Mystical Titles Apolog. 2. p. 49. D. It cannot be thought more strange in this Sacrament than in the other If we be said to be all one Body 1 Cor. x. 17 1 Cor. xii 13 because we partake of one Bread we are also to be baptized into one â—ody Besides the Mystical way of teaching which was so generally in use in the Eastern Nations the Christians proving the Truth of their Religion as I have said from Mystical Judaism plainly inclined them to use a Mystical Language in all their writings And among them all there is none who makes more advantage of these Mystical Notions and Language than this Author to the Hebrews and it may be none who is more Critical in observing the phrases and terms of that Language And if he would observe the Propriety any where where would it better become him than in a Subject of this Nature The reason why Baptism was called Illumination was because it ingraffed into Christ who was the true Light And it is very well known how constant the Writers of the New Testament are in using this Mystical expression concerning a Luk. ii 32 Joh. i. 9.viii.12 Act. xiii 47 1 Joh. 1.5 Rev. xxi 23 Christ and how constant withal they
so far from thinking the greater Mysteries absolutely necessary for him who had already been initiated in the lesser as that they usually prescribed a certain time before he who had received the less was capable of the greater Five years is commonly supposed to have been the Period prefixed for that purpose at least to the making an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for which a years space was requisite even after their receiving the greater Mysteries And it was taken for a great irregularity in the Case of Demetrius Poliorcetes that he was permitted to partake of both Mysteries at one time Plutarch Demetr And the Lord's Supper wherein Christ's suffering is so represented to our eyes and which was professedly instituted by Christ for that purpose that it might perform the office of the Heathen Images as the opposers of Images argued against the Patrons of them seems at once to exhibit all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Christian Religion could admit of as well as the greater Mysteries themselves For my purpose it is sufficient that it be necessary for continuing the Salvability of Adults who have lost their Baptismal strength and Purity if they would continue and grow strong and ripe in that new Life which they have received in their Baptism None who survives his Baptism for any considerable while can think himself unconcerned in this Case as thus stated And therefore if this may be proved that it is necessary for the Salvation of such Persons as these are this will as much oblige such Persons to receive the Lords Supper often and consequently to submit to all unsinful Impositions that may be required from them as Conditions on which they may be admitted to receive it as they were at first obliged to get themselves baptized and to submit to all such unsinful conditions required by them who had alone the power of baptizing them § IX THIS will appear if our Brethren will be pleased to consider the importance of that Mystical stile wherein this whole matter is expressed in the Scripture that is if they will be pleased to continue the Allegory of Life and the Analogy between the natural Body and the Mystical Body of Christ so far at least as the sacred Writers themselves are pleased to continue it And sure that cannot be thought presumptuous To this purpose it is observable 1. That this Analogy between the Natural Body and the Mystical Body of Christ is continued in this that no Member in the Mystical Body can continue in that Spiritual Life of which it partakes by being a Member of that Mystical Body without a constant repetition of those vital influences by which it was first enlivened any more than a Member of the Natural Body can continue its Natural Life without a continual new supply of those vital influences from the head by which this Natural Life is maintained And therefore as it is certain that that Member which wants this continuation of vital influences does certainly decay and by degrees lose that Natural Life which is maintained by those influences though it be impossible to determine the certain Period wherein it shall die so it is by the same proportion of reasoning as certain that he who has not new influences from Christ continued to him is in a dying condition notwithstanding the Principle of new Life received by him in his Baptism If therefore the Eucharist be the same way an ordinary means of continuing this new Life as Baptism was of receiving it that is of communicating those new vital supplies from Christ the Head of this Mystical Body as Baptism was of the first infusion of this vital Principle it will be as necessary for those Adults of whom we are speaking who survive their Baptism as Baptism it self was to them when they first received it § X AND 2. The Scripture does further prosecute this likeness between the Natural Body and the Mystical Body of Christ that as it is impossible for any particular Member in the Natural Body to derive any vital influences from the Head unless it continue in conjunction with the whole Body so it is as impossible for any particular Member in the Mystical Body of Christ to derive the influences of Spiritual Life from Christ who is the Head of that Mystical Body any longer than it is united with the whole Mystical Body This appears plainly from that particular of this comparison that as in the Natural Body Members have their distinct situation some of them at a distance from the Head and they who are so receive their vital influences though from the Head yet not immediately but by the vessels through which they are communicated and by the influence of the nearer parts so that these vital influences are maintained and continued in the particular Members as well by their mutual influences on each other as by the common influences which they all receive from the Head so there are also supposed the like conveyances in the Mystical Body and the like distinction of offices in the Members of it by which they become necessary to each other as the Head is necessary to them all And this argument is purposely urged by the Apostle himself to let particular Christians understand their obligation to keep united with one another in order to their receiving vital influences from the Head And by the nature of the comparison here used it is plainly supposed that the advantage which the Members may expect from the mutual intercourse of each others gifts whilest they are united to each other in external Communion is not only extrinsecal by moving and exercising the good Principle within them but necessary intrinsecally for the preservation of that Spiritual Life which they are already supposed to enjoy as the Members in the Natural Body do not only lose the advantage of a sprightful vigorous Life but of Life it self by an interruption of their communication with each other And this is implyed in the similitude of the Vine where our Saviour expressly warns his Apostles Joh. xv 4 that as a branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it continue in the Vine so neither could they except they abided in him Where it is plain that Christ is not understood Personally but Mystically when they are supposed capable of abiding in him And this Mystical way of speaking is so familiar with St. John as well as our Saviour as that it cannot be thought strange that he should thus express himself § XI 3. THEREFORE the Church with which it was supposed so necessary for particular Members to be united in order to their participation of the influences of Spiritual Life is plainly supposed to be the Church in this World and that visible Society of them which joyned in the same publick exercises of Religion in that Age when these things were written This appears plainly from all the Apostle says concerning this Church of which he there speaks They were plainly an organized Body consisting
really intend that power of Government which he foresaw would follow from this power of the benefits of Ecclesiastical Communion for those on whom he was pleased to confer the power of these benefits And if he did intend any Government at all it must needs have been extremely unpolitick to have intrusted this power into the hands of any but of such whom he designed for Governours For it must have obliged the people to a greater dependence on such Persons than on their Governours themselves which must in case of any difference between them make such Persons too hard for their Governours And that must in the consequence destroy all coercive power over such Persons without which coercive power it is impossible to conceive how any Government can be practicable Which will withal let our Adversaries see how necessary it is that they who have the supreme visible power of these benefits be uncontroulable by any earthly power § VII 5. THEREFORE the power of these benefits of the Society of the Church as it is a Society appears plainly by the Principles of the precedent discourse to be confined to a certain order of men above others who must therefore consequently be understood to be invested with the proper power of governing all others who are by this contrivance of things obliged to depend on them It has appeared that the benefits of the Christian Society as a Society are remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost that the ordinary means of conveying these benefits are the Sacraments that the Sacraments themselves are of no efficacy unless they be validly administred that they are not validly administred unless the Person who administers them be lawfully Authorized to administer them that none can challenge any Authority for this purpose from God but they who have derived it from the Apostles nor any in these days from the Apostles but they who have derived it from them in a continual succession that none can pretend to this succession at least cannot maintein it to future generations out of the Episcopal Communion that a Person living in a particular Jurisdiction cannot expect this benefit of Episcopal Communion from any other Communion but that of the Ordinary of Jurisdiction wherein he lives whilest he lives in it Which will as properly and by the same parity of reason prove that the Ordinary of a particular Jurisdiction is the particular Governour to whom particular Persons are obliged to pay their particular obedience whilest they are within the Jurisdiction as it proves that Bishops are the Governours of the Church in general § VIII AND from hence all the other things necessary in this way for managing the charge of Schism do follow in course especially on the Principles already proved in this Discourse It follows 1. That all our Brethren who live in particular Diocesses are properly subject to the Ordinaries of those Diocesses If the Ordinaries be their Governours it is unavoidable by the Rules of Relation but that our Brethren must as properly be the Subjects of those Ordinaries And 2. That our Brethren must therefore owe their Ordinaries a duty not of reverence only but subjection Reverence may be due from those who are not Subjects But Subjection is the duty which properly regards Subjects as they are Subjects and is therefore as properly due to their Governours as Governours as God himself challenges honour as a Father and Fear as a Master Mal. i. 6 And it is as impossible to own any particular Governours for Governours without paying particular subjection to them as it is impossible to own any particular Person for our Father or Master without paying them the honour or fear which are respectively due to those Relations And 3. That this Subjection which is due to them will require that they should rather yield to their Governours than that they should expect that their Governours should yield to them nay that they are bound in duty to yield in all things that are lawful especially when upon a modest proposal of their reasons to the contrary their Governours profess themselves dissatisfied with those reasons and still require the same things from them as necessary for the publick If the matter of the things required in such a case as this be not sinful the disobedience must needs be so because it is injurious to the rights of Governours And therefore by the Rule of our Brethrens own casuistry they are to chuse it as the safest course rather to hazard the greatest inconveniences to themselves that may follow from the nature of the things required than to hazard the guilt of this sin against God by refusing the duty which he has imposed on them to their Superiors Though I have withal shewn that it were not every sin that would excuse them for the neglect of their duty to Governours but only such a sin as were greater or more evident than the sinfulness of such a neglect and that very few if any sins can be so However 4. Even in those cases wherein their Subjection does not oblige them to active obedience yet it does oblige them at least to passive And it has been shewn that this requires not only that they submit to the punishments inflicted on them by their Superiors but also that they do not joyn with any opposite Society And it has appeared from the sequels of these Principles of Vnity as applied to particular Jurisdictions that all Societies within the Jurisdiction must be opposite who do not own a dependence on the Governours of the Jurisdiction From all which put together it must follow that the separation of which our Adversaries are guilty notoriously is destructive of the Ecclesiastical Government of the respective Jurisdictions wherein they live and consequently Schismatical in respect of those particular Churches as Schism consists in a violation of the Churches Vnity and as the Vnity of those Churches does on these Principles appear to consist in a Vnity of Government § IX BUT our Brethren are not apt to apprehend any great danger in being thus cut off from the Vnity of particular Churches if they may still continue united to the Catholick Church For if this may be their case they may still enjoy all the benefits and comforts of the Christian Religion They may enjoy the benefits For as long as they are Members of the Catholick Church so long they are Members of Christ himself of his Mystical Body and by this means are in as near a capacity to receive all vital influences from him as the Members of the Natural Body are to receive the influences of the natural Life And so long they make up one Legal Person with him and so have a Legal Title to all that he has done and suffered for them on performance of conditions which is all the priviledg that we our selves do challenge on account of our being within the external Communion of the Church They may also enjoy all the comforts of the Christian
St. Joh. v. concerning the sin unto Death The Argument according to the Alexandrian MS. § VII According to the vulgar reading The sin unto Death is leaving the Orthodox Party § VIII IX X XI The same thing proved from 2 St. Joh. 10 11. § XII Pardon possible for Persons out of the Church's Communion upon their admission into it according to the Doctrine of those times but much more difficult for Relapsers than others The later part proved from 2 Pet. ii 21 § XIII And from Heb x. 25 26 27. § XIV XV. And from Heb. xii 15 17. 1 Joh. v. 16 § XVI And from other Arguments § XVII XVIII The actual practice of the Primitive Church not to pray for spiritual benefits for those who were not actual Members of the Church's Communion § XIX XX. An Application of what has been said § XXI Obj. That these things are spoken of a total relapse from Christianity not from one party of Christians to another § XXII That Life was properly ascribed to the true Christ as the Messias according to the Notions of the ordinary Jews § XXIII and according to the sense of the generality of the first Converts to Christianity That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was thought to be the proper Principle of Life § XXIV That the Messias as Messias was to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also § XXV Answ. 1. It were well our Brethren would allow the same candor in expounding other Texts produced by them as they do in these produced against them § XXVI 2. It is not likely that the Antichrists of those times did generally deny the true Christ to be so § XXVII XXVIII XXIX 3. Whatever the occasion was yet the reasoning used in those disputes is to prove their being separated from Christ from their being separated from the external Communion of the visible Church § XXX p. 212. CHAP. XII 8. This very pretence of absteining from the external Ordinances under the pretence of Perfection seems to have been taken up even in those Primitive Ages The Philosophical Nâ—tions of those Ages concerning the worship of the Supreme Deity § I. How this Hypothesis was received first into the Elective Philosophy thence taken up by the Hellenistical Jews and from them to the first Converts to Christianity § II. The several reasonings of the Primitive Christians that might make them in interest favourable to this Hypothesis § III. Particularly their pretending to a Mystical Priesthood might make them less solicitous for their dependence on the Levitical external Priesthood § IV. Instances of several like mistakes of those times in reasoning from Mystical titles § V. How the Genius of this Philosophy has inclined men to this way of reasoning wherever it has prevailed even among our modern Enthusiasts § VI. Inference 1. That what the Apostles did resolve in this particular they did resolve with a particular design upon our Adversaries case § VII That the prudential establishments of the Apostles are sufficiently secure § VIII Inf. 2. Hence may appear the insecurity of this way of arguing in general from Mystical Titles to the neglect of external Observances § IX X Inf. 3. It plainly appears to have been against the design of the Legislator in the very case of the Jews from whom the Christians borrowed it § XI Inf. 4. That the whole contrivance of things by the Apostles plainly supposes that they did also not allow of this plea for excusing any from the publick ordinances § XII Inf. 5. The Philosophers themselves never intended this plea for their exemption from the Mysteries and external Rites of Initiation then used to which the Sacraments are answerable among Christians § XIII XIV Inf. 6. The great design of this way of arguing was to excuse themselves from paying any external worship to the supreme being and so destructive to the very foundation of the Christian Religion § XV. And this very rationally on the Hypothesis then received § XVI But the reason of this Argument does not hold against those exteritors which are observed by the Christian institution § XVII It is very probable that our Adversaries case is particularly spoken to in Heb. x. 22 23. § XVIII p. 247. CHAP. XIII Lastly This sin of withdrawing from the publick Assemblies on any pretence whatsoever is highly condemned in the Scriptures and the condition of Persons guilty of it is described as extremely dangerous § I. This proved from Heb. vi The design of the sacred Authors in those kinds of discourses is to warn the Persons with whom they had to deal against Lapâ—â—s not from a good Life but from the true Communion § II.III. This proved particularly to be the design of this place Illumination put for Baptism both because of the interest Baptism gave them in Christ who was the true Light § IV. And in regard of the visible Glory which then seems to have accompanied Baptism in which regard this title was more likely to have been taken up in the Apostles Age than afterwards § V. How properly this title was given it as a lesser Purgative Mystery Fire the most Purgative Element § VI. And that by which the Purgativeness of our Saviours Baptism had been before particularly described § VII The other Expressions of this Text applied to Baptism § VIII That separating from the visible Communion of the Church was a breach of their Baptismal Obligations proved from the design of the Baptisms of those times Baptism a solemnity of admission into their Schools and an obligation to adhere to the Master § IX And not only to the first Masters but to the lawful Successors to their Chairs § X. The dishonour to Christ by falling away mentioned in the Text to be understood only interpretatively How this was proper to the Case of Desertors in those times § XI XII How it is applicable to our present Adversaries § XIII The punishment of this crime mentioned in the Text. § XIV The Application of this also to our present Adversaries § XV. What it is to baptize in the name of the Spirit § XVI XVII What is meant by the impossibility to râ—new the Lapsers here spoken of § XVIII An Objection § XIX Answered § XX. Application to our present Adversaries § XXI XXII p. 267. CHAP. XIV The danger of the sin of separation and the difficulty of its pardonableness are very prudent and lawful reasons for bearing with a lesser sin that is more easily pardonable § I II. What is meant by grieving Gods Spirit and how it comes to be unpardonable § III IV. Two influences of the Spirit resisted by the Israelites § V. This applied to the state of the Gospel How the Christians were likely to understand these things according to the Mystical way of expounding the Old Testament which prevailed among them § VI. Our Saviour used herein a way of speaking notorious to the Jews § VII Grieving the Spirit the same with grieving of Christ. § VIII 1. As to the testimony
disposed Souls are capable of receiving them in all times and circumstances and Prayer be the Ordinary Means to produce those Dispositions and that it be withal one great design of the Christian Institution to restore Religion to its most natural Spiritual way of management so that as the nature of the Spiritual things themselves require no externals for their communication as Temporals do nay that Temporal things do so little contribute hereunto as that they cannot communicate them by any general vertue received from the Divine Institution but that God must be present himself immediately to do the things represented by Externals it will seem to follow that God may as conveniently communicate them without them § II AND this the rather if the whole design of God in instituting these Externals were only to raise the Devotion of the Persons by the lively representation of the things signified by them as these Persons conceive this to have been his whole design in them for then where this Devotion is already raised by other Means there can be no need of the Sacraments at least to such Persons and if there be Ordinary Means more effectual than the Sacraments themselves either for raising the Devotion in a more Spiritual way without any sensible Representations at all or where such Representations themselves might seem necessary for weaker Persons of a less Spiritual apprehension by using such as were more lively such Provisions as these must on these Principles produce the effect and consequently supersede the use of the Sacraments themselves And the design even of these complyances to sense being by degrees to fit Men for more immediate and Spiritual ways of communication as they which are more excellent and more agreeable to the nature of the things themselves therefore by how much the more Spiritual the more excellent they must be also and the rather to be preferred by Persons whose improvements are so high as to make them capable of being benefited by them But Closet-Devotions are managed in a much more Spiritual way than these at the Sacraments And therefore they who by a devout Meditation on the Death and Resurrection of Christ in their Closets can find themselves more sensibly affected with them than by that sensible representation of them by going under water and rising out of it in Baptism cannot think themselves on these Principles obliged to use that which they find less sensibly to affect them And they who by reading the Story of our Saviours Passion or by using a lively wellâ—contrived Picture of it can find themselves raised to a greater compassion than by seeing it represented in the breaking of a piece of Bread or the pouring out some Wine must needs on these accounts be induced to prefer their private Contemplations before Communion in the Eucharistical Elements These are the degrees by which Men come from despising the Authorized Communion of the place where they are born and of the Church in which they or their Predecessors were first Baptized at length to despise all Communion and from disparaging Notions of these Ordinances which they have first taken up only to defend a neglect of them at length proceed to a contempt of them and on a pretence of their own proficiency beyond the needs of such weak Assistances turn Superordinances I could heartily wish that as many of our dissenting Brethren as dislike this Consequence would review their own Principles and at least so far reject them as they find them on such a review to justifie this Consequence If they would do thus with that Equity and Candor which would become them they would undoubtedly grant me such Principles as would much facilitate my present design § III TO come therefore more closely to my business I shall lay down such Observations which if the Parties concerned will be pleased to consider may possibly let them see the grounds of their mistakes and shall withal weaken the proposed Objection 1. Therefore when it is pretended that it is the Ordinary Course of Men to have recourse to God for such favours as are to be expected from him I shall desire them to consider what Men they mean And in what Cases they ordinarily take this course It is only the Practice of wise men that can be urged for a Precedent And such can never think it a becoming course nor can ever expect to be heard in such Prayers as are not accompanied with their own endeavours so that the only Case wherein they have recourse to such Prayers is only either for a blessing on the Means when they can procure them or to supply the want of them when they cannot No wise man can with any confidence expect that God should as much as supply in his Case the want of ordinary Means till he have used his utmost diligence to procure them till he have denyed all humours of his own and submitted to any thing that is no Sin that falls out to be a Condition of procuring them So that if there be any Ordinary Means of procuring his desires he must first be supposed to have used these before he can with any reason expect that his Prayers can find acceptance And therefore this pretence of the efficacy of Prayer can never encourage any to the neglect of any Conditions short of Sin that may be requisite to procure the Sacraments themselves If there be Ordinary Means appointed for that purpose it matters not what the reason is why they are appointed whether it be any natural efficacy of the Means themselves or whether it be only the arbitrary pleasure of him who has appointed them The obligation is still the same While they do any way put the thing in our power we must endeavour if we expect that our Prayers should prove successful But suppose God would excuse our want of endeavour yet it is further to be considered § IV 2. THAT we cannot expect that any Prayers should be heard which are offered by a Sinner continuing in the state of Sin even at the same time when he offers them He that neglects Ordinary Means and is guilty of Sin in neglecting them cannot expect that God should supply the use of those Means which he wants only by his own Sin Now the breach of any Command of God how positive and arbitrary soever it may seem is certainly a Sin if Obedience be a Duty So that the issue of the present Question will be not whether a devout Prayer may hope for a gracious acceptance at Gods hands But whether such a Prayer as desires the Benefits of the Sacraments whilest the Persons who prays neglects the use of them can be indeed be esteemed by God as devout with what warmth soever it be offered and how much soever the Person who offers it pretends to feel himself ravished and transported in offering it If it be sinful it is most certain no warmth of the Person can make it really devout And if it be in disobedience it is as
may have leave to urge the Allegory further as the Apostle shews us a Precedent in other the like Arguments from and applications of the same Allegory that the dependence of other Members on the Governours of the Church must be as great as that of the Members of the natural Body on their Head this will both shew how extremely dangerous it must be for them to be cut off from the Communion of their Governours on any account That it must be in an ordinary way as impossible for such Members to live as it is for Members of the natural Body when they are deprived of those influences which they receive from their Head and how necessary it must be for them rather to submit to any Conditions short of Sin than to suffer themselves to be reduced to so dangerous a Condition § XIX I KNOW there is another notion of the word Head not for a Head of influence and Authority but of eminency and dignity only and I know that this is a Notion used in the Scripture also where the (b) Is. IX 14 15. Head and Tail are taken for the most worthy and unworthy places as here the Head and Feet may be taken for the same with the more noble and baser Members in the next verse and I know that this Notion is suitable enough to the Ebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Idiome But withal when I consider how much (c) Numb XXV 15 Judg. X. 18 XI 8 9 11. 1 Sam. XV. 17 Ps. XVIII 43 Is. VII 8 9. Hos. I. 11 oftener it is used even in that stile it self for a Head of influence and Authority than of dignity only how much more natural it is in this particular Allegory where all things in this Mystical Body of Christ are so exactly parallelled with the like things in the natural Body nay where they are parallelled in this very instance of the derivation of influences from Member to Member by which mutual communication the whole Body Mystical is supposed to be mainteined the same way as the Body natural is When I consider that this communication of influences is that which is absolutely necessary to the Apostles design in this place to shew the mutual need that the Members have of each other and that a bare Priority and Posteriority of dignity would be utterly impertinent to this purpose and of the two would rather seem to prove the contrary When I consider further that according to the customes of those times it seems very probable that according to the greatness of their Gifts they were usually intitled to their several Offices that as their Gifts were generally given them for the service of the Publick not for themselves so they who were found to have the greatest Gifts were generally preferred to the most eminent Offices Nay when I consider that at first before the settlement of an ordinary Government in the Christian Societies that is while they concorporated themselves with the Jews and met together with them in their Synagogues and as to any external coercion depended also on the Government of the Synagogue and before there was an ordinary course taken for deriving Authority regularly to Posterity which was not so necessary at first till they were put upon it either by the gradual decay of these Gifts or at least of the Evidences of them and the multitude of false pretenders to them or by the disorderliness of the administration of them in their publick Assemblies the very Gifts themselves seem immediately without any further approbation of Man to have intitled them to the several Offices and accordingly the Offices themselves are reckoned as (d) 1 Cor. XII 28 Gifts as indeed the Case now described seems really to have been the Case of the Corinthians when this Epistle was written that they were not as yet under any settled establishment for Government and St. Paul proves his Apostleship among other things from his Gifts on which supposition this latter exposition that the Head and Feet signifying higher and inferior dignity of Gifts must infer the former that the same Persons who were so qualified for their Gifts were accordingly ranked in their Offices in the Church and the interest they had in the Government yet still with this advantage for the former Exposition that that does more immediately comply with the Apostles design in shewing the mutual necessity and usefulness of the Members to each other I say all these things being considered whatever may be thought of this latter Exposition otherwise yet it can hardly be thought so peculiar to the Apostles meaning as to exclude the former on which I have grounded my Argument § XX BUT supposing this were true as we have proved it false that some Men might be so perfect even in this Life as not to need the Society of others in regard of any advantage themselves were capable of receiving by such a Society yet still they might be obliged to it and to submit to all unsinful Conditions of being admitted into it on account of the benefit that others might be capable of receiving from them Even the Principles of that Philosophy which generally inclines Men to these Enthusiastick fancies I mean the Platonical would have taught them that they are (a) Tull. Somn. Scipion. not born for themselves and that all the good which they are able to do they are also bound to do by the great design of Societies and of God himself if he design the maintenance of them whose principal advantage is this that they who of themselves are weak may there expect the benefit of all the gifts of those which are more able But the Christian Religion does further assure us that all our Gifts are (b) S. Matth. xxv 15 Talents which we are bound to improve for the good of others as well as our Selves and that accordingly we must at length be accountable not only for the Principal it self which we have received but also for the (c) v. 27 improvements we might have made if we had used our utmost diligence in improving them and for those Gifts whose nature is rather to be useful for others than for the Possessor they are such wherein Men are principally obliged to use this diligence that all Men have some of these but that they who are perfect must be supposed to enjoy them in a more plentiful measure And indeed none are more capable of doing good to others than they who are perfect themselves They must be supposed to be best experienced their Examples would be more securely imitated and in matters of this nature Examples are more instructive than the most accurate Notions there would be that pretence which the vulgar are too apt to make use of to recommend the very failings of great Persons by the Authority of the Persons who are guilty of them These would approve the Practicableness of Virtue even in our present Age and circumstances and the very reverence which
Apostles Epistles so it is never used but to those who were in the Church's Communion nay frequently this limitation is expressly inserted St. Paul prays for Peace but it is only to the (c) Rom. i. 7 1 Cor. i. 2 3. 2 Cor. i. 1 2. Eph. i. v.2 Phil. i. 1 2. Col. i. 1 2. Saints to them that (d) Eph. vi 24 loved the Lord Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without following any of his Rivals to the (e) Gal. i. 2 3. 1 Thess. i. 1 2 Thess. i. 1 2. Eph. vi 23 Churches and the Brethren to them that walk according to the (f) Gal. vi 16 Rule and at the utmost extends his wish no further than to the whole (g) Ib. Israel of God and to them that (h) 1 Cor. i. 2 every where call on the name of the Lord Jesus St. John (i) 2 Joh. i. 2.3 the Elder does so too but it is only for such as are in the Truth and for this very cause because they were so I mention not other places in their writings where the particularity of their address required this limitation § XX As for the Jews they did so appropriate Spiritual favours to themselves Sanhedr cap. 10 as that they did not allow any Nations a portion in the World to come how excellent lives soever they might lead whilest yet they continued in their National distinction And therefore it must have been extremely vain to have prayed for any such thing for them that I may not now take notice of that contempt and hatred of all other Nations but themselves which we see plainy possessed them by the Histories of the first times of Christianity And it is very observable that the great design of the Apostles and that which no doubt very much facilitated the progress of their Doctrine with many others in that Age who had hardly ever been induced to have received it otherwise being not to overthrow the confinement of these Promises which are the foundation of the Prayers we are speaking of to Israel but only the confinement to the carnal Israel to the seed of Abrahams flesh rather than of his faith we have very great reason to believe that those great multitudes of them who came over to the Christian Religion on these terms and who would not have done so on any other must still have believed this confinement of the Promises to the Spiritual Israel And considering withall that of the three Ceremonies of initiation even of the carnal-Israelites only two were disliked by those first Preachers of the Christian Religion viz. those of Circumcision and Sacrifice but that of Baptism was so well approved by them as that they did not only receive it from the Jews as they had found it but also endeavoured to prove that it had been prefigured and prophesied of even in the Old Testament as the proper way of distinguishing the Spiritual Israelite from others as it had been formerly of the carnal Israelite they must on these Principles have been inclinable to believe that herein the carnal and the Spiritual Israelite agreed and therefore that still the Promises were confined though not to Circumcised yet at least to Baptised Persons And this being an errour if indeed it had been one so obviously following from the Principles by which the generality of them were then made Christians and being so likely to be taken up by those who had been made Christians on those Principles as recommended to them with the same Authority which had made their Christianity it self seem credible to them it had highly concerned them who had used such Principles to them to have warned them of the error of such a consequence § XXI And now if these things be so they will deserve to be seriously laid to heart by our Brethren who shall find themselves concerned in them If whilest they are out of the true Communion they have no interest in the Intercession of Christ no Interest in that one perfect Sacrifice of his nor hopes of any other If they have no Title even to the Prayers of good Christians for any Spiritual favours for them whilest they continue in that condition excepting only that one for their Conversion If such Prayers as should be offered for them cannot be offered with any confidence of being heard because they are not agreeable to the Divine Will nay if they be so far from any hopes of acceptance as that they rather provoke God against them who offer them by making them partakers of the sins of those for whom they are offered If at least neither they nor the Persons who need the relief of such Prayers have any Promise of being heard in them and therefore must at length be left to the extraordinary uncovenanted mercies of God Chap. 2◠which we have already shewn how very weak and uncertain a support it is to them who have no better confidence nay if it should prove true that Desertors of the Church's Communion on any pretence whatsoever though it be that of Perfection have not the very hopes of being heard in such Prayers as should be offered by themselves or others even for their Conversion it self which I only propose as a thing too much at least in danger of being the sense of the places produced for it I say if these things should prove true or even prove so much as probable to be so it will concern them all to be at least more solicitous for finding out the true Communion than as yet they seem to be when their error is like to prove of so fatal consequence if they should prove to be mistaken concerning it At least it will follow what I am at present only concerned for that no pretence of Closet-Prayer without the Sacraments can supply the use of the Sacraments when they are so far from being heard for those great and necessary Spiritual favours which are procured in the Sacraments as that they have no hopes of being heard at all if the Sacraments be neglected for them But the reasons given by St. John through the current of his whole Epistle why such Prayers should not be heard are yet more formidable that they who are not in the true Communion are in a state of Death that they are in the World how much soever they pretend to have escaped out of it that they are really in darkness what Light soever they pretend to which comes more immediately home to the case of these Enthusiastick Persons with whom I am at present dealing § XXII All that I can foresee as capable of being Objected for avoiding these consequences is only this that forsaking the Christian Assemblies then was a forsaking at least of the external Profession of the Christian Religion it self whether upon the forsaking them they went over to the Heathen Idolatries or to the Jewish Law or kept themselves from all external Profession of any Religion whatsoever so to avoid the Persecutions which attended the
of being proved In which way of proceeding it is plain that it is supposed that Communion with Christ could not be maintained without Communion with his visible Church and in after Ages without a Communion with that Church which could derive a visible Succession from that which originally was so I say this is supposed Antecedently to the proof that the Seducers were disunited from Christ both because it was from hence proved that their Doctrines were destructive to the true Christ because the Church said they were so and because their Communion is proved not to have been with the true Christ because it was not with his Church But of this I may have more occasion to discourse more largely hereafter I only observe at present that they are not therefore said to have been disunited from Christ because they did in express terms disown him which is the principal thing which is urged to shew how different their case was from the present case of our Brethren § XXX But 3. Whatever the occasion was yet the Argumnets used by those Primitive Writers to convince those Seducers of the dangerousness of their condition do certainly come home to our Brethrens Case My meaning is they do not only prove that the Seducers could have no Communion with Christ because they did either expressly or interpretatiuely deny him but also because they had no visible Communion with the visible Church So I have already shewn that it was a visible Association which St. John meant b 1 Joh. i. 3 when he exhorted them to whom he wrote to communicate with his own Party because he and his communicated with the Father and the Son It seems then there was no communicating with Christ however Orthodox a Profession they made of him without a continuance in the Orthodox Communion So the Author to the Hebrews c Heb. x. 25 26. does not make the denying of Christ to be the true Messias to be the willful sin of which he there speaks so dreadfully but the forsaking of the publick Assemblies And the whole reasoning of St. Paul in comparing the Mystical Body of Christ with the natural Body does plainly suppose that although all Grace be derived from Christ the Mystical Head to the several Members of his Mystical Body as in the natural Body all the vital influences are derived from the Head to the several Members respectively yet there is withall the same mutual necessity of the Members to each other for receiving these influences from the Mystical Head as there is in the Natural Body for receiving influences from the Natural Head And therefore it is impossible in the Natural Body that any particular Member should receive influences from the Head if separated from its Fellow-Members by which those influences are to be propagated to it so it will also be as impossible by the same Analogy of reasoning for any Member of the Mystical Body of Christ to receive vital influences from Christ the Mystical Head of that Body if separated from its Fellow-Members of the same Mystical Body And it is observable from the Offices and Gifts there mentioned that it must be an external Organical Body that is there spoken of in which only it is that those Offices and Gifts were capable of being exercised And from the reasoning they must not only be the Gifts but the Graces of the Spirit which are most properly to be considered as vital influences that are thus derived And then Persons divided from the Church must necessarily be in the state of Death as St. John supposes them as necessary as it is in the Body natural that that Member should be dead which receives no vital influences from the Head But these are also things which I may have occasion to discourse more largely in my second Part and therefore say no more concerning them at present CHAP. XII The very Case of abstaining from the Ordinances on pretence to Perfection seems to have been taken up and condemned in the time of the Apostles THE CONTENTS 8. This very pretence of abstaining from the external Ordidinances under the pretence of Perfection seems to have been taken up even in those Primitive Ages Euseb. Dem. Eu. L.iii. c. 4. The Philosophical Notions of those Ages concerning the worship of the supreme Deity § I. How this Hypothesis was received first into the Elective Philosophy thence taken up by the Hellenistical Jews and from them derived to the first Converts to Christianity § II. The several reasonings of the Primitive Christians that might make them in interest favourable to this Hypothesis § III. Particularly their pretending to a Mystical Priesthood might make them less solicitous for their dependence on the literal external Priesthood § IV. Instances of several like mistakes of those times in reasoning from Mystical Titles § V. How the Genius of this Philosophy has inclined men to this way of reasoning where-ever it has prevailed even among our modern Enthusiasts § VI. Inference 1. That what the Apostles did resolve in this particular they did resolve with a particular design upon our Adversaries Case § VII That the Prudential establishments of the Apostles are sufficiently secure § VIII Inf. 2. Hence may appear the insecurity of this way of arguing in general from Mystical Titles to the neglect of external Observances § IX.X. Inf. 3. It plainly appears to have been against the design of the Legislator in the very Case of the Jews from whom the Christians borrowed it § XI Inf. 4. That the whole contrivance of things by the Apostles plainly supposes that they also did not allow of this Plea for excusing any from the Publick Ordinances § XII Inf. 5. The Philosophers themselves never intended this Plea for their exemption from the Mysteries and external Rites of Initiation then used to which the Sacraments are answerable among Christians § XIII XIV Inf. 6. The great design of this way of arguing was to exclude themselves from paying any external worship to the Supreme Being and so destructive to the very foundation of the Christian Religion § XV. And this very rationally on the Hypothesis then received § XVI But the reason of this Argument does not hold against those Exteriors which are observed by the Christian Institution § XVII It is very probable that our Adversaries Case is particularly spoken to in Heb. x. 22 23. § XVIII § I TO proceed therefore with my present design it is further observable 8. That this very pretence of abstaining from the external Ordinances under the pretence of Perfection seems to have been taken up even in those Primitive Ages Those Philosophers who excused their neglect of all exterior worship of the Supreme Being by pretending that the only proper and acceptable worship of him was that of a a Vid. Testimonia Porphyr Apollonii Tyanei Theophrasti apud Eus. Pr. Eu. L.iv. c. 12 13 14 15 19 c. Porph. ipsum L.11 Abstinent Hierocl in Aur. Carm. Cyr. in Julia. L.1 pure
However at present this Observation may suffice to shew that even pursuant to these Philosophical Notions themselves and the influence they might have had on the minds of the Primitive Christians no Perfection can be pleaded such as may excuse from the use of the Sacraments § XV And further 6. It has also appeared that the great design of pleading this Spiritual way of worship of the supreme Being to the neglect of external Ritual-Observances was indeed to excuse themselves from paying him any external worship at all And indeed seems very rational on that Hypothesis which was then commonly received concerning the natural Philosophical reason of the worship of their ordinary Daemons Vid. Oracula aliaque Plutarchi Porphyrii Testimonia apud Euseb. L.5 Praep. Eu. c. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. For they conceived that the Daemons commonly worshipped were not purely Spiritual but at least cloathed with vehicles more or less gross according to the several degrees of their respective excellencies And hence they inferred that the Daemons themselves were sensibly delighted and nourished either with the Souls or nidor of the Sacrifices offered to them And that this was the true reason why the different Daemons were pleased with different sorts of Sacrifices and different sorts of Trees in their Groves and peculiar places and ceremonies of worship that their vehicles were of as great diversity of complexions as mens Bodies are and therefore inclined them to as great a diversity of desires because that the same thing which was grateful to the vehicle of one Daemon would either not affect the vehicle of another or would prove ungrateful to it And as they thought these vehicles to be material so they thought them subject to the same influences to which the matters were subject whereof they consisted And accordingly as all matter was supposed to be under the dominion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so they conceived these vehicles to be also and that they were by this means subject to the fatal influences of the Stars and even to the influences of Sublunary Bodies also as herbs and stones and the steams of Animals that were offered in Sacrifice to them This seems to have been the true Philosophical reason of all the Judicial Astrology and Magick which were then in so good esteem with the Persons I am speaking of § XVI Now on these Principles it is very true that no Bodily worship is suitable to the nature of the supreme Being that is there is no Bodily Being that is capable of affecting a Nature so perfectly abstract from matter as God's is with any sensible pleasure or advantage In this regard himself expressly disowns such a way of Worship and that even in such a time when he was otherwise pleased to accept of bloody Sacrifices Thinkest thou that I will eat Bulls flesh and drink the blood of Goats Psal. i. 13 And in that regard he immediately requires a more Spiritual kind of Worship For so it follows Offer unto God thanksgiving Ver. 14. and pay thy vows unto the most Highest But as this whole design of excusing themselves from the publick solemn Worship of the supreme Deity was a thing directly contrary to the fundamental Principles of the Christian Religion nay indeed it seems to be the principal design of this Religion to restore the publick solemn Worship of the chief God which had before been taken from him and given only to inferiour Daemons and this seems to have been the principal Dispute between the Christians and the Philosophers so our Adversaries will have reason when they reflect on the great unlawfulness of the design to distrust the Principles by which they defended it And therefore when they shall perceive that the tendency of this way of arguing from the Spiritual Nature of that Worship which must be suitable to the supreme Being to the neglect of the external Observances of his solemn Worship in publick Assemblies aims at the overthrow of the fundamental Principles of the whole Christian Religion and was designed so by them who first made use of it They cannot chuse but have a great unkindness for this way of arguing if they have any kindness for the Christian Religion which is so plainly undermined by it And that this account of their design and Principles is true I might refer to Porphyries account of Sacrifices De Abstinent ab esu Animal which he gives in the name of the Pythagoreans whose cause he principally undertakes to defend but which withall seems generally to have been received into the elective Philosophy which then prevailed § XVII But besides the reason of this Argument will by no means hold in those exteriors which are observed by the Christian Institution The Sacraments are not pretended to have any natural influence on God but only to be means of conveying his Graces to us And how can it be against the Nature or decorum of a Spirit in dealing with Beings which are not Spiritual to use means suitable to the capacities of those Beings with whom he deals If we conceive any commerce at all between Spiritual and Corporal Beings this is certainly the most likely way we can think of how such a commerce should be maintained Corporeal Beings are not able to converse by means wholly Spiritual and therefore it is absolutely necessary that if God would be pleased to have any dealings with them he should maintain them by Corporeal significations This moral use of the Sacraments as Solemnities of transacting the New Covenant does rather derogate from the Perfection of God not from that Perfection which a Corporeal Being is capable as it is Corporeal If further in the Symbols of the Heathen Mysteries there might have been fancied something that in its own Nature might influence the vehicle of the Soul and more easily dispose it for receiving Spiritual influences which dispositions such Souls as are already perfect might not be supposed to need if this is not the Case in our Christian Mysteries The Symbols here used are such as are familiar among us and therefore if they had any such natural virtue must exert it as well out of the Sacraments as in them So that all their influence must be wholly ascribed to the Divine appointment And why then should any Soul which is not so perfect but that it needs the Divine Assistance be yet thought so perfect as not to need those means which he has been pleased to appoint for the conveyance of those Assistances § XVIII And indeed I know not whether the Author to the Hebrews did not allude to some such fancy of some who mysticised Baptism possibly to the disparagement of the Literal Baptism For having exhorted those to whom he wrote to draw nigh to Christ with a true heart in full assurance of faith having their hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience Heb. x. 22 as if he had been afraid that they should understand him of this Mystical Baptism
he after adds Ver. 23. and having our Bodies sprinkled with pure water let us hold fast the Profession of our hope without wavering That he should add the mention of this literal Baptism after he had already taken notice of the Mystical Baptism which is indeed the truly beneficial Baptism I cannot but think was done with particular design in an Author so accurate as this is to the Hebrews and who generally lays so much weight on his particular expressions And when I consider what he immediately infers from it that they should hold fast the Profession of their hope without wavering then methinks his design seems to be yet clearer For plainly by their holding fast the Profession of their hope without wavering he means not so much an adhering to the Practice of the Christian Duties as to the belief and external Profession of the Christian Religion This was the thing that the Hebrews then were most in danger of of relapsing to Judaism As to their lives and their sincerity in what they professed Heb. vi 9 10. Heb. x. 25 the Author himself gives them a very good Testimony And soon after he shews again what he means by it when he perswades them not to forsake the assembling of themselves together that he also meant an adhering to that external Communion wherein that hope was professed as I have else-where observed Chap. 11. §. 14 15. Now for perswading them to keep to the external Communion of the Church the external Baptism was the properest Argument because this was indeed an external initiation into a particular visible Society and was not so applicable to the external Parties to which they might fall when they deserted the Communion of the Church as the Mystical Baptism might be pretended to be by them who should be seduced to a defection This sprinkling from an evil Conscience being a thing transacted internally and so not capable of discovery in it self could not oblige to one Party more than another at least it could not be known to what Party it obliged any otherwise than by supposing it confined to the external Baptism which their senses could inform them where it had been received As therefore it was very agreeable to the Authors interest to urge the external Baptism for such a purpose as this was so it was as much for his Adversaries interest to disparage and if he could evacuate the obligation of the external Baptism by that Argument which I have already shewn to have been then so Popular that is by extolling the Mystical Baptism as the only really beneficial Baptism as to all those advantages for which Baptism was designed This therefore the Author seems to have been aware of and to prevent any such evasion and withal to urge his own Arguments more closely and convictively immediately adds this mention of this external Baptism If this were really the Authors meaning then it will afford us a direct confutation of our Adversaries Notion at least in this particular of Baptism The sense of this Divine Author will then appear to be full and resolute in the case that this Mystical Baptism is not to be supposed separate from the external Baptism and that the receiving this external Baptism in the external Communion of the Church is an obligation to all who have so received it not to forsake the publick Assemblies of the Church whereof they are Members as they would expect the benefit of this Mystical Baptism which on this supposition is so inseparable from it nay that these are now as necessary for entring into Heaven as the external Lustrations were then in the time of the Law for the Priests entring into the Holy of Holies what personal Holiness soever he might otherwise pretend to For to this he plainly alludes in that part of the context which gave the whole occasion for bringing in those words of which we are at present discoursing And that this is really the Apostles sense will appear to him who shall consider the coherence with the Considerations now mentioned no improbable conjecture CHAP. XIII The danger of Separation proved from Heb. VI. THE CONTENTS § I Lastly This sin of withdrawing from the publick Assemblies on any pretence whatsoever is highly condemned in the Scriptures and the condition of Persons guilty of it is described as extremely dangerous § I. This proved from Heb. vi The design of the Sacred Authors in these kind of Discourses is to warn the Persons with whom they had to deal against Lapses not from a good Life but from the true Communion § II III. This proved particularly to be the design of this place Illumination put for Baptism both because of the interest Baptism gave them in Christ who was the true Light § IV. And in regard of the visible Glory which then seems to have accompanied Baptism in which regard this Title was likely to have been taken up rather in the Apostles Age than afterwards § V. How properly this Title was given it as a lesser Purgative Mystery Fire the most Purgative Element § VI. And that by which the Purgativeness of our Saviours Baptism had been before particularly described § VII The other expressions of this Text applyed to Baptism § VIII That separating from the visible Communion of the Church was a breach of their Baptismal Obligations proved from the design of the Baptism of those times Baptism a solemnity of admission into their Schools and an obligation to adhere to the Master § IX And not only to the first Masters but to the lawful Successors to their Chairs § X. The dishonour to Christ by falling away mentioned in the Text to be understood only Interpretatively How this was proper to the Case of desertors in those times § XI XII How it is applicable to our present Adversaries § XIII The Punishment of this crime mentioned in the Text. § XIV The application of this also to our present Adversaries § XV. What it is to Baptise in the name of the Spirit § XVI XVII What is meant by the Impossibility to renew the Lapsers here spoken of § XVIII An Objection § XIX Answered § XX. Application to our Present Adversaries § XXI XXII AND Lastly This sin of withdrawing from the publick Assemblies on any pretence whatsoever is highly condemned in the Scriptures and the condition of Persons guilty of it is described as extremely dangerous so dangerous as that it can be no small matter nor no small evidence of a great matter that can encourage any wise considerative Person to venture his Soul upon it I have already shewn something of this on other occasions In discoursing concerning the sin unto Death I have shewn that in St. John the dispute was between Parties betwixt the Party of the Church and those of the Deceivers and that whatever did belong to Christ was confined to his Party and the contrary is said of those who joyned with the Deceivers That as Christ is the Life the Truth and
hate the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. c. 4. And if this had been granted them that the Body it self was such a Principle of pollution to the Spirit how could they be solicitous for preserving it from such pollutions as were only capable of being transacted in the Body How could they think themselves concerned to preserve that pure which was it self supposed to be nothing but a pollution § XIX AND that these were particularly the sentiments of those Persons with whom the Apostles had to deal plainly appears from hence that the Principles on which they depend were generally owned by the Hereticks of that Age. They generally took the God of this world for a distinct coeternal contrary Principle to the God of Heaven They also took this World for his peculiar Province and thought themselves obnoxious to his influences as long as they were in it They thought it also the proper employment of the Angels of this World to tye their Souls to terrestrial Bodies and consequently that the best way of freeing themselves from subjection to them was to free themselves from that tye They thought that their Bodies were the creatures of this contrary wicked Principle and therefore that Marriage which was intended for the purgation of Bodies was an intention of the Devil and accordingly that Adam was damned for introducing the first precedent of the exercise of it though it was with his own wife And accordingly we find these greatest pretenders to the Spirit to be withal charged with the most abominable pollutions of the flesh 2 Pet. ii 10 Jud. 8. and that they accordingly performed the Christian Mysteries as much of them as they were pleased to retain with the same obscenity which had before been practised among the Heathens The particulars cannot be mentioned without immodesty On this account it is that we have so many exhortations to those whom the Apostles would secure from those seducers that they would purifie themselves in the flesh as well as the Spirit 2 Cor. vii 1 Rom. xii 1 and that they would offer up their Bodies as well as their Souls as a living and a reasonable Sacrifice and that their whole Man might be kept unblamable 1 Thes. v. 23 their Bodies as well as their Souls and Spirits § XX BY this it appears how very necessary it was for that great design of intire Purity and Reformation which was intended by the Christian Religion to oblige them particularly to Purity of their Bodies in contradistinction to the purity of the Spirit because whilest these Principles were believed they who were never so desirous of Spiritual Purity must have been at least negligent of this Purity of the Body if they had not utterly given themselves up to carnal Impurities on the account now mentioned And considering that it was a Principle granted among them that they were obliged to purifie that part which belonged to God and their only pretence for neglecting the like Purity of the Body was that they conceived it not to belong to him but to an adverse Being whom they were neither so obliged to please nor if they would please him was it so probable that he would be pleased with Purity what could be a properer means to convince them of their mistake in this particular and to oblige them to Corporal Purity than to perswade them to give up their Bodies as well as their Souls to Christ and to give him an interest in them by a particular and distinct Donation And accordingly this was the way which was observed and this is the Argument professedly made use of by the Apostle for this purpose 1 Cor. vi 15 Know ye not that your Bodies are the Members of Christ shall I then take the Members of Christ and make them the Members of an harlot Ver. 19 20. God forbid And What Know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirits which are Gods And because it was by the filthiness of the Heathen Mysteries that their Bodies had been defiled therefore it was very proper and agreeable to the honour of the Christian Religion that they should be obliged to this Purity of their Bodies more distinctly and particularly in the Christian Mysteries § XXI BUT there was also another reason which made it necessary that they should be united to Christ bodily as well as spiritually That was that by this means they might be assured of the Resurrection of their Bodies This was the Article of the Christian Religion on which above all others the comfort and encouragement of new Christians principally depended and which was indeed the principal inducement to them to undertake all the other Duties of the Christian Religion and which notwithstanding met with the most difficult reception of all others and wherein God was therefore pleased to give the greatest Assurance for the satisfaction of Persons concerned And particularly the Argument used for this purpose is this that Christ is risen 1 Cor. xv 12 Whence it is inferred as a necessary consequence that we must rise also And this is plainly so inferred as if it were impossible that one could be true unless the other were so too And it is urged both ways Negatively Ver. 14 17. if Christ be not risen all Preaching is in vain our Faith is also vain we are yet in our sins We have only hopes in this Life and Ver. 19. in regard of the little enjoyment we can pretend to here are become of all men most miserable And if he be risen he is risen as the first fruits and as the Head Ver. 20 2◠And as the whole Harvest is consecrated in the first fruits and the whole Body is concerned in what befalls the Head so it is supposed impossible that he can have risen but that we must thereby gain a Title to a Resurrection We as Members are said already to have risen and to have sate down in Heavenly places because he who is our Head has already done both And he as our Head is supposed uncapable of a compleat Resurrection unless we rise also who are his Members Now this benefit being such as only properly belongs to our Body therefore the force of this consequence must be grounded on this supposition that our Bodies are his Members as well as our Spirits And our Bodies must the same way be united to his Body by partaking of his Body as we are made one Spirit with him by deriving from that fullness of the Spirit which properly agrees to him as he is our Head And accordingly this participation of his Body in the Eucharist is urged by the Fathers as the greatest assurance of our hope that we shall also partake with him in his Resurrection To return therefore to my method § XXII THIS being thus
clearest Predictions which might assure them of thus much that this was the time when the less clear ones were to be fulfilled also So that thus much being granted that all the Predictions of God whether by words or shadows were then to be fulfilled it followed thence that where the accommodation between the Prediction and the event was clear that was the very sence which God intended should come to pass § XII HOWEVER it is certain that the Primitive Christians did actually use this way of reasoning and that the multitude of such accommodations whereby it appeared that every thing which then befel the Novel Converts to Christianity was either predicted or prefigured in the Old Testament was not only a very great inducement with many of them to receive the Christian Religion but the only Apology they had to vindicate that Religion from the charge of innovation with which it was aspersed by the Jews And particularly the Sacraments were of that consequence as indeed would need a particular proof For if Mystical Judaism required no external Solemnities of worship we must suppose them ready to enquire why these externals were required If by our Saviours Authority alone then it would not look like a part of Mystical Judaism when no part of the Jewish Scriptures could be alledged in favour of it But if Mystical Judaism did indeed require these Solemnities then they would object against the abrogation of Circumcision and Sacrifices which had formerly been so expressly required by the Law as an abrogation of Judaism not as an introducing a more Spiritual Notion of it § XIII In answer hereunto the Christians did both shew that literal Circumcision and Sacrifices had been disapproved in the Old Testament it self and that their own Rituals had been predicted or prefigured as proper to that state of Mystical Judaism which they endeavoured to introduce Particularly as to prefiguration Baptism they supposed to have been prefigured in the cloud of the Israelites in which they are said to have been baptized into Moses that is were made Disciples unto Moses as by Christs Baptism men are admitted to be Disciples to Christ 1 Cor. x. 2 and in the water of the deluge by which those who were in the Ark were saved 1 Pet. iii. 21 1 Cor. x. 4 That of Melchizedec Clem. Alex. Strom. iv prope fin Cyprian Ep. 62. ad Caecilium Euseb Dem. Eu. v. 3 to which our Baptism is expressly called an Antitype And the rock which followed them the Bread of Melchizedeck whom they took for a Type of Christ and this Manna in the Wilderness were taken for prefigurations of the Eucharist and these later two even as to the Element of Bread that even in that Christ might appear to have innovated nothing but to have done that which God had long before designed that it should be done by him And considering how necessary these things were for that great design of the Apostles we have reason to look on them not barely as Arguments ad bomines but as real Truths requisite for the satisfaction of the Christians themselves as well as for the conviction of their Adversaries And considering withal their close connection with this great design of the Apostles in their Controversies with the Jews we have reason to suppose that these were the sence of the Apostles themselves in whose times principally it was that these Controversies with the Jews were debated and in whose times the ordinary Converts from Judaism were most likely to desire satisfaction in those particulars Which will make these Mystical Expositions of the most antient Fathers much more considerable than they are commonly esteemed if not for the solidity of the Expositions themselves yet at least for the credit of the first conversion to Christianity and of the Apostles who for the propagation of the Christian Religion thought it so necessary to insist on these Expositions And this prefiguration of the Eucharist by the Manna being so necessary for the Apostles design to defend the institution of the Eucharist from the charge of innovation and so early insisted on by the Primitive Christians we have very just reason to suppose that it came from the Apostles though we could not trace it in their writings At least we have reason to believe that it was the meaning of our Saviour and the Apostle in this place where on other accounts it appears so likely to have been so § XIV THIS therefore being thus supposed it will plainly follow that by the Eucharistical Bread the Ideal Manna is communicated to us And as all particular derivations from the Ideas can perform nothing but by vertue of the impressions which they are supposed to receive from the Ideas themselves but it is impossible that any derivation can be as efficacious as the Original so it will be also on the same Principles ordinarily impossible that the want of this Ideal Manna thus communicated to us by the Eucharist can be any other way supplyed And as immortality that is a happy immortality to which the Scripture does frequently appropriate the name of immortality does on the same Hypothesis only agree to these Ideal Prototypes themselves not to any resemblances derived from them so this immortality of our Body and our consequent Title to the Resurrection of our Body resulting from it can only be expected from our participation of the Eucharistical Bread if that be the only ordinary means appointed for our participation of this Archetypal Manna § XV AND supposing that this whole Discourse of St. Joh. VI. has relation to the Eucharist at least as it was to be instituted by him for the future nothing can be more plain than that which I am at present concerned for the great mischief men have ordinarily reason to fear when they are deprived of the Eucharist So our Saviour tells them Verily verily Joh. vi 53 I say unto you Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you And the flesh here spoken of was immediately before made the Bread that Archetypal Manna which he was to give them The Bread which I will give is my flesh Ver. 51. Which two attributes of Bread and Flesh ascribed to the same thing are not so naturally capable of being ascribed to any thing else as they are to this Eucharistical Bread of which I am now speaking God grant that our dissenting Brethren may be as sensible of the consequence of this Discourse as they are concerned in it § XVI I AM very unwilling to lay any stress of the Principles of my present Discourse on any thing that might look like a Paradox especially in my expositions of the Scripture But as I have already prevented this Exception by warning how sufficient the necessity of valid Baptism as an ordinary means for Salvation is to my design Chap. 15. so really I conceive the things here delivered of that very great importance for preventing and
b That of St. Timothy Prophets which assisted in their Synaxes or of the c Those of the choice â—f St. Gregory Thaumaturgus for Bishop of Neocaesarea by the Bishop who ordained him and of the ordination of Alexander Carbonarius by the same Thaumaturgus Greg. Nyssen in vit Thaum ordeiners themselves or by some signs d As in the Case of Alexander chosen Bishop of Hierusalem Euseb. Hist. given before by God or by some extraordinary appearances e As in the case of Fabian Bishop of Rome Eus. Hist. in the Persons elected Yet even when this was done this only determined the Persons and the Ordeiners still remained Judges whether the indications were satisfactory which was a power sufficient even then to oblige all such Persons to the most rigorous dependence on them And accordingly when even they were satisfied then and not till then they proceeded to Ordination where that was prescribed as it seems to have been in all the Constitutions of ordinary Governours And from their ordination all the validity of the exercise of their Authority began its date § XXXVII IF this be the true meaning of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. John after his return from Patmos so long after St. Clement had written his Epistle where he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Ep. ad Corinth that the Apostles had before that taken care for mainteining their Succession and if St. John did not deviate from the precedent of the other Apostles and if this were the original of the appropriation of the name of Clerus to the sacred function as we see very soon after it was appropriated it will follow that it will also be most likely that this was the course prescribed by the Apostles for succession when as yet we know that these Extraordinaries had not failed and when withal we do not know whether the Apostles did know that they should ever fail For God may undoubtedly conceal many Truths from many true Prophets though he cannot be an Author of error to any of them And though afterwards as the experience of these extraordinary manifestations by degrees failed the Primitive Christians they were at length necessitated to prudential means for continuing this Power yet from this concession that this was the state of Succession immediately appointed by the Apostles themselves two things will follow very apposite to my purpose One that they thought the Ecclesiastical Power immediately proper to God himself and far exceeding any inherent right of the People the other that as this Power did not belong to the People by any original inherent right in them so neither was it conveyed to them by any act of the Apostles in their life time or by the course designed by them for the continuance of Succession § XXXVIII NOR is it likely that the Apostles would confer this right of Government on the People if we suppose them left to their own liberty concerning it We know the Eastern Nations generally from whom the Doctrine of the Gospel came to us were observed to be more addicted to Monarchy than any other form of Government And though I know those Philosophical Sects the Platonists and Pythagoraeans especially were for Republican Principles yet all the effect they seem to have had on those Eastern Nations seems only to have been this that they disliked the absoluteness not the form of Government in a single Person This I think was all that could have been meant by Josephus when he makes Samuel averse to the motion of the Israelites for a King on account of his dislike of Monarchy For if by Monarchy he had understood the Government of a single Person under reasonable restraints he could not be ignorant that Samuel himself was such a Monarch But that which must in all likelihood have made the converts to the Christian Religion more favourable to Monarchy than to any other form of Government must have been the great usefulness of this Topick of the excellency of Monarchy above other forms of Government against their common Gentile Adversaries This was one of the principal Topicks they insisted on against the Gentile Polytheism Philo Justin Mart. de Monarch On this Subject they wrote intire Discourses To this purpose they produce all the Testimonies of Philosophers and Poets that speak in favour of Monarchy in general whether with application to Divine things or without it To this purpose they urge Arguments taken from the convenience of this Government among Creatures nay even among men themselves And is it probable that these same Persons should erect a new Government in Practice so different from that which they had so much commended above it in their disputes that they would for a matter of so small consequence to them as the particular form of Government when without it they might still enjoy the benefit of Government under another form overthrow the principal Argument for the most fundamental Principle of revealed Religion that they would for it have exposed themselves to the just suspicions of disingenuity of practising so differently from their Principles They must in all likelihood have been more inclinable to think that they meant as they saw them practise than as they saw them argue And though they had forgotten the advantage they had given their Adversaries by this way of proceeding yet is it probable that their Adversaries would forget it too Could they forget such an Argument for blasting the reputation of their Persons when withal the disrepute of their Persons would go so far as it might go then for overthrowing the credit of the Religion preached by them On all these accounts it is very unlikely that the Apostles did by their settlement for Posterity confer any new right of Government upon the People besides that which was originally inherent in them § XXXIX BUT before I dismiss this Argument it will not be amiss to make some remarks upon it to let men see how far this alone may go for the satisfaction of Persons sincerely inquisitive for Truth and Peace 1. Then this way of arguing from the actual establishments of God as it is much more modest so it is also much more secure for finding out the right of Government than any conjectures we can make from the reason of the thing It is certainly the most becoming course for a modest Christian in all things to acquiesce in Gods Judgment how great evidence soever there might seem for differing from it And sure there is great reason to believe that what the Apostles did in a matter of so great consequence for the security of the Christian Religion as the settlement of Rules of Government to be observed for all posterity they did by a direction more infallible than their humane Ecclesiastical Prudence And there is the rather reason to ascribe much to their settlement in this Question when it is truly stated For I do not at present argue the obligingness of their settlement to us now
far I should be from excusing any hard thoughts concerning a Multitude But if the knowledg of their danger be the most likely means to secure them from it if more of them will come to understand their danger when they are warned of it by others than would if they were left to the ingenuity and sagacity of their own reflections It must be then the greatest cruelty to conceal our apprehensions of their danger as it would be in the other case to reveal them And the greater the multitude is of them that are indangered the more pitiable is their case and the more obliging a tender compassionate truly Christian Spirit to endeavour all he can for their relief How can such a one who has learned the true value of Souls from what his Lord has done and suffered to save them endure to see his Lords designs so frustrated and such numbers of Souls fall short of those favours which were designed for them by what he had done and suffered for their Salvation Could the danger of his Fathers Life extort words from the dumb Son of Croesus And can any Lover of the Father of Spirits keep silence when thousands of those Spirits are in danger of perishing for want of seasonable information To think that there are such multitudes of those who unfeignedly believe the truth of the Christian Religion who yet are destitute of the ordinary means of Salvation required by that Religion to think how many more are like to be engaged on the same dangerous courses in all those future generations wherein these SCHISMS may last if they be not timely obviated to think how many of these poor Souls neither think of any danger in the state of SCHISM nor are sensible of the true stating of those disputes which might in all likelihood convince them how nearly they are concerned in that danger who if they were but rightly informed and made sensible of their danger would in all likelihood receive conviction and escape the danger at least would be more inquisitive if they knew their present course to be indeed so dangerous if they should prove mistaken To think I say on these things seriously must sure raise the zeal of him who has any zeal of God in him or any bowels of compassion for Souls that is indeed who has any thing of the Spirit of Christianity So that hitherto the multitude of them who are concerned ought rather to be an inducement than a dissuasive to a compassionate soul to let them see their danger § XII BUT if another use be made of this consideration of the multitude of those who are concerned in the consequences of this discourse for a charge against our modesty for dissenting from so great a multitude in thinking their condition so dangerous when they think it so secure in pretending to any thing new that such a multitude have not discovered before us though I know how little such an Objection becomes the Person of those who are most of all concerned to make it who make no scruple to practise and avow this liberty of dissenting from greater multitudes than themselves yet many other considerations may be pleaded for our defence even in this particular also First the multitude though they may seem many when we confine our thoughts to the narrow extents of our own Dominions yet are really inconsiderable in comparison of the whole Church I do not say only of former Ages but even of this also wherein we live And what immodesty can it be to dissent from a multitude when we have so much greater a multitude to confront against them Next this multitude it self are so disunited among themselves as that no particular party will make a multitude in comparison of the whole And if they be united in this conclusion that their condition is not dangerous it is not from any common principles but purely from common interest that they are so united It is plain that the different parties do state the question of SCHISM and their own defence from the charge of it very differently and are obliged to do so by the different interests of their causes So that no one set of Principles can pretend even to the patronage of a multitude And sure a Vnion in Negative conclusions without any Vnion in Principles to prove those conclusions a Vnion not of unprejudiced Judgment but plainly suspicious of common interest a Vnion of innovaters against the concurrent sense and Principles too of all Antiquity cannot have any thing very venerable in it for the recommendation of its Authority though a higher deference were due to Authority than can be allowed by the common Principles of the Reformation § XIII AS for the multitude of those whose Authority is really considerable in this case I mean that of Catholick Antiquity I hope hereafter to make it appear in my Second Part that I have said nothing as to my general charge but upon their common Suffrages and Principles too And why should we presume a multitude of innovaters better acquainted with the principles and practices of the Apostles than they who had so much better advantages of knowing them by living so much nearer to their times I do not prejudg against their actual knowing some things better than the ancients But if there can be no general presumption in favour of them but the enquiry in what particulars they do so be resolved into particular information that is enough to overthrow their Authority as a presumption against us in point of modesty which is all for which I am concerned at present Besides that this acknowledgment that Persons of less advantages for finding the truth in general and therefore of less Authority may yet be so happy as to light upon better information in some particulars is that which might be a very satisfactory plea and by them against whom we plead it undeniable for our dissent from them in these particulars though we had been more destitute otherwise of Authority for our dissent than indeed were are And to know when the case may prove so that Persons more unlikely may discover some particular truths which have escaped the observation of others who were otherwise much more able to have made the discovery a better rule can hardly be given in general than that this may be then expected when either some false Principle was taken up unwarily at first by them who though they were themselves as subject to humane frailties as others yet by their being the first had the Authority with their Successors as to recommend them as Principles to posterity so that all their future enquiries were only into their consequences not into the truth of such Principles themselves or when some other means of information were made use of which either were not known or not made use of by those more able Persons Thus it is very justly pleadable against the Romanists that whilest they made unwritten traditions of equal Authority with the written word of
Scripture generally speaks of and that this Election to Grace does not so much imply an infallible and perpetual influence of Grace on the Person so elected as his actual introduction to the Ordinary Means of Grace which others had been permitted to reject which amounts exactly to our present design of admission into the Church as I have now explained it which though it be a Notion I think exceedingly defensible yet I would not engage the stress of my present Cause in a Discourse so seemingly exotical to our design any further than needs I must And it will not engage us to Answer that current of Scripture which seems directly opposite to the meaning imposed on these places by our Adversaries And less is requisite to justify our Sense than theirs who therefore ought to have more and greater proof for what they add beyond our Assertions § XIX THIS therefore being supposed that the Promises are confined to the Covenant I infer further 5. That he who would pretend any Title to the Promises must in order thereunto prove his Interest in the Covenant For if the Promises be Gods part of the Evangelical Covenant none can challenge them but he who has a Legal Title to them And none can have a Legal Title to them who has not an Interest in the Covenant on which such a Legal Title at least must be founded because the Covenant is indeed it self the Legal conveyance And it is only such a Legal challenge that can give us comfort and confidence that they belong to us And as by our Interest in the Covenant we may argue Positively that we have an Interest in the Promises not actual and absolute but upon performance of Conditions which is more than can be pleaded by Persons not yet admitted into the Covenant so the Negative way of Arguing for which we are at present concerned is much more certain That he who cannot prove his Interest in the Covenant whatever his performance of Conditions may be cannot challenge a Legal Title to the Promises And as I have shewn that even the things promised cannot be hoped for by one in such a Condition upon any grounds so secure as a Prudent Person might safely venture on with any comfort or confidence so indeed a Promise as a Promise is it self a Legal way of conveyance and therefore as it is the nature of all like conveyances cannot I do not say easily but not at all be challenged on any but a Legal Title But I proceed CHAP. IV. The same thing further Prosecuted THE CONTENTS 2. The only Ordinary Means whereby we may assure our Selves of our interest in this Covenant is by our partaking in the External Solemnities whereby this Covenant is transacted and mainteined This cleared in 2. Particulars 1. That the partaking of these External Solemnities of initiation into and maintenance of this Evangelical Covenant is the only Ordinary Means of procuring and mainteining a Legal Interest in it § I.II. An Objection urged and Answered The Assertion proved from Gods actual Establishment § III. IV.V.VI.VII.VIII.IX.X.XI The same proved from the reason of the thing 1. God is concerned to take care that these External Solemnities be punctually observed as he is a Covenanter § XII XIII.XIV.XV.XVI.XVII.XVIII.XIX.XX.XXI.XXII.XXIII.XXIV.XXV.XXVI § I 2. THEREFORE the only Ordinary Means whereby we may assure our Selves of our Interest in this Covenant with God is by our partaking in the external Solemnities whereby this Covenant is transacted and mainteined So that where we are either not solemnly initiated into this Covenant by the rites and observances that are necessary for such a purpose that is according to the Christian Religion by Baptism or where we aâ—e excluded from the Solemnities of mainteining it that is according to the same Christian Religion by the Lords Supper after we have been once admitted to it there we cannot ordinarily assure our Selves that we have any real Interest in it This will appear from two things that this partaking in these external Solemnities of this Covenant is indeed the Ordinary Means for procuring or mainteining our Interest in the Covenant it self 〈◊〉 and that though this participation had not indeed that influence on the thing it self but that we might obtein or maintein our Interest in the Covenant without it yet that it is at least the only Ordinary Means of assuring us of such an Interest so that though it were not so certain that we might not have this Interest yet certainly we could not be assured of it without this external participation § II 1. THEN The partaking of these external Solemnities of initiation into and maintenance of this Evangelical Covenant is the only Ordinary Means of procuring and mainteining an Interest in it I mean still such a Legal Interest as may immediately impower us to challenge the Promises on performance of the Duties of it This I conceive so clear from the nature and Obligation of Covenants in general as that I do not know whether our Brethren themselves can find in their hearts to Question it in instances wherein their Interest may not be Suspicious of tempting them to Partiality For even in ordinary Contracts we find that Promises however fully agreed on with all their restrictions and limitations that may prevent all future Cavils betwixt the contracting Parties have by the unanimous consent of all Prudent Legislators not been thought fit to be allowed as pleadable in a Legal way till they were mutually Sealed and solemnly confirmed before Witnesses and though some Courts of Conscience may oblige a Person to the performance of his private Promises yet not immediately and independently on the solemnity of doing it But the immediate method is first to oblige themselves in a solemn way to what they have agreed to privately and then to perform the Contents of that Obligation And particularly that I may give an instance parallel to our present Case wherein Inferiors are supposed to contract with their Superiors the Princes pardon though â—â—tested from his mouth by Persons never so Credible is not pleadable in Law till it has past the great Seal and other Solemnities requisite by Law And indeed this Solemnity of conveyance is generally insisted on with much greater rigor in graunts from supreme Governours than in Covenants betwixt private equal Persons And the reason is clear because what is transacted betwixt private Persons is only of private concernment and therefore can only be prejudicial in the particular Case if they should prove mistaken in it and of such particular prejudices to his own private Interest every one of ordinary Prudence is in reason to be permitted to judg as far as concerns his own particular Practice But the Acts of Superiors are likely to pass into Precedents and are therefore likely to prove of greater concernment in the consequence than the value of the interest of the particular Person who is immediately concerned And therefore as Governours are by their Office obliged to be more
as a Governour than that of any Possessions whatsoever For Majesty may be preserved without private Possessions but not without the free distribution of Offices But if we Judg of the greatness of the Sacriledg by the value of the things invaded by it Offices will appear much more valuable than any Possessions For both by Offices a Dominion is gotten over Mens Persons which none will deny to be more valuable than their Possessions and from this Dominion over their persons there arises secondarily a Dominion over their Possessions also which is also proportionably true in this Spiritual as it is in Natural Dominion For by this Sacred power the distribution of all Spiritual Benefits is also consequently gained which are truly more valuable to Men than all their worldly Possessions and by this Sacredness of Office Men become intitled even to that Worldly maintenance in which God is allowed to have a real property so that it will prove in practice impossible to rob God of one without the other § XXIII OR is it Lastly that God under the Gospel is not conceived to be so rigorous in exacting external Punctualities as under the Law This I confess is a true reason why so few external Observances have been imposed on us under the Gospel but there is no reason at all that appears to me to urge it further as our dissenting Brethren do to prove that God will be less Severe now than formerly in exacting the performance of those few Externals which he has been pleased to require Both the excellency of the Dispensation and the great concernment of the Churches Peace in Order to the great designs of the Gospel-Dispensation and the natural influence of Government for the preservation of that Peace and of Disobedience even in things seemingly small to the contempt of Goverment and the Apostles Argument Heb. II. 3 Would rather incline us otherwise to argue that all violations of the Gospel-Authority must expect a severer vengence than those of the Law § XXIV AND if this way of Arguing from the Authority even of the Old Testament may not be allowed not to prove any thing to be now a Sin by its Positive Prescriptions but only to prove how highly Criminal a Sin is in the account of God and how severe a Punishment Persons now guilty of it may expect when it is otherwise proved to be a Sin by immutable and unalterable reasons that it can neither cease to be a Sin nor cease to be Criminal in such a Degree and therefore if it were Criminal in such a Degree under the Law it must be so under the Gospel too or if it admit of any variation of Degrees by the variation of Circumstances as certainly these Sins against the Law of Nature may if not in the Kind yet at least in Individual Instances that all the alteration of Circumstances under the Gospel tend rather to its aggravation than its excuse if I say this way of Arguing even from the Old Testament be not now admitted as conclusive under the New it will utterly destroy all use of the Old Testament as a Rule of manners to Christians For it will by the same way of Arguing be easy to evade all proofs from it by pleading our present unconcernedness in it and if its Authority be taken for nothing not as much as for the Degree of Criminalness of a Sin in the actual esteem of God but that other rational proofs must be demanded even for that from the nature of the Sin it self it is plain that thus the Authority of the Old Testament in affairs of this nature is plainly slighted and all is ultimately resolved into Reason independent on it which is a Crime of which I believe our dissenting Brethren would be very unwilling to prove guilty § XXV 9. THEREFORE the Administration of Sacraments thus depending on the Authority of those that Administer them there are none that can lay a just claim to that Authority now that God does not appear immediately himself to Authorize them but leaves them to the use of Ordinary Means but they who can shew a Succession continued in all the intermediate Ages from the Apostles themselves who were thus immediately Authorized as no Commission can be derived from a Prince who cannot immediately be consulted but by the mediation of his Ordinary Subordinate Governours The proof of this I shall not now insist on because I believe I shall have occasion to do it in my following Discourse And as it has thus appeared that this confinement of the Benefits of the New Covenant to the External Solemnities of it is very useful for confederating us into a Body Politick So § XXVI 2. THIS Solemnity of Promises is more likely to secure our performance of Duty than any private Resolutions or Promises whatsoever I know indeed that in reason a Promise made with equal freedom is as obligatory if made in private as if made before never so great an Assembly of Witnesses nay that in reason an Assembly can so little contribute to advance our Obligation as that it would rather weaken it for how can He in reason be thought capable of being awed by Men who is not affraid to break those promises which are made to God and wherein God is also invoked as a Witness Nay rather might make us distrust our having that due respect for God when we should find our Selves so much more efficaciously influenced by Men And I know withal that only the performance of Duties on truly-rational Motives does make them strictly virtuous and rewardable But having already premised that God does in Covenanting with us and more in Governing us treat us suitably to our humours and does accordingly bear with the Imperfections if the Duties themselves be performed both because the External performance of Duties how little virtuous soever they be to the Persons performing them yet is of great use to the Publick for edifying others and for mainteining the reputation of the Government which are the prime designs of Governours And as in process of time a Custom of materially-virtuous Acts will naturally produce even in the Person who exerts them a materially-virtuous Habit which when it is gotten is easily made formally-virtuous only by changing the design on which it was performed which will then be also easy And because all the design of Religion is with Beginners to Suppose and therefore to Indulge these Imperfections which are naturally consequent to the Condition of Man in this Life where not being pure Spirits nor free from the Prejudices of our Complexions we are not so capable of pure and naked reasonings And that therefore it does not here concern him to make use of such Inducements as are most solidly conclusive of his purpose so much as of such as are most likely to prevail with us how weak soever they be in themselves These things I say being considered my concernment at present is only to shew that the Solemnities of a Covenant
that particular gift of (h) 1 Cor. xii 10 discerning their Auditors Spirits whereby they were forced to confess that (i) 1 Cor. xiv 25 God was in them of a truth Not to mention their unwearied Zeal the great toils and dangers they endured in the employment the shame and contempt as well as the other inconveniences attending it which must needs possess their Auditors with very favourable thoughts of their Persons of their Sincerity and freedom from sinister designs and their hearty good will to them whatever they might think of the Prudence of their undertaking And if it was only this Extraordinary degree of Grace that was then sufficient for the Salvation of the Persons influenced by it that will certainly be no Precedent for what Men may Ordinarily expect now And where so much was undoubtedly extraordinary it will be very difficult to distinguish what was not so At least this will be impossible to be known from the bare Historical Records of these times wherein so many things in this very Case were extraordinary which will at least suffice to shew how unconcluding such Texts as these are must prove for our Adversaries purpose without either express Promises assuring us of their actual continuance or immutable reasons from the nature of the things Which will confine their Proofs within a narrow compass § XV AND this will the rather appear if it be considered further that according to the Notions of that Age and Nation wherein the Gospel was first Preached whoever had the Spirit of God was thereby thought immediately to be made a Prophet On this account Abraham is called a (a) Gen xx 7 Prophet and the Jews as they pretended all of them and they alone to have this Spirit so they do on that same account pretend to be a Nation (b) Cozri Part I. S. 95.103 109. of Prophets Nor are they only the modern Jews alone who make this challenge their Ancestors did the same So the Author of the Book of Wisdom among other effects of this heavenly Wisdom which with him is the same with the Divine Spirit reckons this that it (c) Wisd. vii 27 enters into holy Souls making them Sons of God and Prophets And it is very probable that the Christians who challenged to themselves all the Priviledges of Israel as being themselves that true Spiritual Israel for whom God principally designed these favours did accordingly challenge this Priviledg among the rest that they received not the Spirit by the works of the Law but by the hearing of Faith (d) Gal. iii. 5 and that this Spirit which they thus received by means of their Christian Profession made them Prophets according to the passage in (e) Joel ii 28 Joel thus applyed (f) Acts ii 16 18. by them And though the generality of Converts then being Heathens had not been favourable to Jewish Notions but those of the then prevailing Gentile Philosophy yet even so they had been inclinable to take this Divine Spirit for a Principle of Prophecy Every extraordinary Person was by them thought inhabited and influenced by a God to be capable of conversing with Spirits when thoroughly purged from matter to be conscious of the Divine Secrets to have a Theurgical power And what greater thing can be ascribed to true Prophets than these things especially when put together And it is observable that all the Language and Notions of Mystical Theology are borrowed from them which do plainly suppose that these Influences of the Spirit are Extraordinary and Prophetical in all Souls capable of receiving them And to this the Apostle seems to allude when he challenges in the name of all Christians to know (g) 1 Cor. ii 16 the mind of Christ and when from the nature of the Spirit he concludes the Spiritual man must know the (h) Ib. v. 10 11. hidden things of God because the Spirit of God with which he is endued is privy to them as naturally as the Spirit of every Man is privy to his own Secrets This discovery of the Divine Secrets is that which most properly belongs to the office of a Prophet So God is said to teach David the (i) Ps. LI. 6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and (k) Ps. xxv 14 the Secret of the Lord is said to be with them that fear him And this is a thing to which I suppose our Brethren will not so much as pretend § XVI ESPECIALLY considering 2. that there were some reasons why Persons in that Age should feel extraordinary emotions upon their hearing the Christian Doctrine preached to them which were certainly proper to that Age and cannot now be urged with any proportionable parity This was then to be made a proof of the Truth of that Religion whose proposal was seconded with such preternatural transports This was a proof of our Saviours veracity when they found the event so answerable to his Promises and Praedictions This proved him indeed to have a power over the Souls of Men and to have the disposal of those hidden influences of the other world when they found themselves so unaccountably animated and transported beyond what could have been expected from the rational evidence of the things themselves And therefore the Spirit thus given is said to be the (a) Eph. I. 13 IV. 30 seal of God the (b) Rom. VIII 23 first fruits of their new inheritance the 2 Cor. I. 22 V. 5 earnest of their promised future possessions a (d) Eph. I. 14 Rom. VIII 16 witness of God to the Spirits of them who had it that they were the Children of God And St. John tells them of this witness (e) 1 St. John V. 10 of God within them this Vnction (f) 1 St. John II. 20 27. that should teach them all things and particularly to distinguish between pretenders to the (g) 1 St. John IV. 1 2 3. Spirit whether their pretences were true or false And (h) 1 St. John IV. 13 hereby they might know whether they dwelt in Christ or Christ in them because he had given them of his Spirit By which it appears that their having the Spirit was more notorious to them who had him than their Interest in Christ. And accordingly the state of the new Covenant as it was then in the Apostles times is so described that God would (i) Joel II. 28 29. Acts II. 17 18. pour out of his Spirit on all flesh that all should see visions and dream dreams that (k) I. LIV. 13 all should be taught of God and so taught as that they should need (l) Heb. V. 10 11. no other Instructors that the word of God should dwell (m) Col. III. 16 plentifully in them in their (n) Deut. xxx 14 Rom. x. 8 mouths and in their hearts that even Tongues themselves should be no argument to them who (o) 1 Cor. XIV 22 believed but only to them who did not yet believe All which
the things But alas how unable are they to fathom the depths of Gods designs How little acquainted with the intrigues of Providence How little with the affairs of the other World How little with the nature of Spirits Nay how little with the nature of their own Souls These are all necessary for judging right in affairs of this nature and no doubt if we had known them very many things would appear very rational which we now think arbitrary only because we are ignorant of them Yet concerning these things though we do not know the things we do at least know our own Ignorance But how many things more are there which may be accounted for by God in instituting the Sacraments concerning which we do not know so much as our Ignorance And how can any then be confident that he knows all Gods designs especially in such a matter as this merely by the reasons of the things Certainly all these things being considered it would be much more rational to presume that these things are not arbitrary because God has been pleased to continue them under such a Dispensation as the Gospel than to presume them arbitrary for no other reason than because we do not know the reasons of them and much more rational to presume that something more was designed in them than bare Representation because they are imposed in a Dispensation so Spiritual and which has taught us so little to esteem sensible Representations than to conclude their unobligingness to any because their principal design is only sensible Representation § IX BUT though they were sure that this were the mere and principal end of the Sacraments how come they further to be sure that God will be pleased that they should take upon them to judg of his designs and by that means allow themselves the liberty of paying their Obedience at their own discretion How do they know but he may value their Obedience more than he does the moment of the thing which he requires of them as the instance of it How do they know but the Precedent of neglecting their Duty on pretence of complying with the design of it may be of worse consequence to the Publick than their reaching the End may be a service to the Publick It is certain the wisest and most publick spirited Politicians have thought so in many Cases even concerning the observation of their most arbitrary commands It is no doubt but victory is the principal End of all Generals of Armies Yet Manlius put his own Son to death for deserting his Station though he proved victorious by it Liv. L. VIII 7 Plut. in Parall Liv. VIII 30 31 32 33 34. And Fabius very hardly escaped the like punishment from Papyrius Cursor though his success was so great as could have been desired or expected from the most punctual observation of Military Discipline All the intercession of the Army and even of the Senate too were little enough to procure his pardon and that from a Person who had no other Quarrel with him but was concerning the publick interest and the danger of his Precedent And even among Persons who proceed not with that extreme vigor and punctuality in observing the strict measures of Justice though Governours have so well approved of the designs of Persons who have done thus as that they have rewarded them for it yet if they do not punish at least they have formally pardoned them the transgression of their Duty And a Pardon implies the same guilt as Punishment does So that they seem by no means willing to endure that either many should take this liberty or that even the same Person should do it frequently Nay they never allow it but in such Cases wherein the advantage of it is extremely considerable Nor even in such Cases do they think it allowable when the Party concerned presumes on a design which the Prince had not been pleased to discover to him In this Case his Precedent is of very dangerous consequence as well for the Presumption in prying into what his Prince was not willing he should have known and the great hazard of missing the design it self as for his Practice of Disobedience And certainly no Earthly Prince can be supposed more concerned for the Publick or more punctual in the Execution of Justice than God is Gen. XVIII 25 The Judg of all the Earth will undoubtedly do Righteousness This consideration may suffice to shew at least how dangerous this Practice is as our Adversaries are concerned for it to live in a perpetual neglect of the Sacraments on pretence of reaching the End of Sacraments by their Closet-Devotion This is yet incomparably less excusable than any of the instances now mentioned But there is no need thus to implead their Ignorance for § X 5. I HAVE already endeavoured to let them understand another design of the institution of these Sacraments that is the confederating a Body Politick and the obliging Subjects in it to a dependence on their Governours And if this design hold true all sorts of Persons will be obliged to communicate in them notwithstanding the Spiritual nature of the Christian Religion If God as a Governour and as a Covenanter be concerned to take care that the Church be erected into a Body Politick it will also as much concern him to take care when he has done so that its Rules and Constitutions be punctually observed and its Government revered without which it is impossible for any Body Politick to subsist And it is least of all convenient that Men should be permitted to plead exemption from these establishments upon pretence of their being perfect For if this pretence be once allowed the least perfect will be found most forward in their pretences to Perfection especially if themselves be also allowed to be Judges in their own Case And then how can it be expected that Order should be observed And from whom can this be expected It is certain that Modesty and Humility are the principal ingredients of true Perfection And they who were endued really with those vertues though God should excuse them from these external Observances yet they could not find in their hearts to excuse themselves They would be too conscious of their own frailties to think themselves not to stand in need of such Provisions as had been fitted by God himself for such frailties as he supposed incident to the generality of the Professors even of the true Religion They who were seriously of St. Pauls temper in believing themselves to be the (a) Eph. III. 8 least of all Saints and the (b) 1 Tim. I. 15 chief of all Sinners could not pretend that they needed not those reliefs which were necessary for many whom they would on these terms believe to be greater Saints and for many whom they would be lieve to be less Criminal than themselves And we have reason to believe that this contrivance of things was designed by God himself and that he has therefore
the Title of a Book of Porphyry on that Subject as the infelicity that occasioned it was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or descent of the soul into this World And the ascent of the soul was not only out of this inferior part of the World under the Moon which they conceived subject to the Daemon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also above the seven Spheres which they called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was from the motion of those seven solid Orbs and the proportion between them to each other that the Musick of the Spheres was occasioned Plat. in Timaeo according to their Doctrine This inferior World was also made by the Angels according to them lest otherwise it should have been immortal and it was their office to tie the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they took out of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 given them by the supreme God to Bodies The inferior World was thought subject to the Planetary influences and not only to the influences of the Planets themselves but those also of the Demons by which they were supposed to be animated At least all Bodies were thought to be thus subject to them and consequently the Soul it self according to the greater or lesser grossness of its vehicle Porph. de Abst. Orac. Chald. was conceived to be more or less subject to them This therefore was the great work of this Philosophy to free the Soul from these grosser vehicles which were the bonds of her captivity And still the purging of her vehicle and the quickening the Principles of her Intellectual Life made her by degrees more and more capable of ascending And as the terrestrial vehicle confined her to these lower parts of the World so her freedom from that would only give her liberty to soar above the Earth but still her aerial vehicle would as much confine her from ascending above the air now as her earthly vehicle did from ascending above the Earth before So that till she were divested of all excepting only her pure atherial vehicle she could not according to them ascend above the Planetary Spheres from whence she had descended And therefore the way to free the Soul from this World and from those Daemons to which it was subject was first to free it from these vehicles And because the Angels were they who had tyed the soul to those vehicles therefore there was no other way of ridding the soul of these vehicles but either by appeasing those Daemons or overpowering them by the assistance of some more powerful Daemons And both these ways were taken by the several Sects of the Philosophers as well as the Gnosticks And particularly one chief means recommended for this purpose even by the Philosophers was this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Pythagoraeans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aur. Car◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that this among other things was thought a means of freeing from the Body at that was for mounting up into the pure aether and being made in their sense a God appears from the end of those verses where the Authors give an account of the benefit their Readers might expect by following their Prescriptions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so it should seem the Author of Poemander Poem c. 4. expressing the benefits of the Christian Baptism according to the Notions of the Aegyptian Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it has already been shewn that that Author is for raising the soul above the World in the sense already explained and probably according to the sense of Basilides But I must not now digress to shew why I think so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore subject to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to be ignorant of this knowledg which they pretended to as so peculiar to themselves so the Apostle shews that this does really belong to the Catholick Society in opposition to all others that they know (a) 1 St. John v. 20 Christ and the (b) 1 Joh. ii 13 Father as they are visible members of that Society which professed the belief of Christs Doctrine and that none other knew them but they that as they who are in the Communion of the Church are frequently said not to be (c) Chap. iv 4 of the World so all who are not of that Communion are still in (d) Ver. 5. the World how much soever they pretend to be above it the same way as St. Jude twits the Gnosticks who pretended that they themselves were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Catholicks only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he tells them that they the Gnosticks themselves were only (e) St. Jud. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and like (f) Rom. 1.22 St. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And indeed for any deeper knowledg of the Christian Religion than a bare belief of the Truth of Christs Doctrine in general the Apostles themselves could not pretend to when Christ spoke these words no not till the descent of the Spirit upon them at Pentecost which was to (g) Joh. xvi 13 lead them into all truth It was but little before that they were asking him concerning his (h) Act. i. 6 restoring the Kingdom to Israel so that it seems they had so long retained their old fancies that he should be a temporal Prince which must needs put them into very different apprehensions concerning the whole scheme of the Christian Religion from what it really was But besides the great design of the Apostle being to perswade his Readers to keep to one visible Society in opposition to many others it had been extremely improper to understand the World only of ill Livers seeing there might have been many such in the Society he perswaded them to continue in and many otherwise in those which he perswaded them to avoid But the sense I have given is as opposite as could have been thought of that being out of the visible Church they were in the World and so were excluded from this Intercession of Christ of which we are now speaking And from this way of arguing it will appear that they who were out of the visible Society of the Church are not therefore said to be in the World because of the peculiar impiety of the Heresies then taught by them or because of the peculiar debauchery of their lives but purely for this very reason because they did not keep to the Society of the Church This I the rather observe that our dissenting Brethren of the present Age who neither teach such wicked Heresies nor lead so wicked lives may not think themselves unconcerned in this Argument as long as they yet keep themselves at as great a distance from the visible Society of the Church as they did then Now this does plainly follow from the appropriation of the Gnosticks
who made all who were not of their Sect to be of the World for that very reason because they were not of it their Sect which must therefore also hold proportionably here if the appropriation be made the same way to the Orthodox Church as those Seducers had made it to their own party And besides it appears from the constant adequate opposition between the Orthodox Society and the World which must therefore necessarily suppose all who are not of that Society to be therefore in the World because there is no third to which they may be supposed reducible And accordingly the false Prophets who are said to have gone (i) 1 Joh. ii 19 out of the visible Society of the Church are said to be gone (k) 1 Joh. iv 1 2 Joh. 7. into the World and Demas's forsaking St. Pauls company is ascribed to this that he (l) 2 Tim. iv 10 loved the present World And plainly St. John gives this as a reason why the seducers he there speaks of (m) 1 Joh. iv 5 spoke of the World and were heard by the World because they themselves were in the World a plain sign that he had concluded them to have been in the World for something antecedent to their worldly practices and interests This may suffice to shew that they who are out of the visible Communion of the Church are expresly excluded from the intercession of Christ. § VII But though this might have been sufficient to shew how little advantage they can have either from their own Prayers or the Prayers of any others made in their behalf because none can pretend to any hopes of acceptance otherwise than by virtue of his general intercession yet that our Brethren may understand how constant this Apostle is to the sense I have given of him I proceed further to shew that he allows no hopes of acceptance for any Prayers to be made by such Persons themselves whilest they continue in that separate Condition nor for any others in their behalf allowing only the exception now mentioned This appears from what the same Apostle discourses concerning (a) 1 Joh. v. ◠the Sin unto Death Therefore this sin is said to be of so heinous a nature as that Prayers made for any good things for Persons guilty of it whilst they continue guilty of it cannot hope to find acceptance For when he had told the Persons to whom he writes that this was their (b) V. 14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the condition of their confidence of shewing their faces before Christ when he should appear for the destruction of their enemies mentioned before Chap. ii 28 that if they would ask any thing from him he would hear them he expresly limits this general encouragement by telling them that what was to be thus asked by them must be asked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is commonly read or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Alexandrian MS. If this later reading be taken then the meaning will be that what they who were on Christs side in opposition to the Antichrists there discoursed of throughout that whole Epistle might alone expect to have their Prayers heard and none others For the phrase is not the same as in other places where such Prayers are spoken of as are offered for his sake or by vertue of his general Intercession That is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does frequently signifie distribution of Parties This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies them of those Parties And the name of Christ is frequently taken for his Authority Thus it is said concerning the Heathens (c) Isa. lxiii 19 Thou never barest rule over them they were not called after thy name Where bearing Rule and being called after the name of their Ruler are taken for the same thing And thus the name of Christ is taken else-where for the external Profession of the Christian Religion So that according to this reading the sense will be that only they who take Christs part in opposition to all other Parties by an external Profession of his Doctrine and a visible acknowledgment of his Authority that is by owning those visible Governours who can prove their Authority derived from him can offer any Prayers to him with any confidence of a gracious acceptance which is the very thing I am immediately concerned to prove And indeed it is not possible to understand the owning it as a Party in opposition to all other Parties without external Communion with those who are of that Party and external Submission to the visible Government of it For whoever does disown a subordinate Governour who can make out his Commission cannot be supposed to own the supreme Governour from whom he derives his Commission § VIII If therefore to avoid this our adversaries be rather willing to adhere to the common reading at least thus much will be gained for our purpose that those Prayers only may expect to find acceptance which are according to the will of Christ and that therefore those Prayers which are discouraged are for that very reason to be presumed to be disagreeable to his Will And to know what they are on which the Apostles design is particularly bent we must have regard to that which follows And there we find the reason of this limitation and what Prayers they are which are agreeable to his Will and what are not so (d) Ver. 16. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask and shall give him life to them that sin not unto death this is the Prayer supposed to be according to the will of Christ. There is a sin unto death I do not say that he shall pray for it This is the commonly received reading according to which the Prayer of others in behalf of the sinner is spoken of that that must not be put up for him who has sinned unto Death and consequently that being put up it must not expect acceptance because it is supposed disagreeable to the Will of God But the vulgar Latine (e) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Veles in var. Lect. 5. vulgata editione collectis reading it in the third Person seems rather to refer it to the Prayer of the sinner himself that he must not expect to be heard so long as he continues in that state It remains therefore that I now enquire what this sin unto Death is that our Brethren may understand how nearly they are concerned in it And this will not be so difficult to know as it is commonly conceived if the former observation be remembred that it is the Apostles whole design in this Epistle to deal with whole Parties and to appropriate to the Orthodox Society what the Societies of Deceivers had been used to appropriate to themselves as signs that they were in the Right and as invitations and allurements to draw Disciples after them Now among other things that
mind a striving to be like him a following his conduct an expressing his Perfections as far as humane frailty was capable of imitating them in their own lives and by that means moving all others with whom they conversed to honourable thoughts of him they urged their pretences so far as to destroy all necessity of external worship of him in publick solemn Assemblies appointed for that purpose They pretended that the b Hierocl in Aur. Carm. minds of men were the most acceptable Temples that an holy Soul was an Image of him and represented him with more advantage than any material Image could possibly do that good men were all Priests that their hearts were the most suitable Altars and their own Persons the most grateful Sacrifices they could offer to this Deity That there was no need of going to certain places to worship him because he was every-where nay c Senec. Ep. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porph. de Abstin apud Euseb Pr. Eu. L. iv.19 Extat apud Porphyr ipsum L.11 Sect. 52. within them that there was no need of depending on particular Persons to be Authorized by their Office to moderate the Solemnities of his worship because indeed the best mind was the best Priest and had God nearest to him and most favourable to his Prayers That they who had arrived to this Perfection as to converse immediately with the Deity himself were so far from being advantaged as that they were rather prejudiced by their external Solemnities of his worship that they rather debased their thoughts of him and made them less worthy of him than they would have been in their own way of dealing with him That Philosophy was a properer expedient to bring the mind to this temper than any external observations whatsoever § II I need not tell how generally this Hypothesis prevailed in that elective Philosophy which generally influenced the world at the first appearance of Christianity nay it may be at the publick appearance of Judaism it self after the Macedonian conquests of those parts I need not observe how much their general interest obliged them to defend it when they had to deal with such Persons as objected to their neglect of paying external worship to the Supreme Being I need not observe farther how much the Hellenistical Jews were generally influenced by that Systeme of the elective Philosophy which had been by Potamon the first Author of it settled in the Schools of Alexandria which was the University where the Jews had most interest and was accordingly most frequented by them of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I think I may confidently say much more than Athens it self And as those of that Philosophy seemed to have endeavoured to reconcile all the Sects of Philosophers that were for Dogmatizing and Religion against their common Enemies the Scepticks and Epicureans by putting Mystical senses on the otherwise indefensible Fables of their Poets and by that means reconciling them with a plausible Scheme of Philosophy so the * For the way of understanding the Scripture Allegorically see the Testimonies of Eleazar from Aristeas and of Aristobulus in the same Euseb. Pr. L.viii. c. 9 10. which he produces for this very purpose c. 8. Philo and Aristobulus are produced also for this purpose by Origen L.iv. contra Cels p. 198. From whence it will appear that this way of exposition was considerably antienter than our Saviour and that the account here given was the true reason of it Jews especially the Hellenists took the same course to recommend their own Law to the Heathens by the same contrivance of Allegorizing it and by that means not only weakening Objections against the Letter of it but reconciling it with that very Philosophy which had obtained so great a name among the Gentiles themselves And we find that among the Jews themselves there were some who were thus so extremely drawn over to the spiritual sense as even to be inclinable to neglect the external observances of the Law The Essenes were very Philosophically addicted the whole Sect of them and accordingly had an excessive value for the a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Eus. L.11 Hist. c. 17. p. 55. Rursus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. ib. p. 57. So again describing their Assemblies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Euseb. Pr. Eu. L.viii. c. 12. Mystical Expositions of the Law and the more they were exercised in them by so much less observant they seem to have been of the ritual customes enjoined by the Letter of it The very Practical b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Quodomn Sap. â—it lib. apud Euseb. Pr. Eu. L.viii. c. 12. Essenes themselves were less observant than the other Jewish Sects but the Theoretical Essenes seem to have exceeded them as far as they did the other Jews in adhering to the Spiritual design even to the neglect of the Letter of the Law Now this was the Sect that of all others was most inclinable to be brought over to the Christian Religion Especially when the Christians took this very same method to recommend their own Doctrine to the Jews as the Jews had done to recommend theirs to the Philosophers that is when they undertook to shew that their own Religion was indeed no new one but that very Mystical Judaism which these Philosophical Hellenists had so much boasted of And accordingly we find no mention in the Histories of the first times of Christianity of any opposition made against the Christian Religion by the Essenes though we find frequent mention of the other two famous Sects the Pharisees and Sadduces and soon after the very memory of them seems to have been extinguished very probably by reason of their unanimous conversion not to mention several customs then used generally by the Christians which it is most likely the Essenes brought over with them upon their conversion as Praying towards the East c. that I may not instance in those many other customs common to the Christians and the Essenes of which a plausible account may be given how the Christians might have received them from other Originals § III But yet to shew further how very likely the first Converts to Christianity were to err on this hand to urge the Spiritual design of Religion even to a neglect of its external ritual observances it is very considerable that these very Principles seem to have had a principal influence on their conversion and were accordingly made use of by the first Preachers of Christianity to take off their Auditors from these externals both in Judaism and the popular Gentilism which were inconsistent with the Spiritual nature of the Christian Religion and which indeed were the strongest prejudices in both to make them averse from receiving the Gospel Thus against the Heathen Images the Christians ordinarily insist on those Authorities of the Philosophers who make Man the best and liveliest representation of
the Supreme Deity and thence conclude that all other Images were to be rejected So against external Sacrifices they quote those passages of the same Philosophers that disparage the pompous Hecatombs of the wicked and make holy Souls acceptable with very mean Sacrifices or none at all nay indeed make the Soul it self the most acceptable Sacrifice The same thing might have been shewn in their Disputes against the magnificent Temples of the Jews and Heathens which the Christians then wanted and indeed in all their Disputes whatsoever against those external Solemnities which were not practised among the Christians though generally received among their Adversaries Our Saviour himself argues against the frequent Washings of the Jews from the greater care they ought to have of cleansing the inside St. Matt. xxiii 26 and against their superstitious observance of difference of meats from the greater pollution they were capable of receiving from what came out of their mouths St. Mark vii 18 as coming from their hearts than from any thing that only entred into it from without and against the confinement of the external solemn worship of God to Hierusalem St. Joh. iv 24 or mount Gerizim from the Spiritual nature of God to which such a confinement is not so agreeable and to whom holy Souls cultivated with Spiritual improvements are agreeable whereever they are § IV Many like instances of reasoning might have been also observed from the Apostles I only take notice of one which might give a very likely occasion for them then to take up such fancies as our modern Adversaries against whom I am at present discoursing have taken up now That is their being called a Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. ii 5.9 Rev. i. 6 and being chosen Kings and Priests unto God which might very probably make them believe that the Prayer of a good man though never so private might be as acceptable to God as the solemn Prayers of a Priest if he were not otherwise so good a man as he who prayed more privately and that indeed Personal Holiness gave a man a better Right to offer up these Spiritual Sacrifices than any Holiness of Office This very Title given to the Jews from whom the Christians took it as they did all their other Spiritual Priviledges which they challenged and appropriated to themselves as being the true Israelites for whom these Priviledges were originally intended had occasioned the like misunderstanding among them Corah's principal argument against the confinement of the Sacerdotal office to Aaron and his Sons was that all the congregation was holy as well as they Numb xvi 3 But how much a more likely occasion had they of falling into this mistake upon the first Conversions to the Christian Religion when they knew with what design they had been used by the Philosophers and especially the Stoicks from whom they were taken into the Elective Systeme purposely to deprive the Supreme Being of all publick solemnities of worship and to advance a wise man to that degree of Perfection as to be able to perform all offices by himself without any dependence on th◠publick administrers of the vulgar Religions especially considering that the Converts from Gentilism were more likely to take up these Notions from the Authorities and to understand them in the sense of the Philosophers than from the Old Testament with which we must presume them less acquainted Upon which supposition they must have been ignorant of this decision given by God himself against their sentiments even in that very Case of Corah § V Besides we have very many instances to let us see how very inclinable the vulgar was to mistake these Mystical Titles When they heard that every Christian immediately upon his becoming a Christian was made free we find how forward they were to understand that their freedom must exempt them from all Duties to their ordinary Superiors We see thereupon how necessary the Apostles found it upon all occasions to inculcate the Duties of a Eph. vi 1 Col. iii. 20 Children to their Parents b Eph. vi 5 Col. iii. 22 1 Tim. vi 1 2. Tit. ii 9 1 Pet. ii 18 of Servants to their Masters and of c Rom. xiii 1 2 3 c. 1 Tim. ii 1 2 1 Pet. ii 13 Subjects to their Sovereigns We see how necessary it was to perswade them to d 1 Pet. ii 13 to submit to every humane Ordinance for Gods sake not to e 1 Tim. vi 2 despise their Masters because they were Brethren and in general not to f 1 Pet. ii 16 use their Liberty for a cloak of maliciousness When Women were told that in Christ Jesus there was g Gal. 3.28 no difference between male and female we then see how necessary it was to restrain them from exercising their gifts in publick and h 1 Tim. ii 12· exercising Authority over the Man where they presumed their own gifts to be greater than those were of the Men over whom they exercised it and thereupon it seems to be that their Duty of Subjection to their i Eph. v. 22 24. Col. iii. 18 1 Pet. iii. 1 Husbands is so often urged on them And when they had heard that Christ was to k 1 Cor. xv 24 put down all Authority and power this also gave many of them occasion to be ill affected to all Authority and to l 2 St. Pet. ii 10 Jud. 8. speak evil of Dignities I do not speak of the Jews mistake of our Saviours Doctrine concerning m St. Joh. viii 32 33. Liberty as if he had therefore implied that they were all slaves in the ordinary notion of the word nor his words concerning n St. Joh. ii 19 20. St. Matt. xxvi 61 xxvii 40 St. Mark xiv 58 xv 29 raising up the Temple in three days as if he had meant it of their material Temple nor his words concerning the o St. Joh. vi 51 52. eating of his Body and drinking his Blood as if he had meant them in that barbarous sense wherein they understood them I say I mention not these because they were Adversaries and therefore willing to misunderstand him and withall willing to cavil even where they did not really misunderstand him But the instances I have given do shew how the Disciples themselves who were willing to understand him as well as they could or at least would never have professed themselves to have been otherwise were notwithstanding apt to misunderstand their Master in such instances as these were that none may wonder that this being the familiar way of teaching in those Oriental Countries they could have been so strangely misunderstood by their Auditors in a way of teaching which was so familiar to them And certainly it was as easie for them to collect from their being allowed the Title of Priests under the Gospel that they had a right to offer the Evangelical Sacrifices and therefore that the power of administring the Gospel-Ordinances
are in describing our conversion to him as a conversion from b Act. xxvi 18 darkness unto Light as a c 1 Pet. ii 9 calling us out of darkness into this marvellous Light c. And what is Baptism else but the Solemnity of this conversion And why should we think it strange that they should use this word in the Mystical sense even in the Apostles times when we find them so constant to those Mystical Notions from whence it plainly came to be applyed to Baptism § V Besides as the Holy Ghost was given in Baptism so in the Apostles times it was usually given with a sensible signification and it was but necessary for the conviction of the Infidel beholders who might by this means be satisfied of the Divine Authority by which they preached when they saw their Promises of the Spirit so ratified by God in a way themselves were capable of judging of And among these sensible significations one of the most familiar and which the Jews had been most acquainted with was that of a Shechinah a visible glorious Light surrounding the faces of those Persons on whom the Holy Ghost was thus pleased to descend Thus it was with d Exod. xxxiv 30 Moses in the Mount and our Saviour at his Baptism and on his Transfiguration and it is most likely that the fiery cloven tongues which sate upon the Apostles on Pentecost were of this nature And even among the Heathens themselves the ignis lambens is taken notice of which appeared on some of their Heroes on a Virgil. Aen. 2. Ascanius and b Liv. L.i. c. 39. Servius Tullius and in the Samnite War on c Flor. and upon other d Vid. Appian Syriac p. 198. Ed. 1670. ib. not Tollii occasions this appearance of fire was counted lucky as signifying a propitious presence of the Deity And it was usual for them to picture them as we do our Saints with rays of Light And why might not this visible appearance of rays of Light on Persons newly Baptised be a very pobable occasion why Baptism it self was called Illumination Thence the Coronae radiatae on the first Emperours when they affected to be Gods If it was then it will be more likely that the name should have been taken up in the Apostles own times than afterwards when these Supernatural appearances began gradually to decay and to grow less familiar For though several other miracles continued to the second Century and downwards yet there is no reason to believe that this did at least we have no footsteps of its appearing ordinarily over Persons Baptized Heb. x. 32 Besides there is one place more wherein this same Author uses this same word of Illumination And whether it be necessary it should be understood so or not yet it cannot be denyed but that it is there also conveniently intelligible of Baptism And indeed the former days spoken thereof do most conveniently refer to their first initiation into the Christian Religion § VI I might have added further for shewing how very agreeable it was to the Notions of a Sacrament which then prevailed that Baptism should be called Illumination that Baptism was the lesser Mystery and the proper Office of such was understood to be Purgative rather than Perfective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that was the Sacred Language And that the two Elements which were thought most Purgative were fire and water which were therefore generally used in these Purgative Mysteries Accordingly fire was used among the Purgative Rites of the Initiations of Mithras * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr Ep. ad Anebunt ap Euseb. Pr. Eu. L.iii. c. 4. and of the Egyptians and when Cores would purge a Child of its Mortality Nonn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Nazian Stel. 1. Apollodor Bibl. Selden de Diis Syr. she did it with fire and thus not only the modern Rabbins but even the LXXII themselves seem to have understood the Israelites making their Children pass through the fire of their initiatory Purgation when they express it by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the proper sacred term for that purpose which whether it were true in this case or not yet at least supposes that they who thus expounded these Texts did know that this was used in their initiations at least in those Eastern Countries which we have reason to expect to have most influence on our Christian Mysteries And the use of brimstone in these fiery Purgations was so very ordinary that it is conceived thence to have had the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for purging not only very frequently in the LXXII but also in prophane Authors And hence it was that the fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theocrit Eid 24. v. 9 even of Hell and of the general Conflagration were thought Purgative to the Souls who were to pass through them not only by the Philosophers but by many of the most antient Fathers As therefore the visible Element of Water was made use of for purging the Body which is the effect it is usually applyed to by the sacred Writers so it is also very probable that the Spirit when it descended upon them did descend in the likeness of fire as it did upon the Apostles at Pentecost that is that the Schechinah in which it appeared had the resemblance of Fire § VII This I therefore conjecture because as it is described by St. John Baptist as the Property of our Saviours Baptism Matt. iii. 11 Luk. iii. 16 that it gives the Holy Ghost so the Holy Ghost there given is peculiarly characterized under the resemblance of fire For so I understand this Baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with Fire to be a giving of the Holy Ghost with that external signification of a Glory which is called fire I confess this is peculiarly applied to the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles at Pentecost Act. i. 5 But when I consider it as opposed to St. John's Baptism I cannot but think it was also as ordinary then for Persons baptized by the Apostles to receive the Spirit with this external Symbol of fire as it was for them to want it in other Baptisms I need not also tell how very proper it was in the Mystical Language of those times to call the Spirit it self by the name of fire * The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Chaldee Oracles the liquidus ignis in Virgil where see Servius And God is described as a Being whose Soul is Truth and his Body Fire See Boet. de cons. Phil. So Porphiry concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Abstinent L.ii. ap Eus. Pr. Eu. i. 9 and that not only by them who thought it really so but by them who were more Orthodox in the Philosophy of it only because they could think of no sensible resemblance that held a nearer proportion
designed to send that he should take of Christ's no doubt of his Doctrine as he immediately says that whatever the Father hath is his and he had elsewhere told us that it was his Doctrine which he had received from the Father and shew it unto them So that Baptism in the name of the three Persons will imply an admitting Disciples not as the ordinary Baptisms of those times did pretend to do only to some eminent men who were to be the Masters of the Sect to which Baptism did admit them but to God himself in all the three Persons who yet were not to be taken for three Masters but one For as our Saviour by preaching his Fathers Doctrine is said to glorifie his Father in owning him as the original Master so the Spirit by inculcating the Doctrine of the Son is said to glorifie the Sun by still owning the Son as the Master of those instructions which were thus inculcated by him And as the Son 's receiving his Doctrine from his Father does not derogate from his enjoyning the Title of a Master also so neither will the same reason of the Spirits receiving his Doctrine from the Son hinder him also from the same Title of a Master And this I take indeed to be the useful reason why it is so frequently inculcated by our Saviour that he and his Father were a Joh. x. 30.xvii.11 22. one and by St. b 1 Joh. v. 7 John that these three are one not so much to prevent any danger of Polytheism for that was a thing the Jews to whom he preached were not so much in danger of nor to prevent any scandal that the Jews might have taken up against the Christian Religion as if it had by this means countenanced a thing to which they were so averse for it might have been shewn that this Notion of the Trinity was not new to them and that our Saviour asserted nothing more concerning it than what had been asserted by their most eminent Hellenistical Doctors and during our Saviours own Life time he did not speak things so clearly in this matter as his Apostles did afterwards but to prevent all danger of taking them for three Masters and under that pretence erecting three Schools and making Divisions and Emulations among their Scholars which they were otherwise very likely to have done in consequence to the Notions then current concerning these Baptismal forms And accordingly the Gnosticks who by living nearer to those times had better means than we have now of knowing the meaning of the Forms and Customs when they Baptized into the name of the Mother of all Iren. L. 1. c. 18. seem also to have owned that Mother for their Mistress on account of those Seeds by her infused into them by which they pretended to come by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that knowledg of Mysteries they boasted of And if this were so it was very agreeable that they who had thus deserted Christ's School should also be deprived of the Instructions they might have received not only from Christ himself but also from the Holy Spirit who was to preach nothing to them but what he had received from Christ. § XVII BUT this will appear yet less strange to them who shall be pleased to consider how often the Spirit is called by the name of Christ himself I shall elsewhere have occasion to produce instances and therefore shall forbear them now I only observe at present that if this be so the Mastership of the Spirit is no other than the Mastership of Christ. And so indeed it should seem that the Spirit is to Christ as the Shechinah was to God in the Tabernacle and the Temple and accordingly these Shechinahs or visible appearances are more frequently ascribed to the Spirit than to any other Person of the Trinity And indeed when the Spirit is called the Spirit of Glory and of Christ it seems to be called so as being indeed it self the Glory by which Christ manifests himself in the Soul As therefore God himself was said to be present with the Israelites when his Shechinah was present with them and as he is said to remove his presence when that was withdrawn or removed from them so according to this way of explication wheresoever the Spirit of Christ is present Christ himself will be present also And therefore if they who desert his School must thereby lose the presence and Mastership of Christ they must by necessary consequence lose his Spirit also Now the deserting of the School of Christ I have already shewn to concern our present Adversaries as nearly as it did them who lived in the times of the Apostles § XVIII TO proceed therefore in my Explication of this passage of this Divine Author I now come to that which is indeed most difficult in it That is the impossibility of renewing such Lapsers as are here spoken of to Repentance And here it will be convenient to shew 1. What is meant by renewing them to Repentance And then 2. What is meant by the impossibility of it As to the former we have already seen that the fall here described is a fall from their Baptismal state and therefore the renewing them implying a putting them in the same state wherein they were before the renewing here spoken of will be most obviously intelligible of a restitution of them to the state of their Baptism And not to lay any stress on the Critical importance of this term Renovation I have also shewn that Renovation of the Spirit is peculiarly ascribed to Baptism though it be given there to Persons who never had it before as it is a Renovation of that Spirit which Adam had in his Innocence and we might all have had from him if he had continued in his Innocence And that the Renovation here described is said to be to Repentance that also very well agrees with this Notion of our being hereby restored to the state of Baptism For Repentance and Baptism are always joyned together Act. ii 38 Repent and be baptized every one of you says St. Peter And it seems to have been the design of the common Baptisms there used to expiate them from their former impurities as well as to admit them to a purer way of living for the future So St. John Baptist before his Baptism preaches Repentance and he charges those who were baptized by him to bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance And the same was the design of the lesser Mysteries among the Heathens to which Baptism was thought answerable among the Christians They were Purgative as the greater were Perfective These things therefore being thus supposed both these terms of Renovation and renewing to Repentance will be conveniently intelligible of Baptism it self And so the force of the Argument will be that a Restoration to their Baptismal state that is their being again admitted as Christ's Scholars and so the entitling them to the priviledges of Christs School among others that of
desertion it self Can they shew any thing peculiar in the Christian Religion why Lapsers to Judaism should not be received again into the Christian Communion rather than the Lapsers into any other Sect Nay is not Baptism equally denyed to the Penitents who return from other Sects as from them and are they not received and reconciled upon their Repentance by the Absolution of the Church as familiarly as other Sectaries And if it were only on account of the general establishment of one only Baptism that they were then discouraged to hope for a reconciliation Why should not our present Adversaries think themselves as much concerned in that as the Primitive Apostates to Judaism CHAP. XIV Separation from the Church proved to be a sin against the Holy Ghost THE CONTENTS § I The danger of the sin of Separation and the difficulty of its pardonableness are very prudent and lawful reasons for bearing with a lesser sin that is more easily pardonable § I II. What is meant by grieving God's Spirit and how it comes to be unpardonable § III IV. Two influences of the Spirit resisted by the Israelites § V. This applyed to the state of the Gospel How the Christians were likely to understand these things according to the Mystical way of expounding the Old Testament which prevailed among them § VI. Our Saviour used herein a way of speaking notorious to the Jews § VII Grieving the Spirit the same with the grieving of Christ. § VIII 1. As to the Testimony which the Spirit gave him by Miracles § IX How our Saviour's threatning was fulfilled § X. The sin against the Holy Ghost a resisting of the Gospel Dispensation § XI 2. Murdering of the Prophets a sin against the Holy Ghost as he is particularly a Spirit of Prophesy § XII This particularly applyed to our Saviour and the state of the Gospel § XIII 3. Resisting the influences of the Holy Ghost in us Applyed to the Jews § XIV To the Christians § XV. According to the Hellenistical Philosophy § XVI XVII XVIII 4. Resisting the Government of the Church which was then ordered by the Spirit § XIX Separation from the Canonical Assemblies of the Church a sin against the Holy Ghost § XX. Concerning the Punishment of this sin against the Holy Ghost and the way of arguing used by the Writers of the New Testament from Old Testament Precedents § XXI XXII ANOTHER sin that our Brethren are usually troubled with when they are under any anguish of Conscience is that against the Holy Ghost concerning the irremissibility whereof the expressions are indeed very dreadful If therefore they be in danger of the guilt of this by their falling away from the Communion of the Church this I presume themselves will account such as ought not to he ventured on but on very great and very real necessity not on so mean accounts and so little probabilities as those are whereby they usually defend their Separation And if the fear of a little sin in obeying their Superiors be taken for so just a reason to excuse their disobedience to their Superiors and not only their disobedience but their resistance and Separation from them they certainly when they shall find that by their suffering themselves to be cut off from the Church and much more by their voluntary separating themselves from their Superiors rather than they will pay them the obedience which is due unto them they shall bring themselves into the danger of being guilty of a sin incomparably greater in it self and more difficultly pardonable than that is which themselves can fear they should prove guilty of by their obedience this will certainly oblige them in all Prudence when they find themselves put upon the necessity of a venture to venture on a lesser evil rather than a greater and to account that evil no evil at all at least not such as shall be imputed to them as an evil when they find themselves forced upon it by the unhappy necessity of so hard a choice I know it is a Plea of late much insisted on by them that even the appearance of a sin nay the suspicion of it is sufficient to excuse them from the otherwise lawful commands of their Superiors as long as their private Consciences cannot free themselves from that Suspicion And this pretence would have indeed a greater appearance of Truth if their Obedience to their Superiors were indeed as indifferent a thing as they suppose it to be when they make this pretence to excuse themselves from it No doubt a suspicion of sins especially if that suspicion be thought probable by the Person who is under the suspicion is sufficient to excuse him from a performance otherwise indifferent § II BUT if our dissenting Brethren would state the Case right they should suppose a sin in both Cases on the one side the sin of doing the things required from them and on the other the sin of disobedience to their Superiors and dividing the Church of Christ. And then no doubt they would not scruple but the securest resolutions of their Consciences in such a Case would be to choose that which were likely to prove less sinful and more pardonable Nay when themselves say that in this Case of probable evidence or at least of the appearance of such probable evidence their disobedience can be no sin it can only be on this account that they can pretend it that their Duty to obey God in such an instance is greater than their Duty of obedience to their Superiors if indeed they own them as Superiors and acknowledg any Duty to them If therefore it may appear on the contrary that the sin they are in danger of by dividing themselves from the Church is greater and less pardonable than the sin they would incur by submitting or at least by paying passive Obedience to a seemingly sinful imposition if they may be convinced that the sin of setting up or countenancing opposite Conventicles is greater and more difficulty pardonable than the sin of wearing a Surplice or kneeling at the Sacrament c. Then by the Rules of their own reasoning it will follow that these instances which otherwise had been sinful are notwithstanding in this Case no sins at all and therefore can be no sufficient reason to excuse their Separation from being sinful And that this is so as I have proved already so I now proceed to shew particularly from this Topick of the sin against the Holy Ghost which I presume themselves will not deny to be a sin both greater and more difficultly pardonable than any of those which they pretend to excuse their Separation from being sinful § III NOW for clearing this sin which seems hitherto to have been so little understood I consider that it is usual in the Old Testament when it is to express a provocation of God of the highest kind to express it by a commotion of mind suitable to that which is in men when they are extremely angry And therefore
Persons for whose conviction they were designed so the Authority of the sacred Writers themselves who used them are sufficient to assure us that the applications are really true and solid And this will assure us of the Truth of all those things which are necessary for the Parity of the Case for on this depends the application of this kind of Argument that the consequent of the Old Testament Instance may then be expected when that instance is a Precedent that is when the Case to be ruled by it is exactly like it And therefore 1. This must plainly suppose that the sin against which the Apostle writes is exactly of the same nature and the same degree of Guilt with those produced by them from the Old Testament And therefore the sin of Apostates from the Christian Religion must in this regard be supposed as criminal as that of the Angels and the old World and the Sodomites and the Israelites in the Wilderness so that if one be against the Holy Ghost the other must be so too And therefore the same proofs which prove the Old Testament-sins to have been against the Holy Ghost must prove the New Testament-sins too have been so too and on the contrary whatever proves the New Testament-sins to have been against the Holy Ghost must also prove that the Old Testament-sins were so also so that on this supposal each of them will afford the other a mutual confirmation And 2. As the sins are supposed equally grievous so the Punishments must be supposed too For indeed the very design of this Argument in the New Testament is from the equal Guilt of the sins to infer an equal grievousness of the Punishments to be inflicted for those sins And therefore the Punishment to be feared by Apostates from the Gospel-Dispensation must in this way of reasoning be supposed to be as grievous as any of the instances now mentioned And they are certainly of the highest kind And 3. I can hardly think but that what the Apostles on occasion of their mentioning the Old Testament-instances are pleased peculiarly to remark that they meant to note as an instance wherein they thought them Parallel And therefore in Esau's Case it being peculiarly noted that he found no place for Repentance though he sought it carefully and with tears Heb. xii 17 I suppose the Author meant that they who should desert the Christian Religion as he did our Worldly considerations should expect to find the same difficulty of being admitted even upon Repentance as he did And 4. That this Mystical way of Arguing requires something suitable in the other World to what the Old Testament sinners suffered in this which will beget a further dreadful aggravation of their Case who sin against the Gospel-Dispensation if the Punishment of these must be as grievous in the other World proportionably as the Punishment of those was in this that is if it must be in the most afflictive part and degree of Hell it self And 5. That what is spoken primarily of Nations and publick Bodies are yet not confined to them but applicable also to particular Persons For indeed the Apostles design in these Discourses is levelled also against particular Persons Heb. xii 15 16 17 iii.12 Now for the National sentence concerning the whole generation which was to perish in the Wilderness except Caleb and Joshua it was punctually executed though several of the Persons might probably have repented And God having sworn their destruction it is not probable that the sentence had been reversible as to particular Persons even upon their Repentance Moses and Aaron themselves found it not so though no doubt they were sorry for the sins which excluded them from the promised Land And the sin of the Jews against the Holy Ghost of which our Saviour speaks as it was punished in this World and in the other in the sense already explained so there are no hopes that those Punishments should ever be reversed though they should repent That is there are no hopes that upon their Repentance either their Nation or their Religion as appropriated to their Nation should ever be restored to them But if they be saved it must be by their coming over to Christianity And if the Case of Persons now lapsing from the Communion of the Church be only such a one as may shorten their Personal day of Grace if this sin more than any other tend to the shortening of it if when it is at last finished Gods Decre concerning it be as irrevocable as it was in these National Punishments if it may provoke him now again to swear as he did then that they shall never enter into his rest as the Author to the Hebrews plainly supposes it may these are Considerations sufficiently disheartning any from depending on any hopes of a recovery And this sin of separating at least of setting up opposite Societies being a sin of so very heinous a nature and so very hardly remissible none of the sins they supposed they should be guilty of by continuing in the Communion of the Church or at least by not dividing from it can be comparable to it And therefore by the forementioned Rule of Prudence it will be much safer for them to avoid this than any other sin they can suspect by continuing in the Canonical Communion CHAP. XV. Salvation is not ordinarily to be expected without Baptism THE CONTENTS 2. Directly That Salvation is not ordinarily to be expected without Sacraments § I. This proved 1. Concerning Baptism 1. By those Texts which imply the dependence of our Salvation on Baptism 1. Such as speak of the Graces of Baptism § II. 1. The Spirit of God is said to be given in Baptism and so given at that he who is not Baptized cannot be supposed to have it § III. The Spirit it self is absolutely necessary to Salvation as to his actual influences § IV. As to his constant presence as a living and abiding Principle § V. That the Spirit is first given in Baptism This proved from our new Birth 's being ascribed to our Baptism § VI. It is safe to argue from Metaphorical Expressions in a matter of this Nature St. Joh. 3.5 considered § VII Water to be understood in this place Literally § VIII These words might relate to our Saviour's Baptism § IX The Objection concerning the supposed parallel place of Baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with Fire § X. The Fire here spoken of a material fire and contradistinct to the Holy Ghost § XI Our Saviour's baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with Fire as well applicable to our Saviour's ordinary Baptism as to that of the Apostles at Pentecost § XII The true reason why this descent of the Holy Ghost in Pentecost is called a Baptism was because it was a consummation of their former Baptism by Water § XIII The reason why this part of their Baptism was deferred so long § XIV Other instances wherein the Holy Ghost was given distinctly from
of Christ and are admitted into his School according to the Practice of Baptism in that Age when it was first introduced into Christianity that this is at least the Legal Solemnity of making a Christian and that none can be a Christian in such a sense as to have a Title to the Legal Priviledges of that name without a participation of the Legal Solemnities of becoming one Unless therefore we can suppose any to be Christians in the sence now explained who are neither in Covenant with Christ nor are Disciples of his School we cannot suppose them capable of becoming such without Baptism And if this were the ordinary way of admitting and making Christians in this sense in the first Age of Christianity we cannot be satisfied that they can be made so now otherwise unless God have either instituted another way or expresly declared his relaxation of this But neither of these are so much as pretended by our Adversaries As for the reasons of the thing not to take notice of the particular weakness of that which is capable of being produced for them this great exception lies against this whole way of arguing that it is very incompetent in matters of this nature that depend on Gods arbitrary pleasure § XXXII AND that every one who comes to Baptism is supposed to continue under the guilt of his sins appears plainly from the Texts now mentioned It was one of the principal things required to be professed by them St. Cyprian Ep. Credis Remissam Peccatorum That was the Language of the Affricans And that it was not the forgiveness of sin in general but as it related to the particular sins of the Persons to be baptized that was thus professed by them appears also from the customs of the Baptisms of that Age. Matt. iii. 6 Mark i. 5 In St. John's Baptism they confessed their sins And these lesser Mysteries by Water among the Heathens to which I have already observed that Baptism was answerable among the Christians were principally designed rather for the Purgative and expiatory part as the greater were for the Perfective part of these Divine communications Therefore it is that Repentance is still joyned with Baptism Acts ii 38 Heb. vi 1 2. Repent and be baptized every one of you And so the Doctrine of Repentance from dead works is joyned with the Doctrine of Baptisms and accordingly reckoned with them among the Principles of the Christian Religion And therefore baptized Persons are said to wash away their sins in the places now produced But why should they repent who have all those sins already forgiven them for which they should repent Why should they come to the Sacrament of expiation who are under no guilt that can need expiation Why should they wash who are already clean § XXXIII IF I had thought it prudent to have urged Authorities against those Adversaries with whom I am at present dealing I might have shewn that not only the Affrican Fathers but the whole Church which condemned the Pelagians proceeded on this Principle that it was impossible that any unbaptized Person could be innocent or have his guilt remitted to him when they proved the sinfulness and dangerous estate of Infants from their need of Baptism Which must by so much proceed more forcibly in the Case of Adults by how much the confession of sins required from them is more express than that which is required from Infants But none can doubt that those Fathers and Councils who appeared in that Controversie had dreadful apprehensions concerning the danger of unbaptized Persons so that it is hard to expect that our Brethren would submit to be tryed by them And yet methinks those of Mr. Calvin's perswasion should not altogether slight these Authorities which on other occasions they are so apt to magnifie and in those very same Disputes wherein they magnifie them I confess where a thing may be useful for many ends they who need it not for one subordinate end may still be obliged to make use of it if the principal end do still continue necessary But in our present Case it is very observable that this expiation of sin is the principal thing represented and therefore the principal benefit to be expected in this Sacrament The washing of the Body with water seems plainly chosen for the very purpose of signifying the Mystical washing of the Soul And this being the nature of Mysteries to perform that Mystical benefit to the Soul which they represent to the eyes of the Body this expiation of sin must be the Spiritual benefit for which it was principally instituted And therefore they who need it not for this end must be supposed not to need it for the end for which it was principally instituted And it is hard to conceive how they who want it not for its principal end can notwithstanding be obliged to receive it for a subordinate one § XXXIV BESIDES they who should receive it without any need of its expiatory virtue must needs be guilty of a false signification in doing so They must at least signifie themselves to be unclean though they be not so if they desire this Mystical washing And can God oblige them to such an untrue signification by their Actions any more than he can to falshood in words We see how the false signification of Circumcision obliged Christians to forbear the use of it when it was taken for an obligation to the whole Law And yet the Mystical Circumcision which was immediately signified by it was still as suitable to the state of Christianity as it had been to the state of the Jews seeing these challenged the name of Israel and of the true seed of Abraham in the Mystical sence which was also supposed to be a sence more principally designed by God than the Literal it self was And how can it then be lawful for such Persons to be baptized who can with so very little veracity comply with the natural and immediate signification of Baptism § XXXV I KNOW our Saviour was circumcised by the Jews and baptized by St. John the Baptist without any Mystical Vncircumcision or sins that might be repented of But the plain reason was because the Jews had as yet no conviction of the singularity of his Case and it was not as yet seasonable for him to plead it in which regards he might as well in this Case as he did in others comply with their misunderstandings for a time But if there were any other means provided by which Persons might obtain forgiveness of their sins antecedently to Baptism Nay if there were means whereby particular Persons might be assured that they had received it how could it be either expected by Governours or submitted to by such Persons who are already expiated and knew themselves to be so and could make this appear to the satisfaction of others with as great evidence as Baptism it self could have been able to afford them I say how could it be expected that such
of Governours as well as Governed which were all qualified for their offices by Gifts of the Spirit a 1 Cor. xii 28 29. Eph. iv 11 Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors and Teachers which were all only useful for the Church in this World and only for their benefit as united in Assemblies these Gifts being generally of that nature as that others were more concerned in them than they who had them Their Gifts were also of the same kind and many of them more principally designed for the edification of Believers than the conviction of Infidels Such were the gifts of b 1 Cor. xiii 2.xiv.2 knowing Mysteries Interpretation c 1 Cor. xii 10.xiv.26 of Tongues of d 1 Cor. xi 4 5 xiii.9.xiv.1 3 4 5.22 24 31 39. Rom. xii 6 1 Thes. v. 20 Prophesying and e 1 Cor. xiv 14 15. Praying especially of that office of the Eucharist f 1 Cor. xiv 16 where the Idiot had his set part assigned him and was to answer Amen These were the very employments of the Synaxes in that Age. And therefore certainly the Church thus united by such Gifts and Offices of the Spirit must needs have been that Body of them which joyned in the celebration of their publick Assemblies and considered under that very Notion as they were united in those Assemblies for which alone these Gifts and Offices were useful And plainly the Apostles design being as I have elsewhere observed in all these Discourses to prevent the falling away of the Persons to whom he writes either to Judaism or Gentilism or any of the Heresies which then began to appear there could be nothing more apposite to this purpose than to perswade them to keep to this external Body as united by the celebration of the same publick Assemblies whereby they were visibly and notoriously distinguished from those erroneous Societies and nothing more disagreeable than our Adversaries Notion of a multitude not a body of Elect not distinguishable from others by such notorious Characters as might be prudently useful by way of Argument § XII BESIDES the similitude of a Vine used by our Saviour was the same which had been used concerning the carnal Israel in the Old Testament Psal. lxxx 8 14 15. Isa. v. 1 7 xxvii.2 Jer. ii 21 Ezek. xix 10 Hos. x. 1 and therefore very fitly applyed to the Spiritual and Mystical Israel in the New according to that way of arguing which is so universally observed by the sacred Writers of the New Testament And then considering that the Christians made the Spiritual Israel a Society in the same sence wherein the carnal Israel had been so before nay allowed of something suitable to those very means by which they were confederated into a Society Instead of Circumcision they continued not only the Mystical Circumcision of the heart but Baptism which had been a means taken up by the Jews before the Preaching of the Christian Religion and which they thought more countenanced by the Prophets who had foretold the state of Christianity than Circumcision it self was and withal thought it more agreeable to the more Spiritual nature of the Christian Religion in comparison of the Jewish And so for Sacrifices though they rejected the bloody ones which they also thought discountenanced by those same Prophesies which had predicted the state of Mystical Judaism yet they allowed a Mystical Melchisedechian Sacrifice not only of the Morals of Religion but also under those very Elements and Symbols which they supposed predicted and Typified in those fame Writers who had spoken so disparagingly of the bloody Sacrifices Yet still these means of confederation though they were indeed more agreeable to the nature of a Spiritual Religion than those among the Jews were still external and therefore as proper for confederating an external Society as those were in the room of which they succeeded § XIII AND 4. It is further observable that though the immediate design of the Sacred Writers seems to have been to secure the Persons to whom they wrote in the external Communion of the Church in that Age wherein they wrote yet the reasons used by them for this purpose are such as concern the Church as a Church and so as suitable to the later Ages of the Church as those earlier ones wherein they were first used Indeed if the Argument used to prove their obligation to continue in the external Communion of the Church had been this that they could not otherwise partake of the miraculous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and manifestations of the Spirit than as those Gifts and manifestations were proper to that Age so the Argument would lose its force in succeeding Ages which could not pretend to those Gifts and manifestations But when I consider that those Gifts and manifestations in that Age did generally accompany the Graces of the Spirit and that therefore it is no good Argument to conclude that the Spirit was only given for extraordinary purposes because he was pleased to manifest himself by Gifts and Appearances that were indeed extraordinary when I consider that it is the Spirit as a Principle of Spiritual Life of which they are supposed to be deprived by falling away from that external Communion nay as a Principle of Spiritual Life to themselves when I consider that the Church being called Christ they are supposed to lose their interest in Christ and all his saving Graces by separating from the Communion of the Church to lose their interest in his Redemption to lose their interest in him by losing his Spirit which whosoever has not is none of his when I consider that by falling away from their Baptismal Obligations they are supposed to have forfeited all the advantages of their Baptism their illumination their tasting of the heavenly gift their participation of the Holy Ghost their tasting of the good Word of God and of the Powers of the World to come and so to have forfeited them as to need Renovation as intire as if they never had enjoyed them nay to have forfeited their whole interest in the New Covenant which sure respects the Graces of the Spirit more principally than his Gifts I say when I consider these things I cannot but think that the Graces here spoken of on these occasions are as well the Graces properly so called as the Gifts of the Spirit those of them which are to be ordinarily expected in all Ages as those which were proper to that those of them which are absolutely necessary for Salvation as well as those which were only more convenient for the more advantagious procurement of Salvation And sure we have reason to expect as that these ordinary necessary Graces of the Spirit should be continued to these later Ages wherein they are still as necessary as they were at first so that they should be continued in the same means of conveyance by which they were communicated at first And we have the rather reason to expect that they should be continued by the
supposed necessary that we receive his Body in order to our being made one Body with him I now proceed to shew how this is is performed in the Eucharist very suitably to the common Practices and Conceptions of that Age wherein this Sacrament was first instituted 5. Therefore according to these Practices and Conceptions the Eucharist was the most proper means whereby this bodily Vnion with Christ could have been contrived whether we consider it as a participation of that one Sacrifice of Christ or whether we consider it as a Mystery If we consider it as a Sacrifice I mean Eucharistical that was plainly the way then commonly in use of maintaining a Communion with their received Deities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word made use of by the Apostle in this place The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. x. 16 And it afterwards came to be the term of Art by which the Christians expressed their sentiments in this matter And it is also applied by him to express the commerce supposed to be maintained with the Deities by the Sacrifices then commonly received So concerning the Sacrifices of the carnal Israel in stead whereof the Eucharist succeeded with the Mystical Israel Ver. 18. Behold Israel after the flesh Are not they which eat of the Sacrifices partakers of the Altar And concerning the Gentile Sacrifices Ver. 20. I would not that ye should have fellowship with Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word used in both places in the one for partaking in the other for having fellowship § XXIII AS for the Heathen Notions then commonly received concerning Sacrifices Porph. 11. de Abst. §. 42. Jul. Firmic Matern de error proph Relig Orig. cont Cels. L. iii. p. 128 133. Celsus ipse apud eund Orig. L. viii p. 417. they supposed the Daemons who required Sacrifices not to be pure Spirits but to have grosser vehicles by which they were supposed capable of receiving sensible pleasure and benefit by the Sacrifices On this account they thought the nidor of the Sacrifices but especially the Souls of them so suitable to their natures especially when themselves had the liberty of prescribing them who best knew what was suitable to themselves as that they could insinuate themselves into the Sacrifices by means of these subtler vehicles and consequently convey themselves into the Bodies of their Votaries Therefore the Christians thought all who had communicated in these Sacrifices possessed by those Devils to whom they had been offered And as among the Heathens themselves they who were haunted by the Furies upon the commission of any piacular crime were excluded from all their other Sacrifices to Daemons whom they took for good ones till they were expiated by means of Purgation allowed among them as proper for that purpose so the Christians who thought all the publick Deities then worshipped to be ill Daemons allowed none to partake of their own Mystical Sacrifices till they were first expiated either by Baptism or the office of Exorcizing and that the Devils whom they supposed them to have received by their communication in those Sacrifices had been first cast out of their former possession § XXIV AND that this seems to have been the Notion received in the Old Testament times among the Idolaters of those times and that the Jews were from hence inclinable to apply the same fancies to their own God when they found that he required the same way of worship by Sacrifices as the Heathen Deities did Psal. ◠8 9 10 11 12. Isa. i. 13 seems plainly to appear from Gods expostulations with them in this matter when they thought to excuse themselves for the omission of their Duty on account of the obligations they put on him by offering Sacrifices to him And hence the Fathers conclude that the Sacrifices of the Old Testament were only of Secondary Intentions that because God wanted them not he would never have required them if he had not found them already taken up in honour of them to whom they did not so properly belong In this regard he could not be so properly said to institute as to translate them to their proper object that if men could not be broken of this way by which they had been used to express their honour to the Deity they might at least be induced to pay that honour however expressed to that Deity to which the honour was properly due And if this were his design then certainly it was his meaning to convey the same Divine influences to the Jews by the Sacrifices used among them as the Gentiles had been used to expect from their own Sacrifices from which they had incomparably less appearing reason to expect them and withal to convey the same influences to the Christians who were the Mystical Israel by their Mystical Sacrifice which the carnal Jews expected by their bloody frequent Sacrifices And therefore by these Principles whatever participation of the Deity is to be expected in the Christian Religion is most properly to be expected in the Sacrifice allowed by it It is very true that in the Eucharist as it is the Body of Christ and none other which is received so it is the Sacrifice of Christ which was Sacrificed by the breaking of that Body and none other that is here represented and as true that that Sacrifice is represented only not repeated in the Eucharist Yet this representation is supposed as really to apply the merit and vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ as if it had been really repeated and the Communicants had feasted on the Sacrifice it self There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same nature at the Table of the Lord 1 Cor. x. 21 as at the Table of Devils And at the Table of Devils the Sacrifices themselves were really feasted on and therefore its participation of Divine influences in the Eucharist must be supposed as real as in them § XXV BUT if the Mystical Sacrifice of the Eucharist be considered further not barely as an ordinary Sacrifice but as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Federal Sacrifice by which the New Covenant is established with every worthy Communicant according to the custom generally observed in those times of confirming Covenants with Sacrifice nay according to the way observed by God himself in that Old Covenant it self in the room of which this New Covenant was substituted Exod. xxiv 8 Heb. ix 19 20. there will then be greater reason to expect these Divine influences and Communications for which we are here supposed to Covenant For in all Covenants so much is to be expected in hand immediately upon making the Covenant as is necessary for making us capable of a Title to the remainder which we are to expect at the time appointed and upon performance of Conditions So the earnests are given in hand and the obligation of Sureties is taken immediately Now of this nature is the benefit of which I am
Cant. Abstinentiâ where he also charges some Barbarians as he calls them with taking a liberty of eating all sorts of meats on this pretence as he expresses it in the words himself had heard from them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherein he afterwards intimates that they defended themselves by pretending to g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liberty These are almost the words for certain the sence and Arguments used by the sacred h St. Matt. xv 18 Mark vii 18 20. Writers themselves in this very matter Which I the rather mark that it may appear with what Adversaries Porphyry had to do in that undertaking And if it were necessary to multiply testimonies to this purpose many more might have been produced from the Adversaries and Patrons of the Christians in that Age wherein Laertius wrote from St. Justin Martyr Tatianus Clemens Alexandrinus Theophilus Antiochenus and Celsus from all those who writing against the Heathens call them Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cels. apud Orig. L. i. p. 5. and who defend themselves by Patronizing the cause of the Barbarians and shewing that the Greeks themselves were beholden to the Barbarians for all useful kinds of knowledg What imaginable reason is there that they should so eagerly concern themselves in this cause if themselves had not been upbraided with this name § XXVIII AND indeed it seems to have been one of the first things that was resented by the learned Heathens to see their Greek Ancestors robbed of the glory of their Antiquity and their Inventions and to see the despised Barbarians adorned with their spoils This seems in earnest to have been one of the greatest provocations of Plutarch against Herodotus that Herodotus had been too ingenuous in his acknowledgments in this matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And possibly that great Reader might have seen the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides to the Emperor Adrian Euseb. Eccl. Hist. iv 3 who might very probably have insisted on this Argument which we find so very ordinary in the later Apologists not now to mention what he might have seen upon this Subject in Josephus against Appion and others of the Hellenistical Jews Nay the design of Laertius himself in his Preface seems to have been directly levelled against what the Christian Apologists had produced in this Argument There he endeavours though very weak 〈◊〉 to assert the Invention of Philosophy to the Greeks He endeavours to weaken the challenge made for Orpheus the Thracian on acaccount of the wickedness of his Fables concerning the gods which he could not think worthy the name of Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 2. En Pugionem verè plumbeum Casaub. in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. Orat. adv Graec. Jos. cont Appion In Aristotele And he is an instance frequently given by the Apologists So he also magnifies the Antiquity and Philosophy of Musaeus and Linus which are two of those who are mentioned by Tatianus as Writers among the Greeks before Homer though it should seem that in Josephus's time Homer was thought the ancientest Which will the rather make it suspicious that this was a pretence invented in the time of Laertius against the later Apologists of the Christians only So that it cannot be thought strange that Laertius should call the Christians Barbarians against whom he was so eagerly concerned in this very dispute wherein the Christians opposed the Barbarians against them And though the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not prove him a Christian yet sure it must at least prove him conversant in Hellenistical Writers it is so peculiar an idiom of his style And his last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seem to give a clear account why the Assemblies of the Primitive Christians were called Synaxes because their meeting together in those times is usually expressed to be for the breaking of this Bread It is certain that this was then the principal employment of those Assemblies And it is very observable that as it was the principal design of those sacred Assemblies to effect as well as signifie this Mystical Vnion between the Members of their Assemblies so this was the word by which the Greeks signified this Vnion That the Pythagoraeans used it concerning their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are here assured by Laertius That the Jews also used it the same way seems plain from the name of Synagogue as their Assemblies are called by the Hellenists And for the Christians besides the name of Synaxes Christ himself expresses the Vnion he was to make by this very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. John xi 52 § XXXIX BESIDES these there are also other instances by which it may appear how suitable a Symbol of Vnity Bread was reputed among the Ancients Particularly it is observable in the way of Marriage by Confarreation which is the more remarkable to our purpose because this Matrimonial Vnity is by the Apostle himself compared to the Vnity between Christ and his Church In Fragm Titulor ex ejus corpore Excerptor Now this Marriage by Confarreation is thus described by Vlpian Farre convenitur in manum certis verbis testibus decem praesentibus solenni sacrificio facto in quo panis farreu◠adhibetur I do not know whether the Bridal Cake may not have risen from this very ancient custom For that it was not observed among the Romans only we are assured from Curtius who makes Alexander the Great observe this custom in marrying Roxana and that patrio more bread being reputed among the Macedonians for the sanctissimum coeuntium pignus And as by Confarreation this Matrimonial Vnity was made L. iv so by Diffarreation it was dissolved So we are taught by Festus Diffarreatio genus erat Sacrificii quo inter virum mulierem fiebat dissolutio dicta diffarreatio quòd fieret farreo libo adhibito And though this way of Marriage by Confarreation was by degrees growing out of use in the time of Tiberius Tacit. L. iv yet it plainly appears to have been the most formal solemn way of Marriage and most creditable to them who had used it For only they were permitted to stand Candidates for the Office of the Flamen Dialis who were begotten of such Marriages By which it appears to have been a sacred as well as a civil Symbol of Vnity which made it more suitable to the design to which it was applied in the Christian Religion Nor was it only made use of for Marriages but also in Leagues among Enemies whom it was specially designed to reconcile and Vnite The mola salsa from whence the name of Immolation and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were the most ancient kinds of Sacrifice so in Homer they are particularly used in Truces And as upon this account of uniting Enemies Bread is a very suitable Symbol for the design of the Eucharist so among all the Sacrifices made use of for this purpose Ex Theophrasto ut
videtur Porphyr ii de Abst. §. 6 15 16 17. Hierocl in Aur. Pythag. Carm. p. 26. none was better thought of by the Enemies of bloody Sacrifices which might extremely recommend it to the Primitive Converts to Christianity who had been so much beholden to those Writers in their Disputes both against the Jews and Heathens Which same observation might have been applyed to the use of Wine which was used for the same purpose from the same Antiquity and with the same general approbation in their Libations § XXX AND if one may believe the late Practices of the Jews to have been as ancient as they are pretended there would be an easie account of the same use of these Elements among the Jews to which they are applied by the Christians Besides the Postcoenium from whence many learned men conceive this Sacrament to have been borrowed besides the meat and drink offerings exactly answerable to the mola salsa and Libations of the Heathens I say besides these their other usages of Bread as they are described by Buxtorf are so like those of the Eucharistical Bread according to the design of the Christian Religion as that if they were ancient one would verily think that they must needs have been regarded in the institution of the Eucharist Synag Jud. c. 12. In him we find that in their ordinary meals bread is the first thing with which the Table is to be furnished and that it must receive a particular Benediction there mentioned by which we may understand that more than a civil use of it is intended that this Bread whether a whole loaf or a part only must be taken into the hands of the Master of the Family and that he must give it an incision exactly answerable to that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Consecration Goar in Miss S. Chrysost. n. 30. that he must not yet cut it thorough nay that it is a nefas to do so till the Consecration like the custom of the Pythagoraeans and the Primitive Christians already mentioned that after Consecration he must first break himself the piece where he had made the Incision and eat it in silence otherwise the Prayer of Consecration must be repeated by which we see what a sacred thing they make of it That afterwards it is he who breaks it to the rest of the company and lays it before them which they are to receive with their own hands as it was also the most antient practice to do so in the Lords Supper Cl. Alex. Strom. i. that the bread is consecrated by repeating a benediction over it exactly as the Evangelists and St. Paul are observed to express their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another In this benediction he covers the Bread with both his hands and they who are at the Table with him answer Amen which are the practices observed in the Eucharist and that antiently And as it should seem in regard of this sacred use of the Bread they are even to superstition scrupulous that no particles of the Bread be lost and pretend that there is an Angel appointed for this purpose whom they call Nabel whose Office it is to make him poor who is guilty of it I need not mention how careful our Saviour was that nothing should be lost Tertull. de Coron Mil. Orig. in Levit. It is also certain that the Primitive Christians were very scrupulous in this particular The like Solemnity is observed in blessing the Wine and that both before and after meal but especially after This is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St Paul 1 Cor. x. 16 And to this the guests are also to answer Amen as before Methinks this gives an easie account why the Primitive Christians communicated every day in the ordinary Synaxes when so much of their Original from whence they derived their observation of this Sacrament was among them from whom they derived it thus constantly observed in their daily meals But besides this observation in their daily meals there is also much resemblance in their unleavened bread which they make against the Passeover The Sacredness and Solemnity in making blessing and distributing it Idem Buxtorf ibid. c. 17 18. and the several Cups of Wine which are to accompany it with the same ceremoniousness may be read in the place I only at present observe their substituting the several parts for the several orders represented in the whole For they make three cakes one to represent the Chief Priest the second the Tribe of Levi the third the whole People of Israel Which the several parties of Christians have seemed to imitate the Latines dividing it into three parts the Greeks into four Goar in Miss S. Chrysost. n. 163. the Muzarabes into nine according to the several orders they were pleased to represent § XXXI BUT that which is most essential both to the Mysteries and the Sacrament and wherein their being like is most remarkable for my purpose is that they are both designed principally and ultimately for the good of the Soul That the Mysteries were so is that which possibly our Brethren may be desirous to see proved So a De Mathem Platon c. 1. p. 18 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theou Smyrnaeus where he compares the design of the Platonick Philosophy with that of the received Mysteries he does it in five Particulars whereof the fifth is a familiarity with God and happiness So b In Bacchis Euripides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this it is which Apuleius c Apul. Met. L.xi. calls the inexpressible pleausre which he enjoyed upon his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paucis dehinc ibidem commoratus diebus inexplicabili voluptate simulacri Divini fruebar irremunerabili quippe beneficio pigueratus For undoubtedly this pleasure could not have been from the bare Statues but from the Deities who were presentiated by them So also d In Ranâ—s Chor. Aristophanes expresses the happiness of initiated Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this happiness of the Soul designed in the Mysteries is yet more agreeable to that designed in the Sacrament because they were thought most peculiarly beneficial to it in the time of Death and in the state of Separation So it was believed among them on the credit of an e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Phaedon old Tradition that they who departed this life uninitiated should stick in the dirt as they expresâ—ed it but that they who departed purged and initiated should dwell with the Gods So f In Eleusin Aristides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And g In Fragm ap Stob. Serm. 119. Themistius alludes hereunto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
I cannot therefore but think that the Bread here spoken of immediately was material Bread and food for their Bodies as Manna had been to their Fathers and therefore the immortality and a Title to a Resurrection could not be so confidently presumed to be an effect of it but that it would need proof And for this the immortality of Christs Body whose name was by himself given to the Eucharistical Bread was indeed a most proper proof and that which was accordingly taken up by the Christians themselves Only I confess it was an Argument supposing the Truth of the Christian Religion Mystery of the Kingdom as our Saviour elsewhere speaks Matt. xiii 13 and therefore according to the method then observed in Mysteries unfit to be communicated to Enemies nay even not to the Sons of the Kingdom themselves Matt. viii 12.xiii.38 till they had first attained to a sufficient degree of Purity and maturity of judgment for understanding them which was timely enough when he should afterwards institute this Sacrament They might then remember that he had spoken to this purpose and they would be better prepared to receive the harsh and unexpected unwelcom news of his Death with the less danger of being scandalized at it when they received it by degrees And it is observable that at this time the principal part of his Authority were his own Disciples For that was the event of this Mystical discourse Joh. vi 66 that many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him That we may not admire that he should on such an occasion make use of such Arguments as presupposed the Truth of the Christian Religion § X BUT for understanding more fully the force of this reasoning even with Christians themselves and the connexion it had with the Notions then received it is further observable that besides these Mystical Expositions of the Old Testament which were then received by the Jews concerning such things in the Christian Religion which they were capable of foreseeing by those Notions of the New Covenant and the state of things under the Messias which then prevailed even among them there were also others relating to the positive and arbitrary Revelations of the Gospel of which they could have no distinct knowledg before those Revelations For the great design of the Primitive Christians being to shew that their Religion was indeed no real innovation from Judaism but only that Mystical state of it which was described in those writings which were received by the Jews themselves and which was also allowed by them to have Mystical sences besides the Literal and such Mystical sences as could not in strict reasoning be necessary Arguments of the Writers mind to a pertinacious Adversary but might serve for prudent intimations for a mind prepared and willing to receive conviction which is the disposition the Christians also do always require in a person qualified to judg of their Religion they accordingly shew that even such things as these which might seem to have the least foundation in the Letter of the Law were yet designed by it according to this way of expounding it Mystically Thus as the land of Canaan was a type of Heaven so they supposed that the changing of the name of him who was to bring them into Canaan from Oshea to Jesus was not done without very particular design And indeed these Mysticizing Jews had already granted them that the change of names was indeed made generally with Mysterious designs Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And very many of their Allegories are grounded on those names and the Criticisms of them And this so exactly fitting the name of our Saviour it is no wonder that it was produced by the a Justin. M. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 300 328 340. Tertull. c. Jud. c. 9. p. 219. c. Marc. iii. 16.iv.7 13. Cl. Al. Protr Paed. l. 7. Eus. Pr. Eu. iv 17 Primitive Christians as a proof that his very name was expressly foretold under that dispensation Very many of the like instances might have been produced from the primitive Writers concerning the particulars of our Saviours History which they thus shewed to have been thus prefigured in the Old Testament though not expressly mentioned in it Thus the veil over Moses's face proves that the Jews should not understand the Gospel when it should be preached to them And Ishmael's mocking Isaac proved that the Jews who were born after the flesh should persecute the Christians who were born after the Spirit And the Israelites cloud prefigured the Christian Baptism So the Author to the Hebrews who from the burning of the carcasses of the Sacrifices without the camp concludes that therefore our Saviour was also to suffer without the gate of Hierusalem Heb. xiii 11 12. § XI NOR was this way of arguing so precarious as some may conceive especially considering the times whereof I am now discoursing as certainly they ought to be considered by him who would judg prudently and solidly in a matter of this nature Strom. v. Clemens Alexandrinus has at large proved that this Mystical way of shadowing things by things and obscure intimations of words were generally allowed of by all the Religions and Mysteries and Philosophy then extant and especially by the Eastern wisdom as the most proper way for the Gods to converse with men by And there can be no greater ambiguity charged on this way than what is also common not only to the Heathen Oracles but even to the Symbolical representations which were in ordinary use among the Jewish Prophets themselves Besides the reason of these concealments held here as well as in other Cases that none but Persons not curious nor litigious nor indisposed with worldly Passions and prejudices might understand them but that others might fall into the snares which they justly deserved to fall into in regard of the misdemeanours they were guilty of which deserved Punishment and the little diligence used by them to avoid it This is the reason our Saviour himself gives of his using Parables to the Multitude And indeed this way of Parables must needs be granted to be as uncertain to those who had them not particularly expounded to them as this way of Mystical reasoning But particularly Historical matters had a reason why they should not be too expressly and particularly foretold both that the Prediction might not hinder the Persons concerned from engaging on the event and that after it was come to pass it might then be understood the rather to proceed from God by how much it was the less foreseen by second Causes And none doubted but that many Prophesies might be certainly understood when they were fulfilled which were not understood before Besides in general they had certain Arguments of Miracles and such extrinsick evidence to assure them that the state of Christianity was that state of Mystical Judaism so generally spoken of by the antient Prophets besides the certainer accommodation of some of the
Religion even all that assurance of the safety of their condition which they are capable of receiving even in the external Solemnities of the Covenant and the application of the external Seals These themselves they may receive if not in the Church from whence they are ejected yet in some other where they may be received upon their ejection who may have as just an Authority to administer the Sacraments as the Church which has ejected them and is no more obliged to stand to the judgment of the Church who has ejected them than she is to stand to hers but is every way as competent a Judg of the qualifications to be required from those who are to be admitted to her own Communion This indeed seems to be the true reason why all the Discipline of particular Churches has been so insignificant since the Catholick has been divided into so many parties who are ready to receive each others Excommunicates They only can be terrified to do their duty who must otherwise be excluded from the Catholick Church to which alone the priviledges of the Church can be thought confined But for avoiding this whatever censures they lye under from particular Churches two excuses are obvious from our Adversaries Principles Either they make the Vnity of the Catholick Church such as that they may be conteined in it who are excluded from the visible Communion of all particulars or if they require visible Communion with some particular Church to Communion with the Catholick yet they have been used to contein under the name of the Catholick Church all the several divided parties those which are Heretical and Schismatical as well as the Orthodox And upon these terms it is impossible for any censures to deprive of the whole visible Communion of the Church As the case stands now the very case of being excommunicated by one Church is a recommendation to others to receive them And if none others would yet it is but the setting up a new Communion of their own which any censured Persons may do with as good right as many others have done before them § X TO this that I may reply I must first freely confess that if it were possible to retein the Vnity of the Catholick Church whilest men are excommunicated out of the particular Churches to which they are more particularly related at least if their exclusion from their particular Churches were not so much as a presumptive exclusion from the Catholick but that excommunicated Members might not only as certainly be but also as certainly assure themselves that they are Members of the Catholick Church as they could before when they were Members of their own particular Church I should then acknowledg that Persons so excommunicate could not have any reason to apprehend themselves to be in any such danger of Salvation as might oblige them to such unsinful condescensions as those are concerning which I have been speaking in order to the avoiding of that danger For it is to be considered that as the whole immediate effect of Excommunication is privative so the deprivations of the benefits of Ecclesiastical Communion do herein differ from the deprivations of Secular censures that the benefits cannot be taken away in one place if they may be enjoyed in another He who is banished from England may really be deprived of all those accommodations which he is intitled to as a Subject of England which is all that the power of England can do to him and which is a real effect of that power And yet at the same time he may enjoy the like or greater accommodations in France because these are capable of being enjoyed by them who are deprived of their English Freedoms The difference of Country is sufficient in this case to afford some places priviledges different from the priviledges of others Put the Spiritual advantages whereof men are deprived by Excommunication the pardon of sin the giving of the Holy Ghost the promises of future and eternal Rewards are things impossible to be enjoyed in one place if they be wanting in another It is God himself that must immediately ratifie them and his power is equally concerned for the Church who has exercised her power of Excommunication as for her who receives the others Excommunicates And therefore if notwithstanding the Excommunication of such Persons they may yet communicate in other Churches and expect that God should confirm to them the benefits of such Vncanonical Communions they must consequently expect that God in doing so must disanul the censures of the Church which has Excommunicated them Which must consequently disoblige all who think so from all condescensions on their part for the recovery of the Communion of which they are deprived § XI AND if Persons Excommunicated in one place may be received in another without so much as the formalities of an absolution to repeal the sentence which has been passed against them nay must never have been presumed to have been cast out of the Communion of the Catholick Church by the Excommunications of their own Church then they must still be supposed to have continued in a state of Pardon and Possession of the Spirit upon performance of the moral conditions of the Gospel And then what effect can their Excommunication be supposed to have upon them that may oblige them to any condescensions in order to an Absolution And therefore that I may settle the Discipline of particular Churches on a solid foundation it will be necessary to shew that the Vnity of particular Churches is in the ordinary constitution of things so inseparable from the Vnity of the Catholick Church as that whoever is cut off designedly from the Vnity of a particular Church however it come to pass whether by his own act or the act of his Superiors cannot at the same time be presumed to retein the Vnity of the Catholick Church Whence it will follow that as I have proved our Brethrens separation to divide them from the Vnity of their particular Churches of which they are Members respectively so it must consequently divide them from the Vnity of the Catholick Church and so be as properly Schismatical in respect of that as it is in respect of their particular Churches But I could wish that they would remember that the reason obliging me to this is the interest of the Discipline of all particular Churches in it and the unpracticableness of that Discipline without it by what form of Government soever it be administred whether Monarchically or Aristocratically or Democratically All who maintein any power of Church censures are as much concerned for it as I am Neither the Presbyterians nor the Independents themselves can ever expect that their censures can oblige any to perform their duty if all they do be only to exclude him from the Ordinances of their own particular Congregations but that notwithstanding he may as validly partake of Ordinances in other Congregations as he did before and be received on as easie terms as if he