together by a Triumvirate of Arians Jews and Pagans who were all of them known Impostors in the Ages wherein they lived So that to confront Christianity with any of these is to light up a Rush Candle and resolve to outface the Sun with it For as for Christianity 't is a Religion made up of the most divine and Godlike Institutions its Precepts being such as are most worthy of God enjoining nothing but what is either true Godliness and most generous Morality or what are the most efficacious Means and Instruments of promoting them And as for its Doctrine it partly consists of those Principles of Natural Religion which all wise Men of whatsoever Nation or Religion have owned and acknowledged such as the Existence Vnity and Providence of the Godhead the Imortality of the Soul and the Rewards and Punishments of Another Life together with the great Day of Accounts wherein Men shall receive according to what they have done in the Flesh And even the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity which is the profoundest Mystery of all our Religion hath been owned and professed by the greatest and most famous Philosophers that ever were And as for those Doctrines that are purely Christian such as the Birth and Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour together with his Sitting on the Right-hand of God and coming at the last Day to judge the World they are all of them so excellently contrived to serve the great Ends of Religion so wonderfully pregnant with Motives and Arguments to engage Men to the greatest Purity and Goodness that by their own native Beauty and excellent Contrivance they manifest themselves to be the Products of a divine Wisdom So that there can be no reasonable Pretence to contemn Christianity either because it is a Revealed Religion or because it contains any thing in it that is any ways unworthy of the Revealer And that there wants not sufficient Evidence to demonstrate it to be the Revelation of God I have already proved in the former Inference So that after all the lewd Talk of these confident Men it 's apparent there is not the least Colour of Reason for their impious Censures of Christianity But alas it's evident that the Foundation of their Quarrel against it lies not so much in their Reason as their Lusts Christianity lays them under severe Restraints and will not permit them to be wicked in quiet which provokes them to arm their Wit and the little Reason that they have against it that so having baffled or rather laughed themselves out of their Religion they may be left at liberty to play the Fools and Mad-men without Controul or Disturbance And I make no doubt but if instead of that strict Piety and Virtue which Christianity enjoins it had but indulged to them the Liberties of the Heathen Religion so that they could have but acted all their Wickedness with Devotion sacrificed to the Gods in drunken Bowls and worshiped in the Arms of a Strumpet there are no Men in the World would have been more zealous Christians than they But let no Man be so foolish as to imagine that he can alter the Nature of Things by laughing at them or that Christianity will cease to be true in Compliance with our wicked Interest and Desires no no Things will be as they are in despite of us and howsever we will please to fancy them And if after all our rude Contempts of Religion it be found to be true as I doubt not but it will we shall be sensible when it is too late that it had been more for our Safety to have play'd before the Mouth of a Cannon while it is spitting Fire or to have catch'd hold of a Thunderbolt as it comes roaring down from the Clouds than to have plaid with Religion and made it the Subject of our impious Scorns and Buffooneries 4. And lastly They saw the Glory of his immaculate Holiness and Purity From whence I infer that Holiness and true Goodness is the greates Glory and Honour to humane Nature For this was the Glory of the Son of God himself when he assumed our Nature and dwelt among us and there is nothing more glorious in Christ than his Goodness and notwithstanding those excellent Doctrines that he preached those stupendous Miracles that he wrought and that visible Splendor in which he was inrobed he had not deserved the Name of a great and glorious Man if he had not been just and charitable temperate and humble and Heavenly-minded and eminent in all those divine and humane Virtues which are the proper Glory and Ornament of humane Nature For that which makes a Man more honourable then a meer Animal and advances us into the next Degree of Beings to Angels is our Reason by which alone we border upon the Divinity and do claim Kindred with the Angelical Natures That therefore which is truly our Honour and Glory consists in living according to that Reason by which we are advanced above all sublunary Natures that is in governing our Passions and Appetites Words and Actions according to those Eternal Rules of Righteousness which Right Reason dictates to us and if instead of doing thus we wholly resign up our selves to the Dominion of our brutish and unreasonable Inclinations we thereby render our selves more despicable and infamous than the most beastly Brutes in all the Creation and even those Goats and Wolves and Swine and Tygers whom we resemble in our beastly Manners could they see our Shame would doubtlesly hiss at us and reproach us for Greater Beasts than themselves for they all live up to the best of their Natures and regularly pursue the highest End for which they were created whereas we who are Allyed to the noblest of Beings and are created and designed for the most glorious Ends do by our base and unreasonable Condescentions shamefully under-value our selves in pursuing no Ends but what are extremely unworthy of us So that it had been much more for our Honour and Reputation to have assumed the Shape and Nature of Brutes when we assumed their Manners and Customs for then our Actions would have very well become us and neither God nor Men could have justly upbraided us for them But to lead the Lives of Brutes in the Shape and Nature of Men is monstrous 't is to advance the Beast above the Man to place our Heels where Nature hath placed our Head and become our own Reverse and Antipodes OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE Holy Scripture JOHN V. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life BY the Scriptures here must be meant the Old Testament for as yet the greatest Part of the New was unrevealed and the whole of it unwritten They were those very Scriptures was now preaching owned and acknowledged to be the Word of God for in them says our Saviour ye think ye have eternal life which it's certain they did not think of any other Scriptures but only those
if we could because we are able to do all through Christ who will strengthen us if we will but do what we can so that this methinks should be sufficient to encourage any reasonable Man in the World to undertake his Service to consider that he who is my Master will co-operate with me and proportion my Strength to the Work he enjoyns me that he will not stand still with his Arms in his Bosom and see me struggle in vain under an insupportable But then of Duties but that he will set too his own Shoulders and contribute his own Strength and enable me by degrees to undergo it with Ease and Alacrity so that though thro' the Weakness and Importency which I have voluntarily contracted my Duty is become too heavy for my Shoulders yet I will never be disheartened so long as I am sure it is not too heavy for my Saviour's for if I heartily endeavour I am confident I shall undergo it if it be in the Power of an Almighty Grace to enable me 5. And lastly He was full of Grace to us also in Respect of that glorious Recompence which he hath promised to us and prepared for us I confess were his Service all Work and no Wages there were some Reason to be disheartned but when he hath promised and so amply assured us that after we have spent a few Days or Years in his Service upon Earth he will receive us into the Participation of his own Joys where we shall commence as happy as it is possible for an everlasting Heaven to make us methinks we should kiss his Yoke and court his Service and think we can never do too much for such a bountiful Master who rewards all his Servants with such immortal Preferments For what is the Labour of a few Moments compared with that everlasting Rest and Pleasure wherein it shall shortly terminate And when once we are arrived to the Heavenly Canaan and have tasted those ravishing Delights with which it flows and abounds how light and inconsiderable will all these Difficulties in our Voyage appear to us which now do so startle and affright us How shall we wonder at our own Sloth and Faint-heartedness to think that ever we should be such wretched Cowards as to be afraid of any thing that hath Heaven at the End of it which is a Happiness so vast and unspeakable that the Hope of it is sufficient to turn Torments into Recreations How shall we be astonished at our selves to think that we could ever be such wretched Fools as to deliberate one Moment whether Heaven were preferable before all the Pleasures of Sin or whether it were more eligible to dwell with Harlots and Drunkards for a Moment and wallow in their beastly Pleasures than to enjoy the Society of God and Saints and Angels to all Eternity The Odds will then appear so vast and the Disproportion so unspeakable that we shall wonder how we could ever be so sensless as to make a Comparison between them Sure Sirs we do not believe that Heaven is the Recompence of Christ's Service for if we did methinks we should more heartily engage in it For could we stand thus deliberating upon the Shore whether we shall bid adieu to our Lusts take Leave of all their fulsom Pleasures and imbark our selves in the Service of our Saviour Could we stand pausing thus as we do whether we shall venture into those petty Storms that are like to attend us in our spiritual Voyage did we verily believe that a few Leagues Distance lies that blessed Shore where we shall be crowned as soon as we are landed with all the Joys than an everlasting Heaven means Certainly the Belief of this is sufficient to put Life and Courage into the most crest-fallen-Soul in the World and to give her Spirit and Vigour enough to carry her triumphantly through all the weary Stages of her Duty So that considering how in all Respects our blessed Lord abounds in Grace and Goodness to us we have the greatest Encouragement imaginable to engage us to his Service 3dly He was full of Truth From whence I infer that the Christian Religion is a very plain and intelligible thing For this as I have shewed you at large is one of the great Notes of Distinction between Christ's tabernacling among the Jews and among Christians that whereas among the Jews he was full of obscure Types and mystical Representations among us Christians he is full of Truth that is he is plain and open and clear without any dark Reserves or Mysteries now he hath plainly revealed that which before he did so obscurely decypher now he hath unriddled all those mystical Types and turned them as it were inside outwards and given us their hidden Sense and Meaning in plain and naked Propositions and of these our holy Religion is composed So that those Doctrines which before were all Mystery whilst they lay obscurely couched under the Types and Figures of the Law are now brought forth from behind the Curtain into the open View of the World and presented barefac'd to our Understandings in the most plain and easy and familiar Senfe Not but that Christianity hath some Mysteries in it still whose Depths we are not able to fathom but 't is not because Christ hath not revealed them but because our Understandings are incapable of comprehending them such are the Doctrines of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour and the Hypostatical Vnion of the Divine and Humane Nature in him Nor indeed is it much to be wonder'd at that we who with all our Wit and Reason are not able to explicate the Mysteries of a Mite or Flea of a Plant or a Stone or any of those innumerable things that are before us should not be able to understand such incomprehensible to order such infinite or define such ineffable things but though we cannot comprehend the Modes nor understand the strict Philosophy of them yet if we would but strip them out of their false Disguises into their original Plainness and Simplicity we might doubtless easily disintangle them from all Repugnancy and Contradiction which is sufficient to render them rationally credible they being contained in that excellent Religion whose Truth is demonstrated by such abundant Evidence But perhaps as God continued all the Doctrines of Christianity in a Mystery among the Jews and reserved the clear Revelation of them to the coming of the Messias so for the same Reason he hath still reserved the clear Discovery of those Doctrines which are still Mysteries to us Christians for the future State and then it may be we may as fully understand these as the believing Jews after the Coming of Christ did those other Doctrines of the Gospel which before were all Mysteries to them But God be praised whatsoever is necessary to make us good and happy is now so plainly discovered to us that we cannot be ignorant of it unless we wilfully shut our own Eyes We need not dive
into mystical Senses or grope after Truth among Shadows and Vmbrages as the good Jews were fain to do under the Mosaick Dispensation all that is necessary to our Salvation being written as it were upon the very Surface of our Religion and openly exposed to our View in plain and literal Proposals And yet notwithstanding the Plainness and Simplicity of the Christian Religion there are too many ' both among our selves and in the Church of Rome who have industriously set themselves to resolve all its Doctrines again into Darkness and unintelligible Mysteries having instead of the plain Propositions of our Saviour introduced a new-fashioned Mystical Divinity made up of nothing but certain empty Schemes of effeminate Follies and wild Enthusiasms which are impossible for any Man to understand that cannot conjure for the Meaning of them And those Doctrines which our Saviour purposely delivered in the most plain and literal Sense that so the meanest Understanding might be instructed by them these Men have blown up like so many Bubbles into swelling Mysteries which being Strip't of those glittering Allusions and pompous Metaphors wherein they are clothed vanish immediately into Air or sink into flat and empty Nonsense For thus the Doctrine of Faith and Repentance and Justification which lye as plain in the Scripture as Words can make them are by their Divinity render'd more obscure and mysterious than ever they were whilst they were couched under the Types and Figures of the Law more of the true Nature being discovered in Circumcision and the legal Washings and Attonements than in a hundred Volumes of modern Systems of Divinity For whatsoever is intelligible they look upon as carnal and till they have subtilized it into some unaccountable Mystery it is not spiritual enough to be admitted into their System of Divinity as if they thought it below the Majesty of Religion to expose it self to the View of the World and there was no Way to secure it from Contempt but to lock it up in Mysteries and Obscurities for else to what Purpose should they wrap it round with Clouds as they do unless they design to make a Trade of it and so draw a Curtain before it as Men do before their Puppet-Plays that so they may get Money by shewing it For 't is apparent that Religion it self suffers extremely by it for whilst they thus spiritualize it into Air and do as it were juggle it out of Sight in the Clouds of their mystical Nonsense they render it extreamly suspicious to all that are wise and inquisitive and will not suffer themselves to be imposed upon by the Trains of their mysterious Gibberish And as for their more credulous Followers whilst they thus lead them by the Nose through a Vally of Shades and Darkness they utterly deprive them of the vigorous Warmth and Comforts of Religion for how should they know how to make use of the Arguments and Motives of Christianity when those excellent Doctrines from whence they are deduced are wrap'd in unintelligible Mysteriws For how should they draw forth from the Articles of their Faith those Practical Principles that are lodged in them when those Articles are converted into Riddles which they do not nor cannot understand Thus by turning Christianity into a Mystery they do not only thwart the Design of our Saviour which was to bring it forth from under the mysterious Representations of the Law and propose it to the World in the most plain and intelligible manner but they also dispirit Religion it self whose Life and Energy consists in being understood and expose it to the Contempt and Scorn of those that have Wit enough to detect the Follies of their Enthusiastical Mysteries 4thly And lastly He dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth From hence I infer the Inexcusabeness of those Men that persist in their Disobedience to the Gospel now that our blessed Lord hath expressed so much Grace towards and so clearly made known his Mind and Will to us What Excuse can we urge to palliate our wretched Disobedience If you will but imagine your selves for a little while to be standing before the Tribunal of your Saviour where e're it be long you must all appear I will briefly draw up what in Probability will be your Plea and what may be reasonably presumed will be his Answer In the Name of Jesus then let me demand of you what can you plead for your selves why that fearful Doom which he hath pronounced against you should not be pass'd upon you Why Lord we know that thou wer 't an austere Man that thou would'st exact of us to the utmost Punctilio and that if ever we fail'd in the least Circumstance of our Duty thou would'st immediately let loose thy implacable Vengeance upon us and this utterly disheartned us from thy Service considering how impossible it was for us to please thee Ah wretched Creatures can you have the Face to charge me with Rigour and Severity who have had so many notorious Experiments of the Sweetness of my Nature and Tenderness of my Affections towards you What one Action was I ever guilty of in all my Conversation among you that could give you the least Suspicion that ever I would prove an austere Master to you or that I would not be ready to construe you in the most favourable Sense and to pity and pardon you wheresoever you were excusable Did I ever give you any Occasion to think that I was of a peevish or captious Nature apt to be provoked with Trifles Yea had you not all the Reason in the World to conclude from the Sweetness of my Temper that I would be always ready to consider your Infirmities and pity your Weaknesses and judge you by the Measures of a Friend And do you now pretend that it was the Dread of my Severity that disheartned you from my Service But Lord the Laws which thou gavest us were so intolerably burthen som that neither we nor our Fore-fathers were able to bear them We would willingly have obeyed thee if it had been possible but when we saw thy Burthen exceeded our Strength we concluded it was in vain for us to attempt the bearing it O ungrateful Rebels dare ye accuse me of Tyranny when you know in your own Consciences I never imposed any Law upon you but what had a necessary Tendency to your Happiness and was so far in its own Nature from being a Burthen to you that it commanded nothing but what would have been an Ease and Refreshment and if you can produce any one of my Commands that obliged you to any thing but to be kind to your selves or convince me that I could have enjoyned less upon you without being less kind or merciful to you I will freely admit of your Plea as just and immediately pardon all your Disobediences against me But when all my Laws are Instances of my Love to you and Expressions of my Zeal for your Welfare who but such Monsters of Ingratitude as your selves
excellent and divine Doctrine which he taught was such as became the only begotten Son For certainly if we consider the excellent Frame and Contrivance of the Christian Religion we cannot but confess it to be most Divine and Godlike most worthy of that infinite Wisdom and Goodness from whence it was derived For Religion in general is the means of advancing Rational Beings to that Perfection and Happiness for which the great Creator hath designed and intended them and certainly never was there any Religion in the World more adapted to advance this noble Design of God than that which our Saviour hath taught For as for its Agenda what it requires to be done ' they all consist in acting reasonably and according to the Dignity of our Nature in thinking speaking and practising in loving and hating disiring and delighting hoping and fearing as becomes Reasonable Beings placed in our Condition and Circumstances and do require nothing of us but that we should regulate our Practice by the Rules of Right Reason and direct all our Faculties and Affections to their proper Ends and Objects and when we come to this Pitch always to think that which is most reasonable and always to practise what we think so then we are advanced to the topmost Round of our Perfection in which is founded the utmost Happiness we are capable of So that in all the Course of our Christian Practice we are in a direct Progression and Tendency towards our Perfection and Happiness And as for the Credenda of Christianity the Doctrines it requires us to believe they are all of them pregnant with the most strong and vehement Motives to engage us to the Practice of what it enjoins Motives that have such a Potent I had almost said Omnipotent Force in them that 't is impossible for any Man heartily to believe and throughly to weigh and consider them and not be effectually perswaded by them Since therefore it was so highly convenient that the Son of God in Person should come down from Heaven among us that so the Dignity of his Person might give Authority to that Religion by which the World was to be governed and since he did come down upon this honourable Errand it was impossible for him to have taught any Doctrine that could more effectually have promoted the great End of Religion or more fully expressed his infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Zeal for the Welfare of the Souls of Men htan that which is contained in the Christian Religion which is every way so adapted to make Men good and happy so accommodated to the Nature and Condition of Mankind that there is nothing could better become the only begotten Son to teach in the World or that could be more worthy of all those infinite Perfections that are lodged in his Nature and do speak him to be the most genuine Offspring of the most High For so excellent was his Doctrine that his very Enemies were astonished at the Wisdom that was given him Mark 6.2 3. and wondred at the gracious Words that proceeded out of his Mouth Luke 4.22 Well therefore might he say of himself I am the Light of the World he that followeth me shall not walk in Darkness but shall have the Light of Life Joh. 8.12 4thly And lastly The incomparable Sanctity and Purity of his Life was such as very well became the only begotten Son For as it was highly convenient that he should come down into the World and in his own Person teach us that Religion by which he intended to govern us that thereby he might stamp it with a more awful Authority so to render it more fuccessful it was no less convenient that he should come down in our Natures that therein he might be capable of practising what he taught us and setting us an Example of what he would have us to do that so we might see that he enjoined nothing upon us but what was practicable and what did become the most glorious Person that ever did assume our Natures that thereby we might be encouraged to our Duty and animated with a noble Emulation of treading in his blessed Footsteps Since therefore all this was so highly convenient and the Son of God in Compliance with this Convenience did actually assume our Nature it was impossible for him to lead a Life that better comported with this Design of his Incarnation or better became the Dignity and Excellency of his Person than he did For now that he was become a Man he was obliged to act suitably to his Nature and should he have done any thing that was unsuitable to the State and Circumstances of his Nature he would not have acted becoming himself So that it was highly convenient that he should become a Man and being a Man it was indispensably necessary that he should live like a wise and a good Man in the Condition and Relations wherein he was placed and nothing could be more worthy of or becoming him then so to do though he was still the only begotten Son of the Father For it is the Glory of God himself that he always acts most reasonably according to the State and Relations of a God and therefore when God becomes Man by assuming our Nature to his own it is his Glory to act most reasonably in the State and Relations of a Man And thus did the blessed Jesus do in the whole Course of his Conversation upon Earth for his Life was a most exact Pattern of all humane Virtues in which all that is ornamental to humane Nature was represented in its fairest Colours There you may see a fair Example of the most ardent Love to and constant Dependance upon God of the most profound Humility and perfect Resignation to his Heavenly Will There you may behold the Moderation of Humane Passions and Appetites set forth to the Life and fairly delineated in its most exquisite Perfections in a word there you will find Loyalty and Submission to Superiors Fidelity and Justice to Equals Courtesy and Candor and Condescention to Inferiors universal Love and an unbounded Charity to all practised to the Height and Exactness and which way soever you turn your Eyes on this fair Monument of Virtues you can discover nothing but what is lovely and adorable and infinitely becoming the only begotten Son of the Father Having thus explained and demonstrated the Proposition to you I shall conclude with these four Inferences from this four-fold Glory of the Word which they saw 1. They saw the glorious Splendor which invested his Person at his Baptison and Transfiguration From whence I infer his Deputation from the most High God and Father of all Things to be his Representative and Vice-Roy in the Christian Church For this visible Glory with which he was invested was always the peculiar Character of the immediate Representative of God and therefore by way of Appropriation it is called the Glory of God and the Glory of the Lord and wheresover God as Supream Monarch
single Man would openly testifie a known Lye without some Temptation inducing him thereunto much less that so many Hundreds of Persons as the Eye-Witnesses of our Saviour's Miracles were should conspire to cheat the World not only when they had no Temptation to it but when they had all the Reason in the World against it for they saw their Master suffer a shameful Death before their Eyes by which they might easily divine what their own Fate would be if they persevered to preach up his Miracles and Doctrine which they could not resolve to do without bidding Adieu to all their temporal Hopes and ingaging themselves to undergo all the Miseries and Calamities in the World and if they testified what they knew to be false they transgressed the Rule of their own Religion and thereby forfeited all their Hopes of a blessed Immortality in the Life to come And can it be imagined that so many Men should at the same Time so unanimously agree to report and testifie the Miracles of a Man whom they had lately seen crucified before their Eyes when they knew in their own Consciences that it was all a meer Forgery and could not but foresee that by persisting in it they should incur an inevitable Ruin in this Life and an eternal Damnation in the Life to come Was there ever such a desperate Piece of Madness heard of from the Beginning of the World to this Day And yet this monstrous Thing which is by a thousand Times more incredible than any thing in the Christian Religion we must not only imagin may be but believe that it really was or else confess that St. John says true here that they did see the Glory of his Miracles which is so undoubted an Evidence of the Truth of his Doctrine Wherefore since we are compassed about with such a Cloud of Witnesses let us by a lively and vigorous Faith adhere to the Truth of our holy Religion and then we shall find it quick and mighty through God to the casting down the strong Holds of our vicious Habits and implanting in us all those divine Dispositions which are necessary to qualifie us for those endless Joys which our blessed Lord hath promised to and prepared for us 3. They saw the Glory of that divine and incomparable Doctrine which he taught From whence I infer the Unreasonableness of Mens entertaining mean and contemptible Opinions of the Christian Faith since it is so excellent in it self that it was a Glory to the Son of God to be the Author of it We have a sort of Men among us who would fain be accounted the Wits and Virtuoso's of the Age who pretend to acknowledge a God and a Providence and all the Principles of Natural Religion and yet openly profess a very mean and contemptible Opinion of Christianity and take all Occasions to represent it as a ridiculous Fiction fit only to be imposed upon the credulous Vulgar But I would fain know of these mighty Men of Reason what plausible Pretence they can urge for this their bold and blasphemous Censure Is it because Christianity is a Revealed Religion or because there is any thing in it that is unworthy of God whom we pretend to be the Revealer of it or because there wants credible Evidence of its being revealed by him If they pretend to reject it because 't is a Revealed Religion I would beseech them to consider how it could have comported with the Goodness of God never to make any Revelation of his Will to the World when the Generality of Men were lost in such a Mid-night of Ignorance in respect of Natural Religion how even the natural Notions of the Deity were corrupted into all manner of Follies and Vanities and Men had formed Religions not only hateful to God but nauseous to all that were wise among themselves and how defective also they were in the best and purest Precepts of Morality having at last consecrated their Vices and inthroned them among the Graces of Religion In which miserable State of Things it is so far from being unreasonable to expect a Revelation that 't is hardly possible to vindicate God's Goodness without supposing it For should he have for ever left Mankind in this bewilder'd State without Revelation he would have been more wanting to Man who is the noblest of all his earthly Creatures than he is to the most contemptible Animal for to his meanest Creatures he hath given sufficient Ability to attain the highest End of their Beings which Mankind can hardly be supposed to have in his corrupt degegenerate State without supposing a new Revelation from Heaven For we have an innate Notion within us of a Supreme Being above us that is superlatively good and endued with all possible Perfection our natural Reason dictates to us that to converse with and enjoy him for ever is the highest Good that we are capable of and the most suitable to our rational Natures but by what means we may be reconciled to him in this State of Revolt whereinto we are fallen and how at length we may arrive to the Enjoyment of him could never have been sufficiently made known to us in this Maze of Ignorance wherein we were involved without some divine Revelation And therefore to suppose Revelation unreasonable in our miserable State and Circumstances is to suppose it unreasonable for the great and good Governor of the World to furnish his noblest Creature Man with sufficient means to obtain his most excellent End And if it be acknowledged that there is a Revelation because it is so highly reasonable that there should be let us consider which of all the Religions in the World that pretends to be from God is most likely to be the Revelation of his Will and then I doubt not if we impartially compare them but our reason will soon give its Vote for Christianity If you enquire for this Revelation of the Enthusiastick Poets of the Heathen how wild and extravagant is that Religion which we find in the Theology of Hesiod the Hymns of Orpheus the Odes of Pindar and the Poems of Homer Virgil and Ovid If you consult the Heathen Oracles of Delphos Dodona and Jupiter Hammon how vain and frivilous how uncertain and fallacious are all their Responses besides that the Books and Records of them are long since perished and consumed If you enquire for this Revelation in the Old Roman Theology which Numa pretended to receive from his Goddess Egeria that also is lost being burnt by the Roman Senate as Valerius Maximus tells us for that it contained many Things in it not only destructive to the Gods and Religions of other Countries but also to his own and the Roman Profession Or shall we confront Christianity with the Alchoran of Mahomet which he often pretends to have received from God There we shall find every Page almost abounding with monstrous Cheats and Impostures the whole being nothing else but a confused Medly of impious and contemptible Fopperies heaped
Understandings So long as a Man lives in any known Sin he doth not only live without but against his Reason which instead of being the Guide of his Actions hath nothing at all to do with them but like an idle Spectator doth only behold the brutish Scene without any Part or Concern in it And whilst a Man thus abandons himself to the Government of his own blind Will and lives not only in the perpetual Neglect but Contempt of his Reason it is impossible for him not to wast and impair it For as our rational Faculties are improved and perfected by Exercise so they naturally languish and decay through Disuse and inactivity and consequently the less Use we make of them in the Government of our Lives and Actions which is their proper Office and Employment like standing Waters they must corrupt and putrifie And indeed there is no impure Lust but doth by its own natural Efficacy disable Mens Reason and Understanding For while we are in these Bodies our Mind is fain to work by bodily Instruments and to make Use of Brains and Blood and Spirits in all its Operations and according as their Temper is good or bad its Operations will be more or less perfect But while a Man indulges himself in any impure Affection that will naturally distemper these Organs of his Mind and indispose them for the Use of his Reason For so Madness which is such a Distemperature of the Brain and Blood and Spirits doth wholly alienate them from the Use of Reason and Discourse is usually found to be the Effect of some wild and extravagant Affection such as Pride or Covetousness Anger or Fearfulness Jealousie or Lust and if these Passions being once arrived to their utmost Rage and Excess do so often run into down-right Madness and Distraction to be sure every inordinate Degree of them must be a Tendency towards it a great Disturbance of Mind though not a total Distraction and how much they exceed their due Bounds and Measures by so much they must taint and vitiate these necessary Instruments of our Mind and Reason Thus every inordinate Lust doth by a natural Influence disturb Mens Reason and sully the clearness of their discerning Faculties So that what Clearness is to the Eye of the Body that Purity from vicious Affection is to the Eye of the Mind it brightens its Apprehensions and renders its Conceptions of Things more quick distinct and vigorous Whereas on the contrary all disorderly Affection doth more or less cloud and disturb the Brain chill or inflame the Spirits hurry them into tumultuous Motions or render them listless and unactive by which continual Disorders our discerning Faculties must by Degrees be extreamly weakened and confounded And whilst the Mind is thus lost in the Fogs of inordinate Affection it is an easie Matter to seduce and mislead it it being through the Dimness of its sight apt to be imposed upon by false Colours and tinctured with Prejudice and undue Apprehensions of Things Weak Minds are easily abused especially in Matters of Religion which being placed beyond the Prospect of Sense require a severer Attention in order to the forming of right Apprehensions concerning them and therefore the more Men weaken their Understandings by their Lusts the more they must be exposed to Errors and Delusions But them 2. Living in any known Course of Sin renders the Principles of true Religion uneasie to Mens Minds Whilst a Man leads a wicked Life his Religious Principles if they are pure and true will perpetually reproach and upbraid him For there are no Contraries in Nature more irreconcilable to one another than true Faith and bad Manners the great Design of all true Faith being to move and persuade Men to abstain from all Ungodliness and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World If therefore a Man's Faith be true and genuine he cannot live wickedly without acting against the full Persuasion of his own Mind which must necessarily render him very uneasie for in this State of Things he acts with a self-condemning Judgment and every Compliance with his Inclination sets him at odds with his Reason all the while he is meditating any wicked Design he struggles with his Conscience and confronts and outrages his own Convictions and when he hath acted it every Reflection he makes on it is a bitter Invective against himself Thus so long as the Principles of true Religion possess his Mind he finds himself continually hagg'd and oppressed by them they sit as an uneasie Load upon his Soul and will not suffer him to Sin in quiet but perpetually cause his sinful Delights to go off with an ungrateful Farewel and recoil upon him in many a sickly Qualm and Convulsion In which State of Things he hath no other Remedy but either to forsake his Principles or his Lusts or to live in perpetual Variance with himself and therefore if he still resolve to Sin on in all probability he will soon grow quite weary of true Religion and quit his Mind as soon as possibly he can of those stern and inflexible Principles which create these Discords in his Breast And whilst he is in this Temper it will be an easie matter to pervert him to any Religion that will give Ease to his straitlaced Conscience and cast a more favourably Aspect on his Lust for being resolved to follow his vicious Inclinations he now sees through them and understands by them and whilst his Mind runs upon the false Biass of his Lusts that Religion which is most grateful to them will seem most reasonable to him Shew him a way how he may worship God acceptably without the Expence of a strict Attention and the inward Devotion of a pure Heart and heavenly Affections meerly by numbring so many Prayers on a String of Beads by seeing a Priest act over such a Set of Ceremonies and hearing him in varied Tones sometimes pronounce and sometimes murmur a Form of Words in an Vnknown Language and though at first view it may seem very absurd to him yet the very Loosness and Carnality will be apt to engage his Affections to it and then they by degrees will go near to wheedle his Understanding into a more favourable Opinion of it Propose to him an Expedient how he may go to heaven at last without undergoing the Severities of a sincere Repentance and Amendment tell him there is a certain Church in the World whose Priests if he confess his Sins to them with any Degree of Sorrow and Remorse have full Power to Pardon and Absolve him so that if he do but take Care not to die without Confession however he lives he cannot miscarry for ever He may indeed go into a very hot Place called Purgatory and there suffer a while very grievous Things before he get to Heaven but if instead of parting with his Lusts while he lives he will part with his Mony when he dies he may at easy Rates purchase of that Church such a
render'd him a meer Laquey to the Goods and Evils that are without him and whither ever they send him he must go wherever they lead him he must follow let their Vagaries be never so wild or wicked If therefore while his Soul is thus enslaved to the World he should be tempted by him to Apostatize from his Religion what hath he to restrain or secure him For ever since he got loose from his Conscience he is wholly led by his Affections and these being chained and saftned to the World hale him after it which way soever it moves So long as his Religion and his worldly Interest consist and go hand in hand he is very well content to own and follow it but if ever a Storm of Persecution should part them in all Probability he will follow his Interest and like the treacherous Orpha give his Religion a parting Kiss and leave it For his Heart is now so wedded to the World that he esteems nothing so good as its Goods and nothing so evil as its Evils and the one being his Heaven and the other his Hell all other Considerations are overcome by them and to obtain the one and avoid the other he must stick at nothing no not at renouncing his God and his Religion together with all his Hopes of a future Immortality 6. And lastly Living in any known Course of Sin provokes God to give us up to the Power of Delusion For so long as Men submit themselves to the Guidance and Direction of a good Conscience the Spirit of God who is a Spirit of Truth abides with them and not only directs their Wills but also informs their Understandings and enables them to discern the Beauty and Reality of those heavenly Truths which he hath revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures For though since he hath revealed already the whole Will of God to us concerning our eternal Salvation we have no Reason to expect that he will reveal new Truths to us yet seeing so far forth as it is necessary he hath promised and engaged that he will co-operate with us to enable us as well to understand the Will of God as to perform it we have the greatest Reason in the World to depend upon it that so long as we cherish his heavenly Inspirations by yielding to them our free and ready Compliance he will be so far an assisting Genius to our Understandings as to suggest to us those Truths which he hath already revealed and set them before our Eyes in so fair a Light as that we shall not fail more clearly to discern and more distinctly to apprehend them than otherwise we should or could have done For when he writes his Truth upon our Minds it is with such a Victorious Sunbeam as will endure neither Cloud nor Shadow before it Whenever he speaks he speaks not to our Ears but to our Minds and represents Things nakedly and immediately to our Understandings He converses with our Spirits as Spirits do with Spirits without involving his Sense in articulate Sounds or material Representations but objects it to us in its own naked Light and characterizes it immediately on our Understandings And as he proposes the Divine Light to us so he also illuminates our Minds to discern and comprehend it He raises and exalts our Intellectual Powers and as a vital Form to the Light of our Reason invigorates and actuates it and thereby renders its Apprehension of Things more quick and piercing and sagacious Thus doth the Holy Spirit more or less assist us in the true Understanding of Divine Things as he finds us more or less compliant with his heavenly Pleasure and though he stands no more obliged to render our Minds infallible than our Wills impeccable yet so long as by our sincere Obedience to his holy Suggestions we keep our selves under his Conduct and Direction we may depend upon it he will either preserve us from all dangerous Errors or if for just Reasons he should permit us to fall into any such they shall not prove dangerous to us but either we shall be convinced of them while we live or obtain Pity and Pardon for them when we die But whilst we persist in any willful Course of Sin we do not only violate our own Conscience but also repel those good Motions of the Spirit of God whereby he strives to reduce and reclaim us in doing which we continually grieve him and if we do not forbear shall at length provoke him wholly to forsake and abandon us to give us up to our own Hearts Lusts as desperate Wretches with whom he hath hitherto strove and struggled in vain and of whose future Recovery there remains no farther Hope or Prospect And when he hath forsaken us our Mind will not only be left naked and destitute of all those Helps and Advantages for the understanding of Divine Truths which it receives from him but also be exposed to the Cheats and Fallacies of Evil Spirits whose Recreation it is to put Tricks upon our Minds to banter and play upon our easie Faith to cast Mists before our Eyes and therein to juggle away all true Religion from us and foist in the Room of it the most fulsom Errors and Mistakes For so the Apostle tells us of Antichrist the great Deceiver that he should come with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness to them that perish because they received not the love of truth that they might be saved And that for that Cause viz. their not receiving the truth in the love of it God should send them strong delusion that they should believe a lye that is by abandoning them to the Power of cheating and deluding Spirits That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. And God grant that this at last prove not our Fate that because we have sinned against the clearest Light and gone astray in all Unrighteousness under the best and purest Religion in the World we are not at length given up by God to follow the wile Delusions of Antichrist and to believe all those fulsom Lyes and Impostures which he from Age to Age hath been imposing upon the World But whether it prove thus or no this I am sure of that by persisting in any vicious Course against the Light and Conviction of our Consciences we highly provoke Almighty God to withdraw his Grace from us and give us up to our own Hearts Lusts and when this is done our own Hearts Lusts will soon betray and give up our Faith to false and vicious Principles of Religion And now having shewn at large what strong and prevalent Tendencies there are in a wicked Life to Apostacy from true Religion I shall conclude this Argument with two or three Inferences 1. From hence I infer What a great Malignity there is in Mens being inconstant to and apostatizing from the true Religion in Compliance with their sinful Affections it being as you see the
344. 2. From our Saviour and his Apostles approbation of this practice of the Jews p 345 346. 3 From the great design and intention of writing the Scriptures p. 347 348. 4. From the Directions of these Holy Writings to the People p. 349. to 352. 5. From the great concernmènt the People have in the Matters contain'd in the Scripture p. 352. to 356. 6. from the universal Sense of the Primitive Church in this Matter p. 355. to 359. An Answer to that Objection of the Church of Rome That a general Permission of the Scriptures to the People must necessarily open a wide door to Errors and Heresies p. 360. to 366. Another Objection That it will prove an unavoidable Occasion of great Corruptions in Manners answered p. 367. to 371. Two Inferences from the whole p. 372. to the end Dis V. A Dissuasive from Apostacy AN Explication of the Words of the Text p. 385. to p. 388. The general Proposition p. 389. Six Instances of the mighty Tendencies there are in a vicious course of Life to Error and Apostacy from true Religion As 1. It corrupts Mens Reason and Understanding p. 390 391. 2. It renders the Principles of true Religion uneasy to their Minds p. 392 393 394. 3. It deprives Men of the greatest encouragements to constancy and steadiness in Religion p. 395. 4. It weakens the natural force of Men's Consciences p. 396. to p. 399. 5. It strengthens and enforces the Temptations to Apostacy p. 400. to 402. 6. It provokes God to give us up to the Power of Delusion p. 403. to p. 406. Two Inferences from the whole p. 406. to the end OF THE Christian Life PART IV. MATTH xvi 26. What is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Or what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul IN the 24th Verse our Saviour urges his Disciples to that necessary Duty of denying themselves that is of surrendering up their Wills to the conduct of his and renouncing all their Worldly Interest when it comes in Competition with their Duty and of taking up their Cross and following him that is of preparing themselves to endure Persecution for his sake and to persist couragiously in the Profession and Practice of his Religion whatsoever Oppositions they should meet with from the World And to press them hereunto he urges this Argument Ver. 25. For whosoever will save his Life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his Life shall find it Where the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Life may perhaps be better render'd Himself it being familiar both with Hebrews and Syrians to call a man's Life and Soul Himself so the Psalmist thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell that is thou shalt not leave me Perishing in my Grave Psal 16.10 And Levit. 20.25 Ye shall not make your Souls abominable i. e. your selves And that it should be so render'd here is evident because St. Luke so expounds it What is a Man profited if he gain the whole World and lose himself or be cast away Luke 9.25 And indeed the Soul being the Principal Part of a Man and that which advances him into a Species of Being above that of a meer Animal may very well be called himself according to that of Hierecles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy Soul is Thee thy Body thine and thy outward Goods thy Bodies And if instead of Life we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Himself the Words will be very plain and easy for whosoever will save himself by renouncing me and my Religion shall lose himself for ever and whosoever will be content to lose himself for my sake shall save himself for ever And this he farther inforces in the Text What is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul or what shall a Man give in exchange for his Soul that is what will it avail a Man to gain the whole World if he for ever ruin himself by it and when he hath thus ruined himself what would he give if it were in his Power to save and recover himself again The Words thus explained I shall resolve the sense of them into these five Propositions I. That a Man or the Soul of a Man is a Thing of inestimable Price and Value for our Saviour here weighs it against the whole World that is against all the Pleasures Profits and Honours that this inferiour World can afford and declares that in the just Ballance of his Esteem it out-weighs them all And certainly that must needs be exceeding precious whose Worth the whole World cannot counter-poise II. That this precious Soul may be lost This our Saviour plainly supposes in these Words if he lose his own Soul III. That our renouncing of Christ and his Religion will most certainly infer this Loss For these Words as I have shewed you our Saviour urges as an Argument to dissuade Men from Apostacy but if without losing our Souls we might renounce him and apostatize from him there would be no Force in all this Argument to dissuade us from it IV. That when this Soul is lost 't is lost irrecoverably What shall a Man give in exchange for his Soul where the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Exchange is used in the same sense with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a price of Redemption denoting that if a Man should or could give never so much to buy his Soul from Perdition yet no Price of Redemption will be taken for it V. That this irrecoverable Loss of a Soul is of such a vast Moment that the Gain of the whole World is not sufficient to compensate it What is a Man profited that is he is not at all profited nay he is so far from that that he is a vast Loser I. That the Soul of a Man is a Thing of an inestimable Price and Value And for the Proof of this Proposition I shall endeavour these two Things First To represent to you of what vast Worth it is in Respect of its own natural Capacities Secondly To shew you of what vast Esteem it is in the Judgment of all those who as we must needs suppose do best understand the Worth of it 1. I shall endeavour to represent to you of what vast Worth it is in Respect of its own natural Capacities particularly in these four 1. In Respect of its Capacity of Vnderstanding 2. Of Moral Perfection 3. Of Pleasure and Delight 4. Of Immortality 1. The Soul of Man is of vast Worth in Respect of its Capacity of Vnderstanding For certainly to understand is the greatest and noblest Operation that a Being is capable of for it is this that gives Beauty and Excellence to all our other Operations whether they be natural or moral 'T is this that proposes the Ends and directs the Course and Prescribes the Measures of all our other Actions and tho we had never so much Force or
Church the Apostleship of the Twelve by this visible Glory which he derived upon them For now according to John the Baptist's Prediction of him he baptized them with the Holy Ghost and with Fire Luke 3.16 that is by the outward Sign of that visible Glory which rested like Fire upon them he solemnly initiated them into their Apostleship and declared them to be the Heralds of his Will to the World And as this visible Glory with which he baptized them was an Evidence of their being sent from and commissionated by him to bear his Authority and represent his Person so that visible Glory with which he was baptized from Heaven first in the River Jordan and afterwards upon Mount Tabor was an undoubted Evidence that he was sent from above to be his Father's Representative in the Church For if thier shining wiht his Glory was an Evidence of their being invested with his Authority then his shining with his Father's Glory must be an equal Evidence of his being invested with the Authority of his Father And as this visible Glory was always the peculiar Character of God's immediate Representative and the Royal Crown and Robes as it were with which the most High adorned him at his Inauguration and Investment with his own Kingly Authority so St. Peter expresly tells Cornelius and his Company that God had anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with Power Acts 10.13 that is by that outward Sign of the visible Glory in which the Holy Ghost descended upon him he had invested him with Regal Power and deputed and declared him to be King of the Church And this in all probability was the Reason why he forbad his Disciples to declare his Transfiguration till after his Resurrection from the Dead Mark 9.9 because he knew that if they did the Jews would not believe it but would maliciously interpret it to be a false Pretence of his to the Title of God's immediate Representative and Vice-Roy that visible Glory in which he appeared being the proper Character of that divine King by whom the most High God had formerly governed them and therefore in all the History of his Life you find he did industriously avoid openly to avow his Regal Authority and only insinuates it by Consequences and obseure Intimations For so violently were they prejudiced against his being their King upon the account of his obscure Parentage and mean Condition that he could not but foresee how unseasonable it would yet be publickly to own his Regal Authority and consequently the Glory of his Transfiguration which did so apparently infer it till by more miraculous Effects and particularly by his Resurrection from the Dead he had sufficiently proved and demonstrated it and then he openly declares without any Reserve that all power was given him in Heaven and Earth Matth. 28.18 Since therefore it is so apparent by this Characteristical Glory in which his Person was inrobed and which the Apostle assures us they saw him invested with we have all the Reason in the World to conclude that the most High God hath deputed him to be King and Lord of the Church For when the Apostle tells us that they saw this visible Glory which shone upon him at his Baptism and Transfiguration he doth as good as say that they saw all the Solemnity of his divine Coronation that they beheld the most High God circling his Brows with the Royal Diadem and investing his sacred Body with the Imperial Robes of the great King of the World So that if it be true what St. John says that they did see this Glory as we have all the Reason in the World to conclude it is because he offered to seal his Testimony of it with his Blood and the other two that saw it with him actually did so then we cannot but acknowledge the blessed Jesus to be our King to whose divine Authority we are bound to pay the lowest Homage and Obedience and that whensoever we wilfully transgress his Laws we do openly rebel against our most rightful Sovereign to whose Service we are bound by all possible Ties and Obligations 2. They saw the Glory of that miraculous Power which he exerted in the Course of his Ministry from whence I infer the Credibility of the Christian Religion For the many stupendous Miracles that he wrought were a most plain and unquestionable Evidence of a Divine Power residing in him and accompanying his Ministry For never were there so many miraculous Effects produced either before or since in the World by the most renowned Workers of Miracles that ever were and all that hath been done by the most famous Magicians that are recorded in History were but like the little Tricks and Delusions of Jugglers compared with the wondrous Works of our Saviour and yet 't is apparent that his Education had been most plain and simple that he never had been instructed in any Mathematical Science or mystical Rites or in any other Art of performing Wonders either by Humane Wit or Diabolical Assistance but was bred up under the Care of his poor honest Parents who were forced to earn their Bread with the Sweat of their Brows and so in all Probability was trained up in his Father's Profession that so by his daily Labour he might be able to contribute to the Charge of his Maintenance And yet 't is plain this home-bred Person sometimes only by speaking of a Word sometimes meerly by the Touch of his Hand sometimes by a silent Virtue proceeding from him without any outward Sign intervening did more and far greater Wonders in three or four Years Time then all the most skilful Physicians Magicians and Mathematicians could ever do either before or after him Now how was it possible that ever such a Person should ever have accomplished such great and mighty Things as he did had he not been indued with Power from above And if he was indued with such a Power what greater Evidence can we desire of the Truth and Divinity of his Doctrine For it is not supposable that the God of Truth would have endued our Saviour with this miraculous Power had that Doctrine been false which he sought to confirm by it because in so doing he would have openly patronized a Cheat and designedly contributed to the Propagation of an Imposture which is utterly inconsistent with his Truth and Veracity So that now the Truth of Christianity finally resolves into the Veracity of God which is the Foundation of all the Certainty in the World For admitting that God can either deceive or be deceived we do not know but our Faculties may be constantly imposed upon and then there is nothing in Nature that we can be certain of So that if it be true as St. John here testifies that they did see the Glory of our Saviour's Miracles that is a most undeniable Evidence of the Truth and Divinity of his Doctrine and that they did see it I think is as evident For it is not imaginable that any
write them down in order that he might know the Certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed From whence I infer that supposing St. Luke performed what he promised his Gospel must contain a full Declaration of the Christian Religion For First by promising to give an Account of those Things which were surely believed among Christians he engaged himself to give an entire Account of Christianity unless we will suppose that there were some Parts of Christianity which the Christians of that Time did not surely believe Secondly In promising to give an Account of those Things of which he had a perfect Understanding from the first and in which his Theophilus had been instructed he also engages himself to give a compleat Account of the whole Religion unless we will suppose that there were some Parts of this Religion which St. Luke did not perfectly understand and in which Theophilus had not been before instructed Thus also St. John testifies of his Gospel Chap. 20. 31. These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name And if it be objected that by these Things the Apostle only means the Miracles of Christ which are the Motives of our Belief and not his Doctrines which are to be believed by us this is notoriously false since by these Things St. John means his Gospel in which not only the Miracles but the Doctrines of Christ are contained and therefore in his first Epistle chap. 5. 13. he saith These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe or continue to believe on the name of the Son of God Where by These Things it 's plain he means only that Christian Doctrine which he had been teaching throughout the whole Epistle From which two Places I argue that all Things necessary to eternal Life are written because he expresly tells us that These Things were written to this end that they might beget and nourish in us that Faith by which we may obtain eternal Life but if that Faith which these written Things was designed to beget in us be not sufficient to eternal Life then were these Things written in vain and the End of writing them which was that we might obtain eternal Life by believing them was wholly frustrated but if that Faith were sufficient to eternal Life then these written Things which begot that Faith and were the Object of it must contain in them all Things necessary to eternal Life for how can they beget in us a Faith that is sufficient to eternal Life unless they propose to our Faith all Things that are necessary thereunto And thus I have endeavoured to demonstrate from Scripture it self which all agree is the Word of God and consequently the most concluding Authority in the World that the Holy Scripture is in it self a sufficient Rule of Faith and Manners to direct Men to eternal Life And if this be so I would fain know by what Warrant or Authority any Man or Church can pretend to obtrude upon the Faith of Christians any unwritten Traditions or Doctrines of Faith and Rules of Worship not recorded in Scripture as of equal Authority with those recorded in Scripture and equally necessary to the eternal Happiness of Men. For that there have been such bold Imposers in the Christian World Irenaeus assures us in the 2d Chapter of his 2d Book against Heresies where he tells us of a sort of Hereticks who taught that the Truth could not be found in the Scriptures by those to whom Tradition was unknown for as much as it was not delivered by Writing but by Word of Mouth And these Hereticks 1 De Praescrip Haeret c. 25. as Tertullian observes confessed indeed that the Apostles were ignorant and that they did not at all differ among themselves in their Preaching but said they revealed not all Things unto all Men some Things they taught openly and to all some Things secretly and to a few which secret Things were the unwritten Traditions which they sought to impose upon the Faith of Christians And how far the Church of Rome it self doth in this matter tread in the Footsteps of these ancient Hereticks is but too notorious For thus in the Preface of their Catechism it is expresly affirmed by the Council of Trent that the whole Doctrine to be delivered to the Faithful is contained in the Word of God which Word of God is distributed into Scripture and Tradition And in the Councel it self they declare and define that the Books of Scripture and unwritten Traditions are to be received and honoured with equal pious Affection and Reverence In which Words they expresly own another Word of God besides the Scripture viz. Tradition which they equalize with the Scripture it self And this is almost verbatim the very Assertion which both Irenaeus and Tertullian condemn for Heresy and as they are the same so we find they are grounded on the same Authority For those very Texts of Scripture which those ancient Hereticks urged for their Tradition are urged by Bellarmin for the Tradition of his Church Thus for their Tradition as Irenaeus and Tertullian acquaints us they urged that of St. Paul We speak Wisdom among them that are perfect and also O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust and again That good Thing which is committed to thee keep All which Texts are urged by Bellarmin in his 4th and 5th Books de Verbo Dei in behalf of that Tradition which the Church of Rome contends for And 't is something hard that that which was damned for Heresy in the Primitive Church should be made an Article of Faith in the present Roman Not that we do disallow of Traditions universally received in all Churches and Ages for we frankly acknowledge that what is now contained in Scripture was Tradition before it was Scripture as being first delivered by Word of Mouth before it was collected into Writing and therefore whensoever it can be made evident to us that there are any unwritten Doctrines bearing the same Stamp of Divine Authority with those that are written we are ready to recive them with the same Veneration as we do the Scriptures themselves For it is not their being written that doth authorize them but their being from God and our Saviour and his Apostles and therefore when once it 's made appear to us that Christ or his Apostles taught so and so that is sufficient to command our Assent and Submission whether it be made appear from Scripture or Tradition So that the Reason why we embrace some Doctrines and reject others is not merely because the one are written and the other not but because to us who live at so great a distance from Christ and his Apostles it can never be made so evident that what is not written was taught by
the simple wise or enlighten the Eyes of Men unless it be so plainly and clearly delivered as that the simple may be capable of apprehending and the Eyes of Men of discerning the Sense of it I know it is objected by Bellarmin that these Words do only imply that this Law indeed being understood doth enlighten Mens Eyes and direct their Practice but by no means that it is plain and easy to be understood But this is a meer Cavil for it 's plain that it is by understanding the Law that the simple are made wise and the Eyes of Men enlightned If therefore this Law be so obscure in its self as that it cannot make it self understood by all that sincerely enquire into it how is it possible that it should make them wise or enlighten the Eyes of their Minds But it 's plain that the Intent of those Passages of David was to excite and encourage Men to study and observe the Law But what though the Law makes the simple wise when they understand it what Encouragement is this for the simple to study it if it be so obscure that they cannot understand it And since they must understand it before they can observe it what Encouragement doth this Consideration give them to observe it that it will make them wise when they understand it if it be not plain enough for them to understand it But then that forecited Passage of Moses doth in express Words contradict this Cavil of Bellarmin for he tells the People that the Commandment he gave them was not hidden from them whereas if it had been so obscurely delivered to them by Moses that upon their sincere and diligent Enquiry they could not understand it it is certain that it had been still hidden from them how wise soever it might make them when they did understand it And to say that such a Proposition will make me wise when I do understand it is no Argument at all that it is not hidden from me if it be so obscurely expressed as that upon my sincere Enquiry I am not capable of understanding it But that the Old Testament at least in all necessary Matters was plain enough even to common Capacities is evident from the frequent Appeals our Saviour makes to it in his Contests with the Common People of the Jews Thus in the Text he bids them Search the Scriptures for they are they which testify of me and in other Places What saith the Scripture and doth not the Scripture say so and so Now how impertinent would it have been for our Saviour thus to appeal to it at the Tribunal of the People if he thought it so obscure that the People were not capable of understanding it How trifling would it be for a Man to appeal to Suarez's Metaphysicks in a Controversy with a Plow-man or to refer him to Euclid's Elements for the determining the Bounds and Measures of a Field And as from what hath been said 't is apparent that the Scriptures of the Old Testament were at least in all Necessaries plain and clear to the Jews so it is no less evident that the Scripture of the New Testament are so to Christians since it gives the same Testimony to it self of its own Clearness as the Old Testament doth For thus 2 Cor. 4.2 3 4. the Apostle tells us that they did not handle the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the Truth commending themselves to Mens Consciences in the sight of God But if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded the Minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God should shine unto them Supposing then that they wrote with the same Plainness and Clearness with which they speak which there is no shadow of Reason to doubt of then from these Words it is evident First That they did neither in their Preaching nor Writings affect to discourse dubiously or obscurely but that their great Design was so to manifest and make known the Truth as that by their Plainness and Simplicity they might recommend themselves to the Consciences of all that heard or read them Secondly That in Fact they had in their Sermons and Writings so clearly taught the Gospel that if after all it remained hidden or obscure to any it was only to such as were lost and irrecoverable Thirdly That that which render'd the Gospel which they had taught and written hidden or obscure to such was not the Obscurity either of the Matter which they taught or of their Manner of Teaching it but their own worldly Affections which blinded their Eyes and hindred them from seeing that which in its self was illustriously visible Which is an unanswerable Evidence of the Clearness and Plainness of the Scriptures of the New Testament in all necessary Things for if they are clear to all but such as wilfully shut their Eyes against them they are as clear as they need be to honest and teachable Minds for there is nothing can be clear enough to such as are not willing to understand And accordingly the Gospel which the Apostle calls the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation is said to have appeared or shone forth to all Men teaching us that denying Vngodliness and worldly Lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present World Tit. 2.11 Now if the Gospel did shine forth unto all Men it must be in the Sermons and Discourses of those that had preached it to the World and if they so preached it as that it shone forth to all Men they must necessarily have preached it very plainly and clearly Either therefore it was wrote as it was preached or it was not if it was not it was not wrote truly and sincerely if it was it was wrote very plainly so as to make it appear and shine forth to all that read it 'T is true there are some Things obscure both in the Old Scriptures and New but then these are such Things as are no Parts of the Necessaries and Essentials of Religion such Things as Men may be safely ignorant of or be mistaken about without any hazard of their eternal Life For all that the fore-cited Testimonies prove is only this that that true Religion by which God governs the Faith and Manners of Men is so far forth as it is necessary to be believed and practised plainly and clearly revealed to them in the Holy Scriptures But besides this all Men agree there are a great many other Things revealed in Holy Scripture which because they are not necessary for all Men to understand are many of them not so plainly revealed as that all Men may understand them But since the Scripture was written to teach and instruct Men to be sure it teaches them most plainly that which is most necessary for them to know and therefore since there are some Things plainly taught in Scripture as is
of other Principles of Christianity as well as those seeing there are no common Principles of Chrstian Religion but what are at least as plainly reealed in Scripture as these But this will spoil all for if Men may be infallibly certain of the Principles of Religion upon Scripture Authority what will become of the Necessity of Mens relying upon the Church which is founded upon this Principle that Men can arrive at no infallible Certainty in Religion by relying upon the Authority of Scripture or indeed any other Authority but the Church's But if I cannot be infallibly certain of those two Principles viz. that they are the Church and Infallible by those Authorities of Scripture which they urge to prove them how can I be infallibly certain of any Thing that they declare and define For if I am not certain that they are the Church for all I know the Church may be infallible and yet they may be mistaken and if I am not certain that they are infallible for all I know they may be the Church and yet still be mistaken In short no Authority can render me infallibly certain but that which is infallible no Infallibility can render me infallibly certain but that of which I have an infallible Certainty Either therefore the Scripture can render me infallibly certain of the Infallibility of their Church and if it cannot I am sure nothing can or it cannot if it can why may it not as well render me infallibly certain of other Principles of Christianity which are at least as plainly revealed in it as that If I cannot how can I be infallibly certain that any Thing she defines and declares to me is true If then the Authority of Scripture can give us an infallible Certainty we have as just a Pretence to it as They it being upon this Authority that we ground our Faith if it cannot neither they nor we can justly pretend to it because they cannot otherwise be infallibly certain of their own Infallibility but by Scripture But the Truth of it is God never intended either that they or we should be infallibly certain in the Mtters of our Religion for after all the Means of Certainty that he hath given us he still supposes that we may err and plainly tells us that there must be Heresies and that even from among the Members of the true Church where infallible Certainty is if it be any where there should arise false Teachers who should bring in damnable Doctrines which could never have happened if he had left any such Means to his Church as should render her Children infallibly certain All that he designed was to leave us such sufficient Means of Certainty in Religion as that we might not err either dangerously or damnably without our own Fault He hath left us his Word and in that hath plainly discovered to us all that is necessary for us to believe in order to eternal Life He hath left us a standing Ministry in his Church to explain his Word to us and to guide us in the Paths of Righteousness and Truth but still he requires us to search the one and attend to the other with honest humble and teachable Minds and if we do not we may err not only dangerously but damnably and it is but fit and just we should But if we diligently search the Scripture and faithfully rely upon its Authority without doing of which we search it in vain if we sincerely attend to the publick Ministry with Minds prepared to receive the Truth in the Love of it though we may possibly err in Matters of less Moment yet as to all Things necessary to our eternal Salvaion our Faith shall be inviolably secured and this is as much as any honest Man needs or as any honest Church can promise 2. From hence also I infer that in the Matters of our Faith and Religion God doth expect that we should make use of our own Reason and Judgment For to what end should he put us upon searching the Scriptures but that thereby we may inform our selves what those Things are which he hath required us to believe and practise But if it were his Mind that we should wholly rely upon the Authority of our Church or of our Spiritual Guides and submit our Faith to their Dictates without any Examination what a needless and impertinent Imployment would this be for us to search and consult the Scriptures Consult them for what if we are not to follow their Guidance and Direction and to take the Measures of our Faith and Manners from them And if for this End God hath obliged us to consult them as to be sure it can be for no other End then he hath obliged us to imploy our own Reason and Judgment to consider what they say and enquire what they mean otherwise he hath obliged us to consult them to no Purpose It is as evident therefore that God will have us use our own Reason and Judgment in discerning what we are to believe and what not in Religion and not lazily rely upon others to see and discern and believe for us as it is that he would have us search and consult the Scriptures and that I think is evident enough from what hath been said to any one that is not resolved to admit of a Conviction And indeed seeing our Reason is the noblest Faculty we have it would be very strange if God should not allow it to intermeddle in the highest and most important Affair wherein he hath ingaged us and seeing it is our Reason only that renders us capable of Religion what an odd Thing would it be for God to for bid us making use of our Reason in the most important Concerns of Religion that is in distinguishing what is true Religion from what is false and what we ought to believe from what we ought to reject I know it is pretended by those who urge the absolute Necessity of submitting our Reason to the Church that they allow Men to make Use of their own Reason and Judgment in discovering which the true Church is and that all they contend for is only this that when once Men have found the true Church they ought to enquire no farther but immediately to deliver up their Reason and Understanding to it and believe every Thing it believes without any farther Examination So that before Men come into their Church it seems they are allowed to see for themselves but after they are in they must wink and follow their Guides and depute them to see and understand for them which to such Men as are not quite sick of their own Reason and Understandings should methinks be a great Temptation to keep them out of their Church for ever For if I may judge for my self while I am out of it but must not while I am in it I must be very fond of parting with my own Eyes and Reason if ever I come into it at all But suppose I was always in it
and had been bred up in its Communion from my Infancy will they allow me when I come to the full use of my Reason fairly to question whether theirs be the only true Church or no and to hear the Reasons and examine the Scriptures and consult the Doctors on both sides No by no means this I am forbid under the penalty of being deprived of the Benefit of Priestly Absolution So that in short they will allow me to make Use of my Reason if I have been bred an Heretick in order to my Reconciliation to their Church but if I have never been an Heretick I must never use my Reason to examine the Truth either of my Church or Religion that is to say I may use my Reason when there is no other Remedy and I must continue a Heretick if I do not But it were much better that I had never had Occasion to use my Reason at all So that according to these Men the Use of our Reason in Religion is only the least of two Evils it is not so bad as to continue a Heretick but if I had never been one it would be very bad and a certain Way to make me one which methinks looks very odd that the Use of my Reason should be necessary to reduce me from Heresy and the disuse of it as necessary when I am reduced to preserve me from relapsing into Heresy 'T is a memorable Passage of the Bishop of St. Mark in the Council of Trent that Seculars are obliged humbly to obey that Doctrine of Faith which is given them by the Church without disputing or thinking farther of it Where by the Church he means the Clergy assembled in that Council So that according to this Man's Doctrine the Faith of the People is a meer Beast of Burthen that right or wrong must bear all the Load that the Priests shall agree to lay upon it and though it should feel it self oppressed by them with never such gross Contradictions or Absurdities it must think no farther of it but tamely trudg on without starting or bogling At this Rate what Tricks may not the Priests play with the Faith of the People Let them invent what Doctrines they please to serve the Interest of their own Ambition and Covetousness the People must believe them without asking why or if they should ask why they must expect no other Answer but this because we have thought to define and declare them For it is by no means allowable that the People should exercise any private Judgment of their own about Matters of Faith no I confess it is not where the Matters proposed to their Faith are false and erroneous because it is a thousand to one but one time or other the People will discover the Frauds and Impostures of the Priests and this would spoil all But if the Matters of Faith are true in all Probability the farther the People enquire into them the better they will be satisfied about them and if in the Exercise of their private Judgments they should in some particulars err that is far more tollerable than that they should be utterly deprived of the Means of being able to give an Answer to every one that asks them a Reason of the Hope that is in them But when God hath given the People reasonable Faculties on purpose that by them they may be able to distinguish what is true from what is false for any Party of Men to forbid them the Use of these Faculties in distinguishing what is true from what is false in Religion in which above all Things they are most highly concerned it is a most injurious Usurpation upon the common Rights of humane Nature For by this Means our best Faculty is rendred useless to us in our greatest Concerns and whereas God gave it to us on purpose to guide and direct us we are utterly deprived of it's Guidance where we have most need of it and where it will prove most fà tal to us if we should happen to err and go astray A DISSUASIVE FROM APOSTACY 1 TIMOTHY I. 19. Holding faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack THese Words are a part of St. Paul's Charge to his Son Timothy wherein he Pathetically Exhorts him as a Valiant Bishop to take all possible Care to preserve the Purity of the Christian Doctrine in his Diocess of Ephesus which at that time abounded with false Teachers whose Business it was to sow the Tares of Heresie and false Doctrine in that large and fruitful Field the Cultivation whereof St. Paul had committed to his Charge And that he might discharge this Office the more effectually the Apostle warns him in the first Place to take Care of himself that he did not suffer his own Faith and Manners to be depraved and corrupted by those lewd and irreligious Principles which those Antichristian Seminaries were then scattering among his People that so he might be an Example to his Flock as well as a Teacher of pure and undefiled Religion And this v. 18. he presses upon him from the Consideration of what had been foretold of him by Divine Inspiration before ever he entered upon his Ministry viz. That he should war a good warfare that is prove a constant and couragious Champion of the Christian Faith which Prophesies he exhorts him to use his utmost endeavour to verifie both in his Profession and Practice by holding or as it is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having or keeping faith and a good conscience which later viz. a good conscience some having put away concerning the former viz. Faith have made shipwrack Before we proceed to the Design of these Words it will be necessary briefly to explain some Terms in them as 1. What is meant by Faith 2. What by a good Conscience 3. What by putting away a good Conscience And 4. What by making shipwrack of the Faith 1. As for the first What is here meant by keeping the Faith I answer By this Phrase Faith we are to understand the Christian Creed or summary of those necessary and essential Doctrines whereof the Christian Religion is composed For at that time there was little else professed and taught in the Christian Churches but only the fundamental Principles of Christianity together with the nearest and most immediate Inferences from them so that few then mis-believed but such as mis-believed in Fundamentals and every Error in Doctrine was generally a Heresie The Christian Faith in those Days lay within a narrow compass and so it continued till the Wantonness and Curiosity of succeeding Ages started disputable Opinions and as they prevailed adopted them into the Family of Faith insomuch that in process of Time sundry Opinions were received that were never so much as heard of in the Apostolical Age and as soon as they were received they were presently declared necessary Articles And as for the contradictory Opinions though Christianity was little or nothing concerned whether they
were true or false yet they seldom underwent any milder Name than Heresie or gentler Doom than Damnation which hath been one of the grand Occasions of all the Ruptures and Divisions that have happened in the Christian World But as for the Faith which the Apostle here speaks of it was of a much less Bulk than what it is now arrived to by rolling through the wild Opiniatry of Sixteen Disputation Ages which by degrees have swelled it from a short script into a large Volume For if we look into the New Testament and into the Writings of the most Primitive Fathers we shall find the Sums of Christian Faith therein contained consisting of very few Articles and those such only as are essential to Christian Religion and such as wherein almost all the differing Persuasions of Christians do to this Day concenter To hold the Faith therefore is to persevere immovably in the Profession of the true Christian Doctrine so far as in us lies and not to be prevailed upon to desert or forsake it either through Fear of Persecution or Hope of Temporal Advantage or the Knavish Arts and Sly Insinuations of false Teachers 2. The second Term here to be explained is What is meant by keeping a good Conscience Conscience in general is nothing but our practical Judgment directing us what we ought to do and what to avoid and approving or reproving according as we follow its Directions or run counter to them The Conscience therefore is good or bad according as the Directions are which it gives for the Government of our Lives and Actions If our Judgment be false and erroneous and directs us to do what we ought to avoid or to avoid what we ought to do it is a bad Conscience that instead of being a Light to guide our Steps in the Paths of Righteousness is only a wandring Night-fire that leads us into Bogs and Quagmires As on the contrary A good Conscience is our practical Judgment well informed and truly directing us in the Course of our Actions what we ought to do and what to avoid For a good Conscience is the true Eccho of God within us that faithfully resounds his Voice and upon all Opportunities of Action repeats after him to our Wills and Affections To keep a good Conscience therefore implies two Things First To maintain in our Minds a true Sense of Good and Evil and so far forth as in us lies to preserve our practical Judgment pure from all false Principles of Action and not to suffer either our vicious Inclinations or worldly Interest to warp and seduce it and cause it to mistake Evil for Good and Good for Evil. Secondly It implies our following the Dictates and Directions of a good Conscience our doing what it bids and abstaining from what it forbids and faithfully resigning our selves to its Conduct and Government and not to be prevailed upon by any Temptation whatsoever to act counter to its Sense and Persuasion In short To keep a good Conscience is to live in a strict Conformity to the Dictates of a well-informed Judgment and not to allow our selves in any Course of Action which this Vice-God within us forbids or disapproves 3. The Third Term to be explained in the Text is What is meant by putting away a good Conscience which being directly opposed here to keeping a good Conscience must denote the Contraries to it To put away a good Conscience therefore is either first to corrupt our own Judgment of Things and Actions out of vicious Affection or worldly Interest and impose upon our selves false Notions of Good and Evil or secondly to act directly contrary to our Sense and Persuasion to leave undone those Things which our own Conscience tells us we ought to do and to do those things which it tells us we ought not to do In short to put away a good Conscience is to live in any known Course of Sin either of Omission or Commission to practise Contradictions to our own Judgments and to follow the Inclinations of our Wills against the Light and Conviction of our Consciences 4. The last Enquiry is What is here meant by making shipwrack of the Faith which being here set in Opposition to holding or keeping the Faith must signifie oppositely and consequently must denote not holding and keeping it or which is the same thing losing and abandoning it For in this Allegory the true Christian Faith is represented as a Ship and a good Conscience or a pure and holy Life as the Pilot that steers and governs it And indeed in that State of Things there was no other Pilot but Purity of Conscience and Holiness of Life was able to conduct and preserve this Ship and carry it safe through those incessant Storms of Persecution wherein at that time it was toss'd and agitated For when Christians have once thrown off the Obligations of a good Conscience by abandoning themselves to a wicked and dissolute Life what is there left to restrain them from abandoning their Faith when it stands in Competition with their Worldly Ease and Interest And though there should be no Competition between their Faith and Interest but they might freely enjoy them both without any disturbance yet their wicked Lives will naturally tempt them to corrupt their Faith with wicked Principles of which later in the next Verse he gives an eminent instance in Hymenaeus who had not wholly deserted Christianity but only renounced one Fundamental Article of it viz. The Resurrection of the Dead As of the former he gives another Instance in Alexander who as it seems probable had through the Fear of Persecution deserted Christianity it self The Words thus explained may be resolved into this Sense That Mens living wickedly against the Convictions and Obligations of their Conscience doth very much expose them to Apostacy from true Religion into gross and impious Errors Thus to the love of money which is the root of all evil the Apostle attributes Mens Erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 And that which exposed those silly women 2 Tim. 3.6 to the Seduction of false Teachers was their being laden with sins and led away with divers lusts And the same Apostle ascribes Demas's Apostacy to his Covetousness or inordinate love of this present World 2 Tim. 4.10 But that I may evince this Truth more fully I shall give you some particular Instances of the mighty Tendencies there are in every vicious Course of Life to Error and Apostacy from true Religion 1. It corrupts and debauches Men's Reason and Understanding 2. It renders the Principles of true Religion uneasie to ther Minds 3. It deprives Men of the highest Encouragements to Constancy and Stedfastness in Religion 4. It weakens the natural Force of their Consciences which is the greatest Restraint from Apostacy 5. It strengthens the Temptations to Apostacy 6. It provokes God to give us up to the Power of Delusion 1. Living in any known and willful Course of Sin corrupts and debauches Men's Reason and
Number of Masses Requiems and Indulgencies as will in all Probability soon procure his Dismission from those temporary Sufferings into eternal Happiness How odly soever this Doctrine may appear to his Reason to be sure it will be charming enough to his Lusts and when once a Mans Lusts are retained the Cause is half carried at the Bar of his Judgment And so in all other Instances it is a great Disadvantage to true Religion and as great an Advantage to false that Mens Faith and Reason are so much swayed and byass'd by their Lusts For though there is no Religion can be true but what is pure and holy yet it is the Holiness of true Religion that doth provoke their Lusts against it and 't is their Lusts that do provoke their Reason and when all is done there is nothing doth more strongly incline or frequently pervert depraved and wicked Minds to false Religion than its Complyance with their vicious Affections though this very Thing is one of the most certain Signs in Nature of its Falshood 3. Living in any known Course of Sin deprives Men of the greatest Encouragements to Constancy and Steadfastness in the true Religion For doubtless the highest Encouragement to Perseverance in the Truth against all Oppositions and Temptations is the Hope of those glorious Rewards that await them in the World to come 'T was this that guarded the Faith of the antient Martyrs safe through all the Rage and Cruelty of their Persecutors their having an Eye to the Recompence of Reward the Sight of which inspired the drooping Souls with an invincible Courage made them despise Racks and Wheels and Flames and exalt and triumph under the most exquisite Torments And indeed what less Encouragement than the Hope of being eternally happy within a few Moments could have enabled a Company of tender Virgins delicate Matrons infirm and aged Bishops to endure those long and dolorous Martyrdoms as many times they did when their Tormentors took their turns from Morn to Night and plyed them with all Kinds of Tortures till oftentimes they were forced to give over and confess themselves overcome either through Weariness or Compassion But now by indulging our selves in any known Course of Sin we throw away this Sovereign Cordial and leave our selves naked and destitute of all the mighty Supports it is able to give us under any Temptation to Apostacy For how can we hope for any Good from God and much less for so great a Good as a Heaven of immortal Joys amounts to whilst we persist in open Rebellion against him especially when he hath expresly suspended this mighty Recompence upon our constant and faithful Obedience to his Will and told us plainly before hand that we might know what to trust to that if we fail of this he will be so far from admitting us into that Place and State of Blessedness that he will banish us for ever from his Presence into outer Darkness and eternal Wretchedness and Despair When by wilful Sin therefore we have cast away our hope of Heaven what have we left to support our Constancy to the Truth if ever we should be called to suffer for it How can it be expected that rather than renounce our Religion we should be contented to part with our Goods or Liberties or Lives when all our Hope is shut up in this Life and we have no Prospect of Compensation either here or hereafter If ever therefore we would be stedfast to the Truth against all Temptations we must above all Things take Care by a holy Life to cherish and keep alive the Hopes of Heaven in our Breasts which is the only Anchor that can hold and secure us in a stormy Sea from making Shipwrack of our Faith 4. Living in any known Course of Sin weakens the natural Force of Mens Consciences which is the greatest Restraint from Apostacy Indeed for Men to apostatize from their Religion to secure their worldly Interest is a Thing so base and infamous so foul an Instance of a cowardly degenerous and prostitute Soul that if a Man were under no other Restraint but only that Sense of Honour that is lodged in all brave Minds he would scorn so mean so poor a Condescention But yet when all is done there is no such powerful Restraint upon Men as that of a good Conscience which is the natural Bridle by which God curbs our head-strong Nature and keeps it from flying out into all the wild Extravagancies it is inclined to For it is from God and in God's stead that Conscience acts who is the most powerful Being in the World When it commands it is with God's Authority when it rebukes it is with God's Majesty when it applauds it is with God's Complacency It proceeds not upon Principles of mere Policy or Prudence which require us to act this way now and anon the contrary as Circumstances after but upon the awful Principles of Divinity which oblige us by all that we can hope or fear for ever and require of us the self same Things and Actions in all Circumstances and the sole Reason it insists on is the Will of God whose Pleasure or Displeasure can make us happy or miserable for ever The Voice of Conscience is not This I judge most expedient for thee to do and this to avoid but this thou must do and this avoid as thou tenderest the Love of God and dreadest his everlasting Hatred and Revenge And it is no less than eternal Bliss that Conscience allures our Hope with and eternal Vengeance that it alarms our Fear with and if Men will not be withheld by such powerful Restraints as these what can withold them Whilst therefore a Man cherishes his Conscience by complying with it and follows its Directions this if any Thing will secure his stedfastness to the Truth against all Temptations whilst this hath any Power over him he will as soon eat Fire as sacrifice his Faith to his Interest For for a Man to renounce his Religion upon any Prospect of temporal Gain or Loss is such a flagitious Violation of all that is Sacred such a monstrous Instance of High-Treason against God such an open Blasphemy of his Truth such a bold Defyance of his Majesty and in a word such a Complication of vile Perfidy base Ingratitude and impious Falsehood that but to think of it is like looking down from a stupendous Precipice that swims the Head and strikes the Mind with Horror and Amazement so that while a Man's Conscience hath any Power over him he will no more be able to prevail with himself to commit the one than to throw himself headlong down from the other whilst he is under the Horror of the Prospect and he will find it so much more easy to endure the worst of Persecutions than to commit such an Outrage and Violence on his Conscience and undergo those horrible Reflections and stinging Remorses that must follow it But after a Man by wilful Sinning hath often wounded
sacred and good as no Man can be guilty of who is not utterly abandoned of all his natural Sense of Religion and Relish of Good and Evil But yet perhaps you may be tempted to change with the Prospect of such Advantages on the one side and Calamities on the other which though it doth not obtain of you that base and wicked Resolution yet doth so far prevail as to engage you upon a fresh Enquiry to try whether upon second Thoughts and better Consideration you can satisfie your own Minds of the Truth of that Religion you are invited to turn to that so you may if possible comply with a good Conscience and secure your Interest in doing your Duty And thus far you are safe enough but before you proceed any farther it concerns you as you tender your everlasting Interest to look into your own Souls and consider seriously whether you are unfeignedly resolved whatsoever the Consequence of Things may be to cleave fast to the Truth of God on which side soever you shall find it Put the Question to your selves over and over O my Soul here are such Advantages and such Calamities before you importuning you to change your present discountenanced Religion for a more thriving and prosperous One Are you now resolved fairly and impartially to examine the Merit of the Cause And if thereupon you still find Reason to believe that your present Religion is the very Truth of Jesus will you rather renounce those Advantages and incur those Calamities than for go it Will you follow the Truth wheresoever you find it and whithersoever it shall happen to lead you though it be from Preferment to Persecution Are you resolved by the Grace of God to prostrate all your temporal Hopes and Fears before it and rather to lose any Good or suffer any Evil than desert it For let me tell you if you find your heart shrink at this Proposal or that you have any reserved Intention if the worst come to the worst rather to part with your Religion right or wrong than to shake hands with your temporal Interest you are in a very unfitting Temper to examine on which side the Truth lies For it is a plain Case your Mind is under a prevailing Byass of temporal Hopes and Fears which will be sure to incline it to favour that side of the Question which is most for your Interest and 't will be impossible for you to examine fairly and judge impartially whilst your Judgment is thus bribed and corrupted by your Interest For your Will hath already determined upon the Matter before ever your Understanding hath heard the Cause and it is your secret Intention right or wrong to forgo your Religion rather than your Interest if ever they come in Competition So that now you will be obliged in your own Defence to use your utmost Art to set the fairest Colours upon the Evidences against your Religion and to stifle and enervate those that assert and maintain it lest they should so confirm you in the Belief of it as that when Occasion requires you will not be able to surrender it up without committing an horrible Outrage and Violence upon your selves Wherefore before you suffer your worldly Hopes and Fears to summon your Religion upon a new Tryal be sure you fix this Resolution in your Souls By the Grace of God I will now lay aside all Interest and Affection and strictly examin the Evidence on both Sides with an equal and unbiass'd Judgment I will attend to nothing but the Reasons of Things and the pure Merits of the Cause and where-ever I find the Truth lies whether on the side of my Interest or against it I will be sure to follow it whatsoever shall be the Event and Issue For if upon the Temptation of any worldly Interest you bring your Religion to a new Tryal with this secret Intention that though it should still aprove it self to your Judgment yet you will rather part with it than abandon that Interest this very Intention will be apt to blind and mislead your Judgment to arm your Wit and Reason against your Religion and to set all your Faculties at work to argue you out of it and pervert you from it to a contrary Faith and Persuasion which if it should accomplish you will certainly be found guilty of a willful Apostacy when you come to be tryed before the Tribunal of God to whose all-seeing Eye the most secret Motions of your Souls are as visible as if they were written on your Foreheads with a Sun-beam who sees your treacherous Heart and false Intention rather to forsake his Truth than your Interest and knows very well that it is this that seduces you and gives Force to those false Reasons and Convictions that impose upon your Judgment and betray your Faith 6. And lastly When you fall under any Temptation to change your Religion consider whether before you were inclined to change you did conscitiously comply with the Obligations of it We have too many Men that pretend to be mighty inquisitive after the true Church and the true Religion and yet live as if there were no such thing as true Religion in the World and quietly allow themselves in such impious Courses as do openly affront the common Principles of all Religions There is nothing they dread so much as Heresy and if you will believe them are monstrously concerned to examine whether the Church with which they now communicate be Catholick or Heretical and yet all this while they persist without any Concern or Remorse in the most damnable Heresy in the World and that is a wicked and immoral Life So that upon comparing their Atheistical Lives with the loud Cry they make about the true Catholick Faith and Church one would be tempted to think that their Christianity began at the wrong End of their Creed and that they believed in the Holy Catholick Church before they believe in God the Father Almighty or in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord Which is such a gross and fulsom Piece of Hypocrisy as one would think any modest Man should be ashamed of For in the name of God Sirs What have you to do to wrangle and make a Noise about Religion whose profligate Manners are a Shame and Scandal to common Humanity It is a Reproach to any Religion for you to name it and Shame to any Church for you to pretend to it and therefore when such as you raise a Cry after the true Church and true Religion it is a plain Case that whatever Pretence you bring upon the Stage you are prompted by some base Interest behind the Curtain And is it not a pleasant Thing to hear such Profligates as these pretend to be Converts who only turn from one Opinion to another but still continue as wicked and unreformed in their Manners under the Opinion they turn to as they were under that they turned from These are such Converts as there is no Church in the World that advances true Piety above worldly Interest but would glory to lose and blush to gain And what Diogenes said of a wicked Fellow that praised him that the Religion may say which those Men turn to What Hurt have I done what wicked Principles am I guilty of that such vile Wretches as these should commend and embrace me For for God's sake what is it that they are converted to Is it to any Thing that renders them wiser or better Men No The contrary is too notorious through the whole Course of their Actions Well then it seems they are converted to something that doth them no manner of Good that serves them to no true End of Religion that is to a meer empty Notion that only gingles about their Understandings but hath no good Influence on their Hearts and Manners Had their Conversion proceeded-upon pure Principles of Conscience that would have obliged them to change their Manners as well as their Opinions there being very few Opinions in Religion so contradictory to the natural Sentiments of Conscience as a vicious and immoral Life Supposing that the Papal Supremacy Purgatory and Transubstantiation were true yet that the contrary Doctrins to these are Errors can never be so evident to any Man's Conscience as that Drunkenness Adultery Fraud and Oppression are Sins and therefore for any Man to pretend that he forsook those Errors out of Conscience who yet makes no Conscience of continuing in these Sins is such a transparent Hypocrisy as hath not Vizor and Disguize enough to abuse either the most Candid or Credulous If therefore before you are resolved to forsake your Sins you are tempted to forsake your Religion it is a plain Case that it is not your Conscience or Conviction that tempts you but your Lust or Interest Had it been Conscience it would have been far more importunate with you to reform your Manners than your Faith and to become good Men than Catholick Believers and therefore under your present Circumstances you ought to be very careful what you do and how you comply with the Temptation lest to all the Rest of your Sins you add that foul and fatal one of Apostacy and thereby fill up the Measure of your Iniquities and finally provoke Almighty God to abandon you as you have abandoned him and give you up for lost and desperate FINIS