gave me as I should do which my Neighbour did not and for that Reason I go to Heaven and he to Hell and as he can blame none but himself for the One â—o I am beholden to None but my self for the Other This I say is the main of the Pelagian Divinity though much more compendiously delivered in that known but lewd Aphorism of theirs A Deo habemus quòd sumus Homines à nobis autem ipsis quod sumus Iusti. To which we may add another of their Principlâ—â— to wit That if a man does all that Naturally he can do still understanding hereby the Present State of Nature God is bound in Iustice to supply whatsoever more shall be Necessary to his Salvation Which Premisses if they do not directly and unavoidably infer in Man a Power of meriting of God the World is yet to seek what the Nature and Notion of Merit is Accordingly both Gelasius and St. Austin in setting down the Points wherein the Catholick Church differed from the Pelagians assign this for one of the chief That the Pelagians held Gratiam Dei secundùm Hominum merita conferri And the Truth is upon their Principles a man may even merit the Incarnation of Christ For if there be no saving Grace without it and a Man may do that which â—hall oblige God in Iustice to vouchsafe him such Grace as with no small self-contradiction these Men use to speak then let them Qualify and Soften the matter with what Words they Please I affirm that upon these Terms a Man really merits his Salvation and by Consequence all that is or can be necessary thereunto In the mean time throughout all this Pelagian Scheme we have not so much as one Word of Mans Natural Impotency to Spiritual Things though inculcated and wrote in both Testaments with a Sun-beam nor consequently of the Necessity of some Powerful Divine Energy to Bend Encline and effectually Draw Mans Will to such Objects as it Naturally resists and is averse to Not a Word I say of this or any Thing like it for those Men used to explode and deny it all as their Modern Off-spring amongst us also do And yet this passed for sound and good Divinity in the Church in St. Austin's time and within less thâ—â— an hundred years since in our Church too till Pelagianism and Socâ—nianism Deism Tritheism Atheism and a Spirit of Innovation the Root of all and Worse than all broke in upon us and by false Schemes of Models countenanced and encouraged have given quite a new face to Things though a new face is certainly the worst and most unbecoming that can be set upon an old Religion But Secondly To proceed to another sort of men famous for corrupting Christianity more ways than one to wit those of the Church of Rome We shall find that this Doctrine of Mans being able to merit of God is one of the Chief Foundations of Popery also Even the Great Diana which some of the most Experienced Craftsmen in the World do with so much Zeal Sacrifice to and make shrines for and by so doing Get their living and that a very plentyful and Splendid One too As knowing full well that without it the Grandeur of their Church which is all their Religion would quickly fall to the Ground For if there be no merit of good Works then no Supererogation and if no Supererogation no Indulgences and if no Indulgences then it is to be feared that the Silversmiths Trade will run low and the Credit of the Pontifical Bank begin to fail So that the very marrow the life and Spirit of Popery lies in a stiff adherence to this Doctrine The Grand Question still insisted upon by these Merchants being Quid dabitis and the great Commodity set to sale by them being merit For can any one think that the Pope and his Cardinals and the rest of their Ecclesiastical Grandees care a Rush whether the Will of Man be free or No as the Jesuits state the Freedom of it on the one side and Dominicans and Jansenists on the other or that they at all concern themselves about Iustification and Free Grace but only as the Artificial stating of such Points may sometimes serve them in their Spiritual Traffick and now and then help them to Turn the Penny No they Value not their Schools any further than they furnish their Markets nor regard any Gospel but that of Cardinal Palaviâ—cini which professedly owns it for the main design of Christianity to make Men as Rich as Great and as Happy as they can be in this World And the Grand Instrument to compass all this by is the Doctrine of Merit For how else could it be That so many in that Communion should be able to satisfy themselves in doing so much less than they know they are required to do for the saving of their Souls but that they are taught to believe that there are some again in the World who do a great deal more than they are bound to do and so may very well keep their Neighbours lamp from going out by having oyl enough both to supply their own and a comfortable Overplus besides to lend or which is much better to Sell in such a Case In a Word take away the Foundation and the House must fall and in like manner beat down Merit and down goes Popery too And so at length that I may not trespass upon your Patience too much I descend to the Fourth and Last Particular proposed at â—â—â—st from the Words Which was to remove an Objection naturally apt to issue â—â—om the Foregoing Particulars The Objection is obvious and the Answer to it needs not be long It proceeds thus If the Doctrine hitherto advanced be True can there be a Greater discouragement to Men in their Christian course than to consider that all their Obedience all their Duties and Choicest performances are Nothing Worth in the sight of God and that they themselves after they have done their Best their Vtmost and their very All in His service are still for all that Vseless and Vnprofitable and such as can Plead no Recompence at all at His hands This You will say is very hard but to it I Answer First That it neither ought nor uses to be any Discouragement to a Begger â—s we all are in respect of Almighty God to continue asking an Alms and doing all that he can to obtain it though he knows he can do Nothing to Claim it But Secondly I deny That our Disavoâ—â—ing this Doctrine of Merit cuts us 〈◊〉 from all Plea to a Recompence for our Châ—â—stian Obedience at the hands of God It cuts us off indeed from all Plea to it upon the score of Condignity and strict Iustice But then should we not on the other side consider whether God's Iustice be the only Thing that can oblige Him in Hiâ— transactings with Men For does not Hâ—â— Veracity and His Promise oblige Him aâ— much as His Iustice can And has Hâ—
was laid by Socinianism Whereupon their old Popery got a firmer establishment and more rigorous Imposition than before the Government preferring a less Pure and Perfect Christianity before the most refined Turcism This was the method taken there and I wish it may not have the like Issue here But on the Contrary amongst You when a Certain Mahometan Christian No new thing of late Notorious for his Blasphemous Denyal of the Mysteries of our Religion and his Insufferable Virulence against the whole Christian Priesthood thought to have found shelter amongst you the Parliament to their Immortal Honour Presently sent him Packing and without the help of a Faggot soon made the Kingdom too Hot for him A sufficient Argument Doubtless how far we are from needing those savage Executions used by the Papists to Rid the Church of Hereticks and Blasphemers where Authority Animated with due Zeal will attempt that worthy Work by other more Humane but not less effectual means Nothing Certainly but Power as the World now goes can keep the Church in Peace And now My Lord may that God by whom Princes and Prelate's Govern and Churches stand long preserve Your Grace and that Excellent Church which you are so eminent a Pillar of and Ornament to and which by Her Incomparable Courage and Faithfulness lately shewn in preserving that Great Depositum the Holy Religion Committed to her Trust has gotten her self a Name which will never die and such a solid well-founded Reputation as no Bending this way or that way no Trimming or Tricking it ever could or can give so Ample and so Considerable a Body For it is Lead only that Bends to almost every Thing which the Nobler Metals cannot do and the Nobler sort of minds will not But I fear I trespass too far upon Your Grace's Time and Business And therefore humbly imploring Your Grace's blessing I lay these Poor Papers at Your feet infinitely Vnworthy I Confess of the Acceptance of so great a Person and the Perusal of so Iudicious an Eye but yet at present the best pledges I can give Your Grace of those sincere Respects and Services which Your Grace ought always to Claim and shall never fail to Receive from My Lord Your Grace's ever Faithful and most Obedient Servant Robert South Westminster April 30. 1698. THE CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS SERMON I. JOB XXII 2 former part Can a Man be profitable to God p. 3 SERMON II Luk. XI 35 Take heed therefore that the Light which is in Thee be not Darkness p. 35 SERMON III Matth. V. 44 former part But I say unto you Love your Enemies p. III SERMON IV. Matth. VII 26 27. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine and doth them not shall be likened unto a foolish Man who built his House upon the Sand. And the Rain descended and the Flouds came and the Winds blew and beat upon that House and it fell and great was the fall of it p. 165 SERMON V. 1 Cor. VIII 12 But when ye Sin so against the Brethren and Wound their Weak Conscience ye Sin against Christ. p. 211 SERMON VI. 1 Cor. II. 7 former part But we speak the Wisdom of God in a Mystery p. 259 SERMON VII Revel XXII 16 latter part I am the Root and the Off-spring of David and the Bright and Morning-star p. 315 SERMON VIII John I. 11 He came to His Own and His Own received Him not p. 361 SERMON IX Isaiah LIII 8 latter part For the Transgression of my People was He stricken p. 415 SERMON X. Acts II. 24 Whom God hath raised up having loosed the Pains of Death because it was not possible that He should be holden of it p. 463 SERMON XI 1 Cor. XII 4 Now there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit p. 503 SERMON XII Psalm CXLIV 10 former part It is He that giveth Salvation unto Kings p. 553 Some of the Chief Errors of the Press are thus to be Corrected PAge 27. l. 23. r. Eleemosynary p. 25. l. 23. r. suteable p. 36. l. 22. for do r. de p. 46. l. 14. for Of r. and p. 61. l. 4. r. Unconceivably p. 79. l. 15. r. Ethiopian p. 87. l. 1. r. skillfullest p. 89. l. 19. for Himself r. Him p. 92. l. 19. r. Instances p. 122. l. 25. for was r. were p. 138. l. 2. r. artificially p. 139. l. 25. for ever r. even p. 150. l. 24. dele the first And p. 153. l. 9. r. Head p. 155. l. 12. for Who r. whom p. 247. l. 16. for last r. late p. 264. l. 23. r. Influence p. 283. l. 5. r. Egyptians p. 315. l. 10. r. Epiphany p. 351. l. 9. r. Appearance p. 451. l. 16. for word r. Work p. 456. l. last r. Renounce p. 542. l. 1. for Rule r. of Rule p. 578. l. 9. dele from p. 596. l. 13. r. Concerning Books lately Printed for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard TWenty four Sermons upon several Occasions being the First and Second Volume By Robert South D. D. The Second Edition Sermons and Discourses upon several Occasions By Dr. Stradling Dean of Chichester With an Account of the Author by Iames Harrington Esq. Sermons and Discourses upon several Occasions By Dr. Meggot Dean of Winchester The Certainty and Necessity of Religion in General or the first Grounds and Principles of Human Duty Established In eight Sermons Preached at St. Martins in the Fields at the Lecture for the Year 1697 founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq. By Francis Gastrell B. D. and Student of Christ-Church Oxon. Some Considerations concerning the Trinity and the ways of managing that Controversy The Second Edition Together with a Defence of them against the Objections of the Dean of St. Pauls A Discourse of Religious Assemblies wherein the Nature and Necessity of Divine Worship is Asserted and Explained against Negligence and Prophaneness For the use of the Members of the Church of England By Geo. Burghope Rector of Little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire A Conference between an Orthodox Christian and a Socinian in four Dialogues Wherein the late distinction of a Real and a Nominal Trinitarian is considered By H. De Luzancy B. D. Vic. of Dovercourt and Harwich THE Doctrine of Merit STATED AND THE Impossibility of MANS Meriting of GOD Asserted in a DISCOURSE UPON The 22. of Iob and the 2 d Verse PREACHED At Westminster-Abbey On Decem. 5 th 1697. JOB XXII 2 Can a man be Profitable to God IT is a matter of no small moment certainly for a Man to be rightly informed upon what Terms and â—onditions he is to transact with God and God with him in the Great Business of his Salvation For by Knowing upon what Terms he must obtain Eternal Happiness hereafter he will know also upon what Grounds he is to hope for and expect it here and so be able to govern both his Actions and Expectations according to the Nature of the Thing he is in Pursuit of Least otherwise he should chance to
fail of the Prize he runs for by mistaking the Way he should run in St. Paul as plainly as words can express a Thing tells us That Eternal Life is the Gift of God and Consequently to be expected by us only as such nay He asserts it to be a Gift in the very same verse in which He affirms Death to be as due to a Sinner as Wages are to a Worke man Romans 6.23 Than which Words nothing certainly can be more full and Conclusive That Salvation proceeds wholly upon Free-gift though Damnation upon strict Desert Nevertheless such is the Extreme folly or rather Sottishness of Manâ— Corrupt Nature That this does by 〈◊〉 means Satisfy Him For though indeed he would fain be Happy yet fain would He also Thank none for it but Himself And though He finds that not only His Duty but His Necessity brings him every day upon His knees to Almighty God for the very Bread he eats yet when he comes to deal with Him about Spirituals things of infinitely greater Value he appears and acts not as a Suppliant but as a Merchant not as One who comes to be Relieved but to Traffick For something he would receive of God and something he would Give Him and nothing will content this Insolent yet Impotent Creature unless he may seem to Buy the very Thing he Begs Such being the Pride and Baseness of some Spirits that where they Receive a Benefit too big for them to requite they will even Deny the Kindness and disown the Obligation Now this great self-delusion so prevalent upon most minds is the Thing here encountered in the Text. The words of which by an usual way of speech under an Interrogation couching a Positive Assertion are a Declaration of the Impossibility of man's being Profitable to God or which is all one of his meriting of God according to the true proper and strict sence of Merit Noâ— does this Interrogative way of Expression import only a bare Negation of the Thing as in it self Impossible but also a manifest Undeniable Evidence of the said Impossibility As if it had been said That nothing can be more plainly Impossible than for a man to be Profitable to God for God to receive any Advantage by man's Righteousness or to gain any Thing by his making his Ways perfect and Consequently That nothing can be more absurd and contrary to all Sense and Reason â—â—an for a man to entertain and cherish so irrational a Conceit or to affirm so gross a Paradox And that no other Thing is here meant by a man's being profitable to God but his meritiâ—â— of God will appear from a true State and Account of the Nature of Merit Which we may not improperly define A Right to receive some good upon the score of some good done together with an Equiâ—olence or Parity of Worth between the Good to be Received and the Good Done So that although according to the Common Divisâ—â—n of Iustice into Commutative and Distributive that which is called Commutative be imployed only about the strict Value of Things according to an Arithmetical Proportion as the Schools speak which admits of no Degrees and the other species of Iustice call'd Distributive as consisting in the Distribution of Rewards and Punishments admits of some Latitude and degrees in the Dispensation of it yet in Truth even this Distribution it self must so far follow the Rules of Commutation That the Good to be dispensed by way of Reward ought in Iustice to be Equivalent to the Work or Action which it is design'd as a Compensation of So as by no means to sink below it or fall short of the full Value of it From all which upon a just Estimate of the matter it follows That in true Philosophy Merit is nothing else but an Instance or Exemplification of that Noted saying or Maxim That one Benefaction or good Turn requires another and imports neither more nor less than a mans claim or Title to Receive as much Good from another as he had done for him Thus much therefore being premised as an Explication of the Drift or Design of the Words the Words themselves being too plain and Easy to need any further exposition we shall observe and draw from them these Four Particulars First Something supposed or implyed in them viz. That Men are naturally very Prone to entertain an Opinion or Perswasion That they are able to merit of God or be Profitable to Him Secondly Something expressed namely That such an Opinion or Perswasion is utterly false and absurd and that it iâ— impossible for man to merit of God or to be Profitable to Him Thirdly Something Inferred from both the former to wit That the forementioned Opinion or Perswasion is the very source or foundation of Two of the greatest Corruptions that have infested the Christian Church and Religion And Fourthly and Lastly Something objected against the Particulars discoursed of which I shall endeavour â—o answer and remove and so Conclude this Discourse Of Each of which in their order And First For the first of them The Thing supposed or Implyed in the Words namely That Men are naturally very Prone to entertain an Opinion or Perswasion That they are able to merit of God or be Profitable to Him The Truth of which will appear from these two Considerations First That it is Natural for them to place too High a Value both upon themselves and their own Performances And that this is so is evident from that Vniversal Experience which proves it no less Natural to them to bear a more than ordinary Love to themselves and all Love we know is founded in and results from a Proportionable Esteem of the Object Loved So that look in what Degree any Man loves himself in the same Degree it will follow that he must Esteem himself too Upon which account it is that every Man will be sure to set his own Price upon what he is and what he does whether the World will come up to it or no as it seldom does That speech of St. Peter to our Saviour is very remarkable in Mat. xix 27 Master says he we have forsook all and followed Thee what shall we have therefore In which words he seems to be upon Equal Terms with his Lord and to expect no more of him as he thought but strictly a Pennyworth for his Penny and all this from a Conceit that he had done an Aâ— so exceedingly Meritorious that it must even Non-plus his Master's Bouâ—â—y to quit scores with him by a just Requital Nay so far had the same proud Ferment got into the Minds of all the Disciples that neither could their own low condition nor the constant Sâ—rmons of that Great Example of Self-denial and Humility whom they daily conversed with nor lastly the Correctives of a Peculiar Grace totally clear and cure them of it And therefore no Wonder if a Principle so deeply rooted in Nature works with the whole Power of Nature and considering also â—he
be Impossible This I say is a meer Fallacy and a Wretched Inconsequence and yet nothing occurs more commonly and that as a Principle taken for granted in the late Writings of some Heterodox Pert Unwary Men and particularly it is the main hinge upon which all the Socinian Arguments against the Mysteries of our Religion turn and depend but withal so extreamly remote is it from all Truth that there is not the least shew or shadow of Reason assignable for it but upon this one Supposition namely That the Reason or Mind of Man is capable of Comprehending or throughly Vnderstanding whatsoever it is possible for an Infinite Divine Power to do This I say must be supposed for no other Foundation can support the Truth of this Proposition to wit That whatsoever is humanly not Intelligible is and ought to be reckoned upon the same account also Impossible But then every one must needs see and explode the horrible falseness of the forementioned Supposition upon which alone this Assertion is built and consequently this Assertion it self must needs be altogether as false For who can comprehend or throughly understand how the Soul is united to and how it acts by and upon the Body Who can comprehend or give a full account how Sensation is performed Or who can lay open to us the whole Mechanism of Motion in all the Springs and Wheels of it Nay who can resolve and clear off all the Difficulties about the Composition of a continued Quantity as whether it is Compounded of Parts Divisible or Indivisible Both of which are attended with insuperable Objections And yet all these things are not only Possible but also Actually Existent in Nature From all which therefore and from a thousand more such Instances which might easily be produced I conclude That for any one to deny or reject the Mysteries of our Religion as Impossible because of the Incomprehensibleness of them is upon all true Principles both of Divinity and Philosophy utterly Inconsequent and Irrational Thirdly In the Third and last place we learn also from what has been discoursed the great Vanity and Extravagant Presumption of such as pretend to clear up all Mysteries and determine all Controversies in Religion The Attempts of which sort of Men I can liken to nothing so properly as to those Pretences to Infallible Cures which we daily see posted up in every corner of the Streets and I think it is great pity but that both these sort of Pretences were Posted up together For I know no Universal Infallible Remedy which certainly Cures or rather carries off all Diseases and puts an end to all Disputes but Death Which yet for all that is a Remedy not much in Request Quacks and Mountebanks are doubtless a very dangerous sort of Men in Physick but much more so in Divinity They are both of them always very large in Pretence and Promise but short in Performance and generally Fatal in their Practice For there are several Depths and Difficulties as I noted before both in Philosophy and Divinity which Men of Parts and solid Learning after all their Study find they cannot come to the bottom of but are forced to give them over as Things Unresolveable and will by no means be brought to Pronounce dogmatically on either side of the Question Amongst which said Difficulties perhaps there is hardly a greater and more undecideable Problem in Natural Theology and which has not only Exercised but even Crucifyed the greatest Wits of all Ages than the Reconciling of the Immutable Certainty of God's fore-knowledge with the Freedom and Contingency of all Humane Acts both Good and Evil so fore-known by Him Both parts of which Problem are certainly true but how to explain and make out the Accord between them without overthrowing one of them has hitherto exceeded the force of Man's Reason And therefore Socinus very roundly or rather indeed very profanely denies any such Prescience of future Contingents to be in God at all But as profane as he was in thus cutting asunder this knot others have been as ridiculous in pretending to untie it For do not some in their Discourses about the Diâ—â—ne Attributes and Decrees promise the World such a clear account such an open explicite Scheme of these great Things as should make them plain and evident even to the meanest Capacities And the Truth is if to any Capacities at all it must be to the meanest for to those of an higher pitch and a larger compass these Things neither are nor will nor ever can be made evident And if such Persons could but obtain of Heaven a continuance of Life till they made good what they so confidently undertake they would be in a sure way to out-live not only Methusalah but even the World it self But then in come some other Vndertakers and promise us the same or greater Wonders in Christian Theology offering by some new whimsical explications of their own to make the deepest Mysteries of our Christian Faith as plain easy and intelligible forsooth as that two and two make four that is in other words they will represent and render them such Mysteries as shall have nothing at all Mystical in them And now is not this think we a most profound invention and much like the discovery of some New-found-land some O Brazile in Divinity with so much absurd confidence do some Discourse or rather Romance upon the most Mysterious Points of the Christian Faith that any Man of Sense and Sobriety would be apt to think such Persons not only beside their Subject but beside themselves too And the like censure we may justly pass upon all other such idle Pretenders the true Character of which sort of Men is That he who thinks and says he can understand all Mysteries and resolve all Controversies undeniably shews that he really understands none In the mean time we may here observe the true way by which these Great and Adorable Mysteries of our Religion come first to be Ridiculed and Blasphemed and at length totally laid aside by some and that is by their being first innovated upon and new modelled by the bold senseless and absurd Explications of others For first of all such Innovators break down those sacred Mounds which Antiquity had placed about these Articles and then Hereticks and Blasphemers rush in upon them trample them under foot and quite throw them out of our Creed This course we have seen taken amongst us and the Church God bless it and those who are over it has been hitherto profoundly silent at it but how long God whose Honour is most concerned will be so too none can tell For if some Novellists may put what sense they please upon the Writings of Moses and others do the like with the Articles of the Christian Church also and the greatest encouragement attend both I cannot see unless some extraordinary Providence prevent it but that both these Religions are in a direct way to be run down amongst us and that in a
Fair. And then for the Gift of Healing let a bleeding Church and State shew how notably they were gifted that way They played the Chirurgeons indeed with a Witness but we never yet heard that they Acted the Physitian all their Practice upon the Body Politick was with Powder and Ball Sword and Pistol No saving of Life with those Men but by Purging away the Estate And likewise for the Gift of discerning of Spirits They had their Tryers that is a Court appointed for the Tryal of Ministers but most properly called Cromwell's Inquisition In which they would pretend to know Men's hearts and inward Bent of their Spirits as their word was by their very looks But the Truth is as the Chief Pretence of those Tryers was to enquire into Men's Gifts so if they found them but well Gifted in the Hand they never looked any further for a full and Free hand was with them an Abundant demonstration of a Gracious Heart a word in great request in those times And moreover for the Gift of diverse Tongues it is certain that they scarce spake the same Thing for two days together Though otherwise it must be Confessed that they were none of the greatest Linguists their own Mother Tongue serving all their Occasions without ever so much as looking into the Fathers who always spoke the Language of the Beast to such as could not understand them Latin was with them a Mortal Crime and Greek instead of being owned for the Language of the Holy Ghost as in the New Testament it is was looked upon like the Sin against it so that in a Word they had all the Confusions of Babel amongst them without the Diversity of Tongues And then Lastly For the Gift of Interpreting they thought themselves no ordinary Men at Expounding a Chapter if the Turning of a few Rational significant Words and Sentences into a loose tedious Impertinent Harangue could be called an Exposition But above all for their Interpreting Gift you must take them upon Ezekiel Daniel and the Revelation and from thence as it were out of a Dark Prophetick Cloud Thundring against the Old Cavaleirs and the Church of England and as I may but too appositely express it breaking them upon the wheels in Ezekiel Casting them to the Beasts in Daniel and pouring upon them all the Vials in the Revelation After which let any one deny it who durst that the Black Decree was Absolutely passed upon those Malignants and that they were all of them to a Man Sons of Reprobation And thus I think I have Reckoned up most of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit and Compared them with those of our late Gifted Brethren Amongst all which Divine Gifts I must declare that I cannot find the Gift of Canting and whining and making Faces that is of Speaking Bad sence with worse looks which yet those Men used to call the Language of Canaan Nor can I find the Gift of uttering every suddain crude undigested thought coming over their minds and of being Impudently bold and Familiar with Almighty God in Prayer I cannot find the Gift of exploding the Mysteries and peculiar Credenda of the Gospel in order to the turning Christianity into bare Morality I cannot find the Gift of accounting Tenderness of Conscience against Law as a Thing Sacred but Tenderness of Conscience according to Law as a Crime to be prosecuted almost to Death In a word I cannot find the Gifts of Rebelling Plundering Sequestring Robbing Churches and Murdering Kings and all this purely for the sake of Conscience and Religion These Things I say whether it be through the Weakness of my discerning Faculties or whatsoever else may be the Cause I cannot for my Life find amongst the Primitive Gifts of the Spirit And therefore wheresoever I do find them let Men talk never so much of Inward Motions and Extraordinary Calls of the Spirit of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ and of the Publick good of Moderation and of an Healing Spirit and the like yet long and sad Experience having taught us the true meaning of all these fine and fallacious Terms I must needs say both of them and the Spirit from which they proceed in those words of St. Iames 3.18 That they descend not from above but are Earthly Sensual and Devilish These are the Names which God knows and calls them by though Schismaticks and Hypocrites may call them Reformation But Fourthly In the fourth and last place This Emanation of Gifts from the Spirit assures us that Knowledge and Learning are by no means opposite to Grace since we see Gifts as well as Graces conferred by the same Spirit But amongst those of the late Reforming Age whom we have been speaking of all Learning was utterly cryed down So that with them the best Preachers were such as could not read and the ablest Divines such as could not write In all their Preachments they so highly pretended to the Spirit that they could hardly so much as spell the Letter To be blind was with them the Proper Qualification of a Spiritual Guide and to be Book-Learned as they called it and to be Irreligious were almost Terms Convertible None were thought fit for the Ministry but Tradesmen and Mechanicks because none else were allowed to have the Spirit Those only were accounted like St. Paul who could work with their hands and in a litteral sence drive the Nail home and be able to make a Pulpit before they preached in it But the Spirit in the Primitive Church took quite another Method being still as Careful to furnish the Head as to sanctifie the Heart and as He wrought Miracles to found and establish a Church by these extraordinary Gifts so it would have been a greater Miracle to have done it without them God as He is the giver of Grace so He is the Father of Lights He neither Admits Darkness in Himself nor approves it in others And therefore those who place all Religion in the Heats of a furious Zeal without the due Illuminations of Knowledge Know not of what Spirit they are indeed of such a Spirit as begins in Darkness Leads to it and Ends in it But certainly we shall one day find that a Religion so much Resembling Hell neither was nor could be the Readiest way to Heaven But on the Contrary That the Spirit always Guides and instructs before He saves and that as He brings to Happiness only by the ways of Holiness so He never leads to true Holiness but by the Paths of Knowledge To which Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son Three Persons and one God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen THE Peculiar Care AND Concern of Providence FOR THE Protection and Defense of Kings Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey Nov. 5. 1675. Psalm CXLIV 10 former part It is He that giveth Salvation unto Kings THE greatest and most magnificent Title by which God
of particulars and a Common-wealth where Governours cannot govern themselves That which like a worm eats out the every heart of Government is the Emulation the Ambition and the discord of the Parties invested with it But the Supremacy placed in One Cuts off all these for no Man is his own Rival no Man envies Himself or designs to Trip up his own Heels whatsoever he may Chance to do And to shew the Naturalness of Monarchy all other Forms of Government insensibly partake of it and slide into it For look upon any Aristocracy or Democracy and still you shall find some one Ruling Active Person amongst the rest who does every thing and carries all before Him Was not De Witt amongst our Neighbours a kind of King in a Common-wealth and was not that Usurper here amongst our selves a Monarch in Reality of Fact before He wore the Title or assumed the Office Moreover when any Common-wealth is forced to Defend it self by War it finds it necessary to appoint one General over all as this very Common-wealth found to its cost and to make the Conduct of its Armies at least Monarchical Nay the Romans themselves in their greatest Exigencies of State had recourse to their Dictatorship which was a Perfect Monarchy for the time And when they sent out their Armies under the Conduct of two Consuls yet those Consuls were to Command the whole Army by Turns one one Day and another another which was a Tacit Confession of the Necessity of a single Conduct for the Right Management of great Affairs And I think upon a full survey of the Roman story we may truly pronounce that the greatest defeats that were ever given that Common-wealth in any lasting War have been from this that the Custom of shifting Consuls every Year hindred the Conduct of the whole War from being continued in the hands of one experienced Commander In their Wars with Hannibal nothing is more manifest From all which I infer that Kingly Government is the most Natural Excellent and Beneficial to Society of all others and that in every Common-wealth in spight of its Constitution there will be something of Monarchy And that if a Republick ever Atchieves any thing great or considerable it is still by vertue of something in it that is Monarchical Secondly The next thing is to shew That the greatness or strength of a Monarchy depends Cheifly upon the Personal Qualifications of the Prince or Monarch It ebbs or flows according to the Rising or falling of his Spirit For still it is the Person that makes the Place Considerable and not the Place Him And we shall find in every Government that the Activity and Bravery of the Prince is the Soul Politick which animates and upholds all When Alexander the Great died the Grecian Monarchy expired with Him He was both the Emperor and the Empire too And after the Death of Iulius and Augustus Caesar those great Commanding Souls the Roman Empire declined every day falling into the hands of Brutes and Sots who could scarce wield the weight of their own Bellies and much less the Burthen of such vast Dominions The present grandeur of the Papacy is intirely owing to the Prudence and governing Arts of some of the Popes and it never suffered any great Blow but when a weak or a Voluptuous Person Sate in the Chair And here amongst our selves both the Protector and the New Protectorship died in one Man though the name indeed survived a while in another and it was quickly seen how ridiculous it was for any one to attempt to succeed into his Power who could not succeed into his Spirit But it is Evident from Reason that the fate and fortune of Governments must Naturally follow the Personal Abilities of the Governour For what is there else that the strength of a Kingdom can be supposed to lean upon but one of these three It s Treasure its Military Power or its Laws But now none of all these can signifie any thing where the Prince is not endued with that Royal skill that is requisite to the Duâ— Management of them For surely the bare Image of a Prince upon the Coin of any Nation can neither Improve or Employ the Treasure of it Nor can the Military force of a Kingdom do much to strengthen it should the Prince either wear a Padlock upon his Sword nor draw it in defense of his Enemies Nor lastly can the Laws much Contribute to the support of it if the Execution of them be either Neglected or discountenanced for it is not how Laws are made nor how they are Interpreted but how they are used that must influence the Publick By all which we see what moment there is in the sole Person of a Prince For as He is qualified or disposed so all these great things become helpful or ineffectual The Treasure Arms and Laws of a Nation are all virtually in Him And it is He who must breath Life and efficacy into them all Which is the first great Reason why God extends such a particular Providence over the Persons of Kings namely because the main Concerns of Civil Government and Society which Providence so much tenders the Preservation of are Principally deposited in them Secondly The other great Reason is Because Princes have the most Powerful Influence upon the concerns of Religion and the Preservation of the Church of all other Persons whatsoever Religion is indeed an immortal seed and the Church is proof against the very gates of Hell as being founded upon a Promise and so standing Fast in the Eternal strength of God's Veracity Nevertheless as to its outward State and Circumstances in this World it must clasp about the secular Power and as that frowns or smiles upon it so it must droop or flourish Accordingly God has declared Kings the Nursing Fathers of his Church and every Prince by the Essential Inherent Right of his Crown is or should be a defender of the Faith He holds it by a Charter from Heaven long before the Pope's Donation who never gives any thing to Princes but what was their own before Every Christian King is within his own Dominions the great Pastor both to rule Christ's Flock and to see it fed though He does not feed it Himself We know how glorious a Deliverance our Church Received this Day and it was by the Wisdom of that Head which wore the Crown that God vouchsafed it to Her King and Church then as 't is seldom otherwise were both designed to the same Fate But God preserved the King and the King the Church And who knows but for such a Day as this God paved his way before Him in such a peaceable Entrance into the English Throne so much above and against the Expectation of the World round about Him and of the Court of Rome Especially which it is well known had other designs upon the Anvil at that time And as he then saved the Church from Perishing by one Blow so he afterwards supported it
Nevertheless since by manifest Analogy of Reason the Case of Magistrates or publick Persons may here come into Consideration Therefore in the Second Place â—a Command may be Considered as descending from a Magistrate or Publick Person upon Persons under his Jurisdiction and so I affirm that the Supreme Magistrate in the making of Laws or giving out Commands stands not under any obligation from his Office to frame those Laws to the Good or Advantage of any Particular Persons but only of the Community or Majority of the People which are properly the Trust Committed to Him So that if his Reason or Conscience upon the best Information he can get tells Him that the making of such or such a Law tends to the good of these and that so apparently that without it they would be unavoidably hurt in matters of the greatest Moment if this Law now becomes an occasion of Sin to some particular Persons its being so is wholly accidental and extrinsick to the design of the Law and consequently concerns not the Civil Magistrate nor makes Him chargeable with those Sins in the least For surely where the Publick good of all or most of the People comes into Competition with the Private good of some Particulars so that both cannot possibly be served by the same means There Charity as well as bare Reason will teach that the Private must stoop to the Publick rather than the Publick be made a Sacrifice to the Private In God's Government of the World it is the Publick concern of Mankind that there should be Summer and Winter in their respective Seasons and yet there are Millions of Sick and Weak Persons to whose distempers the approach of either of those Seasons will prove certainly Mortal Is it now think we rational that God should suspend a Summer or a Winter only to comply with the distemper of those Crazy Bodily-Weak Brethren and thereby to incommode all the World besides The case is much alike here However this indeed must be confessed that if the Magistrate or Supreme Power should make a Law which he knew would be a direct occasion of Sin to the Generality or Majority of his People the making of such a Law would be in Him a Sin and a Breach of his Trust but still I affirm that his Office obliges Him only to provide for the good of the main Body of his People and if it so falls out that Particulars come to have an Interest distinct from or opposite to that he is not during such its opposition at all bound to regard or Provide for it Nor to answer for the Inconveniences which may attend such Persons either in their Civil or Spiritual Concerns And thus much concerning the second Thing proposed which was to shew what it is to Wound or Sin against a Weak Conscience namely that it is either to grieve it or to embolden it to Sin And if it be now objected against this that the Text calls a Sinning against a Weak Conscience a Sinning against Christ to whom we can no ways properly be said to administer any occasion or inducement to Sin I answer that this expression of Sinning against being applyed to Christ imports only a grieving or disobeying Him Though as it is applyed to the Weak Conscience it signifies the other Thing too It being not unusual in Scripture for the same word to be repeated in the very same sentence under a diverse signification Having thus finished the two first Things I come now to the Third and last which is to set down those Conclusions which by way of Consequence and Deduction naturally result from the foregoing Particulars Which Conclusions are these 1. That no Man having been brought up or for any length of time continued in the Communion of a Church Teaching and Professing the true Religion if he have but also the common use of his Reason can justly plead Weakness of Conscience in the Sence in which it was here used by the Apostle 2. That as such Weakness of Conscience can upon no sufficient ground be Actually pleaded so upon much less can it be continued in 3. That supposing it might be both pleaded and continued in yet the Plea of it ought by no means to be admitted by the civil Magistrate in prejudice of any laws either actually made or to be made by Him for the General good of his People Of each of which in their order First And first for the first of these That no Man c. This conclusion is of so much force and use rightly applyed that it is a wonder it has not been more insisted upon against those who disturb the Church with this Plea for as much as it would wholly cashier and pluck it up by the very Roots And Men mistake the Method of disputing with these pretenders to Weak Consciences now adays not considering that the very supposition that they either have or can have 〈◊〉 â—eak Conscience ought by no means to be granted them nor are we to debate with them how far and to what degree this their Weakness ought to be yielded to but absolutely to deny that amongst us and under our circumstances there is any such thing St. Paul indeed speaks of such a Conscience in those first times of Preaching the Gospel and accordingly urges a compliance with it but where the cases are wholly different there the Privileges applicable to both cannot be the same In both these places in which this Apostle treats of this matter I shew that the Persons to whom he addresses Himself were but new Converts Some of which were just converted and come off from Judaism whose Reverence to the Law of Moses had been sucked in by them with their very Milk and been still kept up in the Minds of all that People to that strange heighth almost of Adoration that it is no wonder if their Opinion of the continuance of that Law even â—fter Christ's Death and their Ignorance of its Abrogation were for a time invincible And for the other sort of new Converts they were such as had been converted from Heathenism and Idolatry and consequently looked upon every thing in use amongst those Heathens with a suspicion and a jealousy so strong that considering the Weakness of Humane Nature it was impossible presently to remove it and therefore they were in Charity for some time to be complyed with For as the prejudices and prepossessions of Education are exceeding hardly removed and broke so being once broke the Aversions of the Mind from them running into the other extreme are altogether as impetuous and as hardly governable by impartial Reason whereupon shadows are oftentimes mistook for substances whilst Men through immoderate fearfulness first create to themselves appearances of Evil and then fly from them But what is all this to the Case of those now adays amongst us who from their Cradle have or migâ—â— have had the Principles of True Religion instilled into them who have still grown up in a Church
which protests against Idolatry and Superstition and enjoins nothing that has any just appearance of such things upon it but offers to vindicate every thing practised and enjoyned by it from any such imputation these Men surely can have no Reason to entertain those Jealousies and Prejudices which possessed Men who had been bred up all their days in Iudaism or Idolatry and were but newly converted from it Especially if we add this also that the Goodness of God makes nothing our Duty either to believe or practise but what lies plain and obvious to any common apprehension which will not be wanting to it self Which things since the Church Inculcates to all within it teaching them to know by all the ordinary means of Knowledge whatsoever it is their Duty to know it is evident that no Man amongst us can justifiably plead Weakness of Conscience in that seâ—â—e in which their Consciences were Weak whom St. Paul deals with either in that Epistle of his to the Romans or in this to the Corinthians For can any Man living in the Church alledge any tolerable cause why he should be Ignorant of his Catechism a thing so short and plain and yet so full as to all things necessary to be believ'd or practised by a Christian that common Sence and common Industry may make any one a Master of it The summ of all therefore is this That he only can plead Weakness of Conscience upon Scripture Grounds who is excusably Ignorant of some Point of Duty or Privilege He only is excusably Ignorant whose Ignorance is not the Effect of his Will That Ignorance only is not so which is caused either by want of Ability of Understanding or of Opportunities and Means of Knowledge But he who has the common use of Reason has sufficient Ability and he who lives in a Church Professing the true Religion has sufficient Opportunity and Means of knowing whatsoever â—oncerns him either to know or do From a joint Connexion and an unavoidable Coherence of which Propositions one with another it clearly appears that it is not Weakness but Want of Conscience which is the true Distemper of those Persons who at this day disturb the Church Secondly The second Assertion or Conclusion was this That as such Weakness of Conscience can upon no sufficient ground be actually pleaded so upon much less can it be continued in This must needs be confessed by all that a Weak Conscience in the Apostle's sence is an Imperfection and consequently ought by all means to be removed or laid down For as certainly as growth and proficiency in Knowledge under the means of Grace is a Duty so certainly is it a Duty not to persist in this Weakness of Conscience which has its foundation only in the defect of such Knowledge So that St. Paul himself who is here willing that for the present it should be complyed with elsewhere upbraids and reprehends Men sharply for continuing under it As in the 1 st of Cor. the 3 d Chap. and the 〈◊〉 and 3 d. verses He calls such Babes and such as were to be Fed with Milk and not with Meat And to shew yet further the Imperfection of this Estate he says that upon this account he could not treat them as Spiritual Persons but as Carnal The same Reprehension he repeats in Heb. 5.12 Where he again upbraids them with this Appellation of Babes telling them that whereas for the time they ought to have been Teachers of others they continued in their Spiritual Childhood so long that they had need that one taught them again which were the first principles of the Oracles of God And to shew that these were such Weak Consciences as we are here discoursing of in the 14 th v. He opposes them to such as were of full Age and that by reason of use had their Senses exercised to discern both Good and Evil. The want of which discernment is properly that thing wherein this Weakness of Conscience does consist Whereupon the Apostle in the next Chapter calls upon such to go on to Perfection which surely implies that this their present Condition was not the Perfection which they were to rest in And it were worth the while in our Contest with the Pretenders to Weak or Tender Consciences amongst us to enquire of them how long they think it fit for them to continue Weak and whether they look upon their Weakness and Ignorance as their Free-hold and as that which they resolve to keep for term of Life and to live and die Babes in the Knowledge of the Religion they Profess to to grow up into Childhood and at length go out of the World Infants and Weaklings of Threescore or Fourscore Years Old This certainly they must intend for so far are they from looking upon that Weakness or Tenderness of Conscience which they plead as an Imperfection and consequently to be out grown or removed by them that they own it as a Badge of a more Refined and Advanced Piety and of such a growth and Attainment in the ways of God that they look down upon all others as Christians of a lower form as Moral Men and Ignorant of the Mystery of the Gospel Words which I have often heard from these Impostors and which infallibly shew that the Persons whom St. Paul dealt with and those whom we contend with are not the same kind of Men for as much as they own not the same Duty But that it seems which was the Infancy and Defect of those Persons must pass for the perfection and really is the design of these And whereas St. Paul said to the former that if they doubted they were damned if they ate these for ought appears account it Damnation not to doubt where doubting of their Duty may prove a serving of their Interest I proceed now to the third and last Conclusion Which is this That supposing this weakness of Conscience might be both pleaded and continued in yet the Plea of it ought by no means to be admitted by the Civil Magistrate in prejudice to any Laws either Actually made or to be made by Him for the General Good of his People This was sufficienâ—ly manifest in what I laid down before to wit that the Magistrate is 〈◊〉 ways obliged to frame his Laws to the good of any particular Persons where it stands separate from the good of the Community or Majority of the People Which consideration alone though it be sufficient to discharge the Magistrate from any obligation to admit of such Pleas yet there are other and more forcible reasons why they are by no means to be admited I shall assign two in General First The first taken from the Ill and Fatal Consequences which inevitably ensue upon their Admission Secondly The other taken from the Qualification and Temper of the Persons who make these Pleas. As for the Ill Consequences springing from the admission of them though according to the fertile Nature of every absurd Principle they are indeed innumerable
design but this certainly and effectually does as being not only the Wisdom but Secondly The Power of God too the first Infallible the other Irresistible In a word the Wisdom here spoken of is a Messenger which always goes as far as sent an Instrument which never fails or lurches the Great Agent who imploys it either in Reaching the End He directs it to or in Finishing the Work He intends it for So that in short there could not be an higher and a nobler Elogy to express the Gospel by than by representing it to us as the Wisdom of God For as Wisdom in general is the Noblest and most Sublime Perfection of an Intellectual Nature and particularly in God Himself is the Leading Ruling Attribute prescribing to all the rest so a Commendation drawn from thence must needs be the most glorious that can possibly pass upon any Action or Design proceeding from such an One. And the Apostle seems here most peculiarly to have directed this Encomium of the Gopel as a Defiance to the Philosophers of his Time the Flustring Vain glorious Greeks who pretended so much to magnify and even Adore the Wisdom they professed and with great modesty no doubt confin'd wholly to themselves A Wisdom I think little to be envyed them being such as none who had it could be the better nor consequently the wiser for And thus much for the first Thing contained in the Words and proposed from them namely That the Gospel is the Wisdom of God I proceed now to the Second which we shall chiefly insist upon and that is concerning the Mysteriousness of it as That it is the Wisdom of God in a Mystery For the prosecution of which we shall enquire into and endeavour to give some Account of the Reasons so far as we may presume to judge of them why God should deliver to Mankind a Religion so full of Mysteries as the Christian Religion certainly is and was ever accounted to be Now the Reasons of this in general I conceive may be stated upon these two Grounds First The Nature and Quality of the Things treated of in the Christian Religion And Secondly The Ends to which all Religion both as to the General and Particular Nature of it is designed with relation to the Influence which it ought to have upon the minds of Men. And first of all For the Nature of the Things themselves which are the Subject matter of the Christian Religion there are in them these three Qualifications or Properties which do and must of Necessity render them Mysterious Obscure and of difficult Apprehension As First Their surpassing Greatness and Inequality to the mind of Man The Christian Religion as to a great part of it is but a kind of Comment upon the Divine Nature an Instrument to convey right Conceptions of God into the Soul of Man so far as it is capable of receiving them But now God we know is an Infinite Being without any Bounds or Limitations of His Essence Wonderful in His Actings Inconceivable in His Purposes and Inexpressible in His Attributes which yet as Great as they are if severally taken give us but an Incomplete Representation of Him He is another World in Himself too high for our Speculations and too great for our Descriptions For how can such Vast and Mighty things be crowded into a little finite Understanding Heaven I confess enters into us as we must into That by a very narrow Passage But how shall the King of Glory whom the Heavens themselves cannot contain enter in by these Doors by a Weak Imagination a slender Notion and a contracted Intellect How shall these poor short faculties measure the Lengths of His Eternity the Breadth and Expansions of His Immensity the Heights of His Prescience and the Depths of His Decrees and last of all that Unutterable Incomprehensible Mystery of Two Natures United into one Person and again of one and the same Nature diffused into a Triple Personality All which being some of the Prime Fundamental matters treated of in our Religion how can it be otherwise than a Systeme of Mysteries and a knot of dark inexplicable Propositions Since it exhibits to us such Things as the very Condition of our Nature renders us Uncapable of clearly understanding The Socinians indeed who would obtrude upon the World and of late more daringly than ever a New Christianity of their own Inventing will admit of nothing Mysterious in this Religion or such as the Natural Reason of Man cannot have a clear and Comprehensive perception of and this not only in defiance of the express Words of Scripture so frequently and fully affirming the contrary but also of the constant universal sense of all Antiquity Unanimously confessing an Incomprehensibility in many of the Articles of the Christian Faith So that these bold Persons stand alone by themselves upon a new bottom and an Upstart Principle not much above an Hundred years old spitting upon all Antiquity before them and as some have well observed of them who have wrote against them are the only Sect of Men in the World who ever pretended to set up or own a Religion without either a Mystery or a Sacrifice belonging to it For as we have shewn that they deny the first so they equally explode the latter by denying Christ to be properly a Priest or His Death to have been a Propitiatory Oblation for the Sins of the World And now are not these blessed New Lights think we fit to be encouraged courted and have Panegyricks made upon their Wonderful Abilities forsooth Whilst they on the other side are imploying the utmost of those abilities such as they are in Blaspheming our Saviour and Overturning our Religion But this is their hour and the Power of Darkness For it is a Truth too too manifest to be denied That there have been more Innovations upon and Blasphemies against the Chief Articles of our Faith published in this Kingdom and that after a more Audacious and Scandalous manner within these several years last past than have been known here for some Centuries of years before even those times of Confusion both in Church and State betwixt Forty One and Sixty not excepted And what this may produce and end in God only at present knows and I wish the whole Nation may not at length feel Secondly A second Qualification of the Chief Things treated of in our Religion and which must needs render them Mysterious is their Spirituality and Abstraction from all Sensible and Corporeal Matter Of which sort of Things it is impossible for the Understanding of Man to form to it self an exact Idea or Representation So that when we hear or read that God is a Spirit and that Angels and the Souls of Men are Spirits our Apprehensions are utterly at a loss how to frame any Notion or Resemblance of them but are put to float and wander in an endless Maze of Guesses and Conjectures and know not certainly what to fix upon For in this Case
we can fetch in no Information or Relief to our Understandings from our Senses no Picture or Draught of these Things from the Reports of the Eye but we are left Entirely to the uncertainties of Fancy to the Flights and Ventures of a bold Imagination And here to illustrate the Case a little let us imagine a Man who was born blind able upon bare Hear-say to conceive in his Mind all the Varieties and Curiosities of Colour to draw an exact Scheme of Constantinople or a Map of France to describe the Towns point out the Rivers and distinguish the Situations of these and the like Great and Extraordinary Places And when such an One is able to do all this and not before then perhaps may we also apprehend what a Spirit an Angel or an Immaterial Being is The difficulty of understanding which sufficiently appears from this One consideration That in all the Descriptions which we make of God Angels and Spirits we still describe them by such Things as we see and when we have done we profess that they are Invisible But then to do this Argument right again on the other side As it would be extreamly sottish and irrational for a blind man to conclude and affirm positively That there neither are nor can be any such Things as Colours Pictures or Landskips because he finds that he cannot form to Himself any true Notion Idea or Mental Perception of them So would it be equally or rather superlatively more Unreasonable for us to deny the Great Articles of our Christianity because we cannot frame in our Minds any Clear Explicit and Exact Representation of them And yet this is the true state of the whole matter and of the Ratiocination of some Men about it how Absurd and Inconsequent soever we see it is Let this therefore be another and a second Cause why the Christian Religion which treats of and is conversant about such Things must of Necessity be Mysterious Thirdly A third Property of Matters belonging to Christianity and which also renders them mysterious is their Strangeness and Vnreducibleness to the common Methods and observations of Nature I for my part cannot look upon any Thing whatsoever others can as a more Fundamental Article of the Christian Religion than Christ's satisfaction for Sin by which alone the lost Sons of Adam are reconciled to their offended God and so put into new Capacities of Salvation and yet perhaps there is nothing more surprizing strange and out of the road of Common Reason than this if compared with the general course and way of Mens Acting For that He who was the offended Person should project and provide a satisfaction to Himself in the behalf of Him who had offended Him and with so much Zeal concern Himself to sollicite a Reconciliation with those whom He had no need of being Reconciled unto but might with equal Justice and Honour have destroyed them was a Thing quite beside the Common course of the World and much more was it so That a Father should deliver up an Innocent and Infinitely beloved Son to be sacrificed for the redemption of His justly hated and abhorred Enemies and on the other hand that a Son who loved His Father as much as He could be loved by Him should lay down His Life for the Declared Rebels and Enemies of Him whom He so transcendently loved and of Himself too This I say was such a transaction as we can find nothing like or Analogous to in all the dealings of Men and cannot but be owned as wholly beside if not also directly contrary to all humane methods And so true is this that several Things expressly affirmed of God in Scripture relating to the Prime Articles of our Faith are denied or eluded by the 〈◊〉 and Socinians because they Cross and Contradict the Notions taken up by them from what they have observed in Created Beings and particularly in Men which yet is a gross fallacy and inconsequence concluding ab imparibus tamquà m paribus and more than sufficiently confuted and blown off by that one passage of the Prophet concerning Almighty God that His Thoughts are not as our Thoughts nor His Ways as our Ways Isa. 55.8 to which we may add that neither is His Nature as our Nature nor his Divine Persons as our Persons And if so where is the Socinian Logick in arguing from one to the Other And yet 't is manifest that they hardly make use of any other way of arguing concerning the main points in controversy between them and the Church but this But there are also two other Principal Articles of the Christian Religion which do as much transcend the common Notice and observation of Mankind as the former One of which is the Conversion and Change of a Man's Sinful Nature commonly called the Work of Regenâ—â—â—â—â—â—on or the New-birth concerning which Men are apt to Wonder and deservedly too by what strange Power and Efficacy it should come to pass That ever any One should be brought to conquer and shake off those Inveterate Appetites and Desires which are both so Violent in their Actings and so early in their Original as being born with him and to have other New ones and those absolutely contrary to the former planted in their room So that when our Saviour in Iohn 3. discoursed of these things to Nicodemus a great Rabbi amongst the Jews and told him that he must be born again he was presently amazed and non-plus'd at it as at a great Paradox and Impossibility and forth with began to Question How can these Things be In which indeed he said no more than what the hearts of most Men living are apt to say concerning most of the Articles of our Christian Religion But above all the Article of the Resurrection seems to lye marvellously cross to 〈◊〉 â—ommon Experience of Mankind For who ever was yet seen by them after a Total Consumption into Dust and Ashes to rise again and to resume the same Numerical body This is a Thing which amongst all the rare Occurrences of the World all the Wonders and Anomalies of Nature was never yet met with in any One single instance and consequently Men must needs be apt to startle and to be full of Thought and Scruple upon the proposal of so strange a Thing to their Understandings And if any one should think that he can make this out by bare reason as possibly some Opiniators may let him by all means in the next place try the strength of his doughty Reason about Transubstantiation or turn Knight Errant in Divinity encounter Giants and Windmills and adventure to explain things impossible to be explained This therefore is a Third Cause of the Unavoidable Mysteriousness of the chief Articles of the Christian Religion namely That most of them fall neither within the common course of Men's Actings nor the compass of their Observaâ—â—oâ— And thus much for the First Ground of the Gospel's being delivered to the World in a Mystery namely the Nature
and a free uncontrolled Passage into all things Intelligible We shall then surmount these Beggarly Rudiments and mean helps of Knowledge which now by many little steps gradually raise us to some short Speculation of the Nature of Things Our knowledge shall be then Intuitive and above Discourse not proceeding by a long Circuit of Antecedents and Consequents as now in this Vale of Imperfection it is forced to do but it shall then fully inform the whole Mind and take in the whole Object by one single and substantial Act. For as in that Condition we shall Enjoy the Happiness so we shall also imitate the Perfection of Angels Who out-shine the rest of the Creation in nothing more than in a transcendent ability of Knowing and Iudging which is the very Glory and crowning Excellency of a created Nature Faith it self shall be then accounted too mean a thing to accompany us in that Estate for being only conversant about Things not seen it can have no Admittance into that Place the peculiar Privilege of which shall be to convey to us the Knowledge of those Things by Sight which before we took wholly upon Trust. And thus I have given you some account First of the Mysteriousness of the Gospel and then of the Reasons of it and that both from the Nature of the Things themselves which are treated of in it as also from those Great Ends and Purposes which God in His Infinite Wisdom has designed it to From all which discourse several very weighty Inferences might be drawn but I shall collect and draw from thence only these Three As First The High Reasonableness of Men's relying upon the judgment of the whole Church in General and of their Respective Teachers and Spiritual Guides in Particular rather than upon their own Private judgments in such Important and Mysterious Points of Religion as we have been hitherto discoursing of I say upon the judgment of those who have made it their Constant Business as well as their Avowed Profession to acquaint themselves with these Mysteries so far as Humane Reason can attain to them and that in order to the Instruction and Information of Others Certain it is that there is no other Profession in the World besides this of Divinity wherein Men do not own something of a Mystery and accordingly reckon it both highly Rational and absolutely Necessary in many cases to resign and submit their own Judgments to the Judgments of such as Profess a skill in any Art or Science whatsoever For whose Judgment ought in all Reason to be followed about any Thing His who has made it his whole Work and Calling to Understand that Thing or His who has bestowed his whole Time Parts and Labour upon something else which is wholly Foreign to it and has no Cognation at all with it But there is not only Reason to perswade but also Authority to oblige Men in the Present Case For see in what Notable Words the Prophet asserts this Privilege to the Priesthood under the Mosaick Oeconomy Mal. 2.7 The Priests lips says he should preserve Knowledge and the People should seek the Law at his mouth adding this as a reason of the same For says he He is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts For which words no doubt this Prophet would have passed for a Man of Heat now a days for in Good earnest they run very high and look very severely upon our so much applauded or rather doated upon Liberty of Conscience and are so far from casting the least Eye of favour upon it that they are a more direct and mortal Stab to it than all the Pleas Arguments and Apologies I could ever yet read or hear of have been a Defence of it Nor does the same Privilege sink one jot lower under the Christian Constitution For as we have already shewn that the Gospel is full of Mysteries so 1 Cor. 4.1 the Ministers of the Gospel are declared the Stewards of these Mysteries and whatsoever any one dispenses as a Steward he dispenses with the Authority and in the Strength of an Office and Commission and I believe it will be hard to Prove that a Minister of the Gospel can be obliged to dispence or declare any Thing to the People which the People are not upon his Declaration of it equally bound to Believe and Assent to An Implicite Faith indeed in our Spiritual Guides such as the Church of Rome holds I own to be a great Absurdity but a Due Deference and Submission to the Judgment of the said Guides in the discharge of their Ministry I affirm to be as great a Duty And I state the measures of this Submission in a Belief of and an Obedience to All that a Man's Spiritual Guide shall in that Capacity declare and enjoyn provided that a Man does not certainly know or at least upon very great and just grounds doubt any thing to the contrary which Two conditions I allow ought always to be supposed in this Case and then if no objection from either of these shall interpose I affirm that every Man stands obliged by the Duty he owes to his Spiritual Pastor to believe and obey whatsoever his said Pastor shall by vertue of his Pastoral Office deliver to him In a word if Men would but seriously and impartially consider these Three Things First That the Gospel or Christian Religion is for the most Part of it made up of Mysteries Secondly That God has appointed a certain Order of Men to declare and dispense these Mysteries And Thirdly and Lastly That it was His Wisdom thus to order Both these Certainly Men would both treat the Gospel it self more like a Mystery and the Ministers of the Gospel more like the Dispensers of so high and Sacred a Mystery than the Guise and Fashion of our Present Blessed Times disposes them to do that is in other Words Men would be less confident of their own Understandings and more apt to pay a Reverence and Submission to the Understandings of those who are both more Conversant in these matters than they can pretend to be and whom the same Wisdom of God has thought fit to appoint over them as their Guides For the contrary Practice can proceed from nothing but an High Self-Opinion and a Man's being Wise in his own conceit which is a sure way to be so in no Bodies else In fine every one is apt to think himself able to be his own Divine his own Priest and his own Teacher and he should do well to be his own Physician and his own Lawyer too And then as upon such a Course he finds himself speed in the Matters of this World let him upon the same reckon of his success in the other Secondly We learn also from the foregoing Particulars the gross Unreasonableness and the manifest Sophistry of Men's making whatsoever they find by themselves not Intelligible that is to say by Humane Reason not Comprehensible the measure whereby they would Conclude the same also to
even the Council of Nice have condemned this And all those Scriptures which make Christ either One with or equal to the Father clearly confute and overthrow so absurd as well as blasphemous an Assertion Let this therefore be fixed upon that Christ was the Root or Original of David as he was of all Mankind besides Namely in respect of His Divinity of that Infinite Eternal Power which displayed it self in the Works of the Creation For by him all things were made as the Evangelist tells us Iohn 1.3 But how ready natural Reason will be to rise up against this Assertion I am not Ignorant and how that Iesus of Nazareth a Man like our selves should be accounted by Nature God the Creator of the World Omniscient Omnipotent and Eternal is look'd upon by many as a Proposition not only false but foolish and fitter to be laugh'd than disputed out of the World this also is no surprize to us But then on the other side That this is a thing not to be founded upon or to take its rise from the bare discourses of Reason he must be very much a Stranger to Reason Himself who shall venture to deny for if it may be proved by Reason as I doubt not but it may that the Scripture is the Word of God addressed to Men and consequently ought to be understood and interpreted according to the familiar natural way of construction proper to humane Writings then I affirm that to deny Christ to be naturally God is irrational when His being so is so frequently asserted throughout the whole Scripture and that in as clear terms as it is possible for one Man to express his Mind by to another if it were his purpose to declare this very Thing to Him And therefore I have often wondred at the preposterous Tenets of Socinus and that not so much for his denying the natural Deity of our Saviour as that he should do it after he had wrote a Book for the Authority of the Scripture For upon the same reasons that He and his Sect deny the Deity of Christ I should rather deny the Scripture to be of Divine Authority They say for Christ to be God is a thing absurd and impossible from which I should argue that that Writing or Doctrine which affirms a thing absurd and impossible cannot be true and much less the Word of God And that the Gospel affirms so much of Christ we may appeal to the judgment of any impartial Heathen who understands the Language in which it is Written But he who first denies the Deity of Christ as absurd and impossible and thereupon rejects the Divine Authority of the Scripture for affirming it may be presumed upon the supposal of the former to do the latter very Rationally So that he who would take the most proper and direct way to Convince such an one of his Heresy if there be any convincing of one who first takes up his Opinion and then seeks for Reasons for it must not I conceive endeavour in the first place to Convince him out of Scripture That Iesus Christ is God but turn the whole force and stress of his Disputation to the proof of this That the Scripture is the Word of God to Mankind and upon that account ought to be interpreted as the Writings of Men use and ought to be and if so he who will make sense of them must grant the Divinity of Christ to be clearly asserted in them and irrefragably inferred from them In short if the Adversaries of Christ's Divinity can prove Christ not to be God they must by consequence prove that the Scriptures Naturally and Grammatically interpreted are not the Word of God But on the contrary the Church being assured that the Scriptures so interpreted are the Word of God is consequently assured also that Christ is and must be God Nevertheless if according to the unreasonable demands of the Men of this Sect this and all other Mysteries of our Religion should be put to answer for themselves at the Bar of Humane Reason I would fain know wherein consists the Paradox of asserting Christ to be God For no Man saies that his Humane Nature is his Divine or that he is God as he is Man But we assert that he who is God is also Man by having two Natures united into one and the same Subsistence And if the Soul which is an Immaterial Substance is united to the Body which is a Material though the case is not altogether the same yet it is so very near that we may well ask what Repugnancy there is but that the Divine Nature may as well be united to the Humane I believe if we reduce things to our way of Conception we shall find it altogether as hard to conceive the Conjunction of the two former as of the two latter and this notwithstanding that other Difference also of finite and infinite between them for why a finite and an Infinite Being may not be United to one Another by an Intimate and inseparable Relation and an Assumption of the finite into the Personal subsistence of the Infinite I believe it will be hard for any one to give a Solid and Demonstrative Reason For Scoffs and Railery the Usual Arguments brought against it I am sure are not so But I forget my self for the Persons here disputed against believe not the Soul to be either immaterial or naturally immortal but are much the same with the Sadduces and upon that account fitter to be crush'd by the civil Magistrate as destructive to Government and Society than to be confuted as meerly Hereticks in Religion I conclude therefore against the Scoffs of the Heathens the Disputations of the Jews the Impiety of Arius and the Bold Blasphemous Assertions of Socinus that the Man Christ Jesus Born at Bethlem of the Virgin Mary is God God by Nature the Maker of all Things the Fountain of Being the Ancient of Days the First and the Last of whose Being there was no Beginning and of whose Kingdom there shall be no end And in this one Proposition the very Life and Heart of Christianity does consist For as That there is a God is the grand Foundation of Religion in general So that Iesus Christ is God is the Foundation of the Christian Religion and I believe it will one day be found that he who will not acknowledge Christ for his Creator shall never have him for his Redeemer Having thus shewn how Christ was the Root and Original of David pass we now to the next thing proposed which is to shew Secondly That He was His Off-spring too and so having asserted his Divinity to clear also his Humanity That the Christian Religion be True is the Eternal Concernment of all those who believe it and look to be saved by it And that it be so depends upon Jesus Christ's being the true promised Messias the grand and chief thing asserted by him in his Gospel and lastly Christ's being the true Messias depends upon
into which they are Conveyed Contributes nothing to the obtaining of them but a bare Reception As when you pour some generous Wine or Liquor into a Cask or Vessel that affords nothing to its own fullness but a meer Capacity the rest it owes wholly to the Liberal hand that infused it And no doubt from an Allusion to this such endowments are said to be by way of Infusion from the Holy Ghost Of which kind were the Gift of Miracles the Gift of Healing the Gift of Prophecy and of Speaking with Tongues which great things might indeed be the object of Men's Admiration and sometimes also the motive of their Envy but never the Effect or Purchase of their own endeavours Now concerning these Gifts we must observe also that there was no small difference amongst them as to the manner of their inexistence in the Persons who had them For one of them to wit the Gift of Tongues after its first Infusion by the Spirit might be in a Man by habitual Inherence as a standing Principle or Power Residing in the Soul and enabling it upon any Occasion to express it self in several Languages There being no difference between the Acquired and the Supernatural knowledge of Tongues as to the Nature and Quality of the Things themselves but only in respect of their first obtainment that one is by industrious Acquisition the other by Divine Infusion But then for the Gifts of healing the Sick raising the Dead and the like in as much as these were Immediate Emanations from and peculiar Effects of an Infinite and Divine Power Such a Power could not be made habitually to inhere and reside in the Apostles nor indeed in any Created Being whatsoever But only by an Exterior assistance the Power of God was ready at hand upon Special and Emergent Occasions at their Invocation or Word as God should think fit to produce such Miraculous effects For if this Power of healing had been habitually Lodged in the Apostles so that they might exert and make use of it when they pleased it will be hard to give a Satisfactory Reason why St. Paul should leave Trophimus at Miletum sick as we find he did 2 Tim. 4.20 And then Lastly for the Gift of Prophecy and foretelling future Events neither was this in the Soul by constant Inhesâ—on and habitual Abode but as we may not unfitly express it only by suddain Strictures by Transient Immissions and Representations of the Ideas of Things future to the Imagination In a word It was in the mind not as an Inhabitant but as a Guest that is by intermittent Returns and Ecstasies by Occasional Raptures and Revelations as is clear from what we read of the Prophets in the Old Testament And thus much I thought good to discourse of the Nature of these Gifts and to shew what kind of Things they were how they Qualified and affected the Apostles and Primitive Christians in the Exercise of them that so we may not abuse our Understandings by an empty Notion of the Word without a clear and distinct Apprehension of the Thing And here I doubt not but some will be apt to enquire how long these extraordinary and miraculous Gifts Continued in the Church For the Resolution of which the very Nature of the Thing it self will suggest thus much That the Conferring of these Gifts being in order to the Establishment of a Church and the settling of a New Religion in the World their Duration was to be proportioned to the Need which that New Religion had of such Credentials and Instruments of Confirmation For when Christianity first appeared in the World it found it under the mighty Prejudice and Prepossession of Two Contrary Religions but both of them Equally bent and set against That to wit Gentilism and Iudaism Which Prejudices nothing could Conquer but the Arm of Omnipotence it self as it were made bare before them in such stupendious Works as could not but Convince them to their face that it was a Religion which came from God But when these Prejudices were once Removed by the Actual Entertainment of and Submission to the Christian Faith there could not be the same use or need of Miracles then which there was before For still we must remember That the State of a Church in its Infancy and First Beginnings and in its Maturity and Continuance is very different and Consequently that the Exigencies of it under each Condition must equally differ too It is a much harder work first to advance and put a thing into Motion than to Continue and keep up that motion being once begun For though indeed as we observed before there is an Omnipotence required to maintain as well as first to set up the Christian Church yet it does not therefore follow that this Omnipotence must still exert it self to the same Degree and after the same way in One Case that it does in the Other Wherefore the use and Purpose of Miracles being Extraordinary and to serve only for a time they were not by their Continuance to thwart their Design nor to be made Common by their Being Perpetual The Exact period of their Duration can hardly be assigned but manifest it is from all History that they or at least some of them Continued long after the Apostles time as we may gather from the several Ages of those Eminent Fathers and Christian Writers who have so freely given in their Testimony Concerning the ejecting of evil Spirits from Persons Possessed as very Common in their time in the Christian Church A Power no doubt Supernatural and therefore miraculous such as were Iustin Martyr who lived something before the middle of the Second Century and Irenaeus who lived about Thirty Years after and Tertullian who lived in the latter End of the Second and the beginning of the Third and Minutius Felix thereabouts and St. Cyprian about the middle of the Third and Lactantius about the beginning of the Fourth All these I say according to the Times they lived in speak of this Power of Casting out Devils but more Especially Tertullian in the Twenty third Chapter of his Apologetick with so much Assurance that it must needs prove it to have been very frequent amongst the Christians in those days As several passages in those formentioned Writers particularly declare Which might easily be produced and Rehearsed by us could we spare Room enough for them in so short a discourse But however certain it is that now these Extraordinary and Miraculous Powers are ceased and that upon as good Reason as at first they began For when the Spiritual Building is Consummate and not only the Corner Stone laid but the Superstructure also finished to what Purpose should the Scaffolds any longer stand Which when they leave off to Contribute to the Building can serve for little else but to upbraid the folly of the Builder Besides that by so long a Continuance Miracle would almost turn into Nature or at least look very like it the Rarities of
Heaven would grow Cheap and Common and which is very preposterous to Conceive they would be Miracles without a Wonder The Papists indeed who having swallowed and digested the Belief of so many Monstrous Contradictions would do but very unwisely and disagreeably to themselves if for ever after they should stick at any advantageous Absurdity these I say hold that the Gift of Miracles still continues ordinary in their Church and that the Christian Religion has still the same need of such Miraculous Confirmations as it had at first Where if by the Christian they mean their own Popish Religion I am so fully of their mind that I think there is need not only of Daily but even of hourly or rather continual Miracles to Confirm it if it were but in that one single Article of Transubstantiation But then we know whose Badge and Character the Scripture makes it to Come in Lying Wonders and we know also that Lying Wonders are true Impostures and theirs are of that Nature that the fallacy is so gross and the Cheat so Transparent in them that as it hardens the Iews and Mahumetans with a desperate Invincible Prejudice against Christianity as a Thing as false as those Miracles which they see it recommended by so I am Confident that it Causes many Christians also to nauseate their own Religion and to fall into secret Atheism being Apt to Think as even these Impostors also pretend that the very Miracles of the Apostles might be of the same Nature with those which they see daily Acted by these Spiritual Juglers so that hereby the grand Proof of Christianity falls to the ground and has no force or hold upon Men's minds at all Whereas our Saviour Himself laid the main Stress and Credit of his Gospel and of his Mission from God upon his Miracles The Works that I do says He bear Witness of me John 10.25 And Believe me for my very Works sake John 14.11 And had I not done amongst them the Works which no other Man did they had not had Sin John 15.24 So that we see here that the Credit of all turned upon his Miracles his mighty and Supernatural Works But as we know it often falls out that when a Man has once got the Character of a Lyer even Truth it self is suspected if not absolutely disbelieved when it comes from the Mouth of such an one So these Miracle-Mongers â—aving alarm'd the World round about tâ—em to a discernment of their Tricks wâ—en they came afterwards to Preach Christianity especially to Infidels and to preâ—â— it upon Men's belief in the strength of those Miraculous Works which were truely and really done by Christ yet since they pretend the same of their own Works too which all People see through and know to be Lyes and Impostures all that they Preach of Christ is presently looked upon as false and fictitious and leaves the minds of Men locked up under a fixed obstinate and impregnable Infidelity Such a fatal blow has the Legerdemain of those Wretches given to the Christian Religion and such jealousies have they raised in some Men's Thoughts against it by their false Miracles and Fabulous Stories of the Romantick feats of their Pretended Saints In all which there is nothing indeed strange or Miraculous but the Impudence and Impiety of such as report and make them and the folly of such as can believe them 2. Pass we now to the second Thing proposed which is to shew what is meant by this Diversity of Gifts mentioned in the Text. It Imports I conceive these Two Things 1. Something by way of Affirmation which is Variety 2. Something by way of Negation which is Contrariety 1. And first for the first of them It imports Variety of which Excellent Qualification it is hard to say whether it makes more for Vse or Ornament It is the very Beauty of Providence and the Delight of the World It is that which keeps alive Desire which would otherwise flag and tire and be quickly weary of any one single Object It both supplies our Affections and Entertains our Admiration Equally serving the Innocent Pleasures and the Important Occasions of Life And now all these Advantages God would have this desireable Quality derive even upon his Church too In which great Body there are and must be several Members having their several Vses Offices and Stations as in the 28 th v. of this Chapter where my Text is the Apostle tells us that God has placed in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Preachers after that Miracles then Gifts of healing helps Governments Diversities of Tongues The particular Function and Employment of so many parts subserving the Joint Interest and Design of the whole As the motion of a Clock is a Complicated motion of so many Wheels fitly put together and Life it self but the Result of so many several Operations all issuing from and Contributing to the support of the same Body The great help and furtherance of Action is order and the Parent of order is Distinction No sence faculty or Member must Encroach upon or interfere with the Duty and Office of another For as the same Apostle discourses in the two next verses Are all Apostles Are all Prophets Are all Teachers Are all Workers of Miracles Have all the Gift of Healing Do all Speak with Tongues Do all Interpret No but as in the Natural Body the Eye does not Speak nor the Tongue see so neither in the Spiritual is every one who has the Gift of Prophecy endued also with the Gift and Spirit of Government every one who may speak well and pertinently enough upon a Text is not therefore presently fit to rule a Diocess nor is a Nimble Tongue always attended with a strong and a steady Head If all were Preachers who should Govern or rather indeed who could be governed If the Body of the Church were all Ear Men would be only hearers of the Word and where would then be the Doers For such I am sure we are most to seek for in our days in which sad experience shews that Hearing of Sermons has with most swallowed up and devoured the Practice of them and manifestly serves instead of it rendring many Zealots amongst us as really guilty of the Superstition of resting in the bare Opus Operatum of this Duty as the Papists are or can be Charged to be in any of their Religious Performances whatsoever The Apostle justly reproaches such with Itching Ears 2 Tim. 4.3 And I cannot see but that the Itch in the Ear is as bad a distemper as in any other part of the Body and perhaps a Worse But to proceed God has use of all the several Tempers and Constitutions of Men to serve the Occasions and Exigences of his Church by Amongst which some are of a Sanguine Chearful and Debonair Disposition having their Imaginations for the most part filled and taken up with Pleasing Ideas and Images of Things seldom or never Troubling their Thoughts either by
looking too deep into them or dwelling too long upon them And these are not properly framed to serve the Church either in the knotty dark and less pleasing parts of Religion but are fitted rather for the Airy Joyful Offices of Devotion such as are praise and Thanksgiving Iubilations and Halleluja's which though indeed not so difficult are yet as pleasing a Work to God as any other For they are the Noble Employment of Saints and Angels and a lively resemblance of the Glorified and Beatifick State in which all that the Blessed Spirits do is to rejoice in the God who made and saved them to sing his Praises and to adore his Perfections Again there are others of a melancholy reserved and severe Temper who think much and Speak little and these are the fittest to serve the Church in the Pensive Afflictive Parts of Religion in the Austerities of Repentance and Mortification in a Retirement from the World and a settled Composure of their Thoughts to self-reflexion and meditation And such also are the ablest to deal with troubled and distressed Consciences to meet with their doubts and to answer their Objections and to ransack every Corner of their shifting and fallacious hearts and in a word to lay before them the true State of their Souls having so frequently descended into and took a strict Account of their own And this is so great a Work that there are not many whose Minds and Tempers are Capable of it who yet may be serviceable enough to the Church in other Things And it is the same Thoughtful and reserved Temper of Spirit which must enable others to serve the Church in the hard and controversial parts of Religion Which sort of Men though they should never rub Men's Itching Ears from the Pulpit the Church can no more be without than a Garrison can be without Souldiers or a City without Walls or than a Man can defend Himself with his Tongue when his Enemy comes against Him with his Sword And therefore great pity it is that such as God has eminently and peculiarly furnished and as it were cut out for this service should be cast upon and compell'd to the Popular Speaking Noisy part of Divinity it being all one as if when a Town is besieged the Governour of it should call off a Valiant and expert Souldier from the Walls to sing Him a Song or Play Him a Lesson upon the Violin at a Banquet and then turn him out of Town because He could not sing and play as well as He could fight And yet as ridiculous as this is it is but too like the irrational and absurd Humour of the present Age which thinks all sence and Worth confined wholly to the Pulpit And many Excellent Persons because they cannot make a Noise with Chapter and Verse and Harangue it twice a Day to factious Trades-Men and Ignorant Old Women are esteemed of as Nothing and scarce Thought worthy to eat the Church's Bread But for all these false Notions and wrong measures of Things and Persons so scandalously prevalent amongst us Wisdom as our Saviour tells us is and will be justified of Her Children But then again there are others besides these who are of a Warmer and more fervent Spirit having much of heat and fire in their Constitution And God may and does serve his Church even by such kind of Persons as these also as being particularly fitted to Preach the Terrifying Rigours and Curses of the Law to obstinate daring Sinners Which is a Work as absolutely Necessary and of as high as Consequence to the good of Souls as it is that Men should be driven if they cannot be drawn off from their Sins that they should be cut and launced if they cannot otherwise be Cured and that the Terrible Trump of the last Iudgment should be always Sounding in their Ears if nothing else can awaken them But then while such Persons are thus busied in Preaching of Iudgment it is much to be wished that they would do it with Iudgment too and not Preach Hell and Damnation to Sinners so as if they were pleased with what they preached No let them rather take heed that they mistake not their own fierce Temper for the mind of God for some I have known to do so and that at such a Rate that it was easy enough to distinguish the Humour of the Speaker from the Nature of the Thing he spoke Let Ministers threaten Death and Destruction even to the very worst of Men in such a manner that it may appear to all their sober Hearers that they do not desire but fear that these dreadful Things should come to pass let them declare God's Wrath against the hardened and impenitent as I have seen a Iudge Condemn a Malefactor with Tears in his Eyes for surely much more should a dispenser of the Word while he is pronouncing the infinitely more killing Sentence of the Divine Law grieve with an inward bleeding compassion for the misery of those forlorn Wretches whom it is like to pass upon But I never knew any of the Geneva or Scotch model which sort of Sanctifyed Reprobationers we abound with either use or like this way of Preaching in my Life but generally Whips and Scorpions Wrath and Vengeance Fire and Brimstone made both Top and Bottom Front and Rear First and Last of all their Discourses But then on the Contrary there are others again of a Gentler a Softer and more Tender Genius and these are full as serviceable for the Work of the Ministry as the former sort could be though not in the same way as being much fitter to represent the Meekness of Moses than to Preach his Law to bind up the broken hearted to speak Comfort and Refreshment to the weary and to take off the Burden from the heavy Laden Nature it self seems peculiarly to have fitted such for the dispensations of Grace And when they are once put into the Ministry they are as it were marked and singled out by Providence to do those benign Offices to the Souls of Men which Persons of a rougher and more vehement Disposition are by no means so fit or able to do These are the Men whom God pitches upon for the Heraulds of his Mercy with a peculiar Emphasis and felicity of Address to proclaim and issue out the pardons of the Gospel to close up the wounds which the Legal Preacher had made to bath and supple them with the Oyl of Gladness and in a word to Crown the sorrows of Repentance with the Joys of Assurance And thus we have seen how the Gospel must have both its Boanarges and its Barnabas Sons of Thunder and Sons of Consolation the first as it were to Cleanse the Air and Purge the Soul before it can be fit for the Refreshments of a Sunshine the Beams of Mercy and the Smiles of a Saviour David had shewn himself but a mean Psalmist had his skill reached no further than to one Note and therefore Psal. 101. 1
st v. we have him Singing of Iudgment as well as Mercy and so raising the sweetest Harmony out of the seeming discord of the most disagreeing Attributes There can be no Composition in any thing without some multiplicity and diversity of Parts and therefore we have a Catalogue of those Gifts which did as it were compound and make up the Primitive Church in the 8 9 and 10 th verses of this 12 th Chapter of the 1 st to the Corinthians Where the Apostle tells us That to one is given the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge to another Faith with many more such like Gifts there reckoned up and indeed so many and various were the Gifts poured out by the Spirit of God upon the first Preachers of the Gospel that there is need almost of the Gift of Tongues to rehearse them Of which great Variety as we have hitherto observed the Vse so it is intended also for the Ornament of the Church I say Ornament for I cannot perswade my self that God ever designed his Church for a Rude Naked Unbeautified Lump or lay to the Foundations of Purity in the Ruines of decency The Entrance and Gate of Solomon's Temple was called Beautiful and as there were several Orders of Priests and Levites belonging to it so they had their several Offices their several Chambers and Apartments in that Temple It was a kind of Representation of Heaven in which our Saviour tells us there are many Mansions But behold there are Wiser much Wiser than Solomon amongst us who will have it quite otherwise in the Christian Church Nothing of Order or Distinction nothing of Splendour or Dress must be allowed of here No they are all for lying in the Dust before God as their word is and therefore will have nothing but Dust and Nastiness for the Churches Furniture To attempt a Confutation of such Persons would be superfluous and indeed I have no more to say for those who contend for such a sordid and mean Condition of the Church but that in this they do not so much speak their Devotion as their Education it being generally found that a slovenly way of breeding disposes Men to a kind of slovenly Religion Much might be spoken by way of Analogy between the Internal and External the Spiritual and the Material Ornaments of the Church But both of them serve to dress and set off the Spouse of Christ the first to recommend Her to his own Eyes and the latter to the Eyes of the World Where would be the Beauty of the Heavens themselves if it were not for the multitude of the Stars and the Variety of their Influences and then for the Earth here below and those who dwell therein certainly we might live without the Plumes of Peacocks and the Curious Colours of Flowers without so many different Odors so many several Tastes and such an Infinite diversity of Airs and Sounds But where would then be the glory and lustre of the Universe the flourish and gaiety of Nature if our Senses were forced to be always poring upon the same Things without the Diversion of Change and the quickning Relish of Variety And now when matters stand thus may we not justly say If God so cloathes the Fields so paints the Flowers and paves the very places we Tread upon and with such curiosity provides for all our senses which yet are but the Servants and under Officers of the Soul shall He not much more provide for the Soul it self and his own service thereby in the Glorious Oeconomy and great Concernments of the Church and moreover does not such a Liberal Effusion of Gifts equally Argue both the Power and the Bounty of the Giver Number and multitude are the signs of Riches and the materials of Plenty And therefore though Vnity in the Government and Communion of the Church is indeed a great blessing yet in the Gifts and endowments of it it would be but Penury and a Curse But Secondly As this diversity of the Spirits Gifts imports Variety so it excludes Contrariety Different they are but they are not opposite There is no Jarr no Combat or Contest between them but all are disposed of with mutual Agreements and a happy subordination For as Variety adorns so Opposition destroys Things most different in Nature may yet be united in the same design and the most distant Lines may meet an◠Clasp in the same Centre As for Instance One would Think that the Spirit of Meekness and the Spirit of Zeal stood at that distance of Contrariety as to defie all Possibility either of likeness or Reconcilement and yet as we have already shewn they both may and do equally serve and carry on the great End and business of Religion And the same Spirit which Baptizes with Water Baptizes also with Fire It is an Art to attain the same End by several Methods and to make things of a quite contrary Operation to concur in one and the same Effect Come we now to the third and last Thing proposed from the Words which is to shew What are the Consequences of this Emanation of so many and different Gifts from one and the same Spirit I shall instance in Four directly and naturally deducible from it As First If the Spirit Works such Variety of Gifts and those in so vast a Multitude and for the most part above the force of Nature certainly it is but Rational to Conclude That it is a Being superiour to Nature and so may justly Challenge to it self a Deity There have been several who have impugned the Deity of the Holy Ghost though not in the same manner but the Principal of them come within these two sorts 1. Macedonius and his followers who allowed Him to be a Person but denyed his Deity Affirming Him to be the Chief Angel the supreme and most Excellent of those Blessed Spirits imployed by God in Administring the Affairs of the Church and Conveying good suggestions to the minds of Men and for that cause to be called the Holy Spirit and sometimes simply and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by way of Eminence The Spirit And the same was held also by one Biddle an Heretick of some Note here in England a little before the Restauration That is to say while Confusion and Toleration gave Countenance to almost all Religions except the True 2. But secondly Socinus and his School deny both the Deity of the Holy Ghost and his Personal subsistence too not granting Him to be a Person but only the Power of God To wit That Vis or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he effects or produces Things And amongst those who assert this none have given such bold strokes at the Deity of the Holy Ghost as Crellius in his Book de uno Deo Patre and his other de Spiritu Sancto Now to draw forth and Insist upon all the Arguments and Texts of Scripture which use to be traversed on both sides in this Controversy would be a
very short time too Let every Sober Humble and Discreet Christian therefore be advised to dread all tampering with the Mysteries of our Faith either by any new and unwarrantable explications of them or descants upon them The Great Apostle of the Gentiles who I am sure had as clear a knowledge of the whole Mystery of the Gospel as any in his time and a greater plenty of Revelations than any one could pretend to since him treated these matters with much another kind of Reverence crying out with Horrour and Amazement O the Depth and Vnsearchableness of the things of God In Rom. 11.33 And again Who is sufficient for these Things In 2 Cor. 2.16 This was his Judgment these were his Thoughts of these Dreadful and Mysterious Depths and the same no doubt will be the thoughts and judgment of all others concerning them who have any thing of Depth themselves For as the same Apostle again has it in that most noted place in the 1 Tim. 3.16 Without Controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh justifyed in the Spirit seen of Angels believed on in the World and received up into Glory To which God Infinitely Wise Holy and Great be rendred and ascribed as is most Due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen THE Lineal Descent OF Jesus of Nazareth From David by his Blessed Mother the Virgin Mary Proved in a DISCOURSE On Revel xxii 16 Revel xxii 16 latter part I am the Root and the Off-spring of David and the Bright and Morning Star THE Words here pitched upon by me are the Words of Christ now glorified in Heaven and seem as it were by the Union of a double Festival to represent to us both the Nativity and Epiphamy while they lead us to the Birth of Christ by the direction of a Star though with this difference I confess that both the Means directing and the Term directed to do in this place coincide and Christ the Person speaking as well as spoken of is here the only Star to direct us to Himself The Nativity of Christ is certainly a Compendium of the whole Gospel in that it thus both begins and ends it reaching from the first Chapter of St. Matthew to this last of the Revelation which latter though it be confessedly a Book of Mysteries and a System of occult Divinity yet surely it can contain nothing more Mysterious and Stupendious than the Mystery here wrapt up in the Text where we have Christ declaring himself both the Root and the Off-spring of David For that any one should be both Father and Son to the same Person produce himself be Cause and Effect too and so the Copy give Being to its Original seems at first sight so very strange and unaccountable that were it not to be adored as a Mystery it would be exploded as a Contradiction But since the Gospel has lifted us above our Reason and taught us one of the great Arcana of Heaven by assuring us that Divinity and Humanity may cohabit in one subsistence that two Natures may concur in the same Person and Heaven and Earth mingle without Confusion we being thus taught and perswaded shall here endeavour to exhibit the whole Oeconomy of Christ's Glorious Person and to shew what a Miracle He was as well as what Miracles He did by considering him under these three several Respects First As the Root Secondly As the Off-spring of David And Thirdly As He is here termed The Bright and Morning Star And First for the first of these Christ was the Root of David but How Certainly in respect of something in him which had a Being before David But his humanity had not so being of a much later date and therefore as a meer Man he could not be the Root of David whereupon it follows that he must have been so in respect of some other Nature But what that Nature was will be the Question The Arians who denied his Divinity but granted his Pre-existence to his Humanity which the Socinians absolutely deny held him to be the first Born of the Creation the first and most Glorious Creature which God made A Spiritual Substance produced by him long before the Foundation of the World and afterwards in the fulness of time sent into a Body and so made Incarnate This is what they hold whereby it appears how much they differ from the School of Socinus though some with great impertinence confound them Arius taught that Christ had a Spiritual Subsistence before the World began Socinus held that he was a meer Man and had no subsistence or being at all till such time as he was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Mary I shall not much concern my self about these two Opinions as they stand in Opposition to one another but only remark this of them That Socinus asserts a thing considered barely in it self more agreeable to Reason which can much better conceive of Christ as a Man naturally consisting of Soul and Body than as such an Heterogeneous Composition of a Body and I know not what strange Spiritual Substance Existing before the Creation as the Arians represent him But then on the other side the Opinion of Arius is of the two much more difficult to be confuted by Scripture For as to Socinus the chief Arguments brought from thence against him are not such as are taken from the Name or Actions of God attributed to Christ which he thinks he easily answers by asserting that God is a Name not of Nature but of Power and Dominion and that Christ is called God because of the Power and Government of all things put into his Hands as earthly Kings also in their proportion have in Scripture the same Title upon the same account But the Arguments which bear hardest upon Socinus are such as are taken from those Scriptures which beyond all possibility of Rational Contradiction declare the Pre-existence and Precedent Being of Christ to his Conception such as Ioh. 8. 58. Before Abraham was I am And in Ioh. 17.5 Glorify me O Father with the Glory which I had with thee before the World was which all the Socinians in the World could never yet give any clear proper and natural exposition of but unnaturally and illogically pervert and distort them in defyance of Sence and Reason and all the received ways of Interpretation But now as for Arius the Allegation of these and the like Scriptures prejudice not his Hypothesis at all who grants Christ to have been a Glorious Spiritual Substance of an Existence not only before Abraham but also before Adam and the Angels themselves and the whole Host of the Creation But what Was Christ then the Root of David only in respect of this Spiritual Pre-existing Created Substance first found out and set up by Arius No certainly for the Scripture and the best Comment upon the Scripture a general Council and that also the first and most Famous