of Discretion in an ordinary Authour to accommodate himself to the Capacities of all to whom he speaks or writes and not to oblige himself meerly to suit and please the Sons of Art how much more doth it become the Wisdom of God that seeing he designed the Scripture for the Universal Instruction of Mankind so to adapt and dispose the phraseology of it as that all might be edifyed by it Now in reference to the Vulgus who scarce understand any thing but in proportion to their senses and in dependence on Material Phantasms what Method can be more likely to affect their Minds with and raise them unto Spiritual things than to have them proposed under the Names and illustrated by the properties and operations of those things with whose Natures and Affections they are so well acquainted Much of every mans Knowledg begins at his Senses and Reason inoculates and superstructs upon them especially they of weaker Intellects need the relief of sensible Adumbrations in the conduct of their Minds to Spiritual and Heavenly things Accordingly therefore hath God disposed the Revelation of the Counsels of his Will in the Scripture yet with that provision and caution that by a very ordinary attendance and care we may see Spiritual things to be intended and designed and that our are not to be arrested by those sensible representations Hence we have not only a wonderful Variation gâ—ven to one and the same proposition and the same thing manifested and inculcated under different Forms of speech but besides in those very places where the Deep Things of God are most brought down to our senses there is enough either in the Nature of the Thing spoken of or in the scope of the Speaker or in the Context to assure us that there is only a Metaphor Similitude or Allegory in the expression For indeed there can be no Corporeal Images of Spiritual Things only by considering the properties and affections c. of things Material to which they are compared we are guided the better to understand and know their Spiritual Nature § 5. Having unfolded the Nature of Metaphors and enquired into the Reasons of the frequent usage of Metaphorical Terms in the Scripture we are next to state when an expression is to be accounted Metaphorical that so we may neither mistake proper expressions for Figurative nor substitute a Figure where there is none We have already intimated § 2. that 't is the humour of some in order to serving a design and ministring to an Hypothesis to transform the plainest Truths into Metaphors and thereby to pervert the Scripture from its true sense to a befriending their prepossessions prejudices Allow but men the liberty of supposing Metaphors where their lusts and forestallments influence them to such Imaginations there is not that Gospel-Truth whâ—ch may not be supplanted notwithstanding the plainest testimony given to it in the Bible If men may be permitted to forsake the Natural and Genuine sense of words where the Matter is capable of it they may notwithstanding their declaring themselves to believe the Gospel yet believe nothing at all of the Christian Faith Two things therefore are carefully to be attended to in the Interpretation of Scripture 1. That we impose not a proper sense where the words ought to be taken in a Tropical Figurative Metaphorick or Allegorick one Numerous Instances may be assigned how the Scripture hath been perverted from its true Intendment by the usurping words in a proper sense where a Metaphorical or Allegorick ought only to be allowed Thus the Anthropomorphites of old and some Socinians of late for all of them have not thought so contemptibly of the Deity by taking those texts which attribute Humane Members to God in a proper sense have fancied him to be Corporeal have ascribed a Material Humane shape to Him whereas the meaning of such places is only to affirm those perfections of God which such Members in us are the Instruments of Corporeity is repugnant to the Divine Nature inconsistent with the Common Notions of mankind concerning Him and contradictious to what the Scripture in other places reveales of his Essence and perfections so that the Attributing Bodily Members to him must be construed as so many Metaphors declaring only such Attributes and Operations to belong to Him as those Organs and Members in us denote and are the apparatus and instruments of Thus also the Jews writing the precepts of the Law on their Frontlets and Phylacteries took its rise from affixing a proper meaning to Exodus 13.16 Deut 6.8 whereas indeed the words are Metaphorical do only intimate that they were to have the Law in Continual remembrance Not but that I acknowledg locks or fringes fastned to the skirts of their Garments as a badg of that Subjection and Reverence they were to abide in towards God and his Law and that they were not to wander after false worship to have been enjoyned them but that the Ten Commandments or any thing else were to be written upon them I read not and do Apprehend that Custom to have derived its Original from the mistake already suggested In like manner their Imagining Isa 19.18 19 20. to be intended in a proper sense gave occasion to Onias's building a Temple resembling that of Hierusalem in Egypt at least was pleaded in justification of it Whereas the import of the place is only to declare the Gentiles admission into the Church and that they were to have a share in the Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel which the Prophet predicts and describes in Terms and Phrases adapted to the O. T. Oeconomy and dispensation I may here add that all the Jewish mistakes in reference to the Messiah as if he to be a Triumphant King subduing the Earth by the terrour of his Legions and to conferâ— on them all Terrene Pomp Magnificence c. did arise principally from obtruding a proper sense upon some of those Prophesies which relate to the Kingdom of the Messiah whereas in Truth their Phraseology is wholly Metaphorick God chusing by words which properly denote and import Things Terrene and Temporal to instruct us concerning the Spiritual Benefits that we should be made partakers of by and through the Messiah The imposing a proper sense upon words which Christ intended only in a Metaphorical gave rise to one of the Articles of Indictment which the Scribes and Pharisees preferred against him see Joh. 2.19 compared with Mark 14.58 T is true they withall altered his words for whereas Christ had only said Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up The false witnesses deposed that they heard him say I will destroy this Temple c. but yet their main prevarication and that without which the other alteration could have no wayes served their design was their construing his words in a proper sense as referring to the Temple at Jerusalem whereas he designed them only in a Metaphorical to denote his Body
faileur in one of these both most of the Arguments against the Doctrine of the Trinity and for Communication of Omnipresence to the Humane Nature of Christ because it agrees to the Person of the son of God not to instance in more particulars may be easily avoided and answered 2 by shewing that if it be an universal and true Maxime of Reason that the Objection is grounded on how that there is not any thing in Revelation that doth contradict it There is an excellent Harmony betwixt Truth and Truth and though they be distinct and different yet they are not contrary and repugnant the one to the other They who reject Gospel Mysteries on supposition of a Repugnancy they lye in to Reason have not been able to this day to justifie their Charge 'T is true the more we adventure too neerly to look into them the more we find our selves dazled with their Fulgor but yet we find no thing in them that implye's a Contradiction to our Faculties or that is repugnant to the Nature and Attributes of God Nor is there any one Argument produced to this day in proof of the repugnancy of the Mysteries of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God his satisfying Divine Justice in the Room and behalf of Sinners the Eternal Decrees c. Which hath not received an answer and the Authors of it been shamefully baffled § 14. Having unfolded the Interest and concernment of Reason in and about Religion it will be necessary ere we shut up this Discourse more particularly to state and fix the Bounds betwixt these two and to offer some Measures by which Reason may have allotted all that belongs to it and yet nothing in the mean time be detracted from Faith First then Reason is the Negative Measure in Matters of Religion Nothing contradictory to right Reason is to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith What Right Reason say's cannot be done we must not father it upon God to do If Reason be objected against any Scripture Testimony how plausible and subtile soever it seems yet Right Reason it cannot be but only deceives through an Unbrage and shew of it And if Scripture Authority be urged against an undoubted and evident Principle of Reason he that doth so presseth not the true meaning of the Scripture for that he doth not reach but only imposeth his own Sense and urgeth what himself phancieth to be there instead of what indeed is so saith Austin These two lights though different yet they do not destroy one another God is the Author of natural as well as Supernatural Light nor can he bely himself We have no greater Certainty than that of our Faculties for by that alone are we inabled to discern a Divine Revelation from Humane or Diabolical Delusions Should God reveal such Doctrines as contradict Natural Truths and Principles of Right Reason He would thereby eradicate what himself hath planted in our Souls The Law of Reason being the first declaration of the Will of God originally annexed to and communicated with our Natures 't is not to be imagined that by any after declaration he should thwart his first Besides all Revelation is to instruct us in a reasonable though supernatural way and therefore though in many things it may exceed our Reason fully to comprehend it yet in all things it must be consistent with our Reasons To admit Religion to contain any Dogm's Repugnant to Right Reason is at once to tempt Men to look upon all Revelation as a Romance or rather as the invention of distracted men withall to open a Door for filling the World with figments and lyes under the palliation of Divine Mysteries We cannot gratifie the Atheist and Infidel more than to tell them that the prime Articles of our Belief imply a contradiction to our Faculties In a word this Hypothesis were it received would make us renounce Man espouse Brute in matters of the chiefest greatest concernment for without debasing our selves into a lower species we cannot embrace any thing that is formally impossible Nothing but mens entertaining opinions which they cannot defend from being absurd and irrational could have sway'd them to reproach Reason in the manner they do but they do only decline the weapons they are sure to be wounded by When men have filled Religion with Opinions that are contrary to common Sense and Natural Light they are forced to introduce a suitable Faith namely such a one that commends it self from believing Doctrines repugnant to the evidence and principles of both And thus under a respect that is pleaded to be due to sacred Mysteries do the wildest fancies take Sanctuary And meerly out of fear of violating that regard which ought to be paid to Objects of Faith we must believe that to be true which the Universal Reason of Man-kind gives the lye to Thus the first Hereticks that troubled the Christian Church under pretence of teaching Mysteries overthrew common sense and did violence to the Universal Uniform and perpetual Light of Mankind Some of them having taught that all Creatures are naturally Evil Others of them having established two Soveraign Gods one Good and another Bad Others having affirmed the Soul to be a part of the Divine Substance not to mention a thousand falsities more all these they defended against the assaults of the Orthodox by pretending that they were Mysteries about which Reason was not to be hearkened to Thus do others to this day who being resolved to obtrude their fancies upon the World and being neither able to prove nor defend what they say they pretend the Spirit of God to be the Author of all their Theorem's Nor can I assign a better reason for the antipathy of the Turks to Philosophy than that it overthrows the follies and absurdities of their Religion This themselves confess by devoting Almansor to the vengeance of Heaven because he hath weakned the Faith of Mussul-men in the Alcoran through introducing Learning and Philosophy amongst them There is no Combating of the Valentinians Marcionites Eutychians and others but by shewing the repugnance of their Opinions to first principles of Reason We do not make Natural Light the positive Measure of things Divine do only allow it a Negative voyce We place it not in the Chair in Councels of Faith but do only permit it to keep the door and hinder the entring of Contradictions and Irrational Fancies disguised under the Name of Sacred Mysteries This I thought fit to propose in the first place and have the more largely insisted on it because of its serviceableness against the Corporal presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the ubiquity of Christs Body and divers other Articles both of the Romane and Lutheran Creeds What the Universal Reason of Man-kind tells us is finite commensurable and impenetrable c. they would have us believe it to be Infinite Immense and subject to penetration The great Article of the Roman Faith viz. Transubstantiation must needs be
and Continuation thought he had sufficiently acquitted himself by replying That may be the Sky will fall to morrow and it may be S. Pauls Steeple as soon as it is rebuilt will remove it self to the East-Indies Though he should withal have remembred that the foresaid Learned person had also told him that these things would be made evident when particulars should be instanced in viz. that the Metaphors the Non-conformists are charged with are no other but expressions of Gospel Mysteries not in the Words which mans Wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual But the Author of the Defence judg'd it meet there to bear back reckoning that he came off with Triumph enough and sufficiently loaded with the spoyls of his Enemy by raillying upon a may be I shall therefore not account it enough barely to assert that some of the Expressions reflected on in the Writings of the Non-conformists are such as the Holy Ghost himself hath preceded them in the use of and that to the very same Ends and Purposes for which they produce them but seeing nothing less will serve the turn either for the vindicating Them from the imputation of canting or to beget more modesty in their Adversaries I shall present the Reader with some instances where it is so And that I may not be thought to design the disparagement of any Party of men by quoting testimonies from divers of their Authors who rather than not strain up the dreggs of their Choler against the Phanaticks for their phraseologies have even written in derogation of Scripture-phrases and made the Spirit of God the Subject of their derision as well as the Non-conformists I say to avoid this I shall confine my self to Mr. Sherlock alone Faith say's he is very luckily called coming to Christ whence it is very evident that to believe in Christ is to go to him for Salvation which Metaphors of Coming and Going are a very intelligible explication of believing Now what is this but to be guilty as well of prophaning the Scripture as of incivility to the Non-conformists for this very Metaphor is made use of by the Holy Ghost Joh. 5.40 and. 6.35 37 44. to signify believing of which as prophanely as sarcastically our Author stiles it a very intelligible explication But Mr. Sherlock seems to be one of those who never think any thing intelligible when declared in Scripture-Terms I will crave of the Reader to peruse the 104 105 and 106 pages of his Book for I do not love to foul these leaves more than I needs must with passages opprobrious against God as well as men though it be only to expose and confute them and then to tell me whether the very Scripture-expressions in their proper sense be not made to bear a Share in his Contempt and Scorn Though the Receiving of Christ be a phrase which the Holy Ghost expresseth Faith in him and the belief of his Word and Doctrine by Joh. 1.11 12. and 3.32 33. and 17.8 Act. 1.41 and 8.14 and 17.11 Col. 2.6 1 Thes. 2.13 yet that doth not secure it from the lash of our Authors pen. It may seem strange that they will not allow men to speak the things of God in the Terms Phrases which the Holy Ghost teacheth But where the things of the Spirit of God are first disliked 't is no marvail that his expressions come to be dislik'd also But surely the exposing them to make their Readers sport what ever of wit it argues it declares a prophane sawciness One would think that the Scripture expressing Faith in Christ by Trust Eph. 1.12 13. Men without obloquy might do the like but that phrase also is made the pleasure of Mr. Sherlocks scorn and the use of it turned into open ridicule Now we have Christ sayes he in mockage and derision we must Trust and lean upon him Distrust of our selves dependence on Christ for continual supplies against entanglements from sin and the World are not only made our Duty though not so as to supersede our own watchfulness and best endeavours but the latter is certainly the great priviledg of Believers Nor doth the New Covenant excell the Old in any thing more than in this that God hath herein undertaken to watch over us by his Spirit and to continue those soveraign supplies of Grace to us whereby we shall be kept unto salvation And besides what may be tendred in Justification of this from the Wisedome of God with whose Sapience it seems not consistent finally to leave us after he hath engraven his Image upon us considering that he prevented us with his Grace and Mercy when we were in our Pollutions The Faithfulness of Christ to whose care Believers are in a special manner committed Joh. 17.12 and 18.9 pleads also for it Yea The Scripture likewise gives in its express Testimony to this purpose 2 Tim 1.12 assuring us that on our being found in an attendance upon Instituted means and in the exercise of those Duties and endeavours which are required of us God will work in us both to will and Do Philip. 2.13 and keep us by his own power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.15 Yet this Mr. Sherlock hath some venemous spawn to bestow upon and the Phanaticks must upon this account be made the the Subjects of his sly but petulant mockage And now sayes he we have thus brought our souls to Christ we must commit them to his trust to take Charge of them and save them and if they perish it will be his fault and he must give account of it And as if there were not prophaness Satyr enough in this the Words of the Holy Ghost must be brought in to bear a Share in his scorn and contempt Thus St. Paul did says he 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that day Could he not be content to expose the Non-conformists without involving the Scripture in the same Condemnation Or was St. Pauls case and theirs so much the same that he knew not how to wreak himself upon them without making Him suffer under the same imputation I confess Mr. Sherlock is not the onely man who seems displeased with St. Paul for besides that one tells us his Style is often the most obscure he ever read another makes it a part of a Guild-Hall declamation that the 9 th Chapter to the Romans is studied more than our Saviours Sermon on the Mount and that the firebrands of the Church have used to fetch all their heat from St. Pauls writings and have thought themselves tolerated if not encouraged by his Example to dispute every thing ibid. p. 10. In which words there is not onely a false and invidious supposition that there are some of the Phanaticks who prefer St. Pauls writings to the neglect of the Gospels and other Sacred Books but there is withall a
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual And as I have endeavoured to regulate all my Conceptions by Scripture and Reason so whatever Proposition shall be made appear to lye in a Repugnancy to these I am ready openly to retract it If any shall attaque these Discourses with Reviling Reproachful Language I do declare before-hand that I reckon my self superseded from Replying I will combat no man at these weapons nor do I think it a reputation 〈◊〉 any to Rail how much in Fashion soever it is though he should be able to do it in fine Language How often Mr. Sherlock hath contradicted himself and by what falsifications he hath imposed Principles on the Non-conformists which they never held how he treats the Sacred Writers with as much contempt as he doth T. W. and Burlesques the Scripture no less than others have done Virgils Poems how he hath renounced the Doctrine of the Church of England and borrowed his Glosses on the Bible as well as his Dogmatical Notions from the Socinians how Illogical he is in all his deductions and slandereth his Adversaries by undue Inferences should have been the Theme and Argument of this Preface and accordingly I had digested Materials for it but the Book being swell'd to too great a bulk already and there being others engaged against the same Author within whose Province these things must needs lye as having undertaken the arraignment of his whole Discourse I do wave the prosecution of them all at this time And shall detain the Reader no longer than to tell him that since the Printing off the first Chapter which treats of the Interest of Reason in Religion there is come to my hands a Treatise of Humane Reason in which there are many iâ—l things though as it often happens they be well said I know not an Opinion more pernicious in its Consequences than that Men may be as safe in the Event by embracing Turcism as Christianity and as secure of happiness in their Errours as others are in the Truths which they do espouse Should Persons conspire to overthrow all Revelation they could not fall upon a Method more likely to effect it than by endeavouring to persuade the World that there are things equally as strange in the Bible as in the Alcoran 'T is enough that our Reason may serve us if duely attended to and pursued to discern that this or that Religion is false nor are we therefore to be judged Innocent because we neglect the Exercise of it in making the Discovery No man can embrace a false Religion but by a Criminal Deviation from Reason and who will admit one Transgression to take Sanctuary in another That whole Treatise proceeds upon a false Hypothesis namely that as mens belief of the Scripture is owing to the conduct of Reason so they may disbelieve it by the same Guidance Corrupt Ratiocinations are recommended by the Name of Humane Reason and being once cloathed with this Livery every Foolery as well as Abomination appeals to them if not for its justification at least for its being but a Venial offence No man ceaseth to be an Offender in Morals nor doth he therefore deserve pardon because he hath the concurrence of his judgment in what he does Though no man can chuse or prosecute what his understanding continues to represent to him as Evil yet its failâ—ur in point of duty neither alters the Essential Nature of things nor makes his condition more safe for acting under the conduct of it Some men would have no restraint laid upon their Vnderstandings because they will submit to none in their lives and they would have their corrupt Ratiocinations in Doctrinals as Venial as they seem in reference to Manners to presume the gratifying of their Lusts to be 'T is to be hop'd that for the undeceiving such as are already imbu'd with the principles of it and for the preventing others from being â—ainâ—ed and inveigled some one or other will bring the whole under an Examen In the interim I shall adventure to say that 't is as weak in regard of the Reasonings which occur in it as it is pernicious in its tendency Farewell THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in Religion INtroduction 1. Motives influencing to the handling of this subject 2. The Import of Reason 3. What 's meant by Religion 4. The serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the Existence of a Deity with an account of the Topicks on which it proceeds 5. It s usefulness in proving the Divinity of the Scripture with the several Media which it makes use of to this purpose 6.7 Of the Authority of the Scripture as emerging from its Divine Original 8. Our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God Divine and Infallible seeing built upon Media that are so 9. The serviceableness of Reason in our attaining the sense and meaning of the Word with an account of the Measures which we are herein to be guided by 10. Of Scripture-Consequences and the usefulness of Reason in making the Deductions 11. What appertains to Reason in reference to Doctrines which besides the Foundation they have in Revelation have also evidence in the Light of Nature this exemplified with respect to the Immortality of the Soul and the certainty of Providence 12. The concernment of Reason in defending the whole of Religion from the Clamors and Objections of Gainsayers 13. Nothing contradictious to Right Reason to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith Many things obtruded for Principles of Reason which are not so The prejudice done Religion by mistaken Philosophy pursued and declared in various instances 14. CHAP. II. Of the Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors THe Inducements upon which some men endeavour to discharge all Disputes in and about Religion The Grounds of their Quarrelling at Metaphors with an account of the reasons of my discoursing this Theme 1. No Forms of speech used by the Holy Ghost but what are proportioned to the end for which they are made use of The Bible adorned with all sorts of Figurative Expressions Some fancy more Tropes in the Bible than there are Mr. Sherlock among others guilty of this 2. The Nature of a Metaphor what Tropes it hath affinity with the Rules and Lines by which it is distinguished from them 3. The Reason why God who doth all things according to infinite sapience hath so often adopted Metaphorical Terms to declare himself and the Things of his Kingdom in and by 4. When an Expression is to be accounted Metaphorical 5. How to attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors 6. An Enquiry into the use of other common Metaphors with an account of their usefulness and the Measures that are to be attended to in the Vsurpation of them 7. The Non-conformists injuriously charged for their Vsage of Metaphors the Contempt thrown upon them falls often with the same weight upon the Holy Ghost None so Guilty of turning Religion into
of the Bible The ancient Heathens reproaching the Primitive Christians that they grounded all their Doâ—â—rine upon meer Belief that their Religion consisted In sola ratione credendi and that their simple Faith was all they had to trust to The Christians complained of the Charge as a gross and impudent Calumny appealed to Reason for Proof of their Belief and offered to joyn Issue with them upon that Title And as they that owe their Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God to Report Principles of Education or the Felicity of their Birth and the Clime where they were born receive the Scripture upon no better Motives than the Turks do the Alcoran So if pretended Inspiration may pass for a Demonstration of the Truth of what every bold Pretender will obtrude upon us We expose our selves not only to the Belief of every Groundless Imagination but of innumerable Contradictions For not only the grossest Follies but Doctrines palpably repugnant both to Reason and one another have been delivered by Enthusiasts and pretended Inspirato's I readily grant that the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Souls and Consciences of men to the Truth of the Scripture is the most convincing Evidence that such Persons can have of it's Divinity But 1 st The Holy Ghost convinceth no man as to the Belief of the Scripture without Enlightning his mind in the Grounds and Reasons upon which it's proceeding from God is evidenced and established There is no Conviction begot by the Holy Ghost in the Hearts of men otherwise than by rational Evidence satisfying our Understandings through a discovery of the Motives and Inducements that ascertain the Truth of what he would convince us of 2. No mans particular Assurance obtained thus in way of Illumination by the Holy Ghost is to be otherwise urged as an Argument of Conviction to another than by proposing the Reasons which our Faith is erected on The way of such Mens Evidence is communicable to none unless they could kindle the same Rayes in the Breasts of others that have Irradiated their own and therefore they must deal with others by producing the grounds of their Conviction not pleading the manner of it And that an other is convinced or persuaded by them depends wholly upon the weight and Momentousness of the Reasons themselves not on the manner that such a person came to discover them For should he have arrived at the discerning them by any other Mean they had been of the same Significancy to the Conviction of an Adversary 3. The Holy Ghost as a distinct Person in the Deity is not a Principle demonstrable by Reason Seeing then it is by the Scripture alone that we are assured of the Existence of the Divine Spirit as a distinct Person in the Godhead therefore his Testimony in the Hearts and Consciences of men to the Scripture cannot be allowed as a previous Evidence of it's Divinity To prove the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost when we cannot otherwise prove that there is a Holy Ghost but by the Testimony of the Scripture is to argue Circularly and absurdly I know the Papists to be even with the Protestants for the Circle we charge on them in their proving the Church by the Scriptures and the Scripture by the Church do pretend to fasten the same way of Circular Argumentation upon us in that we prove the Spirit by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Spirit Whereas even those Protestants who contend that the Spirit and Scripture do mutually prove one another may easily acquit themselves from a Circle Seeing whatever Proof the Scripture and Spirit mutually Minister to one another it is in Diverso genere The Scripture proves the Spirit either in way of Witness by plainly testifying that there is such a Being as the Divine Spirit or Objectively and by way of Argument bringing into Light such Truths as can be conceived to proceed from none other save 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Holy Ghost But then the Spirit proves the Scripture not in way of a naked Witness nor in way of Argument but under the notion of an Efficient Cause Elevating and preparing our Understandings to discern the Lineaments Characters and Signatures of Divinity which God hath impressed upon the Scriptures which through that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is upon our Minds we many times do not at all discern much less do we at any time discern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without it Or else by giving Efficacy to Scripture Truths in and upon our Hearts and Consciences so that the Word arriving with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the effectual Working of his Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual Sense and Taste of the things themselves And this Spiritual Gust that I may use Origen's Phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diviner thing and more Convincing than any Demonstration For the Word of God as well as God himself is best known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Intellectual Touch as the Philosopher sayes But as I have said already this is no convincing Proof to an Adversary nor doth the evidence of it reach further than the party immediately concerned And therefore our Recourse must be to Arguments of another Nature In brief when we have to do with such as either Question or Deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture we are to prove it by Ratiocination from common Principles received amongst Mankind and by Topicks that lye even and proportionated to Intellectual Nature And here Reason is justly magnified as hugely Subservient to Religion in that it demonstrates the Divine Authority of the Scripture upon which our Faith as to all particular Articles and Duties of Religion is grounded Not do I doubt but that Reason can acquit it self in this Undertaking to the Conviction of all that are not wilfully obstinate and for such I know no means either sufficient or intended by God to satisfie them Many great Men both Ancient and Modern as well at Home as Abroad have already laboured and to good purpose in this Theme Nor can there be much added by any to what is already said much less am I likely to do it Neither is it my Intention to treat this Subject at large but rather to touch at the Heads of Arguments than handle them And I suppose this will sufficiently answer my Designe which is to vindicate the Non-Conformists from the Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclayming it from all Concern in Religion and deserving to be charged with the Reproach which Julian slanderously fastned upon the Primitive Christians that they had no Ground for their Faith but that their Wisdom was only to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Method I shall here confine my self to shall be First To justifie the Necessity of some Supernatural Revelation in order to
Consequence the thing inferred and the manner of Inferring it and as we reckon every Consequent rightly deduced from an Infallible Antecedent to be Infallible also though the Faculty by which it is deduced be in it's Nature Fallible and in it's Operation lyable to prevaricate and mistake So every Assent built upon infallible Inducements is an Infallible Assent though the Instruments by which the Assurance of the Existence of such Inducements arriveth with us may in their Nature be lyable to Errour Besides the Incertitude of the Subject or Mind doth not at all weaken the Certainty of the Object or the Certainty of it's Motives That God is is in it self certain and there are Indubitable Arguments by which his Being may be demonstrated though all the World should Hesitate either about his Existence or suspect a Fallacy in the Media of it's Probation The Incertitude of the Mind doth not arise from any Fallacy of the Media but from want of Evidence into and Cognition of them The principal Grounds of our Receiving the Bible for the Word of God are it 's Internal Motives or Arguments impressed upon it nor is the manner of it's Conveyance from Age to Age of so great Import in this Matter as some do imagine For should we have Light on it by chance or had it dropt out of the Clouds yet while it carries these Signatures upon it which it doth we might by the meer Exercise of our Rational Faculties without the Testimonials of any Man or Church have concluded that it could have proceeded from none but from God And should it be granted that the conveying down the Miracles and other External Evidences that are brought in Confirmation of the Divine Inspiration of the Bible is done by Humane and Fallible means yet it no ways follows that our Assent to the Scriptures being the Word of God though built upon those motives is Fallible For Tradition is not the Formal Ground of our belief in this case but only a means and Instrument of handing the Grounds of it to us Nor do I think but that it may be defended that as the External Motives upon which we receive the Scripture for the Word of God are in themselues Infallible that they are also infallible in their manner of conveyance to us For as it may be demonstrated that the first Reporters of these Evidences were infallibly inspired in the Reports they make and in the writing of the Records which they left behind them so it may be likewise demonstrated that the Providence of God hath watched over the preserving them down to us The exception made by a very learned Person that there are degrees of Certainty as to the Divinity of the Scripture whereas there cannot be degrees of infallibility May I think easily be taken off For if by Degrees of Infallibility he mean no more but that there are some who have their Faith established upon more Media than others have theirs There are thus degrees of Infallibility as well as there are degrees of Certainty And though Faith superstructed upon any infallible Medium be Essentially an an Infallible Faith yet that which is built upon a plurality of such Media may be stiled a faith intensively gradually more Infallible But if by Infallibility he mean the infallibility of the Mind then I must crave leave to say that it is not to the purpose For as in an Apodictical Syllogism there may be a certainty both in the Consequent and Consequence and yet our mind through either not discerning the necessary connexion between the Terms of the Antecedent or not seeing into the regular and orderly deduction of the Consequent from the Antecedent may remain uncertain So our Assent built upon unerrable Motives is an infallible Assent though the mind in the mean time through not discovering the Infallibility of those Motives may remain subject to doubts and fears And indeed the Schoolmen call the Certitude of the Act only by the Name of a Certainty of Infallibility whereas they stile the Certitude of the Mind by the name of a Certainty of Adhesion The Infallibility of the Act of Assent results from the Infallible Certainty of the motives which ground such assent but the firm Adhesion of the mind or that which we have called the Infallibility of the mind though it radically arise from the Nature and quality of the motives yet it doth withal that immediately connotate a perception of the motives themselves that they are Infallible and such as we may venture our Faith upon without either fear doubts or Jealousies And herein lies our first Duty about the Scriptures that our Faith answer their Credibility and that the Adhesion of our Minds to them be as firm as the Objects themselves are Immutable or the motives afforded us in their Confirmation are Infallible and sure § 10. Having declared the great serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the Divinity of the Scripture we are next enquire into the use of it in our attainment to the sense and meaning of the Word God in vouchsafeing the World a supernatural Revelation supposeth us not only furnished with the sensitive Faculties of Seeing and Hearing but endowed with intellectual principles by which we may understand it judge of and assent to it Were we destitute of the latter Scripture were of no more significancy to us than to Brutes and were the former denyed us we were no more capable of being transacted with in this way than Stocks and Stones are Now the letter of the Bible without the genuine sense of it is not properly the Scripture nor will it availe us to any end or purpose more than the having a shell without a kernel Words are of no further use than as they are representations of conceptions Images of things Could we communicate our Conceptions to one another immediately or by any other signs and that with the same facility and certainty as we do by Words there would be no Occasion for Words nor any need of them As conceptions are the representation of things in the mind so words are the representation of these conceptions to others But forasmuch as we can have no perception of the thoughts of another though he should express them in Speech or writing unless we first know that such and such words are in the use of mankind appli'd to denote such and such things therefore all words as they are Manifestative signs of Conceptions so they are Suppositive signs of things And though they be first Indicative of Conceptions in the intention of the Speaker yet as to execution with respect to the hearer they are first Manifestative of things for unless we know what things such and such words are ordained to signifie they can be no interpreters of the thoughts of him that Speaks I know no greater disparagement that can be put upon the Bible nor affront that can be offered to the Author of it than to stile it a little Ink variously figured
in a Book or a few unsensed Characters And yet at this rate do the Papists frequently talk It is of the essence of words properly taken to be significative For this end were they invented and appointed and it is this that gives them their Form Brute Animals though they may be taught to utter many Words yet because they understand not truly really any thing they say therefore they cannot be said be said properly to Speak To affirm that by the Scriptures we cannot mean the sense of them but only a Book of such and such unsensed Characters is to degrade God below a Man and to treat a writing endited by Him more opprobriously than we will allow our own Scribes to be dealt withall Do we not judg and account other Books to be Interpreters of their thoughts and judgments that wrote them and shall this be denied to God If there be not a sense intrinsecally included in every Word and sentence of the Scripture he was ill employed that gave it forth In brief if words be devoid of sense when they are Written they are also devoid of it when they are spoken Speech writing no otherwise differing but that the one is the Register Substitute and Vicarious of the other If the Scripture have not a Sense Originally in it self and essentially belonging to it it can never have any seeing for the Church to affix a sense to it is only to declare her own sense not its and indeed to impose both upon God and Man Now God in giving forth the Revelation of his will not only inspired the Penmen of the Bible as to the Doctrines and things they delivered but as to the Words Terms and Expressions in which they declared them It was God himself that spake in the Prophets Heb. 1.1 The very Words they used were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words which the Holy Ghost put into their hearts and Mouths 1 Cor. 2.13 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Writing or Word written was by Inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3.16 And surely God if he please can speak in as plain Words as any of hâ—s Creatures can do Men many times through some defect in their Judgment or through a penuâ—y of Words or through an incongruous disposition and texture of them are at a loss to express themselves intelligibly but to none of these imperfections is God incident and therefore if he please he may declare himself so as that men may understand him Now Words that are Intelligible when they are spoken are as Intelligible when they are Written Yea there are advantages of understanding them better in the one case than in the other We can better observe the Restriction and Ampliation of Terms the quality of every particular proposition the connexion of an Enunciation that is obscure with what is more clear going before and following after the light that it receive's from expressions to the same purpose in other parts of the Book the Genius of the Stile in general the nature of the several periods the manner and Form of Argumentation and a hundred things more which we can better search into in the perusal of a written Book than we can do by the swift transitory hearing of an Oral Discourse Now as God can speak as plainly as any of his Creatures can and as Words are at least as easie to be understood when they are written as when they are Spoken So we have no Reason to think that God affects obscurity or envies that men should understand him Men being influenced by Pride may endeavour not to be understood that they may be admired may seek estimation by studying to be obscure And many of the Ancient Philosophers are justly arraigned upon this account Heraclitus grew famous by the only obscurity of his Wriâ—â—â—gs The Platonick and Pythagorick numbers grew into a proverb for their Darkness It is said even of Aristotle that being reproved by Alexander for publishing his Acroamaticks he should make this reply that though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made publick yet they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Published There is nothing more notorious than that there have been some writers in all Ages who have endeavoured not to be understood But this is every way as much repugnant to the Nature of God as Pride or envy are It is Inconsistent with his Wisdome to give out the Bible for the end which he did and yet to do it in such a manner as that it cannot be understood Nor is it agreeable to his Holiness Justice or Goodness to leave the Doctrines of the Bible Unintelligible when he hath made it our Duty to know them Having made appear that the Scripture hath a sense and that this Sense may be known that it is the main thing which we are to look after It is now time that we should intimate what we mean by the sense of the Scripture By the sense of the Scripture then we Understand that which the Words according to the Intention of the Holy Ghost do signifie We are not to bring senses to the Scripture but to receive them from it It is his Mind and Will we are to learn who endited the Bible and therefore are not to impose Minds and thoughts upon it And when I speak of Scripture Words I do not mean letters nor syllables nay nor Words apart but entire propositions Sentences Enunciations paragraphs yea Chapters and Books Nor can we judg rightly of the sense of Words but by considering them as they lie in propositions nor ought we to determine of the sense of a proposition but in relation to the verse Chapter and Book where it occurres yea nor without having a respect to the whole and entire Systeme of the Bible There is but one sense of Scripture which we may call Literal Dogmatical or Historical I call that sense Literal which God doth intend in the Words whether the Words be taken properly or tropically That which ariseth from a figurative acceptation of the Word is as truly a Literal sense as that which flows from their proper acceptation In texts of Scripture where Types are lay'd down in which other things typified are intended there is not a twofold sense of the Words but there is one only of the Words and the other is of the Types themselves which being designed to prefigure other things do accordingly carry a key along with them by which they may be unlocked I do not deny but that of one Sense of a Text there maybe two parts namely when those things which are immediately signified do denote or at least lead us to somthing more Sublime Though even in this case there be but one proper sense of the Words namely the Literal the Mystical being not so much the sense of the Words as occasioned by and built upon the things signified Or if you will there is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and habitude between the Literal
sense and the Mystical that they do both together make up one entire compleat sense of the place Yea it may be said that in all propositions which admit a Literal and a Mystical sense though there be but one Explicite Enunciation yet there are two implicitely And if any have a mind upon this account to distinguish betwixt the Literal sense and the Mystical they may for me nor will I quarrel with them But to assign a plurality of coordinate or Ambiguous senses to one and the same text is the height of Madness invented only to reproach the Scripture and to make way for the Authority of the Church in the expounding of it and is indeed repugnant not only to the perspicuity of the Scripture but to the unity of Truth and the end of Gods revealing the Word which is to instruct us in Faith and Obedience for wheresoever there is a Multiplicity of Disparate Senses we can never be sure that we have attained to the true meaning of any one proposition Now when we enquire into the Sense of Scripture and asseâ—t its being Intelligible we always distinguish betwixt the perspicuity of the Object and the capacity of the Subject actually to understand it The easiness of the Scripture to be understood in respect of it self and our disposedness to understand it right are things vastly distant The Sense of the Word may be in it self facile and plain though in the mean time it remain dark and obscure to those who have shut their eyes or that have their understanding defiled tinctur'd and darkned by fuliginous vapours The Bible is only plain to such who apply themselves to the study of it without prepossessions prejudice and forestalled judgments are withall humble and diligent in the use of means to find out the meaning of it Though the Ethereal Regions be replenished with rayes of light emitted from the great Luminary yet it is both necessary that men have eyes and that they open them in order to their discovering and receiving the benefit of it If our understandings either from that darkness and ignorance which they are enveloped and muffled with through the Fall or from malignant Habits occasioned either by unhappy education or sensual lusts do not discern the sense and meaning of Scripture it is no impeachment of its perspicuity but a manifestation of our weakness corruption and folly Besides when we speak of the plainness of the Scripture its easiness to be understood we always put a difference betwixt Scripture Texts relating to Doctrines of Faith manners which are absolutely necessary to be known and such of whose Sense we may be safely ignorant the Doctrines they refer to having no indispensable connexion with Salvation The whole Will and Mind of God as to all that is needfull to be known in order to our duty and Happiness is revealed in the Scripture without any such ambiguity or obscurity as should hinder it from being understood though God in his Soveraign Wisdome hath in many things whose simple Ignorance doth not interpose with Salvation left many hard and difficult Texts partly to make us sensible of the weakness of our Understandings partly to imploy our minds unto diligence partly to induce us to implore Divine instruction and to make us depend upon God for illumination and partly to exercise our Souls unto reverence But in Fundamental Truths the Case is otherwise for the end giving measure and fixing bounds unto means it is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness yea nor Justice of God to leave that hard to be understood which upon no less peril than the hazard of Salvation he hath required the indispensable knowledg of As first principles of Reason need no proof of their Truth being self-evident to every one that understands the Import of Terms So Fundamental Doctrines of Religion carry an Evidence in the plainness and perspicuity of their Revelation that every one who reads the Bible without prejudice and a perverse mind may be satisfied that such Doctrines are there proposed Nor is it any Argument that those Texts of Scripture where such Articles are revealed are not easy to be understood because some out of prejudice or perversness have wrested them to a Corrupt sence seeing God did not endite the Bible for the froward and Captious but for such who will read it with a free and unprejudiced mind and are willing to come to the knowledge of the Truth For as Aristotle says in the Case of the first principles of Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A self Evident Principle is not Evident to all men but only to such who have found and undepraved Understandings Topic. 6. Cap. 4. So it is no impeachment of the perspicuity of the Revelation of Fundamental Truths of Religion that men who have their minds defiled and darkned by Lusts infected with evil Opinions and filled with prejudices do not believe and acknowledg them And by the way while all Truths absolutely necessary to be known are easy and plain and while we are indispensably obliged to believe and receive whatsoever is so an Enumeration of Fundamental Truths is neither necessary nor useful and possibly not safe Now as all Doctrines necessary to be Understood are so revealed in the scripture that they are easy enough to be so so being understood they are as well the Standard and Measure by which dark and obscure Texts are to be interpreted as the Key to the opening of them As Curve lines are best discerned when applied to straight so are Heterodox senses imposed on Obscure Texts of Scripture best perceived when examined by their Habitudes to necessary and plain Truths Whatsoever bears not a Symmetry with the Foundation can be no Superstruction of God And whatsoever Notion either Formally or Virtually directly or consequentially interfere's with a fundamental Truth though never so many Texts be pressed in the proof of it we maybe sure both of its falsity and that they are all wrested and mistaken But though the Scripture be most plain in points necessary to Salvation yet no one Text of the Bible is in it self unintelligible for as Dr. More say's to affirm that the Holy Writ is in it elf unintelligible is aequivalent to the pronouncing it nonsense or to averr that such and such Books or Passages of it were never to be understood by men is to insinuate as if the Wisedome of God did not only play with the Children of men but even fool with them Mons. Wolzogen therefore in his late Book de Interprete Scripturarum hath not only in this matter shamefully betrayed the Protestant cause but reflected reproach upon the Spirit of God There are somthings says he in the Scripture which we cannot understand not through any defect or fault of our Minds or through the Sublimity Majesty of the Doctrines themselves but through the Frame of the Scripture it self and the manner in which they are revealed If there be but one
Doctrine of the Ancient Church besides the external Revelation of the Word there was also an internal Inspiration of the Spirit supposed necessary in order to the understanding of it in a saving manner And in this the Church of England not to speak of Forraign Churches hath hitherto harmonised with the Ancients For though a few are and have been otherwise minded yet they are as far from deserving the name of the Church of England as an excrescency is from obtaining the name of the Body upon which it grows The way and manner how the Spirit assists us in the understanding of spiritual things spiâ—itually I shall not at this time enquire largely after only in brief we may conceive of it thus 1 There is either through the immediate in dwelling of the Spirit or through the Communication of new principles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ablation of every thing extraneous a dissipation of those fuliginous vapours that both obnubilate the mind and do imbuere Objectum colore suo By the purification of the Heart the Understanding is clarified Scales drop off from our Eyes and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Governing Faculty becomes purged from those prepossessions prejudices and Lusts which obstructed its perceptive Powers 2 By the Spirit of Life in the new Birth the subject is elevated and adapted to the Object Grace renders the mind idoneous for and consimilar to Truth The Eye is not so much relieved by the prospective and Telescope as the Understanding is by Grace 3 There is a suggesting of Media for the Elucidating of Truth A reviving in the Memory clear texts to illustrate such as are dark 4 There is frequently an irradiation of the Word it self An attiring and clothing it with a garment of Light that is impatient either of Cloud or Shadow And upon the whole the Soul both feels and is transformed into what it knows Its apprehensions are no longer dull and languid but vigorous and affective As every thing relisheth according to its contemperation to the palate so the mind being seasoned with Goodness tastes a pleasure and delight and feels an efficacy in what it understands It sees things in a steddy Light and exerts its self in all suitable operation both in matter of internal acts and outward Duties However though we contend that the Spirit of Wisdom is absolutely necessary for the Understanding the sense of Scripture-propositions in a Spiritual saving manner yet we do not deny but that the meer Rational mind may discern the Literal Sense of the Word in a way congruous to its own state and condition It is true even with reference to the perception of the bare Literal sense that the person renewed in the Spirit of his Mind is greatly advantaged above the Unregenerate Man For the Spirit of God makes us of quick Understanding in the fear of the Lord. Isay. 11.2 3. The mind is defecated from those impure fogs and mists of Lust and Passion which greatly hinder and prejudice the Understanding in the perception of Natural Truths and much more of Supernatural and Divine Grace both helps us to use Reason aright for the discovering the true meaning of Scripture Enunciations and furnisheth us with a holy Sagacity of smelling out what is right and true and what is false and perverse and especially by impressing implanting and working in us the thing revealed it confirms us in and causeth us rather immediately to feel than logically to discern the sense of such and such a place Yet I know none who affirmeth that to conceive the sense of Theological propositions the supernatural Light of the Spirit is absolutely necessary For if it were thus Infidels which reject them would not disclaim them as False and Incredible but as unconceivable and unintelligible Yea thousands destitute of the Divine Unction have in a theorical way actually understood the Bible All that have usefully commented on the Scripture were not born of God The means conducive to the Understanding of the true sense of Scripture are besides Humility Teachableness frequent Reading of the Bible and prayer an acquaintance with the Signification and use of Words the Nature and kinds of Rhetorick with the Rules and conditions of Argumentation c. Three things occur to to our consideration in enquiry after the sense and meaning of any Book The mind of the Writer the Words in which he declares it and the connexion habitude and relation betwixt the Words spoken and the Mind of the Speaker What ever there is often in Men yet in God there is never a separation betwixt the Judgment himself hath of things and that which the words he maketh use of manifest and import He can declare nothing as our Duty but what indeed is so what himself judgeth so to be Men having then by common consent agreement established that such and such conceptions shall be united with such Words accordingly whenever such a word is heard or read such a conception doth arise in our minds and if at any time we would make known to others such a Cogitation such words do presently occurr to express it by To arrive therefore at the knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures There is nothing required on the part of the Object but that it be intelligibly written and that the words in which it is given forth signifie according to the Institution Use and Custom of mankind For as one sayeth Scriptura non esset Scriptura nisi verbis ex usu significantibus scripta extaret And here the knowledg of the Etymology of Words their usage in Exotick Authors is of great import but that which is chiefly to be attended to in the sensing of Scripture is their use in Sacred Writers God is many times pleased to restrain or enlarge the signification of Words as in His Wisdom he judgeth meet Hence many Terms taken up from other Disciplines Artes and usages are peculiarly applied and confined to denote things otherwise than they do there whence they are borrowed God useth rather a practical and Oeconomical way of speaking than a Theorical and Acroamatical Nor do Scripture Enunciations signifie philosophically as in Dialectical Schools but practically according to their Use in Families and common converse And unless there be very urgent Grounds to the Contrary we are to determine the signification of Words not with respect to their Etymologie and Grammatical propriety or their usurpation in Schools but according to their popular Use Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma loquendi Many a Text otherwise plain hath been rendred abstruse and unintelligible by mens glossing it in analogie to their Metaphysical notions and querks fathering those nice and subtile fancies to Terms occurring in the Scripture which they find the Schoolmen have applied them to in their wanton luxurious and Aenigmatical Debates Yea the same Words are in Scripture used sometimes in a larger sometimes in a narrower signification And in such cases the only Rule to
determine their import is the context and subject Matter Hence the Hebrews have a saying that he preverts the Word from its true intendment who doth not observe what precedes and what follows And the Civil Law tells us that incivile est tota Lege non inspecta ex una ejus tantum parte proposita judicare velle de toto legis sensu It is an irrational thing to judge of the whole Law by consulting only one part of it Scripture texts hang together in a chain of mutual dependance and to know the Sense of one Scripture requireth a due consideration of many And though some passages of the Bible be in themselves difficult yet there is such light reflected on lent to them in other places that the meaning of God in them may be sufficiently understood And this is what our Divines generally intend when they say that Scripture is the Interpreter of Scripture God in the enditing the Bible hath spoken with that perspicuity accommodation of himself to our Capacity that we may know what he aimes at and intends and if any Texts be obscure and dark yet by those rays of Light which they borrow from other places their sence and meaning may be easily understood Nor is there one Text alledged by the Anonymous Author of Philosophia Scripturae Interpres after all his operose and impertinent wrangling to prove the Scripture ambiguous and obscure which may not be plainly unfolded either by a due observation of the subject matter and Context or by comparing it with parellel places where the same things are declared in equivalent Terms but with more clearness and evidence without the least necessity of recourse to Philosophy as the Standard of sensing the Bible Nor is the forementioned Book any thing else but a plea for Socinianism only instead of Reason we have Philosophy advanced to a Dictatorship over the word of God and Des-Cartes made master of the Chair And wheras Mons r. Wolzogius in a pretended reply to the said Author hath constituted the Custom and usage of Speech the only Rule of Interpreting Scripture I must crave leave to say that he confounds what he ought to have distinguished namely the Rule of expounding the word with the media of Interpretation And besides a knowledg of the usage of words in common speech is rather adapted to help us in the Verbal sence of Scripture usually called Version or Translation than in the Exegetical and real Sense vulgarly and truly stiled exposition And withal there are many things which God designs our instruction in by Words and Phrases as they lie in the Systeme of the Bible and in a Habitude to the things there treated of which they were never in Forraign Authors or customary Speech among men applyed to the manifestation of Scripture is avowedly the best expositor of it self God by framing it in the manner he hath done by giving it such a Texture and by inculcating the same things in the greatest variety of expressions hath made it self the alone measure by which it is fully to be understood and hath taken upon himself to be suorum eloquiorum optimus Interpres Now the line that in order to our attaining the sense of Scripture we are to be guided by is this That Scripture Phrases Propositions Paragraphs Sections c. do actually signifie every thing which in such a disposition and Texture with reference to the subject matter and context and in Analogy to the Systeme of the whole Bible they can signifie I do not say that they always excite that sense of themselves in the heart and mind of the Reader but my meaning is that they are then only rightly apprehended and the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them fully attained when this latitude of signification is alow'd them There are no empty frigid phraseologies in the Bible but where the expressions are most splendid and lofty there are Notions and things enough to fill them out God did not design to endite the Scripture in a pompous tumid stile to amuse our fancies or meerly strike to our Imaginations with the greater force but to instruct us in a calm and sedate way and therefore under the most stately dress of words there always lyes a richer quarry of things and Truths Words being invented to express natural things and humane thoughts the utmost signification they can possibly bear proves but scanty and narrow when they are apply'd to the manifesting Spiritual and celestial Objects The serviceableness of this Notion against Jews Socinians Arminians and others lies in the view of every discerning person and the advantage I promise my self from it Chap. 3. hath led me to suggest it here How are the most plain and magnificent Testimonies in proof of Christs being the Messiah the true God Reconciling us by his death mans inability to Good the necessity and efficacy of renuing Grace c. enervated by affixing some low secondary and metaphorical meaning to them or by turning the Scripture into meer Hyperboles Allegories rampant and empty Schemes of Speech Nor secluding this from being the measure of our judging of the sence of Scripture is it possible to arrive at any Certaâ—nty about the meaning of it If it do not actually signifie all and every thing which with respect to the subject matter the context the agreement of one part with another and every part with the whole it can signifie there is not one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assignable by which we can make a judgment what it doth signifie God being Omniscient knows what all words are by men ordained to denote and what import they have in their combinations one with another and in the several textures into which they may be disposed being Wise he can pitch upon such Words and digest them into that frame as is most adapted to beget a Conception and apprehension of those things in us which he would instruct us in the knowledg and win us to the belief and obedience of And being Veracious Good and Faithful it is repugnant to his Nature to design the imposing on us or the leading us into Errors and Fallacies Men either through unaccquaintedness with the just Valor of Words or through Ignorance of the Nature of things or through oscitancy and neglect in the Election of Terms may diliver themselves in expressions both too lofty for the things they intend and dissonant to their own Conceptions but all these being inconsistent with the Divine perfections we dare admit no such thing in reference to him It is the character of the Spirit of man to speak much and in effect to say little but 't is the Caracter of the Holy Spirit to speak little and therin to comprehend much nor do we throughly penetrate into Scripture Misteries without enlarging our Conceptions beyond the letter The Stile of the most reputed Oratours is for the most part too pompous flatulent for the subjects they treat of neither the Images
which they form in their minds nor the Arrayment of them in Words are adapted and proporpotioned to things They are like boys walking upon stilts who seem higher then they are and their discourses are like a load of flesh in the body of man that serves only to embarass it with an unprofitable weight But to imaigine so of God or to ascribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great swelling words of vanity to him 2 Pet. 218. Jud. 16. or to think that in the enditing the Bible he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only feed us with gaudy phantasms poetical Schemes luxariunt phrases is to impeach more than one of his perfections In a word Gods design being to instruct us and it being repugnant to His Nature either to be deceived himself in the nature of things or to deceive others it necessarily follows that the Scripture doth actualy dedenote all and whatsoever it is capable of denoting Nor are we in the interpreting of the Word to restrain and confine its sense but to take it in the greatest Latude of signâ—fication it can bear I shall shut up this wâ—th that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.6 11. So likewise yee except yee utter by the Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words easy to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken For yee shall speak into the Air Therefore if I know not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning of the voice the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 posse vocis the whole force vertue power and signification of the Words I shall be unto him that speaketh a Barbarian § 11. The next thing considerable with respect to the interest of Reason in Religion is its Use and serviceableness in drawing Consequences from Revealed and supernatural Truths And this follows from what we have said concerning the sence of Scripture-propositions It is by this means that Divines have always laboured to clear Mysteries of Faith by making appear the Connexion of things obscure with these that are plain and those that are contested with these that are not It is by this Method also that the Fathers have refuted Heresies by shewing that those evil Doctrines which they introduced into the Church either had not any agreement with the true Mysteries of Faith or that they were altogether opposite to them To disclaim all Scripture Consequences the ministration of Reason in deducing them is plainly to deny all the Connexions Relations dependencies and oppositions of one thing to and upon an other and to betray Religion into the Hands of its Enemies And as this is one of the last so I look upon it as one of the most shameful Refuges of the Romanists Finding themselves in their disputations about matters of Religion foiled and bafled by the Protestants some of them have thought it their safest course to renounce all Principles of Reason in the concernments of Faith to reject all Conclusions as well inferr'd from premisses where both are of Revelation as where one only is of Faith and the other of Reason It must be a desperate Cause that cannot otherwise be maintaitained And nothing but a failure in other defences would have reconciled them to a method pregnant with so many absurdities But when men are pre-engaged in the defence of a Cause what will they not rather seek relief from than reject what their lusts interests and educations oblige them to The first forgers of this new Armature forwarding off the blows of Protestants with the entertainment that the Invention met with at Rome as well as Sorbon he that hath a mind to inform himself may learn from Vedelius in his Rationale Theologicum and Bochart contre Veron And how far the Socinians those Idolaters of Reason when it serves their designs do conspire with the Papists to disparage it in this matter we are now enquiring about when it doth not be-friend them such as are inquisitive may read in Hoornbecks Socinianismus confutatus Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 9. p. 211. But that we may address to the matter it self By a Consequence we mean either a proposition standing in that habitude relation and having that connexion with another that if that be true this is also true or a proposition lying in that repugnancy and opposition to another that if the first be true the latter must be false There is either that coherency betwixt them that the one infers and draws the other after it or that contrariety that if truth be the portion of the one falsehood must fall to the lot of the other Now conclusions are of two kinds first when there is nothing in the Antecedent but what is in the Consequent and this is always between two Terms and no more and these Terms are either convertible as no Innocent person is a sinner therfore no sinner is an Innocent person Or they are subalternate the one the other as every man is guilty before God therefore this and that man is so Or else they are Terms Equivalent as Believers have the guilt of sin remitted to them therefore their liableness to legal Wrath is removed 2 dly When there is somthing In the Antecedent that is not in the Consequent and to Conclusions of this Nature there are always required three Terms and the Foundation of deducing one proposition here from another is either the connexion or opposition that is betwixt the one and the other All Conclusions are virtually included in their premises and he that assents to these doth in effect grant those It is all one whether both the premises be in Scripture or one onely be there the other being either fetch 't from undoubted Principles of Reason or evidence of Sense for in all these Cases the Conclusion is as much the Word of God as if it were in so many letters and sillables in the Bible Hence that common saying quaedam in Scripturis sunt et dicuntur quaedam in iiâ—dem sunt etsi non dicantur There are some things in the Scripture and are accordingly reported to be in them and there are somethings in them though they be not in so many Words there related c. Men through Ignorance ositancy or the like do not always discern what ariseth and followeth from what they say and do often therfore affirm that from whence something doth ensue which they are so far from holding that they do detest it and accordingly we frequently argue against them per deductionem ad absurdum seu impossibile But God always foresees whatsoever followes upon every declaration he makes he understands all the habâ—tudes connexions dependencies and oppositions of one thing upon and to another and accordingly we not onely may with safety but he expects that we should inferr and deduce from what he hath said all and every thing that necessarily bears upon and follows from it And though what is thus inferred be not in the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters yet while it is there either 〈◊〉
yet there in effect and were accordingly intended may briefly be thus justified 1. In that to preclude this is to render the Word of God of no significancy to any particular person seeing 'tis by this method alone that general precepts promâ—ses and Comminations are applicable to single Individuals Nor can any one Universal direction be otherwise brought down to a particular case 2. God in instructing us how we are to demean our selves towards his Word doth it in Terms and Phrases which are peculiar to such as Discourse ratiocinate and deduce Conclusions from acknowledged Principles See Rom. 3.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore we conclude Rom. 6.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise reckon ye also your selves 1 Cor. 2.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual Act. 17.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they searched the Scriptures namely whether the things which the Apostles deduced from the Testimonies of Moses and the Prophets had foundation in them yea or not 1 Thes. 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things Hence we are enjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rightly to divide the word of Truth 2 Tim. 2.15 and to Prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the analogy of Faith Rom. 12.6 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to convince by argument and demonstration gainsayers And 't is said of Paul that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he reasoned wth the Jews out of the Scriptures Acts 17.2 And of Apollos that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he mightily in the way of ratiocination convinced the Jews demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Acts 18.28 Nor was it possible by any text of the Old-Testament for the Apostles to prove Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah but by argumentation trains of deductions There was no other way or Method by which this could be don but by shewing from Moses and the Prophets that to whomsoever such properties Characters c. agrâ—ed such a one behoved to be the Messiah and then evincing from History and Experience that all these Characterisms centred in and agreed to Jesus of Nazareth And in this way the Apostles proceeded in their dealing with the Jews by producing places out of their own Scriptures where the Properties Signatures Characteristical notes of the Person Natures Offices and Work of the Messiah were foretold and described and by which the Faith of the Church was guided to him and on which the World was bound to receive him and then in shewing that all these agreed to were verified of and met in our Lord Jesus as their Center they concluded that he was infallibly the person concerning whom the Promises were made unto the Fathers And this leads me to the 2d argument in proof of that we have undertaken to justifie namely the Method which the Inspired Writers observed in the conviction of Jews and Heathens There can be no fallacy where we act conformably to such a pattern nor can that be disclaimed as Sophistical in others which we find practiced by the Sacred Penmen without impeaching both the Wisedome and Truth of God by whom they were inspired To allow it to have been lawful for them to argue by Consequences and yet in the mean time to deny it to others is to be perverse partial and humoursome and to lodg it as an accusation on Them that they mistook in the course they steered is not only to justifie the Jews in their unbelief and the Heathen in their Idolatry but to blaspheme the Holy Spirit by whom they were acted and conducted in what they did Now that this was the Method which the Apostles observed in their demonstrating many of the chief Articles of the Christian Faith may be made good by many instances scattered up and down the New-Testament See Act 9.22 Act 18.28 Act 15.8 9. Act 17.16.17 Act 2.16 17 18. Act 3.22 23. Rom. 1.20 Rom. 3.9 to 21. Gal. 3.10 1 Cor. 15.4 5 6 7. Joh. 1.33 34. In all these places not to name more nor to urge the suffrage of the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in whom this way of procedure manifests it self in every Chapter and paragraph We must acknowledg that they not only argued by consequences but that if their Arguments were digested into syllogisms there will be only one proposition found that is of Revelation the other being assumed either from Reason or Sense Besides the attestation of Apostolical practice in this matter we have also the example of our blessed Saviour to convince us not only of the lawfulness but to assure us of the obligation that lyes upon us of accounting all that for the Word of God which can by any train of Natural deduction be concluded from it If men were not resolved to be obstinate this alone were enough to issue the debate and to advance what we are pleading for beyond all jurisdiction of being gainsaid It is by way of argumentation and by consequences that he proves the Divinity of his Person Mat. 22.44 45. The Quality and Authority of his Office John 5.39 45 46. John 10.25 37 38. Luke 7.20 21 22. The necessity of the Death and sufferings of the Messiah Luke 24 26.27 The Resurrection of the Dead in General Mat. 22.31 32. All his Reasonings in the forecited places should they be reduced into a Logical Form will be found to bear upon one only Scripture premiss the other being constantly either a proposition drawn from natural Light or from the evidence of Sense And to affirm that the Ratiocinations of Christ and the Apostles though they joyned one premise from Reason or experience to another from Scripture were nevertheless conclusive because the Proposition from Reason by their very using of it became upon the account of the infallible authority they were clothed with a part of Divine Revelation I say to affirm this is ridiculous and impertinent For had they intended to have immediately concerned their authority in what they said Argumentation from an acknowledged Scripture Truth had been both needless and superfluous Where the whole evidence depends upon the Authority of the immediate Speaker a naked assertion is not only sufficient but most becoming Let the Authority of a person be what it will yet so far as in transacting with others he recurrs to arguments either from Reason or the Testimony of an other so far in that instance he plainly declines his Authority Nor did all these with whom Christ and the Apostles dealt in way of Argumentation acknowledg any such authority by vertue of which whatsoever they said in such a case became immediately a part of Divine Revelation to have belonged to them When the Scribes and Pharisees confessed Christ in the way and Method of proving the Resurrection to have said well Marc. 12.28 Luke 20.39 They did not thereby intend the acknowledgment of Christ as a prophet sent from God or that any authority upon that account resided in him For that they disclaimed but it was the Authority of God Exod.
Agent that can deprive him of his Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He only hath Immortality 1 Tim. 6.16 All things owing their Existence to him there is both a Power and a Right resident in him of depriving them should he judg it fit of their Beings Whatsoever is derived from his Power and Bounty he may take away at his pleasure Yet I reckon it absurd to think that he doth annihilate our Souls it being contrary to the Method which he observes in other parts of the Universe No substance yet ever perished Under all the Mutations that Matter undergoes by which this and that Individual body comes to be destroy'd there is not so much as one single Atome lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No substantial Entity is totally destroyed saith the Philosopher Non perit in tanto quicquid mihi credite mundo Ovid. By the Immortality of the soul then we mean no more but that it includes no principles in its self by which it can be brought to decay And this it derives from it being Immaterial No spiritual substance is capable of that dissolution which a Body is lyable to and suffers For seeing Material subjects come to be corrupted only by a separation of their conjoyned parts The Soul being Immaterial and so void of parts is in danger of no such dissolution Now in discoursing the Immortality of the Soul I think fit in the beginning to discharge my self from an exception or two which though hugely insisted on by those who will have the soul to be meerly corporeal and consequently corruptible yet are in themselves absurd and irrational The first is this that there is no such thing in the World as an Incorporeal Being and that Existence is not to be affirmed of any thing but what is perceivable by sense and that we cannot have assurance that any thing is but what we have ocularly beheld To which I reply 1 That they miserably beg the question which they ought to prove They have not been able to assign any contradiction that lyes against an Incorpoâ—eal Being more than against a Corporeal 2. Their Objection doth equally militate against the Being of God as against the Immaterial Nature of the Soul For if God be at all he is Incorporeal a Corporeal God being pregnant with Contradictions 3. We are not to require more proof of any thing than it is capable of According to the diversity of Objects we are furnished with distinct faculties in order to the perception of them and there are different lights in which they are seen Who questions the being of Sounds Odours c. because they are not discerned by the same Organical Faculty that Colours are To require that an Immaterial should fall under the perception of sight is to demand that an Immaterial should be a Material There are Innumerable things whereof we have the most convincing Certainty and yet they were never the Objects of Sense No man ever saw a Thought and yet we are fully assured that we have Thoughts How many things do the Gentlemen that make this exception believe which yet they never saw 4 Though Incorporeal Beings be not Immediately perceived by sense yet through diverse of their operations which affect our Sensitive Organs we have a mediate assurance of their Existence by our very Senses The second exception is taken from the inexplicableness of Union betwixt a Material and an Immaterial There is no Cement say they by which the one can be knit to the other Incorporeals are of a penetrating Nature and consequently cannot take hold of Matter so as to make a Whole consisting of two constituent parts so vastly different To this I answer 1. That there is nothing more Unreasonable than wholly to question the Existence of things because we do not Understand the Modes according to which they Exist To discharge a Cause out of the precincts of Being because we cannot give a reason of all its particular effects ought to be justly reckon'd amongst the greatest of absurdities Whatsoever is prov'd by Reason we are firmly to believe it though there may be many things in the Theory of it that are wholly inconceivable While we have all imaginable assurance of the conjunction of the soul with the body and that the soul cannot be corporeal our Faith ought no ways to be weakned though we know not the Physical way of their coalition and how they come to be United 2. There is as much difficulty in apprehending the connexion of one part of Matter with another as in Understanding the Incorporation of the Soul with the Body and yet no man questions but that there are bodies in which the particles of matter are united I hope to make it appear Châ—pt 3d. that there is not any Hypothesis of Philosophy yet extant by which the Union of the parts of Matter in contâ—nuous Bodies can be solved and yet we are very well assured they are connected together A 3d. Exception is raiâ—ed from the Sympathy that is betwixt the Soul and the Body from which they would conclude an Identity of Nature between them To which I briefly return to these things 1. There are many cases in which our Souls are affected without the least impression either from bodily Objects without us or any previous excitation of the Spirituous Blood within us For not to mention the impression which the Soul receives from the consideration of things purely Spiritual and Divine which do no ways immediately affect the Body all the Influence imaginable which they have upon it proceeding primarily from the mind it self and its dominion over the Animal Spirits I shall only name Troubles of Conscience which arise only from Moral Causes and the exercise of our Reasons about what we have done I may add that there are many cases wherein the Soul and Body seem to have no Communion with one another and that not only in Ecstasies when the Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a manner for a season separated from the Body but even in other Hence men upon the borders of Grave when without strength vigor or pulse yet even then they have their thoughts more refined and their understandings more spritely than at other times And which is more strange are so little affrighted at death though they fully understand it that they lay down the Body with the same compoâ—edness and more delight than if they were only putting off their Cloaths Nor are they only persons tired with the miseries of the World that do so bâ—t such many times who have enjoyed all the delight that this earthly state can afford 2. We find our Souls frequently determining themselves in way of chusing and refusing contrary to the provocations of sense and the cravings of the bodily Appetite Though our Intellectual Faculties have a perception of sensual Delights yet they often chuse both that which is contrary to fleshly pleasures and which no Corporeal Faculty is able so much as once to apprehend
present only observe that many Scriptural expressions abstracting from any corrupt Gloss put upon them meerly upon the account of their being Rhetorical Tropes have been traduced as Fulsom Metaphors Were they only the paraphrases which the Non-Conformists affix to them which they make the subject of their scorn the business were more tollerable Nor should we be offended with their mockeries and derisions till we had justified the expositions fathered upon them but when the very words which the Holy Ghost in his care and wisdom condescendeth to use are also opprobriously reflected on they must pardon us if we know not how to digest such blasphemous and prophane boldness Instances of this Nature I shall afterwards give and hope to make it appear that many of the Rampant and Luscious Metaphors we are charged with are no other but the declaring Gospel-Mysteries in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual 3. Though there be many Rhetorical Tropes and Figurative expressions in the Scripture yet it cannot be denyed but that some either out of ignorance or wantonness have made many more than there ever were There have been and yet are a sort of men in the World who affect to turn every thing into an Allegory and to transform the plainest expressions into Metaphors Besides the Jewish Rabbies who are monstrously guilty in this particular the miscarriage of the Ancients in this matter is both too evident to be denyed and too gross to be justified Their Expositions of Scripture are often light and ridiculous and somtimes perverse and dangerous Origen especially seems to have made it his business to find out Mystical and Cabalistical Senses in the plainest parts of Scripture which made one of the Ancients themselves say of him Ingenii lusus pro Dei Mysteriis venditat he obtrudes the sportings of his fancy for Religious and Sacred Mysteries And as another expresseth it Ingenii sui acumina putat esse Ecclesiae Sacramenta This practice of some Primitive Writers in and about the Scripture influenced Porphyrius to deride the Gospel as containing nothing certain in it How well or rather how unhappily many of the Popish Fryers have imitated them in this I need not tell I shall rather observe that the Socinians who though they impose a proper sense on some Texts of Scripture where it is both absurd and blasphemous to admit it yet they disguise and transform into Metaphors other Texts that have a plain and proper meaning But at the rate of making the Priesthood of Christ his Sacrifice Redemption through his death Metaphorical as they do the whole Gospel both in the Doctrines and precepts of it may be turned into an Allegory Shall I add that these very Authors who of late among our selves have assumed a liberty of censuring their Brethren for Undermining the Gospel by trifling it into Metaphors are themselves so unhappy in paraphrasing Scripture as to make Tropes where few else in the world do In proof of this I shall produce an instance or two out of Mr. Sherlock Whereas other Expositors of Scripture have expounded Christs being called the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 in a plain and proper sense and have accordingly argued from it for the Deity of Christ against the Socinians Mr. Sherlock by Christs being stiled the Brightness of his Fathers Glory c. Understands no more but those discoveries which Christ hath made of God being a true representation of the Divine Nature and Will as any picture is of the person it represents Which as he hath borrowed word for word from the Socinians who hereby understand only his revealing and declaring the will of God unto us fully and plainly which was done before only darkly in shadows so he declares himself guilty of abusing the Scripture to a Metaphorical sense where the words according to all Rules of Exposition will admit a proper one and therefore both Grotius and Hammond persons to whom I suppose he pay's a respect do vouchsafe us a much better paraphrase And according to Mr. Sherlocks exposition of the words I see not but what is here predicated of Christ may be predicated of the Prophets at lest of the Apostles A second instance shall be that of the 2 Cor. 4.4 where Christ is stiled the Image of God Where Nonconformists see no necessity of admitting a Metonymie no more than a Metaphore but that he who was absolutely and antecedently to his Incarnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the form of God Phil. 2.6 is in a proper sense in his person Incarnate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God in which exposition of the words they are countenanced by Col. 1.15 where Christ in a proper sense is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the image of the invisible God The places seem parallel the one to the other especially if as all Copies have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last we admit the reading of those Copies which have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in the first But now Mr. Sherlock is pleased to tell us that Christs being the Image of God comes in very abruptly unless we understand it in this sense that he is the Image of God with respect to the glorious Revelations of the Gospel which contain a true and faithful account of Gods Nature Will Which is plainly to fancy a Trope where there is not the least reason of imagining any the deriving upon himself the guilt which he so liberally chargeth others with And whereas he alledgeth that without allowing a Metonâ—mie in the words Christs being the Image of God comes very abruptly in I see not how the Apostle could better shew how the Father expresseth and declareth himself unto us by his Son in the Gospel than by manifesting what the Son is in himself and with reference to the Father And whereas all Interpreters Ancient as well as Modern except the Socinians alone expound Joh. 1.16 Of his Fulness we have all received Grace for Grace of a participation of renewing Sanctifying Grace by Jesus Christ according to the plain and proper import of the Words Mr. Sherlock groundlesly imagines a Trope in them and accordingly paraphraseth the Fulness which we receive from Christ to signifie no more than a perfect Revelation of the Divine Will concerning the Salvation of Man-kind which Exposition as I have told him else-where whence he hath transcribed it so I shall only say at this time that it is a turning plain Scripture-Testimonies into Tropes Figures where there is not the least reason of supposing any More examples of his Paraphrasing the Scripture by substituting Tropes where other men in whom this humour is supposed to be predominant do see no cause for allowing any shall afterwards be assigned I shall only further observe at present that in several Scripture Passages where other Expositors can see no more but an easie and elegant Metonymie at the most he frames
pulchritude and suavity to an Oration so they hugely conduce to our more easy conception of the things treated of Nor doth this obtain so much any where as in Mysteries of Faâ—th for they through a greatness and Majesty peculiar to themselves do so far transcend all expressions that in order to their being duely conceived they require a being accommodated attempered to the weakness of our Faculties in Allusions Metaphors such like Pâ—â—aseologies in which they are display'd by sensible Resemblances but more of this afterwards 4. Those of the differently-minded in matters of Discipline Ecclesiastical Order from the Church of England who seem especially guilty of an affectation of Metaphors Allusions and Allegories in their Popular and Didactical discourses for all of that sort are not Criminal in this Matter do appear to me to have imbib'd it from the most fam'd Writers of the Church of England Nor were it a difficult Undertaking to declare when Inordinacy and excess this way as well as Pedantick quibling with Letters and Syllables turning the Scripture into clench and paraphrasing Texts by the sound and chink of Words and feeding the People with the Chiming of Terms took its rise and commenced and who were the chief promoters of it And in reference to the more ancient amongst the Non-Conformists who are charged in this Matter why may not the plea of Tacitus in behalf of Seneca that he had Scribendi genus temporis illius auribus accommodatum that they accustomed themselves to a stile suâ—ted to the Genius and Gusto of the Age be allowed And for the younger sort though I suppose there are but few of them that can be justly charged with it yet if there be any such it may be said that they owe it either to the Unhappiness of their Converse with an ill sett of Books or that they as well as the former do it in complyance with the Capacities of their Heareâ—s who can neither be edified nor affected by any other stile However as the Phantastical trifling with Words and Syllables and the Boyish affectation of Cadencies is wholly grown into difuse and distast as unbecoming the Sanctity of the Mysteries we treat of the Majesty of God in whose Name we speak and the Gravity of the Ministerial Function so I hope a care will likewise possess us in reference to the other viz. that we coyn no Metaphors of our own to express things by but what are modest cleanly and carry a due Proportion Analogy and Similitude to the things they are brought to illustrate But our Adversaries must in the mean time pardon us if we be not so fond of their Effeminate amorous stile as to introduce it into the Pulpit For indeed it savours more of the style of the Grand-Cyrus Cleopatra Parthenissa c. than any style that the Doctrines of Faith and Precepts of Morality have been heretofore delivered in I will take the liberty for once to say that their Preaching with an air more brisk and unconcerned and a countenance more debonair and lightsome than becomes those who would work Compunction in others or reconcile their Hearers to Mortification together with their polisht artificial dress of Words hardly admitting a Quotation from Scripture for fear of spoyling their Oratory seem as justly lyable to blame as the Methods and Modes which they not only censure but traduce others for § 3. I intend not to discourse of Scripture Rhetorick in General nor of the various kinds of Figures as well as Tropes that the sacred style is adorned with This task hath been prosperously undertaken by Glassius Flac. Illyricus Alstedius Westhemerus c. in Latine and not many years ago Mr. Lukin laid out his endeavours this way in English not to mention others who have done something in this matter It is to Metaphors alone that I confine and circumscribe my thoughts yet I am not without hope that by explicating of them Light will be administred to the better Understanding of other Scripture-Tropes Anciently Tropes were not so throughly distinguished the one from the other neither were those several Names invented to design them by nor were the Lines Measures Bounds Cognations and Habitudes of each a part and to one another so described and set forth as now they are And this may serve as an Apology for Aristotle's confounding Synechdoches and Allegories with Metaphors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which occasioned Cicero to observe that Aristotle used the Term Metaphor in a larger acceptation than after Rhetoricians are wont to take it Augustine defines a Metaphor to be the traduction of a Word from its proper signification to a sense that doth not originally and properly belong to it Terms thus applyed are called by Hermogenes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because inverted and transferred from their proper meaning to a significaon which doth not primarily belong to them A Metaphor then is a Form of speech whereby one thing is put for another to illustrate it It is the traduction of a Word from its immediate and proper sense and the extending it to the denotation of some other thing upon the account of some similitude or proportion betwixt the one and the other It hath this in common with Metonymies Synechdoches and Ironies that in all of them things are misnamed and words transferred from what they peculiarly denote to manifest something else But herein they differ an Irony is the usurping of a word to an Intention opposite to what it seems to imply and is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a speaking by Contraries which may be easily discerned either by the thing it self which is spoken or by some circumstance or other in the Oration A Metonymie is the mis-naming of things or the putting of one thing for another when though they have a connexion as Correlates yet absolutely considered the one is not of the Nature and Essence of the other Thus the Cause is Frequently put for the Effect and the Effect for the Cause the Subject for the Adjunct and the Adjunct for the Subject The Act or Affection conversant about any Object for the Object it self and the Object sometimes for the Act the Sign for the thing Signified and the thing Signified for the Sign c. A Synechdoche is a Form of speech where by one thing that is of the Essence of another or that hath a necessary Connexion with it is put for that other to which it hath such a cognation and affinity Thus the Gender is put for the Species and the Species for the Gender The Integral for a Part and a Part for the Integral the Species for the Individuum and the Individuum for the Species c. But a Metaphor is the Stiling of one thing by the Name of another which as they have no necessary connexion absolutely considered so they stand in no such relation but that the one may be apprehended without the other only because of some Similitude or proportion the one is
denominated by the Term which expresseth the other the better to manifest and illustrate some property affection c. in that other In every Metaphor three things are carefully to be attended to the Original Immediate and proper signification of the Word the Signification to which it is transferred and applyed and the Similitude Analogy Proportion betwixt the things themselves in some affection property or adjunct c. which are denominated by it For no Term doth otherwise declare and illustrate the things which it is Metaphorically applyed to denote but with reference to the thing that it properly imports and from which because of some congruity it is transferred This is especially observable where one and the same Word is Metaphorically applyed to decipher things of a diverse opposite and contrary Nature For example Christ is not only Metaphorically stiled a Lyon but Tyrants are likewise so denominated where as Cruelty and Salvageness are the reason of Transferring the Term to the latter so Fortitude and Victoriousness are the Grounds of applying it to the other Instances of this kind are numerous and in the Unfolding and explicating of Metaphors great Sobriety as well as Diligence is to be observed lest mistaking the Quality Affection Property Operation or Adjunct why any Word is transferred from what it Originally signifies we misapply and pervert it to intimate something else which the Holy Ghost never designed and intended The proportion between the things that are one of them substituted in the room of the other and as they lye compared in their Indigitation by the same Term is that which ought mainly to be regarded in our expounding of Metaphors In order yet to our better Understanding the Nature of Metaphors we must consider what Forms of Speech or Rhetorical Tropes they have any affinity allyance or cognation to and with which nevertheless they are not identical nor coincident that so we may state the Measure Rules and Bounds of each with their congruities and incongruities to one another And the first thing that here offers it self is the affinity betwixt Metaphors and naked Assimilations Similitudes and Comparisons commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though in every Metaphor there be at least a Similitude presupposed and included yet every Similitude is not a Metaphor In a Similitude there is an express comparing of one thing with another but so as that the same Name is not imposed on both Whereas in a Metaphor there is only the transferring the Name of one thing to denote and indicate another though in the explication of the Metaphor the Similitude between the things themselves which occasions the adscription of the Name of the one to the other ought always to be unfolded and declared This holds in all Similitudes as well those that are contracted abbreviated and envelopt as those that are expanded and display'd namely that there is an express comparison managed betwixt the one and the other Whether the Particle of Comparison be expressed both in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in each of the two that are in way of assimilation conferred together or whether it be lacking in both as sometimes it is or whether expressed in the one but wanting in the other or whether when deficient in the first supplyed by a Copulative Conjunction in the latter it turns to the same account there being still a comparison some way or other expressed between them Nor have Rhetorical Assimilations foundation only in the Predicament of Quality but in any other whatsoever The best and most ornate as well as the most usual Similitudes are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where one thing is compared with another in some adjunct affection c. wherein they resemble one the other and are like and where that to which the other is compared is disposed and put first and that which is compared to it is introduced last Yet there are sometimes Comparisons of one thing with another in dissimili i. e. in properties and Attributes wherein they differ whereof divers instances occurr in the Proverbs of Solomon and such a Comparison is commonly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when that which is compared is put first and the other to which it is compared last it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Measure already assigned betwixt Metaphors and similitudes obtains universally Namely that in Metaphors one thing is put for another but in Similitudes one thing is only compared with another or likened to it nor shall I therefore subjoyn any more in this Matter The next Form of Speech that a Metaphor hath a cognation to and with which it is by some confounded is a Parable I do not by a parable here understand any Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Adage as the Word is used Luk. 4.13 Nor do I understand by it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or any thing darkly spoken as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is applyed Math. 15.11 with 15. Much less do I take it for a Type as it is usurped by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 9.9 and chap. 11.19 but by a Parable I mean a Symbolick form of Speech where by a well appropriated Similitude from some feigned story some Moral Truth or Instruction is insinuated into the Minds of men to make it the better apprehended and understood Now a Metaphor and a Parable are not the same for all Metaphors are founded in some similitude or proportion but Parables may proceed on Adjuncts and Affections that are opposite if there be a likeness in the Issue and Event see Luk. 18.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. and Luk. 11.8 to 11. and Luk. 16.1 to 10. In a Metaphor the sense is to be collected from the Words themselves in their Tropical Import but in Parables the meaning is to be gathered not so much from the words themselves either in their Tropical or Proper signification as from the things that are related and alluded to In a Metaphor there is the mis-naming of one Thing by the Term that indigitates another but in a Parable there is only the accommodation of one thing according to the intent and scope of the speaker to another In a word Parables are nothing else but lengthened continued and prolonged Similitudes wherein somthing is supposed and related as done either to commend some Moral Instruction or to insinuate with the more vigor facility and delight some spiritual Truth And the same Measure which we proposed for the distinguishing between Metaphors and Similitudes serves to manifest the difference betwixt them and Parables Nor shall I add any more with respect to them save that we are neither in briefer similitudes nor in those that are more drawn out and stiled Parables to imagine that all things in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or latter part should exactly answer to all things in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or former part nor are we in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to regard every minute particular there
being many things interwoven which have no relation to the main scope but serve only as a Landskip to fill up a Table but it is the principal strokes that we are to observe and thereby to accommodate the design of the first part of the Parable to illustrate the second And where this is duely attained Parables are no less argumentative than plain and express Scripture-Testimonies nor do they only decipher illustrate and explain but demonstrate and prove Another Form of speech to which Metaphors have an Allyance is that which we call an Allegory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we regard the Etymology of the Word is so stiled because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it imports one thing in the signification of the Terms taken absolutely and abstractedly and intends another as they lye in such a texture and in a habitude to what precedes and what follows The Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occuri's no where in Aristotle says Gerh. Vossius Plutarch tells us that what we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more ancient Writers stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rhetorical Allegory is nothing but the Continuation of a Trope viz. of a Metonymie or a Synecdoche but most frequently of a Metaphor Of such Allegories the Scripture is replenished and forasmuch as no Text hath any more than one determinate sense otherwise it could have no sense at all the literal sense of such places is to be derived from the Words in their Figurative use as they are placed in such a texture and habitude and introduced by the Holy Ghost to such an End That which looks first forth in an Allegorick Scripture or what the words import in their immediate and proper signification is not the literal meaning of it but the Literal sense is that which ariseth only mediately from the words and immediately from the things with their affections adjuncts and properties which the words in their original signification do denote Whatsoever the Words in the scope and design of the Spirit according to their Tropical Import manifest that and nothing else is the Literal meaning of such a place For where the Words of the Text are Tropical and Allegorick there is no way of assigning any literal sense of them but with regard and in Analogy to the Trope They who will allow no other Literal sense of any place but what the Words in their proper immediate and original signification imply may be easily reduced to confess that many Texts have either no Literal sense at all or else an Absurd False or Blasphemous one Now besides this Rhetorical Allegory there is another kind of Allegory owned and acknowledged by Divines and that is when though the words bear a Proper sense which ought to be sacredly observed in our exposition of them yet they may be withall translated from their plain Natural sense to a Spiritual Mystical one An instance we have of this Gal. 4.24 c. compared with Gen. 16. and Gen. 21. As lkewise 1 Cor. 9.9 compared with Deut. 25.4 not to mention more Now in order to our demeaning our selves wisely in this Matter we are 1. to be careful that the proper and original sense of the Words be not neglected There have been those and yet are who will hardly allow any Text of Scripture a Proper sense but do every where obtrude an Allegorick meaning as if that alone were intended by the Holy Ghost and nothing else But such kind of Expositors do in effect little less than undermine the whole Scripture betray Religion and turn the Sacred Oracles into Burlesque Nor is there any Notion so Romantick which the Scripture by a luxuriant phansie may not at this â—ate be wrested and debauched to give countenance to yea a very small measure of Wit will serve to pervert the plainest Scripture-Testimonies to quite another sense than was ever intended by the Writer of them An Instance of this we have in the Quakers who by turning the whole Scripture into Allusions have wrested the Revelations of the Word to justifie their own wilde Phantasm's and fram'd the Words of Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their own private Notions and thereby evacuated the sublimest Doctrines and most Glorious Actions into empty Metaphors and vain Similitudes Thus the person of Christ is Allegorised into themselves and the Birth Death Resurrection and Assention of our Saviour are construed after the manner of Aesops or Philostratus's Fables into useful Morals as if they were intended only to declare what is to be done in us by way of allusion But let them all such persons of what Communion and persuasion soever they are who turn the Gospel thus into a Romance and subvert the Mysteries of Faith by transforming them in Phantastick Allegories be treated with the derision and contempt of all who pretend to Wisdom and Modesty 2. We are not to imagine that every Text of Scripture besides it Proper Literal and Original sense is to have a Spiritual and Mystical one affixed to it Particularly neither Moral Precepts nor Texts recording Promises Comminations or declaring Doctrines of Faith are to be drawn to an Allegorick sense 3. It is necessary in our Allegorising of Scripture that we have a particular regard to the Analogy of Faith and that we press it to give Countenance to no Doctrine or Tenet by way of Allusion but what hath foundation and warranty in some plain Text else-where We are not to frame Hypotheses to our selves that are no where either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many Letters and Syllables nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense and import in the Bible and then to Allegorise the Scripture in proof and confirmation of them 4. There must be a proportion and Similitude between the things themselves whereof the one is applyed to ground illustrate manifest and support the other Nor must the Analogy be strained and far fetched but obvious and pertinent Much less must we superstruct any Doctrine upon Allusions how accomodated soever unless where the Holy Ghost hath preceded us as in some cases he hath Where God himself hath informed us that though such a passage was originally and principally spoken of one thing that yet he intended to signifie some other thing by it there we may with safety build but no where else Yet I am not without ground to think that many of those Old Testament Texts which are supposed to be Allegorically applyed in the New are only alluded to upon the account of some similitude in the things themselves and that there was not any antecedent designation of them by the Spirit of God to intimate the things which they are applyed to For as there are many passages in the Old Testament which though in their Immediate signification and meaning they relate to Persons Things and Actions that then were yet so that those Persons Things and Actions were solemnly designed ordained and instituted to prefigure Christ and the things belonging to his Kingdom
And as there are many other Things Actions and Events which then were and fell out related in the Scripture which have no solemn Instituted signification affixed to them but are to be interpreted in reference to what they primarily declare yet so as that many of them seem to have had a Providential Ordination to prefigure something that was afterwards to come to pass So there are many other things related to have fallen out then which though they neither were in the solemn Institution of God nor yet in his Providential Ordination designed to prefigure any thing referring to the Kingdom of Christ are yet meet to illustrate things and events now because of an Analogy and Similitude between what then was and what now is Nor is the applying of a Text to things Actions and Events which have some Similitude with those it originally referred to to be reckoned for an Allegorising of Scripture being only an accommodation of it to our Instruction The Old Testament-Church is proposed in matter of Obedience and Rewards Sins and Punishments as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or example to us 1 Cor. 10.6 11. and therefore what befell them may without the hazard of Allegorising the Scripture be accommodated and applyed to illustrate present events And indeed the Holy Ghost hath besides General Rules such as that Rom. 15.3 left us particular Instances of accommodating Scripture-Texts Passages and Phrases to Things and Events which they neither were in a Proper nor Mystical sense designed Originally to signifie See among many others Matth. 15.8 compared with Isa. 29.13 Matth. 13.14 15. compared Isa. 6.9 10. Rev. 11.4 compared with Zach. 4.3 11 12 13 14. Nor in this the affixing any new sense to the Words but the applying and accomoding their sense to Doctrine Reproof Correction Instruction in Righteousness § 4. Having declared the Nature of Metaphors and the difference between them and other Schem's and Forms of speech with which they seem to have some Cognation and Affinity we are next to inquire into the frequent usage of Metaphors in the scripture with the reasons and grounds of it Metaphors whether founded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a bare and single Similitude where one thing is misnamed by another because of their agreement in some one adjunct affection or property or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where there is a correspondency between plurality of things in an Analogy of Adjuncts Properties are of frequent usurpation in the sacred Scripture as well as in Prophane Authors They are too many to be recounted the Bible being every where adorned and bespangled with them Under Metaphors are comprehended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which Humane Parts Members Affections Actions and such things as belong to men are ascribed to God In such forms of Speech God by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Condescension declares the Infinite Properties of his Nature his Everlasting Counsels with the Mysteries of his Providence in Terms adapted to our capacities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he deciphers what himself is and doth by things that fall under our Apprehension And what is thus said of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of men must be understood of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a way suitable to the divine Nature and Majesty In most Anthropopathies besides a Metaphor there is also a Metonymie For as to attribute Members to God who hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Immaterial and Incorporeal Nature and to ascribe Passions either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irascible or Concupiscible to him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desiring nothing for supply being Infinitely full nor lyable to any Commotion or Perturbation being Holy and Unchangeable must necessarily imply a Metaphor So Hands and Arms being attributed to God to import Power and Strength Eyes his exact Knowledg and exact watchfull Providence Repentance a change only in his Providential dispensations Fear his care in preventing the destruction of his people c. include an easie a Metonymie God in the Revelation of his mind to us in the Scripture hath made use of Metaphors drawn from all the Phaenomena of the Creation and from all the several properties and operations of the several species of Creatures There is not that kind of Metaphor in Rhetorick whereof we have not some example or other in the sacred Writ The Reasons why he who doth all things according to Infinite Sapience hath in the declaration of himself and Will to the Sons of Men so frequently adopted Metaphorical Terms to manifest them in and by are Various I shall only mention such as are most obvious and which lye within the line of every ordinary mans perception 1. He doth it to Inform us how the Material World and the Invisible do correspond together in Analogies and proportions with respect to the Nature and properties of the things contained in the one and the other Not only the Jewish Rabbies have a saying that the Works of the Outward Creation carry in them the Image or resemblance of the Inward but the Platonists say That God hath set the same Seal or Stamp upon different matters i. e. he hath fram'd and contrived the Terrene World with a kind of subservient conformity to the World of Invisible things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sensible forms are Images of Intellectual things was a Pythagorean Maxim upon which they founded their Symbolick mode of Philosophising The several Creatures are so many Looking-glasses where God hath communicated and scattered some resemblances of himself and Invisible Things and Metaphors are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Academy where Nature strips and unvails her self By Converse with and knowledge of the Natures and Properties of sensible things we are the better inabled to conceive and apprehend spiritual things when apparelled in earthly resemblances 2. May be God in his frequent usage of Metaphorick Terms intended it in part as an accommodation of himself to the Custom and Mode of the Jewish and other Oriental Nations who in making known their conceptions of things one to another were much addicted to a Symbolick way Though the Bible was written so as that no Person of whatever Nation or Age might be debarred the Understanding of it yet in its texture and stile there was a regard primarily had to those to whom the several parts of it were first addressed Now it is beyond all contradiction that their usual Mode of Discourse was Abrupt Figurative and Symbolick and therefore if more Metaphors should appear to occurr in the Scripture than do well agree with Western Eloquence though indeed it be otherwise yet they might excellently suit the Genious of those Ages it was written for and the people it was first directed to and designed to work upon That the Eastern Nations not only heretofore had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Symbolick way of teaching but that even to this day those of them who affect to speak
In like manner Math. 5.3 is not only produced by the Papists in proof of the voluntary Poverty of some of their Monasticks but was scoffingly applyed by Julian to justify his robbing and pillaging the Christians meerly through wresting that to a proper sense which Christ intended in a Metaphorick as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very Text doth plainly declare Through the like perverting of the 1 Cor. 3 12 13. to a literal and proper sense do the Romanists endeavour to justify a future Purgatory whereas the words are plainly Metaphorical denoting either Afflictions as Hierom thinks or the Word of God that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may use Basils phrase as Calvin and others judge What Origen practiced on himself through imposing a literal sense on Math. 19.12 may be seen in Eusebius whereas the words do manifestly contain a Metaphor with an Hyperbole It were easy to produce many other Texts of Scripture which even men of great Name and justly reverenced some of them for Antiquity others for their Learning have through their too much relyance on the Immediate Proper sense of the words perverted to a far other meaning than ever the Holy Ghost intended in them 2. No less care is required that we do not fancy a Metaphor where the words will bear a proper and Immediate signification Non aliter a propria significacatione recedi oportet quam si manifestissimum sit aliud testatorem sensisse We are not to forsake the Genuine and Natural signification of Words unless there be the highest evidence that the Author did otherwise intend them saith the Civil Law And as Austin says semper verborum proprietas servanda est nisi quaedam ingens ratio tropum suadeat The proper signification of words is always to be retained unless necessity enforce us to expound them otherwise Every Scripture expression Word and Phrase is to be taken properly and according to its Original and immediate meaning if nothing of absurdity nothing repugnant to Faith or disagreeable to the Common Notices of mankind arise or ensue upon such an acceptation There is no bounding of a roving fancy which love 's to sport it self with the Idea's and Phantasms it self hath raised without confining our selves within the foresaid limits There are three rules by which we are to govern our selves in determining concerning the Words of Scripture whether they are to be taken Tropically or only properly 1. The 1st respects the subject-Matter and scope of the Speaker For as Tertullian says Ex materia dirigendus est sermo The Import of Words is to be judged of by their habitude to the Matter treated of When the affixing a literal sense to any Text of Scripture will either lodg the imputation of impertinency upon the Author or argue him deficient in not pursuing or reaching his scope and design it becomes us then to have recourse to a Tropical The same words are not alwayes capable of the same sense but answerably to the subject Matter they are used about they do not only sometimes admit a larger and sometimes require a stricter acceptation but in one place are to be taken properly and in another not The Import of a word in one place is not enough to define its Import in another unless all things can be supposed parallel How wretchedly and irrationally do the Socinians impose a Metaphorick sense upon the Scripture-expressions of Christs dying for us Redeeming us Reconciling us by his Blood bearing our Iniquities being made sin and a Curse for us because some of these phrases upon other occasions and where the Subject matter leads to it are used Metaphorically If there occurr any Media alledged by the Divine writers which considered abstractedly and in themselves seem not very cogent or Pungent nor throughly proportioned to the Scope and End they are brought for we are to remember that in such reasonings they argued a concessis from principles confessed acknowledged by those they had to do with Nor are any proofs held more convincing in relation to persons discoursed with than what are drawn from their own principles and opinions And in such cases though the Concessions should be lubricous and unsolid yet the Ratiocinations from them are not so T is enough in Argumentis ad hominem as Logicians call them that the Principles and concessions of Adversaries be duely applied but the Truth or Falsity of them the discourser is not concerned in 2. A second Rule by which we may determine whether a Text of Scripture ought to be interpreted in a proper sense or only in a Metaphorick is by observing the Congruity or Incongruity which through imposing a proper sense upon it it would have with other Scriptures He that Prophesieth i. e. interpreteth Scripture must do it saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the proportion of Faith Rom. 12.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Analogy according to Phavorinus is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the proportion of one thing to another There is an excellent Harmony in the system of the Bible and therefore one place is so to be interpreted as to maintain a consistency with other places I know that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is apprehended by some to refer to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 3. Namely that they who were enriched with the Extraordinary Gift of Interpretation should use their gift according to that measure and proportion which They had of it Which Exposition as I will not take upon me to gain say much less to censure so I know nothing to the contrary why that which I have suggested may not be admitted If the proper and immediate signification of words cannot without supplanting Doctrines elsewhere plainly revealed be retained A Metaphor or some other Trope must be acknowledged to lye in them For the several Amanuenses of the Scripture had their pens guided by one omniscient Hand they being the several secretaries of one infallible Enditer and by consequence the Scripture must in all things be consistent with it self nor must any sense be imposed on one part of it that riseth up in contradiction to the meaning of another 3 A Third means of discerning whether a portion of Scripture is to be construed in a proper sense or only in a metaphorick is by observing the consistence or inconsistence of a proper sense with principles of natural Light and first maximes of Reason Though the Scripture was not principally written to instruct us in Philosophy nor to teach us the essences and properties of natural things yet there is not any thing in it that contradicts any true principles of Philosophy or that is repugnant to what we truly know of the nature and affections of things by the light of Reason God being the Author of both Lights there needs not the accommodation of what we know by the one to what we understand by the other Verity requires no wresting nor glossing to harmonise with Verity
For as Aristotle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truth is always at peace with Truth be they of what nature or kind soever Therefore where the imposing a proper sense upon any Scripture Words or Phrases will obtrude upon us any Dogme or practice repugnant to the Rational Faculty that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to principles of natural Light there we are to substitute a tropical one Forasmuch then as the interpreting those Texts of Scripture to a proper sense which attribute Eyes Hands Feet c. To God were to superstruct a Doctrine upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles that is repugnant to the common notices which we have by the light of Reason of the nature of God therefore all such phrases must be acknowledged to be metaphorical The like judgment is to be made of all those Scriptures wherein the names and affections of brute Beasts are attributed to Men the things immediately and originally signified by those words and names lying in a direct contradiction to rational Natures Upon the same account must that phrase Mat. 8.28 Let the Dead bury the Dead be acknowledged to contain as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the entire proposition so a metaphor in the first Term Dead There are innumerable Instances more of this Nature namely where we are compelled to recurr to a Metaphorick sense upon the account of the inconsistency of a proper one with principles of Philosophy and Maximes of Reason Now as these are the lights and measures of discerning when a Scripture is to be interpreted in a proper sense and when not for whatever Rules besides are assigned to this purpose they may be reduced to one of these so I know none more regardful of them in the sensing and expounding of Scripture than those stiled Nonconformists are And should any of them be found to transgress in this matter it ought to be ascribed to the ignorance vanity of the particular persons that are herein criminal nor is the Party answer for it as being no ways concerned seeing the common Principles upon which they are led to dissent from the present establishment of the Church of England in its Ceremonies and Discipline have not the least influence upon them in this affair Were our adversaries impartial in their censures the excess and exorbitancy in this particular will be found to lye among themselves For if any be guilty of introducing a Mystick Theology out of Plato and Proclus and of Allegorising the Scripture according to a pretended Cabala they are the men Nor do any else that I know of make such Phantastical applications of Scripture to purposes distant from its own as those who stile themselves sons of the Church of England do But indeed 't is not truth nor zeal for God but malice and interest that sway 's some men in their discourses and Writings The Non-conformists are the persons against whom they are prejudiced and of whom they never think but with forestalled Judgments or Biassed Passions and therefore they only must be loaded both by wresting the most innocent passages in their Writings to a perverse sense and meaning and by transferring imputing to them the Fooleries of others with every thing else that may render them contemptible § 6. That there are many Figures in Scripture and that many things are spoken in Metaphorical Terms in condescension and accommodation to our Capacities that there are certain Measures by which we may distinguish between things Metaphorically and Properly spoken hath been already declared The next enquiry is by what means we may attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors There are no Schem's of speech that are more liable to be mistaken and wrested to a perverse sense than Metaphors are The instances in which one thing may resemble another are so many and the power of Imagination so great that in nothing may a man sooner prevaricate than in expounding Metaphorical Terms and Phrases The consideration therefore as well of this as that the Non-Con-formists are particularly arraigned of abusing Scripture expressions not only without but incontradiction to their sense and of prating in Scripture Forms of speech without having any Notion of the things they signify hath prevailed with me to discourse this more particularly I take at present for granted that every Scripture-Proposition whether the Terms of it be Figurative or Proper hath a certain and determinate sense which it is designed and adapted to convey to us Every expression in the Bible as well Allegorical and Metaphorick as Proper is every way apt to instruct us in the case that 't is made use of Nor needs there any other proof of this but what is levyed from the Wisdome and Goodness of God his End in all the Forms that he speaks to us in being to teach and inform us I also suppose it beyond all suspect and debate at least among persons that are not wild and Phrantick that where the Terms are Metaphorical yet the Truths expressed by them are Real 'T is a high blasphemy against the Spirit of God to imagine the Scripture a meer dress of words employ'd about nothing As every Scripture-Phrase is intended to manifest somthing that is true and real so for the most part the noblest and most sublime Truths lye under Metaphorick expressions Metaphors are not used to impregnate our Minds with gawdy Phantasms but to adjust the Mysteries of Religion to the weakness of our Capacities I Shall not here repeat what I have elsewhere pâ—oved namely that every Text of Scripture hath a Literal sense For as that is the literal sense of a place where words are used properly which flows from their Natural and Immediate signification so the Literal sense where words are imploy'd Tropically is that which ariseth from their Figurative acceptations I also suppose it universally acknowledged at least in Words though too many depart from it in effect that we ought to conform our opinions and expositions to the sense of the Scripture and not wrest scripture-Scripture-Words to them We are not to frame to our selves Idea's of Religion and then to accommodate the Scripture to their defence and patronage This is to teach God what he should have said not to learn what he hath I shall only further Subjoin in way of Premise that in unfolding a Metaphor our Terms ought to be proper and not Metaphorical I readily grant that it is of great advantage towards the enlightning our minds in the sense of a Metaphorical Scripture to consult other Scripture passages where the same Terms are Metaphorically used especially where all things are parallel but still the meaning of the Metaphor is to be ultimately declared in Words that are Proper For Metaphors properly signifying one thing and being applyed to signify another only because of some resemblance we are therefore in our sensing of Metaphors to remove the Metaphorical Term and to substitute in its room that word which Properly signifies
the thing whereof we conceive the former to have been only a Figure To paraphrase Metaphors in Metaphorick terms is instead of making them Intelligible to continue them dark and Mysterious For as we are not to terminate in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Images themselves but to penetrate into the things couched under and represented by them so much less is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mimetick Phancy in our commenting on them to be indulged In a word it is the work of a Judicious Interpreter to bring forth and declare the scope and matter of all such Phrases in the most plain and easy expressions Now in order to the arriving at true notions conceptions of those divine and Spiritual things which are lock't up under Metaphorick Terms we ought 1 in some considerable degree to understand the Nature and properties of the things from which the Metaphor is taken For Metaphorick Terms signifying one thing and being only applyed to shadow forth another by reason of some resemblance between them we are wholly inept to declare the Heavenly Truth that such Forms of Speech are adapted have a tendency to instruct us in while we remain ignorant of the things which those Words originally and immediately import And seeing the Scripture expresseth somewhat of Religion by all the parts of the Creation by the Imployments very utensils of Humane life and by the usages and customs of Mankind Metaphors are not a subject for any undertaker to exercise upon who hath not more than a tincture of knowledg in all those Though to understand the Bible well be enough to promote Faith and Good life yet to understand some passages of it well a great many other things must be first understood It cannot otherwise be but that to persons ignorant of natural Philosophy Agriculture c. as well as unacquainted with the customes and usages of the Oriental Nations many Texts will seem obscure which are not at all so to such as are imbued with true Ideas of the Natures and properties of things and enriched with a knowledge of Arts and the Customes of the World A luxurious Fancy will be apt to frame very wild and absurd Notions out of Metaphors if the Understanding be not furnished with a knowledg of the qualities operations and use of those things from which they are drawn A familiarity therefore with the works of God as it will oblige us humbly to adore the Mysteries of the Word which we cannot fathom through finding our selves non-plus't in the most obvious phaenomena of Nature so it will exceedingly contribute to our understanding many passages in Scrâ—pture of which we must otherwise either continue wholly ignorant or judg of them according to the suggestions of Imagination I may add that when a word or Term is borrowed from any Art Science or Discipline and metaphorically applied to illustrate some mystery of Faith or the mode of its Existence the genius and value of the word with respect to its usage in the Discipline whence it is transferred is carefully to be observed How expedient and necessary upon this account an acquaintance with the civil-Law is in order to the fixing the importance of divers Scripture-phrases such as Adoption Surety Earnest c. were easie to Demonstrate 2. There being diverse Metaphorical expressions in the Scripture the meaning of which is not to be arrived at by meer recourse to the immediate signification of the words and Terms as bearing rather upon the things which the Eastern Nations in their symbolical representation of matters applied them to It will therefore be needful to know the meaning of many of the Oriental Symbols and what things and events because of some similitude between the Symbols themselves and the things and events they stood for they represented by them For as there are many Prophetick passages both in the old and new Testament which are not strictly Metaphorick that cannot otherwise be understood So there are many Metaphorick expressions in the Scripture of whose meaning we can have no assurance but by knowing something of the use and import of the Symbols of the Ancients 3 The same Terms according as they are metaphorically applyed to different subjects importing often different things their signification must be stated by considering the subject they are applyed to Through the different Affections Properties Adjuncts and Effects that appertain to things which Words originally and properly manifest and denote it frequently falls out that things hugely opposite are resembled to them and stiled by their Names Now in this case the quality of the Subject Metaphorically denoted by such a Term can alone determine the resemblance which intercede's between the thing originally and immediately signified and the thing to which it is Tropically applyed I should be too tedious did I undertake to enumerate the several Words that with respect to the various properties or effects of the things which they properly signifie are applied metaphorically to represent not only things different but opposite some of them in a good sense in Analogy to one property or effect and others in an evil in Analogy to another 4 Great care is required that when diverse properties and affections of things Originally signified by Terms and Words may without injury to Truth be in Way of similitude applyed to the Things which those Terms are Metaphorically brought to illustrate that the comparison and Resemblance be not carried beyond what the Holy Ghost doth there peculiarly design We ought not only to take heed that we hurry not a Metaphor beyond the precincts of Truth but that we drive it not beyond the limits which the place where it is used and the end of the Speaker confine it to 'T is not enough that we do not trespass against the Analogy of Faith in the application of a Metaphor but it is also requisite that we exceed not the Intention of the sacred Writer in that very place There is in all Metaphorical expressions some one Property Affection Operation or other wherein the proportion and resemblance between the things immediately signified by the Words and the things which they are brought to manifest and illustrate doth peculiarly consist and this the nature of the Discourse the Context and speakers scope must determine us in Want of due attendance to this may occasion a prevaricating from the sense of the place where yet there may be an Harmony maintained in reference to the universal System of the Scripture A failure in this if in any thing relating to the subject before us is that which hath ministred occasion for the clamours of partial and angry men But that others besides some of the Non-Conformists are guilty of it were easy to set beyond all exception did I love to expose the Wisdom and discretion of any as some do Yea 't is not so easy to fasten a just imputation upon any in this matter as some are prone to imagine For besides that fecundity of sense
which lieth in all Scripture Words There are none more pregnant with a vastness of meaning than Metaphorical Terms are This at least must be allowed that wheresoever the resemblance of one thing to another is represented under a Metaphorick word or expression that all the particulars which stand in Analogy with that expression and any ways serve to make out the comparison and similitude ought to be included Nor do I once question but that this alone will go a great length in relieving the Non-Conformists from the imputation charged upon them in reference to their exposition of Scripture-Metaphors 5 When the sense of a Metaphor in this or that place lies enveloped and obscure 't is of great advantage to consider the import of the Metaphor as it occurs in other parts of Scripture where the Tenor of the Discourse and the context render the meaning of it more plain and obvious When a phrase stands encircled with darkness in one place we are then to see what light can be borrowed from the usage of it in some other place supposing all things to be parallel where the tendency of it is more apparent God hath so tempered the Scripture that by the use of a Phrase in one place light is reflected on the meaning of it in another By their mutual irradiations they enlighten each other and the knowledg of the more perspicuous guides us to the Intelligence of the more obscure 6 When a Metaphorick Phrase abstractedly and irrelatively considered seems dark and intricate the surveying it in its Habitude to the context will hugely tend to the unfolding its sense and importance The Rabbins have a saying that Nulla est objectio in lege quae non habet solutionem in latere What ever difficulty attends a phrase considered alone it may be resolved by observing what borders upon it Words are to be sensed in relation to what precedes and ensues and are not to be disjoyn'd from the body of the Discourse to which they appertain For as Hierome says Moris est Scripturarum manifesta obscuris subnectere quod prius sub aenigmate dixerint apertâ voce proferre We have all imaginable certainty of having attained the true Notion of a Metaphor and of having reached the real Truth wrapt up under it when by secluding the word that is tropically used and substituting in its place the Word signifying the thing whereof we apprehend the other only to be a Figure a Harmony with the context is maintained the end and design of the speaker answered and the sense of the whole discourse not only preserved as good but rendred more clear 7 God having revealed nothing in Metaphorical Terms but what he hath somewhere or other declared in proper Words we have this therefore as another Medium of discerning the meaning of Metaphors namely the viewing the plain and proper expressions where the same things are manifested Metaphors are not so much designed to teach us positively the Doctrines and Mysteries of Faith as to illustrate them to render them more familiar to our Understandings to impress them more durably in our Memories to excite our affections with the more vigour and by the artifice of an external dress to make the study of the Word more pleasant and delightful and therefore the true conceptions that are vailed under Metaphors are to be sought for in those places where the same Truths are revealed and declared in proper Terms 'T is a high satisfaction to observe how plain Texts conduct us to the understanding of metaphorical and how metaphorical Terms serve to illustrate things that are else-where delivered in proper Words God knowing the various Tempers and Genius's of men hath so disposed the phraseology of Scripture that the same truths are represented in a dress idiome and dialect which may best suit the Gust'o of every one Though there be enough in the things themselves which the Scripture treats of to conciliate a Reverence and Veneration to it yet the frequent repeating the same things were there not some variation in the exteriour Ornaments would be apt to beget a Nauseum â—nd expose the sacred stile to be thought languishing cold and insipid As upon the one hand therefore the Scripture is secured from the imputation of being flat cold and unaffecting through those Lights and Graces of Rhetorick wherewith it is adorned which at once illuminate the mind by their easiness and by a certain peculiar movement insinuate upon the heart by their striking the Imagination so upon the other hand all obscurity is removed from the Word not only through the quality of the Schem's of speech themselves which are all natural have an admirable tendency to illustrate the things they are made use of for but because those very things are all of them delivered in plain and proper terms else-where These being the Lines and Measures that are to be attended to in the explaining of Metaphors I dare pronounce that 't is not so much the obscurity of Metaphorick expressions which hindreth them from being understood as the want of common reason sense in those that meddle with them In a word Metaphorical Terms signify all and every thing which with reference to the nature of the Trope Analogy with the sacred System Congruity with the Context and pursuance of the scope of the Author they can signify And as I know none more observant of these Rules in the sensing and applying of Metaphors than those who are stiled Non-Conformists so upon a supposition that some of them either through ignorance inadvertency or wantonness should prevaricate in this matter yet I no ways understand how either in consistency with Religion or Morality a whole party should be traduced for the folly of a few Had a regard for the things of God influenced men in these efforts they would have found as much cause of impeaching some among themselves of extravagancy in this matter as of any else whoever But proceeding upon other Motives they have confined their cavils to the writings of such the loading of whose persons with reproach they reckon to be their Interest Only it hath fallen out here as in other cases where reflections are partially and withall too personally address't that their reproaches have not only for the most part lost their effect but they themselves are reputed uncivil and malicious § 7. The Nature of Metaphors in general being unfolded and haveing also fix'd and stated the Rules of expounding Scripture ones we are next to enquire into the use of either common Metaphors whether in popular Sermons practical Discourses or even some times in Polemical Writings I take it for granted that as Reason gives a Discourse its Strength and Nerves so Rhetorick gives it its Colour and Grace The strongest Arguments when delivered dryly as they do not so delight and please so neither do they so enlighten and instruct as when clothed in a bright and flourishing Character The same things nakedly and bluntly represented
do not make so great an impression as when embellished with handsome Language Nor is there any thing more perswasive as well as delightful than to find good words accompanying excellent Sense And the better any subject is the more worthy it ought to be accounted of a rich and polished though not of a gaudy Dress And indeed elegant expressions are impertinently bestowed where the matter and sense are not considerable Nor is there a greater evidence of Folly in a Speaker or Writer than to affect a loftiness of expression on a mean and petty Subject Words being manifestative of conceptions and things ought to be proportionate to the Themes whereof we treat and the Idea's we have of them Where there is not something substantial and weighty underneath a dazling stile serves only to amuse the Reader and to palliate the weakness of the Discourse But though grave and weighty Matter deserveth to be well set off yet this is chiefly to be respected in the cleanliness and masculiness of Terms and not either in the rankness or glistering of Phrase and Expression I know nothing more nauseous to a well balanced judgment than to find a grave subject handled in a luscious and Amorous manner The Gospel particularly disdains to be recommended by flowers of Language or to Court the Affections of men by fine words as chusing to adjust its self to our Reasons by its Truth and to address its self to our Consciences by the Authority which its Author hath impressed upon it I wish there were not occasion for the revival of Gregory Nazianzen's Hierom's complaint namely That Theological Truths are so handled by some as if they took their measures of the ministerial Function from the Ancient Demagogues and not from the Sacred Writers I reckon it will be also allowed that every Argument is not alike capable of external Ornaments There are some subjects which the best writer Desperat tractata nitescere posse Especially matters Controversal will least admit the colours of Rhetorick Feathers and Lace do not become a Warrier so well as Buff and Steel Here if any where Ornari res ipsa negat contenta doceri And as to Reason strongly and to Speak well do seldom meet in one person so an ambition of being excessive and curious in Words is usually accompanied with a neglect of Logick Arguments weigh more in a close Discourse than either an elaborate Phrase or a quaint Similitude Nothing in a Disputation renders a Cause more suspected than to find it managed with too much Ornament Nor can it but hugely displease to be put off with an Embarras of words when we look't for Demonstration Of all signs whatsoever Allegories and Metaphors are the unfittest to declare Logical Notions by And whoever they are that manage Debates in metaphorical Terms they do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 play the Fools that I may use Longinus's Phrase and put the world off with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a flourish of Words in stead of Arguments The only use I know of Metaphors and Similitudes in Disputations is to refresh the Spirit of the Reader and awaken it when it is weary perswade and convince they cannot Metaphorick flourishes may be also useful to illustrate and brighten Truth when it is once established but the naked and plain mode of disputing conduceth only to the conviction and demonstration of it But as to the usage of Metaphors in Popular Sermons and practical Discourses the Case is otherwise Whatsoever is pleadable in their behalf upon any occasion serves to justify the usurpation of them in Discourses ad Populum and Didactical Writings The Inducements and Motives of their allowance in Rhetorical Tracts Orations or whatever else doth best admit these Ornaments of Eloquence do all of them evince their agreeableness to the Oratory of the Pulpit The Original and primitive Causes of the usurpation of Metaphors in Discourses seem to have been Necessity and Delight though afterwards an itch and ambition of not being understood might influence some men both to an excess this way and to an affectation of Metaphors that were altogether Poetical and presumptuous instead of being content with such as were easy and common Now the several springs and fountains of this Necessity appear to have been 1 A penury of words Though to me Terms thus applyed to intimate different things ought â—ather to be stiled Homonymous aequivocal than Metaphorick A cognation of Affections Properties operations in Beings otherwise vastly different being accompanied with a scarcity of Terms to express them all by distinct Signes hath occasioned the imposing one and the same word to indigitate things of different kinds And as the use of any Analogous Term for that which primarily it was ordain'd to signify ought to be accounted for the proper usage of it so the applying it to manifest other things upon the score of Similitude or proportion to the former may be esteemed for its Metaphorical Application 2 That things by being thus represented may be apprehended by the Vulgar which make up the far greater Number in the World with the greater ease and facility There are some whom the clearest and most convincing Reasons will not instruct unless you can so attire apparel your Conceptions as by bringing things as neer as may be to their Senses you impress and strike their Imagination 'T is not so much the things themselves which are spoken that move the Plebs as the manner of delivering them in Scheme's accommodated to strike their senses with vigour 3 These Modes of speech are found advantageous to relieve the Memory and to render it more tenacious of what is committed to it Next to the ranging things in a natural Order that the one may help to the remembrance of the other by the connexion they have together I know nothing more subservient to memory than the coupling and tying our Notions to such material and outward Objects as are obvious and known Now if these and the like inducements have rendred Metaphors necessary in most kinds of Discourses I may justly reckon that Theological Subjects do more peculiaâ—ly require them than any other For 1. Gospel-Truths are of such a sublime and mysterious Nature that no words can express them unto perfection nor are there any Terms in the stores and treasures of men that can adequately declare them As all words are instituted signs so they were Originally invented to express natural Things and humane Thoughts by and thence it is that the utmost signification they can possibly bear doth prove but scanty and narrow when they are applied to manifest things Spiritual and Heavenly Through a deficiency therefore of proper Words to express them by we are reduced to a necessity of manifesting or at least shadowing them forth by Metaphorical Terms 2 The Doctrines of the Gospel are not only such whose Principles and Media of probation lie not in Nature being indebted for all the knowledg we have of them to
without boldness and danger And much more are they to be forbid in the sacred Eloquence Nor are the same Metaphors to be used before every Auditory which may pass for Ornaments lights before persons of Learning Ingenuity A chief part of Pulpit-Oratory consists in adapting our selves to the Hearers we speak to for what graces beautifies a Discourse to one Assembly discommends and renders it useless to another Especially Poetick Metaphors and such as cannot be understood without an insight into the Mythology of the Heathen are to be avoided Allusions to their Fables and Romantick Stories are both incongruous to unworthy of a Sacred Subject The Holy Ghost whose Method we ought Religiously to conform to hath expressed matters of Religion only by such natural things as we familiarly Converse with and by the common employments of Humane Life 2 We must not crowd them too thick For that instead of illustrating a subject darkens it and in the room of delighting the mind and surprising the Affections they dazle and oppress them Longinus tells us that Caecilius would admit but two or at most three in reference to one matter But the Subject can only best regulate us in this for the same air of Eloquence doth not become every Theme Longinus notes that a Multiplicity of Metaphors may be allowed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the affections are carried like a Torrent and the Passions raised to a becoming height and enflamed with a due ardor A plurality of Metaphors is not only lawful but expedient when the Subject we are treating of is so sublime that Allusions to one thing do not serve to illustrate it And as this is often our case in displaying the Mysteries of Faith so wee have the President of God himself in it When Metaphors and Similitudes fetcht from from one sort of Subjects do not serve to illustrate the Matter treated of the whole Creation and the several species of Creatures are called in by the Holy Ghost to be some way or other Hieroglyphical of it 3 Metaphors ought not to be drawn from any thing that is slovenly and Sordid I the rather mention this in that I find the Non-conformists charged for Stuffing their Sermons with Kitchin-Metaphors Rascal Similitudes There are things enough cleanly and innocent to fetch allusions and Analogies from even then when we address to the Vulgar without defiling the purity of Religion with any thing that is sluttish or Nasty One of the Original Fountains of Metaphors was the arraying things in themselves uncomely in a dress w ch might not offend the severest modesty 't is a pitty to have the Antidote perverted into poyson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the declaring that in a modest Metaphorick Phraseology which properly expressed would grate upon a Chast Ear or Mind being an Ingredient into Vulgar Oratory how much more ought it to obtain a place in the Eloquence of the Sanctuary The Holy Ghost forbids even in common discourse not only all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obsceness but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I think may be rendred childish and foolâ—sh Quibling For the Term in its Native signification denotes the handsome turning or changing of a word and is used to signify Urbanity or pleasantness of Conversation and accordingly Aristotle reckons it for a vertue but the Apostle plainly taking it in an evil sense I know not why it may not be translated foolish Jingling with words or insignificant prating I am sure Suidas renders it not only by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 boyish levity but by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clownishness Did we in our usage of Metaphors make the Scripture pattern our measure 't is not possible that we should debase our selves to the allowance of any that are Uncivil or Immodest A discreet person will easily find enough to please the fancy without offending either the Conscience of any or disparaging the Subject whereof he Treats Yet I cannot but say that what some men brand for Kitchin Metaphors and Rascal Similitudes are cleanly enough and appear to have been made use of in compliance with the exigencies of Themes and the weaknesses of Auditoâ—s Nor needs there any other Apology for most of them but that the Sanctuary as its worthy of Gold and pretious Stones so it rejects not Goats Hair and Badgers Skins Upon the whole providing the Rules suggested be attended to I see not but that besides the using of Scripture-Metaphors in the sense and to the end for which they are intended we may also use other common and ordinary ones at least to express though not to prove our thoughts And though such do not serve to demonstrate the Truths which they are brought for yet they may serve to impress and inculcate them § 8. Having discoursed all that I had to offer in and about Metaphors in general and having both declared the measures of expounding and applying Scripture-ones and the Rules which ought to be attended to in the usurpation of others there now only remain a few things to be suggested to obviate the scoffings and revilings whereby the Non-conformists are endeavoured to be exposed to Contempt and Scorn upon the account of their use of Metaphorick Terms And the first is that the loudest Clamours and most invidious Reflections levied against them in this matter proceed from a disrespect to and fall with the same picquancy upon the Scripture it self And they may well be admitted to speak reproachfully of men who have the the boldness to do so of the Word of God Only I think they would do better to deny the Scripture all claim of being Divine than to treat it with the Contempt which some do after they have acknowledged it to be the Word of the Lord. Many of the Phrases and Passages quarrelled at in the writings of the Phanaticks are plainly no other than what the Holy Ghost hath condescended to use in his declaring the mysteries of Faith and Duties of Religion They are the same course Expressions that the Scripture it self makes use of that it may suite the dulness of our understandings that I may use Chrysostomes Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that the most part of the reproches which are fastned upon the Phanaticks as they are pleased to stile them in this matter argue the bestowers of them guilty of prophaness against the Scrippture as well as incivility to the persons of the Non-conformists in derogation of whose esteem they apply themselves to write I know this will be thought too plain and tuant nor should I have so blankly charged them if they had either the Wit or Modesty to receive instruction by gentler insinuations But I remember that when Dr. Owen had told them That the greatest guilt of some of the Phrases carpt at it may be was only their too near approach to the expressions used in Scripture to the same purpose The Author of the Defence
reflection upon those portions of Holy writ which God hath honoured him to be the amanuensis of But this I do not much wonder at in the Author of the foresaid Sermon seeing it is from St. Paul that we have learned to distinguish between Faith and good works in the Matter of Justification which he there so severedly censures But to return Though the Reverence which Mr. Sherlock pays to the writings of the Apostles may be possibly consistent with reconcileable to his burlesque manner of treating them yet one would think that the admiration which he hath for our Saviours Sermons above the Writings of the Apostles though the Apostles were not less inspired by the Holy Ghost in the penning and giving forth the Epistles than the Evangelists were in writing the Gospels which convey to us the Sermons of Christ should have secured them from the like entertainment But it hath here also fallen out otherwise for rather than T.W. should escape our Authors censure the Words of Christ in the true intendment and meaning of them are introduced as the matter of his Mirth and Scorn As the Serpent says he pretending to blazon T. W'S. Folly and to lay him Obnoxious to Contempt and Derision was lifted up to be lookt upon by the stung Israelites which looking implyed a secret hope they had of cure so if we do but look on Christ fiducially we shall be cured of our sins Now let this be compared with the words of Christ himself Joh. 3.15 16. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life and I dare leave it to the Judgement of every sober and Judicious person whether the very Scripture-expressions in their proper sense be not made to bear a Share in this Gentlemans derision Had Mr. Sherlock only raillied upon some things in T. W's discourse concerning the resemblance of Christ to the brazen Serpent and preserved the dignity and Reverence of the Type it self without reflections upon the main scope and designe of the Comparison he should have easily escaped my Censure but having included the Sentence I have rehearsed in the same indictment with others wherein may be T.W. hath prevaricated I must renew my Charge namely that some of their loudest Clamours against the Non-conformists for Similitudes and Metaphors fall with the same weight upon expressions which the Holy Ghost in his Wisdom hath been pleased to use I shall add one passage more relating to the resemblance betwixt Christ and the Brazen Serpent for which amongst others Mr. Sherlock is pleased in way of Irony to stile T.W. very happy in expounding Types the equivalent whereof besides that it may be found in a hundred Dull Authors he knows whom I mean being an Epithete lately bestowed upon a certain set of Writers by one of his Friends I have read in a Person whom though he do not may be universally like for his Divinity yet he bears him more respect than to laugh at him for a Fool. The passage in T. W. is this The Brazen Serpent was made like a Serpent but was no real Serpent so Christ was made in the likness of sinful Flesh but was no sinner The equavalent of it is this Haec Imago effigies Serpentis erat similis Serpenti ita Christus qui purus ab omni veneno peccati fuit in cruce pependit speciem referem hominis peccatoris vel ut Paulus loquitur in similitudine carnis peccati Rom. 8.3 I need not English this and therefore shall only tell him where he may meet with it viz. in a certain Gentleman called Wolzogenius commenting upon Joh. 3.14 so that at least here is one more as happy in expounding Types as T. W. is And as I see not how Mr. Vincents advice to young Women to chuse Christ for their Husband is either a peece of fantastical Wit as our Author is pleased to call it or comes to be spoyled by the Churches being Christ's Spouse seeing His relation of a Husband to the Church doth no way hinder his being so to every Member of it It affords me another instance of Mr. Sherlocks intolerable sauciness towards the Scripture rather than he should fail in exposing those whom he thinks he hath cause to be displeased with For not to mention what occurs in the Canticles justifying the utmost of what Mr. Vincent says in this matter even the Apostle Paul not only speaks of his having espoused the Church of Corinth to one Husband that he might present them a Chast Virgin to Christ 1 Cor. 11.2 but he speaks of every particular Believer among the Romans as being married to Christ. Wherefore my Brethren ye also are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the Dead that we should bring forth Fruits unto God Rom. 7.4 To all which not only the passage of our Author That every Christian is not Christs Spouse is directly repugnant but his supposition that Christ in case particular Believers be espoused to Him must be a Polygamist argues him as well an ignorant as a confident man and imposeth the same brand upon the Inspired Writers that he would expose the Non-conformists under the infamy of He that would see more of Mr. Sherlocks Burlesquing the Scripture and how he hath in a prophane Sacrilegious manner abused the very Words of it to make his Readers sport and to render his Adversaries Ridiculous Let him consult amongst other places p. 62 63 65 66 69 70. of his Book for I cannot allow my self to transcribe what either may have a tendency to the tainting the Minds of some or the offending the Consciences of others A Second thing which I would reply upon our late Writers for their upbraiding the Non-conformists upon the account of turning the plainest Scriptures Into Metaphors and Allegories or as Mr. Sherlock expresseth it of turning all Religion into an Allegory is this That the guilt in this matter lodgeth principally with themselves 'T is but fit that instead of being always upon the Defensive we should sometimes carry the War into their Quarters Not that I design this as a justification of any amongst us who may be guilty in this particular but meerly to shew that this way of assaulting us was none of the wisest considering how open they lye themselves to Recriminations of this kind They are indeed most Criminal herein who put the imputation furthest from them though they ought to look well to themselves who undertake to accuse others I would say Quis tulerit Gracchâ—s But that I expect to be told that I have Classically expressed my self as an acquaintance of Mr. Sherlock Jyb'd a Learned Person meerly for saying that he neither desired nor designed serram reciprocare In the pursuit of this insteed of producing particular
as Crellius expresseth it that Christ laid down his Life for us ut jus quoddam ad peccatorum remissionem vitam aeternam obtinendas nobis daret Nor do I find that Mr. Sherlock sometimes acknowledgeth any more But waveing all these things and many more managed by others which Mr. Sherlock if he please may reckon Cavil Sophistry and Vulgar Talk and judg them unworthy of a sober reply and by slighting what he cannot answer or with a storm of words not only darkning but diserediting what he will not find so easy for him in a Logical way to encounter bear up his repute amongst his Friends There are only two things I would premise in order to the more clear making out the Consequence of perverting the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors which I have fathered upon Mr. Sherlocks Opinion The First is this that to justifie is in its proper acceptation a Forensick Term signifying to acquit and absolve one that is accused That this is its import when it refer's to God and Christ as the Objects of it and men as the Agents is plain from Psal. 5.1.4 Mat. 11.19 Luk. 7.29 That this likewise is the meaning of it when it is expressive of the Act of men standing upon their own vindication and Innocency is clear by Luk. 10.29 and 16.15 Job 32.2 and 9.10 That this withall is the only acceptation which it is capable of when it relates to the Act of a Humane Civil Judg as Psal. 8.2 Isa. 5.23 Pro. 17.15 will I suppose hardly be denied In this sense also can it onely be taken when declarative of the Act of God towards us as our Judg or when set in Opposition to Condemnation or the Curse of the Law to which we are obnoxious as Rom. 8.33.5 18. Gal. 3.11 The Second thing I would premise is this that Justification not only supposeth us to be indicted but withal imports an absolution from the Charge of that Law of the breach whereof we are accused Now as the Introduction of the Law of Faith hath not abrogated the Law of Perfect Obedience but this as well as that doth remain in force each of them requiring a Conformity to its own demands so supposing us to answer all that the Gospel requireth which is both a Righteousness of inherent Grace and of Personal sincere Obedience a failure in either of which leaves us incapable not only of being justified but of being pardoned yet the other Law abiding uncancelled and we being all Guilty of the violation of its Terms there lyes accordingly a Charge against us from which by justification we are to be acquitted Had the Law of Faith repealed and abrogated the Law of Works then indeed we should have remained lyable to no farther Accusation provided we had performed the Gospel-Conditions But then it would follow that by being Believers we wholly cease to be sinners and that the Gospel instead of only making-provision for the Remission of Sins against the Law hath prevented the Breaches of it from being so And indeed the Socinians express themselves in this more consonantly to their Principles than some others do For having stated the whole of justification in the Remission of sin upon performance of the Conditions of the Gospel in pursuance of this they accordingly plead for the utter abrogation of the Sanction of the Law These things being premised I do affirm that upon Mr. Sherlocks Notion of justification viz. That we are only justified by our Believing obeying the Gospel of Christ and that the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the Righteousness of his Life have no other influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace wherein God promiseth pardon of sin and Eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel However in reference to the meer demands of the Gospel we may in a proper sense be said to be justified yet that in reference to the Indictment of the Law which is that alone which accuseth us for were we accusable of Non-compliance with the Gospel-Terms our Condition were wholly remediless we cannot in any propriety of Speech be said to be justified but that justification wheresoever it regards our discharge from the accusation of the Law must be taken Metaphorically Pardoned indeed we may be but justified in a proper sense we cannot For to suppose God to pronounce a person just that is unjust or to declare him Righteous that is unrighteous is to make him pronounce a sentence that is unjust false to Act repugnantly to his own Holy and Righteous Nature And as to justify and to pardon are not only wholly distinct in their Natures and Idea's but always separated in the cases of such as are arraigned at Humane Tribunals unless it be where the substitution of one Person in the room of another is allowed and even then though they accompany one another yet they are both distinct Acts and we have distinct Notions of them For neither can an accused Innocent by being accquitted be said to be pardoned nor a condemned Criminal by having the execution of his sentence remitted be said to be justified In like manner as they import the Actings of God as a merciful Father and Righteous Governour towards us we have not only distinct and different Idea's of them but they have their spring and rise in distinct Attributes of God and we become interested in them upon distinct motives and pleas Remission is the result of Mercy and the Act of one exercising Favour but Justification is the off-spring of Justice and imports one transacting with us in a Juridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity The word justify neither in its Etymologie nor Application and usage according to the Institution of men and least of all in the Scripture Usurpation is Equipollent to pardon nor coincident with to forgive So that upon the whole If we be not made Righteous with the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us but that God only for the sake of Christ will dispence with the Rigor of the Law As our Author expresseth himself And if the only Influence that the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his Life have upon our acceptance with God be that God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christ's Life and the Sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a Covenant with mankind wherein he promiseth Pardon of sin and eternal Life to those who believe and obey the Gospel as Mr. Sherlock declares his Conceptions of it And if those who are justified by Christ and shall Reign with him in Life be not those who are Righteous by the imputation of Christs Righteousness to them but those who have abundance of Grace and the Gift of Righteousness that is who by the Gospel of Christ which is the Grace and the abundant Grace of God are made Holy Righteous as God is as our Author further tells us I
by virtue of their being vested with an Office are obliged to yet to ascribe Actions to an Office as if it were the very Agent whereas it is meerly the Foundation from which an Obligation to the performance of such and such Actons in the due discharge of it results whatever Wit or profoundness his Friends may Imagine in it I cannot otherwise account of it than a piece of sublime Nonsense And Nonsence is not to be refuted but exposed For he betrayes the weakness of his own Reason who undertakes to encounter an absurd Phrase with Arguments Nor Secondly doth the Name Christ in the Question under Debate signifie the Gospel and Religion of Christ. 'T is indeed by the Doctrine of the Gospel as a Moral means that we come to be united to Christ but 't is not It that we are united to As the Gospel alone reveals our Union with Christ and as the Communication of the Spirit the repairing the Image of God in our Souls are only promised by it So God in his soveraign Wisdom hath ordained it to be the alone Vehiculum of the Spirit and the means of ingenerating Faith in our Hearts which are the Bonds of our Union Hence 't is called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the Law which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as the purity of its Precepts and the nobleness of its Promises do admirably qualify and adapt it as an Objective Moral means of restoring the Image of God in us so through the Blessing of God attending it as His solemn Institution to this End we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it 2 Pet. 1.4 Though no Physical Efficiency is to be ascribed to it yet besides a Moral Efficacy which through its own frame and complexion it hath to reform Mankind beyond what any Declaration of God our selves that ever the World was made acquainted with had There is a Physical efficacious Operation of the Spirit of God accompanies it on the score of the Lords having in Infinite Sapience ordained it as a means for the communicating Grace But still 't is not the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are united to 'T is true that it is both by the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are brought to be united to Christ and 't is also true that whosoever are united to Him have the Doctrine of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an ingraffed and incorporated Word and are moulded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Form of its Doctrine But yet 't is not the Terminus of the Relation of Union which intervenes betwixt Christ and them nor is it That which they are united to Mr. Sherlock I confess tells us that when Christ Joh. 15. speaks of the First person I and in Me he cannot mean this of his own person but of his Church Doctrine and Religion and that by I in him v. 4. and I in you v 5. we are to understand the Christian Doctrine dwelling and abiding in us 'T is pretty to observe with what nimble removes from the Church to the Doctrine of Christ again from the Doctrine to the Church of Christ our Author paraphraseth the first five or Six verses of that Chapter The I and me in the first 2d verses are glossed as referring to the Church I am the true Vine the meaning is saith Mr. Sherlock that Church which is founded on the Belief of my Doctrine is the true Vine Every Branch in me i. e. saith he every Member of my visible Church But then the I in you and the I in him v. 4. and 5. are expounded of the Doctrine of Christ. His flying from one quarry to another argues some inconvenience and danger he foresaw his exposition of the place encumbred with or else that some vertigo troubled his pericranium I shall at present only examine so much of his paraphrase as respects those words where in stead of the person of Christ he will have the Doctrine and Religion of Christ to be understood That which he interprets as relating to the Church of Christ which can only be understood also of his person shall hereafter be taken into consideration And as to that which lyeth now before me 't is enough not only to prejudice Mr. Sherlocks exposition but to overthrow it with all Judicious persons that-Expressions of the same Nature are not allowed the same sense I know that one and the same Word is sometimes in one the same verse differently sensed when the subject Matter context scope of the Discourse do so require But to impose disagreeing and various meanings upon Expressions of one and the same Nature occurring together where one and the same sense may safely be admitted is to violate all Laws of Exposition and to make the Scripture pliable to what purposes we please The in you and the in him v. 4. and 5. are predicates referring to the same I affirmed of the same Subject that True Vine is predicated of v. 1. and 5. But it being as well absurd to style the Doctrine of the Gospel the true Vine as to assert concerning the Church that it is in us our Author hath therefore found it necessary to make the subjects of the Propositions different though there needs no more where the Judgment is not forestalled and the mind under a chosen Occecation than the meer inspection of the Paragraph to ascertain the contrary 2 Though the subject of a Proposition may be brought into Debate where it is expressed by a Relative Pronoun yet when one speak's of Himself in the First Person by a Pronoun Demonstrative as the Evangelist introduceth Christ here doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say that he speaks not of Himself is no less than to give him the Lie Words in the common acceptation and stated sense of them being infallible manifestative signs of the Conceptions of the Speaker when the Author is Veracious I would know of Mr. Sherlock that supposing it had been the design of Christ to have told us that by I in you and I in Him he meant himself how he could have done it otherwise or in Terms of a more determined signification What better Evidence can we have of the sense of a Place than that had an Author intended such a meaning he could have used no plainer Expression to declare it 3 The I in you v. 4. is the same with the I that had spoken to them and through whose Word they were made clean v. 3. Now to think that this could be the Doctrine of Christ or any other than Christ himself is a Non-sensical Imagination What friendship our Author hath for the Religion of Christ I cannot tell but that he expounds Scripture at a high rate of confidence to the derogation of his Person is by the Instance before us too plain evident Nor do we Thirdly in the Question under consideration understand by Christ the Church of Christ. I shall
only a sign but something signified and consequently the Elements of Bread and Wine being the signs tendred us they must be really exhibitive of something else that hath an Analogy to them and this can be nothing but the Body and Blood of Christ which are as really exhibited to be spiritually fed upon as the sensible Elements are to be Carnally This the words of Institution also demonstrate for when Christ saith take eat this is my Body there must either be an Exhibition of his Body to us in some sense or other or we must impeach Christ of uttering a false proposition in offering that to be eaten which according to these Gentlemen in no sense is so Yea were the Lord's Supper nothing but a Commemoration of Christ's death and the benefits purchased thereby it were no more to the Worthy Receiver than to the Unworthy nor any more to the Receiver than to the bare Spectator both which are in themselves the grossest of absurdities and withal lye in a direct repugnancy to the Gospel It is not a Real presence as the Papists slander us but a Corporeal that we disclaim But should we grant Christ to be locally and bodily present in the Supper though it be Contradictious to Reason Sense Scripture the Nature of a Sacrament the very words of Institution and the belief of the Ancient Church yet it would no ways serve the End for which it is pretended namely its being the means of our Union with Christ. For not to urge that were he Bodily present in the Sacrament or were nothing really and substantially there but the very Body and Blood of Christ as the Papists affirm it were yet the most abominable thing that ever men were guilty of to eat Him For though some have pawn'd sold and let out their Gods to Farm as Tertullian upbraids the Heathen yet as Cicero say's of all the Religions that have been in the World there were never any of such a Religion as to eat their God There are some instances among the salvage Nations of such as have eat the Flesh and drunk the Blood of their Enemies and of such as have sold their friends to the Anthropophagi when they were either useless through Age or in their apprehension irrecoverably sick but no Nation hath been so barbarous as to feast themselves with the flesh of their God's or to quaff their Blood The Egyptians would not eat with the Jews Gen. 46.3 because as Onkelos tells us the one did eat what the others worshipped 'T is known who said if the Christians eat what they adore anima mea cum Philosophis God by distributing the Brute creatures into clean which might be eaten and unclean which might not be eaten did thereby saith Theodoret provide against the accounting or worshipping any of them as a God Fo who will be so unreasonable as to esteem that a God which is Unclean or so Mad as to adore that which he eats Whatever pittifull beings men have chosen for Gods and how useful soever in their own Nature to have been turned into Cates Viands yet they who worshipped them have been so far from making them their repast themselves that the seeing others who made not such account of them nor payed them any veneration do it hath been enough to excite their Rage An instance we have of this Exod. 8.26 where Moses being permitted by Pharaoh to sacrifice in the land oâ— Egypt return's this as a Reason why he could not Lo we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us They who had most degraded themselves in the choice of their Gods had yet more respect for them than the Papists who make their God a victim have for theirs As if it were not disgrace enough to their God to pawn and fell him and that sometimes to very ill intents and purposes all this they have don with their consecrated Host they place the most glorious part of their Religion in the Sacrificing him and eating his flesh when they have done Now the only Text to sustain the weight of the Bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist and to justify this Cyclopian eating of Him is Math. 26.26 Take Eat this is my Body c. Than which I know not one place in the whole Bible that yields us more infallible Arguments to subvert their whole Hypothesis every word being pregnant with a demonstration against them But all I shall say is this that whereas they upbraid us for the admission of one Trope in the paraphrase of the words they are forced themselves to substitute a great many before they can serve their design of them Had it been the purpose of the Holy-Ghost to declare our sense and oppose theirs I know no plainer expressions that could have been chosen to accomplish either the one or the other The Words are all as plain as the Subject-Matter to which they ought to be adapted will admit nor can the Wit of Man invent any that are more proper to manifest the Conceptions of the Speaker suppose him to have intended the sense that that we contend for The Substantive verb est is in which many of our Divines acknowledg a Figure is as remote from needing such a concession and as capable of a proper acceptation as any one in the whole Enunciation 'T is a Transcendental Term and signifies as properly a Similitudinary Being as an essential and only the quality of the Subject of the Proposition can determine whether it import Being Substantial or Being Intentional Forasmuch therefore as it is here a note of Affirmation interveening between a Sign as a Relate and as a thing signified as a Correlate I affirm that the only proper Sense which it hath or can have is to intimate the one to be vicarious for and representative of the other To imagine that est as 't is the note of affirmation between Signâ—m and Signatum can have any other sense than to signify is a fancy that will never be entertained in the minds of such who understand what they say In a word 't is a Sacramental Enunciation where it occurs 't is the note by which the Relation of the sign to the thing signified is affirmed and therefore the whole Relation between a Sign and the Thing signified being meerly to represent it is impossible that it should have any other import save to denote that the one is signified by the other But to wave any further opposing the Bodily presence in the Sacrament though the Popish notion of our Union with Christ cannot consist without it I say that supposing all which the Romanists say in the Matter of the Elements being Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ our feeding on Him in a Carnal manner were true yet this cannot be the bond of the Union which is so magnificently represented For â— were this the basis of our Union with Christ and the Nexus by which
we are copulated to Him then not only sincere Believers but the most obdurate sinners providing only they receive the Eucharist should be united to Him Admitting the Popish Hypothesis I neither see of what advantage Faith is to one Communicant nor of what damage Infidelity can be to another but that the whole of both their securities depends upon this that their Stomacks be not queasy and that they have a good digestion 'T is but to swallow the consecrated Host and Christ and they are one whether they partake of the Spirit of the new Birth or not Either Pauls assertion of some mens eating damnation to themselves is false or else the Popish Notion of our being united to Christ by the eating of his Flesh under the Species and Accidents of a white Wafer is so and which of these is most likely to deserve that Brand I leave to the umpirage of all Christians 2 Were this the Foundation and Bond of Union betwixt Christ and his Members there should then be none United to Him but such as have first been made partakers of the Eucharist which is so remote from all shadow of Truth that on the contrary none ought to approach the sacred Table but they who are first sincere Christians 'T is true their pretending to be so if their claim cannot be disproved obligeth Ministers to admit them but yet it is only their being so that authoriseth them to come 'T is sincere Love and Gospel-Faith that God prerequires of all his Guests though his Stewards are often necessitated to take up with professions of them Although the Sacraments be necessary necessitate praecepti and cannot be neglected by any without guilt yet they are not so necessary necessitate Medii but that God hath and can communicate his Grace independently upon them 3 Were there no other bond of our Union with Christ save that which the Church of Rome suggests our Cohesion to Christ were a very lubricous thing and not such an indissoluble Ligue as the Scripture reports it For the Foundation of Oneness ceasing the Relation superstructed thereupon must cease also Union can hold no longer than the unition upon which it results and from which it emergeth holds now this according to the Romanists continues no longer than till the Form Figure and other Accidents of the consecrated Wafer dissolve and vanish So that instead of an abiding conjunction with Christ a little time unties the knot and the incorporation of Christians with Him comes to nothing 4 Were our Carnal and Corporal eating the Body of Christ the Medium of betwixt Him and us I do not see but that Mice and Rats c. may come to be united to Him as well as Believers For that these through the Priests neglect or by some accident or other may snatch up swallow down the consecrated Wafer is a thing easily conceivable there are instances enough of it and by consequence all that is necessary to the Relation of Union intervening betwixt Christ and them the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self must ensue also I shall only add upon this occasion that Minutius Felix's argument in disproof of the Heathen Gods doth with equal strength militate against the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist The Mice Swallows and Crows saith he know better than you Pagans what your Gods are For by gnawing and sitting upon them and being ready to nest in their Mouths if you did not drive them away they know that they have neither sense nor understanding 5 Though I be not forward to concern the Authority of Scripture to confute senseless and irrational Notions reckoning it a condescension to encounter them with Reason and holding it a disparagement put upon the sacred Oracles to call in their Suffrage where Sense alone can give the decision yet I cannot but here observe that our Lord Jesus Christ even there where he most seemingly speaks in Favour of a Carnal eating of his Flesh viz. John 6. hath in words hugely Emphatical said enough to prevent such a Gross stupid and unreasonable Imagination For besides that not a word of that whole discourse relates to feeding upon Christ in the Eucharist as is acknowledged by the most learned of the Roman Writers we have in the preface to it ver 35.40 and in the conclusion of it ver 63. a key afforded us to unlock the whole and to assure that it is not only to be taken in a spiritual sense but that a fleshly eating of the Son of man would conduce nothing to our Good 'T is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life § 9. Having declared that whatever the Nature and Quality of our Union with Christ and what ever the Medium by which it is accomplished be that it is the Person of Christ which we are United to and having also declared that it implies something more than a meer participating of the same specifick Humane Nature and having just now manifested that it consists not in a mixture of Christs bodily substance through our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Carnal and Corporeal Manner with ours The next thing to be disclaim'd from all room and Interest in the Idea of it is its being a Personal Union And this I am the rather obliged to do because Mr. Sherlock with little regard to Truth and as little consistency with himself tells the World That we place all our hopes of Salvation in a personal Union with Christ. A slander so enormous and so void of any colour by which it may be glossed that to what I should impute our Authors charging it upon us I cannot tell Ignorance it cannot be ascribed to seeing Dr. Jacomb whom Mr. Sherlock hath particularly singled out to oppose in this Theme not only barely disclaims but refutes it and seeing our Author himself acknowledgeth else-where that it is only an Union of Persons and not a Personal Union which we plead for p. 198. 293. And to attribute it to a wilful Falsification were to arraign him of a Crime which I would be loath to judge any Man pretending Justice and Honesty much less a Minister of the Gospel guilty of I would rather therefore think it the result of some deduction unduely and illogically drawn from Innocent principles or that he took it up in discourse from some of those who for their diversion throw out accusations against us at adventure than that he either judged it to be held by us in Terminis or that he should fasten it upon us in meer Malice only that he might the better expose us However this in Modesty may be required of him that the next time he writes he would either acquit the Nonconformists from the guilt of this charge or else enforce it by express quotations extracted out of their Books or by lawful Trains of Argumentation from some of their avowed Doctrines
as may secure the Ends of Government manifest the displicency that is in God to Sin evidence his Truth and Immutability in proceeding according to the Penal Law which in pursuance of his own Attributes Mans Rational Nature and Relation to God he had at first enacted And as upon the supposition fore-going neither the Glory of Gods Attributes hâ—d 〈…〉 nor His Authority 〈…〉 preserved from 〈…〉 interposure of One every 〈…〉 between the Law and us to suffer its Penalty and Justice to us to make atonement So in the interposure of the Son of God there was the Invitation and consent of the Father necessary as well as a voluntary consent and undertaking of the Son Without a Call on the Fathers side the sufferings of Christ would have had no tendency to the Glory of God nor have been pleadable as effectual to Redeem us and without the voluntary consent of the Son he could neither in Justice have suffered penally nor could his sufferings have been propitiatory for Man Christs suffering in our stead and being punished for our sins as well as the whole efficacy of his Death and Merit of his Passion bear upon an antecedent contract between the Father and him And this Agreement which Divines call the Covenant of Redemption is the foundation of that Legal Union between Christ and us To say that Christ suffered only for our advantage and not in our room is plain Socinianism and to say that he bare our punishment without being charged with our guilt is plain Non-sense and to grant these and yet to remonstrate to such a Relation between Him and us as may and ought to be styled a Legal Union is to vent repugnancies in the same breath However I shall endeavour to give some further proof of this Union betwixt Christ and the Elect in a law-Law-sense by unfolding the Notions of Surety and Mediator which our Author hath studied to disable from doing us any service in this Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word which we render Surety occurs but once in the New Testament I do not deny but that it s found thrice in the Apocryphal Writings and that the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to become bound for another is used several times by the 70. viz. Pro. 6 1. 17 18. As also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suretyship occurrs Prov. 22.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is deduced by some from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand or palm of the hand and to import the striking of hands which was an ancient Symbol of one's becoming bound for another So Job 17 3. Put me in Surety with thee who is he that will strike hands with me and Prov. 22.26 Be not thou one of them that strike hands or of them that are Sureties for debts And by the way this may instruct us what to think of the Wit as well as the Modesty of Mr. Sherlock for reflecting on Dr. Jacomb meerly because he had expressed the Federal transaction between the Father and Son by striking of hands though it was only to declare the compact between them by allusion to a rite and ceremony which among men is Symbolical of some pact and agreement Others derive the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth because that of all the Elements hath not only the greatest fixative strength and virtue with reference to other things but is in it self the Immoveable Center of the World 'T is usually rendred by Sponsor fideiussor praes an Undertaker an Engager a Surety And this is acknowledged by all to be the import of it Heb. 7.22 Where the Apostle declares of Christ that he is the Surety of a better Testament or Covenant The main difficulty is whether Christ be the Surety of the Covenant from God to us or the Surety for us to God The Socinians unanimously understand it of his making Faith of and ratifying the Covenant from God to us He is styled the surety of the Covenant says Schlichtingius because he undertakes in the Name and behalf of God to us that all the promises of it shall be made good and performed and not because he undertakes to make satisfaction on our behalf to God And indeed though both Grotius Dr. Hammond go this way yet our Authors paraphrase hath greater affinity in its Phraseology to Schlichtingius's gloss than to either of theirs His words are these To be Surety of the Covenant signifies no more than to confirm and ratifie the Covenant and to undertake for the performance of it that all the promises of the Covenant shall be made good upon such Terms and Conditions as are annexed to them But first Should it be granted that Christ under the Notion of Surety hath ratified confirmed the Covenant yet it will not follow that this is the principal much less the sole reason of the denomination of Sponsor which ascribed to Him That the confirming the Covenant was a subordinate end of his Incarnation and Death many do allow but that it was either the only or the supreme End without renouncing our Bibles cannot be admitted His being Surety of a better Testament is equipollent to his being styled the Mediator of a better Covenant Heb. 8.6 and Mediator of the New Testament Heb. 9.15 And therefore the whole of his Mediatorship not consisting in his publishing the Covenant and undertaking in the behalf of God that the promises of it upon such and such Terms shall be made good no more can his being the Surety of it lye solely in that Besides the Office of a Prophet wherein he transacts from God with us which belongs to Christ as Mediator there also appertains to him the Office of a Priest wherein he acts for us with God But seeing I said that the Notion of Surety Heb. 7.22 is of the same import with the meaning of Mediator Heb. 8.6 9.15 It was because it is his Sacerdotal Office with respect to which he is in both these places so styled Though there be other Offices which as Mediator he exerciseth towards the Church and which other places of Scripture bear Testimony to yet it is his Office of Priest alone that is intended in the Term Mediator in both the fore-going Texts And so the Notions of Surety and Mediator are of the same Latitude otherwise his being Sponsor is a much narrower Notion than his being Mediator 2dly Though the admission of Christs being styled Surety of the Covenant because he hath ratified and confirmed it will not preclude his being Surety also upon other accounts yet I will add that there is nothing of his ratifying the Covenant and undertaking for the performance of it intended in that Term. Now the Reasons that sway me to this belief and consequently to judge Mr. Sherlocks paraphrase not only groundless but perverse are these 1. It shakes Gods infinite Veracity which is the foundation of all Divine Faith We may sometimes question whether such a
Author of the substitution thought fit to appoint This I have the longer insisted upon because our Author either doth not or will not understand those whom he writes against For by what he says against Dr. Jacomb upon this Theme I am apt to think that he conceives himself too Witty to understand what he reads or that he consults the Non-conformists Book only that he may turn them into Burlesque ridicule He First Fathers such a Notion of Christs being our Surety upon Him as neither he nor any man that was in his Witts ever held and then sets himself to exercise his Faculty in opposing it To affirm of us that we make Christ our Sponsor to discharge the Offices of Piety and Virtue Justice and Temperance in our stead as Mr. Sherlock doth is to impute his own mistakes to us that he may the better upbraid us Although we plead the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ against the accusation of the Law yet we contend for a personal Righteousness of our own to answer the demands of the Gospel Our fulfilling the Terms of the New Covenant is the condition entitling us to the Righteousness of Christ by which alone we escape the curse of the Old Though Christ hath merited all that Grace in the strength and virtue of which we repent believe and obey yet it is we our selves that do so and not Christ. And therefore I have nothing further to say to our Author in this Matter but must suffer him to fight with his own shadow Let him but once justifie his charge of our making the Personal Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness or that we maintain Christ to have fulfilled all Righteousness in our stead and I do here assure him that I am not only ready to allow his severest reproofs but to commend and second them But till then I leave him to encounter the Wind-mills of his own Imagination and to hew the posts which his Fancy hath erected in the room of Phanatick Adversaries The Notion of Mediator and the serviceableness thereof to conduct us to the belief of a Legal Union with Christ is that which we must address next to the explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Mediator is a Term in a manner peculiar to the sacred Writers 'T is true he whom Thucydides styles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scholiast calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies one that interposeth between two parties at variance to accommodate and compose their difference The Socinians those declared Enemies of the satisfaction of Christ though they retain the Term as applyed to Him yet they do so enervate the meaning of it as in effect to overthrow what in words they seem to acknowledg For by stating the whole of Mediatorship in his being God's Legate and the Interpreter of the Divine Will to Man they not only supplant his Mediatorial Office through disclayming the principal Reasons and Ends of it but mistake the true and primitive import of the word There may be an internuncius between parties who stand in alliance of friendship but Mediator includes in its idea a supposition of difference among those between whom he interposeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Mediator is not of one saith the Apostle Gal. 3.20 That is as Grotius expounds it There is no need of a Mediator between those that are at agreement Mediation not only implies two distinct parties between whom there is to be an interposure but also that there is a variance to be accommodated Suidas gives us the true import of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he renders it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Peace-maker I do not deny but that Christ's discharge of his Prophetical Office is a part of the exercise of his Mediatorship But as the whole of his Mediatorial undertaking doth not consist in his being Gods Ambassador to declare His Will and the purposes of his Grace concerning us so a variance between God and us lies at the bottom and gave occasion to his comeing forth as a Legate from the Lord to us The whole Tenor of the New Covenant whereof Christ is the Messenger and Apostle importeth a difference between God and us through the violation of a former As the prescription of Repentance to us together with the whole of that Religious Worship which God requires of us argues him reconcileable so it speaks him antecedently offended It is an affront to Reason as well as Scripture to imagine a Mediator without respect to a fore-going difference Some have conceived though as well against as without the countenance either of Reason or Scripture that the Son of God should have been Incarnate though man had persevered in his Integrity but none save the Socinians ever dream'd that any one could come in the quality of a Mediator where there was not a previous difference between those in whose behalf he so appeared That he should be styled a Mediator meerly with regard to his declaring God's Grace and Favour to man together with the duty which God required of us is repugnant to every Text in the Bible where the Term occurrs and that it contradicts the common sense of Mankind in their application and usage of the Word Socinus himself is forced to acknowledge Now as an interposure between two differing parties to compromise a difference is included in the Idea of a Mediator so there are several things intrinsecally belonging to the Mediatory Office and Work of Christ which do not appertain to Mediation simply considered For whereas other Mediations are chiefly managed by way of entreaty and intercession the Office and Work of Christs Mediation consists not only fundamentally but principally in his oblation of himself as a Propitiatory Sacrifice I do not preclude the Intercession of Christ from bearing share in his Mediatory Work I only say that as the whole of his interposure is not to be confined to it so it had in every part and degree of it a respect to and did bear upon his giving himself for a Ransom Not only his Intercession now in Heaven which excludes the gestures of a formal supplicant these being both inconsistent with the state of Glory to which he is exalted and the accomplishment which he hath made of all that was required of Him as the ground and Motive of the Communication of Mercy to us and lyes meerly in the representation of his Meritorious passion and Sacrifice which whither it be at any time accompanied with an articulate voice I do not determine but his intercession here on Earth which as well because the Oblation and Sacrifice that he was afterwards to represent was not then dispatched as in Analogy to the state of Humiliation he was then in behoved to be vocal and in way of formal supplication I say not only the one but the other also respects his Mediatorious passion as their Foundation and as
a company of men owning the Authority of Jesus Christ as Lord and King and agreeing in the faith of such Doctrines as he hath made Salvation dependent upon As we do not outwardly hold the Head nor declare our subjection to Christ as our Law-giver and Ruler but by a belief of those things which he hath made the Essentials and Fundamentals of the Christian Religion so we have no Right of Matriculation into the Church Catholick-visible nor have we any Union with the Members of it but through a belief of these common radical principles These are what we commonly call Fundamental Articles which as I shall not take upon me to enumerate being neither necessary nor may be convenient so they are in themselves both few and plain Only as the Romanists are injurious to Christ and uncharitable to men in confining Christianity within the Circle of their own communion and making the Roman and Catholick Church Terms Equipollent so they are both unreasonable and ridiculous in making the Unity of the Universal Church to consist in the belief of all that they have thought fit to determine necessary to be believed For besides many other things pleadable against this Romish Foundation of the Unity of the Universal Christian Church and the Relative Politick Union of one member with the rest it renders the Unity of the Church and the Union of Christians one with another first impossible secondly absurd Impossible in that most Men can neither allow time nor have they sufficient acquired intellectual abilities either to know what the Roman Church hath defined necessary to be believed nor in what sence she hath proposed and determined them to be assented to Absurd 1 Because a man must believe contradictions before he can be a member of the Catholick Church or have any Union or Communion with Christians That is he must renounce Reason before he is capable of having Faith and devest himself of Man before he can espouse Christian. And the reason is plain because the Romish Church hath defined things to be believed that are repugnant one to another 2. Because what serves to matriculate a person into the Church of Christ and to give him the Relation of an Oneness with all Christians this year may not be sufficient to secure and continue his Union and Relation the next but that without alteration or change in his belief he may cease to be a Member of the Catholick Church For the Church may in that compass of time determine something necessary to be believed concerning which before she had not pronounced But to resume what I was upon as there is through our subjection to Christ by the belief of his Doctrine and obedience of his Laws a Political Union betwixt Christ and Christians so I see nothing to the contrary but that all Christians may in the virtue of their common Faith and Obedience be accounted united amongst themselves I shall not here discourse the reciprocal and mutual duties which we come under the obligation of by this Relation but as they are many and great so were they attended to a check would be given to that wrath and bitterness which is amongst Christians a stop put to that war and persecution which one wageth against another Neither shall I here discourse the Nature and Measures of a particular Church with the foundation and media which ground the Relation of one to another in it but shall only say this that though admission into an instituted particular Church presupposeth whatsoever was necessary to entitle us to a Membership in the Church-Catholick yet there are both diverse things required in order to the latter which were not so in reference to the former and diverse fresh duties emerge from this posterior Relation beyond what we were obliged to by the precedent Having briefly treated these things which ought not to be denyed and shewed my self as liberal to our Author as without trespassing upon my light I can I come now to discourse those things wherein our Author differs from the general sense of Christians and the common opinion of the Universal Church And the first conclusion which I propose in opposition to the Hypothesis that Mr. Sherlock hath erected is this That were the Union of particular Believers with Christ only a Political Relation yet it were immediate to the Person of Christ. Let our Relation to Christ which is styled by the name of Union be whatsoever our Author pleaseth to make it yet it is not the Church that we are primarily united to nor doth our Union terminate there nor is it meerly by means thereof that we are brought into a cohesion with the Lord Jesus This if justified overthrows Mr. Sherlocks two first Conclusions which indeed are but one in import though obtruded upon us for two For to say that those Metaphors which describe the Relation and Union betwixt Christ and Christians do primarily refer to the Christian Church and not to every Individual Christian which is Mr. Sherlock's first conclusion and to say that the Union of particular Christians to Christ is by means of their Union to the Christian Church which is his second Conclusion are in my opinion things coincident The same Metaphors which describe the Relation and Union of Christ with Christians do also display the Relation and Union of Christians with Christ if the Union betwixt Christ and Christians doth primarily refer to the Christian Church the Union of particular Christians with Christ can result from no other Medium nor bear upon any other foundation but the Union with the Christian Church I should not bestow remarks upon the ridiculous and impertinent Battologies of our Author nor sally out into reflections upon what meerly favours of dulness and hebetude but that it may not be amiss to inform the World how undeservedly Mr. Sherlock hath obtain'd the name of an accurate Writer and if it be possible to give check to his briskness in Descanting upon the Writings of others For he may remember what a reflection he hath cast upon Dr. Jacomb meerly for converting a Proposition and saying That the person of the Believer is United to the Person of Christ having before said though not so as to make it a different conclusion That the Person of Christ is United to the person of the Believer But to return to the proof of the Assertion which I have advanced in contradiction to Mr. Sherlocks Notion of our being United to Christ only by our Union and Fellowship with the Christian Church 1. If particular Christians be United to Christ only by virtue of a previous Relation to the Church I would then fain know of Mr. Sherlock how the whole Church comes to be united to the Lord Jesus For I suppose it will not be denyed but that there is a Relation of Oneness between Him and the Church and if any should be so perverse and of so unreasonable a humour as to question it there are Media enough
be rendred more easie and familiar for our minds to contemplate and that our Faith concerning them may be promoted and assisted by their being represented to us under obvious and sensible Images We have also elsewhere intimated that where the Terms are Metaphorick yet the Truths intended and expressed by them are Real And as to that which we are now upon 't is highly remarkable that there being no one kind of Union in Nature which serveth fully to illustrate the Union betwixt Christ and Christians that therefore the Holy Ghost hath sought to enlighten it by Similitudes and Resemblances transferred and borrowed from all sorts of Unions For as Chrysostom well observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ Unites us to himself by many paterns And it is worth taking notice of that having given us a List and Collection of some of them he shuts up the whole with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all these things declare an Union between Christ Believers such an one as will not admit the least thing to come between them Had our Oneness with Christ been only represented by the Relation between a Shepherd and Sheep the Conjunction between a Husband Wife or the habitude between a Prince and his Subjects there might have been some probability in Mr. Sherlocks Notion but being also represented by resemblances drawn from Natural and Artificial Union as the Insition of branches into their root the copulation of Members to their Vital Head the incorporation of concocted Food with our pre-existent Flesh the cohesion of a building by a strong cement to its Foundation and the confederation of the Vital Soul with the Organick Body There must be a sublimer kind of Union between Christ and Christians than meerly what a Political Relation doth import Christ is the Vine we are the Branches He is the Vital Head we the enlivened Members He is the Living Foundation Stone to whom we as lively Stones are cemented I may confidently say that there is not any Analogy between what is originally signified by these Metaphors and the thing aimed at and designed by them if only a Political Relation between Christ and Christians is to be understood The Gospel-Method and Form is the most obscure and improper way in the World of teaching the Truth of things if all these Tropical phrases imply no more but that Christians acknowledg Christ for their Legislator and obey him as their Soveraign Grand expressions and magnificent Terms in Subjects that require Low are an argument of no great discretion in a common Author And to imagine that in the Scripture petty things should be declared in Forms that are august lofty and Emphatical is to think diminutively of the divine Wisdom In a word if there be no more intended under all those Symbolick expressions which we have mentioned but that Believers own the Authority of Jesus Christ by believing his Doctrines and submitting to his Laws then we wonderfully expose the Gospel to contempt by telling the World that under a grandeur of words and Hyperbolical expressions things of a mean and low sense are to be apprehended and conceived I shall only urge this from two other Pattern Unions to which the Scripture in the shadowing forth and illustrating the Oneness between Christ and Christians signally alludes The first of these Symbolical Unions is that of the association and adhesion of the component particles corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and compacted For as the Apostle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing 't is one Loaf of which we partake we are therefore one Body viz. in Christ who participate of that one Loaf 1 Cor. 10.17 Picherellus well observes that Paul doth not say we are One Loaf or Bread though our Translation render it so but that he argues from the coalition of the clusters of the small corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and contexed to the identity and Oneness that intervenes between Christ and Believers And accordingly Beza translates it As the Loaf of which we all eat is one so we partaking of that One Loaf although we be many are but One Body to Christ. Thus also Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What is that Loaf It is the Body of Christ viz. Sacramentally what are those who partake of it They are the Body of Christ not many Bodies but One. For as the many grains of which a Loaf is form'd are so conven'd into one Mass that the distinction and diversity of one from another doth not appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same manner are we conjoyned to Christ and one another in 1 Cor. Hom. 24. The cohesion of the many little parts of Flour of which one and the same Individual Loaf is kneaded and compacted being that which the Apostle declares and illustrates our conjunction with Christ by it plainly follows that our Conjunction to him must be of another kind than what a bare Political Relation doth import The second Pattern Union I shall at present argue from is the Oneness betwixt the Father and Son in the blessed Trinity At that day ye shall know saith Christ to his Disciples that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Joh 1.14 20. I pray that they all be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us c. Joh. 17.21 I readily grant that 't is not an Oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Christians an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Weigelians wildly and blasphemously imagine that is here to be understood Nor doth the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always signifie sameness but is often used to denote similitude and likeness as Matth. 9.48 Luk. 6.36 But yet upon the other hand I deny that 't is meerly an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an Oneness of Will and affection between the Father and Son as the Arians and Socinians pretend that is here meant Nor indeed can there be an Oneness of Will and an universal Consent and Agreement in Design and Affections where there is not previously either a Specifick or a Numerical Oneness of Nature An attendance to other Texts such as Joh. 10.30 Joh. 14. 9 10. 1 Joh. 5.9 where the same phrases occurr will best resolve us what kind of Oneness between the Father and Son we are here to understand And certainly unless we will betray the Gospel and the Faith of Christians into the hands of their worst Enemies 't is an Essential Unity that is there meant Now though we plead not for the same kind of Oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and Son yet we affirm that somthing more sublime than barely a Political Relation between Him and Them is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us 'T is not a sameness of Union between Christ and Christians with that betwixt the Father and Son which the Holy Ghost intends by
we contend for he could not have chosen Terms more plain full and Emphatical to declare it than those by which he hath expressed it in the foregoing places And the same subtilties that are used to persuade the World that what we alledg is not the true meaning of them would equally serve to pervert their sense were that the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them which we affirm There are two passages which I reckon eminently manifestative of the Intimate Conjunction that is between Christ and Christians which I shall at this time borrow some Light from and reflect some upon in reference to the Matter before us The first is that of Paul Heb. 3.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of ou◠confidence stedfast unto the End I know that Modern Interpreters do generally suppose the name Christ to be taken here Metonymically viz. for the benefit of Christs Mediation but I judg that the Apostle intends a great deal more by our partaking of Christ than meerly so The Syriack renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are mingled i. e. united to Christ. Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is it to be partakers of Christ He and we are made One He the Head we the Body Coheirs and Incorporated with Him And accordingly he makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of our confidence to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith by which says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are begotten and consubstantiated with him i. e. intimately and truly United to Him That an Union with Christ by some tye and ligature beyond what a bare owning of his Authority denotes is here intended in our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being made partakers of Christ the use of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the same Apostle from whence the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes induceth me to believe When Paul would express Christs participating of the Humane Nature or of Flesh and Blood he doth it in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems clearly to conduct us to the meaning of the expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we are now upon As he became no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by the assumption of our Nature into Union with his Divine person so we do no otherwise become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by participation of the same spirit that inhabited the Humane Nature of Christ which is the Bond and Medium of that Union which we plead for between Christ and Christians The other expression which I judg declarative of a higher Union between Christ and us than what a Political Relation doth imply is his being styled our Life Life is said to be in Christ not only formally as in its subject but causally as in its fountain Nor is he only called the Word of Life and the Prince of Life but he is expresly said to be our Life Col. 3.4 And Paul witnesseth of himself that he lived through Christs living in Him Gal. 2.20 Now that he should be styled our Life meerly with reference to his bringing Life and Immortality to light in the Gospel is too jejune a sense to sustain the weight of the Phrase I do not deny but that the Gospel is the Word of Life and that it is so styled in the Scripture Nor do I bring into debate Christs being in a proper and eminent sense the alone Author as well as the Subject of it Only I affirm that the making his revealing the Gospel which discovers the Glad Tidings of Life and the Terms of it to be the only reason of the Appellation given to him which we are now discoursing is to impose a Notion upon the expression which is too scanty and narrow to answer the Majesty and Grandeur of it And as the Context even to any who do but superficially view it will not admit this to be its full import so the Apostles expression of Christs living in him which seems a commentary and paraphrase upon it doth plainly overthrow this from being the sense of it Nor will it suffice to say that he is our Life in a Moral sense because our Life of Grace here and of Glory hereafter are owing to the Sacrafice of his Death as their procuring cause 'T is true that both our Holiness and Happiness respect Christs Meritorious Life and Death as their price but yet this neither comes up to the Loftiness nor exhausts the fulness of that expression He is our Life much less is there any thing in this Gloss that bears affinity to his living in us The only sense which bears a proportion to the Words is this That as Natural life proceeds from and must be ascribed to the Soul as its spring principle so all spiritual Life is owing to Christ as immediately acting us by his quickning Spirit Of our selves saith the Learned Bishop Reynolds we are without strength without love without life no power no liking no possibility to do good nor any principle of Holiness or Obedience in us 'T is Christ that strengthens us that wins us that quickens us by his Spirit to his Service Christ is the Principle and Fountain of Holiness as the Head is of sense or motion And this he maketh to be one eminent part of the meaning of that place He that hath the Son hath Life 1 Joh. 5.12 though Mr. Sherlock is not only pleased to tell us that it signifies no such thing but treats those who do so paraphrase it with words full of contempt and scorn But to resume what I was upon forasmuch as no Vital Principle doth or can operate but as it is united to the subject that is to be quickned by it Christ being then the Principle of our spiritual life there must be an Union of Christ with us as the spring and foundation of his Influence upon us No one thing can be supposed the principle and source of life to another without admitting a previous Union between them The third and last Argument whereby Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis of a Political Union may be combated and if I mistake not utterly defeated is levied from the Vinculum and Bond by which the Scripture reports Christ and Believers to be copulated and brought into cohesion one with another As every Union implies such a Relation in the virtue whereof there resulteth an Oneness between the connected Extremes so as the Nature and Quality of the Unitive Principle or Cement is such is the Genius of the Union it self and of the oneness that thereupon emergeth Now by consulting the Scripture which alone ought to regulate and bound our conceptions in the Matter before us we find the Spirit to be the Vital Ligature of the conjunction and coherence that is between Christ and Christians The very Spirit that resides in Christ being communicated to us we do thereby in a secret but sublime and real manner become knit and ligu'd
together Animation by one Spirit is both a nobler and firmer way of Union than adhesion even by continuity of parts is Now by one Spirit we are all Baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12.13 And hereby we know that we dwell in Him and He in us namely by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 Joh. 4 13. Hence as upon the one hand If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 So upon the other hand He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 I know that Mr. Sherlock glosseth both these Texts of our having the same temper and disposition of mind which Christ had but most ignorantly as well as falsly 'T is true such a temper and disposition of Mind as Christ had is the fruit and effect of the Spirit of Christ but it is no more the Spirit of Christ it self than an effect is its own cause Our having the Spirit of Christ is assigned as the cause of our having a Spiritual temper of mind and I hope our Author will admit a cause and its effect to be distinct and different things The Spirit which we are said to have is the very same Spirit by which Christ will at last quicken our Mortal Bodies and I suppose this will not be the produce of any temper or disposition of mind of ours In a word the whole context lyes in a direct repugnancy to our Authors paraphrase of Rom. 8.9 For that Hypothetical proposition If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his is an inference from the fore-going words if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you And this Spirit of Christ is said to be the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the Dead v. 11. And to have the Spirit of Christ is the same with being led with the Spirit of God v. 14. This Spirit of Christ which Believers are said to have is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Spirit it self that beareth witness with our Spirits that we are the Children of God v. 16. and the Spirit that helpeth our Infirmities the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that maketh intercession for us v. 26. All which lyes in a direct contradiction to Mr. Sherlocks Gloss. And whereas our Author objects that what the Apostle calls the having the Spirit of Christ v. 9. he expresseth by if Christ be in you v. 10. and that this is no more than our being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Christ I reply that though the having the Spirit of Christ and Christs being in a Person be coincident yet 't is most false that we are to understand no more by Christ in you v. 10. but a being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Him And my reason is because the Apostle makes Christs being in them the ground principle and cause of their minds being connaturalized to Virtue and Goodness for that is the import of those words but the Spirit is Life i. e. the inward man is quickened and renewed and surely to establish an Identity betwixt Causes and their Effects is to impeach the first Principles of Science And as for our Authors exposition of 1 Cor. 6.17 namely That He who is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit signifies no more but our having the same temper of mind which Christ had it is not only too dimininutive and scanty a sense to bear a proportion to the words but it is plainly contradictory to the scope of the Text. For not to insist upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render joyned though it be a very emphatical Term importing no less than such a near and close conjunction between Christ and Christians as is between things which are strongly cemented and glewed together Nor yet to dwell upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one Spirit though it be the highest phrase in the stores and treasuries of language to express an intimous conjunction by I shall only take notice that the Apostle having asserted v. 15. That our Bodies are the Members of Christ and having subjoyned by way of inference from thence that we ought therefore by no means to take the Members of Christ and to make them the Members of an Harlot He gives this reason for it v. 16. because whosoever doth so becomes One Body with her and so cannot be One with Christ those two lying in a direct repugnancy the one to the other So that now I argue if the Union betwixt a Man and an Harlot in the virtue of which they are One Body import more then meerly a likeness of Temper and Moral Dispositions as surely it doth forasmuch as there may be a similitude in sensual propensions and inclinations where the becoming One Flesh through Carnal Conjunction interposeth not Much more doth a Believers being One Spirit with the Lord imply a higher kind of Union than an affinity of Dispositions For this being it which the Apostle setteth in opposition to the former it must at least bear a proportion to it in respect of neerness of cohesion although through being compared to it as an oppositum it can have no agreement with it in its Principles Bonds and Media I shall only add that the Affinity between our Authors paraphrase and that of a certain Socinian upon the place gives me some ground to suspect whence our Author imbib'd the Gloss which he would obtrude upon us But to resume what I was upon namely that the Spirit being the Vinculum and Ligament by which we are united to Christ our cohesion therefore to Him must be somthing more than a Political Relation That Believers are inhabited and actuated by the Spirit is a Truth which the Scripture gives Testimony to in an hundred places Nor is he only present in the Hearts of Believers in respect of that New Creature Divine Nature and Spiritual Being which he hath wrought in them but even immediately also Thus the Ancients in a manner unanimously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit is not only in Believers now as heretofore meerly by his operations but he exists and dwells in them as it were after a substantial manner saith Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knits us to himself by a kind of Immediate contact while he maketh us partakers of the Divine Nature saith Cyrillus Alexandrinus Non per gratiam visitationis operationis sed per ipsam praesentiam majestatis atque in vasa non jam odor balsami sed ipsa substantia sacri defluxit unguenti saith Austin He who desires to know the Harmony and agreement as well as the sense of the Fathers in this matter may consult Petavius who treats it at large And if any have a mind to understand the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning it they may advise with Ruiz de Trinitate d. 109. Sect. 7. Vasq. 1.2 d. 205. Valentia 1.2 d. 8.
Scripture bears witness to it in a thousand places nor can the contrary Opinion be espoused and asserted without a Virtual renouncing the Gospel 6thly 'T is from by and through Jesus Christ as Mediator that the Spirit whether it be with respect to his Immediate seisure of us and dwelling in us or with reference to any of his saving operations is given to and bestowed upon us As God never dispensed any Grace to the Sons of Adam but in and by the person of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head of the Church so the Communion of the Spirit who is our Immediate Sanctifier is from and through Christ. His Spirit he is by Him he is promised His bodily absence He supplies and of His fulness He takes and communicates to us Ye have received an Unction from the Holy One saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 2.20 Though the giving the Spirit be ascribed to the Father as He with whom the Authoritative disposure and appointment of all Divine extrinsick operations lodg yet with respect to Immediate Mission his sending is attributed to Christ whose Spirit upon this account as well as others He is called Hence the Ancients style him Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ and Vis Vicaria the power by which he is present to our souls Spiritus nos Christo confibulat the Spirit buttons us to Christ that I may use Tertullian's phrase The Holy Ghost supplies Christ's place here in the World and through him the Lord Jesus Christ is present with his Church till the consummation of all things and by Him he dwells and walks in his People The Spirit is Christs purchase for his People and his Donative to them The Holy Spirit was given to Christ as a reward of his Obedience and Death to be by him communicated to men Jesus Christ as Mediator is Authorised by the Father to dispense Grace to whom he will 7ly Through the communication of the Spirit from Christ to us and immediately upon his taking the possession of us the Nature of Christ the Seed of God and a vital living principle comes to be formed in us For though the Donation of the Spirit to us and his possessing of us precede the Geniture of the New Man in priority of Nature forasmuch as the Cause must be conceived before the Effect yet the inhabitation of the Spirit and the production of a New Creature and spiritual Being in us are perfectly simultaneous as to time Now through the formation of this Seed of God in us we become partakers of the same spiritual Nature that Christ was We do hereby not only beat the Image of the Heavenly but are changed into the same Image This is Christ formed in us And this New Spiritual Being and Internal power becoming incorporated and made One with our souls it is as a Vital Form in us And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth by transforming the soul attemper it to universal Obedience so one of its first operations is an exercise of Faith upon Jesus Christ. And this being that which entitles us in a peculiar manner to fresh communications of Grace and supplies of the Spirit of Jesus as well as that which interests us in his meritorious Righteousness we are therefore not only said to live by Faith but Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by it Thus by the guidance and conduct of Scripture we are by short steps and Regular Ratiocinations arrived at such an Idea and Notion of Believers Union with Christ as is both plain in it self and easie to be understood providing that men be not obstinate against Evidence Nor have I wrested or suborned any Sacred passage to give Testimony in this cause all I have made use of being such as voluntarily offer themselves without any force or distortion put upon them And for such as are mustred against us I have either gain'd them back to our side or shewed that their Testimony doth no ways oppose what we plead for Were I now sure that my Reader would not tire I might draw out this discourse to a greater length but as I have not the confidence to entertain Guests longer than I can afford them entertainment worthy of them so I am not so disingenuous as to treat men with words when thoughts and material remarques fail If after all this which I have said any shall still be found quarrelling at the Unintelligibleness of Believers Union with Christ I think we may justly either complain of their perverseness or blame their Hebetude To such as are not refractory to Scripture-Light and to the easie deductions which our Intellectual Faculties in their Rational exercise do draw from Revelation there is enough said to make it understood as for others I leave them to the punishment of their own obstinacy Instead therefore of filling up pages by producing Testimonies of Ancient Modern Divines or of calling in the Authority of the Church of England I shall shut up all with a few passages out of Dr. Patrick's Mensa Mystica And this I the rather do being inform'd that the Opinion of this Dr. weighs more with Mr. Sherlock than either the Canon of a Convocation or the Decree of a General Council The Passages with which much of what I have delivered is not only coincident in sense but in words are these As the highest and closest Union is that which is made by one Spirit and Life moving in the whole so the Union between Christ and his Members is by one Life As things at the greatest distance may be United by one Spirit of Life actuating them both so may Christ and we though we enjoy not his bodily presence Although Christ in regard of his corporal presence be in the Heavens which must receive him untill the time of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 Yet he is here with us always even to the end of the World Math. 28.20 in regard of his holy Spirit working in us By this he is sensible of all our needs and by the Vital Influences of it in every part he joynes the whole Body fitly together so that he and it make one Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 And that this Union is wrought by the Spirit which every true Christian hath dwelling in him 1 Cor. 6.17 Rom. 8.9 the next v. 13. will tell you we are Baptised into one Body by one Spirit This Spirit is always needful being that which maintains our life It is the very bond and ligament that tyes us to Christ. For our Union is not only such a Moral Union as is between Husband and Wife which is made by love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a Natural Union as is between Head and Members the Vine and Branches which is made by One Spirit or Life dwelling in the whole FINIS ERRATA I find upon a Review of these Sheets that several Errors and mistakes and those of divers kinds have crept into them Some