〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the equivalent or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Consequence it may be truly said to be there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in effect And though some Conclusions lye more connected with the principles from which they are deduced than others yet they are both equally true providing the principles be so whence they are inferred Let the trains of Ratiocination be shorter or longer nothing can flow from Truth but Truth only there is more difficulty in the deduction and more liableness to mistake in the illation of the latter than the former And accordingly we desire no man to assent to the thing concluded till he have examined or at lest may and be satisfied that there is nothing false and sophistical in the Way and Manner of its deducement Though our understandings be in some cases subject to mistake yet there is no ground to suppose that they universally do so Though our Faculties be fallible in their Ratiocinations yet there are Connate Notions and Congenite Criteria by which we may discern when they deceive us and when not There are certain Rules which the universal Reason of mankind hath agree'd on as the Test and Standard to judge of legitimate deductions by and of those we have as infallible certainty as that it is day when the Sun is in the Meridian As we discern pure Mettal from embased by bringing it to the touchstone so we discern regular Consequences from Sophistical by incontested Maximes To argue agagainst the use of Reason in drawing Conclusions from undoubted Principles precludes the whole service of the Rational Faculty and lead's to the worst of Scepticism Whosoever impeacheth the fitness of our understandings to draw conclusions from evident Articles of Revelation doth equally endite them of ineptitude to deduce Inferences from first Maximes of Natural Light Scripture principles are as certain as any in Philosophy and they lye in the same Habitudes of congruity and incongruity to other things that first Principles of Science do therefore if we may not argue from those I see no reason why it should be thought lawful to argue from these Nor are we otherwise secure in any Ratiocinations of Philosophy no more than Theologie unless God had given us a Logick to instruct us in the Rules of Argumentation as he hath given us the Scripture to inform us in matters of Faith and Obedience In a word we must either implicitely resign our selves to the dictates of every one that accosteth us or we must as brutishly reject them unless there be both a Rule to which we may apply and by which we may try them some Certain Measures by which we may discern whether we have rightly commensurated and examined them in Order to discerning what of them is false and what is true Now though Reason be the instrument of deducing Conclusions from Principles of Faith yet it is not the foundation and ground on which we believe and assent to the Truths so deduced Nor doth Reason judg of the Verity of the Conclusion but only of the regularity of the deduction of it When an Architect applieth his line or square to a Building they only are the Rule by which he judgeth of the Symmetry of his Work but it is his eye that serveth him to discern how the Work agrees to the Rule 'T is one thing as Austin saith to know the truth of propositions and another to understand the rules of Connexion and Laws of Argumentation And as Camero says to determine of the goodness of a Conclusion or its regular illation from its premisses is the Work of Reason and that according to the Rules of Logick which is the same in Theologie as in Natural Phylosophy or in Mathematicks but to determine of the Truth of the Conclusion is the Work of Faith through the Testimony of the Word As a Demonstration in Geometrie doth not constitute that a Truth which was not one before but only evidenceth it to the Mind So we do not believe a Conclusion to be an Article of Faith upon the formal Reason of its deduction but upon the Authority of God in the Bible Argumentation serves only to show that God hath said it As Computation in Arithmetick doth not constitute the Total of the lesser Numbers but only collects and adjusts it so Ratiocination from Principles of Revelation doth not make a Conclusion to be the Word of God but only sheweth that it is so Nor is there any weight in that exception that in all Conclusions of this Nature one of the Premisses only is of Revelation the other being fetcht either from Reason Sence or Experience For as that act which we could not have exerted without the assistance and influence of a supernatural subjective Principle is rightly stiled a Supernatural act though it be Elicited by our Nutural Faculties So every Conclusion which we arrive at the knowledg of through the assistance and conduct of Revelation is rightly stiled a Conclusion of Faith and esteemed a part of Revelation though a proposition of another kind be assumed to help us in the deduction of it As a Child is Federally holy wheresoever one of the Parents is a Believer though the other remain in the mean time an Infidel so from the Conjunction of two Propositions whereof the one is of Faith there results a Conclusion of Faith though the other proposition be drawn only from principles of Reason or Evidence of Sense All men acknowledg that particulars are included in Universals and if the Universal be of Revelation the several particulars involved in it are Revealed also For as much then as there is not one Conclusion which we deduce from Principles of Faith that may not be inferred by some Syllogisme or other in the first Figure where the major Proposition is always Universal and the Conclusion is either contained in it as a Species or as a particular it naturally follows that the Major being of Divine Revelation and an Object of Faith the Conclusion must be esteemed revealed and admitted for an Object of Faith also While the subject of the Conclusion is included in the Middle Term which is the subject of the Major proposition and the Predicate of both is the same there is nothing more plain and evident than that if the Major proposition be of Revelation and to be believed with a Divine Faith the Conclusion is so likewise Yea were it so that the Minor proposition were only revealed in the Scripture yet while the Major which is fetcht from some incontested Maxime of Reason contains either the whole or a part of the Definition or the Correlate or the Essential property or the Contradictory or the Contrary of the Predicate of the Assumption which is from Scripture one of which it always doth the Conclusion must needs be reck'ned as a part of Scripture and submitted to in the same manner as we do to that which carries the
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
sensual Appetites clogg'd and hindred by the distemperature of indisposed Organs not to mention the prepossessions and anticipations of Infancy the prejudices of Education with the deceits and impositions we are liable to by the delusion of external Objects for such the World is filled with since disorder and confusion arrested it However Reason considered thus namely as denoting the rational Faculty though even corrupted by the Fall is First That which disposeth and adapteth us for converse with objects of Revelation As the Light of the Sun had been useless to us had we not enjoy'd an Organ suited to receive the impression of its Beams so all supernatural Revelation had been both impertinent and superfluous were we not endow'd with Faculties fitted to converse with it God in all his Transactions with us supposeth us Rational and he is a degree worse than an Enthusiast who affirm's that the way to be a Christian is first to be a Brute Revelation doth not cassate the use of our Intellectual Powers but supposeth them and by enriching them with discoveries which they could not by their own search have arrived at it perfects them and they plainly acquiesce that these are the things they sought for but could not find There neither is nor can be any thing in Divine Revelation that overthrow's the rational Faculty or crosseth it in its Regular and Due Exercise There is a Spirit in Man And the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding Job 32.8 For as Austin saith Possâ— recipere fidem est Naturae licet actu credere sit Gratiae De praedest Sanct. cap. 5. Both external Revelation and internal Illumination presuppose us to be Rational and through the want of a Faculty that is so Brutes are incapable both of the one and the other Secondly Reason taken for the intellectual Faculty or the Principle of Apprehension Judgment and Ratiocination is both the instrument whereby we certainly discern the grounds and motives of Faith and the vital Principle of the Act it self Faith is not only an Elicit act of our minds but besides there can be no act of Faith without a previous exercise of our Intellects about the things to be believed Faith being nothing but an unwavering assent to some Doctrine upon the account of a divine Testimony our Reason must be antecedently perswaded that the Testimony is Divine before it can assent to the Doctrine upon the Authority and Veracity of the Revealer Though in many things we can give no Reason for what is believed distinct from Divine Testimony yet we ought to be always able to give a Reason for the Authentickness and the Divinity of the Testimony For as Austin saith Quod intelligimus aliquid rationi debemus quod autem credimus auctoritati Lib. de utilit Credendi cap. XI The Authority of God in the Scripture is the formal reason of Assent to such and such Doctrines but it is by the means and exercise of our intellectual Faculties that we come to understand such a Declaration to proceed from God and that these things are the sense of such and such Propositions Thus the Understanding of Man is the Candle of the Lord resolving us in the Authentickness and Sense of Revelation though Faith be built upon the Credit only of the Revealer To this purpose is that of Maximus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Should I neglect the Scripture Whence should I have Knowledge Should I relinquish Reason How should I have Faith Secondly Reason is taken Metonymically for common Maxims or principles whose Truth is inviolable And these are 1. Such as be so connate to Sense and Reason that upon their bare Representation they are universally assented to These Principles are not borrowed from Reason as their first Spring and Original but having their Root in the nature of God and Essences of Things are only discerned by the Rational mind and Intellect I do not say that we are brought forth with a List and Scroll of Axioms 〈◊〉 Imprinted upon our Faculties 〈◊〉 that we are furnished with such Powers upon the first Exercise of which about such things without any Harangues of Discourse or previous Ratiocinations we cannot without doing Violence to our Rational Nature but pay them an Assent Those Truths whether Logical Moral Physical or Mathematical Whether General because of their Universal Influence upon all Disciplines or Particular from their being confined in their Use to some one Science are justly stiled Natural being Founded in the Nature of God the Essences of things and the intrinsecal Rectitude of the Rational Faculty These are the Foundations and Measures of all Science Knowledge and Discourse being in themselves certain and incontestable Nor is there any other proof to be Assigned of them besides their Consonancy to the Rational Faculty to which they are centrally co-united And forasmuch as all men paâ—take of the same Reasonable Nature the certainty of these Principles is Universal What is disconvenient to the Essential Nature of one Man being so to the Nature of another nor is it possible to dissent from them without doing Contempt to our Faculties Of this sort are these That a Thing cannot at the same time be and not be That every Effect supposeth it's cause and many such like Nor doth Theology borrow these from Philosophy but they are pre-supposed to both and Science as well as Faith builds upon them 2 dly There are others whose Truth and Certainty are not understood nor do they win our Assent upon their first and naked Representation but they are discovered by a Chain of Ratiocinations and their Verity established by a Harangue of Inductions These are stiled Acquired Principles being by an Industrious Exercise of the Discursive Faculty raised and superstructed upon the former Nor are they less True than the other though more Remote from the first View of our Understandings Whatsoever is rightly deduced from Unquestionable Premisses hath the same stamp of Truth upon it that the Principles have from which it is inferred Where there is a just Connexion between Conclusions and Principles the latter cannot be denied without questioning the former from which they are fetch 't The Deduction of these by regular Trayns of Argumentation is the work of a Philosopher and these being Systematically digested constitute Philosophy So far then as Philosophy includes only Conclusions duly inferred from Unquestionable Principles so far there is not only a Friendly Alliance between it and Divinity but a wonderful Subserviency in it to Faith Nor is any thing true in Philosophy that is not so in Theology For as Aristotle sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whatsoever is true must be Consentaneous to all that is so lib. 1. Prior. Analyt cap. 32. And as he adds elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Truth is consentient to Truth lib. 1. Ethic. cap. 8. What our Souls in the Regular Exercise of Reason instruct us in is as much the Voyce of God to us as any Revelation he vouchsafeth us
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
express and explicite Authority of God upon it For whosoever explicitely reveal's the thing defined reveals in effect all those things which we have enumerated concerning it While the Scripture for example assureth us that Christ is a man it doth at the same time assure us that he is a Rational Creature and by telling us that he is a man it doth in effect tell us that he is not an Angel And however some late Papists talk in this Matter not to speak of others that they may shift the Protestant Arguments which they cannot Answer Yet I am sure the most learned that ever espoused the Romane Cause are at an agreement with us in this point That is an Article of Faith says Bellarmine which God hath either revealed by the Prophets and Apostles or which may be evidently inferred from thence Smiglesius against Mascorovius proclaims it ridiculous to think otherwise That is not only a part of the Christian Doctrine which is expressly revealed by the Apostles but whatsoever can be evidently deduced thence though one of the propositions going to the deducement of it have its certainty only in Natural Light saith Canus And whereas they say that Conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem the Conclusion receives it specification and is denominated from the weakest proposition I reply 1 Were that Logical Maxime to be taken in the universal Latitude which they affix to it they are yet so far from gaining any thing thereby that their whole Cause in this Matter is supplanted For if both Propositions be evidently true their Dogm's must be evidently false seeing the Conclusions that lye in repugnancy to them are our Enemies being Judges deduced from true propositions God is as much the Author of the Rational Faculty in its Regular Exercise as of Scripture and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be persuaded by God and to be persuaded by Right Reason is one and the same thing 2. That proposition in a Philosophical sense is the weakest which is remotest from self evidence and therefore where there are two premisses whereof the one hath no other Evidence but what it borrows from the Authority of the Infallible Revealer the other in the mean time havâ—ng â—ts Evidence from a light residing in it self and from its Congruity to the Essential Rectitude of our Intellectual Faculties if the Conclusion follow the fortune of the weaker proposition it must be a Conclusion of Faith and not of Science For though the Certitude of Faith be not only equal but transcendent to the Certitude of Reason Sense and Experience 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. Yet the Evidence of Reason and Sense is with respect to the Object assented to the habitude it stands in to us beyond the Evidence of Faith 2 Cor. 5. â— 1 1 Cor. 13.12 Nor do the School men only allow a proposition grounded on an Axiome of Reason to be more evident than a proposition founded only on Revelation but withal not a few of the Learned'st Romanists both School-men and others will have the former to be also more Certain at least quo ad nos than the latter See Bellarm lib. 3. de justifiâ— cap. 2. Durand in 3. d. 23. quest 7. Compt. Tom. poster disp 9. 3. The forementioned Logical Axiome referrs only to the Quantity and Quality of the premisses and not to any other affections incident to them If one of the Premisses be Negative the Conclusion in the virtue of the alledged Maxâ—me must be Negative also or if one of the propositions be a particular nothing beyond a particular can be concluded though the other be an Universal And howsoever in some cases it may hold further yet this and no more was the intendment of the first establishers of it Nor indeed is it admittable in the full Latitude which the Terms seem to bear seeing of two propositions whereof the one only is true there may follow sometimes a Conclusion that is true though the other proposition be in the mean time palpably false But ere I undertake the probation of the thing it self two or three things must be necessarily premised 1. That all Fundamental Articles are contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters and syllables in the Scripture Nor is there any thing necessary in order to our assent to them but that we understand the Terms of the Enunciations in which they are delivered 'T is true there are Terms and Phrases made use of to declare them unto the edification of Believers to secure the Minds of men from undue apprehensions of them that are not in the Scripture but this is no more than what is needful in the explaining of all Divine Truths yea all Moral Duties For example That there is One God and that the Father is this one God and that the Son is so also and the Holy Ghost likewise is declared in many express Testimonies in the Bible but in the Explication of this Doctrine and in the application of it to the Faith and Edification of Believers namely how God is One in respect of his Nature and Essence how being Father Son and Holy Ghost He subsists in these three distinct Persons what are their mutual respects to each other and what are the incommunicable Properties in the manner of their subsistence by which they are distinguished the One from the other there are such woâ—ds and phrases made use of as are not literally and syllabically contained in the Scripture but teach no other thing but what is there revealed 2. That these very Fundamental Articles may be also confirmed by consequences and logical deductions from express literal Testimonies nor do probations of this nature alter or enervate the quality of them The thing is in it self the same though the method of proof be varied For example the Doctrine of the Trinity is equally a Fundamental whether we prove it from express Texts or by consequences from literal Testimonies or by its connexion with the whole Systeme of the Gospel the Incarnation of the Son of God the Oeconomy of Redemption c. 3. That though all Fundamentals be in Terminis expressed in the Scripture that yet these very Truths do include others in them which cannot be proved but by Consequences For instance That God is a Spâ—rit is revealed in so many letters and syllables in the Bible but that therefore he hath not hands nor feet nor any corporeal members can only be concluded by way of Consequence In lâ—ke manner the Incarnation of the Son of God that the Word was made Flesh is expresly taught in the Scripture but yet there are many things predicable of the Word Incarnate which cannot be otherwise demonstrated but by Consequences and by borrowing some proposition or other from principles of Natural light Now these things being premised the lawfulness of arguing from express Scripture-Truths by deduction of Conclusions which though they be not mentioned in the Bible in letters and syllables are
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
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
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
imports an Unitive action exerted either towards both or at least one of the Extremes to be united In the Second it denotes the effect or product of the unitive Action in the Extreme or Extrem's towards which it was put forth And in the Third it signifies a State of Oneness emerging upon the whole betwixt the Exrreme's Something Analogous to all these occurs in most if not in all Unions properly so called And this is what I shall offer in reference to the fixing of the general Notion of Union But whereas now upon the one Hand the unintelligibleness of the Union of Believers with the Person of Christ is that which our Author chiefly pleads as the Motive and Inducement of disclaiming it being as he phraseth it a Riddle and Mystery which no body can understand And whereas upon the other Hand he tells us That there is nothing more easy to be understood than our Union and Communion with Christ and that it had certainly continued so had not some men undertook to explain it I must crave leave in the First place to ask him whether he will renounce every other Union the manner and Mode of which he cannot intelligibly unfold and then Secondly Whether there be any danger or absurdity in supposing this Union which the Apostle styles a Mystery Eph. 5.32 to be as incomprehensible as the connexion betwixt the parts of Matter in a continuous Body or the Union betwixt the rational Soul and the Humane Body And seeing the finding our selves non-plust in the explicating common Unions may serve to teach us modesty in our Intellectual converse with Unions of a sublimer Nature and the haveing our Reasons baffled by the obvious Phaenomena of Nature may possess us with a Reverence towards Objects of Faith I shall a little discourse the unaccountableness of the Quality and manner of other Unions Sense as well as Reason convince us of the Cohesion of the parts of Matter in a continuous Body yet when we arrive to enquire how they come to be connected our Understandings hang their Wings and force us at least so far to subscribe to the Pyrrhonian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Incomprehension Though we be fully ascertain'd of the continuity of one part of matter with another yet by what glue or cement they come to be lock't together no Hypothesis hitherto erected can resolve us Some despairing to unty the knot endeavour to cut it And therefore deny all parts in any Bulk till they are made by Division But First That cannot be supposed Divisible in which there are not antecedent parts into which it may be divided To affirm That to be Divisible into parts which hath no parts at all is the first-born of Absurdities They may as well say that a thing may be separated from it self as that there may be a separation made where there were not previous parts 2. To imagine Bulk without distinct parts going to the Composition of it is a plain Contradiction Continuum in its very idea is nothing but a coalition of plurality of parts 3. If they be not parts antecedently to Separation they were never so because after Disunion each of them is an entire Suppositum or Bluk 4. Contradictory predicates may be affirmed of them while in composition and therefore they must be distinct parts for different wholes they are not But to dismiss this Opinion which doth not resolve the difficulty but destroy the subject of it Others 2 ly betake themselves to indivisible continuant points which as they assert distinct from the constituent parts so they affirm one part to be clasp'd and button'd to another by them But those Peripatetick fooleries of Continuative and Terminative Points distinct from ingredient Compositive parts deserve rather to be hissed off the Philosophick Stage than to be Calmly and Rationally refuted Nor will I be so prodigal of Time or words as to muster an Argument against them save that were they admitted we are still at a loss how they themselves come to be connected with their Contiguous parts or how one part can be knit and fastned by them to another without penetration or the coexistence of more Materials than one in the same place And notwithstanding what a late Learned Person hath said I still judg Penetration not only a greater absurdity than Inaâ—ity but the rudest Non-sense and boldest contradiction that can obtrude it self upon the Rational Mind Others 3 dly have recourse to Hooks and fork'd Corners and will have one part of Matter to be held fast by another through an involution of their Angles But 1 the Coherence of the parts of these Harpaginous Nooks will still remain lyable to the same difficulty And to retreat to new Angles by which the parts of the first hooks are knit together is only to avoid the Objection but not to solve it And our Reason instead of being satisfied comes only to be lost in an Infinite Circle Yea the very allowing an infinite progress without conducting us to something where our understandings can at last acquiesce is not only to renounce the Name of Philosophers but to destroy the End of Philosophy 2 It will still remain of difficult conception how the first Indivisibles whereof according to the Hypothesis beforementioned every Bulk is originally constituted compounded do hang together For though those Atoms which are the Immediate Ingredients of the composition of Bodies should be allowed to consist of parts yet Originally they consist of and are in our conceptions of them ultimately resolved into Mathematical Indivisibles and concerning the indiscerptible Cohesion of them there is no satisfaction afforded by the present Hypothesis Now if the coherence of the parts of Atoms and Minute Bodies be once refunded into the force and Quality of Nature I see not why the continuity of the parts of more bulky compounds should not be ascribed to the same principle Nor 4. doth the Hypothesis of Des-Cartes of the parts of Matter being lock't together meerly by Juxtaposition Rest adjust it self to our Reason or Sense in this Matter For 1 there may be juxta-position and Rest where there is no continuity as in a heap of stones or wheat as well as in two polished Marbles that lye contiguous to one another 2 There may be Motion where is no dissolution of the cohesion of parts as is evident even to Sense in viscous fluids the like might be demonstrated not only of Solids that are Tensile and Ductile but of others also 3 There are degrees of cohesion the parts of Matter being more indiscerptibly clasp'd together in some Bodies than in others whereas there are no degrees of Intenseness in Rest the least Motion being repugnant to it Now upon the whole if our assent to the Continuity and Adhesion of one part of Matter to another remain firm and unshaken notwithstanding the difficulties that encounter us about the Manner of it And though there be not yet any Philosophick Hypothesis that
is the same pleasure to me to have my Notions confuted when unsound as it is to be restored to health when I have been sick § 8. Having briefly viewed the serviceableness of Reason as to the demonstrating the Divinity of the Scripture we may ere we make any further proceed infer and conclude from hence its Authority For upon its Divine Original doth its Authority bear The formal reason of our submitting our Hearts and Consciences to the Bible is Gods speaking in it The Authority of God is his right to command and require Obedience and it is founded not only in the supereminence of his Nature but his Relation to us as our maker Having made us Rational Creatures capable of moral Government he may accordingly Rule us by Laws backt with promises and threatnings I acknowledg that de facto men may withdraw themselves from under the Authority of God and may deny him Obedience but that militates nothing against the Right that is vested in Him of ruling them nor the obligation that they are under of obeying him Now the Authority of the Scripture ariseth from its being Gods Word and his speaking in it Nor are the most momentous Reasons of that significancy to determine our Assent as the Testimony of a person of infinite Power Wisdom Goodness and Truth What greater Assurance can we have to ascertain our belief than that the affirmer is infinitely Wise and cannot be deceived himself and infinitely Good and cannot deceive others To say as the Papists do that the Scripture hath its Authority in se in its self from its self but that it hath its Authority quoad nos with respect to us from the Testimony of the Church is to talk without either Reason or sense For 1 Authority being a Relative Term nothing can have Authority in it self which hath it not in respect of others Nothing is a Law properly but what is a Law to some It is impossible to suppose an actual Right in any to Command without supposing an obligation in some to obey If the Scripture therefore have no Authority from it self in respect of us it neither hath nor can have any Authority in its self at all 2 If the Scripture have no Authority with respect to us but what it hath from the Church how comes the Church it self to be under an Obligation to receive and obey it There can be no obligation but in Relation to some Antecedent Authority and if there be no such Authority obliging the Church to receive the Scripture there should be no Sin in her rejecting it 3 If the Scripture have no Authority from its self and Gods speaking in it with respect to us then the Church should be the first Credible which is altogether false it being by the Scripture that we both know that there is a Church and how far her Testimony is to be trusted to 4. every Testimony is posterior to the thing testified and is accordingly true or false as it is agreeable or disagreeable to the nature of the Thing it beareth witness to If therefore the Scripture have any Authority with respect to us upon the Testimonial of the Church it behoved to have it antecedently In a word if God have not a Right of commanding us independently on the Testimonials of the Church then no private Revelation that ever God made or could make of himself to any is of the least force or significancy Nor could they to whom God by Visions Dreams Inspirations or otherwise made himself his Mind and Will known take upon them to give forth and publish to others what was thus revealed to them till they had the Testimony of the Church that it was Authentick Having established the Authority of the Scripture upon its true basis namely on its being Gods Word and speaking in it Now forasmuch as no man either is or can be obliged to believe a lie We may hence learn what to judg of that Notion of Des-Cartes and some others viz. Deum posse fallere si velit that God can deceive if he please No one denies but there both may be and are those things in the Word of God which men may turn into occasions of being Deceived all that is contended for is this that there can be nothing in a Revelation from God which may be a proper Cause of Error To say that God may Deceive if he would is no less than to affirm that he may cease to be God if he would God can do nothing but what in sensu diviso abstracting from his Decree to the contrary he may Will to do If we prove therefore that it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be Willing to deceive his Creatures we at the same time demonstrate that it is contradictory to his Power to do so First then If God may Deceive if He please what assurance have we but that he hath and may chuse to do it Nor is it enough to say that he hath told us that he will not for if he may deceive at all I know nothing hinders but that he may even then deceive us when he informs us he will not Secondly no one can deceive an other but it must proceed either from Ignorance Errour or Malice but all these interfere with the Nature of God and by consequence this posse fallere lyes cross to his Nature also To deceive argues either want of Wisdom Goodness or Veracity and therefore in no sense can God Deceive seeing he can neither cease to be Wise nor give over to be Good nor fail to be True Thirdly though a finite ignorant and mistaken Creature may impose upon us without saying one thing when he thinks another Yet it is impossible that an Infinite Wise and Omniscient Being should deceive any but that at the same time he must lie But that God cannot lie we have both the Testimony of Scrpture Tit. 1.2 and the highest assurance that Reason can give us Hence no one ever acknowledged a Deity but he withall included in his Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak nothing but truth § 9. Having unfolded the Nature and Quality of the Motives that our assent to the Divinity of Scripture is raised on we may hence infer that our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God is Divine and Infallible For as Doctor Hammond sayes in another case if the Person affirming be Infallible then is the Belief of such a Person Infallible also So if the Grounds of our Assent to the Scriptures being a Revelation from God be Infallible our Assent which is built upon these Grounds is Infallible likewise Assents are not specificated and Denominated from their Objects nor yet from the Faculties that elicite them but from the Foundations and Grounds on which they are raised Whilst then the Motives upon which we believe the Scripture are more than Moral our assurance of it's Divinity is more than Moral also For as we distinguish between the Consequent and the
passage in the Bible in it self unintelligible I cannot imagine any use that it should be off or that it should answer any end which we must needs suppose so wise an Agent as God had in the giving of it forth Besides when we discourse of the Serviceableness of Reason towards the attainment of the Sense and meaning of the Scripture we put a vast difference betwixt discerning the Literal Grammatical and Historical sense of it and the discerning it in a saving Spiritual manner I know our Divines sometimes express this as if they distinguished betwixt the Grammatical or Literal and the Spiritual sense But their intendment is not to diversifie the things themselves and what is understood in such places but the manner and way in which they are understood Though the Natural man may discover the true and genuine intendment of a text no less may be than he that is born of God yet their perception is not of one and the same kind nor do they understand it after one the same manner Though the Sense therefore be Physically the same yet in the way of discovering it there is a Moral difference The meer Rational mind may discern the literal Sense of Scripture propositions but without a supernatural Irradiation from the Spirit of life there can be no saving knowledge of them The Spirit which breathed out the Scripture at first is in this Sense the only Interpreter of it And as the Text is his so also is the Gloss. He that unveiled the Object must enlighten the eye for we need as much the spirit of Wisdom for the one as the Spirit of Revelation for the other See among many other places Eph. 1.17 1 Cor. 2.11 12. 1 John 2.20 and 5.20 John 6.48 Psal 119.18 27. But seeing the Socinians and Remonstrants preclude the necessity of the influence of the spirit of God upon the mind in order to the understanding the meaning of the Scripture either one way or an other and forasmuch as diverse who are not willing to be catalogued amongst them do yet in this fight under their banners I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce something in proof of it 1 We have the Testimony of the Scripture that Reason without auxiliary beams can never discern Spiritual things Spiritually The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Natural man we are neither to understand the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the babe the Infirm the Weak For though such be often unskilfull in the Word of Righteousness neither able to frame due conceptions of the mysteries of the Gospel nor throughly disposed to a due savouring of them nor fully capable of improving them to all the holy ends and in all the usefull deductions and inferences to which they are designed and to which they are admirably accommodated Yet the things of the Spirit of God are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolishness to them Nor are we by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here to understand only the Sensual man or one that is wholly sunk into the Animal Life and enslaved to the satisfaction of his corrupt appetites and inordinate fleshly desires seeing the natural man in this place is directly opposed to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spiritual or regenerate man and to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Wise and the Scribe to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Disputer and the Princes of this World qui dominabantur in scholis Who bare sway rule in the Schools But by the Natural man we are to understand the meer Rational man even him that doth most excolere animam Cultivate his Intellectuals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the person endowed with meer humane Wisedom as the Greek Scholiast says Now what is affirmed concerning this Souly man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither can he know them There is not only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dimsightedness but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an impotency through a disproportion in his faculty with respect to them They are seen in another light than he is endowed with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are spiritually discerned They are known only by a divine irradiation and conquering sun-beam of the Spirit of life upon the mind And therefore God is said to shine into our hearts to give the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 light i. e. the clear and evident manifestation of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 2. We have the attestation of Reason which tells us that nothing is well known but by that which hath a just analogy to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every thing is best understood by that which bears a resemblance of it Things of sense and life are only known by vital Sentient Faculties Vegetables do not admit every particle that comes to nourish them but only such as bear a proportion to their own pores Where there is not a congruity betwixt the Subject and the Object the Object can never be discerned in its true light As the eye cannot behold the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it have some resemblance of the Sun in it self no more can any Man understand the things of God in a due manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless he be made to partake of of the Divine Image Every thing acts in a way consimilar to its own Nature and therefore let the Objects be never so spiritual the natural man can never know them in a way analogous to them i. e. spiritually but only in a natural way that alone being homogeneous to himself We are told in philosophy that quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis every thing is received in a way agreeable to that which receiveth it And therefore where there is nothing but a natural Mind it can act no otherwise than in a Natural way In a word without a vital alliance cognation to Spiritual things we can never understand them in a Spiritual saving Manner I take these two here in an aequipollent sense without medling with the question whether there be no difference betwixt knowing Gospel truths in a Spiritual manner and the knowing them in a Saving 3 If we be in the alone Virtue of our Rational Faculties adapted to a due discerning the things of the Spirit of God and that i◠their proper light I see no reason why an unregenerate man should be more stiled blind in reference to the Word of God than in reference to Euclids Elements or Aristotles Organon Nor indeed why he should be esteemed so inept for that as for these I might add in the fourth place that according to the
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
will add that if there be no principles in Nature to check Scepticism the principles of Revelation can never do it for without presupposing both that our Senses Reasons do not universally deceive us we can have no assurance that there is any such thing as a Supernatural Revelation at all I would not say that the Cartesians are Scepticks but I say they owe it not to the principles of their Philosophy that they are not so Supposing us once to disband lay by and to take for false all that we have imbib'd from Education or otherwise embraced I would fain know where we can begin and upon what foundation we can superstruct Science They who propose it as a Principle that we are to doubt of every thing ought in pursuance of their Hypothesis to suspect those very principles with they lay down for Certain If there be not some principles incontestable and beyond the precincts of being gainsayed it is not to be imagined but that we should be endlesly bewildred and entangled in a perpetual and inextricable maze According to this new Hypothesis no man can be sure that there are any Material effects or Beings in the World for we can have no other Certainty of the Existence of Corporeal Beings but by their affecting the Organs of Sensation and of this according to the principles of Des-Cartes there is no assurance can be obtained For 1. How can I be certain that there are any impressions made by forraign Objects upon the Fibres and Nerves seeing all may be but meer Phancy and Imagination 2. How shall I be ascertain'd that those impulses upon the Nerves which we ascribe to outward Objects are not begotten and caused by the Malus Genius we just now heard of And as I must in pursuance of this Principle abide in a perpetual Suspension of Mind whether there be any Material Beings in the World so I can no ways be assur'd from any effects which I observe in the Universe either that they have a second Cause at all or which particularly is their Cause not the latter seeing God may produce the like effects by different Causes not the former because whatsoever is brought forth by the ministry of second Causes may be produced immediately by God himself I will only subjoyn that if there be any Truth in this Cartesian Notion no man can be assured of his own Cogitation or whether he doth cogitate at all For we cannot otherwise know that we do know but by a latter reflex act of the Mind upon the former and of this I can have no certainty seeing I am not sure whether the Act I reflect upon were elicited by the mind it self or only an impression begotten in me by some powerful and malicious Guest which doth continually haunt us I am not ignorant of the restrictions limitations and expositions with some Cartesians give of the fore-going Principle but upon an examination of what is alledged against it by Gassendus Schoockius Daniel Voetius Vogelsangius and others and what is pleaded in justification of it by Claubergius De Bruin c. as well as Des-Cartes himself I must needs say that all the Cartesian plea's in behalf of it do either overthrow what themselves would establish and contradict what they endeavour to obtrude or that they are wholly weak and impotent But I am not without thoughts of discoursing this more largely some other time and therefore shall at present supersede the further prosecution of it The Second Cartesian principle which I impeach as disserviceable to Religion is this That whatsoever we have a clear and distinct perception of is infallibly true and that we are no ways longer to doubt of it This they make the only test of discerning and distinguishing Truth from Falsehood Nor do they allow any other Measure or Standard of discriminating betwixt Verity and Errour If we should be deceived in these things which we have clear and distinct perceptions of God himself saith Des-Cartes would be Fallax Deceptor horresco referens and all our Errours and Mistakes must be attributed to him Unless the Cartesians be infallible in what ever they imagine themselves to have a distinct perception and cognizance of God must be cease to be Good and True and must undergoe the blame of all their hallucinations I do the rather touch on this Cartesian Axiom because I not only find it introduced into Divinity by some Outlandish Writers but by some Modern Theologues at home particularly by the Author of Deus Justificatus Nor will it be amiss a little to enquire into it as well upon the account of its being erected by the Cartesians for the first and only principle of all Certainty and Science as upon the Score of the bad effects it is like to have upon the minds of men in Matters of Religion Now the meaning and sense of this Theoreme must either be this That whatever we apprehend and perceive as it is it infallibly is so and our perception of it is true But then according to this paraphrase of it there cannot be a more nugatory and ridiculous proposition form'd for it is as much as if we should say what we have a true cognizance of that we have a true cognizance of and what is truly known by us that we do truly know But this cannot be the meaning which the Cartesians intend by it for as much as they make the clearness and distinctness of perception the Rule by which we ought to judge of the Existence of Objects and things For according to them our perceptions are not therefore clear and true because of their congruity to the Objects about which our minds are conversant but on the contrary they determine concerning the Object from the clearness and distinctness of our perception The sense therefore of this Cartesian Axiom if it have any at all and be not perfect non-sense must be this namely That every thing really is as we perceive it provided our perception of it be clear and distinct That those Idea's of things which offer themselves to our Minds by clear and distinct perceptions are infallibly the true idea's of the Natures and properties of the things themselves Now admitting this to be the sense of it I affirm it to be the most silly fallacious and lubricous principle that ever men pretending to Philosophy laid down I shall wave that Medium that there may be clearness and distinctness of perception in acts of simple apprehension and consequently that whatsoever we clearly and distinctly perceive is not true because Acts of simple Apprehension are not capable of verity This I say I shall decline the urging of seeing I judge both Verity and Falsity to obtaâ—n in all the operations of the Mind For Verity being nothing else but the conformity of the Act to the Object there is as well an Incomplex Verity in acts of simple Apprehension as there is a Complex Verity in Acts of Judgment I may as well
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
supposing this be true the inference of his being only a Metaphorick Priest is not to be avoided and consequently all the Texts where he is any wayes stiled a Priest are to be understood only Metaphorically For if his Priestly and Kingly Offices be not distinct either his Regal Office must be reduced to and included in his Sacerdotal which our Author will not affirm and if he should he would only gain by it the making Christ a Metaphorick King instead of a Metaphorick Priest or else his Sacerdotal Office must belong to and be included in his Regal being only a readiness to exercise that Authority and Power for his Church which as a King appertains to Him And if so then those innumerable places of Scripture which report Christ to be a Priest to have given himself a Sacrifice to God for us to have expiated Sin to have made atonement and to have rendred God propitious are every one of them Metaphorical I have insisted the longer on this Opinion of Mr. Sherlock concerning Christs Priestly Office being only a different part and administration of his Mediatory Kingdome 1 st to make it appear that by Charging Socinianism upon some of our late pretended Rational Divines we do not transform them into any thing but what they are The truth of the imputation rather than the foulness seems to be that which makes them angry As the Historian tels us of Tiberius that he was both the readier to believe the more offended at something which was said of Him because it was the true report of his guilt so I wish it were not as much the Justness as the Odiousness of the Character of Socinian which renders some men stingy But 2 ly the main reason of my insisting upon these passages was to demonstrate that whereas they arraign the Non-Conformists for turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors the crime lodgeth especially with themselves and that the principles which they have Espoused are not otherwise defensible but by turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors So that here Clodius accusat maechos And providing Mr. Sherlock will abide by his Notion That the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ I do here undertake to prove by easy trains of deduction that for one Text capable of a proper sense which the Phanaticks pervert by imposing a Metaphorick one upon it he lyes under a necessity if he will preach or write consequentially to his Tenets of wresting twenty in the same manner § 10. But this is not the only opinion imbib'd by our Author which I impeach as pregnant with this mischief His Notion of Justification being attended with the same inconvenience nor is it any ways maintainable but by perverting innumerable Texts from their plain and natural sense to a Metaphorick In the prosecution of this Charge I shall first give a true representation of his thoughts about Justification and then endeavour to demonstrate that besides what else lyes against him it is accompanied with this fatal unhappiness of turning a great part of the Bible into meer insignificant and empty Metaphors His sentiments then in reference to Justification are these That we are only Justified by our believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. That the Sacrifice of Christs 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 That is God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs life and the sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind wherein he promiseth pardon of Sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel so that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal Cause of our Justification but the Righteousness of his life death is the meritorious Cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous rewarded as Righteous persons The Covenant of Grace which God for Christs sake hath made pardoning our past sins follies and rewarding a sincere though imperfect Obedience The Gospel by its great arguments motives and powerfull assistances forms our minds to the Love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently Righteous and the grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience which according to the Rigor and severity of the Law could deserve no reward This I take to be a true account of Mr. Sherlocks Judgement about Justification and I have quoted it in his own words that he may neither complain of his being imposed upon nor the Reader question the Truth and sincerity of this representation And as whosoever consults the pages I referr to will find that I treat my adversary with faithfulness so if they compare them with some other places where he hath declared himself with less Modesty they will have reason to say that I have exposed his Opinion in the favourablest manner I could Now I design not any accurate ventilation of this great Theme nor any severe research into Mr. Sherlocks faileurs in the manage of it nor a Critical survey of his neglect of Truth as well as Modesty in treating his Adversaries about it nor yet his partiality in arraigning only the Non-conformists when he could not but know that the most Eminent Persons that ever the Church of England bred as well as the Generality of Protestant Divines are equally involved having appeared in the Defence of that very Notion of Justification which he so invidiously represents and tragically declaime's against those for The full handling of Justification stands reserved for other hands who in due time will retrive the spoyles wherewith our Author hath enriched his Wardrobe and strip him of the Lawrels wherewith he hath adorned his Temples I shall only bestow one stricture upon him and then apply to the proof of the inconvenience I have already charged his Opinion with and for which in this place I cited it In brief then I see not how the Covenant of Grace is any ways owing to the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life providing that Mr. Sherlock will be constant to and write consonantly to some of his other principles For if the Natural Notions which men have of God assure them that he is very Good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace as our Author elsewhere tells us I say supposing this to be true I see not how the Righteousness of Christs life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and Follies for as much as his Essential Goodness obliged him to it I take it for a principle of Reason that nothing can be merited which is due upon an Antecedent Title Merit in its essential Notion importing an acquisition of a Right which we had not before there can be no room for it in reference to that which we stood entitled to by the natural goodness of
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
not now controvert whether by the Name Christ the Church may not sometimes be signified All I shall say is this that as the Phrases of Being in Christ engrafted into Christ and United to Christ being one Body with Christ and Brethren in Christ are to be otherwise Understood than meerly to imply Our belonging to that society whereof Christ is the Head and Governour which is the Paraphrase that Mr. Sherlock is pleased to put upon them but shall be afterwards disproved and overthrown so Gal. 3.16 and 1 Cor. 12.12 where of all other places the Church seems with the greatest probability to be signified by the Name Christ ought in my mind to be otherwise interpreted And were that my present business I should think it a matter encumbred with small difficulty to Demonstrate that 't is the Person of Christ not his Church that is immediately primarily intended by that Name in both places And truly even admitting the supposition that there is no other Union betwixt Christ and Believers but meerly a Political I do not see but that Mr. Sherlock might have allowed Christ himself to be intended wheresoever our Union with him is declared spoken of I am sure as his Hypothesis had thereby remained as consistent every way with it self so more reverence had been maintain'd towards the Scripture than there is by justling out Christ and substituting the Church in his room For example when Christ saith of himself I am the true Vine c. Our Author even in pursuance of his own Notion might have allowed him to be so and that Christ spake the Truth though in way of Paraphrase he had subjoyn'd that he was so no otherwise but by the Gospel and upon the account of his Authority over and influence upon the Church by his Doctrine and Laws I am sure the Socinians though through their denying the Divine Person of Christ they renounce all vital influences from him to Believers and disclaim his being other than a Political Head unanimously allow that where Christ says I am the true Vine he mean's himself Though the Honour of being the First-framers and erecters of the Hypothesis of Christs being meerly a Political Head to his Body be due to them yet I should be Injurious to Mr. Sherlock did I deny him the reputation of being the Contriver of this New Dresse and Trim with which he hath adorned it Only 't is attended with this Inconvenience that it is not shapen very agreeably to the place that lay before him and which should have been his measure with what handsomeness soever otherwise it be deckt and set out Whereas Christ saith Joh. 15.5 I am the vine ye are the Branches this must be expounded saith our Author to the same sense with what goes before where Christ speaking of himself saith I am the true Vine The meaning is that Church which is founded on my Gospel is the true Vine I signifies Christ together with his church which is his Body Concerning which Paraphrase I shall only recommend these things to the Consideration of the Reader 1. 'T is inconsistent with it self In one line he affirms the Church to be the true Vine and in the next he tells us that the I of which True Vine is predicated signifies Christ together with his Church yet a few lines after he contends that by I am the True Vine we can Rationally understand nothing but the Church which is founded on the Belief of the Gospel and her being the only True Church which God now owns And accordingly all the four Reasons brought in confirmation of his exposition are wholly calculated to shut Christ out from any share or claim in that Proposition I am the True Vine and to establish the Church for the alone Subject of that Enunciation Now I understand not how these things are reconcileable viz. When Christ speaks in the First Person I he cannot mean this of his own Person but of his Church and yet that I signifies Christ together with his Church pag. 145. 2 'T is altogether Novel For besides that no one Commentator who own 's the Divinity of Christ hath preceded him in it even the Socinians out of whose Mine he hath too frequently digged his Treasure do in this particular stand in opposition to him As to the Manner of our being in this Vine viz. through a Belief of and adhesion to Christs Doctrine our Author hath the Exposition of Schlichtingius to befriend him But I know none of the Socinians that have been so front-less or who have so far steeld their brow as to preclude Christ from being understood here by the True Vine 3. 'T is repugnant to the Universal Reason and sense of Mankind For though there may be Contrasts about the Subject of an Enunciation when the Expression is in the 2 d. or 3 d. Person yet it was never till Mr. Sherlock wrote so much as questioned but that when the Person speaking affirms any thing of himself in the 1 st person he himself is the Subject of that Proposition Christ therefore being the Person speaking saying of himself I am the True Vine 't is both to give him the lye and to contradict the Reason that Mankind is determined by in judging of the Subject of a Proposition to say he is not the True Vine but the Church is so 4. It offers violence to the Harmony of the Context For 1 Though we can easily conceive how a particular Believer may be in the Church yet 't is impossible to a apprehend how the Church can be in a particular Believer And therefore seeing 't is the same Identical I of whom the True Vine is predicated v 1. that in you and in them is affirmed of v. 4 5. either the whole Church must be allowed to be in every Individual Christian which is impossible or else the Church is not signified by the â—â—n either of the places which overthrow's Mr. Sherlocks paraphrase 2 Because no Christian severed from the Vine and its Influences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here intended either doth or can bring forth fruit to God but this a person severed or separated from any Visible Church may do and consequently 't is not the Church which by this Metaphorical Term Vine is here meant and understood Now that one living in the fellowship and communion of no Visible Church may yet be a Christian these following Reasons do demonstrate First Because when these words were spoken there was no Church of Christ founded on the belief of the Gospel and yet there were believers 2 ly Because 't is possible for a man to be a Christian where there is no visible Church for him to be united to And unless we should suppose a Number to be converted together we must grant this to have been the case at least for a time of such as first embraced the Faith of the Gospel in Heathen
their parts come to Multiply into many different species 2 Some purely Immaterial among whom whether there be any specifical difference is pro and con disputed 3 Man a Compositum of both having an Immaterial Intellectual Soul joyned to an Organical Body Now say they God having in his Soveraign pleasure thought Good to form Man such a Creature he hath not only by an Uncontroulable Law confined the Soul to an intimate presence with and constant residence in the Body while it remains a fit receptacle or till he give it a discharge but withall hath made them dependent upon one another in many of their operations And in this mutual dependence of the one upon the other with respect to many of their operations they state the Union betwixt the Soul and Body to consist For through the impressions that are made upon the Organs of Sense there result in the Soul certain perceptions and on the other hand through the Cogitations that arise in the Soul there ensue certain Emotions in the Animal Spirits And thus say they by the Action of each upon the other their passion from one another they are formally united But all this instead of loosing the knot serves only to tye it faster For 1 This mutual dependency as to operation of one upon the other cannot be apprehended but in posteriority of Nature to Union and consequently the Formal Reason of Union cannot consist in it 2 There are cases wherein neither the impressions of outward objects upon the Sensory Nerves beget or excite any perceptions in the Soul which whether it proceed from obstinacy of Mind or intense contemplation alike answers my drift and also cases wherein Cogitations of the Mind make not any sensible impressions upon the Body as in Ecstasies and yet the Union of the Soul and Body remains undissolved which argues that it imports more than either an intimous presence or a dependence between them in point of operation 3 'T is altogether unintelligible how either a Body can act upon a Spirit or a Spirit upon a Body I grant it may be demonstrated that they do so but the manner of doing it or indeed how it can be done is not intelligible That a Tremor begot in the Nerves by the Jogging of particles of Matter upon the sensory Organs should excite cogitations in the Soul or that the Soul by a meer thought should both beget a Motion in the Animal Spirits and determine through what meatus they are to steer their course is a Phaenomenon in the Theory of which we are perfectly non-plust How that which penetrates a Body without giving a Jog to or receiving a shove from it should either impress a Motion upon or receive an impression from it is unconceivable So that to state the Union of the Soul and Body in a reciprocal action upon and passion by and from one another is to fix it in that which surpasseth the Sagacity of our Faculties to conceive how it can be Now if Common Unions of whose reality and Existence we are so well assured be nevertheless with respect to their Nature not only so unknown but unconceivable we may lawfully presume if there lye nothing else against the Immediate Union of Believers with Christ save that it cannot be comprehended that this is no argument why we should immediately renounce the belief of it If we can but once justify that there is such an Union betwixt the blessed Jesus and sincere Christians the incomprehensibleness of the manner of it ought not to discourage our Faith If we can take up with the Evidence of Sense and Reason as to the reality of other Unions whose Modes are as little understood I see no cause why the Veracity of God providing we can produce the Authority of Divine Testimony should not satisfie us as to the reality of the Union though the manner How it is were a question we could not answer § 6. The import of Terms being fixed we are now to make a nearer approach to the matter it self And the first thing that the threed of Reason conducts us here to is this that be the Kind manner of our Union what it please yet it is the person of Christ which we are united to For suppose it to be Political and that the only Vinculum be our owning his Laws yet forasmuch as Christ only personally considered both doth enact them and exact Obedience to them and punish our Rebellion against them our Relation to Him as Subjects doth ultimately respect his Person All the reverence we pay his Laws under the Reduplication as His bears upon the Veneration we pay Himself However he come by his Soveraign Dominion over the Church 't is his Person that it is stated and vested in Whatever room either our Obedience on the one hand or the Gospel of Christ upon the other have in this Relation of Union the Extremes United they cannot be Whether it be by means of our Union only with the Christian Church or by what Copula soever else we are United to Him Yet 't is still to the person of Christ i. e. to Christ himself that we are United Or suppose it to be only a Moral Union an Union in Mind Love Design and Interest a being acted by the same Principles having the same temper and disposition of Spirit yet still 't is between the Person of Christ and the persons of Believers that this Union intercedes For as they through the guidance of sanctified Reason embrace cleave to and with the greatest complacency delight in him so He through their participating of his likeness and haveing his Image imprinted on them loveth and embraceth them In a word all Unions except Natural or Physical are the Relations of Persons to Persons 'T is the Husband and Wife themselves that are ligu'd together by the matrimonial Tie 'T is between the persons of Subjects and the Person of the Prince as clothed with Authority that the Political Nexus consists I cannot therefore but stand surprised to find Mr. Sherlock both endeavoring to disable such Texts of Scripture as are levied in proof of an Union between Believers and the Person of Christ whereof § 4. and impeaching his Brethren that they are not satisfied that Christ and Believers are united unless their Persons be united too For let the Union as to its Quality and manner be what it will suppose an Union by mutual Relations or Affections or common Interest yet it is the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers that the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lies between Yea this our Author acknowledgeth though all he reap by it is to contradict himself For this is a very plain case says he If Christ and Believers are United their Persons must be united too for the Person of Christ is Christ Himself the Persons of Believers are the Believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves Nor
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
controlled in nothing we say or do c. were ever intended for the Felicity of an Intellectual and Rational Being The Soul of a Brute would have served all the Ends that some men propound to themselves but surely the bestowing of an Immortal Spirit on us ought to instruct us that Blessedness consists in something else than Gauds Trifles Grandeur Airy Titles and the like And he who cannot want these things without thinking himself Miserable at once reproacheth his Maker as if he had Created him for nothing more worthy and degrades and dishonours himself by intimating that such gratifications are suitable to Him 6. The advantages which Good men receive by afflictions do amply compensate their feeling of them They hereby both discern their sincerity themselves and discover it to others Nor is it easie to imagine the satisfaction that the Consciousness of a constant sincerity ministers to a Soul To find that we love God notwithstanding the narrow allowance he affords us is a more soveraign Cordial to the Mind that would approve its self to God than the flushest enjoyment of sublunary things can yield Their Adversity also gives them either relief in Mortifying those Corruptions which endanger them or in exercising those Graces which glorifie God And who dare reproach the Wisdom or Goodness of God for disposing things in such a manner as may turn not only most to his own Honour but our advantage Storms and Frosts are as Useful to the Universe as serene and clear weather Nor are Sugar and Honey more necessary than Salt and Brine are If after all this there remain Inexplicables in the works of Providence 't is no more than what we daily meet with in the Works of Creation Nor must a finite Understanding hope to comprehend the Methods of an Infinite God And the future state will set all that straight which we now judge Crooked Having vindicated the Providence of God from those Objections which seem to affront it my next task is to suggest those Arguments which Reason abstracting from all Revelation can muster to attest it 1 Were there not an Omnipotent Power and an Omniscient skill to restrain and govern the quarrelsome Spirits that are in the World it would soon sink under the bottom of its own Confusion This the Heathen intimated in the Fable of Phaethon who being admitted to drive the Chariot of the Sun but for one day burnt both himself and it together It was well said by the Stoick that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not worth the while to live in a World empty of God and Providence Nay it were the greatest unhappiness imaginable to be brought forth into the World to be perpetually tossed up and down by blind Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were not a Providence there could be no Order in the World And as another Philosopher saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were no Supreme Orderer whence comes order to be in the World 2. Preclude Providence we remove one of the greatest foundations of venerating the Diety 'T is not a persuasion of the Excellency of his Nature that can engage us to a hearty Adoration of Him if we once discharge him from all concernment in us and our affairs Though there be the like Eminency of Dignity in the French King as in the King of Great Brittain yet we have a greater reverence for the one than the other because the one protects us which the other doth not Nor can we well believe the Divine Nature to be excellent should we assert it devoid of Goodness which is the greatest perfection much less will it be easie to honour him for a God whose Felicity we judge to consist in Idleness We find our selves capable of yea endowed with the affections of Fear and Love and God is an Object most adapted for them but seclude him from the administration of the World and there is no Foundation left for the begetting and maintaining either the one or the other in the hearts of men towards him For if he regard not what we do instead of having provided due means for our fearing and loving of him he hath left us under an unavoidable temptation of acting towards with him with slight and contempt 3 If there be no Providence there is not the least ground for addresses to God out of hope of assistance or the thanking him for the benefits we partake of and yet the chief of natural Religion consists in these Who would pray to God to be delivered when in straits or praise him when he hath scaped his entanglements if God no ways interest himself in us and our affairs 4 If God govern not the world it is either because he Cannot or because he will not to say the first is to represent him contemptible for his Weakness and besides he that made the World cannot be supposed unable to Rule it to affirm the Second is to bestow Omnipotencie upon Him in vain and to impeach every one of his perfections because of a faileur in their most natural and agreeable effects 5 God is Soveraign of the World and therefore he must needs Govern it Through all things being the products of His will and Power he hath an incontestable Dominion over them Now we cannot fasten a greater reproach upon a Soveraign than that he throws off all the Care and Gubernation of his Subjects 6 We see effects in the World which could proceed from no cause but God and discoveries made to it which he alone can reveal and by consequence he hath not wholly withdrawn himself from the Rectorship of it 7 He must needs Rule the World who hath given it Laws for Law is the Relative of government and that he hath given it Laws the inbred Notions which we have of Good and Evil the Fears and hopes that haunt us do abundantly demonstrate These he hath woven into the composition of our Natures and by these order is maintained in the World Now 't is the greatest affront that can be offered to Reason to think that God should make use of a Fiction to preserve Truth Justice and Righteousness amongst mankind or that he should keep up the Respect of himself by falsehood and Deceit Thus by singling out one or two Truths that have evidence given to them in the Light of Nature as well as in Revelation we have shewn what belongs to Reason about all Doctrines of this Genius and complexion § 13. The next concernment of Reason in about Religion is to defend the whole of it from the Clamours and Objections of gainsayers For as Bisterfield says Though they who reject arguments levied from Reason against the Mysteries of Religion act modestly yet they do not throughly serve the interest nor hereby deserve well of the Cause of Truth which they own and profess 'T is true that the Authority of Divine Testimony is enough to warrant our Faith whatever Objections lye against the thing so testified
but to rest here without warding off the thrusts of Adversaries is to tempt them either wholly to throw off the belief of all Revelation or to affix perverse Senses to it Now there are some Articles of Religion which may not only be defended by shewing from the Testimony of the Bible that their Objects have an Existence but by explaining how they are and that either from principles of Natural Light or from the account that the Scripture it self Gives of the Modes of their Existence For Example How the Earth could be peopled in so little a time as the Mosaick History doth tacitely inform us when all Mankind sprung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from one stock for so the word there signifies and proceeded from one Man and one Woman as their Original Progenitors How an Ark of that Capacity which the Scripture instructs us Noahs was could receive into it all kinds of living Creatures with provisions of Aliment for so long a time How the Israelites could multiply to such a number in Egypt within the compass of two hundred years or little more when there went down but such a handful thither of whom they descended There are other Articles of Religion which we can only shew from Revelation that the Objects of them are but the manner and way how they exist we cannot tell And seeing the Measure of Faith doth only follow and suit the measure of Revelation we are therefore in reference to such things only to believe that they are but the Mode of their Existence is to be no Article of our Creed And I crave liberty here to suggest that it is both a piece of Tyranny to impose the belief of the Modes of their existence upon the Consciences of men and hath been found disserviceable to Religion to undertake to explain the Manner according to which such a thing exists when God hath only revealed the Existence of the thing it self but concealed the Way how it is If in the explicating the Phaenomena of Nature which is the proper province of Reason the most that a discreet Philosopher will pretend to is to declare the possible ways by which a Phaenomenon may be accounted for without presuming to say that it is only performed in this way and that there is no other in which it may be explained Much more doth it become us in the Great mysteries of Revelation to abstain from defining the Manner how they are and to content our selves with what God hath been pleased to tell us viz. that they are without prying into the Mode of their being which he hath hid from us Now in and about such Doctrines these things appertain to Reason First To shew that 't is not required that it should comprehend them Whatsoever God hath said is to be assented to though we cannot frame adequate Notions of the thing it self nor understand the manner how it should be 'T is as much against Reason as Faith to think to fathom the perfections Counsels and Works of God seeing Reason acknowledgeth him to be infinite and it self to be Finite If we will pretend to Reason in Religion we are to be believe whatever God hath said to be True this being the greatest Reason that he who is Veracious cannot lye There is nothing more consonant to the transcendency of so a high a Nature as that of God than that it be acknowledged incomprehensible nor is there any thing more agreeable to his infinite Wisdom than that his projects designs and contrivances should be held past finding out 'T is both unjust and irrational to think that man should penetrate those depths and Abysm's which the Angels desire only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to look into as vailed and hidden from sight But more of this anon 2 dly We are to hold our selves assured that every Argument from Reason repugnant to a Doctrine revealed in the Scripture is a Sophism though may be we cannot discover the Fallacy 'T is one thing to be assured of a Truth and another to be able to answer all the Objections that are pressed against it There are Innumerable things even in Philosophy of which we are fully assured and yet we cannot resolve all the difficulties that attend them If every pusling Objection be enough to make us renounce what we have express Revelation for by a parity of Reason we must disclaim many a Natural Truth which we have the evidence of sense and Reason for because we cannot answer all the Objections that do encounter them It were the way to introduce an Universal Scepticsm to doubt of the Truth of every thing the knotts intricacies about the Natures Properties Operations and Modes of whose Existence we cannot unty What a man hath embraced upon just and weighty grounds he is not to desert it meerly because he can not answer every Objection that is urged against it 'T is the height of folly and Madness to forego an opinion when the Objections wherewith it is entangled are not of greater yea nor of the same importance with the reasons on which we received it 3 dly We are to answer the Objection not by explicating how the thing contested is but by shew-that there is nothing in the argument that prove's it impossible to be And this is done by shewing that what is stiled a Principle of Reason in truth and reality is not so at least in the degree and latitude that it is applied There are many vulgar Axioms urged as Maximes of Reason which are as far from obtaining in Philosophy as in Divinity there are others which though they hold in reference to some Objects and in relation to some Agents yet they are not to be allowed with respect to every Agent and every Object For example though a Finite Agent require a preexistent subject in order to its operation yet this holds not in relation to an infinite and Almighty worker And though Impenetrability may be affirmed of all Substances that are Corporeal yet to apply it to all Substances Universally and thereupon to reject Spirits as Mr. Hobbs doth is grosly to prevaricate Most received Maximes have their limitations nor are they principles of Reason farther then as they are circumscrib'd by such conditions and confinements and to urge them beyond their bounds is to contradict Reason which tells us that they hold only so far and no farther That great Maxime which is the Foundation of all Argumentation viz. that Extrem's identified to a middle Term are identified the one to the other admitts more than one or two limitations which if they be not attended to all our Syllogising is but meer Sophistry For if either the Extrem's be only collectively identified to the Medium not distributely or if they be one with it inadequately only and not adequately or if they Center in the Middle Term only in the Concrete and not in the Abstract there is no concluding of an Identity betwixt the Extremes themselves And I dare say that through a