but form Ideas of their own of various kinds inventing compounding dividing either according to the nature of things or at their own pleasure They can reflect upon what is past nay recollect what they have forgot and foresee things yet to come They can stretch and extend their thoughts till they are quite lost in the oceans of Immensity and Eternity They acquaint themselves not only with the material part of the World but the immaterial also From contemplating themselves they enlarge their thoughts to other Beings of the same kind They discern the Spirits of other Men through the veil of their Bodies and find out and contemplate an unknown and innumerable number of Spiritual Natures till at last they ascend to God himself that infinite Spirit who was the Maker and is the Preserver of all And here we are arrived at the top of their knowledge Not that the Souls of Men are able to comprehend the Nature of that first and most excellent Being but they can make such discoveries of his Divine Perfections as will naturally produce in them an high Admiration a profound Reverence and an ardent Love towards the Deity and will incline and dispose them to adore and serve him to resign themselves to him and to yield a ready obedience to his Commands And what those Commands are the Soul is in some measure also capacitated to discern infering its Duty from the consideration of its own nature and the relation it stands in to God and to its fellow-creatures And which is yet an higher Perfection than meer Knowledge the Souls of Men can perceive the Will of God and consequently their own Duty from certain secret inclinations and propensions which they feel within themselves and of which they are apprehensive even in this degenerate state That natural regard to God and looking towards him upon all Emergencies that approbation of Justice and Kindness between Man and Man especially that gratitude for benefits receiv'd and unavoidable commiseration towards miserable Objects which are to be found in most Men not debauch'd in a more than common degree are plain and undeniable Instances of this kind which will not be controverted by those to whom I am offering these Considerations and for which I may be allow'd to appeal to the far greater part of Mankind And I question not but the like might be observ'd as to most other plain and considerable instances of Moral Vertue For which reason it is that the Consciences of Men do so naturally and universally either accuse or excuse them according as they contradict or comply with not barely the reasonings but the natural apprehensions and inclinations of their Minds And this indeed I take to be the Perfection of the Humane Soul as it came out of the hands of God that it had a capacity not only of knowing God and it self and of inferring its Duty by exercising its Reason but that it was also made to resemble the Divine Nature in its inclinations and propensions to all that is good which inclinations and propensions had they been cherish'd and improv'd as they might and ought to have been would have fully discover'd the dignity of Humane Nature and made Men to have appear'd what God by their make design'd them to be There is yet one Ability more with which the Humane Soul is endued not to be past over when we are considering the excellency of its Nature and that is Freedom or Liberty of choosing and a Power consequently of acting according to such choice without which its Liberty would have been given to it in vain But shall I call this a Perfection or an Imperfection As it is a Power of freely choosing that which is good and as freely pursuing that choice it must be thankfully acknowledg'd to the praise of our bountiful Creator that it is a Perfection even whereby we are made to resemble God himself who always freely chooseth and acteth according to the eternal and immutable Laws of Goodness 'T is a Talent of great worth with which Mankind is entrusted and which may be improv'd to very great advantage It gives us an Ability of offering to God a free-will Offering of voluntarily doing that which is acceptable to and rewardable by our Maker 'T is that which indeed makes us strictly speaking capable of a Reward But then as Men can at the same time choose that which is Evil and pursue the unhappy choice it must be own'd to be an Imperfection but such an one as seems necessarily to result from the condition of a Creature Absolute Perfection belongs to God only his Nature is too good ever to choose or act amiss but the condition of a Creature is to be defectible of its self so that if it be made capable of choosing aright it must at the same time also be capable of choosing wrong Liberty implies a Power to determine its choice one way or the other and there is no such absolute Perfection in a Creature as can always necessarily oblige it to determine it self the right way Experience and Use may produce strong and confirmed Habits of Virtue and the Grace of God may at any time put a Creature out of all Danger but I cannot see how 't is possible to frame an Idea of a created Agent left at Liberty but it must at the same time be fallible and mutable But this may suffice to shew the dignity of the Humane Soul with respect to its Liberty that it is made capable of choosing and acting freely by the same Rules by which God himself chooseth and acteth And had Men always acted according to the design of their Beings the excellency of their Nature would have plainly appear'd in a whole world of intelligent and reasonable Agents exercising all the Faculties before-mention'd regularly and orderly acknowledging adoring magnifying and serving their Maker admiring his wonderful Works and rendering to him with one consent the Praises due upon the account of them living in perfect Amity one with another discharging readily all the Offices of Beneficence performing and enjoying all the Benefits and Pleasures of mutual Society and deriving from Heaven all those Blessings which would have render'd their abode here perfectly easie and comfortable and if God should have thought it fit to have translated them to any superiour Regions as a reward of their Obedience here they would there also have spent a happy Eternity in the Enjoyment of their Maker themselves and one another I mention their translation to some other Regions because all those Powers of Soul which I have been discoursing of imply nothing but what is immaterial and spiritual and consequently immortal and if Men had used their Liberty aright in this state of tryal it is not to be conceiv'd that God would have permitted the corruption of the Body but rather have preserv'd for ever that Union which himself had given to the two constitutive parts of Humane Nature and have assign'd them such places of residence as might
external Attestation to what directly contradicts the Faculties he hath given us by Nature nay not to any thing but what if thorowly and impartially consider'd will in the main appear in its own nature reasonable and credible I shall therefore begin with the intrinsick Evidence of the Assertion in our Text shewing from the Nature and Reason of what is here affirm'd that it is a credible Saying every way worthy of God and very fit to be most readily entertain'd by us that Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners In doing this the Text will lead me into a proper Method by offering to our Consideration these three general heads viz. Who the Persons are whom Christ Jesus came to save What kind of Salvation he proposeth to them In what way and manner he hath by his coming into the World wrought out this Salvation for them The last of these will take up a considerable part of my following Lectures wherein I shall indeavour to shew the admirable contrivance and suitableness of this Method of our Salvation But as a foundation to this I think it necessary to discourse first of the other two and that as briefly and plainly as I can I begin with the first viz. to consider who the Persons are whom Christ Jesus came to save The Apostle calls them Sinners that is in other words They are Men Creatures compos'd of reasonable Souls and Bodies of Flesh who were formed after the Image of God and were innocent and upright as they came out of his hands but had apostatized from their Maker violating their Allegiance to him and thereby disordering their Natures and exposing themselves to the just displeasure of God with the miserable effects and consequences thereof Now I think it may very much conduce to our present Design to shew that these Creatures were really fit Objects of that exceeding great Concern and Tenderness express'd towards them by their Maker through his Son Jesus Christ that considering their original Constitution together with the manner and the effect of their falling from it it was highly becoming the good God thus to appear in their behalf It must be acknowledg'd and why should we be shy of owning it Nay we Christians justly glory in it that the Method of our Salvation by the Gospel is the most surprizing thing that falls within the compass of humane thought 'T is what before its Revelation Eye had not seen 1 Cor. 2.9 nor Ear heard neither had it enter'd into the Heart of Man 'T is what the Prophets before our Lord's Incarnation inquir'd and search'd diligently into 1 Pet. 1.12 'T is what since the Incarnation the Angels themselves with great curiosity and admiration desire earnestly to pry into 1 Cor. 2.14 'T is what the meer natural Man doth not receive and is not at all dispos'd to know nay what he is apt to account foolishness 'T is what even to the Saints or real Christians hath its breadth and length and depth and height expressing and testifying a Love which passeth knowledge We may as oft as we think of it Eph. 3.18 19. in a just sense of our infinite distance from God well cry out with the Psalmist Lord what is Man Psal 8.4 that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thou thus visitest him The truth is there is nothing which at first view renders Christianity so incredible as the boundless and unconceivable Condescension and Love of God exprest thereby But if on the other hand we take into Consideration that the Goodness of God is infinite like his other Attributes if we remember that his thoughts are not our thoughts nor our ways his ways Isa 55.8 9. but that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are his ways higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts if we call to mind what he himself hath told us in his Word and what our own Reason readily subscribes to Psal 103.13 14. that like as a Father pityeth his Children so the Lord pityeth us his Creatures that he knoweth our frame he remembereth that we are dust if we take in all that is proper to be thought of upon this Argument both concerning God and Man we shall then be forc'd to acknowledge that Sinners were a proper Object of the Divine Care and Compassion in this extraordinary manner Let us therefore take a distinct view of the Persons to be saved by Jesus Christ both as they are Men and as they are Sinners As they are Men. 'T is an unworthy thought of God to suspect that he should disregard any thing which he thought fit to make The giving Being to Creatures was without all doubt the effect of his meer Bounty because he is Good and taketh pleasure in doing Good and the very same motive which induced him to make any Creature must in all Reason be suppos'd to prevail with him to take care of it according to the Nature he hath given it Now of all the Creatures in this lower World there are none that pretend to vye with Man for excellency and dignity of Nature nay if we consider Humane Nature thorowly we shall find it endued with such Faculties as that we cannot conceive there are any Creatures more excellent in kind though in degree there may in the Regions above Men have Bodies indeed form'd out of the Dust of the Earth like the other Animals that dwell upon Earth though in Shape and Portraiture more noble much than any of them Psal 8.5 but with respect to their Souls they are made a little lower than the Angels being created in the Image Gen. 1.26 and after the likeness of God as Moses expresseth it And of this we may be satisfied besides the Testimony of Moses and the Psalmist by viewing our selves and observing the present Ruins of a once more stately Fabrick The Resemblance of our Maker appears evidently in our Natural Faculties and much more in our Moral Our Souls are invisible indeed but evidently manifest their Being by their various Operations They inhabit these Bodies in such manner as to influence and govern every part of them They do at pleasure move each Joint and Limb nay the whole Body at once without difficulty in a moment and by the power of a single thought They not only manage the Tabernacles they dwell in but by their means also have communication with a world of Beings without them By the mediation of the Senses they take in continual Notices from all the material Objects within a certain Sphere They see and hear and feel whatsoever makes a near approach to them nay they reach to things at a vast distance from them They do not confine their Observations to the Earth and Air but view at once the vast circumference of the Heavens and pry into the Bodies that are plac'd in those distant Regions They not only receive and take in Notices by the mediation of the Senses
have been fit for Men improv'd and confirm'd in Virtue and Goodness What I have hitherto been discoursing concerning the Nature of Mankind appears to me in it self highly reasonable and I think will do so upon serious consideration to such a Deist as I am arguing with and if so I would then proceed to ask whether such Creatures as these are not fit Objects of the Divine Care and if they are fallen of the Divine Compassion also supposing any of them capable of a Recovery from their lapsed Estate Will it not appear very worthy of the infinitely good God to concern himself in some extraordinary way for the restoration and salvation of Beings whom he had form'd after this excellent manner to whom he had imparted so many of his own Perfections in such a degree and whom he had made capable of being for ever happy in his Favour But for the farther illustration of this matter we may in the next place consider the Persons whom Christ Jesus came to save as they are in their fallen state Sinners as our Text calls them and see whether under that denomination also they are not proper Objects of the Divine Compassion even in such a degree as it is express'd by the undertaking of our Redeemer The Method of our Salvation by Jesus Christ is so contrived as I hope to shew hereafter as not only to testifie the Compassion of God towards Sinners but also his Hatred of Sin To make it appear therefore that such a Method was agreeable to the Divine Nature we shall do well to consider the condition of Men as Sinners to which purpose it may be proper To take into consideration the nature of Sin To observe the miserable consequences of it to Mankind And To inquire how Men were drawn into the commission of it To take into consideration the nature of Sin I doubt not but those who undervalue our blessed Saviour's Undertaking for the recovery of Sinners have at the same time very slight apprehensions of the evil of Sin They are apt to account it a matter of no great consideration or consequence for so inconsiderable a Creature as they would have Man to be to gratifie suppose the inclinations of his fleshly part though against the Dictates of his Mind and the Laws of his Maker But this proceeds from their want of a due sense of the nature and reason of things For to sin against God is for a Creature to rebel against his Creator and Preserver 't is to oppose his Will to the Will of the supreme Lord and Sovereign of the Universe 't is to disturb that excellent Order which is appointed and settled by him who made all things very good 't is for a Man to assume to himself a Liberty of doing that which God will not allow himself to do namely to vary from the eternal and unalterable Laws of Truth and Goodness those Laws which result necessarily from the Nature of God and the condition of created Beings 't is resisting the highest Power contradicting unerring Wisdom disobliging infinite Goodness making disingenuous and ungrateful Returns to the most endearing Obligations 't is in a word thwarting the true judgment and perverting the natural byass of a Man 's own Mind and acting contrary to the very frame and design of his Nature Now whatsoever is absurd or monstrous in Nature we are apt to conceive an abhorrence at the first appearance of it and whosoever is endued with Moral Principles ought in like manner to feel a detestation arising in his Soul when he considers the nature of Sin as I have here represented it Doth not every ingenuous and well-disposed Mind severely censure and detest the untoward behaviour of a graceless Child towards a wise and tender Parent The unworthy carriage of a rebellious Subject towards a just and kind Prince one who is truly the Father of his Country Especially when the Rebel not only dishonours his Superiors but at the same time disturbs the Peace and good Order of the whole Community Do not all Men of good sense and honest disposition abhor him who shall make spightful or ungrateful returns to a Benefactor or a Friend to whom he has been extremely beholden Who is there that does not despise the Man that degrades and vilifies himself by doing things altogether unworthy of his Birth and Education or Profession Why all this and infinitely more is in the nature of a Sin voluntarily committed against Almighty God And is it not credible then that so holy and good a Being as God is should be inclin'd to save such of his Creatures as are capable of Salvation from so great an Evil and that he should effect it in such a way as may convince them at once both of his compassion towards them and his abhorrence of their evil doings But to render this the more evident we may in the next place observe the miserable consequences of Sin to Mankind and that either in any single Sinner apart or in the mass and bulk of Mankind in general The state of every particular Sinner is extremely miserable A Man has no sooner consented to Iniquity but he is naturally fill'd with great uneasiness of Mind arising from Shame and Fear from a consciousness of having done an unworthy act and an apprehension of the Mischiefs that may follow The very first Act is a mighty Disorder as being an abuse of that Liberty with which he was entrusted and a contradiction to that natural inclination with which he was endued by his Maker By this means the tone of his Spirit is as it were immediately relaxd the Will corrupted the natural propension of the Soul towards God and Goodness weaken'd and a contrary disposition perhaps introduc'd the Appetites and Passions which were made to be rul'd having once broke loose from the Government they were plac'd under are apt thence-forward to become impetuous and arbitrary the Understanding having been once mislead or over rul'd is for the future less able to discern clearly or to judge Impartially in a word Innocency and Integrity are lost Every repeated Act strengthens the evil Habit and increases the disorder which is thus unhappily begun in all the Faculties If the Man continues to be a Sinner only in a lower degree he will find a perpetual struggle and conflict within his breast his Understanding and Reason and Conscience directing and leading him one way whilst his Appetites and Passions hurry him the other Rom. 7.23 the Law in his Members warring against the Law in his Mind and for the most part bringing him into Captivity he neither approving what he does nor finding himself at all dispos'd to do what he approves wretched Man that he is And if he be grown a harden'd Sinner he is still the more wretched because more incurable though at the same time less sensible of his evil condition And all this while he is exceedingly estrang'd and alienated from God the Author of his Being and the Fountain
of all Good he is asham'd and afraid to approach to him upon whom he intirely depends or to address himself to him whose aid he stands in need of every moment he is conscious of having given him offence and therefore justly apprehends his displeasure This is livelily represented by Moses in the case of our first Parents Gen. 3.8 9 10. who immediately upon their disobeying the Command of God hid themselves from his face being asham'd and afraid to see or hear of him whom just before they had convers'd with to their great satisfaction and comfort And every Sinner that is not past feeling may find something very like this within himself This is the natural state of Sin besides the consequences which may also follow from the displeasure of Almighty God who we see even in this World hath made us sensible of his displeasure by the many Evils we are necessarily expos'd to during a short Life such as Disappointments Wants Sickness Pain Sorrows and Miseries of various kinds and at last Death it self with the very fear of which most Men are all their life time subject to bondage All these Evils the Scriptures assure us are the results of Sin and even without Revelation upon the meer Principles of Morality I cannot see how we can judge otherwise And besides all this the Soul as I took notice before being apprehensive of its own Spiritual and Immortal Nature cannot but forebode the perpetual continuance of its present infelicity with the addition of it knows not what Evils in some future state of things the very forethought of which must be very terrible to it even in this Life And if we can observe so much Misery in the condition of a particular Sinner how much more shall we discover if we enlarge our thoughts to the whole mass of Mankind If we might be allow'd to take our view from the History of Moses it would give us a very melancholy prospect The very first Man that was born into the World fell into no less a Crime than that of imbruing his hands in the blood of his innocent Brother Gen. 4.8 From that time forward Wickedness of all sorts increas'd apace till it seem'd good to Almighty God to cut off at once the whole race of Mankind excepting Noah and his Family declaring this as the reason of his severe proceeding that God saw that the wickedness of Man was great in the Earth Gen. 6.5 and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually In the sequel of that History we find that soon after the Flood the World was again corrupted in a prodigious manner in so much that in the time of Abraham within little more than Four Hundred Years Idolatry had spread it self so universally as to have infected even the Family of Shem so that God thought fit to call forth Abraham from his Country and his Kindred in order to the preserving him and his Posterity in the Worship of the one true God the Maker of Heaven and Earth And if Idolatry had thus prevail'd we may conclude that other Crimes were no less rife forsaking of God being the foundation of all other Evil. If laying aside the History of Moses we should consider the state of Mankind according to all other accounts given of it it will still come to the same issue namely that the generality of Men were soon degenerated into the most unreasonable and unnatural practices that can be thought of The representation which St. Paul makes of the Pagan World was undoubtedly true Rom. 1.21 that they were become vain in their imaginations having their foolish hearts darken'd that they had chang'd the glory of the uncorruptible God into images made like to corruptible Man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things Nay which is yet more to be detested they pay'd their religious Adorations to Devils themselves for as St. Paul truly pronounces 1 Cor. 10.20 the things which the Gentiles sacrific'd they sacrific'd to Devils and not to God The Prince of the power of the Air with all his accursed attendants had assumed the Title and Stile of Gods and so far tyrannized over the Children of Men as to reduce them to a slavish dread and vile Worship of these wicked and infernal Spirits And what after this could be expected but that as we are again told in the place before-cited they should fall into the most unnatural and brutal Lusts also For this cause says he Rom. 1.26 namely their having thus forsaken God he gave them up to vile affections c. We cannot better describe them than in the elegant Expressions of the same Apostle Eph. 4.17 18 They walk'd in the vanity of their mind having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Who being past feeling gave themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness They were as he elsewhere says Tit. 3.3 foolish disobedient deceived not only serving divers lusts and pleasures but moreover living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another This was the state of the Pagan World when our Saviour appeared in it There were indeed some few to be found even in the midst of all this Corruption who had not forsaken God and degenerated into Vice in so heinous a degree the Principles of natural Religion having in some measure prevail'd with them but these were very rarely to be met with There was it 's true a small Body of Men the Jews I mean whom God had by an extraordinary Providence taken out of the mass of Mankind in order to instruct and educate them in better manner But even these were very hardly kept to the observance of those Laws which God had given them They easily and frequently degenerated into Idolatry and the other evil practices of their Neighbours and when after a tedious Captivity they were at last cur'd of their Idolatry yet after all they generally attain'd to but very mean apprehensions either of God or of the nature of Religion they contented themselves for the most part with the observance of the ritual part of their Law whilst the two great Commandments both of their Law and of all true Religion the Love of God and their Neighbour were grosly neglected by them in so much that when our Saviour appear'd amongst them he found the greater part of them as indispos'd to receive him and his Doctrine as the Gentiles themselves were 'T is true God had not left Mankind not the rest of the World much less the Jews without various means proper for the preserving of them from these Corruptions He taught all Men divers ways as I shew'd in my former Discourse though they did not hear and learn of him But this was still an aggravation of their Misery that all the Methods of Divine Providence for their good had been