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CHAP. Attention and Confideration on Man's Part, as VIII. will afterwards appear.

OUR Author is exceffively abufive, as well as ludicrous, in drawing a Parallel, pag. 73, 74, 75. between the Mediators of Heathens, and the Mediation of Chrift; making the laft rather more abfurd than the other. The manifeft and most pernicious Intention is, to imprefs upon his Readers, that there is as little, rather lefs Grounds for the Belief of one, than of the other; and fo strike it out of Christianity, and cashier it from all Acceptation. And, pag. 113, 114. he explodes it as one of the abfurd Pofitives of Christianity, and makes God arbitrary in requiring it.

BUT how abfurd is his Proceeding? How grofs are his Mifrepresentations and canting Delufions, in dealing that out for Christianity, which is profeffedly and notoriously but a Part of it? Throwing that afide as contemptible, or unwhol fome, which is the very declared Foundation, the boafted Glory, the diftinguishing Effence, the faving Health and Salvation of it. How like a Quack does he appear in his Title Page; where he mounts the Stage, and, with the Afurance and Sufficiency, mixt with the Artifice peculiar to fuch Perfons, prescribes that for the Cure and Medicine of Christianity, which is known to all regular Practitioners, not to be the curative Part of it; not to be the Means, not to be the Motives, not to be the Aids, not to be the Helps and Inftruments of it?

FOR the Religion of the End, or the Law of Nature being firit fet to rights and reftor'd to its Perfection, the entire Cure, the noble Medicine

for

for restoring and enabling the fick, impotent Na- CHAP. ture of Men, to perform and do it, with Satif- VIII. faction to themselves, and Acceptance with God (finding in themselves, without that gracious Proffer, neither fufficient Inclination nor Ability for it) confifts in the Means; and in the Head of all the Means Chrift Jefus, the Mediator between God and Man; what He has done; what He does; and what He is to do, as our Redeemer, Interceffor, and Judge.

WHO can believe him, when he tells them to their Faces, that the healing Medicine, (fo all the rest of the World call it) is older, and was fooner known than the Disease? He might as well have given out, that Hippocrates was as old as the Distempers of Men. Whereas the previous Difcafes of the World, first made him that great Physician he is recorded to be. And, indeed, it looks as if the Art of healing bodily Disorders was the Gift of God; being given all at once, at leaft at one time of the World; seeing none in fo long a Duration pretend to equal him: But all, perhaps to the End of the World, contend, and will contend who fhall imitate him neareft in that way. He lived some time before our Saviour; and though his Divine Art is a great Bleffing and Benefit to the World, yet we find it is far from being univerfal, no more than the Gospel. Therefore no more Ground for impeaching the Providence of God in one Cafe, than in the other. And if there are, and have been more Quacks and Pretenders in that Skill, all the World over, than there are, or have been, counterfeit Revelations from Heaven; there is lefs Reason for invalidating the true Revelation upon that Account, or disrespecting (with our Author) the Great Phyfician of Souls;

who

CHAP who had never been known to the World, if VIII. Human Nature, in its moral Part, had not been

difeafed and difordered by the Fall, which was not as old, but after the CREATION, from doing its Duty. And furely, he is the greatest and trueft Phyfician of Men, who by Profeffion cures both Body and Mind; the Body being likewife cured at the final Resurrection to Life, when all other Cures are defperate and impoffible?

He might as confiftently have afferted, that the Act of Parliament for difcouraging Prophanenefs and Immorality, is as old as Prophaneness and Immorality. But though the Chriftian Law is not fo old as the Creation, nor the Difobedience of thofe that occafion'd it; it will be found under the Offices of our Mediator to be the most quickning, powerful, vital Law that could be devised by God, or Man, confiftent with Man's Liberty of Will; not only for difcouraging Prophaneness and Immorality, but for encouraging the fincere Practice of Piety, and all Virtue, which is more than human Laws can pretend to.

As our Author fet out, fo he has blunder'd through innumerable Inconfiftencies, apparent to thofe who are attentive; and to thofe that are not fo (the greatest Part of Readers) he plies the Art of juggling, and Skill of fhifting ambiguous Words, in the Shift he makes to pervert them; Christianity; Immutability of the Relation between God and Man; Sufficiency of Reajon; Honour of God, and Good of Men; Mediation; Pofitives; the Doctrine of the Trinity, with the Airs of Wit and Pleafantry, the better to impofe upon fuperficial unguarded Readers; till he comes to his

laft

laft concluding Words, Errare poffum, Hæreticus CHAP. effe nolo. A pert Irony, laughing in his Sleeve VIII. at those he has carried on fo far!

FOR, if ever there was a Heretick in Chriftendom, he has the Refemblance of fuch a one. If any one has ever been an Apoftate, not holding the Head, Jefus Chrift, the Mediator of Worfhip; or rejected the only Foundation of Faith that can be laid + of a Chriftian's Title to eternal Life, it is He. If there is fuch a Thing as damnable Herefy, or denying the Lord that bought them, according to St. Peter, 2 Ep. ii. 1. fo entirely fubverfive of the Chriftian Faith, that it cannot poffibly be the Chriftian Faith, in fuch a Heresy or Departure from it, He is the guilty Perfon. Antichrift himself may as well excufe himself from being a Heretick, or fet himself up to be a true Christian, as fuch a Writer upon Chriftianity. According to John xi. 22. He is Antichrift, who denieth the Father and the Son, i. e. God in Chrift reconciling the World to himself by the Death of his Son; or his being the Father and Saviour of the World, by the Mediation of his Son fent into the World, for the Salvation and Redemption of it; and whoever denies the Son as fent from the Father for that Purpose, denies the Father as well as the Son; nor does any come to the Father, as Father, but by the Son; nor is the Father glorified as Father, but by the Son. If any has been fubverted and finneth, being condemned of bimfelft; or thought themselves unworthy of everlasting Life; Chriftian Charity itfelf can hardly forbear fufpecting, that it is He.

Col. ii. 18, 19. † 1 Cor. iii. 11. As xiii. 46.

Tit. iii. 11.

Because

CHAP. Because he faulters fo very much, and is guilty VIII. of fo many Contradictions, a bad Sign of being Jelf-condemned.

IN Words he owns Chrift, but makes no more use of him, than as a Republisher of the Law of Nature, and an Example of its Practice; which is the fame Thing in effect, and to the grand Intention of the Gofpel, as to disown him: he, with a careless Air, denies not his Miffion from God for the former Purpofe; but particularly takes the utmoft Pains to deny and villify the End, the chief Purpose of his Miffion, and all the Duties refulting from it. He declares *, "I dare not fay, there is the least Difference "between the Law of Nature and the Gospel; for "that would fuppofe fome Defect in one of them, "and reflect upon the Author of both." And almost every where, he receives the Chriftian Revelation in part, and as a Revelation, and calls it the Republication of his Law of Nature; he acknowledges the Goodness, the Wisdom of God, that that Part was needful; he fubmits alfo to the Authority of God, that that was worthy commanding, and ought to be obey'd. But as to those Parts, wherein God, and Christ, and his Apostles, place the Love and Goodness, the Wisdom, Power, and Authority of God and Chrift, and the Riches, the Glory, and the Pre-eminence of the Gofpel; all these he rejects, together with all the peculiar Obligations laid upon Chriftians beyond natural Religion. And by rejecting, shamefully contradicts himself, and feems to violate his own Confcience.

* Page 342.

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