A Following Holy Life. Kenneth Stevenson

Чтение книги онлайн.

      1

      The Life of Christ

      The opening words of the ‘Dedication’ – in the year of the execution of Charles I, a time for theology that is practical, not polemical

      When interest divides the church, and the calentures of men breathe out in problems and inactive discourses, each part, in pursuance of its own portion, follows that proposition which complies with and bends in all the flexures of its temporal ends; and while all strive for truth, they hug their own opinions dressed up in her imagery, and they dispute for ever; and either the question is indeterminable, or, which is worse, men will never be convinced. For such is the nature of disputings, that they begin commonly in mistakes, they proceed with zeal and fancy, and end not at all but in schisms and uncharitable names, and too often dip their feet in blood. In the mean time, he that gets the better of his adversary oftentimes gets no good to himself, because, although he hath fast hold upon the right side of the problem, he may be an ill man in the midst of his triumphant disputations. And therefore it was not here that God would have man’s felicity to grow; for our condition had been extremely miserable if our final state had been placed upon an uncertain hill, and the way to it had been upon the waters upon which no spirit but that of contradiction and discord did ever move: for the man should have tended to an end of an uncertain dwelling, and walked to it by ways not discernible, and arrived thither by chance; which, because it is irregular, would have discomposed the pleasures of a Christian hope, as the very disputing hath already destroyed charity, and disunited the continuity of faith; and in the consequent there would be no virtue, and no felicity. But God, who never loved that man should be too ambitiously busy in imitating His wisdom (and man lost paradise for it,) is most desirous we should imitate His goodness, and transcribe copies of those excellent emanations from His holiness whereby, as He communicates Himself to us in mercies, so He propound Himself, imitable by us in graces: and in order to this, God has described our way plain, certain, and determined; and although He was pleased to leave us undetermined in the questions of exterior communion, yet He put it past all question that we are bound to be charitable. He hath placed the question of the state of separation in the dark, in hidden and undiscerned regions; but He hath opened the windows of heaven, and given great light to us, teaching how we are to demean ourselves in the state of conjunction. Concerning the salvation of the heathens He was not pleased to give us account; but He hath clearly described the duty of Christians, and tells upon what terms alone we shall be saved. And although the not inquiring into the ways of God and the strict rules of practice have been instrumental to the preserving them free from the serpentine enfoldings and labyrinths of dispute, yet God also, with a great design of mercy, hath writ His commandments in so large characters, and engraven them in such tables, that no man can want the records, nor yet skill to read the hand-writing upon this wall, if he understands what he understands, that is, what is placed in his own spirit. For God was therefore desirous that human nature should be perfected with moral not intellectual excellencies, because these only are of use and compliance with our present state and conjunction, If God had given to eagles an appetite to swim, or to the elephant strong desires to fly, He would have ordered that an abode in the sea and the air respectively should have been proportionable to their manner of living; for so God hath done to man, fitting him with such excellencies which are useful to him in his ways and progress to perfection. And man hath great use and need of justice, and all the instances of morality serve his natural and political ends; he cannot live without them, and be happy: but the filling the rooms of the understanding with airy and ineffective notions is just such an excellency as it is in a man to imitate the voice of birds; at his very best, the nightingale shall excel him, and it is of no use to that end which God designed him in the first intentions of creation.

      In pursuance of this consideration, I have chosen to serve the purposes of religion by doing assistance to that part of theology which is wholly practical; that which makes us wiser therefore because it makes us better.

      II.1–2

      ‘Preface’ – Christianity and Natural Law

      For certain it is, Christianity is nothing else but the most perfect design that ever was to make a man be happy in his whole capacity: and as the law was to the Jews, so was philosophy to the gentiles, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, to teach them the rudiments of happiness, and the first and lowest things of reason; that when Christ was come, all mankind might become perfect; that is, be made regular in their appetites, wise in their understandings, assisted in their duties, directed to, and instructed in, their great ends. And this is that which the apostle calls “being perfect men in Christ Jesus;” perfect in all the intendments of nature, and in all the designs of God: and this was brought to pass by discovering, and restoring, and improving the law of nature and by turning it all into religion.

      For the natural law being a sufficient and a proportionate instrument and means to bring a man to the end designed in his creation, and this law being eternal and unalterable, (for it ought to be as lasting and as unchangeable as the nature itself, so long as it was capable of a law,) it was not imaginable that the body of any law should make a new morality, new rules and general proportions, either of justice, or religion, or temperance, or felicity; the essential parts of all these consisting in natural proportions, and means toward the consummation of man’s last end, which was first intended and is always the same. It is, as if here were a new truth in an essential and a necessary proposition. For although the instances may vary, there can be no new justice, no new temperance, no new relations, proper and natural relations, and intercourses, between God and us, but what always were; in praises and prayers, in adoration and honour, and in the symbolical expressions of God’s glory and our needs.

      II.20

      On how Christ perfects Natural Law

      Thus the holy Jesus perfected and restored the natural law, and drew it into a system of propositions, and made them to become of the family of religion. For God is so zealous to have man attain to the end to which He first designed him, that those things which He hath put to the natural order to attain that end, He hath bound fast upon us, not only by the order of things by which it was that he that prevaricated did naturally fall short of felicity, but also by bands of religion; He hath now made Himself a party, and an enemy to those that will not be happy. Of old, religion was but one of the natural laws, and the instances of religion were distinct from the discourses of philosophy. Now, all the law of nature is adopted into religion, and by our love and duty to God we are tied to do all that is reason, and the parts of our religion are but pursuances of the natural relation between God and us. And beyond all this, our natural condition is, in all senses, improved by the consequents and adherences of this religion: for although nature and grace are opposite, that is, nature depraved by evil habits, by ignorance, and ungodly customs, is contrary to grace, that is, to nature restored by the gospel, engaged to regular living by new revelations, and assisted by the Spirit; yet it is observable that the law of nature and the law of grace are never opposed. “There is a law of our members,” saith St. Paul; that is an evil necessity introduced into our appetites by perpetual evil customs, examples, and traditions of vanity; and there is a law of sin, that answers to this; and they differ only as inclination and habit, vicious desires and vicious practices. Bt then contrary to these are, first “a law of my mind,” which is the law of nature and right reason, and then the law of grace, that is, of Jesus Christ, who perfected and restored the first law, and by assistances reduced it into СКАЧАТЬ