The Christian Life Part 2 Volume 1, Title page – Table of contents
THE Christian Life.
PART II.
Wherein the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF Christian Duty Are assigned, explained, and proved.
VOLUME I.
BY JOHN SCOTT Rector of St. Peters Poor, London.
LONDON, Printed for Robert Horn at the South Entrance of the Royal Exchange, and Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1685.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of London, And one of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council, &c.
My Lord,
I Here present to your Lordship the first Volume of a second Part of that Treatise of Christian Life, which I published some years since, and which under the Protection of your Venerable Name hath found good acceptance with the World; and to make an ingenuous confession to your Lordship, my design in this second Dedication is not purely to render you the due Respects of a Presbyter to his Diocesan; nor to tender those just Acknowledgments I ow to your Lordship for the happiness I have enjoy'd, with the rest of your Clergy, under the auspicious Influence of your serene and watchful Government; no nor yet to express the grateful sense I have, and shall always retain, of the personal Obligations you have laid upon me; no, my Lord, though these were all of them sufficient Inducements, yet I confess that together with these I had a certain Politick end in my eye. For I thank God I can truly say my main Design in composing this Treatise was to benefit the World; but reflecting upon the manifold defects it abounds with after all the pains I had bestowed upon it, I found that, to palliate its internal blemishes, it was but needful to grace it with some external Ornament, and could think of none so proper for my purpose as this of affixing your Lordships Name to it; a Name that carries with it power enough to recommend any thing to the World that is but pious, and honest, and well-designed, and all that, I am sure, this is, how defective soever it be in other respects; which together with the experience I have had of the great candor and benignity of your Lordships temper, gives me encouragement to hope that you will not only accept but approve it; and then I am sure your Lordships approbation will give it credit and authority enough with the World to enable it to effect those good and honest ends for which it was sincerely intended by
Your Lordships Most humble, Most obliged and Faithful Servant John Scott.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
WHEN I wrote the Treatise of Christian Life, of which this and another Volume, now in the Press, is a second Part, I had no design of engaging any further in that Argument; but now I find by experience that Writing is like Building, wherein the undertaker, to supply some defect, or serve some convenience which at first he foresaw not, is usually forced to exceed his first Model and proposal, and many times to double the charge and expence of it. For after that Treatise began to be a little known in the World, I was advised from several hands that there was one thing wanting in it, which is the common defect of most practical Treatises, and that was, an Explication and Proof of those main Principles of Religion in which the Obligation of our Christian Duty is founded, which they thought might be sufficiently done within a very narrow compass, though herein I find that either they were very much mistaken, or that I have very much exceeded the necessary limits of my Argument, which I am not yet convinced of, but that I must submit to the judgment of the World. I confess the prospect of doing it in that narrow compass they talk'd of was a great inducement with me to undertake it, and perhaps had I foreseen at first what a large field of discourse it would oblige me to traverse, I should never have entered on it, but when once I was in, I could not handsomly retreat.
AND indeed considering with what prodigious rudeness and insolence the very foundations of Religion are struck at in this dissolute Age, he who would now treat of them to any purpose will find himself obliged not only to give a distinct and clear explication of them, but also to assert the truth of them with convincing evidence, and to answer and expose those Atheistical Cavils that are levelled against them; which later would have been much less necessary in an Age of a more serious and Religious Genius. And upon this account I have been forced upon a much larger and more laborious proof of the several Principles of Religion than I first intended. Not that I have any great hope of reclaiming those who are professed Atheists to the acknowledgment of the truth; for when men are seduced by lust, as I verily believe most Atheists are, there is little reason to expect they will be reduced by reason. But that which I chiefly aimed at is to confirm and establish those that are wavering, and to Antidote all against this spreading contagion of Irreligion and Atheism, which in a fatal Chain draws after it not only the ruine of mens Souls hereafter, but also the utter subversion of all Humane Society here; And it is this hath constrained me to enlarge this Second Part into two Volumes, which at first view I promised my self to finish in one.
IN this first Volume I have treated only of those Principles which are common to natural Religion and Christianity together; as an Introduction to which I have in the first Chapter explained and demonstrated the natural distinction of Humane Actions into good and evil, by some eternal Reasons for or against them; and having shewn at large that God hath made this distinction sufficiently clear and evident to all men to enable them to conduct themselves to their own happiness, and that those actions of men which fall under this natural distinction are the principal subject matter of the commands and prohibitions of Religion, I proceed in the second Chapter briefly to explain the nature of Religion in General, and of natural and Christian Religion in particular; from the nature of both which I have deduced those fundamental Principles from whence the Obligations of Religion are derived; the five first of which being common to natural Religion with Christianity I have handled in this first Volume in so many distinct Chapters.
AND then as for the last, viz. the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ our Mediator, which contains under it all those Religious Principles that are peculiar to Christianity, though I have endeavoured to treat of it with all the brevity that is consistent with a clear and satisfactory account of the whole Argument, yet it is run out into a second Volume, which is now in the Press, and, I hope, within a few Weeks will be ready to follow this. And perhaps when the Reader considers the copiousness of the Argument it handles, he will rather blame me for being too brief than too tedious; for in treating of those Doctrines which have been handled at large in other English Treatises of the Christian Faith, and especially in that incomparable one of our most learned Bishop of Chester on the Creed (a Book which next to the Bible I thankfully acknowledg my self more beholden to for my instruction in the Doctrines of Religion than to any one I ever read) I have contracted my self into as narrow a compass as the barely necessary explication of them would permit me; but where that renowned Pen hath insisted more Cursorily (as for instance on the particular Offices of our blessed Mediator) I have most enlarged my self, though even there I have for brevity sake pretermitted some things I intended less immediate and necessary appertaining to the Argument.
UPON the whole I can truly say, that to the best of my understanding, I have herein delivered nothing but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church, which as the most faithful Comment on the holy Writings of our Saviour and his Apostles I have all along carefully consulted in doubtful and difficult cases; and this is the reason why it hath stuck so long in hand, the pains I have taken in consulting the ancient Monuments of Christianity about it being, as I may truly say, at least double to that of composing it; and in following the Primitive Doctrine, I have followed the Doctrine of the Church of England, which in its Faith, Government, and Discipline, I believe in my conscience, is the most Primitive Church in the World.
As for the Method I have chosen, which is to deduce all the Doctrines of Christianity from one general Head, viz. the Doctrine of the Mediator, it is the most convenient I could think of for my purpose, which was to represent at once to the Readers view all the parts of our holy Religion in their natural connexion with and dependence on one another, that so he might be the better able to judge of the beautiful contexture and admirable contrivance of the whole, and that by seeing how regularly all the parts of it proceed out of one common Principle, and conspire in one common end, he may be the better satisfied that Christianity is so far from being a heap of incoherencies, as some have injuriously represented it, that considering it merely as an Hypothesis, abstracted from all that external evidence that accompanies it, the very Art and contrivance of it, the proportion, symetry, and correspondence of its parts, their subserviency to each other, and the concurrence and tendency of them all together to the common ends of Religion, are such as do apparently exceed all humane Invention, and argue it to be the product of a divine mind. For as he who would form a true Idea of the beauty of a Picture, must not contemplate the parts of it separately, but survey them all together, and consider them in their proportions and correspondencies with each other, so he who would frame a right Notion of Religion must not look upon it as it lies scattered and divided into single parts and propositions, but consider them in contexture, and as they are connected all together into one body or hypothesis. For it is in their apt Junctures, their mutual dependencies and admirable coherencies with one another that the beauty and harmony of the whole consists. And therefore to do right to Christianity, and enable the Reader to contemplate it with the greatest advantage, I have endeavoured to represent to him the whole in a view, and to give him a prospect of all the parts of it together, in an harmonious union and connexion with each other. For I verily believe that the mean opinion which some witty men have entertained of Christianity, proceeds in a great measure from their broken and imperfect apprehensions of it; they understand it piecemeal, and take it asunder into single propositions, which they consider separately and apart by themselves, without ever putting them together into one regular System, and presenting them to their thoughts in that orderly connexion wherein the holy Oracles have delivered them to us. For I can scarce imagine how any man of sense should contemplate Christianity all together, and throughly consider the harmonious coherence of all its parts, and the wonderful contrivance of the whole, without being captivated with the beauty and elegancy of it.
AND now I have nothing further to add concerning this Treatise but only to intreat the Reader not to be too severe in the perusal of it. For though as for the Doctrine of it, I see no reason at all to Apologize for it, because I am fully persuaded of the truth of it, yet being forced, as I was, to compose it by snatches, and in the more quiet intervals of a busie and uneasie life, I very much suspect the exactness both of the Stile and Method of it; and therefore all the favour I desire is this, that where I have improperly or obscurely express'd my self I may be construed in the most favourable sense, and that wherever I may seem to be confused or immethodical it may be attributed to those frequent interruptions which the disorders of my body have given to my thoughts. And these are requests so very just and reasonable, that I am confident none will be so peevish as to deny me, but they who read Books only to carp and find fault, and without any design to Edifie their own understandings. But I hope the Reader will consider that the Argument here treated of is of too great moment to him to be so wretchedly trifled with, and that therefore he will not be either so disingenuous to me, or uncharitable to himself, as to peruse with such a spiteful design that which I sincerely intended for his good, and which he, I am sure, if he pleases, may be the better for for ever.
THE CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
HUmane Actions of three sorts, page 1. Necessary and sinful Actions are either such as are good or evil in themselves, which are those we call Moral Actions, or such as are commanded and forbid by positive Law, p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. The Nature of Moral Good explained, Sect. 1. p. 8, 9, 10, 11. That there is such a thing as Moral Good in humane Actions, proved in five Propositions, p. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27. The various ways by which God hath discovered to us what is Morally Good in six particulars, Sect. 2. p. 28, to p. 53. Actions Morally Good are the principal parts of Religion, Sect. 3. p. 53, 54, 55. This demonstrated by six Arguments from Scripture, p. 55, to p. 71. Four Reasons why God principally requires what is Morally Good, p. 71, to p. 91.
CHAP. II.
OF the nature of Religion in General, and of natural Religion what it is, p. 92, 93, 94, 95, 96. And of Revealed Religion, p. 97, 98, 99, 100. A definition of natural and revealed Religion, considered as they are now in conjunction, p. 101, 102. From the nature of Religion thus defined the Principles of all Religious Obligations are deduced, p. 202. Which are reduced to five Heads, p. 102, 103.
CHAP. III.
OF the necessity of believing the existence of God in order to our being truly Religious, p. 104, 105. Atheism resolved into the corruption of mens Wills and Imaginations, Sect. 1. p. 106, 107, 108, 109. The particular causes of it reduced to nine Heads, and of the folly and unreasonableness of them, p. 109, to p. 157. Of the great folly and madness of Atheism in its self, p. 157, 158. This shewn at large in six particulars, p. 158, to p. 196.
CHAP. IV.
THat to the founding the Obligations of Religion it is necessary we should acknowledge the divine Providence, p. 196, 197, 198, 199. What are the particular Acts of Providence which we are to acknowledg, shewn in five Particulars, p. 200, to 244. The Divine Providence proved, first à Priori by Arguments drawn from the nature of God which are reduced to four Heads, p. 245, to 256. secondly, à Posteriori by Arguments drawn from sensible effects of God in the World, of which six instances are given, p. 256, to p. 310. The most considerable Objections against a Divine Providence reduced to five Heads, and particularly answered, p. 310, to p. 354.
CHAP. V.
THe necessity of acknowledging divine Rewards and Punishments to oblige us to be truly Religious, p. 355, 356, 357, 358. How far it is necessary we should believe them, shewn in four particulars, p. 358, to 369. Of the Universal acknowledgment of future Rewards and Punishments, p. 370, 371, 372, 373. The reality of these future Rewards and Punishments proved by six Arguments, p. 373, to 399. By what means our belief of future Rewards and Punishments is to be acquired and confirmed, shewn in four particulars, p. 399, to 410. Of the force and power of this belief to oblige us to be truly Religious, p. 410, to 417.
CHAP. VI.
THe necessity of Right Notions of God to oblige us to be truly Religious, p. 417, 418. In what respects they are necessary to oblige us to be truly Religious, shewn in four particulars, p. 419, to p. 444. Of the way of forming right Notions of God in general, p. 445, to 449. Si… general Rules laid down for the framing right Notions of God, p. 449, to 484. Of the common causes of mens misapprehensions of God, in si… particular instances, p. 485, to 513.