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pous Monarch; for God Almighty values no more the Robes and Diadems, the noble Attendants and numerous Guards of the greatest Emperor, than he does the feathered Caps of the poor Mad-folks in Bedlam. We Men are apt to fet a great Value upon thefe Things, because they agree with our carnal Affections, and are the finest Things this World affords; but to an All-wife and Allhappy God, they are all Mock-fhew and Pageantry: And fo they fhall be to us in another World. Nothing is glorious in God's Sight, but Piety and Goodnefs; and our bleffed Saviour's Spotless Integrity looked a thousand Times more fplendid to his Eyes, than all the mad Ravages and coftly Triumphs of conquering Princes; or the Craft, and Defigns, of politick ones. But confider, What a Deal of Mifchief has been done in the World by thefe glorious Princes, these Men of Figure, you fo much admire? How many Thoufands have they murthered by their Cruelty, or ambitious Defigns? How many noble Cities have been laid wafte, and how many whole Countries deftroyed by them? Such a Glory, as this, is in Reality, the greatest Infamy. But if there be any Glory arifing from brave and generous Actions, it is all centred in our bleffed Saviour. If it be any Glory to refufe profered Honours, and to flight Fame for the meaneft Obfcurity; if it be any Glory, to live a Life of the exacteft Purity, without any Blemish in it; and hardly ever to spend a Day, without doing fome extraordinary charitable Act, to one or other; if it be any Glory, to be the most univerfal Friend, that Mankind ever had, to rescue their Souls from eternal Death, and to teach them the wifeft and nobleft Inftitution that ever was, and to entail on them, for their Conformity to it, everlasting Happiness; then the Character of Jefus Chrift is the moft glorious one that ever was; and all the Glory of great Monarchs, which you so much admire, will be but like the fhining of Pebbles to the Stars, or the dusky Blaze of Comets to the Meridian Sun. But you, forfooth, think it an undervaluing of himself, that Chrift fhould cure poor fick People. But, by the Way, it would have been more in

glorious

glorious to him, to have cured chiefly the Rich, It was not the principal Defign of Chrift's coming into the World to cure Difeafes, but to preach the Gospel; he made ufe of this miraculous Power, only as a Means to prove his Divine Million. But then, in his divine Wifdom, he took care to make use chiefly of thofe Miracles, which were apt to do moft good. He might have contrived an hundred Ways of acting Miracles, beyond the Power of Nature, befides the curing the Blind and the Lame by a Word, which might as well have given Credit to his Doctrine; but then they would not have been fo beneficial to Mankind. He was for finding out a Way how to do good to Men's Souls and their Bodies too; to confirm the Religion he taught, and alfo to cure their Difeafes. Nay, he wifely beftow'd these bodily Cures upon thofe chiefly, to whom it was the greatest Charity to do it; the Rich might have been eafed oftentimes of their Maladies, by their Phyficians, and by the Rules of Art; but the Poor muft have languifh'd under their Diftempers, if our blessed Saviour had not miraculoufly relieved them.

Therefore, I fay, the Character of our bleffed Saviour is much more admirable, by his converfing and doing fo much Good among the Poor, than if he had been ever fo great, and done ever fo much good in the Court of Herod. And as for that plain Morality, which you defpife him for preaching; even this did exceed all the ftudied Philofophy of the Gentile World.

Phil. Jefus Chrift is by you generally allow'd, to be the greatest Pattern of Virtue that ever was, which is a Thing I could never bring my Thoughts about to affent to. His Religion would pretend to teach Men to mortify all Affections; and therefore he should have been the most eminent Example of this himself. But we find he oftentimes could not govern his Paffion; he feems frequently to be outrageoufly angry with the Pharifees, 'calling them many hard Names, Hypocrites, and Generation of Vipers, &c. and liberally deals about his Maledictions among them, which is the perfect Character of an angry

Man,

Patience.

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Man, (as Celfus fays in this Matter), who when he 'cannot convince will threaten. A Character not only unbecoming 4 God, but unworthy of a prudent Man....

Cred. You have not been fufficiently obferving of the Vindication Life of our bleffed Saviour, when you tax him as an anof Chrift's gry Perfon, who was the most patient one in the World. Anger. It muft not be faid, that our Saviour never had upon Christ a Pattern of him the Paffion of Anger; but this Paffion was never the greatest criminal, either for the Caufe, or for the Degree of it. And I doubt not but that it was the Design of Chrift to fuffer himself to be seen in fome Degree of that Paffion, to evince the Lawfulness of it upon fome Accounts, and by his Example to confute the Doctrines of thofe Heathen Stoicks, who would condemn the Ufe of all Paffions, and fo make all thofe natural Tendencies, which God had implanted in our Souls, altogether fuperfluous. But our bleffed Saviour's Doctrine is contrary to thefe paradoxical Notions, and forbids Anger, only when there is no just Caufe for it, Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a Canfe, &c. And his Life was exactly answerable to this Doctrine. He was angry, 'tis true, with the Buyers and Sellers in the Temple; and there was just Reason for it, to fee God's House fo irreligioufly abufed. He fhew'd a Refentment to the Pharifees, and upon very good Grounds; because they, by their Traditions, had made void the moral Law of God; they excufed Men from doing that which God had commanded, and laid upon them other unneceffary Burthens, which God had faid nothing of. Befides, the Pride and Arrogance of this Sect, and their Contempt and Hatred of all that contradicted them, made it neceffary not to make ufe only of mild Ratiocination to confute them, (for they fcomed all Reason in refpect of their Tradition,) but to ufe fome Smartnefs in the Reprehenfion, to make them fenfible of their Errors. Thefe were fuch juft and generous Causes of this Paffion, as improved it into an extraordinary Virtue; but we never find in the Life of Chrift, that he

*Celfus apud Orig. Ed. Cantab, p. 107.

was

was peevithly angry 'upon fmall Occafions; and upon the greateft, he ftill kept his Paffion within the Bounds of Reafon, for he always argues as well, under thofe Emotions of his Soul, as he did at other times. No one could reafon better upon that Subject than our Saviour, when he drove the Money-Changers, out of the Temple, My Houfe fall be called a House of Prayer, but you have made it a Den of Thieves. But, when there was no Caufe for fome Degree of Anger, and where the Honour of God was not immediately concerned, the Life of our Saviour was the moft perfect Pattern of Patience in the World. He anfwers very mildly to all thofe captious Questions, which his Adverfaries brought to him to ensnare him: When they faid he did his Miracles by the Power of the Devil, he very calmly demonftrates, that his Doctrine is contrary to the Devil's Kingdom: When they perfecuted him, he prayed for them, and was willing to the 22 utmost, to extenuate their enormous Guilt, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. Thefe are not the Characters of an angry Perfon, but of a Soul perfectly fubjected to Reafon, and the Will of God.

But I have farther to urge, upon this Head, That fome of our Saviour's Expreffions have not that Keenness in them, which at firft fight they feem to carry; and that there was more Reason for his using them, than there can be for ours. He calls them Generation of Vipers, which looks now like a very hard Word, but it was much mollified by common Use among the Jews, who meant no more by it than ill Men, or the Seed of the Serpent, Gen. iii. in Oppofition to good Men, or the Children of God. And when he calls them Hypocrites, (tho' that is a Name we ought to be very cautious in giving to any Men, becaufe we cannot pofitively tell whether they be fo or no;) yet our bleffed Saviour could fee into all their clancular Thoughts, and behold that little inward Reverence they bore to God Almighty, though their outward Actions pretended to fo much of it; and therefore, having the exacteft Grounds for the Truth of what he faid, he could not apply that Name wrongfully to

them;

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them; nor could that be accounted a paffionate Word dropt from him at random, which he was fure he had the jufteft Reason to call them by. But it is a fhameful Calumny to fay, that our Saviour made ufe of Paffion for want of Reason, fince his Difcourfes are full of the moft exalted Reason in the World. Indeed he does not always make use of it, to the obftinate and captious Pharifees, because he knew it would be to no purpose, frequently fending them away with fome fevere Rebuke: But whenever he had any Auditors of a docible Temper, as he had, for Inftance, when he preached his Sermon upon the Mount; he then teaches Morality upon fuch excellent Grounds, as the exacteft of the heathen Philofophy falls fhort of.

Phil. Pray, Sir, excufe me if I think there is nothing fo excellent in the Sermons of Jefus Chrift, as you Chriftians imagine. For I take them, for the most part, to be poor vulgar Matters, which any ordinary Man may fay, and Socrates and Plato have faid much better. They are only a few mean Parables of a Sower of Seed, of a Libourer in a Vineyard, or a Wedding Feaft, which when the Moral is made out after the most fanciful Way, is but poor dull Morality at the beft, and nothing comparable to those noble Ratiocinations among the Ethnick Philof phers. And in the Sermon upon the Mount, which is the best of the Performances, there is no rational Account given of thofe moral Duties he recommends, but he would have all those Rules to be taken upon his Word: For he gives not a Tittle of Proof of thofe Obligations, inftead of that, only putting us off with an † I fay ur you. Then how can you expect any fenfible Man fhould be taken with fuch Lectures, which were fit only for the poor filly People, which he chofe to have his Fol

lowers?

Cred. Thofe Parables, which you fo much defpife were the most ancient and most useful Way of conveying

*Celfus apud Orig. Ed. Cant. p. 337. ib. p. 282.

† Julian apud Cyril. Ed. Spanh. p. 206.

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