Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE

WITNESSES TO CHRISTIANITY;

OR, THE

CERTAINTY OF

OUR FAITH AND HOPE:

IN A DISCOURSE UPON 1 JOHN V. 7, 8.

PART II.

[The original title to the first edition.]

ΤΟ

THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD

GILBERT

[SHELDON,]

BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,

PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN; AND ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE

To cast your eye upon the second part of that work, the first part of which I took the confidence to address unto your Grace the last year. It is concerning that ETERNAL LIFE which was with the Father, as St. John speaks; and now is manifested to us by his Son Jesus Christ, who hath published the most gracious purposes of God the Father towards us. The thoughts of which, as they cannot but be at all times exceeding welcome to devout Christians, (especially to those who are faithful ministers in Christ's kingdom), so never more than when they see their departure is at hand. In which regards I doubt not this treatise will be acceptable to your Grace, because it contains a description and full assurance of that happy life which you shortly expect. For there is nothing so reviving in our declining age, as to think that the passage out of this life leads us not to death, but to immortality: and that it will not take away our happiness from us, but give us a purer enjoyment of it: "Pleasure not mixed with a mortal body, but sincere and free from grief and For when we shall be set at liberty and delivered from this prison, we shall come thither where is no labour, no sighing nor old age; but a life of perfect ease and tranquillity, that breeds no trouble, nor any other evil; but is serene and clear in an immovable rest and peace. Where the happy inhabitants sweetly contemplate the

sorrow.

TO THE READER.

I HAVE no other reason to give for adding one more to that heap of books, which men complain is already grown too great, but the hope I have of doing some service to our Lord, by making a further search (as I promised in the conclusion of the former part of this work) into the testimony of these divine witnesses concerning ETERNAL LIFE.

[ocr errors]

The hope of which is the most precious legacy the Son of God hath left us; the hinge upon which all religion turns: without which it would be the greatest vanity (as Lactantius a often speaks) to obey the commands of virtue; for whose sake we must endure not only many labours, but ofttimes sore calamities. We were born (as he discourses elsewhere b) to acknowledge God the Maker of us and the world: whom we therefore acknowledge, that we may worship him; and therefore worship him, that we may receive immortality for a reward of our labours, (because his service engages us in the greatest :) and therefore immortality is bestowed on us for a recompense, that, being made like to the angels, we may serve the Father and Lord of all for ever, and be the eternal kingdom of God. This is the chief of all things, this is the secret of God, this is the mystery of the world; to which they are strangers, who, following their present pleasures, have addicted themselves to terrestrial and frail goods, and sunk their souls, born to celestial enjoyments, into delights as deadly as they are muddy and dirty."

And it is the singular privilege of Christians, as I have demonstrated, to be assured of a good so great, by so many most credible witnesses; whose testimony none can refuse, but they that will be so absurd as to believe none at all. The FATHER, the WORD, the HOLY GHOST, the WATER, the BLOOD, and the SPIRIT, declare so unanimously and so plainly, that the Lord Jesus will give eternal life to his followers, that what the orators said in flattery to the Athenians in the time of the Chremonidian war, may in truth be

a Lib. vi. c. 9. [tom. i. p. 455.] vii. 1. [p. 514.]

b Lib. vii. 6. [p. 534.]

said to us, if we alter but one word: that "other things indeed are common to us with the rest of the world; τὴν δ ̓ ἐπὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνθρώπους φέρουσαν ὁδὸν Χριστιανοὺς εἰδέναι μόνους c, but the way that leads men to heaven is known to Christians alone:" who have a manifold grace bestowed on them; enjoying not only a promise of eternal life, (which the world never had before,) but that promise attested by so many witnesses: who tell us also, it is in the power of him that died for us to confer it on us, as well as to show us by what means we may become so exceeding blessed.

And again, it is

The serious reader, I doubt not, will be sensible of this, when he hath perused the following work; in which I have endeavoured to satisfy those also who wish I had said something of that part of this record which I undertook to explain; These three are one. Which words, I have reason to believe, (whatsoever the Socinians have pretended to the contrary,) were always a part of this holy Scripture. For they are alleged by St. Cyprian, in his book of the Unity of the Catholic Church, to show how dangerous it is to break that unity by the clashing of our wills, which not only coheres by celestial sacraments, but proceeds, as he speaks, from the divine firmness. "For our Lord saith, I and the Father are one. written of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Et hi tres unum sunt, and these three are one." By which, that the apostle would have us to understand not merely the consent of their testimony, (though that is not to be excluded,) but the unity of their nature or essence, we have great reason to think, because there can no account be given why he should not use the same form of speech here which follows, when he speaks of the other three witnesses, if these three in heaven were no otherwise three than those three in earth. Which being admitted, (and if we take in the constant sense of the church to interpret the words, we cannot make any further doubt of it,) that these three are one in their essence, then it is certain there are Three Persons whose essence is one and the same. For else there would not be three witnesses in heaven, but only one : which would cross the design of the apostle, whose scope is to show that our faith doth not rely upon a single testimony. And indeed the holy Scriptures in other places ascribe such actions and works to each of them as are proper to persons: which is a sufficient warrant to the church to express the distinction that is between them by this name. Non quia scriptura dicit, (as St. Augustinee speaks

• Athenæus in Deipnosoph. lib. vi. [p. 250 f.]

d [De Unit. Eccles. p. 109.]

e Lib. vii. de Trinitate, cap. 4. [tom. viii. col. 859 F.]

« PreviousContinue »