magnificent Temples, their Idols sumptuously adorn’d, their mode of God’s Service Stately, with Lights, Musick, Odours, Vessels shining with Pearl, and the Priests Garments shining with pretious-Stones, the processionary Pomps of their Gods also, their Triumphs, Games, and Sights, (Sword-fightings, Scenical Plays, and Ludi seculares, which were in honour of their Gods,) were part of the Pomps and Vanities of this World, which are hugely taking to a carnal Mind. As themselves were a mundan-kind of People, so the principal Design of the Heathen-Popular Religion, was a mundan Felicity. The Idolatry, both of Rome-Heathen, and Heathen-Christian is, in the design of it, a worldly Religion, (it designeth to swim in worldly Felicity, and the Enjoyments of this present Life,) both have been attended with secular Pomp and Grandeur, Plenty, and Prosperity.
The badness of the Heathen Virtue and Goodness.
Consectary 4. The fourth Consectary, concerning the badness of the Heathen Virtue and Goodness, hath been already consider’d, in the first Part of this Essay; after which, it may not be improper here to consider that branch of the Pelagian Controversy, “Whether the seeming Virtues and good Works of the Gentiles are true or false, Sins and Vices, or Virtues and Well-doings, in what sense, and how far they are so?” If we say, “That all their Virtues, and good Works, are in no sense true,” we contradict the Apostle, Rom. 2. 14. “The Gentiles do, by Nature, the Things contain’d in the Law.” But, if we say, “That the true Virtues, and good Works, are found in the Gentile World,” we destroy the Necessity of Christianity, confound Nature and Grace, Gentilism and Christianism, the Atheous World with the City of God; we contradict the Nature of Things, by supposing, that Men do what is truly Holy and Pious, antecedently to the first Principles of true Piety and Sanctity; we contradict the scriptural Account of the Heathen State and Life, the whole Stream of the sacred Penmen, who affirm, That “without Faith it is impossible to please God,” Hebr. 11. 6. Which must not be understood of such a Faith as is common to Infidels, as some understand it; but of the Faith, which constituteth Divine Believers, and God’s Religionists that come unto God. The Gentiles “have their Hearts purified by Faith.” The Mind and Practice of Unbelievers is “defiled, impure, and unholy. The Carnal Mind is no keeper of the Law of God; they, that are in the Flesh, cannot please God. Ye are married to another” (saith the Apostle) “to have your Fruit unto Holiness, and to bring forth Fruit unto God. We are created in Christ unto good Works.” The genuine kind of Virtues are, “The Fruits of the Holy Spirit, a corrupt Tree cannot bring forth good Fruit, of Thorns Men do not gather Figs, nor of a Bramble-Bush gather they Grapes. When ye were the Servants of Sin, ye were free from Righteousness,” the Practice whereof is “a Walking, not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. Every one that doth Righteousness, is born of God.” The true and genuine Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness, is that which is of the Kingdom of God, of the Divine Image, and the New-Man that is renewed in Knowledge, (which is inconsistent with a State of Atheous Ignorance,) which is of a new Creature, a new and divine Birth unto Righteousness, of the new Covenant and Dispensation of Things, of the true Vine, and of a Divine Charity, which is the Essence, and Summary, of the truly Divine Moral Virtue, and the genuine kind of good Works. “Though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor, and give my Body to be burn’d, and have not Charity, it profiteth nothing.” The Natural Man’s Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness, therefore is, according to these Notices of Scripture, on this side that, which is the true and genuine Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness; nor can the true Virtues, Goodness, and Justice, exist without being truly Virtuous, Just, and Good, as to God, which is true Piety, Sanctity; nor can that be the true Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Justice, which cannot constitute Men of the truly Good and Virtuous Kind, God’s Kind of Virtuous, Good, and Just Men, whose Judgment is according to Truth. But, as there is a secular and mundan Kind of Wisdom and Prudence, in itself laudable, ornamental and useful, (such is the common Jurisprudence,) yet originally it is Base and Vile, being but Earth-born, not Divine, and Heaven-born; objectively it is Base and Vile, not being conversant about Divine Things; of Kind and Quality, it is also Base and Vile, being of Kind common, Graceless, and Unholy; and effectively it is not Wisdom, for it cannot constitute any Man truly Wise, nor Wise as to the main, but it continueth him where it found him, in the State of Atheous Ignorance, Error and Folly: So there is a secular and mundan Kind of Virtue and Goodness, which, in its own Nature, is Laudable, Ornamental, and Useful at a great rate; yet Originally, Objectively, and also of Kind and Quality, it is but Base and Vile, and effectively it is not Virtue, Justice, and Goodness; for it cannot constitute any Man Virtuous, Just, and Good; not Virtuous, Just, and Good, as to the main, but it continues him where it found him, in the State of reigning Sin and Unrighteousness. His Works are not “wrought in God,” as our Saviour says, Joh. 3. 21. by which he certainly means Theism of Religion and Condition. The Heathens are not truly Holy and Religious towards God in any thing, but are Atheous, Graceless, and Unholy, not only in their indifferent Actions, and their Evil-doings (materially such,) but in their Religious Actions, in their Virtue, Goodness, and Well-doing (materially such;) these are not of Kind, and for the main, the truly good and holy Kind of Virtues, Duties, and good Works. Their manner of doing what is materially Good, partakes not of the truly Good and Holy in the main Principle, Motive, End, and formal Object. They are not right in those grand Ingredients, which are essential to every one of the truly good Actions; for they live not to the true God, as his Servants, in the Exercise of all Divine Virtues; they, therefore, so sin in practicing their Virtue, as to be inconsistent with Sanctity; and, therefore, they are Wicked and Ungodly in all their Virtuous Practice, and Well-doing.
With this account of the Virtues and good Works of the Gentiles, the general Sense of Christians agreeth. “It is a plain and granted Truth among all that are truly Pious, that without true Piety, that is, the true Worship of the true God, no Man can have the true” (kind of) “Virtue.”269 The Pagan Theologers themselves say, that Piety is μή τηρ τών ἀρετών, the Mother of the Virtues;270 their Virtues, therefore, could not be of the holy and godly Kind, if their Religion and Piety was of a contrary Kind and Family. Warm have been the Disputes among Christians, “Whether all the Actions of Infidels be Sins, or not?” But the greater Number seem to be of Opinion, That all the Works of the Unregenerate have the Nature of Sins (as the Church of England determineth) and are not good Works (wanting some Essentials thereto) but Sins in the sight of God, altho’ they be materially Good.
It is not reasonable to attempt a Reconcilement of all the jarring Accounts of the Pagans Virtues and good Works, for none can reconcile Contradictions; but the most of them may commodiously be reconcil’d, by considering their Ethical and Political Virtue, (which may be call’d the Human Moral, or Human-Social Virtue,) and representing the true Character thereof. This sort of Virtue (which separate from the true Divine-Moral Virtue is manifestly competible to Heathen Mankind) is an Atheous and unholy Kind of Virtue, and, therefore, is of Character a virtue-less Kind of Virtue, and a bad Kind of Goodness. But, amongst the sinful Kinds of doing Duty, (the evil manner of doing what is materially Good,) there is this remarkable Difference; in some of them, that which is materially Good, is done in so criminal a Manner, and out of Ends and Principles so Vitious, that the Nature of Virtue is intirely lost out of the Action, and it becomes (like Pharisaical Holiness) Vice simply so called; but it is otherwise in this alien Kind of Virtue and Well doing, which is a different evil Kind of doing what is materially Good, for the Nature of Virtue and Well-doing is in part really preserv’d and retain’d in it, as the Nature of an Olive is in the Wild-Olive. The Virtues of the Gentiles, therefore, are Sin in one sense, but not in another. He that saith, They are Sin, Vice and Crime, not Righteousness and true Holiness, saith true; but he that saith, They are not any sort of Virtue, saith false. They are not so Vice, as not to be an unholy Virtue and Well-doing. They are not simply, either Vice, or Virtue; for they are not the true and genuine, but the spurious and illegitimate, Kind of good Works. The case is the same, if we consider them with
