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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44137	A discourse of the knowledge of God, and of our selves I. by the light of nature, II. by the sacred Scriptures / written by Sir Matthew Hale, Knight ... for his private meditation and exercise ; to which are added, A brief abstract of the Christian religion, and, Considerations seasonable at all times, for the cleansing of the heart and life, by the same author.	Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676.	1688 (1688)	Wing H240; ESTC R4988	321,717	542

MATHE ' HALE Miles Capitalis Gustic de Banco Regis Ano 1681 For W. Shrowsbery at the Sign of the Bible In Duck Lane 〈…〉 sculp 〈…〉 A DISCOURSE OF THE Knowledge of God and of our Selves I. By the Light of Nature II. By the Sacred Scriptures WRITTEN BY Sir MATTHEW HALE Knight late Chief Justice of the King's Bench in his younger time for his private Meditation and Exercise To which are added A Brief Abstract of the Christian Religion AND Considerations seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing of the Heart and Life By the same AUTHOR LONDON Printed by B. W. for William Shrowsbery at the Sign of the Bible in Duke-Lane MDCLXXXVIII THE PREFACE IN the Publication of this Book I design for the Reader a double Benefit 1. A useful and profitable Book 2. A clear Prospect into an Exemplary Life of a very eminent and famous Person The Book I may be bold to say is of it self such and yet I have good reason to hope that the great and known Worth of the Author which yet this very Book will further discover and demonstrate and the Esteem the World hath always had of him will make it more such But lest I should prejudice both it and its Author by unseasonably raising the Reader 's expectation I must to do Right and Justice to the Author acquaint the Reader with some particulars fit for his notice and consideration concerning the Author's Intention his manner of Writing it and the Work it self And 1. I may with much Confidence upon what I knew of the Author's mind and design in general in all his Writings of this kind and upon some Observations peculiar to this assure the Reader that it was not written with any Intention or thoughts that ever it should be published He had undoubtedly no other aim or design in it than what I have already mentioned in the Preface to the first Volume of his Contemplations He was a man who had an extraordinary faculty of doing much in a little time And yet did he as highly value and was as great a Husband of his time as any man I have known or read of But of no part of his time was he more frugal than of that which was set apart for Sacred Uses that none of that might be suffered to run waste especially of the Christian Sabbath or Lord's Day he was most religiously observant both in Publick and in Private in his Family and in his Study And his religious Observation thereof did not only procure to himself as he always believed a special Blessing upon his Employment of the rest of his time in his other Studies and Secular business but hath moreover produced which he little expected what may prove of great use and benefit to many others For that part of those dayes which did intervene between Evening Sermon and Supper-time he usually imployed in Pious Meditations and having a very ready hand at writing he usually wrote his thoughts that he might the better hold them intent to what he was about and keep them from wandring This was his first and principal reason for it He had indeed some thoughts of some other Uses that he or his might make thereof as that afterward reviewing what he had written long before he might see what Progress he had made in the mean time and possibly they might be of some use or benefit to some of his Family But what I first mentioned was the first and principal occasion and Motive to it Of the shorter Discourses I found divers of the Originals in the hands of his Children and Servants and a great part of the rest in a very neglected condition till I perswaded and prevailed with him to let them be collected and bound together in Volumes But of these among which this was one I am well satisfied there were none which he intended when he wrote them should ever be Printed though he hath since wrote others which he intended for the Publick But upon this occasion hath he written first and last many pious and useful Discourses which whether intended by him for the Press or not I am of opinion may do much good in the World if they were printed 2. His usual Manner of writing these things was this When he had resolved on the Subject the first thing He usually did was with his pen upon some loose piece of paper and sometimes upon a corner or the margin of the Paper he wrote on to draw a Scheme of his whole Discourse or of so much of it as he designed at that time to consider This done he tap'd his thoughts and let them run as he expressed it to me himself and they usually ran as fast as his hand though a very ready one could trace them insomuch that in that space as he hath told me he often wrote two sheets and at other times between one and two and I have my self known him write according to that proportion when I have been reading in the same room with him for divers hours together So that these writings are plainly a kind of extempore Meditations only they came from a Head and Heart well fraught with a rich Treasure of Humane and Divine Knowledge which the famous Legislator Justinian makes the necessary qualifications of a compleat Lawyer And here it is farther to be observed that all his larger Tracts such as this which could not be finished at one time were written upon great intervals of time and such wherein much business of a quite different Nature had interposed which usually interrupt the thread of a Mans thoughts 3. Concerning the Book it self the Reader may of himself perceive that it was not finished but that he had designed to have continued it farther He hath written a particular Tract Of doing as we would be done to which is the Subject at which this is left off But that as I take it was written long since this and not intended for any Continuation of it but it had been very proper to have been joyned with it had I had any Transcript of it Upon perusal of the Manuscript of his own hand-writing it may be further observed 1. That it was the Original draught and no Transcript for therein as I remember may in some places be seen some of those very Schemes which he first drew when he began to write 2. That he had not so much as revised any part of it it being for the most part as fair and without any Alteration as if it were a Transcript 3. The Original is one continued Discourse without any Distinction of Parts or Chapters or so much as any Title superscribed But I conceive it a very methodical Discourse and such as may very aptly be distinguished into those Parts and Chapters and under those Titles which I have assigned as it now appears in the Print And this is a further evidence that he did not design it for the Press Of the two Parts of it the first is wholly

as things stand with Man he hath not this means of his Cure in or from himself but must derive it being now lost from him who at first gave it him the next Enquiry is Whether God hath appointed any Means for the cure of Man's Ignorance Perverseness and Guilt and consequently to lead him to Happiness and what it is wherein we conclude 1. That God in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness hath revealed and conveyed to the Children of Men the Means of their Happiness in several times by several ways and in several degrees in all successions of times 2. That this Discovery and Means of Happiness he hath by the course of his Providence put together and diffused to Man-kind in the Compilation of the Old and New Testament wherein are contained not only the clear Discoveries of things to be Known and Believed conducing to Man's everlasting Happiness but likewise things to be Done and effectual Perswasions for the doing of it 3. That in the Use thereof there are not only the natural Means of discovery of Truths necessary to be known of things to be done and most effectual and powerful Perswasions beyond all other moral Arguments to the Obedience thereof but likewise a strong Concurrence of the Power of God according to his Will subduing the Understanding to believe and the Will to obey 4. That by this Belief of those necessary Truths and Obedience to the Will of God thus revealed Man shall be conducted to his everlasting Happiness which was the great End of his Creation CHAP. VI. 〈◊〉 the Credibility of the Sacred Scriptures THESE things be of easie consequence if once this be clearly proved to be the Word of God for then we argue demonstratively and à priori from the Cause to the Effect viz. Because that whatsoever is the express Word of God himself which is the God of Truth cannot chuse but be infallibly true and beyond all disputation But the question will be upon the Assumption viz Whether this be in truth the Word of God which if once granted all the rest will need no proof The Understanding of Man hath wrought in it a four-fold Assent to every Truth whereunto it assents 1. An Inherent Assent that is of such Principles if any be which are connatural to Man. Thus the Understanding ass●●ts not to this Proposition That the Old and New Testament are the Word of God. 2. Knowledge wrought by Demonstration or Scientia per causam Thus though there be many Truths in the Scripture that are demonstrable yet that these Scriptures are the infallible Word of God is not naturally demonstrable 3. Belief which is the taking up of a Truth upon the Testimony of him that asserts it This that it may be firm requires two qualifications First a firm and absolute perswasion That what the Author affirms is tr● And thus a Man once admitting That this is 〈◊〉 ●ord of God doth most unquestionably believ● because the truth of the Author is demonstrably unquestionable 2. A firm and clear Assent That this is the Word of that infallible Author And this is wrought only by a secret and immediate work of the Power of God upon the Soul and is as firm Assent if not more firm than Science it self 4. Perswasion or Opinion which riseth upon probable grounds And although this can never arrive to Belief or Knowledge yet according to the strength concurrence and multiplicity of Arguments concurring to the Perswasion it may arrive to the very next degree to Belief or Knowledge Thus it may be firmly concluded That this is the Word of God and the Means which he in his Providence hath appointed to guide Man to the attaining of his last Happiness This Perswasion though it be not Faith it doth prepare the Heart for that high and noble Assent and mighly strengthens it being attained These are in the next place to be considered 1. It doth discover those Truths clearly and satisfactorily which hath perplexed all the Labours and Enquiries of the wisest Men and thereby unriddles and renders easie most of those difficulties and doubts in natural and moral Philosophy which could never or not without strange uncertainty and reluctation be so much as guessed at by them The abstrusest Truths are hardly discovered and found out which is one cause of those several absurd Opinions and Positions which have been invented and imposed by Mens Fancies to make out supply and reconcile those Difficulties which the Ignorance of it may be one Truth doth most necessarily occasion but when that Truth is once discovered it doth most clearly resolve those Difficulties and scatter those Absurdities and procure an easie Assent from that Reason in Man which could not at first easily discover it To consider this in some Particulars In Matters Natural Whence grew all those strange Chimera's concerning the first Matter Its Eternity Its undeterminateness and a thousand disputes Whether it is What it is and all end in nothing but unsatisfactory and unresolving Disputes concerning Eduction of Forms out of the power of it and by what Agent concerning the eternal succession and concatenation of Causes concerning the beginning of Motion especially of the Heavens the endeavouring to reconcile an eternal duration to a successive motion concerning the different activities and qualities of simple Bodies their mutual actings one upon another the cause of the disgregating of the simple Bodies one from another unto that convenient distance and of their concurrence in production of mixt Bodies the production of Creatures especially Man the nature of the Soul the fitting of Objects and Powers in the Senses and Intellect All these and millions of Disputes rise from the ignorance of that Truth which at one view we may with satisfaction read resolved in the First of Genesis and in no Book in the World beside but what hath been borrowed from thence Again Touching the orderly Position of the Creatures The conveniency of one thing to the exigence and necessity of another The moderation and government of things endued with destructive qualities each to other The concurrence of several contingent Causes to the producing of Mutations in States Religion c. as if those contingent Causes had been as it were animated with one Soul or Spirit and the like The observation of these and the like things and the want of true knowledge have put Men to those exigences of invention which resolve them into Fate or Destiny into the power of the Stars into the Law of Nature and yet we are still where we were not knowing What that Fate is What that Order or Power of Heaven is Whence that Law of Nature came or was given But if we look into this Book of God we find all these difficulties extricated we find the preservation of this Order in the Creatures to proceed from and depend upon the Wisdom and Power and Government of an infinite and intellectual Being who whiles his Creature for the most part moves according to the Rule

Vultures have not seen the great God alone gave Man his End and appointed the way to that End we had once the knowledge of both but have lost it and we must owe the discovery of it to the Author of it And to Man he said Behold the Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding Job 18.28 6. It doth discover the whole Duty of Man to his Maker to himself and to others far beyond all other Books or Documents in the World. Man by his Sin hath lost the greatest part of his Light and Perfection his own discoveries of his Duty are lame and imperfect and till the God that first planted these Principles of Knowledge and Conformity to his Will give us a new Copy of them we shall never clearly attain unto them in our knowledge or practice There are these Eminencies touching Moral Precepts which this Book of God hath above all other Books in the World. 1. No other Book in the World doth discover the true ground of the Obligation unto Moral Precepts The Moral Philosopher perswades me to Temperance to Justice but what Obligation lies upon me for it If he tells me That it is his own Authority my Answer is He hath none over me more than I have over him If he tells me the Law under which I live binds me to it I shall enquire what binds me to observe those Laws but Power which if I can avoid by the like power or secrecy I am not bound or my own Consent which I am as well Master of as I was before I consented If he tells me the Law of Nature binds me I am still unsatisfied who gave that Law or when or to whom and there the Philosopher is to seek as well of my Conviction as of my Obedience But this Book shews what that Law is from whence the Obligation of Obedience to it ariseth even from that most Just and Uncontroulable Authority that God hath over his Creature 2. No other Book or Learning in the World perswades the observance of those Laws it injoyns with the like convincing and satisfying grounds of Reason that this doth The highest ground that ever Moral Philosopher could fetch to perswade to submit to Moral Precepts were but one of these viz. The Reputation and general esteem of Men which dies with me and while it lives is nothing else but a Fancie and contains no Reality or the Cohortion of the Laws which if I can avoid with secrecy or force I escape the strength of the Perswasion or that Congruity that sound Moral Precepts hold with Prudence and the permanent enjoyment of good here for it is a most certain Truth as appears before That the due observation of the Rules of right Reason hath a most clear connexion with Happiness in this Life and that the violation of these Precepts of Nature do necessarily introduce a loss of temporal Felicity These are the highest Motives of Obedience to these humane Documents But let us look upon the Motives that the very same Precepts are enforced with in this Book of God we shall find them of a higher Constitution we are there shewn they are commanded by that God to whom we owe our Being and therefore may justly challenge our Obedience as his Tribute by that God from whom we daily receive our Preservation and Mercies and therefore may justly expert the return of our Love and Thankfulness in the Observance of his Will by that God that hath annexed a Sanction to the breach of his Law which he both can and will inflict this may startle our Fear by that God that hath propounded and promised a Reward to our Obedience both in this Life and a future which he will certainly confer this doth quicken our Hope These and the like grounds and motives of Obedience fall upon the most active Affections with the most powerful and rational Perswasion and are able to conquer more difficulties in the Obedience of these very Precepts that are materially the same than all those faint and thin Perswasions that the wisest of Men could ever teach The great God that knows the frame of the Soul of Man hath not only given rational Laws to lead him to his great End and rational Means to draw out his Obedience by appointing Rewards or Punishments of his Obedience or Disobedience but also by the same Wisdom of his planted in him Affections which might be proper to receive the impressions of those Rewards and Punishments and by this Word of his conveys those Notions into his Heart which stick upon those active Affections of Love Hope and Fear in the most exact full and adequate manner This is therefore none else but the Finger of God. And this is not only evinced by the Threatnings and Promises in this Book but by the Historical part of it applying the Truths of both wherein we may see unriddled most of the varieties of Events that fall upon a People or Person especially knowing God which without this Light seem to be confused and meerly contingent Israel sins Israel is punished she repents and is delivered We are shewn by the very Historical passages of the Old Testament that when we are punished we eat but the fruit of our own ways 3. As the Eminence of the Scripture above other Learning and consequently its Original is discovered in the two former so in this that it doth distinctly and clearly evidence and set forth those Moral Precepts which are confusedly and imperfectly only delivered by the best of humane Writers especially in the Worship of God All agree God is to be worshipped but when they come to shew how then they are to seek for indeed as it is folly for any one to think that there can be any Worship of God acceptable but what is agreeable to his Will so it is vain to think that this Will of his could be discovered by any but himself And from the want of this grew Idolatries and other Vanities in Worship 4 The original of the Scriptures is discovered in this that it doth contain in it Precepts of a higher Constitution and therefore of a higher Pedegree than the best of all humane Learning ever did arrive unto such as are the Cleansing of the Heart and Thoughts from all Sin That the Formality of Sin consists in the Will even before it expresseth it self in Act That the outward Conformity of the Act to Vertue without the internal Conformity of the Will and Mind is but Hypocrisie and the seeming vertuous Action is at least dead and not of value if not sin That a Vertuous Action done out of any other End than in Obedience and Love to God that enjoyns it is not an Action rightly Principled nor acceptable to God The right directing of our Passions and Affections that nothing is worthy of our intense Love but God that nothing deserves our Hate but Sin and therefore teacheth us in the former to despise the World in the

Rule whereby God justifies the equality of his ways Ezek. 18.25 Is not my way equal are not your ways unequal When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity and dyeth in them for his iniquity that he hath done he shall dye Again When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness c. he shall save his Soul alive which is but the same under the Gospel Rom. 2.6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds Though the great God be absolute Lord of his Creatures to do with them what he pleaseth yet the various conditions of his Creatures in the course of Judgments and Mercies are not from any change in God but in us it is the same Holiness and Purity of God that is uniform and constant to it self that works these different effects upon the Creature as the same uniform heat of the Sun works seeming contrary effects according to the diversity of the subject so that his ways are still equal streight and righteous And this consideration as it may strengthen our hearts in the Promises of God so it will make the Histories of the Book of God of singular use to us upon all occasions when we shall with David Psal 77.10 I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High I will remember the works of the Lord I will remember thy wonders of old and together with it consider that the same Lord that did thus or thus in former times is the same God yesterday to day and for ever And by this consideration every History in the Book of God is as a measure for all the present or future concernments of my self and others and will teach me how to behave my self in the like occasions and to judge even of future Events In the passages of Nature we see a wonderful order and constancy for the most part for all things conform themselves to those Rules which God hath put into them and that is the best and highest resolution we can give for them for when we come to make a particular inquiry into the particular causes of those things there is not the easiest part of his Work and that which long and constant continuance hath made obvious to all men but the wisest of men notwithstanding all these advantages are puzled and confounded in because the God of Nature hath not revealed it to men Psal 77.19 His way is in the Sea and his path in the great waters and his footsteps are not known There we see a certainty but we cannot find the immediate Instrument or Cause of it But in the passages of Mankind we are to seek for any certainty at all or the Causes of that uncertainty whch made the Wise man conclude that God had set the one against the other that men should find nothing after him Eccles 7.14 which is most certainly true as to a bare natural or rational observation Yet even these Works of God are sought out of all them that have pleasure in them Psal 111.2 and though his Judgments are a great deep Psal 36.6 unsearchable and past finding out Rom. 11.33 till he is pleased to discover them yet he is still Unchangeable and the same yesterday and to day and for ever So much even of those secret ways towards men as is expedient for our knowledge and use he hath discovered in his Book to those that will diligently observe it Thus the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him Psal 25.14 The most of the varieties that happen to the Children of men do arise from the Immutability of God in his Purity and in his Justice If a streight Line be drawn parallel to another though they be infinitely extended they will keep the same distance one from another but if the Line be crooked it will be in some places nearer some places farther off and it may be will cross the streight Line God hath given to man a Liberty of his Will and so long as his Will and the Actions of his Will ran parallel in a streight Line to the Will of God there was still a communication of Good from God to his Creature But when man chose crooked ways he is drawn thereby sometimes away from God and so is removed from his Blessings and Communion sometimes it crosseth and thwarts him and then it meets with his Wrath and Vengeance And this must needs be so unless we should with the presumptuous Fool in the Psalmist Psal 50.21 think that God is such a one as our selves and his Will as crooked as ours If a bare reasonable man had looked upon the state of the Jews from the time of their going out of Egypt until their final Captivity he would easily see as much variety as in any state of men and perhaps see as little cause for it But yet that very changeableness of their condition doth most admirably set forth the Immutability of God and instruct us how to judge of things and men They were a People in Covenant with him and he was pleased to enter into Covenant with them and so long as they kept to their undertaking not one tittle of all his Promise failed them But when they once forsook him he warns and if they repent not he forsakes them if they walk contrary to him he walks contrary to them and if after all this they return and repent he returns to them see Psal 106 107. the abbreviation of their Vicissitudes And when at last they were wholly corrupted then the wrath of God arose and there was no remedy All these varieties justifie the Equality and Evenness of the ways of God and manifest the crookedness and inequality of the ways of Men. And is God the same now that he was then his ways then are the same now that they were then Art thou one that hast entred into Covenant with God beware thou keep to it and walk humbly with thy God if not be sure thou shalt meet with the like measure as his People of old did his Justice is the same still he will scourge thee with the rod of men though if thou hast a heart to return he will not utterly take his loving-kindness from thee And hast thou met with the fruit of this sin in a temporal punishment consider it is an evil thing and a bitter to depart from the Living God. What madest thou wander from thy strength and thy safety as well as thy Covenant and thy Duty What couldest thou expect to find when thou straglest from him but that some evil should overtake thee Get home again as fast as thou canst and as thou hast found that he is the same God of Justice that ever he was so thou shalt find that he is the same God of Mercy and Tenderness upon returning that ever he was Psal 106.45 And he remembred for them his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his Mercies It is true the same thing may befal