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A30284
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Proofs of God's being and of the Scriptures divine original with twenty directions for the profitable reading of them : being the sum of several sermons desired by many hearers / by Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing B5711; ESTC R25953
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6,174
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17
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PROOFS OF God's Being AND OF The SCRIPTURES Divine Original With Twenty DIRECTIONS for the Profitable Reading of them Being the Sum of Several SERMONS Desired by many Hearers By DANIEL BVRGESS The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God Ps 14.1 Ye err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22.29 He shall read in the Law all the Days of his Life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God Deut. 17.19 London Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside 1697. To the most Honoured SOPHRONIA MADAM TO these small Fragments I inscribe this proper Name of Yours For which I have a great Example and valuable Reasons My Example is John the Divine who hath inscribed a short Collection of sacred Learning to an Elect Lady And my Reasons are these Your Ladiship hath been such a Reader that you are become a Judg of Books as a grave Antient speaks of a rare Lady in his Age. Neither is it questioned but your religious Principle gives you a more than common Savour of my Divine Arguments And as confident I am that Sophronia's Name will attract Readers and her holy Prayers may fetch a Blessing from Heaven on their Reading Full well her Ladiship seeth the sore need Our Age being one very fruitful of Religions and barren of what is truly Religious One that has been contending so long for bare Garbs and Dresses of Religion that it has very little left it more than Dresses Garbs and Modes of Religion It is come to that pass that Fools fear not to shoot their Bolts And they who say it not with their Lips do say in their Lives that There is no God Our Theists be generally Atheists and do shew plainly that tho their Clamour be against Three Persons their Wrath and Spite is against One God! Insomuch that Nullitarians is a much more proper Name for them than Unitarians Surely Goats whatever Milk they give are Brutes And Panthers tho they have wonderfully sweet Scents are very ill Creatures Some of our Deists are open-handed to the Poor one of them especially with his own or other folks Money And as Faustus Socinus before him he is complaisant and sweet even to such as detest and oppose his Heresy Joining himself in the Society for Reformation of Manners But scarcely is there one Snake of them whose Poison is not seen through his best painted Skin Immoral Poison I mean and such Impurity as speaks no good will to Deity And it is worthy to be remembred what a great Man who was in danger of being taken in their Pit did put to Socinus himself and his Followers If your Doctrine be the Truth Nullâ pietatis commendatione c. Scrupuli ab excellenti Viro propositi inter Oper. Socini how comes it to be so that it is contended for by no Men of any good Name for Piety any Praise for exemplary Life and Conversation but the contrary they are who set forth your Opinions The Holy Scriptures are complemented a little but not reverenced at all by the Many The Socinian prefers his Light of Reason as the Quaker doth his Light within Which is but the same Farthing-Candle differently denominated And not a few bold Sparks say plainly They are but of Men and not from Heaven Surely Sophronia the Arch-Bishop of Mentz did long ago speak all their Hearts At the Diet of Ausburg in the Year 1530 lighting on a Bible and reading a while in it he very honestly professed that he knew not well what Book it was but he saw plainly that it made against the Papal way Miserable is the manner in which our common Protestants do read the Sacred Scripture There is no doubt but the Transgression of it saith within Sophronia 's Heart There is no Fear of God before so irreverent Eyes And her Ladiship will not blame me for sending forth these Antidotes in days of such Contagion If it be my fault that I send forth no more that Fault shall as soon be mended as it is made to appear Indeed St. Austin adviseth to much Writing in a time of much Corruption that in the plenty of Books all Men may find what will best sute their different Palats But whither runs my Pen MADAM Vnder the most sensible Obligation of your very singular Favours I am ever praying that great may be your Reward in Heaven And in all Sincerity I shall continue to be Your Ladiship 's most Humble and most Devoted Servant DAN BURGESS Bridges-street near Covent-garden July 1. 1697. PROOFS of God's Being and of the Scriptures Divine Origin With DIRECTIONS for profitable Reading of the Scriptures CHAP. I. The Arguments by which the Holy Ghost refresheth Souls with the revived Sense of God's Being are principally these Arg. 1 MY Conscience is as a thousand Witnesses to me that there is a God For within me I have it sitting as an Inferior Judg and still acting in the Name of a Superior Even a supreme one and infinitely above all Mortal ones When I do what is Evil tho ever so secretly and both without Mens Knowledg and beyond their Power to Revenge this inward Judg puts me to Shame and fills me with Fear Telling me there is an All-seeing Eye that observes me and as just a Hand that will punish me sooner or later And when I do what is good tho it thunders I am secure Tho wild Men scoff threaten and even persecute me for it yet I am easy This inward Judg telling me there is one above all who will see that nothing shall harm me while I follow that which is Good Whence I wonder rose this subordinate Judg if there be no supreme One A. 2 The Vniversal Consent of all Nations witnesseth to me that there is a God As Conscience within me so all the World before me and round about me does witness it The Inhabitants of some Countries do wear no Clothes and dwell in no Houses but they do own some God all of them And alas when or where met they all to conspire in this Creed Or what was it that moved them all to agree in it In short If there be no God above the Heavens what has kept alive the Notion of one through all Ages A. 3 The Confession of his worst Enemies witnesseth to me that there is a God For could ever any Atheist free himself from the Fear of a God And have not Cains Balaams Judasses Neros Julians and the like been made to see feel and confess God to be It is true Aelian observes that usually the Vulgar People were most deeply impressed with the Sense of a God and that learned Men made so ill use of their Art and Subtlety as to dispute themselves into Uncertainty But it 's sure their wicked Wits could never find a way to extinguish their tormenting Fears of an invisible God and Judg. And If there be no God how came all Men to be thus afraid of one And his Enemies to confess