Paul confirms this in his Epistle to the Romans when he says If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved For with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness and with the mouth Confession is made unto Salvation For the Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved This was the Word of Faith which they preached and he testified that it was nigh in the heart as Moses had done before him And saith the Apostle John on this Occasion Who is a Lyar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ Hereby know ye the Spirit of God every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God Again says he Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God Yet once more he affirms Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God I will conclude these Doctrinal Testimonies out of Scripture with a Conclusive passage John useth towards the end of his Evangelical History of Jesus Christ And many other Signs truly did Jesus in the Presence of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have Life in his Name In which place Two things are remarkable First That whatever things are written of Jesus are written to this end that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ Secondly That those that sincerely believe shall through him obtain Eternal Life Certainly then if this be true great must their Incharity and Presumption be who have taken other measures and set another Rule of Christianity than Jesus and his Apostles gave This sincere Confession contented Christ and his Apostles but it will not satisfy those that yet pretend to believe them 't was enough then for a Miracle and Salvation too but it goes for little or nothing now A man may sincerely believe this and be stigmatiz'd for a Schismatick an Heretick an Excommunicate but I may say as Christ did to the Jews in another Case From the Beginning it was not so But I expect here to be Assaulted with this Objection If this be all that is necessary to be believed to Salvation of what use is the rest of Scripture I answer Of great Use as the Apostle himself teacheth us All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnisht unto all good Works It concerns the whole Life and Conversation of a Man but every passage in it is not therefore fit to be such an Article of Faith as upon which Christian Communion ought or ought not to be maintained For though it be all equally True it is not all equally Important There is a great Difference between the Truth and Weight of a thing For Example 'T is as True that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate as that he suffered and that he was pierced as that he died and that he did eat after his Resurrection as that he rise from the Dead at all but no Person of common Understanding will conclude an Equal Weight or Concernment in these things because they are Equally True The Death of Christ was of much greater Value than the Manner of it his Resurrection than any Circumstance of his Appearance after he was risen The Question is not whether all the Truths contain'd in Scripture are not to be believed but Whether those Truths are Equally Important and if the Belief with the heart and Confession with the mouth that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God be not as sufficient now to entitle a man to Communion here and Salvation hereafter as in those times against which nothing can be of Weight objected If it be said that this Contradicts the Judgment and Practice of many great and good Men. I answer I can't help that If they have been tempted out of their own Curiosity or the Corruption of Times to depart from the Ancient Paths the Foot-steps of purest Antiquity and best Examples let their Pretences have been what they will 't is Presumption and it was Just with God that Error and Confusion should be the Consequence of those Adventures nor has it ever fail'd to follow them Lastly if it be alledg'd That this will take in all Parties yea that Schismaticks and Hereticks will creep in under this General Confession since few of them will refuse to make it I do say 'T would be an Happy Day What Man loves God and Christ seeks Peace and Concord that would not rejoice if all our Animosities and Vexations about Matters of Religion were buried in this one Confession of Jesus the great Author and Lord of the Christian Religion so often lost in pretending to contest for it View the Parties on Foot in Christendom among those called Protestants observe their Differences well and how they are generally maintain'd and you will tell me that they are rent and divided about their own Comments Consequences and Conclusions not the Text but the Meaning and that too which perhaps is not in it self Essential to Salvation as the Dispute betwixt the Lutherans and Calvinists the Arminians and Predestinarians and such like Is it not lamentable to think that those who pretend to be Christians and Reformed ones too should divide with the Winds and fight as proâ— Aris Focis for such things as either are not Expresly to be found in Scripture or if there yet never appointed or intended for such Prime Articles of Faith by Christ or his Apostles Should they then erect their Communion on another Bottom or break it for deviating from any other Doctrines than what they in terminis in so many words have deliver'd to us for necessary If we consider the Matter well I fear it will be found that the Occasion of Dâ—sturbance in the Church of Christ hath in most Ages been found to lie on the side of those who have had the Greatest Sway in it Very pertinent to our present Purpose is that Passage of J. Hales of Eaton in his Tract concerning Schism It hath saith he been the Common Disease of Christians from the Beginning not to content themselves with that Measure of Faith which God and Scriptures have expresly afforded us but out of a Vain Desire to know more than is Revealed they have attempted to DISCUSS THINGS of which we can have no Light neither from Reason nor Revelation Neither have they rested here but upon pretence of Church-Authority which is NONE or Tradition which for the most part
requires at our Hands What I have said against Excess in Apparel is also applicable to Excess in Furniture For as Finery is more valued than Clothes so is the Furniture than the House It is a most Inexcusable Superfluity to bestow an Estate to line Walls dress Cabinets embroider Beds with an Hundred other unprofitable Pieces of State such as Massy Plate Rich Chiny Costly Pictures and Painted Windows of no use in the Earth only for Show and Sight the Interest of which Money so ill employed might probably Maintain the Poor of a Numerous Parish O Lord God! hast thou given us Plenty and should we see others Want should we clothe our Dead Walls and let thy Poor go Naked Can we feed our Eyes with these Objects and not feed the Hungry with Bread and spend our Money upon Lifeless Pictures but shut up our Bowels to thy Living Image the Poor and N edy of the Earth Rebuke this Evil Mind and bring down the Pride of all Flesh O Lord for thy Name 's sake The Last Excess is that of Feasting and Voluptuousness Immoderate Eating and Drinking with that strain of Mirth and Jollity which is the Mode and Practice of the Times Dives is almost got into every Family especially those of Note and Estate it is Want of Wealth and not Will that the Greatest Part of the Nation is not guilty they mostly sin to their Ability that is sad But the Sin of Voluptuousness is swell'd to that Bulk that there are more Receipts for Eating and Drinking than there are Precepts of Life in the Old and New Law the Book of Cookery is grown as big as the Bible and I fear read to be sure practised oftner In this Art the Lust of the Flesh is deeply concern'd there is not so much Care of the Stomach as of the Palate of Health as Pleasure 't is the Taste the Gust the Relish that makes the Victuals go down therefore the Sawce is preferred before the Meat Twelve-penny worth of Flesh with Five Shillings of Cookery may happen to make a Fashionable Dish plain Beef Mutton or any other thing is become Dull Food But by that time its Natural Relish is lost in the Crowd of the Cook 's Ingredients and the Meat sufficiently disguised to the Eaters it passes under a French Name for a very Good Dish But there is one thing in this Impiety more than ordinarily Condemnable it destroyes Hospitality and wrongs the Poor For that Expence which is now flung away upon a Vicious Palate upon a French Soup or Sawce in former Times afforded several Dishes of substantial Victuals which did not only feed Strangers or Neighbours but the Poor who have now little more than what the Dogs had then Empty Dishes to lick This is Abusing the Providence of God Tyrannizing over the Creatures made for man's Use and sacrificing their Poor Lives not to our Lives but to our Lusts 'T is against such as these that the Creation groans and from whose Intemperance it cries to be delivered God in all Ages hath had a Controversie with Voluptuous Men and the Testimonies of sacred Records are Strong and Numerous against them I will mention a few of them Voluptuousness was the Sin of the Old World they were Eating and Drinking Marrying and giving in Marriage pleasing the Lust of the Eye the Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life until the Day of the Flood This also was the Condition of Sodom Christ himself has exprest it in these words In the Dayes of Lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded the same Day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained Fire and Brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all The Prophet Ezekiel has it in these words speaking to Jerusalem Behold thâ—… was the Iniquity of thy Sister Sodom Pride Fulness of Bread and A undance of Idleness was in her and her Daughters neither did she strengthen the Hand of the Poor and Needy and they were Haughty and committed Abomination before me therefore I took them away as I saw good And it is very Remarkable that the Voluptuouâ—ness of the Israelites was joyned with their Idolatry It is said that when Moses was in the Mount the People Impatient of his Stay sat down to Eat and to Drink and rose up to Play they had got a Calf of Gold and were Dancing about it But it was a Dismal Ball and they paid dear for their Junket for several Thousands were Slain and it is said That God Plagued the People Job's Children had as Ill Success in their Festivals they went from House to House Eating and Drinking and a Tempest rose and smote the Four Corners of the House and Kill'd them But most express is that Complaint of God by the Mouth of the Prophet Amos against the Voluptuous Jews Ye that put so far away the Evi Day and cause the Seat of Violence to come near that lie upon Beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches and eat the Lambs out of the Flock and Calves out of the midst of the Stall That Chant at the Sound of the Viol and invent to themselves Instruments of Musick like David that drink Bowls of Wine and anoint themselves with the chief Ointments but they are not grieved for the Affliction of Joseph Therefore now shall they go Captive with the First that go Captive and the Banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed And I will turn your Feasts into Mourning and all your Songs into Lamentation and I will make the End thereof as a bitter Day I shall Sum up these Excesses and Conclude the Instances with the Story of Dives more commonly known then reverently believed It is delivered to us by the Great Lord of Truth in these Words There was as Certain Rich Man which was cloathed in Purple and Fine Linnen and fared Sumptuously every Day And there was a Certain Beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his Gate full of Sores and deâ—iring to be fed with the Crums which fell from the Rich Man's Table moreover the Dogs came and licked his Sores And it came to pass that the Beggar died and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom The Rich Man also died and was buried And in Hell he lift up his Eyes being in Torments and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his Bosom And he cried and said Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his Finger in water and cool my Tongue for I am Tormented in this Flame But Abraham said Son remember that thou in thy Life-time receivedst thy good things likewise Lazarus Evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented And besides all this between us you there is a Great Gulf fix'd so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from thence This Great Passage
Indulgences Fictions For every man shall bear his own Burden in that great Day of the Lord. It cannot therefore be Reasonable that another man should have the Keeping of my Understanding at my Eternal Cost and Charges or that I must entirely depend upon the Judgment of a Man or Men who erring and thereby causing me to err cannot be damned for me but I must pay their Reckoning at the hazard of my own Damnation I am not unacquainted with the great Objection that is made by Roman Catholicks and some Protestants too High Church-men perhaps that Love the Treason but hate the Traytor that love this part of Popery but hate the Pope viz. There are doubts in Scripture even about the most important Points of Faith some body must guide the Weak there must be some one ultimate External and Visible Judge to appeal to who must Determine and Conclude all Persons as to their Doubts and Apprehensions concerning the Interpretation of Scripture otherwise So many Men so many Minds the Church would be filled with Controversie and Confussion I answer That the Scriptures are made more doubtful than they are by such as would fain preserve to themselves the Umpiridge Judgship of their Meaning I deny it in point of Fact that Man's Duty is not most plainly exprest in all that concerns Eternal Salvation but 't is very strange that when God intends nothing more by the Scriptures than to reach the Capacities of Men as to things on which their Eternal Salvation depends yet that no Book if such men say true should be so obscure nor subject to so many Various nay Contradictory Constructions Name me one Author Heathen Jew or Christian that ever wrote with that Obscurity and seeming Inconsistency which some gladly pretend to find in the holy Scripture that they might have the Use and Keeping of them from the Vulgar and make their own Ends by it Is then every Body's Book to be understood but God's Was that writ not to be understood In short one of these two things must be true Either that God intended Not to be understood or To be understood in what he commanded to be written If he resolved Not to be understood it had been better there had been nothing writ but if it was his purpose To be understood of Men it must be supposed that what he caused to be written was plain enough for men to understand or he mist his own Aim and End and writ it to no purpose which is absurd If it should be told me That it is not denyed but that the Scriptures may be understood by some body but not by every body for that the Great Visible Judge must needs understand them because it belongs to his Office to resolve those Doubts and determine those Controversies that may arise about understanding them Answ I must also say that this is false in Fact For its ridiculous to imagine that Luke did not make Theophilus his own Judge in the reading of what he writ to him or that the Apostles in writing to the several Churches as Rome Corinth Ephesus c. to whom they directed their Epistles did not intend that they should understand what they writ or that they erected any such Officer in the Church as an Expounder of their Epistles to the Assembly to be necessarily believed For we know in those days The People made the Church they were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the CLERGY however it came about that it be now engrossed into fewer hands as you may see in the Greek of Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated Heritage in all our Bibles But this is as if the Priest's only were the Lord's Heritage which can't be for a Reason obvious to all namely that they reign as Lords over God's Heritage or Clergy forbid expresly by Peter therefore not the Heritage and Clergy over which they so rule like Lords by no means I will say no more but this 't is no convincing Proof to me of their Humility But to shut up this Agument about the Difficulty of Understanding the Scripture and pretended a necessity of a Visible Judge I say Whatsoever may be spoken may be written or thus Whatsoever a Visible Judge can now say the holy Pen men by God's Direction might have written and what an Omniscient and Omnipotent God did know and could do for Man's Salvation an OMNIBENEVOLENT God that tells us he delights not in the Death of one Soul but rather that he should be saved would have done And because God is as Omnibenevolent as Omniscient and Omnipotent we must conclude he has done it and 't is great Presumption and a mean Shelter to Ignorance to raise a credit to Humane Devices by beating down the true Value of the Scriptures They are dark what follows they must not be read what follows then Why then such Teachers may do as they list with the People But did the Pharisees with their broad Philacteries know God's mind better then the Prophets or could they deliver it clearer no such matter 't is by the same strange Figure that the School-men know the mind of Christ better then the Apostles and that the Council of TRENT can declâ—re Faith more clearly then the holy Ghost in the Scripture hath donâ— and yet this is the English of their Doctrine that hold to us those Lights to read Scripture by and that would have us seach their Canons and Decrees to find out the Mind of the holy Ghost in Scripture The Confusions that are pretended to follow such an Inquiry are but the wretched Arts of ill men as much as in them lies to keep Light and Truth out of the World When the Net was cast into the Sea there came some good some bad Fish that was not the Fishers fault they were no better Inquiry is not to be blam'd for the ill use weak or worse men make of it The Bereans might not all believe though they might all search for men don't inquire with equal Wisdom Love and good Desire some seek and find not Some ask and receive not therefore must none ask or seek after that which is good or because some ask or seek amiss will it follow that the thing it self is naught If Superstition Error Idolatry and Spiritual Tyranny be detected and Truth discover'd will it more then make amends for all that Weakness and Folly some men have brought forth by the liberty of such an Inquiry The Enemies of Light may be as Rhetorical as they please upon the excess or Presumption of some bolder then wise and more Zealous then Knowing but if they had nothing to lose by the discovery they would never be the Enemies of a prudent Search It is to be fear'd such get that Obedience by a blind devotion which no man could yield them upon better Information and is it reasonable that men of that Stamp should secure their Empire by the Ignorance of the People