that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepâ—rs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ— business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
many waies apparent and also of the communion which they have with man And when we find also an intellectual nature in our selves why should we not believe that our likeness of nature doth infer our likeness in our future duration and abode 9. And mark well but the inward and outward temptations which solicite all the world to sin and what notable Evidences there be in many of them of an invisible power and you will easily believe that man hath a soul to save or lose which is of longer duration than the body 10. Lastly If yet there be any doubt consider but of the sensible Evidences of Apparitions Witchcraft and Possessions and it cannot chuse but much confirm you Though much be feigned in histories of such things yet the world hath abundant evidence of that which was certainly unfeigned See the Devil of Mascon Mr. Mompessons story lately acted and published Remigius Bodins Danaeus c. of Witches Lavater de Spectris and what I have written elsewhere CHAP. II. The true Method of enquiry into the supernatural Evidences of Faith and Rules therein to be offered WHen you have thus seen what evidence there is of GOD and his Government and of a life of reward and punishment hereafter and of the natural obligations which lie on man to a holy just and sober life and of the depraved state of the world which goeth so contrary to such undoubted duty and how certain all this is even by natural revelation proceed next to consider what supernatural revelation God hath added both to confirm you in the same Truths and to make known such other as were necessary for mankind to know Where I must first direct you in the true Method of Enquiry and then set before you the things themselves which you are to know 1. Think not that every unprepared mind is immediately capable of the Truth either this or any other except the first principles which are nota per se or are next to sense All truth requireth a capacity and due preparation of the recipient The plainest principles of any Art or Science are not understood by novices at the first fight or hearing And therefore it were vain to imagine that things of the greatest distance in history or profundity in doctrine can be comprehended at the first attempt by a disused and unfurnished understanding There must be at least as much time and study and help supposed and used to the full discerning of the evidences of faith as are allowed to the attainment of common Sciences Though grace in less time may give men so much light as is necessary to salvation yet he that will be able to defend the Truth and answer Objections and attain establishing satisfaction in his own mind must ordinarily have proportionable helps and time and studyes unless he look to be taught by miracles 2. Remember that it is a practical and heavenly doctrine which you are to learn It is the Art of loving God and being happy in his love And therefore a worldly sensual vicious soul must needs be under very great disadvantage for the receiving of such a kind of Truths Do not therefore impute that to the doubtfulness of the Doctrine which is but the effect of the enmity and incapacity of your minds How can he presently rellish the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of the Gospel who is drowned in the love and care of contrary things Such men receive not the things of the Spirit They seem to them both foolishness and undesirable 3. Think not that the history of things done so long ago and so far off should have no more obscurities nor be liable to any more Objections than of that which was done in the time and Country where you live Nor yet that things done in the presence of others and words spoken in their hearing only should be known to you otherwise than by historical evidence unless every Revelation to others must have a new Revelation to bring it to each individual person in the world And think not that he who is a stranger to all other helps of Church-history should be as well able to understand the Scripture-history as those that have those other helps 4. Think not that the narrativt of things done in a Country and Age so remote and to us unknown should not have many difficulties arising from our ignorance of the persons places manners customs and many circumstances which if we had known would easily have resolved all such doubts 5. Think not that a Book which was written so long ago in so remote a Country in a language which few do fully understand and which may since then have several changes as to phrases and proverbial and occasional speeches should have no more difficulties in it than a Book that were written at home in the present Ages in our Country language and the most usual dialect To say nothing of our own language what changes are made in all other tongues since the times that the Gospel was recorded Many proverbial speeches and phrases may be now disused and unknown which were then most easie to be understood And the transcribing and preserving of the Copies require us to allow for some defects of humane skill and industry therein 6. Vnderstand the different sorts of Evidence which are requisite to the different matters in the holy Scriptures The matters of fact require historical evidence which yet is made infallible by additional miracles The miracles which were wrought to confirm our history are brought to our knowledge only by other history The Doctrines which are evident in nature have further evidence of supernatural revelation only to help us whose natural fight is much obscured But it is the supernatural Doctrines Precepts and Promises which of themselves require supernatural revelation to make them credible to man 7. Mistake not the true Vse and End of the holy Scriptures 1. Think not that the Gospel as written was the first Constitutive or Governing Law of Christ for the Christian Churches The Churches were constituted and the Orders and Offices and Government of it settled and exercised very many years together before any part of the New Testament was written to them much more before the writing of the whole The Apostles had long before taught them what was commanded them by Christ and had settled them in the order appointed by the Holy Ghost And therefore you are not to look for the first determination of such doctrines or orders in the Scripture as made thereby but only for the Records of what was done and established before For the Apostles being to leave the world did know the slipperiness of the memory of man and the danger of changing and corrupting the Christian Doctrine and Orders if there were not left a sure record of it And therefore they did that for the sake of posterity 2. You must not think that all is essential to the Christian Religion which is contained in the holy Scriptures Nor that
they are only the adequate form or record of that which is strictly and primarily called our Religion or Christianity For there are divers particular Books of the New Testament which contain much more than is essential to Christianity And many appurtenances and histories and genealogies and circumstances are there recorded which are indeed subservient helps to our Religion but are not strictly our Religion it self 8. As the use of the Scripture must thus be judged of according to the purpose of the holy Spirit so the Perfection of the Scripture must be judged of in relation to its intended use It was not written to be a systeme of Physicks nor Oratory nor to decide grammatical Controversies about words but to record in apt expressions the things which God would have men to know in order to their faith their duty and their happiness And in this respect it is a perfect word But you must not imagine that it is so far the word of God himself as if God had shewed in it his fullest skill and made it as perfect in every respect both phrase and order as God could do And if you meet in it with several words which you think are less grammatical logical or rhetorical than many other men could speak and which really savour of some humane imperfection remember that this is not at all derogatory to Christianity but rather tendeth to the strengthening of our faith For the Scriptures are perfect to their intended use And God did purposely chuse men of imperfect Oratory to be his Apostles that his Kingdom might not be in word but in power and that our faith might not be built upon the wisdom and oratory of man but on the supernatural operations of the Almighty God As David's sling and stone must kill Goliah So unlearned men that cannot out-wit the world to deceive them shall by the Spirit and Miracles convince them Looking for that in the Scripture which God never intended it for doth tempt the unskilful into unbelief 9. Therefore you must be sure to distinguish the Christian Religion which is the vital part or kernel of the Scriptures from all the rest And to get well planted in your mind the summ of that Religion it self And that is briefly contained in the two Sacraments and more largely in the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue the summaryes of our Belief Desire and Practice And then wonder no more that the other parts of Scripture have some things of less moment than that a man hath fingers nails and hair as well as a stomach heart and head 10. Distinguish therefore between the Method of the Christian Religion and the Method of the particular Books of Scriptures The Books were written on several occasions and in several Methods and though that method of them all be perfect in order to their proper end yet is it not necessary that there be in the Method no humane imperfection or that one or all of them be written in that method which is usually most logical and best But the frame of Religion contained in those Books is composed in the most perfect method in the world And those systemes of Theology which endeavour to open this method to you do not feign it or make it of themselves but only attempt the explication of what they find in the holy Scriptures Synthetically or Analytically Though indeed all attempts have yet fallen short of any full explication of this divine and perfect harmony 11. Therefore the true Order of settling your faith is not first to require a proof that all the Scriptures is the Word of God but first to prove the marrow of them which is properly called the Christian Religion and then to proceed to strengthen your particular belief of the rest The contrary opinion which hath obtained with many in this Age hath greatly hindered the faith of the unskilful And it came from a preposterous care of the honour of the Scriptures through an excessive opposition to the Papists who undervalue them For hence it comes to pass that every seeming contradiction or inconsistency in any Book of Scripture in Chronology or any other respect is thought to be a sufficient cause to make the whole cause of Christianity as difficult as that particular text is And so all those Readers who meet with great or inseparable difficulties in their daily reading of the Scriptures are thereby exposed to equal temptations to damning infidelity it self So that if the Tempter draw any man to doubt of the standing still of the Sun in the time of Joshua of the life of Jonas in the belly of the Whale or any other such passage in any one Book of the Scriptures he must equally doubt of all his Religion But this was not the ancient method of faith It was many years after Christs resurrection before any one Book of the New Testament was written and almost an Age before it was finished And all that time the Christian Churches had the same Faith and Religion as we have now and the same foundation of it That is the Gospel preached to them by the Apostles But what they delivered to them by word of mouth is now delivered to us in their writings with all the appurtenances and circumstances which every Christian did not then hear of And there were many Articles of the Christian Faith which the Old Testament did not at all make known As that this Jesus is the Christ that he was born of the Virgin Mary and is actually crucified risen and ascended c. And the method of the Apostles was to teach the people the summ of Christianity as Paul doth 1 Cor. 15.3 4 c. and Peter Act. 2. and to bring them to the belief of that and then baptize them before they wrote any thing to them or taught them the rest which is now in the holy Scriptures They were first to Disciple the Nations and baptize them and then to teach them to observe all things whatever Christ commanded And the main bulk of the Scriptures is made up of this last and of the main subservient histories and helps And accordingly it was the custom of all the Primitive Churches and ancient Doctors to teach the people first the Creed and summ of Christianity and to make them Christians before they taught them so much as to know what Books the Canonical Scriptures did contain For they had the summ of Christianity it self delivered down collaterally by the two hands of tradition 1. By the continuation of Baptism and publick Church-professions was delivered the Creed or Covenant by it self And 2. By the holy Scriptures where it was delivered with all the rest and from whence every novice was not put to gather it of himself but had it collected to his hand by the Churches And you may see in the writings of all the ancient defenders of Christianity Justin Athenagoras Talianus Clemens Alexandrinus Arnobius Theoph. Antioch Lactantius Tertullian â—usebius Augustine c.
reward of obedience and the beauties of holiness and the merciful conditions of filial obedience when we have a pardon of our infirmities and are accepted in Christ that so we may feel that Christs yoak is easie and his burden light and his Commandments are not grievous Mat. 11.28 29. 1 John 5.3 And when Faith hath taught you to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to delight to do the will of God Love which is the end of Faith will satisfie you Mat. 5.6 Psal 40.8 Direct 5. Take special notice how suitable a holy Law is to the nature of a most holy God and how much he is honoured in that demonstration of his holiness and how odious a thing it would be to wish that the most holy one would have made for us an unholy Law Would you draw the picture of your friend like an Ape or a Monkey or a Monster Or would you have the King pictured like a fool Or would you have his Laws written like the words of a Bedlam or the Laws of Barbarians or Cannibals How much more intollerable were it to wish that an unholy or unrighteous Law should be the product and impress of the most great most wise and holy God This thought should make every Believer exceedingly in love with the Holiness of Gods Commands because they are the Appearance or Image of his Holiness and necessary to his honour as he is the Governour of the world Rom. 7.6 7 12. When Paul confesseth that he could no more perfectly keep the Law without sin than a fettered prisoner can walk at liberty for that is the sense of the text yet doth he give the Law this honour that it is holy just and good and therefore he loveth it and fain would perfectly obey it if he could See Psal 19.7 12. c. 119.72 37.31 1.2 Isa 5.24 c. Direct 6. Remember that both Promises and Threatnings and Gods Mercies and his Judgements are appointed means to bring us to obey the Precepts and therefore obedience which is their end is highly to be esteemed It seemeth a great difficulty whether the Precept be for 〈◊〉 Promise or the Promise for the Precept which is the End and which is the Means whether obedience be a means to attain the reward or the reward be a means to procure obedience And the answer is as pleasant to our consideration viz. that as the works of the Trinity of persons and of Gods Power and Wisdom and Goodness ad extra are undivided so are the effects of the one in Gods Laws the effects also of the other and they are harmoniously and inseparably conjunct so that we must obey the Command that we may attain the blessing of the Promise and be assured of it And we must believe the Promise and the Reward that we may be moved to obey the Precept And when all is done we find that all comes to one and in the end the duty and the reward will be the same when duty cometh to perfection And that the reward which is promised is our perfection in that Holiness and Love and Conformity to the Will of God in which God doth take that complacency which is our ultimate end But if you look at the matter of obedience rather than the form it sometime consisteth in troublesome things as suffering persecution c. which is less desirable than the promised reward which is but pleasing God and obeying him in a more desirable and grateful matter even in perfect Love for ever And therefore the more desirable must be considered to draw us to the less desirable and that consideration of the reward and not the possessing of it is the means to our obedience not for the sake of the ungrateful matter but of the form and end Mat. 5.10 11 12 6.1 4. 10.41 42. 1 Cor. 9.17 18. 1 Tim. 5.18 Heb. 11.6 10.35 11.26 Col. 3.24 Direct 7. Remember how much Christ himself hath condescended to be made a Means or Mediatour to procure our obedience to God And surely that must be an excellent end which Christ himself became a means to He came to save his people from their sins Mat. 1.21 And to call sinners to repentance Luke 5.32 Mat. 9.13 Is Christ the Minister of sin God forbid Gal. 2.17 For this end was he revealed that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 And he died to redeem and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Titus 2.14 Christ came as much to kill sin as to pardon it Judge therefore of the worth of obedience by the nobleness and dignity of the means Direct 8. Remember still that the same Law which governeth us must judge us Let Faith see the sure and close connexion between obedience and judgement If Faith do but speak aloud to a sluggish soul Thou must be judged by the same word which commandeth thee to watch and pray and to walk in holiness with God it will much awaken the soul to duty And if Faith do but say aloud to a tempted sinner The Judge is at the door and thou must hear of this again and review sin when it will have another countenance it will do much to kill the force of the temptation Rom. 14.12 Phil. 4.17 Heb. 13.17 Mat. 12.36 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Direct 9. Be sure that your heart-subjection to God be fixed that you may live under the sense of his Authority For as Gods Veracity is the formal object of all Faith so Gods Authority is the formal object of all obedience And therefore the deep â—enewed apprehensions of his Majesty his Wisdom and absolute Authority will make us perceive that all things and persons must give place to him and he to none and will be a constant spring within us to move the will to a ready obedience in particular cases Mal. 1.6 Matth. 23.8 10. Jer. 5.22 Direct 10. Keep in memory some plain texts of Scripture for every particular duty and against every particular sin which I would willingly here write down but that the book swelleth too big and it is so plentifully done already in most Catechisms where they confirm all such commands with the texts of Scripture cited to that use As you may see in the Assemblies Catechism with the proofs and more briefly in Mr. Tobias Ellis his English School where a text or more for every Article of Faith and every duty is recited for the use of children Gods Word which is the object and Rule of Faith should be before 〈◊〉 eye of Faith in this great work of causing our obedience Direct 11. Vnderstand well the different nature and use of Scripture examples how some of them have the nature of a divine Revelation and a Law and others are only motives to obedience and others of them are evils to be avoided by us 1. To Moses and the Apostles of Christ a special Commission was granted to one to settle the Tabernacle and its worship
7. 2 Cor. 13.14 1 John 4.16 Prop. 12. When Sanctification is mentioned as a gift consequent to Faith it is the Love of God as our Father in Christ and the Spirit of Love that is principally meant by that Sanctification Prop. 13. The pardon of sin consisteth more in forgiving the poenam damni the forfeiture and loss of Love and the Spirit of Love than in remitting any corporal pain of sense And the restoring of Love and the Spirit of Love and the perfecting hereof in Heaven is the most eminent part of our executive Pardon Justification and Adoption Thus far Sanctification is Pardon it self Rom. 8.15 16 17. Gal. 4 6. 1 Cor. 6.10 11. Titus 3.6 7. Titus 2.13 14. Rom. 6. Rom. 8.4 10 13. Prop. 14. The pardon of the pain of sense is given us as a means to the executive pardon of the pain of loss that is to put us in a capacity with doubled obligations and advantages to Love God Luke 7.47 Prop. 15. Sanctification therefore being better than all other pardon of sin as being its end we must value it more and must make it our first desire to be as holy as may be that we may need as little forgiveness as may be and in the second place only desire the pardon of that which we had rather not have committed and not make pardon our chief desire Rom. 6 7 8. throughout Gal. 5.17 to the end Prop. 16. Holiness is the true Morality and they that prefer the preaching and practice of Faith in Christ bâ—fore the preaching and practice of Holiness and sleight this as meer morality do prefer the means before the end and their physick before their health And they that preach or think to practise Holiness without Faith in Christ do dream of a cure without the only Physician of souls And they that preach up Morality as consisting in meer justice charity to men and temperance without the Love of God in Christ do take a branch cut off and withered for the tree Some ignorant Sectaries cry down all Preaching as meer morality which doth not frequently toss the name of Christ and Free Grace And some ungodly Preachers who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls for want of holy experience savour not and understand not holy Preaching and therefore spend almost all their time in declaiming against some particular vices and speaking what they have learned of some vertues of sobriety justice or mercy And when they have done cover over their ungodly unbelieving course by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort who cry down Preaching meer morality But let such know that those Ministers and Christians who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching do mean by morality that which you commonly call Ethicks in the Schools which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ but the Love of God and the Sanctification of the Spirit and the heavenly Glory And they do not cry down true morality but these dead branches of it which are all your morality It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame but meer morality that is so much only as Aristotles Ethicks teach as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love And do you think with any wise men or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine to mistake them that blame you or to take advantage of that ignorance of others The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons unless a few heartless customary passages And when there is nothing less in your preaching than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity and your customary Benediction you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have and what Benediction that is that you are neither truly Christians nor Blessed True Morality or the Christian Ethicks is the Love of God and man stirred up by the Spirit of Christ through Faith and exercised in works of Piety Justice Charity and Temperance in order to the attainment of everlasting happiness in the perfect vision and fruition of God And none but ignorant or brain-sick Sectaries will be offended for the Preaching of any of this Morality Luke 11.42 Wâ— to you Pharisees for ye tythe Mint and Rue and pass over Judgment and the Love of God These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone CHAP. X. The Practical Directions to live by Faith a life of Holiness or Love Direct 1. TAke Jesus Christ as a Teacher sent from Heaven the best and surest revealer of God and his Will unto mankind All the Books of Philosophers are sapless and empty in comparison of the teaching of Jesus Christ they are but enquiries into the nature of the creatures and the lowest things most impertinent to our happiness or duty Or if they rise up to God it is but with dark and unpractical conjectures for the most part of them and the rest do but grope and fumble in obscurity And their learning is mostly but useless speculations and striving about words and sciences falsly so called which little tend to godly edifying It is Christ who is made wisdom to us as being himself the wisdom of God If you knew but where to hear an Angel you would all prefer him before Aristotle or Plato or Cartesius or Gassendus how much more the Son himself He is the true Light to lighten every man that will not serve the Prince of darkness Christians were first called Christs Disciples and therefore to learn of him the true knowledge of God is the work of every true Believer John 17. â— Acts 3.23 John 8.43 47. 10.3 27. 12.47 14.24 Matth. 17.5 Direct 2. Remember that Christs way of Teaching is 1 By his Word 2. His Ministers 3. And his Spirit conjunct and the place for his Disciples is in his Church 1. His Gospel written is his Book which must be taught us 2. His Ministers office is to teach it us 3. His Spirit is inwardly to illuminate us that we may understand it And he that will despise or neglect either the Scripture Ministry or Spirit is never like to learn of Christ Direct 3. Look on the Lord Jesus and the work of mans Redemption by him as the great designed Revelation of the Fathers Love and Goodness even as the fabrick of the world is set up to be the Glass or Revelation eminently of his Greatness Therefore as you chuse your Book for the sake of the Science or subject which you would learn so let this be the designed studied constant use which you make of Christ to see and admire in him the Fathers Love When you read your Grammar if one ask you why you will say it is to learn the language which it teacheth and
and not to our own commodity in the world 2. No man can deny this principle but by setting up natural self-love or appetite and making the rational stoop to that which would infer as well that we may love our selves better than God himself and that our sense is nobler than our reason and must rule it 3. We find our own reason tell us much more of our duty in this than our corrupted wills do follow The best way therefore to discern the truth is to treat with reason alone and leave out the will till we have dispatcht with reason And you will find that the common light of nature justifieth this Law of God 1. He that would not confess that it is better he had no being than that there were no God or no world besides him is a monster of selfishness And if a man say never so much I cannot do so yet while he confesseth that this should be his desire it sufficeth to the decision of our present case 2. He that will not confess that it is better that he himself should die than all the Church of Christ or the whole Kingdom die is unreasonably selfish in the eyes of all impartial men The gallant Romans and Athenians had learnt it as one of their plainest greatest Lessons to prefer their Country before their lives And is not that to love their Countryes better than themselves 3. For the same reason many of them saw that it was the duty of a good subject or a gallant souldier to save the life of his King or General with the loss of his own Because their lives were of more publick utility And the ground of all this was these natural verities The best should be best loved Goodness must be measured by a higher rule than personal self-interest Multitudes are better than one c. 4. All men acknowledge that a man of eminent Learning Piety Wisdom and Vsefulness to the Church or World should be loved and preserved rather than a wicked sottish worthless child of our own Yea God himself requireth that Parents procure the death of their own children by publick Justice if they be obstinately wicked Deut. 21. 5. The same Reasons plainly infer that I ought rather to desire the life of a much more worthy useful instrument for the Church and State than my own and so to love a better man better than my self if I be acquainted sufficiently with his goodness And if this be all so sure and plain hence observe 1. How much humane nature is corrupted Alas how rare is this equal Love 2. How few true Christians are and how defective and imperfect grace is in the best Alas how strange are many Christians to the extent of this duty and how far are we all from practising it in any eminent degree 3. Wherein it is that natures corruption most consisteth and what is the chief part of the nature and work of sanctifying grace and reformation 4. Whence come all the oppressions injuries persecutions frauds and cruelties on the earth For want of loving mens neighbours as themselves Otherwise how tenderly would they handle one another How easily would they pardon wrongs How patiently would they bear the dissent of honest upright Christians who cannot force their judgments to be of other mens mould and size How apt would men be to suspect their own understandings of weakness presumption or errour rather than to rave with the fury of the Dragon against all others who think them to be mistaken How safely and quietly might we live by them in the world if they loved their neighbours as themselves I do not say now How plentiful would men be in doing good to others I am but pleading a lower cause How seldom they would be in doing hurt But alas miserable Brittain It was in thee that one extraordinary Emperour Alexander Sevetus was betrayed and murdered who made that Christian precept his Motto and wrote it on his doors and books and goods Do as you would be done by In thee it is that Love hath been beheaded while nothing hath been more acknowledged and professed If Love be treacherous hurtful envious scandalous ensnaring and plotting for mens destruction If Love teach proud and vicious sots to take themselves for Deities and Oracles and all for Vermine that must be hunted unto death who bow not to their carnal erroneous conceits and do not with the readiest prostitute consciences serve their carnal interests and ends If Love be known by reviling those that are much better than our selves and stigmatizing the faithfullest servants of Christ with the most odious character that lyes can utter If it was Love that called Paul a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and represented Christ as an enemy to Caesar and his followers as the filth and off-scouring of the earth then happy age in which we live and happy they that are possessed with the proud and factious spirit But if all be otherwise alas where be they and how few that love their neighbours or betters as themselves 5. You see here what a plague sin is to the earth and how great a punishment may I call it or rather a misery to the sinner and to the world 6. And you see how joyful and heavenly a life we should live if we did but follow Gods commands And what a felicity Love it self is to the soul 7. And you see by what measure to try mens spirits and to know who are the best among all the pretenders to goodness in the world Certainly not the most censorious contemptuous backbiters and cruel that seek to make all odious that are not for their interest But those that most abound in Love which Faith it self is given to produce Object All this is true but still we find it a thing impossible to love our neighbour equally with our selves Can you teach us how to do it Answ It is that I have been teaching you in the ten Directions before set down But it is this which I have reserved to the close that must do the work indeed and without it nothing else will do it Direct 11. Make it the work of all your lives by Faith in Christ to bring up your souls to the unfeigned Love of God and then it will be done For then you will love God above all and love God in all and love your selves and your neighbours principally for God Then Gods Image and Glory and Will will be Goodness or Amiableness in your eyes and not carnal pleasure honour or commodity And then it will be easie to you to love that most which hath most of God You will then easily see the reason of this seeming Paradox and that the contrary is most unreasonable You will then be as Timothy who had a natural Love to others as others have to themselves and who sought the things of Jesus Christ when all others even the best Ministers too much sought their own Phil. 2.20 21. You
especially in Corporations to the discharge of their duty to God c. 19. The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ c. in quarto 20. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live and accept of mercy while mercy may be had as ever they would find mercy in the day of their extremity From the Living God To be read in Families where any are unconverted in twelves 21. Of Saving Faith That it is not only gradually but specifically distinct from all Common Faith The Agreement of Richard Baxter with that very Learned consenting Adversary that hath maintained his Assertion by a pretended Confutation in the end of Serjeant Shepherds Book of Sincerity and Hypocrisie in quarto 22. Directions and Perswasions to a sound Conversion c. in octavo 23. The Grotian Religion discovered at the invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce in his Vindication With a Preface vindicating the Synod of Dort from the calumnies of the new Tilenus and David Peter c. and the Puritans and Sequestrations c. from the censures of Mr. Pierce in octavo 24. Confirmation and Restauration the necessary means of Reformation and Reconciliation c. in octavo 25. Five Disputations of Church-Government in quarto 26. A Key for Catholicks to open the jugling of the Jesuites and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist in quarto 27. A Treatise of Self-denyal in quarto 28. His Apology against the Exceptions of Mr. Blake Kendall Crandon Eires L Moulin in quarto 29. The unreasonableness of Infidelity in four parts c. in octavo 30. The Worcester-shire Petition to the Parliament for the Ministry of England defended c. in quarto 31. His Holy Common-wealth or Political Aphorisms opening the true Principles of Government c. in octavo 32. His Confession of Faith c. in quarto 33. His humble Advice or the heads of those things which were offered to many honourable members of Parliament in quarto 34. The Quakers Catechism or the Quakers questioned in quarto 35. An account of his present Thoughts concerning the Controversies about the perseverance of the Saints in quarto 36. His Letter to Mr. Drury for Pacification in quarto 37. The Safe Religion or three Disputations for the Reformed Catholick Religion against Popery c. in octavo 38. Catholick Unity or the only way to bring us all to be of one Religion c. in twelves 39. The true Catholick and Catholick Church described c. in twelves 40. The Successive Visibility of the Church of which Protestants are the soundest members c. in octavo 41. The Sermon of Repentance 42. Of Right Rejoycing 43. Sermon of Faith before the King 44. Treatise of Death 45. The Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite c. in several Sermons preached at the Abbey in Westminster in twelves 46. Two Sheets for Poor Families c. 47. Short Instructions for the sick a sheet 48. A Saint or a Bruit c. in quarto 49. The mischief of Self-ignorance and benefit of Self-acquaintance in octavo 50. Universal Concord c. in octavo 51. The last work of a Believer c. in twelves 52. The Divine Life in three Treatises The first of the Knowledge of God The second of Walking with God The third of Conversing with God in Solitude in quarto 53. The Reasons of the Christian Religion c. 54. Directions for weak distempered Christians to grow up into a confirmed state of grace c. 2. The Characters of a sound confirmed Christian written to imprint on mens minds the true Idea or Conception of Godliness and Christianity in octavo These Books following are also printed for Nevill Simmons at the three Crowns near Holborn Conduit THE Novelty of Popery opposed to the Antiquity of true Christianity By Peter Dumoulin D. D. in folio A Commentary or Exposition upon the five Books of Moses together with the following Books Joshua Judges Ruth first and second of Samuel first and second of Kings and first and second of Chronicles in folio The Beauty of Magistracy in an Exposition on Psal 82. By Thomas Hall B. D. The Souls Looking-glass wherein a man may discern what estate his soul stands in towards God and what evidences he hath for Heaven c. By Edward Bury late Minister of great Bolas in Shropshire in octavo The Profit of Godliness set forth in five Sermons on 1 Tim. 4.8 The unprofitableness of worldly gain in four Sermons on Mark 8.36 37. The Parable of the barren Figg-tree in seven Sermons on Luke 13.6 7 8 9. Victorious Violence in two Sermons on Matth. 11.12 By Thomas Brindall late Minister of Walshall in Staffordshire in octavo The Girdle of Holy Resolution in two Sermons on 1 Pet. 1.13 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto The Love-sick Spouse in four Sermons on Cant. 2.5 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto A Discourse on Prodigious Abstinence occasioned by the twelve months fasting of Martha Tayler By John Reynolds in quarto The Dead Pastor yet speaking in two Sermons preached on Bartholmew day Aug. 24. 1662. in Bewdley Chappel By Henry Osland then Minister there in octavo The Christians daily Walk a sheet By the same Author A Sinners Justification on the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness in several Sermons By Obadiah Grew D. D. late Minister in Coventry in octavo The Repenting Sinner pardoned being a brief Relation of the wicked life and penitent death of James Wilson of Wolverhampton in Staffordshire in octavo The English School or the readiest way to teach children or elder persons to read spell and rightly pronounce English fitted to the use of common English-Schools illustrated with five brass Cuts By Tobias Ellis in octavo FINIS LET the Reader know that whereas the Bookseller hath in the Catalogue of my Books named my Holy Common-Wealth or Political Aphorisms I do hereby recall the said Book and profess my Repentance that ever I published it and that not only for some by-passages but in respect of the secondary part of the very scope Though the first part of it which is the defence of God and Reason I recant not But this Revocation I make with these proviso's 1. That I reverse not all the Matter of that Book nor all that more than ONE have accused As e. g. the Assertion that all humane Powers are Limited by God And if I may not be pardoned for not defying DEITY and HUMANITY I shall preferr that ignominy before their present Fastus and Triumph who defie them 2. That I make not this Recantation to the Military fury and rebellious pride and tumult against which I wrote it nor would have them hence take any encouragement for impenitence 3. That though I dislike the Roman Clergies writing so much of Politicks and detest Ministers medling in State matters without necessity or a certain call yet I hold it not simply unbeseeming a Divine to expound the fifth Commandment nor to shew the dependance of humane Powers on the Divine nor to instruct Subjects to obey with judgement and for Conscience sake 4. That I protest against the judgement of Posterity and all others that were not of the same TIME and PLACE as to the mental censure either of the BOOK or the REVOCATION as being ignorant of the true reasons of them both Which things Provided I hereby under my hand as much as in me lyeth reverse the Book and desire the World to take it as non-Scriptum April 15. 1670. R. B. What true Christian Faith is See Dr. â— Stillingfleet of Satisfaction on this point