he is not a deceiver and so may be perswaded to trust and try him himself § 101. The way to know that others are thus regenerated is 1. By believing them Fide humana 2. By discerning it in the effects And though it be too frequent to have presumptuous self-conceited persons to affirm that the Spirit of Christ hath renewed them when it is no such matter yet all humane testimony of matters so neer men even within them is not therefore incredible but wise men will discern a credible person from an incredible In the forementioned instance many may tell you that they are cured by the Physician when it is not so but will you therefore believe no one that telleth you that he is cured Many may boast of that learning which they have not and tell you that they have knowledge in Mathematicks or in several Arts But is no man therefore to be believed that saith the same But yet I perswade no man here to take up with the bare belief of another mans word where he seeth not enough in the effects to second it and to perswade a reasonable man that it is true But as he that heareth a man that was sick profess that he is cured may well believe him if he see him eat and drink and sleep and labour and laugh as the healthfull use to doe so he that heareth a sober man profess with humble thanks to God that he hath changed and renewed him by his Spirit may well believe him if he see him live like a renewed man § 102. Though you cannot be infallibly certain of the sincerity of any one individual person but your self because we know not the heart yet may you be certain that all do not dissemble Because there is a natural impossibility that interests and motives and sufficient causes should concurre to lead them to it As before I said we are not certain of any individual woman that she doth not dissemble Love to her Husband and Children but we may be certain that all the women in the World do not from many natural proofs which might be given § 103. All these effects of Renovation may be discerned in others 1. You may discern that they are much grieved for their former sins 2. That they are weary of the remnant of their corruption or infirmity 3. That they long and labour to be delivered and to have their cure perfected and live in the diligent use of means to that end 4. That they live in no sin but smaller humane frailties 5. That all the riches in the world would not hire them deliberately and wilfully to sin but they will rather choose to suffer what man can lay upon them 6. That they are vile in their own eyes because of their remaining imperfections 7. That they do no wrong or injustice to any or if they do wrong any they are ready to confess it and make them satisfaction 8. That they love all good men with a love of complacency and all bad men with a love of benevolence yea even their enemies and instead of revenge are ready to forgive and to do what good they can for them and all men And that they hate bad men in opposition to complacency but as they hate themselves for their sins 9. That they love all doctrines persons and practices which are holy temperate just and charitable 10. That their passions at least are so far governed that they do not carry them to swear curse or rail or slander or fight or to do evil 11. That their tongues are used to speak with reverence of holy and righteous things and not to filthy ribbald railing lying or other wicked speech 12. That they suffer not their lusts to carry them to fornication nor their appetites to drunkenness or notable excess 13. That nothing below God himself is the principle object of their devotion but to know him to love him to serve and please him and to delight in these is the greatest care and desire and endeavour of their souls 14. That their chiefest hopes are of heaven and everlasting happiness with God in the perfection of this sight and love 15. That the ruling motives are fetch'd from God and the life to come which most command their choice their comforts and their lives 16. That in comparison of this all worldly riches honours and dignities are sordid contemptible things in their esteem 17. That for the hope of this they are much supported with patience under all sufferings in the way 18. That they value and use the things of this world in their callings and labours in subserviency to God and Heaven as a means to its proper end 19. That they vse their relations in the same subserviency ruling chiefly for God if they be superiours and obeying chiefly for God if they be inferiours and that with fidelity submission and patience so far as they can know his will 20. That their care and daily business in the world is by diligent redeeming precious time in getting and doing what good they can to make ready for death and judgment to secure their everlasting happiness and to please their God § 104. All this may be discerned in others with so great probability of their sincerity that no charitable reason shall have cause to question it And I repeat my testimony that here is not a word which I have not faithfully copied out of my own heart and experience and that I have been acquainted with multitudes who I verily believe were much better than my self and had a greater measure of all this grace § 105. If any shall say that men superstitiously appoint themselves unnecessary tasks and forbid themselves many lawful things and then call this by the name of Holiness I answer That many indeed do so but it is no such that I am speaking of Let reason judge whether in this or any of the fore-going descriptions of Holiness there be any such thing at all contained § 106. He that will be able to discern this Spirit of God in others must necessarily observe these reasonable conditions 1. Choose not those that are notoriously No-christians to judge of Christianity by a drunkard fornicator voluptuous carnal worldly proud or selfish person calling himself a Christian is certainly but an hypocrite And shall Christianity be judged of by a lying hypocrite 2. As you must choose such to try by as are truly serious in their Religion so you must be intimate and familiar with them and not strangers that see them as afar off for they make no vain ostentation of their piety And how can they discern the divine motions of their souls that only see them in common conversation 3. You must not judge of them by the revilings of ignorant ungodly men 4. Nor by the reproach of selfish men that are moved only by some interest of their own 5. Nor by the words of faction Civil or Religious which judgeth of all men according to the
and he may be sure that it is no sin because he hath done it for if God forbid it not it is no sin nay he may make it an effect of God's government But this consequence is so false and horrid that no Nation on earth receiveth it and Cannibals themselves abhor it who eat not their friends but strangers and enemies § 11. VIII If God be not the Governour of the world by Laws then no man need to fear or avoid any thing forbidden by the Laws of Man who can either keep it secret by Wit or keep himself from humane revenge by Power But the consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the consequence is evident because where no humane revenge is to be feared there no punishment at all is to be feared if God be no Governour of the world but those that can hide their actions by craft or make them good by power need not fear any humane revenge therefore they need to fear none at all upon the Atheists grounds And if that be so 1. How easie is it for cunning malice to burn a Town to kill a King to poison wife or children and to defraud a neighbour and never be discovered If this be so then Thieves Adulterers Traitors when they are detected have failed only in point of wit that they concealed it not and not in point of honesty and duty 2. And then any Rebel that can get enow to follow him hath as good a cause as the King that he rebelleth against and if he conquer he need not accuse himself of doing any wrong And then there will be nothing for conscience to blame any man for nor for one man to accuse another of but witlesness or impotency And then the Thief must suffer only for want of strength or cunning and not because he did any wrong § 12. IX If there be no Government by God there can be no true Propriety but Strength and he that is strongest hath right to all that he can lay hold on But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The consequence is undeniable for if there be no Divine Government there is no Law but Humane and no man can have any Right besides Strength to make Laws for any other whomsoever For if God have no Government and Law he constituteth no Debitum vel Jus no Dueness or Right And man can have no Right to govern others if he have no Governour to give any If God do give Right to Govern he thereby maketh obedience to that Governour a duty and he that constituteth or instituteth Right and Duty governeth And if God give men No Right to Govern they can have none And then if Strength be all their Title any man that can get as much Strength doth get as good a Title and may seize upon the Lives the Lands and Estates of Prince or People and give Laws to the weaker as others before gave Laws to him And so there will utter confusion and misery be let in upon the world As in the Poet's description of the degenerate Age Vivitur ex raptu non hospes ab hospite tutus c. Reason would have nothing to say against strength the great Dog would have the best title to the bone Melior mihi dextera lingua est Dummodo pugnando superem tu vince loquendo Ovid. Met. The honest poor and peaceable would have such a peace with thieves and strong ones Cum pecore infirmo quae solet esse lupis Ovid. § 13. If God govern not the world then meer Communities are uncapable of Right or Wrong and no man is bound in duty to spare his brother's life or state But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent By a Community I mean a company of men that have yet set up no Government among them If God be not their Governour such have none at all and so are under no moral obligation for Covenants themselves cannot bind if there be no superiour obligation requiring man to stand to his Covenants Obj. Then God's Covenants to man do not bind him Answ Not at all by proper obligation as if it were his Duty to keep them and his Sin to break them for God is not capable of duty or sin But yet improperly they may be called Obligations because they are the demonstrations of his Will which the perfection of his Nature will not let him violate It would be an imperfection if God should break promise though not a sin or crime And therefore it is impossible for God to lie Obj. But suppose we say that Man is under no other obligations than a Beast and that among men there is no proper right or wrong duty or fault yet men by confederacies without any other Government would settle Rules for the safety of cohabitation and converse and for love of themselves would forbear wronging others And this is all the Law of Nature that Man hath above Bruits Answ Those Confederacies would no further oblige them than their Interest required them to observe them Still by this rule a man is left free to kill wife and children if he be weary of them which no neighbour being wronged by none will seem obliged to revenge still he that is the stronger is left to do his worst without fault to seize upon other mens estates and to depose Kings and destroy them and all the world would be in a state of war Or if self-interest keep some quiet for a time it would be but till they had strength and opportunity to do otherwise He is not fit for humane society who would tell all about him I take my self free to defraud and murder any of you as soon as my own safety and interest will allow it me And no man that thus taketh a man for a beast can expect any better usage than a beast himself any further than self-love shall restrain others from abusing him nor can he plead any better title to his estate nor exemption from the violence of the stronger And it will also follow that honesty is nothing but self-preserving policy and that blasphemy and impiety against God need not be feared or avoided nor any thing as a fault but only as a folly exposing the person himself to danger Incest Perjury Lying might be impudencies but not any crimes Obj. If you supposed them in God they would be but imperfections and not crimes and why should you judge othewise of them in Man Answ Because the absolute perfection of his Nature is instead of a Law to God who hath no Superiour But man hath a Superiour and hath an imperfect nature which is therefore to be regulated by the wisdom and will of that perfect Superiour And moreover if Man have reason and wisdom above a Beast which maketh him capable of knowing Right and Wrong and of being moved by the things that are evident to reason though not to sense and if he
our confessions as well without it and when the tongue is made the natural instrument to express the mind and there are variety of other signs it is incredible that all the world should ever even so early hit upon this one strange way of expression without some special revelation or command of God 2. And it cannot be said with any credibility that God made any other revelation of his will to the world for Sacrificing beside what is made in Nature and in holy Scripture for who ever dreamt of such a thing or hath delivered us any such revelation and told us when and to whom and how it was made 3. And it is not credible that it was taken up erroneously by all the world as their vices or superstitions are for though it is past question that error hath caused the abuse of it through the world yet for the thing it self there is no probability of such an original For what can we imagin should induce men to it and make all Nations how various soever their Idols are to agree in this way of worshipping and propitiating them There is nothing of sensuality in it that by gratifying a lust of the flesh might have such an universal effect And it must be some universal Light or some universal Lust or Interest that must cause such an universal concord Nay on the contrary you shall find that Tradition and the custom of their Fore-fathers is the common argument pleaded for sacrificing through all the world even in the Ancients Historical reports of it 4. Therefore it remaineth very probable at least that they received it indeed by tradition from their fore-fathers and that could be from none originally but the universal progenitor of mankind who was capable of conveying it to all his posterity for no History mentioneth any later original nor could any later than Adam or Noah have made it so universal And no man can imagine why God should institute it if it were not to intimate the translating of our punishment into our Redeemer and to point us to the great Sacrifice which is truly propitiatory and is the great demonstration of his Justice who in Mercy doth forgive § 7. II. The second Witness of the Spirit which is inherent and constitutive to the Gospel of Christ is that image of God the unimitable character of Divinity which by the holy Spirit is put into the doctrin of Christ as the very life or soul of it together with the same on the pattern of his own life 1. On Christ himself the unimitable Image of God in his Perfection is a testimony of his veracity which I ascribe to the holy Spirit as the ultimate Operator in the Trinity even that holy Spirit by which he was conceived and which fell upon him at his Baptism and which Matth. 12. his enemies did blaspheme Many men have so lived that no notable sin of commission hath been found or observed in them by the world at a distance But the most vertuous except Christ was never without discernable infirmities and sins of omission No man ever convicted him of any sin either in word or deed His obedience to the Law of God was every way perfect He was the most excellent Representative of the Divine Perfections The Omnipotency of God appeared in his Miracles The Wisdom of God in his holy Doctrin and the Love of God in his matchless expressions of Love and in all the Holiness of his life He was so far from pride worldliness sensuality malice impatiency or any sin that the world had never such a pattern of self-denial humility contempt of all the wealth and honours of the world charity meekness patience c. as in him He obeyed his Father to the death He healed mens bodies and shewed his pity to their souls and opened the way of life even to his enemies He instructed the ignorant and preached repentance to the impenitent and suffered patiently the unthankful requitals of them that rendred him evil for good He endured patiently to be reviled scorned buffeted spit upon crowned with thorns nailed to a cross and put to death and this upon the false accusation and imputation of being an evil doer In a word He was perfect and sinless and manifested first all that obedience and holiness in his life which he put into his Laws and prescribed unto others And such Perfection is inseparable from Veracity Obj. How know we what faults he might have which come not to our knowledge Answ 1. You may see by his enemies accusations partly what he was free from when you see all that malice could invent to charge him with 2. If the Narrative of his Life in the Gospel have that evident proof which I shall anon produce there can remain no doubt of the perfect holiness and innocency of Christ in his Person and his Life Object We find him accused of many crimes as of being a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber of blasphemy and impiety and treason Answ The very accusations are such as shew their falshood and his innocency He is called a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber because he did eat and drink as other men in temperance and sobriety and did not tie himself to a wilderness life of austerity in total abstinence from common meats and wine as John Baptist did and as they thought he that professed extraordinary sanctity should have done They accused him of eating with publicans and sinners because he went to them as a Physician to heal their souls and lived a sociable charitable life and did not observe the Laws of proud Pharisaical separation They accused him of blasphemy and treason for saying the truth that he was the Son of God and the King of Israel And of impiety for talking of pulling down the Temple when he did but prophesie of his own death and resurrection And this was all that malice had to say Object He carried himself contemptuously to Magistrates He called Herod the King That Fox The Scribes and Pharisees he railed at and called them hypocrites painted sepulchres a generation of vipers c. When he was called to answer whether they should pay tribute to Cesar he doth but put off the resolution by ambiguity instead of an open exhorting them to obedience and saith Give to Caesar the things that are Caesars And when he was called to for tribute for him he payeth it but as a way to avoid offence having pleaded first his own immunity Answ 1. His speeches of Herod and the Scribes and Pharisees are not revilings but a free and just reprehension of their sin which being done by God's commission and in his Name and for his cause is no more to be called reviling than an arrest of a Felon or Traitor in the Kings name or an accusation put in against him for his crimes should be so called God will not forbear damning impenitent rebels though they call it cruelty nor will he forbear the reprehension and shaming of their
effect of any politick Confederacy between him and them but the effect of Gods Power Light and Love so that it should be a great confirmation to our Faith to consider that those multitudes believed by the wonderfull testimony and work of the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples when Christ had been crucified in despight who yet believed not before but were his Crucifiers It was not so hard nor honourable an act to believe in him when he went about working Miracles and seemed in a possibility to restore their temporal Kingdom as to believe in him after he had been crucified among Malefactors He therefore that could after this by the Spirit and Miracles bring so many thousands to believe did shew that he was alive himself and in full power 3. And that the Apostles were mean unlearned men is a great confirmation to our Faith For now it is apparent that they had their abilities wisdom and successes from the Spirit and Power of God But if they had been Philosophers or cunning men it might have been more suspected to be a laid contrivance between Christ and them Indeed for all his Miracles they began to be in doubt of him themselves when he was dead and buryed till they saw him risen again and had the Spirit came upon them and this last undenyable evidence and this heavenly insuperable Call and Conviction was it which miraculously setled them in the Faith 4. And that Saviour who came not to make us Worldlings but to save us from this present evil World and to cure our esteem and love of worldly things did think it meetest both to appear in the form of a poor man himself and to choose Disciples of the like condition and not to choose the worldly wise and great and honourable to be the first attesters of his miracles or preachers of his Gospel Though he had some that were of place and quality in the World as Nicodemus Joseph Cornelius Sergius Paulus c. yet his Power needed not such Instruments As he would not teach us to magnifie worldly Pomp nor value things by outward appearance as the deluded dreaming world doth so he would shew us that he needeth not Kings nor Philosophers by worldly power or wisdom to set up his Kingdom He giveth power but he receiveth none He setteth up Kings and by him they reign but they set not up him nor doth he reign by any of them Nor will he be beholden to great men or learned men for their help to promote his cause and interest in the World The largeness of his mercy indeed extendeth to Kings and all in Authority as well as to the poor and if they will not reject it nor break his bonds but kiss the Son before his wrath break forth against them they may be saved as well as others Psal 2.1 2 9 10. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. But he will not use them in the first setting up of his Church in the World lest men should think that it was set up by the Learning Policy or Power of man 1 Cor. 1.26 27 28 29. and 2.5 6 7 10 13. 13.19 c. And therefore he would not be voted one of the Gods by Tyberius or Adrians Senate nor accept of the worship of Alexander Sevâ—rus who in his Lararium worshipped him as one of his Demi-gods nor receive any such beggarly Deity from man but when Constantine acknowledged him as God indeed he accepted his acknowledgement Those unlearned men whom he used were made wiser in an hour by the Holy Ghost than all the Philosophers in the World And those mean contemned persons overcame the Learning and Power of the World and not by Arms as Mahomet but against Arms and Arguments wit and rage by the Spirit alone they subdued the greatest powers to their Lord. Obj. XIV But it doth sapere scenam sound like a Poetical fiction that God should satisfie his own Justice and Christ should die instead of our being damned and this to appease the wrath of God as if God were angry and delighted in the blood or sufferings of the innocent Answ Ignorance is the great cause of unbelief This objection cometh from many errours and false conceits about the things of which it speaketh 1. If the word Satisfaction offend you use only the Scripture-words that Christ was a Sacrifice an Atonement a Propitiation a Price c. And if this be incredible how came it to pass that sacrificing was the custom of all the world Doth not this objection as much militate against this was God angry or was he delighted in the bloud and sufferings of harmless sheep and other cattel and must these either satisfie him or appease his wrath What think you should be the cause that sacrificing was thus commonly used in all ages through all the earth if it savoured but of poetical fiction 2. God hath no such thing as a passion of anger to be appeased nor is he at all delighted in the bloud or sufferings of the worst much less of the innocent nor doth he sell his mercy for bloud nor is his satisfaction any reparation of any loss of his which he receiveth from another But 1. Do you understand what Government is and what Divine Government is and what is the end of it even the pleasing of the will of God in the demonstrations of his own perfections if you do you will know that it was necessary that God's penal Laws should not be broken by a rebel world without being executed on them according to their true intent and meaning or without such an equivalent demonstration of his Justice as might vindicate the Law and Law-giver from contempt and the imputation of ignorance or levity and might attain the ends of Government as much as if all sinners had suffered themselves And this is it that we mean by a Sacrifice Ransom or Satisfaction Shall God be a Governour and have no Laws or shall he have Laws that have no penalties or shall he set up a lying scar-crow to frighten sinners by deceit and have Laws which are never meant for execution Are any of these becoming God Or shall he let the Devil go for true who told Eve at first You shall not die and let the world sin on with boldness and laugh at his Laws and say God did but frighten us with a few words which he never intended to fulfill or should God have damned all the world according to their desert If none of all this be credible to you then certainly nothing should be more credible than that his wisdom hath found out some way to exercise pardoning saving mercy without any injury to his governing justice and truth and without exposing his Laws and himself to the contempt of sinners or emboldening them in their sins even a way which shall vindicate his honour and attain his ends of government as well as if we had been all punished with death and hell and yet may save us with the great
necessitating force than a man moveth as a stone because it is irresistibly moved and hath no power to forbear any act which it performeth or to do it otherwise than it doth For if there be no power habits or dispositions antecedent to motion but motion it self is all then there is one and the same account to be given of all actions good and bad I did it because I was irresistibly moved to it and could no more do otherwise than my pen can choose to write There is then no virtue or vice no place for Laws and moral Government further than they may be tacklings in the engine which necessitateth whatsoever is done amiss is as much imputable to God the first mover as that which is done-well If you shoot an arrow which killeth your friend the arrow could not hinder it if you make or set your watch amiss though one motion causeth another yet the errour of all is resolved into the defect of the first cause They that killed Henry the 3. and Henry the 4. Kings of France may say that as the knife could not resist the motion of their hand so neither could they the motion of the superiour cause that moved them and so on to the first No Traitors or Rebels can resist the power which acteth them therein any more than the dust can resist the wind which stirreth it up And so you see what cometh of all the Government of God and Man and of all Laws and Judgments Justice and Injustice Right and Wrong And how little cause you have to be angry with the Thief that robbeth you or the man that cudgelleth you any more than with the staff But of this I refer you to the foresaid writing of Bishop Bromhal against Mr. Hobs allowing you to make the most you can of his Reply We are certain by the operations of things that there is a difference in their natural powers and virtues and not only in their quantity figure and motion God hath not made only homogeneal undifferenced matter there are plainly now exceeding diversities of natural excellencies virtues and qualities in the things we see And he that will say that by motion only God made this difference at first doth but presumptuously speak without book without all proof to make it credible and taketh on him to know that which he knoweth that he knoweth not Is not the virtue and goodness of things as laudable as their quantity and motion Why then should we imagine so vast a disproportion in the image of God upon his works as to acknowledge the magnitude and motion incomprehensible and to think that in virtue and goodness of nature they are all alike and none is more noble or more like himself than a clod of earth We see that the natures of all things are suited to their several uses Operari sequitur esse Things act as they are There is somewhat in the nature of a bird or beast or plant which is their fitness to their various motions If only motion made that fire to day which yesterday was but a stone why doth not the strongest wind so much as warm us or why doth it so much cool us Why doth not the snow make us as warm as a fleece of wool the wool doth move no more than the snow and the matter of it appeareth to be no more subtil Indeed man can give to none of his works a nature a life or virtue for the operation which he desireth He can but alter the magnitude and figure and motion of things and compound and mix them and conjoyn them and these Epicureans seem to judge of the works of God by mans But he who is Being Life and Intelligence doth accordingly animate his noble Engines and give them natures and vertues for their operations and not only make use of matter and weight where he findeth it as our Mechanicks themselves can do Debasing all the noblest of Gods works is unbeseeming a true Philosopher who should search out the virtues and goodness as well as the greatness of them But I have been longer in answering this first Objection than I can afford to be about the rest unless I would make a Book of this which I call but the Conclusion I will adde but this one thing more That in case it were granted the Epicureans that the soul is material it will be no disproving of its immortality nor invalidate any of my former arguments for a life of retribution after this To which purpose consider these things 1. That where matter is simple and not compounded it hath no tendency to corruption Object Matter is divisible and therefore corruptible how simple soever Answ It is such as may be divided if God please and so the soul is such as God can destroy But we see that all parts of matter have a wonderful tendency to unity and have a tendency to a motus aggregativus if you separate them Earth inclineth to earth and water to water and air to air and fire to fire 2. All Philosophers agree to what I say who hold that matter is eternal either à parte ante or à parte post For if matter be eternal the soul's materiality may consist with its eternity 3. Yea all without exception do agree that there is no annihilation of matter when there is a dissolution Therefore if the soul be a simple uncompounded being though material it will remain the same This therefore is to be set down as granted us by all the Infidels and Atheists in the world that man's soul what ever it is is not annihilated when he dieth if it be any kind of substance material or immaterial And they that call his temperament his soul do all acknowledge that there is in the composition some one predominant principle more active or noble than the rest and of the duration of this it is that we enquire which no man doth deny though some deny it to be immaterial But this will be further opened under the rest of the Objections The reasons of my many words in answering this Objection I give you in the words of a late learned Conciliator Philosophiae Platonicae explicationi diutius immorati sumus quod res maximas cognitione dignissimas complectatur Habet i◠quoque prae coeteris quod ad aeternas primitivas rationes mentem erigat eamque à fluxis perituris rebus advocatam ad eas quae sola intelligentia percipiuntur convertat Qua quidem in re infinitum prope momentum est Nam obruimur turbâ Philosophorum qui nimis fidunt sensibus nihil praeter corpora intelligi posse contendunt Atque ut mihi videtur nulla perniciosior pestis in vitam humanam potest invadere nihil quod magis religioni adversetur Joh. Bapt. du Hamel in Conscens veteris novae Philos Praefat. OBJECTION II. BY Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal because the Bruits partake of