they were before notwithstanding their long converse with Christ in person it being his pleasure to illuminate them by supernatural infusion that it might appear to be no contrived design to deceive the world And they were enabled to preach the word with power and by this Spirit were infallibly guided in the performance of the work of their Commissions to settle Christ's Church in a holy order and to leave on record the doctrine which he had commanded them to teach Also they themselves did heal the sick and cast out devils and prophesie and by the laying on of their hands the same holy Spirit was ordinarily given to others that believed so that Christians had all one gift or other of that Spirit by which they convinced and converted a great part of the world in a short time and all that were sincere had the gift of sanctification and were regenerate by the Spirit as well as by Baptismal water and had the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the holy Ghost which was given them A holy and heavenly mind and life with mortification contempt of the world self-denial patience and love to one another and to all men was the constant badge of all Christ's followers The first Sermon that Peter preached did convert three thousand of those sinful Jews that had crucified Christ And after that many thousands of them more were converted One of their bloody persecutors Saul a Pharisee that had been one of the murderers of the first Martyr Stephen and had haled many of them to prisons as he was going on this business was struck down by the high-way a light from Heaven shining round about him and a voice saying to him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And he said Who art thou Lord And the Lord said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks And he trembling and astonished said Lord what wilt thou have me to do And the Lord said Arise and go into the City and it shall be told thee what thou must do And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless hearing a voice but seeing no man And so Saul was led blind to Damascus where one Ananias had a vision commanding him to Baptize him and his eyes were opened This Convert called Paul did hence-forward preach the Gospel of Christ from Country to Country in Syria in Asia at Rome and a great part of the world in marvellous unwearied labours and sufferings abuses and imprisonments converting multitudes and planting Churches in many great Cities and Countries and working abundance of miracles where he went His History is laid down in part of the New Testament There are also many of his Epistles to Rome to Corinth Galatia Ephesus Philippi Coloss Thessalonica to Timothy to Titus and to Philemon and the Hebrews as is supposed There are also the Epistles of Peter James John and Jude with the Revelation of John containing many mysterious Prophesies An Eunuch who was of great power under the Queen of Ethiopia was converted by Philip and carried the Gospel into his Country The rest of the Apostles and other Disciples carried it abroad a great part of the world especially in the Roman Empire and though every where they met with opposition and persecution yet by the power of the holy Ghost appearing in their Holiness Languages and Miracles they prevailed and planted abundance of Churches of which the most populous were at Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria And though they were all dispersed abroad the world and out of the reach of mutual converse yet did they never disagree in their Doctrine in the smallest point but proceeded through sufferings in Unity and Holiness in the work of saving Souls till most of them were put to death for the sake of Christ having left the Churches under the Government of their several Pastors according to the will of Christ This is the abstract of the History of the holy Scriptures § 14. The summ of the Doctrine of Christianity is contained in these Articles following consisting of three general Heads I. Things to be known and believed II. Things to be willed and desired and hoped III. Things to be done I. 1. There is one only GOD in Essence in Three Essential Principles POWER UNDERSTANDING and WILL or OMNIPOTENCY OMNISCIENCE and GOODNESS in Three Subsistences or Persons the FATHER the SON and the HOLY SPIRIT who is a Mind or Spirit and therefore is most Simple Incorruptible Immortal Impassionate Invisible Intactible c. and is Indivisible Eternal Immense Necessary Independent Self-sufficient Immutable Absolute and Infinite in all Perfections The Principal Efficient Dirigent and Final Cause of all the world The CREATOR of all and therefore our Absolute OWNER or Supreme RULER and our Total BENEFACTOR and CHIEF GOOD and END 2. GOD made Man for himself not to supply any want of his own but for the pleasing of his own Will and Love in the Glory of his Perfections shining forth in his works In his own Image that is with Vital Power Understanding and Free-will Able Wise and Good with Dominion over the Inferiour Creatures as being in subordination to God their OWNER their GOVERNOUR and their BENEFACTOR and END And he bound him by the Law of his Nature to adhere to GOD his MAKER by Resignation Devotion and Submission to him as his OWNER by Believing Honouring and Obeying him as his RULER and by Loving him Trusting and Seeking him Delighting in him Thanksgiving to him and Praising him as his Grand BENEFACTOR chief Good and ultimate end to exercise Charity and Justice to each other and to Govern all his inferiour faculties by Reason according to his Makers will that he so might please him and be Happy in his Love And to try him he particularly forbad him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil upon pain of death 3. Man being tempted by Satan to break this Law of God did believe the Tempter who promised him impunity and advancement in Knowledge and who accused God as false in his threatning and as envying Man this great advancement And so by wilfull sinning against him he fell from God and his uprightness and happiness under the displeasure of God the penalty of his Law and the power of Satan And hence we are all conceived in sin averse to good and prone to evil and condemnation is passed upon all and no meer Creature is able to deliver us 4. God so loved the World that he gave his only SON to be their REDEEMER who being the Eternal WISDOM and WORD of God and so truly GOD and one in Essence with the FATHER did assume our Nature and became Man being conceived by the HOLY SPIRIT in the Virgin Mary and born of her and called JESVS CHRIST who being Holy and without all sin did conquer the Tempter and the World fulfilling all righteousness He enacted and preached the Law or
It is not one part of the Sun that moveth and another which illuminateth and another which heateth But the whole Sun if it be wholly Fire or aethereal matter doth move the whole illuminateth and the whole doth heat And Motion Light and Heat are not Qualities inherent in it But Motion Illumination and Calefaction are Acts flowing immediately from its Essence as containing the faculties or powers of such acts He that could write a perfect method of Physicks and Morality would shew us Trinity in Unity through all its parts from first to last But as the Veins Arteries and Nerves the Vessels of the Natural Vital and Animal humours and spirits are easily discernable in their trunks and greater branches but not so when they are minute and multiplied into thousands so is it in this Method But I must desire the Reader to observe that though I here explain this Trinity of Active Principles in the Divine Essence which is so evident to Natural Reason it self as to be past all controversie Yet whether indeed the Trinity of Hypostases or Persons which is part of the Christian Faith be not somewhat distinct from this is a question which here I am not to meddle with till I come to the second part of the Treatise Nor is it my purpose to deny it but only to prepare for the better understanding of it Of which more shall there afterward be said § 32. And thus all Creatures and especially our selves declare that there is a first Being and Cause of them all who is a Substance Life a Spirit or Minde an Active Power Vnderstanding and Will perfect eternall independent and self-sufficient not compounded not passible not mutable corruptible or mortall Immense Omnipresent Incomprehensible only One Omnipotent Omniscient and most Good most Happy in Being Himself in Knowing himself and enjoying him most Holy transcending all the Creatures of a Perfect Will the Fountain of all Morall Good Love or Benigne having a Trinity of essential Transcendent Principles in unity of Essence which have made their adumbration or appearance on the World whereof though he be not the constitutive form or Soul He is to it much more the first Efficient Dirigent and ultimate final Cause of all That is THERE IS A GOD. CHAP. VI. Of GOD as RELATED to his Creatures especially to Man And I. as his OWNER PAssing by all that is doubtfull and controverted among men truly Rational and taking before me only that which is certain undenyable and clear and wherein my own Soul is past all doubt I shall proceed in the same method secundum ordinem cognoscendi non essendi The word GOD doth not only signifie all that I have been proving viz. The perfect nature of the first Cause but also his Relations to us his Creatures And therefore till I have opened and proved those Relations I have done but part of my work to prove that THERE IS A GOD. § 1. GOD having produced Man and all the World by his Power Vnderstanding and Will is by immediate resultancy Related to him as his CREATOR Though he made his Body of pre-existent Matter yet was that Matter made of nothing and therefore God is properly Mans CREATOR and not his Fabricator only And a CREATURE is a Relation which inferreth the Correlate a CREATOR as a Son doth a Father This therefore is Gods first grand Relation unto Man which hath no cause to produce it but his actual Creation which is its fundamentum § 2. This Grand prime Relation inferreth a Trinity of Grand Relations viz. That God is our OWNER our RVLER and our BENEFACTOR of which we are now to speak in order That these Three are justly distinguished from each other is past doubt to all that understand what is meant by the terms An Owner as such is not a Ruler or Benefactor a Ruler as such is not an Owner or a Benefactor A Benefactor as such is neither an Owner nor a Ruler And the enumeration is sufficient All humane affairs or actions of converse and society belong to Man in one of these three Relations or such as are subordinate to them and meer dependents on them or compounded of them They are in some respect the Genera and in some as it were the Elements of all other Relations And from the manner of men they are applyed to God with as much propriety of speech as any terms that man can use concerning him And he that could draw a true scheme or method of the Body of Morality or Theology for all is one with me would reduce all the dealings of God with Man which are subsequent to the fundamental Act of Creation to these three Relations and accordingly distinguish of them all Yet in the Mixt acts as most are such distinguishing only of the compounding Elements I mean the interest of these three Relations as making up the several acts § 3. A full Owner or Proprietor is called Dominus in the strictest sense and is one that hath a Jus possidendi disponendi utendi a right of having or possessing disposing and using without any copartner or superior Proprietor to restrain him The meaning is better known by the bare terms of denomination through common use than by definition We know what it meaneth when a man saith of any thing It is mine own There are defective half-proprieties of Co-partners and subordinate Proprietors which belong not to our present case The word Dominus Dominuim is sometime taken laxely as comprehending both Propriety and Rule and sometime improperly for Government or Command it self But among Lawyers it is most commonly taken properly and strictly for an OWNER as such But lest any be contentious about the use of the word I here put instead of it the word Owner and Proprietor as being more free from ambiguity § 4. GOD is jure Creationis Conservationis the most absolute Owner or Proprietor of Man and the whole Creation It is not possible that there should be a more full and certain title to propriety than Creation and total conservation is He that giveth the World all its Being and that of nothing and continueth that being and was beholden to no pre-existent matter nor to any co-ordinate concause nor dependent on any superiour cause in his causation but is himself the first independent efficient total cause of being and well-being and all the means thereto must needs be the absolute Owner of all without the least limitation or exception It is not the supereminency of Gods nature excelling all created beings that is the foundation of this his Propriety in the creature For Excellency is no title to Propriety And yet he that is unicus in capacitate possidendi that is so transcendently excellent as to have no Copartner in a claim might by Occupation be sole Proprietor in that kinde of Propriety secundum quid which Man is capable of Because there is no other whom he can be said to wrong But GOD hath a
their lives to rob and kill as if they were of little worth yea when they know that they must die how desperately go they to the gallows and how little make they of their lives It s true as was aforesaid that nature abhorreth death but we see among Souldiers that he that at first is timerous when he hath been used a while to kill men or to see them kill'd by thousands groweth senseless almost regardless of his life and will make as it were a jest of death And when it is so ordinary a thing with men to kill birds and fishes and beasts for their daily food and pleasure why should they not easily bear their own if they look for nothing after death A beast loveth his life as well as we and our death is no more painful than theirs and we should have as much courage as a beast Especially men that live a poor and miserable life on earth would little fear that death which endeth it and so humane Government it self would be in vain He that would have an instrument to revenge him on his enemy to kill his Governour or do any villany in the world if it were not for fear of another world might find enow among Poor villains that by misery or melancholly are a-weary of their lives At least as long as they run but a hazard like a Souldier in fight and may possibly scape by craft or flight or friends or strength what wickedness will they not commit What Prince so just that hath not some rebellious Subject or some Enemy that seeks his life What man so good that is not maliced by some Who hath mony or an estate which one or other doth not desire and if there were nothing but death and annihilation to restrain men what Prince what person had any security of his life or estate If a Rogue once grow but sensual and idle he will deliberately resolve I will venture my life to live in pleasure rather than live in certain toil and misery a short life and a sweet is better than a longer which is miserable and must end at last We see if once men be perswaded that they shall die like beasts that they are not much troubled at it because they think that when they have no being they shall have no fear nor care nor grief nor trouble nor pain nor want And though right improved Reason which hath higher expectations makes a greater matter of the loss of them yet sensual men so brutine themselves that they grow contented with the felicity of a Bruit and are not much troubled that they have no more Annihilation therefore certainly is a penalty utterly insufficient even to keep any common Order in the World as I proved before And therefore it is certain that the penalty inflicted hereafter will be greater than Annihilation And if so it must contain with the Being of the Creature a suffering worse than the loss of Being § 35. The Belief of a Hell or endless punishment being that which is de facto the restraint of the Obedient part of the World and that which proveth too weak with the Disobedient part it thence followeth that a Hell or endless punishment will be inflicted The Reasons I have given before 1. Because that Experience sheweth that the Threatning of Hell is necessary in the Law therefore it self is necessary in the execution 2. Because God doth not govern the World by deceit § 36. God will inflict more punishment for the final rejection of his Government than Kings do for treason and rebellion against thousands There is no proportion between God and Man and between a fault against God and against Man Therefore if racks torments and death be justly inflicted for Treason against a King much more may be expected for rebellion against God Obj. But mens sins do God no hurt as they do the King Answ They do wrong where they do no hurt It is not for want of Malignity in sin but through the perfections of God that they do not hurt him But they displease him and injure him and they hurt the World and the sinner himself who is not his own A Child is to be corrected for many faults which do his Father no harm It is not hurting God that is the Cause that sin is punished Obj. But God is mercifull as well as just Answ True and therefore he shewed mercy to sinners in the day of Mercy And it is for the contempt and abuse of mercy that he condemneth them If the Mercy abused had been less the sin and punishment had been less A mercifull King and Judge will hang a Murderer or Traytor Mercy to the good requireth punishment of the bad Gods Attributes are not contrary He is mercifull to the due Objects of mercy and hath penal Justice for the Objects of that Justice Obj. But after this life the ends of punishment cease therefore so will the punishment For there will be none in the next World to be warned by it nor any further sin to be restrained unless it be a Castigatory Purgatory for the sinner himself Answ 1. I have proved that the Law was necessary to the Government of this World And if it was necessary that God say everlasting death shall be the wages of sin then his Truth and Justice make the execution necessary afterwards 2. When this life is ended we look for a New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness And the penalties of the sinners of this World may be a means of that righteousness of the next as the punishment of the Devils is a warning to us and proposed to us for our terror and restraint 3. How little know we whether thousands of the Orbs which we see are not inhabited and whether the penalties of Earthly sinners may not be a warning to any of those superiour Worlds God hath not acquainted us with all the uses that he can make of sinners punishments And therefore when Nature telleth us what is due it is folly to say it will not be because God hath no use for it Obj. But Hell is a cruelty which expresseth tyranny rather than wise justice Answ That 's but the voice of Folly partiality and guilt Every thief that is hanged is like enough to think the same of his own Punishment and Judge If you think it such a cruelty why was not the threatning of it enough to govern you and to counterpoise a Feather the trifles of sordid fleshly pleasure Why did you choose it in the choice of sin were you not told of it and was not Life and Death offered to your choice Would you choose that which you think it is cruelty to inflict who is it that is cruel to you but your selves Why will you now be so cruel to your own souls and then call God cruel for giving you your choice O sinners as you are wise as you are men as ever you care what becometh of you for ever
shall I know that there is indeed such holiness in Christians as you mention and that it is not dissembled and counterfeit Answ I have told you in the fore-going answer 1. If you were truly Christians you might know it by possession in your selves as you know that you love your friend or a learned man knoweth that he hath learning 2. If you have it not your selves you may see that others do not dissemble when you see them as afore-said make it the drift of all their lives and prefer it before their worldly interest and their lives and hold on constantly in it to the death When you see a holy life what reason have you to question a holy heart especially among so great a number you may well know that if some be dissemblers all the rest are not so Obj. But I see no Christians that are really so holy I see nothing in the best of them above civility but only self-conceit and affectation and strictness in their several forms and modes of Worship Answ 1. If you are no better than such your self it is the greatest shame and plague of heart that you could have confessed and it must needs be because you have been false to the very light of Nature and of Grace 2. If you know no Christians that are truly holy it must needs be either because you are unacquainted with them or because your malice will not give you leave to see any good in these that you dislike And if you have acquainted your self with no Christians that were truly holy what could it be but malice or sensuality that turned you away from their acquaintance when there have been so many round about you If you have been intimate with them and known their secret and open conversation and yet have not seen any holiness in them it can be no better than wilful malice that hath blinded you And because a negative witness that knoweth not whether it be so or not is not to be regarded against an affirming witness who knoweth what he saith I will here leave my testimony as in the presence of God the searcher of hearts and the revenger of a lie yea even of lies pretended for his glory I have considered of the characters of a Christian in the twenty particulars before expressed in this Chapter § 10. and I have examined my soul concerning them all and as far as I am able to know my self I must profess in humble thankfulness to my Redeemer that there is none of them which I find not in me And seeing God hath given me his testimony within me to the truth of the Gospel of his Son I take it to be my duty in the profession of it to give my testimony of it to unbelievers And I must as solemnly profess that I have had acquaintance with hundreds if not thousands on whom I have seen such evidences of a holy heavenly mind which nothing but uncharitable and unrighteous censure could deny And I have had special intimate familiarity with very many in all whom I have discerned the Image of God in such innocency charity justice holiness contempt of the world mortification self-denial humility patience and heavenly mindedness in such a measure that I have seen no cause to question their sincerity but great cause to love and honour them as the Saints of God yea I bless the Lord that most of my converse in the world since the 22d year of my age hath been with such and much of it six years sooner Therefore for my own part I cannot be ignorant that Christ hath a sanctified people upon earth Object But how can one man know another's heart to be sincere Answ I pretend not to know by an infallible certainty the heart of any single individual person But 1. I have in such a course of effects as is mentioned before great reason to be very confident of it and no reason to deny it concerning very many A child cannot be infallibly certain that his father or mother loveth him because he knoweth not the heart But when he considereth of the ordinariness of natural affection and hath always found such usage as dearest love doth use to cause he hath much reason to be confident of it and none to deny it 2. There may be a certainty that all conjunctly do not counterfeit when you have no certainty of any single individual As I can be sure that all the mothers in the world do not counterfeit love to their children though I cannot be certain of it in any individual Object But it is not all Christians nor most that are thus holy Answ It is all that are Christians in deed and truth Christ is so far from owning any other that he will condemn them the more for abusing his Name to the covering of their sins All are not Christians who have the name of Christians in all professions the vulgar rabble of the ignorant and ungodly do use to joyn with the party that is uppermost and seem to be of the Religion which is most for their worldly ends be it right or wrong when indeed they are of none at all Hypocrites are no true Christians but the persons that Christ is most displeased with Judge but by his precepts and example and you will see who they are that are Christians indeed Object But what if the preaching or writings of a Minister do convert and sanctifie men it doth not follow that they are Saviours of the world Answ What ever they do they do it as the Ministers and Messengers of Christ by his Doctrine and not by any of their own by his Commission and in his Name and by his Power or Spirit Therefore it witnesseth to his truth and honour who is indeed the Saviour which they never affirmed of themselves Object What if Pythagoras Socrates Plato the Japonian Bonzii the Indian Bramenes c. do bring any souls to a holy state as its like they did it will not follow that they were all Saviours of the world Answ 1. They have but an imperfect Doctrine and consequently make on the minds of men but a lame defective change and that change but upon few and that but for a few Ages and then another Sect succeedeth them So that they have no such attestation and approbation of God as Christ hath in the renovation of so many thousands all abroad the world and that for so many ages together 2. They did not affirm themselves to be the Sons of God and the Saviours of the world if they had God would not have annexed such a testimony to their word as he doth to Christs 3. The mercy of God is over all his works He hath compassion upon all Nations and setteth up some candles where the Sun is not yet risen The Light and Law of Nature are his as well as the Light and Law of Supernatural Revelation and accordingly he hath his instruments for the communication of them to
the rude and ignorant part of the world All the truth which any Philosopher teacheth is God's truth and it is no wonder if a God of so much goodness do bless his own truth according to its nature and proportion who ever be the messenger of it Whether the success of Philosophy be ever the true sanctification and salvation of any souls is a thing that I meddle not with it belongeth not to us and therefore is not revealed to us But it is visible in the Gospel that all that part of practical doctrine which the Philosophers taught is contained in the doctrine of Christ as a part in the whole and therefore the impress and effect is more full and perfect as the doctrine and the impress and effect of the Philosophers doctrine can be no better than the cause which is partial and defective and mixt with much corruption and untruth All that is good in the Philosophers is in the doctrine of Christ but they had abundance of false opinions and idolatries to corrupt it when Christianity hath nothing but clean and pure So that as no Philosopher affirmed himself to be the Saviour so his doctrine was not attested by the plenary and common effect of Regeneration as Christ's was but as they were but the Ministers of the God of Nature so they had but an answerable help from God who could not be supposed however had they wrought miracles to have attested more than themselves asserted or laid claim to Object But Mahomet ventured on a higher arrogation and pretence and yet if his doctrine sanctifie men it will not justifie his pretences Answ 1. It is not proved that his Doctrine doth truly sanctifie any 2. The effect which it hath can be but lame defective and mixt with much vanity and error as his doctrine is for the effect cannot excell the cause 3. That part of his doctrine which is good and doth good is not his own but part of Christs from whom he borrowed it and to whom the good effects are to be ascribed 4. Mahomet never pretended to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World but only to be a Prophet Therefore his cause is much like that of the Philosophers forementioned saving that he giveth a fuller testimony to Christ 5. If Mahomet had proved his Word by antecedent Prophesies Promises and Types through many ages and by inherent purity and by concomitant Miracles and by such wonderfull subsequent communications of renewing sanctifying grace by the Spirit of God so ordinary in the World we should all have had reason to believe his Word But if he pretend only to be a Prophet and give us none of all these proofs but a foppish ridiculous bundle of Non-sense full of carnal doctrines mixt with holy truth which he had from Christ we must judge accordingly of his Authority and Word notwithstanding God may make use of that common truth to produce an answerable degree of Goodness among those that hear and know no better These Objections may be further answered anon among the rest And thus much shall here suffice of the great and cogent Evidences of the truth of the Christian Faith CHAP. VII Of the subservient proofs and means by which the forementioned Evidences are brought to our certain knowledge THE witness of the Spirit in the four wayes of Evidence already opened is proved to be sure and cogent if first it be proved to be true that indeed such a witness to Jesus Christ hath been given to the World The Argument is undenyable when the Minor is proved He whose Word is attested by God by many thousand years predictions by the inherent Image of God upon the frame of his doctrine by multitudes of uncontrolled Miracles and by the success of his Doctrine to the true Regeneration of a great part of the World is certainly to be believed But such is Jesus Christ Ergo I have been hitherto for the most part proving the Major Proposition and now come to the Minor as to the several branches § 1. I. The Prophetical Testimony of the Spirit is yet legible in the Promises Prophesies and Types and main design of the Old Testament § 2. The Books of Holy Scripture where all these are sound are certain uncorrupted records thereof preserved by the unquestioned tradition and care and to this day attested by the generall confession of the Jewes who are the bitterest enemies to Christianity There are no men of reason that I have heard of that deny the Books of Moses and the Psalms and the Prophets c. to be indeed those that went under those titles from the beginning And that there can be no considerable corruption in them which might much concern their testimony to Christ the comparing of all the Copies and the Versions yet extant will evince together with the testimony of all sorts of enemies and the morall impossibility of their corruption But I will not stand to prove that which no sober adversary doth deny To these Books the Christians did appeal and to these the Jews profess to stand § 3. II. The constitutive inherent image of God upon the Gospel of Christ is also still visible in the Books themselves and needeth no other proof than a capable Reader as afore described § 4. The preaching and Writings of the Ministers of Christ do serve to illustrate this and help men to discern it but adde nothing to the inherent perfection of the Gospel for matter or for method § 5. III. The testimony of the age of Miracles fore-described can be known naturally no way but by sight or other senses to those present and by report or history to those absent § 6. The Apostles and many thousand others saw the Miracles wrought by Christ and needed no other proof of them than their senses The many thousands who at twice were fed by Miracle were witnesses of that The multitude were witnesses of his healing the blinde the lame the paralitick the Demoniacks c. The Pharisees themselves made the strictest search into the cure of the man born blinde Joh. 9. and the raising of Lazarus from the dead and many more His miracles were few of them hid but openly done before the World § 7. The Apostles and many hundreds more were witnesses of Christs own Resurrection and needed no other proof but their sense At divers times he appeared to them together and apart and yielded to Thomas his unbelief so farre as to call him to put his finger into his side and see the print of the Nails He instructed them concerning the Kingdom of God for forty dayes Act. 1. He gave them their Commission Mar. 16. Mat. 28. Joh. 21. He expostulated with Peter and engaged him to feed his Lambs He was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once And lastly appeared after his ascension to Paul and to John that wrote the Revelations § 8. The Apostles also were eye-witnesses of his ascension Act. 1. What he had foretold
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
neerest to GOD that we have any knowledge of And therefore Reason will not teach us to look to any intermediate universal or superiour Cause because there is no created superiour Nature to the Intellectual And it 's absurd to goe to the Inferior to be the Cause of the superior If any will needs think that under God there is some Vniversal Intellect not of the whole Universe for that 's plainly improbable but of our Systeme or Vortex they must take it to be some Angelical Intelligence as Aristotle or the Sun No man can prove either of these to have any such office And for the Sun it is certain that it is not possible unless it self be an Intelligence And though to humane Reason it seem very likely that so glorious a corporeal Nature as the Sun should not be destitute of as noble a form as a lump of Clay a humane body doth possess that so there may be a proportion in Gods works between the nobility of matter and form yet all this to man is utterly uncertain nor doth any man know whether the Luminaries are animated with either sentient or intelligent Souls or not He that most confidently asserteth either and scorneth the Contradicter doth but tell you that he is ignorant of his ignorance But if it should prove true as many of the Fathers thought and Mammertus ubi supra asserteth that Angels have fiery Bodies which they animate and so that the Sun is animated with an Intelligence it would not follow that as fiery or as sensitive but only as intellective it were a subordinate universal Cause of compleat humane Generations and that Sol Homo generant hominem save only quoad Corpus which is but secundum quid But that God is the Vniversal Cause is unquestionable whether there be any subordinate or not 16. And here it is no wonder if the doubts arise which were in the cases of the forementioned Generations Whether God as the universal cause produce new-metaphysical matter for new forms Whether millions of Souls since generated have not more such metaphysical matter than the soul of Adam and Eve alone How Souls may be said to have more or less such matter or substance Whether he educe all Souls è virtute foecunditate primarum by giving them a power without any division or diminution of themselves to bring forth others by multiplication and so cause his Creature to participate of his own foecundity or power of causing Entities c. But such difficulties as these which arise not from uncertainties in Theology but are the meer consequents of the imperfection of humane Intellects and the remoteness depth and unrevealedness of these mysterious works of God should turn no man from the holding of other plain revealed truths As that man generateth man that God is the chief specifying Cause by his first making of man and giving him the power and blessing of propagation which he still maintaineth and with which he doth concurre That Man is the second specifying Cause in the exercise of that power of Generation which God gave him That God is the chief universal Cause and to the production of an Intellectual nature as such doth unspeakably more than man That the mother as cherishing the semen utriusque Parentis is the maternal universal Cause c. We know not fully how it is that one Light causeth a thousand without division or diminution of it self and what it is that is caused de novo It is easie to say that it is but the motion of one part of the atomes or materia subtilis moving another which was all pre-existent But few men that can see through a smoke or dust of atomes will believe that the Sun and other fiery bodies which shew themselves so wonderfully to us by Motion Light and Heat have no peculiar Nature Power or Virtues to cause all this but meer magnitude and figure And that those Corpuscles which have so many hundred degrees of magnitude and figures should not fall into as many hundred such Bodies as we call Elements rather than into two or four Suppose which we may ad verum exquirendum that there were no more Fire in the Universe than one Candle It having the same nature as now it hath that Candle would turn Cities and all combustible matter into Fire But of the Generation of man quoad animam I referre the Reader to Sennertus his Hypomnemata to omit all others And now I would know what there is in Generation that should be against the Immortality of the Soul will you say it is because the Soul hath a Beginning I have answered before that so have all Creatures Is it because it proveth the Soul material 1. If it did I have shewed that you your selves hold a perpetuity of matter 2. But it doth not so If you say that Incorporeal Spirits generate not I answer That is but a naked unproved assertion If you say that Angels do not I answer that 1. that is not because they are unable or unapt if God thought it fittest for them nor 2. can any man prove de facto whether they do or not Christ saith They marry not but he saith not whether they at all propagate their species or not I know the negative is taken for certain and I say not that it is not true but that it is not certain not at all known and therefore an unfit supposition to argue from against the Immortality of the Soul And I must confess that for my part as I have oft read Formae se multiplicant and that the Fire can more multiply or encrease it self than Earth and as I know that the more noble any Nature is the more like it is to God and therefore more potent more active more fecund and productive so I should farr rather think that the Angelical Nature can propagate it self than the Humane if God had not told me the later and said nothing pro or contra of the former And therefore make no doubt but if it do not which no man knoweth it is not because things material are more able but for other reasons unknown to us Whether because God will have this lower World to be the Nidus vel Matrix Coelorum and the Seminary of Heaven and all multiplication to be here or what it is we know not But if it be on the other side concluded that the whole substance of a Soul doth proceed directly and immediately from God it doth make no great alteration in this case or any of the coincident cases about humane propagation if you consider 1. That it is impossible that there should be any substance which is not totally from God either immediately or mediately And that what is said to be mediately from Him hath in it as much of his Causation as if there were no medium For God is not a partial Cause but a total in suo genere and he is as neer to the effect as if there were no