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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26960	More reasons for the Christian religion and no reason against it, or, A second appendix to the Reasons of the Christian religion being I. an answer to a letter from an unknown person charging the Holy Scriptures with contradictions, II. some animadversions on a tractate De Veritate, written by ... Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury ... / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Reasons of the Christian religion.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1313; ESTC R4139	63,611	190

all which and much more it appeareth that the Apostles though then in a state of Justification had a very general and defective knowledge of the Office of Christ and that though his Prophetical Office was ordinarily believed Joh. 4. The Samaritane woman could say when the Messiah cometh he will tell us all things and a temporal Kingdom expected yet his spiritual Kingdom and especially his Priestly office by his sacrifice death resurrection heavenly intercession for all the old Types and Sacrifices was little understood by the Disciples Yea he sometimes sorbad them and others to tell men that he was the Christ because the great evidences of his Resurrection Ascension and Spirit by which it was to be evinced were yet to come And we believe not that all that were saved before had more knowledge than the Apostles so that though all the faithful Jews believed in the promised seed even the Messiah as one that was to be sent to be their Deliverer and Saviour yet it was by a saith that was very general and far from that distinctness which after the Resurrection of Christ was required of all to whom the Gospel was promuglate which I have said the more of to you lest you think that we hold what we do not and so take occasion to erre by supposing us to err Clemens Alexandrinus Justin Martyr Arnobius Lactantius and other old Christians do go yet further then yet I have conceded to you And our very learned Dr. Twisse doth argue that God could have saved the world without a Redeemer if he had pleased because he saved the faithful under the old Testament without any existent Mediator except God himself or any existent sacrifice or merit or intercssion of him and because he saveth Infants without faith But for the first I take it to be at best too great temerity or audacity to dispute whether God could have done things better or otherwise which he has done so well of which I have said more in my Premonition before my Treatise called the unreasonableness of Infidelity Though I know that Wallaeus and many other learned Protestants say the same And as for Infants they are not saved without the Sacrifice and grace of the Redeemer though they know him not nor are they in the Covenant without the faith of their Parents or Owners which is as their own And if the Spirit of the Prorphets be called the Spirt of Chrict 1 Pet. 1. 11. And the reproach of Moses was the reproach of Christ Heb. 11. 26. We may much more conclude of the ordinary Believers before his coming that Christs Interest and his Spirits operations and help extended much further than mens understanding of him his undertaking and his future work No doubt but the eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that had undertaken mans Redemption and thereupon was our Lord Redeemer gave even to Socrates Plato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epistotus Plutarch c. What light and mercy they had though they understood not well from whom or upon what grounds they had them Ninethly And also we hold that the Jews were not the whole of Gods Kingdome or Church of Redeemed ones in the world as I have fully proved elsewhere But that as the Govenant was made with all mankind so amongst them God-had other Servants besides the Jews Though it was they that had the extraordinary benediction of being his peculiar sacred People Tenthly And we hold that as the Jews had by Promises Prophesies and Types more means to know God and the Messiah to come than other Nations so they were answerably obliged to more knowledge and faith than other Nations were that had not nor could have their means If then all the world be under the first Covenant of Grace and if you confess this to proceed from the wisdome and goodness of God and that men are bound so to believe and if Christ since his Incarnation hath diminished none of the mercies of God to the world but rather greatly increased them and so where the Gospel is not preached nor cannot be had they that refuse it not are in no worse case than they were before how can you say that they are Remediless if Christ be the ransome and remedy We know that all men partake of a great deal of mercy from God after the notorious demerit of their sin We know that this mercy telleth them aloud that God dealeth not with them according to the first Law of Innocency They see he pardoneth them they feel that he pardoneth them in part that is that he useth them not as they deserve We know that all this mercy obligeth them to hope that he will yet be further merciful and to repentance obedience thankfulness and love We know that the Heathen are no left as the Divels without remedy but all the Nations are under Divine obligations to use certain means which have a tendency to their recovery And we know that God biddeth no man to use his means in vain Fourthly Let us therefore first debate this Case with any unbeliever that hath your objections Whether you have any fault to find with the Christian Doctrine of the way of mans salvation for the first 4000 years before the Incarnation of our Lord If you have First Is it with the Author Secondly Or with the terms and conditions of life First The Author then was none but God The eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word did interpose to prevent the execution of strict Justice by resolving to glorifie Love and Mercy Do you deny the being of Gods eternal wisdome or word Do you deny him to be God himself Or a Divine subsistence dream that it is but some Accident in God No your fair description of God p. 210. dischargeth you from the imputation of so gross an error You will say that the Divine power and goodness interposed as well as the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word True Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt in divisa but so that each hath an eminency in his own work though not as separated or a solitary principle or cause The Father and Divine Vital Active Power was eminently glorified in the Creation The Son and Divine wisdome is eminently glorified in the making of the Remedying Medicine And the Divine Love and Spirit is eminently glorified in the operation of it to the Health and Salvation of the Soul The son and the wisdome or word doth not finish all the work himself but with the Father and Divine power sendeth the holy Spirit and communicateth to man the Love of God And all together will be glorified in our glorification Secondly And if it be the terms of life that do offend you First It is either the terms of satisfying the Justice of God Secondly Or the terms of conveying the benefits to man First For the first there is nothing in it to give offence For we dream not of any extrinsecal agent or action much less that which

was not existent till 4000 years after having any proper casuality to change Gods mind or will The sum of the Christian Doctrine about the Interposition and Redemption by the Son for man upon his fall is but this As if God should say I will not destroy or damn sinful man remedilesly according to the strict termes of the Law of Innocency which he hath broken but will give him a remedying Covenant of Grace because I will in the fulness of Time provide better for the glorifying of my Truth and Holiness wisdome and goodness justice and mercy than the remediless destruction of mankind would do even by the Incarnation doctrine sacrifice merits c. of the eternal word So that this grand work of God is the cause of his subordinate works but not the cause of any real but only relative or denominative mutation in himself This all sound Christians are agreed in And can this offend you Secondly And for the termes of communication of Grace to man it is either First The New Covenant as a Gift of pardon and life Secondly Or the conditions which it requireth of man First The former you neither do find fault with nor can do That God should give the world a Recovering and pardoning Law Secondly The second is all that is here liable to your exception And what do you think amiss in that First Not that Repentance is one of the Conditions of further Grace for that you plead for Secondly Not that Fides in Deum misericordem Faith in Gods revealed me●cy as pardoning sin is required of man for that also you plead for But you would have his goodness and mercy to be a sufficient satisfaction to his Justice Answ First I hope you will not exclude his wisdome because you abhorre Atheism as folly Secondly And I hope you will distinguish between the prime satisfying Cause and the satisfying means These plainly differ The prime satisfying Cause is Gods wisdome contriving and determining of the fittest way to communicate his love and spirit But the prime satisfying means is Jesus Christ who was to do that which was fittest to attain the foresaid ends But that which you will accept against is that the Belief in Christs future incarnation was made then necessary to salvation Answ First See that you feign not the Christian Doctrine to say more of this than indeed it doth which I have opened to you before I told you how narrow the Apostles own faith was before Christs Resurrection We know that ●● the believing Jews knew not so much as they nor so much as the Prophets and more illuminated men And we know that the rest of the world had not so full a revelation as the Jews But we know that all that had the notice of his promise were to believe the truth thereof And those that had not the word of promise made known to them had the possession of many such mercies as that promise gave and as intimated much of the same grace which the promise did Thefore none could be bound to lessthan to believe that God of his mercy would pardon sin and save penitent Believers by such a means of securing the honour of his holiness truth and justice as his infinite wisdome should provide This much you cannot deny And that the promise of the Victorious seed though it seem too obscure to bind men to so distinct a faith as ours is was by Tradition told to Adams posterity and that they had a General belief of such an expiation for some time seemeth intimated in the early and almost universal use of sacrificing of which I shall speak more anon Hitherto then I have vindicated the Christian Doctrine of mans salvation for the first 4000 years Secondly And is there any thing since which should make it more offensive to you First As to the Person of Christ I have said enough in my Treatise the Reason of Christian Religion Verily I think it far harder to confute those that feign all the world to be animated by God as the universal Soul and to conceive how God who is most intimate to all things in whom we live and move and are should not be as neerly united to all things as Christians believe him to be to the humane nature of Christ though undoubtedly it is not so than that he should have that neer union with his humane nature Secondly And as to Christs work I have so largely shewed you the necessity the reasonableness and the harmonical congruities that I will not repeat them In a word The New Testament is the Doctrine of the eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome or word of God Incarnate to communicate the Divine Spirit and love to man to be a sacrifice for sin the Conqueror of Satan Death and Sin the Head over All things to the Church the Author of Redemption the grand Administrator of the new Covenant the Reconciler and Restorer of man to God the Teacher Ruler and High Preist of the Church in order to this our Restoration and Salvation Thirdly But if it be the Time of his coming that doth offend you I have answered that and further adde First What is there in foolish man that should encourage him to dream that he better knoweth the fittest season for Gods works than God himself Secondly Man was not all the while before without the Benefits of this dedesigned and undertaken Redemption He was still under a Covenant of Grace Thirdly Consider well that God did not intend to give mankind that had so heinously sinned by preferferring the Devils word before his a present and a perfect pardon but onely to give a new Law and Covenant which should be a conditional gift of pardon to be obteined in full perfection in time and by degrees we had made our selves voluntarily the Slaves of Satan And God would not deliver us all at once We had forfeited the heavenly assistance of the holy spirit and God would not give it us all at once Mans time of healing the wounds of his own sin is the time of this life and the perfect cure will not be done till our entrance into the perfect world And as it is with Individual men so it is with the world of all mankind Grace mitateth nature and doth all by degrees darker Revelations were meeter for the Infancy of the world and clearer at noon day and riper knowledge fitter for its maturity And when Satan by Divine permission had plai'd his part and seemed to triumph over the sinful world it was time for Christ to come by Power Wisdom and Goodness meanly cloathed to cast down his Temples and Altars to subsidue his Kingdoms and to triumph over the Triumpher Fourthly But if it be the present conditions of the new Covenant since Christs Resurrection that offendeth you viz that the world is required to believe in him I have answered that and now adde First Remember what I said before that no mans condition is made worse by Christ than

doctrine of the Gospel Ergo it is true as attested by the spirit of God I said before the first is a natural Verity The second proposition is partly of sense and partly of internal and partly external experience as is largely manifested Now as to the Question First No doubt but our Natural faculties must be used in trying supernatural Truth Secondly No doubt he that disputeth with or preacheth to an unbeliever so as to prove what he delivereth to be true must deal with him upon some common principles which both parties are agreed in or else there is no room for proof or for dispute Thirdly But some persons are so ignorant of those certain principles which infer the truth of Gospel revelation that they have need first to be convinced of them which must be done by inferring them from the first truths or some principles which they do confess Fourthly And as a man would convince others by the same method and arguing he must convince himself and try the truth which he is in doubt of Fifthly But if any should mean First That nothing is true in the Gospel but these common principles of nature Secondly Or that nothing else can be proved true Thirdly Or that it would prove any pretended prophesie vision or revelation true so be it they do not contradict the common truths All these are palpable untruths VII Quest Whether these common Verities inferre not the truth of Christianity Answ This is sufficiently answered in the last Perhaps the few Verities mentioned by the Author are not enough to prove Christianity by But that it hath true evidence in sense and reason is manifested heretofore And I believe that he that will by just argumentation follow on the Christian cause with an unbeliever if he can hold him to the point from rambling and suppose him capable of Historical evidence may drive him to yield or to deny common principles yea to deny that God is God and that man is man and consequently that there is any being But the evasion will be by denying notorious matter of fact which therefore must be proved by its proper evidence IX Quest Whether they are necessary conditions of the certain knowledge of a divine Revelation First That it be made immediately to my self Secondly And that I feel a divine afflatus in the Reception as is said Page Answ No A Revelation made to others may be certainly notified to me else if an Angel from Heaven should appear to all men in the Town and Country save one or if all save one saw a thousand miracles to confirm a Revelation yet that one could not be sure of it But I have by abundance of arguments in a peculiar disputation in a Treatise called the unreasonableness of unbelief long ago fully proved the negative And again in my Reas of the Christian Relig. therefore I will not weary the Reader with repetions X. Quest Whether any concurrence of moral evidence at least such as Gospel Revelation hath do truly amount to natural or certain evidence De Rev. Verisim Answ. This Question too I have plainly decided in the Reas of Christian Relig. I now add First The name of moral evidence is here taken by those that use it for that which dependeth on the credit of a voluntary Agent as such And the name of natural evidence signifieth that which dependeth on the nature of the Object in it self considered But I somewhat doubt whether all that use the distinction do commonly understand the difference or what they say Secondly Note that the All or effect of a voluntary Agent hath nevertheless a natural Evidence when it is done or existent If I voluntarily speak or write or go my Action is naturally evident to those that see and hear it as present sensitive Witnesses of it If I freely build a House it is nevertheless naturally Evident when it is built Al things existent in the universe were made by God as a free Agent and yet are nevertheless naturally evident Thirdly Every thing that is when it is if corporeal is naturally Evident to those that have their faculties in those conditions that are necessary and have the object in its necessary magnitude cognation detection site distance medium and abode Fourthly The judgement that is made upon sense it self faileth as this noble Author hath well opened when either the Object the Evidence the Sense or the Intellect want their necessary conditions or qualifications else not Fifthly The Fountain of all Freedome and Morality is the Will of God And yet the moral Evidence of truth which is in Gods word when known to be his word is as sure as any natural Evidence of the thing There being the surest natural evidence ab effect is at least that there is a God most perfect that cannot lie Sixthly The Essences of all things are but imperfectly evident to us The existences of corporeal things that are present and duly qualified are fully evident The existence of things absent beyond the reach of sense is evident only to the discursive intellect not by the immediate natural evidence of the things themselves but by a borrowed evidence from Causes or Signes Discourse improving the Fundamental common truths for the knowing of the rest by proving a certain connexion between them The Praterition of things and the Futurition are both like the distant existence unknown to sense and the immediate apprehension of the intellect And therefore must both be known also by collection as conclusions in discourse or not at all Seventhly Man was not born to know only things present in their existence by sense but also to know things absent things as past and things as future And herein he chiesly differeth from a Bruit Eighthly Though the understanding is most confident of things sensible present yet about things absent past and future it oft doubteth more and is less satisfied in its own conclusions from natural principles than from moral Because sometimes the natural Principles themselves though not the first yet the second or third may be so obscure as to leave the mind unsatisfied Secondly And the connexion among many particulars may be obscure and doubtful Thirdly And in the long Series of collection or arguing the understanding suspecteth its own fallibility so that when Conclusions are far fetcht though from natural Principles the mind may be still in doubt about them And on the contrary when in the way of Revelation the grounds are clear and the understanding hath fewer Collections to make and a shorter journey to go it may be far better satisfied of the truth Ninthly Man 's own necessity is the reason why God doth give us supernatural Revelation and call us to know by the way of Believing For First Most men are naturally dull Secondly Few have leisure by Learning to improve their intellects Thirdly And fewer have leisure disposition to exercise them by long searches argumentation upon every thing that they should know Fourthly And

knew whether all were true or not But also they did all in the power of the same Spirit which Christ did work by doing such Miracles as Christ had done And this not a few nor in a Corner but in many Countries of the world and that by many thousand Christians in one kind or other tongues healing prophecie or the like as well as the Apostles The certainty of which fact is attested by the very existence of all the Churches converted by it with all their Baptismes Professions and the rest of the Tradition before named No Christian of all this multitude by any terrours death time was brought to the last to repent and say that he had deceived the world by a lie Many Apostates falling off for fear of sufferings but none with any such recantation No adversary confuting the History but commonly confessing most of it with more such evidence which I have open'd in the Treat and must not oft repeat lest I be tedious And that which is still the Natural Evidence is that There is still existent First On the sacred Gospel Secondly On the souls and lives of all serious Christians by its impress the unimitable Image of the Divine Power Wisdome and goodness Life Light and Love as the Divine attestation Only as this noble Author requireth to all true Conceptions and Intellections so do we to this that there be but the necessary conditions in the mind of the receiver And whereas he saith that commonly Miracles are reported a hundred years after Here it was otherwise The Jews were enraged by them for fear of the Romans The Apostles and others wrought them openly Matthew and John that wrote Christs History lived with him and saw what they wrote so did Peter and James Paul wrote what he saw and heard from heaven Luke wrote the Acts of Paul which he saw being his Companion in travels The thousands were converted and Churches in many Countries planted not by bare words but by the Conviction of the Miracles of the Apostles themselves so that every Church and Christian was a History of them And all this they were moved to with the hopes of heaven where truth is known to deny the world and mortifie the flesh and suffer whatever the Gospel would inflict to preserve their hopes and comforts founded in this word of faith XI Quest Whether the common custome of sacrificing throughout the world in all generations were not their actual Confession that the sinner deserved death and that Gods justice required punishment of satisfaction and proceeded not from Divine Revelation in the beginning when God had new made the Covenant of Grace and so was delivered down by Tradition For my part it cannot come into my understanding why else men should think that God is pleased or appeased by the Creatures death or how this should become so common throughout the world And the two exceptions confirm this to be truth First Some Savages in America use no sacrifices But they are such as know not God or so Savage as to have lost all antient Tradition Secondly All the Mahometans and Christians use no bloody sacrifice But that is because First Christians believe that Sacrifices were but types of Christ and that he put an end to them by his perfect Sacrifice 2dly And Mahometans received it from Christ being but Christians degenerate first into Arrians and then into Mahometans and still professing to take Christ for the word and son of God and his word as true onely hating the Christians for saying that he is very God But of this instead of writing after so many I only refer you to their writings And specially to Dr. Owens Latine Tractate on this subject XII Whether Interest make the Judgment of Divines in the Cause of faith more suspicious or contemptible than other mens I put this Question with respect to those words in the Preface Sed neque auspicaciores ubique posterioris istius seculi Scriptores dicendi sunt Fit ita ut pro Regionum fidei diversitate in id potissimum incumbant ne illos domi male multet inopia adeoque non tam quid in se verum quam quid sibi ipsis utile exquirant Non est igitur a larvato aliquo vel stipendioso Scriptore ut verum Consummatum opperiaris Illorum apprime interest ne personam deponant vel aliter quidem sentiant Ingenuus sui arbitrii ista solummodo praestabit Author Answ First It is not to be denyed that there are multitudes of such Carnal Pastors in the Churches that are Christians for the case honour and wealth Secondly But that this should be so with all I shall disprove and prove that none on earth are so credible in this case as Divines First Because they have made it the business of their lives to search out the truth and therefore some of them must be supposed to have the greatest advantages to know it So that for Ability they have no sort of men that are Competitors For diligence and helps are the improvers of understanding And all men are found best at their own profession Lawyers in the Law Physicians in Medicine Philosophers in Philosophy c. And for your self your next words are Nobis tamen ad alia omnia fere quam literarum studia uti oportuit exequenda otium fuit Partim armis in diversis regionibus partim quinquennali Legatione partim negotiis tum publicis tum privatis vacavimus And is not this your disadvantage Who is a good Linguist Lawyer Physician c. that hath had but little leisure for his studies Secondly And as for Will and Interest it is notorious that thousands of the Ministry have so little set by worldly Interest as that it is upon the terms of greatest self-denyal to the flesh that they take up and exercise their office being moved onely by the great Interest of their own and others souls Their voluntary diligent labours their holy lives their contempt of the world may convince any of this that are not blinded by prejudice or malice There are few Learned men in the Reformed Churches but might far better use their studies and labours if they took that for best which is most profitable advancing or pleasing to the flesh Thirdly You had a Brother of your own so holy a man as his sincerity was past exception and so zealous in his Sacred Ministry as shewed he did not dissemble And I suppose had it been necessary you would have so maintained him that he should not have fled from truth for fear of poverty Fourthly What can you think of all those that gave up their lives for the Christian saith and hopes Did they go upon such carnal grounds as you mention Fifthly The revolutions of States and the diversity of Sentiments and especially the Interests of the Carnal part do bring it to pass by Gods over-ruling of all that usually the most serious Christians and Pastors are the sufferers of the age they live in