have already seen their error and are come off from you and to others that shall follow them therein § 23. I know 't is a very hard thing for such to get quite rid of all their confused and Enthusiastical Thoughts Notions and Phrases but that some reliques of their old Disease will still hang on them and cleave to them and so encumber them that they can very hardly come quickly to any clear and distinct apprehensions of Evangelical Verities To such I would give this short advice that laying aside all thoughts and conceits of high attainments in the things of God they would repent and do their first works and begin as it were again at the first Principles of the Doctrine of Christ and so lay their Foundation a new in the beginning work of Christians Also that they would frame their Notions and apprehensions of things absolutely necessary to Salvation according to that plainness in which they are expressed in Scripture not affecting nor entertaining Mystical Notions of them More particularly that they would furnish their minds with right apprehensions of the person of Christ as Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary and of the Nature of his Mediatory Office That as Priest he offered himself in Sacrifice to expiate Sin by his Death and in vertue thereof makes continual Intercession for us That as Prophet he revealed and declared the New Covenant of Salvation That as King he hath given Laws to the World and that he doth Rule and Govern his Church through his Spirit by those Laws and that at last he will try and judg all men by them that have lived under them and that he will reward all with eternal happiness or endless torments according as they have been obedient or disobedient to them That they be careful also that their Notions of the New Covenant be according to the plain Doctrine of the Gospel in the Scriptures Particularly That it consists of two parts of Promises and of conditions of those Promises Also that the Promises of it are made upon account and for the sake of Christ his undertaking as Mediator That the great and special Promises of it are pardon of sin or justification the assistance of God's Spirit in our endeavouring to perform the condition and eternal Life That the condition on which these Promises are made are Faith in Christ Repentance sincere Obedience and the craving of the assistance of God's Spirit in the use of appointed means and our endeavours to perform the condition That they be careful also to form right Notions of the nature of the condition on our part on which the Promises of the New-Covenant are made As that no Faith short of such a belief in Christ and of his Doctrine as worketh unfeigned Repentance and sincere Obedience is justifying and saving That no Repentance short of a desire resolution and endeavour to forsake all known sin is saving Repentance That no Obedience short of a desire resolution and a continued endeavour to observe all the Laws of Christ without baulking any one of them when known to be such is sincere That no Faith no Repentance no Obedience short of these as thus described is a fulfilling of the condition of the Promises of Salvation in the Covenant of Grace As these great things of the Gospel are in Scripture expressed in great plainness so great care must be had to keep close to and to hold fast the form of sound words according to which they are so declared not affecting any Notion Phrase or Expression which makes them more hard to be understood by common capacities than they are by the very Letter of the Scriptures but when other expressions are used than what are in the Letter of the Text as its necessary there should sometimes especially in explaining metaphors and Idioms of Speech proper to the times and places in which the Scriptures were written they should be such and so used as may give a clearer insight into the Nature of the things themselves than without them can well be had carefully avoiding to take words properly which are spoken metaphorically or to be led by the meer sound of words but to take the measure of the sence of them by the scope and design of the Author since words of the same sound are not always of the same signification § 24. And now after I have laid things before you which are very apt in their own Nature to rectifie you in one of your grand and fundamental mistakes especially if invincible prejudice hinder not I should be very sorry to think or suspect that what is done herein should turn to no better account than to be a witness against you in that great day in which every mans work will be tryed of what sort it is And therefore to prevent that I cannot for your sakes and for the longing I have after your salvation but earnestly perswade you to give things purposely prepared to serve you a due consideration in your minds and not to pass over such things slightly as wherein your eternal Estate is much concern'd Remember that Heresie is one of those works of the Flesh which shut Men out of the Kingdom of God Gal. 5. 20 21. And considering the Nature and bad influence of several of your opinions and with what pertinaciousness you persist in them it s greatly feared not to say confidently believed by such as are jealous over you with a Godly jealousie that many of you at least lye under no less guilt than that of grand Heresie And do you not then owe all seriousness of consideration to what is offered to rescue you from so great a danger Doubtless you do Let not then the height of your confidence to the contrary deceive you For it is not the greatness of your confidence that will in the least alter the nature of things or make them bend to your humour You are not the first that have been as confident as confidence it self could make them that they had fast hold of Truth when all the while it hath been but a lye they have had in their right hand But the more confident you are in your way you are like to be so much the more surprized with amazement when in another World you shall find yourselves to have been mistaken in that of which you are now so strongly confident in this if you should be so unhappy as to carry such mistaken confidence with you thither without a pardon Which that you may not is I assure you all the hurt that is designed you in this Address And therefore let me tell you again that it will be your wisdom much rather to bestow your thoughts and pains in labouring to find out whether you be not indeed under a delusion than in darkning of words without knowledge in labouring to obscure to your selves and others the evidence of Truth offered which clearly tends to your conviction FAREWEL THE END POSTSCRIPT THere being some vacant Leaves
Notion concerning your Way then thus represented is this or to this effect That God Christ the holy Spirit do by immediate Illumination of your minds and without external teaching by the Scriptures or by men shew you or reveal to you what you ought to believe and do and by their immediate motion or operation draw or perswade you to believe and practise accordingly Which Illumination or Operation you call The Light within or the Holy Anointing which teacheth all things This I take to be your sence when you say you own Scripture but not as your Teacher and that such have no need of the Scripture to teach them and that all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher And again that God's pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things and that the only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing That the Scriptures are so far from being the Rule of Faith and Practice as that the Light within is both your Warrant and Rule That the Spirit of Truth alone leads into all Truth And that the infallible Spirit of Christ gives Infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things This then is your Method and Way Now I will shew you what is God's Method and Way which is quite different from yours The Gospel plainly declares That there shall be a Resurrection of all men after Death and a State of everlasting weal or wo in another world and that as many as believe Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world and repent them of the evil they have done and sincerely obey his Laws shall by his Death which he suffered for sin receive Remission of sin and Eternal Life but that those that do not shall be punished with everlasting Destruction This Gospel this Doctrine being not knowable by men by any Natural Light in them without Divine Revelation from God Jesus Christ who came from the Bosom of the Father he revealed it himself to his Apostles and others by his Doctrine and after his Ascension into Heaven he by sending them the Holy Spirit immediately inspired them with a clear knowledge and understanding of it and so by the gift of speaking divers Languages accompanied with boldness and utterance enabled them to reveal and publish it to the world and to procure Credit to it by many Signs and Wonders which were done by them And ever since that God's way and method of bringing men to Salvation that live where the Gospel comes hath been by making known this Gospel to them by word or writing and so by the mighty Motives contained in it such as the Manifestation of God's Love in the Gift of Christ the Hopes of Eternal Life and the Fears of Eternal Death in concurrence with the Operation of his Grace and good Spirit together with the rational Evidence of the Truth of it to perswade men to believe and embrace it and to live according to it So that according to this Representation compared with that made of your Way God's Way and Method and yours greatly differ Yoū holding that the Holy Spirit directs and perswades men what to believe and do by his own immediate working without outward teaching whereas as we say he doth it by outward teaching It is God Christ the Holy Spirit that works the saving change in men but he doth it still by the Word of the Gospel as communicated to mens minds by the Scriptures or by mens teaching the same Doctrine which is contained in the Scriptures and it is this Doctrine that is the Rule of Faith and Practice And this I doubt not to make very plain to you in opposition to your way if you will not shut your eyes And this I shall endeavour gradually step by step in certain Propositions § 3. First In the Apostles days in which there was the greatest effusion of the Holy Spirit on them and other Christians that ever hath been yet even then God's way of bringing men to believe the Gospel and to live according to it was by publishing it to men by men either by Word or Writing and evidencing it to be from God The Apostles indeed had the Gospel from Christ himself immediately as he himself had it from the Father who gave him Commandment what he should say and what he should speak It at the first began to be spoken by the Lord himself and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him as 't is said Heb. 2. 4. But after Christ's Ascension others at the first received the Knowledge and Faith of the Gospel by the Ministry of the Apostles who were his Ambassadors to the world by them he made known his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth When our Saviour prayed for all other good Christians that should be in the World besides his Apostles he describes them thus viz. Such as should believe through their Word John 17. 20. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their Word And it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1. 21. And so Faith cometh by Hearing saith he Rom. 10. 17. By hearing of what and of whom Why by hearing the Gospel preached by such whom God sent to preach it of which mention is made in the precedent Verses The Doctrine which the Apostles preached which is the Gospel is said to be the Power of God to Salvation Rom. 1. 16. And the Reason is given in ver 17 18. Because thereby the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith That is God's method of justifying men upon condition of their believing and obeying of it and because thereby the eternal Wrath of God from Heaven is revealed against all Ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men This Revelation being from God and the things the Motives revealed being powerful Arguments to prevail with men to receive and obey the Gospel upon their doing of which they shall be saved thence it is that 't is called The Power of God to Salvation not excluding the concurrent Operation of God's Spirit upon the heart by it This being so your Leaders manifest a strange degree of Vnlearnedness in the things of the Gospel when they deny saving Grace to be wrought by the outward Administration of the Word or Teaching by man as they do when they attribute it to God alone as his immediate Work and all because the Scripture attributes it to God to Christ to the Holy Spirit Whereas nothing is more common than to attribute the same Effect sometimes to one Cause sometimes to another when there is the Concurrence and Co-operation of several Causes to the producing of the same Effect as there usually is in God's working savingly upon men As men are said in Scripture to be born of God to be born of the Spirit so
I fear had a bad influence upon and produced ill effects in some others as well as your selves who perhaps have not been yet carried so far out of the way by it as you have been Whereas those things that are absolutely necessary for men of all capacities to know believe and do in order to their Salvation are delivered in the Gospel with great plainness and easiness to be understood even of those of meanest capacities that have but a mind to understand them and will attend to them and consider them Who is so weak as not to understand it when it is declared to him that there was such a one as Jesus Christ and that he was declared to be one come from God and his Doctrine touching his being the Son of God and concerning all other things to be true by the wonderfulness of his Birth of a Virgin and the many and mighty miracles which he wrought and which were wrought by others in his Name and by his Resurrection from the dead Who is so weak as not to understand when it is declared to him upon good grounds that this Jesus was put to death not for his own but for our Sins and that he rose again from the dead the third day Who is so weak as not to understand when he hears it declared in the Gospel that forgiveness of Sins a glorious Resurrection and eternal Happiness in another World are promised to those that believe in him as such and that believe his Doctrine and sincerely obey it touching the necessity of Repentance consisting in amendment of Life proceeding from sorrow for Sin and in a sincere observing all his Precepts These are things that may be understood by every body that hears and considers them And yet these are the things revealed by the Gospel as necessary to be believed and done in order to salvation The reason why so many of those that hear the Gospel do not believe and obey it to the saving of their Souls is not because they cannot understand it but because they are not willing to obey it and so not willing to believe it or to consider it that they might believe it but chuse rather to please themselves in their evil ways for the present and so run the hazard for the future of the Gospels being true or not true or else flatter themselves with hopes that they do repent and obey the Gospel under vain and delusive notions of the nature of saving Repentance and Obedience And it is not congruous to the goodness of God's nature to think that when he hath been pleased out of his great compassion to lost men to make a New Covenant of Salvation upon terms suitable to that love and goodness of his to think I say that he should lay the stress of their Salvation upon terms not easie to be understood by all one as well as another that are concerned therein And therefore the greatest reason I conceive why some things in the Gospel are stiled a Mistery is because they were so till they were plainly revealed by Christ a great part of the things therein contained being such as no man by the highest improvement of reason could discover or apprehend till God in a supernatural way was pleased to reveal them Such was God's sending his Son to assume our Nature and to die for our Sins and the granting Remission of Sins and eternal Life for his sake to those that believe and obey the Gospel But when they are once revealed and by revelation made plain and easie to be understood by men of all capacities they are sure then no longer Mysteries to them unless they remain so through their own wilful neglect to understand them Agreeable to this is that of St. Paul Col. 1. 26. Speaking of the Gospel even saith he the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and from Generations but now is made manifest to his Saints Eph. 1. 9. Having made known to us the Mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself So the calling of the Gentiles is called a Mystery not because it was hard to be understood when the thing was revealed by Christ's Commission to preach the Gospel to them and by preaching the Gospel had given them the Holy Spirit as he had to the believing Jews at the first but because this calling of them was little known or understood in the World till then God saith St. Paul by revelation made known to me the Mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto his Holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow-Heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel Eph. 3. 2 6. And so again Ver. 9. and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the Mystery which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God So that as the Gospel is called a Mystery as containing things in it which had been altogether a Mystery till they were revealed so it is called a Revelation of the Mystery by reason of its discovering that which was a Secret before Rom. 16. 25 26. The preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith In all this I do not deny but that there are in the Gospel things very Mysterious and hard to be conceived as touching the manner of their existence as the Union of Christs two Natures and the Doctrine of the Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence and some other things But it is not hard to understand that those things really are when God hath revealed and declared that they are though it is very hard or rather beyond our apprehension to know how and after what manner they are and to know and believe more than he hath plainly revealed is not doubtless necessary to mens Salvation and therefore men should be cautious of laying too great a stress upon their different apprehensions about them If you shall say if Evangelical Truths be made so perceptible by the plainness and fulness of the Revelation of them how comes it to pass then that there is such difference in mens opinions and so many controversies about them as there is I answer if the differences and controversies be about those things that are necessary to Salvation I have told you the reason already it is because men will not be satisfied nor acquiesce in that plainness in which such things are delivered in the Scriptures but still fancy there is some farther Mystery in them than indeed there is And when men take that liberty and think they do excellent well in it then one fancies he sees this hidden Mystery couched under truths plainly