1. And there are many things easie to be understood 2. We never said that men should not use the help of their Teachers and all that they can to understand it 3. Were not those Teachers once ignorant And yet they did read it by the help of Teachers And so may others 4. As the King for Concord commandeth all the Schoolmasters to teach one Grammar So God makeeth it the Ministers Office to Instruct people in the Scriptures And were it not a question unworthy of a Schoolmaster to dispute Whether the Scholars must learn by their Book or by their Master Yea to conclude that it must be by their Master and not by their Book or that they must never open their Book but when their Master is just at hand to teach them The Doctrine of the Papists who tell us that the Scriptures should not be read by the Vulgar it being the rise of all Heresies is so inhumane and impious as savouring of gross enmity to Scriptures and to knowledge that were there no other it would make the Lovers of Religion and mens souls to pray earnestly to Christ to save his flocks from such seducers who so Jewishly use the Key of Knowledge Object But many wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and what Heresie is not defended as 2 Pet. 3. 1â— Psal. 19. 3 8 9 10. 2 Tim. 3. 16. â— Pet. 1. 23. by their authority Answ. 1. And many thousands receive saving knowledge and grace by them The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. All Scripture is profitable to instruction c. to make the man of God perfect It is the incorruptible seed by which we are born again and the sincere milk by which we are nourished 2. And is it not as true 1. That the Law of the Land is abused by every false pretender Lawyer and Corrupt Judge What title so bad that is not defended in Westminster Hâ—ll sometimes under pretence of Law And what action so bad that some pretend not Law for What then Must the Law be forbidden the common people for this 2. Nay what is so much abused to unrighteousness and sin as Reason it self What Heresie or Crime do not men plead Reason for Must Reason therefore be forbidden the Vulgar 3. Yea Contrarily this signifieth that Law and Reason are so far from being things to be forbidden men that they are indeed those things by which Nature and Necessity have taught all the world to try and discern right from wrong good from bad Otherwise good and bad men would not all thus agree in pretending to them and appealing to their decisions 4. If many men are poysoned or killed in eating or drinking If many mens eye sight is abused to mislead them unto sin c. the way is not to eat nothing but what is put into our mouths nor to put out our eyes or wink and be led only by a Priest but to use both the more cautiously with the best advise and help that we can get 5. And do not these Deceivers see that their Reason pleadeth as strongly that Priests and Prelates themselves should never read the Scripture and consequently that it should be banished out of the world For who that is awake in the world can be ignorant that it is Priests and Prelates who have been the Leaders of almost all Heresies and Sects who differ in their Expositions and opinions and lead the Vulgar into all the Heresies which they fall into Who then should be forbidden to read the Scripture but Priests and Prelates who wrest them to their own and other mens destruction Quest. 147. How far is Tradition and mens Words and Ministry to be used or trusted in in the exercise of faith Answ. 1. THe Churches and Ministers received the Gospel in Scripture from the Apostles and Heb. 2. 3 4. 2 Pet. 1. 17 18 19 20 21. 2 John 1. 1 1 3 4 5. 4. 6. 2 Tim. 2. 2. Titus 1. 5. the Creed as the summary of faith And they delivered it down to others and they to us 2. The Ministers by Office are the Instructers of the people in the meaning of it And the keepers of the Scriptures as Lawyers are of the Laws of the Land Quest. 148. How know we the true Canon of Scripture from Apocrypha Answ. BY these means set together 1. There is for the most part a special venerable excellency in the Books themselves which helpeth us in the distinct reception of them 2. The Tradition of infallible Church History telleth us which Books they are which were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost and who sealed their Doctrine with Miracles in those times It being but matter of fact which Books such men wrote whom God bear witness to infallible Church History such as we have to know which are the Statutes of the Land and which are counterfeit is a sufficient notification and proof 3. The sanctifying Spirit still in all Ages and Christians attesteth the Divinity and Truth of the Doctrine of the main body of the Bible especially the Gospel And then if we should err about the authority of a particular Book it would not overthrow our Faith It is not necessary to salvation to believe this particular Text to be Divine But it is sin and folly to doubt causelesly of the parts when the Spirit attesteth the Doctrine and the Body of the Book I pass these things briefly because I have largelier handled them elsewhere Quest. 149. Is the publick Reading of the Scripture the proper work of a Minister or may a Lay-man ordinarily do it or another Officer Answ. 1. IN such cases as I before shewed that a Lay-man may preach he may also Read the Scriptures Of which look back 2. No doubt but it is a work well beseeming the ordained Ministers or Pastors and an integral part of their Office and should not be put off by them when they can do it 3. When they need help the Deacons are ordained Ministers authorized to help them in such work and fittest to do it 4. Whether in a case of necessity a Lay-man may not ordinarily Read the Scripture to the Congregation is a Case that I am loth to determine being loth to suppose such a necessity But if the Minister cannot and there be no Deacon I cannot prove it unlawful for a Lay-man to do it under the direction of the Pastor I lived sometime under an old Minister of about eighty years of age who never preached himself whose eye sight failing him and having not maintenance to keep an assistant he did by Memory say the Common-prayer himself and got a Taylor one year and a Thresher or poor day-labourer another year to Read all the Scriptures Whether that were not better than nothing I leave to consideration And I think it is commonly agreed on that where there is no Minister it is better for the people to meet and hear a Lay-man Read the Scriptures and some good Books
Father of lyes and error than for the School of Christ. Except Conversion make men as little children that come not to caâ—p and cavil but to learn they are not meet for the Kingdom of Christ. Matth. 18. 3. John 3. 3 5. Know how blind and ignorant you are and how dull of learning and humbly beg of the Heavenly Teacher that he will accept you and illuminate you and give up your understandings absolutely to be informed by him and your Hearts to be the Tables in which his Spirit shall write his Law Believing his doctrine upon the bare account of his infallible Veracity and resolving to obey it and this is to be the Disciples of Christ indeed and such as shall be taught of God § 11. Direct 10. Come to the School of Christ with honest willing hearts that Love the truth and Direct 10. â—ain would know it that they may obey it and not with false and byassed hearts which secretly hinder the understanding from entertaining the truth because they love it not as being contrary to their carnal inclinations and interest The word that was received into Honest hearts was it that was as the seed that brought forth plentifully Matth. 13. 23. When the Heart saith unfeignedly Speak Lord for thy servant heareth Teach me to know and do thy will God will not leave such a Learner in the dark Most of the damnable ignorance and error of the world is from a wicked heart that perceiveth that the Truth of God is against their fleshly interest and lusts and therefore is unwilling to obey it and unwilling to believe it lest it torment them because they disobey it A will that 's secretly poysoned with the Love of the world or of any sinful lusts and pleasures is the most potent impediment to the believing of the truth § 12. Direct 11. Learn with quietness and peace in the School of Christ and make not divisions and Direct 11. meddle not with others lessons and matters but with your own Silence and quietness and minding your own business is the way to profit The turbulent wranglers that are quarrelling with others and are religions contentiously in envy and strife are liker to be corrected or ejected than to be edified Read Iames 3. § 13. Direct 12. Remember that the School of Christ hath a Rod and therefore learn with fear and Direct 12. reverence Heb. 12. 28 29. Phil. 2. 12. Christ will sharply rebuke his own if they grow negligent and oftend And if he should cast thee out and forsake thee thou art undone for ever See therefore that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they sâ—aped not that refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we if we refuse him that is from Heaven Heb. 12. 25. For how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that â—eard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Heb. 2. 3 4. Serve the Lord therefore with fear and rejoyce with trembling Kiss the Son left he be angry and you perish in the kindling of his wrath Psal. 2. 11 12. DIRECT VIII Gr. Dir. 6. To obev Christ as our Physicion in his healing work and his Spirit in its cleansing mortifying work Remember that you are Related to Christ as the Physicion of your souls and to the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier Make it therefore your serious study to be cured by Christ and cleansed by his Spirit of all the sinful diseases and defilements of your hearts and lives § 1. THough I did before speak of our Believing in the Holy Ghost and using his help for our access to God and converse with him yet I deferred to speak fully of the Cleansing and Mortifying part of his work of Sanctification till now and shall treat of it here as it is the same with the Curing work of Christ related to us as the Physicion of our souls it being part of our Subjection and Obedience to him to be Ruled by him in order to our cure And what I shall here write against sin in general will be of a twofold use The one is to help us against the inward corruptions of our hearts and for the outward obedience of our lives and so to further the work of Sanctification and prevent our sinning The other is to help us to Repentance and Humiliation habitual and actual for the sins which are in us and which we have already at any time committed § 2. The General Directions for this curing and cleansing of the soul from sin are contained for the most part in what is said already and many of the particular Directions also may be fetcht from the sixth Direction before going I shall now add but two General Directions and many more Particular ones Direct 1. I. The two General Directions are these 1. Know what corruptions the soul of man is naturally Direct 1. defiled with And this containeth the knowledge of those faculties that are the seat of thâ—se corruptions and the knowledge of the corruptions that have tainted and perverted the several faculties Direct 2. 2. Know what sin is in its nature or intrinsick evil as well as in the effects Direct 2. How the several faculties of the soul are corrupted and diseased § 3. 1. The Parts or faculties to be cleansed and cured are both the Superiour and Inferiour 1. The Understanding though not the first in the sin must be first in the cure For all that is done upon the Lower faculties must be by the Governing power of the will And all that is done upon the will ac cording to the order of humane nature must be done by the Understanding But the Understanding hath its own diseases which must be known and cured It s malady in general is Ignorance which is not only a privation of actual knowledge but an undisposedness also of the understanding to know the truth A man may be deprived of some actual knowledge that hath no disease in his mind that causeeth In what cases a sound understanding may be ignorant it as in case that either the object be absent and out of reach or that there be no sufficient Revelation of it or that the mind be taken up wholly upon some other thing or in case a man shut out the thoughts of such an object or refuse the evidence which is the act of the will even as a man that is not blind may yet not see a particular object 1. In case it be out of his natural reach 2. Or if it be night and he want extrinsick light 3. Or in case he be wholly taken up with the observation of other things 4. Or in case he wilfully either shut or turn away his eyes It is a very hard question to resolve how far and wherein the
corruption Direct 3. and that the natural tendency of Reason is to those high and excellent things which corruption and bruitishness do almost extinguish or cast out with the most and that the prevalency of the lower-faculties against right Reason is so lamentable and universal to the confusion of the world that it is enough to tell us that this is not the state that God first made us in and that certainly sin hath sullied and disordered his work The wickedness of the world is a great confirmation of the Scripture § 7. Direct 4. Consider how exactly the Doctrine of the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is suited to Direct 4. the lapsed state of man even as the Law of Works was suited to his state of innocency so that the Gospel may be called the Law of Lapsed Nature as suited to it though not as revealed by it as the other was the Law of Entire Nature § 8. Direct 5. Compare the many Prophecies of Christ with the fulfilling of them in his person As Direct 5. that of Moses recited by Stephen Acts 7. 37. Isa. 53. Dan. 9. 24 25 26 c. And consider that those Jews which are the Christians bitterest enemies acknowledge and preserve those Prophecies and all the Old Testament which giveth so full a testimony to the New § 9. Direct 6. Consider what an admirable suitableness there is in the Doctrine of Christ to the relish Direct 6. of a serious heavenly mind and how all that is spiritual and truly good in us doth close with it and embrace it from a certain congruity of Natures as the eye doth with the light and the stomach with its proper food Every good man in reading the Holy Scripture feeleth something even all that 's good within him bear witness to it And only our worser part is quarrelling with it and rebells against it § 10. Direct 7. Consider how all the first Churches were planted by the success of all those Miracles Direct 7. mentioned in the Scripture And that the Apostles and thousands of others saw the Miracles of Christ and the Churches saw the Miracles of the Apostles and heard them speak in Languages unlearnt and had the same extraordinary gifts communicated to themselves And these being openly and frequently manifested convinced unbelievers and were openly urged by the Apostles to stop the mouths Gal 3. 1 2 3. of opposers and confirm believers who would all have scorned his arguments and the faith which they supported if all these had been fictions of which they themselves were said to be eye-witnesses and agents So that the very existence of the Churches was a testimony to the matter of fact And what testimony can be greater of Gods interest and approbation than Christs Resurrection and all these miracles § 11. Direct 8. Consider how no one of all the Hereticks or Apostates did ever contradict the matters Direct ◠of fact or hath left the world any kind of confutation of them which they wanted not malice or encouragement or opportunity to have done § 12. Direct 9. Consider how that no one of all those thousands that asserted these miracles are Direct 9. ever mentioned in any history as repenting of it either in their health or at the hour of death whereas it had been so heinous a villany to have cheated the world in so great a cause that some consciences of dying men especially of men that placed all their hopes in the life to come must needs have repented of § 13. Direct 10. Consider that the witnesses of all these Miracles and all the Churches that believed Direct 10. them were taught by their own doctrine and experience t◠forsake all that they had in the world and to be reproached hated and persecuted of all men and to be as lambs among wolves in expectation of death and all this for the hope of that blessedness promised them by a Crucified Risen Christ. So that no worldly end could move them to deceive or willingly to be deceived § 14. Direct 11. Consider how impossible it is in it self that so many men should agree together to deceive Direct 11. the world and that for nothing and at the rate of their own undoing and death and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously And that none of these should ever confess the deceit and disgrace the rest All things well considered this will appear not only a Moral but a Natural impossibility Especially considering their quality and distance there being thousands in several countries that never saw the faces of the rest much less could enter a confederacie with them to deceive the world § 15. Direct 12. Consider the certain way by which the Doctrine and Writings of the Apostles and Direct 12. other Evangelical messengers hath been delivered down to us without any possibility of material alteration Because the Holy Scriptures were not left only to the care of private men or of the Christians of one country who might have agreed upon corruptions and alterations But it was made the office of the ordinary Ministers to read and expound and apply them And every Congregation had one or more of these Ministers And the people received the Scriptures as the Law of God and that by which they must live and be judged and as their charter for Heaven So that it was not possible for one Minister to corrupt the Scripture Text but the rest with the people would have quickly reproved him Nor for those of one Kingdom to bring all other Christians to it throughout the world without a great deal of consultation and opposition if at all which never was recorded to us § 16. Direct 13. Be acquainted as fully as you can with the History of the Church that you may Direct 13. know how the Gospel hath been planted and propagated and assaulted and preserved until now which will much better satisfie you than general uncertain talk of others § 17. Direct 14. Iudge whether God being the Wise and Merciful Governor of the world would Direct 14. Neq enim potest Deus qui summa Veritas Bonitas est hu manum genus prolem suam decipere suffer the honestest and obedientest subjects that he hath upon earth to be deceived in a matter of such importance by pretence of Doctrines and Miracles proceeding from himself and which none but God or by his special grant is able to do without disowning them or giving any sufficient means to the world to discover the deceit For certainly he needeth not deceit to govern us If you say that he permits Mahometanism I answer 1. The main positive doctrine of the Mahometanes for the worshiping of one only God against Idolatry is true And the by-fancies of their pretended Prophet are not commended to the world upon the pretense of attesting Miracles at all but upon the affirmation of Ma sil 〈◊〉 de
been truly taught that to deny our foundations is the horrid crime of Infidelity And therefore because it is so horrid a crime to deny or question them we thought we need not study to prove them And so most have taken their Foundation upon trust and indeed are scarce able to bear the tryal of it and have spent their dayes about the superstructure and in learning to prove the controverted less necessary points Insomuch that I fear there are more that are able to prove the points which an Antinomian or an Anabaptist do deny than to prove the immortality of the soul or the truth of Scripture or Christianity and to dispute about a Ceremony or form of prayer or Church-government than to dispute for Christ against an Infidel So that their work is prepared to their hands and it is no great victory to overcome such â—aw unsetled souls § 2. Direct 2. Get every sacred Truth which you believe into your very hearts and lives and Direct 2. see that all be digested into Holy Love and Practice When your food is turned into vital nuâ—â—iment into flesh and blood it is not cast up by every thing that maketh you sick and turneth your stomachs as it may be before it is concocted distributed and incorporated Truth that is but barely known is but like meat that is undigested in the stomach But Truth which is turned into the Lâ—ve of God and of a holy life is turned into a new nature and will not so easily be let go § 3. Direct 3. Take heed of Doctrines of presumption and security and take heed lest you fall Direct 3. away by thinking it so impossible to fall away that you are past all danger The Covenant of Vâ—â—tu â—â—â—â— Chrysippus â—â—â—â—â—â—â—ossâ— â—leaâ— hâ—â—â—â—â—â— nâ—n â—â—â—â—se aâ—â—â—â—e posse aâ—â—â—â—â— pâ—r 〈◊〉 aâ—ram bâ—â—em 〈…〉 posse o 〈…〉 aâ— stabâ—es comprehension â—â— c.. Lâ—â—t in Zâ—â—oâ—â— Grace doth sufficiently encourage you to obey and hope against temptations to despair and casting off the means But it encourageth no man to presume or sin or to cast off means as needlesâ— things Remember that if ever you will stand the fear of falling must help you to stand and if ever you will persevere it must be by seeing the danger of backsliding so far as to make you afraid and quicken you in the means which are necessary to prevent it It is no more certain that you shall persevere than it is certain that you shall use the means of persevering And one means is by seeing your danger to be stirred up to fear and caution to escape it Because it is my meaning in this Direction to save men from perishing by security upon the abuse of the Doctrine of Perseverance I hope none will be offended that I lay down these Antidotes § 4. 1. Consider That the Doctrine of Perseverance hath nothing in it to encourage security The very Controversies about it may cause you to conclude that a certain sin is not to be built upon a Controverted Doctrine Till Augustines time it is hard to find any antient Writers that clearly asserted the certain perseverance of any at all Augustine and Prosper maintain the certain perseverance of all the Elect but deny the certain perseverance of all that are Regenerated Justified or Sanctified For they thought that more were Regenerate and Justified than were Elect of whom some stood even all the Elect and the rest fell away So that I confess I never read one antient Father or Christian Writer that ever maintained the certainty of the perseverance of all the Justified of many hundred if not a thousand years after Christ And a Doctrine that to the Church was so long unknown hath not that certainty or that necessity as to encourage you to any presumption or security The Churches were saved many hundred years without believing it § 5. 2. The Doctrine of Perseverance is against security because it uniteth together the End and the Means For they that teach that the Justified shall never totally fall from Grace do also teach that they shall never totally fall into security or into any reigning sin For this is to fall away from Grace And they teach that they shall never totally fall from the use of the necessary means of their preservation nor from the cautelous avoiding of the danger of their souls God doth not simply Decree that you shall persevere but that you shall be kept in perseverance by the fear of your danger and the careful use of means and that you shall persevere in these as well as in other graces Therefore if you fall to security and sin you fall away from grace and shew that God never decreed or promised that you should never fall away § 6. 3. Consider how far many have gone that have fallen away The instances of our times are much higher than any I can name to you out of History Men that have seemed to walk humbly and holily fearing all sin blameless in their lives zealous in Religion twenty or thirty years together have fallen to deny the truth or certainty of the Scriptures the Godhead of Christ if not Christianity it self And many that have not quite fallen away have yet fallen into such grievous sins as make them a terrible warning to us all to take heed of presumption and carnal security § 7. 4. Grace is not in the nature of it a thing that cannot perish or be lost For 1. It is a separable quality 2. Adam did lose it 3. We lose a great degree of it too oft And the remaining degrees are of the same nature It is not only possible in it self to lose it but too easie and not possible without co-operating grace to keep it § 8. 5. Grace is not Natural to us To love our ease and honour and friends is natural but to love Christ and his holy wayes and servants is not Natural to us Indeed when we do it it is Nature as not lapsed and Nature as restored incline the soul to the Love of God but not Nature as corrupâ— nor is it an act performed per 〈…〉 â— â— nâ—â—â—â—ssario our Natural powers that do it But not as Naturally disposed to it but as inclined by the Cure of supernatural Grace Eating and drinking and sleeping we forget not because Nature it self remembreth us of them but Learning and acquired habits may be lost if not very deeply radicated And it s commonly concluded as to the Nature of them that Habitus infusi habent se ad modum acquisitorum Infused Habits are like to acquired ones § 9. 6. Grace is as it were a stranger or new-comer in us It hath been there but a little while And therefore we are but raw and too unacquainted with the right usage and improvement of it and are the apter to â—orget our duty or to neglect it or ignorantly to do that which tendeth to its destruction § 10. 7. Grace dwelleth in a heart which
to believe it To the first I say 1. There are many Antichrists And we must remove the ambiguity of the name before we can resolve the question If by Antichrist be meant One that usurpeth the Office of a Universal Vicar of Christ and Constitutive and Governing Head of the whole Visible Church and hereby layeth the ground of Schisms and Contentions and Bloodshed in the world and would rob Christ of all his members who are not of the Popes Kingdom and that formeth a multifarious Ministry for this service and corrupteth much of the Doctrine Worship and Discipline of the Church in this sense no doubt but the Pope is Antichrist But if by Antichrist be meant him particularly described in the Apocalyps and Thessalonians then the controversie de re is about the exposition of those dark Prophecies Of which I can say no more but this 1. That if the Pope be not He he had ill luck to be so like him 2. That Dr. Moors Moral Arguments and Bishop Downhams and many others expository arguments are such as I cannot answer 3. But yet my skill is not so great in interpreting those obscure Prophecies as that I can say I am sure that it is the Pope they speak of and that Lyra learned Zanchy and others that think it is Mahomet or others that otherwise interpret them were mistaken II. But to the second Question I more boldly say 1. That every one that indeed knoweth this to be the sense of those Texts is bound to believe it 2. But that God who hath not made it of necessity to salvation to understand many hundred plainer Texts nor absolutely to understand more than the Articles and fundamentals of our Religion hath much less made it necessary to salvation to understand the darkest Prophecies 3. And that as the suspicion should make all Christians cautelous what they receive from Rome so the obscurity should make all Christians take heed that they draw from it no consequences destructive to Love or order or any truth or Christian duty And this is the advice I give to all Quest. 5. Whether we must hold that a Papist may be saved THis question may be resolved easily from what is said before 1. A Papist as a Papist that is by Popery will never be saved no more than a mans life by a Leprosie 2. If a Papist be saved he must be saved against and from Popery either by turning from the opinion Viâ— Hâ—â— Eâ—â—l Rom. not est Christiana 〈◊〉 A Papist cannot go beyond a Reprobate and then he is no Papist or by preserving his heart from the power of his own opinions And the same we may say of every error and sin He that is saved must be saved from it at least from the Power of it on the heart and from the guilt of it by forgiveness 3. Every one that is a true sincere Christian in Faith Love and true Obedience shall be saved what error soever he hold that doth consist with these 4. As many Antinomians and other erroneous persons do hold things which by consequence subvert Christianity and yet not seeing the inconsistence do hold Christianity first and faster in heart and sincere practice and would renounce their error if they saw the inconsistence so is it with many Papists And that which they hold first and fastest and practically doth save them from the power operations and poyson of their own opinions As an Antidote or the strength of nature may save a man from a small quantity of poyson 5. Moreover we have cause to judge that there are millions among the Papists corrupted with many of their lessor errors who yet hold not their greater that believe not that none are Christians but the Popes subjects and that Christs Kingdom and the Popes are of the same extent or that he can remit mens pains in another world or that the Bread and Wine are no Bread and Wine or that men merit of God in point of Commutative Justice or that we must adore or worship the Bread or yet the Cross or Image it self c. Or that consent to abundance of the Clergies tyrannical usurpations and abuses And so being not properly Papists may be saved if a Papist might not And we the less know how many or few among them are really of the Clergies Religion and mind because by terror they restrain men from manifesting their judgement and compell them to comply in outward things 6. But as fewer that have Leprosies or Plagues or that take poyson scape than of other men so we have great cause to believe that much fewer Papists are saved than such as escape their errors And therefore all that love their souls should avoid them 7. And the trick of the Priests who perswade people that theirs is the safest Religion because we say that a Papist may be saved and they say that a Protestant cannot is so palpable a cheat that it should rather deterr men from their way For God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God And all men must know us to be Christs Disciples by loving one another And he that saith he loveth God and loveth not his Brother is a lyar And charity believeth all things credible That Religion is likest to be of God which is most charitable and not that which is most uncharitable and malicious and like to Satan To conclude no man shall be saved for being no Papist much less for being a Papist And all that are truly holy heavenly humble lovers of God and of those that are his servants shall be saved But how many such are among the Papists God only knoweth who is their Judge THe Questions whether the Greeks Abassines Nestorians Eutychians Antinomians Anabaptists c. may be saved must be all resolved as this of the Papists allowing for the different degrees of their corruption And therefore I must desire the Reader to take up with this answer for all and excuse me from unnecessary repetition As for such disputers as my Antagonist Mr. Iohnson who insisteth on that of Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick is condemned of himself when he hath proved that the word Heretick hath but one signification I will say as he doth Till then if he will try who shall be damned by bare equivocal words without the definition let him take his course for I will be none of his imitators Quest. 6. Whether those that are in the Church of Rome are bound to separate from it And whether it be lawful to go to their Mass or other Worship THese two also for brevity I joyn together I. To the first we must distinguish of separation 1. It is one thing to judge that evil which is evil and separate from it in Judgement 2. It is another thing to express this by forbearing to subscribe swear or otherwise approve that evil 3. And another thing to forbear communion with them in the Mass and Image Worship and gross or known
us for holding that the meer natural progeny of believers are saved as such did well understand our doctrine they would perceive that in this we differ not from the understanding sort among them or at least that their accusations run upon a mistake I told you before that there are three things distinctly to be considered in the title of Infants to baptism and salvation 1. By what right the Parent covenanteth for his child 2. What right the child hath to baptism 3. What right he hath to the benefits of the Covenant sealed and delivered in baptism To the first two things concur to the title of the Parent to Covenant in the name of his child One is his Natural Interest in him The child being his own is at his dispose The other is Gods gracious will and consent that it shall be so that the Parents Will shall be as the childs for his good till he come at age to have a Will of his own To the second The childs right to baptism is not meerly his Natural or his Birth relation from such Parents but it is in two degrees as followeth 1. He hath a Virtual Right on condition of his Parents faith the Reason is because that a believers consent and self-dedication to God déth Virtually contain in it a dedication with himself of all that is his And it is a contradiction to say that a a man truly dedicateth himself to God and not all that he hath and that he truly consenteth to the Covenant for himself and not for his child if he understand that God will accept it 2. His Actual title-condition is his Parents or Owners Actual Consent to enter him into Gods Covenant and his Actual mental dedication of his child to God which is his title before God and the Profession of it is his title before the Church So that it is not a meer Physical but a Moral title-condition which an Infant hath to baptism that is His Parents Consent to dedicate him to God 3. And to the third His title-condition to the Benefits of baptism hath two degrees 1. That he be really dedicated to God by the heart-consent of his Parent as aforesaid And 2. That his Parent express this by the solemn engaging him to God in baptism The first being necessary as a Means sine quo non and the second being necessary as a Duty without which he sinneth when its possible and as a Means coram Ecclesia to the priviledges of the Visible Church The sum of all is that our meer natural interest in our children is not their title-condition to baptism or to salvation but only that presupposed state which enableth us by Gods Consent to Covenant for them But their title-condition to baptism and salvation is our Covenanting for them or Voluntary dedicating them to God which we do 1. Virtually when we dedicate our selves and all that we have or shall have 2. Actually when our Hearts consent particularly for them and Actually devote them to God before Baptism 3. Sacramentally when we express this in our solemn baptismal covenanting and dedication Consider exactly of this again And if you loath distinguishing confess ingenuously that you loath the truth or the necessary means of knowing it Quest. 39. What is the true meaning of Sponsors Patrimi or God-fathers as we call them And is it lawful to make use of them Answ. I. TO the first question All men have not the same thoughts either of their Original or of their present use 1. Some think that they were Sponsors or Sureties for the Parents rather than the child at first And that when many in times of Persecution Heresie and Apostasie did baptize their children this month or year and the next month or year apostatize and deny Christ themselves that the Sponsors were only credible Christians witnessing that they believed that the Parents were credible firm believers and not like to apostatize 2. Others think that they were undertakers that if the Parents did apostatize or dye they would see to the Christian Education of the child themselves 3. Others think that they did both these together which is my opinion viz. That they witnessed the probability of the parents fidelity But promised that if they should either apostatize or dye they would see that the children were piously educated 4. Others think that they were absolute undertakers that the children should be piously educated whether the Parents dyed or apostatized or not So that they went joint-undertakers with the Parents in their life time 5. And I have lately met with some that maintain that the God-fathers and God-mothers become Proprietors and Adopt the child and take him for their own and that this is the sense of the Church of England But I believe them not for these reasons 1. There is no such word in the Liturgie Doctrine or Canons of the Church of England And that is not to be feigned and fathered on them which they never said 2. It would be against the Law of Nature to force all Parents to give the sole propriety or joynt-propriety in their children to others Nature hath given the propriety to themselves and we cannot rob them of it 3. It would be heinously injurious to the children of Noble and Learned persons if they must be forced to give them up to the propriety and education of others even of such as perhaps are lower and more unfit for it than themselves 4. It would be more heinously injurious to all God-fathers and God-mothers who must all make other mens children their own and therefore must use them as their own 5. It would keep most children unbaptized Because if it were once understood that they must take them as their own few would be Sponsors to the children of the poor for fear of keeping them and few but the Ignorant that know not what they do would be Sponsors for any because of the greatness of the charge and their aversness to adopt the children of others 6. It would make great confusion in the State while all men were bound to exchange children with another 7. I never knew one man or woman that was a God-father or God-mother on such terms nor that took the child to be their own And if such a one should be found among ten thousand that is no rule to discern the judgement of the Church by 8. And in Confirmation the God-father and God-mother is expresly said to be for this use to be Witnesses that the Party is Confirmed 9. And in the Priests speech to the Adult that come for baptism in the Office of baptism of those of riper years it is the persons themselves that are to promise and covenant for themselves and the God-fathers and God-mothers are only called these your Witnesses And if they be but Witnesses to the adult its like they are not Adopters of Infants II. Those that doubt of the Lawfulness of using Sponsors for their children do it on these two accounts 1. As supposing
3. Either Christianity is something and discernable or nothing and undiscernable If the latter then Christians are not to be distinguished from Heathens and Infidels If the former then Christianity hath its Constitutive parts by which it is what it is And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest 4. The word Fundamentals being but a Metaphor hath given room to deceivers and Contenders to make a Controversie and raise a dust about it Therefore I purposely use the word Essentials which is not so lyable to mens Cavils 5. Those are the Essentials of Christianity which are necessary to the Baptism of the Adult Know but that and you answer all the pratings of the Papists that bawle out for a list of Fundamentals And sure it is not this day unknown in the Christian world either what a Christian is or who is to be baptized Do not the Priests know it who baptize all that are Christened in the world And why is Baptism called our Christening if it make us not Christians And why hath Christ promised that He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16. 16. if that so much faith as is necessary to baptism will not also serve to a mans state of salvation 6. The Baptismal Covenant of Grace therefore is the Essential part of the Gospel and of the Christian Religion And all the rest are the Integrals and Accidents or Adjuncts 7. This Covenant containeth I. Objectively 1. Things True as such 2. Things Good as such 3. Things Practicable or to be done as such The Credenda Diligenda Eligenda Agenda as the objects of mans Intellect Will and Practical power The Credenda or things to be known and believed are 1. God as God and our God and Father 2. Christ as the Saviour and our Saviour 3. The Holy Ghost as such and as the Sanctifier and our Sanctifier as to the offer of these Relations in the Covenant The Diligenda are the same three persons in these three Relations as Good in themselves and unto us which includeth the grand benefits of Reconciliation and Adoption Justification and Sanctification and Salvation The Agenda in the time of baptism that make us Christians are 1. The actual Dedition resignation or dedication of our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost in these Relations 2. A Promise or Vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken relations though not in perfection that is as Creatures to their Creator and their Reconciled God and Father as Christians to their Redeemer their Teacher their Ruler and their Saviour And as willing Receivers of the Sanctifying and Comforting operations of the Holy Spirit II. The Objects tell you what the Acts must be on our part 1. With the Understanding to know and believe 2 With the Will to love choose desire and resolve and 3. Practically to deliver up our selves for the present and to promise for the time to come These are the Essentials of the Christian Religion 8. The Creed is a larger explication of the Credenda and the Lords Prayer of the Diligenda or things to be willed desired and hoped for and the Decalogue of the Natural part of the Agenda 9. Suffer not your own Ignorance or the Papists Cheats to confound the Question about Fundamentals as to the Matter and as to the expressing words It is one thing to ask What is the Matter ☞ Essential to Christianity And another What Words Symbols or Sentences are Essential to it To the first I have now answered you To the second I say 1. Taking the Christian Religion as it is an Extrinsick Doctrine in signis so the Essence of it is Words and Signs expressive or significant of the Material Essence That they be such in specie is all that is essential And if they say But which be those words I answer 2. That no particular Words in the world are essential to the Christian Religion For 1. No one Language is essential to it It is not necessary to salvation that you be baptized or learn the Creed or Scriptures in Hebrew or Greek or Latin or English so you learn it in any Language understood 2. It is not necessary to salvation that you use the same words in the same Language as long as it hath more words than one to express the same thing by 3. It is not necessary to salvation that we use the same or any one single form method or order of words as they are in the Creeds without alteration And therefore while the Antients did tenaciously cleave to the same Symbol or Creed yet they used various words to express it by As may be seen in Irenâ—â—s Tertullian Origen and Ruffin elsewhere cited by me so that its plain that by the same Symbol they See the Appendix to my Reformed Pastor meant the same Matter though exprest in some variety of words Though they avoided such variety as might introduce variety of sense and matter 10. Words being needful 1. To make a Learner understand 2. To tell another what he understandeth it followeth that the great variety of mens capacities maketh a great variation in the necessity of Words or Forms An Englishman must have them in English and a Frenchman in French An understanding man may receive all the Essentials in a few words But an Ignorant man must have many words to make him understand the matter To him that Understandeth them the words of the Baptismal ☞ Covenant express all the Essentials of Christianity But to him that understands them not the Creed is necessary for the explication And to him that understandeth not that a Catechism or larger Exposition is necessary This is the plain explication of this question which many Papists seem loth to understand Quest. 139. What is the Use and Authority of the Creed And is it of the Apostles framing or not And is it the Word of God or not Answ. 1. THe Use of the Creed is to be a plain explication of the Faith professed in the Baptismal Covenant 1. For the fuller instruction of the duller sort and those that had not preparatory knowledge and could not sufficiently understand the meaning of the three Articles of the Covenant what it is to believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost without more words 2. And for the satisfaction of the Church that indeed men understood what they did in baptism and professed to believe 2. The Creed is the Word of God as to all the Doctrine or Matter of it what ever it be as to the order and composition of words 3. That is oft by the Antients called the Apostles which containeth the matter derived by the Apostles though not in a form of words compiled by them 4. It is certain that all the words now in our Creed were not put in by the Apostles 1. Because Vid. 〈…〉 Vossiâ—m de Symbolis some of them were not in till long after their dayes 2. Because the
In your Baptism you renounced the world with its pomps and vanity and now do you deifie what you then defied § 36. Temp. 18. Another Temptation is to draw on the sinner into such a custom in sin and long Tempt 18. neglect of the means of his Recovery till his Heart is utterly Hardened § 37. Direct 18. Against this read after Chap. 4. Part. 2. against Hardness of Heart Direct 18. Tempt 19. § 38. Temp. 19. Another Temptation is to Delay Repentance and purpose to do it hereafter § 39. Direct 19. Of this I entreat you to read the many Reasons which I have given to shame and Direct 19. waken delayers in my Book of Directions for a sound Conversion § 40. Tempt 20. The worst of all is to tempt them to flat unbelief of Scripture and the life Tempt 20. to come § 41. Direct 20. Against this read here Chap. 3. Dir. 1. Chap. 4. Part. 1. and my Treatise against Direct 20. Infidelity § 42. Temp. 21. If they will needs looks after Grace he will do all he can to deceive them with counterfeits Tempt 21. and make them take a seeming half conversion for a saving change § 43. Direct 21. Of this read my Directions for sound Conversion and the Formal Hypocrite and Direct 21. Saints Rest Part. 3. c. 10. § 44. Temp. 22. If he cannot make them flat Infidels he will tempt them to question and contradict Tempt 22. the sense of all those Texts of Scripture which are used to convince them and all those doctrines which grate most upon their galled consciences as of the Necessity of Regeneration the fewness of them that are saved the difficulty of salvation the torments of Hell the necessity of mortification and the sinfulness of all particular sins They will hearken what Cavillers can say for any sin and against any part of Godliness and with this they wilfully delude themselves § 45. Direct 22. But if men are resolved to joyn with the Devil and shut their eyes and â—avil Direct 22. against all that God speaketh to them to prevent their misery and know not because they will not know what remedy is left or who can save men against their wills This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 19 20. In Scripture some things are hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. Of particulars read the end of my Treatise of Conversion § 46. Temp. 23. Yea Satan will do his worst to make them Hereticks and teach them some doctrine Tempt 23. of licentiousness suitable is their lusts It s hard being wicked still against Conscience in the open light This is kicking against the pricks too smarting work to be easily born Therefore the Devil will make them a Religion which shall please them and do their sins no haâ—m Either a Religion made up of loose Opinions like the Familists Ranters Libertines and Antinomians and the Jesuites too much or else made up of trifling formalities and a great deal of bodily exercise and Stage-actings and complement as much of the Popish devotion is And a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine It s easier to get such a new Religion than a new heart And then the Devil tells them that now they are in the right way and therefore they shall be saved A great part of the world think their case is good because they are of such or such a Sect or Party and of that which they are told by their Leaders is the true Church and way § 47. Direct 23. But remember that what ever Law you make to your selves God will judge Direct 23. you by his own Law Falsifying the Kings Coyn is no good way to pay a debt but an addition of Treason to your former misery It is a new and a holy heart and life and not a new Creed or a new Church or Sect that is necessary to your salvation It will never save you to be in the soundest Church on earth if you be unsound in it your selves and are but the dust in the Temple that must be swept ouâ— Much less will it save you to make your selves a Rule because Gods Rule doth seem too strict § 48. Tempt 24. Another way of the Tempter is to draw men to take up with meer Convictions Tempt 24. instead of true Conversion when they have but learnt that it is Necessary to salvation to be Regenerate and have the Spirit of Christ they are as quiet as if this were indeed to be regenerate and to have the Spirit As some think they have attained to perfection when they have but received the opinion that perfection may here be had so abundance think they have sanctification and forgiveness because now they see that they must be had and without sanctification there is no salvation And thus the knowledge of all Grace and Duty shall go with them for the grace and duty it self and their judgement of the thing instead of the possession of it and instead of having grace they force themselves to believe that they have it § 49. Direct 24. But remember God will not be mocked He knoweth a convinced head from Direct 24. a holy heart To think you are Rich will not make you rich To believe that you are well or to know the remedy is not enough to make you well You may dream that you eat and yet awake hungry Isa. 29. 8. All the Land or money which you see is not therefore your own To know that you should be holy maketh your unholiness to have no excuse Ahab did not scape by believing that he should return in peace Self-flattery in so great and weighty a case is the greatest folly If you know these things happy are ye if you do them John 13. 17. § 50. Tempt 25. Another great Temptation is by hiding from men the intrinsick evil and odiousness Tempt 25. of â—in What harm saith the Drunkard and Adulterer and voluptuous Sensualists is there in all this that Preachers make so great ado against it What hurt is this to God or man that they would make us believe we must be damned for it and that Christ dyed for it and that the Holy Ghost must mortifie it Wherefore say the Iews Ier. 16. 10. hath God pronounced all this great evil against us or what is our iniquity or what is our sin that we have committed He that knoweth not God knoweth not what sin against God is especially when the Love of it and Delight in it blindeth them § 51. Direct 25. Against this I intreat you to ponder on those forty intrinsecal evils in sin which Direct 25. I have after
as you have no need § 5. As for Play books and Romances and idle Tales I have already shewed in my Book of Self-dâ—nyal how pernicious they are especially to youth and to frothy empty idle wits that know not what a man is nor what he hath to do in the world They are powerful baits of the Devil to keep more necessary things out of their minds and better Books out of their hands and to poyson the mind so much the more dangerously as they are read with more delight and pleasure and to fill the minds of sensual people with such idle fumes and intoxicating fancies as may divert them from the serious thoughts of their salvation And which is no small loss to rob them of abundance of that precious time which was given them for more important business and which they will wish and wish again at last that they had spent more wisely I know the fantasticks will say that these things are innocent and may teach men much good like him that must go to a Whore-house to learn to hate uncleanness and him that would go out with Robbers to learn to hate Theevery But I shall now only ask them as in the presence of God 1. Whether they could spend that time no better 2. Whether better Books and practices would not edifie them more 3. Whether the greatest Lovers of Romances and Playes be the greatest Lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life 4. Whether they feel in themselves that the Love of these vanities doth increase their love to the Word of God and kill their sin and prepare them for the life to come or clean contrary And I would desire men not to prate against their own experience and reason nor to dispute themselves into damnable impenitency nor to befool their souls by a few silly words which any but a sensualist may perceive to be meer deceit and falshood If this will not serve they shall be shortly convinced and answered in another manner Direct 17. TAke heed that you receive not a Doctrine of Libertinism as from the Gospel nor conceive Direct 17. of Christ as an encourager of sin nor pretend free grace for your carnal security or sloth For this is but to set up another Gospel and another Christ or rather the Doctrine and works of the Devil against Christ and the Gospel and to turn the Grace of God into wantonness § 1. Because the Devil knoweth that you will not receive his doctrine in his own Name his usual Siquis est hoc robore aniâ—â—t atque hoc indole virtuâ—s aâ— continentiâ— ut respâ—at omnes vo 〈…〉 omnemâ—â—â— vitae â—uae â—â—rsâ—m â—aâ—â—â—â— co 〈…〉 aequalium fludia non â—udi non convivia delectant nihil in vita expeâ—endum putet nisi quod est cum laude honore conjunâ—tum hunc mea sententia divinis quibusdam bonis instructum atque ornatum puto Ciâ— pâ—o Cal. method is to propound and preach it in the name of Christ which he knoweth you reverence and regard For if Satan concealed not his own Name and Hand in every temptation it would spoil his game And the more excellent and splendid is his pretence the more powerful the temptation is They that gave heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils no doubt thought better of the Spirits and the Doctrines especially seeming strict for the Devil hath his strictnesses as forbidding to marry and abstinence from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving 1 Tim. 4. 1 3. But the strictnesses of the Devil are alwayes intended to make men loose They shall be strict as the Pharisees in Traditions and vain Ceremonies and building the Tombs of the Prophets and garnishing the Sepulchres of the Righteous that they may hate and murder the living Saints that worship God in Spirit and in truth Licentiousness is the proper Doctrine of the Devil which all his strictness tendeth to promote To receive such principles is pernicious but to father them upon Christ and the Gospel is blasphemous § 2. The Libertines Antinomians and Autonomians of this age have gathered you too many instances The Libertine saith The Heart is the man therefore you may deny the truth with your tongue you may be present at false Worship as at the Mass you need not suffer to avoid the speaking of a word or subscribing to an untruth or error or doing some little thing but as long as you keep your hearts to God and mean well or have an honest mental reservation and are forced to it by therâ— rather than suffer you may say or subscribe or swear any thing which you can your selves put a lawful sense upon in your own minds or comply with any outward actions or customs to avoid â—ffence and save your selves The Antinomians tell you that The Moral Law is abrogated and that the Gospel is no Law and if there be no Law there is no Governour nor Government no duty no sin no judgement nâ— punishment no before they are born or repent or believe that their sin is pardoned 〈…〉 that God tâ—â—k them as suffering and fulfilling all the Law in Christ as if it had been they that diâ— iâ— in â—iâ— that we are justified by faith only in our consciences that justifying faith iâ— but t 〈…〉 we are justified that every man must believe that he is pardoned that he may 〈…〉 ed in â—is câ—â—science and this he is to do by a Divine faith and that this is the sense of the Aâ—tiâ—le I beliâ—â—â—â— the forgiveness of sins that is that my sâ—ns are forgiven and that all are forgi 〈…〉 it that it is legal and sinful to work or do any thing for salvation that sin once pa 〈…〉 ssed and lamented or at least we need not ask pardon of sin daily or of one 〈…〉 t that 〈◊〉 are no punishments and yet no other punishment is threatned to believers for their sins and consequently that Christ hath not procured them a pardon of any sin after believing but prevented all necessity of pardon and therefore they must not ask the pardon of them nor do any thing to obtain it that fear of Hell must have no hand in our obedience or restraint from sin And some add that he that cannot repent or believe must comfort himself that Christ repented and believed for him 〈…〉 a contradiction Many such Doctrines of Licentiousness the abusers of Grace have brought forth And the Sect which imitateth the Father of Pride in affecting to be from under the Government of God and to be the Law-givers and Rulers of themselves and all others which I therefore call the Antonomians are Licentious and much more They equally contend against Christs Government and for their own They fill the world with Wars and bloodshed oppression and cruelty and the ears of God with the cryes of the Martyrs and oppressed ones and all that the spiritual and holy Discipline of Christ may be suppressed and
that there is a God that he is infinite in his Immensity and 〈…〉 that they â—â—d 〈…〉 〈…〉 Deos 〈…〉 impâ—â—baâ—â— Sâ—â—â—â—a statuas ex disciplinae instituto è medio â—uâ—isse And that some thought that the Jews came from them p. 4. 6 And 〈◊〉 himâ—â—lf â—aiâ—h to these that make Oâ—phâ—â—â—â— the first Philosopher Vâ—deant câ—râ—e qui ita â—â—lunt quo sit ceâ—sâ—ndus nomine qui Dâ—â—â—â—â—â—cta hoâ—â—nâ—m viâ—â— quae â—aro â— turpibus quibusque â—lagitiosis hominibus geruntur ascâ—iâ—it pag. 4. He saith also that the said Mâ—â— hâ—â—d and 〈◊〉 with them that men should live again and become immortal The like he saith of many other Sects It is a thing most irrational to doubt of the being of the unseen worlds and the more excellent inhabitants thereof when we consider that this lâ—w and little part of Gods Creation is so full of inhabitants If a Microscope will shew your very eyes a thousand visible creatures which you could never see without iâ— nor know that they had any being will you not allow the pure intellectual sight to go much 〈◊〉 beyond your Microscope Eternity in his Power Wisdom and Goodness that he is the first Cause and Ultimate End of all things that he is the Preserver and over ruling disposer of all things and the Supream Governour of the Rational world and the great Benefactor of all mankind and the special Favourer and Rewarder of such as truly love him seek him and obey him Also that the soul of man is immortal and that there is a life of Reward or punishment to come and that this life is but preparatory unto that that man is bound to Love God his Maker and serve him with all his heart and might and to believe that this Labour is not vain that we must do our best to know Gods will that we may do it This with much more of which some part was mentioned Chap. 1. § 2 3 c. is of Natural Revelation which Inâ—idels may know 8. There is so admirable a concord and correspondency of Natural Divinity with supernatural the T 〈…〉 in 〈…〉 Aâ—uiâ—aâ—â—â—â—â— i 〈…〉 Anâ—iquiâ—â—mum omnium â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â— Deus 〈◊〉 us â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â—lâ—â—â—â—imum â—â—unduâ— De◠〈…〉 Maximum locus capit enim omnia Velocissimum meus nam per universa discurrit Fortissimum necessitas cuncta enim supeâ—a◠〈◊〉 tempâ—s iâ—vâ—â—â—â—t namque omnia Q. Utrum prius factum nox an dies R. Nâ—x una priuâ— diâ— Q. Latet ne Deos homo mâ—â—â—â— agâ—â—â—â— R. N cogitâ—â—â—â— quidem Q. Quid difficile â— R. Seipsum noscere Q. Quid facile â— Ab a â—o moveri Q. Quid suavâ—ssimum R. â—â—ui Q. Quid Deus R. Quod initio fine caret p. 14. 20 21. natural leading towards the supernatural and the supernatural falling in so meet where the natural endeth or falls short or is defective that it greatly advantageth us in the Belief of supernatural Divinity Nay as the Law of Nature was exactly fitted to man in his natural innocent estate so the Law and Way of Grace in Christ is so admirably and exactly fitted to the state of lapsed man for his Recovery and Salvation that the experience which man hath of his sin and misery may greatly prepare him to perceive and believe this most suitable Gospel or Doctrine of Recovery And though it may not be called Natural as if it were fitted to innocent Nature or as if it were revealed by Natural ordinary means yet may it be so called as it is exactly suited to the restoration of lapsed miserable nature even as Lazarus his restored soul though supernaturally restored was the most natural associate of his body or as bread or milk or wine though it should fall from Heaven is in it self the most natural food for man 9. The same things in Divinity which are revealed Naturally to all are again revealed supernaturally in the Gospel and therefore may and must be the matter both of natural knowledge and of faith 10. When the maliâ—ious Tempter casteth in doubts of a Deity or other points of natural Certainty it so much discrediteth his suggestions as may help us much to reject them when withal he tempteth us to doubt of the truth of the Gospel 11. There are many needful appurtenances to the objects of a Divine faith which are the matter of a humane faith Of which more anon 12. Christ as Mediator is the Way or principal means to God as coming to restore man to his Maker And so faith in Christ is but the Means to bring us to the Love of God though in Time they are connexed 13. Knowledge and Faith are the eye of the new creature and Love is the Heart There is no more spiritual Wisdom than there is Faith and there is no more life or acceptable qualification or amiableness than there is Love to God 14. All truths in Divinity are revealed in order to a holy life Both Faith and Love are the Principles and Springs of practice 15. Practice affordeth such experience to a believing soul as may confirm him greatly in the belief of those supernatural revelations which he before received without that help 16. The everlasting fruition of God in Glory being the end of all Religion must be next the heart and most in our eye and must objectively animate our whole Religion and actuate us in every duty 17. The pleasing of God being also our End and both of these Enjoying him and Pleasing him being in some sâ—â—alâ— foretastes attainable in this life the endeavour of our souls and lives must be by FAITH to exercise LOVE and OBEDIENCE for thus God is Pleased and Enjoyed 18. All things in Religion are fitted to the good of man and nothing to his hurt God doth not command Conjungi vult nos inter nos atque connecti per mutua beneficia Charitatis Adeo ut tota justitia praeceptum hoc Dei communis sit utilitas hominum O miram clementiam Domini O inesfabilem Dei benignitatem Praemium nobis pollicetur fi nos invicem diligamus id est fi nos ea praestemus invicem quorum vicissim indigemus nos superbo ingrato animo ejus renittimur voluntati cujus etiam imperium beneficium est Hieron ad Câ—laâ—t See my Book of the Reasons of the Christian Religion us to honour him by any thing which would make us miserable but by closing with and magnifying his Love and Grace 19. But yet it is his own revelation by which we must judge what is finally for our good or hurt and we may not imagine that our shallow or deceivable wit is sufficient to discern without his Word what is best or worst for us Nor can we rationally argue from any present temporal adversity or unpleasing bitterness in the means that This is worst for us and therefore it is not from the Goodness of God But we must argue in such cases This is from the Goodness and
last place in teaching learning and most serious consideration § 3. Two sorts do most dangerously sin against or abuse the Holy Ghost The first is the Prophane who through custom and education can say I believe in the Holy Ghost and say that He sanctifieth them and all the Elect people of God but hate or resist all sanctifying works and motions Deus est principium eâ—â—ectivum in Creatione refectivum in redemptione perfectivum in sanctificatione Ioh. Con. bis comp Theol. l. 4. c. 1. of the Holy Ghost and hate all those that are sanctified by him and make them the objects of their scorn and deride the very name of sanctification or at least the thing The second sort is the Enthusiasts or true Fanaticks who advance extoll and plead for the Spirit Rejectis propheticis Apostolicis scriptis Manichaei novum Evangelium scripserunt ut antecellere communi hominum multitudini semi-d 〈…〉 rentur simularunt Enthusiaâ—mos seu afflatus subâ—â—o in â—urâ—a se in terram objâ—â—â—â—entes c vâ—lut 〈◊〉 dâ—â— tacentes deinde tanquam redeuntes ex specu Trophonio plorantes multa vaticinati sunt Prorsus ut Anabaptistae recens fâ—ceruâ— in seditione Monasteriensi Etsi autem in quibusdam manifesta simulatio fuit tamen aliquibus reipsa à Diabolis surâ—tes immisses esse certum est Carioâ— Chron. l. 3. p. 54. against the Spirit covering their greatest sins against the Holy Ghost by crying up and pretending to the Holy Ghost They plead the Spirit in themselves against the Spirit in their Brethren yea and in almost all the Church They plead the authority of the Spirit in them against the authority of the Spirit in the holy Scriptures and against particular truths of Scripture and against several great and needful Duties which the Spirit hath required in the Word and against the Spirit in their most judicious godly faithful Teachers But can it be the Spirit that speaks against the Spirit Is the Spirit of God against it self Are we not all baptized by One Spirit and not divers or contrary into one body 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. But it is no marvel for Satan to be transformed into an Angel of light or his Ministers into the Ministers of Christ and of Righteousness whose end shall be according to their works 2 Cor. 11. 13 14 15. The Spirit himself therefore hath commanded us that we believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world 1 John 4. 1. Yea the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1. Therefore take heed that you neither Mistake nor abuse the Holy Spirit § 4. 1. The Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost to be believed is briefly this 1. That the Holy Ghost as given since the Ascension of Christ is his Agent on earth or his Advocate with men called by him the Paraclete Instead of his bodily presence which for a little space he vouchsafed to a few being John 16. 7. â— ascended he sendeth the Holy Spirit as better for them to be his Agent continually to the end and John 15 2â— John 16. 13. Gal. 3. 1 2 3 4 Heb. 2. 3 4. unto all and in all that do believe 2. This Holy Spirit so sent infallibly inspired the holy Apostles and Evangelists first to preach and then to write the Doctrine of Christ contained as indited by him in the Holy Scriptures perfectly imprinting therein the Holy Image of God 3. The same Spirit in them sealed this holy Doctrine and the Testimony of these holy men by many Miracles and wonderful Gifts by which they did actually convince the unbelieving world and plant the Churches 4. The same Spirit having first by the Apostles given a Law or Canon to the Universal Church constituting its Offices and the duty of the Officers and the manner of their entrance Eph. 3 2 3 4 8 13. dâ—tâ— Qualifie and â—ispose men for the stated ordinary Ministerial work which is to Explain and Apâ—â—â—â— â—he â—oresaid Scriptures and directeth those that are to Ordain and Choose them they being not wanting on their part and so he appointeth Pastors to the Church 5. The same Spirit assisteth the Ministers thus sent in their faithful use of the means to Teach and Apply the holy Scriptures according to the necessities of the peoplâ— the weight of the matter and the Majesty of the Word of God 6. The same Spirit doth by this Word heard or read renew and sanctifie the souls of the Elect illuminating their minds opening and quickning their hearts prevailing with changing and Actâ— 26. 18. resolving their wills thus writing Gods Word and imprinting his Image by his Word upon their hearts making it powerful to conquer and cast out their strongest sweetest dearest sins and bringing John 14 16 26 them to the saving knowledge love and obedience of God in Jesus Christ. 7. The same holy Spirit assisteth the sanctified in the exercise of this grace to the increase of it by blessing and concurring with the means appointed by him to that end And helpeth them to use those means perform their duties conquer temptations oppositions and difficulties and so confirmeth and preserveth them to the end 8. The same Spirit helpeth believers in the exercise of grace to feel it and discern the sincerity of it in themselves in that measure as they are meet for and in these seasons when it is fittest for them 9. The same Spirit helpeth them hereupon to conclude that they are justified and reconciled to God and have right to all the benefits of his Covenant 10. Also he assisteth them actually to rejoyce in the discerning of this Conclusion For though Reason of it self may do something in these acts yet so averse is man to all that is holy and so many are the difficulties and hinderances in the way that to the effectual performance the help of the Spirit of God is necessary § 5. By this enumeration of the Spirits operations you may see the errors of many detected and many common Questions answered 1. You may see their blindness that pretend the Spirit within them against Scripture Ministry or the use of Gods appointed means when the same Spirit first indited the Scripture and maketh it the Instrument to illuminate and sanctifie our souls Gods Image is 1. Primarily in Jesus Christ his Son 2. Derivatively by his Spirit imprinted perfectly in the holy Scriptures 3. And by the Scripture or the holy Doctrine of it instrumentally impressed on the soul. So that the Image of God in Christ is the Cause of his Image in his holy Word or Doctrine and his Image in his Word is the Cause of his Image on the heart So a King may have his Image 1. Naturally on his Son who is like his Father 2. Expressively in his Laws which express
love of Christ and one another and 1 John 3. 16. that we forgive and pray for them that persecute us 24. In all this suffering from men he feels also so much of the fruit of our sin upon his soul that he cryeth out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me To teach us if we fall into such calamity of soul as to think that God himself forsaketh us to remember for our support that the Son of God himself before us cryed out My God why hast thou forsaken me And that in this also we may expect a tryal to seem to our selves Forsaken of God when our Saviour underwent the like before us I will instance in no more of his example because I would not be tedious Hither now let believers cast their eyes If you love your Lord you should love to imitate him and be glad to find your selves in the way that he hath gone before you If He lived a worldly or a sensual life do you do so If He was an enemy to preaching and praying and holy living be you so But if he lived in the greatest contempt of all the wealth and honours and pleasures of the world in a life of holy obedience to his Father wholly preferring the Kingdom of Heaven and seeking the salvation of the souls of others and patiently bearing persecution derision calumnies and death then take up your Cross and follow him in joyfully to the expected Crown § 7. Direct 6. If you will Learn of Christ you must Learn of his Ministers whom he hath appointed Direct 6. under him to be the Teachers of his Church He purposely enableth them enclineth them and sendeth them to instruct you Not to have dominion over your faith but to be your spiritual Fathers and the Ministers by whom you believe as God shall give ability and success to every one as he pleases to plant and water while God giveth the encrease to open mens eyes and turn them from darkness to light and to be labourers together with God whose husbandry and building you are and to be helpers of your joy See 2 Cor. 24. Acts 26. 17 18. 1 Cor. 3. 5 6 7 8 9. 4. 15. Seeing therefore Christ hath appointed them under him to be the ordinary Teachers of his Church he that heareth them speaking his message heareth him and he that despiseth them despiseth him Luke 10. 16. And he that saith I will hear Christ but not you doth say in effect to Christ himself I will not hear thee nor learn of thee unless thou wilt dismiss thy Ushers and teach me immediately thy self § 8. Direct 7. Hearken also to the secret Teachings of his Spirit and your consciences not as makeing Direct 7. you any new Law or Duty or being to you instead of Scriptures or Ministers but as bringing that truth into your Hearts and practices which Scriptures and Ministers have first brought to your eyes and ears If you understand not this how the office of Scripture and Ministers differ from the office of the Spirit and your Consciences you will be confounded as the Sectaries of these times have been that separate what God hath joyned together and plead against Scripture or Ministers under pretence of extolling the Spirit or the Light within them As your meat must be taken into the stomach and pass the first concoction before the second can be performed and chilification must be before sanguification so the Scripture and Ministers must bring truth to your eyes and ears before the Spirit or Conscience bring them to your Hearts and Practice But they lye dead and uneffectual in your brain or imagination if you hearken not to the secret teachings of the Spirit and Conscience which would bring them further As Christ is the principal Teacher without and Ministers are but under him so the Spirit is the principal Teacher within us and Conscience is but under the Spirit being excited and informed by it Those that learn only of Scriptures and Ministers by hearing or reading may become men of Learning and great ability though they hearken not to the sanctifying teachings of the Spirit or to their Consciences But it is only those that hearken first to the Scriptures and Ministers and next to the Spirit of God and to their Consciences that have an inward sanctifying saving knowledge and are they that are said to be Taught of God Therefore hearken first with your ears what Christ hath to say to you from without and then hearken daily and diligently with your hearts what the Spirit and Conscience say within For it is their office to preach over all that again to your Hearts which you have received § 9. Direct 8. It being the office of the present ordinary Ministry only to expound and apply the doctrine Direct 8 of Christ already recorded in the Scriptures believe not any man that contradicteth this recorded doctrine what Reason Authority â—r Revelation soever he pretend Isa. 8. 20. To the Law and to the Testimâ—ny if they speak not according to these it is because there is no Light in them No Reason can be Reason indeed that is pretended against the Reason of the Creator and God of Reason Authority pretended against the Highest Authority of God is no Authority God never gave Authority to any against himself nor to deceive mens souls nor to dispense with the Law of Christ nor to warrant men to sin against him nor to make any supplements to his Law or Doctrine The Apostles had their â— Câ—â— 10 8. â—â—â—â—â— 1â— â—â— Power only to â—diâ—ication but not to destruction There is no Revelation from God that is contrary to his own Revelation already delivered as his perfect Law and Rule unto the Church and therefore none supplemental to it If an Apostle or an Angel from Heaven per possibile vel impossibile shall Evangelize to us besides what is Evangelized and we have received he must be held accursed Gal. 1. 6 7 8. § 10. Direct 9. Come not to Learn of Christ with self conceitedness pride or confidence in your prejudice 〈◊〉 9. and errors but as little Children with humble teachable tractable minds Christ is no Teacher for those that in their own eyes are wise enough already unless it be first to teach them to become fools in their own esteem because they are so indeed that they may be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. They that are prepossessed with false opinions and resolve that they will never be perswaded of the contrary are unmeet to be Scholars in the School of Christ. He resisteth the proud but giveth more grace unto the 1 Pâ—â— 5. â— humble Men that have a high conceit of their own understandings and think they can easily know truth from falshood as soon as they hear it and come not to learn but to censure what they hear or read as being able presently to judge of all these are fitter for the School of the Prince of Pride and
this and so doth custom in sensual courses even turn men into bruits § 46. 2. He doth what he can to hinder Parents and Masters from doing their part in the instructing and admonishing of Children and servants and dealing wisely and zealously with them for their salvation Either he will keep Parents and Masters ignorant and unable or he will make them wicked and unwilling and perhaps engage them to oppose their children in all that 's good or he will make them like Eli remiss and negligent indifferent formal cold and dull and so keep them from saving their childrens or servants souls § 47. 3. He doth all that possibly he can to keep the sinner in security presumption and senselesness even asleep in sin and to that end to keep him quiet and in the dark without any light or noise which may awake him that he may live asleep as without a God a Christ a Heaven a Soul or any such thing to mind His great care is to keep him from Considering and therefore he keeps him still in company or sport or business and will not let him be oft alone nor retire into a sober conference with his conscience or serious Thoughts of the Life to come § 48. 4. He doth his best to keep soul-searching lively Ministers out of the Country or out of that Place and to silence them if there be any such and to keep the sinner under some ignorant or dead-hearted Minister that hath not himself that faith or repentance or life or love or holiness or zeal which he should be a means to work in others And he will do his utmost to draw him to be a leader of men to sin § 49. 5. He doth his worst to make Ministers weak to disgrace the cause of Christ and hinder his work by their bungling and unskilful management that there may be none to stand up against sin but some unlearned or half-witted men that can scarce speak sense or will provoke contempt or laughter in the hearers § 50. 6. He doth his worst to make Ministers scandalous that when they tell men of their sin and duty they may think such mean not as they speak and believe not themselves or make no great matter of it but speak for custom credit or for their hire And that the people by the wicked lives of the Preachers may be emboldned to disobey their doctrine and to imitate them and live without Repentance § 51. 7. He will labour to load the ablest Ministers with reproaches and slanders which thousands shall hear who never hear the truth in their defence And so making them odious the people will receive no more good by their preaching than from a Turk or Iew till the very truth it self for it self prevail And to this end especially he doth all that he can to foment continual divisions in the Church that while every party is engaged against the other the Interest of their several causes may make them think it necessary to make the chief that are against them seem odious or contemptible to the people that so they may be able to do their cause and them no harm And so they disable them from serving Christ and saving souls that they may disable them to hurt themselves or their faction or their impotent cause § 52. 8. He doth what he can to keep the most holy Ministers under persecution that they may be as the wounded Deer whom all the rest of the herd will shun or like a worried dog whom the rest will fall upon or that the people may be afraid to hear them lest they suffer with them or may come to them only as Nicodemus did to Christ by night § 53. 9. Or if any Ministers or Godly persons warn the sinner the Devil will do what he can that they may be so small a number in comparison of those of the contrary mind that he may tell the sinner Dâ—st thou think these few self-conceited fellows are wiser than such and such and all the country Shall none be saved but such a few precise ones Do any of the Rulers or of the Pharises believe in him But this people that knoweth not the Law are cursed John 7. 48 49. That is as Dr. Hammâ—nd noteth This illiterate multitude are apt to be seduced but the Teachers are wiser § 54. 10. The Devil doth his worst to cause some falling out or difference of interest or opinion between the Preacher or Monitor and the sinner that so he may take him for his Enemy And how unapt men are to receive any advise from an Enemy or Adversary experience will easily convince you § 55. 11. He endeavoureth that powerful preaching may be so rare and the contradiction of wicked cavâ—llers so frequent that the Sermon may be forgotten or the impressions of it blotted out before they can hear another to confirm them and strike the nail home to the head and that the â—â—re may go out before the next opportunity come § 56. 12. He laboureth to keep good books out of the sinners hands or keep him from reading them leâ—t he speed as the Eunuch Acts 8. that was reading the Scripture as he rode in his Chariot on the way And instead of such books he putteth Romances and Play-books and trifling or scorning contradicting writings into his hands § 57. 13. He doth what he can to keep the sinner from intimate acquaintance with any that are truly Godly that he may know them no otherwise than by the image which ignorant or malicious slanderers or scorners do give of such And that he may know Religion it self but by hearsay and never see it exemplified in any holy diligent believers A holy Christian is a living image of God a powerful convincer and teacher of the ungodly And the nearer men come to them the greater excellency they will see and the greater efficacy they will feel Whereas in the Devils army the most must not be seen in the open light and the Hypocrite himself must be seen like a picture but by a side-light and not by a direct § 58. 14. Those means which are used the Devil labours to frustrate 1. By sluggish heedlesness and disregard 2. By prejudice and false opinions which prepossess the mind 3. By diversions of many sorts 4. By pre-ingagements to a contrary interest and way so that Christ comes to late for them 5. By worldly prosperity and delights 6. By ill company 7. And by molesting and frighting the sinner when he doth but take up any purpose to be converted Giving him all content and quietness in sin and raising storms and terrors in his soul when he is about to turn The Methods of Christ against the Tempter § 59. Before I proceed to Satans perticular Temptations I will shew you the contrary Methods of Christ in the conduct of his Army and opposing Satan I. Christs Ends are ultimately the Glory and Pleasing of his Father and himself and the saving of his Church and the
a name above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue should confess that Iesus is Christ to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2. 9 10 11. Pray therefore that the God of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of glory may give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the acknowledgement of him the eyes of your understanding being enlightned that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his right hand in the coelestials fâ—r above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to his Church Eph. 1. 17 c. The Father hath glorified his name in his Son Iohn 12. 28. 13. 31 32. 14. 13. 17. 1. § 6. Direct 4. Behold God as the End of the whole Creation and intend him as the End of all the Direct 4. actions of thy life You honour him not as God if you practically esteem him not as your ultimate end even the Pleasing of his will and the honouring him in the world If any thing else be made your chiefest end you honour it before him and make a God of it § 7. Direct 5. Answer all his blessed attributes with suitable affections as I have directed in my Direct 5. Treatise of the Knowledge of God and here briefly Dir. 4. and his Relations to us with the duty which they command subjection Love c. as I have opened in the foregoing Directions We glorifie him in our hearts when the Image of his Attributes is there received § 8. Direct 6. Behold him by faith as allways present with you And then every Attribute will Direct 6. the more affect you and you will not admit dishonourable thoughts of him Pray to him as if you saw him and you will speak to him with reverence Speak of him as if you saw him and you dare not take his name in vain nor talk of God with a common frame of mind nor in a common manner as of common things By faith Moses forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11. 27. God is contemned by them that think they are behind his back § 9. Direct 7. Think of him as in Heaven where he is revealed in Glory to the blessed and magnified Direct 7. by their high everlasting Praise Nothing so much helpeth us to Glorifie God in our minds as by faith to behold him where he is most Glorious The very reading over the description of the Glory of the New Ierusalem Rev. 21. 22. will much affect a believing mind with a sense of the Gloriousness of God Suppose with Stephen we saw Heaven opened and the ancient of daies the Great Jehovah Gloriously illustrating the City of God and Jesus in Glory at his right hand and the innumerable army of Glorifyed Spirits before his throne Praysing and magnifying him with the highest admirations and joyfullest acclamations that creatures are capable of would it not raise us to some of the same admirations The soul that by faith is much above doth most Glorifie God as being neerest to his Glory § 10. Direct 8. Foresee by faith the coming of Christ and the day of the universal Iudgement when Direct 8. Christ shall come in flaming fire with thousands of his holy Angels to be Glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe 2 Thes. 1. 10. § 11. Direct 9. Abhor all Doctrines which blaspheam or dishonour the name of God and would Direct 9. blemish and hide the Glory of his Majesty I give you this rule for your own preservation and not in imitation of uncharitable firebrands and dividers of the Church to exercise your pride and imperious humour in condemning all men to whose opinions you can maliciously affix a blasphemous consequence which either followeth but in your own imagination or is not acknowledged but hated by those on whom you do affix it Let it suffice you to detest false doctrines without detesting the persons that you imagine guilty of them who profess to believe the contrary truth as stedfastly as you your selves § 12. Direct 10. Take heed of sinking into flesh and earth and being diverted by things sensible from Direct 10. the daily contemplation of the Glory of God If your belly become your God and you mind earthly things and are set upon the honours or profits or pleasures of the world when your conversation should be in Heaven you will be glorying in your shame when you should be admiring the Glory of your Maker Phil. 3. 18 19 20. and you will have so much to do on earth that you will find no leisure because you have no hearts to look up seriously to God Directions for Glorifying God with our tongues in his Praises § 13. Direct 1. Conceive of this duty of Praising God according to its superlative excellencies as being Direct 11. the highest service that the tongue of men or Angels can perform To Bless or Praise or Magnifie How great a duty Praising God is God is not to make him Greater or better or happier than he is but to declare and extol his Greatness Goodness and felicity And that your hearts may be inflamed to this excellent work I will here shew you how great and necessary how high and acceptable a work it is § 14. 1. It is the giving to God his chiefest due A speaking of him as he is And when we have Christianus est homo dicens faciâ—â—â—â—â—â—grata diabolo oâ—nans 〈…〉 am Dâ—â— â—â—â—â—oris vitae à salutis suae Bâ—choâ—â—â—â— spoken the highest how far fall we short of the due expression of his glorious perfections O how great Praise doth that Allmightiness deserve which created and conserveth all the world and over-ruleth all the sons of men and is able to do whatsoever he will Great is the Lord and Greatly to be praised and his Greatness is unsearchable One Generation shall praise his works to another and declare his mighty acts I will speak of the glorious honour of thy Majesty and of thy wondrous works And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts and I will declare thy Greatness Psalm 145. 3 4 5. What Praise doth that knowledge deserve which extendeth to all things that are or were or ever shall be and that wisdom which ordereth all the world He knoweth every thought of man
accordingly our Consent to these particulars must concur in saving faith 84. He therefore that out of self-love accepteth Christ as the Means of his own felicity doth if he know practically what felicity is accept him as a means to bring him to Love God perfectly as God above himself and to be perfectly Pleasing to his Will 85. Yet it is apparent that almost all Gods preparing Grace consisteth in exciting and improving the Natural Principle of self-love in man and manifesting to him that if he will do as one that Loveth himself he must be a Christian and must forsake sin and the inordinate Love of his sensuality and must be Holy and Love God for his own Essential as well as Communicated Goodness And if he do otherwise he will do as one that hateth himself and seeketh in the event his own damnation And could we but get men Rationally to improve true self-love they would be Christians and so be Holy 86. But because this is a great though tender point and it that I have more generally touched in the Case Whether Faith in Christ or Love to God as our End go first and because indeed it is it for which I principally premise the rest of these Propositions I shall presume to venture a little further and more distinctly to tell you how much of Love to God is in our first Justifying faith and how much not and how far the state of such a Believer is a middle state between meer Preparation or common Grace and proper Sanctification or possession of the Holy Ghost And so how far Vocation giving us the first faith and Repentance differeth from Sanctification And the rather because my unriper thoughts and Writings defended Mr. Pemble who made them one in opposition to the stream of our Divines And I conceive that all these following Acts about the point in question are found in every true Believer at his first faith though not distinctly noted by himself 1. The sinner hath an Intellectual notice that there is a God for an Atheist is not a believer and so that this God is the First and Last the best of beings the Maker Owner Ruler and Benefactor of the world the just end of all created being and actions and to be Loved and Pleased above our selves For all this is but to believe that there is a God 2. He is convinced that his own chief Felicity lyeth not in temporary or carnal pleasure but in the Perfect Knowing Loving and Pleasing this God above himself For if he know not what true salvation and felicity is he cannot desire or accept it 3. He knoweth that hitherto he hath been without this Love and this felicity 4. He desireth to be Happy and to escape everlasting misery 5. He repenteth that is is sorry that he hath not all this while Loved God as God and sought felicity therein 6. He is willing and desirous for the time to come to Love God as God above himself and to Please him before himself that is to have a heart disposed to do it 7. He findeth that he cannot do it of himself nor with his old carnal indisposed heart 8. He believeth that Christ by his Doctrine and Spirit is the appointed Saviour to bring him to it 9. He gladly consenteth that Christ shall be such a Saviour to him and shall not only justifie him from guilt and save him from sensible punishment but also thus bring him to the Perfect Love of God 10. He had rather Christ would bring him to this by sanctification than to enjoy all the pleasures of sin for a season yea or to have a perpetual sensitive felicity without this perfect Love to God and Pleasing of him 11. God being declared to him in Jesus Christ a God of Love forgiving sin and conditionally giving pardon and life to his very Enemies as he is hence the easilier Loved with Thankfulness for-our selves so the Goodness of his Nature in himself is hereby insinuated and notified with some secret complacency to the soul. He is sure Good that is so merciful and ready to do Good and that so wonderfully as in Christ is manifested 12. So that as Baptism which is but explicite Justifying faith or the expression of it in covenanting with God is our Dedication by Vow to all the Three Persons to God the Father as well as to the Son and Holy Ghost so faith it self is such an Heart-dedication 13. Herein I dedicate my self to God as God to be Glorified and Pleased in my Justification Sanctification and Glorification that is in my Reception of the fruits of his Love and in my Loving him above all as God or to be Pleased in me and I in him for ever 14. In all this the understanding acknowledgeth God to be God by Assent and to be Loved above my self and the Will desireth so to Love him But the object of the Will here directly is its own future Disposition and Act It doth not say I do already Love God as God above my self but only I would so Love him and I would be so changed as may dispose me so to Love him I acknowledge that I should so love him and that I do Love him for his mercies to my self and others Nor can it be said that Volo Velle or Volo amare a desire to Love God as such is direct Love to God Because it is not all one to have God to be the object of my Will and to have my own Act of Willing or Loving to be the object of it And because that a man may for other ends as for meer fear of Hell Will to Will or Love that which yet he doth not Will or Love at least for it self 15. In this case above all others it is manifest that every conviction of the understanding doth not accordingly determine the Will For in this new convert the understanding saith plainly God is to be Loved as God above my self But the Will saith I cannot do it though I would I am so captivated by self-love and so void of the true Love of God that I can say no more but that Propter me vellem amare Deum propter se I love my own felicity so well that I love God as my felicity and Love him under the notion of God the perfect Good who is infinitely better than my self and desire a heart to Love him more than my self but I cannot say that I yet do it or that I love him best or most whom I acknowledge to be best and as such to be loved 16. Yet in all this there is not only semen amoris a seed of divine love to God as God but the foundation of it laid and some obscure secret conception of it beginning or in fieri in the soul. For while the understanding confesseth God to be most Amiable and the Will desireth that felicity which doth consist in loving him above my self and experience telleth me that he is Good to me and
called A Saint or a â—â—â—â—it certainly are possessed by nobler inhabitants He that seeth every corner of earth and sea and air inhabited and thinks what earth is in comparison of all the great and glorious Orbes above it will hardly once dream that they are all void of inhabitants or that there is not room enough for souls § 27. Direct 24. The ministry of Angels of which particular providences give us a great probability Direct 24. doth give some help to that doctrine which telleth us that we must live with Angels and that we shall ascend to more familiarity with them who condeâ—cend to so great service now for us § 28. Direct 25. The universal wonderful implacable enmity of corrupted man to the holy doctrine Direct 25. and waies and servants of Christ and the open war which in every Kingdom and the secret war which in every heart is kept up between Christ and Satan through the world with the tendency of every temptation their violence constancie in all ages to all persons all making against Christ and Heaven and Holiness do notoriously declare that the Christian doctrine and life do tend to our salvation which the Devil so maliciously and uncessantly opposeth And thus his Temptations give great advantage to the tempted soul against the Tempter For it is not for nothing that the enemy of our souls makes so much opposition And that there is such a Devil that thus opposeth Christ and tempteth us not only sensible Apparitions and Witch-crafts prove but the too sensible temptations which by their Matter and Manner plainly tell us whence they come Especially when all the world is formed as into two hostile Armies the one fighting under Christ and the other under the Devil and so have continued since â—â—in and Abel to this day § 29. Direct 26. The prophecies of Christ himself of the destruction of Jerusalem and the gathering of his Church and the cruel usage of it through the world do give great assistance to our faith when we see them all so punctually fulfilled § 30. Direct 27. Mark whether it be not a respect to things temporal that assaulteth thy Belief and Direct 27. câ—me not with a byassed sensual mind to search into so great a mysterie Worldliness and pride and sensuality are deadly enemies to faith and where they prevail they will shew their enmity and blind the mind If the soul be sunk into mud and filth it cannot see the things of God § 31. Direct 28. Come with humility and a sense of your ignorance and not with arrogance and Direct 28. self-conceit as if all must needs be wrong that your empty foolish minds cannot presently perceive to be right The famousest Apostates that ever I knew were all men of notorious Pride and self-conceitedness § 32. Direct 29. Provoke not God by willful sinning against the Light which thou hast allready received Direct 29. to forsake thee and give thee over to infidelity 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. Because men receive not the Lâ—ve of the truth that they might be saved for this cause God sends them strong delusions to believe a lie that they all might â—e damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Obey Christs doctrine so far as you know it and you shall fullier know it to be of God Iohn 7. 17. 10. 4. § 33. Direct 30. Tempt not your selves to Infidelity by pretended Humility in abâ—sing your Natural Direct 30. facultiâ—s when you should be humbled for your moral pravity Vilifying the soul and its Reason and Natural Freewill doth tend to Infidelity by making us think that we are but as other inferiour animals uncapable of a life above with God When as self-abâ—sing because of the corruption of Reason and Free-will doth tend to shew us the need of a Physiciâ—n and so assist our faith in Christ. § 34. Direct 31. Iudge not of so great a thing by sudden apprehensions or the surprize of a temptatiâ—n Direct 31. when you have not leisure to look up all the evidences of faith and lay them together and take a full deliberate view of all the cause It is a mystery so great as requireth a clear and vacant mind delivered from prejudice abstracted from diverting and deceiving things which upon the best assistance and with the greatest diligence must lay all together to discern the truth And if upon the best assistance and consideration you have been convinced of the truth and then will let every sudden thought or temptation or difficulty seem enough to question all again this is unfaithfulness to the truth and the way to resist the clearest evidences and never to have done It is like as if you should answer your adversary in the Court when your witnesses are all dismist or out of the way and all your evidences are absent and perhaps your Counsellor and Advocate too It is like the casting up of a long and intricate account which a man hath finished by study and time and when he hath done all one questioneth this particular and another that when his accounts are absent It is not fit for him to answer all particulars nor question his own accounts till he have as full opportunity and help to cast up all again § 35. Direct 32. If the work seem too hard for you go and consult with the wisest most experienced Christians Direct 32. who can easily answer the difficulties which most pâ—rplex and tempt you Modesty will tell you that the advantage of study and experience may make every one wisest in his own profession and set others above you while you have lâ—ss of these § 36. Direct 33. Remember that Christianity being the surest way to secure your eternal hopes and Direct 33. the matters of this life which cause men to forsake it being such transitory â—â—ifles you can be no losers by it and therefore if you doubted yet you might be sure that its the safest way § 37. Direct 34. Iudge not of so great a cause in a time of Melanâ—holy when fears and confusions Direct 34. make you unfit But in such a case as that as also when ever Satan would disturb your setled faith or tempt you at his pleasure to be still new questioning resolved cases and discerned truths abhor his suggestions and give them no entertainment in your thoughts but cast them back into the Tempters face There is not one Melancholy person of a multitude but is violently assaulted with temptations to blasphemy and unbelief when they have but half the use of Reason and no composedness of mind to debate such controversies with the Devil It is not fit for them in this incapacity to hearken to any of those suggestions which draw them to dispute the foundations of their faith but to cast them away with resolute abhorrence Nor should any Christian that is soundly setled on the true foundation gratifie the Devil so much as to dispute with
him when ever he provoketh us to it but only endeavour to strengthen our Faith and destroy the remnants of unbelief § 38. Direct 35. Remember that Christ doth propagate his Religion conjunctly by his spirit and his Direct 35. word and effecteth himself the faith which he commandeth For though there be sufficient evidence of credibility in his word yet the blinded Mind and corrupt perverted hearts of men do need the cure of his medicinal Grace before they will effectually and savingly believe a doctrine which is so holy high and heavenly and doth so much control their lusts See therefore that you distrust your corrupted hearts and earnestly beg the Spirit of Christ. § 39. Direct 36. Labour earnestly for the Love of every Truth which you believe and to feel the Direct 36. renewing power of it upon your hearts and the reforming power on your lives especially that you may be advanced to the Love of God and to a Heavenly mind and life And this will be a most excellent help against all temptations to unbelief For the Heart holdeth the Gospel much faster than the Head alone The seed that is cast into the earth if it quicken and take root is best preserved and the dâ—eper rooted the surer it abideth but if it die it perisheth and is gone When the seed of the holy word hath produced the new creature it is sure and safe But when it is retained only in the brain as a dead Opinion every temptation can overturn it It is an excellent advantage that the serious practical Christian hath above all hypocrites and unsanctified men Love will hold faster than dead belief Love is the Grace that abideth for ever and that is the enduring faith which works by Love The experienced Christian hath felt so much of the power and Goodness oâ— the wâ—rd that if you puzzle his head with subtile reasonings against it yet his heart and experience will not suffer him to let it go He hath taâ—ted it so sweet that he will not Believe it to be bitter though he cannot answer all that is said against it If another would perswade you to believe ill of your dearest friend or Father Love and experience would better preserve you from his deceit than reasoning would do The new creature or new nature in believers and the experience of Gods Love communicated by Jesus Christ unto their souls are constant witnesses to the word of God He that believeth hath the witness in himself that is The Holy Ghost which was given him which is an objective testimony or an evidence and an effective Of this see my Treat of Infidelity Unsanctified men may be 〈◊〉 turned to Infidelity For they never felt the renewed quickning work of faith nor were â—vâ—â— brought by it to the Love of God and a holy and heavenly mind and â—iâ—â— They that never were Christians at the Heart are soonest turned from being Christians in opinion and name Quest. BY what Reason evidence or obligation were the Iews bound to believe the Prophets Seing Isaiah Jeremy Ezekiel c. wrought no miracles and there were false Prophets in their daies How then câ—uld any man know that indeed they were sent of God when they nakedly affirmed it Answ. I mention this objection or case because in my book of the Reas. of Christian Religion to which for all the rest I refer the Reader it is forgotten And because it is one of the hardest questions about our faith 1. Those that think that every book of Scripture doth now prove it self to be Divine propâ—ia luce by its own matter stile and other properties will accordingly say that by Hearing the Prophets then as well as by Reading them now this intrinsick satisfactory evidence was discâ—â—nable All that I can say of this is that there are such Characters in the Prophecies as are a help to faith as making it the more easily credible that they are of God but not such as I could have been ascertained by especially as delivered by parcels then if there had been no more 2. Nor do I acquiâ—sce in their answer who say that Those that have the same spirit know the stile of the spirit in the Prophets For 1. This would suppose none capable of believing them groundedly that had not the same spirit 2. And the spirit of sanctification is not enough to our discerning Prophetical inspirations as reason and experience fully proveth The guist of discerning spirits 1 Cor. 12. 10. was not common to all the sanctified 3. It is much to be observed that God never sent any Prophet to make a Law or Covenant on which the salvation of the people did depend without the attestation of unquestionable Miracles Moses wrought numerous open miracles and such as controlled and confuted the contradictors seeming Miracles in Egypt And Christ and his Apostles wrought more than Moses So that these Laws and Covenants by which God would rule and judge the people were all confirmed beyond all just exception 4. It must be noted that many other Prophets also wrought Miracles to confirm their doctrine and prove that they were sent of God as did Elias and Elisha 5. It must be noted that there were Schools of Prophets or Societies of them in those times 1 Sam. 10. 10. 19. 20. 1 Kings 20. 35 41. 22. 13. 2 Kings 2. 3 5 7 15. 4. 1 38. 5. 22. 6. 1. 9. 1. 1 Cor. 14. 32. Who were educated in such a way as fiâ—ted them to the reception of prophetical inspirations when it pleased God to give them Not that meer education made any one a Prophet nor that the Prophets had at all times the present actual guiâ—t of prophesie But God was pleased so far to own mens commanded diligence as to joyn his blessing to a meet education and at such times as he thought meet to illuminate such by Visions and revelations above all others And therefore it is spoken of Amos as a thing extraordinary that he was made a Prophet of a herdsman 6. Therefore a Prophet among the Jews was known to be such usually before these Recorded Prophecies of theirs which we have now in the Holy Scriptures 1. The spirits of the Prophets which are subject to the Prophets were judged of by those Prophets that had indeed the Spirit And so the people had the testimony of the other Prophets concerning them 2. The Lords own direction to know a true Prophet by Deut. 18. 22. is the coming to pass of that which he foretelleth Now it is like that before they were received into the number of Prophets they had given satisfaction to the societies of the Prophets by the events of things before foretold by them 3. Or they might have wrought miracles before to have satisfied the members of the Colledge of their calling though these Miracles are not all mentioned in the Scripture 4. Or the other Prophets might have some Divine testimony concerning them by visions revelations or
are Christians but it is with a Mock-Christianity while their souls are strange to the true esteem and use of Christ. They are Believers but with a mock belief described Iames 2. They believe God should be loved above all but they love him not They believe that Holiness is better than all the pleasures of sin yet they choose it not but hate it They are Religious with a seeming vain Religion which will not so much as humble them nor bâ—idle their tongues Iam. 1. 26 They are wise with a mock-wisdom They are wise enough to prove their sins to be all lawfull or but venial sins And wise enough to cast away the Medicine that would â—eal them and to confuâ—e the Physicion and to answer the learnedst Preacher of them all and to scapâ— salvation and to secure themselves a place in Hell and keep themselves ignorant of it till they are there They are converted but with a mock-conversion which leaveth them as carnal and proud and worldly as before being born of Water but not of the Spirit and being sensual still Iohn 3. 5 6. Iude 19. They Repent but with a mock-repentance They Repent but they will not leave their sin nor confess and bewail it but hate reproof and excuse their sin They are Honest but with a mock honesty Though they swear and curse and rail and slander and backbite and scorn at piety it self yet they mean well and have honest hearts Though they receive not the Word with deep roâ—â—ing in their hearts but are abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate they are honest for all that â—uâ—e 8. 15. Tit. 1. 16. They Love God above all though they love not to think or speak of him seriously but hate his Holiness and Justice his Word and holy wayes and servants and are such as the Scripture calleth hâ—ters of God and keep nor his Commandments nor live not to his glory 〈…〉 â—5 4 6 â— 8 20 â— 3. Matâ—h 10 37. They Love the servants of God but they care not if the world were rid of them all and take them to be but a company of self conceited troublesome fellows and as very hypocrites as themselves And the poor Christians that are cruelly used by them think they are neither in good sadness nor in â—east when they profess to love the worshippers of God They love not their money nor lands noâ— lusts with such a kind of love I am sure They have also alwayes good desires but they are such mock-desires as those in Iames 2. 15. that wished the poor were sed and clothed and warmed but gave them nothing towards it And such good desires as the sluggard hath that lyeth in bed and wisheth that all his work were done Prov. 21. 25. The desire of the sluggard killeth him because his hands refuse to labour They pray but with mock-prayers you would little think that they are speaking to the most holy God for no less than the saving of their souls when they are more serious in their very games and sports They pray for grace but they cannot abide it They pray for Holiness but they are resolved they 'll have none of it They pray against their sin but no entreaty can perswade them from it They would have a Mock-ministry a Mock-discipline a Mock-Church a Mock-Sacrament as they make a Mock-profession and give God but a Mock-obedience as I might shew you through all the particulars but for being tedious And all is because they have but a Mock-faith They believe not that God is in good earnest with them in his commands and threatnings and fore-telling of his judgements As Lâ—t to his Sons-in-law Gen. 19. 14. He seemeâ—â— to them as one that mocked and therefore they serve him as those that would mock him O wretched hypocrites Is this agreeable to your holy profession You call your selves Christians and profess to believe the doctrine of Christ Is this agreeable to Christianity to your Creed to the ten Commandments to the Lords Prayer and to the rest of the Word of God Had you none but The similitude of â—uperstition to Religion maketh â—t the more dâ—â—ormed And as who som meat corrupteth into little Worms so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of pâ—tty observances Lord Bacon Essay of Supeâ—st the holy Jealous God to make a mock of Had you nothing less than Religion and matters of salvation and damnation to play with Do you serve God as if he were a child or an Idol or a man of straw that either knoweth not your hearts or is pleased with toyes and complements and shews and saying over certain words or acting a part before him as on a stage Do you know what you offer and to whom His Power is Omnipotency his Glory is ten thousand fold above that of the Sun his Wisdom is infinite Millions of Angels adore him continually He is thy King and Judge he abhorreth hypocrites If thou didst but see one glimpse of his glory or the meanest of his Angels the sight would awake thee from thy dreaming and dallying and frighten thee from thy canting and trifling into a serious regard of God and thy everlasting sâ—ate Mal. 1. 8. Offer this now to thy Governour Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hâ—sts If your servants set before you upon your Table the Feathers instead of the Fowl and the Hair and Wooll instead of the Flesh and the Scales instead of the Fish would you not think they rather mockt than served you How dear have some paid even in this life for mocking God Let the case of Aarons Sons Lev. 10. 1 2 3. and of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5. inform you If with the big-tree Matth. 21. 19. you offer God Leaves only instead of fruit you are nigh unto cursing and your end is to be burnt Do you not read what he saith to the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3. 15 16. I would thou were cold or hot Because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of my mouth that is either be an open Infidel or a holy downright zealous Christian But because thou callest thy self a Christian and hast not the life or zeal of a Christian but coverest thy wickedness and carnality with that holy name I will cast thee away as an abominable vomit It would make the heart of a believer ake to think of the Hypocrisie of most that usurp the name of Christians and how cruelly they mock themselves What a glory is offered them and they lose it by their dallying What a price is in their hands What mercy is offered them and they lose it by their dallying What danger is before them and they will fall into it by their dallying Doth not the weight of your salvation forbid this trifling You might better set the Town on fire and make a jeast of it than jeast your souls into the fire of Hell Then you
the appetite The first the Appetite it self was in innocency and is yet no sin But the other two the violence of it and the obeying it were not in innocency and are both sinful § 18. Object 4. But why would God give innocent man an Appetite that must be crost by Reason and that desired that which Reason must forbid Answ. The sensitive nature is in order of generation before the Rational And Reason and Gods Laws do not make sense to be no sense You may as well ask why God would make Beasts which must be restrained and ruled by men and therefore have a desire to that which man must restrain them from You do but ask Why God made us men and not Angels Why he placed our souls in flesh He oweth you no account of his creation But you may see its meet that Obedience should have some tryal by difficulties and opposition before it have its commendation and reward He gave you a Body that was subject to the soul as the Horse unto the rider and you should admire his Wisdom and thank him for the governing-power of Reason and not murmur at him because the Horse will not go as well without the guidance of the rider or because he maketh you not able to go as fast and well on foot So much for the Sensualists Objections § 19. V. The signs of a Flesh-pleaser or Sensualist are these which may be gathered from what Signs of Sensuality is said already 1. When a man in desire to please his appetite referreth it not actually or habitually to a higher end viz. the fitting himself to the service of God but sticketh only in the delight 2. When he looks more desirously and industriously after the prosperity of his Body than of his Soul 3. When he will not part with or forbear his pleasures when God forbiddeth them or when they hurt his soul or when the necessities of his soul do call him more lowdly another way But he must have his delight whatever it cost him and is so set upon it that he cannot deny it to himself 4. When the pleasures of his flesh exceed his delights in God and his holy Word and Wayes and the fore-thoughts of endless pleasure and this not only in the passion but in the estimation choice and prosecution When he had rather be at a Play or Feast or Gaming or getting good bargains or profits in the world than to live in the life of faith and love a holy and heavenly conversation 5. When men set their minds to contrive and study to make provision for the pleasures of the flesh and this is first and sweetest in their thoughts 6. When they had rather talk or hear or read of fleshly pleasures than of spiritual and heavenly delights 7. When they love the company of merry sensualists better than the Communion of Saints in which they may be exercised in the praises of their Maker 8. When they account that the best calling and condition and place for them to live in where they have the pleasure of the flesh where they have ease and fare well and want nothing for the body rather than that where they have far better help and provision for the soul though the flesh be pinched for it 9. When he will be at more cost to please his flesh than to please God 10. When he will believe or like no Doctrine but Libertinism and hateth mortification as too strict preciseness By these and such other signs sensuality may easily be known Yea by the main bent of the life § 20 VI. Many flesh-pleasers flatter themselves with better titles being deceived by such means as Counterfeits of Mortification these 1. Because they are against the doctrine of Libertinism and hold as strict opinions as any But flesh-pleasing may stand with the doctrine of mortification and the strictest opinions as long as they are not put in practice 2. Because they live not in any gross disgraced vice They go not to Stage-playes or unseasonably to Ale-houses or Taverns they are not drunken nor gamesters nor spend not their hours in unnecessary recreations or pastimes They are no fornicators nor wallow in wealth But the flesh may be pleased and served in a way that hath no disgrace accompanying it in the world May not a man make his ease or his prosperity or the pleasing of his appetite without any infamous excesses to be as much his felicity and highest end and that which practically he taketh for his Best as well as if he did it in a shameful way Is not many a man a gluttonous flesh-pleaser that maketh his delight the highest end of all his eating and drinking and pleaseth his appetite without any restraint but what his health and reputation put upon him though he eat not till he vomit or be sick Even the flesh it self may forbid a sensualist to be drunk or to eat till he be sick For sickness and shame are displeasing to the flesh Many a man covereth a life of sensuality not only with a seeming temperance unreproved of men but also with a seeming strictness and austerity But conscience might tell them where they have their good things Luke 16. 25. 3. Some think they are no sensual flesh-pleasers because they live in constant misery in poverty and want labouring hard for their daily bread and therefore they hope that they are the Lazarus's that have their sufferings here But is not all this against thy Will Wouldst thou not fare as well as the rich and live as idly and take thy pleasure if thou hadst as much as they What thou wouldst do that thou dost in Gods account It is thy will that thou shalt be judged by A Thief doth not become a true man when the Prison or Stocks do hinder him from stealing but when a changed heart doth hinder him 4. Others think that they are no flesh-pleasers because their wealth and places and degrees of honour allow them to live high in dyet and delights It s like the Rich man Luke 16. who was clothed with purple and fine linnen and fared sumptuously every day did live upon his own and as he thought agreeably to his rank and place And the fool Luke 12. 19 20. that said Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry did intend to please himself but with his own which God had given him as a blessing on his land and labour But no mans Riches allow him to be voluptuous The commands of taming and mortifying the flesh and not living after it nor making provision for it to satisfie it lusts belong as much to the rich as to the poor Though you are not to live in the same garb with the poor you are as much bound to mortification and self-denyal as the poorest If you are Richer than others you have more to serve God with but not more than others to serve the flesh with If poverty deny them any thing which might better enable
is the inherent evidence 3. The miracles of the spirit is the concomitant attestation or evidence 4. And the sanctifying work of the spirit is the subsequent attestation renewed and accompanying it to the end of the World So that the Argument runs thus That doctrine which hath this witness of the Holy Ghost antecedently in such prophecies inherently bearing his image so unimitably accompanyed by so many certain uncontrouled miracles and followed and attended with such matchless success in the sanctification of the body of Christ is fully attested by God to be his own But such is the ☞ doctrine of the Gospel Therefore c. The Major you are not to take upon trust from your Teachers though your esteem of their judgement may the better dispose you to learn But you are to discern the evidences of truth which is apparent in it For he that denyeth this must by force of argument be driven to deny 1. Either that God is the Governour of the World or that he is the supream but say he is controuled by another 3. Or that he is Good and True and must affirm that he either Governeth the world by meer deceits and undiscernable lyes or that he hath given up the power to some one that so governeth it All which is but to affirm that there is no God which is supposed to be proved before § 25. 8. There now remaineth nothing to be taught you as to prove the truth of the Gospel 8. To know the matters of fact subservient to our â—aâ—â—â—â— but only those matters of fact which are contained and supposed in the Minor of the two last arguments And they are these particulars 1. That there were such persons as Christ and his Apostles and such a Gospel Preached by them 2. That such Miracles were done by them as are supposed ☞ 3. That both Doctrine and Miracles were committed to writing by them in the Scriptures for the Est enim mirabilâ—â— quâ—dam continuatio seriesque rerum ut alia ex alia nexa omnes inter se aptae colligataeque videantur Ciâ— dâ— Natur. deor pag. 6. certainer preserving them to the Churches use 4. That Churches were planted and souls converted and confirmed by them in the first ages many of whom did seal them with their blood 5. That there have been a succession of such Churches as have adhered to this Christ and Gospel 6. That this which we call the Bible is that very Book containing those sacred Writings fore-mentioned 7. That it hath been still copyed out and preserved without any such depravation or corruption as might frustrate its ends 8. That the Copies are such out of which we have them Translated and which we shew 9. That they are so truly translated as to have no such corruptions or mistakes as to frustrate their ends or make them unapt for the work they were appointed to 10. That these particular words are indeed here written which we read and these particular Doctrines containing the Essentials of Christianity together with the rest of the material objects of faith § 26. All these ten particulars are matters of fact that are meerly subservient to the constitutingprinciples of our faith but yet very needful to be known Now the question is How these must be known and received by us so as not to invalidate our faith And how far our Teachers must be here believed And first it is very useful to us to enquire How so many of these matters of fact as were then existent were known to the first Christians As How knew they in those dayes that there were such persons as Christ and his Apostles that they preached such Doctrines and spake such Languages and did such Works and that they wrote such Books and sent such Epistles to the Churches and that Churches were hereby converted and confirmed and Martyrs sealed this with their blood c. It s easie to tell how they were certain of all these Even by their own eyes and ears and sensible observation as we know that there are Englishmen live in England And those that were remoter from some of the matters of fact knew them by such report of those that did see them as those among us that never saw the King or Court or his Restoration do know that such a thing there was and such a person there is Thus they knew it then § 27. From whence I note 1. That in those dayes it was not necessary to the being of true faith that any supernatural testimony of the Spirit or any other sort of proof than their very senses and reason should acquaint them with those matters of fact which they were eye-witnesses of 2. That credible report or history was then the means for any one that saw not a matter of fact to know as much as they that saw it 3. That therefore this is now the way also of producing faith Some things we have yet sight and sense for as that such Bibles and such Churches are existent that such holy effects this Doctrine hath upon the soul which we see in others by the fruits and after feel in our selves The rest we must know by History Tradition or Report § 28. And in the reception of these historical passages note further 1. That humane belief is here a naturally necessary means to acquaint us with the matter of our Divine belief 2. That there are various By all this it is easie to gather whether a Pastor may do his work per alium Saith Grotius de Imâ— p. 290 291. Nam illud Quod quis per alium facit per se facere videtur ad eas duntaxat pertinet actiones quarum causa efficiens proxima à jure indefinita est Yet people should labour after such maturity and stedfastness that they may be able to stand if their Pastors be dead or taken from them by persecution yea or forsake the truth themselves Victor Uâ—iâ— saith of the people in Africk when their Pastors were banished and others might not be ordained in their steads Inter haec tamen Dei populus in fide consistens ut examina apum cereas aedificantia manâ—iones crescendo melleis fidei claviculis firmabatur Quanto magis affligebantur tanto magis multiplicabantur Victor p. 382. degrees of this belief and some need more of it by far than others according to the various degrees of their ignorance As he that cannot read himself must know by humane belief in great part that the Preacher readeth truly or that such words indeed are in the Gospel as he saith are there But a literate person may know this by his eye sight and not take it upon trust So he that understandeth not Hebrew and Greek must take it upon trust that the Scripture is truly translated But another that understandeth those Tongues may see it with his eyes 3. History being the proper means to know matters of fact that are done in times past and out of our
sight the same industry that is necessary to a thorough acquaintance with other History is necessary to the same acquaintance with this 4. That the common beginning of receiving all such historical truths is first by Believing our Teachers so far as becometh Learners and in the mean time going on to Learn till we come to know as much as they and upon the same historical Evidence as they 5. That if any man be here necessitated to take more than others upon the trust or belief of their Teachers it is long of their Ignorance and therefore if such cry out against their taking things on trust it is like a mad mans raving against them that would order him or as if one should reproach a Nurse for feeding Infants and not letting them feed themselves Oportet discentem credere He that will not believe his Teacher will never learn If a Child will not believe his Master that tells him which are the Letters the Vowels and Consonants and what is their power and what they spell and what every word signifieth in the Language which he is teaching him will he be ever the better for his teaching 6. That he that knoweth these historical matters no otherwise than by the belief of his particular Teacher may nevertheless have a Divine and saving faith For though he believe by a humane faith that these things were done that this is the same Book c. yet he believeth the Gospel it self thus brought to his knowledge because God is true that hath attested it Even as it was a saving faith in Mary and Martha that knew by their eyes and ears and not only by Belief that Lazarus was raised and that Christ preached thus and thus to them but believed his Doctrine to be true because of Gods Veracity who attested it 7. That it is the great wisdom and mercy of God to his weak and ignorant people to provide them Teachers to acquaint them with these things and to â—ou chsafe them such a help to their salvation as to make it a standing Office in his Church to the end of the world that the Infants and ignorant might not be cast off but have Fathers and Nurses and Teachers to take care of them 8. But specially mark that yet these Infants have much disadvantage in comparison of others that know all these matters of fact by the same convincing evidence as their Teachers And that he that followeth on to learn it as he ought may come to prove these subservient matters of fact by such a concurrence of evidences as amounteth to an infalibility or moral certainty beyond meer humane faith as such As e. g. an illiterate person that hath it but from others may be certain that it is indeed a Bible which is ordinarily read and preached to him and that it is so truly translated as to be a sufficient Rule of faith and life having no mistake which must hazard a mans salvation Because the Bible in the Original tongues is so commonly to be had and so many among us understand it and there is among them so great a contrariety of judgements and interests that it is not possible but many would detect such a publick lye if any should deal falsly in so weighty and evident a case There is a Moral certainty equal to a Natural that some actions will not be done by whole Countreys which every individual person hath power and natural liberty to do As e. g. there is no man in the Kingdom but may possibly kill himself or may fast to morrow or may lye in bed many dayes together And yet it is certain that all the people in England will do none of these So it is possible that any single person may lye even in a palpable publick case as to pretend that this is a Bible when it is some other Book or that this is the same Book that was received from the Apostles by the Churches of that age when it is not it c. But for all the Countrey and all the world that are competent witnesses to agree to do this is a meer impossibility I mean such a thing as cannot be done without a Miracle yea an universal Miracle And more than so it is impossible that God should do a Miracle to accomplish such an universal wickedness and deceit whereas it is possible that natural causes by a Miracle may be turned out of course where there is nothing in the nature of God against it as that the Son should stand still c. We have a certainty that there was a Iulius Caesar a William the Conquerour an Aristotle a Cicero an Augustine a Chrysostome and that the Laws and Statures of the Land were really enacted by the Kings and Parliaments whose names they bear because the Natural and Civil interestâ— of so many thousands that are able to detect it could never be reconciled here to a deceit When Judges and Counsellors Kings and Nobles and Plaintiffs and Defendants utter enemies are all agreed in it it is more certain to a single person than if he had seen the passing of them with his eyes So in our case when an Office was stablished in the Church to read and preach this Gospel in the Assemblies and when all the Congregations took it as the Charter of their salvation and the Rule of their faith and life and when these Pastors and Churches were dispersed over all the Christian world who thus worshipped God from day to day and all Sects and enemies were ready to have detected a falsification or deceit it is here as impossible for such a Kind of History or Tradition or testimony to be false in such material points of fact as for one mans senses to deceive him and much more § 29. Thus I have at once shewed you the true order of the Preaching and proofs and receiving of the several matters of Religion and how and into what our Faith must be resolved and how far your Teachers are to be Believed And here you must specially observe two things 1. That there can be no danger in this Resolution of faith of derogating either from the work of the Holy Ghost or the Scriptures self-evidence or any other cause what ever Because we ascribe nothing to History or Tradition which was ascribed to any of these causes by the first Christians but only put our Reception by Tradition instead of their Reception immediately by sense Our receiving by infallible history is but in the place of their receiving by sight and not in the place of the self-evidence of Scripture or any testimony or teaching of the Spirit The method is exactly laid down Heb. 2. 3 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also â—earing them witness both with signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will
those doctrines against which no Minister shall be allowed to preach and according to which he is to instruct the people 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or forreign Churches in an heterodox contentious and suspicious age how we understand the Scriptures for the Confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions and the maintaining Communion in Faith and Charity and Doctrine Quest. 144. May not the Subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the foresaid ends without Creeds Catechisms or Confessions Answ. BY Subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either Generally and Implicitly that All in them is True and Good though perhaps you know not what is in it Or else particularly and explicitly that every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true In the first sense it is not sufficient to salvation For this Implicite faith hath really no act in it but a Belief that all that God faith is true which is only the formal object of faith and is no more than to believe that there is a God for a Lyar is not a God And this he may do who never believed in Christ or a word of Scripture as not taking it to be Gods Word yea that will not believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life Infidels ordinarily go thus far In the second sense of an explicite or particular Actual belief the belief of the whole Scriture is enough indeed and more than any man living can attain to No man understandeth all the Scripture Therefore that which no man hath is not to be exacted of all men or any man in order to Ministration or Communion While 1. No man can subscribe to any one Translation of the Bible that it is not faulty being the work of defectible man 2. And few have such acquaintance with the Hâ—brew and Chaldee and Greek as to be able to say that they understand the Original Languages perfectly 2. And no man that understands the words doth perfectly understand the matter It followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all things in the Scriptures as particularly understood by him with an Explicite faith And an Implicite is not half enough 2. The true Mean therefore is the antient way 1. To select the Essentials for all Christians to be believed particularly and explicitely 2. To Collect certain of the most needful Integrals which Teachers shall not preach against 3. And for all men moreover to profess in General that they implicitely believe all which they can discern to be the holy Canonical Scripture and that all is true which is the Word of God Forbearing each other even about the number of Canonical Books and Texts And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God which hath so ordered it that the Scripture shall 1 Cor. 8. 1 2. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 Cor. 8. 3. Rom. 8. 28. have enough to exercise the strongest and yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand sentences without danger of damnation so they do but understand the Marrow or Essentials and labour faithfully to increase in the knowledge of the rest Quest. 145. May not a man be saved that believeth all the Essentials of Religion as Coming to him by Verbal Tradition and not as contained in the holy Scriptures which perhaps he never knew Answ. 1. HE that believeth shall be saved which way ever he cometh by his belief So be it it be sound as to the object and act that is If it contain all the Essentials and they be predominantly Believed Loved and practised 2. The Scriptures being the Records of Christs Doctrine delivered by Himself his Spirit and his Apostles it is the Office of Ministers and the duty of all Instructers to open these Scriptures to those they teach and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these Inspired sealed Records which contain them 3. They that thus receive particular truths from a Teacher explaining the Scripture to them do receive them in a subordination to the Scripture Materially and as to the Teachers part though not formally and as to their own part And though the Scripture authority being not understood by them be not the formal object of their faith but only Gods authority in general 4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture have a great disadvantage to their faith 5. Yet we cannot say but it may be the case of thousands to be saved by the Gospel delivered by Tradition without resolving their faith into the authority of the Scriptures For 1. This was the case of all the Christians as to the New Testament who lived before it was written And there are several Articles of the Creed now necessary which the Old Testament doth not reveal Matth. 16. 16. Rom. 10. 9 10 13 14 15. 2. This may be the case of thousands in Ignorant Countreys where the Bible being rare is to most unknown 3. This may be the case of thousands of Children who are taught their Creed and Catechism before they understand what the Bible is 4. This may be the case of thousands among the Papists where some perverse Priests do keep not only the Reading but the Knowledge of the Scriptures from the people for fear lest they should be taught to resolve their faith into it and do teach them only the Articles of Faith and Catechism as known by the Churches tradition alone Quest. 146. Is the Scripture fit for all Christians to read being so obscure Answ. 1. THe Essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain 2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it and meditate John 5. 39. Psalm 1. 2. Deut. 6. 11. Psal. 19. 7 8 9 10 11. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Psal. 119. 98 105. 133. 148. Acts 17. 11. Acts 8. in it day and night to search it to teach it our very children speaking of it at home and abroad lying down and rising up and to write it on the posts of our houses and on our doors c. 3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest to give light to the simple and to make the very foolish wise 4. The antient Fathers and Christians were all of this mind 5. All the Christian Churches of the world have been used to Read it openly to all even to the simplest And if they may Hear it they may Read the same words which they hear 6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian Eunuch when he found him Reading the Scriptures though he knew not the sense of what he read and sent him Philip to instruct him and convert him 7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his childhood 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 15. 4. Mat. 12. 24. 8. That which is written to and for all men may be read by all that can But the Scripture was written to and for all c. Object But there are many things in it hard to be understood Answ.
consciences and obey their God while they do no hurt to any others If they had deserved execution an ingenuous nature would not be forward to be their executioner Much more when they deserve encouragement and imitation It is no honour to be numbered with blood-thirsty men § 15. 8. It is a sin that hath so little of commodity honour or pleasure to invite men to it that maketh it utterly without excuse and sheweth that the serpentine nature is the cause Gen. 3. 15. What get men by shedding the blood of innocents or silencing the faithful Preachers of the Gospel What sweetness could they find in cruelty if a malitious nature made it not sweet § 16. 9. It is a sin which men have as terrible warnings against from God as any sin in the world that I can remember 1. In Gods threatnings 2. In sad examples and Judgements in this life even on posterity 3. And in the infamy that followeth the Names of Persecutors when they are dead § 17. 1. How terrible are those words of Christ Matth. 18. 6. But who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea How terrible is that character which Paul giveth of the Jews 1 Thess. 2. 15 16. Who both killed the Lord Iesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwayes for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost Such terrors against persecutors are so common through the Scriptures that it would be tedious to recite them § 18. 2. And for examples the captivity first and afterward the casting off of the Jews may serve in stead of many 2 Chron. 36. 16. But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people till there was no remedy And of their casting off see Mat. 23. 37 38. O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how oft would I have gathered thy children together as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not behold your house is left unto you desolate And vers 34 35 36. Behold I send unto you Prophets and wise men and Scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucifie and some of them shall ye scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verily I say unto you all these things shall come on this generation To give you the particular examples of Gods judgements against Persecutors and their posterity after them would be a Voluminous work You may find them in the Holy Scriptures and the Churches Martyrologies § 19. 3. And by a marvellous providence God doth so over-rule the tongue of fame and the pens of Historians and the thoughts of men that commonly the names of Persecutors stink when they are dead yea though they were never so much honoured and flattered while they were alive What odious names are the names of Pharaoh Ahab Pilate Herod Nero Domitian Dioclesian c. What a name hath the French Massacre left on Charles the ninth And the English persecution on Queen Mary And so of others throughout the world Yea what a blot leaveth it on Asa Amaziah or any that do but hurt a Prophet of the Lord The eleventh Chapter of the Hebrews and all the Marâ—yrologies that are written to preserve the name of the witnesses of Christ are all the records of the impity and the perpetual shame of those by whom they suffered Even Learning and Wisdom and common Virtue hath got that estimation in the nature of man that he that persecuteth but a Seneca a Cicero a Demosthenes or a Socrates hath irrecoverably wounded his reputation to posterity and left his name to the hatred of all succeeding ages Prov. 10. 7. The memory of the just is blessed but the name of the wicked shall rot § 20. 4. The persecution of Godliness as such in Ministers or private Christians is one of the most visible undoubted marks of one that is yet unsanctified and in a state of sin and condemnation For it sheweth most clearly the predominancy of the Scrpentine nature in the persecutor Though Asa in a pievish fit may imprison the Prophet and those Christians that are engaged in a Sect or party may in a sinâ—ul zeal be injurious to those of the contrary party and yet there may remain some roots of uprightness within Yet he that shall set himself to hinder the Gospel and the serious practice of Godliness in the world and to that end hinder or persecute the Preachers and Professors and Practisers of it hath the plainest mark of a child of the Devil and the most visible brand of the wrath of God upon his soul of any sort of men on earth If there might be any hope of grace in him that at present doth but neglect or disobey the Gospel and doth not himself live a godly life as indeed there is not yet there can be no possibility that he should have grace at that present who hateth and opposeth it and that he should be justified by the Gospel who persecuteth it and that he should be a godly man who setteth himself against the godly and seeketh to destroy them § 21. 11. And it is a far more heinous sin in a Professed Christian than in an Infidel or Heathen For thâ—se do according to the darkness of their Education and the interest of their party and the principles of their own profession But for a professed Christian to persecute Christianity and one that proâ—â—ssâ—th to believe the Gospel to persecute the Preachers and serious practisers of the doctrine of the Gospel this is so near that sin which is commonly said to be the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost that it is not easie to perceive a difference and if I did consent to that description of the unpardonable sin I should have little hope of the conversion of any one of these But however they make up such a mixture of Hypocrisie and Impiety and Cruelty as sheweth them to exceed all ordinary sinners in malignity and misery They are a self-condemned sort of men Out of their own mouths will God condemn them They profess themselves to believe in God and yet they persecute those that serve him They dare not speak against the preaching and practising of the doctrine oâ— Godliness directly and in plain expressions and yet they persecute them and cannot endure them They fight against the interest and Law of God the Father
also are distinguishable by the effects which are such as these 1. Some Scandals do tempt men to actual infidelity and to deny or doubt of the truth of the Gospel 2. Some scandals would draw men but into some particular error and from some particular Truth while he holds the rest 3. Some scandals draw men to dislike and distaste the way of Godliness and some to dislike the servants of God 4. Some scandals tend to confound men and bring them to utter uncertainties in Religion 5. Some tend to terrifie men from the way of Godliness 6. Some only stop them for a time and discourage or hinder them in their way 7. Some tend to draw them to some particular sin 8. And some to draw them from some particular duty 9. And some tend to break and weaken their spirits by grief or perplexity of mind 10. And as the word is taken in the Old Testament the snares that malitious men lay to entrap others in their lives or liberties or estates or names are called scandals And all these wayes a man may sinfully scandalize another § 19. And that you may see that the scandal forbidden in the New Testament is alwayes of this nature let us take notice of the particular Texts where the word is used And first to scandalize is used actively in these following Texts In Matth. 5. before cited and in the other Evangelists citing the same words the sense is clear That the offending of a hand or eye is not displeasing nor seeking of ill report but hindering our salvation by drawing us to sin So in Matth. 18. 8. Mar. 9. 42 43. where the sense is the sâ—mâ— In Matth. 17. 27. Lest we should offend them c. is not only Lest we displease them but lest we give them occasion to dislike Religion or think hardly of the Gospel and so lay a stumbling bloâ—k to the danger of their souls So Matth. 18. 6. Mark 9. Who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me c. that is not who shall displease them but who so by threats persecutions cruelties or any other means shall go about to turn them from the faith of Christ or stop them in their way to Heaven or hinder them in a holy life Though these two Texts seem nearest to the denyed sense yet that is not indeed their meaning So in Joh. 6. 6. Doth this offend you that is Doth this seem incredible to you or hard to be believed or digested Doth it stop your faith and make you distaste my doctrine So 1 Cor. 8. 13. If meat scandalize my brother our Translators have turned it If meat make my brother to offend So it was not displeasing him only but tempting him to sin which is the scandalizing here reproved § 20. View also the places where the word Scandal is used Mat. 13. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all scandals translated all things that offend doth not signifie all that is displeasing but all temptations to sin and hinderances or stumbling blocks that would have stopt men in the way to Heaven So in Matth. 16. 23. a Text as like as any to be near the denyed sense yet indeed Thou art a scandal to me translated an offence doth not only signifie Thou displeasest me but Thou goest about to hinder me in my undertaken Office from suffering for the redemption of the world It was an Aptitudinal scandal though not effectual So Matth. 18. 7. It must be that scandals come translated Offences that is that there be many stumbling blocks set before men in their way to Heaven So Luke 17. 1. to the same sense And Rom. 9. 33. I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of scandal translated of offence that is such as will not only be displeasing but an occasion of utter ruine to the unbelieving persecuting Jews according to that of Simeon Luke 2. 34. This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel Rom. 11. 9. Let their table be made a snare a trap and a stumbling block The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie a displeasure only but an occasion of ruine So Rom. 14. 13. expoundeth it self That no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his Brothers way The Greek word is or a scandal This is the just So Rev. 2. 14. Balaam did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lay a scandal or stumbling block before the Israelites that is a temptation to sin exposition of the word in its ordinary use in the New Testament So Rom. 16. 17. Mark them which cause divisions and scandals translated offences that is which lay stumbling blocks in the way of Christians and would trouble them in it or turn them from it So 1 Cor. 1. 23. To the Iews a stumbling block that is a scandal as the Greek word is as before expounded So Gal. 5. 11. The scandal of the Cross translated the offence doth signifie not the bare reproach but the reproach as it is the tryal and stumbling block of the world that maketh believing difficult So 1 John 2. 10. There is no scandal in him translated No occasion of stumbling These are all the places that I remember where the word is used § 21. The passive Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be scandalized is used often As Matth. 11. 6. Blessed is Luke 7. 23. he that is not scandalized translated offended in me that is who is not distasted with my person and doctrine through carnal prejudices and so kept in unbelief There were many things in the person life and doctrine of Christ which were unsuitable to carnal reason and expectation These men thought to be hard and strange and could not digest them and so were hindered by them from believing And this was being offended in Christ So in Matth. 13. 57. Mar. 6. 3. They were offended in or at him that is took a dislike or distaste to him for his words And Matth. 13. 21. Mark 6. 3. When persecution ariseth by and by they are offended that is they stumble and fall away And Mark 4. 17. Matth. 15. 12. The Pharisees were offended or scandalized that is so offended as to be more in dislike of Christ. And Matth. 24. 10. Then shall many be offended or scandalized that is shall draw back and fall away from Christ. And Mat. 26. 31 33. Mar. 14. 27 29. All ye shall be offended because of me c. Though all men shall be offended or scandalized yet will I never be scandalized that is brought to doubt of Christ or to forsake him or deny him or be hindered from owning their relation to him So John 16. 1. These things have I spoken that ye should not be offended that is that when the time cometh the unexpected trouble may not so surprize you as to turn you from the faith or stagger you in your obedience or hope Rom. 14. 21. doth exactly expound it It