not with allowance it is adherence Thus far that holy man. I like well that saying of his Or any of these for so should Signs and marks be framed by Divines for examination of distressed souls that the meanest and lowest Form of Christians may reap true comfort by their laborious gleanings when a higher and more experienced Christian may possibly carry more sheaves of this joyful harvest in the bosom of his soul Now tho I have been larger than ordinary in this Chapter out of tender regard to troubled and darkned Spirits yet I hope the multiplicity and variety of expressions which to the Learned in Christs School may seem somewhat long may beg and obtain their loving and candid excuse since I hope thru ' grace I may say with some graines of integrity that I have endeavoured to manage my words with some care and circumspection in the main that so if possible I might with divine assistance and blessing help to draw some out of the pit where no water is and that I might not grieve no not one soul of the generation of the Just but to be a helper of their Faith Joy. If any think I have been too copious I beg their copious pardon Dulce est ex magno tollere acervo It s comfortable gathering for an exilâ—d Ruth and upon Boaz his leave order to ramble all the Field over to glâ—an where and what she pleases The Lord increase our Faith and give leave to our Joy to go up with a Pipe into the house of the Lord as in the solemn Feasts Isai 30.26 and sing the Songs of Assurance in the heights of Zion Which conducts me into the view of the next Chapter to set forth the danger of unbelief and exhibit some preventives against the rising of that sore sin That the Lord may be graciously intreated to advance the work of Faith with power and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness â— Thess 1.11 that the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us and we in him CHAP. IX X. THe ninth Chapter about the grand danger of Vnbelief and some methods to avoid the sunk Rocks in that dead Sea and likewise the tenth about the choice blessings and inestimable benefits that flow from saving Faith how thereby a good Christian by the grace of God may live a joyful life in the midst of all his troubles and ride in one of our second Solomons Chariots over the Kidron of death unto the Mount Olivet of Ascention into glory but what I said before upon the titles of the 4th and 5th Chapters crave also a Super-sedeas or a Writ of Ease for these tho I am somewhat unwilling to omit them especially the 7th about the infirmities of sorrowful and deserted souls If the published papers find acceptance with the pious it may encourage the others to appear in Gods due time as a second part of this Tract if they may be thought useful but at present they are left to some other providential opportunity if the Lord permit and prosper it which I humbly give up to the divine conduct in sparing of life and shining upon the seasons of his holy Will and Pleasure if otherwise I hope the Lord will stir up some to perform the like with more usefulness and success in advancing the poor in spirit toward the Kingdom of heaven then any of these mean helps could have effected and so I leave this and all the labours of any of His faithful Servants with the great Lord of the Vineyard and conclude this Tract with the Epilogue to the whole which I had prepared THE Epilogue Or Conclusion in some Corollaries or Deductions from the precedent Discourse tho cut short in a great measure contrary to my desire and intention THe main Body of this Treatise being finished I thought meet to draw some useful deductions for profit and delight 1. The first that may arise is That if true Faith be the only means to Salvation thru ' Christ then natural reason is insufficient to guid us in the way to Heaven Not that the true use of reason should be laid aside in drawing Logical or Rational consequences from Scripture Assertions but we must not use it to lay down Principles and Axioms founded and grounded only upon the light of nature which is not furnisht with ability to dive into the wonders of Gods love or the deep mysteries of his Gospel in order to Salvation If it were since the Ship-wrack of humane nature capable to work such effects what then needed the Revelation of a Saviour and why hath the Church of God thought meet to comprehend the Doctrine of life in Creeds or short Systems of points purely and meerly to be believed Farewell all Articles and Confessions of Faith and in truth all our Bibles if reason were the only Cynosure or Polestar to direct us to the haven of happiness But blessed be God he hath infused better thoughts into us and bestowed better things upon us and which do accompany true salvation Vpon many accounts therefore do we reject humane reason in the sense forementioned as a true means to discover God in the new Covenant or to open a way for reconciliation to him and peace with him or to hold any saving communion with him in grace and glory 1. Because natural reason as such in its noblest and most sublime estate is but a finite Agent and therefore cannot drink in things of infinite depth There 's no proportion between finite and infinite the organ and the object John 3.11 The cockleshell of mans brain cannot contain the immense and superlative knowledg of heavenly things who can expound the Trinity the union of the two natures the incarnation of our Lord from a Virgin the union of the Members of the mystical body by the spirit the resurrection of the dead and the true nature of Eternity and several other It s therefore necessary to act Faith upon the Doctrines revealed by God in holy Scripture Nay how can Naturallists with any face hope to measure these deep counsels and wayes of God when there are so many things both in Mathematicks and natural Philosophy and Physick that pose the most acute Philosophers in the world and set them together by the ears and so are like to the end of the world As about the progression of two parallel lines Mr. Boyle in a late Tract in 8 vo 1685. the quadrature of the circle the extimous convexity of the heavens the wonderful motion of the fixed Stars that a fixt Star should move in the aequator 52555 miles in a minute that one of the first magnitude is a hundred times bigger than the Earth and that so many thousands of them keep their constant mutual distance since the Creation and yet move in a liquid aether Who can determine the motion of Mars or the Moon exactly or expound the Load-stone in all its variations or clearly reason out all difficulties
and then the Glory of Heaven shall continue to all eternity when God shall be All in All. SECT II. The Miracles in Scripture HAving Treated somewhat of the infallible Prophecies I shall now by the Grace of God rehearse some of the notable Miracles mentioned in Holy Scripture For as much as they are works above the power of nature therefore all Nations stand gazing at such mighty exhibitions of Gods Majesty such as curing blind-born Persons the restoring the dumb and lame who were so afflicted from the Mothers Womb yea reviving of many from death to life are they not undeniable Testimonies that such a one that performs these is a God or transacted by the immediate assistance and presence of God whence we may very well infer that what such a one speaks is to be embraced as by divine Authority For that glorious Person that manifests in his works such heavenly and coelestial power must be believed to be God and a God of supream Truth and highest verity as well as of surpassing power For infinite power and truth are and can be centerd no where but in a God. trey where their Brethren of the Race of Cham of near alliance to the Canaanites then lived which is toucht as I remember by Procopius in his Vandalick Wars others Procop The standing still of the Sun seems hinted at by Plautus in the double day I think in his Amphilryo 4. The fourth wonder may refer to the retrocession or going back of the Sun in the dayes of Hezekiah which engaged the King of Babylon to send an Embassy on purpose to search out the truth of that Prodigy In reference to which this is remarkable that some Eclipses mentioned to have happened before Hezekiahs dayes are all found by our modern Astronomical Tables as exact as if those Prodigies had not been extant which may give to some a little more facile apprehension of the motion of the earth then the Perepatetick School will as yet admit For the Phoenomenon or apeearance may be solved by a miraculous stopping of the Earths diurnal motion though its annual in the Zodiack might continue 5. The fifth concerns that extraordinary Star which aypeared at the Birth of our Lord to the Magi in Kedemah or the East by the River Euphrates Mat 2 2 who came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Jobs East Countrey whereof before and which presaged as they thought in those dayes the rising of some Grand Emperor out of some Eastern Nation whereof Suetonius speads Percrebuit in toto oriente c. that there was a presage of one that should Rule the whole World sueton in Vespas c 4 Tacit hist l 5 pluribus persuasio inerat c which they applied to Vespasian but more truly concerned our blessed Lord whose Kingdom was to be universal and eternal There is a passage also about Herod at this time which tho no miracle yet it was a prodigy of cruelty which that infamous Prince perpetrated in the Land of Judah and herein may somewhat concern this Treatise that it sets the time of the Epiphany or coming of the Magi or wise men to our Lord a little before that Lunar Eclipse in March which preceded that Tyrants death who slew so many innocent children and his own son among the rest that gave occasion to the Emperor Augustus to taunt him with that scoff Macrob saturn l 2 c 4 that he had rather be Herods Hog than his son counting him for a Jew and I think he was a proselyte tho indeed he were an Idumaean of Ascalon by birth that is of that Idumaea or Edom so called in the days of our Lord as may be observed in Ptolomies greek Geography lying in the south-part of Judah 6. But the most remarkable miracle was that of the Suns Eclipse at our blessed Lords passion because it disappeared and was mantled with pitchy darkness near the Full-Moon of the Passover paul Diacon max in scholl ad Dionys Orig tract 29 30 in mat Euseb edit scalâ—austin Eph 156 which is impossible in the course of nature For proof whereof Eusebius gives in ample testimony in his Chronical Canon citing the 14th Book of Phlegon of Trallis who asserts it to have happened in the fourth year of the 202 Olympiad Dionysius also the Areopagite is mentioned by the Magdeburgenses for an Epistle of his written to the Citizens of Heliopolis or On in Egypt wherein that common saying is avouched for his Deus naturae patitur Magd cent 1 l 1 c 11 p 381 august in Ep Rom de civit Deil 10 c 27 Euseh in vit Constantini aut mundi machina collabitur The God of nature suffereth or else the frame of the world is flying in pieces Besides what Petrus Comester records where ever he had it that the Philosophers of Athens disputed about this Eclipse as being the occasion of building that Altar to the unknown God Tho Pausanias as I remember declares it to have been erected upon the great devastation made by that fearful pestilence at Athens pausan in atticis Laert in Epimedid Lucian philopatri Oecumenius c. in the time of the Peloponnesian War so notably described by Thucydides But passing that the aforesaid admirable Eclipse of the Sun being celebrated near the Full-Moon of the paschal solemnity It must needs follow that the Moon her self must be prodigiously and totally Eclipsed being near her opposition at the same time Nay there was moreover another Eclipse of the Moon in her natural course in the Evening of the same day as by calculation out of the Tables doth manifestly appear the scheme whereof is exhibited by Buntingius in his chronology and I think declared by others also So that there were three Eclipses in the compass of one natural day that all the inhabitantsround the globe might read in the heavens some wonderful work about that time Lang. de christ annis had they known the language of those glittering lamps whose places being then near the Equinoctial the sun in Aries the Moon in Libra they might be seen almost from Pole to Pole. Such a Spectacle as never had happened from the foundation of the World and possibly may never again It being a superlative attestation to the glorious sufferings of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Concerning the darkness of that time how dreadful and universal it was others having discoursed I shall not enlarge Many other wonderful Miracles transacted by the Prophets in the Old Testament and thousands by our Lord and many of his Apostles in the new are set down for the confirmation of the holy Oracles Several things and some persons mentioned in the Sacred Books are likewise glanced at by the Heathen Writers Such persons as the Magi are hinted by Laertius some things mentioned by Celsus in Origens refutation of his Heathenish Opinions by Julian Porphyry Apollonius c. who endeavouring to undermine the Authority of the Scriptures
of the Tides or saltness of the Sea or can by calculation set down that or the like appearances of the Sun and Moon both above the Horizon and in the meridian when they are in opposition partile so as to determine them exactly to a point of time M. Na Revel as they appeared to a Relation of mine at the Cape of Norway who can open and discover the vertues and the reasons of Specificks and occult qualities called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unspeakable properties Nay to go much lower who among the Learned in Chronology can truly state the age of the world considering the years of the Antediluvian Fathers are set down in round numbers and yet how positive are many weak pretenders What the admirable sagacity of future ages may compass as to thousands of problems within the circle of Sciences or in that most noble Art of Chymistry or the analysis of the three kingdoms of nature the tubes and glasses of our present inventions give us no sufficient prospect We and our Fathers pitty Austin and Lactantius and others for denying the Antipodes and which makes the jest for deriding those that held that opinion Philaster Brixâ—ensis and some so zealous as Pope Zachary to Excommunicate Bp Virgilius for holding it And some of the Antients put down very odd heresies of the like kind The learned of this age wonder at the denial of the motion of the Earth tho now the truth of it appears clear to all the generality of the ingenious of Europe and might be easily demonstrated by the transition of the Moon constantly eastward by the fixed Stars in the Zodiack by the six-fold bigness of Mars at his opposition to the Sun and by other invincible reasons mentioned by Gallaeo and others Indeed so may posterity deride at these our ages and the more ingenious of future times may stand amazed at our dulness and stupidity about minerals meteors and the cure of diseases and many thousand things bosides about the lustre of stars and precious stones which may be as easy to them as letters to us which was so wonderful a mystery at first and is so still to the American Heathens to form the fleeting breath of our lips into painted scrawles upon paper To them the longitude may be as easy as the Latitude to us and that by methods we yet do not dream off Such rare inventions may be given in of God to beautifie the glory of the latter days All our writings in Divinity will be like insipid water to what shall then appear upon the Stage when the Jews come in and the Artists that shall then be born may discover more things in the works of God to be discust and endeavoured to be explained then they themselves shall arrive to The supâ—erflne Wisdom and Learned Wits of those acute times will discover vast regions of darkness and ignorance There will be a plus ultra to the end of the world The scope for which I mention these or the like curiosities is that if nature can posâ— all men in the matter and composition of the heavenly bodies and in the various mixtures of all things under the Moon and puts forth new riddles continually to vex and torture mens brains in making water malleable or to measure mineral winds c. to find the weight of fire or to make artificial carbuncles to shine and burn in the night or exuberate Mercury yea and malleable glass too Rev. 21.18 Pers. Stat 1. which some boasters pretend to if in millions of things we are stunted and fooled at every turn that we may cry out with the Satyrist Auriculas Asini quis non habet What fearful sots are we in the things before us Then what shall dull reason do in the great sublimities and solemnities of faith and the doctrines set forth by Infinite Wisdom What long ears had Socius and many others that will admit little or nothing but what must come to this scale that will scarce turn at an hundred weight Nay things that the glorious Angels do strain at and makes their wisdoms to bend like an Ozier in a storm and can never feel the bottom of these deeps without drowning Mat. 18.10 though they stand always beholding the face of God. 2. Reason besides its finiteness being less then the dwindle of a rush candle to pierce into the concameration of the heavens it s also very corrupt since the fall of man polluted with many stains and filthy contagions The pia mater is now grown impia The strongest brain is now shrunk into a cerebellum and that stayned with yellow poyson The pure spirits in the nerves are now grown thick and corporeal with many feculencies The ey 's chrystalline humour has a thousand black motes swimming in it that we can difcern nothing but what 's confused inverted distorted The most serend and shning intellect that ever was in meer man Schotti iter Eâ—sâ—aticum Schâ—iner Kircher is now become more cloudy and smoky than thofe Mountainous spots said to be found of late in the body of the Sun by the Telescope It is most deplorable to think how imperfect and obscure the minds of men appear and yet thru ' the obstinate perverseness of their wills how desperately tenacious of old fond and foolish notions So that not only the stupid Countryâ— an who is immerst in the dungil of conceitedness and will not alter his old customs 〈◊〉 But also many that sacrifice to Minerva in the School of Philosophy can hardly stride one step beyond Aristotle but are mockt and traduced by ignorant Caprisios How much more blind then the very Moles and Beetles are in discerning the motions of the heavenly bodies are natural men as to spiritual objects they are stark and stone blind and see not one spark of light The nature of man as truly says the Apostle perceiveth not the things of God 1 Cor. 2.14 neither indeed can do for they are spiritually discerned He hath no eyes suitable and proper for such excellencies 3. Because reason as such was never appointed to obtain those sublime ends God never designed the great matters of eternity and the other world and the tremendous issues of his glorious Dâ—creâ—s to be scanned and examined by the weak brains of silly worms that crawl at his foot-stool but has ordained them to be believed and received for supreme truth upon his soveraign authority Our bodily hands can sooner span the visible heavens thâ—n our shallow and short reason the invisible mysteries within the heavens And who is that bold sceptick that dares to enter the lists and contend with his Maker Isai 45.9 Let pot-sherds strive with their fellow potsherds and not with the Almighty potter himself A proud usurpation and a sawcy intrusion no ways fit for such atomes of being as we are to meddle with These mysteries surpass the ingeny of the most intuitive Angels their morning or evening science is blacker than the deepest midnight neither
crucifie them to the world more and more You begin to grow up and some into years It s high time as the Apostle exhorts to put on the Lord Jesus and to make no provision more for the flesh and the lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 5. Fifthly The Doctrine of Faith infers it to be great wisdom and duty to keep your consciences undefiled For the mystery of Faith is held and preserved in a pure clean and serene conscience 1 Tim. 3.9 like a chrystal Venice-glass tipt with gold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that runs like a clear sweet stream not conscious of any sin wilfully committed 1 Tim. 1.19 It s sometime termed a good conscience whereof wilful sins make sorrowful ship-wracks A good conscience is a continual feast gave Paul a Banquet every night and composed him to a better rest 2 Cor. 1.12 than in a bed of Roses But why is a good conscience such a golden vial for Faith Because holiness of life feeds conscience with joy and thereby testifies and comforts about the truth of Faith. 6. Sixthly We may observe from the former tract that Faith is an excellent engine to discern and observe the wise Government of God in the World and in the Church It s a Telescope to discern afar off in the heavens and a Microscope to pry into minuter accidents in the earth Had we no other Argument Heb. 11.3 yet by Faith we may know it and that more fully and punctually how the worlds were framed and by Faith we understand the divine dominion and management of the world by Spirits He maketh his Angels Spirits Psal 104.4 his Ministers a flaming fire of some whereof le ts speak in order 1. First God manages many things by the ministration of Angels They are the seven eyes of God that joy to see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel for rebuilding the Temple Heb. 1.7 Zech. 4.10 Dan. 9.21.10 13 20. Gen. 19.1 2 Kin. 1.9 15. Deut. 32.8 We read in Scripture of the Prince of Persia and Graecia of Michael and Gabriel tho the third is judged to be meant of Christ the other of created Angels which were imployed in divine works and messages and what were the Chariots of Mahanaim and near Samaria and at Elijah's rapture and other times but the holy Angels of God. There is also a place in Deuteronomy which the Septuagint read thus When the most High divided the inheritance to the Nations when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the Angels of God. Tho I do not justifie the Translation yet it shews that this notion was current among the antient Jews And altho the Pseudodionysius in his Hierarchy of Angels sets down many frivolous fancies and curiosities about their orders yet that God is pleased to execute his pleasure by the administration of good and sometimes evil Angels is consonant to holy Scripture As in the Psalmist Psal 78.49 he sent evil Angels among the Egyptians and so made a way to his anger whom some interpreters judg to be good Angels but called so from the evil of punishment which as instruments they inflicted However that be yet t is a Scripture truth and an object of Faith and known by experience in several ages And altho the methods be unknown yet the matter is certain and indeed may be joy and comfort to Saints to know that they encamp about them that fear him and are the valiant ones about their beds by night Psal 34 7 they are the holy Watchers in Daniel and the comforters and aiders of Saints by day and why may not they suggest some heavenly ill apses as well as evil Spirits tempt when God permits It s ground of sweet joy and praise for the Saints to have such society and communion with these holy Sons of God these Morning Stars that sang before him Ioh 38 7 Zech 6 8 It s said of them that they quieted the Spirit of God in the North Countrey that is Gods wrath was satiated by the execution of justice upon Babylon in the ministry of these holy Angels They fought against the Assyrian in Sennacharibs Camp 2 King 19 35 Zech 1 8 2 Chro. 35.21 they were in Battel aray against Babylon among the Myrtle Trees What may we divine of the visions to Pharaoh Necho when commanded to go up against Carckemish the Cercusium in Ammiano or of that to Alexander in Josephus or of that voice to Totilas commanding him to go against Italy and making him the flagellum Dei Gods Scourge to the Nations were not they secret impulses and instigations of Angels upon their Spirits to do the work of God 2. Sometimes by the spirits of men God turned the Egyptians hearts to hate his people and deal subtilly with his Servants after a while Ps 105.29.37 Eâ—od 12.36 he gives them favour in the sight of the same nation so that they lent them what they required both Jewels of gold silver and raiment sometimes a Pharaoh that dealt kindly with them all the days of Joseph and then other Pharaohs that were very harsh and cruel to them Sometimes a Grecian Alexander shall favour them and after him Antiochus one of his Successors deal barbarously with them When Israel was come into their own land God promised to restrain the Spirits of the Neighbouring Heathens at the three times a year when they went up to worship yea to bridle the inward desires of the adjacent nations Exod. 34.24 that not a man of them should so much as desire their Land. In after-ages the Prophet Daniel treating of the times of the silver breast Dan. 11.27 Prophesies there should arise two Princes scil Antiochus Epiphanes and Ptolomaeus Philometor who should speak lies at one table but it should not prosper that is make feigned shews of amity when they feasted together but it should not avail them To name no more there is a wonderful Praediction in Ezekiel that in the latter days not yet fulfilled things shall then come into the mind of Gogâ— that is the Turk or Tartars as the learned judg He shall think an evil thought Ezek. 38.10 even to come into the Land of Israel ver 18. ver 22. after the Jews are re-entred into it But the Lord will plead against him to his utter destruction and he shall be finally ruined when the Lord will raise up the Sons of Zion against the Sons of Greece Zech. 14.3.9.13 that is against the Turk or Tartarian in that day having fixed his seat at Constantinople in the old Imperial Pallace of the Graecian or Eastern Empire and being the Successor of the Graecian Alexander in his East Dominions 3. Sometimes by the heavenly bodies and their influences by the spirits of meteors and many other natural exhalations out of the sea and bowels of the earth as from Vesuvius Aetna Hecla and the Vulcanian Islands How did the Stars in their courses fight against Sisera Judg. 5.20 causing great inundations in the