certain truth But taking it for a thing probable which may be true for ought you know and which you must hope is true and this in different degrees according to the different degrees of the Persons credibility If you hear men confidently report any News in these times when half that we hear oft proveth false you may believe the reporter as a fallible Person that is believe that he doth not wilfully Lie and so not uncivilly contradict him and yet suspend your belief of the thing it self and whether he took it up rashly on uncertain rumors But if you hear a man speak evil of another behind his Back when the thing is not notorious and certain otherways the Law of Justice and Charity obligeth you not to believe him but to suspend your belief till you hear both sides or have surer proof yea and to suspend not with an indifferency but with a hope that it is not true which he speaketh Obj. XIII But then I shall be as uncharitable in judging the Reporter who perhaps is a godly man to be a Liar and Slanderer as I should be in believing that the other is guilty Ans 1. I say not that you are to conclude that certainly he lieth and that it 's false but to suspend your belief and to hope that it 's false 2. He that maketh himself the accuser of another man behind his Back in a way of talk doth expose himself to that disadvantage and maketh it our duty to begin our charitable Opinion on the side of him that is accused and rather to hope that he is innocent caeteris paribus than the accuser For God forbiddeth backbiting and slandering and biddeth us speak evil of no man. And he that in our hearing backbiteth and speaketh evil how godly otherwise soever without a clear necessary cause doth forfeit our Charity and Belief more than a man can do whom we do not see or hear For if I was bound to judge him innocent before this backbiting I am bound so to judge him still Therefore I do but continue that good Opinion of my Neighbour which I was bound to And that I must suspect the backbiter of a Lie is the consequent of his own act and long of himself For I cannot believe contraries And it is not his backbiting which will disoblige me from my former duty of judging the other innocent So that it is the reporter that casteth away the reputation of his own veracity Obj. XIV When you have written all this against pretended knowledge who is more guilty than your self Who so oppresseth his Reader with distinctions Are all your large Writings evident certainties Even those Controversies in which you have so many Adversaries Ans I put in this objection because I have a Book called Methodus Theologiae which I know will occasion such thoughts in many Readers But 1. It is one thing to assert uncertainties and another thing to anatomize and distinctly and methodically explain a certain truth In all my large writings if you find that I call any thing certain which is uncertain that is which I give not ascertaining evidence of acquaint me with the particulars and I shall retract them 2. I never perswaded any man to write or say no more than all men certainly know already no not all Learned Divines For then how should we receive edification Subjective certainty is as various as mens Intellects where no two are of a size And objective certainty must be tryed by the evidence and not by other mens consenting to it Nor must a Major Vote of Dissenters go for a proof of objective uncertainty For Heathens are more than the rest of the World and Mahometans more than Christians and Papists more than Protestants and the ungodly more than the godly and yet this is no proof of our own or the things uncertainty 3. Part of my writings are against uncertainties and to deliver the Church from false Opinions that go for certainties and these are they that have most contradicters And may I not write against false and uncertain Opinions which Religion is corrupted with and defend the ancient simplicity without being guilty of the introduction of uncertainties my self 4. I deny not but I have many things that are uncertain But then I acknowledge them uncertain and treat of them but as they are 5. Lastly If really my writings are guilty of that which I here reprehend false pretended knowledge the sin is never the better for that nor my accusation of it ever the less true nor your duty to avoid it ever the less Think what you will of me so you will but think rightly of sin and duty If I go contrary to my Doctrine and you can prove it take warning by me and do not you the like Chap. XXI Directions for the cure of Pretended Knowledge or Self-conceit THE Cure of this Plague of Prefidence of Pretended Knowledge is it which all the rest is written for and must now be the last in Execution as it was the first in my intention And could men be perswaded to this following course it might be done But natures vitious inclination to the vice and the Commonness and Strength of Temptations to it do make me expect to prevail but with a few Direct I. Labour to understand the true Nature and Principles of Certainty before opened False measures will make you judge Certainties to be Falshoods or Uncertain and Falshoods to be certain truths And when you know the conditions of certainty try all things by them accurately And if any would by art perswade you of the uncertainty of Natures just perceptions by Sense or Intellect remember that be they what they will you have no better or surer They are such as our Creator hath given you to trust to for your use even for the ends of life Direct II. Discern the helps of Knowledge from Knowledge or Certainty itself Believing your Teachers as men and believing Historians according to their Credibility and Reverencing the Judgment of Seniors and of the Church are all preparative helps to Certainty And humane Faith is such as to Divine Faith. But do not therefore think that it is the same Nor give men that prerogative of Infallibility which belongeth to God or to inspired Prophets who prove their word by Gods attestation The belief of Logicians is needful to your understanding Logick and Logick is a great help to your certain discerning of Physical and Metaphysical and Moral Verities And yet many Rules of your Logick may be uncertain and you must not take the helps of your Knowledge for Evidence it self Some think that nothing is known till we have Second notions for it or can define it When things sensible are better known by sensing them and usually second notions deceive men and make them doubt of what they better apprehended without them Be very suspicious of all words or terms 1. As ambiguous as almost all are And therefore he that cannot distinguish them
and Kill them that will not do it And what is it that must perswade us to all this Why meerly a Hoc est corpus meum as expounded by the Councils of Laterane and Trent And is not Davids I am a Worm and no Man Psal 22.6 as plain yea and that in a Prophecy of Christ Must we believe therefore that neither David nor Christ was a Man but a Worm Is not I am the Vine and ye are the Branches Joh. 15.1 2. as plain Must Sense be renounced and ordinary Miracles believed for such words as these And doth not Paul call it Bread after consecration three times in the three next verses And is not he as good an expositor of Christs Words as the Council of Trent And when did God work Miracles which were meer objects of belief against sense Miracles were done as sensible things thereby to confirm Faith and that which no sense perceived was not taken for a Miracle To conclude when the Apostle saith that Flesh and Blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God plainly speaking of them formally as now called and not as they signify Sin and consequently that Christs Body is now in Heaven a Spiritual Body and not formally Flesh and Blood yet must the Bread and Wine be turned into his Flesh and Blood on Earth when he hath none in Heaven And by their Doctrine no Baker nor Vintner is secured but that a Priest may come into his Shop or Celler and turn all the Bread and Wine in it into Christs Body and Blood yea the whole City or Garrison may thus be deprived of their Bread and Wine if the Priest intend it and yet it shall not be so in the Sacrament it self if the Priest intend it not But I have staid too long in this XIV Next to the Act of Cogitation and Volition itself and to the most certain Objects of Sence there is nothing in all the World so Certain that is so Evident to the Intellect as the Being of God He being that to the Mind which the Sun is to the Eye certainliest known though little of him be known and no Creature comprehend him XV. That God is True is part of our knowing him to be perfect and to be God and therefore is most certain XVI That Man is made by God and for God that we owe him all our Love Obedience and Praise that we have all from him and should please him in the use of all with many such like are Notitiae Communes Certain Verities received by Nature some as Principles and some as such evident conclusions as are not to be doubted of XVII That the Scripture is the Word of God is a certain Truth not sensible nor a Natural Principle but an Evident conclusion drawn from that Seal or Testimony of the Spirit Antecedent Concomitant Impressed and Consequent which I have oft opened in other Treatises XVIII That the Scripture is True is a Certain Conclusion drawn from the two last mentioned premises viz. That God is True Verax and that the Scripture is his Word XIX Those Doctrines or sayings which are parts of Scripture evidently perceived so to be by Sense and Intellective perception are known to be True by the same Certainty as the Scripture in general is known to be true XX. To conclude then there are two sorts of Certain Verities in Theology 1. Natural Principles with their certain consequents 2. Scripture in General with all those assertions which are Certainly known to be its parts And all the rest are to be numbred with uncertainties except Prophetical certainty of Inspiration which I pass by Chap. V. Of the several Degrees of Certainty 1. AS Certainty is taken for Truth of Being it admitteth of no Degrees All that is True is equally True. 2. But Certainty of Evidence hath various degrees none doubteth but there are various degrees of Evidence all the doubt is whether any but the highest may be called Certainty And here let the Reader first remember that the question is but de nomine of the name and not the thing And next the Evidence is called Certain because it is Certifying aptitudinally It is apt to certify us 3. And then the question will be devolved to subjective Certainty whether it have various degrees For if it have so then the Evidence must be said to have so because it is denominated respectively from the Apprehensive Certainty And here de re it must be taken as agreed 1. That Certainty is a certain Degree of apprehension 2. That there are various degrees of apprehension 3. That no Man on Earth hath a perfect Intellectual apprehension at least of things Moral and Spiritual For his apprehension may be still increased and those in Heaven have perfecter than we 4. That there are some degrees so low and doubtful as are not fit to be called Certainty 5. That even these lowest degrees with the greatest doubting are yet often True apprehensions and whenever they are True they are Infallible that is not deceived Therefore this Infallibility which is but not to be deceived is indeed one sort of Certainty which is so denominated Relatively from the natural Truth or Certainty of the object But it is not this sort of Certainty which we enquire after 6. Therefore it followeth that this subjective certainty containeth this Infallible Truth of perception and addeth a degree which consisteth in the satisfaction of the mind 7. But if the mind should be never so confident and satisfied of a falshood this deserveth not the name of Certainty because it includeth not Truth For it is a Certain perception of Truth which we speak of and Confident erring is not Certainty of the Truth 8. As therefore the degrees of doubting are variously overcome so there must needs be various degrees of Certainty 9. When doubting is so far overcome as that the mind doth find rest and satisfaction in the Truth it may be called Certainty But when doubting is either prevalent and so troublesome as to leave us wavering it is not called Certainty 10. It is not the forgetting or neglect of a difficulty or doubt nor yet the wills rejecting it which is properly called Certainty This quieteth the mind indeed but not by the way of ascertaining Evidence Therefore ignorant people that stumble upon a truth by chance with confidence are not therefore Certain of it And those that take it upon trust from a Priest or their Parents or good peoples Opinion are not therefore Certain of it Nor they that say as some Papists Faith hath not evidence but is a Voluntary reception of the Churches Testimony and meritorious because it hath not Evidence Therefore though I see no cogent Evidence I will believe because it is my duty Whether this mans Faith may be saving or no I will not now dispute but certainly it is no Certainty of apprehension He is not Certain of what he so believeth This is but to cast away the doubt or difficulty and not at all
A man of credit or an impudent Liar Both may be equal in confident asserting and in the plausibility of the narrative Meer humane belief therefore must be uncertain From whence we see the pitiful case of the subjects of the King of Rome for so I must rather call him than a Bishop Why doth a Lay-man believe Transubstantiation or any other Article of their Faith Because the Church faith it is Gods Word What is the Church that saith so It is a faction of the Popes perhaps at Laterane or forty of his Prelates at the Conventicle of Trent How doth he know that these men do not lie Because God promised that Peters Faith should not fail and the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and the Spirit should lead the Apostles into all truth But how shall he know that this Scripture is Gods Word And also that it was not a total failing rather than a failing in some degree that Peter was by that promise freed from Or that the Spirit was promised to these Prelates which was promised to the Apostles Why because these Prelates say so And how know they that they say true Why from Scripture as before But let all the rest go How knoweth the Lay-man that ever the Church made such a decree That ever the Bishops of that Council were lawfully called That they truely represented all Christs Church on Earth That this or that Doctrine is the decree of a Council or the sence of the Church indeed Why because the Priest tells him so But how knoweth he that this Priest saith true or a few more that the man speaketh with there I leave you I can answer no further but must leave the credit of Scripture Council and each particular Doctrine on the credit of that poor single Priest or the few that are his companions The Lay-man knoweth it no otherwise Q. But is not the Scripture it self then shaken by this seeing the History of the Canon and incorruption of the Books c. dependeth on the word of Man Ans No. 1. I have elsewhere fully shewed how the Spirit hath sealed the substance of the Gospel 2. And even the matters of fact are not of meer humane Faith. For meer humane Faith depends on the meer honesty of the reporter but this Historical Faith dependeth partly on Gods attestation and partly on Natural proofs 1. God did by Miracles attest the reports of the Apostles and first Churches 2. The consent of all History since that these are the same writings which the Apostles wrote hath a Natural Evidence above bare humane Faith. For I have elsewhere shewed that there is a concurrence of humane report or a consent of history which amounteth to a true Natural Evidence the Will having its Nature and some necessary acts and nothing but necessary ascertaining causes could cause such concurrence Such Evidence we have that K. James Q. Elizabeth Q. Mary lived in England that our Statute books contain the true Laws which those Kings and Parliaments made whom they are ascribed to For they could not possibly rule the Land and over-rule all mens interests and be pleaded at the Bar c. without contradiction and detection of the fraud if they were forgeries though it 's possible that some words in a Statute Book may be misprinted There is in this a Physical Certainty in the consent of men and it depends not as humane Faith upon the honesty of the reporter but Knaves and Liars have so consented whose interests and occasions are cross and so is it in the case of the history of the Scripture Books which were read in all the Churches through the World every Lords day and contenders of various opinions took their Salvation to be concerned in them VIII Those things must needs be uncertain to any man as to a particular Faith or Knowledge which are more in number than he may possibly have a distinct understanding of or can examine their Evidence whether they be certain or not For instance the Roman Faith containeth all the Doctrinal decrees and their Religion also all the Practical decrees of all the approved General Councils that is of so much as pleased the Pope such power hath he to make his own Religion But these General Councils added to all the Bible with all the Apocrypha are so large that it is not possible for most men to know what is in them So that if the question be whether this or that Doctrine be the Word of God and the proof of the affirmative is because it is decreed by a General Council this must be uncertain to almost all men who cannot tell whether it be so decreed or no Few Priests themselves knowing all that is in all those Councils So that if they knew that all that is in the Councils is Gods Word they know never the more whether this or that Doctrine e. g. the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. be the Word of God. And if a Heathen knew that all that is in the Bible is the Word of God and knew not a word what is in it would this make him a Christian or Saint him You may object that most Protestants also know not all that is in the Scripture Ans True nor any one And therefore Protestants say not that all that is in the Scripture is necessary to be known to Salvation but they take their Religion to have essential parts and integral parts and accidents And so they know how far each is necessary But the Papists deride this distinction and because all truths are equally true they would make men believe that all are equally Fundamental or Essential to Christianity But this is only when they dispute against us at other times they say otherwise themselves when some other interest leads to it and so cureth this impudency It were worthy the enquiry whether a Papist take all the Bible to be Gods Word and de fide or only so much of it as is contained particularly in the decrees of Councils If the latter then none of the Scripture was de fide or to be particularly believed for above 300 years before the Council of Nice If the former then is it as necessary to Salvation to know how old Henoch was as to know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour IX Those things must needs be uncertain which depend upon such a number of various circumstances as cannot be certainly known themselves For instance the common rule by which the Papist Doctors do determine what particular Knowledge and Faith are necessary to Salvation is that so many truths are necessary as are sufficiently propounded to that person to be known and believed But no man living learned nor unlearned can tell what is necessary to the sufficiency of this proposal Whether it be sufficient if he be told it in his Childhood only and at what Age Or if he be told it but once or twice or thrice or how oft whether by a Parent or
till you have true evidence to establish them 1. It is only Christians that I am now instructing and if you are Christians you have already received the Essentials of Christianity even the Baptismal Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and Decalogue And I need not tell you that moreover you must receive all those Truths in Nature and Scripture which are so plain that all these dissenting sects of Christians are agreed in them And when you have all these and faithfully love and practice them you are sure to be saved if you do not afterward receive some contrary Doctrine which destroyeth them Mark then which is the safe Religion As sure as the Gospel is true he that is meet for Baptism before God is meet for pardon of sin and he that truely consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant and so doth dedicate himself to God is made a Member of Christ and is justified and an Heir of Heaven Your Church Catechism saith truly of all such that in Baptism each one is made a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Heir of Heaven So that as sure as the Gospel is true every true Baptized Christian whose Love and Life doth answer that Faith shall certainly be saved Ask all parties and few of them but impudent designers can deny this Well then the Baptismal Covenant expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments is your Christian Religion As a Christian you may and shall be saved that a True Christian is saved all confess But whether a Papist be saved is questioned by the Protestants and so is the Salvation of many other sects by others You are safe then if you take in nothing to endanger you And is it not wisdom then to take heed how you go further and on what grounds lest you over-run your safe Religion Obj. But then I must not be a Protestant For the Papists say that they cannot be saved Ans A Protestant is either one that holdeth to the ancient simple Christianity without the Papists manifold additions Or one that positively also renounceth and opposeth those additions In the first sense a Protestant and a meer Christian is all one and so to say that a Protestant cannot be saved is to say that a Christian as such cannot be saved If it be the meer name of a Protestant that the Papist accounteth damnable tell him that you will not stick with him for the name You are contented with the old name of Christian alone But Protestantism in the second sense is not your Religion but the Defensative of your Religion as flying from the Plague is not my Humanity or Life but a means to preserve it And so Protestants are of many sizes Some oppose some points and some others some more some less which the Papists have brought in And yet they are not of so many Religions But whoever condemneth you if Christ save you he doth but condemn himself as uncharitable Christianity is certainly a State of Salvation but whether Popery be or whether the Greek Opinions be or whether this or that difference and singularity stand with Salvation is the doubt Cast not your self then needlesly into doubt and danger Obj. But then you will have us be still but Infants and to learn no more than our Catechisms and not to learn and believe all that God hath revealed in his Word Ans No such matter This is the sum of what I advise you to 1. Hold fast to your simple Christianity as the Certain terms of Salvation 2. Receive nothing that is against it 3. Learn as much more as ever you can 4. But take not mens words nor their plausible talk for Certifying Evidence And do not think if you believe a Priest that this is believing God nor if his Reasons seem plausible to you and you are of his Opinion that this is Divine Knowledge If you do incline to one mans Opinion more than another tell him that you incline to his Opinion but tell him that you take not this for Divine Knowledge or any part of your Religion If you will needs believe one side rather than another about Church History or the matters of their Parties Interest tell them I believe you as fallible men but this is none of my Divine Faith or Religion To learn to know is to learn Scientifical Evidence and not to learn what is another mans Opinions nor whether they are probable or not much less to read a Councils Decrees or the Propositions of a disputing Systeme and then for the mens sake to say This is Orthodox Nor yet because it hath a taking aspect To learn of a Priest to believe God is one thing and to believe him or his party Church or Council is another thing Learn to know as much as you can and especially to know what God hath revealed to be believed And learn to believe God as much as you can And believe all your Teachers and all other men as far as they are credible in that case with such a humane belief as fallible men may justly require And where Contenders do consent suspect them the less But where they give one another the Lie in matters of Fact try both their Evidences of credibility before you trust them and then trust them not beyond that Evidence But still difference your Divine Faith and Religion from your Opinion and Humane Faith. And let men sollicite you never so long take not on you to know or believe till you do that is not beyond the Evidence I do but perswade you against Presumption and Hypocrisie Shall I say SUSPEND TILL YOU HAVE TRUE EVIDENCE and you are safe why if you do not you will know never the more nor have ever the more Divine Faith For I can mean no more than SUSPEND YOUR PRESUMPTIONS and do not foolishly or hypocritically take on you to know what you do not or to have a Faith which you have not If you can know truly do it with fidelity and be true to the Truth whoever offer it or whatever it cost you But suspend your Profession or hasty Opinions and Conceits of what you know not Obj. But every side almost tells me that I am damned if I do not believe as they do Ans 1. By that you may see that they are all deceived at least save one which ever it be while they differ and yet condemn each other 2. Thereby they do but give you the greater cause to suspect them For by this shall all men know Christs Disciples if they love one another Right Christians are not many Masters as knowing that themselves shall have the greater condemnation else for in many things we offend all And the wisdom which hath envy and strife is not from above but from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish introducing confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.1 15 16. Christs Disciples judge not lest they be judged 3. By this you may see that unless you can be of all mens minds
you must be damned by the Censures of many And if you can bear it from all the Sects save one why not from that one also 4. But I pray you ask these damning Sectaries Is it believing your Word and being of your Opinion that will save me Or must I also know by scientifical Evidence that you say true and that God himself hath said what you say If he say that believing him and his party though he call it the Church is enough to save you you have then less reason to believe him For unless he can undertake himself to save you he cannot undertake that believing him shall save you If he say God hath promised to save you if you believe me believe that when he hath proved it to you But if it be Knowledge and Divine Faith which he saith must save you it is not your believing his Word or Opinion that will help you to that I would tell such a man Help me to Knowledge and Faith by Cogent or Certifying Evidence and I will learn and thank you with all my Heart But till I have it it is but mocking my self and you to say that I have it Obj. But the Papists herein differ from all other Sects For they will say That if I believe the Church concerning Divine Revelations and take all for Divine Revelation which the Church saith is so and so believe it then I have a Divine Faith. Ans 1. And is this to you a Certifying Evidence that indeed God revealed it because their Church saith so If their Church agree with Greeks Armenians Syrians Copties Abassines Protestants and all other Christian Churches then it will be no part of the contest in question and it is a stronger Foundation of the two to believe it because all say it than because they say it But if they differ from the rest know their proof that their Church can tell Gods mind and not the rest of the Christian World. And that about a third part of the Christians in the World have such a promise which all the rest have not 2. And how doth their Church know that it is Gods Word Is it by any certifying Evidence or by Prophetical Inspiration If by Evidence let it be produced Is it not revealed to others as well as to them Must not we have a Faith of the same kind as the Church hath If so we must believe by the same Evidence as that Church believeth And what is that It is not their own words Doth a Pope believe himself only or a Council believe themselves only Or hath God said You shall be saved if you will believe your selves and believe that I have said all that you say I have said Where is there such a promise But if Pope and Council be not saved for believing themselves how shall I know that I shall be saved for believing them and that one kind of Faith saveth me and another them I ask it of each particular Bishop in that Council Is he saved for believing himself or the rest If no man be saved for believing himself why should another be saved for believing him And the Faith of the Council is but the Faith of the Individual Members set together Obj. But they are saved for believing themselves as consenters and not singly Ans All Consenters know nothing as Consenters but what they know as Individuals And what is the Evidence by which they know and are brought to consent Must not that Evidence convince us also Obj. But the present Church are saved for believing not themselves but the former Church Ans Then so must we It is not the present Church then that I must believe by a saving Faith But why then was the last Age saved and so the former and so on to the first Is any thing more evident than that all men must be saved for Believing God And that his Word must be known to be his Word by the same Evidence by one man and another And that Evidence I have proved in several Treatises to be another kind of thing than the Decree of a Pope and his Council But if it be not Evidence but Prophetical Inspiration and Revelation by which the Council or Church knoweth Gods Word I will believe them when by Miracles or otherwise they prove themselves to be true Prophets till then I shall take them for Phanaticks and hear them as I do the Quakers Should I here stay to bid you ask them as before How you shall be sure that their Council was truly General and more Authentick and Infallible than the second at Ephesus or that at Ariminum or that at Constance and Basil c. And whether the more General Dissent of all the other Christians from them be not of as great Authority as they that are the smaller part and how you shall be sure of that And also how but on the word of a Priest you can know all that the Church hath determined with abundance such Questions of the Meaning of each Council the ambiguity of words the Errour of Printers the forgery of Publishers c. I should help you to see that saying as a Priest saith Is not Knowing the thing nor Believing God. Stop therefore till you have Evidence Follow no Party as a Party in the dark Or if probability incline you more to them than to others call not this Certainty Religion Divine Faith. Thus your Faith will be Faith indeed and you will escape all that would corrupt and frustrate it The business is great God requireth you to refuse no Light But withal he chargeth you to believe no falshood nor put darkness for light Much less to father mens Lies or Errours or Conceits on God and to lay your Salvation on it that they are all God's Word How dreadful a thing is this if it prove false Is it not blaspheming God No man in his wits then but a partial designer can look that you should make haste or go any further than you have assuring or convincing Evidence If you Know that any Sect doth Err you need no Preservative If you do not tell them I am ignorant of this matter I will learn as fast as I can not neglecting greater matters and I will be neither for you nor against you further than I can know And as to the former Objection of being still Infants I further answer that as feigned knowledge is no knowledge so Manhood consisteth not in being of many uncertain Opinions no not so much in knowing many little controverted things as in getting a clearer more affecting powerful practical Knowledge and belief of our Christianity and the great and sure things which we know already and in Love and Obedience practising of them He is the strongest Christian who loveth God best and hath most Holiness and he knoweth God better than any others do By this much you may see that the world is full of counterfeit Faith and Knowledge and Religion even fancy and belief of
men and their own Opinions which go under these names One turneth an Anabaptist and another a Separatist and another an Antinomian and another a Pelagian and another a Papist when if you try them you shall find that they neither understand what they turn to nor what they are against They do but turn to his side who hath the best advantage to perswade them either by insinuating into their affections or by plausible reasonings they talk for one Doctrine and against another when they understand neither much less discern true Evidence of their truth And as for the Papists what wonder is it when their Religion is to believe as the Church believeth And what the Church believeth they know not perhaps but by believing a Priest And then though they know not what the Church believeth some say they are Catholicks and others that this Implicite Faith is that in the virtue of which all the Explicite must proceed And if God may but be allowed to be equal herein with their Church and so that all should be saved who Implicitely believe that all that he saith is true though they know not what he saith at all then I think few Infidels would perish that believe there is a God. Reader I advise thee therefore as thou lovest thy Soul 1. Not to neglect or delay any true knowledge that thou canst attain 2. But not to be rash and hasty in judging 3. Nor to take shews and mens opinions or any thing below a certifying or notifying Evidence of Truth to make up thy Christian Faith and Knowledge 4. And till thou see such Certain Evidence suspend and tell them that sollicite thee that thou understandest not the matter and that thou art neither for them nor against them but wilt yield as soon as Truth doth certainly appear to thee If an Anabaptist perswade thee yield to him as soon as thou art sure that God would not have Believers Children now to be Infant-Members of his Church as well as they were before Christs coming and that the Infants of believing Jews were cut off from their Church State and that there is any way besides Baptism appointed by Christ for the solemn initiating of Church-Members with the rest which in my Treat of Baptism I have produced If thou art sollicited to renounce Communion with other Churches of Christ as unlawful either because they use the Common Prayer and Ceremonies or because that Ministers are faulty if tolerable or the People undisciplined before thou venture thy Soul upon an uncharitable and dividing principle make sure first that Christ hath Commanded it Try whether thou art sure that Christ sinned by Communicating ordinarily with the Jewish Church and Synagogues when the corruption of Priests People and worship was so much worse than ours Or whether that be now a sin to us which in the General Christ did then And whether Pauls compliance and his precept Rom. 14. and 15. was an error And Peters separation Gal. 2. was not rather to be blamed With much more the like Are you sure that notwithstanding all this God would have you avoid Communion with the Churches that in such Forms and Orders differ from you So if a Papist sollicite you yield to him as soon as you are Certain that the Church is the body or Church of the Pope and that none are Christians that are not subject to him and that therefore three or two parts of all the Christian world are unchristened and that when the Roman Emperor made Patriarchs in his own dominion only and there only called General Councils all the world must now take such as the Churches Heads and must be their Subjects When you can be sure that all the senses of all the sound men in the world are by a constant Miracle deceived in taking the consecrated Bread and Wine to be Bread and Wine indeed and that it is none And that the Bread only without the Cup must be used though Christs Command be equal for both when you are Certain truly Certain of these and many other such things then turn Papist If you do it sooner you betray your Souls by Pretending to know and believe Gods word when you do but believe and imbody with a faction Chap. X. Inference 4. What is the Great Plague and Divider of the Christian World. FALSELY PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE and FAITH are the great Plague and Dividers of the Christian world I. As to the Number of Articles and Opinions and Precepts what abundance of things go with many for Certain Truth of which no mortal man hath certainty And abundance which some few rare wits may know must go for Evident certainties to all It is not only our Philosophy books nor only our Philosophical Schoolmens Books which are guilty of this There is some modesty in their Videtur's And indeed if they would not pretend to certainty but profess only to write for the sport and exercise of wit without condemning those that differ from them a man might fetch many a pleasant vagari if not in an over subtile Cajetane who so oft feigneth notions and distinctions yet in a Scotus Ockam Ariminensis with abundance of their disciples and in Thomas and many of his learned followers But their Successors can hardly forbear hereticating one another How many such a wound hath poor Durandus suffered From many for his doctrine of concurse And by others for his pretty device to save the credit of our senses in Transubstantiation that there is still the Matter of Bread but not the Form as being informed by the Soul of Christ as digested bread in us is turned to flesh Which saith Bellarmine is an Heresy but Durandus no Heretick because he was ready to be taught of the Church But no where do these Stinging Hornets so swarm as in the Councils and the Canon Law So that saith the Preface to the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast Edw. 6. John Fox In quo ipso jure neque ullum modum tenet illius impudentia quin Leges Legibus decreta decretis aciis insuper decretalia aliis alia atque item alia accumulet nec ullum pene statuit cumulandi finem donec tandem suis Clementinis Sixtinis Intra Extravagantibus Constitutionibus Provincialibus Synodalibus Paleis Glossulis Sententiis Capitulis Summariis Rescriptis Breviculis Casibus longis brevibus ac infinitis Rhapsodiis adeo orbem confarcinavit ut Atlas mons quo sustineri coelum dicitur huic si imponeretur oneri vix ferendo sufficeret Which made these two Kings H. 8. and Edw. 6. Appoint that Compendium of Ecclesiastical Laws as their own K. H. first abolishing the Popes Laws whatever some say to the contrary his words being Hajus Potestatem huic cum divino munere sublatam esse manifestum est ut quid superesset quo non plane fractam illius Vim esse constaret Leges omnes decreta atque instituta quae ab authore Episcopo Romano profecta sunt Prorsus abroganda
he hath set up to them they are half as long in Learning for all that as if he had never given them such a help And therefore it is that we cannot leave our Learning to Posterity Because still the stop is in the Receivers incapacity And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts but by much time and study 2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding because they are not humbled to a just Suspicion of their own apprehensions And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge 3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of in all their Knowledge 4. And it causeth men to slight the Reasons and Judgments of other men by which they might learn or at least might be taught to Judge considerately and suspend their own If over-valuing a mans own apprehensions be Pride as it is then certainly Pride is one of the commonest sins in the world and particularly among men professing godliness who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those that they do not throughly know and in every petty controversy they are all still in the right though of never so many minds III Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is the want of a truly tender Conscience Which should make men fear lest they should err lest they should deserve the curse of putting light for darkness darkness for light evil for good good for evil should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds resist the truth blaspheme God or Dishonour him by fathering Errors on him and lest they should prove snares to mens Souls and a Scandal and Trouble to the Church of God. A tender Conscience would not have espoused such opinions under a year or two or manies deliberation which an Antinomian or other Sectary will take up in a few days if they were true O saith the tender Conscience what if I should Err and prove a Snare to Souls and a Scandal and Dishonour to the Church of God c. IV. Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is a blind Zeal for Knowledge and Godliness in the General while men know not what it is that they are zealous of They think that it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the Truth speedily without delay And therefore they take a present concluding for a true Receiving it And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him probably as a part of Godliness is taken for the most resolved down-right convert Which is true in case of Evident Truths where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind But not in dark and doubtful cases V. Another cause is an inordinate trust in man When some admire the learned too much and some the Religious and some this or that particular person and therefore build too confidently on their words Some on great men some on the Multitude but most on men of fame for great Learning or great Piety A credit is to be given by every learner to his Teacher But the confounding this with oâ— Belief of God and making it a part of our Religion and not trusting man as man only that is as a fallible Wight doth cause this Vice of Pretended Knowledge to pass with millions for Divine Faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a Sect as the only Orthodox or Godly party or as the only true Church as the Papists do then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing which their Sect or Church believeth For they think that this is the Churches Faith which cannot err or is the safest And that God would not let so many good men err And thus they that should be made their Teachers and the Helpers of their Faith become the Lords of it and almost their Gods. VI. And it much increaseth this sin that men are not sufficiently acquainted with the Original and Additional Corruption of mans nature and know not how Blind all Mankind is Alas man is a dark Creature What error may he not hold What villany may he not do Yea and maintain Truly said David All men are Liars Pitifully do many expound this as an effect of his unbelief and passion because he saith I said it my haste When it is no more than Paul saith Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3. And than Solomon and Isaiah say All men are Vanity And Jeremy cursed be he that trusteth in man All men are untrusty in a great degree Weak False and Bad. And his haste was either as Dr. Hammond translateth it his Flight or else that his Tryal and distress made him more passionately sensible of the Vanity or Untrustiness of man than he was at other times For Vanity and a Lie to the Hebrews were words of the same importance signifying Deceivableness and untrustiness And indeed among mankind there is so great a degree of Impotency Selfishness Timorousness Ignorance Errour and Viciousness as that few wicked men are to be believed where there is any strong Temptation to lying And the Devil is seldom unprovided of Temptations And abundance of Hypocrites are as untrusty as open wicked men And abundance of sincere Godly persons especially Women have loose Tongues and hasty passions and a stretching Conscience but specially injudicious heads so that frequently they know not truth from falshood nor have the tenderness of Conscience to be silent till they know So that if one say it another will say it till a hundred say it and then it goeth for currant truth Good-mens over-much credulity of one another hath filled the Church with Lies and Fables Many of the Papists Sâ—â—â—rstitions Purgatory praying to Saints and Angels prayâ—â— for the dead c. were bred by this credulity It is so visible in Venerable Beda Gregory the first yea before them in Sulpitius Severus of Martius Life and abundance more that to help up Christianity among the Pagans they laid hold of any old Womans or Ignorant Mans Dreams and Visions and stories of pretended Miracles Revelations that it made even Melchior Canus cry out of the shameful Ridiculous filth that hence had filled their Legends Even Baronius upon Tryal retaineth no small number of them and with his Brethren the Oratorians on their Prophesying days told them to the people I am ashamed that I recited one out of him before my Treatise of Crucifying the World though I did it not as perswading any that it was true For I quickly saw that Sophronious on whom he fathered it was none of the reporters of it that Book being spurious and none of Sophronius his work Indeed I know of such impudent false History lately Printed of matters of publick fact in these times yea divers concerning my own Words and Actions by persons that are far from Contemptible that Strangers and Posterity will scarce believe that humane nature could be guilty of it in the open light And I know it to be so customary a thing for the Zealots professing the fear of God on one
20 years old but they are in conceit wiser than I and are still in the right and I am in the wrong in things Natural Civil Religious or almost any thing we talk of if I say not as they say and it is so hard to abate their confidence or convince them that I have half ceased to endeavour it but let every one believe and say what he will so it be not to the dishonour of God the wrong of others and the hazard of his Salvation For I take it for granted before-hand that contradiction ofter causeth strife than instruction and when they take not themselves for Scholars they seldom learn much of any but themselves And their own thoughts and experience must teach them that in many years which from an Experienced man they might have cheaplier learnt in a few days Obj. IV. You speak against taking things on trust and so would keep Children from Believing and Learning of their Parents and Masters and from growing wise Ans I oft tell you that humane faith is a necessary help to Divine Faith But it must not be mistaken for Divine Faith. Men are to be believed as fallible men But in some things with diffidence and in some things with confidence and in some things where it is not the speakers credit that we rely upon but a Concurrence of Testimonies which make up a natural certainty Belief and Knowledge go together and the thing is sure But man is not God. Obj. V. May not a man more safely and Confidently believe by the Churches Faith than his own That is take that for more certain which all men believe than that which I think I see a Divine word for my self Ans This is a Popish Objection thus confusedly and fallaciously often made 1. Properly No man can believe by any faith but his own any more than understand with any understanding but his own But the meaning being that we may better trust to the Churches Judgment that this or that is Gods word than to our own perswasion that it is Gods word from the Evidence of the Revelation I further answer 2. That the Churches Judgment is one part of our subordinate motive and therefore not to be put in competition with that Divine Evidence which it is always put in Conjunction with And the Churches Teaching is the means of my coming to know the true Evidences of Divinity in the word And the Churches real Holiness caused by that word is one of the Evidences themselves and not the least Now to put the question Whether I must know the Scripture to be Gods word because I discern the Evidences of its Divinity or rather because the Church Teacheth me that it is Gods word or because the Church saith it is Gods word or because the Church is Sanctified by it are all vain questions setting things conjunct and co-ordinate as opposite 1. By the Churches Judgment or Belief I am moved to a high Reverence of Gods word by a very high Humane Faith supposing it credible that it may be Gods word indeed 2. Next by the Churches or Ministers Teaching the Evidences of Divinity are made known to me 3. The Effect of it in the Churches Holiness is one of these Evidences 4. And by that and all other Evidences I know that it is Gods word 5. And therefore believe it to be true This is the true Order and Resolution of our Faith. 3. But because the Popish Method is barely to believe the Scripture to be Gods word because a Pope and his Council judgeth so I add 1. That we have even of that humane sort of Testimony far more than such For theirs is the Testimony of a self exalting Sect of Christians about the third part of the Christian world But we have also the Testimony of them and of all other Christians and in most or much of the matter of Fact that the Scriptures were delivered down from the Apostles the Testimony of some Heathens and abundance of Hereticks 2. And with these we have the Evidences of Divinity themselves 3. But if we had their Churches or Pope and Councils Decrees for it alone we should take it but for a humane Fallible Testimony For 1. They cannot plead Gods word here as the proof of their Infallibility For it is the supposed question what is Gods word which they say cannot be known but by their Infallible Judgment 2. And they cannot plead number for 1. The Mahometans are more than the Christians in the world Brierwood reckoneth that they are six parts of thirty we but five And yet not therefore Infallible nor Credible 2. And the Heathens are more than the Mahometans and Christians being four sixth parts of the world and yet not infallible But of this I have the last week wrote a Book of the certainty of Christianity without Popery and heretofore my safe Religion and others Obj. VI. At least this way of Believing and Knowing things by proper Evidences of Truth will loosen the common sort of Christians even the godly from their Faith and Religion For whereas now they quietly go on without doubting as receiving the Scriptures from the Church or their Teachers as the word of God when they fall on searching after proofs they will be in danger of being overcome by difficulties and filled with doubts if not apostatizing to Infidelity or turning Papists Ans Either these persons have already the Knowledge of Certain Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture or Christianity or they have none If they have any the way of studying it more will not take it from them but increase it Else you dishonour Christianity to think that he that knoweth it to be of God will think otherwise if he do but better try it Upon search he will not know less but more But if he have no such certainty already 2. I further answer that I take away from him none of that humane belief which he had before If the belief of his Parents Teachers or the Church only did satisfy him before which was but a strong probability I leave with him the same help and probability and only perswade him to add more and surer arguments And therefore that should not weaken but confirm his Faith. Obj. But you tell him that the Churches or his Teachers Judgment or word is uncertain and that sets him on doubting Ans 1. I tell him of all the Strength and Credibility that is in it which I would have him make use of 2. And it is not alone but by his Teachers help that I would have him seek for certainty 3. But if he did take that Testimony for certain which was not certain If he took man for God or took his Teachers or Pope for inspired Prophets and a humane Testimony for Divine do you think that this errour should be cherished or cured I think that God nor Man have no true need of a lie in this case and that lies seldom further mens Salvation And that
be deceived is a Contradiction For then it is not the same Thing It is not that which we call now formally Sense and Intellect or Sensation and Intellection And Contradictions are not things for Omnipotency to be tryed about God can make a man to be no Intellectual Creature But thereby he maketh him no man For to be a man and not Intellectual is a contradiction And so it is to be men and yet to have no Sense nor Intellect that can truly perceive sensible Objects as before qualified Therefore they unman all the World on pretext of asserting the power of God. 2. But suppose that all Sense be fallible and Intellection of things sensible yet it is the first and only entrance of all things sensible into the mind or knowledge of man And therefore we must take it as God hath given it us for we can have no surer No sensible thing is in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense Whether my Eyes and Ears and Taste be fallible or not I am sure I have no other way to perceive their Objects but by them I must take them and use them as they are All the words and definitions in the World will not give any man without sensation a true conception of a sensible Object 3. Such absurd suppositions therefore are not to be put What if God should tell you by his Word that all the senses of all men are deceived in one thing or in all things would you not believe him It is not to be supposed that God will give us all our Senses and Intellective perception by them to be our discerner of things sensible and then bid us not believe them for they are false unless he told us that all our perceptions are false and our whole Life is but deceit And I further answer if God tell me so it must be by some word or writing of Man or Angel or Himself And how should I know that word but by my sense But the great answer which seemeth to satisfie Bellarmine and the rest is that sense is no judge of Substances but of Accidents only therefore it is not deceived But 1. It is false that sense perceiveth not substances It is not only colour quantity figure which I see nor only roughness and smoothness which I feel nor only sweetness which I taste but it is a coloured extended figured substance which I see a rough or smooth substance which I feel and a sweet substance which I taste And if the Accident were the only primary object the Substance is the secondary and certain Else no one ever saw a Man a Tree a Bird a Plant the Earth a Book or any substance but only the colour quantity or figure of them no man ever felt or touched a Body but only the Accidents of it 2. And I pray you tell me how Substances come to the understanding if they were never in the sense Prove a Substance without sensation as a medium if you can Do you perceive any Substances Intellectually or not If not why pretend you that there are any if yea it must be either as Conclusions or as Intellectual Principles which are both Logical complex Objects and therefore not substances or as the immediate immaterial objects of Intellection which is only the Souls own acts or what is by Analogy gathered from them or else the objects of sense it self It can be none of the former therefore it must be the latter And how can the understanding find that in sense which was never there If it be said that it is there but by Accidents I answer 1. That is false though said by many I do as immediately touch substance as accidents though not substance without the accidents 2. Whether it be there by the mediation of the accidents or immediately it self we are sure that the understanding no otherwise receiveth it than as the sense transmitteth it we must know material substance as it is sensed or not at all We see then what a pass this Roman Religion bringeth the World to That they may be Christians they must believe and swear by the Trent Oath that they are not men and that they may have Faith they must renounce their Senses and that they may be sure Gods Word is true and the Churches decrees they must be sure that they are sure of nothing and how then are they sure of that And while they subvert all the order of Nature in the World they pretend that God can do it and therefore we are to believe that he doth it meerly because these Doctors can call themselves the Church and then can so expound the Scripture When it is Gods setled order in Nature that a Man as an Animal shall have Sense to perceive things sensible by and as a Man shall have understanding to receive from the Imagination and Sense these objects we must now suppose that God hath quite overturned the course of Nature either by making sense no sense or the object no object or the medium no fit medium and yet this is to be believed by Men that have nothing but the same senses to tell their understandings that it is written or spoken or that there is a Man in the World. Suppose we grant it to be no contradiction and therefore a thing that God can do no man can question but that he must do it as a Miracle by altering and overturning Natures course And shall we fain 1. Miracles to become ordinary things through all the Churches in the World and every day in the week or every hour to be done 2. And Miracles to be made a standing Church Ordinance 3. And every one in the Church even all the wicked and every Mouse that eateth the Host to be partaker of a Miracle 4. Yea that every such Man and Mouse may all the week long live on a continued Miracle while Accidents without substance do nourish them and turn to Flesh and Blood 5. And all this ordinary course of Miracles to be wrought at the will of every Priest be he never so ignorant or wicked a Man 6. And yet the same words spoken by the holiest of the Protestant Pastors will not do the Miracle 7. But if a Papist Priest should be unduely ordained or forge his own orders sobeit the Church think him truly ordained he can do the Miracle All this must be believed And the Plague of all is all men must be Burnt as Hereticks or exterminated that cannot believe all this and disbelieve their Senses And yet worse all temporal Lords must be dispossest of their Dominions who will suffer any such to live therein and not exterminate them An Epicure and a sensual Infidel who think man is but of the same species of Brutes do but unman us and leave us the Honour of being Animals or Brutes But the Papists do not leave us this much but must reduce us to a lower order and teach us to deny our sense it self and Torment
by Certainty to overcome it 11. When a man hath attained a satisfying degree of perception he is capable still of clearer perception Even as when in the heating of water after all the sensible cold is gone the water may grow hotter and hotter still So after all sensible doubting is gone the perception may go clearer still 12. But still the Objective Certainty is the same that is There is that Evidence in the object which is in suo genere sufficient to notifie the thing to a prepared mind 13. But this sufficiency is a respective proportion and therefore as it respecteth mans mind in common it supposeth that by due means and helps and industry the mind may be brought certainly to discern this Evidence But if you denominate the sufficiency of the Evidence from its respect to the present disposition of mens minds so it is almost as various as mens minds are For recipitur ad modum recipientis and that is a certifying sufficient Evidence of truth to one man which to a thousand others is not so much as an Evidence of probability Therefore mediate and immediate sufficiency and certainty of Evidence must be distinguished From all this I may infer 1. That though God be the Original and End of all Verities and is ever the First in ordine essendi efficiendi and so à Jove principium in methodo syntheticâ yet he is not the primum notum the first known in ordine cognoscendi nor the beginning in methodo inquisitivâ though in such Analytical methods as begin at the ultimate end he is also the first Though all truth and evidence be from God yet two things are more evident to man than God is and but two viz. 1. The present evident objects of sense 2. Our own internal Acts of Intellective Cogitation and Volition And these being supposed the Being of God is the third evident Certainty in the World. 2. If it be no disparagement to God himself that he is less certainly known of us than sensibles and our Internal acts de esse it is then no disparagement to the Scripture and supernatural Truths that they are less certainly known Seeing they have not so clear evidence as the Being of God hath 3. The certainty of Scripture Truths is mixt of almost all other kinds of certainty conjunct 1. By sense and Intellective perception of things sensed the Hearers and See-ers of Christ and his Apostles knew the words and Miracles 2. By the same sense we know what is written in the Bible and in Church History concerning it and the attesting matters of Fact And also what our Teachers say of it 3. By certain Intellectual inference I know that this History of the words and fact is true 4. By Intellection of a natural principle I know that God is true 5. By inference I know that all his Word is true 6. By sense I know Intellectually receiving it by sense that this or that is written in the Bible and part of that word 7. By further inference therefore I know that it is true 8. By Intuitive knowledge I am certain that I have the Love of God and Heavenly desires and a Love of holiness and hatred of sin c. 9. By certain inference I know that this is the special work of the Spirit of Christ by his Gospel Doctrine 10. By experience I find the predictions of this Word fulfilled 11. Lastly By Inspiration the Prophets and Apostles knew it to be of God. And our certain Belief ariseth from divers of these and not from any one alone 5. There are two extreams here to be avoided and both held by some not seeing how they contradict themselves I. Of them that say that Faith hath no Evidence but the merit of it lyeth in that we believe without Evidence Those that understand what they say when they use these words mean that Things evident to sense as such that is Incomplex sensible objects are not the objects of Faith. We live by Faith and not by sight God is not visible Heaven and its Glory Angels and perfected Spirits are not visible Future Events Christs coming the Resurrection Judgment are not yet visible It doth not yet appear that is to sense what we shall be Our Life is hid from our own and others senses with Christ in God. We see not Christ when we rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory Thus Faith is the evidence of things not seen or evident to sight But ignorant Persons have turned all to another sense as if the objects of Faith had no ascertaining Intellectual Evidence When as it is impossible for mans mind to understand and believe any thing to be true without perceiving evidence of its truth as it is for the Eye to see without Light. As Rich. Hooker saith in his Eccl. Pol. Let men say what they will men can truly believe no further than they perceive Evidence It is a natural Impossibility For Evidence is nothing but the perceptibility of the Truth And can we perceive that which is not perceptible It 's true that evidence from Divine Revelation is oft without any Evidence ex natura rei But it may be nevertheless a fuller and more satisfying evidence Some say there is Evidence of Credibility but not of Certainty Not of natural Certainty indeed But in Divine Revelations though not in humane evidence of Credibility is Evidence of Certainty because we are certain that God cannot lie And to say I will believe though without Evidence of Truth is a contradiction or hypocritical self-deceit For your will believeth not And your understanding receiveth no Truth but upon evidence that it is Truth It acteth of itself per modum naturae necessarily further than it is sub imperio Voluntatis And the will ruleth it not despotically Nor at all quoad Specificationem but only quoad exercitium All therefore that your will can do which maketh Faith a moral Virtue is to be free from those vicious habits and acts in itself which may hinder faith and to have those holy dispositions and acts in itself which may help the understanding to do its proper Office which is to believe evident truth on the testimony of the revealer because his Testimony is sufficient Evidence The true meaning of a good Christian when he saith I will believe is I am truly willing to believe and a perverse will shall not hinder me and I will not think of suggestions to the contrary But the meaning of the formal hypocrite when he saith I will believe is I will cast away all doubtful thoughts out of my mind and I will be as careless as if I did believe or I will believe the Priest or my Party and call it a believing God. Evidence is an essentiating part of the Intellects act As there is no Act without an Object so there is no object sub formali ratione objecti without evidence Even as there is no sight but of an Illustrated
object that is A visible object II. The other extream of some of the same men is that yet Faith is not true and certain if it have any doubtfulness with it Strange That these men cannot only see what is invisible Believe what is inevident as to its truth that is incredible but also believe past all doubting and think that the weakest true believer doth so too Certainly there are various degrees of faith in the sincere All have not the same strength Christ rebuketh Peter in his fears and his disciples all at other times for their little faith When Peters faith failed not it staggered which Abrahams did not Lord increase our Faith and Lord I believe help my unbelief were prayers approved by Christ I will call a prevalent belief which can lay down Life and all this world for Christ and the hopes of Heaven by the name of certainty which hath various degrees But if they differ de nomine and will call nothing certainty but the highest degree they must needs yet grant that there is true saving faith that reacheth to no certainty in their sense Yea no man on Earth then attaineth to such a certainty because that every mans faith is imperfect To conclude Though all Scripture in itself that is indeed the true Canon be equally true yet all is not equally certain to us as not having equal evidence that it is Gods word But of that in the next Chapter of the uncertainties Chap. 6. What are the unknown things and uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain knowledge of SOmewhat of this is said already Cap. 3. But I am here to come to more particular instances of it But because that an enumeration would be a great Volume of it self I shall begin with the more general that I may be excused in most of the rest or mention only some particulars under them as we go I. A very great if not the far greatest part of that part of Philosophy called Physicks is uncertain or certainly false as it is delivered to us in any methodist that I have yet seen whether Platonists Peripateticks Epicureans the Stoicks have little but what Seneca gives us and Barlaam Collecteth I know not whence as making up their Ethicks and what in three or four Ethical writers is also brought in on the by and what Cicero reporteth of them or in our Novelists Patricius Telesius Campanella Thomas White Digby Cartesius Gassendus c. Except those whose modesty causeth them to say but little and to avoid the uncertainties or confess them to be uncertainties To enumerate instances would be an unseasonable digression Gassendus is large in his Confessions of uncertainties I think not his Brother Hobs and his second Spinosa worth the naming Nor the Paracelsians and Helmontians as giving us a new Philosophy but only as adding to the old There needs no other testimony of uncertainty to a man that hath not studied the points himself than their lamentable difference and confutation of each other in so many very many things even in the great Principles of the Science Yet here no doubt there are certainties innumerable certainties such as I have before described We know something certainly of many things even of all sensible objects But we know nothing perfectly and comprehensively not a worm not a Leaf not a Stone or a Sand not the Pen Ink or Paper which we write with not the hand that writeth nor the smallest particle of our bodies not a hair or the least accident In every thing nearest us or in the world the uncertainties and incognita are far more than that which we certainly know II. If I should enumerate to you the many uncertainties in our common Metaphysicks yea about the Being of the Science and our common Logick c. It would seem unsuitable to a Theological discourse And yet it would not be unuseful among such Theologues as the Schoolmen who resolve more of their doubts by Aristotle than by the Holy Scriptures doubtless as Aristotles Predicaments are not fitted to the kinds of beings so many of his distributions and orders yea and precepts are arbitrary And as he left room and reason for the dissent of such as Taurellus Carpenter Jacchaeus Gorlaeus Ritschel and abundance more so have they also for mens dissent from them Even Ramus hath more adversaries than followers Gassendus goeth the right way by suiting verba rebus if he had hit righter on the nature of things themselves Most novel Philosophers are fain to make new Grammars and new Logicks for words and notions to fit their new conceptions as Campanella and the Paracelsians Helmontians and if you will name the Behmenists Rosicrucians Weigelians c. Lullius thought he made the most accurate Art of notions and he did indeed attempt to fit words to things but he hath mist of a true accomplishment of his design for want of a true method of Physicks in his mind to fit his words to As Cornelius Agrippa who is one of his chief commentators yet freely confesseth in his lib. de Vanitate Scientiarum which now I think of I will say no more of this but desire the Reader to peruse that laudable book and with it to read Sanchez his Nihil Scitur to see uncertainty detected so he will not be led by it too far into Scepticism As also Mr. Glanviles Scepsis Scientifica As for the lamentable uncertainties in Medicine the poor world payeth for it Anatomy as being by ocular inspection hath had the best improvement And yet what a multitude of uncertainties remain Many thousands years have millions yearly died of Feavers and the medicating them is a great part of the Physicians work and yet I know not that ever I knew the man that certainly knew what a Feaver is I crave the pardon of the Masters of this noble art for saying it It is by dear experience that I have learnt how little Physicians know having passed through the tryal of above thirty of them on my own Body long ago meerly induced by a conceit that they knew more than they did and most that I got was but the ruine of my own body and this advice to leave to others Highly value those few excellent men who have quick and deep conjecturing apprehensions great reading and greater Experience and Sober Careful Deliberating minds and had rather do too little than too much But use them in a due conjunction with your own experience of your self But for the rest how Learned soever whose heads are dull or temper precipitant or apprehensions hasty or superficial or reading small but especially that are young or of small experience love and honour them but use them as little as you can and that only as you will use an honest ignorant Divine whom you will gladly hear upon the certain Catechistical Principles but love not to hear him meddle with Controversies So use these men in common easie cases if necessary and yet there the less
Layman that can not tell him what is in the Councils or by a Priest that never read the Councils and whether the variety of natural capacities bodily temperaments education and course of Life before do not make as great variety of proportions to be necessary to the sufficiency of this Proposal And what mortal man can truly take the measure of them And how then can any man be Certain what those points are which are necessary for him to believe X. Those things are uncertain which depend upon an uncertain Author or Authority For instance the Roman faith dependeth on the exposition of the Scriptures by the consent of the Fathers and on the Tradition of the Church and the decrees of an authorized Council And here is in all this little but uncertainties 1. It is utterly uncertain who are to be taken for Fathers and who not Whether Origen Tatianus Arnobius Lactantius Tertullian and many such be Fathers or not Whether such a man as Theophilus Alexandrinus or Chrysostom was the Father when they condemned each other Whether such as are justly suspected of Heresy as Eusebius or such as the Romanists have cast suspicions on as Lucifer Calaritanus called a Heretick Socrates Sozomens falsly called Novatians Hilary Arelatensis Condemned by the Pope Leo and Claud. Turovens Rupertus Tuitiens and such others When the ancients renounced each others Communion as Martin did by Ithacius and Idacius and their Synod when they describe one another as stark Knaves as Socrates doth Theophil Alexandrin and Sulpitius Severus doth Ithacius which of them were the Fathers 2. How shall we know certainly which are the true uncorrupted writings of these Fathers among so many forgeries and spurious Scripts 3. How shall it be known what exposition the Fathers consented on when not one of a multitude and but few in all have commented on any considerable parts of the Scripture and those few so much often differ 4. When in the Doctrine of the Trinity it self Petavius largely proveth that most of the writers of the three first Centuries after the Apostles were unsound and others confess the same about the Millennium the corporeity of Angels and of the Soul and divers other things doth their consent bind us to believe them If not how shall we know in what to believe their consent according to this Rule 2. And as to the Church they are utterly disagreed among themselves what that Church is which hath this authority 1. Whether the Pope alone 2. Or the Pope with a Provincial Council 3. Or the Pope with a General Council 4. Or a General Council without the Pope 5. Or the universality of Pastors 6. Or the universality of the people with them 3. And for a Council 1. There is no certainty what number of Bishops and what consent of the Comprovincial Clergy is necessary to make them the true representatives of any Church 2. And more uncertain in what Council the Bishops had such consent 3. And uncertain whether the Popes approbation be necessary The great Councils of Constance and Basil determining the contrary 4. And uncertain which were truly approved 5. And most certain that there never was any General Council in the world unless you will call the Apostles a General Council but only General Councils of the Clergy of one Empire with now and then a stragling Neighbour even as we have General Assemblies and Convocations in this Kingdom And who can be certain of that faith which dependeth upon all or any of these uncertainties XI That must needs be an uncertainty which dependeth on the unknown thoughts of another man. For instance with the Papists the Priests intention which is the secret of his heart is necessary to the being of Baptism and Transubstantiation And so no man can be certain whether he or any other man be baptized or not Nor whether it be Bread or Christs Body which he eateth We confess that it is necessary to the being of a Sacrament that the Minister do seem or profess to intend it as a Sacrament But if the reality of his intent be necessary to the being of it no man can be certain that ever he had a Sacrament XII It is a hard thing to be certain on either side in those controversies which have multitudes and in a manner equal strength of Learned Judicious Well-studyed Godly Impartial men for each part I deny not but one clear-headed man may be certain of that which a multitude are uncertain of and oppose him in But it must not be ordinary men but some rare illuminated person that must get above a probability unto a Certainty of that which such a company as aforesaid are of a contrary mind in XIII There is great uncertainty in matters of private impulse When a man hath nothing to prove a thing to be Gods will but an inward perswasion or impulse in his own Breast let it never so vehemently incline him to think it true it 's hard to be sure of it For we know not how far Satan or our own distempered Phantasies may go And most by far that pretend to this do prove deceived That which must be certain must be somewhat equal to Prophetical Inspiration Which indeed is its own Evidence But what that is no man can formally conceive but he that hath had it Therefore we are bid to Try the Spirits XIV It is a hard thing to gather certainties of Doctrinal conclusion from Gods Providences alone Providential changes have their great use as they are the fulfilling or execution of the word But they that will take them instead of the Scripture do usually run into such mistakes as are rectifyed to their cost by some contrary work of Providence ere long These times have fully taught us this XV. It is hard to gather Doctrinal certainties from Godly mens Experiences alone Even our Experimental Philosophers and Physicians find that an experiment that hits oft-times quite misseth afterwards on other Subjects and they know not why A course of effects may oft come from unknown causes And it 's no rare thing for the common Prejudices Selfconceitedness or corruption of the weaker and greater number of good people which needeth great repentance and a cure to be mistaken for the Communis Sensus Fidelium the Inclination and Experience of the Godly Especially when consent or the honour of their Leaders or Themselves hath engaged them in it In my time the common sense of the strictest sort was against long hair and taking Tobacco and other such things which now their common practice is for In one Countrey the common consent of the strictest party is for Arminianism In another they are zealously against it In Poland where the Socinians are for sitting at the Sacrament the Godly are generally against it In other places they are for it In Poland and Bohemia where they had holy humble perswading Bishops the generality of the Godly were for that Episcopacy as were all the ancient Churches even the Novatians
though they do some job of present service the next way at the end we shall find that they did more harm than good And that to say the contrary and that men will cease to be Christians unless they be kept to it by deceit is the way to downright infidelity And yet that you may see how much more than ordinary I favour the weaknesses of such I will here answer a great question Quest Whether a Man can have true saving Faith who believeth the Gospel or Scripture to be Gods word and Christ to be the Saviour of the World upon reasons or grounds not sure nor cogent and concluding yea possibly not true for the most part Ans He that readeth Mr. Pinks excellent Sermons and many other such Divines will find them thus describing the Faith of Hypocrites that they conclude have no true saving Faith that they believe in Christ but on the same or like reasons as a Turk may believe in Mahomet that is because the most the greatest the Learnedst and the best and all the Countrey are of their minds and in that way their Parents did educate them in For my part I easily confess 1. That such a belief which buildeth on unsound grounds is wanting proportionably in its own soundness 2. And that it should not be rested in 3. Much less cherished against all counsels that would cure it 4. And that though uncertain reasons are 1. The first 2. And the most prevailing with him afterwards yet every true Believer discerneth some intrinsick Signs of Divinity at least as probable in the Word it self But yet supposing that wrong motives be his chief and that he discerneth not that in the word it self which most prevaileth with him I am of opinion that 1. If the end of such a Believer be sound the reducing of the Soul to God and attainment of Glory and the perfect Love of God. 2. And if that man unfeignedly believe all that is Gods Word to be true 3. And if he believe all the substance of the Gospel to be Gods word though by an unsound and non-concluding medium as his chief 4. And if he by this belief be brought himself to the actual love of God as God This unsound Believer is sound in the Essentials of Christianity and shall be saved The objection is An uncertain yea deceived belief upon false suppositions is no true belief and therefore cannot save I answer There is a double Truth in such a belief 1. That all Gods Word is true 2. That this Gospel is Gods Word and Christ is the Messiah You will say that there can be no more no surer no better in the Conclusion than is in the weaker of the Premises I answer I grant it And all that will follow is that the Conclusion is not necessary from these Premises and that the believer was mistaken in the reason of his inference and that he concluded a truth upon an unsound medium I grant all this and consequently that his Faith hath some unsoundness or diseasedness in it But for all this I see not but such a believer may be saved 1. Because Christs promise is that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life without excepting such as are drawn to it by non-cogent arguments And he that will put in an exception against the Covenant of Grace must prove it or be injurious to Christ to his Gospel and to mens Souls 2. Because by experience I find that it is but a small part of serious Godly Christians who believe the Scriptures upon cogent evidence or at least many do not But abundance take it upon trust from Godly Preachers or Parents and go on without much examining of their grounds And are not able to bring a cogent proof of the Divinity of the Scriptures when they are called to it And I am not willing to conclude so great a part of humble upright Christians to Damnation as know not such reasons for their Faith as would hold good in strict disputation Not that our Charity must bend the Scripture to it But that Scripture commandeth such Charity and it no where condemneth any man that believeth upon uncogent reasons For he that doth so may yet firmly Trust on Jesus Christ and firmly believe that the Gospel is true as being the very Word of God and may take Heaven for his Portion and Love God as God and therefore may be saved Though yet I think it impossible that any man should truly believe the Scriptures and not perceive in them some Characters of Divinity which as an intrinsical Evidence much encourage and induce him to believe them And-though this secret gust and perception be not the medium that he useth in arguing or be not the chief yet it may have an effectual force with his Soul to hold him close to Christ But if you suppose the man to have no Spiritual sight and tast of a difference between Gods Word and a common Book then he cannot be supposed to be a sound believer As a man that hath one ingredient in his medicine which is effectual may be cured though in the composition the main bulk be vanities or as a debtor that hath many insufficient sureties may do well if he have one sufficient one though he more trust the rest or as a mans cause may go for him in Judgment that hath one or two good Witnesses and twenty bad ones which he put more trust in and as he truly proveth his position who bringeth one sound argument for it and twenty bad ones So I think that the common way of the illiterate in believing is first to believe Gods Word to be his Word by humane Faith and after upon trial to find a Spiritual light and goodness in the Word it self and by both together to believe that it is Gods Word And the worser reasons may be the more powerful with him and yet not destroy the sincerity of his Faith. Nor doth this make his Faith meerly humane For the Question now is not why he believeth God's Word to be True trusteth on it For that is because it is God's Word discerned by him so to be but he that by an insufficient Medium at least with a Better though less understood doth take it to be God's may yet by a Divine Faith believe it because he judgeth it his Word If a man should counterfeit himself an Angel from Heaven and come in some splendid deceitful appearance in the night to an Heathen and tell him that he is sent from God to bring him this Bible as his Certain Word and if the man receive it and believe it on his credit to the death and by that Believing it be brought to see an excellency and credibility and taste a spiritual sweetness in it and be brought by it as he may be to Holiness and the Love of God that man shall be saved though I cannot say that the Intrinsick Evidence of the Word alone would have
Communion to them if they are already in the Covenant And all this is because that the Will is the Man and if any Man truely love Jesus Christ he is a true Believer in Christ and if any Man love God the same Man is known and loved of him and hath so much knowledge as will save his Soul. I confess in private Catechizing and Conference I have met with some ancient Women that have long lived as godly Persons in constant affectionate use of means and an honest godly Life and been of good repute in the Church where they lived who yet have spoken downright Heresie to me through ignorance in answering some questions about Jesus Christ But I durst not therefore suspend their Communion nor condemn their former Communion For as soon as I told them better they have yielded and I could not perceive whether it was from gross ignorance or from unreadiness of notions or from the want of memory or what that they spake amiss before So that I shall be very loth to reject one from Communion that sheweth a love of God and Jesus Christ and Holiness by diligent use of means and an upright Life 7. And he that will impartially be ruled by the Holy Scriptures will be of the same mind For no one was ever taken to be a Church Member at Age without so full a consent as was willingly exprest by devotedness to God in the Solemn Covenant The Jews by the Sign of Circumcision and the Christians by Baptism and both by Covenanting with God were initiated And consent is love But the Articles and objective Degrees of Knowledge and Belief have greatly varied The Jews were to know and profess more than the Gentiles and the Jews since the Egyptian Deliverance more than before And John Baptized upon a shorter Profession than the Apostles did And the Apostles till Christs Resurrection believed not many great Articles of our Faith not knowing that Christ must die and be an Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and Sin to be pardoned by his Blood nor that he was to rise again and send the Holy Ghost for the work which he was sent for c. And Acts 19. there were Disciples that had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost I confidently think twice Baptized And if we mark how the Apostles Baptized with what Orders for it they received from Christ it will confirm my conclusion For Christ could have given a particular Creed and Profession of Faith if he had pleased but he taketh up with the General three Articles of Believing in the Father Son and Holy Ghost Mat. 28.19 20. lest any should cast out his weak ones for want of distinctness of Knowledge and Belief And he maketh the Covenant-consent in Baptism the necessary Thing as the End and Measure of their Knowledge He that hath Knowledge enough to cause him to thirst may come and drink of the waters of Life Rev. 22.17 And he that hungreth and thirsteth after righteousness shall be satisfied and he that cometh to Christ he will in no wise cast out And the Apostles Baptized so many thousands in a short time that they could not examine each Person about a more particular Knowledge and Belief Acts 2. c. Nor do we read in Scripture of such particular large Professions as go much beyond the words of Baptism And though no doubt they did endeavour to make the ignorant understand what they profest and did and so had some larger Creed yet was it not all so large as the short Creed called the Apostles now is several of its Articles having been long since added I have spoken all this not only to Ministers who have the Keys of Admission but especially for the Religious Persons sakes who are too much enclined to place godliness in words and ability to speak well in Prayer or Conference or answering Questions and that make a more distinct Knowledge and Profession necessary than God hath made Yea if all the Articles of the Creed are professed when the understanding of them is not clear and distinct they deride it and say A Parrot may be taught as much and they separate from those Pastors and Churches that receive such to their Communion Many do this of a godly Zeal lest ignorance and formality be encouraged and the godly and ungodly not sufficiently distinguished But their Zeal is not according to Knowledge nor to the holy Rule and they little know how much Pride oft lurketh unobserved in such desires to be publickly differenced from others as below us and unmeet for our Communion And less know they how much they injure and displease our gracious Lord who took little Children in his Arms and despiseth not the weak and carrieth the Lambs and refuseth no one any further than they refuse him I tell you if you see but true love and willingness in a diligent reformed pious and righteous Life there is certainly there is saving Knowledge and Faith within and if words do not satisfactorily express it you are to think that it is not for want of the thing it self but for want of use and exercise and for want of well studied Notions or for want of natural Parts Education or Art to enable them to act that part aright But if God know the meaning of Abba Father and of the groans of the Spirit in his Beloved Infants I will not be one that shall condemn and reject a lover of God and Christ and Holiness for want of distinct particular Knowledge or of words to utter it aright Chap. VIII The fourth Inference The aptness of the Teaching of Christ to ingenerate the Love of God and Holiness IF Love be the End and Perfection of our Knowledge then hence we may perceive that no Teacher that ever appeared in the World was so fit for the ingenerating of true saving knowledge as Jesus Christ For none ever so promoted the love of God. 1. It was he only that rendered God apparently lovely to sinful man by reconciling us to God and rendering him apparently propitious to his Enemies pardoning sin and tendering Salvation freely to them that were the Sons of Death Self-love will not give men leave to love aright a God that will damn them though deservedly for sin But it is Christ that hath made Atonement and is the Propitiation for our sins and proclaimeth Gods love even to the Rebellious Which is more effectually to kindle holy love in us than all the Precepts of Naturalists without this could ever have been His Cross and his Wounds and Blood were the powerful Sermons to Preach Gods winning love to sinners 2. And the benefits are so many and so great which he hath purchased and revealed to man that they are abundant fewel for the Flames of Love. We are set by Christ in the way of Mercy in the Houshold of God under the Eye and special Influence of his love all our sins pardoned our Everlasting punishment remitted our Souls renewed our wounded Consciences healed
great Benefactor of man and of the whole Creation So that there is no goodness but what is in him or from him and through him and finally to him And mans will is made to love apprehended good and followeth the last practical act of the Intellect at least where there is no Competitor but omnimoda ratio boni And all men know that God is not only Best in himself but Good yea Best to them because that all they have is from him And they have daily Experience of pardoning Grace contrary to their Commerit It seemeth therefore that they may love God as God. Ans 1. To cause a man to Love God as God there is necessary both Objective Revelation of God's Amiableness and such Subjective Grace which consisteth in a right Disposition of the Soul. 2. Objective Revelation is considered as sufficient either to well disposed or to an ill disposed Soul. 3. This Right disposition consisteth both in the abatement of mens Inclinations to contrary sensual objects and in the inclining them to that which is Divine and Spiritual And now I answer 1. It cannot be denied but that so much of God's Amiableness or Goodness is revealed to Infidels that have not the Gospel by the means mentioned in the Objection as is sufficient to bring men under an obligation to love God as God and to leave them unexcusable that do not 2. Therefore to such the Impossibility is not Physical but Moral 3. And there is in that objective Revelation so much sufficiency as that if the Soul it self were sanctified and well disposed it might love God upon such revelation Which Amyraldus hath largely proved 4. But to an unholy and undisposed Soul no objective Revelation is sufficient without the Spirits help and operations 5. Only the Spirit of Christ the Mediator as given by and from him doth thus operate on Souls as savingly to renew them 6. Whether ever the Spirit of Christ doth thus operate on any that hear not of Christs Incarnation must be known either by the Scripture or by experience By the Scripture I am not able to prove the Universal Negative though it 's easy to prove sanctification incomparably more common in the Church than on those without if any there have it The case of Infants and of the Churches and the World before Christs Incarnation must here come into consideration 2. And by experience no man can prove the Negative because no man hath experience what is in the Hearts of all the persons in the World. Q. 2. May a Papist or an Heretick by his knowledge be a lover of God as God Ans What is said to the former question is here to be reviewed And further 1. A Papist and such Heretick as positively holdeth all the essentials of Christianity and seeth not the opposition of his false opinions hereto and holdeth Christianity more practically than those false opinions may be saved in that state for he is a Lover of God But no other Papists or Hereticks can be saved but by a true conversion 2. There is a sufficiency in the Doctrine of Christianity which they hold to save them as to Objective Sufficiency And that God giveth not subjective Grace of Sanctification to any such notwithstanding their errours is a thing that no man can prove nor any sober charitable Christian easily believe And experience of the piety of many maketh it utterly improbable though we know not certainly the Heart of another There are many murmurings against me in this City behind my back for never one man of them to my remembrance to this day did ever use any charitable endeavour to my face to convince me of my supposed errour as one that holds that a Papist may be saved yea that we are not certain that none in the World are saved besides Christians and the Sectaries whisper me to one another to be like Origen a person in these dangerous opinions forsaken of God in comparison of them What really I assert about these Questions I have here briefly hinted but more largely opened in my Catholick Theology But I will confess that I find no inclination in my Soul to desire that their doctrine may prove true who hide the Glorified love of God and would contract his Mercy and Mans Salvation into so narrow a Room as to make it hardly discernable by man and the Church to be next to no Church and a Saviour to save so very few as seem scarce considerable among the rest that are left remediless And who would make us believe that the way appointed to bring men to the Love of God is to believe that he hath elected that particular person and left almost all the World many score or hundreds to one unredeemed and without any promise or possibility of Salvation I am sure that the covenant of Innocency is ceased And I am sure that all the World was brought under a Law of Grace made after the fall to Adam and Noe And that this Law is still in force to those that have not the more perfect edition in the Gospel And that Christ came not to bring the World that never hear of him nor can do into a worse condition than Jews and Gentiles were in before nor hath he repealed that Law of Grace which he before made them nor hath God changed that Gracious Name which he proclaimed even to Moses Exod. 34.6 7. And I am sure that Abraham the Father of the Faithful conjectured once even when God told him that Sodom was ripe for destruction that yet there might be fifty Righteous persons in it By which we may conjecture what he thought of all the World And I know that in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him And that he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him and therefore without Faith none can please God And that men shall be judged by that same Law which they were under and obliged by whatever it be And they that have sinned under the Law of Moses shall be judged by it And they that sinned without that Law shall be judged without it And I know that God is LOVE it self and Infinitely Good and will shew us his goodness in such Glorious Effects to all eternity as shall satisfy us and fill us with Joyful praise And as for the Papists I know that they are seduced by a worldly Clergy and that by consequence many of the Errours in that Church do subvert the Fundamentals And so do many Errors of the Antinomians and others among us that are taken for religious persons yea and as notoriously as any Doctrines of the Popish Councils do But I know that as a Logical Faith or Orthodoxness which consisteth in holding right Notions and Words deceiveth thousands that have no sound belief of the things themselves expressed by these words So also Logical errors about Words Notions and Sentences may
Love of God You say if such and such men be suffered this and that disorder and inconvenience will follow But is it a greater thing than Love that you would maintain Is it a greater evil than the destruction of Love that you would avoid Did not Christ prefer mercy before Sabbath rest and before the avoiding familiarity with sinners Pretend nothing against Love that is not better than Love. Obj. But what is this to the Love of God which the Text speaketh of Ans As God is here seen as in a Glass so is he loved He that Loveth not his Brother whom he seeth daily how shall he Love God whom he never saw He that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Liar What you do to his Brethren you do as to Christ If you can find as full a promise of Salvation to those that observe your Canons Ceremonies Orders or are of your Opinion and Sect as I can shew you for them that Love Christ and his Servants then prefer the former before Love. I know that the Love and Good of Church and State and of many must be preferred before the love and good of few But take heed of their hypocrisie that make these also inconsistent when they are not and make publick good and peace a meer pretence for their Persecutions on one side or their Schisms on the other Love is so amiable to nature itself that few of its Enemies oppose it but under pretence of its own interest and name It is as in love to the Church to mens Souls that the Inquisition hath murdered so many and the Laws de Hereticis comburendis have been made and Executed But this Burning Hanging Tormenting and undoing kind of Love needeth very clear proof to make good its name and pretences before impartial men will take it for love indeed Whatever good you seem to do by the detriment of Love to God and Man you will find it will not bear your charges Chap. 18. Exh. Bend all your Studies and Labours to the exercise and increase of Love both of God and Man and all good works THE greatest best and sweetest work should have the greatest diligence This great Commandment must be obeyed with the greatest care The work of love must be the work of our whole life If you cannot learn to pray and preach no nor to follow a worldly trade without study and much Exercise how think you to be proficients in the love of God without them Do this well and all is done O happy Souls that are habituated and daily exercised in this work Whose new nature and life and study and business is holy Love. 1. How Divine how High and Noble is this life To live in a humble friendship with God and all his holy ones All animals naturally Love their like and converse according to their Love And men as men have as much sociable Love to men as the love of sin and inordinate self-love will allow them And they that truly love God and Holiness and Saints do shew that they have some connatural suitableness to these excellent Objects of their love Nothing more aptly denominateth any man Divine and Holy than Divine and Holy Love. How else should Souls have Communion with God His common Influx all creatures receive In him all live and move and have their being But when his Love kindleth in us a reflecting Love this is felicity itself Yea it is much nobler than our felicity For though our felicity consist in Loving God and being Beloved of him yet it is a far more excellent thing by reason that God is the Object of our love than by reason that it is our felicity Gods interest advanceth it more than ours And though they are not separable yet being distinguishable we should love God far more as God and perfect goodness in himself than as he or this love is our own felicity 2. This life of love is the true improvement of all Gods Doctrines Ordinances Mercies Afflictions and other Providences whatsoever For the use of them all is to lead us up to Holy Love and to help us in the daily exercise of it What is the Bible else written for but to teach us to Love and to exercise the fruits of Love What came Christ from Heaven for but to demonstrate and reveal Gods love and loveliness to man and by reconciling us to God and freely pardoning all our sins and promising us both Grace and Glory to shew us those motives which should kindle Love and to shew us that God is most suitable and worthy of our Love and to fill us with the Spirit of love which may give us that which he commandeth us What is it that we read books for and hear Sermons for but to kindle and exercise holy Love What joyn we for in the Sacred worship of the assemblies but that in an united flame of holy love we might all mount up in praise to Jehovah What is the Lords day separated to but the tidings of love the Sufferings Victories and Triumphs of our Saviours love the Tasts and Prospects of Gods love to us and the lively and joyful exercise of ours to him and to each other What use are the Sacraments of but that being entertained at the most wonderful Feast of Love we should tast its sweetness and pour out the grateful sense of it in holy Thanksgiving and Praise and the exercise of uniting love to one another What are Church Societies or Combinations for but the loving Communion of Saints Which the primitive Christians expressed by selling all and living in a Community of love and stedfastly continuing in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and breaking of bread and Prayer What are all Gods mercies for but that as by Love tokens we should tast that he is Love and Good and should by that tast be inclined to returns of Love Nay what are Civil Societies but loving Communions if used according to their natures Did they not love each other so many Bees would never hive and work together nor so many Pigeons dwell peaceably in one Dove-house nor fly together in so great flocks What is the whole Christian Faith for but the doctrine of holy love believed for the kindling and exercise of our love what is faith itself but the bellows of love What is the excellency of all good works and gifts and endowments but to be the exercises of love to God and man and the incentives of our brethrens Love Without love all these are dead Carkasses and as nothing and without it we our selves are as nothing yea though we give all that we have to the poor or give our bodies like martyrs to be burnt or could speak with the tongue the Orthodoxness and Elegancy of Angels we were but as sounding brass and as a tinkling Cymbal James knew what he said when he said that Faith without works is dead because without love it is dead which those works are but the