and no man here limits the Spirit of God nor bringeth forth his own conned and gathered stuff but every one puts that forth which the Lord puts into their hearts and it 's uttered forth not in man's will and wisdom but in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit and of Power Yea though there be not a word spoken yet is the true Spiritual Worship performed and the body of Christ edified yea it may and hath often faln out among us that divers meetings have past without one word and yet our Souls have been greatly edified and refreshed and our hearts wonderfully overcome with the secret sense of God's Power and Spirit which without words hath been ministred from one Vessel to another This is indeed strange and incredible to the meer natural and carnally-minded man who will be apt to judg all time lost where there is not something spoken that 's obvious to the outward senses and therefore I shall insist a little upon this subject as one that can speak from a certain experience and not by meer hear-say of this Wonderful and Glorious Dispensation which hath so much the more of the Wisdom and Glory of God in it as it 's contrary to the Nature of man's Spirit Will and Wisdom § VII As there can be nothing more opposite to the Natural will and wisdom of man than this silent waiting upon God so neither can it be obtained not rightly comprehended by man but as he layeth down his own wisdom and will so as to be content to be throughly subject to God And therefore it was not preached nor can be so practised but by such as find no outward ceremony no observations no words yea not the best and purest words even the words of Scripture able to satisfie their weary and afflicted Souls because where all these may be the life power and vertue which make such things effectual may be wanting Such I say were necessitate to cease from all outwards and to be silent before the Lord and being directed to that inward principle of Life and Light in themselves as the most excellent Teacher which can never be removed into a corner came thereby to be learned to wait upon God in the measure of Life and Grace received from him and to cease from their own forward words and actings in the natural willing and comprehension and feel after this inward Seed of Life that as it moveth they may move with it and be acted by its power and influenced whether to pray preach or sing And so from this principle of man's being silent and not acting in the things of God of himself until thus acted by God's Light and Grace in the heart did naturally spring that manner of sitting silent together and waiting together upon the Lord. For many thus principled meeting together in the pure fear of the Lord did not apply themselves presently to speak pray or sing c. being afraid to be found acting forwardly in their own wills but each made it their work to retire inwardly to the measure of Grace in themselves not being only silent as to words but even abstaining from all their own Thoughts Imaginations and Desire so watching in a holy dependence upon the Lord and meeting together not only outwardly in one place but thus inwardly in One Spirit and in One Name of Jesus which is his Power and Vertue They come thereby to enjoy and feel the arisings of this Life which as it prevails in each particular becomes as a stood of refreshment and overspreads the whole meeting for man and man's part and wisdom being denyed and chained down in every individual and God exalted and his Grace in dominion in the heart thus his Name comes to be One in all and his Glory breaks forth and covers all and there is such a holy aw and reverence upon every Soul that if the natural part should arise in any or the wise part or what is not one with the Life it would presently be chained down and judged out And when any are through the breaking forth of this power constrained to utter a sentence of exhortation or praise or to breath to the Lord in Prayer then all are sensible of it for the same Life in them answers to it as in water face answereth to face This is that Divine and Spiritual Worship which the World neither knoweth nor understandeth which the Vultures Eye seeth not into Yet many and great are the advantages which my Soul with many others hath tasted of hereby and which would be found of all such as would seriously apply themselves hereunto For when People are gathered thus together not meerly to hear men nor depend upon them but all are inwardly taught to stay their minds upon the Lord and wait for his appearance in their hearts thereby the forward working of the Spirit of man is stayed and hindred from mixing it self with the Worship of God and the form of this Worship is so naked and void of all outward and worldly splendor that all occasion for man's wisdom to be exercised in that superstition and idolatry hath no lodging here and so there being also an inward quietness and retiredness of mind the Witness of God ariseth in the heart and the Light of Christ shineth whereby the Soul cometh to see its own condition And there being many joyned together in this same work there is an inward travel and wrestling and also as the measure of Grace is abode in an overcoming of the power and spirit of darkness and thus we are often greatly strengthned and renewed in 〈…〉 of our minds without a word and we enjoy and possess the 〈…〉 and Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ by which our inward than is nourished and fed Which makes us not to dote upon outward Water and Bread and Wine in our Spiritual things Now as many thus gathered together grow up in the strength power and vertue of Truth and as Truth comes thus to have victory and dominion in their Souls then they receive an utterance and speak steadily to the edification of their Brethren and the pure Life hath a free passage through them and what is thus spoken edifieth the body indeed Such is the evident certainty of that Divine strength that is communicated by thus meeting together and waiting in silence upon God that sometimes when one hath come in that hath been unwatchful and wandring in his mind or suddenly out of the hurry of outward business and so not inwardly gathered with the rest so soon as he retires himself inwardly this Power being in a good measure raised in the whole meeting will suddenly lay hold upon his Spirit and wonderfully help to raise up the good in him and beget him into the sense of the same Power to the melting and warming of his heart even as the warmth would take hold upon a man that is cold coming into a stove or as a flame will lay
thou determine not precisely to speak what before thou hast meditated whatsoever it be for though it be lawful to determine the Text which thou art to expound yet not at all the interpretation lest if thou so dost thou take from the Holy Spirit that which is his to wit to direct thy speech that thou mayst Prophecy in the Name of the Lord denuded of all Learning Meditation and Experience and as if thou hadst studied nothing at all committing thy heart thy tongue and thy self wholly unto his Spirit and trusting nothing to thy former studying or meditation but saying with thy self in great confidence of the Divine Promise the Lord will give a word with much power unto those that preach the Gospel But above all things be careful thou follow not the manner of Hypocrites who have written almost word by word what they are to say as if they were to repeat some Verses upon a Theatre having learned all their Preaching as they do that act Tragedies and afterwards when they are in the place of Prophecying pray the Lord to direct their tongue but in the mean time shutting up the way of the Holy Spirit they determine to say nothing but what they have written O unhappy kind of Prophets yea and truly cursed which depend not upon God's Spirit but upon their own Writings or meditation Why pray'st thou to the Lord thou false Prophet to give thee his holy Spirit by which thou mayst speak things profitable and yet thou repellest the Spirit why preferrest thou thy meditation or study to the Spirit of God otherwise why committest thou not thy self to the Spirit § XIX Secondly this manner of preaching as used by them considering that they also affirm that it may be and often is performed by men who are wicked or void of true Grace cannot only not edifie the Church beget or nourish true Faith but is destructive to it being directly contrary to the Nature of the Christian and Apostolick Ministry mentioned in the Scriptures For the Apostle preached the Gospel not in the wisdom of words lest the Cross of Christ should be of none effect 1 Cor. 1.17 But this preaching not being done by the actings and movings of God's Spirit but by man's invention and eloquence in his own will and through his natural and acquired parts and learning is in the wisdom of words and therefore the Cross of Christ is thereby made of none effect The Apostles speech and preaching was not with inticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That the Faith of their Hearers should not stand in the Wisdom of men but in the Power of God 1 Cor. 2 3 4 5. But this preaching having nothing of the Spirit and Power in it both the Preachers and Hearers confessing they wait for no such thing nor yet are often-times sensible of it must needs stand in the enticing words of man's wisdom since it is by the meer wisdom of man it is sought after and the meer strength of man's eloquence and enticing words it is uttered and therefore no wonder if the Faith of such as hear and depend upon such Preachers and Preachings stand in the wisdom of men and not in the Power of God The Apostles declared that they spake not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 1 Cor. 2.13 But these Preachers confess that they are strangets to the Holy Ghost his motions and operations neither do they wait to feel them and therefore they speak in the words which their own natural wisdom and learning teacheth them mixing them in and adding them to such words as they steal of the Scripture and other Books and therefore speak not what the Holy Ghost teacheth Thirdly this is contrary to the method and order of the primitive Church mentioned by the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.30 c. where in Preaching every one is to wait for his Revelation and to give place one unto another according as things are revealed But here there is no waiting for a revelation but the Preacher must speak and not that which is revealed unto him but what he hath prepared and premeditated before hand Lastly by this kind of preaching the Spirit of God which should be the chief instructor and teacher of God's people and whose influence is that only which makes all preaching effectual and beneficial for the edifying of Souls is shut out and man's natural wisdom learning and parts set up and exalted which no doubt is a great and chief reason why the preaching among the generality of Christians is so unfruitful and unsuccessful yea according to this Doctrine the Devil may preach and ought to be heard also seeing he both knoweth the Truth and hath as much eloquence as any But what avails excellency of speech if the demonstration and Power of the Spirit be wanting which toucheth the Conscience We see that when the Devil confessed to the Truth yet Christ would have none of his testimony And as these pregnant testimonies of the Scripture do prove this part of preaching to be contrary to the Doctrin of Christ so do they also prove that of ours before affirmed to be conform thereunto § XX. But if any object after this manner Have not many been benefited yea and both converted and edified by the Ministry of such as have premiditated their preachings yea and hath not the Spirit often concurred by its divine influence with preaching thus premeditated so as they have been powerfully born in upon the Souls of the hearers to their advantage I answer though that be granted which I shall not deny it will not infer that the thing was good in it self more than because Paul was met with by Christ to the converting of his Soul riding to Damascus to persecute the Saints that he did well in so doing neither particular actions nor yet whole congregations as we above observed are to be measured by the acts of God's condescension in times of ignorance But besides it hath often times faln out that God having a regard to the simplicity and integrity either of the preacher or hearers hath faln in upon the heart of a Preacher by his power and holy influence and thereby hath led them to speak things which were not in his premeditated discourse and which perhaps he never thought of before and those passing ejaculations and unpremeditated but living exhortations have proved more beneficial and refreshful both to preacher and hearers than all their premeditated Sermons But all that will not allow them to continue in these things which in themselves are not approved but contrary to the practice of the Apostles when God is raising up a people to serve him according to the primitive purity and spirituality yea such acts of God's condescension in times of darkness and ignorance should ingage all more and more to follow him according as he reveals his most perfect and spiritual way § XXI Having hitherto spoken of Preaching
which God is the alone proper and infallible Judge who by his Power and Spirit can alone rectifie the mistakes of Conscience and therefore hath reserved to himself the power of punishing the errors thereof as he seeth meet Now for the Magistrate to assume this is to take upon him to meddle with things not within the compass of his jurisdiction for if this were within the compass of his jurisdiction he should be the proper judge in these things and also it were needful to him as an essential qualification of his being a Magistrate to be capable to Judge in them But that the Magistrate as a Magistrate is neither proper Judge in these cases not yet that the capacity so to be is requisite in him as a Magistrate our adversaries cannot deny or else they must say that all the Heathen Magistrates were either no lawful Magistrates as wanting something essential to Magistracy and this were contrary to the express Doctrin of the Apostles Rom. 13. or else which is more absurd that those Heathen Magistrates were proper Judges in matters of Conscience amongst Christians As for that evasion that the Magistrate ought to punish according to the Church censure and determination which is indeed no less than to make the Magistrate the Churches Hang-man we shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter But if the chief members of the Church though ordained to inform instruct and reprove are not to have dominion over the Faith nor Consciences of the Faithful as the Apostle expressly affirms 2 Cor. 1.24 then far less ought they to usurp this dominion or stir up the Magistrate to persecute and murther those who will not yield to them therein Secondly this pretended power of the Magistrate is both contrary unto and inconsistent with the nature of the Gospel which is a thing altogether extrinsic from the rule and government of political States as Christ expressly signified saying his Kingdom was not of this World and if the propagating of the Gospel had had any necessary relation thereunto then Christ had not said so but he abundantly hath shewn by his Example whom we are chiefly to imitate in matters of that nature that its by perswasion and the Power of God not by Whips Imprisonments Banishments and Murtherings that the Gospel is to be propagated and that those that are the propagators of it are often to suffer by the wicked but never to cause the wicked to suffer When he sends forth his Disciples he tells them he sends them forth as Lambs among Wolves to be willing to be devoured not to devour he tells them of their being whipped imprisoned and killed for their Conscience but never that they shall either whip imprison or kill and indeed if Christians must be as Lambs it is not the nature of Lambs to destroy or devour any It serves nothing to alledge that that in Christ and his Apostles times the Magistrates were Heathens and therefore Christ and his Apostles not being Magistrates nor yet any of the Believers could not exercise the power because it cannot be denied but Christ being the Son of God had a true right to all Kingdoms and was righteous Heir of the Earth Next as to his Power it cannot be denied but he could if he had seen meet have called for legions of Angels to defend him and have forced the Princes and Potentates of the Earth to be subject unto him Matth. 26.53 So that it was only because it was contrary to the nature of Christ's Gospel and Ministry to use any force or violence in the gathering of Souls to him This he abundantly expressed in his reproof to the Sons of Zebedee who would have been calling for Fire from Heaven to burn those that refused to receive Christ. It is not to be doubted but this was a great crime as now to be in an error concerning the Faith and Doctrin of Christ. That there was not Power wanting to have punished those refusers of Christ cannot be doubted for they that could do other Miracles might have done this also and moreover they wanted not the president of a holy man under the Law as did Elias yet we see what Christ saith to them Ye know not what Spirit ye are of Luke 9.55 for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them Here Christ shews that such kind of zeal was no waies approved of him and such as think to make way for Christ or his Gospel by this means do not understand what Spirit they are of But if it was not lawful to call for Fire from Heaven to destroy such as refused to receive Christ it is far less lawful to kindle Fire upon Earth to destroy those that believe in Christ because they will not believe nor can believe as the Magistrates do for Conscience sake and if it was not lawful for the Apostles who had so large a measure of the Spirit and were so little liable to mistake to force others to their judgment it can be far less lawful now for men that experience declareth and many of themselves confess are fallible and often mistaken to kill and destroy all such as cannot because otherwise perswaded in their minds judge and believe in matters of Conscience just as they do And if it was not according to the Wisdom of Christ who was and is King of Kings by outward force to constrain others to believe him or receive him as being a thing inconsistent with the nature of his Ministry and Spiritual Government do not they grossly offend him that will needs be wiser than he and think to force men against their perswasion to conform to their Doctrin and Worship The word of the Lord saith not by Power and by Might but by the Spirit of the Lord Zach. 4.6 But these say not by the Spirit of the Lord but by Might and Carnal Power The Apostle saith plainly we wrestle not with Flesh and Blood and the weapons of our warfar are not carnal but Spiritual but these men will needs wrestle with Flesh and Blood when they cannot prevail with the Spirit and the Understanding and not having Spiritual Weapons go about with Carnal Weapons to establish Christ's Kingdom which they can never do and therefore when the matter is well sifted it is found to be more out of love to self and from a principle of pride in man to have all others to bow to him than from the love of God Christ indeed takes another method for he saith he will make his People a willing People in the day of his power but these men labour against mens wills and Consciences not by Christ's power but by the outward Sword to make men the people of Christ which they can never do as shall hereafter be shewn But thirdly Christ fully and plainly declareth to us his sense in this matter in the parable of the Tares Matth. 13. of which we have himself the Interpreter ver 38 39
to every man to profit withal This certain Doctrine then being received to wit that there is an Evangelical and saving Light and Grace in all the universality of the Love and Mercy of God towards mankind both in the death of his beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ and in the manifestation of the Light in the heart is established and confirmed against all the Objections of such as deny it Therefore Christ hath tasted death for every man not only for all kinds of men as some vainly talk but for every one of all kinds the benefit of whose offering is not only extended to such who have the distinct outward knowledg of his death and suffering as the same is declared in the Scriptures but even unto those who are necessarily excluded from the benefit of this knowledg by some inevitable accident which knowledg we willingly confess to be very profitable and comfortable but not absolutely needful unto such from whom God himself hath withheld it yet they may be made partakers of the mystery of his death tho ignorant of the History if they suffer his Seed and Light inlightning their hearts to take in which Light communion with the Father and the Son is enjoyned so as of wicked men to become holy and lovers of that power by whose inward and secret touches they feel themselves turned from the evil to the good and learn to do to others as they would be done by in which Christ himself affirms all to be included As they have then falsly and erreonously taught who have denyed Christ to have died for all Men so neither have they sufficiently taught the Truth who affirming him to have died for all have added the absolute necessity of the outward knowledg thereof in order to the obtaining its saving effects Among whom the Remonstrants of Holland have been chiefly wanting and many other Assertors of universal Redemption in that they have not Placed the extent of this salvation in that Divine and Evangelical Principle of Light and Life wherewith Christ hath enlightned every man that comes into the world which is excellently and evidently held forth in these Scriptures Gen. 6.3 Deut. 30.14 John 1.7 8 9. Rom. 10.8 Tit. 2.11 The Seventh Proposition Concerning Justification As many as resist not this Light but receive the same in them is produced a holy pure and spiritual birth bringing forth holiness righteousness purity and all these other blessed fruits which are acceptable to God by which holy birth to wit Jesus Christ formed within us and working his works in us as we are sanctified so are we justified in the sight of God according to the Apostles words But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Therefore it is not by our works wrought in our will nor yet by good works considered as of themselves but Christ who is both the gift and the giver and the cause producing the effects in us who as he hath reconciled us while we were enemies doth also in his wisdom save us and justifie us after this manner as saith the same Apostle elsewhere according to his mercy he hath saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost The Eighth Proposition Concerning Perfection In whom this holy and pure birth is fully brought forth the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed and their hearts united and subjected unto the truth so as not to obey any suggestion or temptation of the evil one but to be free from actual sinning and transgressing of the Law of God and in that respect perfect yet doth this perfection still admit of a growth there remaineth ever in some part a possibility of sinning where the mind doth not most diligently and watchfully attend unto the Lord. The Ninth Proposition Concerning Perseverence and the possibility of falling from Grace Altho this Gift and inward Grace of God be sufficient to work out Salvation yet in those in whom it is resisted it both may and doth become their Condemnation Moreover in whom it hath wrought in part to purifie and sanctifie them in order to their further Perfection by disobedience such may fall from it and turn it to wantoness making Shipwrack of Faith and after having tasted of the Heavenly Gift and been made Partakers of the Holy Ghost again fall away yet such an increase and stability in the Truth may in this Life be attained from which there can not be a total Apostacy The Tenth Proposition Concerning the Ministry As by this Gift or Light of God all true knowledge in things Spiritual is received and revealed so by the same as it is manifested and received in the heart by the strength and power thereof every true Minister of the Gospel is ordained prepared and supplied in the work of the Ministry and by the leading moving and drawing hereof ought every Evangelist and Christian Pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the Gospel both as to the place where as to the Person to whom and as to the times when he is to Minister Moreover who have this Authority may and ought to Preach the Gospel tho without human Commission or Literature as on the other hand who want the Authority of this Divine Gift however Learned or Authorized by the Commissions of Men and Churches are to be esteemed but as deceivers and not true Ministers of the Gospel also who have received this holy and unspotted Gift as they have freely received so are they freely to give without hire or bargaining far less to use it as a Trade to get Money by it yet if God hath called any from their Imployments or Trades by which they acquire their livelihood it may be lawful for such according to the liberty which they feel given them in the Lord to receive such Temporals to wit what may be needful to them for Meat and Cloathing as are freely given them by those to whom they have Communicated spirituals The Eleventh Proposition Concerning Worship All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times or Persons for tho we be to worship him always in that we are to fear before him yet as to the outward signification thereof in Prayers Praises or Preachings we ought not to do it where and when we will but where and when we are moved thereunto by the secret Inspirations of his Spirit in our hearts which God heareth and accepteth of and is never wanting to move us thereunto when need is of which he himself is the alone proper Judg all other worship then both Praises Prayers and Preachings which man sets about in his own will and at his own appointment which he can both begin and end at his pleasure do or leave undone as himself
life eternal with it therefore I have affirmed and that truely that this knowledg is no otherways attained and that none have any true ground to believe they have attained it who have it not by this revelation of Gods Spirit The certainty of which truth is such that it hath been acknowledged by some of the most refined and famous of all sorts of Professors of Christianity in all ages who being truly upright-hearted and earnest seekers of the Lord however stated under the disadvantages and epidemical errors of their several sects or ages the true seed in them hath been answered by Gods love who hath had regard to the Good and hath had of his elect ones among all who finding a distast and disgust in all other outward means even in the very principles and precepts more particullary relative to their own forms and societies have at last concluded with one voice that there was no true knowledg of God but that which is revealed inwardly by his own Spirit whereof take these following testimonies of the Ancients 1. It is the inward Master saith Augustin that teacheth it is Christ that teacheth it is inspiration that teacheth where this inspiration and unction is wanting it is in vain that words from without are beaten in And therefore for he that created us and redeemed us and called us by faith and dwelleth in us by his Spirit unless he speaketh unto you inwardly it is needless for us to cry out 2. There is a difference faith Clemens Alexandrinus betwixt that which any one saith of the Truth and that which the Truth it self interpreting it self saith A conjecture of Truth differeth from the Truth it self a similitude of a thing differeth from the thing it self it is one thing that is acquired by exercise and discipline and another thing which by power and faith Lastly the same Clemens saith Truth is neither hard to be arrived at nor is it impossible to apprehend it for it is most nigh unto us even in our houses as the most wise Moses hath insinuated 3. How is it saith Tertullian that since the Devil always worketh and stirreth up the mind to iniquity that the work of God should either cease or desist to act Since for this end the Lord did send the Comforter that because human weakness could not at once bear all things knowledg might be by little and little directed formed and brought to perfection by the holy Spirit that Vicar of the Lord. I have many things yet saith he to speak unto you but ye can not as vet bear them but when that Spirit of Truth shall come he shall lead you into all Truth and shall teach you these things that are to come But of his works we have spoken above What is then the administration of the Comforter but that discipline be derived and the Scriptures revealed c. 4. The Law saith Hierom is spiritual and there is need of a revelation to understand it And in his epistle 150 to Hedibia question 11. he saith the whole epistle to the Romans needs an interpretation it being involved in so great obscuritys that for the understanding thereof we need the help of the Holy Spirit who through the Apostle dictated it 5. So great things saith Athanasius doth our Saviour daily he draws unto piety perswades unto vertue teaches immortality excites to the desire of heavenly things reveals knowledg from the Father inspires power against death and shews himself unto every one 6. Gregory the Great upon these words he shall teach you all things saith that unless the same Spirit sit upon the heart of the hearer in vain is the discourse of the doctor let no man then ascribe unto the man that teacheth what he understands from the mouth of him that speaketh for unless he that teacheth be within the tongue of the Doctor that 's without laboureth in vain 7. Cyrillas Alexandrinus plainly affirmeth that men know that Jesus is the Lord by the Holy Ghost no otherwise than they who tast honey know that it is sweet even by its proper quality 8. Therefore saith Bernard we daily exhort you Brethren by speech that ye walk the ways of the heart and that your Souls be always in your hands that he may hear what the Lord saith in you And again upon these words of the Apostle Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord with which threefold vice saith he all sorts of religious men are less or more dangerously affected because they do not so diligently attend with the ears of the heart to what the Spirit of Truth which flatters none inwardly speaks This was the very basis and main foundation upon which the primitive Reformers walked Luther in his book to the Nobility of Germany saith This is certain that no man can make himself a Doctor of the holy Scripture but the holy Spirit alone And upon the Magnificat he saith No man can rightly understand God or the Word of God unless he immediately receive it from the Holy Spirit neither can any one receive it from the Holy Spirit except he find it by experience in himself and in this experience the Holy Ghost teacheth as in his proper school out of which school nothing is taught but meer talk Philip Melanchton in his Annotations upon the 6. of John Who hear only an outward and bodily voice hear the creature but God is a Spirit and is neither discerned nor known nor heard but by the Spirit and therefore to hear the voice of God to see God is to know and hear the Spirit by the Spirit alone God is known and perceived Which also the more serious to this day do acknowledg even all such who satisfie themselves not with the superfice of Religion and use it not as a cover or art Yea all these who apply themselves effectually to Christianity and are not satisfied until they have found its effectual work upon their hearts redeeming them from Sin do feel that no knowledge effectually prevails to the producing of this but that which proceeds from the warm influence of God's Spirit upon the heart and from the comfortable shinings of his Light upon their understanding and therefore to this purpose a late modern Author saith well videlicer Doctor Smith of Cambridge in his select discourses To seek our Divinity meerly in Books and Writings is to seek the living among the dead we do but in vain many times seek God in these where his Truth is too often not so much enshrined as entombed Intra te quaere Deum seek God within thine own Soul he is best discerned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus phraseth it by an intellectual touch of him We must see with our eyes and hear with our ears and our hands must handle the Word of Life to express it in St. John 's words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Soul it self hath its sense as well as the Body And therefore David
and really to have conquered Asâ—â— and overcome Pompey c. This knowledg then of Christ which is not by the Revelation of his own Spirit in the heart is no more properly the knowledg of Christ than the pratling of a Parret which has been taught a few words may be said to be the voice of a man for as that or some other Bird may be taught to sound or utter forth a rational sentence as it hath learned it by the outward ear and not from any living principle of reason actuating it So just such is that knowledg of the things of God which the natural and carnal man hath gathered from the words or writings of Spiritual men which are not true to him because conceived in the natural Spirit and so brought forth by the wrong Organ and not proceeding from the Spiritual Principle no more than the words of a man acquired by art and brought forth by the mouth of a Bird not proceeding from a rational Principle are true with respect to the Bird that utters them Wherefore from this Scripture I shall further add this Argument If no man can say Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But the First is true Therefore the Second From this argument there may be another deduced concluding in the very terms of this assertion thus If no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then can there be no certain knowledg or Revelation of him but by the Spirit But the First is true Therefore the Second § VII The third thing affirmed is That by the Spirit God always revealed himself to his Children For making appear of the truth of this assertion it will be but needful to consider God's manifesting himself towards and in relation to his Creatures from the beginning which resolves it self always herein The First step of all is ascribed hereunto by Moses Gen. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters I think it will not be denied that God's converse with man all along from Adam to Moses was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit And afterwards through the whole tract of the Law he spake to his Children no otherwaies which as it naturally followeth from the Principles above proved so it cannot be denied by such as acknowledg the Scriptures of Truth to have been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost For these writings from Moses to Malachy do declare that during all that time God revealed himself to his Children by his Spirit But if any will object that after th dispensation of the Law God's method of speaking was altered I answer first that God spake alwayes immediatly to the Jewes in that he spake always immediatly to the High-Priest from betwixt the Cherubins who when he entered into the Holy of Holys returning did relate to the whole People the voice and will of God there immediately revealed So that his immediate speaking never ceased in any age Secondly from this immediate fellowship were none shut out who earnestly sought after and waited for it in that many besides the High-Priest who were not so much as of the kindred of Levi nor of the Prophets did receive it and speak from it as it is written Numb 11.25 Where the Spirit is said to have rested upon the seventy Elders which Spirit also reached unto two that were not in the Tabernacle but in the Camp whom when some would have forbidden Moses would not but rejoiced wishing all the Lord's people were Prophets and that he would put his Spirit upon them verse 29. This is also confirmed Neh. 9. Where the Elders of the People after their return from captivity when they began to sanctifie themselves by fasting and prayer in which numbring up the many mercies of God towards their Fathers they say ver 20. Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them and ver 30. Yet many years didst thou forbear and testifie against them by thy Spirit in thy Prophets Many are the sayings of Spiritual David to this purpose as Psal. 51.13 Take not thy Holy Spirit from me uphold me with thy free Spirit Psal. 139.7 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit Hereunto doth the Prophet Isaiah ascribe the credit of his Testimony saying chap. 48. v. 16. And now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me And that God revealed himself to his children under the New Testament to wit to the Apostles Evangelists and primitive Disciples is confessed by all How far now this yet continueth and is to be expected comes hereafter to be spoken to § VIII The fourth thing affirmed is that these Revelations were the object of the Saints faith of old This will easily appear by the definition of Faith and considering what its object is For which we shall not dive into the curious and various notions of the School-men but stay in the plain and positive words of the Apostle Paul who Hebr. 11. describes it two ways Faith saith he is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen which as the Apostle illustrateth it in the same chapter by many examples is no other but a firm and certain belief of the mind whereby it resteth and in a sence possesseth the substance of some things hoped for through its confidence in the promise of God And thus the Soul hath a most firm evidence by its faith of things not yet seen nor come to pass The object of this faith is the promse word or testimony of God speaking to the mind Hence it hath been generally affirmed that the object of Faith is Deus loquens c. That is God speaking c. Which is also manifest from all these Examples deduced by the Apostle throughout that whole Chapter whose Faith was founded neither by that outward testimony nor upon the voice and writing of man but upon the revelation of Gods Will manifest unto them and in them as in the Example of Noah ver 7. thus By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his House by the which he condemned the World and became Heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith What was here the object of Noahs Faith but God speaking unto him He had not the Writings nor Prophesyings of any going before nor yet the concurrence of any Church or People to strengthen him and yet his Faith in the Word by which he contradicted the whole World saved him and his House Of which also Abraham is set forth as a singular Example being therefore called the Father of the Faithful who is said against hope to have believed in hope In that he only willingly forsook his Fathers Countrey not knowing whether he went In that he believed concerning the coming of Isaac though contrary to natural probability But above all In that he refused not
to offer him up not doubting but God was able to raise him from the dead of whom it is said that in Isaac shall thy Seed be called And last of all In that he rested in the Promise that his Seed should possess the Land wherein himself was but a Pilgrim and which to them was not to be fulfilled while divers Ages after The object of Abrahams Faith in all this was no other but inward and immediate Revelation or God signifying his will unto him inwardly and immediately by his Spirit But because in this part of the Proposition we made also mention of external Voices Appearances and Dreams in the alternative I think also fit to speak hereof what in that respect may be objected to wit Obj. That those who found their Faith now upon immediate and objective Revelation ought to have also outward Voices or Visions Dreams or appearances for it It is not denyed but God made use of the Ministry of Angels who in the appearance of men spake outwardly to the Saints of old and that he did also reveal some things to them in Dreams and Visions none of which we will affirm to be ceased so as to limit the power and liberty of God in manifesting himself towards his Children But while we are considering the object of Faith we must not stick to that which is but circumstantially and accidently so but to that which is universally and substantially so Next again we must distinguish betwixt that which in it self is subject to doubt and delusion and therefore is received for and because of another and that which is not subject to any doubt but is received simply for and because of it self as being prima veritas the very first and original Truth Let us then consider how or how far these outward voices appearances and dreams were the object of the Saints faith was it because they were simply voices appearances or dreams nay certainly we know and they were not ignorant that the Devil can form a sound of words and convey it to the outward ear That he can easily deceive the outward senses by making things to appear that are not Yea do we not see by daily experience that the Juglers and Mountebancks can do as much as all that by their Legerdemain God forbid then that the Saints faith should be founded upon so fallacious a foundation as man's outward and fallible senses What made them then give credit to these visions eertainly nothing else but the secret testimony of Gods Spirit in their hearts assuring them that the voices dreams and Visions were of and from God Abraham believed the Angels but who told him that these men were Angels we must not think his faith then was built upon his outward senses but proceeded from the secret perswasion of Gods Spirit in his heart This then must needs be acknowledged to be originally and principally the object of the Saints faith without which there is no true and certain faith and by which many times faith is begotten and strenthenged without any of these outward or visible helps As we may observe in many passages of the Holy Scripture where it is only mentioned and God said c. And the word of the Lord came unto such and such saying c. But if any one should pertinaciously affirm that this did import an outward audible voice to the carnal ear I would gladly know what other argument such a one could bring for this his affirmation saving his own simple conjecture It is said indeed the Spirit witnesseth with our Spirit but not to our outward ears Rom. 8.16 and seeing the Spirit of God is within us and not without us it speaks to our Spiritual and not to our bodyly ear Therefore I see no reason where it 's so often said in Scripture the Spirit said moved hindered called such or such a one to do or forbear such or such a thing that any have to conclude that this was not an inward voice to the ear of the Soul rather than an outward voice to the bodyly ear If any be otherwise minded let them if they can produce their arguments and we may further consider of them From all then which is above declared I shall deduce an argument to conclude the probation of this assertion thus That which any one firmly believes as the ground and foundation of his hope in God and life Eternal is the formal object of his faith But the inward and immediate revelation of God's Spirit speaking in and unto the Saints was by them believed as the ground and foundation of their hope in God and life eternal Therefore these inward and immediate revelations were the formal object of their faith § IX That which now cometh under debate is what we have asserted in the last place to wit That the same continueth to be the object of the Saints faith unto this day Many will agree to what we said before who differ from us herein There is nevertheless a very firm argument confirming the truth of this assertion included in the Proposition it self to wit That the object of the Saints faith is the same in all ages though held forth under divers administrations Which I shall reduce to an argument and prove thus First Where the Faith is one the object of the Faith is one But the Faith is one Therefore c. That the Faith is one is the express words of the Apostle Eph. 4.5 who placeth the one Faith with the one God importing no less than that to affirm two faiths is as absurd as to affirm two Gods Moreover if the Faith of the Ancients were one and the same with ours i. e. agreeing in substance therewith and receiving the same definition it had been impertinent for the Apostle Heb. 11. to have illustrated the definition of our faith by the examples of that of the Ancients or to go about to move us by the example of Abraham if Abraham's faith were different in nature from ours Nor doth hence any difference arise because they believe in Christ with respect to his appearace outwardly as future and we as already appeared For nor did they then so believe in him to come as not to feel him present with them and witness him near seeing the Apostle saith they all drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them which Rock was Christ Nor do we so believe concerning his appearance past as not also to feel and know him present with us and to feed upon him except Christ saith the Apostle be in you ye are reprobates so that both our faith is one terminating in one and the same thing And as to the other part or consequence of the antecedent to wit that the object is one where the faith is one the Apostle also proveth it in the forecited Chapter where he makes all the Worthys of old examples to us Now wherein are they imitable but because they believed in God and what was the object of their Faith
Covenant with them saith the Lord My Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever By the latter part of this is sufficiently expressed the perpetuity and continuance of this Promise It shall not depart saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever In the former part is the promise it self which is the Spirit of God being upon them and the words of God being put into their mouths First this was immediate for there is no mention made of any medium he saith not I shall by the means of such and such writings or books convey such and such words into your mouths but my words I even I saith the Lord shall put into your mouths Secondly this must be objectively for the words put into your mouth are the object presented by him He saith not th◠words which ye shall see written my Spirit shall only enlighten your understandings to assent unto but positively my words which I have put into thy mouth c. From whence I argue thus Upon whomsoever the Spirit remaineth alwaies and putteth words into his mouth him doth the Spirit teach immediately objectively and continually But the Spirit is alwaies upon the Seed of the Righteous and putteth words into their mouths neither departeth from them Therefore the Spirit teacheth the Righteous immediately obejectively and continually Secondly the nature of the New Covenant is yet more amply expressed Jer. 31.33 which is again repeated and reasserted by the Apostle Heb. 8.10 in these words For this is the Covenant that I will make with the House of Israel in those days saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People And they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest The object here is God's Law placed in the heart and written in the mind from whence they become God's People and are brought truly to know him In this then is the Law distinguished from the Gospel The Law before was outward written in Tables of stone but now it is inward written in the heart Of old the People depended upon their Priests for the knowledg of God but now they have all a certain and sensible knowledg of him concerning which Augustin speaketh well in his book De Litera Spiritu from whom Aquinas first of all seems to have taken occasion to move this question Whether the New Law be a written Law or an implanted Law Lex scripta vel Lex indita which he thus resolves affirming that the New Law or the Gospel is not properly a Law written as the Old was but Lex indita an implanted Law and that the Old Law was written without but the New Law is written within on the Table of the Heart How much then are they deceived who instead of making the Gospel preferable to the Law have made the condition of such as are under the Gospel far worse for no doubt it is a far better and more desirable thing to converse with God immediately than only mediately as being a higher and more glorious Dispensation And yet these men acknowledg that many under the Law had immediate converse with God whereas they now cry it is ceased Again Under the Law there was the Holy of Holys into which the High-Priest did enter and received the word of the Lord immediately from betwixt the Cherubins so that the People could then certainly know the mind of the Lord but now according to these mens judgment we are in a far worse condition having nothing but the outward letter of the Scripture to guess and divine from concerning one verse of which scarce two can be found to agree But Jesus Christ hath promised us better things though many are so unwise not to believe him even to guide us by his own unerring Spirit and hath rent and removed the vail whereby not only one and that once a year may enter but all of us at all times have access unto him as often as we draw near unto him with pure hearts He reveals his will to us by his Spirit and writes his Laws in our Hearts These things then being thus premised I argue Where the Law of God is put into the mind and written in the heart there the object of Faith and revelation of the knowledg of God is inward immediate and objective But the Law of God is put into the mind and written in the heart of every True Christian under the new Covenant Therefore the object of Faith and Revelation of the knowledg of God to every True Christian is inward immediate and objective The assumption is the express words of Scripture The Proposition then must needs be true except that which is put into the mind and written in the heart were either not inward not immediate or not objective which is most absurd § XII The third Argument is from these words of John 1 John 2. ver 27. But the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and no Lye and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him First This could not be any special peculiar or extraordinary priviledg but that which is common to all the Saints it being a general Epistle directed to all them of that Age. Secondly the Apostle proposeth this Anointing in them as a more certain Touch-stone for them to discern and try Seducers by even then his own writings for having in the former verse said that he had written some things to them concerning such as seduced them he begins the next verse but the Anointing c. and ye need not that any man teach you c. which infers that having said to them what can be said he refers them for all to the inward Anointing which teacheth all things as the most firm constant and certain Bull-wark against all Seducers And Lastly that it is a lasting and continuing thing the Anointing which abideth if it had not been to abide in them it could not have taught them all things neither guided them against all hazard From which I argue thus He that hath Anointing abiding in him which teacheth him all things so that he needs no man to teach him hath an inward and immediate Teacher and hath some things inwardly and immediately revealed unto him But the Saints have such an Anointing Therefore c. I could prove this Doctrine from many more places of Scripture which for brevitys sake I omit and now come to the second part of the Proposition where the objections usually formed against
deceit or equivocation the most excellent Writings in the World to which not only no other Writings are to be preferr'd but even in divers respects not comparable thereunto For as we freely acknowledg that their Authority doth not depend upon the approbation or Canons of any Church or Assembly so neither can we subject them to the faln corrupt and defiled reason of man and therein as we do freely agree with the Protestants against the error of the Romanists so on the other hand we cannot go the length of such Protestants as make their Authority to depend upon any vertue or power that is in the Writings themselves but we desire to ascribe all to that Spirit from which they proceeded We confess indeed there wants not a Majestie in the Stile a coherence in the parts a good scope in the whole but seeing these things are not discerned by the Natural but only by the Spiritual man it is the Spirit of God that must give us that belief of the Scriptures which may satisfie our Consciences Therefore the chiefest among Protestants both in their particular Writings and publick Confessions are forced to acknowledg this Hence Calvin though he saith he is able to prove that if there be a God in Heaven these writings have proceeded from him yet he concludes another knowledg to be necessary Insti lib. 1. cap. 7. Sect. 4. But if saith he we respect the Consciences that they be not daily molested with doubts and they stick not at every Scruple it is requisite that this perswasion which we speak of be taken higher than humane Reason Judgment or conjectures to wit from the secret Testimony of the Holy Spirit And again To those that ask that we prove unto them by Reason that Moses and the Prophets were Inspired of God to speak I answer that the Testimony of the Holy Spirit is more excellent than all reason And again let this remain a firm Truth that he only whom the Holy Ghost hath perswaded can repose himself on the Scripture with a true certainty And lastly this then is a judgment which cannot be begotten but by a Heavenly Revelation c. The same is also affirmed in the first publick Confession of the French Churches published in the Year 1559. Art 4. We know these books to be Canonick and the most certain Rule of our Faith not so much by the common accord and consent of the Church as by the Testimony and inward perswasion of the Holy Spirit Thus also in the 5 Article of the Confession of faith of the Churches of Holland confirmed by the Synod of Dort We receive these books only for holy and canonick not so much because the Church receives and approves them as because the Spirit of God renders witness in our hearts that they are of God And lastly The Divines so called at Westminster who began to be afraid of and guard against the Testimony of the Spirit because they perceived a dispensation beyond that which they were under beginning to dawn and to eclipse them yet could they not get by this tho they have laid it down neither so clearly distinctly nor honestly as they that went before It is in these words chap. 1. sect 5. Nevertheless our full perswasion and assurance of the infallible Truth thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our heart By all which it appeareth how necessary it is to seek the certainty of the Scriptures from the Spirit and no where else The infinit janglings and endless contests of those that seek their authority elsewhere do witness to the Truth hereof For the Antients themselves even of the first Centuries were not as one among themselves concerning them while some of them rejected Books which we approve and others of them approved those which some of us reject It is not unknown to such as are in the least acquainted with Antiquity what great contests are concerning the second Epistle of Peter that of James the second and third of John and the Revelations which many even very Antient deny to have been written by the beloved Disciple and Brother of James but by another of that name What should then become of Christians if they had not received that Spirit and those Spiritual senses by which they know how to discern the true from the false It 's the priviledg of Christ's Sheep indeed that they hear his voice and refuse that of a stranger which priviledg being taken away we are left a prey to all manner of wolves § II. Tho then we do acknowledg the Scriptures to be a very heavenly and Divine writing the use of them to be a very comfortable and necessary to the Church of Christ and that we also admire and give praise to the Lord for his wonderful Providence in preserving these writings so pure and uncorrupted as we have them through so long a night of Apostasy to be a testimony of his Truth against the wickedness and abominations even of these whom he made instrumental in preserving them so that they have kept them to be a witness against themselves yet we may not call them the principal fountain of all Truth and knowledg nor yet the first adequate rule of Faith and manners because the principal fountain of Truth must be the Truth it self i. e. that whose certainty and authority depends not upon another When we doubt of the streams of any river or flood we recur to the fountain it self and having found it there we sist we can go no further because there it springs out of the bowels of the Earth which are inscrutable Even so the writing and sayings of all men we must bring to the Word of God I mean the Eternal Word and if they agree hereunto we stand there for this Word always proceedeth and doth eternally proceed from God in and by which the unsearchable wisdom of God and unsearchable counsel and will conceived in the heart of God is revealed unto us that then the Scripture is not the principal ground of faith and knowledg as it appears by what is above spoken so it is provided in the latter part of the Proposition which being reduced to an argument runs thus That the certainty and authority whereof depends upon another and which is received as Truth because of its proceeding from another is not to he accounted the principal ground and origin of all Truth and knowledg But the Scriptures authority and certainty depends upon the Spirit by which they were dictated and the reason why they were received as Truth is because they proceeded from the Spirit Therefore they are not the principal ground of Truth To confirm this argument I added the School Maxim Propter quod unumquodque est tales illud ipsum est magis tale Which Maxim tho I confess it doth not hold universally in all things yet in this it both doth and will very well hold as by applying it as we have
granted that place the Scriptures themselves give it I do freely concede to the Scripture the second place even whatsoever they say of themselves Which the Apostle Paul chiefly mentions in two places Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. The Holy Scriptures are able to make wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture given by inspiration from God is profitable for correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto every good work For tho God do principally and chiefly lead us by his Spirit yet he sometimes conveys his comfort and consolation to us through his Children whom he raises up and inspires to speak or write a word in season whereby the Saints are made instruments in the hand of the Lord to strengthen and encourage one another which do also tend to perfect and make them wise unto Salvation and such as are led by the Spirit cannot neglect but do natural love and are wonderfully cherished by that which proceedeth from the same Spirit in another because such mutual emanations of the heavenly Life tend to quicken the mind when at any time it is overtaken with heaviness Peter himself declares this to have been the end of his writing 2 Pet. 1.12 13. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you alwaies in remembrance of those things tho ye know them and be established in the present Truth Yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance God is Teacher of his People himself and there is nothing more express than that such as are under the New Covenant they need no man to teach them yet it was a fruit of Christ's Ascension to send Teachers and Pastors for perfecting of the Saints So that the same work is ascribed to the Scriptures as to Teachers the one to make the man of God perfect the other for the perfection of the Saints As then Teachers are not to go before the teaching of God himself under the New Covenant but to follow after it neither are they to rob us of that great priviledg which Christ hath purchased unto us by his Blood so neither is the Scripture to go before the teaching of the Spirit or to rob us of it Secondly God hath seen meet that herein we should as in a looking glass see the conditions and experiences of the Saints of old that finding our experience answer to theirs we might thereby be the more confirmed and comforted and our hope strengthened of obtaining the same end that observing the Providences attending them seeing the snares they were liable to and beholding their deliverances we may thereby be made wise unto Salvation and seasonably reproved and instructed in righteousness This is the great work of the Scriptures and their service to us that we may witness them fulfilled in us and so discern the stamp of God's Spirit and ways upon them by the inward acquaintance we have with the same Spirit and work in our hearts The prophecys of the Scripture are also very comfortable and profitable unto us as the same Spirit inlightens us to observe them fulfilled and to be fulfilled For in all this it is to be observed that it is only the Spiritual Man that can make a right use of them they are able to make the man of God perfect so it is not the natural Man and whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our comfort our that are the believers our that are the Saints concerning such the Apostle speaks for as for the other the Apostle Peter plainly declares that the unstable and unlearned wrest them to their own destruction these were they that were unlearned in the Divine and heavenly learning of the Spirit not in humane and School Literature of which we may safely presume that Peter himself being a Fisher-man had no great skill for it may with great probability yea certainly be affirmed that he had no knowledg of Aristotles Logick which both Papists and Protestants now degenerating from the simplicity of Truth make hand-maid of Divinity as they call it and a necessary introduction to their carnal natural and humane Ministry By the infinite obscure labours of which kind of men mixing in their heathenish stuff the Scripture is rendred at this day of so little service to the simple People whereof if Jerom complained in his time now twelve hundred years ago Hieron Ep. 134. ad Cypr. tom 3. saying It is wont to befall the most part of learned Men that it is harder to understand their expositions than the things which they go about to expound what may We say then considering those great heaps of commentarys since in ages yet far more corrupted § VI. In this respect above mentioned then we have shown what service and use the Holy Scriptures as managed in and by the Spirit are of to the Church of God wherefore we do account them a secondary rule Moreover because they are commonly acknowledged by all to have been written by the dictates of the Holy Spirit and that the errors which may be supposed by the injury of times to have slipt in are not such but that there is a sufficient clear Testimony left to all the essentials of the Christian faith we do look upon them as the only fit outward judg of Controversies among Christians and that whatsoever doctrine is contrary unto their Testimony may therefore justly be rejected as false And for our parts we are very willing that all our Doctrines and Practices be tryed by them which we never refused nor ever shall in all controversies with our adversaries as the Judg and Test. We shall also be very willing to admit it as a positive certain Maxim That whatsoever any do pretending to the Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures be accounted and reckoned a delusion of the Devil For as we never lay claim to the Spirit 's leadings that we may cover our selves in any thing that is evil so we know that as every evil contradicts the Scriptures so it doth also the Spirit in the first place from which the Scriptures came and whose motions can never contradict one another though they may appear sometimes to be contradictory to the blind Eye of natural Man as Paul and James seem to contradict one another Thus far we have shown both what we believe and what we believe not concerning the Holy Scriptures hoping we have given them their due place But since they that will needs have them to be the only certain and principal Rule want not some shew of arguments even from the Scripture it self though it no where call it self so by which they labour to prove their Doctrin I shall briefly lay them down by way of Objections and answer them before I make an end of this
And seeing he is both a most Righteous and Merciful God it cannot at all stand neither with his justice nor mercy to bid such men repent or believe to whom it is impossible § VII Moreover if we regard the Testimony of the Scripture in this matter where there is not one Scripture which I know of that affirmeth Christ not to dye for all there are divers that positively and expresly assert he did as 1 Tim. 2.1 3 4 6. I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men c. for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledg of the Truth who gave himself a ransome for all to be testified in due time Except we will have the Apostle here to assert quite another thing then he intended there can be nothing more plain to confirm what we have asserted And this Scripture doth well answer to that manner of arguing which we have hitherto used For first the Apostle here recommends them to pray for all men And to obviate such an objection as if they had said with our Adversaries Christ prayed not for the World neither willeth he us to pray for all because he willeth not that all should be saved but hath ordained many to be damned that he might shew forth his Justice in them He obviates I say such an Objection telling them that it is good and acceptable in the sight of God who will have all men to be saved I desire to know what can be more expresly affirmed or can any two Propositions be stated in terms more contradictory than these two God willeth not some to be saved and God willeth all men to be saved or God will have no man Perish If we believe the last as the Apostle hath affirmed the first must be destroyed seeing of contradictory Propositions the one being placed the other is destroyed Whence to conclude he gives us a reason of his willingness that all men should be saved in these words who gave himself a ransom for all as if he would have said since Christ died for all since he gave himself a ransom for all therefore he will have all men to be saved This Christ himself gives as the reason of God's love to the World in these words John 3.16 God so loved the World that he gave his Only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life Compared with 1 John 4.9 This whosoever is an indefinit term from which no man is excluded From all which then I thus argue Arg. For whomsoever it is Lawful to pray to them Salvation is possible But it 's lawful to pray for every individual man in the whole World Thereforc Salvation is possible unto them I prove the major proposition thus No man is bound to pray for that which is impossible to be attained But every man is bound and commanded to pray for all men Therefore it is not impossible to be obtained I prove also this Proposition further thus No man is bound to pray but in Faith But he that prayeth for that which he judges simply impossible to be obtained cannot pray in Faith Therefore c. Again That which God willeth is not impossible But God willeth all men to be saved Therefore it is not impossible And Lastly These for whom our Saviour gave himself a ransom to such Salvation is possible But our Saviour gave himself a ransom for all Therefore Salvation is possible unto them § VIII This is very positively affirmed Heb. 2.9 in these words But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of Death crowned with Glory and Honour that he by the Grace of God might taste Death for every man He that will but open his eyes may see this Truth here asserted if he tasted Death for every man than certainly there is no man for whom he did not tast death then there is no man who may be made a sharer of the benifit of it for he came not to condemn the World but that the World through him might be saved John 3.17 He came not to judg the World but to save the World John 12.47 Whereas according to the Doctrine of our Adversaries he behoved to come to condemn the World and judg it and not that it might be saved by him or to save it for if he never came to bring Salvation to a greater part of mankind but that his coming though it could never do them good yet shall augment their condemnation from thence it necessarily follows that he came not of intention to save but to judg and condemn the greater part of the World contrary to his own express Testimony and as the Apostle Paul in the words above cited doth assert affirmatively that God willeth the Salvation of all so doth the Apostle Peter assert negatively that he willeth not the perishing of any 2 Pet. 3.9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance And this is Correspondent to that of the Prophet Ezekiel 33.11 As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live If it be safe to believe God and trust in him we must not think that he intends to cheat us by all these expressions through his Servants but that he was in good earnest and that this will and desire of his hath not taken effect the blame is on our parts as shall be after spoken of which could not be if so be we never were in any capacity of Salvation or that Christ had never died for us but left us under an impossibility of Salvation what means all those earnest invitations all those serious expostulations all those regreting contemplations wherewith the Holy Scriptures are full as Why will ye dye O House of Israel Why will ye not come unto me that ye might have Life I have waited to be gracious unto you I have sought to gather you I have knocked at the door of your Hearts Is not your destructions of your selves I have called all the day long If men who are so invited be under no capacity of being saved if Salvation be impossible unto them shall we suppose God in this to be no other but like the Author of a Romance or the Master of a Comedy who amuses and raises the various Affections and Passions of his Spectators by divers and strange Accidents sometimes leading them into Hope and sometimes into Despair all those actions in effect being but a pure Illusion while he hath appointed what the conclusion of all shall be Thirdly this Doctrine is abundantly confirmed by that of the Apostle 1 John 2.1 2. And if any man sin we
and whereof he was a Minister is one and the same is not far off but nigh in the heart and in the Mouth which done he frameth as it were the objection of our adversaries in the 12 and 15 verses How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard How shall they hear without a Preacher This he answers in the 18 verse saying But I say have they not heard Yes verily their sound went forth into all the Earth and their words unto the end of the World insinuating that this Divine Preacher hath sounded in the ears and hearts of all men for of the outward Apostles that saying was not true neither then nor many hundred years after yea for ought we know there may be yet great and spatious Nations and Kingdoms who never have heard of Christ nor his Apostles as outwardly This inward and Powerful Word of God is yet more fully described in the Epistle to the Hebrews c. 4. v. 12 13. For the Word of God is quick and sharper than a two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The vertues of this Spiritual Word are here enumerated it is quick because it searches and tries the hearts of all no man's heart is exempt from it for the Apostle gives this reason of its being so in the following verse but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do And there is not any creature that is not manifest in his sight Tho this ultimately and mediately be referr'd to God yet nearly and immediately it relates to the Word or Light which as hath been before proved is in the hearts of all else it had been improper to have brought it in here The Apostle shewes how every intent and thought of the heart is discerned by the Word of God because all things are naked before God which imports nothing else but it is in and by this Word whereby God sees and discerns mans thoughts and so must needs be in all men because the Apostle saith there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight This then is that faithful Witness and Messenger of God that bears witness for God and for his righteousness in the hearts of all men For he hath not left man without a witness Act. 14.17 and he is said to be given for a Witness to the people Isa. 55.4 And as this Word beareth witness for God so it is not placed in men only to condemn them for as he is given for a Witness so saith the Prophet He is given for a Leader and a Commander The Light is given that all through it may believe Joh. 1.7 For faith cometh by hearing and hearing by this word of God which is placed in mans heart both to be a Witness for God and to be a means to bring man to God through faith and repentance It is therefore powerful that it may divide betwixt the Soul and the Spirit It is like a two-edged Sword that it may cut off iniquity from him and separate betwixt the precious and the vile and because mans heart is cold and hard like Iron naturally therefore hath God placed this Word in him which is said to be like a Fire and like a Hammer Jer. 23.29 that like as by the heat of the Fire the iron of its own nature cold is warmed and by the strength of the Hammer is softned and framed according to the mind of the worker so the cold and hard Heart of Man is by the vertue and powerfulness of this Word of God near and in the Heart as it resists not warmed and softned and received a Heavenly and Coelestial Impression and Image The most part of the Fathers have spoken at large touching this Word Seed and Light and saving Voice calling all unto Salvation and able to save Clemens Alexandrinus saith lib. 2. Stromat The Divine Word hath oried calling all knowing well those that will not obey And yet because it is in our power either to obey or not to obey that none may have a preâ—â—xt of ignorance it hath made a righteous call and requireth but that which is according to the ability and strength of every one The self same in his warning to the Gentiles For as saith he that Heavenly Ambassador of the Lord the Grace of God that brings Salvation hath appeared unto all c. This is the new Song coming and manifestation of the Word which now shews it self in us which was in the beginning and was first of all And again Hear therefore ye that are a far off hear ye who are near the word is hid from none the Light is common to all and shineth to all There is no darkness in the World let us hasten to Salvation to the New birth that we being many may be gathered into the One alone love Ibid. he saith that there is infused unto all but principally into those that are trained up in Doctrine a certain Divine Influence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again he speaks concerning the innate Witness worthy of belief which of it self doth plainly chuse that which is most honest And again he saith that it is not impossible to come unto the Truth and lay hold of it seeing it is most near to us in our own houses as the most wise Moses declareth living in three parts of us viz. in our hands in our mouth and in our heart this saith he is a most true badg of the Truth which is also fulfilled in three things namely in Councel in Action in Speaking And again he saith also unto the unbelieving Nations Receive Christ receive Light receive Sight to the and thou maist rightly know both God and man The Word that hath inlightned us is more pleasant than Gold and the stone of great value And again he saith let us receive the Light that we may receive God let us receive the Light that we may be the Schollars of the Lord. And again he saith to those Infidel Nations The Heavenly Spirit helpeth thee resist and flee Pleasure Again lib. Strom. 5. he saith God forbid that man be not a partaker of Divine Aquaintance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who in Genesis is said to be a partaker of Inspiration And Paed. lib. 1 cap. 3. there is saith he some lovely and some desirable thing in man which is called the in breathing of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same man lib. 10. Strom. directeth men unto the Light and Water in themselves who have the Eye of the Soul darkned or dimmed through evil up bringing and learning let them enter in unto their own domestick light or unto the Light which is in their own House 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the Truth which manifests accurately and clearly these things that have been written Justin Martyr in his first Apology saith that the Word which
too late that I have loved thee O thou Beautifulness so antient and so new late have I loved thee and behold thou wast within and I was without and there was seeking thee thou didst call thou didst cry thou didst break my Deafness thou glancedst thou didst shine thou chasedst away my darkness Of this also our Countrey man George Buchanan speaketh thus in his Book de Jure Regni apud Scotos Truly I understand no other thing at present than that Light which is divinely infused into our Souls for when God formed Man he not only gave him Eyes to his Body by which he might shun those things that are hurtful to him and follow those things that are profitable But also hath set before his mind as it were a certain Light by which he may discern things that are vile from things that are honest Some call this Power Nature others the Law of Nature I truly judg it to be Divine and am perswaded that Nature and Wisdom never say different things Moreover God hath given us a compend of the Law which in few words comprehend the whole to wit that we should love him from our hearts and our Neighbours as our selves And of this Law all the Books of the Holy Scriptures which pertain to the forming of manners contain no other but an explication This is that Universal Evangelical Principle in and by which this Salvation of Christ is exhibited to all men both Jew and Gentile Scythian and Barbarian of whatsoever Countrey or Kindred he be And therefore God hath raised up unto himself in this our Age faithful Witnesses and Evangelists to preach again his Everlasting Gospel and to direct all as well the high Professors who boast of the Law and the Scripture and the outward knowledg of Christ as the Infidels and Heathens that know not him that way that they may all come to mind the Light in them and know Christ in them the Just One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom they have so long killed and made merry over and he hath not resisted Jam. 5.6 And give up their Sins Iniquities false Faith Professions and out-side Righteousness to be crucified by the Power of his Cross in them so as they may know within to be the Hope of Glory and may come to walk in his Light and be saved who is that True Light that enlighteneth every Man that cometh into the World The Seventh Proposition Concerning Justification As many as resist not this Light but receive the same it becomes in them a Holy Pure and Spiritual Birth bringing forth Holyness Righteousness Purity and all other Blessed Fruits those which are acceptable to God by which Holy Birth to wit Jesus Christ formed within us and working his Works in us as we are Sanctified so are we Justified in the sight of God according to the Apostles Words But ye are Washed but ye are Sanctified but ye are Justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6.11 Therefore it is not by our Works wrought in our will nor yet by good Works considered as of themselves but by Christ who is both the Gift and the Giver and the Cause producing the effects in us who as he hath reconciled us while we were Enemies doth also in his Wisdom Save us and Justifie us after this manner as saith the same Apostle elsewhere According to his Mercy he hath Saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 § I. THE Doctrine of Justification comes well in order after the discussing of the extent of Christ's death and of the Grace thereby communicated some of the sharpest contests concerning this having from thence their rise Many are the disputes among those called Christians concerning this point and indeed if all were truly minding that which justifieth there would be less noise about the Notions of Justification I shall briefly review this controversie as it stands among others and as I have often seriously observed it then in short state the controversie as to us and open our Sense and Judgment of it and lastly prove it if the Lord will by some Scripture Testimonies and the certain experience of all ever were truly Justified § II. That this Doctrine of Justification hath been and is greatly vitiated in the Church of Rome is not by us questioned though our Adversaries who for want of better arguments do often make Lyes their refuge have not spared in this respect to stigmatize us with Popery but how untruly will hereafter appear For to speak little of their meritum ex condigno which was no doubt a very common Doctrine of the Romish Church especially before Luther though most of their modern Writers especially in their controversies with Protestants do partly deny it partly qualifie it and seem to state the matter only as if they were propagaters and pleaders for good works by the others denyed Yet if we look to the effects of this Doctrine among them as they appear in the generality of their Church-members not in things disapproved but highly approved and commended by their Father the Pope and all his Clients as the most beneficial casuality of all his revenue we shall find that Luther did not without great ground oppose himself to them in this matter and if he had not himself run into another extream of which hereafter his work would have stood the better For in this as in most other things he is more to be commended for what he pulled down of Babylon than for what he built of his own Whatever then the Papists may pretend or even some good men among them may have thought experience sheweth and it is more than manifest by the universal and approved practice of their People that they place not their Justification so much in works that are truly and morally good and in the being truly renewed and sanctified in the mind as in such things as are either not good nor evil or may truly be called evil and can no otherwaies be reckoned good than because the Pope pleases to call them so So that if the matter be well sifted it will be found that the greatest part of their Justification depends upon the authority of his Bulls and not upon the Power Vertue and Grace of Christ revealed in the heart and renewing of it as will appear First from their Principle concerning their Sacraments which they say confer Grace ex opere operato So that if a man partake but of them he thereby obtains remission of sin though he remain as he was the vertue of the Sacraments making up the want that is in the man So that this act of Submission and Faith to the Laws of the Church and not any real inward change is that which justifieth him As for example if a man make use of the Sacrament as they call it of Pennance so as to tell over his sins to a Priest though he have not true contrition
is ascribed and imputed to Believers for Righteousness the merit of his Blood and the Holy Ghost given unto us by Vertue of his merits are equally included And so it shall be confessed that Christ is our Righteousness as well from his Merit Satisfaction and Remission of sins obtained by him as from the gifts of the Spirit of Righteousness And if we do this we shall consider whole Christ proposed to us for our Salvation and not any single part of him The same man pag. 169. In our Justification then Christ is considered who breaths and lives in us to wit by his Spirit put on by us concerning which putting on the Apostle saith Ye have put on Christ. And again pag. 171. We endeavour to treat in Justification not of part of Christ but him wholly in so far as he is our Righteousness every way And a little after as then blessed Paul in our Justification when he saith whom he Justified them he Glorified comprehends all things which pertains to our being reconciled to God the Father and our renewing which fits us for attaining unto glory such as Faith Righteousness Christ and the Gift of Righteousness exhibited by him whereby we are regenerated to the fulfilling of the Justification which the Law requires so we also will have all things comprehended in this cause which are contained in the recovery of Righteousness and Innocency And pag. 181. The form saith he of our Justification is the Divine Righteousness it self by which we are formed just and good This is Jesus Christ who is esteem'd our Righteousness partly from the forgiveness of sins and partly from the renewing and the restoring of that integrity which was lost by the fault of the first Adam so that his New and Heavenly Adam being put on by us of which the Apostle saith Ye have put on Christ ye have put him on I say as the form so the Righteousness Wisdom and Life of God So also affirmeth Claudius Alberius Inuncanus see his Orat. Apodeict Lausaniae excus 1587. orat 2. pag. 86 87. Zuinglius also in his Epistle to the Princes of Germany as cited by Himelius c. 7. p. 60. saith That the Sanctification of the Spirit is true Justification which alone suffices to Justifie Essius upon 1 Cor. 6.11 saith Lest Christian Righteousness should be thought to consist in the washing alone that is in the remission of sins he addeth the other degree or part but ye are sanctified that is ye have attain'd to purity so that ye are now truly Holy before God Lastly expressing the sum of the benefit received in one word which includes both the parts But ye are Justified the Apostle adds in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that is by his merits and in the Spirit of our God that is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God and communicated to us by Christ. And lastly Richard Baxter a Famous English Preacher who yet liveth in his Book called Aphorisms of Justification pag. 80. saith that some ignorant wretches gnash their Teeths at this Doctrine as if it were flat Popery not understanding the Nature of the Righteousness of the New Covenant which is all out of Christ in our selves though wrought by the Power of the Spirit of Christ in us § IX The third thing proposed to be considered is concerning good Works their necessity to Justification I suppose there is enough said before to clear us from any imputation of being Popish in this matter But if it be queried Whether we have not said or will not affirm that a man is justified by Works Quest. I answer I hope none need neither ought to take offence if in this matter we use the plain Language of the Holy Scripture Answ. which saith expresly in answer hereunto Jam. 2.24 Ye see then how that by works a man is Justified and not by Faith only I shall not offer to prove the Truth of this saying since what is said in this Chapter by the Apostle is sufficient to convince any man that will read and believe it I shall only from this derive this one argument If no man can be Justified without Faith and no Faith be living nor yet available to Justification without works then works are necessary to Justification But the First is true Therefore also the Last For this Truth is so apparent and evident in the Scriptures that for the proof of it we might transcribe most of the precepts of the Gospel I shall instance a few which of themselves do so clearly assert the thing in question that they need no commentary nor further demonstration And then I shall answer the objections made against this which indeed are the arguments used for the contrary opinion Heb. 12.14 Without Holyness no man shall see God Matth. 7.21 Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Joh. 13.7 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and Vncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life and through the Gates may enter into the City and many more that might be instanced from all which I thus argue If those only can enter into the Kingdom that do the will of the Father If those be accounted only the wise builders and happy Arg. that do the sayings of Christ if no observation avail but only the keeping of the Commandments and if they be blessed that do the Commandments and thereby have right to the Tree of Life and entrance through the gate into the City then works are absolutely necessary to Salvation and Justification But the First is true And therefore also the Last The consequence of the antecedent is so clear and evident that I think no man of sound reason will call for a proof of it Obj. § X. But they object that works are not necessary to Justification First because of that saying of Christ Luk. 17.10 When ye shall have done all these things that are commanded you say We are unprofitable Servants c. Answ. Answer as to God we are indeed unprofitable for he needeth nothing neither can we add any thing unto him but as to our selves we are not unprofitable else it might be said that it is not profitable for a man to keep God's Commandments which is most absurd and would contradict Christ's Doctrine throughout Doth not Christ Matth. 5. through all those beatitudes pronounce men blessed for their Purity for their Meekness for their Peaceableness c. And is it not then that for which Christ pronounceth men blessed profitable unto them Moreover Matth. 25.21 23. doth not Christ pronounce the men good and faithful Servants that improved their Talents Was not their doing of that then profitable unto them and verse 30. It is said of him
that hid his Talent and did not improve it Cast ye the unprofitable Servant into utter darkness If then their not improving of the Talent made the man unprofitable and he was therefore cast into utter darkness it will follow by the Rule of Contraries so far at least that the improving made the other profitable seeing if our Adversaries will allow us to believe Christ's Words this is made a reason and so at left a cause instrumental of their acceptance Well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Obj. Secondly they object those sayings of the Apostle where he excludes the deeds of the Law from Justification as first Rom. 3.20 because by the deeds of the Law there shall be no flesh justified in his sight And ver 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law Answ. Answ. We have shewn already what place we give to works even to the best of works in justification and how we ascribe its immediate and formal cause to the worker brought forth in us but not to the works But in answer to this objection I say there is a great difference betwixt the works of the Law and those of Grace or of the Gospel The first are excluded the second not but are necessary The first are those which are performed in man's own will and by his strength in a conformity to the outward Law and Letter and therefore are men's own imperfect works or works of the Law which makes nothing perfect And to this belong all the Ceremonies Purifications Washings and Traditions of the Jews The second are the works of the Spirit of Grace wrought in the Heart wrought in conformity to the Inward and Spiritual Law which works are not wrought in man's will nor by his power and ability but in and by the Power and Spirit of Christ in us and therefore are pure and perfect in their kind as shall hereafter be proved and may be called Christ's works for that he is the immediate author and worker of them Such works we affirm absolutely necessary to justification so that a man cannot be justified without them and all faith without them is dead and useless as the Apostle James saith Now that such a distinction is to be admitted and that the works excluded by the Apostle in the matter of Justification are of the first kind will appear if we consider the occasion of the Apostle mentioning this as well here as throughout in his Epistle to the Galatians where he speaks of this matter and to this purpose at large which was this That whereas many of the Gentiles that were not of the Race nor Seed of Abraham as concerning the Flesh were come to be converted to the Christian Faith and believe in him some of those that were of the Jewish Proselites thought to subject the faithful and believing Gentiles to the legal Ceremonies and Observations as necessary to their Justification This gave the Apostle Paul occasion at length in his Epistle to the Romans Galatians and elsewhere to shew the use and tendency of the Law and of its works and to contradistinguish them from the Faith of Christ and Righteousness thereof shewing how the former was ceased and become ineffectual the other remaining and yet necessary And that the works excluded by the Apostle are of this kind of works of the Law appears by the whole strain of his Epistle to the Galatians chap. 1 2 3 and 4. for after in the 4 chapter he upbraideth them for their returning unto the observation of daies and times and that in the beginning of the 5 chapter he sheweth them their folly and the evil consequence of adhering to the Ceremonies of Circumcision then he adds v. 6. For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision availeth but Faith which worketh by love and thus he concludes again chap. 6. v. 15. For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature From which places appeareth that distinction of works aforementioned whereof the one is excluded the other necessary to Justification For the Apostle sheweth here that Circumcision which word is often used to comprehend the whole Ceremonies and legal Performances of the Jews is not necessary nor doth avail Here are then the works which are excluded by which no man is justified but Faith which worketh by love but the new Creature this is that which availeth which is absolutely necessary for Faith that worketh by love cannot be without works for as is said in the same 5 chapter v. 22. Love is a work of the Spirit Also the New Creature if it avail and be necessary cannot be without works seeing it is natural for it to bring forth works of Righteousness Again that the Apostle no waies intends to exclude such good works appears in that in the same Epistle he exhorts the Galatians to them and holds forth the usefulness and necessity of them and that very plainly c. 6. v. 7 8 9. Be not deceived saith he God is not mocked for what soever man soweth that shall he also reap for he that soweth to the Flesh shall of the Flesh reap Corruption but he that soweth in the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap Life everlasting And let us not be weary of well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not Doth it not hereby appear how necessary the Apostle would have the Galatians know that he esteemed good works to be to wit not the outward testimony and tradition of the Law but the fruits of the Spirit mentioned a little before by which Spirit he would have them to be led and walk in those good works As also how much he ascribed to these good works by which he affirms Life Everlasting is reaped Now that cannot be useless to man's Justification which capaciates him to reap so rich a harvest But lastly for a full answer to this objection and for the establishing of this Doctrin of good works I shall instance another saying of the same Apostle Paul which our adversaries also in the blindness of their minds make use of against us to wit Tit. 3.5 Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost It is generally granted by all that saved is here all one as if it had been said justified Now there are two kinds of works here mentioned one by which we are not saved that is not justified and another by which we are saved or justified The first the works of Righteousness which we have wrought that is which we in our first faln nature by our own strength have wrought our own legal performances and therefore may truly and properly be called ours whatever specious appearances they may seem to have And that it must needs
at large shewn he declares they were dead to sin demanding how such should yet live any longer therein Secondly it appears that the Apostle only personated one not yet come to a Spiritual condition in that he saith verse 14. but I am carnal sold under sin Now is it to be imagined that the Apostle Paul as to his own proper condition when he wrote that Epistle was a carnal man who in the 1 chapter testifies of himself that he was separated to be an Apostle capable to impart to the Romans Spiritual gifts and chapter 8. ver 2. that the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death so then he was not carnal And seeing there are Spiritual men in this life as our adversaries will not deny and is intimated through this whole 8 chapter to the Romans it will not be denyed but the Apostle was one of them So then as his calling himself carnal in the 7 chap. can not be understood of his own proper state neither can the rest of what he speaks there of that kind be so understood yea after ver 24. where he makes that exclamation he adds in the next verse I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord signifying that by him he witnessed deliverance and so goeth on shewing how he had obtained it in the next Chapter viz. 8. v. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ And verse 37. But in all these things we are more than conquerors And in the last verse nothing shall be able to separate us c. But whereever there is a continuing in sin there there is a separation in some degree seeing every sin is contrary to God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a transgression of the Law 1 Joh. 3.4 and whoever committeth the least sin is overcome of it and so in that respect is not a conqueror but conquered This condition then which the Apostle plainly testified he with some others had obtained could not consist with continual remaining and abiding in sin Obj. Fourthly they object the faults and sins of several eminent Saints as Noah David c. Answ. I answer that doth not at all prove the case for the question is not whether good men may not fall into sin which is not denyed but whether it be not possible for them not to sin It will not follow because these men sinn'd that therefore they were never free of sin but always sinned For at this rate of arguing it might be urged according to this rule contrariorum par ratio i. e. the reason of contraries is alike that if because a good man hath sinned once or twice he can never be free from sin but must always be daily and continually a sinner all his life long then by the rule of Contraries if a wicked man have done good once or twice he can never be free from righteousness but must always be a righteous man all his life time which as it is most absurd in it self so it is contrary to the plain testimony of the Scripture Ezech. 33.12 to the 18. Lastly they object that if perfection or freedom from sin be attainable this will render mortification of sin useless and make the blood of Christ of no service to us neither need we any more pray for forgiveness of sins I answer I had almost omitted this objection Answ. because of the manifest absurdity of it for can mortification of sin be useless where the end of it is obtained seeing there is no attaining of this perfection but by mortification doth the hope and belief of overcoming render the fight unnecessary Let rational men judge which hath most sense in it to say as our adversaries do It is necessary that we fight and wrestle but we must never think of overcoming We must resolve still to be overcome Or to say Let us fight because we may overcome Whether do such as believe they may be cleansed by it or those that believe they can never be cleansed by it render the Blood of Christ most effectual If two men were both grievously diseased and applyed themselves to a Physician for remedy which of those do most commend the Physician and his cure he that believeth he may be cured by him and as he feels himself cured confesseth that he is so and so can say This is a skilful Physician this is good Medicine behold I am made whole by it or he that never is cured nor ever believes that he can so long as he lives As for praying for forgiveness we deny it not for that all have sinned and therefore all need to pray that their sins past may be blotted out and that they may be daily preserved from sinning And if hoping or believing to be made free from sin hinders praying for forgiveness of sin it would follow by the same inference that men ought not to forsake murther adultery or any of these gross evils seeing the more men are sinful the more plentiful occasion there would be of asking forgiveness of sin and the more work for mortification But the Apostle hath sufficiently refuted such sin-pleasing cavils in these words Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid But lastly it may be easily answered by a retorsion to those that press this from the words of the Lords prayer forgiven us our debts that this militates no less against perfect justification than against perfect sanctification For if all the Saints the least as well as the greatest be perfectly justified in that very hour wherein they are converted as our adversaries will have it then they have remission of sins long before they dye May it not then be said to them What need have ye to pray for remission of sin who are already justified whose sins are long ago forgiven both past and to come § X. But this may suffice concerning this possibility Jerom speaks clearly enough lib. 3. adver Pelagium This we also say that a man may not sin if he will for a time and place according to his bodily weakness so long as his mind is intent so long as the cords of the cythar relax not by any vice and again in the same book which is that that I said that it is put in our power to wit being helped by the grace of God either to sin or not to sin For this was the error of Pelagius which we indeed reject and abhor and which the Fathers deservedly withstood that man by his natural strength without the help of Gods grace could attain to that state so as not to sin And Augustin himself a great opposer of the Pelagian heresie did not deny this possibility as attainable by the help of God's grace as in his book de Spiritu litera cap. 2. and his book de natura gratia against Pelagius cap. 42.50 60 63 de gestis concilii Palaestini cap. 7. 2. and de
spue her out of his mouth Now suppose the Church of Laodicea had continued in that luke-warmness and had come under that condemnation and iudgment though she had retained the name and form of a Church and had had her Pastors and Ministers as no doubt she had at that time yet surely she had been no true Church of Christ nor had the authority of her Pastors and Teachers been to be regarded because of any outward succession though perhaps some of them had it immediately from the Apostles From all which I infer That since the authority of the Christian Church and her Pastors is always united and never separated from the inward power vertue and righteous life of Christianity where this ceaseth that ceaseth also But our adversaries acknowledge That many if not most of those by and through whom they derive this authority were altogether destitute of this life and vertue of Christianity Therefore they could neither receive have nor transmit any Christian authority Obj. But if it be objected That though the generality of the Bishops and Priests of the Church of Rome during the apostasie were such wicked men yet Protestants affirm and thou thy self seemest to acknowledge that there were some good men among them whom the Lord regarded and who were true members of the Catholick Church of Christ might not they then have transmitted this authority Answ. I answer This saith nothing in respect Protestants do not at all lay claim to their Ministry as transmitted to them by a direct line of such good men which they can never shew nor yet pretend to but generally place this succession as inherent in the whole Pastors of the Apostate Church neither do they plead their call to be good and valid because they can derive it through a line of good men separate and observable distinguishable from the rest of the Bishops and Clergy of the Romish Church but they derive it as an Authority residing in the whole for they think it heresie to judge that the quality or condition of the Administrator any ways invalidates or prejudiceth his work This vain then and pretended Succession not only militates against and fights with the very manifest purpose and intent of Christ in the gathering and calling of his Church but makes him so to speak more blind and less prudent than natural men are in conveying and establishing their outward Inheritances for where an Estate is entailed to a certain Name and Family when that Family weareth out and there is no lawful Successor found of it that can make a just title appear as being really of blood and affinity to the Family it is not lawful for any one of another race or blood because he assumes the name or arms of that Family to possess the estate and claim the superiorities and priviledges of the family but by the law of Nations the inheritance devolves into the Prince as being ultimus haeres and so he giveth it again immediately to whom he seeth meet and makes them bear the name and arms of the family who then are entitled to the priviledges and revenues thereof So in like manner the true name and title of a Christian by which he hath right to the heavenly inheritance and is a member of Jesus Christ is inward Righteousness and Holiness and the mind redeemed from the vanities lusts and iniquities of this world And a gathering or company made up of such members makes a Church where this is lost the title is lost and so the true Seed to which the promise is and to which the inheritance is due becomes extinguished in them and they become dead as to it and so it retires and devolves it self again into Christ who is the righteous heir of Life and he gives the title and true right again immediately to whom it pleaseth him even to as many as being turned to his Pure Light in their Consciences come again to walk in his righteous and innocent life and so become true members of his body which is the Church So the authority power and heirship is not annexed to persons as they bear the bare names or retain a form holding the meer shell or shadow of Christianity But the promise is to Christ and to the Seed in whom the authority is inherent and in as many as are one with him and united unto him by purity and holiness and by the inward renovation and regeneration of their minds Moreover this pretended succession is contrary to Scripture definitions and nature of the Church of Christ and of the true members For first The Church is the house of God the pillar and ground of Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 But according to this Doctrine the house of God is a polluted nest of all sort of wickedness and abominations made up of the most ugly defiled and perverse stones that are in the earth where the devil rules in all manner of unrighteousness For so our adversaries confess and History informs the Church of Rome to have been as some of their Historians acknowledge and if that be truly the house of God what may we call the house of Satan or may we call it therefore the house of God notwithstanding all this impiety because they had a bare form and that vitiated many ways also and because they pretended to the name of Christianity though they were anti-christian devilish and atheistical in their whole practice and spirit and also in many of their principles Would not this infer yet a greater absurdity as if they had been something to be accounted of because of their hypocrisie and deceit and false pretences Whereas the Scripture looks upon that as an aggravation of guilt and calls it Blasphemy Rev. 2.9 Of two wicked men he is most to be abhorred who covereth his wickedness with a vain pretence of God and righteousness even so these abominable beasts and fearful monsters who look upon themselves to be Bishops in the apostate Church were never a whit the better that they falsly pretended to be the Successors of the Holy Apostles unless to lie be commendable and that hypocrisie be the way to Heaven Yea were not this to fall into that evil condemned among the Jews Jer. 7.4 Trust ye not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these throughly amend your ways c. as if such outward names and things were the thing the Lord regarded and not inward holiness or can that then be the pillar and ground of Truth which is the very sink and pit of wickedness from which so much error superstition idolatry and all abomination springs Can there be any thing more contrary both to Scripture and Reason Secondly The Church is defined to be the Kingdom of the dear Son of God into which the Saints are translated being delivered from the power of darkness It is called the Body of Christ which from him by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit
suffering God by his Spirit both to prepare peoples hearts and also give the preacher what may be fit and seasonable for them But he hath hammered together in his closet according to his own will by his humane wisdom and illeterature and by stealing the words of Truth from the letter of the Scriptures and patching together other mens Writings and Observations so much as will hold him speaking an hour while the Glass runs and without waiting or feelling the inward influence of the Spirit of God he declaims that by hap-hazard whether it be fit or seasonable for the peoples condition or no and when he has ended his Sermon he saith his Prayer also in his own will and so there is an end of the business Which customary worship as it is no waies acceptable to God so how unfruitful it is and unprofitable to those that are found in it the present condition of the Nations doth sufficiently declare It appears then that we are not against set times for worship as Arnoldus against this Proposition Sect. 45. No less impertinently alledgeth offering needlesly to prove that which is not denyed only these times being appointed for outward conveniency we may not therefore think with the Papists that these daies are holy and lead people into a superstitious observation of them being perswaded that all daies are alike holy in the sight of God And albeit it be not my present purpose to make a long digression concerning the debates among Protestants concerning the first day of the week commonly called the Lords day yet for as much as it comes fitly in here I shall briefly signifie our sense thereof § IV. We not seeing any ground in Scripture for it cannot be so superstitious as to believe that either the Jewish Sabbath now continues or that the first day of the week is the anti-tipe thereof or the true Christian Sabbath which with Calvin we believe to have a more Spiritual sense and therefore we know no moral obligation by the fourth command or elsewhere to keep the first day of the week more as any other or any holiness inherent in it But first for as much as it is most necessary that there be some time set apart for the Saints to meet together to wait upon God And that secondly it is fit at some times they be freed from their other outward affairs And that thirdly Reason and Equity doth allow that Servants and Beasts have some time allowed them to be eased from their continual labour And that fourthly it appears that the Apostles and primitive Christians did use the first day of the week for these purposes We find our selves sufficiently moved for these to do so also without superstitiously straining the Scriptures for another reason which that it is not to be there found many Protestants yea Calvin himself upon the fourth command hath abundantly evinced And though we therefore meet and abstain from working upon this day yet doth not that hinder us from having meetings also for worship at other times § V. Thirdly though according to the knowledg of God revealed unto us by the Spirit through that more full dispensation of Light which we believe the Lord hath brought about in this day we judg it our duty to hold forth that Pure and Spiritual Worship which is acceptable to God and answerable to the testimony of Christ and his Apostles and likewise to testifie against and deny not only manifest Superstition and Idolatry but also all formal Will-worship which stands not in the power of God yet I say we do not deny the whole Worship of all those that have born the name of Christians even in the Apostacy as if God had never heard their prayers nor accepted any of them God forbid we should be so void of Charity The latter part of the Proposition sheweth the contrary and as we would not be so absurd on the one hand to conclude because of the errors and darkness that many were covered and surrounded with in Babylon that none of their prayers were heard or accepted of God so will we not be so unwary on the other as to conclude that because God heard and pitied them so we ought to continue in these errors and darkness and not come out of Babylon when it is by God discovered unto us The Popish Mass and Vespers I do believe to be as to the matter of them abominable Idolatry and Superstition and so also believe the Protestants yet will either I or they affirm that in the darkness of Popery no upright-hearted men tho zealous in these abominations have been heard of God or accepted of him Who can deny but that both Bernard and Bonaventur Thaulerus Thomas a Kempis and divers others have both known and tasted of the love of God and felt the Power and Vertue of God's Spirit working with them for their Salvation And yet ought we not to forsake and deny those Superstitions which they were found in the Calvinistical Presbyterians do much upbraid and I say not without reason the formality and deadness of the Episcopalian and Lutheran Liturgies and yet as they will not deny but there have been some good men among them so neither dare they refuse but that when that good step was brought in by them of turning the publick Prayers into the vulgar Tongues tho continued in a Liturgy it was acceptable to God and sometimes accompanied with his Power and Presence yet will not the Presbyterians have it from thence concluded that the Common Prayers should still continue so likewise tho we should confess that through the mercy and wonderful condescension of God there have been upright in heart both among Papists and Protestants yet can we not therefore approve of their way in the general or not go on to the upholding of that Spiritual Worship which the Lord is calling all to and so to the testifying against whatsoever stands in the way of it § VI. Fourthly to come then to the state of the Controversie as to the publick Worship we judg it the duty of all to be diligent in the assembling of themselves together and what we have been and are in this matter our enemies in Great Britain who have used all means to hinder our assembling together to Worship God may bear witness and when assembled the great work of one and all ought to be to wait upon God and returning out of their own thoughts and imaginations to feel the Lord's presence and know a gathering into his Name indeed where he is in the midst according to his promise And as every one is thus gathered and so met together inwardly in their Spirits as well as outwardly in their Persons there the secret Power and Vertue of Life is known to refresh the Soul and the pure motions and breathings of God's Spirit are felt to arise from which as words of Declaration Prayers or Praises arise the acceptable Worship is known which edifies the Church and is well-pleasing to God
strongly exercised as in a day of battle and thereby trembling and a motion of body will be upon most if not upon all wbich as the power of Truth prevails will from pangs and groans end with a sweet sound of thanksgiving and praise and from this the name of Quakers i. e. Tremblers was first reproachfully cast upon us which though it be none of our choosing yet in this respect we are not ashamed of it but have rather reason to rejoyce therefore even that we are sensible of this power that hath often times laid hold upon our adversaries and made them yield unto us and joyn with us and confess to the Truth before they had any distinct or discursive knowledg of our Doctrins so that sometimes many at one Meeting have heen thus convinced and this Power would sometimes also teach to and wonderfully work even in little Children to the admiration and astonishment of many § IX Many are the blessed experiences which I could relate of this silence and manner of Worship yet do I not so much commend and speak of silence as if we had a Law in it to shut out Praying or Preaching or tied our selves thereunto not at all for as our Worship consisteth not in the Words so neither in silence as silence but in an holy dependence of the mind upon God from which dependence silence necessarily follows in the first place until words can be brought forth which are from God's Spirit and God is not wanting to move in his Children to bring forth words of Exhortation or Prayer when it is needful so that of the many gatherings and meetings of such as are convinced of the Truth there is scarce any in whom God raiseth not up some or other to minister to his Brethren that there are few meetings that are altogether silent For when many are met together in this one Life and Name it doth most naturally and frequently excite them to pray to and praise God and stir up one another by mutual exhortation and instructions yet we judg it needful there be in the first place some times of silence during which every one may be gathered inward to the Word and Gift of Grace from which he that ministreth may receive strength to bring forth what he ministreth and that they that hear may have a sense to discern betwixt the precious and the vile and not to hurry into the exercise of these things so soon as the Bell rings as other Christians do yea and we doubt not but assuredly know that the meeting may be good and refreshful though from the sitting down to the rising up thereof there hath not been a word as outwardly spoken and yet Life may have been known to abound in each particular and an inward growing up therein and thereby yea so as words might have been spoken acceptably and from the life yet there being no absolute necessity laid upon any so to do all might have chosen rather quietly and silently to possess and enjoy the Lord in themselves which is very sweet and comfortable to the Soul that hath thus learned to be gathered out of all its own thoughts and workings to feel the Lord to bring forth both the will and the deed which many can declare by a blessed experience though indeed it cannot but be hard for the natural man to receive or believe this Doctrine and therefore it must be rather by a sensible experience and by coming to make proof of it than by arguments that such can be convinced of this thing seeing it is not enough to believe it if they come not also to enjoy and possess it yet in condescension to and for the sake of such as may be the more willing to apply themselves to the practice and experience hereof that they found their understandings convinced of it and that it is founded upon Scripture and Reason I find a freedom of mind to add some few considerations of this kind for the confirmation hereof besides what is before mentioned of our experience § X. That to wait upon God and to watch before him is a duty incumbent upon all I suppose none will deny and that this also is a part of Worship will not be called in question since there is scarce any other so frequently commanded in the Holy Scriptures as may appear from Psal. 27.14.37 v. 7.34 Prov. 20.22 Isa. 30.18 Hosea 12.7 Zach. 3.8 Matth. 24.42 25.13.26.41 Marc. 13.33 35. Luc. 21.36 Act. 1.4.20.31 1 Cor. 16.13 Col. 4.2 1 Thes. 5.6 2 Tim. 4.5 1 Pet. 4.7 Also this duty is often recommended with very great and precious promises as Psal. 25.3.37.9.69.7 Isa. 40.31 Lam. 3.25.26 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength c. Now how is this waiting upon God or watching before him but by this silence of which we have spoken Which as it is in it self a great and principle duty so it necessarily in order both of nature and time proceedeth all other But that it may be the better and more perfectly understood as it is not only an outward silence of the body but an inward silence of the mind from all its own imaginations and self-cogitations let it be considered according to Truth and to the Principles and Doctrines heretofore affirmed and proved that man is to be considered in a two fold respect to wit in his natural unregenerate and faln state and in his Spiritual and renewed condition from whence ariseth that distinction of the natural and spiritual man so much used by the Apostle and heretofore spoken of also these two births of the mind proceed from the two Seeds in man respectively to wit the good Seed and the evil And from the evil Seed doth not only proceed all manner of gross and abominable wickedness and profanity but also hypocrisie and these wickednesses which the Scripture calls spiritual because it is the Serpent working in and by the natural man in things that are spiritual which having a shew and appearance of good are so much the more hurtful and dangerous as it is Satan transformed and transforming himself into an Angel of Light and therefore doth the Scripture so pressingly and frequently as we have heretofore had occasion to observe shut out and exclude the natural man from medling with the things of God denying his endeavours therein though acted and performed by the most eminent of his parts as of wisdom and utterance Also this spiritual wickedness is of two sorts though both one in kind as proceeding from one root yet different in their degrees and in the subjects also sometimes The one is when as the natural man is medling in and working in the things of Religion doth from his own conceptions and divinations affirm or propose wrong and erroneous notions and opinions of God and things spiritual and invent superstitions ceremonies observations and rites in worship from whence have sprung all the Heresies and Superstitions that are among Christians The other is when as
and I my self with others have shared of in suffering there they have often beaten us and cast water and dirt upon us there they have danced leaped sung and spoken all manner of prophane and ungodly words offered violence and shameful behaviour to grave Woman and Virgins jeared mocked and scoffed asking us If the Spirit was not yet come and much more which were tedious here to relate and all this while we have been seriously and silently sitting together and waiting upon the Lord so that by these things our inward and spiritual Fellowship with God and one another in the pure life of Righteousness hath not been hindered But on the contrary the Lord knowing our sufferings and reproaches for his Testimonies sake hath caused his Power and Glory more to abound among us and hath mightily refreshed us by the sense of his love which hath filled our Souls and so much the rather as we found our selves gathered into the Name of the Lord which is the strong Tower of the Righteous whereby we felt our selves sheltered from receiving any inward hurt through their malice and also that he had delivered us from that vain name and profession of Christianity under which our opposers were not ashamed to bring forth these bitter and cursed Fruits yea sometimes in the midst of this tumult and opposition God would powerfully move some or other of us by his Spirit both to testifie of that joy which notwithstanding their malice we enjoyed and powerfully so declare in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit against their folly and wickedness so as the power of Truth hath brought them to some measure of quietness and stillness and stopped the impetuous streams of their fury and madness that as ever of old Moses by his Rod divided the Waves of the Red Sea that the Israelites might pass so God hath thus by his Spirit made a way for us in the midst of this raging wickedness peaceably to enjoy and possess him and accomplish our Worship to him So that sometimes upon such occasions several of our opposers and interrupters have hereby been convinced 〈…〉 Truth and gathered from being Persecutors to be Sufferers with 〈…〉 let it not be forgotten but let it be inscribed and abide for a constant remembrance of the thing that in these beastly and bruitish pranks used to molest us in our Spiritual meetings none have been more busie than the Young Students of the Universities who were learning Philosophy and Divinity so called and many of them preparing themselves for the Ministry Should we commit to writing all the abominations committed in this respect by the young fry of the Clergy it would make no small Volumn as the Churches of Christ gathered into his Pure Worship in Oxford and Cambridge in England and Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland where the Universities are can well bear witness § XIV Moreover in this we know that we are partakers of the New Covenant's Dispensation and Disciples of Christ indeed sharing with him of that Spiritual Worship which is performed in the Spirit and in Truth because as he was so are we in this world For the Old Covenant Worship had an outward Glory Temple and Ceremonies and was full of outward Splendor and Majesty having an outward Tabernacle and Altar beautified with Gold Silver and Precious Stones and their Sacrifices were tied to an outward particular place even the outward Mount Zion and those that prayed behoved to pray with their Faces towards that outward Temple and therefore all this behoved to be protected by an outward arm nor could the Jews peaceably have enjoyed it but when they were secured from the violence of their outward Enemies and therefore when at any time their Enemies prevailed over them their Glory was darkned and their Sacrifices stopped and the Face of their Worship marred hence they complain lament and bewail the destroying of the Temple as a loss irreparable But Jesus Christ the Author and Institutor of the New Covenant Worship testifies that God is neither to be worshipped in this nor that place but in the Spirit and in Truth and forasmuch as his Kingdom is not of this World neither doth his Worship consist in it or need either the Wisdom Glory Riches or Splendor of this world to beautifie or adorn it nor yet the outward power or arm of flesh to maintain uphold or protect it but it is and may be performed by those that are spiritually minded notwithstanding all opposition violence and malice of men because it being purely Spiritual it is out of the reach of natural men to interrupt or molest it even as Jesus Christ the Author thereof did enjoy and possess his Spiritual Kingdom while oppressed persecuted and rejected of men and as in despite of the malice and rage of the devil he spoiled principalities and powers triumphing over them and through death destroyed him that had the power of death that is the devil so also all his followers both can and do worship him not onely without the arm of Flesh to protect them but even when oppressed For their worship being spiritual is by the power of the Spirit defended and maintained but such worships as are carnal and consist in carnal and outward ceremonies and observations need a carnal and outward arm to protect them and defend them else they cannot stand and subsist And therefore it appears that the several worships of our opposers both Papists and Protestants are of this kind and not the true Spiritual and New Covenant worship of Christ because as hath been observed they cannot stand without the protection or countenance of the outward Magistrate neither can be performed if there be the least opposition for they are not in the patience of Jesus to serve and worship him with sufferings ignomies calumnies and reproaches And from hence have sprung all those wars fightings and bloodshed among Christians while each by the arm of Flesh endeavoured to defend and protect their own way and worship and from this also sprung up that monstrous opinion of persecution of which we shall speak more at length hereafter § XV. But Fourthly The nature of this Worship which is performed by the Operation of the Spirit the natural man being silent doth appear from these words of Christ John 4.23 24. But the hour cometh and now is when the true Worshippers shall Worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to Worship him God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit and in Truth This Testimony is the more specially to be observed for that it is both the first chiefest and most ample testimony which Christ gives us of his Christian Worship as different and contradistinguished from that under the Law For First he sheweth that the season is now come wherein the Worship must be in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to Worship him so then it is no more a Worship
would follow as is evident and will be acknowledged by all Next we do not deny but wicked men are sensible of the motions and operations of God's Spirit often-times before their day be expired from which they may at times pray acceptably not as remaining altogether wicked but as entring into Piety from whence they afterwards fall away § XXVI As to the singing of Psalms there will not be need of any long discourse for that the case is just the same as in the two former of Preaching and Prayer We confess this to be a part of God's Worship and very sweet and refreshful when it proceeds from a true sense of God's love in the heart and arises from the divine influence of the Spirit which leads Souls to breath forth either a sweet Harmony or words suitable to the present condition whether they be words formerly used by the Saints and recorded in Scripture such as the Psalmes of David or other words as were the Hymns and Songs of Zacharias Simeon and the Blessed Virgin Mary But as for the formal customary way of singing it hath in Scripture no foundation nor any ground in true Christiansty yea besides all the abuses incident to prayer and preaching it hath this more peculiar that often times great and horrid lies are said in the sight of God for all manner of wicked prophane People take upon them to personate the experiences and conditions of Blessed David which are not only false as to them but also as to some of more sobriety who utter them forth as where they will sing sometimes Psal. 22.14 my heart is like Wax it is melted in the midst of my Bowels and verse 15. My strength is dried up like a Pot-sheard and my Tongue cleaveth to my Jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of Death And Psal. 6.6 I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my Bed to swim I water my Couch with my Tears And many more which those that speak know to be false as to them And sometimes will confess just after in their Prayers that they are guilty of the Vices opposite to those Vertues which but just before they have asserted themselves endued with Who can suppose that God accepts of such jugling And indeed such singing doth more please the carnal ears of men than the pure ears of the Lord who abhors all Lying and Hypocrisie That singing then that pleaseth him must proceed from that which is PVRE in the Heart even from the Word of Life therein in and by which richly dwelling in us Spiritual Songs and Hymns are returned to the Lord according to that of the Apostle Col. 3.16 But as to their artificial Musick either by Organs or other instruments or voice we have neither example nor precept for it in the New Testament § XXVII But lastly the great advantage of this true Worship of God which we profess and practice is that it consisteth not in man's Wisdom Arts or Industry neither needeth the Glory Pomp Riches nor Splendor of this World to beautifie it as being of a Spiritual and Heavenly nature and therefore too simple and contemptible to the natural mind and will of man that hath no delight to abide in it because he finds no room there for his imaginations and inventions and hath not the opportunity to gratifie his outward and carnal Senses so that this form being observed is not like to be long kept pure without the Power For it is of it self so naked without it that it hath nothing in it to invite and tempt men to dote upon it further than it is accompanied with the Power Whereas the Worship of out Adversaries being performed in their own wills is self-pleasing as in which they can largely exercise their natural parts and invention and as to most of them having somewhat of an outward and worldly splendor delectable to the carnal and worldly Senses they can pleasantly continue it and satisfie themselves though without the Spirit and Power which they make no ways essential to the performance of their Worship and therefore neither wait for nor expect it § XXVIII So that to conclude the Worship Preaching Praying and Singing which we plead for is such as proceedeth from the Spirit of God and is always accompanyed with its influence being begun by its motion and carried on by the power and strength thereof and so is a Worship purely Spiritual such as the Scripture holds forth Joh. 4.23 24. 1 Cor. 14.15 Eph. 6.18 c. But the Worship Preaching Praying and Singing which our Adversaries plead for and which we oppose is a Worship which is both begun carried on and concluded in man's own natural will and strenghth without the motion or influence of God's Spirit which they judg they need not wait for and therefore may be truly acted both as to the matter and manner by the wickedest of men Such was the Worship and vain Oblations which God always rejected as appears from Isa. 66.3 Jer. 14.12 c. Isa. 1.13 Prov. 15.29 John 9.31 The Twelfth Proposition Concerning Baptism As there is one Lord and one Faith so there is one Baptism which is not the putting away the Filth of the Flesh but the answer of a good Conscience before God by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and this Baptism is a Pure and a Spiritual thing to wit the Baptism of the Spirit and Fire by which we are buried with him that being washed and purged from our sins we may walk in newness of Life of which the Baptism of John was a Figure which was commanded for a time and not to continue for ever as to the Baptism of Infants it is a meer humane Tradition for which neither Precept nor Practice is to be found in all the Scripture § I. I Did sufficiently demonstrate in the explanation and probation of the former Proposition how greatly the Professors of Christianity as well Protestants as Papists were degenerated in the matter of Worship and how much strangers to and averse from that true and acceptable Worship that is performed in the Spirit of Truth because of man's natural propensity in his faln state to exalt his own inventions and to intermix his own work and product in the Service of God and from this root sprung all the Idle Worships Idolatries and numerous Superstitious Inventions among the Heathens For when God in condescension to his chosen People the Jews did prescribe to them by his Servant Moses many Ceremonies and Observations as Types and Shaddows of the Substance which in due time was to be revealed which consisted for the most part in washings outward purifications and cleansings which were to continue until the time of the Reformation until the Spiritual Worship should be set up and that God by the more powerful pouring forth of his Spirit and guiding of that Anoynting which was to lead his Children into all Truth and teach them to Worship him in a way more Spiritual and acceptable
Text Eph. 4.5 One Lord one Faith one Baptism where the Apostle positively and plainly affirms that as there is but one Body one Spirit one Faith one God c. so there is but one Baptism As to what is commonly alledged by way of explanation upon the Text Obj. that the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit make up this one Baptism by vertue of the Sacramental Vnion I answer This exposition hath taken place not because grounded upon the Testiomy of the Scripture Answ. but because it wrests the Scripture to make it sute to their principle of Water-baptism and so there needs no other reply but to deny it as being repugnant to the plain words of the Text which saith not that there are Two Baptisms to wit one of Water the other of the Spirit which do make up one Baptism but plainly that there is one Baptism as there is One Faith and One God Now there goeth not two Faiths nor two Gods nor two Spirits nor two Bodies whereof the one is Outward and Elementary and the other Spiritual and Pure to the making up of the one Faith the one God the one Body and the one Spirit so neither ought there to go Two Baptisms to make up the One Baptism But secondly if it be said the baptism is but one whereof water is the one part to wit the sign and the spirit the thing signified the other I answer this yet more confirmeth our doctrin for if water be only the sign it is not the matter of the one Baptism as shall further hereafter by its definition appear in Scripture and we are to take the one baptism for the matter of it not for tbe sign or figure and type that went before even as where Christ is called the one Offering in Scripture though he was tipified by many Sacrifices and Offerings under the Law we understand only by the One Offering his offering himself upon the Cross whereof though those many Offerings were signs and tipes yet we say not that they go together with that Offering of Christ to make up the one Offering so neither though Water-baptism was a sign of Christs Baptism will it follow that it goeth now to make up the Baptism of Christ. If any should be so absurd as to affirm that this one Baptism here were the Baptism of Water and not of the Spirit that were foolishly to contradict the positive testimony of the Scripture which saith the contrary as by what followeth will more amply appear Secondly that this one Baptism which is the Baptism of Christ is not a washing with water appears first from the testimony of John the proper and peculiar administrator of water baptism Matth. 3.11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance but he that cometh after me is mightier than I whose Shoes I am not worthy to bear he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire Here John mentions two manner of baptisings and two different baptisms the one with water and the other with the Spirit the one whereof he was the Minister of the other whereof Christ was the Minister of and such as were baptized with the first were not therefore baptized with the second I indeed baptize you but he shall baptize you Though in the present time they were baptized with the baptism of water yet they were not as yet but were to be baptized with the Baptism of Christ. From all which I thus argue If those that were baptized with the baptism of water were not therefore baptized with the Baptism of Christ then the baptism of water is not the Baptism of Christ But the first is true Therefore also the last And again If he that truly and really administred the baptism of water did not withstanding declare that he neither could nor did baptize with the Baptism of Christ then the Baptism of Water is not the Baptism of Christ. But the first is true Thereforefore c. And indeed to understand it otherwise would make John's words void of good sense for if their baptism had been all one why should he have so precisely contradistinguish them Why should he have said that those whom he had already baptized should yet be be baptized by another baptism Obj. If it be urged that Baptism with Water was the one part and that with the Spirit the other part or effect only of the former Answ. I answer this exposition contradicts the plain words of the text for he saith not I baptize you with Water and he that cometh after shall produce the effects of this my Baptism in you by the Spirit c. or he shall accomplish this baptism in you but he shall baptize you So then if we understand the word truly and properly when he saith I baptize you as consenting that thereby is really signified that he did baptize with the baptism of water we must needs unless we offer violence to the text understand the other part of the sentence the same way that where he adds presently but he shall baptize you c. that he understood it of their being truly to be baptized with another baptism than what he did baptize with Else it had been nonsense for him for thus to have contradistinguished them Secondly this is further confirmed by the saying of Christ himself Acts 1.4 5. but wait for the promise of the Father which saith he ye have heard of me For John truly baptized with Water but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many daies hence There can scarce two places of Scripture run more parallel than this doth with the former a little before mentioned and therefore concludeth the same way as did the other For Christ here grants fully that John compleated his baptism as to the matter and substance of it John saith he truly baptized with water which is as much as if he had said John did truly and fully administer the baptism of water But ye shall be baptized with c. This sheweth that they were to be baptized with some other baptism than the baptism of water and that although they were formerly baptized with the baptism of water yet not with that of Christ which they were to be baptized with Thirdly Peter observes the same distinction Acts 11.16 Then remembred I the word of the Lord how that he said John indeed baptized with Water but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost The Apostle makes this application upon the Holy Ghost's falling upon them Whence he infers that they were then baptized with the baptism of the Spirit As to what is urged from his calling afterwards for water to it shall be hereafter spoken From all which three sentences realtive one to another first of John secondly of Christ and thirdly of Peter it doth evidently follow that such as were truly and really baptized with the baptism of water were notwithstanding not baptized with the baptism of the Spirit which is that of Christ and such as truly and
Water-baptism Thirdly that Baptism which Christ commanded his Apostles was such that as many as were therewith Baptized Arg. did put on Christ. But this is not true of Water-baptism Therefore c. Fourthly the Baptism commanded by Christ to his Apostles was not John's Baptism But Baptism with Water was John's Baptism Therefore c. But first they alledg that Christ's Baptism though a Baptism with Water did differ from John 's because John only Baptized with Water unto Repentance but Christ commands his Disciples to Baptize in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost reckoning that in this form there lieth a great difference betwixt the Baptism of John and that of Christ. I answer as to that John's Baptism was unto Repentance Answ. the difference lieth not there because so is Christ's also for our adversaries will not deny but that adult persons that are baptized ought ere they be admitted to it to repent and confess their sins yea and that Infants with a respect to and consideration of their Baptism ought to repent and confess So that the difference lieth not here since this of repentance and confession agrees as well to Christ's as to John's Baptism But in this our Adversaries are divided for Calvin will have Christ's and John's to be all one Inst. lib. 4. cap. 15. Sect. 7 8. Yet they do differ and the difference is in that the one is by water the other not c. Secondly as to what Christ saith in commanding them to baptize in the Name of the Father Son and Spirit I confess that states the difference and it is great but that lies not only in admitting water-baptism in this different form by a bare expressing of these words for as the Text saith no such thing neither do I see how it can be inferred from it For the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is into the Name now the Name of the Lord is often taken in Scripture for something else than a bare sound of words or literal expression even forhis Vertue and Power as may appear from Psal. 54.3 Cant. 1.3 Prov. 18.10 and in many more Now that the Apostles were by their Ministry to baptize the Nations into this Name Vertue and Power and that they did so is evident by these Testimonies of Paul above-mentioned where he saith that as many of them as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ this must have been a baptizing into the Name i. e. Power and Vertue and not a meer formal expression of words adjoyned with Water-baptism because as hath been above observed it doth not follow as a natural or necessary consequence of it I would have those who desire to have their Faith built upon no other foundation than the Testimony of God's Spirit and Scriptures of Truth throughly to consider whether there can be any thing further alledged for this interpretation than what the prejudice of Education and Influence of Tradition hath imposed perhaps it may stumble the unwary and inconsiderate Reader as if the very Character of Christianity were abolished to tell him plainly that this Scripture is not to be understood of Baptizing with Water and that this form of Baptizing in the Name of Father Son and Spirit hath no warrant from Matth. 28. c. For which besides the reason taken from the signification of the Name as being the Vertue and Power above expressed let it be considered that if it had been a form prescribed by Christ to his Apostles then surely they would have made use of that form in the administring of Water-baptism to such as they baptized with Water but though particular mention be made in divers places of the Acts who were baptized and how and though it be particularly expressed that they baptized such and such as Acts 2.41.8.12 13 38.9.18.10.48.16.15.18.8 yet there is not a word of this form and in two places Acts 8.16.19.5 it is said of some that they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus by which it yet more appears that either the author of this History hath been very defective who having so often occasion to mention this yet omiteth so substantial a part of Baptism which were to accuse the Holy Ghost by whose guidance Luke wrote it or else that the Apostle did no waies understand that Christ by his Commission Matth. 28. did injoyn them such a form of Water-baptism seeing they did not use it and therefore it is safer to conclude that what they did in administring Water-baptism they did not by vertue of that commission else they would have so used it for our adversaries I suppose would judge it a great Heresie to administer Water-baptism without that or only in the Name of Jesus without mention of Father or Spirit as it is expresly said they did in the two places above cited Secondly they say if this were not understood of Water-baptism it would be a tautology and all one with teaching I say nay baptizing with the Spirit is somewhat further then teaching or informing the understanding for it imports a reaching to and melting the heart whereby it is turned as well as the understanding informed besides we find often in the Scripture that teaching and instructing are put together without any absurdity or needless tautology and yet these two have a greater affinity than teaching and baptizing with the Spirit Thirdly they say Baptism in this place must be understood with Water because it is the action of the Apostles Obj. and so cannot be the Baptism of the Spirit which is the work of Christ and his Grace not of man c. I answer Baptism with the Spirit though not wrought without Christ and his Grace is instrumentally done by men fitted of God Answ. for that purpose and therefore no absurdity follows that Baptism with the Spirit should be expressed as the action of the Apostles for though it be Christ by his Grace that gives Spiritual Gifts yet the Apostle Rom. 1.11 speaks of his imparting to them Spiritual Gifts and he tells the Corinthians that he had begotten them through the Gospel 1 Cor. 4.15 and yet to beget people to the Faith is the work of Christ and his Grace not of men to convert the heart is properly the work of Christ and yet the Scripture often times ascribes it to men as being the instruments And since Paul's commission was to turn People from Darkness to Light though that be not done without Christ co-operating by his Grace so may also baptizing with the Spirit be expressed as performable by man as the instrument though the work of Christ's Grace be needful to concur thereunto so that it is no absurdity to say that the Apostles did administer the Baptism of the Spirit Lastly they say that since Christ saith here that he will be with his Disciples to the end of the world therefore Water-baptism must continue so long Answ. If he had been speaking here of Water-baptism then that might have been urged
time went back from him and walked no more with him I doubt not but that there are many also at this day professing to be the Disciples of Christ that do as little understand this matter as those did and are as apt to be offended and stumble at it while they are gazing and following after the outward Body and look not to that by which the Saints are daily fed and nourished For as Jesus Christ in obedience to the will of the Father did by the eternal Spirit offer up that body for a propitiation for the remission of sins and finished his testimony upon earth thereby in a most perfect example of patience resignation and holyness that all might be made partakers of the feuit of that Sacaifice So hath he likewise poured forth into the hearts of all men a measure of that Divine Light and Seed wherewith he is cloathed that thereby reaching unto the Consciences of all he may raise them up out of death and darkness by his Life and Light and thereby may be made partakers of his body and therethrough come to have fellowship with the Father and with the Son § III. If it be asked how Quest. and after what manner man comes to partake of it and to be sed by it I answer in the plain and express words of Christ I am the Bread of Life saith he he that cometh to me shall never hunger Answ. he that believeth in me shall never thirst and again for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed So whosoever thou art that askest this question or readest these lines whether thou accountest thy self a Believer or really feelest by a certain and sad experience that thou art yet in the unbelief and findest that the outward body and flesh of Christ is so far from thee that thou canst not reach it nor feed upon it yea though thou hast often swallowed down and taken in that which the Papists have perswaded thee to be the real Flesh and Blood of Christ and hast believed it to be so though all thy senses told thee the contrary or being a Luthenan hast taken that bread in and with and under which the Lutherans have assured thee that the flesh and blood of Christ is or being a Calvinist hast partaken of that which the Calvinists say though a figure only of the Body gives them that take it a real Participation of the Body Flesh and Blood of Christ though they neither know how nor what way I say if for all this thou findest thy Soul yet barren yea hungry and ready to starve for want of something thou longest for Know that that Light that discovers thy Iniquity to thee that shews thee thy barrenness thy nakedness thy emptyness is that body that thou must partake of and feed upon but that till by forsaking iniquity thou turnest to it comest unto it receivest it though thou mayst hunger after it thou canst not be satisfied with it for it hath no communion with darkness nor canst thou drink of the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of devils and be partaker of the Lord's Table and the Table of Devils 1 Cor. 10.21 But as thou sufferest that small Seed of Righteousness to arise in thee and to be formed into a birth that new substantial birth that 's brought forth in the Soul naturally feeds upon and is nourished by this spiritual body yea at this outward birthlives not but as it sucks in breath by the outward elementary air so this new birth lives not in the Soul but as it draws in and breaths by that spiritual air or vehicle and as the outward birth cannot subsist without some outward body to feed upon some outward flesh and some outward drink so neither can this inward birth without it be fed by this inward flesh and blood of Christ which answers to it after the same manner by way of analogy And this is most agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ concerning this matter for as without outward food the natural body hath not life so also saith Christ Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you And as the outward body eating outward food lives thereby so Christ saith that he that eateth him shall live by him So it is this inward participation of this inward man of this inward and Spiritual body by which man is united to God and has fellowship and communion with him He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood saith Christ dwelleth in me and I in him This cannot be understood of outward eating of outward Bread and as by this the Soul must have fellowship with God so also in so far as all the Saints are partakers of this one body and one blood they come also to have a joynt Communion Hence the Apostle 1 Cor. 10.17 in this respect saith that they being many are one bread and one body and to the wise among the Corinthians he saith the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ. This is the True and Spiritual Supper of the Lord which men come to partake of by hearing the voice of Christ and opening the door of their hearts and so letting him in in the manner abovesaid according to the plain words of the Scripture Rev. 3.20 Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come into him and will Sup with him and he with me So that the Supper of the Lord and the Supping with the Lord and partaking of his Flesh and Blood is no ways limited to the Ceremony of breaking Bread and drinking Wine at particular times but is truly and really enjoyed as often as the Soul retires into the Light of the Lord and feels and partakes of that Heavenly Life by which the inward Man is nourished which may be and is often witnessed by the Faithful at all times though more particularly when they are Assembled together to wait upon the Lord. § IV. But what confusion the professors of Christianity have run into concerning this matter is more than obvious who as in most other things they have done for want of a true Spiritual understanding have sought to tie this Supper of the Lord to that ceremony used by Christ before his Death of breaking Bread and drinking Wine with his Disciples And though they for most part agree in this general yet how do they contend and debate one against another How strangely are they pinched pained and straitned to make this Spiritual mystery agree to that Ceremony And what monstruous and wild opinions and conceivings have they invented to inclose or affix the Body of Christ to their Bread and Wine From which opinion not only the greatest and fiercest and most hurtful contests both among the Professors of Christianity in general and among Protestants in particular have arisen but also such absurdities irrational and blasphemous
the Jews following him for the Loaves to tell them of this Spiritual bread and flesh of his body which was more necessary for them to feed upon It will not therefore follow that their following him for the Loaves had any necessary relation thereunto So also Christ here being at supper with his Disciples takes occasion from the bread and wine which was before them to signifie unto them that as that bread which he brake unto them and that wine which he blessed and gave unto them did contribute to the preserving and nourishing of their bodies so was he also to give his body and shed his blood for the Salvation of their Souls and therefore the very end proposed in this ceremony to those that observe it is to be a memorial of his Death But if it be said that the Apostle 1 Cor. 10.16 calls the bread which he brake the communion of the body of Christ and the cup the communion of his blood I do most willingly subscribe unto it but do deny that this is understood of the outward bread neither can it be evinced but the contrary is manifest from the context for the Apostle in this chapter speaks not one word of that ceremony for having in the beginning of it shewn them how the Jews of old were made partakers of the Spiritual food and water which was Christ and how several of them thro' disobedience and idolatry fell from that good condition he exhorts them by the example of those Jews whom God destroyed of old to flee those evils shewing them that they to wit the Corinthians are likewise partakers of the body and blood of Christ of which communion they would rob themselves if they did evil because they could not drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils and partake of the Lords table and of the Table of devils ver 21. which shews that he understands not here the using of outward bread and wine because those that do drink the cup of devils and eat of the table of devils yea the wickedest of men may partake of the outward bread and outward wine For there the Apostle calls the bread one ver 17. and he saith we being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread Now if the bread be one it cannot be the outward or the inward would be excluded whereas it cannot be denyed but that it 's the partaking of the inward bread and not the outward that makes the Saints truly one body and one bread And whereas they say that the one bread here comprehendeth both the outward and inward by vertue of the Sacramental union that indeed is to affirm but not to prove As for that figment of a Sacramental union I find not such a thing in all the Scripture especially in the New Testament nor is there any thing can give a rise for such a thing in this chapter where the Apostle as is above observed is not at all treating of that ceremony but only from the excellency of that priviledg which the Corinthians had as believing Christians to partake of the flesh and blood of Christ dehorts them from Idolatry and partaking of the Sacrifices offered to Idols so as thereby to offend or hurt their weak brethren But that which they most of all cry out in this matter Obj. and are alwaies noising as from 1 Cor. 11. where the Apostle is particularly treating of this matter and therefore from some words here they have the greatest appearance of Truth for their assertion as ver 27. where he calls the Cup the cup of the Lord and saith that they who eat of it and drink unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord and ver 26. eat and drink their own damnation intimating thence that this hath an immediate or necessary relation to the body flesh and blood of Christ. Though this at first view may catch the unwary Reader Answ. yet being well considered it doth no ways evince the matter in controversie As for the Corinthians being in the use of this ceremony why they were so and how that obliges not Christians now to the same shall be spoken of hereafter it suffices at this time to consider that they were in the use of it Secondly that in the use of it they were guilty of and committed divers abuses Thirdly that the Apostle here is giving them directions how they may do it aright in shewing them the right and proper use and end of it These things being premised let it be observed that the very express and particular use of it according to the Apostle is to shew forth the Lord's death c. But to shew forth the Lord's death and partake of the flesh and blood of Christ are different things He saith not as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye partake of the body and blood of Christ but ye shew forth the Lord's death So I acknowledg that this ceremony by those that practise it hath an immediate relation to the outward body and death of Christ upon the Cross as being properly a memorial of it but it doth not thence follow that it hath any inward or immediate relation to believers communicating or partaking of the Spiritual body and blood of Christ or that Spiritual Supper spoken of Rev. 3.20 for though in a general way as every religious action in some respect hath a common relation to the Spiritual Communion of the Saints with God so we shall not deny but this hath a relation as others Now for his calling the cup the cup of the Lord and saying they are guilty of the body and blood of Christ and eat their own damnation in not discerning the Lord's body c. I answer that this infers no more necessary relation than any other religious act and amounts to no more than this that since the Corinthians were in the use of this ceremony and so performed it as a religious act they ought to do it worthily else they should bring condemnation upon themselves Now this will not more infer the thing so practised by them to be a necessary religious act obligatory upon others than when Rom. 14.6 the Apostle saith He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord it can be thence inferred that the days that some esteemed and observed did lay an obligation upon others to do the same but yet as as he that esteemed a day and placed Conscience in keeping it was to regard it to the Lord and so it was to him in so far as he dedicated it unto the Lord the Lord's day he was to do it worthily and if he did it unworthily he would be guilty of the Lord's day and so keep it to his own damnation so also such as observe this ceremony of bread and wine it is to them the bread of the Lord and the cup of the Lord because they use it as a religious act and forasmuch as their
the morrow and continued his speech until Mid-night Here is no mention made of any Sacramental eating but only that Paul took occasion from their being togetther to preach unto them And it seems it was a Supper they intended not a morning bit of bread and sup of wine else it 's not very probable that Paul would from the morning have preached until Mid-night But the 11 verse puts the matter out of dispute which is thus When he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked along while even till break of day so he departed This shews that the breaking of bread was differed till that time for those words and when he had broken bread and eaten do shew that it had a relation to the breaking of bread afore-mentioned and that that was the time he did it Secondly these words joyned together and when he had broken bread and eaten and talked shew it was no religious act of worship but only an eating for bodily refreshment for which the Christians used to meet together some time and doing it in God's fear and singleness of heart doth notwithstanding difference it from the eating or feasting of profane persons and this by some is called a Love-feast or a being together not meerly to feed their Bellies or for outward ends but to take thence occasion to eat and drink together in the dread ond presence of the Lord as his People which custom we shall not condemn but let it be observed that in all the Acts there is no other nor further mention of this matter But if that Ceremony had been some solemn Sacrifice as some will have it or such a special Sacrament as others plead it to be it is strange that that History that in many lesser things gives a particular account of the Christians behaviour should have been so silent in the matter Only we find that they used sometimes to meet together to break Bread and eat Now as the primitive Christians began by degrees to depart from that primitive purity and simplicity so also to accumulate superstitious traditions and vitiat the innocent practices of their predecessors by the intermixing either of Jewish or Heathenish Rites so also in the use of this very early abuses began to creep in among Christians so that it was needful for the Apostle Paul to reform them and reprove them therefore as he doth at large 1 Cor. 11. from ver 17. to the end which place we shall particularly examine because our adversaries lay the chief stress of their matter upon it and we shall see whether it will infer any more than we have above granted First because they were apt to use that practice in a superstitious mind beyond the true use of it as to make of it some mystical supper of the Lord he tells them ver 20. that their coming together into one place is not to eat the Lord's Supper he saith not this is not the right manner to eat because the Supper of the Lord is Spiritual and a mystery Secondly he blames them in that they come together for the worse and not for the better the reason he gives of this is ver 21. For in eating every one hath taken before his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken Here it is plain that the Apostle condemns them for that because this custom of supping in general was used among Christians for to increase their love and as a memorial of Christ's supping with the Disciples that they should have so vitiated it to eat it a part and to come full who had abundance and hungry who had little at home Whereby the very use and end of this practice is lost and perverted and therefore he blames them that they do not either eat this in common at home or reserve their eating till they come all together to the publick assembly this appears plainly by the following verse 22. have ye not houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not Where he blames them for their irregular practice herein in that they despised to eat orderly or reserve their eating to the publick assembly and so shaming such as not having houses nor fulness at home came to partake of the common Table who being hungry thereby were ashamed when they observed others come thitherfull and drunken Those that without prejudice will look to the place will see this must have been the case among the Corinthians for supposing the use of this to have been then as now used either by Papists Lutherans or Calvinists it is hard making sense of the Apostles's words or indeed to conceive what was the abuse the Corinthians committed in this thing Having thus observed what the Apostle said above because this custom of eating and drinking together some time had its rise from Christ's Act with the Apostles the night he was betrayed therefore the Apostle proceeded ver 23. to give them an account of that For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread c. Those that understand the difference betwixt a narration of a thing and a command cannot but see if they will that there is no command in this place but only an account of matter of fact he saith not I received of the Lord that as he took Bread so I shall command it to you to do also there is nothing like this in this place yea on the contrary ver 25. where he repeats Christ's imperative words to his Apostles he placeth them so as they import to command this do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me And then he adds For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's death till he come But these words as often imports no more a command than to say as often as thou goest to Rome see the Capitol will infer a command to me to go thither But whereas they urge the last words Obj. ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come insinuating that this imports a necessary continuance of that ceremony until Christ come at the end of the world to judgment I answer they take two of the chief parts of the controversie here for granted without proof First that as often imports a command the contrary whereof is shewn neither will they ever be able to prove it Secondly that this coming is understood of Christ's last outward coming and not of his inward and spiritual that remains to be proved whereas the Apostle might well understand it of his inward coming and appearance which perhaps some of those carnal Corinthians that used to come drunken together had not yet known and others being weak among them and inclinable to dote upon outwards this might have been indulged to them for a season and even used by those who knew Christ's appearance
with the using as much as other things But further if the use of water and bread and wine were that wherein the very seals of the New Covenant stood and did pertain to the chief Sacraments of the Gospel and Evangelical Ordinances so called then would not the Gospel differ from the Law or be preferable to it Whereas the Apostle shews the difference Heb. 9.10 in that such kind of observations of the Jews were as a sign of the Gospel for that this stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings And now if the Gospel worship and service stand in the same where is the difference Obj. If it be said These under the Gospel have a spiritual signification Answ. So had those under the Law God was the Author of those as well as Christ is pretended to be Author of these But doth not this contending for the use of water bread and wine as necessary parts of the Gospel-worship destroy the nature of it as if the Gospel were a dispensation of shadows and not of the Substance whereas the Apostle in that of the Collossians above-mentioned argues against the use of these things as needful to those that are dead and arisen with Christ because they are but shadows and since through the whole Epistle to the Hebrews he argues with the Jews to wean them from their worship for this reason because it was typical and figurative Is it agreeable to right Reason to bring them to another of the same nature What ground from Scripture or Reason can our adversaries bring us to evince that one shadow or figure should point to another shadow or figure and not to the Substance And yet they make the figure of Circumcision to point to Water-baptism and the Paschal Lamb so bread and wine But was it ever known that one figure was the antitypes of the other especially seeing Protestants make not these their antitypes to have any more vertue or efficacy than the type had For since as they say and that truly that their Sacraments confer not Grace but that is conferred according to the Faith of the receiver it will not be denied but the faithful among the Jews received also Grace in the use of their figurative Worship And though Papists boast that their Sacraments confer Grace ex opere operato yet experience abundantly proveth the contrary § X. But supposing the use of Water baptism and Bread and Wine to have been in the primitive Church as was also that of abstaining from things strangled and from Blood the use of legal Purification Acts 21.23 24 25. and anointing of the Sick with Oyl for the reasons and grounds beforementioned Yet it remains for our adversaries to shew us how they come by power or authority to administer them It cannot be from the letter of the Scripture else they behoved also to do those other things which the letter declares also they did and which in the letter have as much foundation Then their Power must be derived from the Apostles either mediately or immediately but we have shewn before in the tenth Proposition that they have no mediate Power because of the interruption made by the Apostasie And for an immediate power or command by the Spirit of God to administer these things none of our adversaries pretend to it We know that in this as in other things they make a noise of the constant consent of the Church and of Christians in all ages but as tradition is not a sufficient ground for Faith so in this matter especially it ought to have but small weight for that in this point of Ceremonies and superstitious Observations the Apostasie began very early as may appear in the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Colossians and we have no ground to imitate them in those things whose entrance the Apostle so much withstood so heavily regreted and so sharply reproved But if we look to Antiquity we find that in such kind of observances and traditions they were very uncertain and changeable so that neither Protestants nor Papists do observe this Ceremony as they did both in that they gave it to young Boyes and to little Children and for ought can be learned the use of this and Infant-baptism are of alike age though the one be laid aside both by Papists and Protestants and the other to wit Baptism of Infants be stuck to and we have so much the less reason to lay weight upon Antiquity for that if we consider their profession of Religion especially as to worship and the ceremonial part of it we shall not find any Church now whether Popish or Protestant who differ not widely from them in many things as Dalleus in his Treatise concerning the use of the Fathers well observeth and demonstrateth And why they should obtrude this upon us because of the Ancients practice which they themselves follow not or why we may not reject this as well as they do other things no less zealously practised by the Ancients no sufficient reason can be assigned I shall not nevertheless doubt but many whose understandings have been clouded with these Ceremonies have notwithstanding by the Mercy of God had some secret sense of the mystery which they could not clearly understand because it was sealed from them by their sticking to such outward things and that through that secret sence diving in their comprehensions they ran themselves into these carnal apprehensions as imagining the substance of the bread was changed or that if the substance was not changed yet the body was there c. And indeed I am inclinable very favourably to judg of Calvin in this particular in that he deals so ingenuously to confess he neither comprehends it nor can express it in words but yet by a feeling experience can say the Lord is Spiritually present Now as I doubt not but Calvin sometimes had a sense of his presence without the use of this ceremony so as the understanding given him of God made him justly reject the false notions of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation tho he knew not what to establish instead of them if he had fully waited in that Light that makes all things manifest and had not laboured in his own comprehension to settle upon that external ceremony by affixing the Spiritual presence as chiefly or principally though not only as he well knew by experience there or especially to relate to it he might have further reached unto the knowledg of this mystery than many that went before him § XI Lastly if any now at this day from a true tenderness of Spirit and with real Conscience towards God did practise this ceremony in the same way method and manner as did the primitive Christians recorded in Scripture which yet none that I know now do I should not doubt to affirm but they might be indulged in it and the Lord might regard them and for a season appear to them in the use of these things as many of us have known him to do to
use of these things which we would have wholly laid aside For that Men should be always in the same intentiveness of mind we do plead knowing how impossible it is so long as we are cloathed with this Tabernacle of Clay But this will not allow us at any time so to recede from the Memory of God and of our Souls chief concern as not still to retain a certain sense of his fear which cannot be so much as rationally supposed to be in the use of these thing which we condemn Now the necessary occasions which all are involved into in order to the care and sustentation of the outward man are a relaxation of the mind from the more serious duties and those are performed in the blessing as the mind is so leavened wlth the love of God and sense of his presence that even in doing these things the Soul carryeth with it that Divine influence and Spiritual habit whereby though these Acts as of Eating Drinking Sleeping Working be upon the matter one with what the wicked do yet they are done in another Spirit and in doing of them we please the Lord serve him and answer our end in the Creation and so feel and are sensible of his blessing Whereas the wicked and profane being not come to this place are in whatsoever they do cursed and their ploughing as well as praying is sin Now if any will plead that for Relaxation of mind there may be a liberty allowed beyound these things which are of absolute need to the sustenance of the outward man I shall not much contend against it provided these things be not such as are wholly superfluous or in their proper nature and tendency lead the mind into lust vanity and wantonness as being chiefly contrived and framed for that end or generally experienced to produce these effects or being the common engines of such as are so minded to feed one another therein and to propagate their wickedness to the impoisoning of others seeing there are other innocent divertisements which may sufficiently serve for relaxation to the mind such as for friends to visit one another to hear or read History to speak soberly of the present or past Transactions to follow after Gardnering to use Geometrical and Mathematical Experiments and such other things of this nature in all which things we are not to forget God in whom we both live and are moved Acts 10.26 as not to have alwaies some secret reserve to him and sense of his fear and presence which also frequently exerts it self in the midst of these things by some short aspiration and breathings and that this may neither seem strange nor troublesome I shalt clear it by one manifest instance answerable to the experience of all men it will not be denied but that men ought to be more in the love of God than of any other thing for we ought to love God above all things Now it is plain that men that are taken with love whether it be of a woman or any other thing if it hath taken a deep place in the heart and possess the mind it will be hard for the man so in love to drive out of his mind the person or thing so loved yea in his eating drinking and sleeping his mind will alwaies have a tendency that way and in business or recreations however intent he be in it there will but a very short time be permitted to pass but the mind will let some ejaculation forth towards its beloved And albeit such a one must be conversant in those things that the care of this body and such like things call for yet will he avoid as death it self to do those things that may offend the party so beloved or cross his design in obtaining the thing so earnestly desired though there may be some small use in them the great design which is chiefly in his eye will so ballance him that he will easily look over and dispence with such petty necessities rather than endanger the loss of the greater by them Now that men ought to be thus in love with God and the life to come none will deny and the thing is apparent from these Scriptures Matth. 6.20 But lay up for your selves treasures in heaven Col. 3.2 Set your affection on things above c. And that this hath been the experience and attainment of some the Scripture also declares Psal. 63.1.84 2 Cor. 5.14 And again that these games sports plays dancing comedies c. do naturally tend to draw men from God's fear to make them forget heaven death and judgment to foster lust vanity and wontonness and therefore are most loved as well as used by such kind of persons experience abundantly shews and the most serious and conscientious among all will scarcely deny which if it be so the application is easie § X. Fifthly the use of Swearing is to be considered which is so frequently practised almost among all Christians not only profane Oaths among the profane in their common discourses whereby the most HOLY NAME of GOD is in a horrible manner daily Blasphemed but also solemn Oaths with those that have some shew of piety whereof the most part do defend swearing before the Magistrate with so great zeal that not only they are ready themselves to do it upon every occasion but also stir up the Magistrates to persecute those who out of obedience to Christ their Lord and Master judge it unlawful to swear Upon which account not a few have suffered imprisonment and the spoiling of their goods But considering these clear words of our Saviour Matth. 5.33 34. Again ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time Thou shalt not forswear thy self but shalt perform unto the Lord thine Oaths But I say unto you SWEAR NOT AT ALL neither by Heaven c. But let your Communication be Yea Yea Nay Nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil As also the words of the Apostle James 5.12 But above all things my Brethren Swear not neither by Heaven neither by the Earth neither by any other Oath but let your Yea be Yea and your Nay Nay lest ye fall into condemnation I say considering these clear words it is admirable how any one that professeth the Name of Christ can pronounce any Oath with a quiet Conscience far less to persecute other Christians that dare not swear because of their Master Christ his Authority For did any one purpose seriously and in the most rigid manner to forbid any thing comprehended under any general can they use a more full and general prohibition and that without any exception I think not For Christ First proposeth it to us negatively Swear not at all neither by Heaven nor by the Earth nor by Jerusalem nor by thy Head c. And again Swear not by Heaven nor by Earth nor by any other Oath Secondly he presseth it affirmatively But let your Communication be Yea Yea and Nay Nay for whatsoever is
swearing do forbid somethings which were formerly lawful to the Jews considering their condition and dispensation and command unto such as will be the Disciples of Christ a more perfect eminent and full signification of charity as also patience and suffering than was required of them in that time state and dispensation by the Law of Moses This not only the judgment of most if not all the Antient Fathers so called the first 300 years after Christ but also of many others and in general of all thsoe who have rightly understood and propagated the Law of Christ concerning Swearing as appears from Justin Mart. in Dialog cum Tryph. ejusdemque Apolog. 2. Item ad Zenem Tertul. de Corona Militis It. Apolog. cap. 21 37. It. lib. de Idolol c. 17 18 19. It. ad Scapulam cap. 1. It. adversus Jud. cap. 7. 9. It. adv Gnost 13. It. adv Mare c. 4 It. lib. de patientia c. 6.10 Orig. con Celsum lib. 3.5.8 It. in Josuam hom 12. cap. 9. It. in Mat. cap. 26. Tract 36. Cypr. Epist. 56. It. ad Cornel. Lactan. de just lib. 5. c. 18. lib. 6. c. 20. Ambr. in Luc. 22. Chrysost in Matth. 5. hom 18. It. in Matth. 26. hom 85. It. lib. 2. de Sacerdotio It. 1 Cor. 13. Chromat in Matth. 5. Hieron ad Ocean It. lib. Epist. p. 3. Tom. 1 Ep. 2. Athan. de Inc. Verb. Dei Cyrill Alex. lib. 11. in Johan cap. 25 26. Yea Austin although he vary much in this matter notwithstanding in these places he did condemn fighting Epist. 158 159 160. It. ad Judices Epist. 263. It. ad Darium lib. 21. It ad Faustum cap. 76. lib. 22. de Civit. ad Marc. cap. 6. as Sylburgius relates Euthym. in Matth. 26. and among others of this age Erasmus in Luc. cap. 3. 22. Ludov. Vives in introduc ad Sap. J. Ferus lib. 4. Comment in Matth. 7. Luc. 22. From hence it appears that there is so great a connexion betwixt these two precepts of Christ that as they were uttered and commanded by him at one and the same so the same way they were received by men of all ages not only in the first promulgation by the little number of the Disciples but also after the Christians encreased in the first three hundred years even also in the Apostasie the one was not left and rejected without the other and now again in the restitution and renewed preaching of the Eternal Gospel they are acknowledged as eternal and unchangeable laws properly belonging to the Evangelical state and perfection thereof from which if any withdraw he falls short of the perfection of a Christian man And truly the words are so clear in themselves that in my judgement they need no illustration to explain their sense for it is more easie to reconcile the greatest contradictions as these Laws of our Lord Jesus Christ with the wicked practices of Wars for they are plainly inconsistent Whoever can reconcile this Resist not evil with Resist violence by force again Give also thy other check with strike again also Love thine enemies with spoil them make a prey of them pursue them with fire and sword or pray for those that persecute you and those that calumniate you which persecute them by fines imprisonments and death it self and not only such as do not persecute you but who heartily seek and desire your eternal and temporal welfare whoever I say can find a means to reconcile these things may be supposed also to have found away to reconcile God with the Devil Christ with Antichrist Light with Darkness and Good with Evil. But if this be impossible as indeed it is impossible so will also the other be impossible and men do but deceive themselves and others while they boldly adventure to establish such absurd and impossible things § XIV Nevertheless because some perhaps through inadvertency and by the force of custom and tradition do transgress this command of Christ I shall briefly shew how much War doth contradict this precept and how much they are inconsistent with one another and consequently that War is no waies lawful to such as will be the Disciples of Christ. For First Christ commands that we should love our enemies But War on the contrary teacheth us to hate and destroy them Secondly the Apostle saith that we war not after the flesh and that we fight not with flesh and blood But outward War is according to the Flesh and against Flesh and Blood for the shedding of the one and destroying of the other Thirdly the Apostle saith that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual But the weapons of outward warfare are carnal such as Cannon Muskets Spears Swords c. of which there is no mention in the armour described by Paul Fourthly because James testifies that Wars and Strifes comes from the Lusts which war in the Members of carnal men But Christians that is those that are truly Saints have crucified the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Therefore they cannot indulge them in waging war Fifthly because the Prophet Isaiah and Micah have expresly prophesied that in the Mountain of the House of the Lord Christ shall judge the Nations and then they shall beat their Swords into Plough-shares c. and the ancient Fathers of the first three hundred years after Christ did affirm these prophesies to be fulfilled in the Christians of their times who were most averse from War concerning which Justin Martyr Tertullian and others may be seen which need not seem strange to any since Philo Judaeus abundantly testifies of the Esseans that there was none found among them that would make instruments of War But how much more did Jesus come that he might keep his followers from fighting and might bring them to patience and charity Sixthly because the Prophet foretold that there should none hurt nor kill in all the Holy Mountain of the Lord But outward War is appointed for killing and destroying Seventhly Because Christ said That his Kingdom is not of this world and therefore that his servants shall not fight Therefore those that fight are not his Disciples nor servants Eighthly Because he reproved Peter for the use of the Sword saying Put up again thy sword into his place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword Concerning which Tertullian speaks well lib. de idol How shall he fight in peace without a sword which the Lord did take away For altho Souldiers came to John and received a form of observation if also the Centurion believed afterwards he disarmed every Souldier in disarming of Peter Idem de Coro Mil. asketh shall it be lawful to use the Sword the Lord saying that he that useth the Sword shall perish by the Sword Ninthly Because the Apostle admonisheth Christians that they defend not themselves neither revenge by rendring evil for evil but give place unto wrath because Vengeance is
when he would teach us to know what the Divine Goodness is calls not for speculation but sensation Taste and see how good the Lord is That is not the best and truest knowledg of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the Brain but that which is kindled within us by an heavenly warmth in our Hearts And again there is a knowledg of the Truth as it is in Jesus as it is in a Christ-like nature as it is in that sweet mild humble and loving Spirits of Jesus which spreads it self like a Morning-star upon the spirits of good men full of Light and Life It profits little to know Christ himself after the flesh but he gives his Spirit to good men that searcheth the deep things of God And again it is but thin airy knowledg that is got by meer speculation which is usher'd in by Syllogisms and demonstrations but that which springs forth from true goodness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen speaketh it brings such a Divine Light to the Soul as is more clear and convincing than any demonstration § III. That this certain and undoubted method of the true knowledg of God hath been brought out of use hath been none of the least devices of the Devil to secure mankind to his kingdom For after the light and glory of the Christian Religion had prevailed over a good part of the World and dispelled the thick mists of the heathenish Doctrine of the plurality of Gods he that knew there was no probability of deluding the World any longer that way did then puff man up with a false knowledg of the true God setting him on work to seek God the wrong way and perswading him to be content with such a knowledg as was of his own acquiring and not of God's teaching And this device hath proved the more successful because accommodated to the natural and corrupt spirit and temper of man who above all things affects to exalt himself in which exaltation as God is most greatly dishonoured so therein the Devil hath his end who is not anxious how much God be acknowledged in words provided himself be but always served he matters not how great and high speculations the natural man entertains of God so long as he serves his lusts and passions and is obedient to his evil suggestions and temptations Thus Christianity is become an art acquired by humane science and industry as any other art and science is and men have not only assumed unto themselves the name of Christians but even have procured to be esteemed as masters of Christianity by certain artificial tricks though altogether strangers to the Spirit and Life of Jesus But if we shall make a right definition of a Christian according to the Scripture videlicer that he is one that hath the Spirit and is led by it How many Christians yea and of these great Masters and Doctors of Christianity so accounted shall we justly divest of that noble title If then such as have all the other means of knowledg and are sufficiently learned therein whether it be the letter of the Scripture the traditions of Churches the works of Creation and Providence whence they are able to deduce strong and undeniable arguments which may be true in themselves are not yet to be esteemed Christians according to the certain and infallible definition above-mentioned And if the inward and immediate Revelation of Gods Spirit in the Heart in such as have been altogether ignorant of some and but very little skilled in others of these means of attaining knowledg hath brought them to Salvation Then it will necessarily and evidently follow that inward and immediate Revelation is the only sure and certain way to attain the true and saving knowledge of God But the first is true Therefore the last Now as this Argument doth very strongly conclude for this way of knowledge and against such as deny it so herein it is the more considerable because the Propositions from which it is deduced are so clear that our very Adversaries cannot deny them For as to the first it is acknowledged that many learned men may be and have been damned And as to the second who will deny but many illeterate men may be and are saved Nor dare any affirm that none come to the knowledge of God and Salvation by the inward Revelation of the Spirit without these outward means unless they be also so bold as to exclude Abel Seth Noah Abraham Job and all the Holy Patriarchs from true Knowledge and Salvation § IV. I would however not be understood as if hereby I excluded those other means of Knowledge from any use or service to Man it is far from me to judge as in the next Proposition concerning the Scriptures shall more plainly appear The question is not what may be profitable or helpful but what is absolutely necessary Many things may contribute to further a work which yet are not that main thing that makes the work go on The sum then of what is said amounts to this that where the true inward Knowledge of God is through the Revelation of his Spirit there is all neither is there any absolute necessity of any other But where the best highest and most profound Knowledge is without this there is nothing as to the obtaining the great End of Salvation This Truth is very effectually confirmed by the first part of the Proposition it self which in few words comprehendeth divers unquestionable Arguments which I shall in brief subsume First That there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son Secondly That there is no knowledge of the Son but by the Spirit Thirdly That by the Spirit God hath alwayes revealed himself to his Chilldren Fourthly That these Revelations were the formal Object of the Saints Faith And Lastly That the same continueth to be the Object of the Saints Faith to this day Of each of these I shall speak a little particularly and then proceed to the latter part § V. As to the first viz. That there is no Knowledge of the Father but by the Son it will not need much probation being founded upon the plain words of Scripture and is therefore a fit medium to draw the rest of our Assertions from For the infinite and most wise God who is the Foundation Root and Spring of all Operation hath wrought all things by his Eternal Word and Son This is that WORD that was in the beginning with God and was God by whom all things were made and without whom was not any thing made that was made This is that Jesus Christ by whom God created all things by whom and for whom all were created that are in Heaven and in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers Col. 1.16 Who therefore is called the first born of every Creature Col. 1.15 As then that infinite and incomprehensible Fountain of Life and Motion operateth in the Creatures by his
to him though less agreeable to the carnal and outward senses notwithstanding God's condescension to the Jews in such things we see that that part in man which delights to follow its own inventions could not be restrained nor yet satisfied with all these observations but that oftentimes they would be either declining to the other superstitions of the Gentiles or adding some new observations and ceremonies of their own to which they were so devoted that they were still apt to prefer them before the commands of God and that under the motion of Zeal and Piety This we see abundantly in the example of the Pharisees the chiefest Sect among the Jews whom Christ so frequently reproves for making void the commandments of God by their Traditions Matth. 15.6 9 c. This complaint may at this day be no less justly made as to many bearing the name of Christians who have introduced many things of this kind partly borrowed from the Jews which they more tenaciously stick to and more earnestly contend for than for the weightier points of Christianity because that self yet alive and ruling in them loves their own inventions better than Gods commands But if they can by any means stretch any Stripture practice or conditional precept or permission fitted to the weakness or capacity of some or appropriate to some particular dispensation to give some colour for any of these their inventions they do then so tenaciously stick to them and so obstinatly and obstreperously plead for them that they will not patiently hear the most solid Christian reasons against them Which zeal if they would but seriously examine it they would find to be but the prejudice of education and the love of self more than of God or his Pure Worship This is verified concerning those things which are called Sacraments about which they are very ignorant in Religious Controversies who understand not how much debate contention jangling and quarrelling there has been among those called Christians so that I may safely say the controversie about them to wit about their number nature vertue efficacy administration and other things hath been more than about any other Doctrine of Christ whether as betwixt Papists and Protestants or among Protestants betwixt themselves and how great prejudice these controversies have brought to Christians is very obvious whereas the things contended for among them are for the most part but empty shaddows and meer outside things as I hope hereafter to make appear to the patient and unprejudicate Reader § II. That which comes first under observation is the Name Sacrament which is strange that Christians should stick to and contend so much for since it is not to be found in all the Scripture but was borrowed from the military Oaths among the Heathens from whom the Christians when they began to Apostatize did borrow many Superstitious Terms and Observations that they might thereby ingratiate themselves and the more easily gain the Heathens to their Religion which practice though perhaps intended by them for good yet as being the fruit of humane policy and not according to God's Wisdom has had very pernicious consequences I see not how any whether Papists or Protestants especially the later can in reason quarrel thus for denying this term which it seems the Spirit of God saw not meet to inspire the Pen-men of the Scriptures to leave unto us But if it be said that it is not the Name but the Thing they contend for Obj. I answer Let the Name then as not being Scriptural be laid aside and we shall see at first entrance how much benefit will redound by laying aside this traditional term Answ. and betaking us to plainness of Scripture Language for presently the great contest about the number of them will evanish since there is no term used in Scripture that can be made use of whether we call them Institutions Ordinances Precepts Commandments Appointments or Laws c. that would afford ground for such a debate since neither will Papists affirm that there are only Seven or Protestants only Two of any of these forementioned If it be said that this Controversie arises from the definition of the thing Obj. as well as from the name It will be found otherwise Answ. for whatever way we take their defini-nition of a Sacrament whether as an outward visible sign whereby inward Grace is conferred or only signified This definition will agree to many things which neither Papists nor Protestants will acknowledg to be Sacraments If they be expressed under the name of Sealing Ordinances as some do I could never see neither by Reason nor Scripture how this title could be appropriate to them more than to any other Christian Religious performance for that must needs properly be a Sealing Ordinance which makes the Persons receiving it infallibly certain of the promise or thing sealed to them If it be said it is so to them that are Faithful Obj. I answer So is Praying and Preaching Answ. and doing of every good work Seeing the partaking or performing of the one gives not to any a more certain Title to Heaven yea in some respect not so much there is no reason to call them so more than the other Besides we find not any called the Seal and Pledge of our inheritance but the Spirit of God it is by that we are said to be sealed Eph. 1.14 4.30 which is also termed the earnest of our inheritance 2 Cor. 1.22 and not by outward water or eating and drinking which as the wickedest of men may partake of so many that do do notwithstanding it go to perdition for it is not outward washing with water that maketh the heart clean by which men are fitted for Heaven and as that which goeth into the mouth doth not defile a man because it is put forth again and so goeth to the Dung-hill neither doth any thing which man eateth purifie him or fit him for Heaven What is said here in general may serve for an introduction not only to this Proposition but also to the other concerning the Supper Of these Sacraments so called Baptism is always first numbered which is the subject of the present Proposition in whose explanation I shall first demonstrate and prove our Judgment and then answer the objections and reâ—ute the sentiments of our Opposers As to the first part these things following which are briefly comprehended in the Proposition come to be proposed and proved § III. First that there is but one Baptism as well as but One Lord One Faith c. Secondly that this one Baptism which is the Baptism of Christ is not a washing with or dipping in Water but a being Baptized by the Spirit Thirdly that the Baptism of John was but a figure of this and therefore as the Figure to give place to the Substance which though it be to continue yet the other is ceased As for the first viz. that there is but one Baptism there needs no other proof than the words of the