and celebrate the Lords Supper provoking one another to Love and to good works 3. Be it known to you that these three Summaries come to us with fuller Evidence of Certain Tradition from God than the rest of the Holy Scriptures Though they are equally true they are not equally Evident to us And this I thus prove 1. The Body of the Scriptures were delivered but one way but the Covenant Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are delivered two ways They are in the Scripture and so have all the Evidence of Tradition which the Scriptures have And they were besides that delivered to the memories of all Christians If you say that the Creed is not in the Scripture or that the Scripture is not altered as it is I answer 1. That it is in the Scripture as to the matter signified in as plain words even of the same signification 2. There is no alteration made but a small addition which is no disparagement to it because the ancient substance of it is still known and the additions are not new made things but taken out of Scripture And if yet any Heretick should deny that God is Wise and Good and Just and Merciful it were no dishonour to the Creed nor weakening of its certainty to have these attributes yet added to it 2. These Summaries as is said were far ancienter than the rest of the New Testament as written and known and used long before them 3. These Summaries being in every Christians mind and memory were faster held than the rest of the Scriptures Therefore Parents could and did teach them more to their Children You never read that the Catechizers of the people did teach them all the Bible nor equally ask them who Jared or Mehaleel or Lamech was as they did who Christ was Nor put every History into the Catechism but only the Historical Articles of the Creed 4. Therefore it was far easier to preserve the purity of these Summaries than of the whole Body of the Scriptures For that which is in every mans memory cannot be altered without a multitude of reprovers Which makes the Greeks since Photius keep such a stir about Filioque as to think that the Latines have changed Religion and deserved to be separated from for changing that word But no wonder that many hundred various Readings are crept into the Bible and whole Verses and Histories as that of the Adulterous Woman are out in some that are in others For it is harder to keep such a Volume uncorrupt than a few words Though writing as such is a surer way than memory and the whole Bible could never have been preserved by memory Yet a few words might especially when they had those words in writings also 5. Add to this that the Catechistical Summaries aforesaid were more frequently repeated to the people at least every Lords day Whereas in the reading of the Scriptures one passage will be read but seldom perhaps once or twice in a year And so a corruption not so easily observed 6. And if among an hundred Copies of the Scripture ten or twenty only should by the Carelesness of the Scribes be corrupted all the rest who saw not these Copies would not know it and so they might fall into the hands of Posterity when many of the sounder might be lost 7. And Lastly The danger of depravation had no end For in every age the Scripture must be written over anew for every Church and person that would use it And who that knoweth what writing is could expect that one Copy could be written without errors and that the second should not add to the errors of the 1st as Printers now do who print by faulty Copies And though this danger is much less since Printing came up that is but lately And the mischiefs of Wars and Heretical Tyrants burning the truest Copies hath been some disadvantage to us Obj. Thus you seem to weaken the Certain incorruption of the Scriptures Ans No such thing I do but tell you the case truly as it is The wonderful Providence of God and care of Christians hath so preserved them that there is nothing corrupted which should make one Article of faith the more doubtful I assert no more depravation in them than all confess but only tell you how it came to pass and tell you the greater certainty that we have of the Essentials of Religion than of the rest And whereas every man of brains confesseth that many hundred words in Scripture by Variety of Copies are uncertain I only say that it is not so in the Essentials And I do not wonder that Virgil Ovid Horace Cicero c. Have not suffered such depravations For 1. It is not so easy for a Scribes error to pass unseen in oratione ligata as in oratione soluta in verse as in prose 2. And Cicero with the rest was almost only in the hands of Learned men whereas the Scriptures were in the hands of all the Vulgar Women and Children 3. And the Copies of these Authors were comparatively but few Whereas every one almost got Copies of the Scripture that was able And it 's liker that some depravation should be found among ten thousand Copies than among a hundred So that I have proved to you that the Creed Lords Prayer Commandments and Covenant of Baptism are not to be believed only because they are in the Scripture but also because they have been delivered to us by Tradition and so we have them from two hands as it were or ways of Conveyance and the rest of the Scriptures but by one for the most part I will say yet more because it is true and needful If any live among Papists that keep the Scripture from the people or among the poor Greeks Armenians or Abassines where the people neither have Bibles commonly nor can read or if any among us that cannot read know not what is in the Bible yea if through the fault of the Priest any should be kept from knowing that ever there was a Bible in the world Yet if those persons by Tradition receive the baptismal Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments as Gods Word and truly believe and Love and Practice them those persons shall be saved For they have Christs promise for it And the very Covenant itself is the Gift of Christ and Life to consenters Whereas he that knoweth all the Scripture can be saved only by consenting to and performing this same Covenant But having greater helps to understand it and so to Believe it and Consent he hath a great advantage of them that have not the Scripture And so the Scripture is an unspeakable mercy to the Church And it is so far from being too little without the supplement of the Papists Traditions and Councils as that the hundredth part of it as to the bulk of words is not absolutely it self of necessity to Salvation Yet I say more If a man that hath the Scripture should doubt of some Books of it whether
for ever that we do them Rom. 11.34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor And how many such compose the Theology of some and the Philosophy of more 4. It is sinful folly to pretend to know that which is impossible or unrevealed to him though it be possible and revealed to others For as the Eye so the Understanding must have its necessary light and due constitution and conditions of the object and of it self or else it cannot understand 5. It is sinful folly to pretend to certainty of knowledge when either the thing is but probable or at best we have but doubtful opinions or conjectures of it and no true certainty 6. It is sinful folly to pretend that we know or receive any thing by Divine Faith or Revelation when we have it but by Humane Faith or probable conjecture from natural evidence As soon as men are perswaded by a Sect a Seducer or a selfish Priest to believe what he saith abundance presently take such a perswasion for a part of their Religion as if it were a Believing God. 7. It is sinful folly to take on us that we know what we know not at all because we do but know that it is knowable and that wise men know it and as soon as we understand that it should be known and that wise men conclude it to be true therefore to pretend that we know it to be true 8. And it is sinful folly to pretend that we truly know or apprehend the Thing or Matter or incomplex object meerly because we have got the bare words and second notions of it which are separable from the knowledge of the thing All these are false and sinful pretences of knowledge which men have not But because Paul so warneth us to take heed of vain Philosophy and Atheists and Infidels deride him for speaking against the wisdom of the World as if he spake against Learning because he had it not and because the Disease which he attempted to Cure remaineth among Schollars to this day and instead of a Cure many contemn the Physician and dislike Christ himself and the Gospel as defective of the Learning which they overvalue I will once again and that more distinctly tell you some few of the faults of our common Learning even now that it is cultivated and augmented in this Age that you may see that Paul did not injuriously accuse it or Christ injuriously neglect it I. Natural Imperfection layeth the Foundation of our common calamity in that it is so long before sense and reason grow up to a natural maturity through the unripeness of Organs and want of Exercise that Children are necessitated to learn words before things and to make these words the means of their first knowledge of many of the things signified so that most furnish themselves with a stock of names and words before ever they get any true knowledge of the matter II. And then they are exceeding apt to think that this treasury of words and second notions is true wisdom and to mistake it for the knowledge of the thing Even as in Religion we find almost all Children and ignorant people will learn to say by rote the Creed and Lords Prayer and Commandments and Catechism and then think that they are not Ignorants when it is long after before we can get them to understand the sense of the words which they can so readily speak yea though they are plain English words which they use for the most part in ordinary discourse III. When Children come to School also their Masters teach them as their Parents did or worse I mean that they bestow almost all their pains to furnish them with words and second notions And so do their Tutors too oft at the University So that by that time they are grown to be Masters of a considerable stock of words Grammatical Logical Metaphysical c. and can set these together in Propositions and Syllogisms and have learnt Memoriter the Theorems or Axioms and some distinctions which are in common use and reputation they are ready to pass for Masters of the Arts and to set up for themselves and leave their Tutors and to teach others the like sort and measure of Learning which they have thus acquired Like one that sets up his Trade as soon as he hath gotten a Shop full of Tools IV. And indeed the memories of young men are strong and serviceable so many years sooner than their judgments that prudent Teachers think it meet to take that time to furnish them with words and organical notions while they are unmeet to judge of things Even as pious Parents must teach them the words of the Catechism that when they grow riper their judgments may work upon that which their Memories did before receive And in this they are in the right upon two suppositions 1. That distinguishing things obvious and easily understood from things remote abstruse and difficult they would teach them those of the first sort with the words though not the second And while they make haste with them in the Languages they would not make too much haste with the Notions and Theorems of the Arts and Sciences 2. That they still make them know that words as to matter are but as the dish to the meat and all this while they are but preparing for wisdom and true Learning and not getting or possessing it and that unless they will equalize a Parrot and a Philosopher they must know how little they have attained and must after Learn things or not pretend to know any thing indeed As Children learn first to speak and then learn what to speak of V. And the great mischief is that multitudes of those notions which are taught us are false not fitted to the Things but expressing the conceptions of roving uncertain erroneous bewildred minds Words are the instruments of Communication of thoughts And when I hear a man speak I hear perhaps what he thinketh of things but not always what they are Our Universal notions are the result of our own comparing Things with things And we are so wofully defective in such comparings that our Universal notions must needs be very defective so that they abound with errour VI. And the penury and narrowness of words is a great impediment to the due expressing of those poor confused conceptions which we have For a man can think more aptly and comprehensively than he can speak And hence it cometh to pass that words and universal notions are become like Pictures or Hieroglyphicks almost of arbitrary signification and use as the speaker pleaseth And as a multitude of School-distinctions tell us you can know little by the Grammatical use or Etymology of the words what the meaning of them is in a theorem or distinction till the speaker tell it you by other words VII And the conceptions of men being as various as their Countenances the same words in the mouths of several men
But in other places it is otherwise So that it 's hard to be certain of Truth or Error Good or Evil by the meer Consent Opinion or Experience of any XVI But the last and great instance is that in the holy Scriptures themselves there is a great inequality in point of Certainty yea many parts of them have great uncertainty Even these that follow I. Many hundred Texts are uncertain through various Readings in several Copies of the Original I will not multiply them on Capellus his opinion Though Claud. Saravius Who got the Book Printed and other worthy men approve it I had rather there were fewer Varieties and therefore had rather think there are fewer But these that cannot be denied must not be denied Nor do I think it fit to gather the discrepancies of every odd Copy and call them Various readings â—ut it is past denial that the world hath no one ancient Copy which must be the Rule or Test of all the rest and that very many Copies are of such equal credit as that no man living can say that this and not that where they differ hath the very words of the Holy-Ghost And that even in the New Testament alone the differences or various Readings of which no man is able to say which is the right are so great a number as I am not willing to give every reader an account of Even those that are gathered by Stephanus and Junius and Brugensis and Beza if you leave out all the rest in the appendix to the Polyglot Bible In all or most of which we are utterly uncertain which Reading is Gods Word II. There are many hundred words in the Scriptures that are ambiguous signifying more things than one and the context in a multitude of places determineth not the proper sense so that you may with equal Authority translate them either thus or thus The Margin of your Bibles giveth you no small number of them It must needs here be uncertain which of them is the Word of God. III. There are many hundred Texts of Scripture where the Phrase is General and may be applyed to more particulars than one In some places the several particulars must be taken as included in the General And where there is no necessity a General Phrase should not be expounded as if it were particular But in a multitude of Texts the General is put for the particular and must be interpreted but of one sort and yet the context giveth us no certain determination which particular is meant This is one of the commonest uncertainties in all the Scriptures Here it is Gods will that we be uncertain IV. In very many passages of the History of Christ the Evangelists set both Words and Deeds in Various Orders one sets this first and another sets another first As in the order of Christs three Temptations Mat. 4. and Luk. 4. And many such like Though it is apparent that Luke doth less observe the order than the rest yet in many of these cases it is apparent that it was Gods will to notifie to us the Matter only and not the Order And that it must needs be uncertain to us which was first said or done and which was last The same is to be said of the time and place of some speeches of Christ recorded by them V. Many of Christs Speeches are recorded by the Evangelists in various words Even the Lords Prayer it self Mat. 6. and Luk. 11. Besides that Matthew hath the doxology which Luke hath not which Grotius and many others think came out of the Greek Liturgy into the Text. And even in Christs Sermon in the Mount and in his last Commission to his disciples Mat. 28.18 19 20. and Mar. 16. Now in some of these cases as of the Lords Prayer it is uncertain whether Christ spake it once or twice Though the former is more likely In most of them it is plain that it was the Will of Gods Spirit to give us the true sense of Christs sayings in various words and not all the very words themselves For the Evangelists that differ do neither of them speak falsly and therefore meant not to recite all the very words If you say that one giveth us the true words and another the true sense we shall never be certain that this is so nor which that one is So that in such cases no man can possibly tell which of them were the very words of Christ VI. There are many Texts of the Old Testament recited in the New where it is uncertain whether that which the Penman intended was an Exposition or Proof of what he said or only an Allusion to the Phrase of Speech as if he should say I may use such words to express my mind or the matter by As Matth. 2.23 He shall be called a Nazarene So v. 16 17. Rom. 10.6 7 8 18. and others I know the Excellent Junius in his Parallels hath said much and more than any other that I know to prove them all or almost all to be expository and probatory Citations But withal confessing that the generality of Ancient and Modern Expositors think otherwise he thereby sheweth a great uncertainty when he himself saith not that he is Certain of it and few others thought it probable VII There are many Texts cited in the New Testament out of the Septuagint where it differeth from the Hebrew Wherein it is utterly uncertain to us whether Christ and his Apostles intended to justifie absolutely the translation which they use or only to make use of it as that which then was known and used for the sake of the sense which it contained If they absolutely justifie it they seem to condemn the Hebrew so far as it differeth If not why do they use it and never blame it It seemeth that Christ would hereby tell us that the sense is the Gold and the words but as the Purse and we need not be over-curious about them so we have the sence As if I should use the vulgar Latine or the Rhemists Translation with the Papist because he will receive no other VIII There are many Aenigmatical and obscure expressions which a few Learned men only can probably conjecture at few or none be certain of the full sense If any certainly understand much of the Prophecies in Daniel and the Revelations it must needs be very few When Calvin durst not meddle with the latter And though most of the famous Commentators on the Revelations are such as have peculiarly made it their Study and set their minds upon it above all other things and rejoiced in conceit that they had found out the true sense which others had overseen as men do that seek the Philosophers Stone yet how few of all these are there that agree And if ten be of nine minds eight of them at least are mistaken Franc. du Jon the Lord Napier Brightman Dent Mede and my godly Friend Mr. Stephens yet living since dead with many others have studied
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
they be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments
even good men may think and speak evil of us as Bernard and others of the Waldenses and many Fathers of many Godly Men that were called Hereticks and many called Hereticks of such Fathers But to us it is a small thing to be judged of man that is not our final judge and knoweth not our cause and is ready to be judged with us We have one that judgeth us and them even the omniscient God who knoweth every Circumstance of our cause 3. Our very Friends know us not No not they that dwell with us In some things they judge us better than we are and in some things worse For they know not our hearts And interests and cross dispositions may deceive them and even our bosom Friends may slander us and think they speak the truth And when they entirely Love us their Love may hurt us while they know not what is for our good But God knoweth us perfectly and knoweth how to Counsel us Conduct us and Dispose of us He seeth the inwards and the outwards the onwards and the upwards of our case which our dearest Friends are utter strangers to 4. We know not our selves throughly nor our own concerns We oft take our selves to be better or worse than indeed we are We are oft mistaken in our own hearts and our own actions and in our interest We oft take that to be good for us that is bad and that to be bad which is good and necessary We long for that which would undo us and fear and fly from that which would save us We oft rejoyce when we are going to the slaughter or are at least in greatest danger and we lament and cry when God is saving us because we know not what he is doing Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet I judge not my own self that is though I have a good Conscience yet that is not my final judge It must go with me as God judgeth of me and not as others or my self Is it not then an unspeakable comfort in all these cases that we are known of God Desiring to know inordinately for our selves was our first sin And this sin is our danger and our constant trouble But to be to God as a Child to his Father who taketh care to Love him and obey him and in all things trusteth his Fathers Love as knowing that he careth for him this is our duty our interest and our only peace Remember then with comfort O my Soul 1. Thy Father knoweth what it is fittest for thee to do His precepts are wise and just and good Thou knowest not but by his word Love therefore and submit to all his Laws The strictest of them are for thy good Thy Guide and not thou must lead the way Go not before him nor without him nor stay behind him In this night and wilderness if thou have not his Light and Presence how forlorn Erroneous and Comfortless wilt thou be He knoweth thy heart and knoweth thy Enemies Temptations and Dangers and therefore best knoweth how to guide thee and what to put into his Laws and into thy duty 2. He knoweth what place what state of Life of Health of Wealth of Friends is best for thee None of these are known to thee He knoweth whether ease or pain be best The flesh is no fit judge nor an ignorant mind That is best which will prove best at last Which he that foreknoweth all events knoweth That therefore is best which infinite Wisdom and Love doth choose Ease and Pain will have their end It is the end that must teach us how to estimate them And who but God can foretell thee the end He knoweth whether Liberty or Imprisonment be best Liberty is a Prison if sin prevail and God be not there A Prison is a Pallace if God by his Love will dwell there with us There is no thraldom but sin and Gods displeasure and no true liberty but his Love. 3. He knoweth whether Honour or Dishonour be best for thee If the esteem of men may facilitate their reception of the saving truth of God which is preached to them God will procure it if he have work to do by it If not how little is it to be regarded What doth it add to me to be highly esteemed or applauded by men who are hasting to the dust where their thoughts of me and all the world are at an end When I see the Skulls of the dead who perhaps once knew me how little doth it now concern me what thoughts of me were once within that Skull And as for the immortal Soul if it be in the world of light it judgeth as God judgeth by his Light If in hell I have no more cause to be troubled at their malice than at the devils And I have little cause to rejoyce that those damned Souls did once applaud me Oh miserable men that have no better than the Hypocrites reward to be seen and honoured of men Gods approbation is the felicitating honour He will own all in me that is his own and all that he owneth is everlastingly honoured The Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous Psal 1.6 For it is his way The way which he prescribed them and in which he did Conduct them Good and evil are now so mixed in me that it is hard for me fully to discern them But the all-seeing God doth discern them and will separate them 4. Thy Heavenly Father knoweth whether it be best for thee to abound or want And with what measure of worldly things it is fittest for thee to be entrusted Abundance hath abundant snares and cares and troubling employments which divert our thoughts from things of real and perpetual worth Provision is desirable according to its usefulness to our work and end It is far better to need little and have little than to have much and need it all For it cannot be got or kept or used without some troublesome and hurtful effects of its vanity and vexation Let the foolish desire to be tired and burdened with Provision and lose the prize by turning their helps into a snare and miss of the end by over-loving the way My Father knoweth what I want and he is always able to supply me with a word It doth not impoverish him to maintain all the World. His store is not diminished by Communication The Lord is my Shepherd what then can I need Psal 23.1 How oft have I found that he careth for me and that it is better to be at his finding and provision than to have been my own Carver and to have cared for my self Blessed be my bounteous Father who hath brought me so near to the end of my Race with very little care for provision in my way and with lesser want Necessaries I never wanted and superfluities are not wanted Blessed be that wise and gracious Lord that hath not given me up to greedy desires nor ensnared and burdened me with needless plenty How safe how easie