Holy Light is that Knowledge and Belief which kindleth Love and causeth a Holy Life Holy Love is that complacency of the Will in God and Goodness which is kindled by Holy Life and Light and operateth in Holy practice Any one of these thus described where Love is the Heart of all is an infallible mark of Holiness But all other Graces and Duties which are but the Integrals of Holiness are in all Characters and Promises to be understood with a caeteris paribus that is supposing them to be animated with Holy Love and caused by Holy Life and Light Knowledge and Belief And that God doth most certainly Love all that Love him besides the forementioned proofs from Scripture is further evident 1. The Love of God and Goodness is the Divine Nature And God cannot but Love his own Nature in us It is his Image which as in its several degrees he Loveth for himself and next to himself 2. The Love of God is the Rectitude of Man's Soul its soundness health and beauty And God Loveth the Rectitude of his creatures 3. The Love of God is the final perfect operation of the Soul even that end which it was created and redeemed for And God Loveth to have his works attain their end and to see them in their perfection 4. The Love of God is the Goodness of the Soul it self And Goodness is Amiableness and must needs be Loved by Him that is Goodness and Perfection Himself 5. The Love of God is our uniting adhesion to him And God that first draweth up the Soul to this Union will not himself reject us and avoid it 6. Love is a pregnant powerful pleasing Grace It delivereth up our selves and all that we have to God It delighteth in duty It conquereth difficulties It contemneth competitors and trampleth on temptations It accounteth nothing too much nor too dear for God. Love is the Soul's nature appetite and pondus according to which it will ordinarily act A man's Love is his Will his Heart himself And if God have our Love he hath our selves and our all So that God cannot but Love the Soul that truly Loveth him as God. But here are some Doubts to be resolved Q. 1. What if the same Soul have Love and Sin mixed or sincere Love in a degree that is sinfully defective and so is consistent with something of its contrary God must hate that Sin How then can he Love that Soul Ans Remember still that Diversity is only in us and not in God Therefore God's Will is related and denominated towards us just as its object is All that is Good in us God Loveth All that is Evil in us he hateth Where Goodness is predominant there God's Love is predominant or greatest from this Relation and Connotation Where Sin is predominant God's aversation displicency or hatred is the chief And we may well expect that the effects be answerable Obj. But we are beloved as Elect before Conversion Ans That was answered before That is God from Eternity purposed to make us Good and Amiable and Happy if you will call that as you may his Love. Obj. But we are beloved in Christ for his Righteousness and Goodness and not for our own Ans The latter is false The former is thus true For the Merits of Christ's Righteousness and Goodness God will pardon our sins and make us Good Holy and Happy and will Love us as the Holy Members of his Son that is both as Related to him and as Holy. Obj. But if God must needs Love sincere imperfect Lovers of him as such with a predominant Love which will not damn them then sin might have been pardoned without Christ's death and the sinner be loved without his Righteousness if he had but sincerely loved God. Ans The supposition is false that a sinner could have Loved God without Pardon and the Spirit purchased by the Death and Righteousness of Christ God perfectly Loveth the perfected Souls in Glory for their own holy perfection But they never attained it but by Christ And God Loveth us here according to the measure of our Love to him But no man can thus Love him till his sin be pardoned for which he was deprived of the Spirit which must kindle Love. And imperfect Love is ever joyned with imperfect Pardon whatever some falsly say to the contrary I mean that Love which is sinfully imperfect Quest 2. Doth not God's Loving us make us Happy And if so it must make us Holy. And then none that he Loveth will fall away from him Whereas the fallen Angels and Adam Loved him and yet fell from him How then were they beloved by him Ans I before told you that God's Will or Love is first Efficient causing Good and then Final being pleased in the Good that is caused God's Efficient Will or Love doth so far make men Holy and Happy as they are such even efficiently But God's Will or Love as it is our Causa finalis and the termiting Object of our Love and is pleased in us and approveth us is not the Efficient Cause of our Holiness and Happiness but the objective and perfect constitutive Cause Now you must further note that God's Benevolent Efficient Will or Love doth give men various degrees of Holiness To Adam in Innocency he gave but such a degree and upon such terms as he could lose and cast away which he did But to the blessed in Glory he giveth that which they shall never lose These degrees are from God's Efficient Love or Will which therefore causeth some to persevere when it left Adam to himself to stand or fall But it is not God's Final Love of Complacency as such that causeth our perseverance For Adam had this Love as long as he Loved God and stood and he after lost it so that it is not that Final Complacency which is the Terminus of our Holiness and Constitutive Cause of our Happiness which alone will secure the perpetuity of either of them Obj. Thus you make God mutable in his Love as Loving Adam more before his fall than after Ans I told you Loving and not Loving the Creature are no changes in God but in the Creature It is Man that is mutable and not God. It is only the Relation of God's Will to the Creature as varying in it self and the extrinsick denomination by connotation of a changed Object which is changed as to God. As the Sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your Eyes Nor a Pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand and sometimes on your left 5. Lastly It must be noted as included in the Text That our own Loving God is not the only or total notion of our end perfection or felicity but to be Known and Loved by God is the other part which must be taken in to make up the total notion of our end In our Love God is considered as the Object But in God's Complacential Love to us
in Compositions All men confess that every Plant every Worm or Fly every sensitive yea every sensible Being is so little known to us as that the unknown part far exceedeth the known XVII 5. And we are not agreed of late of the number of the very Elements themselves much less of Compounds of which while we know so few that which we do know is the more defectively known because as in knowing of Letters and Syllables the knowledge of one thing is needful to the true and useful knowledge of another XVIII But the Order and Relations of things to one another is so wonderfully unsearchable and innumerably various as quite surpasseth all humane understanding Yea though ORDER and Relation constitute all Morality Policy Literature c. so that it is as it were that World which humane Intellects converse in and the business of all humane Wills and Actions yet few men know so much as what ORDER and RELATION is Nay nor whether it be Any thing or nothing And though health and sickness harmony and discord beauty and ugliness virtue and vice consist in it and Heaven and Hell depend upon it and Law and Judgment do make and determine it yet is it not easie to know what it is by an Universal Notion nor whether it be truly to be called Any thing at all We doubt not but ORDER should be a most observable Predicament in the Series of humane Notions or nominanda But yet I doubt not much but that Gassendus who would make tempus and spatium two of his Predicaments doth ascribe to them that Entity which they have not XIX And though undoubtedly Action is a noble Predicament and whatever the Cartesians say requireth more causation than non agere doth yea is it self the causation of the mutations in the World yet men scarce know what to call it Some say it is res others it is but accidens rei and others modus rei some say It is in passo Some say it is in agente Some say it is neither but is agentis Some say immanent acts are Qualities as Scotus c. XX. And which is yet worse the very name Accident Mode and Quality are but general unapt notions not well understood by any that use them nor suited meetly to the severals contained under them And when we call a thing or nothing a Quality Accident or Mode we are little the wiser and know not well what we have said Sure I am that they are exceedingly heterogenea which Aristotle comprizeth in the very predicament of Quality And Gassendus thought all Accidents may be as well called Qualities or Modes XXI And which is yet worse all humane language is so wofully Ambiguous that there is scarce a word in the World that hath not many senses and the learned world never came to agreement about the meaning of their common words so that ambiguity drowneth all in uncertainty and confusion XXII And which is yet worse the certain apprehension of Sense and Reason is commonly by men called Learned reduced to and tryed by these dreaming ambiguous names and universal notions and men are drawn to deny their certain knowledge because they know not by what universal term to call it e. g. I know as far as is useful to me by seeing what Light is but whether it be Substantia Accidens Modus c. or what to call it universally few know And no wonder for their universal notions are their own works or Entia rationis fabricated by the imperfect comparing of things with things by ignorant understandings but the sensibility of objects the sensitive faculty the Intellect are the works of God. I know much better what Light is by seeing it than I know what an Accident or a Quality is So I know by feeling what Heat is I know what Motion or Action is I know what pain and pleasure is I know what love and hatred is I know partly what it is to think to know to will choose and refuse but what is the right universal notion of these what true definition to give of any one of them the Learnedst man doth not well know Insomuch as I dare boldly say that the vulgar ordinarily know all these better without definitions than the most Learned man living can know them by definitions alone And here I will presume to step aside to say as in the Ears of our over-doing Separatists who can take none into Christian Communion that cannot tell you how they were Converted or at least give them a fair account of their understanding all the Articles of the Faith in words that are adapted to the matter I tell you 1. That the knowledge of Words and second Notions and Definitions is one thing and the knowledge of Matters or Things is another 2. And it is the knowledge of the Things and not of the Words that is primarily and absolutely necessary to Salvation 3. And that many an illiterate ill bred person understand things long before they can utter their understandings in any intelligible words 4. And therefore if any man do but these two things 1. By Yea or Nay do signifie to me that he understandeth the Truth when I put the matter of nothing but the Baptismal Covenant into my Questions 2. And do manifest serious willingness accordingly by avoiding evil and using Gods means I dare not I will not refuse that person from the Communion of the Church Though I would do as much as the rigidest censurer to bring such up to greater knowledge XXIII And on the other side men are made to think that they know the things because they know the Names and Definitions And so that they are learned and Wise when they know little the more by all their learning For to be able to talk over all the Critical Books and Lexicons and Grammars all the Logical Notions and Definitions is nothing but Organical Knowledge Like the Shoemaker that hath a Shop full of Lasts and that most of them unmeet for any mans foot but never made a Shoe by any of them And false and confused and idle names and notions fill the learned world with False Confused and Vain Conceptions which Common-Countrey people scape so that it costeth many a man twenty years study to be made more erroneous than he would have been by following an honest trade of life XXIV Nay our very Articles of Faith and Practice which Salvation lyeth on are commonly tryed by these arbitrary Organical notions whole loads of School Volumes are witnesses of this Though the School-men where our Grammarians deride them as Barbarians have often done well in fitting words to things and making the Key meet for the Lock Yet old terms and notions and axioms too often go for current and over-rule disputes when they are not understood nor are proper or univocal What work doth Aristotle make with Actus and Potentia and the School-men after him What abundance of darkness do these two words contain in all
by Certainty to overcome it 11. When a man hath attained a satisfying degree of perception he is capable still of clearer perception Even as when in the heating of water after all the sensible cold is gone the water may grow hotter and hotter still So after all sensible doubting is gone the perception may go clearer still 12. But still the Objective Certainty is the same that is There is that Evidence in the object which is in suo genere sufficient to notifie the thing to a prepared mind 13. But this sufficiency is a respective proportion and therefore as it respecteth mans mind in common it supposeth that by due means and helps and industry the mind may be brought certainly to discern this Evidence But if you denominate the sufficiency of the Evidence from its respect to the present disposition of mens minds so it is almost as various as mens minds are For recipitur ad modum recipientis and that is a certifying sufficient Evidence of truth to one man which to a thousand others is not so much as an Evidence of probability Therefore mediate and immediate sufficiency and certainty of Evidence must be distinguished From all this I may infer 1. That though God be the Original and End of all Verities and is ever the First in ordine essendi efficiendi and so à Jove principium in methodo syntheticâ yet he is not the primum notum the first known in ordine cognoscendi nor the beginning in methodo inquisitivâ though in such Analytical methods as begin at the ultimate end he is also the first Though all truth and evidence be from God yet two things are more evident to man than God is and but two viz. 1. The present evident objects of sense 2. Our own internal Acts of Intellective Cogitation and Volition And these being supposed the Being of God is the third evident Certainty in the World. 2. If it be no disparagement to God himself that he is less certainly known of us than sensibles and our Internal acts de esse it is then no disparagement to the Scripture and supernatural Truths that they are less certainly known Seeing they have not so clear evidence as the Being of God hath 3. The certainty of Scripture Truths is mixt of almost all other kinds of certainty conjunct 1. By sense and Intellective perception of things sensed the Hearers and See-ers of Christ and his Apostles knew the words and Miracles 2. By the same sense we know what is written in the Bible and in Church History concerning it and the attesting matters of Fact And also what our Teachers say of it 3. By certain Intellectual inference I know that this History of the words and fact is true 4. By Intellection of a natural principle I know that God is true 5. By inference I know that all his Word is true 6. By sense I know Intellectually receiving it by sense that this or that is written in the Bible and part of that word 7. By further inference therefore I know that it is true 8. By Intuitive knowledge I am certain that I have the Love of God and Heavenly desires and a Love of holiness and hatred of sin c. 9. By certain inference I know that this is the special work of the Spirit of Christ by his Gospel Doctrine 10. By experience I find the predictions of this Word fulfilled 11. Lastly By Inspiration the Prophets and Apostles knew it to be of God. And our certain Belief ariseth from divers of these and not from any one alone 5. There are two extreams here to be avoided and both held by some not seeing how they contradict themselves I. Of them that say that Faith hath no Evidence but the merit of it lyeth in that we believe without Evidence Those that understand what they say when they use these words mean that Things evident to sense as such that is Incomplex sensible objects are not the objects of Faith. We live by Faith and not by sight God is not visible Heaven and its Glory Angels and perfected Spirits are not visible Future Events Christs coming the Resurrection Judgment are not yet visible It doth not yet appear that is to sense what we shall be Our Life is hid from our own and others senses with Christ in God. We see not Christ when we rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory Thus Faith is the evidence of things not seen or evident to sight But ignorant Persons have turned all to another sense as if the objects of Faith had no ascertaining Intellectual Evidence When as it is impossible for mans mind to understand and believe any thing to be true without perceiving evidence of its truth as it is for the Eye to see without Light. As Rich. Hooker saith in his Eccl. Pol. Let men say what they will men can truly believe no further than they perceive Evidence It is a natural Impossibility For Evidence is nothing but the perceptibility of the Truth And can we perceive that which is not perceptible It 's true that evidence from Divine Revelation is oft without any Evidence ex natura rei But it may be nevertheless a fuller and more satisfying evidence Some say there is Evidence of Credibility but not of Certainty Not of natural Certainty indeed But in Divine Revelations though not in humane evidence of Credibility is Evidence of Certainty because we are certain that God cannot lie And to say I will believe though without Evidence of Truth is a contradiction or hypocritical self-deceit For your will believeth not And your understanding receiveth no Truth but upon evidence that it is Truth It acteth of itself per modum naturae necessarily further than it is sub imperio Voluntatis And the will ruleth it not despotically Nor at all quoad Specificationem but only quoad exercitium All therefore that your will can do which maketh Faith a moral Virtue is to be free from those vicious habits and acts in itself which may hinder faith and to have those holy dispositions and acts in itself which may help the understanding to do its proper Office which is to believe evident truth on the testimony of the revealer because his Testimony is sufficient Evidence The true meaning of a good Christian when he saith I will believe is I am truly willing to believe and a perverse will shall not hinder me and I will not think of suggestions to the contrary But the meaning of the formal hypocrite when he saith I will believe is I will cast away all doubtful thoughts out of my mind and I will be as careless as if I did believe or I will believe the Priest or my Party and call it a believing God. Evidence is an essentiating part of the Intellects act As there is no Act without an Object so there is no object sub formali ratione objecti without evidence Even as there is no sight but of an Illustrated
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
is conversing only with those of our own mind and side and interest and not seeking familiar loving acquaintance with those that differ from us Whereby men deprive themselves of hearing half that is to be heard and of knowing much that is to be known And their proud Vice hardeneth them in this way to say I have read and I have heard enough of them I know all that they can say And if a man soberly speak to them their Vices of Pride Presumption and Passion will scarce patiently bear him to go on without interruption to the end but the Wizzard saith I know already what you will say and you are tedious and do you think that so wise a man as I hath nothing to do but hear such a Fool as you talk Thus proud men are ordinarily so full of themselves that they can scarce endure to hear or at least learn any thing from others nor restrain their violent list to speak so long as either just information or humane civility requireth XV. Another Cause is Malignity and want of Christian Love whereby men are brought if not to a hatred yet to a proud contempt of others who are not of their mind and side and way O they are all as foolish and bad as any one hath list to call them and he that raileth at them most ingeniously and impudently giveth them but their due And will a man full of Himself and his Own be moved from his presumptions by any thing that such a hated or scorned people can say Nay will he not be hardened in his self-conceit because it is such as these that contradict him Many such Causes of this Vice there be but PRIDE and IGNORANCE are the proper Parents of it whatever else be the Nurse or Friend Chap. XX. Objections answered I Easily foresee that besides the foresaid impediments all these following Objections will hinder the Cure of false pretended knowledge and self-conceitedness and false Belief if they be not answered Obj. I. You move men to an Impossibility To see without light and for an erring man to believe that he erreth He that hath not light to see the truth hath not light to see his ignorance of it This is no more than to perswade all men to be wise and not to err which you may do long enough to little purpose Ans It is impossible indeed for an erring man while such to know that he erreth but it is not impossible 1. For an ignorant man to know that he is ignorant nor for a man without light or sight to know that he seeth not though he cannot see that he seeth not For though Nescience be Nothing and Nothing is not properly and directly an Object of our Knowledge no more than of our Sight Yet as we see the limited quantity of substances and so know little from big by concluding that it hath no more quantity than we see so we know our own knowledge both as to Object and Act and we know the degree of it and to what it doth extend And so can conclude I know no more And though Nescience be nothing yet this Proposition I know no more is not nothing And so nothing is usually said to be known Reductively but indeed it is not properly known at all but this proposition de nihilo is known which is something I will not here meddle with the question whether God know non-entities 2. To think and to know are not all one For I may think that I may know that is I study to know Now I can know that I study or think and I can perceive that my studies reach not what I desire to reach but fall short of satisfaction And so as in the Body though emptiness be nothing and therefore not felt as nothing yet a hungry man feeleth it in the consequents by accident that is feeleth that by which he knoweth that he is empty And so it is with a Student as to knowledge 3. And a man that hath so much experience as we all have of the stated darkness of our understandings and frequent errors may well know that this understanding is to be suspected and so blind a Guide not over-confidently and rashly to be trusted 4. And a man that knoweth the danger of Errour may know that it is a thing that he should fear And fear should make him cautelous 5. And though an erring man while such cannot know that he erreth yet by the aforesaid means he may cease to err and know that he hath erred 6. And lastly It is a shame for a man to be unacquainted with himself and especially with his understanding and not to know the measure of his knowledge it self Obj. II. You talk like a Cartesian that must have all that would know suppose first that they know nothing no not that he feeleth and liveth Ans No such matter Some things we know necessarily and cannot chuse but know For the Intellect is not free of it self but only as quoad exercitium actus it is sub imperio voluntatis And it is vain to bid men not to know what they cannot chuse but know And it is as vain to tell them that they must suppose falsly that they know not what they know as a means to know For ignorance is no means to knowledge but knowledge is One act of knowledge being necessary to more and therefore not to be denied I have told you before what certainties are which must be known and never forsaken Obj. III. But your discourse plainly tendeth to draw men to Scepticism and to doubt of all things Ans 1. I tell you I describe to you many certainties not to be doubted of 2. And it is indeed your prefidence that tendeth to Scepticism as is shewed For men that believe hastily and falsly find themselves so oft deceived that at last they begin to doubt of all things It is Scepticism which I prevent 3. But I confess to you that I am less afraid of Scepticism in the World than ever I was as finding corrupt nature so universally disposed the contrary way As when I first saw the Books of Jacob Behmen and some such others I adventured to Prognosticate that the Church would never be much indangered by that Sect or any other which a man cannot understand and join in without great study and acuteness because few men will be at so much labour even so I say of Scepticism here and there a hard-impatient half-knowing Student may turn Sceptick but never any great number For Pride and Ignorance and other causes of self-conceitedness are Born in all men and every man that apprehendeth any thing is naturally apt to be too confident of his apprehensions and few will have the humility to suspect themselves or the patience and diligence to find out difficulties I must say in my Experience that except the Congregation which I long instructed and some few-such I meet with few Women Boys or unlearned men when they are past 18 or
Love to the blessed God who is Love it self O happy exchange did I part with all the pleasures of the world for one flame one spark more of the Love of God I hate not my self for my ignorance in the common Arts and Sciences But my God knoweth that I even abhor and loath my self because I love and delight in him no more O what a Hell is this dead and disaffected heart O what a foretast of Heaven would it be could I but feel the fervours of Divine Love Well may that be called the First-fruits of Heaven and the Divine Nature and Life which so uniteth Souls to God and causeth them to live in the pleasures of his Goodness I dare not beg hard for more common knowledge But my Soul melteth with grief for want of Love and forceth out tears and sighs and cries O when will Heaven take acquaintance with my heart and shine into it and warm and revive it that I may truly experience the delightful life of holy Love I cannot think them loathsom and unlovely that are unlearned and want the ornaments of Art. But I abhor and curse those hateful sins which have raised the clouds and shut the windows and hindred me from the more lively Knowledge and Love of God. Would God but number me with his zealous Lovers I would presume to say that he had made me wise and initially happy But alas such high and excellent things will not be gotten with a lazy wish nor will holy Love dwell with iniquity in unholy and defiled Souls But if Wisdom were justified of none but her Children how confidently durst I call my self a Son of Wisdom For all my Reason is fully satisfied that the learned ungodly Doctors are meer fools and the Lovers of God are only wise And O that my Lot may be with such however I be esteemed by the dreaming world Chap. VI. The second Inference To abate our Censures and Contempt of the less Learned Christians and Churches upon Earth I Must confess that Ignorance is the great Enemy of Holiness in the world and the Prince of Darkness in his Kingdom of Darkness oppugneth the Light and promoteth the works of Darkness by it And it is found that where Vision ceaseth the People perish even for lack of knowledge And the ignorantest Countreys are the most ungodly But I must recant some former apprehensions I have thought the Armenians the Syrians the Georgians the Copties the Abassines the Greeks more miserable for want of Polite Literature than now I judge them Though I contemn it not as the Turks do and the Moscovites yet I perceive that had men but the knowledge of the holy Scriptures yea of the summaries of true Religion they might be good and happy men without much more If there be but some few among them skill'd in all the Learning of the world and expert in using the Adversaries weapons against themselves as Champions of the Truth the rest might do well with the bare Knowledge of God and a Crucified Christ It is the malice of assaulting Enemies that maketh all other Learning needful in some for our defence But the New Creature liveth not on such food but on the bread of life and living waters and the sincere Milk of the sacred Word The old Albigenses and Waldenses in Piedmont and other Countreys did many Ages keep up the life and comfort of true Religion even through murders and unparallel'd cruelties of the worldly Learned Church when they had little of the Arts and common Sciences But necessary Knowledge was propagated by the industry of Parents and Pastors Their Children could say over their Catechisms and could give account of the Principles of Religion and recite many practical parts of Scripture And they had much Love and Righteousness and little Division or Contention among them which made the moderate Emperor Maximilian profess to Crato that he thought the Picards of all men on Earth were likest the Apostolick Primitive Churches And Brocardus who dwelt among them in Judea tells us that the Christians there that by the Papists are accounted Hereticks as Nestorians or Eutychians were indeed good harmless simple men and lived in Piety and mortifying Austerities even beyond the very Religious sort the Monks and Fryars of the Church of Rome and shamed the wickedness of our Learned part of the World. And though there be sad mixtures of such Superstitions and Traditions as ignorance useth to breed and cherish yet the great devotion and strictness of many of the Abassines Armenians and other of those ruder sort of Christians is predicated by many Historians and Travellers And who knoweth but there may be among their vulgar more love to God and Heaven and Holiness than among the contentious Learned Nations where the Pastors strive who shall be the greatest and Preach up that Doctrine and Practice which is conformable to their own Wills and worldly Interests and where the people by the oppositions of their Leaders are drawn into several Sides and Factions which as Armies Militate against each other Is not the love of God like to be least where Contentions and Controversies divert the peoples minds from God and necessary saving Truths And where men least love one another And where mutual Hatred Cruelty and Persecution proclaim them much void of that love which is the Christian Badge I will not cease praying for the further Illumination and Reformation of those Churches But I will repent of my hard thoughts of the Providence of God as if he had cast them almost off and had few holy Souls among them For ought I know they may be better than most of Europe And the like I say of many unlearned Christians among our selves we know not what love to God and goodness doth dwell in many that we have a very mean esteem of The Breathings of poor Souls towards God by Christ and their desires after greater holiness is known to God that kindleth it in them but not to us Chap. VII The third Inference By what measures to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion I Know that there are some that would make Christ two Churches one Political and Congregate as they phrase it and the other Regenerate Or one Visible and the other Invisible And accordingly they say that professed Faith is the qualification of a Member of the Church-Congregate and Obedience to the Pope say the Papists and real love is the qualification of the Church-Regenerate But as there is but one Catholick Church of Christ so is there but one Faith and one Baptism by which men are stated as Members in that Church But as Heart-consent and Tongue-consent are two things but the latter required only as the Expression and Profession of the former so Heart-consenters and Tongue-consenters should be the same men as Body and Soul make not two men but one But if the Tongue speak that consent which is not in the Heart that Person is an Hypocrite and is but
all those to be wicked Hypocrites Hereticks Schismaticks Factious or Liars that are against them and dare print to the world that most notorious truths in matters of fact are lies and lies are truths and corrupt all History where they are but concerned So that experience hath taught me to give little credit to any History written by men in whom I can perceive this double Character 1. That they are worldly and unconscionable 2. And concerned by a personal Interest especially when they revile their Adversaries And money friends or honour will make any Cause true and just with them and can confute all evidences of truth and innocency Learned Judges are too oft corrupt 9. And in cases of great Temptation how insufficient is Learning to repel the Tempter when it 's easily done by the holy Love of God and Goodness How easily is a man's Judgment tempted to think well of that which he loveth and ill of that which his heart is against Many such Instances I might give you but these fully shew the misery and folly of ungodly Scholars that are but blinded by dead notions and words of Art to think they know something when they know nothing as they ought to know and to hate truth and goodness and speak evil of the things they know not while for want of holy Love these tinkling Cymbals do but deceive themselves and ascertain their own damnation II. I should next have said as much of the vanity and snare of the Knowledge of such Gnosticks as in an over-valuing of their own Religious skill and gifts cry out as the Pharisees This people that know not the Law are cursed But what is said is applicable to them Chap. XVI Love best the Christians that have most Love to God and Man. IF God Love those most that have most Love and not those that have most barren Knowledge then so must we even all that take God's Wisdom as infallible Of whom can we know better whom to Love and Value than of him that is Wisdom and Love it self There is more savoury worth in the experience affections and heavenly tendency of holy Souls than in all the subtilties of Learned Wits When a man cometh to die who savoureth not more Wisdom in the Sacred Scripture and in holy Treatises than in all Aristotle's Learned works And who had not then rather hear the talk and prayers of a holy person than the most accurate Logick or Mathematicks Alas what are these but trifles to a dying man And what they will be to a dying man they should be much to us all our life unless we would never be wise till it is too late And among men seeming Religious it is not the Religious wrangler or disputer nor the Zealous reviler of his Brethren that can hotly cry down on one side These men are Heretical or on the other These are Antichristian that are the Lovely persons Not they that on one side cry out Away with these from the Ministry and Church as disobedient to us Or on the other Away with these from our Communion as not holy enough to join with us It is not they that proudliest persecute to prove their Zeal nor they that proudliest separate from others to prove it but it is they that live in the love of God and Man that are beloved of God and Man. Nature teacheth all men to love those that love them And the Divine Nature teacheth us to love those much more that love God and goodness Though love be an act of obedience as commanded yet hath it a Nature also above meer obedience and bare commanding will not cause it No man loveth God or man only because he is commanded so to do but because he perceiveth them to be good and amiable And the most loving are the most lovely so be it their love be rightly guided Doth it not kindle love in you to others more to hear their Breathings after God and Grace and Glory and to see them loving and kind to all and delighting to do all the good they can and covering tenderly the infirmities of others and practising 1 Cor. 13. and living at peace among themselves and as much as is possible with all men and loving their Enemies and blessing those that curse them and patiently bearing and forgiving wrongs than to come into one Congregation and hear a Priest teach the people to hate their Brethren as Schismaticks or Hereticks or in another and hear a man teach his Followers to hate others as Antichristian or Ceremonious Or to hear silly Men and Women talk against things that are quite beyond their reach and shaking the Head to talk against Dissenters and say Such a one is an erroneous or dangerous man take heed of hearing him Such a one is for or against Reprobation Free Will Universal Redemption Mans Power and such like which they little understand In a word the proudly Tyrannical and the proudly Schismatical with all their pretence of Learning on one side or of the Spirit and Holiness and Gifts on the other are no whit so amiable as the single-hearted honest peaceable Christian who preacheth love and prayeth love and liveth and breatheth and practiseth love Paul saith that all the Law is fulfilled in love and fulfilling is more than knowing it And Christ himself did not in vain sum up all the Commandments in the love of God and Man Nor in vain ask Peter thrice Lovest thou me nor in vain so often charge it on them as his new that is his last Commandment that they love one another Nor doth his beloved Apostle John in vain so earnestly write for love Chap. XVII Exhort Plead not against Love or works of Love upon pretence of a cross Interest of Learning Knowledge Gifts Church-order Discipline c. or any other thing IF LOVE be that which is most amiable in us to the God of Love then as nothing in the World can excuse him that is without it nor render him lovely indeed to God and Man so nothing must be made a pretence against it And no pretence will excuse that man or that Society that is against it Even corrections and severities when they must be used must come from love and be wholly ordered to the ends and interest of love And when necessity calls for destructive Executions which tend not to the good of him that is Executed yet must they tend to the good of the Community or of many and come from a greater love than is due to one or else that which otherwise would be laudable Justice is but Cruelty For the punishment of Offenders is good and just because tending to the common good Debentur Reipublicae the Community have Jus a Right to them as a means to their good So that it is Love that is the Amiableness of Justice it self If any think that Gods Justice is a cross instance let him consider 1. That though the most publick or common good be our end next the ultimate
drowsy knowledge or belief that God and Holiness are best may not be ordinarily kept out of act and consist with a prevailing habit of sensuality or love of forbidden pleasure in the will and with a privation of prevalent habitual love to God and Holiness I suppose with most such sinners this is the true case the understanding said lately It is best for thee to love God and live to him and deny thy lust And it oft forgetteth this while it still saith with sense that fleshly pleasure is desireable and at other times it saith Though God be best thou maist venture at the present on this pleasure and so le ts loose the corrupted will reserving a purpose to repent hereafter as apprehending most strongly at the present that just now sensual delight may be chosen though holiness will be best hereafter Obj. But if a habit will not prove that we sincerely love and prefer God how shall any man know that he loveth and preferreth him when the best oft sin and in the act of sin God is not actually preferred Ans 1. I told you that a habit of true love will prove sincerity though not a habit of true opinion or belief which is not brought into lively and ordinary act uneffectual faith may be habitual Yea such an uneffectual counterfeit half love which I before described to you may be habitual and yet neither act nor habit saving 2. The Sins of godly men are not prevalent absolutely against the being operation or effects of the love of God and Holiness For even when they sin these live and are predominant in all other things and in the main bent and course of life but only they prevail against some Degree of holy love perhaps both in the act and habit for such sins are not ungodliness but imperfection of godliness and the effects of that imperfection 3. When godly men fall into a great extraordinary sin it is not to be expected that they should comfortably discern the sincerity of their love to God either by that sin or in that sin but they may discern it 1. By the course of a godly life where the prevalency of the habit appeareth in the power and stream of acts and 2. By their Repentance for and abhorring and forsaking of that sin which stopt and darkened their love to God. And these two together viz A resolved course of living unto God and Repentance and Hatred of every sin which is against it and especially of greater sins will shew the sincerity and power of holy love Obj. But then one that sinneth daily e. g. by passion or too much love to the World or creatures and by omissions c. shall never be sure that he sincerely loveth God because this is a course of sin and he cannot have such assurance till he forsake it Ans One that ordinarily committeth gross and wilful sin that is such sin as he had rather keep than leave and as he would leave if he were but sincerely willing hath no predominant love of God at least in act and therefore can have no assurance of it But one that is ordinarily guilty of meer infirmities may at the same time know that the love of God doth rule both in his heart and life The Passion of fear or of anger or of sorrow may be inordinate and yet God loved best because the will hath so weak a power over them that a man that is guilty of them may truly say I would fain be delivered from them And some inordinate love of life health wealth friends honour may stand with a more prevailing love of God and the prevalency be well perceived But what greater actual sin as Noahs or Lots Drunkenness Davids Adultery and Murder Peters denial of Christ are or are not consistent with true love to God is a case that I have elsewhere largely handled and is unmeet for a short decision here Obj. But when I feel my heart desires and delights all cold to God and Holiness and too hot after fleshly worldly things may I not conclude that I love these better Ans Sensible near things may have much more of the passionate part of our love our desires and delights and yet not be best loved by us For God and Things Spiritual being out of the reach of sense are not so apt or like to move our sense and passion immediately to and by themselves As I said before that is best loved which hath 1. The highest esteem of the understanding 2. The most resolved prevalent choice of the will 3. And the most faithful endeavours of our life And many a Christian mistaketh his affection to the thing it self because of his strangeness to the place and to the change that death will make If the weakest Christian could have without dying the clear knowledge of God the communion of Faith and Love by his Spirit could he love God but as much as he would love him and answerably tast his love in every prayer in every promise in every Sacrament in every mercy could his Soul keep a continual sabbath of delight in God and in his Saints and Holy worship this seemeth to him more desireable and pleasing than all the treasures of the World. And he that desireth this communion with God desireth Heaven in reality though he fear the change that death will make because of the weakness of faith and our strangeness to the state of separated Souls Chap. XX. The second part of the Exhortation Rest in this that you are known with Love to God. 2. TO be KNOWN OF GOD here signifieth to be approved and Loved of him and consequently that all our concerns are perfectly known to him and regarded by him This is the full and final comfort of a believer Our Knowledge and Love of God in which we are agents are 1. The evidence that we are known with Love to God and so our comfort as is said by way of Evidence 2. And they are our comfort in their very exercise But the chief part of our comfort is from God not only as the Object of our Love but as the Lover of us and all his Saints even in our passive receiving of the blessed effects of his Love for ever When a Christian therefore hath any discerning of his interest in this Love of God by finding that he Loveth God and Goodness here he must finally Anchor his Soul and quietly rest in all Temptations Difficulties and Tribulations 1. Our enemies know us not but judge of us by blinding interest and the biass of their false opinions and by an easy belief of false reports or by their own ungrounded suspicions And therefore we are odious to them and abused slandered and persecuted by them But God knoweth us and will justify our righteousness and bring all our innocency into light and stop the mouth of all iniquity 2. Strangers know us not but receive such Characters of us as are brought to them with the greatest advantage And