world they are that sort of men that are likest unto Beasts except some few at Siam China the Indian Bannians the Japonians the Ethnick Persians and a few more The greatest deformity of Nature is among them the least of sound knowledge true policy civility and piety is among them Abominable wickedness doth no where so much abound So that if the doctrin and judgment of these may be judged of by the effect it is most insufficient to heal the diseased world and reduce man to holiness sobriety and honesty § 6. I find that these few among the Heathens who attain to more knowledge in the things which concern man's duty and happiness than the rest do commonly destroy all again by the mixture of some dotâ—ges and impious conceits The Literali in China exel in many things but besides abundance of ignorance in Philosophy they destroy all by denying the immortality of the Soul and affirming rewards and punishments to be only in this life or but a little longer At least none but the Souls of the good say some of them survive and though they confess One God they give him no solemn worship Their Sect called Sciequia or Sciacca is very clear for the Vnity of the Godhead the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hall with some umbrage of the Trinity c. But they blot all with the Pythagorean fopperies affirming these Souls which were in joy or misery after a certain space to be sent again into Bodies and so to continue through frequent changes to eternity to say nothing of the wickedness of their lives Their third Sect called Lauru is not worth the naming as being composed of fopperies and sorceries and impostures All the Japonian Sects also make the world to be eternal and Souls to be perpetuated through infinite transmigrations The Siamenses who seem the best of all and nearest to Christians have many fopperies and worship the Devil for fear as they do God for love The Indian Bramenes or Bannians also have the Pythagorean errors and place their piety in redeeming Bruits because they have Souls which sometimes were humane The Persians dispersed in India who confess God and Heaven and Hell yet think that these are but of a thousand years duration And it is above a thousand years since they believed that the world should continue but a thousand years and then Souls be released from Hell and a new world made § 7. Their great darkness and uncertainties appear by the innumerable sects and differences which are among them which are incomparably more numerous than all that are found in all parties in the world besides I need not tell you of the 288 Sects or Opinions de summo bono which Varro said was in his days The difference which you may find in Laertius Hesechius and others between the Cynicks Peripateticks Academicks Stoicks Scepticks Epicureans c. with all their sub-divisions are enow In Japan the twelve Sects have their subdivisions In China the three general Sects have so many subdivisions that Varenius saith of them Singuli fontes Iabentibus paulatim seculis à fraudum magistris in tot maeandros derivati sunt ut sub triplici nomine trecentae mihi sectae inter se discrepantes numerari posse videantur sed hae quotidianis incrementis augentur in pejus ruunt Petrus Texeica saith of the Indians In Regno Gazeratensivarii sunt ritus sectae incolarum quod mirum vix familiam invenias in qua omnes congruant alii comedunt carnem alii nequaquam alii comedunt quidem sed non mactant animalia alii nonnulla tantum animalia comedunt alii tantum pisces alii tantum lac herbas c. Johan a Twist saith of the Indian Bramenes Numerantur sectae praecipui nominis octoginta tres sed praeter has minus illustrium magna est multitudo ita ut singulae familiae peculiarem fere foveant religionem It were endless to speak of all the Sects in Africa and America to say nothing of the beastly part of them in Brasil the Cape of good hope that is Soldania and the Islands of Cannibals who know no God nor Government nor Civility some of them They are not only of as many minds as countries but of a multitude of sects in one and the same country § 8. I find not my self called or enabled to judge all these people as to their final state but only to say that if any of them have a holy heart and life in the true love of God they shall be saved but without this no form of Religion will save any man be it never so right § 9. But I find it to be my duty to love them for all the good which is in them and all that is true and good in their Religion I will embrace and because it is so defective to look further and try what I can learn from others There is so much lovely in a Cato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epictetus Plutarch c. in the Religions of Siam in the dispersed Persian Ethnicks in India in the Bramans or Bannians of India in the Bonzii of Japan and divers others in China and else-where that it obligeth us not only to love them benevolently but with much complacence And as I will learn from Nature it self what I can so also from these Students of Nature I will take up nothing meerly on their trust nor reject any doctrin meerly because it is theirs but all that is true and good in their Religions as far as I can discern it shall be part of mine and because I find them so dark and bad I will betake me for further information to those that trust to supernatural Revelation which are the Jews Mahumetans and the Christians of which I shall next consider a-part § 10. II. As to the Religion of the Jews I need not say much of it by it self the Positive part of their doctrine being confessed by the Christians and Mahumetans to be of Divine Revelation and the negative part their denying of Christ is to be tryed in the tryall of Christianity The Reasons which are brought for the Christian Religion if sound will prove the Old Testament which the Jews believe it being part of the Christians Sacred Book And the same reasons will confute the Jews rejection of Jesus Christ I take that therefore to be the fittest place to treat of this subject when I come to the proofs of the Christian Faith I oppose not what they have from God I must prove that to be of God which they deny § 11. III. In the Religion of the Mahumetans I finde much good viz. A Confession of one only God and most of the Natural parts of Religion a vehement opposition to all Idolatry A testimony to the Veracity of Moses and of Christ that Christ is the Word of God and a great Prophet and the Writings of the Apostles true All this therefore where Christianity is approved
Wisdom of the Soul produced by his Light and Wisdom by which we know the difference between Good and Evil and our Reason is restored to its dominion over fleshly sense It is the Goodness of the Soul by which it is made suitable to the Eternal Good and fit to know him love him praise him serve him and enjoy him And therefore nothing lower than his Goodness can be its principal Cause 2. It subserveth the Interest of God in the World And recovereth the apostate Soul to himself It disposeth it to honour him love him and obey him It delivereth up the whole man to him as his own It casteth down all that rebelleth against him It casteth out all which was preferred before him It rejecteth all which standeth up against him and would seduce and tempt us from him And therefore it is certainly his work 3. Whose else should it be Would Satan or any evil cause produce so excellent an effect would the worst of beings do the best of works It is the best that is done in this lower world Would any enemy of God so much honour him and promote his interest and restore him his own would any enemy of mankind thus advance us and bring us up to a life of the highest honour and delights that we are capable of on earth and give us the hopes of life eternal And if any good Angel or other Cause should do it all reason will confess that they do it but as the Messengers or Instruments of God and as second causes and not as the first Cause for otherwise we should make them gods For my own part my Soul perceiveth that it is God himself that hath imprinted this his Image on me and hath hereby as it were written upon me his Name and Mark even HOLINESS TO THE LORD and I bear about me continually a Witness of Himself his Son and holy Spirit a Witness within me which is the Seal of God and the pledge of his love and the earnest of my heavenly inheritance And if our Sanctification be thus of GOD it is certainly his attestation to the truth of Christ and to his Gospel for 1. No man that knoweth the perfections of God will ever believe that he would bless a deceiver and a lie to be the means of the most holy and excellent work that ever was done in the world If Christ were a Deceiver his crime would be so execrable as would engage the Justice of God against him as he is the righteous Governour of the world And therefore he would not so highly honour him to be his chiefest instrument for the worlds Renovation He is not impotent to need such instruments he is not ignorant that he should so mistake in the choice of instruments he is not bad that he should love and use such Instruments and comply with their deceits These things are all so clear and sure that I cannot doubt of them 2. No man that knoweth the mercifulness of God and the Justice of his Government can believe that he would give up Mankind so remedilesly to seduction yea and be the principal causer of it himself For if besides Prophecie and a holy Doctrine and a multitude of famous Miracles a Deceiver might also be the great Renewer and Sanctifier of the world to bring man back to the obedience of God and to repair his Image on Mankind what possibility were there of our discovery of that deceit Or rather should we not say he were a blessed Deceiver that had deceived us from our sin and misery and brought back our straying souls to God 3. Nay when Christ fore-told men that he would send his Spirit to do all this work and would renew men for eternal life and thus be with us to the end of the world and when I see all this done I must needs believe that he that can send down a Sanctifying Spirit a Spirit of Life a Spirit of Power Light and Love to make his Doctrine in the mouths of his Ministers effectual to mens Regeneration and Sanctification is no less himself than God or certainly no less than his certain Administrator 4. What need I more to prove the Cause than the adequate effect When I find that Christ doth actually save me shall I question whether he be my Saviour When I find that he saveth thousands about me and offereth the same to others shall I doubt whether he be the Saviour of the world Sure he that healeth us all and that so wonderfully and so cheaply may well be called our Physician If he had promised only to save us I might have doubted whether he would perform it and consequently whether he be indeed the Saviour But when he performeth it on my self and performeth it on thousands round about me to doubt yet whether he be the Saviour when he actually saveth us is to be ignorant in despite of Reason and Experience I conclude therefore that the Spirit of Sanctification is the infallible Witness of the Verity of the Gospel and the Veracity of Jesus Christ 5. And I entreat all that read this further to observe the great use and advantage of this testimony above others in that it is continued from Generation to Generation and not as the gift and testimony of Miracles which continued plentifully but one Age and with diminution somewhat after this is Christ's witness to the end of the world in every Country and to every Soul yea and continually dwelling in them For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 He that is not able to examine the History which reporteth the Miracles to him may be able to find upon his Soul the Image of God imprinted by the Gospel and to know that the Gospel hath that Image in it self which it imprinteth upon others and that it cometh from God which leadeth men so directly unto God and that it is certainly his own means which he blesseth to so great and excellent ends 6. Note also that part of the work of the Spirit of God in succeeding the Doctrine of Jesus Christ doth consist in the effectual production of Faith it self for though the work be wrought by the Reasons of the Gospel and the Evidences of Truth yet is it also wrought by the Spirit of God concurring with that evidence and as the internal Efficient exciting the sluggish faculties to do their office and illustrating the understanding and fitting the will to entertain the truth for the difficulties are so great and the temptations to unbelief so subtil and violent and our own indisposedness through corruption the greatest impediment of all that the bare Word alone would not produce a belief of that lively vigorous nature as is necessary to its noble effects and ends without the internal co-operation of the Spirit So that Christ doth not only teach us the Christian Faith and Religion but doth give it us and work it in us by his Spirit And he that can do
natural to man to desire to know even the first Cause and highest excellencie § 8. Yet do I find that my mind is not satisfied in knowing nor is Entity and Verity the ultimate object which my mind looketh after but Goodness Entity and Verity may be unwelcome loathed things if against my good The thief could wish that neither Law nor Judge nor Gallows had a being and that his sentence were not true Knowledge is but a mediate motion of the Soul directive to the following volitions and prosecution § 9. I find I have a Will inclined to apprehended Good that is both to that which hath a simple excellency in it self and which maketh for the happiness of the world or for my own This maketh it self as well known to me as my natural appetite For my apprehensions do but subserve it and my life is moved or ruled by it § 10. It is also averse to apprehended evil as such as contrary to the foresaid good Though real evil may possibly be chosen when it is a seeming good also that which appeareth proximately evil for a higher good to which it seemeth a means yet ultimately and for it self no rational will desireth or chooseth Evil. § 11. While sensitive pleasure is apprehended as good by the senses Reason may discern a further good which may cross at least the present sense To take bitter Physick to corrode or cut off ulcerated parts to use hard dyet and Exercise c. may be ungratefull in themselves to sense and yet commended by Reason and commanded by the will I yet forbear all higher instances § 12. My sense and bodily faculties are naturally to be subjected to the guidance of my Reason and the command of my Will as the superiour faculties For one is common to Bruits and the other proper to Rational creatures And rational Agents are more excellent than Bruits and the most excellent should rule Reason can see further than Sense And the wisest is most fit to govern They that deny this should claim no government or power over their beasts their dogs or sheep If Reason ruled not Sensuality most persons would presently destroy their lives Even as swine would kill themselves with eating if the reason of man did not restrain them § 13. The summ is that Man is A living Wight having an active and executive POWER with an UNDERSTANDING to guide it and a WILL to command it And that there is a certain difference between Truth and Falshood Natural Good and Evil. All this is quite beyond dispute CHAP. II. Of Man as Related to the things below him § 1. THere are other things called Inanimates and Bruits in being besides Man My understanding by the help of all my senses telleth me that there are Beasts and Birds Trees and Herbs and that I live among a multitude of Beings inferiour to Man Though I may be ignorant of their Principles and many things in their Natures yet can I no more doubt of their being than of mine own nor of the inferiority of their natures when I see their inferiour operations § 2. Man hath a certain sub-propriety in them for his use They that deny this will not say their Lands their Fruits their Money their Goods and Cattle are their own nor question any one for stealing them or depriving them of the Propriety Nor may they possess and use them as their own § 3. Man hath the Right of governing the Bruits so far as they are capable of government Which is not by proper moral Government by Laws and Judgement but such an Image of it as is suitable to their several kinds This is in order to their own preservation but especially for our use and ends He that denyeth this must not Rule his Dog his Horse or Oxe or Sheep but leave them every one to themselves § 4. Man is also subordinately their Benefactor and their End and they are more for Him than for themselves He is their End as he is better than they and hath the foresaid Propriety in them The cause will further appear anon The beauty and sweetness of my Flowers is more for me than for themselves and I do more enjoy them My trees and herbs and fruits and mettals my Horse and Oxe that labour for me and all the creatures on whom I feed I finde are for my use even their life and labour Mankinde accuseth not himself as wronging them when for his own advantage he maketh use of both And his care is necessary to their preservation planting dressing watering feeding defending providing for them without which the usefullest would perish § 5. The summ is that MAN is the OWNER the GOVERNOVR and the END and BENEFACTOR of the Inferiour beings and so is LORD among them in the World CHAP. III. Of Men as mutually Related to each other § 1. I See that there are more men besides me upon earth § 2. The natural dignity of man and their likeness to each other maketh them all confess that it is their duty to love one another He that denyeth this will not expect to be loved himself by others nor will he pretend to any virtue nor to merit the benefit of humane converse § 3. Individual persons are commonly conscious of self-insufficiency and of their need of others and inclined to a sociable life If Birds and Beasts will go together in flights and heards with those of their own kinde no wonder if man also have a naturall inclination to society besides the knowledge of the necessity and benefits of it § 4. Each Individual in these societies must contribute his endeavours to the common good For this is the end of the Association He that will be for none but himself cannot justly expect that any should be for him And he that would have all the society be helpfull to him must to his power be helpfull to all § 5. The distinction of persons and their interests and actions foundeth a distinction of Propriety and Rights For natural Individuation maketh it necessary that every man have his own food and his own cloathing at least for the time and therefore it is usually needfull to the good of the whole and the parts that each one have also their provisional Proprieties And the difference of men in wit and folly industry and sloth virtue and vice good or ill deserts will also cause a difference of Propriety and Rights Though these may be in part subjected to the common good § 6. Parents also may upon the merits of Children if not arbitrarily make an inequality in propriety And so may other Donors and Benefactors As all Children need not the same proportion so all deserve not the same And those Parents that have great Estates may leave more to their own children than to others so that many wayes both Propriety and disproportion may certainly come to pass and be allowed in the World § 7. Therefore there
must be embraced And there is no doubt but God hath made use of Mahumet as a great Scourge to the Idolaters of the World as well as to the Christians who had abused their sacred priviledges and blessings Whereever his Religion doth prevail he casteth down Images and filleth mens mindes with a hatred of Idols and all conceit of multitude of Gods and bringeth men to worship one God alone and doth that by the sword in this which the preaching of the Gospel had not done in many obstinate Nations of Idolaters § 12. But withall I finde a Man exalted as the chief of Prophets without any such proof as a wise man should be moved with and an Alcoran written by him below the rates of common Reason being a Rhapsody of Nonsence and Confesion and many false and impious doctrines introduced and a tyrannical Empire and Religion twisted and both erected propagated and maintained by irrational tyrannical means As which discharge my reason from the entertainment of this Religion 1. That Mahomet was so great or any Prophet is neither confirmed by any true credible Miracle nor by any eminency of Wisdom or Holiness in which he excelled other men nor any thing else which Reason can judge to be a Divine attestation The contrary is sufficiently apparent in the irrationality of his Alcoran There is no true Learning nor excellency in it but such as might be expected among men of the more incult wits and barbarous education There is nothing delivered methodically or rationally with any evidence of solid understanding There is nothing but the most nauseous repetition an hundred times over of many simple incoherent speeches in the dialect of a drunken man sometimes against Idolaters and sometimes against Christians for calling Christ God which all set together seem not to contain in the whole Alcoran so much solid usefull sense and reason as one leaf of some of those Philosophers whom he opposeth however his time had delivered him from their Idolatry and caused him more to approach the Christian Faith 2. And who can think it any probable sign that he is the Prophet of truth whose Kingdom is of this World erected by the Sword who barbarously suppresseth all rational enquiry into his doctrine and all disputes against it all true Learning and rational helps to advance and improve the Intellect of man and who teacheth men to fight and kill for their Religion Certainly the Kingdom of darkness is not the Kingdom of God but of the Devil And the friend of Ignorance is no Friend to Truth to God nor to mankinde And it is a sign of a bad Cause that it cannot endure the light If it be of God why dare they not soberly prove it to us and hear what we have to object against it that Truth by the search may have the Victory If Beasts had a Religion it would be such as this 3. Moreover they have doctrines of Polygamy and of a sensual kinde of Heaven and of murdering men to increase their Kingdoms and many the like which being contrary to the light of Nature and unto certain common Truths do prove that the Prophet and his doctrine are not of God 4. And his full attestation to Moses and Christ as the true Prophets of God doth prove himself a false Prophet who so much contradicteth them and rageth against Christians as a blood-thirsty Enemy when he hath given so full a testimony to Christ The particulars of which I shall shew anon CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and First What it is § 1. IV. THE last sort of Religion to be enquired into is CHRISTIANITY in which by the Providence of God I was educated and at first received it by a humane Faith upon the word and reverence of my Parents and Teachers being unable in my Childhood rationally to try its grounds and evidences I shall declare to the Reader just in what Order I have received the Christian Religion that the Inquisition being the more clear and particular the satisfaction may be the greater And it being primarily for my own use that I draw up these Papers I finde it convenient to remember what is past and to insert the transcript of my own experiences that I may fully try whether I have gone rationally and faithfully to work or not I confess that I took my Religion at first upon my Parents word And who could expect that in my Childhood I should be able to prove its grounds But whether God owned that method of Reception by any of his inward light and operations and whether the efficacy of the smallest beams be any proof of the truth of the Christian Faith I leave to the Reader and shall my self only declare the naked history in truth § 2. In this Religion received defectively both as to Matter and Grounds I found a Power even in my Childhood to awe my Soul and check my sin and folly and make me carefull of my salvation and to make me love and honour true wisdom and holiness of life § 3. But when I grew up to fuller use of Reason and more distinctly understood what I had generally and darkly received the power of it did more surprize my minde and bring me to deeper consideration of spiritual and everlasting things It humbled me in the sense of my sin and its deserts and made me think more sensibly of a Saviour It resolved me for more exact Obedience to God and increased my love to God and increased my love to persons and things sermons writings prayers conference which relished of plain resolved Godliness § 4. In all this time I never doubted of the Truth of this Religion partly retaining my first humane Belief and partly awed and convinced by the intrinsick evidence of its proper subject end and manner and being taken up about the humbling and reforming study of my self § 5. At last having for many years laboured to compose my mind and life to the Principles of this Religion I grew up to see more difficulties in it than I saw before And partly by temptations and partly by an inquisitive mind which was wounded with uncertainties and could not contemptuosly or carelesly cast off the doubts which I was not able to resolve I resumed afresh the whole inquiry and resolved to make as faithfull a search into the nature and grounds of this Religion as if I had never been baptized into it The first thing I studyed was the Matter of Christianity What it is and the next was the evidence and certainty of it of which I shall speak distinctly § 6. The Christian Religion is to be considered 1. In its self as delivered by God 2. In its Reception and Practice by men professing it In its self it is Perfect but not so easily discernable by a stranger In the Practisers it is imperfect here in this life but more discernable by men that cannot so quickly understand the Principles and more forcibly constraineth
like have more noble and blessed Inhabitants Look to them if you would see his Love in its most glorious demonstration Justice also must be demonstrated if men will sin And if Hell be quite forsaken and Earth which is next it be partly forsaken of the favour of God for all that God may gloriously demonstrate his Love to a thousand thousand-fold more subjects of the nobler Regions than he doth demonstrate his Justice on in Hell or Earth But these two things I gather for the confirmation of my Faith 1. That the sin and misery of the World is such that it groaneth for a Saviour And when I hear of a Physician sent from Heaven I easily believe it when I see the wofull World mortally diseased and gasping in its deep distress The condition of the World is visibly so suitable to the whole Office of Christ and to the Doctrine of the Gospel that I am driven to think that if God have mercy for it some Physician and extraordinary help shall be afforded it And when I see none else but Jesus Christ whom Reason will allow me to believe is that Physician it somewhat prepareth my minde to look towards him with hope 2. And also the Evil of this present World is very suitable to the Doctrine of Christ when he telleth us that he came not to settle us here in a state of Prosperity nor to make the World our Rest or Portion but to save us from it as our enemy and calamity our danger and our Wilderness and trouble and to bring up our hearts first and then our selves to a better World which he calleth us to seek and to make sure of Whereas I finde that most other Religions though they say something of a Life hereafter yet lead men to look for most or much of their felicity here as consisting in the fruition of this World which experience tells me is so miserable § 3. Moreover I finde that the Law of entire Nature was no more suitable to Nature in its integrity than the Law of Grace revealed by Christ is suitable to us in our lapsed state so that it may be called the Law of Nature-lapsed and restorable Naturae lapsae restaurandae Nature entire and Nature depraved must have the same pattern and rule of perfection ultimately to be conformed to because lapsed man must seek to return to his integrity But lapsed or corrupted man doth moreover need another Law which shall first tend to his restoration from that lost and miserable state And it was no more necessary to man in innocency to have a suitable Law for his preservation and confirmation than it is to man in sin and guilt to have a Law of Grace for his pardon and recovery and a course of means prescribed him for the healing of his Soul and for the escaping of the stroke of Justice The following particulars further open this § 4. It seemeth very congruous to Reason that as Monarchy is the perfectest sort of Government which it is probable is even among the Angels so Mankinde should have one universal Head or Monarch over them Kingdoms have their several Monarchs but there is surely an Universal Monarch over them all we know that God is the primary Soveraign but it is very probable to Nature that there is a subordinate Soveraign or general Administrator under him It is not only the Scriptures that speak a Prince of the Devils and of Principalities and Powers and Thrones and Dominions among the happy Spirits and that talk of the Angels that are Princes of several Kingdoms Dan. 10. but even the Philosophers and most Idolaters have from this apprehension been drawn to the worship of such as an inferiour kinde of Deity And if man must have a subordinate universal King it is meet that it be one that is also Man As Angels and Devils have Principals of their own sort and nature and not of others § 5. It seemeth congruous to Reason that this Head be one that is fitted to be our Captain Generall himself to lead us by Conduct Precept and Example in our warfare against those Devils who also are said to have their Prince and General As Devils fight against us under a Prince of their own nature so is it congruous that we fight against them under a Prince of our own nature who hath himself first conquered him and will go on before us in the fight § 6. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed Man under the guilt of sin and desert of punishment who is unable to deliver himself and unworthy of immediate access to God should have a Mediator for his restoration and reconciliation with God If any be found fit for so high an Office § 7. And it is congruous to Reason that this Mediator be one in whom God doth condescend to Man and one in whom man may be encouraged to ascend to God as to one that will forgive and save him And one that hath made himself known to man and also hath free access to God § 8. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed guilty darkened sinners that know so little of God and of his Will and of their own Concernments and of the other World should have a Teacher sent from Heaven of greater Authority and Credit than an Angel to acquaint us with God and his will and the Life that we are going to more certainly and fully than would be done by Nature only That this is very desireable no man can doubt How gladly would men receive a Letter or Book that dropt from Heaven Or an Angel that were sent thence to tell them what is there and what they must for ever trust to Yea if it were but one of their old acquaintance from the dead But all this would leave them in uncertainty still and they would be doubtfull of the credit and truth of any such a Messenger And therefore to have one of fuller Authority that shall confirm his Word by unquestionable attestations would very much satisfie men I have proved that Nature it self revealeth to us a Life of Retribution after this and that Immortality of Souls may be proved without Scripture But yet there is still a darkness and unacquaintedness and consequently a doubting and questioning the certainty of it upon a carnal minde And it would greatly satisfie such if besides meer Reason they had some proof which is more agreeable to a minde in flesh and might either speak with some credible Messenger who hath been in Heaven and fully knoweth all these matters or at least might be certainly informed of his Reports And indeed to men that are fallen into such a dark depravedness of Reason and such Strangers to God and Heaven as mankind is it is become needful that they have more than natural light to shew them the nature the excellency and certainty of the happiness to come or else they are never like so to love and seek it and prefer it before all
disconsolate Disciples who had but lately sinfully forsaken him He giveth them no upbraiding words but meltingly saith to her Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God He after this familiarly converseth with them and instructeth them in the things concerning the Kingdom of God He maketh an Vniversal Pardon or Act of Oblivion in a Covenant of Grace for all the world that will not reject it and appointeth Messengers to preach it unto all and what ever pains or suffering it cost them to go through all with patience and alacrity and to stick at nothing for the saving of mens souls He gave the holy Spirit miraculously to them to enable them to carry on this work and to leave upon record to the world the infallible narrative of his Life and Doctrine His Gospel is filled up with matter of consolation with the promises of mercy pardon and salvation the description of the priviledges of holy Souls justification adoption peace and joy and finally He governeth and defendeth his Church and pleadeth our cause and secureth our interest in Heaven according to the promises of this his word Thus is the Gospel the very Image of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And such a Doctrin from such a Person must needs be Divine 2. And the Method and Style of it is most excellent because most suitable to its holy ends not with the excellency of frothy wit which is but to express a wanton fancy and please the ears of aery persons who play with words when they should close with wisdom and heavenly light such excellency of speech must receive its estimate by its use and end But as the end is most Divine so the light that shineth in the Gospel is Heavenly and Divine the Method of the Books themselves is various according to the time and occasions of their writing the objections against them are to be answered by themselves anon But the Method of the whole Doctrin of Christianity set together is the most admirable and perfect in the world beginning with God in Unity of Essence proceeding to his Trinity of Essential Active Principles and of Persons and so to his Trinity of Works Creation Redemption and Regeneration and of Relations of God and Man accordingly and to the second Trinity of Relations as he is our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And hence it brancheth it self into a multitude of benefits flowing from all these Relations of God to Man and a multitude of answerable duties flowing from our Correlations to God and all in perfect method twisted and inoculated into each other making a kind of cirulation between Mercies and Duties as in mans body there is of the arterial and venal bloud and spirits till in the issue as all Mercy came from God and Duty subordinately from man so Mercy and Duty do terminate in the Everlasting Pleasure of God ultimately and man subordinately in that mutual love which is here begun and there is perfected This method you may somewhat perceive in the description of the Christian Religion before laid down 3. And the style also is suited to the end and matter not to the pleasing of curious ears but to the declaring of heavenly mysteries not to the conceits of Logicians who have put their understandings into the fetters of their own ill-devised notions and expect that all men that will be accounted wise should use the same notions which they have thus devised and about which they are utterly disagreed among themselves But in a Language suitable both to the subject and to the world of persons to whom this word is sent who are commonly ignorant and unlearned and dull That being the best Physick which is most suitable to the Patients temper and disease And though the particular Writers of the Sacred Scriptures have their several Styles yet is there in them all in common a Style which is spiritual powerfull and divine which beareth its testimony proportionably of that Spirit which is the common Author in them all But of this more among the Difficulties and Objections anon But for the discerning of all this Image of God in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Reason will allow me to expect these necessary qualifications in him that must discern it 1. That before he come to supernatural Revelations he be not unacquainted with those natural Revelations which are antecedent and should be foreknown as I have in this book explained them with their evidence For there is no coming to the highest step of the Ladder without beginning at the lowest Men ignorant of things knowable by Natural Reason are unprepared for higher things 2. It is reasonably expected that he be one that is not treacherous and false to those Natural Truths which he hath received For how can he be expected to be impartial and faithfull in seeking after more Truth who is unfaithfull to that which he is convinced of or that he should receive that Truth which he doth not yet know who is false to that which he already knoweth Or that he should discern the evidence of extraordinary Revelation who opposeth with enmity the ordinary light or Law of Nature Or that God should vouchsafe his further light and conduct to that Man who willfully sinneth against him in despight of all his former teachings 3. It is requisite that he be one that is not a stranger to himself but acquainted with the case of his heart and life and know his sins and his corrupt inclinations and that guilt and disorder and misery in which his need of mercy doth consist For he is no fit Judge of the Prescripts of his Physician who knoweth not his own disease and temperature But of this more anon § 8. III. The third way of the Spirits witness to Jesus Christ is Concomitantly by the miraculous gifts and works of Himself and his Disciples which are a cogent Evidence of Gods attestation to the truth of his Doctrine § 9. By the Miracles of Christ I mean 1. His miraculous actions upon others 2. His miracles in his Death and Resurrection 3. His predictions The appearance of the Angel to Zachary and his dumbness his Prophesie and Elizabeth's with the Angels appearance to Mary the Angels appearance and Evangelizing to the Shepherds the Prophesie of Simeon and of Anna the Star and the testimony of the wise Men of the East the testimony of John Baptist that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World These and more such I pass by as presupposed At twelve years of age he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple to their admiration At his Baptism the Holy Ghost came down upon him in the likeness of a Dove and a voice from Heaven said Thou art my beloved Son in Thee I am well-pleased When he was baptized he fasted forty dayes and nights and
And that so great a change and so holy a life is necessary to salvation hath proved a difficulty to some § 11. 9. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is one of the greatest difficulties of all § 12. 10. So is Christ's coming into the World so late and the revealing of his Gospel to so few by Prophecy before and by Preaching since § 13. 11. So also was the appearing Meanness of the Person of Christ and of his Parentage place and condition in the World together with the manner of his birth § 14 12. The manner of his sufferings and death upon a Cross as a Malefactor under the charge of Blasphemy Impiety and Treason hath still been a stumbling-block both to Jews and Gentiles § 15. 13. So hath the fewness and meanness of his followers and the number and worldly preeminence and prosperity of unbelievers and enemies of Christ § 16. 14. The want of excellency of speech and art in the holy Scriptures that they equall not other Writings in Logical method and exactness and in Oratorical elegancies is a great offence to unbelievers § 17. 15. As also that the Physicks of Scripture so much differeth from Philosophers § 18. 16. As also the seeming Contradictions of the Scripture do much offend them § 19. 17. And it offendeth them that Faith in Christ himself is made a thing of such excellency and necessity to salvation § 20. 18. And it is hard to believe that present adversity and undoing in the World is for our benefit and everlasting good § 21. 19. And it offendeth many that the doctrine of Christ doth seem not suited to Kingdoms and Civil Government but only for a few private persons § 22. 20. Lastly the Prophesies which seem not intelligible or not fulfilled prove matter of difficulty and offence There are intrinsecal difficulties of Faith § 23. II. The outward adventitious impediments to the Belief of the Christian Faith are such as these 1. Because many Christians especially the Papists have corrupted the doctrine of Faith and propose gross falshoods contrary to common sense and reason as necessary points of Christian Faith as in the point of Transubstantiation § 24. 2. They have given the World either false or insufficient reasons and motives for the belief of the Christian Verity which being discerned confirmeth them in Infidelity § 25. 3. They have corrupted Gods Worship and have turned it from rational and spiritual into a multitude of irrational ceremonious fopperies fitted to move contempt and laughter in unbelievers § 26. 4. They have corrupted the doctrine of Morality and thereby hidden much of the holyness and purity of the Christian Religion § 27. 5. They have corrupted Church-history obtruding or divulging a multitude of ridiculous falshoods in their Legends and Books of Miracles contrived purposely by Satan to tempt men to disbelieve the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles § 28. 6. They make Christianity odious by upholding their own Sect and power by fire and blood and inhumane Cruelties § 29. 7. They openly manifest that ambition and worldly dignities and prosperity in the Clergy is their very Religion and withall pretend that their party or Sect is all the Church § 30. 8. And the great disagreement among Christians is a stumbling-block to unbelievers while the Greeks and Romans strive who shall be the greatest and both they and many others Sects are condemning unchurching and reproaching one another § 31. 9. The undisciplined Churches and wicked lives of the greatest part of professed Christians especially in the Greek and Latine Churches is a great confirmation of Infidels in their unbelief § 32. 10. And it tempteth many to Apostasie to observe the scandalous errors and miscarriages of many who seemed more godly than the rest § 33. 11. It is an impediment to Christianity that the richest and greatest the learned and the far greatest number in the World have been still against it § 34. 12. The custom of the Countrey and Tradition of their Fathers and the reasonings and cavils of men that have both ability and opportunity and advantage doth bear down the truth in the Countreys while Infidels prevail § 35. 13. The Tyranny of cruel persecuting Princes in the Mahometane and Heathen parts of the World is the grand Impediment to the progress of Christianity by keeping away the means of knowledge And of this the Roman party of Christians hath given them an incouraging example dealing more cruelly with their fellow-Christians than the Turks and some Heathen Princes do So that Tyranny is the great sin which keepeth out the Gospel from most parts of the Earth § 36. III But no Impediments of Faith are so great as those within us As 1. the natural strangeness of all corrupted mindes to God and their blindeness in all spiritual things § 37. 2. Most persons in the World have weak injudicious unfurnished heads wanting the common natural preparatives to Faith not able to see the force of a reason in things beyond the reach of sense § 38. 3. The carnal minde is enmity against the Holiness of Christianity and therefore will still oppose the receiving of its principles § 39. 4. By the advantages of Nature Education Custom and Company men are early possest with prejudices and false conceits against a life of Faith and Holiness which keep out reforming truths § 40. 5. It is very natural to incorporated Souls to desire a sensible way of satisfaction and to take up with things present and seen and to be little affected with things unseen and above our senses § 41. 6 Our strangeness to the Language Idiomes Proverbial speeches then used doth disadvantage us as to the understanding of the Scriptures § 42. 7. So doth our strangeness to the Places and Customs of the Countrey and many other matters of fact § 43. 8. Our distance from those Ages doth make it necessary that matters of fact be received by humane report and Historical Evidence And too few are well acquainted with such History § 44. 9. Most men do forfeit the helps of Grace by wilfull sinning and make Atheism and Infidelity seem to be desireable to their carnal Interest and so are willing to be deceived and forsaking God they are forsaken of him flying from the Light and overcoming Truth and debauching Conscience and disabling Reason for their sensual delights § 45. 10. Those men that have most need of means and help are so averse and lazy that they will not be at the pains and patience to read and conferre and consider and pray and use the means which is needfull to their information but settle their judgement by slight and slothfull thoughts § 46. 11. Yet are the same men proud and self-conceited and unacquainted with the weakness of their own understandings and pass a quick and confident judgement on things which they never understood It being natural to men to judge according to what they do actually apprehend and not according to what they should
Benignitas a quibus omnia procedunt in quibus omnia subsistunt per quae omnia reguntur Pater est Potentia Filius Sapientia Sparitus sanctus Benignitas Potentia creat Sapientia gubernat â— Benignitas conservat Potentia per Benignitatem sapienter creat Sapientia per potentiam benignè gubernat Benignitas per sapientiam potenter conservat Sicut Imago in speculo cernitur sic in ratione animae Huic similitudini Dei approximat homo cui Potentia Dei dat Bonum posse sapientia tribuit scire Benignitas praeâ—tat velle Haec triplex Animae rationalis vis est scil Posse Scire Velle quae supradictis tribus fidei spei charitati cooperantur c. Read more in the Author and in Raimundus Lullius and among latter Writers in Campanella Raymundus de sabundis c. as I said before He that will give you a scheme of Divinity in the true method will but shew you how all God's Works and Laws flow from these Three Essentialities or Principles and the three great Relations founded in them His being our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And how all our duty is branch'd out accordingly in our correlations He will shew you the Trinity of Graces Faith Hope and Love and the three summary Rules the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue and in a word would shew you that the Trinity revealeth it self through the whole frame of true Theology or Morality But who is able to discern it in the smaller and innumerable branches Yea if ever it were to be hoped that our Physicks should be brought into the light of certainty and true method you would see Vnity in Trinity in all things in the world You would see that in the Sun and the other Celestial Luminaries which are the glorious Images of the Intellectual world in the Vnity of their Essence there is a Moving Illuminating and Heating Power and that no one of these is formally the other nor is any one of them a Part of the Sun or other Luminary much less a meer accident of quality but an Essential Active Principle or Power the whole Luminary being essentially a Principle of Motion Light and Heat which are not accidents in them but Acts flowing immediately from their Essential Powers as Intellection and Volition from the Soul I shall now say no more of this but profess that the discovery of the emanations or products of the Trinity and the Image and Vestigia of it in the course of Nature and Method of Morality doth much increase my reverence to the Christian Doctrine so far is the Trinity from being to me a stumbling-block Object But what are such Trinities in Vnity as these to the Trinity of Persons in the Deity such weak arguments will but increase incredulity Will you pretend to prove the Trinity by natural reason or would you perswade us that it is but three of God's Attributes or our inadequate conceptions of him Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa Ergo No creature can reveal to us the Trinity Answ 1. It is one thing to prove the Sacred Trinity of Persons by such reason or to undertake fully to open the mystery and it is another thing to prove that the Doctrine is neither incredible nor unlikely to be true and that it implieth no contradiction or discordancy but rather seemeth very congruous both to the frame of nature and of certain moral verities This only is my task against the Infidel 2. It is one thing to shew in the creatures a clear demonstration of this Trinity of Persons by shewing an effect that fully answereth it and another thing to shew such vestigia adumbration or image of it as hath those dissimilitudes which must be allowed in any created image of God This is it which I am to do 3. He that confoundeth the Attributes of God and distinguisheth not those which express these three Essential Primalities or Active Principles to which our faculties are analogous from the rest or that thinketh that we should cast by this distinction under the name of an inadequate conception so far as we can imagine these Principles to be the same and that there is not truly in the Deity a sufficient ground for this distinction is not the man that I am willing now to debate this cause with I have done that sufficiently before Whether the distinction be real formal or denominative the Thomists Scotists and Nominals have disputed more than enough But even the Nominals say that there is a sufficient ground for the denomination which some call Virtual and some Relative And they that dispute of the distinction of Persons do accordingly differ calling it either Relative Virtual Formal or Modal or ratione ratiocinata as they imagine best And they that differ about these do accordingly differ about the difference of the faculties of our souls For my part I see not the least reason to doubt but that the Trinity of Divine Primalities Principles and Perfections hath made its impress on man's soul in its three parts viz. the Natural the Moral and the Dominative parts in the first we have an Active Power an Intellect and Free-will In the second Fortitude or holy promptitude and strength Wisdom and Goodness or Love In the third we are to the inferiour creatures their Owners Rulers and Benefactors or End and what ever you will call our faculties and their moral perfections it is undoubted that in God his Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness are his Essence and yet as much distinct as is aforesaid And what mortal man is able to say whether the distinction of Persons be either greater or less than this And remember that as I speak of Motion Light and Heat both as in the faculties of the Sun as I may call them and in the Acts or Emanations and of the Power Intellect and Will of man both as in the Faculties and Acts so do I here of the Divine Primalities yet so as supposing that in God who is called a Pure Act there is not such a difference between Power and Act as there is in man or other creatures 4. No man I think is able to prove that the works of the Trinity ad extra are any more undivided than the works of the three Essential Active Principles they are so undivided as that yet the work of Creation is eminently or most notably ascribed to the Father as is also the sending of the Son into the world the forgiving of sin for his sake c. and the work of Redemption to the Son and the work of Sanctification to the holy Ghost We shall be as loth to say that the Father or holy Ghost was incarnate for us or died for us or mediates for us as that the Power or Love of God doth the works which belong to his Wisdom And the Essential Wisdom and Love of God are no more communicable to man than the Son and holy Spirit who are said to be given to us
and to dwell within us The Scripture often calleth Christ the Wisdom of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both the Ratio Oratio the Internal and Expressed or Incarnate Word And he that understandeth that by the holy Ghost which is said in Scripture to be given to believers is meant the habitual or prevalent LOVE to GOD will better understand how the holy Ghost is said to be given to them that already have so much of it as to cause them to believe Abundance of Hereticks have troubled the Church with their self-devised opinions about the Trinity and the Person and Natures of Christ and I am loth to say how much many of the Orthodox have troubled it also with their self-conceited misguided uncharitable zeal against those whom they judged Hereticks The present divisions between the Roman Church the Greeks the Armenians Syrians Copties and Ethiopians is too sad a proof of this and the long contention between the Greeks and Latins about the terms Hypostasis and Persona 5. And I would advise the Reader to be none of those that shall charge with Heresie all those School-men and late Divines both Papists and Protestants who say that the Three Persons are Deus seipsum intelligens Deus à seipso intellectus Deus à seipso amatus though I am not one that say as they nor yet those holy men whom I have here cited Potho Prumensis Edmundus Archiepisc Cantuariensis Parisiensis and many others who expresly say that Potentia Sapientia Amor are the Father Son and holy Ghost 6. But for my own part as I unfeignedly account the doctrine of the Trinity the very summ and kernel of the Christian Religion as exprest in our Baptism and Athanasius his Creed the best explication of it that ever I read so I think it very unmeet in these tremendous mysteries to go further than we have God's own light to guide us And it is none of my purpose at all to joyn with either of the two fore-mentioned parties nor to assert that the mysterie of the blessed Trinity of Hypostases or Persons is no other than this uncontroverted Trinity of Essential Principles All that I endeavour is but as aforesaid to shew that this Doctrine is neither contradictory incredible nor unlikely by shewing the vestigia or Image of it and that which is as liable to exception and yet of unquestionable truth And if the three Hypostases be not the same with the Trinity of Principles aforesaid yet no man can give a sufficient reason why Three in One should not be truly credible and probable in the one instance when common natural reason is fully satisfied of it in the other He must better understand the difference between a Person and such an Essential Principle in Divinis than any mortal man doth who will undertake to prove from the Title of a Person that one is incredible or unlikely when the other is so clear and sure or rather he understandeth it not at all that so imagineth For my part I again from my heart profess that the Image or Vestigia of Trinity in Unity through the most notable parts of Nature and Morality do increase my estimation of the Christian Religion because of the admirable congruity and harmony Object II. But who is able to believe the Incarnation and Hypostatical Vnion If you should read that a Kings Son in compassion to poor flies or fleas or lice had himself become a flie or flea or louse had it been in his power to save their lives would you have thought it credible And yet the condescension had been nothing to this as being but of a creature to a creature Answ This is indeed the greatest difficulty of faith but if you do not mistake the matter you will find it also the greatest excellency of faith 1. Therefore you must take heed of making it difficult by your own errour think not that the Godhead was turned into man as you talk of a man becoming a flie nor yet that there was the least real change upon the Deity by this incarnation nor the least real abasement dishonour loss injury or suffering to it thereby For all these are not to be called difficulties but impossibilities and blasphemies There is no abatement of any of the Divine Perfections by it nor no confinement of the Essence but as the soul of man doth animate the body so the Eternal Word doth as it were animate the whole humane Nature of Christ As Athanasius saith As the reasonable soul and humane flesh do make one man so God and Man are one Christ and that without any coarctation limitation or restriction of the Deity 2. And this should be no strange Doctrine nor incredible to most of the Philosophers of the world who have one part of them taught that God is the Soul of the world and that the whole Universe is thus animated by him and another part that he is the Soul of Souls or Intelligences animating them as they do bodies That therefore which they affirm of all cannot by them be thought incredible of one And it is little less if any thing at all which the Peripateticks themselves have taught of the assistant Forms Intelligences which move the Orbs and of the Agent Intellect in man and some of them of the universal soul in all men And what all their vulgar people have thought of the Deifying of Heroes and other men it is needless to recite Julian himself believed the like of Aesculapius None of these Philosophers then have any reason to stumble at this which is but agreeable to their own opinions And indeed the opinion that God is the Soul of souls or of the Intellectual world hath that in it which may be a strong temptation to the wisest to imagine it Though indeed he is no constitutive form of any of those creatures but to be their Creator and total efficient is much more What Union it is which we call Hypostatical we do not fully understand our selves but we are sure that it is such as no more abaseth the Deity than its concourse with the Sun in its efficiencies Object But what kin are these assertions of Philosophers to yours of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Wisdom of God Answ What was it but an Incarnation of a Deity which they affirmed of Aesculapius and such others And they that thought God to be the Soul of the world thought that the world was as much animated with the Deity as we affirm the humane Nature of Christ to have been yea for ought I see whilst they thought that this soul was parcelled out to every individual and that Matter only did pro tempore individuate they made every man to be God incarnate And can they believe that it is so with every man and yet think it incredible in Christianity that our humane Nature is personally united to the Divine I think in this they contradict themselves 3. And it is
are taught to believe that sense is not deceived about the Accidents which they call the Species but about the Substance only when most of the simple people by the species do understand the Bread and Wine it self which they think is to the invisible body of Christ like as our bodies or the body of a Plant is to the soul So that although this instance be one of the greatest in the world of infatuation by humane authority and words it is nothing against the Christian verity Object V. You are not yet agreed among your selves what Christianity is as to the matter of Rule the Papists say it is all the Decrees de fide at least in all General Councils together with the Scriptures Canonical and Apocriphal The Protestants take up with the Canonical Scriptures alone and have not near so much in their Faith or Religion as the Papists have Answ What it is to be a Christian all the world may easily perceive in that solemn Sacrament Covenant or Vow in which they are solemnly entred into the Church and profession of Christianity and made Christians And the antient Creed doth tell the world what hath always been the faith which was professed And those sacred Scriptures which the Churches did receive doth tell the world what they took for the entire comprehension of their Religion But if any Sects have been since tempted to any additions enlargements or corruptions it s nothing to the disparagement of Christ who never promised that no man should ever abuse his Word and that he would keep all the world from adding or corrupting it Receive but so much as the doctrine of Christ which hath certain proof that it was indeed his delivered by himself or his inspired Apostles and we desire no more Object VI. But you are not agreed of the reasons and resolution of your faith one resolveth it into the authority of the Church and others into a private spirit and each one seemeth sufficiently to prove the groundlesness of the others faith Answ Dark minded men do suffer themselves to be fooled with a noise of words not-understood Do you know what is meant by the resolution and grounds of faith Faith is the believing of a conclusion which hath two premises to infer and prove it and there must be more argumentation for the proof of such premises and faith in its several respects and dependances may be said to be resolved into more things than one even into every one of these This general and ambiguous word Resolution is used oft'ner to puzzle than resolve And the grounds and reasons of faith are more than one and what they are I have fully opened to you in this Treatise A great many of dreaming wranglers contend about the Logical names of the Objectum quod quo ad quod the objectum formale materiale per se per accidens primarium secundarium ratio formalis quae qua sub qua objectum univocationis communitatis perfectionis originis virtutis adaequationis c. the motiva fidei resolutio and many such words which are not wholly useless but are commonly used but to make a noise to carry men from the sense and to make men believe that the controversie is de re which is meerly de nomine Every true Christian hath some solid reason for his faith but every one is not learned and accurate enough to see the true order of its causes and evidences and to analize it throughly as he ought And you will take it for no disproof of Euclid or Aristotle that all that read them do not sufficiently understand all their Demonstrations but disagree in many things among themselves Object VII You make it a ridiculous Idolatry to worship the Sun and Jupiter and Venus and other Planets and Stars which in all probability are animate and have souls as much nobler than ours as their bodies are for it 's like God's works are done in proportion and harmony and so they seem to be to us as subordinate Deities And yet at the same time you will worship your Virgin Mary and the very image of Christ yea the Image of the Cross which he was hang'd on and the salita capita and rotten bones of your Martyrs to the dishonour of Princes who put them to death as malefactors Is not the Sun more worthy of honour than these Answ 1. We ever granted to an Eunapius Julian Porphyry or Celsus that the Sun and all the Stars and Planets are to be honoured according to their proper excellency and use that is to be esteemed as the most glorious of all the visible works of God which shew to us his Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness and are used as his instruments to convey to us his chief corporal mercies and on whom under God our bodies are dependant being incomparably less excellent than theirs But whether they are animated or no is to us utterly uncertain and if we were sure they were yet we are sure that they are the products of the Will of the Eternal Being And he that made both them and us is the Governour of them and us and therefore as long as he hath no way taught us to call them Gods nor to pray to them nor offer them any sacrifice as being uncertain whether they understand what we do or say nor hath any way revealed that this is his will nay and hath expresly forbidden us to do so Reason forbiddeth us to do any more than honourably to esteem and praise them as they are and use them to the ends which our Creator hath appointed 2. And for the Martyrs and the Virgin Mary we do no otherwise by them we honour them by estimation love and praise agreeable to all the worth which God hath bestowed on them and the holiness of humane souls which is his image is more intelligible to us and so more distinctly amiable than the form of the Sun and Planets is But we pray not to them because we know not whether they hear us or know when we are sincere or hypocritical nor have we any such precepts from our common Lord. It is but some ignorant mistaken Christians who pray to the dead or give more than due veneration to their memories And it is Christ and not every ignorant Christian or mistaken Sect that I am justifying against the cavils of unbelief Object VIII You make the holiness of Christian doctrine a great part of the evidence of your faith and yet Papists and Protestants maintain each others doctrine to be wicked and such especially against Kings and Government as Seneca or Cicero or Plutarch would have abhorred The Protestants tell the Papists of the General Council at the Lateran sub Innoc. 3. where Can. 3. it is made a very part of their Religion That temporal Lords who exterminate not Hereticks may be admonished and excommunicated and their Dominions given by the Pope to others and subjects disobliged from their allegiance
even so the bruitish grossness of the Somatists driveth some Philosophers into Platonick dreams and the Platonick fictions harden the Epicureans in a far worser way Lactantius de ira Dei cap. 13. thinks that Epicurus was moved to his opinion against Providence by seeing the hurt that good men and Religious endure from the woâ—ser sort here in this world But why should you run out on one side the way because other men run out on the other why do you not rather argue from the doctrine in the sober mean that it is true than from the extreams that the truth is falshood When reason will allow you to conclude no more than that those extremes are falshood But surely I had rather hold Plato's Anima mundi or Aristotle's Intellectus agens and his moving Intelligences than Epicurus his Atoms and motion only And I had rather think with Alexander Arphad that omnis actio corporis est ab incorporeo principio yea or the Stoicks doctrine of Intellectual Fire doing all than Gassendus his doctrine that no incorporeal thing can move a corporeal or that Atoms and their motion only do all that we find done in nature When I look over and about me I find it a thing quite past my power to think that the glorious parts above us are not replenished with much nobler creatures than we And therefore if the Platonists and the ancient Platonick Fathers of the Church did all think that they lived in communion with Angels and had much to do with them and that the superiour intelligences were a nobler part of their studies than meer bodies they shall have the full approbation of my reason in this though I would not run with them into any of their presumptions and uncertain or unsound conceits Saith Aeneas Gazaeus pag. 778. when he had told us that Plato Pythagoras Plotinus and Numenius were for the passing of men's souls into bruits but Porphyry and Jamblichus were against it and thought that they passed only into men Ego quidem hac ipsa de causa filium aut famulum ob id quod commiserint peccatum puniens antequam de ipsis supplicium sumam praemoneo ut meminerint ne posthac unquam in eadem mala recurrant Deus autem quando ultima supplicia decernit non edocet eos qui poenarum causas sed scelerum memoriam omnem tollet vide pag. 382. For this reason and many others we assume not their conceit of the soul's pre-existence and think all such unproved fancies to be but snares to trouble the world with We think not that God punisheth men for sin in another world while he totally obliterateth the memory of the other world and of their sin When he hath told us that In Adam all die and By one mans disobedience many are made sinners and so condemnation passed upon all Rom. 5. Nor will we with Origen thus tempt men to look for more such changes hereafter which we can give them no proof of Nor will we distribute the Angelical Hierarchy into all the degrees which the pseudo-Dionysius doth nor with the Gnosticks Basilidians Saturninians Valentinians and abundance of those antient Hereticks corrupt Christianity with the mixture of fanatick dreams about the unrevealed Powers and worlds above us either worshipping Angels or prying into those things which he hath not seen and are not revealed vainly puft up by his fleshly mind or without cause puffed up by the imagination of his own flesh as Dr. Hammond translateth it Col. 2.18 Nor will we make a Religion with Paracelsus Behmen the Rosicrucians or the rest described by Christ Beckman Exercit. of the Philosophical whimsies of an over-stretch'd imagination And yet we will not reject the saying of Athenagoras Apol. pag. 57. Magnum numerum Angelorum Ministrorum Dei esse fatemur quos opifex architectus mundi Deus Verbo suo tanquam in classes ordinavit centuriavitque ut elementa coelos mundum quae in mundo sunt vicesque ordinem omnium moderarent Though we may adde with Junilius Africanus that Whether the Angels meddle with the government of the world of stablished creatures is a difficult question OBJECTION XIX IF the soul do continue individuate yet its actings will not be such as they are now in the body because they have not spirits to act by And as Gassendus thinketh that the reason of oblivion in old men is the wearing out of the vestigia of the former spirits by the continual flux or transition of matter so we may conceive that all memory will cease to separated souls on the same account and therefore they will be unfit for Rewards or Punishments as not remembring the cause Answ 1. Iâ— Gassendus his opinion were true men should forget all things once a year if not once a month considering how many pounds of matter are spent every 24 hours And why then do we better when we are old remember the things which we did between nine or ten years old and twenty than most of the later passages of our lives as I do for my part very sensibly 2. What is mans memory for with bruits we meddle not but scientia praeteritorum Is not remembring a knowing of things past surely we may perceive that it is and that it is of the same kind of action with the knowing of things present And therefore we may make not memory a third faculty because it is the same with the understanding 3. We have little reason to think that the surviving soul will lose any of its essential powers and grow by its change not only impotent but another thing Therefore it will be still an intelligent power And though remote actions and effects such as writing fighting c. are done by instruments which being removed we cannot do them without yet essential acts are nothing so which flow immediately from the essence of the agent as light heat and motion of the fire If there be but due objects these will be performed without such instruments Nor will the Creator who continueth at an active intelligent power continue it so in vain by denying it necessaries for its operations There is like to be much difference in many respects between the soul's actings here and hereafter but the acts flowing from its essence immediately as knowledge volition complacency called Love and Displacencie c. will be the same How far the soul here doth act without any idea or instrument I have spoken before And the manner of our acting hereafter no man doth now fully understand But that which is essentially an intellectual volitive power will not be idle in its active essence for want of a body to be its instrument If we may so far ascribe to God himself such Affections or Passions as the ingenious Mr. Samuel Parker in his Teutam Phil. l. 2. c. 8. p. 333 c. hath notably opened we have no reason to think that scientia praeteritorum is not to be ascribed
them that the Cure had been to have made them more Religious and not less And that the true Belief of a Life to come is the end the motive the poise of all wise and regular actions and of Love and Peace of right Government and obedience and of justice mercy and all that is lovely in the world An OBJECTION about the Worlds Eternity HAving said thus much about the point which I thought most considerable I shall answer an Objection about the Worlds Eternity because I perceive that it sticks with some Obj. We finde it the harder to believe the Scripture and the Christian Doctrine because it asserteth a thing which Aristotle hath evinced to be so improbable as is the Creation of the World within less than 6000 years When no natural reason can be brought to prove that the World is not eternall Answ 1. It is you that are the affirmers and therefore on whom the natural proof is incumbent Prove if you can that the World is eternal Were it not tedious I should by examining your reasons shew that they have no convincing force at all 2. There is so much written of it that I am loth to trouble the Reader with more I now only again referre the Reader to Raymundus Lullius desiring him not to reject his arguments if some of them seem not cogent seeing if any one of all his multitude prove such it is enough 3. I now only desire that the Controversie between the Christian and the Infidel may be but rightly stated And to that end do not charge Christianity with any School-mans or other confident persons private opinions nor suppose Christ or Scripture to determine any thing which they do not determine 1. Christianity and Scripture do not at all determine whether the whole Universe was created at the same time when this our Heaven and Earth was But only that the Systeme or World which we belong to the Sun and Moon and Starrs and Earth were then created Nay a great part of the ancient Doctors and of the most learned late Expositors on Gen. 1. do expound the Heavens which God is said to create as being only the visible Heavens and not including the Angels at all And others say that by In the beginning is meant ab initio rerum and that the Heavens there meant being the Angelical Habitations and the Earth as without form were both ab initio rerum before the six dayes Creation which began with the making of Light out of the pre-existent Heavens or Chaos I think not this opinion true but this liberty Christian Doctors have taken of differing from one another in this difficult point But they utterly differ about the time of the creation of Angels on Gen. 1. and on Job 1. and consequently whether there were not a World existent when this World was created 2. Or if any that seeth more than I can prove the contrary yet it is certainly a thing undetermined by Scripture and in the Christian Faith whether there were any Worlds that had begun and ended before this was made That God is the maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible is most certain But whether this Heaven and Earth which now is was the first which he hath made is a thing that our Religion doth not at all meddle with They that with Origen affirm that there were antecedent worlds are justly blamed on one side not for speaking things false but things uncertain and unrevealed and for corrupting Christianity by a mixture of things alien and doubtfull And those who affirm that there were no antecedent worlds are as much culpable on the other side if not more on the same account and upon further reasons On the one side we know that God needeth nothing to his own felicity but is perfectly sufficient for himself and that he createth not the World ex necessitate naturae as an agent which acteth ad ultimum posse And on the other side we know that though he hath a Goodness of self-perfection unspeakably more excellent than his Benignity as Related to man not that one Property in God is to be said more excellent than another in it self but that quoad Relationem there is an infinite difference between his Goodness in Himself and his Goodness only as Related to his Creatures and measured by their interest yet we confess that his Fecundity and Benignity is included in his own Goodness and that he delighteth to do Good and is communicative and that he doth Good ex necessitate voluntaria ex naturae perfectione without coaction it being most necessary that he do that which his Infinite wisdom saith is best which made Th. White de Mundo say that God did necessarily make the World and necessarily make it in time and not ab aeterno and yet all this most voluntarily because he doth necessarily do that which is best in the judgement of his Wisdom And we deny not that if a man will presume to give liberty to his Reason to search into unrevealed things that it will seem to him very improbable that he who is Actus purus of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and who now taketh pleasure in all his works and his delights are with the Sons of men should from all Eternity produce no Creature till less than 6000 years ago when a thousand years with him are but as a day and that he should resolve to have Creatures to all Eternity who as to future duration shall be so like to Himself when from all Eternity he had no Creature till as it were five or six dayes agoe Christians are apt to have such thoughts as these as well as you when they look but to rational probabilities But they hold that all these matters whether there were antecedent worlds and how many and of what sort and of what duration whether this was the first are matters unrevealed which they ought not to trouble the world or themselves with prying into or contending about And they finde that they are unfruitfull speculations which do but overwhelme the minde of him that searcheth after them when God hath provided for us in the Christian Faith more plain and sure and solid and wholsom food to live upon 3. And if it be unrevealed in Scripture whether before this there was any other World we must confess it unrevealed whether there were any emanant or created Entity which God did produce from all Eternity considered quoad durationem only For the Scripture saith no more of one than of the other And if there were one moment dividing Eternity only imaginarily in which there had been nothing but God we must equally confess an Eternity in which there was nothing but God because Eternity hath no beginning 4. But Christianity assureth us of these two things 1. That certainly there is no Being besides God but what was created produced or totally caused by Him And that if any Creature were eternal as to
require it or as if all our Pastors and Teachers were not to be so useful to us as a sign-post nor we were not to learn of them or of our Parents any thing that God either by nature or Scripture ever taught us or as if a child or subject who is required to learn the meaning of his Ruler's Laws to judge of them judicio privatae discretionis were thereby allowed to mis-understand them and to say that they command us that which they forbid us and because the King forbiddeth us to murder he alloweth us to say You proposed it to my understanding and I understand it that you bid me murder and therefore you may not punish me As if he that is bound to judge by a bare discerning what is commanded him and what forbidden were allowed to judge in partem utramlibet that it is or it is not as please himself As if when the King hath printed his Statutes he had forfeited all his authority by so doing and his subjects might say Why do you punish us for disobeying your Laws when you promulgated them to us as rational creatures to discern their sense Will it profit the world to write confutations of such stuff as this or must a man that is not condemned to Stage-playing or Ballad-making thus waste his time Do the people need to be saved from such stuff as this If so what remedy but to pity them and say Quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat si populus vult decipi decipiatur And yet to do no more wrong to the Scriptures than to Councils and Bulls and Statutes and Testaments and Deeds and Bonds he concludeth Of all writings whatsoever that by the meer words of the writer you cannot be certain of his sense though they be common words and you take them in the common sense So that if any doubt arise about my words if I resolve it by writing I cannot be understood but if I spake the same syllables by word of mouth it would serve the turn As if no man could be sure of the sense of any Law or Testament or Bond or Covenant which is committed to writing nor of any exposition of them if once it fall under Pen or Press As if God's writing the Ten Commandments had left them unintelligible in comparison of his speaking them Then farewell all Historical certainty Hath every single Priest himself any assurance of the sense of the Council the Canons the Popes Decreetals and Bulls but by the way of writing And so the poor people must instead of the Church believe only that Priest that orally speaketh to them though he have no certainty of the matter himself If this doctrine be made good once it will spoil the Printers trade and the Clarks and Courts of Record and the Post-Office too But page 51. he maketh the consent of the universal Church to be the only sure communication of Christian Doctrine in the Articles of Faith yea the consent of the present age concerning the former But how the consent of the whole Church shall be certainly known to every man and woman when no writing can certainly make known any mans mind is hard to tell a man that expecteth reason And that you may see how much the subject of this Treatise is concerned in such discourses he addeth that If the Church had at any time been small its testimony had been doubtful but saith he it testifieth of it self that Christians were never few and therefore it is to be believed But we will have no such prevaricating defences of Christianity The major is the Infidels erroneous cavil the minor is a false defence of the faith The Church never said that Christians were never few it hath ever confessed the contrary that once they were few and yet it hath proved against the Infidel that its testimony was not doubtful having better evidence of their veracity than numbers You may perceive by these strictures upon this one discourse what an endless task it would be to write confutations of every man that hath leisure to publish to the world his opinions which are injurious to the Christian verity And therefore no sober Reader will expect that I or he must be so tired before he can be satisfied and setled in the Truth FINIS Non tam authoritatis in disputando quà m Rationis momenta quaerenda sunt Cicer. de Nat. Deor. 1. p. 6. Animo ipso animus videtur nimirum hanc habet vim praeceptum Apollinis quo monet UT SE quisque NOSCAT Non enim credo id praecipit ut membra nostra aut staturam figurámve noscamus Neque nos corpora sumus 〈◊〉 neque ego tibi dicens hoc CORPORI tuo dico Cum igitur NOSCE TE dicit hoc dicit NOSCE ANIMUM TUUM Nam corpus quidem quasi vas est aut aliquod animi receptaculum ab ANIMO tuo quicquid agitur id agitur à te Hunc igitur nosce nisi Divinum esset non esset hoc acrioris cujusdam animi praeceptum sic ut tributum Deo sit hoc est SEIPSUM posse cognoscere sed fi qualis sit animus ipse animus nesciat dic quaeso ne esse quidem se sciet Cicero Tuscul Quast l. 1. pag. mihi 226 227. Patet aeternum id esse quod seipsum movet quis est qui hanc naturam animis tributam neget Inanimum est enim omne quod pulsu agitatur externo Sentit igitur animus se moveri Quod cum sentit illud una sentit se vi suâ non aliena moveri nec accidere posse ut ipse unquam à se deseratur ex quo efficitur aeternitas Id. ibid. Obj. Age ostende mihi Deum tuum Resp Age ostende mihi hominem tuum fac te hominem esse cognoscam quis meus sit Deus demonstrare non morabor Theophil Antioch ad Autolycum lib. 1. initio Cum despicere coeperimus sentire quid simus quid ab animantibus caeteris differamus tum ea insequi incipiemus ad quae nati sumus Cicer. 5. de fin Qui seipsum cognoverit cognoscet in se omnia Deum ad cujus imaginem factus est Mundum cujus simulachrum gerit Creaturas omnes cum quibus symbolum habet Paulus Dom. de Scala Thess pag. 722. Ut Deum noris si ignores locum faciem sic animum tibi tuum notum esse oportet etiamsi ignores locum formam Cicer. 1. Tuscul Non ii sumus quibus nihil verum esse videatur sed ii qui omnibus veris falsa quaedam adjuncta esse dicamus tanta similitudine ut c. Cicer. de Nat. Deor. 1. p. 7. Lege Pisonis dicta de mente corpore in Cicer. de finib l. 5. p. 189. Omnes ad id quod Bonum videtur omnes suas actiones referunt Aristot de Republ. 1. c. 1. In homine optimum quidem Ratio Haec antecedit