irrationality Secondly Let us compare the fallibility of Reason with the infallibility of Scripture When the Papists lift up the Pope as supream judge in matters of Religion it is a sufficient answer to tell them the first Clement held the Platonical community of all things even of wives Marcellinus sacrificed to Idols Liberius subscribed to Arianism Innocent the first taught that little ones could not be saved without the Eucharist Vigilius was an Eutychian Honorius a Monothelite Hildebrand a brand of hell and impiously diabolical John the 23th was accused in the Council of Constance of this opinion That the souls of men dye with their bodies even as the souls of brutes and should such be judges in matters of Religion When the Socinian by subjecting articles of Faith unto Reason makes not one but as many Popes as men we need say no more to him but humanum est errare reason is a fallible thing The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of heretiques Platonical Philosophy in the Fathers and Aristotelical in the Schoolmen hath much debased the truths of God saith a great Divine All the errors and heresies which have swarmed abroad in all ages have been the progeny of corrupt Reason upon this the devil begets all the black monstrous opinions which crawl within doors in the Church or without in the Pagan world And should such a thing as this come and sit in judgment on the pure words of God which are surer then the voice of Angels and stand faster then the pillars of heaven and earth which in so many successions of Ages never contracted the least speck of falshood or shed a leaf in the fall of the least tittle or iota thereof Surely when reason thus forgets it self and its own fallibility it degrades it self and becomes unreasonable Thus far of the irrationality of the Socinian faith But Secondly The nullity of it is considerable it is a nullity in its foundation and at last it proves a nullity in the consequence It is a nullity in its foundation the Socinian believes the Scriptures not as a divine testimony but as congruous to reason and so trusts not in God but in himself and his own heart Thus Socinus expresses himself Non generalem comprobandi rationem quaerimus quod eam qui dixit ejusmodi esse appareat ut nullâ in re mentiri posset sed singularem quandam quâ id nominatim quod comprobandum est per causas effecia propria ita se babere demonstratur adeò ut non modò quia Deum ipsum dixisse appareat id verum esse constet sed etiam quia verum esse appareat id Deum dixisse nobis certò persuadeamus Qaomodo poterat clariùs prodere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suam saith a Learned man how could he more clearly betray his infidelity he would not have us only believe a thing true because God says so but believe also that God says so because it appears true to our own reason where this is the foundation faith is a meer nullity and that which is a nullity in the foundation at last proves a nullity in the consequence Reason corrupting it self in its own pride casts away the found principles of the Gospel and these being gone putrifies in abominable errors like Herod assuming a Deity to himself it is spiritually smitten of God and eaten up of worms I mean those errors which are but the putrefactions of reason How do the Socinians Paganize in worshipping a creature a Christ whom they deny to be God Mahometize in denying the sacred Trinity Judaize in standing for an interpreting Messiah only and not a satisfying one Manicheize in undervaluing the old Testament Arianize in denying the Deity of Christ Pelagianize in denying original sin Anabaptize in denying baptism to infants how do some of them Divelaze in horrid blasphemies calling the sacred Trinity tricipitem Cerberum and to those who assert Jesus Christ to be Gods son asking An Deus habuit uxorem Whether God had a wise and such like hellish stuff in which much of the devil appears After all this fearful shipwiack of faith what remains too too little to denominate them Christians Ignatius called the Ebionites because they denied Christs Deity men-worshippers the antiont Church styled the Samosatenians upon the same account God-killers and a great Divine passed this censure on the Socinians that they were a company of baptized Turks indeed their corrupted reason dissolves their faith into little or nothing Fifthly This belief must be such as owns the holy Scriptures for the rule of faith To the Law and to the testimony saith the Prophet If they speak not according to this word it is because here is no light in them Isa 8.20 As soon as the morning of faith breaks in the heart the word is owned as the rule Enthusiasts going oft from the Scriptures take the spirit for their rule Swenckfield was altogether for the spirit and the internal word and little or nothing at all for the external Henry Nicholas boasting of the holy anointing looked on the Scripture as a literal fleshly elementish thing John Valdesso saith that Christians may at first serve themselves with Scripture as an Alphabet but afterwards leaving it to beginners they attend to their proper Master the spirit of God Others say the Scripture is but a dead letter a thing of paper and ink and we must not try the living by the dead the holy spirit by the Scripture Such as these bragging of their own revelations call all other Christians Vocalists and Literalists because of their adherence to the Scriptures Mr. Saltmarsh makes three sphears of administration the Law or meer letter the Gospel which hath duty and grace in it and the spirit the pure spirit which is the third heaven higher then Scriptures and ordinances The Weigelians talk of a seculum Spiritus Sancti in which there shall be higher dispensations then before and we shall be wiser then Apostles The Quakers make the light within that is as I take it natural conscience the standard of all their actings All these though clothed in various words agree together to crucifie the Scriptures as if they had somewhat more noble Unto them I shall offer some considerations First The Apostles direction is Try the spirits whether they are of God 1 Joh. 4.1 in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 try them as Goldsmiths try metals by the touchstone or by the fire or as Magistrates question offenders or examine those that stand for an office use all manner of ways to find out whether the spirits be right or not upon this as a sufficient warrant I shall put some interrogatories to the Enthusiast Thou sayest the spirit of God is in thy heart and is it not in the Scriptures too and where-ever it is is it not congruous and harmonious to it self And what doth it say in the Scripture doth it not say that the Scripture is the rule To the Law and to the testimony
Chron. 20.12 we know not but thou knowest how to deliver there is nothing but confusion below but all is clear and serene in thy wise counsels there is no one way or method of deliverance in our reason but there are insinite millions of ways and methods with thee Such a faith as this made Luther in the troubles of the Church cry out That it was far otherwise concluded in heaven then at Norimberg and in the blackest tempest inspirits the believer to do as the Mariners in the Acts cast anchor and wish for the day roll himself on the wise God and wait for the dawning of comfort from him Thirdly Faith yields up the soul for instruction unto the word And here are three things considerable First Faith resigns to the word as a warrant for both the former resignations If you ask a believer why he presumes so far as to go to Christ and God for the teachings of the spirit his answer will be this I find in the word divers promises that we shall be taught of God that the spirit shall lead us into all truth that there is an holy annointing dropping from Christ which teacheth all things And all these promises are very true the counterpanes of Gods heart and exactly congruous to the grace there God speaks in them and without complement he speaks as he means therefore I resign up my soul unto Christ and God for instruction teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy commandements saith David Psal 119.66 where by commandements some Divines understand all the word including in it Promises as well as Commands however the believer hath a warrant to pray teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy promises of instruction Secondly Faith resigns to the word as a rich mine and treasury of knowledge there are pretious ous mysteries such as have the divine wisdom flowing in them Them Hungarians have a tradition that their golden Crown dropt down from heaven to be sure the mysteries in Scripture did so they are pure Revelations come down from God to be as golden Crowns on the head of Faith The window of the Ark was as some Rabbins say a pretious stone which gave light to all the creatures and indeed the Original which we translate window Gen. 6.16 imports a splendor or clear light Understanding is our window but the Scripture mysteries make it a window of pearl Humane learning is but painted glass but these make windows of agates such as are in the taught of God Isa 54.12 13. These are riches of understanding pearls and intellectual rubies fit to be laid up in the very middle and Center of the heart There the holy precepts and precious promises beauties of holiness and glories of grace lye open to the embraces of Faith There the invisible God whose dwelling is in light unapproachable and whose pure glory our eyes cannot look on may be seen in the reflex in the Scripture image and condescension In a word so rich are the veins of knowledge there that faith as a day-labourer is ever digging therein to draw out a stock of holy understanding from it Thirdly Faith resigns to the word as the only way in which a man may be taught of God All men are ambitïous of so grand a priviledge The very Gentiles in the puddle of their filthy Idolatries thought themselves taught of God in their Oracles The Mahometans think themselves more sure of it in their Alcoran at which say they the devils themselves rejoyced and turned to God no question they rejoyed at such a bundle of lies and blasphemies but that they turned to God is a wild delusion The Jews boast themselves no less in their Oral Law which say they God delivered over to Moses and Moses to Joshua and Joshua to the Elders and they to the Prophets and they to the Sanhedrim and they at last to writing in the Talmud calling it lux illa magna that great light which yet is but a dark labyrinth of errors and horrible falsities The Papists run to their traditions and unwritten verities as Divine and so bring in a load of fopperies and vain superstitions The Enthusiasts cry up the spirit in an extra-scriptural way and so turn aside from the main principles of Religion In such false ways do men lose themselves and the Divine teaching whilest the believer knows where to sind it even in the Scriptures in reading them he sits at Christs feet and every where looks for Maschil instruction from God In them is the Oracle the Vrim and Thummim by which God answers him here he opens his heart and spreads abroad all his sails to take in the gales of the holy spirit and be filled in all the will of God Col. 4.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filled with it as the sails are with the wind Whilest the Eunuch was reading the Prophet Esaias the spirit joined Philip to his chariot Act. 8.29 Whilest the believer hath his being in the Scriptures the spirit joyns himself to his heart and by the infusion of holy light makes him go on rejoycing in the way of knowledge Here and only here doth he wait to be taught of God such is and since the sealing up of the Canon ever hath been the way of knowledge And what of extraordinary dispensation hath been since hath either directly turned men to their Bibles Confess l. 8. c. 12. Melch. Adam in vità Zuinglii as the voice to St. Austin tolle lege tolle lege pointing him to the Scripture or else hath quoted or ratified some Scripture-truth Thus when it was objected to Zuinglius that the word est in Scripture-parables may be taken for significat but not in verbis coenae in the Sacramental phrases and his thoughts were busie about it an answer was suggested to him in a dream a monitor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 telling him Quin ignare respondes ei quod in Exodo legitur est enim phase hoc est transitus Domini in which there is nothing extra-scriptural but a Scripture-instance given for that which before was a Scripture-truth the Scripture is the only place where we can look for Divine teaching To conclude that of the Father is remarkable qui sacrâ non utitur Scripturâ sed ascendit aliunde non concessâ viâ fur est he that goes not into knowledge by Scripture is a thief the believer keeps the divine road Thus far of the first thing resignation for instruction in the ways of God Secondly Faith resigns up the soul to be pardoned and justisied before God unto justification and pardon there are three things prae-required First An act of free grace in God All men are naturally sinners and as such Gods holiness cannot but hate them Gods justice cannot but punish them wherefore free-grace stepped in and found out a way how God who cannot justifie the ungodliness might yet justifie the ungodly Rom. 4.5 and that in a way of compliance both with his
off from the Will and mountains of earthiness off from the Affections outward miracles in the Churches infancy followed believers for a while Mark 16.17 but inward miracles are ever found in them and no wonder for the exceeding greatness of Gods power is unto them that believe Eph. 1.19 Secondly This precious faith doth compleat the noblest instinct in man I mean that natural pulse which he hath after happiness All men would be happy but none ever hit upon it till faith came The Pagans by natural light have some knowledge of God the supream good but the only access to him is by faith The Philosophers whose profession was the study of wisdom and whose lamp of reason burned brighter then others were no better then the blind Sodomites unable to find the door of happiness De civitat Dei l. 19. c. 1. Hence as St. Austin relates out of Varro the Philosophers might be divided into two hundred eighty eight Sects about the chief good which faith can indubitably immediately point at Some Philosophers placed mans happiness in pleasures which yet are but the sad transformations of men into bruits Some in honours which yet are but great servitudes which made the Noble Charles the fift weep over his Son upon whose shoulders at his retire out of the world he left the burden of a Crown Some in riches which yet are but thorns choaking that precious seed of the word which would grow up if embraced into life eternal Others which were better marks-men in moral virtues yet even these as a learned man observes are but circa res humanas their sphear is but humane converse and they do not as faith elevate the soul into a conjunction with God which is the only true happiness When the Apostle in his Catalogue of graces which minister an entrance into the everlasting kingdom puts in temperance and patience 2 Pet. 1.6 he speaks of them as Graces not as meer moral virtues but as Christianized by Faith which in that place is set in the van But waving the Pagan world let us come to the Christian There the way of life is clearly manifested yet none void of faith ever trod a right step in it nay nor spiritually discerned it unto them that are without all things are in parables Mark 4.11 to the unbeliever though never so great a Scholar Christ and grace and heaven are but as it were in parables The Kohathites whose name as a learned man observes is derived from stupidity carried the holy things covered and so do all the unregenerate Rabbies in the Church till faith waken them out of the stupor of the fall they discern not spiritually the beatitude objectively exposed to view in the Gospel till faith draw off the vail from their hearts but as soon as that is done the way into the holy of Holies is manifest and passable and so the 〈◊〉 instinct after happiness receives a compleature Now this precious faith being precious in the least minim of it may be considered either in its first and lowest measure or in its fruits and glorious progresses In its first and lowest measure it is the very condition of the Gospel and puts a man by virtue thereof into a state of salvation whosoever believeth even with the least degree of precious faith shall be saved I shall therefore first treat of it according to the lowest measure which hath salvation entailed on it and then proceed to the progresses and fruits thereof and according to the lowest measure it may be thus described Precious Faith is a grace of the holy Spirit whereby the heart supernaturally illuminated doth so believe the testimony of God in the sacred Scriptures as in a way of trust or dependance to resign and yield up it self unto Jesus Christ as Mediator and in and through him unto God according to his word In general it is a grace of the holy Spirit in special there is in it first a supernatural illumination which is as the womb of the morning in which this child of light is conceived and then which is the first-born of that light there is a belief of the testimony of God and lastly which makes up the total sum of this grace there is a dependant yielding or resignation of the soul unto the Mediator and through him to God according to the word I shall in order treat of all these and so unsold the description at large The first thing is in generall faith is a grace of the holy Spirit The famous St. Austin once let drop a strange word It is said saith he God worketh all in all but not he believeth all in all therefore that we believe is our own but that we work good it is Gods who giveth the holy Spirit to believers but the good man soon called it back again Aug. Retract l. 1. c. 23. Profecâ—o non dicerem truly I should not have said it if I had then known faith to be the gift of God The Pelagians of old understood by grace only their own free-will and the Gospel-doctrine hence that impious saying of theirs refuted by St. Austin à Deo habemus quòd homines sumus à nobis ipsis quòd justi sumus faith with them was but the issue of their own free-will and it is no other with the Socinians Peccatum originis saith the Racovian Catechism nullum pâ—orsus est quare nec liberum arbitrium vitiare potuit there was not so much as a bruise of free-will in the fall we have a free power of our own to believe but what saith the Scripture Vnto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is gratuitously given to believe Phil. 1.29 and faith is called the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 because it is not from our own spirit and in express terms the grace of God Acts 11.23 it lodges in mans heart as a beam of that eternal grace which is in Gods and to make this clear I shall offer three things First This precious faith is a thing above the natural faculty of man There is in man a natural faith or believing faculty and the very Phiosophers would call for it from their Scholars but as it is in the fall of a house not this or that beam falls but all comes down at once so it was in the fall of man not this or that natural faculty fell but all together and among the rest the believing faculty fell also hence as it lyes in the dust and rubbish of the fall it centers in the creature and without the elevation of grace it can in no wise lift up it self to God and Christ We are begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 1.3 Observe there must be a touch from Christ in glory or else there will be no elevation Christ must first apprehend us Phil. 3.12 or else our believing faculty is but as a dead hand unable to apprehend him Secondly This precious faith is
preamble of faith Nay in the Apostle it is the first fundamental faith He that cometh to God must believe that he is Heb. 11.6 But you will say What need supernatural light for this Nature and Reason make this known and indeed they do so but so weakly as not to raise up any one faculty in fallen man unto God his Creator Never did natural light so shew a God as to raise up his love out of this vain world nor as to raise up his faith out of creature-confidences unto God Wherefore this first principle must be seen by a supernatural light which is indeed a middle kind of light between the light of glory above and the light of nature below It sees the invisible one not as the blessed Saints see him in the heavenly vision nor as the meer Naturalists see him by the glimmerings of reason but in a middle way of gracious illumination This our Saviour calls eternal life Joh. 17.3 heaven dawns in it and nature is illustrated by it Secondly As the first step of knowledge in order to faith is Deus est so the second is Deus verax God is true yea truth it self and the first archetypal truth his testimony is infallible and all his words Yea and Amen Unless this be known a man cannot believe him as a God the believer sets to his seal that God is true And if he did not know it his seal would be to a blank and though natural light reveal the truth and veracity of God yet as I said before weakly and therefore supernatural is required Thirdly The third step of knowledge in orâ—â—r to faith is Deus dixit seu revelavit God hath spoken or revealed himself in the Scriptures These are the very words and testimony of God himself If a man do know that God is and is true yet unless he know that God hath spoken in the word that there is his very testimony he cannot believe Should we ask a man why do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world it would be no rational answer for him to say I believe it because God is true No though God be the first infinite truth yet unless he speak and testifie so much it cannot be believed upon his testimony or authority the only satisfactory answer is this I believe it because God who is true hath spoken and revealed it It is necessary to faith to know the holy Scriptures to be the word and testimony of God that God speaks and reveals himself in them and this cannot be known without supernatural light To explain which I shall lay down two things First There are in the holy Scriptures certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks whereby it may be known that the Scriptures are the word and testimony of God Secondly These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks cannot be known without supernatural light First There are in the holy Scriptures certain marks or characters whereby they reveal themselves to be the very word of God even as the Sun manifests it self by its own light There is a Majesty in the stile what book or writing ever run in such a strain as thus saith the Lord where before it was there ever any universal Law made unto all mankind Kings and beggars without distinction who ever before commanded obedience upon pain of eternal torments in another world or allured obedience with promises of everlasting glory there The fiery Law carries an awe with it as if the thunders and lightnings of Sinai were not yet over And in the Gospel the kingdom of heaven approaches and opens it self to believers as it were in sparkles of glory Again there is a treasure of Divine mysteries touching the sacred Trinity Nature is mute but Scripture speaks out Reason is but a little child and cannot pass this infinite Abyss unless Faith in the word take him upon his back and carry him over Touching that Incarnation of the Son of God never any natural man dreamed or so much as started a thought of it but in Scripture this and all the train of mysteries in our Redemption break forth in their glory That book which hath such and the like mysteries infinitely transcending all the thoughts and reasons of man doth by them shew that it came out of the bosom of God himself Again there is an unparallel'd purity in it such as is no where else to be found This Sun hath no spots in it this Diamond hath no flaws in it there is nothing terrene or carnal in this heavenly piece as long as it hath stood in the world not a dust or a dreg can be found therein neither ever did or will it licence the least of erratas in man In its pure spiritualness it casts a chain upon the very thoughts and first motions of sin and traces up sin to the black nest of corruption in lapsed nature it calls for a pure heart made from heaven in regeneration and new-creation and the noblest births of Reason and Morality will not serve the turn Such things as these are not so much as named in the writings of the worlds Sophies Plato and Aristotle never arrived at such notions Moreover it hath a wonderful efficacy on the hearts of men it looks into the inmost closet and retiring room of the heart and like Christ it comes and stands in the midst of it when all the doors are shut by obstinacy and unbelief it awakens and alarums the sleeping sinner and makes such impressions and deep wounds in the conscience that it plainly appears no less then the arm of God was in it It Evangelizes the heart and turns it into its own nature that it may be a Temple for that spirit which breaths in the Gospel It comforts the heart and fills it with joy unspeakable and full of glory That place Rom. 1.17 was to Luther porta Paradisi the door of Paradice and that 1 Tim. 1.15 was a sea of sweetness to holy Bilney such activities as these are above the sphear of nature and speak no less then the divine extraction thereof Lastly to name no more the very plot and design of the Scriptures is transcendently divine all the holy lines run into that central divinity that God is to be exalted and man debased Oh! what manner of self-denial doth it call for how doth it labour to un-selve and as it were un-man us that God may be all in all There Reason as fair a Jewel as it is must vail its beauty in an acknowledgment of its own folly and yield up it self to be new lighted from heaven The Will as free an Empress as it is must lay by its Crown in a confession of its spiritual slavery and yield up it self to be made free by grace The Man must be no longer a man in himself but a man in Christ clothed in a better righteousness and acted by a higher spirit then his own And how doth it open the glory and blazon
the arms of God how admirably doth it set him forth in all his Attributes his eternity is the rock of ages his immutability an invariable and inconvertible Sun his righteousness like the great mountains his decrees and judgments a mighty deep his mercy a glory a mass of riches never to be told over his holiness as the pure unmixed light his justice as the devouring unquenchable fire In a word there all the glory of his Attributes pass before the believers eye such a book as this must needs be divine Secondly These marks or characters in Scripture cannot be known without supernatural light Meer reason receiveth them not like the child Samuel it hears a voice a sound of words but it knows not that it is the Lord insomuch that some have slighted the Scriptures Politianus said that he never spent time to less purpose then in reading them and Julian that there was as good stuff in Pindars Odes as in Davids Psalms Had they known the word or testimony of God in them they would not have crucified them by their wretched blasphemies But when the light of Faith comes the Scripture appears not in letters and words only but in the divine and heavenly characters and by these it bears witness to it self that it is the word of God There is a double cause of Faith an effective cause and an objective the effective cause is the holy spirit inlightning the understanding and moving the will and the objective is the Scripture it self by its own innate light and Majesty revealing its divinity to the inlightned soul Tertullian having this holy light in him adored the fullness of Scripture St. Austin seemeth to be taken to admiration with the purity of it as not admitting so much as an officious lyc Wheresoever the supernatural light comes the Scripture manifests it self to be divine Fourthly The fourth step of knowledge in order to Faith is Deus revelavit Evangelium God hath revealed a Gospel a way of salvation and eternal happiness Faith as I shall shew hereafter is not a meer belief of the divine testimony but a dependant resignation to God and Christ and to this resignation no man arrives unless he first see an overtopping superlative excellency in the Gospel outbidding the world and all the lusts thereof and verily believe that there and there only is the way of life and happiness And thus to see and believe is beyond the line of reason and all it s acquired notions The natural man in the midst of all his notions carries a false ballance in his heart which makes as if every trifling vanity did out-weigh God and Christ and heavenly things and whilest the ballance is thus he cannot resign and thus it will be till supernatural light come then and not till then doth the ballance turn by a right estimate of the Gospel and the promises thereof The spirit inlightning and not humane reason takes the things of Christ and shews them forth in their glory Joh. 16.14 And in this way God works the heart to resignation CHAP. III. Of the second part of Precious Faith the belief of the Testimony of God in the Scriptures What manner of belief it is and the consequents of it in order to an holy self-resignation THUS far of the first thing in Faith supernatural illumination I now proceed to the second A belief of the testimony of God in the Scriptures and here I need use no words to prove this belief an ingredient in Faith for faith in the Grammatical notion of it is nothing else but a belief of a Testimony and being applied to God it is a belief of his Testimony in Scripture Only I shall open two things first what manner of belief of the divine testimony in Scriptures this is and then what the consequents of it are in order to resignation First What manner of belief this is And this I shall explain in these particulars First This belief is divine and congruous to the divine testimony Such as the testimony is such must be the ratio credendi the Scriptures being a divine testimony must be believed for themselves because of the divine authority stamped upon them Thus the Thessalonians received the word not as the word of man but as it is in truth the word of God 1 Thess 2.13 they lodged the divine truth in a divine faith which was a suitable entertainment Humana omnia dicta testibus egent Dei autem sermo ipse sibi test is est saith Salvian humane words want witness but divine carry their own testimony in themselves To believe the Scriptures because God speaks in them is a divine faith but to believe them upon any other account is below their divine authority and but an humane faith For example to believe the Scriptures for the saying of the woman for the Churches testimony is but an humane faith for it stands on no higher fulciment then an humane testimony and therefore can be but an humane faith Here the subtile Jesuite would help out the Papist at a dead lift that faith saith he which is resolved into the Churches authority is neque purè divina neque purè humana sed quasi media inferioris cujusdam ordinis but what saith the learned Pemble to him Just so men use to speak when they cannot tell what to say It is Quasi and Aliquomodo and Alicujus generis it is somewhat if they could tell what thus he 'T is undoubtedly clear that that faith which calls any man Master on earth and centers on an humane testimony such as that of the Church made up of men must needs be can be no other then humane Indeed the Churches testimony may be inter motiva fidei but if the faith be divine it cannot be inter formales rationes sidei A man in the dark labyrinth of nature may be led out by the Churches lamp but when he is out he sees the Sun by its own light he believes the Scriptures for their own divinity though per ministerium Ecclesiae yet not propter authoritatem Ecclesiae Divine faith hath its Master in heaven and its record on high Secondly Which follows on the other this belief is a firm and stable thing because built on the divine authority of Scripture we believe and are sure saith Peter Joh. 6.69 Nothing on earth can so ascertain things unto us as faith in the divine testimony Julian the Apostate glorying in the Pagan learning jeered at the Christians because all their wisdom was but in that one word Credo I believe but divine faith for all his prophane taunt hath more firmness and real certainty in it then all the Sciences in the world for it sees things in lumine veritatis primae in the light of the first truth and sits even in the infallible chair so that non potest subesse falsum a lye cannot sit under it and glues the heart to the truth in that manner Eonav l. 3 disi 23. quest 4. that
as the Schoolman hath it true believers nec per argumenta nec per tormenta nec per blandimenta inclinari possunt ut veritatem saltem ore tenus negent nothing could turn them away from the truth So strong a thing is faith when it is set upon the rock the testimony of God but if it have an humane bottom only such as the Churches authority it is weak and wavering more like a fluctuating opinion then a faith Durandus asserts that Science is more certain than faith and to that strong objection that the divine authority by which we believe is more certain then any humane reason by which we know he answers thus Divina autoritas propter quam credimus licet sit certissima in se non tamen nobis qualitèr enim certi simus L. 3. dist 23. quest 7. quod Deus dicat ea quae credimus non nisi quia sic tenet Ecclesia Observe how this great Scholar abates the certainty of faith because he takes up the divinity of Scriptures upon trust from the saying of the Church those who build their faith purely on the divine word speak after another rate Junius reading the first chapter of St. John cried out in a kind of amazement Divinitatem argumenti authoritatem sentio and Reverend Calvin putting the question how we shall be perswaded that the Scriptures did flow forth from God answers as roundly as a man doth touching that which is obvious and before his senses Instit l. 1. c. 7. perinde est saith he ac si quis roget unde discemus lucem discernere à tenebris the Scripture reveals it self as the light doth and to the pure eye of faith it appears divine from its own innate excellency and so establishes the heart in its holy truth To conclude this point faith is a stable and firm thing but by the estimates and lives of men there seems to be but a very little of it in the world Did men as they profess firmly believe the Scriptures could they vilifie the commands of the great God as they do The injunctions of earthly Princes are not served so Would they slight that wonderful charter of grace and glory in the Gospel a Patent of petty dignities and possessions here below will be highly valued by them durst they sin as they do in the face of hell and wrath flashing out of the divine threatnings a Princes sword or Gibbet would cast them into a fit of trembling O how soon would the things of God cast the ballance in the heart and outweigh all the world if the Scriptures were indeed believed but there being in men only levis opinatio a light opinion rather then a solid faith touching the same there necessarily ensues a monstrous disproportion between their faith and their life Thirdly This belief must be explicite as to the fundamentals of Religion A meer implicite faith as to believe in the lump that all things contained in the holy Scriptures are true will not serve the turn In Coloss 2. v. 2. Non est divina sed belluina fides quae nuliam habet conceptionem five comprehensionem illarum rerum quae creduntur saith the excellent Davenant A meer implicite faith without understanding is a bruitish thing an explicite faith as to fundamentals is required this will appear by these ensuing considerations First A meer implicite faith if at any time might have passed for currant in the days before Christs Incarnation whilest religion was wrapt up in vails and shadows but even then faith in holy men was explicite according to the measure of divine light imparted unto them all along they looked to the Messiah the promised seed and probably in an obscure manner to his future sufferings Whilest Adam was in Innocency there was no promise of a Messiah no footstep of a sacrifice but as soon as man was fallen out came that first Gospel the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head Gen. 3.15 and sacrifices were set up without doubt not without Gods appointment for God had respect to Abels sacrifice which had it been a piece of will-worship could not have been and Abol offered it up by faith Heb. 11.4 which without a divine word moves not in the least measure These sacrifices were as it were visible Commentaries on that first Gospel and types of a suffering Messiah And if so and so by Gods own institution it is not at all probable that God should hide the sacred meaning thereof totally from the faith of the first believers Adam then as I conceive by the eyes of Faith saw the Messiah in that first Gospel and withall some glimmering of his sufferings in the sacrifices And if he saw it no doubt he did preach and reveal it to others Schola saerif Disp. 4 and probably as Franzius conceives in a solemn manner at the sacrifices Abel saith the Apostle by faith offered up a sacrifice to God not only by such a faith as did it in obedience to Gods command but by such a faith as through his own sacrifice did pierce to the antitype the great sacrifice of the Messiah De satisfact Christi l. 1. sect 5. Thus the learned Essenius cum sacrificia Veteris Testamenti fuerint typi sacrificii Christi ea sides intelligenda est quâ sacrificium illud refertur ad suum antitypum such a faith was proper to his sacrifice In Noahs sacrifice the Lord smelled a sweet savour or a savour of rest such as did saith one of the Rabbins make him ab irâ suâ quiescere rest from his anger Gen. 8.21 and therefore surely there was more in it then meer beasts and fowls Noahs faith fetched in him who was to give himself an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour Abraham saw Christs day that is his coming and suffering in the flesh John 8.56 a very great sight at that distance and no doubt the faithful Seer did not conceal it but tell his children and servants thereof for the glory of the Messiah his joy was too great to hold it in privately to himself and his zeal too hot to hide so much of heavenly glory Under the Levitical Law the Israelites were to lay their hands on the head of the sacrifice as it were to disburden themselves of sin and lay it off upon the sacrifice and by the offering up thereof they were to make an atonement or expiation The unbelievers among them understood the outward rite of the sacrifice and did the faithful ones see no more in it Could or did they imagine that a poor silly beast could stand under the weight of sin or that the blood of bulls or goats could take it away No surely their faith looked through the outward sacrifice to the Messiah for atonement and reconciliation In David the Evangelical day broke out more clearly O how much of Christ is there in the 110th Psalm there 's his kingdom and eternal priesthood there 's
it the root of the matter is in the weakest of them though not the same verdure of notions or expressions the substance or holy seed of true resignation may be latent in a bruised reed or smoaking flax in a poor spirit or the pulse of a desire I have read of a Noble person in Spain who being as was supposed absolutely dead Melch Adanum 〈◊〉 Vesalâ—â— was diffected and upon the opening of his breast they found to their great amazement his heart beating some weak believers may seem totally dead in whom yet before God to whom all things are naked and open as in an Anatomy there is found a vital pulse of faith secretly working God saith a Reverend Divine brings not scales to weigh but a touch-stone to try our graces If there be but the least dram of gold but the least smoke or weik in the socket as the expression is Matth. 12.20 God accepts it neither do I mean that this resignation is acted perpetually but with many sad pauses and interruptions which happen partly by the blasts of Satans temptations making the believer walk like Peter upon the water now a good step and then ready to sink when the wind grows boisterous till his faith buoy him up again with a Lord save me partly by the allurements and entanglements of the world which are to him as the stone and the string were to Anselms bird now up in ascensions of soul to God and Christ and then down again to the earth and earthly things and partly from the indwelling sin which make him live as his Saviour did on earth a meer conflicting life Christ endured the contradiction of sinners and he the contradiction of sins the indwelling corruption makes his soul like a palsey hand with contrary motions Lord I believe help my unbelief whilest faith moves forward unbelief draws back after he hath in a princely manner wrestled with God he goes off Jacob-like halting in one infirmity or other CHAP. V. Reasons proving the Essential nature of Faith as the condition of the Gospel to consist in an holy thorough dependant Self-resignation THUS far of the nature of this Resignation as to its Objects Ends and Adjuncts It remains that I lay down my reasons why I place the vitality and essential nature of faith as it is the condition of the Gospel in such a resignation as is before described And for this First That precious faith which is the Evangelical condition is more then a bare naked assent to the Gospel-truth and less then an assurance of love and pardon from God wherefore it must needs be some middle thing between both such as Resignation is I shall endeavour to make good both propositions First Pretious faith is more then a bare naked assent to the Gospel-truth This will be clear by the ensuing considerations First A naked assent is but credere Deo a believing Scriptural axiomes to be true but pretious faith is a far nobler thing and therefore very emphatically painted out in Scripture in the Old Testament 't is credere in Deum a believing in Jehovah Gen. 15.6 importing a fiducial act 't is a trusting in the Lord Psal 2.12 where the Hebrew word imports a flying for refuge a running under the wings of free-grace as chickens do under the hen 't is a leaning upon God Isa 50.10 as not able to stand alone without a recumbency on mercy 't is a rolling our selves upon God Psal 37.5 as weary and without rest till we come to lodg in goodness in the New Testament 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a believing into Christ very frequent in the Gospel of St. John a phrase wholly the holy spirits never found in any Greek Author a bare assenter may believe about Christ but the true believer believes into Christ so as to be in neer union with him 't is a putting on of Christ Rom. 13.14 the believer strips himself of his lusts nay and of his own righteousness to be invested with Christ 't is a receiving of Christ Joh. 1.12 all Christ merit and spirit cross and crown together 't is a faith which hath its being in God as its ultimate center 1 Pet. 1.21 Scripture is but a medium the ultimate object is God himself All which imports of precious faith are much above the sphear of a meer assent Secondly Precious faith is the very condition of the Gospel God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 but a naked assent is not such that is required not only in the Gospel but in the moral Law too and found not only in godly but wicked men nay and in devils themselves who believe and tremble It is true some Scriptures seem to lay much upon assent thus we find If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 And whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 Joh. 5.1 And these things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you might have life through his name Joh. 20.31 But these places import not as if a naked assent were the sull condition of Gospel-grace for then a man might be saved in his sins a man in arms against his maker might stand Gods grace might embrace him whom his holiness abhors and Christ might sive him who will not have him reign over him light might be in communion with darkness and Christ might have concord with Belial all which are impossibles in themselves and incompossibles with the design of the Gospel but they intend such an assent as is in conjunction with a true resignation of the heart to the terms of the Gospel Corde credere quad Deus eum excitaverit est non mode assentiri historiae de excitato Jesu sed certâ—â— cordis siducist beneficial mortis resurrectionis Christi amplecti saith Reverend Parent on Rom. 10.9 whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ namely with such a faith as is accompanied with all that which belongeth to a true faith is born of God so the Dutch Annotators on 1 Joh. 5.1 intelligendum est de side non qualicunque sed actuosa saith Grotius on Joh. 20.31 The Learned Bishop Downame saith Covenant of Grace P. 91. that assent is the very condition required in the promise of the Gospel but what an one is it a true willing lively effectual assent such an one as by which we receive Christ not only in our judgments but in our hearts and wills acknowledging him for our Saviour and resting on him for salvation Such an assent as this is no other then precious faith but a naked assent is much below it Thirdly Precious faith doth unite us unto Christ and gives us a being in him A believer from the first
instant of faith is no longer in himself or the old Adam but a man in Christ hence the same royal robe of righteousness which Christ hath upon himself covers him also which renders faith exceeding precious George Prince of Anhalt was upon this account much delighted with this similitude As the ring is highly prized for the diamond in it so faith justifies us for the pearl of price the Son of God whom it apprehends the believer is found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ Phil. 3.9 Hence also the very same spirit of holiness which is upon Christ in heaven above measure falls down upon the believer according to measure a piece of bread is a poor imnimate thing in it salt but when by digestion it comes into the body and is transubstantiated into flesh there is an humane spirit in it a man before faith is an earthly carnal thing but as soon as by faith he becomes a member of Christ a piece as it were of his flesh and of his bones he hath another spirit in him even the same with Christ Christ above and he below and the same spirit in both a great mystery such as a naked assent cannot reach unto he that hath no more is but a glass eye or wooden leg in the body of Christ or rather he is not at all in it but outwardly tied to it by a name and form of knowledge without any part in the righteousness or spirit of Christ Fourthly By virtue of its union with Christ Precious faith bears many excellent fruits it ushers in a spiritual life into the soul that of the Prophet the just shall live by his faith thrice quoted by St. Paul in the New Testament is exemplisied in every believer but he that hath but a naked assent though with a goodly structure of Evangclical truths standing upon it is but a dead man and his notions like the Egyptian Pyramides are but monuments for the dead Again it brings down pardon of sin into the soul whosoever believeth in him that is in Christ shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 but a naked assent leaves a man as fast in the 〈◊〉 of guilt as ever before Moreover it purifies the heart and quenches the fiery darts of Satan it carries out the dust and rubbish out of the heart and makes it a sanctuary or holy place for God and if Satan come and let fly his temptations it beats them off from the soul Thus Bucer when in his sickness he was admonished to arm himself against Satan answered in Christo sum nihil habeo cum diabolo commune I am in Christ and have nothing in common with Satan but where there is only a naked assent the holy truths going no further then the Understanding the Will is left in the mire and pollution of its lusts and is ready as soon as the tempter comes to join with his seducing proffers Thus far of the first proposition that faith is more then a naked assent Secondly The second proposition is That faith is less then an assurance of love and pardon from God only we must first distinguish between faith in the root and faith in the flower between faith in the lowest stature and faith in its full-grown perfections That assurance which the infant faith cannot reach the full-grown faith may arrive at which I suppose was the reason that those prime Reformers Luther and Calvin and after them Beza and Zanchy with many others did define faith by a plerophory or full perswasion of Gods love they being themselves in the joys of faith drew its picture not according to the infant model but the perfect lineaments thereof as they found them in themselves so they held them out to the world Again we must distinguish between seminal assurance and actual an infant faith hath seminal assurance light is sown for the righteous Psal 97.11 but the crop of comfort doth not immediately spring up the weakest believer is heir to all the joys of heaven only he doth not presently know his title he hath not ordinarily actual assurance at the very first I say not ordinarily for we must not limit the holy one who by his royal prerogative may let in the sweet sense of his love in the first instant of believing These distinctions premised the meaning of the proposition is That faith in its lowest measure which is the condition of the Gospel doth not essentially include assurance And this I shall manifest by the ensuing considerations First All true believers have not assurance Scripture and experience manifest it there are Lambs which are gathered into the arms and laid in the bosome of free-grace yet know not where they are There are little ones babes in Christ which can only hang upon the breast and are not grown up into the reflections and joys of faith the poor in spirit the mourners the hungry and thirsty after righteousness mentioned in the fifth chapter of Matthew are all of them true believers blessed ones and heirs of the promises and yet all of them are without any glimpse of assurance the poor in spirit all in rags of unworthiness and self-nothingness as if he had no title to the kingdom the mourners weeping and desolate like Hagar in the wilderness with her bottle spent as if there were no Well of comfort near them the hungry and thirsty like men in a famine drooping and fainting away in fits of soul-emptiness as if there were no such thing as hidden Manna for them It is very observable in the Canticles that Christ takes notice of the tender grape just at its first appearing the very first opening or budding forth of faith is welcom to him if the wine be but in the cluster if there be but faith in desire Christ saith destroy it not the blessing of Abraham is in it out of this little grain of mustard-seed heaven will grow in this smoking slax there 's a divine spark though the smoak of doubts and temptations muffle it up in obscurity it will break out at last into slames of love and joy in the infant-believers assurance is not to be expected because of their primordial weakness and in well-grown believers it may be suspended because of Gods infinite soveraignty in the dispensing thereof as he pleaseth Cruciger on his death-bed prayed thus Invoco te Domine languidâ imbecillâ side sed side tamen Lord I call upon thee with a weak and languishing faith but yet with a faith Pious Justus Jonas who was present with Luther at his death and took as it were his last breath into his bosome was in his own sickness sainting and cold-hearted till a servant of his rubbed him up with some comforts out of the Gospel Holy Bayn saith of himself I thank God sustentation in Christ I have and some little strength suavities spiritual I tast not any even the choice servants of God may walk in
and there 's the sea and yonder 's the Sun Moon and Stars sensibly pointing from one creature to another so it is with the believer when he is irradiated by the holy spirit he can look into his own heart and experimentally say this is the pretious faith and that is the love in incorruption and the other is the meekness of wisdom and so go over all the parts of the new creature formed within him or at least over such or so many of them as may assure him that he is in a state of grace This is the way of assurance first there is a constellation of faith and other graces in the heart then these graces irradiated by the holy spirit send forth a kind of splendor which the soul reflecting on it self taking up it comes to attain assurance well knowing that such and such things accompany salvation and import no less then a Divine favour notable is that of St. Paul in whom after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 Mark after ye believed first there must be faith and the train of graces attend thereon and then comes the seal of the spirit of promise the same spirit which endited the promises in the word comes and seals them on the heart whereas in the word there are such promises made to faith and love and holiness the irradiating spirit plainly discovers that faith and that love and that holiness to be indeed in the heart and so seals up the promises to the believer in particular as if it had expresly said this or that promise belongs to thee Hence the believer so sealed may say of the promises as Origen did of those Scriptures which did much affect him haec est Scriptura mea this promise is mine and that promise is mine nay all the Land of promise as much as I can set my foot on is mine own There are three seals to the promises first God seals them for true in the blood of his own Son in whom all of them are Yea and Amen then man seals them for true by faith he that believeth sets to his seal that God is true and then again God seals them for true to the believer in particular by his irradiating spirit Faith then goes before all other graces but assurance comes after them as being no other then the clear evidence of their true existence in the soul Unless we allow this distinction we gratifie the Enthusiasts who declaim against all marks of grace as legal things and sandy foundations Sixthly Faith stands upon the word of God purely totally and entirely In point of expectation it will not look without a word of promise in point of obedience it will not stir a foot without a word of command in point of doctrine it will not lend an ear without a word of instruction Hence Reverend Calvin saith Inst l. 3. c. 2. Perpetuam esse fidei revelationem cum verbo nec magis ab eo posse divelli quà m radios à Sole unde oriuntur Faith hath a perpetual relation to the word and can no more be sundred from it then the beams from the Sun from whom they arise should it be sundred from it it would lose its nature and cease to be faith but assurance doth not stand so purely totally and entirely upon the word this is also manifest by the manner of attaining assurance that is not made axiomatically in an Enthusiastical way as if there were an inward voice saying thou art justified but discoursively and after some such manner as in this practical Syllogism Whosoever believeth his sins are forgiven but I believe Ergo my sins are forgiven Here the conclusion which imports assurance in it stands upon two propositions the Major is meerly grounded upon the word but the Minor stands upon spiritual sense and experience caused by the holy spirit irradiating the soul in its reflections upon its own estate therefore assurance which is comprized in the conclusion doth not stand so meerly upon the word as faith doth Thus the Learned Pemble speaking of that Syllogism saith the major is of faith the minor of sense and experience And the conclusion of both but chiefly of faith as it follows on the premises by infallible argumentation and partly of sense as it is founded on the inward experience of Gods grace working upon our souls What the doctrine of Faith is is to be sought in Bibles but whether there be a particular act of faith or not such as is comprized in the minor Com. R m. 8. cap. must be looked for in the heart Fides non creditur sed habetur sentitur in corde saith Learned Pareus Faith is not believed but had and felt in the heart Actus reflexivus in ipsam fidem quo credo me credere non est ipsa fides sed potiùs sensus fidei Loc. Com. 689. saith Maccovius The reflexive act whereby I know that I believe is not properly faith but the sense of it But you will say if the minor stands upon sense and experience how can the conclusion which imports assurance be de fide And Bellarmine argues thus D. justificat l. 3. c. 8. Nothing can be certain with a certainty of faith unless it be conteined in the word of God upon which if it lean not it is not faith but that such or such a man is justified in particular is not conteined in the word neither can it be deduced from thence for then I must argue thus the word saith All that truly turn to God shall find mercy but I do truly turn to him therefore I am sure of mercy in which the minor is not in the word By the way we may observe what an excellent foundation the Jesuite layes for his disputation Fides non est nisi verbi divini auctoritate nitatur that is not faith which is not bottomed on the authority of the divine word Oh rare if this were believed what would become of Popery What of all the hay and stubble of their vain Traditions Why do they play the wily Gibeonites with their old bottles and clowted shoes obtruding their unwritten verities and mouldy customs upon the Church of God I can be assured of no Religion which is not founded on Scripture But for answer The certainty of the Doctrine of Faith which respects the whole Church is to be found in the Scripture but the certainty of an act of Faith which is in a particular man is to be found in the heart by spiritual sense and experience and so in Bellarmines minor the certainty of my turning to God stands not upon the word but upon spiritual sense and experience yet nevertheless the conclusion which imports assurance is de fide for every conclusion is so which stands upon one proposition contained in Scripture and upon another gathered from sense or experience as the case is in all such practical Syllogisms yet withall as I said at first the
justificemur causa efficiens est misericordia Dei Christus materia verbum cum side instrumentum In Justification the efficient cause is Gods mercy Christ the matter the Word with Faith the instrument Thus the generality of Divines conclude that we are justified by faith as an instrument nevertheless some others express themselves thus That we are justified by faith as 〈◊〉 condition of the Gospel Thus the profestors of Saumiar in France Fide justificamu non tanquam parte aliquâ justitiae Thes Salm. de Justif sed tanquam conditione foederis gratiae We are justified by faith not as it is a part of righteousness but as it is the condition of the Covenant of Grace Thus Learned Mr. Woodbridge Method of Grace 101. To believe is a formal vital act of the Soul in genere physico but the use of it in justification is to qualifie us passively that we may be morally and orderly capable of being justified by God Or though physically it be an act yet morally it is but a passive condition by which we are made capable of being justified according to the order and constitution of God Thus worthy Mr. Baxter Right to Christ and life being a moral effect Confess of faith 295. and conveyed by a moral cause and way that is by a law of Grace or conditional promise or gift therefore the formal reason of faiths interest in our justification is as it is the condition of that promise by us performed and its essence or physical act the acceptance of Christ and Life commonly called its instrumentality though it be the reason why it was chosen and preferred to this office of being the condition of the promise yet is it but its aptitude to the office and so the remote and as it were material reason of its interest in our justification and not the formal Reason Touching this matter I shall offer my thoughts in these Propositions First Faith is not strictly and properly the instrument of Justification were it so a man might justifie and forgive himself For as Dr. Ames well observes as Sacraments are properly Gods instruments Bellarm. Enter Tom. 4. lib. 5. so Faith is properly mans Deus nos baptizat pascit non nosmetipsi nos credimus in Christum non Deus God baptizes and feeds us not we our selves we believe in Christ not God If then Faith which is properly mans instrument be properly the instrument of Justification a Believer doth no less than justifie himself which is harsh doctrine to me Again When we are said to be justified by Faith I suppose the Scripture doth not intend the transient act but the permanent habit and if so I cannot conceive how that can be properly strictly an Instrument Instrumenti causalitas est in usu applicatione when it is not in use and act it ceases to be an instrument The habit of faith is an habit still even when its act ceases but when its act ceases what hath it of instrumentality Secondly Faith though not properly may yet in some sense be called an Instrument because it hath a peculiar aptitude and receptivity to accept of the free-gift made in the Gospel Hence we are said by it to receive Jesus Christ Col. 2.6 to receive the atonement Rom. 5.11 to receive the gift of righteousness Rom. 5.17 to receive forgiveness of sins Acts 26.18 It hath a choice capacity to take in Christ with all his benefits Thirdly The proper formal reason why we are justified by Faith is because it is the condition of the Gospel on which God the Great Donor gives out Christ with all his blessings We are not justified by faith as for any reason intrinsecal or in the nature of it but as it doth inright and instate us into Christ and his righteousness and how is that done the old Law-rule must be remembred Voluntas donatoris observetur the Donors Will is the best guide and what is that in this case Clearly in the Gospel Christ and his righteousness are given upon the condition of faith Bellarmine asserting that it did not please God to give justification upon the condition of faith alone Dr. Ames answers him Bell. Everum Tom. 4. lib. 5. Vel maximè placuit boc Deo It pleased him altogether We must take as God gives God in the great charter gives out Christ and his righteousness upon the condition of faith Faith therefore instates and inrights us into these as it is the condition of that grant And by consequence we are justified by it as such as when a Prince grants a pardon upon condition the Traitor take it from him with his own hands his taking it gives impunity not because of the organical apprehensiveness in the hand but because it is the modus donationis the pardon runs upon those terms So when God grants justification upon condition of believing we are justified by faith not because of its intrinsecal receptivity or apprehensiveness but because that faith which stands in the Gospel as the condition of justification is found in the heart Thus much touching the manner how this holy fruit grows upon Faith Thirdly The next thing considerable is the continuance of this holy fruit Justification is a flower of Paradice which never dies once justified and ever justified The righteousness of God which is put upon the Believer is never taken off again The pardon which is sealed in the Court of heaven is never reversed The cloud of Guiltiness once scattered never gathers together The sins cast into the depth of Sea never come up more Camb. Eliz p. 384. When the Jesuite Chreicion taken at Sea tore and threw over-board certain papers of dangerous consequence the torn pieces were by the wind blown back again into the Ship and afterwards artificially put together discovered the Popish design then on foot but when God casts our sins into the depth of the Sea all the breath of the infernal Spirits can never blow them up again they shall be remembred no more All things in Justification concur to make this good Free-grace which is the first mover in it is a fountain ever flowing and a Sun which knows no going down The Righteousness of Christ which is the matter of it is a robe which can never wear out The Gospel which is the Charter of it is a grant never out of date Faith which is the Medium to it will under the divine influences stirring up the nest of gracious principles bud and blossom forth in fresh acts and when the acts cease it abides in the root kept alive by the eternal Spirit breathed from the endless life of Merit in Christ All which make the righteous man an everlasting foundation only here is a Quaere to be resolved Do not Believers fall into sin and doth not sin make a breach upon Justification and if so how doth it continue I Answer The sins of Believers are either sins of meer infirmity and daily incursion or sins
with us in his Incarnation will be Immanuel God with us in such sufficient Grace as shall give us the victory over Sin the success is as sure as the Spirit and Power of God can make it When Christ was on Earth never any one came to him for bodily Cure with a Faith that he was able to do it but it was done for him Now that he is in Heaven at the right hand of Power such as go in Faith for Spiritual Cures cannot miscarry What though the bloody issue of Sin have been long a-running a touch upon Christ will heal What if thou hast lay'n rotting in thy Corruptions many years believe and thou shalt see the glory of God raising thee up a dependence on the Power and Spirit of Christ cannot fail of a victory over Sin So vast is the difference between the state of Adam in Innocency and the state of Believers in Christ in him one Sin drove out a great stock of pure immaculate Grace in a moment in them a little spark of Grace drives out a world of Sin because their Grace which Adams did not depends on the Power and Spirit of Christ for the victory This is a most noble and purely Evangelical act of Faith in which Man is abased in a continual dependence and God exalted in a continual supply of Grace However some Divines falsly so called have laughed at the dependence of Faith as an idle lolling upon Christ it is yet the only way in which the Spirit and Power of God communicates to our necessities and does far more in the Christians life than any thing else Only we must remember that this dependence is in the use of means the Believer hears reads meditates prays works and in all depends upon the Spirit to render them effectual CHAP. X. Of Spiritual Vivification the second Part. Of Sanctification the influence of Faith therein THus far of Mortification as a fruit of Faith I now proceed to Vivification being the other part of Sanctification In which the holy Spirit comes down with its Divine Graces into the Soul and quickens it to a Spiritual Life These Graces may be considered eitheir in their production into being or in their actual exercise and both ways they are fruits of Faith As to their production into being Divines differ about the order some Divines as Mr. Pemble conceive That all Graces are infused at once coming into us as light doth into the air or as the Soul did into the body of Lazarus not piece-meal or by degrees but all at once and together Other set down this order Vocation which worketh Faith and Repentance is in order of nature before Justification and Justification before Sanctification Bishop Downham distinguishes between our Spiritual conception of the incorruptible seed and our new-birth in which Christ is formed in us in all his Graces the former is done in our Vocation and the latter in our Sanctification I conceive that Faith at least in order of Nature is first and then all other Graces follow upon it The Ancient Fathers as Bishop Downham hath observed speak to the same purpose In Clemens Alexandrinus Faith is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first inclination to Salvation In the so-called Ignatius Epistles it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of life as it were the Punctum Saliens in the New Creature in which the first motion and course of Spiritual life begins Vita sancta à fide sumit initium saith Fulgentius And Fides prima datur ex quá extera impotrantur saith St. Augustine All other Graces are the fruits of Faith not as if Faith did produce them radically or fontally out of it self or its own virtue but that it unites to Christ and so derives the Spirit with its Graces unto the Believer That Faith is at least in nature before other Graces will appear very probable upon divers Congruities First It is congruous to the Majesty of God He acts like himself dispences Grace to the Creature in its lowest posture of resignation Heaven is my throne Earth my footstool saith he but as over-looking all this World To this man will I look that is poor and of a contrite spirit Isa 66.1 2 To this man there he sets a nobler creation than this outward one When Faith makes a man poor and contrite sensibly lying in his own Nothingness and Unworthiness then creating Grace comes upon him We may see this as in a glass in the Homane Nature of Christ That which had no natural Subsistence of its own but subsisted in the Eternal Word that had the Spirit poured out upon it above measure When a man hath no Moral subsistence of his own his very Hypostasis being a resignation when his subsistence is in the Word of God according to that of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have thy being in these things 1 Tim. 4.15 Then the holy Spirit comes down and dwells in him Secondly It is congruous to Christ the Head Union goes before Communion first Faith unites us to Christ and then all Graces flow from him hence Faith is called the Churches neck Cant. 4.4 knitting to Christ the Head and from thence deriving all Spiritual life into the body of Believers This also is set before us in Christs Humane Nature which had first at least in nature the Grace of Union and then that of Unction He that is in Christ is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5.17 made so by his being in Christ He that hath the Son hath life 1 Joh. 5.12 Hath it by having the Son Indeed Faith and Repentance go before our Union with Christ as being of necessity thereunto but all other Graces follow after it as most naturally flowing from Christ the Head of whose fulness all Believers receive Grace for Grace Thirdly It is congruous to the way of the Spirit set forth in the Gospel The Spirit moves on the Soul to bring forth Faith and Repentance but it dwells no-where but in the Believer Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 There he hath perpetuum domicilium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Bez. Zanch. as the Greek word imports He that believeth on me saith our Saviour out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water Joh. 7.38 And what these rivers are the next verse tells us This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Faith brings in the very fountain of Grace with all its streams into the Heart The Holy Ghost is given to them that obey him Act. 5.32 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to them that hear him in the Gospel-command that is to them that believe so Beza and Calvin expound it and so the Syriack hath it The Holy Ghost works before to produce Faith and Repentance but it is not given to dwell in men until they believe Fourthly It is congruous to the order which is between Faith Justification and Sanctification Faith is in order before Justification the Scripture
is express in it The righteousness of God is upon them that believe Rom. 3.22 All that believe are justified Act. 13.39 And we have believed that we might be justified Gal. 2.16 And Justification is in order before Sanctification I suppose the Holy Spirit with its Graces will not dwell in an unreconciled Soul Under the Law in cleansing the Leper first the Priest put the blood on him and then the holy oyl upon the place where the blood was Levit. 14.14 17. The Believer first in order hath the atoning Blood put on him and then the holy Unction of the Spirit According to this order Faith is first of all But if Faith and all other Graces are infused at once and together then either they are infused before Justification and so Sanctification is before Justification or else after it and so Justification is before Faith Fifthly This way there will be a congruity between the old Creatiowand the new In the old Light was the first-born of the Creation and then the other parts of the World were made in the new the first thing is the light of Faith and then follow those Graces which make up the New Creature Beholding as in a glass the glory of God we are changed into his image 2 Cor. 3.16 First the eye of Faith is opened and then the Image of God drawn on the Soul this congruity is the rather to be minded because the Apostle speaking of the Creation of Faith doth it with an allusion to the Creation of Light God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 As if he had said Light in the old Creation and Faith in the new answer one to another Sixthly This way there will be a congruity between Christ formed in the womb and Christ formed in the bea rt The blessed Virgin first believed and then Christ was formed in her Womb Concetio Christi facta fuit simul ac Maria in verba Angeli consentiens dixit Ecce ancilla Domini De Incarnat lib. 2. Quest 7. siat mihi secundum verbum tuum Luk. 1.38 saith Zanchy No sooner did she say an Amen of Faith to the Promise but Christ was conceived in her therefore after her Faith the Angel immediately departed from her as having his errand already dispatched answerably the Christian first believes and then Christ is formed in him in all those sanctifying Graces which make up the holy Image of Christ The Apostles expressing those Graces under the notion of forming Christ in us Gal. 4.19 seems to hint out this Congruity Seventhly This way there will be a Congruity between the being of these Graces and the acting of them whilest both proceed from Faith depending upon Christ the head of Grace The Believers life is in Scripture called a life of Faith not as if there were not Love Meekness Obedience Patience with all the other Graces in him but because Faith is the grand principle which moves every one of them Faith worketh by love saith the Apostle Gal. 5.6 and so it worketh by Meekness Obedience Patience and all other Graces being as it were blood and spirits running in every part of the New Creature All Graces are set a working by Faith and if they also receive their being through it there is a Congruity between their being and working Upon these Congruities I take it that Faith is first in order and then other Graces As to the actual exercise of Graces It is Faith which sets them all a working To this purpose it is observable That all the worthy acts of Grace mentioned in the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews are there ascribed to Faith so is Abels excellent Sacrifice Enochs walking with God Noahs holy fear of the deluge Abrahams obedience in leaving his Country Moses 's self-denial as to the Egyptian Court The valour of some Worthies in subduing Kingdoms and the patience of others in suffering torments for the truth The reason of which is because Faith is the first mover which sets all other Graces a-moving the General under whose conduct all Graces come forth in their courses therfore the honour of all is devolved upon it Now how Faith sets other Graces a-working I shall first shew in a general way common to all of them and then more particularly with respect to some special Graces In general Faith sets other Graces in motion by such ways as these First It looks on the Command which in Scripture calls for these Graces as the very Will of God And so presses for Obedience many ways as first from the Divine Authority of it In the word of a King there is power much more in the word of a God when known to be such In the Council of Triburia a fancy touching an Episile come from Heaven made impression in some of them Had it been really known to be so indeed the impression would have been deeper At the sound of the Command Faith knows that it is the Lord that the voice is from the excellent glory and in that Authority presses to Obedience But this is not all besides Gods Authority it urges from his Love It is saith Faith the voice of thy beloved thy dear Father in Heaven who hath cast his cords and bands of Love round about thee to draw thee to himself and then the Heart must needs feel constraints and holy inflammations to Obedience and be like St. Peter who when he knew it was the Lord girt himself and made towards him Gods Love hath dropt sweetness into the Command and made all easie Moreover to make the stronger impulse on the Believer Faith demonstrates That the Command is just and right and good that holy Love and Patience and other Graces of the first Table are pure rectitudes wherein Man stands in his true posture towards God his Goodness or Providence or some other thing in him And also that Justice and Temperance and Charity are rectitudes wherein he stands in a true posture towards others or himself for Gods sake And a Command so known moves so strongly towards Obedience that a man who would pay his debts to God or his Neighbour or himself cannot must not repugn Secondly Faith looks not only upon the letter of the Command but upon the life of Christ Where all Graces are set forth in lively and orient colours really and practically exemplified to our view Precepts possibly may have more of notion in them but Examples have more of vivacity to attract the heart to imitation above all the Example of Christ must be cogent to Believers he went up and down doing of good every step one odour of Grace or other brake from him Subjection to Parents or Magistrates or Zeal towards God in purging the Temple or Humility in washing his Disciples feet or Meekness under malicious accusations and blasphemies or melting bowels upon all occasions dropping
his passion in drinking of the brook in the way there 's his ascension in lifting up the head there 's his intercession in sitting at Gods right hand there 's his Church Catholick a willing people made so by the power of his grace This was Symbolum Davidicum Davids Creed as a learned man hath it reaching in a manner as far as ours Moreover the Saints of old by their faith kenned a resurrection and life eternal Jobs faith looked through worms and dust to the vision of God Job 19.26 Abrahams faith travelled beyond Canaan unto the heavenly city and country Heb. 11.10 David is in a rapture at the full joys and right-hand pleasures with God Psal 16.11 When Cain talked with Abel his brother Gen. 4.8 the Hebrew text sets not down what he said but it hath an extraordinary pawse implying further matter the Jerusalem Targum says Cain asserted that there was no judgment no judge no world to come no rewards of evil or good but believing Abel said there were all these and then his brother slew him It seems the first fall out was about the future world Wisdom causes her lovers to inherit substance Quid est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nisi futurum saeculum or essence as the original word imports Prov. 8.21 and this substance or essence is as some Jews affirm no other then eternal life in the world to come Now to make my inference from all this If faith were in a measure explicite in those early Saints who had but the twilight of the holy types and cock-crowing of the Prophets how much more should it be so in us who live in the noon-day of the Gospel and as it were directly under the Sun of righteousness in such a Church-state wherein the least is greater then John Baptist we should expand and spread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effusions of the holy spirit Secondly Faith unless explicite cannot arrive at those ends for which it is ordained viz. to raise up the heart to a reliance on the free grace of God in Christ to inslame the heart with the love of God and holy things to sanctifie the heart through the truth and to overcome the world with its lusts A meer implicite faith cannot reach these it cannot raise the heart up to a reliance on Gods grace in Christ to that reliance is prerequired not only a belief that God is true in the Scriptures in general but also a belief that God is true in the precious promises in special We are like Jacob not believing in the mercies of God till we see the chariots the gracious promises which he hath sent down from heaven to carry up our faith to himself They that know thy name will put their trust in thee Psal 9.10 they and they only Neither can it inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things light and heat ever go together Implicite faith is a dark and cold thing affording no spiritual warmth at all he that hath no more is but a Nabal a fool in religion and his heart as dead and cold as a stone within him till the love of God in the explicite notion of it shine into the soul it will not like the disciples at Emmaus burn within us with love to God and his ways neither can it sanctifie the heart through the truth the word did not profit them not being mixed or tempered with faith saith the Apostle Heb. 4.2 Where there is only an implicite faith the word lies upon the heart all in a lump whole and undigested affording no blood or spirits of sanctity to the soul it is explicite faith only which breaks the truth in the heart and mixes and tempers every holy particle therewith from whence the soul comes to be changed and assimulated into the truth receiving a divine likeness from it according to the measure of its faith more or less digesting the same truth in the heart neither can it lastly overcome the world and the lusts thereof this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 5.4 And this Faith doth by putting a right estimate of things into the heart whereby it manifestly appears that heavenly things do infinitely outweigh earthly in themselves and should do so in the minds of men A man of a meer implicite faith is a man without a ballance or judgment he knows not how to estimate or weigh the excellent things of God and therefore is ever poized down by the world and the lusts thereof It is the explicite faith only which is in the soul as the ballance of the Sanctuary rightly determining the true weight of things and thereby giving heavenly things the victory above earthly in the heart Oh! where this is what a feather a vanity a nothing is the world what in it can weigh against God or Christ or the exceeding eternal weight of glory surely nothing wherefore the followers of faith become conquerors of the world Fourthly This belief must be total and absolute without any salvoes or limitations The Gospel must captivate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the intellect or every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 The Reason must not go at large or random but be kept in safe custody under the Gospel and the divine mysteries thereof it is not to be trusted to never since the fall put an enmity into it against God The Socinians believe the Scriptures only so far forth as they are congruous to reason thus Socinus professes that if this proposition that Jesus Christ satisfied God for our sins were once and again extant in the sacred monuments yet non ideirco he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we ordinarily conceive of it And another laies down this for a rule Nihil credi potest quod à ratione capi intelligi nequeat that cannot be believed by faith which cannot be comprehended by reason It seems they will trust God no further then they can see him and depend more on their blear-eyed reason then the divine oracle Touching this Socinian faith I shall endeavour to shew first the inrationality of it and then the nullity First The Irrationality of it will evidently appear if we distinguish between the two states of reason before the fall of man and since Reason before the fall was a pure and virgin light without any spot in it afterwards it was destoured and overshadowed with the fall and by that means all that is in the mind of man in his lapsed estate is not reason the blinds and dark shades there are not so but only that which is the relique of the pure primitive light and congruous thereunto the blemish in the eye is not the light the rust in the gold is not the pure metal neither is all that is in lapsed reason to be reckoned reason If then in this case we would know what is rational we
must consider what reason so far as it is pure and right doth dictate to us in this point and what is that but that God as the first unerrable truth must be believed in his words for himself and above all other things even above reason it self Ronand l. 3. dist 23. Justum est saith the Schoolman ut intellecius noster ita captivetur subjacoat summae veritati sicut affectus noster debet subjacere summae bonitati nec potest esse anima recta nisi intellectus summe veritati propter se super omnia assentiat affectus summae bonitati adhaereat It's just and purely rational as to love the supream goodness so to assent to the supream truth for it self and above all that is without any salvocs or exceptions at all the authority being infallible the belief should in all reason be absolute Reason says that God should be believed as a God one that cannot lye no more then cease to be and if as a God then for himself and above all That in the Socinian which adds a salvo to his belief of the holy Scriptures is not his reason but the rust and proud flesh and spiritual corruption of it and to believe such stuff before the truth of God and make it the allay and supream ruler of our faith is desperately and monstrously irrational How this rust grew upon our reason at first is evident in the fall of man the Serpent creeps in upon the woman with an yea hath God said Gen. 3.1 his plot was to weaken the authority of Gods word and when she began to waver about it and diminish the peremptory threatning of death with a least ye dye v. 3. her reason began to corrupt and become dreggy which while pure could not but assert the truth and veracity of God Hence the Apostle speaking to the Corinthian Church as a chast virgin espoused to Christ adds this caution least as the Serpent beguiled Eve so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.2 3. ver That is take heed of falling off from the pure doctrine of the Gospel the head of every man is Christ so much adherence and subjection as reason hath unto him and his holy truth so much chastity and virginity it hath Virginitae mentis est integrasides Aust in Joh. but as soon as it elapes it becomes an adulteress and should not be suffered to speak in holy things Morcover the irrationality of it will further appear if we consider that the sphear of reason and the sphear of revelation are two distinct things The sphear of reason is filled with natural notions the elements of mans spirit but the sphear of revelation is filled with supernatural truths the dictates of God Reason so far as it is reason is a divine spark a petty Prince in its own dominions but when it leaves these and passes over into the supernatural region and there instead of sitting down at Gods se et to be taught and inlightned assumes the magisterial chair and falls a judging divine mysteries it is no longer reason but a fool and a brute and speaks as simply in matters of Religion as a beast if it could speak would do in matters of reason Thus when our Saviour discoursed Nicodemus about regeneration reason prattled after a strange rate How can a man be born when he is old can he enter the second time into his mothers womb and be born So soolishly and absurdly doth carnal reason carry it self in supernatural things To make this more plain let us compare the weakness of reason with the sublimity of holy mysteries and then the fallibility of reason with the certainty of them First Let us compare the weakness of reason with the sublimity of holy Mysteries Reason having a bruise in the fall is weak even in its own sphear With how much toil doth it creep from letters to words and from words to Arts and Sciences And when it is there how little doth it know Can it span the heavens or measure the vast back-side thereof or number those golden letters the stars therein or understand the Sun which to have done Eudoxus would willingly have been burnt up by it or in one of its beams tell what light is touching which there are no less then seven opinions in one of the Schoolmen which verifies the old saying Non constat ex lumine naturae quid sit natura luminis To come lower can it enter into the treasures of the snow or ride a circuit with the winds or take a rational turn with the flux and reflux of the sea or tell how the massie earth hangs upon nothing or unkennel an occult quality and draw it out to an open view or unriddle a loadstone in which a late Philosopher would have the atomes of both Poles to meet and incorporate Nay in a common stone can it dive into the form or nature thereof dic mihi quid est lapiditas said a Learned man can it strip the meanest creature of the investing accidents and look upon the pure naked essence thereof can it comprehend a drop or a dust in which saith the profound Bradwardine there are infinite figures and numbers De Causâ Dei l. 1. c. 1. pars 32. and consequently infinite Geometrical and Arithmetical conclusions following one another in order and having a mutual dependance between themselves such as no Philosophers can ever reach unto because being capable only of finite conclusions they leave behind them infinite unknown Or if it look about its own mansion-house the brain can it tell where the cells of memory or the play-house of fancy or the shop of the animal spirits are scituate or whether all these live together in a family thousands of such things there are which may make every one cry out with Socrates Hoc unum scio quod nihil scio And shall such a weakling as this dunced and posed in every atome within its own sphear usurp the crown and rule over sacred mysteries and pure revelations which come out of the bosom of God to be the wonder of Angels and faith of men and are in a transcendent excess infinitely above and beyond the capacity of both of them shall it take up the ocean in a little shell measure the sacred Trinity in its shallow understanding And if it will not lye in so narrow a room cast it away as no article of Faith as a thing inter impossibilia mentis not consistent with reason shall it s dim eyes pry into the Ark I mean into that great mystery God in the flesh and there because it cannot see how two such natures as mortal and immortal temporal and eternal mutable and immutable can come together into one person throw it away as Smalcius doth with this rationi sanae repugnat it is repugnant to right reason When reason thus exalts it self in the things of God it sinks below it self into brutish
saith the Prophet Isa 8.20 the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple saith the Psalmist Psal 19.7 The Scripture is able to make us wise to salvation and perfect throughly furnished unto all good works saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 3.15 17. Nay such a rule it is that nothing must be added to it nor diminished from it Dent. 4.2 no not by an Angel If an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you let him be accursed Gal. 1.8 And can the spirit in the heart contradict the spirit in the Scripture can it be contrary to it self and depart from its own oracles no surely defectible creatures may be off and on yea and nay in their words but the holy spirit cannot be so The war between Constantius and Magnentius was looked upon as very portentous because therein first cross was carried against cross and Christians engaged against fellow-Christians but that the holy spirit should make war upon it self is a portentous contradiction which if allowed would leave no being to Gods veracity nor standing unto mans faith But as portentous as it is the Enthusiast must maintain it unless he will confess that the spirit in him which denies the Scripture to be the rule is not of God Again thou saiest thou hast the revelation of the holy spirit but how or in what manner doth it reveal it self in thee I suppose thou dost not pretend to a Revelation made by visions or dreams or audible voices as it was wont to be of old but to a revelation intellectual and that is double the one extraordinary in Prophets and Apostles the other ordinary in all true believers In the first revelation made to Prophets and Apostles the holy spirit did immediately infuse the species intelligibiles into their minds and thereby did internally speak and in a proper sense reveal things unto them What we translate the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea Hos 1.2 is in the original the beginning of the speech of Jehovah in Hosea pointing out an internal locution to the Prophet In the second revelation made to believers there is no such thing as in the first no immediate infusion of species no internal voice or locution saying this or that is so and therefore no revelation properly so called but the holy spirit doth enlighten their minds to make them capable and then they hear what the holy spirit in the Scriptures speaks unto them thus S. Paul on the behalf of the Ephesians prays for the spirit of wisdom and revelation not that they might have extraordinary inspirations but that the eyes of their understanding might be inlightned Eph. 1.17 18. To know the witness of God in the Gospel the holy spirit doth not speak to their inlightned understandings immediately but in and by the Scripture-medium which is as it were Epistola Dei Gods letter unto man In the first revelation to the Prophets and Apostles the holy spirit did so totally and in such an extraordinary way govern them in their speaking and writing that therein there was nibil suum nothing of their own not only the matter but quaevis vocula every little word was of God hence S. Peter saith that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moved or carried upon the wings of the spirit above humane frailty 2 Pet. 1.21 In the second revelation to believers the holy spirit is as an holy anointing to their minds and thereby puts them into a capacity to hear what God speaks in the Scripture but it doth not so totally carry and rule them as to make their words purely divine and free from all mixture of their own The first revelation to the Prophets and Apostles being purely immediate and extraordinary makes authentical Scripture The second revelation to believers being but ordinary doth not make Scripture but only capacitate their minds to take in the manifestations of the spirit therein These things premised I must renew my question Say O Enthusiast what is thy revelation is it a pure immediate internal locution is it extraordinary and carried by the spirit above all humane frailty may it be added to the Canon and become Scripture I suppose thou canst not darest not say so but if thou dost read and tremble at the sealing up of the Canon Rev. 22.18 If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book and if any man shall take away from them God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city These words are as a flaming sword at the end of the Bible to keep thee from presuming to put any thing thereunto Say then modestly is not thy revelation ordinary did not the holy spirit come to thee in the chariot of the Scripture and why then doest thou slight and undervalue it why doest thou call it a dead letter a fleshly elementith thing and the like God hath spoken once yea twice if I may so allude once in the Old Testament and again in the New expect not to hear his voice or spirit any where else but there if thou doest thou puttest a cheat upon thy self and instead of a revelation embracest a meer fancy Again the spirit is in thy heart and the spirit is in the Scripture but where is the greatest measure of it say in good earnest is there a greater measure of the spirit in thy heart then in the Scripture then thou canst unriddle all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the difficult knots in Scripture thou canst dive down into that divine abyss and fetch up all the holy mysteries there thy holiness can hold measure with the length and breadth of the pure spiritual Law thy faith runs parallel with all the promises and can tell over all that infinite Mass of free-grace which is couched therein the hellish root of bitterness once in thy nature is quite eradicated and not a string of concupiscence left behind thou canst say I have no sin and which is the wonder thy heart doth not deceive thee in saying so there are no shades or dark spots in thy mind no cracks or flaws at all in thy obedience no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing lacking in thy faith or other graces All in thy heart and life is as right as the rule and as pure as the Christal streams in the Gospel If there be a greater measure of the spirit in thy heart then in the Scripture thus it is with thee but I hope thou art not so utterly void of the spirit and conscience as to fall into so proud a dream of thy estate If thou saiest thou art clean that very word pollutes thee quisquis se inculpatum dixerit aut superbus aut stultus est whosoever saith so is either a fool or a proud man Say then as the truth is there is a greater incomparably greater measure of the spirit in the Scripture
then in thy heart and then tell me what is fittest to be the rule that which is perfect or that which is imperfect that greater measure of the spirit in the Scripture or that lesser far lesser measure of the spirit in thy heart common sence will tell thee it belongs to the Scripture Moreover the spirit is in thy heart and the spirit is in the Scripture but where is it plainest and most obvious where can it be most easily discerned to be the very spirit of God indeed all that is in the Scripture is indubitably of the holy spirit but all that is in thy heart is not so it may be it is from thy own spirit what thou didst suppose to have been from Gods nay it may be it is from Satan transforming himself into an Angel of light The Disciples would have called for fire from heaven as Elias but Christ tells them ye know not of what spirit ye are Luk. 9.55 as if he had said you think this motion came from an extraordinary spirit such as was in Elias but alass it is but from your own spirit nay from the gall and bitterness of it that which you take for zeal is indeed but revenge When upon our Saviours discourse of his sufferings Peter said be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee no doubt he thought himself right in the thing but our Saviour calls him Satan for it Mat. 16.23 his meaning was pious and as he might think from the same holy spirit which a little before inspired him to make a glorious confession of Christ but alass the devil acted secretly therein Of what I find in Scripture I can immediately and without any more ado pronounce that it is the very voice of the holy spirit but of what I find in my own heart I cannot do so First the light must be divided from the darkness Gods spirit must be distinguished from mans and Satans And how such a piece of spiritual Chymistry should be done without the Scripture I cannot imagine There may be three different spirits in my heart and unless I reduce them in a way of trial to the one pure spirit in the Scripture I may be easily cheated by my heart wherefore the Scripture in which the characters of the spirit are more plain and legible then in my own heart must needs be the rule Once more let me ask thee O Enthusiast who criest up the spirit the spirit above Scripture dost thou seek the spirit aright or follow him faithfully I fear thou doest neither Thou doest not seek the spirit aright because not in his own way which now is not in visions and immediate revelations but in the Scripture Thou wouldest have the spirit but wilt not stay upon the mountains of the Prophets and Apostles for him Thou doest like Joseph and Mary they sought Christ among their kindred and acquaintance when he was in the Temple Thou seekest the spirit among thy own fancies and imaginations when he is in the Scripture My spirit and my words shall not depart out of thy mouth saith God Isa 59.21 Observe the spirit and the word are by Gods own ordinance in a sweet conjunction together he that sunders them loses both of them For a man to wave the Scripture and seek the spirit is as if he should forsake the beams and search after the Sun in some place where it shines not The French Kings use to be crowned at Reims because there is the sacred oil which as they say came down from heaven If thou wouldest be crowned with heavenly wisdom be in the Scriptures there and there only is the holy Unction which will teach thee all things Neither dost thou follow the spirit as thou oughtest the spirit if followed in his own way will lead thee into all truth but if thou wilt follow the spirit in an extra-scriptural way thou doest not follow it indeed but thy own fancy and whilest thou seemest to soar above Scripture thou art like to fall far below it into the ditch of error and wickedness In no better place have thy predecessors been after all their high-flying imaginations Montanus that early Enthusiast called himself the Paraclete and magnified the writings of his two Prophetesses above the sacred Gospel The Messaliani thought they could corporeally see the sacred Trinity and dance upon devils and receive the holy spirit in a visible way Oh Satanical illusion John of Leydens visions teemed out Poligamy and a bloody Rebellion Into what wild assertions did Swenckfield and Henry Nicholas come by their Enthusiastical spirit the first saying that the Gospel is the Essence of God nay faith in the heart is so The other blasphemously alledging That the believer is Godded with God and the spirit of love is God incarnate How did Valdesso run into Familism and Antinomianism And what else did Saltmarsh in his book called Sparkles of Glory making as if Christ were but a mystical sigurative man and God in the flesh were only God in his Saints Oh mystery of iniquity whither will not this extra-scriptural spirit go what errors will it not broach what sacred foundations of truth will it not demolish how little Gospel or divine rule will it leave to Christians Leave it then O Enthusiast or else thou canst not follow the spirit of truth Thus much by way of question to the Enthusiasts Secondly I shall in a word say somewhat to their Allegations they say That the Scriptures are but the Christians Alphabet and for beginners only But let us remember the spirit which is in believers in an ordinary way was in the Pen-men of Scripture in an extraordinary I was in the spirit saith St. John Rev. 1.10 he saith not the spirit was in me but I was in the spirit as a vessel in the sea every way surrounded and overruled by it And who can believe that the spirit in its ordinary way should exceed it self in its extraordinary that in believers it should utter high mysteries which in Prophets and Apostles gave out only an Alphabet If it be no more I dare say no man no not the most perfect Disciple of God on earth ever throughly understood his Alphabet no mans knowledge ever dived into the bottom of Scripture no mans holiness was ever parallel to its precepts nor no mans faith ever traced the unsearchable riches of grace there unto the uttermost and shall we say it is only an Alphabet for beginners Is it not the wisdom of God in a mystery is it not able to make the man of God perfect hath St. Paul milk only and not strong meat was St. Peter to seed the lambs only and not to feed them into sheep and when they were such doth St. John write only to the little children and not to the young men and fathers also He writes to them all plainly shewing that no man of what stature soever in grace did ever outgrow the Scripture Again they say the Scriptures are but a
he hath a true perswasion of the things of God but after Experience a Plerophory or full perswasion thereof Here I shall Instance in that one Fundamental Comprehensive Truth which is pregnant with all other viz. that the holy Scriptures are the very Word of God and so to be embraced by all Christians The Papists say That the Authority of the Scriptures depends at least quoad nos on the Definition of the Church and that upon that account chiefly it is to be beloved by us By the Church they mean the Church of Pastors and those gathered in a Council to desine the Canon of Scripture Saint Paul speaks of a Church which is The Pillar and Ground of the Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 But as our learned Whitaker hath observed That is not the Church of Pastors but of Believers and in truth the Word of Life is more purely held forth in the Lives and Experiences of Believers than in the Gifts of Pastors This Thesis some of their Grandees have prosecuted even to Blasphemy saying That without the Judgment of the Church they would give no more credit to Matthew than to Livy and value the Scriptures much as they do Esops Fables That this Opinion is false is as clear as the Light true Faith is a pure infusion which hangs on the irradiating Spirit as a Beam on the Sun and in Scripture sees with the credenda the reason of believing in the Divine Authority stamped thercon The Ministery used about it may be Mans but the Authority on which it leans must be Gods Theol. Nat. Tit. 209. Tota causa tota radix totum fundamentum credendi verbis Dei debet esse quia ipse dicit saith Raimundus De Sabunde Unless we believe God for himself our Faith is not Divine if the Fulciment of it be humane it is such it self Saint Paul would not have Our Faith stand in the wisdom of men Comment in Mich. 7. 1 Cor. 2.5 Saint Jerom saith In homine spes vana vera in Deo est and a little after Nolite credere in ducibus non in Episcopo non in Presbytero non in Diacono non in quâlibet hominum dignitate If Believers believe the Scriptures upon the Authority of Pastors Pastors believe them upon their own Or if they say that they have the Testimony of the Spirit all Believers may say the same and thereby believe as well as themselves and without their Authority The Thessalonians Received the Word as the Word of God without asking the Judgment of the Church 1 Thess 2.13 The Bercans Received it with all readiness and instead of consulting the Church Searched the Scriptures Acts 17.11 The true Church cannot be known but by the Scriptures De Uniâ—â—â— Feel caâ—â— 3. â—â— Thus Saint Austin writing against the Donatists saith Sunt certe libri Dominici quorum Autoritati utrique consentimus utrique credimus ibi queramus Eccl siam ibi discutiamus cansam And again Ecclesiam suam demonstrent si possunt non in sermonibus rumoribus Afrorum non in Conciliis Episcoporum non in literis disputatorum non in signis prodigiis fallacibus sed in preseriptâ— legis in Prophetarum praedactis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Canonicis Sanctorum Librorum Autoritatibus And if I must know the Church by the Scripture I must in all reason own the Scripture before I own the Church or its Decisions The Church may bear witness to the Scripture but in a subordinate Ministerial way The supream adequate witness thereof is only that Spirit which outwardly indited it in the letter and inwardly imprints it on the Heart The Church may bear witness to the Scripture but it can add no Authority to it If the Church hath Authority to define the Canon it must have it from Scripture and then the Scripture must have Authority even quoad nos before that Definition unless they will absurdly distinguish and say That the Scripture-Authority before the Definition is only as to Pastors and not as to Believers till after it All the Churches Authority is from Scripture and How can the derivative Authority add to the Primitive The Scripture is Principium scientificum and therefore to be received by its light without a quare or reason why it is so the Scripture is a Foundation to the Church Eph. 2.20 and such a one that the Church is no further a Church than as it is built thereon and How can the Church be a Foundation to the Scripture The Scripture is a Law to the Church every Soul must be under it and How can the Subject-Church give Authority to the Law which it Self is under The Judgment of the Church hath been variable in the Council of Carthage under Cyprian it was Decreed that those which were baptized by Hereticks returning to the Church should be rebaptized the one Baptisin being only in the Church and none without it Vbi Ecclesia non est Baptisma non est Afterwards the first Council of Carthage called the First not as if it had been first in time but as omitting the first Cyprianical Council as antiquated enacted that Baptism made in the name of the Sacred Trinity should not be reiterated all crying out Absit against reiteration In the seventh General Council of Constantinople the 338 Bishops cried down Images might and main Quomodo Dei matrem quam obumbravit plenitudo Deitatis vulgaris Gentilium ars pingere audet non fas est Christianis qui spem Resurrectionis babent demonum culturae consuetudinibus uti flagitium est as Gregorius Theologus said Fidem habere in coloribus non in corde Quis gloriam splendorem Christi effigiare posset mortuis coloriius said Eusebius Pamphili in his Letter to the Empress Constantia One would have thought that the broken Images would never have been set together again but within less than half a Century comes the second Council of Nice and there the 350 Bishops bring in Images again under the wings of the old Cherubims and set them up upon Jacobs Pillar and back them with Fathers and Miracles They throw out Anathema's against the Iconoclasts and reject with a Curse the Books of Eusebius as a Man delivered over in reprobum sensum And are well perswaded that Angels are Corporeal and may be pictured A little after and within the same half-Century comes the Council of Francford halting between both the former speaking half in the Language of Ashdod and half in the pure Language allowing Images but denying any Worship to them And as touching the Canon it will afterwards appear how the Council of Laodicea differs about that from the third Council of Carthage and how the fixth Council of Constantinople in confirming them both varies from it self The Judgment of the Church hath been subject to Error the famous Council of Nice had two lapses in it in the twelfth
for his good and hence God doth not fulfil Promises of Temporals as he doth those of Spirituals Promises of Spirituals he fulfils in specie because they cannot otherwise be made good a drop of Grace being more worth than a World but those of Temporals he fulfils disjunctively either in the Blessing it self or in that which is equivalent by inward contentation and supportation compensating the absence of the thing it self These things being so the Believer in what he hath may experience the Promise in the true proportion and meaning of it and not withstanding his wants may know That in Christ he is so far heir of all things that if he could want a world he should have it As touching Spiritual Promises these are either Promises of Grace or Promises to Grace As touching Promises of Grace Faith may know these experimentally The Believer reads in his Bible That God hath promised to give an heart of flesh to make a new heart and a new spirit to write his Law in the heart to give an heart to know him to circumcise the heart that it may love him and many more such-like and afterwards reading over his own Heart he may find these precious Graces all there and be able experimentally to say of these Promises as Joshua did of those made to Israel Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord hath spoken all are come to pass Josh 23.14 In every holy melting he finds the heart of flesh in every holy frame the new heart and spirit in every holy inclination the inward engraven Law in every holy beam the Divine Teaching in every holy affection the Spiritual Circumcision all the Promises are scaled and really exemplified in his Heart and what an admirable experiment is this To see a Work within answering to the Promise in the Word is a greater sight than if a Man could have stood by and seen the light start forth into Being upon the Almighty fiat spoken by God in the Creation unto which the Apostle alludeth in setting forth the Divine light shining into the Heart in the face of Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 The Magnalia of Grace are more wonderful than those of nature Hence St. Chrysostom upon those words of the Apostle We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.10 saith of Regeneration That it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really a Creation and more noble than the old one as adding a benè vivere to that life which came from the old one The experienced Believer hath cause to say what hath God wrought how fearfully is the New Creature made all its Graces were written in the Promise and now are fashioned in the Heart where before there were none of them How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the sum of them This Experiment was notably typed out in Isaac he was by Promise and as soon as he was born the Promise was experimented notwithstanding the dead body and dead womb The Believer the child of Promise is as Isaac was saith the Apostle Gal. 4.28 All the regenerating Graces are by Promise and when these are brought forth the Promise is made good maugre all the deadness of nature By the Promises we are made partakers of the Divine Nature saith St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.4 that is we have those Divine Graces which as the Creature-module will admit resemble the Holy One and so we have the Promises sealed up to us in Graces As touching Promises made to Grace such as are fulfilled in this life Faith also experiments them to be Divine In the Scripture the Believer meets with Promises of Pardon to such as repent and believe of comfort to the mourner of filling to the hungry and thirsty of the Divine secret to them that fear God of encrease of Grace to the improver and many more of the same nature To experiment these the Believer by perusing the Scripture and his own Heart doth two things first He clears it up to himself that the Graces in his Heart to which such Promises are made are true through the irradiating Spirit vouchsafed to him He may discover them to be such by Scriptural Marks he may find that his Faith purifies and works by Love That his Repentance and Mourning are chiefly for Sin That his Hunger and Thirst are humble and industrious in the use of means That his Fear is of God and his Goodness in a filial way That his improving of Talents is in a way of dependence and holy diligence and so certainly knows that these Graces in his Heart are real things This foundation being first laid then he proceeds to a second review of his Heart and there he may find how Pardons have sensibly broke in upon him in a way of Repenting and Believing or how the Sheaves of Joy and Comfort have followed his Tears or how Satisfactions Manna-like have dropped down on his hungry Soul or how Divine illuminations have come in and Crowned his Holy Fear or how Talents have multiplied in the faithful using and actuating of them And the Experiment thereupon will be compleat every Grace sooner or later being in some good measure answered by the Promises which let out their sweetness to it as God hath ordained them to do Thus the Believer sensibly enters the Land of Promise and eats of the Fruit thereof lifting up his Soul in The high Praises of him who gave the Promises in the Scripture and fulfils them in the Heart As touching Promises of eternal good things in Heaven where there are Plenitudes of Joy and Rivers of Pleasure in the Presence of Him who is All in All the completion of these is in another World nevertheless the Believer hath an experimental taste thereof here Whilest his Hope hangs upon them he finds strength and comfort come into his Heart whilst the weary World is tossing with troubles O what a refreshing is it to look into Eternity Hope Eatring within the vail is an Anchor to the Soul and so stablishes it that it doth not rowl about with the wheelings of this changeable World nor center its happiness in any or all the Creatures Let the World come in all its Fancies and glittering appearances of Good it cannot call off the Believers Heart from Heaven but it will be ready to point that way or let it come with storms of terror and troubles it cannot loosen the Anchor-hold the Believer will rather part with all the World and his Life too then let go his hold of Heaven Ye took with joy the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance saith the Apostle Hebr. 10.34 Or as the Words are in the Original Knowing that ye have in your selves a better and abiding substance in Heaven He speaks as if they had carried Heaven in and about them and in part they did so for as Beza hath it on this place Fide possidemus quod est in
other of Hope which afforded her great Comfort in her Torments Caspar Olevian a German Divine being asked by one Whether he were certain of his Salvation answered just at the brink of death Certissimus I am most sure of it Mr. Bolton being near death expressed himself thus My whole heart is filled with joy I feel nothing within but Christ Mr. Hieron said His Soul was full of joy as if be had seen Heaven open to receive him Such Paradises of Joy Sabbatisines of Spirit and Prepossessions of Glory have the Saints found in their way to Heaven Again there being an infallible Connexion between truth of Grace and Pardon and also between Perseverance in Grace and Salvation a Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon and again he may be assured of his Perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation These two demonstrated will make good the Point First I say A Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon which cannot but be where those are And for the truth of Grace a double Testimony may be vouched one from Conscience the other from the holy Spirit the Apostle mentions both The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit Rom. 8.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it co-witnesseth with ours and in the mouth of two such Witnesses there must needs be establishment Hence St. Chrysostome on these words breaks out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What scruple can remain after such a Testimony I shall begin with the testimony of Conscience Conscience is a spy in our bosom which marks every thing a spiritual Eccho which returns our actions and makes them sound again after they are past and gone from us By it the Soul turns its eyes in ward and becomes a Speculum or Looking-glass to it self representing to it self its own acts By it it bends back the beams of general Truths and applys them to Particulars That Righteousness and Virtue should be followed is an universal Truth but Conscience can reflect it back upon us and bids us do so in particular and if we indeed do it Conscience will say Euge this or that is well done by us The Testimony of Conscience was of great repute among Pagans Plato calls it his Daemon and Menander a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Conscience is a God to Mortals And Seneca Deus in humano corpore hospitans God dwelling in an humane body Hence came Pythagoras's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-reverence And Sextius his parly with himself every night what Vice he had in the day resisted and Virtue promoted And the Satyrists complaint touching the neglect of the reflexive faculty Vt nemo in sese tentat descendere nemo few or none would descend into themselves Among Christians the Testimony of Conseience must needs be sacred their Consciences not lying as the Pagans in their blood or natural pollution but being purified by the precious Blood and Spirit of Christ their lamps of Reason not lying as the others in the damp and darkness of the fall but brought forth and new-lighted at the Scripture and Sun of Righteousness shining therein as in its orb Conscience in a Believer is as St. Bernard hath it Purum Religionis speculum a pure glass of Religion And as another Major pars clavium the greatest key in the Church such an excellent Witness may well speak in this Point In David it speaks thus O Lord I have walked in my integrity Psal 26.1 that is in the exercise of Faith Love Obedience and other Graces which as so many Pearls make up Sincerity In Hezekiah it speaks much after the same manner Remember O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart Isa 38.3 And it is the more to be noted because Conscience saith so in a way of appeal even to God himself and by a right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holds up the truth of its Graces to so pure a Sun This is such a Testimony as St. Paul joys and glories in 2 Cor. 1.12 Est quidam modus in Conscientia gloriandi ut noveris fidem tuam esse sinceram spem tuam certam caritatem tuam sine simulatione saith St Austin There is a kind of glorying in conscience when thou knowest thy Faith sound Hope certain and Love undissembled A Man that repents believes and loves may by the pulse of Conscience know that he doth so True saith Bellarmine he may know that he doth them but not that he doth them sicut oportet as he ought to do them Unto which I answer Conscience according to its Light and Line of Principles can bear Witness to Integrity natural Conscience to natural Integrity and renewed Conscience to gracious Integrity An instance of the former we have in Abimelech whose Conscience told him That he meant not to take away another mans Wise Gen. 20.5 and of the latter in St. Paul whose Conscience told him That his Conversation was in simplicity and godly sincerity 2 Cor. 1.12 Conscience which Witnesses Integrity must look beyond the meer matter of Acts into the modus for therein Integrity especially such as is gracious consists more than in the Acts themselves Unless a man know that he repents believes and loves sicut oportet he cannot know his own Sincerity and if he know his Sincerity he knows that he repents believes and loves aright A Believer converses much between Scripture and Conscience fetching his Notions from the one and his Evidences from the other In the Word he sees the Characters of Grace and in the Conscience the state of his Soul True Repentance mourns over sin as sin hates it as the greatest evil and casts it away as an accursed thing saith the Word and such is thy Repentance saith Conscience True Faith prizes Christ overcomes the World and works by Love saith the Word and such a Faith is thine saith Conscience True Love is inflamed from Gods sweetly acquiesces in him and obedientially resignes to him saith the Word and such a Love is thine saith Conscience Interroga cortuum Ask thy heart If Love be there saith St. Austin Ask again If Faith and Repentance be there thou hast an Oracle within that can tell thee what thou lovest most trustest in most and grievest for most that can shew thee thy Uprightness witness the Truth of thy Graces and feast thee with Divine Comforts such as pass understanding It was a great Comfort to the Nobleman when his Servants met him and told him Thy Son liveth John 4.51 But oh What is it to the Believer when such an one as Conscience comes and saith Thy Faith liveth or thy Love burneth towards God or thy Repentance is pure godly forrow Then the Oyl of Joy is upon every Grace and the Cup of Consolations runneth over Conscience becomes a banquetting-house and Assurance as Latimer calls it is the Sweet-meats We have heard one Witness but the Supream who drops all
Predicantici a nick-name for Preachers by Papists and some Protestants Pag. 376 Preaching its efficacy Pag. 379 380 381 Proving our estate not impossible therefore Assurance not impossible Pag. 402 Q Quakers Light within confuted Pag. 67 68 69 Quirinus Reuteras his saying on his Death-bed Pag. 249 R Rabbins saying of Grace and Judgment Pag. 319 Reason and Divine Mysteries compared together and how far these exceed that 50. It s fallibility compared with infallibility of the Scriptures Pag. 52 Remit whether God may remit Sin without a Satisfaction the Question may be spared 116. It is granted before assurance of it is manifested Pag. 139 Revelation to Apostles and Prophets and to ordinary Believers how differ Pag. 58 Resignation to Jesus Christ the third thing in Faith and what it is 79. Three things opened about it 81. Made to Christ as Mediator 82 83. To the whole Trinity 84. To the Word 85. What the purposes of it to 115. Adjuncis and properties of it to 131. In it is the Essential nature of Faith to 16. It is a middle thing between Faith and Assurance 149 to 155. How call'd in Old and New Testament 154. Acts of Resignation made by Faith Pag. 161 162 Righteousness imputative justified and vindicated Pag. 99 100 Dr. Rivets Death-bed Experiences Pag. 327 S Sacrament of the Supper set out livelily Pag. 375 376 Sacrifices by Gods appointment ever since the Fall 42. And foreshewed the Messiah Pag. 43 Samuel asked of and lent to God Pag. 373 School-Divinity censured 29. Schoolmens saying about Worship Pag. 124 Scripture inward marks whereby known to be the Word of God 32 to 36. Several Sectaries that reject it mentioned 55. Argued with to 64. Their Allegations refuted to 69. That it is a dead letter refuted 65. Discern'd by Faith without the Church 328 329. It is Principium scientificum Pag. 330 Seculum spiritus sancti refuted Pag. 66 Self-denial as it precedes a Believers Resignation consists in divers things 75 to 79. The Moralists and the Believers differ Pag. 161 162. Sick godly Woman would have God chuse health or sickness for her 183. Story of a sick-man to whom Satan appeared Pag. 432 Sin distinctions about it 154. Divers senses of Original Sin with the true 252 to 256. It hinders Faith 157. How far they do not hinder Resignation 155 to 161. Not Justification Pag. 221 Socinus and Servetus their blasphemy about the Trinity 357. Socinians mistake about Original Sin 6. The irrationality of their Faith 47. And nullity 53. Grace they speak of is a fancy Pag. 117 Sokneus his dying-saying Pag. 114 Son Natural and Adopted their resemblance Pag. 241 242 Spirit Word go together 52. To say the Spirits Testimony is dubious is blasphemy 408. It applys Promises 409. Abides for ever with a Believer two grounds of it Pag. 414 Sulpitius Severus his Loquacity Pag. 278 Sultan Achmet his proud arrogance Pag. 243 Synagogue their first use Pag. 376 T Talmud of the Jews magnified by them Pag. 93 Taught of God all ambitious of so great a privilege Pag. 91 93 Trinity of persons and unity of essence the mystery of it not known by Human Reason 352 353. Acknowledged by Jewish Rabbins and Cabbalists with the Primitive Christians saying to them that doubt of it 354. Enemies of it 355. Worshipt by the Church in all Ages Pag. 356 Fruebern's Death-bed saying Pag. 126 V Vanity how described Pag. 183 Virgins a Play acted about the five wise five foolish Pag. 371 Vivification Faith yields up the Soul to Christ for it and how Pag. 105 106 107 Vnction Festival Pag. 378 Vnion Hypostatical and Mystical Pag. 241 Vniversal Promises and Threats include Particulars Pag. 394. Vprightness is Gospel-perfection 448. Vpright persons mentioned always with some mark of honour 419. How God is upright with the upright Pag. 453 W Walking in all Places as in Gods Presence Pag. 449 450 Will Christ as God and Man hath two Wills Pag. 392 Wisdom why Christ call'd the Wisdom of God 89. A great stir in the World about Wisdom Pag. 170 World Epicureans fancy of the making of it 383. The Believer understands better ibid. Z Zeal what 307. Examples of it for the truth Pag. 308 309 Zeno's Wife Ariadne would not suffer him to be taken up when buried in a sit of the Falling-sickness Pag. 167 Zuinglius his answer suggested in a Dream Pag. 94 Scriptures explained in this Treatise 1 Sam. 15.25 160 2 King 17.33 357 Job 19.25 26. 402 Psal 11.7 421 Psal 34.5 369 Psal 39.5 320 Psal 55.22 107 108 Psal 62.1 152 Psal 63.1 5. 459 Psal 119 160. 112 Prov. 3.21 24 25 9.1 2 3. 197 Cant. 4.9 453 Isa 57.17 18. 195 Ezek. 43.2 116 Dan. 4.27 277 Hos 2.13 14. 195 Mat. 15.26 27. 196 Mark 14.72 223 Luk. 9.55 61 Job 3.12 22 23. 14.23 359 16.14 120 Acts 5.41 273 26.7 350 1 Cor. 2.14 20 21 2 Cor. 9.6 454 Gal. 6.1 313 Ephes 1.13 144 5.10 107 Col. 2.5 28 324 1 Thess 1.5 445 Heb. 12.1 270 1 Job 2.4 25 1 Job 3.6 160 1 Job 5.5 7 8. 363 Books Sold by Tho. Cockerill at the Atlas in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange THe Morning-Exercise at Cripplegate or several Cases of Conscience practically resolved by sundry Ministers in 4 to The Supplement to the Morning Exercise at Cripplegate or several more Cases of Conscience practically resolved by sundry Ministers in 4 to Precious Faith considered in its Nature Working and Growth By Edward Polhill of Barwash in Sussex Esq in 8 o. The Faithfulness of God considered and clear'd in the great Events of his Word 8 o. The Nature Power Deceit and Prevalency of the remainder of In-dwelling-Sin in Believers together with the ways of its working and means of Prevention By John Owen D. D. in 8 o. An Antidote against Distraction or an endeavour to serve the Church in the daily Case of Wandring in the Worship of God By Richard Steel M. A. in 8 o. The Reuniting of Christianity or the Manner how to Rejoyn all Christians under one Confession of Faith in 8 o. God a Christians Choice compleated by particular Covenanting with God c. in pursuit of a Design proposed by Mr. R. A. in his Book Entituled The Vindication of Godliness And by Mr. Tho. Vincent in his Book called Words whereby we may be saved By Samuel Winney FINIS