but to resolve our faith into some humane Testimony even to lay our foundation upon the sand where all will fall at the next assault It s strange to consider how we all abhor that piece of Popery as most injurious to God of all the rest which resolves our faith into the Authority of the Church And yet that we do for the generality of professors content our selves with the same kinde of faith Onely with this difference The Papists believe Scripture to be the Word of God because their Church saith so and we because our Church or our Leaders say so Yea and many Mininisters never yet gave their people better grounds but tell them which is true that it is damnable to deny it but help them not to the necessary Antecedents of Faith If any think that these words tend to the shaking of mens faith I answer First Onely of that which will fall of it self Secondly And that it may in time be built again more strongly Thirdly Or at least that the sound may be surer setled It s to be understood that many a thousand do profess Christianity and zealously hate the enemies thereof upon the same grounds to the same ends and from the same inward corrupt principles as the Jews did hate and kill Christ It is the Religion of the Countrey where every man is reproached that believes otherwise they were born and brought up in this belief and it hath increased in them upon the like occasions Had they been born and bred in the Religion of Mahomet they would have beeen as zealous for him The difference betwixt him and a Mahometan is more that he lives where better Laws and Religion dwell then that he hath more knowledg or soundness of apprehension Yet would I not drive into causless doubtings the soul of any true Believer or make them believe their faith is unsound because it is not so strong as some others Therefore I add some may perhaps have ground for their beliefe though they are not able to expresse it by argumentation and may have Arguments in their hearts to perswade themselves though they have none in their mouths to perswade another yea and those Arguments in themselves may be solid and convincing Some may be strengthened by some one sound Argument and yet be ignorant of all the rest without overthrowing the truth of their Faith Some also may have weaker apprehensions of the Divine authority of Scripture then others and as weaker grounds for their Faith so a lesse degree of assent And yet that assent may be sincere and saving so it have these two qualifications First If the Arguments which we have for believing the Scripture be in themselves more sufficient to convince of its truth then any Arguments of the enemies of Scripture can be to perswade a man of the contrary And do accordingly discover to us a high degree at least of probability Secondly And if being thus far convinced it prevailes with us to chuse this as the onely way of life and to adventure our souls upon this way denying all other and adhering though to the losse of estate and life to the Truth of Christ thus weakly apprehended This I think God will accept as a true Beliefe But though such a faith may serve to salvation yet when the Christian should use it for his consolation he will finde it much faile him even as leggs or arms of the weak or lame which when a man should use them do faile him according to the degrees of their weakness or lameness so much doubting as there remaines of the Truth of the word or so much weakness as there is in our believing or so much darkness or uncertainty as there is in the evidence which perswades us to believe so much will be wanting to our Love Desires Labors Adventures and especially to our joyes Therefore I think it necessary to speak a little and but a little to fortifie the believer against temptations and to confirme his faith in the certain Truth of that Scripture which containes the promises of his Rest. CHAP. III. SECT I. ANd here it is necessary that we first distinguish betwixt 1. The subject matter of Scripture or the doctrine which it contains 2. And the words or writings containing or expressing this doctrine The one is as the blood the other as the veins in which it runs Secondly We must distinguish betwixt 1. the substantiall and fundamentall part of Scriptureâ— doctrine without which there is no salvation and 2. the circumstantiall and less necessary part as Genealogies Successions Chronology c. Thirdly Of the substantiall fundamentall part 1. Some may be known and proved even without Scripture as being written in nature it self 2. some can be known onely by the assent of Faith to Divine Revelation Fourthly Of this last sort 1. some things are above Reason as it is without Divine Revelation both in respect of their Probability existence and futurity 2. others may be known by meer Reason without Divine Testimony in regard of their Possibility and Probability but not in regard of their existence or futurity Fifthly Again matter of Doctrine must be distinguished from matter of fact Sixthly Matter of fact is either 1. such as God produceth in an ordinary way or 2. extrordinary and miraculous Seventhly History and Phophesie must be distinguished Eighthly We must distinguish also the books and writings themselves 1. between the maine scope and those parts which express the chief contents and 2. particular words and phrases not expressing any substantialls Ninthly Also it s one question 1. whether there be a certain number of books which are Canonicall or of Divine Authority and 2. another question what number there is of these and which particular books they are Tenthly The direct expresse sense must be distinguished from that which is only implyed or consequentiall Eleventhly We must distinguish Revelation unwriten from that which is writen Twelfthly and Lastly We must distinguish that Scripture which was spoke or written by God immediatly from that which was spoke or writ immediatly by man and but mediatly by God And of this last sort 1. Some of the instruments or penmen are known 2. Some not known Of those known 1. Some that spoke much in Scripture were bad men 3. others were godly And of these some were 1. More eminent and extraordinary as Prophets and Apostles 2. Others were persons more inferiour and ordinary Again as we must distinguish of Scripture and Divine Testimony so must we also distinguish the apprehension or Faith by which we do receive it 1. There is a Divine Faith when we take the Testimony to be Gods own and so believe the thing testified as upon Gods word Secondly There is a Human Faith when we believe it meerly upon the credit of man 2. Faith is either first implicit when we believe the thing is true though we understand not what it is or secondly explicit when we believe and understand
strength of Faith but ordinarily to the very beeing of Faith and Churches 20. Not that the present Possession of Scripture is of absolute necessity to the present beeing of a Church not that it is so absolute necessary to every mans salvation that he read or knew this Scripture himself But that it either be at present or have been formerly in the Church that some knowing it may teach it to others is of absolute necessity to most persons and Churches and necessary to the well-beeing of all 21. Though negative unbelief of the authority of Scripture may stand with salvation yet positive and universal I think cannot Or though Tradition may save where Scripture is not known yet he that reads or hears the Scripture and will not believe it to be the Testimony of God I think cannot be saved because this is now the clearest and surest Revelation And he that will not believe it will muchless believe a Revelation more uncertain and obscure 22. Though all Scripture be of Divine Authority yet he that believeth but some one Book which containeth the substance of the Doctrine of salvation may be saved much more they that have doubted but of some particular Books 23. They that take the Scripture to be but the Writings of godly honest men and so to be only a means of making known Christ having a gradual precedency to the Writings of other godly men and do believe in Christ upon those strong grounds which are drawn from his Doctrine Miracles c. rather then upon the Testimony of the Writing as being purely infallible and Divine may yet have a Divine and saving faith 24. Much more those that believe the whole Writing to be of Divine inspiration where it handleth the substance but doubt whether God infallibly guided them in every circumstance 25. And yet more those that believe that the Spirit did guide the Writers to Truth both in Substance and Circumstance but doubt whether he guided them in Orthography or whether their Pens were as perfectly guided as their minds 26. And yet more may those have saving Faith who onely doubt whether Providence infallibly guided any Transcribers or Printers as to retain any Copy that perfectly agreeth with the Autograph 27. Yet do all these in my judgment cast away a singular prop to their faith and lay it open to dangerous assaults and doubt of that which is a certain truth 28. As the Translations are no further Scripture then they agree with the Copies in the Original Tongues so neither are those Copies further then they agree with the Autographs or Original Copies or with some Copies perused and approved by the Apostles 29. Yet is there not the like necessity of having the Autographs to try the Transcripts by as there is of having the Original Transcripts to try the Translations by For there is an impossibility that any Translation should perfectly express the sense of the Original But there is a possibility probability and facility of true Transcribing and grounds to prove it true de facto as we shall touch anon 30. That part which was written by the Finger of God as also the substance of Doctrine through the whole Scriptures are so purely Divine that they have not in them any thing humane 31. The next to these are the words that were spoken by the mouth of Christ and then those that were spoken by Angels 32. The Circumstantials are many of them so Divine as yet they have in them something Humane as the bringing of Pauls Cloak and Parchments and as it seems his counsel about Marriage c. 33. Much more is there something Humane in the Method and Phrase which is not so immediatly Divine as the Doctrine 34. Yet is there nothing sinfully Humane and therefore nothing false in all 35. But an innocent imperfection there is in the Method and Phrase which if we deny we must renounce most of our Logick and Rhetorick 36. Yet was this imperfect way at that time all things considered the fittest way to divulge the Gospel That is the best Language which is best suited to the Hearers and not that which is best simply in it self and supposeth that understanding in the Hearers which they have not Therefore it was Wisdom and Mercy to fit the Scripture to the capacity of all Yet will it not therefore follow that all Preachers at all times should as much neglect Definition Distinction Syllogisme c. as Scripture doth 37. Some Doctrinal passages in Scripture are onely Historically related and therefore the relating them is no asserting them for truth and therefore those sentences may be false and yet not the Scripture false yea some falshoods are written by way of reproving them as Gehezies Lye Sauls Excuse c. 38. Every Doctrine that is thus related onely Historically is therefore of doubtful credit because it is not a Divine assertion except Christ himself were the Speaker and therefore it is to be tried by the rest of the Scripture 39. Where ordinary men were the Speakers the credit of such Doctrines is the more doubtful and yet much more when the Speakers were wicked of the former sort are the Speeches of Jobs friends and divers others of the later sort are the Speeches of the Pharisees c. and perhaps Gamaliels counsel Act. 5.34 40. Yet where God doth testifie his Inspiration or Approbation the Doctrine is of Divine Authority though the Speaker be wicked As in Balaams Prophesie 41. The like may be said of matter of Fact for it is not either necessary or lawful to speak such words or do such actions meerly because men in Scripture did so speak or do no not though they were the best Saints for their own speeches or actions are to be judged by the Law and therefore are no part of the Law themselves And as they are evil where they cross the Law as Josephs swearing the Ancients Polygamy c. so are they doubtful where their congruence with the Law is doubtful 42. But here is one most observable exception conducing much to resolve the great doubt whether Examples binde Where men are designed by God to such an Office and act by Commission and with a promise of Direction their Doctrines are of Divine Authority though we finde not where God did dictate and their Actions done by that Commission are currant and Exemplary so far as they are intended or performed for Example and so Example may be equivalent to a Law and the Argument a facto ad jus may hold So Moses being appointed to the forming of the old Church and Commonwealth of the Jews to the building of the Tabernacle c. his Precepts and Examples in these works though we could not finde his particular direction are to be taken as Divine So also the Apostles having Commission to Form and Order the Gospel Churches their Doctrine and Examples therein are by their general Commission warranted and their practice in stablishing the Lords Day in setling the
called Christians so named from him do remain Thus far Josephus a Jew by Nation and Religion who wrote this about eighty six years after Christ and fourteen years before the death of St. John Himself being born about five or six years after Christ. 20. Consider also how that every Age hath afforded multitudes of VVitnesses who before were most bitter and violent enemies And divers of these men of note for Learning and place in the world How mad was Saul against the Truth Surely it could be no favour to the Cause nor over-much credulity that caused such men to witness to the death the truth of that for which they had persecuted others to the death but a little before Nor could childish Fables or common flying Tales have so mightily wrought with men of Learning and Understanding For some such were Christians in all Ages 21. Nay observe but the Confessions of these Adversaries when they came to believe How generally and ingenuously they acknowledg their former ignorance and prejudice to have been the cause of their unbelief 22. Consider also how unable all the enemies of the Gospel have been to abolish these sacred Records They could burn the Witnesses by thousands but yet they could never either hinder their succession or extinguish these Testimonies 23. Nay the most eminent Adversaries have had the most eminent ruine As Antiochus Herod Julian with multitudes more This stone having faln upon them hath ground them to powder 24 It were not difficult here to collect from unquestioned Authors a constant succession of VVonders at least to have in several Ages accompanied the Attestation of this Truth and notable judgments that have befaln the persecutors of it And though the Papists by their Fictions and Fabulous Legends have done more wrong to the Christian Cause then ever they are able to repair yet unquestionable History doth afford us very many Examples And even many of those actions which they have deformed with their fabulous additions might yet for the substance have much truth And God might even in times of Popery work some of these wonders though not to confirm their Religion as it was Popish yet to confirm it as the Christian Religion for as he had then his Church and then his Scripture so had he then his special Providences to confirm his Church in their belief and to silence the several enemies of the Faith And therefore I advise those who in their inconsiderate zeal are apt to reject all these Histories of Providences meerly because they were written by Papists or because some Witnesses to the Truth were a little leavened with some Popish errors that they would first view them and consider of their probability of Truth or Falshood that so they may pick out the Truth and not reject all together in the lump least otherwise in their zeal against Popery they should injure Christianity And now I leave any man to judg whether we have not had an infallible way of receiving these Records from the first VVitnesses Not that every of the particulars before mentioned are necessary to the proving or certain receiving the Authentick Records without depravation for you may perceive that almost any two or three of them might suffice and that divers of them are from abundance for fuller confirmation SECT IV. ANd thus I have done with this first Argument drawn from the Miracles which prove the Doctrine and VVritings to be of God But I must satisfie the Scruples of some before I proceed First Some will question whether this be not 1. To resolve our faith into the Testimony of man 2. And so to make it a Humane faith And so 3. To jump in this with the Papists who believe the Scripture for the Authority of the Church and to argue Circularly in this as they To this I Answer First I make in this Argument the last Resolution of my faith into the Miracles wrought to confirm the Doctrine If you ask why I believe the Doctrine to be of God I Answer because it was confirmed by many undeniable Miracles If you ask why I believe those Miracles to be from God I Answer because no created power can work a Miracle So that the Testimony of man is not the Reason of my believing but onely the means by which this matter of Fact is brought down to my Knowledg Again Our Faith cannot be said to be Resolved into that which we give in Answer to your last Interrogation except your Question be onely still of the proper grounds of Faith But if you change your Question from what is the Ground of my Faith to what is the means of conveying down the History to me Then my faith is not Resolved into this means Yet this means or some other equivalent I acknowledg so necessary that without it I had never been like to have believed 2. This shews you also that I argue not in the Popish Circle nor take my faith on their common Grounds For First When you ask them How know you the Testimony of the Church to be Infallible They prove it again by Scripture and ther 's their Circle But as I trust not on the Authority of the Romish Church onely as they do no nor properly to the Authority of any Church no nor onely to the Testimony of the Church but also to the Testimony of the enemies themselves So do I prove the validity of the Testimony I bring from Nature and well known Principles in Reason and not from Scripture it self as you may see before 3. There is a Humane Testimony which is also divine and so an Humane Faith which is also divine Few of Gods extraordinary Revelations have been immediate The best Schoolmen think none of all but either by Angels or by Jesus himself who was man as well as God You will acknowledg if God reveal it to an Angel and the Angel to Moses and Moses to Israel this is a divine Revelation to Israel For that is called a divine Revelation which we are certain that God doth any way Reveal Now I would fain know why that which God doth naturally and certainly Reveal to all men may not as properly be called a Divine Revelation as that which he Reveales by the Spirit to a few Is not this Truth from God That the Senses apprehension of their Object rightly stated s certain as well as this Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin c. Though a Saint or Angel be a fitter Messenger to Reveal the things of the Spirit yet any man may be a Messenger to reveal the things of the flesh An ungodly man if he have better Eyes and Ears may be a better Messenger or Witness of that matter of Fact which he seeth and heareth then a godlier man that is blinde or deaf especially in cases wherein that ungodly man hath no provocation to speak falsly and most of all if his Testimony be against himself I take that Revelation whereby I know
Doctrinals as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Origen against Celsus Tertullians Apolog. c. As Also Philo Josephus Eusebius and others for History Me thinks it is preposterous to see men study so long the meaning of Gods Word before they know whether it be Gods Word or not As the Italians Melancthon mentioneth That would prove Christ was in the Bread before they believed well that he was in Heaven It is no questioning the Truth of Scripture to perswade men to the rightest course to be assured of its Truth I confess my self much offended at some mens doctrine who cry down Reason and Tradition here as if they were enemies to God and his Word and cry up nothing but Scripture and the Spirit Just like the Antinomians in the doctrine of Certainty of Salvation who cry up the Witness of the Spirit and cry down the trying by Signes and Evidences of Sanctification As if these were contrary which are co-ordinate If I had wanted either Reason Tradition or the help of the Spirit I should never have beleeved the Truth of the Scripture I confess for my part I cannot boast of any such Testimony or Light of the Spirit nor Reason neither which without Tradition would have made me beleeve that the Book of Canticles is Canonical and writ by Solomon and the Book of Wisdom Apocryphal and writ by Philo as some think or that Saint Pauls Epistle to the Loadiceans which is in the end of Bruno and others were not Canonical as well as Johns second and third Some men as soon as they hear talk of Reason and Tradition here they zealously cry out It is Socinianism and Popery Scripture is Gods written infallible Law Reason is the Eye by which I must read it The Spirit is the Physitian to cure the blindness of this Eye and in a common sense The very Life and Spirits The Church is the chief but not the onely House where these Records are kept Tradition hath chiefly three Offices It is to the unlearned where Scripture is The Proclaimer of it It is to the learned the Hand that delivereth it to them It is to some that never heard of Scripture a Herauld to proclaim the doctrine which it containeth And why must these needs be set together by the ears May they not yea must they not stand together and further each other The name of Antichrist Socinianism Arminianism for the things I renounce my self hath almost affrighted some men out of their Faith and others out of their Wits Is it any derogation from the Law to say A man must receive it from the hand that bringeth it and read it with his eyes c. A learned godly Divine is offended with Canterbury for these words Reason and ordinary Grace superadded by the help of Tradition do sufficiently enlighten the Soul to discern That Scriptures are the Oracles of God and he saith Here is the Socinians sound or right Reason before the Illumination of the Spirit and to please the Arminians ordinary or universal Grace comes in and the name of Tradition to please the Popish party And what all these are like to do without the special Grace of the Holy Spirit I leave it to any Protestant to judg But what will any Christian deny that there is such a thing as ordinary Grace or that Tradition is necessary to deliver us the Scriptures or hath every man special Grace who beleeveth Scripture to be Gods Word Is it not possible for an unregenerate man to beleeve that What kinde of Preaching would such a man use to Indians Turks or Infidels Are not men sanctified by the Word and must they be sanctified by a Word which they beleeve not that so they may beleeve it Indeed he that saith we may not onely know but know perfectly or know to Salvation without special Grace is mistaken But usually a common Grace and common Knowledg go before Special The same godly Divine against these words of Master Chillingworth The Scripture is not to be beleeved finally for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did beleeve the Doctrine contained in the Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no saith I thought it had been necessary to have received those material Objects or Articles of our Faith upon the Authority of God speaking in the Scriptures I thought it had been Anabaptistical to have expected any Revelation but in the Word of God c. I should rather for my part think thus That the immediate Revelation of Scripture from God was not to me but to the first Witnesses and Penmen The way of Conveyance to us is another thing and is a Revelation too The best way is by Scripture which without Tradition no man would ever see or hear of Where this is not to be had there meer Tradition may save and is a Revelation sufficient to Salvation and not Anabaptistical Though Traditional unwritten doctrines to make up the defects of Scripture I abhor And I should ask the Dissenter first Whether men were not saved before Moses without Scripture And as Doctor Usher well observeth One reason why they might then be without it was the facility and certainty of Tradition For Methuselah lived many hundred yeers with Adam and Sem lived long with Methuselah and Isaac lived fiftie yeers with Sem So that three men saw all from the Beginning of the World till Isaacs fiftieth yeer Secondly And were not many saved by the Apostles doctrine many yeers before the New Testament was written And Jews before while the old was almost lost Thirdly What if some Ethiopians Armenians or Papists should by meer Tradition beleeve in Christ and who dare say That they may not should they not be saved He that saith No contradicteth Christ who saith That whosoever beleeveth in him shall not perish which way soover he came by it Will you hear Irenaeus in this who lived before Popery was born Lib. 3. cap. 4. Quid enim siquib de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset Nonne oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere Ecclesias Mark he saith not Ad Romanam Ecclesiam vel ad unam principem in quibus Apostoli conversati sunt ab eis de praesenti quaestione sumere quod certum re liquidum est Quid autem si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquissent nobis nonne oportebat ordinem sequi Traditionis quam tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias Cui Ordinationi assentiunt multae gentes barbarorum eorum qui in Christum credunt sine charactere vel atramento Scriptam habentes per spiritum in cordibus suis salutem veterem Traditionem diligenter custodientes c. Hanc fidem qui sine literis crediderunt quantum ad Sermonem nostrum barbari sunt quantum autem ad sententiam consuetudinem conversationem propter fidem perquam sapientissimi sunt placent Deo c. Sic per illam
what we believe Both these are again Divine or humane 3. It is one thing to believe as Probable another thing to believe it as certain 4. It s one thing to believe it to be true conditionally another to believe it absolutely 5. We must distinguish betwixt the bare assent of the understanding to the truth of an Axiome when it is only silenced by force of Argument which will be stronger or weaker as the Argument seemeth more or lesse demonstrative and secondly that deep apprehension and firme assent which proceedeth from a well stablished confirmed Faith backed by experience 6. It s one thing to assent to the truth of the Axiome another to taste and chuse the good contained in it which is the work of the Will SECT II. THe Use I shall make of these distinctions is to open the way to these following Positions which will resolve the great Questions on foot How far the belief of the Written Word is of necessity to salvation and Whether it be the foundation of our faith And whether this foundation have been always the same Pos. 1. The Object of belief Is the will of God revealed or a Divine Testimony where two things are absolutely necessary first The Matter secondly The Revelation 2. All this Revealed Will is necessary to the compleating of our faith and it is our duty to believe it But it s onely the substance and tenor of the Covenants and the things necessarily supposed to the knowing and keeping of the Covenant of Grace which are of absolute necessity to the beeing of Faith and to Salvation A man may be saved though he should not believe many things which yet he is bound by God to believe 3. Yet this must be onely through ignorance of the Divineness of the Testimony For a flat unbelief of the smallest truth when we know the Testimony to be of God will not stand with the beeing of true Faith nor with Salvation For Reason layes this ground That God can speak nothing but Truth and Faith proceeds upon that supposition 4. This Doctrine so absolutely necessary hath not been ever from the beginning the same but hath differed according to the different Covenants and Administrations That Doctrine which is now so necessary was not so before the Fall And that which is so necessary since the coming of Christ was not so before his coming Then they might be saved in believing in the Messiah to come of the seed of David but now it s of necessity to believe that this Jesus the Son of Mary is He and that we look not for another I prove it thus That which is not revealed can be no object for Faith much less so necessary But Christ was not Revealed before the Fall nor this Jesus Revealed to be He before his coming therefore these were not of necessity to be believed or as some Metaphorically speak they were then to fundamentall Doctrines Perhaps also some things will be found of absolute necessity to us which are not so to Indians and Turks 5. God hath made this substance of Scripture-Doctrine to be thus necessary primarily and for it self 6. That it be revealed is also of absolute necessity but secondarily and for the Doctrines sake as a means without which Believing is neither possible nor a duty And though where there is no Revelation Faith is not necessary as a duty yet it may be necessary I think as a means that is our natural misery may be such as can no other way be cured but this concerns not us that have heard of Christ 7. Nature Creatures and Providence are no sufficient Revelation of this tenor of the Covenants 8. It is necessary not onely that this Doctrine be Revealed but also that it be Revealed with Grounds or Arguments rationally sufficient to evince the verity of the Doctrine or the Divineness of the Testimony that from it we may conclude the former 9. The Revelation of Truth is to be considered in respect of the first immediate delivery from God or secondly in respect of the way of its coming down to us It is delivered by God immediatly either by writing as the two Tables or by informing Angels who may be his Messengers or by inspiring some choise particular men So that few in the world have received it from God at the first hand 10. The only ways of Revelation that for ought I know are now left are Scripture and Tradition For though God hath not tied himself from Revelations by the Spirit yet he hath ceased them and perfected his Scripture Revelations so that the Spirit onely Reveales what is Revealed already in the Word by illuminating us to understand it 11. The more immediate the Revelation caeteris paribus the more sure and the more succession of hands it passeth through the more uncertain especially in matter of Doctrine 12. When we receive from men by Tradition the Doctrine of God as in the Words of God there is less danger of corruption then when they deliver us that Doctrine in their own words because here taking liberty to vary the expressions it will represent the Truth more uncertainly and in more various shapes 13. Therefore hath God been pleased when he ceased immediate Revelation to leave his Will written in a form of words which should be his standing Law and a Rule to try all other mens expressions by 14. In all the forementioned respects therefore the written Word doth excell the unwritten Tradition of the same Doctrine 15. Yet unwritten Tradition or any sure way of Revealing this Doctrine may suffice to save him who thereby is brought to believe As if there be any among the Abaâ—sines of Ethiopia the Coplies in Egypt or elsewhere that have the substance of the Covenants delivered them by unwritten Tradition or by other Writings if hereby they come to believe they shall be saved For so the Promise of the Gospel runs giving salvation to all that believe by what means soever they were brought to it The like may be said of true Believers in those parts of the Church of Rome where the Scripture is wholly hid from the vulgar if there be any such parts 16. Yet where the written Word is wanting salvation must needs be more difficult and more rare and Faith more feeble and mens conversations worse ordered because they want that clearer Revelation that surer Rule of Faith and Life which might make the way of salvation more easie 17. When Tradition ariseth no higher or cometh originally but from this written Word and not from the verbal Testimonies of the Apostles before the Word was written there that Tradition is but the preaching of the Word and not a distinct way of Revealing 18. Such is most of the Tradition for ought I can learn that is now afoot in the world for matter of Doctrine but not for matter of fact 17. Therefore the Scriptures are not onely necessary to the well-beeing of the Church and to the
Prince of Darkness who having taken them in his snares did lead them captive at his will They were once within a step of Hell who must be now advanced as high as Heaven And though I mention their lost condition before their predestination yet I hereby intend not to signifie any precedency it hath either in it self or in the divine consideration Though I cannot see yet how Dr. Twisses Arguments against the corrupted mass being the object of predestination can be well Answered upon the common acknowledged grounds Yet that Question I dare not touch as being very suspicious that its high Arrogancy in us to dispute of precedency in the Divine Consideration and that we no more know what we talk of then this paper knows what I write of VVhen we confess that all these Acts in God are truly one and that there is no difference of time with him Its folly to dispute of priority or posteriority in nature 3. That they are but a small part of this lost Generation is too apparent in Scripture and experience It s the little flock to whom its the fathers good pleasure to give the Kingdom If the sanctified are few the saved must needs be few Fewer they are then the world imagines yet not so few as some drooping Spirits deem who are doubtful that God will cast off them who would not reject Him for all the world and are suspitious that God is unwilling to be their God when yet they know themselves willing to be his people 4. It is the design of Gods eternal decree to glorifie his Mercy and Grace to the highest in this their salvation and therfore needs must it be a great salvation Every step of mercy to it was great how much more this end of all those mercies which stands next to Gods ultimate end his Glory God cannot make any low or meane worke to be the great business of an eternal purpose 5. God hath given all things to his Son but not as he hath given his chosen to him The difference is clearly expressed by the Apostle He hath made him Head over all things to his Church Ephes. 1.21.22 And though Christ is in some sense A Ransome for All yet not in that special maner as for his people He hath brought others under the Conditional Gospel-Covenant but them under the Absolute He hath according to the tenor of his Covenant procured Salvation for All If they will believe but he hath procured for his Chosen even this Condition of believing 6. Nor is the Redeeming of them by death his whole task but also the effecting of their full Recovery He may send his Spirit to perswade others but he intends absolutely his prevailing only with his Chosen And as truly as he hath accomplished his part on the cross for them so truly will he accomplish his part in Heaven for them and his part by his Spirit also upon them And of all that the Father hath thus given him he will lose nothing SECT II. BUt this is but a piece of their description containing Gods work for them and on them Le ts see what they are also in regard of the working of their own Souls towards God and their Redeemer again These people of God then are that 2 part of the â— externally called 3 who being by the 4 Spirit of Christ 5 throughly though 6 imperfectly regenerate are hereupon 7 convinced and 8 sensible of that 9 evil in sin 10 that misery in themselves that 11 vanity in the creature and that 12 necessity 13 sufficiency and 14 excellency of Jesus Christ that they 15 abhor that evil 16 bewail that misery and 17 turn their hearts from that vanity and most 19 affectionately 18 accepting of Christ for their 20 Saviour and 21 Lord to bring them unto 22 God the chief Good and present them 23 perfectly just before him do accordingly enter into a 24 Cordial Covenant with him and so 25 deliver up themselves unto him and herein 26 persevere to their lives End I shall briefly explain to you the branches of this part of the description also 1. I say they are a part of the Externally Called because the Scripture hath yet shewed us no other way to the Internal call but by the external For how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher All divulging of the substance of the Gospel whether by Solemn Sermons by writing printing reading conference or any other meanes that have a rational sufficiency for information and conviction are this preaching though not all alike clear and excellent The knowledge of Christ is none of Natures principles The book of the Creatures is no meanes alone much less a sufficient means to teach the knowledge of Christ. It may discover mercy but gives not the least hint of the way of that mercy It speaks nothing of God incarnate of two natures in one person of Jesus the Son of Mary of Christs Suretiship and suffering for us rising ascending mediating returning of two Covenants and their several conditions and the reward of keeping them and penalty of breaking them c. It s utterly silent in these things And to affirm that the Spirit calls or teacheth men where the word is not and where the Creature or nature speaks not is I think a groundless fiction There is the light of the eye and the light of the Sun or some other substitute external light necessary to our seeing any object The Scripture and certain revelations from Heaven when and where such are is the sun or external light the understanding is our eye or internal light This eye is become blinde and this internal light in the best is imperfect but the external light of Scripture is now perfected Therefore the work of the Spirit now is not to perfect Scripture or to add any thing to its discovery or to be in stead of a Scripture where it is wanting much less where the Scripture is But to remove the darkness from our understanding that we may see clearly what the Scripture speaks clearly Before the Scripture was perfected the Spirit did enlighten the Prophets and penmen of Scripture both wayes But now I know no teaching of the Spirit save only by its illuminating or sanctifying work teaching men no new lesson nor the old without book but to read with understanding what Scripture Nature Creatures and providences teach The asserting of any more is proper to the Enthusiasts if the spirits teachings did without Scripture or tradition reveal Christ surely some of those millions of poor blinde Pagans would have before this believed and the Christian faith have been propagated among them Or if the Spirit did teach them any step toward Christ upon the receiving whereof he would teach them more and so more and more till they resist this teaching which is the evading doctrine of some then sure
veterem Apostolorum Traditionem ne in conceptionem quidem mentis admittunt quodcunque Haereticorum portentiloquium est I have been the larger in proving an Immortal Life after this because I finde none doubt of the Authority of Scripture but they doubt of the Immortality of the Soul too among us This joyned with the Evident Vanity of all other Religions is an excellent medium to confirm us in the Christian Religion For if we must be happy or miserable for ever sure there is some true Religion teaching the way to Happiness That all other Religions are false any man that lives out of the dust and smoke of prejudice may see with one eye That there is a future Happiness or Misery is evident to Nature or else how would all Nations so universally acknowledg it The Ancient Barbarians beleeved the Immortality of the Soul as of the Getae Herodotus witnesseth Lib. 4. And of the Egyptians Diodorus Siculus l. 1. Biblioth numb 93. The very Inhabitants of Guiny Virginia Guiana Peru Chyna Mexico c. do beleeve a happiness and misery hereafter As Descrip. Reg. Afric Guineae cap. 21.44 Acosta lib. 5. c. 7 8. Hug. Linscot part 1. cap. 25. Jo. Lerius cap. 16. Sir Walter Rawleigh c. witness What Poet speaks not De Tartaro Campis Elisiis manibus And Philosophers of best note except Galen Epicurus Plinius c. As for Pythagoras and his Master Pherecides the Druides the Indian Brachmanes Socrates Plato Cicero Seneca they all acknowledg it Lege Marsil Ficinum de Immort Animae Yea Aristotle himself as is evident De anima lib. 1. context 65 66. Lib. 2. context 21. Lib. 3. context 4 6 7 19 20. Yet we must not take the same course with all men to convince them of Scripture Authority We must first deal with an Atheist In habitu Philosophico before we plead or directly prove Scripture Authority of which see learned Ludovicus Crocius Syntagm l. 1. p. 126. The validity of that Humane Testimony which here we have most use for dependeth not on any Authority thereto conferred from God as Romanists fondly imagine but on men as sensible rational and of common honesty The Testimony of the enemies is more strong then of friends Strabo witnesseth Lib. 16. Geogra of Moses and the ancient Israelites That they were truly righteous and godly men So doth Josephus testifie of John Baptist and James And Pliny of the Primitive Christians Lib. 10. Epist. 101. But I pass these as not intending a full handling of this subject The best that I know already extant on it is Grotius and Du Plessis and I would some able man would do yet more For my own part I have had so many rare convincing experiences of the fulfilling of Promises to me and answering Prayers by wonders of unusual Providences That serve mightily to conform me by seconding my Arguments And were it fit to speak so much of my own matters I would produce them for the confirming of others Were it not to digress I should here express my admiration That so many learned men should lean towards Rome meerly upon a conceit That there is a flat necessity of some Vltimately Decisive Judicial Expounder of Scripture and that must needs be their Church For they think it abominable that every man should be Judg. At present I would but know of them First Whether they speak of Fundamental plain places of Scripture or of more obscure and of less moment For the former First Where there is such Plainness there needs a Teacher to the Ignorant but not a Judg Among Christians Fundamentals are no Controversies Secondly And if the Judg mistake in Fundamentals if we obey him we must renounce our Faith Secondly If the Pope or his Councel of Prelates be Judg how shall all people in the Kingdoms of the World know what Exposition they give Hear their voices they cannot If by their written Canons who shall expound them to the people If another Pope or Councel who shall expound their Exposition and so in Infinitum I do not see but God speaks as plainly as the Councel of Trent and as easie to be understood Thirdly Doth the Pope and Prelates know the meaning of Scripture by rational means or by Euthusiasm or by some Superior Judg If by rational means why may not as learned Doctors know it as well by the same If by some other Judg Who is it If they beleeve Scripture or the Sense of it upon their own Authority who will regard such self idolizing wretches Fourthly If there be a means left of God for a true deciding all Controversies and resolving all difficulties in Scripture then why are not all resolved and why are we not perfect in knowledg The plain Truth is Christ is the onely proper Judg himself and hath left us his Laws and Magistrates to see that we obey them and Ministers to teach us the meaning of them Every man of these is bound to judg rightly of the Sense of these Laws every particular man that he may obey them And if he mistake he sineth and must answer it to God and in some cases to Magistrates and Overseers The Magistrate is to judg rightly when any is punishable and if he erre he must answer it to the Supream and he to God The Ministers are to judg rightly of the Sense of Scripture that they may teach them others and admonish and censure accordingly and if they mistake they are in Synods to consult for Information and in cases of difficulty beyond their own reach to obey the Decrees of such a lawful Synod But to expect a final decisive Judgment of all Controversies on Earth is vain And that Synods should be too bold in determining what God hath left doubtful and utterly uncertain is destructive to the Vnitie and Peace of the Church rather then conducible And for men to beleeve any of their Conclusions or obey any of their Canons when we are sure That they are contrary to the Word of God this were to change our Master and take them for Christ the Prophet who are but his Ambassadors and Vshers in his School When we have disputed and contended our selves aweary and wrangled the Church into flames and ashes yet that which God hath spoken obscurely and so left difficult in it self will remain obscure and difficult still And that which is difficult through the weakness and incapacity of the Readers will be far better cleared by a rational Explication then by a â—are Canon O when will the Lord once perswade his Churches â—o take his Scripture Laws for the onely Canon of their Faith â—nd that in their own naked Simplicity and Evidence without â—he Canons and Comments of men which are no parts of our Creed but helps to our understandings and bounds to our practice 〈◊〉 matters circumstantial which God hath left to mans determinaâ—ion When will the Lord perswade us not to be wise above what 〈◊〉 written but to acknowledg that to be beyond
us which is unâ—evealed in the Word and that to be doubtful which is darkly â—evealed Then the Contentions of the Church about the Mysteâ—ies of the Divine Decrees the nature of Internal Grace and way â—nd maner of the Spirits working c. will be more calmly managed Two things have set fire on the Church and been the plagues of it his thousand yeers and more First Englarging our Creed and making more Fundamentals â—hen God hath done Master Parker and Ludovicus Crocius have fully proved That the Creed for a long time contained no more â—hen Christs words in Matth. 28. do teach To beleeve in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and no more were they baptized â—nto Secondly Delivering our Creeds and Confessions in our own Humane phrase When men have learned more maners and humility then to acâ—use the Language of God as too general and obscure and have more dread of God and compassion on themselves then to make those Fundamentals which God never made so And when they reduce their Creed and Confessions first To their due extent or length secondly And to Scripture phrase and take this onely for a Touchstone of the Orthodox then and not tell then shall the Church have peace about Doctrinals If my judgment much fail not It seems to me no hainous Socinian motion which is so cryed out against of Chillingworths making viz. That every man subscribe to the whole Scripture as Gods Word with a promise to do his best for the right understanding of it No doubt many a Heretick would so subscribe and lurk under a false interpretation and so he may do also by their Humane Canons But I forget my self in thus digressing Reader As thou lovest thy Comforts thy Faith thy Hope thy Safety thine Innocency thy Soul thy Christ thine Everlasting Rest Love Read Study Stick close to Scriptures Farewel Jan. 18. 1649. THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART II. CHAP. I. SECT I. WE are next to proceed to the confirmation of this Truth which though it may seem needless in regard of its own clearness and certainty yet in regard of our distance and infidelity nothing more necessary But you will say To whom will this endeavour be usefull They who believe the Scriptures are convinced already and for those who believe it not how will you convince them Answ. But sad experience tels us that those thaâ— believe do believe but in part and therefore have need of further confirmation and doubtless God hath left us Arguments sufficient to convince unbelievers themselves or else how should we preach to Pagans Or what should we say to the greatest part of the world that acknowledg not the Scriptures Doubtless the Gospel should be preacht to them and though we have not the gift of miracles to convince them of the truth as the Apostles had yet we have arguments demonstrative and clear or else our preaching to them would be vain we having nothing left but bare affirmations Though I have all along confirmed sufficiently by testimony of Scripture what I have said yet I will here briefly add thus much more That the Scripture doth clearly assert this Truth in these six wayes 1. It affirms That this Rest is fore-ordained for the Saints and the Saints also fore-ordained to it Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived what God hath prepared for them that love him which I conceive must be meant of these preparations in heaven for those on earth are both seen and conceived or else how are they enjoyed Mat. 20.23 To sit on Christs right and left hand in his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared And themselves are called Vessels of mercy before prepared unto glory Rom 9.23 And in Christ we have obtained the inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after to the counsel of his own will Ephes. 1.11 And whom he thus predestinateth them he glorifieth Rom. 8.30 For he hath from the beginning chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth 2 Thes. 2.13 And though the intentions of the vnwise and weak may be frustrated and without counsel purposes are disappointed Prov. 15.22 yet the thoughts of the Lord shall surely come to passe and as he hath purposed it shall stand The Counsel of the Lord standeth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all generations Therefore blessed are they whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance Psal. 33.11 12. Who can bereave his people of that Rest which is designed them by Gods eternall purpose SECT II. SEcondly the Scripture tels us that this Rest is Purchased as well as Purposed for them or that they are redeemed to this Rest. In what sense this may be said to be purchased by Christ I have shewed before viz. Not as the immediate work of his sufferings which was the payment of our debt by satisfying the Law but as a more remote though most excellent fruit even the effect of that power which by his death he procured to himself He himself for the suffering of death was crowned with glory yet did he not properly die for himself nor was that the direct effect of his death Some of those Teachers who are gone forth of late do tell us as a piece of their new discoveries that Christ never purchased Life and Salvation for us but purchased us to Life and Salvation Not understanding that they affirm and deny the same thing in severall expressions What difference is there betwixt buying liberty to the prisoner and buying the prisoner to liberty betwixt buying life to a condemned malefactor and buying him to life Or betwixt purchasing Reconciliation to an enemy and purchasing an enemy to Reconciliation But in this last they have found a difference and tell us that God never was at enmity with man but man only at enmity with God and therefore need not be reconciled Directly contrary to Scripture which tels us that God hateth all the workers of iniquity and that he is their enemy And though there be no change in God nor any thing properly called Hatred yet it sufficeth that there is a change in the sinners relation and that there is something in God which cannot better be expressed or conceived then by these termes of enmity and hatred And the enmity of the Law against a sinner may well be called the enmity of God However this differenceth betwixt enmity in God and enmity in us but not betwixt the sense of the forementioned expressions So that whether you will call it purchasing life for us or purchasing us to life the sense is the same viz. By satisfying the Law and removing impediments to procure us Title to and Possession of this Life It is
Officers and Orders of Churches are to us as Laws still binding with those limitations as Positives onely which give way to greater 43. The ground of this Position is because it is inconsistent with the Wisdom and Faithfulness of God to send men to a work and promise to be with them and yet to forsake them and suffer them to err in the building of that House which must indure till the end of the world 44. Yet if any of these Commissioners do err in their own particular conversations or in matters without the extent of their Commission this may consist with the faithfulness of God God hath not promised them infallibility and perfection the disgrace is their own but if they should miscarry in that wherein they are sent to be a rule to others the Church would then have an imperfect Rule and the dishonor would redound to God 45. Yet I finde not that ever God authorized any meere man to be a Lawgiver to the Church in Substantials but onely to deliver the Laws which he had given to Interpret them and to determine Circumstantials not by him determined 46. Where God owneth mens Doctrines and Examples by Miracles they are to be taken as infallibly Divine much more when Commission Promise and Miracles do concur which confirmeth the Apostles Examples for currant 47. So that if any of the â—ings or Prophets had given Laws and formed the Church as Moses they had not been binding because without the said Commission or if any other Minister of the Gospel shall by Word or Action arrogate an Apostolical priviledg 48. There is no verity about God or the chief happiness of man written in Nature but it is to be found written in Scriptures 49. So that the same thing may in these several respects be the object both of Knowledg and of Faith 50. The Scripture being so perfect a Transcript of the law of Nature or Reason is much more to be credited in its supernatural Revelations 51. The probability of most things and the possibility of all things contained in the Scriptures may well be discerned by Reason it self which makes their Existence or Futurity the more easie to be believed 52. Yet before this Existence or Futurity of any thing beyond the reach of Reason can be soundly believed the Testimony must be known to be truly Divine 53. Yet a belief of Scripture Doctrine as probable doth usually go before a belief of certainty and is a good preparative thereto 54. The direct express sense must be believed directly and absolutely as infallible and the consequences where they may be clearly and certainly raised but where there is danger of erring in raising consequences the assent can be but weak and conditional 55. A Consequence raised from Scripture being no part of the immediate sense cannot be called any part of Scripture 56. Where one of the premises is in Nature and the other onely in Scripture there the Conclusion is mixt partly known and partly believed That it is the Consequence of those premises is known but that it is a Truth is as I said apprehended by a mixt Act. Such is a Christians concluding himself to be justified and sanctified c. 57. Where through weakness we are unable to discern the Consequences there is enough in the express direct sense for salvation 58. Where the sense is not unstood there the belief can be but implicit 59. Where the sense is partly understood but with some doubting the Belief can be but conditionally explicit that is we believe it if it be the sense of the Word 60. Fundamentals must be believed Explicitly and Absolutely CHAP. IIII. The first Argument to prove Scripture to be the Word of God SECT IIII. HAving thus shewed you in what sense the Scriptures are the word of God and how far to be believed and what is the excellency necessity and authority of them I shall now adde three or four Arguments to help your Faith which I hope will not onely prove them to be Divine Testimony to the substance of Doctrine though that be a usefull work against our unbelief but also that they are the very written Laws of God and a perfect Rule of Faith and duty My Arguments shall be but few because I handle it but on the by and those such as I finde little of in others writings least I should wast time in doing what is done to my hands 1. Those writings and that Doctrine which were confirmed by many real Miracles must needs be of God and consequently of undoubted Truth But the books and Doctrine of Canonicall Scripture were so confirmed Therefore c. Against the major proposition nothing of any moment can be said For it s a Truth apparent enough to nature that none but God can work real Miracles or at least none but those whom he doth especially enable thereto And it is as manifest that the Righteous and Faithfull God will not give this power for a seal to any falshood or deceit The usuall Objections are these First Antichrist shall come with lying wonders Answ. They are no true Miracles As they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thess. 2.9 lying in sealing to a lying doctrine so also in being but seeming and counterfeit Miracles The like may be said to those of Pharaohs Magicians and all other Sorcerers and Witches and those that may be wrought by Satan himself They may be wonders but not Miracles Object 2. God may enable false Prophets to work Miracles to try the world without any derogation to his Faithfulness Answ. No for Divine power being properly the attendant of Divine Revelation if it should be annexed to Diabolicall delusions it would be a sufficient excuse to the world for their believing those delusions And if Miracles should not be a sufficient seal to prove the Authority of the witness to be Divine then is there nothing in the world sufficient and so our Faith will be quite overthrown Object But however Miracles will no more prove Christ to be the Son of God then they will prove Moses Elias or Elisha to be the Son of God for they wrought Miracles as well as Christ. Answ. Miracles are Gods seal not to extoll the person that is instrumentall nor for his glory but to extoll God and for his own Glory God doth not entrust any creature with this seal so absolutely as that they may use it when and in what case they please If Moses or Elias had affirmed themselves to be the sons of God they could never have confirmed that affirmation with a Miracle for God would not have sealed to a lye Christs power of working Miracles did not immediatly prove him to be the Christ. But it immediately proved his Testimony to be Divine and that Testimony spoke his nature and office So that the power of Miracles in the Prophets and Apostles was not to aâ—â—est to their own greatness but to the truth of their Testimony conâ—â—rning Christ.
that such a Latine or Greek word hath such a signification when will he learn or how will he know Nay how do the most learned linguists know the signification of words in any language and so in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures but only upon the credit of their Teachers and Authors And yet certaine enough too in the maine Tradition is not so useles to the world or the Church as some would have it Though the Papists do sinfully plead it against the sufficiency of Scripture yet Scriptures sufficiency or perfection is only in suo genere in its owne kind and not in omni genere not sufficient for every purpose Scripture is a sufficient rule of Faith and life but not a sufficient means of conveying it self to all generations and persons If humane Testimony had not been necessary why should Christ have men to be witnesses in the beginning And also still instruments of perswading others and attesting the verity of these sacred records to those that cannot otherwise come to know them And doubtles this is a chief use of Ministers in the Church and the great end of God in the stating and continuing that function that what men are uncapable of believing explicitly with a faith properly Divine that they might receive implicitly and upon the word of their Teachers with a humane faith Every man should labor indeed to see with his own eyes and to know all that God hath revealed and to be wiser eâ—en his Teachers but every man cannot bestow that time and pains in the study of Languages and Sciences without which that knowledg is not now attained We may rather wish then hope that all the Lords people were Prophets The Church of Christ hath been long in a very doleful plight betwixt these two extreams taking all things upon trust from our teachers and taking nothing upon trust And yet those very men who so disclaime taking upon trust do themselves take as much upon trust as others Why els are Ministers called the eyes and the hands of the body Stewards of the mysteries and of the house of God Overseers Rulers and Governers of the Church And such as must give the children their meat in due season Fathers of their people c. Surely the clearly known Truth and Duty must be received from any one though but a childe and known errror and iniquity must be received from none though an Angel from Heaven What then is that we are so often required to obey our Teaching Rulers in Surely it is not so much in the receiving of new instituted Ceremonies from them which they call things indifferent But as in all professions the Scholar must take his masters Word in learning till he can grow up to know the things in their own evidence and as men will take the words of any aâ—tificers in the matters that concern their own trade and as every wise patient will trust the judgement of his Physitian except he know as much himself and the Client will take the word of his Lawyer so also Christ hath ordered that the more strong and knowing should be teachers in his school and the young and ignorant should believe them and obey them till they can reach to understand the things themselves So that the matters which we must receive upon trust from our teachers are those which we cannot reach to know our selves and therefore must either take them upon the word of others or not receive them at all so that if these Rulers and Stewards do require us to believe when we know not our selves whether it be truth or not or if they require us to obey when we know not our selves whether it be a duty commanded by God or not here it is that we ought to obey them For though we know not whether God hath revealed such a point or commanded such an action yet that he hath commanded us to obey them that Rule over us who preach to us the word of God this we certainly know Heb. 13.7 Yet I think not we are so strictly tyed to the judgement of a weak Minister of our own as to take his word before anothers that is more Judicious in a neighbour congregation Nor do I think if we see but an appearance of his erring that we should carelessely go on in believing and obeying him without a diligent searching after the Truth even a liklyhood of his mistake must quicken us to further enquiry and may during that enquiry suspend our belief and obedience For where we are able to reach to know probabilities in divine things we may with diligence lightly reach to that degree of certainty which our Teachers themselves have attained or at least to understand the Reason of their Doctrine But still remember what I said before that fundamentals must be believed with a Faith explicit Absolute and Divine And thus I have shewed you the flat necessity of taking much upon the Testimony of man And that some of these humane Testimonies are so certaine that they may well be called Divine I conclude all with this intimation You may see by this of what singular use are the monuments of Antiquity and the knowledg thereof for the breeding and strengthening of the Christian faith especially the Histories of those times I would not perswade you to bestow much time in the reading of the Fathers in reference to their judgement in matter of Doctrine Gods word is a sufficient Rule and latter times have afforded far better Expositors But in reference to matters of fact for confirming the Miracles mentioned in Scripture and relating the wonderfull providence since I would they were read an hundred times more Not onely the writers of the Church but even the Histories of the enemies and all other antiquities Little do most consider how usefull these are to the Christian faith CHAP. V. The second Argument SECT I. I Come now to my second Argument to prove Scripture to be the word of God And it is this If the Scriptures be neither the invention of Devils nor of men then it can be from none but God But that it is neither of Divels nor meerly of men I shall now prove for I suppose none will question the major proposition First Not from Divels for first they cannot work Miracles to confirm them Secondly It would not stand with Gods Soveraignity over them or with his goodness Wisdome and Faithfulness in governing the world to suffer Satan to make Laws and confirm them with wonders and obtrude them upon the world in the name of God and all this without his disclaiming them or giving the world any notice of the forgery Thirdly Would Satan speak so much for God So seek his Glory as the Scripture doth would he so vilifie and reproach himself and make known himself to be the hatefullest and most miserable of all creatures would he so fully discover his own wiles his Temptations his methods of deceiving and
give men such powerfull warning to beware of his snares and such excellent means to conquer himself would the Devil lay such a design for mens salvation would he shew them their danger and direct them to escape it would he so mightily labor to promote all Truth and goodness and the happiness of mankinde as the Scripture doth Let any man tell me what book or project in the world did ever so mightily overthrow the Kingdome of Satan as this book and this Gospell-designe And would Satan be such an enemy to his own Kingdome Fourthly If Satan were the author he would never be so unweariedly and subtilly industrious to draw the world to unbelief and to break the Laws which this book conteineth as his constant temptations do sensibly tell many a poor soul that he is Would he be so earnest to have his own words rejected or his own Laws broken I think this is all clear to any man of Reason SECT II. SEcondly That no meer men were the inventers of Scriptures I prove thus If men were the devisers of it then it was either good men or bad but it was neither good men nor bad therefore none Though goodness and badness have many degrees yet under some of those degrees do all men fall Now I will shew you that it could be neither of these And first Good men they could not be For you might better say that Murderers Traytors Adulterers Parricides Sodomites c. were good men rather then such To devise Laws and father them upon God to feign Miracles and father them upon God to set themselves up in the place of God to say their word is the word of the Lord to promise eternal salvation to those that obey them to threat damnation to those that obey them not to draw the world into a course so destructive to all their worldly happiness upon a promise of happiness in another world which they cannot give to endeavor so egregiously to couzen all mankind If all this or any of this be consistent with common honesty nay if it be not as horrible wickedness as can be committed then I confesse I have lost my reason Much lesse then could such a number of Good men in all ages till 〈…〉 were finished be guilty of such unexpressible crimes 〈…〉 will it here be any evasion to say they were men of a 〈…〉 temper partly good and partly bad for these are not 〈…〉 of a middle nature nor such as will stand with any remâ—â—nts of ingenuity or humanity We have known wicked persons too many and too bad yet where or when did we ever know any that attempted any so more-then-Hellish an enterprize False Prophets have sent abroad indeed particular falshoods But who hath adventured upon such a systeme as this Mahomets example indeed comes neerest to such a villany Yet doth not be pretend to the hundreth part so many Miracles nor so great as the Scripture relateth nor doth pretend to be God nor any more then a great Prophet trusting more to his sword for successe then to the Authority or truth of his pretended Revelations Not denying the truth of much of the Scriptures but adding his Alcoran partly drawn from Scripture and partly fitted with fleshly liberties and promises to his own ends And doth not every man among us take that act of Mahomet to be one of the vilest that the Sun hath seen And judg of the man himself accordingly So that I think it beyond doubt that no one good man much lesse so great a number as were the penmen of Scripture could devise it of their own brain and thrust it on the world Secondly And it is as certaine that no bad men did devise the Scriptures Could wicked deceivers so highly advance the glory of God and labour so mightily to honour him in the world Would they have so vilified themselves and acknowledged their faults Could such an admirable undeniable spirit of holiness righteousness and self-deniall which runs through every veine of Scripture have been inspired into it from the invention of the wicked Would wicked men have been so wise or so zealous for the suppressing of wickedness Or so earnest to bring the world to Reformation Would they have been such bitter adversaries to their own wayes and such faithfull friends to the ways that they hate Would they have vilified the ungodly as the Scripture doth And pronounced eternall damnation against them Would they have extolled the godly who are so contrary to them And proclaimed them a people eternally blessed Would they have framed such perfect and such Spirituall laws And would they have laid such a design against the flesh And against all their worldly happiness as the scope of the Scripture doth carry on It s needless sure to mention any more particulars I think every man of the least ingenuity that considers this or deliberately vieweth over the frame of the Scriptures will easily confesse that it is more then probable That it was never devised by any deceiving sinner much less that all the penmen of it in severall Ages were such wicked deceivers So then if it was neither devised by good men nor by bad men then sure by no men and consequently must of necessity proceed from God SECT III. SEcondly That it proceeded not meerly from man I also prove thus That which was done without the help of humane learning or any extraordinary endowments of nature and yet the greatest Philosophers could never reach neer it must needs be the effect of a Power supernaturall But such is both the doctrine and the Miracles in Scripture therefore c. It is only the Antecedent that here requires proof which consists of these two branches both which I shall make clear First That the doctrine of Scripture was compiled and the Miracles done without the help of much humane learning or any extraordinary naturall endowments Secondly That yet the most learned Philosophers never could reach neer the Gospel Mysteries nor ever work the Miracles that were then done But I shall say most to the Doctrine For the proof of the former consider First The whole world was in the times of Moses and the Prophets comparatively unlearned A kinde of learning the Egyptians then had and some few others especially consisting in some small skill in Astronomy But it was all but barbarous ignorance in comparison of the Learning of Greece and Europe Those Writings of greatest Antiquity yet extant do shew this See also Dr. Hackwell as before 2. As rare as Learning then was yet did God chuse the unlearned of that unlearned time to be instruments and Penmen of his choisest Scriptures David who was bred a Shephard is the Penman of those divine unmatchable Psalms Amos is taken from a Heardsman to be a Prophet 3. But especially in those latter Ages when the world was grown more wise and learned did God purposely chuse the weak the foolish the unlearned to confound them A company
before a Sunshine day and that God delighteth to work by contraries and to walk in the clouds and to hide the birth in the womb till the very hour of deliverance that I am the less afraid of all this Our unbelief hath been silenced with wonders so oft that I hope we shall trust him the better while we live I know the Sword is a most heavy plague and War is naturally an enemy to Vertue and Civility and wo be to them that delight in bloud or use the Sword but as the last remedy and that promote not Peace to the utmost of their power I know also how unsatisfied many are concerning the lawfulness of the war which hath been managed This is not a time or place to satisfie such I have attempted that largely in another audience And as I cannot yet perceive by any thing which they object but that we undertook our defence upon most warrantable grounds so am I most certaine that God hath wonderfully appeared through the whole And as I am certain by sight and sense that the extirpation of Piety was the enemies great designe which had so far succeeded that the generality of the most able Ministers were silenced Lectures and Evening Sermons on the Lords Day suppressed Christians imprisoned dismembred and banished the Lords Day reproached and devoted to Pastimes that it was as much as a mans estate at lest was worth to hear a Sermon abroad when he had none or worse at home to meet for prayer or any godly exercise and that it was a matter of credit and a way to preferment to revile at and be enemies against those that were most consciencious and every where safer to be a Drunkard or an adulterer then a painfull Christian and that multitudes of humane Ceremonies took place when the worship of Christs institution was cast out besides the slavery that invaded us in civil respects so am I most certain that this was the work which we took up Arms to resist and these were the offenders whom we endeavoured to offend And the generality of those that scruple the lawfulness of our war did never scruple the lawfulness of destroying us nor of that dolefull havock and subversion that was made in the Churches of Christ among us though now perhaps they will acknowledg some of our persecutors miscariages The fault was that we would not dye quietly nor lay down our necks more gently on the block nor more willingly change the Gospel for the Mass-book and our Religion for a fardle of Ceremonies nor betray the hopes of our Posterity to their wils As Dalilah by Sampson so do they by us They accuse us that we do not love them because we will not deliver up our strength that they may put out our eyes and make us their slaves Now the former dangers and miseries are forgotten and the groans of the godly under persecution and of the land under the departure of their freedomes are not heard men begin to forget the state they were in and to be incompetent judges of the former engagement And as bad as they deeme the successe hath yet been sure I am many hundred congregations that were in darknesse and are now in light and multitudes of souls who by these means have been already converted and brought to the knowledge and love of Christ are real Testimenies of our happy change Beside the high hopes of the far greater spreading of the Gospel and the foundation that is laid for the happiness of Posterity I am no Prophet nor well skilled in the interpretation of Scripture prophesies yet the clear and deep engagements of God in this work which I have so evidently discerned do strongly perswade me that in despite of all the policy and hopes of our enemies and of all our own unworthiness folly miscarriages and errors yet God will end this work in mercy and make the Birth which we travell with more beautifull then our slanderous enemies or our unbelieving hearts do yet imagine and that the records of the wonders of this our Age shall even convince the world of the truth of the Promises and consequently That the Scripture is the very word of God In the mean time me thinks I hear Christ as it were saying to me as in my personall so in the Churches dangers and distresses as he did to Peter What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter SECT III. THirdly Consider also of the strange judgements which in all ages have overtaken the most eminent of the enemies of the Scriptures Besides Antiochus Herod Pilate the persecuting emperours especially Julian Church Histories will acquaint you with multitudes more Foxes book of Martyes will tell you of many undeniable remarkable judgements on those adversaries of pure Religion the Papists whose greatest wickedness is against these Scriptures subjecting them to their Church denying them to the people and setting up their Traditions as equall to them Yea our own times have afforded us most evident examples Sure God hath forced many of his enemies to acknowledg in their anguish the truth of his threatnings and to cry out as Julian Vicisti Galilee SECT IV. FOurthly Consider also the eminent Judgements of God that have befallen the vile transgressors of most of his Laws Besides all the voluminous Histories that make frequent mention of this I refer you to Doctor Beard his Theatre of Gods Judgments and the book entituled Gods Judgements upon Sabbath-breakers And it is like your own observation may adde much SECT V. FIfthly Consider further of the eminent providences that have been exercised for the bodies and states of particular believers The strange deliverance of many intended to Martyrdome As you have many instances in the Acts and Monuments besides those in Eusebius and others that mention the stories of the first persecutions If it were convenient here to make particular mention of mens names I could name you many who in these late wars have received such strange preservations even against the common course of nature that might convince an Atheist of the finger of God therein But this is so ordinary that I am perswaded there is scarce a godly experienced Christian that carefully observes and faithfully recordeth the providences of God toward him but is able to bring forth some such experiment and to shew you some such strange and unusuall mercies which may plainly discover an Almighty disposer making good the promises of this Scripture to his servants some in desperate diseases of body some in other apparent dangers delivered so suddenly or so much against the common course of nature when all the best remedies have failed that no second cause could have any hand in their deliverance Sixthly And Lastly Consider the strange and evident dealings of God with the souls and consciences both of believers and unbelievers What pangs of hellish despaire have many enemies of the truth been brought to How doth God extend the spirits of
his own people Bruising breaking killing them with terrors and then healing rasing and filling them with Joys which they cannot utter How variously doth he mould them sometimes they are brought to the gates of Hell sometime they are ravished with the foretasts of Heaven The proudest spirits are made to stoop the lowest are raised to an invincible courage In a word The workings of God upon the souls of his people are so clear and strange that you may trace a supernaturall causality through them all SECT VI. SEcondly But though it be undeniable that all these are the extraordinary workings of God yet how do they confirm the authority of Scripture How doth it appeare that they have any such end Answ. That is it I come to shew you next First Some of these works do carry their end apparently with them and manifest it in their event The forementioned providences for raising and preserving the Church are such as shew us their own ends Secondly They are most usually wrought for the friends and followers of Scripture and against the enemies and disobeyers of it Thirdly They are the plain fulfilling of the Predictions of Scripture The Judgements on the offenders are the plain fulfilling of its threatnings And the mercies to believers are the plain fulfilling of its Promises As for example as unlikely as it was yet Christ foretold his Apostles that when he was lifted up he would draw all men to him He sent them upon an errand as unlikely to be so succesfull as any in the world and yet he told them just what success they should find how good to their message and how hard to their persons The promise was of old to give Christ the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession Christ promiseth to be with his messengers to the end of the world Why now how punctually doth he accomplish all this What particular Prophesies of Scripture have been fulfilled and when and how hath been already at large discovered by others and therefore I shall overpasse that Fourthly These Judgments have been usually executed on offenders at the very time when they have been either opposing or violating Scripture And these mercies bestowed chiefly upon believers at such a time when they have been most engaged in defence of or obedience to the Scriptures Fifthly They usually proceed in such effectuall sort that they force the enemies and ungodly to confesse the cause yea and oft times the very standers by so do they force believers also to see that God makes good his word in all their mercies Sixthly They are performed in answer to the prayers of believers while they urge God with the promises of Scripture then doth he appeare in these evident providences This is a common and powerfull Argument which most Christians may draw from their own experiences Had we no other Argument to prove Scripture to be the word of God but only the strange successe of the prayers of the Saints while they trust upon and plead the promises with fervency I think it might much confirm experienced men What wonders yea what apparent miracles did the prayers of former Christians procure Hence the Christians soldiers in their Army were called the Thundering Legion they could do more by their prayers then the rest by their Armes Hence as Zuingerus testifies Gregory was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his frequent miracles among the heathen And Vincentiâ—â— reporteth that Sulpitius Bituricensis did expell Divels heal the sick and raise the dead by praying to God for them When Myconius a godly Divine lay sick of that Consumption which is called a Phâ—hisis Luther prayeth earnestly that he might be recovered and that he might not dye before himself And so confident was he of the grant of his desire that he writes boldly to Myconius that he should not dye now but should remaine yet longer upon this earth Vpon these prayers did Myconius presently revive as from the dead and live six yeers after till Luther was dead And himself hath largely written the story and professed that when he read Luthers letters he seemed to hear that voice of Christ Lazarus come forth Yea so powerfull and prevailing was Luther in prayer that Justus Jonas writes of him Iste vir potuit quod voluit That man could do what his list What was it less then a Miracle in Baynam the Martyr who told the Papistes Lo here is a Miracle I feel no more paine in this fire then in a bed of Down It is as sweet to me as a bed of Roses So Bishop Farrar who could say before he went to the fire If I stir in the fire believe not my Doctrine And accordingly remained unmoved Theodorus the Martyr in the midst of his torment had one in the shape of a young man as he thought came and wiped off his sweat and eased him of his paine But what need I fetch examples so far off or to recite the multitudes of them which Church history doth afford us Is there ever a praying Christian here who knoweth what it is importunately to strive with God and to plead his promises with him believingly that cannot give in his experiences of most remarkable answers I know mens atheisme and infidelity will never want somewhat to say against the most eminent providences though they were Miracles themselves The nature which is so ignorant of God and at enmity with him will not acknowledg him in his clear discoveries to the World but will ascribe all to fortune or nature or some such Idoll which indeed is nothing But when mercies are granted in the very time of prayer and that when to reason there is no hope and that without the use or help of any other means or creatures yea and prehaps many times over and over Is not this as plaine as if God from heaven should say to us I am fulfilling to thee the true word of my promise in Christ my Son How many times have I known the prayer of faith to save the sick when all Physitians have given them up as dead It hath been my own case more then once or twice or ten times when means have all failed and the highest Art or Reason have sentenced me hopeless yet have I been relieved by the prevalency of fervent prayer and that as the Physitian said tutò citò et jucundè My flesh and my heart failed but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever And though he yet keep me under necessary weakness and wholesome sickness and certain expectation of further necessities and assaults yet am I constrained by most convincing experiences to set up this stone of Remembrance and publikely to the Praise of the Almighty to acknowledg that certainly God is true of his promises and that they are indeed his own infallible Word and that it is a most excellent priviledge to have interest in God and a Spirit
eternity They were gray with age and study before they could come to know that which a childe of seven year old may now know by the benefit of â—cripture But all men live not to such an age therefore this is no sufficient means Secondly Observe also how uncertain they were when all was done what they speak rightly concerning God or the life to come in one breath they are ready to unsay it again in another as if their speeches had faln from them against their wils or as Caiphas his confession of Christ. They raise their Conclusions from such uncertain Premises that the Conclusions also must needs be uncertain Thirdly Observe also how rare that Knowledg was among them It may be in all the world there may be a few hundreds of learned Philosophers and among those there is one part Epicures another Peripateticks c. that acknowledg not a future Happiness or Misery And of those few that do acknowledg it none knows it truly nor the way that leads to it How few of them could tell what was mans chief good And those few how imperfectly with what mixtures of falshood we have no certainty of any of them that did know so much as that there was but one God For though Socrates dyed for deriding the multitude of gods yet there is no certain Record of his right belief of the Unity of the Godhead Besides what Plato and Plotinus did write of this that was found there is far greater probability that they had it from Scripture then meerly from Nature and Creatures For that Plato had read the VVritings of Moses is proved already by divers Authors The like may be said of Seneca and many others So that if this means had contained any sufficiency in it for salvation yet it would have extended but to some few of all the learned Philosophers And what is this to an universal sufficiency to all mankinde Nay there is not one of all their exactest Moralists that have not mistaken Vice for Vertue yea most of them give the names of Vertue to the foulest Villanies such as Self-murder in several cases Revenge a proud and vainglorious affectation of Honor and Applause with other the like so far have these few learned Philosophers been from the true Knowledg of things Spiritual and Divine that they could never reach to know the principles of common honesty Varro saith That there were in his days two hundred eighty eight Sects or Opinions among Philosophers concerning the chief good VVhat then should the multitudes of the vulgar do who have neither strength of wit to know nor time and books and means to study that they might attain to the height of these learned men So that I conclude with Aquinas that if possibly Nature and Creatures might teach some few enough to salvation yet were the Scriptures of flat necessity for first the more commonness secondly and more easiness and speediness thirdly and the more certainty of Knowledg and Salvation SECT VII BUt here are some Objections to be Answered First VVere not the Fathers till Moses without Scripture Answer First Yet they had a Revelation of Gods VVill beside what Nature or Creatures taught them Adam had the Doctrine of the Tree of Knowledg and the Tree of Life and the Tenor of the Covenant made with him by such Revelation and not by Nature So had the Fathers the Doctrine of Sacrificing for Nature could teach them nothing of that therefore even the Heathens had it from the Church Secondly All other Revelations are now ceased therefore this way is more necessary Thirdly And there are many Truths necessary now to be known which then were not revealed and so not necessary Object 2. Doth not the Apostle say that which may be known of God was manifest in them c. Answ. This with many other Objections are fully scanned by many Divines to whom I refer you particularly Dr. Willet on Rom. 1.14.20 c. Onely in general I Answer There is much difference between knowing that there is a God of eternal power which may make the sinner unexcusable for his open sin against Nature which the Apostle there speaks of and knowing sufficient to salvation How God deals then with the multitudes that have not the Scripture concerning their eternal state I leave as a thing beyond us and so nothing to us But if a possibility of the salvation of some of them be acknowledged yet in the three respects above mentioned there remains still a necessity of some further Revelation then Nature or Creatureâ— do contain And thus I have manifested a necessity for the welfare of man Now it would follow that I shew it necessary for the Honor of God but this follows so evidently as a Consectary of the former that I think I may spare that labour Object But what if there be such a necessity Doth it follow that God must needs supply it Answ. Yes to some part of the world For first It cannot be conceived how it can stand with his exceeding Goodness Bounty and Mercy to make a world and not to save some Secondly Nor with his VVisdom to make so many capable of salvation and not reveal it to them or bestow it on them Thirdly Or to prepare so many other helps to mans Happiness and to lose them all for want of such a sufficient Revelation Fourthly Or to be the Governor of the world and yet to give them no perfect Law to acquaint men with their duty and the reward of obedience and penalty of disobedience SECT VIII HAving thus proved that there is certainly some written Word of God in the world The last thing that I have to prove is That there is no other writing in the world but this can be it And first There is no other Book in the world that ever I heard of that doth so much as claim this Prerogative and Dignity Mahomet calleth himself but a Prophet he acknowledgeth the truth of most of the Scripture and his Alcoran contradicteth the very light of Nature Aristotle Plato and other Philosophers acknowledg their Writings to be meerly of their own study and invention What book saith Thus saith the Lord and This is the word of the Lord but this So that if it have no Competitor there needs not much to be said Secondly What other book doth reveal the Mysteries of God of the Trinity of God and man in one person of Creation of the Fall the Covenants their Conditions Heaven Hell Angels Devils Temptations Regeneration VVorship c. Besides this one book and those that profess to receive it from this and profess their end to be but the confirming and explaining the Doctrine of this Indeed upon those subjects which are below the Scripture as Logick Arithmetick c. other books may be more excellent then it as a Taylor may teach you how to make a Cloak better then all the Statute-Books or Records of Parliament But
who are bound to obey And dare these men think that they are wiser then God Do they know better then he what men must do to be saved These are the men that ask us Whether we be wiser then all the world besides and yet they will pretend to be wiser then God What do they less when God bids us take the most diligent course and they tell us It is more ado then needs Mark well the language of the Laws of God and see how you can reconcile it with the language of the world Mat. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence and the Violent take it by force Or as it is in Luke 16.16 Every one presseth into it Luke 13.24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many shall seek to enter in and not be able So Mat. 7.13.14 Eccles. 9.10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy Might for there is no Work nor device nor knowledg nor Wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest 1 Cor. 9.24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all but one receiveth the prize so run that ye may obtain 2 Tim. 2.5 If a man strive for masteries yet he is not crowned except he strive lawfully that is powerfully and prevailingly Phil. 2.12 Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling 2. Pet. 1.10 Give Diligence to make your Calling and Election Sure 1 Pet. 4.18 If the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear So Phil. 1.27 3.14 1 Tim. 6.12 18 19. Deut. 6.5 c. This is the constant language of Christ And which shall I follow God or men yea and that the worst and most wicked men Shall I think that every ignorant worldly sot that can only call a man Puritan knows more then Christ and can teach him to make Laws for his Church or can tell God how to mend the Scriptures Let them bring all the seeming Reasons that they can against the holy violent strivings of the Saints and this sufficeth me to confute them all That God is of another mind and he hath commanded me to do much more then I do And though I could see no Reason for it yet his Will is Reason enough to me I am sure God is worthy to govern us if we were better then we are Who should make Laws for us but he that made us and who should line out the way to Heaven but he that must bring us thither and who should determine on what Conditions we shall be saved but he that bestows the gift of Salvation So that let World or Flesh or Devil speak against a holy laborious course this is my Answer God hath commanded it SECT XVIII 17. MOreover It is a course that all men in the world either do or will approve of There 's not a man that ever was or is or shall be but shall one day justifie the Diligence of the Saints and give his verdict in the approbation of their wisdom And who would not go that way which every man shall applaud It is true it 's now a way every where spoken against and hated but let me tell you 1. Most that speak against it do in their judgments approve of it onely because the practice of godliness is against the pleasures of the flesh therefore do they against their own judgments resist it They have not one word of Reason against it but reproaches and Railing are their best Arguments 2. Those that now are against it whether in Judgment or Passion will shortly be every man of another mind If they come to Heaven their minde must be changed before they come there If they go to Hell their Judgment will then be altered whether they will or no. If you could speak with every Soul that suffereth those Torments and ask their Judgments Whether it be possible to be too Diligent and Serious in seeking Salvation you may easily conjecture what answer they would return Take the most bitter derider or persecuter of godliness even those that will venture their lives for to overthrow it If those men do not shortly eat their own words and wish a thousand times that they had been the most holy diligent Christians on Earth then let me bear the shame of a false Prophet for ever SECT XIX 18. COnsider They that have been the most Serious Painful Christians when they come to dye do exceedingly lament their negligence Those that have wholy addicted themselves to the work of God and have made it the main business of their lives and have sleighted the world and mortified the flesh and have been the wonders of the world for their Heavenly Conversations yet when Conscience is let loose upon them and God withdraws the sense of his Love how do their failings wound them and disquiet them What terrors do the Souls of many undergo who are generally admired for their godliness and innocency Even those that are hated and derided by the world for being so strict and are thought to be almost besides themselves for their extraordinary diligence Yet commonly when they lie a dying do wish Oh that they had been a thousand times more holy more heavenly more laborious for their Souls What a case then will the negligent World be in when their Consciences are awaked When they lie dying and look behinde them upon a lazy negligent life and look before them upon a severe and terrible Judgment What an esteem will they have of a holy life For my own part I may say as Erasmus Accusant quod nimium fecerim verùm Conscientia mea me accusat quod minus fecerim quodque lentior fuerim They accuse me for doing too much but my own Conscience accuseth me for doing too little and being too slow And it is far easier bearing the scorns of the World then the scourges of Conscience The World speaks at a distance without me so that though I hear their words I can chuse whether I will feel them but my Conscience speaks within me at the very heart so that every check doth pierce me to the quick Conscience when it is reprehended justly is the Messenger of God but ungodly Revilers are but the voyce of the Devil I had rather be reproached by the Devil for seeking Salvation then be reproved of God for neglecting it I had rather the World should call me Puritan in the Devils name then Conscience should call me Loyterer in Gods name As God and Conscience are more useful friends then Satan and the World so are they more dreadful irresistible Enemies SECT XX. 19. COnsider how far many a man goes and what a deal of pains he takes for Heaven and yet misseth it for want of more When every man that striveth is not crowned 2 Tim. 2.5 and many shall seek to enter in and not be able Luk. 13.24 and the very Children of the Kingdom shall be shut out Matth. 13.41 and they that have heard the Word and
they are wanting This is Gods ordinary means of converting and saving How shall they hear without a Preacher Not onely for your own sakes therfore but for the poor miserable ones about you do all you can to bring this to pass If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost Where vision faileth the people perish Improve therefore all your Interest and Diligence to this end Ride and go and seek and make friends till you do prevail If means be wanting to maintain a Minister extend your purses to the utmost rather then the means of mens Salvation should be wanting Who knoweth how many Souls may bless you who have been converted and saved by the Ministry which you have procured It is a higher and nobler work of charity then if you gave all that you have to relieve their Bodies Though both must be regarded yet the Soul in the first place What abundance of good might great men do in this if they were faithful improvers of their interests and estates as men that beleeve God hath the chief interest and will shortly call them to an account for their Stewardships What unhappy Reformers hath the Church still met withall that in stead of taking away the corruptions in the Church do diminish that maintenance which should further the work If our Ignorant Forefathers gave it for the service of the Church and their more knowing posterity do take it away without the least pretence of right to it I doubt not but the pious intent of Progenitors will more extenuate the fault of their Ignorance then the Knowledg of their Posterity will excuse their Sacriledg Alass that the sad example of King Henry the eighth's Reformation and the almost miraculous consumption of the estates of Impropriators and the many hundred Congregations that live in woful darkness for want of maintenance for a Ministry should yet be no more effectual a warning to this Age. If they take away most and give back a little we are beholden to their bounty If a corrupt Officer lose his Interest the Church doth not lose hers Here is great talk of reducing the Church to the Primitive pattern If so I dare affirm that every Church must have many Ministers And they that know wherein the work of the Ministry doth consist will no more wonder at that then that a Regiment of Soldiers should have many Officers And how will that be when they will scarce afford maintenance for one They are likelier to bring the Church to the Primitive Poverty then to the Primitive Pattern If I were not known to be quite beyond their exceptions my self I might not say so much lest I were thought to plead my own interest Especially a dying man should be out of the reach of such accusations But the Lord knoweth that it is not a desire that Ministers should be rich that maketh me speak this but an earnest desire of the Happiness of the Church Nor do I mean the Ministry only by the word Church It is the people that are robbed and bear the loss more then the Ministers Ministers must and will have maintenance or else men will set their Children to other studies When there is no other the people must allow it themselves or be without What Minister can well over-see and watch over more then a thousand Souls nor I think so many Many Congregations have four thousand ten thousand twenty thousand some fifty thousand yea seventy thousand How many Officers will the State maintain in an Army of thirty thousand I had almost said the work of governing the Church is greater and hath need of as many I would all Scripture and primitive patterns were well viewed in this Oh happy Reformation if Popish superstitious Clergy men had been only taken down and able godly men put in their places or in right offices without such diminution of the number or the maintenance Or if a supply at present could not be had yet should they not have overthrown the hopes of posterity But to leave this Digression I hope those that God hath called to his work will labour never the less for the shortness of their maintenance And those of the people that can do no more can yet pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labourers And he that hath put that petition into our mouths I hope will put the answer into our hands SECT XV. 2. YEt is it not enough that you seek after Teachers but especially you must seek after such as are fittest for the work An ignorant Emperick that killeth more then he cureth doth not so much differ from an able Physician as an unskilful Minister from one that is able Alas this is the great defect among us Men that are fitted for the work indeed are almost wonders One or two or three or four in a County is much How few that have dived into the Mysteries of Divinity or have throughly studied the most needful controversies or are able to explain or maintain the Truth But only they store their Memories with the Opinions and Phrases of those Teachers that are in most credit in common cases and then they think they are Divines And every man that steps out of their common rode they can say he is Erroneous or Heretical but how to confute him they cannot tell Alas whence cometh this misery to the Church The late Prelates discountenancing the godly learned is one main cause and their filling the Ministry with the vilest that did best fit their ends And so great a Corruption of the Ministry cannot suddenly be cured And another great cause is this There is not a choice made of the most excellentest wits and those youths that are ripest in learning and Religion but some of them are so rich that the Ministry is too mean for them and some so poor that they have no maintenance to subsist on at the Universities And so every one that is best furnished to make a trade of the Ministry or whose parents have best affection to it how unfit soever the Child is must be a Minister and those few very few choice wits that would be fittest are diverted How small a matter were it and yet how excellent a work for every Knight or Gentleman of means in England to cull out some one or two or more poor boys in the Country Schools who are of the choicest wits and most pious dispositions who are poor and unable to proceed in learning and to maintain them a few years in the Universities till they were fit for the Ministry It were but keeping a few superfluous attendants the less or a few horses or dogs the less If they had hearts to it it were easily spared out of their sports or rich apparel or superfluous dyet or what if it were out of more useful costs or out of their childrens larger portions I dare say they would not be sorry for it when
they come to their reckoning One sumptuous feast or one costly suit of apparel would maintain a poor boy a year or two at the University who perhaps might come to have more true worth in him then many a glittering sensual Lord and to do God more service in his Church then ever they did with all their estates and power SECT XVI 3. ANd when you do enjoy the blessing of the Gospel you must yet use your utmost diligence to help poor Souls to receive the fruit of it To which end you must draw them constantly to hear and attend it Mind them often of what they have heard Draw them if it be possible to repeat it in their families If that cannot be then draw them to come to others that do repeat it that so it may not dye in the hearing The very drawing of men into the company and acquaintance of the godly besides the benefit they have by their endeavors is of singular use to the recovery of their Souls Association breedeth familiarity and familiarity breedeth love and familiarity and love to the godly doth lead to familiarity and love to God and godliness It is also a means to take off prejudice by confuting the worlds slanders of the ways and people of God Use therefore often to meet together besides the more publique meeting in the Congregation not to vent any unsound opinions nor yet in distaste of the publique meeting nor in opposition to it nor at the time of publique worship nor yet to make a groundless Schism or to separate from the Church whereof you are members nor to destroy the old that you may gather a new Church out of its ruines as long as it hath the essentials and there is hope of reforming it nor yet would I have you forward to vent your own supposed gifts and parts in teaching where there is no necessity of it nor to attempt that in the interpretation of difficult Scriptures or explication of difficult controversies which is beyond your ability though perhaps pride will tell you that you are as able as any But the work which I would have you meet about is this To repeat together the Word which you have heard in publique to pour out your joynt prayers for the Church and pour selves to joyn in chearful singing the praises of God to open your scruples and doubts and fears and get resolution to quicken each other in Love and Heavenliness and Holy walking and all this not as a separated Church but as a part of the Church more diligent then the rest in redeeming time and helping the Souls of each other Heaven-ward I know some careless ones think this course needless and I know some Formalists do think it Schismatical who have nothing of any moment to say against it Against both these if I durst so far digress I could easily prove it warrantable and useâ—ul I know also that many of late do abuse private meetings to Schism and to vilifie Gods Ordinances and vent the windy issue of their empty brains But betwixt these extreams I advise you to walk and neither to forsake the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is but exhort one another Heb. 10.25 Nor yet to be carryed about with divers and strange doctrines But let all your private meetings be in subordination to the publique and by the approbation and consent of your spiritual guides and not without them of your own heads where such guides are men of knowledg and godliness remembring them which have the Rule over you which speak to you the Word of God following their faith and as men whose hearts are stablished with grace considering the whole end of a Christians conversation Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever Heb. 13.7 8 9 17. And I beseech you Brethren Mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and Avoyd them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16.17 18. I would you would ponder every one of these words for they are the precious advice of the Spirit of God and necessary now as well as then SECT XVII 4. ONe thing more I advise you concerning this If you would have Souls converted and saved by the Ordinances Labour still to keep the Ordinances and Ministry in Esteem No man will be much wrought on by that which he despiseth The great causes of this contempt are a perverted Judgment and a Graceless heart It is no more wonder for a Soul to loath the Ordinances that savoureth not their spiritual nature nor seeth God in them nor is throughly wrought on by them then it is for a sick man to loath his food Nor is it any wonder for a perverted understanding to make a Jest of God himself much less to set light by his Ordinances Oh what a rare blessing is a clear sound sanctified Judgment Where this is wanting the most hellish vice may seem a vertue and the most sacred Ordinance of divine Institution may seem as the waters of Jordan to Naaman If any enemies to Gods Ordinances assault you I refer you to the reading of Mr Hen Lawrences late book for Ordinances The prophane Scorners of Ministry and Worship heretofore were the means of keeping many a Soul from Heaven but the late generation of proud ignorant Sectaries amongst us have quite out-stripped in this the vilest persecutors Oh how many Souls may curse these wretches in Hell for ever that have by them been brought to contemn the means that should save them By many years experience in my conversing with these men I can speak it knowingly that the chiefest of their zeal is let out against the faithful Ministers of Christ he is the ablest of their preachers that can rail at them in the most devillish language it is their most common discourse in all companies both godly and prophane to vilifie the Ministry and make them odious to all partly by slanders and partly by scorns Is this the way to win Souls Whereas formerly they thought that if a man were won to a love of the Ministry and Ordinances he was in a hopeful way of being won to God now these men are as diligent to bring all men to scorn them as if this were all that were necessary to the saving of their Souls and he only shall be happy that can deride at Ministers and Discipline If any doubt of the truth of what I say he is a stranger in England and for his satisfaction let him read all the books of Martin Marpriest and tell me whether the Devil ever spoke so with a tongue of flesh before For you my dear friends I acknowledg to Gods praise that you are as far from the contempt of Ordinances or Ministry as any people I know in the Land I shall confirm you herein not
from it by the reading of Luthers own arguments they were such Paralogismes Yet was it Luthers charge to his followers that none should call themselves after his name because he dyed not for them nor was his doctrine his own The only way therefore to the prospering of your labors is to quench all flames of contentions to your power If you would have the waters of verity and piety to be clear the way is not to stir in them and trouble them but to let them settle in peace and run down into practice Wo to those Ministers that make unnecessary divisions and parties among the people that so they may get themselves a name and be cryed up by many followers And as you should thus study the peace and unity of your congregations so keep out all the occasions of divisions especially the doctrine of separation and popular Church government the apparent Semnary of faction and perpetual contentions If once your people be taught that it belongeth to them to govern themselves and those that Scripture calleth their Guides and Rulers you shall have mad work When every one is a Governor who are the governed When the multitude how unable soever must hear and judge of every cause both their Teachers and others they need no other imployment to follow this will finde them work enough as it doth to Parliament men to sit and hear and speak and vote Is it not strange that so learned a man as Pet. Ramus should be the advocate for the multitudes authority in Church-Government But that God must use so sharp a cure for those contentions as that bloody French Massacre me thinks should make Engalnd to tremble to consider it Least the same disease here must have the like cure If an Army had tryed this popular Government but one yeer among themselves in their military affairs and had attempted and managed all their designes by the Vote of the whole Army I durst have valued their judgments the better ever after in this point Wo to the patient that must have a mistaking Physitian till he be grown skilful by making experiments upon his diseases And wo to the people that are in such hands as must learn their skill in Government from the common calamities only and from their experience of the sufferings of the people This kinde of knowledge I confesse is the throughest but it is pity that so many others should pay so dear for it You therefore that are the Guides of this Charet of Christ take heed of losing the reines lest all be overthrown It is but lately that the Prelates held them so hard that we might not move on in the way of unquestionable duty and we might not stir at all for fear of stirring amiss and godliness was shut out upon pretence of well-ordering it Do not you run now into the contrary extream to think that all restraint is evil Alas poor England how are thy bowels torn out and thy reformation and deliverance grown as to man impossible because thy inhabitants yea and Guides run all into extreams like a drunken man that reeleth from side to side but cannot keep the middle way nay they hate a man of peace that runs not out into their extreams One party would pluck up the hedge of government as if the vine-yard could not be fruitful except it lye wast to the pleasure of all the beasts of of the Forest. They are like the pond that should grudge at the bankes and dam and think it injurious to be thus restrained of its liberty and therefore combine with the winds to raise a tempest and so assault and break down the banks in their rage and now where is that peaceable association of waters Me thinks the enemies of government are just in the case as I remember when I was a boy our School was in when we had barred out our Master We grudged at our yoke we longed for liberty because it was not given us we resolved to take it when we had got out our Master and shut fast the doors we grew bold and talkt to him at our pleasure then no one was Master and every one was Master we spend our time in playing and in quarrelling we treat at last with our Master about coming in but our liberty was so sweet this we were loath to leave it and we had run our selves so deep in guilt that we durst not trust him and therefore we resolve to let him in no more But in the end when our play-dayes which we called Holy dayes were over we are fain to give account of our boldness and soundly to be whipt for it and so to come under the yoke again Lord if this be the case of England let us rather be whipt and whipt again then turned out of thy School and from under thy government We feel now how those are mistaken that think the way for the Churches unity is to dig up the banks and let all loose that every man in Religion may do what his list On the other side some men to escape this Scylla do fall into the Charybâ—â—â— of former violence and formality They must have all men to walk in fetters and they must be the makers of them and Ministers must be taught to Preach by such Jives as their horses are taught to pace No man must be suffered to come into a Pulpit that thinks not or speaks not as they would have him Or if they cannot take away his liberty they will do what they can to blast his reputation Yet if he cannot have the repute of being Orthodox it were well if they would leave him the reputation of a Christian. But having also a Christianity of their own making and proper to themselves they will presently unchristen him and make him a Heretick by proclamation as if they had so far the power of the Keys as to lock up the doors of Heaven against him and wipe out his name from the book of Life It striketh me sometimes into an amazement with admiration that it should be possible for such mountains of pride to remain in the hearts of many godly reverend Ministers That they should no more be conscious of the weakness of their own understandings but that even in disputable difficult things they must be the Rule by which all others must be judged So that every mans judgment must be cut meet to the standard of theirs and whatsoever opinion is either shorter or longer must be rejected with the scorn of an Heresie or an Error Wonderful That men that have ever studyed Divinity should no more discern the profundities and difficulties and their own incapacities More wonderful that any disciple of Christ should be such an enemy to knowledg as to resolve they will know no more themselves then is commonly known nor suffer any other to know more So that when a man hath read once what is the opinion of the Divines that are most in credit he
yet remember the heart is deceitful God is oft pretended vvhen our selves are inâ—ended But if this be it that sticks vvith thee indeed consider VVilt thou pretend to be vviser then God doth not he knovv hovv â—o provide for his Church Cannot he do his vvork vvithout thee or finde out instruments enough besides thee Think not too highly of thy self because God hath made thee useful Must the Church needs fall when thou art gone Art thou the foundation on which its built Could God take away a Moses an Aaron David Elias c. and finde supply for all their places and cannot he also finde supply for thine This is to derogate from God too much and to arrogate too much unto thy self Neither art thou so merciful as God nor canst love the Church so well as he As his interest is infinitely beyond thine so is his tender care and bounty But of this before Yet mistake me not in all that I have said I deny not but that it is lawful and necessary for a Christian upon both the forementioned grounds to desire God to delay his death both for a further opportunity of gaining assurance and also to be further serviceable to the Church But first This is nothing to their case who are still delaying and never willing whose true discontents are at death it self more then at the unseasonableness of dying Secondly Though such desires are sometimes lawful yet must they be carefully bounded and moderated to which end are the former considerations We must not be too absolute and peremptory in our desires but cheerfully yield to Gods disposal The rightest temper is that of Pauls to be in a streight between two desiring to depart and be with Christ and yet to stay while God will have us to do the Church the utmost service But alas we are seldom in this streight Our desires run out all one way and that for the flesh and not the Church Our streights are onely for fear of dying and not betwixt the earnest desires of dying and of living SECT XXIV OBject But is not death a punishment of God for sin Doth not Scripture call it the King of fears And Nature above all other evils abhor it Answ. I le not meddle with that which is controversal in this Whether Death be properly a punishment or not But grant that in it self considered it may be called Evil as being naturally the dissolution of the Creature Yet being sanctified to us by Christ and being the season and occasion of so great a Good as is the present possession of God in Christ it may be welcomed with a glad submission if not with desire Christ affords us grounds enough to comfort us against this natural Evil And therefore endues us with the principle of Grace to raise us above the reach of nature For all those low and poor Objections as leaving House Goods and Friends leaving our children unprovided c. I pass them over as of lesser moment then to take much with men of Grace SECT XXV LAstly Understand me in this also That I have spoke all this to the faithful soul. I perswade not the ungodly from fearing death It s a wonder rather that they fear it no more and spend not their days in continual horror as is said before Truly but that we know a stone is insensible and a hard heart is dead and stupid or else a man would admire how poor souls can live in ease and quietness that must be turned out of these bodies into everlasting flames Or that be not sure at least if they should die this night whether they shall lodg in Heaven or Hell the next especially when so many are called and so few chosen and the Righteous themselves are scarcely saved One would think such men should eat their bread with trembling and the thoughts of their danger should keep them waking in the night and they should fall presently a searching themselves and enquiring of others and crying to God That if it were possible they might quickly be out of this danger and so their hearts be freed from horror For a man to quake at the thoughts of death that looks by it to be dispossessed of his happiness and knoweth not whether he is next to go this is no wonder But for the Saints to fear their passage by Death to Rest this is an unreasonable hurtful Fear CHAP. III. Motives to a Heavenly Life SECT I. WE have now by the guidance of the Word of the Lord and by the assistance of his Spirit shewed you the nature of the Rest of the Saints and acquainted you with some duties in relation thereto We come now to the close of all to press you to the great duty which I chiefly intended when I begun this subject and have here reserved it to the last place because I know hearers are usually of slippery memories yet apt to retain the last that is spoken though they forget all that went before Dear friends its pity that either you or I should forget any thing of that which doth so neerly concern us as this Eternal Rest of the Saints doth But if you must needs forget something let it be any thing else rather then this let it be rather all that I have hitherto said though I hope of better then this one ensuing Use. Is there a Rest and such a Rest remaining for us Why then are our thoughts no more upon it why are not our hearts continually there why dwell we not there in constant contemplation Sirs Ask your hearts in good earnest what is the cause of this neglect are we reasonable in this or are we not Hath the Eternal God provided us such a Glory and promised to take us up to dwell with himself and is not this worth the thinking on Should not the strongest desires of our hearts be after it and the daily delights of our souls be there Do we beleeve this and can we yet forget and neglect it What 's the matter will not God give us leave to approach this light or will he not suffer our souls to tast and see Why then what means all his earnest invitations why doth he so condemn our earthly-mindedness and command us to set our affections above Ah vile hearts If God were against it we were likelier to be for it When he would have us to keep our station then we are aspiring to be like God and are ready to invade the Divine Prerogatives But when he commands our hearts to Heaven then they will not stir an inch like our Predecessors the sinful Israelites When God would have them march for Canaan then they mutiny and will not stir either they fear the Gyants or the walled Cities or want necessaries or something hinders them but when God bids them not to go then will they needs be presently marching and fight they will though it be to their overthrow If the fore-thoughts of glory were forbidden
This is the right Daedalian flight and thus we may take from each bird a feather and make us wings and fly to Christ. SECT VII 7. ANother singular help is this Be much in that Angelical work of Praise As the most heavenly Spirits will have the most heavenly imployment so the more heavenly the imployment the more will it make the Spirit heavenly Though the heart be the Fountain of all our actions and the actions will be usually of the quality of the heart yet do those actions by a kinde of reflexion work much on the heart from whence they spring The like also may be said of our speeches So that the work of praising God being the most heavenly work is likely to raise us to the most heavenly temper This is the work of those Saints and Angels and this will be our own everlasting work if we were more taken up in this imployment now we should be liker to what we shall be then When Aristotle was asked what he thought of Musick he answers Jovem neque canere neque citharam pulsare That Jupiter did neither sing nor play on the Harp thinking it an unprofitable art to men which was no more delightful to God But Christians may better argue from the like ground that singing of praise is a most profitable duty because it is so delightful as it were to God himself that he hath made it his peoples Eternal work for they shall sing the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. As Desire and Faith and Hope are of shorter continuance then Love and Joy so also Preaching and Prayer and Sacraments and all means for confirmation and expression of Faith and Hope shall cease when our Thanks and Praise and triumphant expressions of Love and Joy shall abide for ever The liveliest embleme of Heaven that I know upon Earth is When the people of God in the deep sense of his excellency and bounty from hearts abounding with Love and Joy do joyn together both in heart and voice in the cheerful and melodious singing of his praises Those that deny the lawful use of singing the Scripture Psalms in our times do disclose their unheavenly unexperienced hearts I think as well as their ignorant understandings Had they felt the heavenly delights that many of their Brethren in such duties have felt I think they would have been of another minde And whereas they are wont to question whether such delights be genuine or any better then carnal or delusive Surely the very rellish of Christ and Heaven that is in them the example of the Saints in Scripture whose spirits have been raised by the same duty and the command of Scripture for the use of this means one would think should quickly decide the controversie And a man may as truly say of these delights as they use to say of the testimony of the Spirit That they witness-themselves to be of God and bring the evidence of their heavenly parentage along with them And whereas they allow onely extemporate Psalms immediately dictated to them by the Spirit When I am convinced that the gift of extemporate singing is so common to the Church that any man who is spiritually merry can use it Jam. 5.13 And when I am convinced that the use of Scripture Psalms is abolished or prohibited then I shall more regard their judgment Certainly as large as mine acquaintance hath been with men of this Spirit I never yet heard any one of them sing a Psalm ex tempore that was better then Davids yea or that was tolerable to a judicious hearer and not rather a shame to himself and his opinion But sweet experience will be a powerful Argument and will teach the sincere Christian to hold fast his exercise of this soul-raising duty Little do we know how we wrong our selves by shutting out of our prayers the praises of God or allowing them so narrow a room as we usually do while we are copious enough in our Confessions and Petitions Reader I entreat thee remember this Let praises have a larger room in thy duties Keep ready at hand matter to feed thy praise as well as matter for Confession and Petition To this end study the excellencies and goodness of the Lord as frequently as thy own necessities and vileness study the mercies which thou hast received and which are promised both their own proper worth and their aggravating circumstances as often as thou studiest the sins thou hast committed O let Gods praise be much in your mouths for in the mouths of the upright his praise is comely Psal. 33.1 Seven times a day did David praise him Psal. 119.164 Yea his praise was continually of him Psal. 71.6 As he that offereth praise glorifieth God Psal. 50.23 So doth he most rejoyce and glad his own soul. Psal. 98.4 Offer therefore the sacrifice of praise continually Heb. 13.15 In the midst of the Church let us sing his praise Heb. 2.12 Praise our God for he is good sing praises unto his Name for it is pleasant Psal. 135.3 and 147.1 Yea let us rejoyce and triumph in his praise Psal. 106.47 Do you think that David had not a most heavenly Spirit who was so much imployed in this heavenly work Doth it not sometime very much raise your hearts when you do but seriously read that divine Song of Moses Deut. 32. And those heavenly iterated praises of David having almost nothing sometime but praise in his mouth How much more would it raise and refresh us to be skilled and accustomed in the work our selves I confess to a man of a languishing body where the heart doth faint and the spirits are feeble the cheerful praising of God is more difficult because the body is the souls instrument and when it lies unstringed or untuned the musick is likely to be accordingly but dull Yet a spiritual cheerfulness there may be within and the heart may praise if not the voice But where the body is strong the spirits lively the heart cheerful and the voice at command what advantage have such for this heavenly work with what alacrity and vivacity may they sing forth praises O the madness of healthful youth that lay out this vigor of body and minde upon vain delights and fleshly lusts which is so fit for the noblest work of man And O the sinful folly of many of the Saints who drench their spirits in continual sadness and wast their days in complaints and groans and fill their bodies with wasting diseases and so make themselves both in body and minde unfit for this sweet and heavenly work That when they should joyn with the people of God in his praises and delight their souls in singing to his Name they are questioning their worthiness and studying their miseries or raising scruples about the lawfulness of the duty and so rob God of his praise and themselves of their solace But the greatest destroyer of our comfort in this duty is our sticking in the carnal
conversion Acts 13.48 2 Theirs in Law-title or by promise after conversion Quum aequilibrium illud hoc uâ—um praestat juxta Arminium ut reddaâ— salutem hominum â—em contingentem libratane in ancipiti isne rem tantam impâ—â—se affectasse dicendus est qui vult esse collo catam in loco tam lubrico ac veluti tenui filo pendentem adco ut vâ—l levissimo momentâ— impellatur ad perniciem Amyral Desens doctr Calvini pag. 115. §. 1. Definit § 2. §. 3. §. 4. Col. 1.12 Act. 26.18 Act. 20.32 Joh. 15.19 Mat. 10.38 Luk. 14 27. Heb. 10.36.6.15 §. 5. §. 6. Q. Whether to make Salvation our end be not mercenary or Legal As if the very seeking of life at all were the surest way to miss of it Clean contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture §. 7. * Viz. by way of merit strictly so called * Believed for us legally or so far as the Law required Faith but not as it is the Condition or Command of the New Covenan◠§. 8. I speâ—k the moâ—e of this because I find that many moderate men who think they have found the mean between the Antinomâ—an and the Legalist yet do fouly err in this point As Mr F. in the Marrow of Modern Divinity a book applauded by so many eminent Divines in their commendatory Epistles before it And because the doctrine That we must Act from Life but not For Life or in thankfulness to him that hath saved us but not for the obtaining of Salvation is of such dangerous consequence that I would advise all mâ—n to take heed of it that regard their Salvation 1 Cor 15. ult 2 Cor. 4.17 5.10 11. I here undertake to prove that this forementioned doctrine reduced to practise will certainly be the damnation of the practâ—ser But I hope many Antinomians do not practise their own doctrine §. 9. * Christ hath put no such questions to us nor bid us put such to our selves Christ had rather that men would enquire after their true willingness to be saved then their willingness to be damned §. 10. * The Scriptures before cited do prove both Joh. 1.12 See more of this hereafter §. 1. §. 2. §. 3. §. 4. I speak all this of men of age converted by the Word not of those sanctified in Infancy §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. * Some think That the pravity of nature containeth a want of the â—otentia as well as of the habit Some say The potentia prima Others The Potentia secunda Some think The work of the spirit doth but make an impression on the internal sense answerable to that qualicas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae passionem officit in sensibus c. It seemeth yet to me that Grace is that Potentia secunda per quam prima naturalis in actum producitur Vid. de hoc Parkeri Theses §. 8. §. 9. Dr Crispe §. 10. Mat 11.12 Mâ—â— 7.13 Luk. 13.24.25 1 Pet 4 18 * See Doctor Jennison on this Subject James 5.16 1 Pet. 3.21 Gal. 3 3. Mat. 24.13 Mark 13.13 22. §. 11. §. 12. Prov. 4.6 Mat. 11.30 1 John 5.3 2 Cor. 12.4 Num 24.15 16 5. Deut. 34.1 2 3 4. Math. 13.44 45 46. Act. 7.55 56. §. 1. 1. Cessation from all that action which hath the nature of means 1 Cor. 13.8 1. Knowledg 2. Faith How far 3 Prayer 4 So Fasting Weeping Watching Preaching Sacraments §. 2. 2. Perfect freedom from Evil. 1 Sin Rev. 21.27 2 Sorrow and suffering Joh. 16.20 21 22. §. 3. 3. Personal perfection in the highest degree both of Soul Body Gen. 2.15 Dan. 12.3 §. 4. 4. Chiefly the neerest fruition of God the chief Good 1 Joh. 3.2 O qui perpetua mundum ratio ne gubernas Tetrarum coelique saâ—or qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes stablisque manâ—ns das cuâ—cta moveri Principium â—ector dux semita terminus idem Tu requies tranquilla piis te cernere finis Boetius Vide Gerson part 3. Alphabet divini Amoris cap. 14. egregie de attributis c excellentiis divinis expatiantem 1 Kings 1â— 8 Some inâ—erpret most of those Scriptures in the Revelations of the Churches glory on earth then it would hold a minori Tu es Recreator omnium qui dixisti Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis c. Anima enim quae est in te radicata in centro suo recreata quiâ—tata est quae vero in te non est multâ—s Vanis phanâ—asmatibus fatigatur Tu sufficientis simus es Qui te habet totum habet qui non mendicus est pauper quia quicquid preter te est non reâ—icit non sufficit Gerson part 3. Alphabet amoris divini cap. 14. * Psalm 36.9 Acts 2 28 * Psalm 33.1 John 1.12 1 John 1.3 1 Joh. 4.15 16 Psalm 148. I take not the word Real as opposite to feigned but to Relative See Mr Wallis Answer to the L. Brook fully on this Q. How do we enjoy God §. 5. 5. A sweet and constant Action of all the powers of the Soul in the fruition of God 1 Of the Senses I think the Apostle speaks of flesh and blâ—od in a proper sense and not of sin Yea the Body The Tongue in praising Psal. 33.1 2 and 147.1 §. 6. 2. Of the soul. 1 God shall be enjoyed by our knowledg * Scalig. Exercit. 107 sect 3. Dicit Voluntatem nihil aliud esse quam intellectum extentum ad habâ—ndum faâ—iendum id quod cognoscit Vide D. Makowski Colleg. in dâ—sp 18. vitâ— Pibonis de Justif. Passiva And for my part I think not That the Soul is divisible into several faculties but rather as Dorbell is c. Dr Jackson Mr Pemble c. the Understanding and Will be the same with the Soul and one another Or distinct Acts of the same Soul not faculties * Lord Brook Union of the Soul Truth Hosea 6.2 3. Rev. 2 5. and 3.2 * Scoti glossa est vera vâ—z 〈◊〉 Cognoscam te Aâ—â—â—do Frucado Vide Scotum in 4. â— sentea distruct 48. Q 1 p. 256 §. 7. 2. Memory Luke 1 19. 2 10. Acts 13.32 Luke 16 25. §. 8. 3. Affections 1. Love * I know it 's commonly said That Justification hath no degrees but yet it is taken for several Acts whereof that of Christ absolving and acquitting us at the last Judgment is the most compleat Justification Psal. 119.97 John 11.33.35 36. Cant. 1.5 5.2 6.9 4.9 10 c. 1 Pet. 1.12 Eph. 3.18 §. 9. 2. By Joy Rev. 2.17 Prov. 14.10 Joh. 15.11 and 16.24 and 17.13 Psa 94.12 13 1 Thes. 5.16 Psa 32.11 33.1 c. Mat. 9.15 Mat. 25. §. 10. God will joy in us as well as we in him 2 Thes. 1 10. So the Lord is said to Rejoice and to take pleasure in his people Psal. 147 11. and 149 4. Luk. 24 37 38 39. Mark 16.7 §. 11. Job 42 3. Levit.
may please God in some respect secundum quid as Ahabs Humiliation A flat necessity both of coming to God as the End or our chief Good and to Christ as the way to the Father * Viz. As it is put for all obedience to the Commands proper to the Gospel Which part of this turning goes first The terminus a quo considerable before the terminus ad quâ—m in order of nature Object Answ. § 5. As the Will turns from evil so at the same time to God and the Mediator 1 To the Godhead in order of Nature 2 To the Mediator as the way which is by Faith John 14.6 Acts 20.21 5.31 11.18 26.20 What justifying Faith is It s proper Act is the Acceptation of Christ offered * So Doctor Prestons judgment is and Master Woollis against the Lord Brook p. 94. It is an Accepting of Christ offered rather then the belief of a Proposition affirmed So that excellent Philosopher and Divine Love to Christ whether it be not Essential to justifying Faith See more of this in the Positions of Justification Love to Christ must be the strongest Love Luke 14.26 Doctor Sibbs Souls Conflict Justifying Faith is the Accepting Christ both for Saviour and Lord. So that our Subjection to Christ as our Lord is part of that Faith which justifieth How this differs from the abhorred doctrine of the Socinians you may see in the Aphorisms of Justification What Christ doth for us upon our Acceptance Covenanting with Christ is an essential part of our actual Conversion and of our Christianity Next Christ delivereth himself to the sinner and he delivereth himself up to Christ. Lastly The believer persevereth in this Covenant and all the forementioned grounds of it to the death Heb. 10.29 Matth. 24.13 Revel 2.26 27. 3.11 12. John 15.4 5 6. 8.31 15.9 Col. â— 23 Rom. 11.22 § 6. The Application of this Description by way of Examination Whether thy Infant Baptism will serve or no I am sure thy Infant Covenant will not now serve thy turne But thou must Actually enter Covenant in thy own person John 15.4 5 6. Matth 24.13 Heb. 10.38 39. * I speak not this to the dark and clouded Christian who cannot discern â—hat which is indeed within him Deut. 32.29 § 7. Why called People of God 1 By Election 2 Special Redemption 3 Likeness to him 1 Pet. 1.16 4 Mutual Love 5 Mutual Covenanting 6 Neer Relations 7 Future Cohabitation ☜ §. 1. Confirmation from other Scriptures The Truth confirmed from other Scriptures 1 Affirming the Saints to have been predestinate to this glory Isa. 14.24 2 That it is procured for them by the blood of Christ. Paul Hobson * I confesse the later is the more proper expression and oftner used in the Scriptures Exod. 23.22 Psal. 11.5 Psal. 5.5 Isa. 63.10 Lam. 2.5 Paul Hobson Iâ—a 53.11 § 3. 3 It is promised to them § 4. 4 The means and motions towards it do prove that there is such an end * Mr. Burroughs thinks this is meant of the violence of persecution but Lukes phrase coâ—â—uteth that § 5. 5 So do the beginnings fâ—â—â—tasts earnests and seals 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 §. 6. 6 Some have entered it already § 1. ☜ a I mean not an absolute necessity as if what is said were not convincing b I believe Mr. Eliot in New England will have more comfort in his work for those Indians then we in England in our controversies and contentions about inferiour things c By Testimony I mean not the cure of the understandings disability for that 's necessary either by common grace to work a common Faith or by speciall grace for speciall Faith Doct. Presion on Attributes pag. 57. d I mean it is now to us the onely ordinary sufficient means of revealing Christ. Religio 〈◊〉 Chiâ—â—â—â— pâ—r Apostâ—los tradiâ—a Scripta est super scripta Prophetarum Apostolorum fundata Dr. Sutlive Contra Bellarm. de Monach pag. 11. See Dr Jackson of Saving Faith Sect. 2. cap. 2. pag. 143. c. See this more fully in Dr. Preston on the Attributes pag. 61 62 63 64. Yet we acknowledg it belongs to the Church first To be a Witness and Keeper of the Scriptures secondly To judg and discern betwixt Scriptures which are true and genuine and which are false and supposititious or Apocryphal thirdly To divulge and preach the Scriptures fourthly To expound and interpret them Dr. Whitaker De Sacra scriptura Q. 3. contr 1. cap. 2. pag. 203 204. * I would fain know of any Papist why their Church believes the Scripture to be the Word of God If the Laiety must believe it upon the authority of the Church and this Church be the Pope and his Clergy then it followeth that the Pope and Clergy believe it on their Authority As Paraeus in Thâ—mat Seculari xv Et quia Papa solus vel cum praelatis est Ecclesia ideo Papa praelati Scripturis credunt propler seipsos lâ—icos voluit crâ—dere Scripturis propter Papam praelatos a Sicut in Poloniá ubi non solum preces recitant â—ala criminosa contra Christianos corum magistratus continentes sedetiam aâ—dacter sâ—â—e on â—â— christianorum metu imprimunt quaecunque volunt ut testatur Buxtorsius Synagogae Judaicae c. 5 p 170. 1 Pet. 3.15 b As Graserus when he saw his legs begin to swell with a Dropsie said Euge Deo sit laus gloria quod jam mea instet liberatio horula gratissima Melch. Adam in vita Graseri § 2. Impias argumentationes si ratio refutare non possit fides irridere debet quae ratiocinationes evertit in captivitatem redigit omnem intellectum in Christi obsequium August * Though 〈◊〉 extend 〈…〉 far as 〈…〉 a Sequor te non quâ— duâ—is sed quo trahis inquit Scaliger ad Câ—rdanum in Exercit * He that doubts of this let him see Dr. Jackson of Saving Faith pag. 146.147 And Mr Pinkes Sermons of the Sincerity of Love to Christ * Articulus 6. fidei Judaicae sic se habet Credo perfectâ fide quod omne quodcunque prophetae docuerunt locuti fuerunt veritas sincera sit Oâ—tvus autem sic Credo perfecta fide quod lex tota perinde ut ea bodierno tempore in manibus nostris est it a per Deum ipsummet Mosi tradita sit vid. Buxtorf Synagogae Judaicae cap. 1. pag. 4.5 § 1. § 2. The word Foundation being a Metaphor is to be banished dispute till first explained a Ad benè esse fidei perfectionem b Necessitate praecepti * Primario propter se Secundario propter aliud A facto ad jus ad licitum vel debitum non valet Argum. As Peter Gal. 2.11 12.13 § 1. 2 Tim. 3.16 * Donum Miraculorum linguarum dandarum fuisse extraordinarium et a solis Apostolis peculiari privelegio dato a Christo