World and to the good of humane Society besides their certain relation to a future happy State And there is no man that acts according to the best reason of his minde but would chuse these things though you should suppose him under no express command to do it and though there were no Heaven promised or Hell threatened But when you consider the great reward in another World that is promised to a faithful observance of the Laws of Christ and to a belief in him and the dreadful threatnings against such as despise and neglect them it makes them yet far more desirable and eligible because as it is natural for every man to desire the happiness and perfection of his own being so it is agreeable to the highest reason in man to chuse the means that tend thereto and such is our obedience to the Gospel And these rewards which are such mighty motives to obedience are far more clearly revealed and brought into open Light by the Gospel than they were before which makes the Gospel far more effectual to perswade to Holy Living than the Law could be The Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did by which we draw nigh unto God Heb. 7.19 These two things forementioned then the easiness of understanding God's way and method of Salvation from the plainness and fulness of the revelation of it under the New Covenant by which it is sitted to every capacity and the innate goodness of the Laws thereof in conjunction with the promise of eternal Life made to the observance of them by which they are also compleatly fitted to attract and draw mens wills to accept embrace and chuse them these I say are the things I conceive foretold in that Prophesie Jer. 31. here cited in Heb. 8. under those expressions of God's putting giving or conveying his Laws into the mind and writing them in the heart so that they shall not teach every man his Neigbour and every man his Brother c. And when it is so said it is not then said that they shall not be taught neither by Apostles Evangelists Pastors or Teachers but they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother And though the Phrase here used seem absolute in sound yet it may well be understood in a Comparative sence as other expessions in Scripture of like nature sometimes must be As when its said labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that meat which endureth to everlasting Life Joh. 6.26 The meaning here of labour not is labour not so much And so again I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice Hos 6.6 the meaning is I desired Mercy more than Sacrifice or Sacrifice not so much as Mercy So again Eph. 6.12 we wrestle not with flesh and blood that is not only or not so much but against Principalities c. And so here when it is said they shall not teach every man his Neighbour c. The meaning may be that they shall not so much need to do it under the second Covenant as under the first But indeed the words and phrase here used seem to be a strain of elegance oft used in Scriptures when to set forth the greatness or great abundance and plenty of things expressions are used improperly and hyperbolically in reference thereto and so are not to be understood properly but figuratively As when it is said in reference to the same thing under the Gospel with that I have been now speaking of That the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea Isa 11.9 I suppose you will not understand this in such a strict sence as if it foretold in Gospel-times that there should be no more knowledge of God wanting on the Earth than there is bare ground in the Sea or that David would have the World believe that he did weep a River yea Rivers full of Tears when he said mine eyes run down with Rivers of Tears because men keep not thy Laws Psalm 119. or that St. John did think in a strict sence that the world could not contain the books if all the signs which Jesus did should be written Joh. 20. And if not why should you so much as once imagine that these words of the Prophet should foretel that under the New Covenant there should be no need of teaching by mans Ministry when the whole current of the Scriptures of the New Testament both in precept and example shew the contrary The words of the Prophet here are only a prediction of the rich and plentiful means of Knowledge and Grace that was to be vouchsafed under the New Covenant more than under the Old § 19. One would think you have an aking Tooth against outward teaching when you build such Castles in the Air as ye do rather than none to batter it down But how comes it to pass that you use it so much your selves if there be no more need of it than you pretend I know that which you alledge to excuse your selves in this seeming contradiction is this or to this effect You say though men need not be taught by men what it is which they ought to know believe and do the light within teaching them this and being a Rule to them in these things yet in as much as men may and do rebel against this light its necessary to call upon and perswade them to obey it But in this Plea you suppose for truth that which is a manifest gross and most dangerous and pernicious error which is this That it is not as well necessary to teach men by the Scriptures and by the Ministry of men to know believe what is necessary to their salvation as it is to perswade them to do what is necessary thereto For contrary hereunto I have already proved that for men that live under the Gospel its necessary to their Salvation that they know and believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the World and that remission of sin is promised in his name to such as repent I have proved likewise that these things cannot be known but either by immediate revelation from God or by instruction from them that have had such Revelation or by them whose knowledge thereof hath been derived down successively by outward teaching from the first preachers of such Doctrine To which I will now add as followes In the Apostles days the Converts that were then made such were brought to the knowledge and belief of those great Articles of the Christian Faith fundamentally necessary to Salvation by hearing the Word taught and the Scriptures opened This appears all along the Acts of the Apostles In Chap. 2. when Peter had said ver 36. Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ and had further said unto them ver 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name
Apostles themselves by immediate Revelation yet belief of it and obedience to it upon that less degree of Evidence is not the less but rather much more rewardable than is obedience to it upon greater evidence John 20.29 Jesus saith unto him Thomas because thou hast seen thou hast believed blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed It is not to be imagined but that the Apostles and Evangelists have expressed the Christian Doctrine and the Reasons why it should be believed in as plain terms when they wrote it as when they preached it They could hardly speak those great Doctrines touching the Essentials of Christianity plainer than they are communicated to us by their Writings yet how plain soever they spake them the very same things prejudice worldly interest and the love of Lust which now detain men from obeying their Doctrine as communicated and transmitted down to us by their Writings did in like manner keep back Multitudes from yielding Obedience to their Doctrine then when they themselves preach'd it to them and wrought many Miracles to convince them that it was from God And as men then that had no mind to obey the Doctrine which Christ and the Apostles preach'd raised Cavils and pickt Quarrels against it Why do you not understand my speech even because ye cannot hear my Word said our Saviour to such John 8.43 Even so at this day those Atheistical and loose men that have no mind to conform their Hearts and Lives to the holy Doctrine of Christ in the Scriptures raise Cavils and pick Quarrels against the Scriptures which are a standing Reproof to their bad Tempers and evil Lives which because they are so they seek by all means to invalidate them that they might the more securely and without disturbance from them hold on their ungodly course secretly or openly How far any that have led you the way may be concerned in such a thing as this I shall not say but sure I am it concerns both you and them to think on 't and so much the rather because 't is seldom if ever seen among other men but that those that are cold in their affection to the Scriptures are as cold to the power of Godliness or rather zealously hot against it And indeed I must needs say you bewray your cold affection to and your little and slight esteem of the holy Scriptures while you think you have ground pleasedly to call them the Dead Letter from that Saying of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 3.6 Who hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit And to call those that preach from the Scriptures Ministers of the Letter Whereas that Expression is so far from serving your purpose herein as that if you understood it which alas you do not you would find it to cast a Glory and Honour upon the Scriptures of the New Testament and no disparagement at all upon those of the old upon any account of the matters therein contained as being written For the Doctrine of the Old Testament it self is not called the Letter because it is in Writing nor that of the New the Spirit because not in Writing but because the Subject-Matter of which the Mosaical Covenant did much consist and many of the things therein contained were but figurative and outward Representations of those excellent Spiritual things which in the Gospel are plainly and nakedly expressed without any such Vail or Cover For so the Apostle in the process of this his Discourse doth more plainly express it ver 12 13 14. We use great plainness of Speech and not as Moses which put a Vail over his Face so that the Children of Israel could not look or see to the end of that which is abolished Which Vail is done away in Christ that is in the Doctrine of Christ in the New Testament in which Doctrine Divine and Spiritual Truth is stripp'd out of its Cloathing and Covering and represented as it is in its own nature and not in dark figures And that this and not the Writing or not Writing is meant by Letter and Spirit will farther appear by comparing other Texts of Scripture with this Rom. 2.29 Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter By Letter here is plainly meant Circumcision in the Flesh and by Spirit that which was couched under it or signified by it and that is the Circumcision of the Heart which in the New Testament is called Mortification or Purifying of the Heart or crucifying Affections and Lusts So again Rom. 7.6 But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in Newness of Spirit and not in the Oldness of the Letter That is according to those plain Precepts of the Gospel which answer the Spirit and Scope of the Law and not in the outward Ceremony which were but figurative of them as in offering our Bodies a living Sacrifice instead of slain Beasts in cleansing our selves from the filthiness of the flesh instead of Legal Purifications by washing the Body in putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh and all evil Concupiscence and not in cutting off the Foreskin of the Flesh And those Ministers that preach this and other like Spiritual Doctrine out of or according to the Scriptures of the New Testament and not the Ceremonies of Moses they are Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit Which had you understood you would never have poured your spiteful contempt on them as you have by calling them Letter-Preachers I shall conclude what I have said in this Proposition to shew that the same regard is due to the Doctrine of the Apostles when written as now it is as when it was preached by them by remembring you of this one great Truth That every man shall be tried and judged at the last day by that Law he hath been under The Gentiles that are or have been without a written Law shall be judged without any such Law and the Jews which were under a written Law they shall be judged by it Rom. 2.12 Even so those that are under the Gospel written will be judged by that as those that were under the immediate preaching of it by Christ and his Apostles before it was written will be judged by that He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him the Word that I have spoken the same shall judge him at the last day saith our Saviour John 12.48 And if that be the Rule by which those shall be judged that have his Word made known to them be it by one means or by another then it greatly concerns all such to make that Word of his the Rule of their Life and Practice as ever they hope to come off well upon their Trial at last whatever you talk of it s not being a Rule as it is a written Word And therefore beware
lest then that come upon you and be said of you which is written in one of the Prophets I have written to them the great things of my Law and they have counted them as a strange thing Hos 8.12 § 7. 5. The next Proposition is this That the Holy Scriptures extant in the Apostles days in conjunction with the Doctrine of the Christian Faith however made known by Writing or otherwise were then through that Grace of God which usually attends a due use of them able to make men wise to Salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 And that from a Child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus If by Scriptures here you will understand the Scriptures of the Old Testament only yet you may easily collect that if those Scriptures were in great part able to make men wise unto Salvation then when the Gospel was on foot then the Scriptures of the New Testament as containing the Christian Doctrine are able to do it much more and both in conjunction to be effectual to that end The Apostle acquainted the Christians then that the Mystery of the Gospel by the Scriptures of the Prophets is and that according to the Commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.25 26. § 8. 6. The Holy Scriptures as the means which God works by are able not only to make men in a private capacity wise unto salvation but also to furnish men for the discharging of the publick Office of Teaching and Governing in the Church of God The Holy Scriptures given by inspiration of God are profitable for Doctrine Reproof Correction and Instruction in Righteousness so as to make the man of God to wit a publick Preacher perfect throughly furnished to all good works even to enable him to discharge his whole Duty towards the Souls of others 2 Tim. 3.16 And St. Paul by his Writings instructed even Timothy himself how to behave himself in his Office and publick Capacity 1 Tim. 3.14 These things write I unto thee that thou maist know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the Living God And for the better discharge of his Ministerial Office directs and enjoins him to give attendance to Reading and to Meditation or Study 1 Tim. 4.13 15. Which sure would have been needless if he had been sufficiently able to have done all by the immediate Illumination and operation of God's Spirit as you fancy your Teachers are able to do § 9. 7. The same promise is made to the reading of the Word written and to the keeping of it as is to the hearing and keeping of it Rev. 1.3 Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophesie and keep those things which are written therein § 10. 8. The Scripture is said to say this or that which yet God said himself or by his Servants Rom. 9.17 The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh even for this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might shew my power in thee Rom. 10.11 The Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed Gal. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under sin What saith the Scripture Cast out the Bondwoman and her Son Gal. 4.30 Which yet was the Saying of God himself Gen. 16. Another Scripture saith They shall look on him whom they have pierced John 19.17 No Prophesie of the Scriptures is of private Interpretation 2 Pet. 1.20 So that according to this look what God saith in and by the Scriptures touching such things as concern us is in effect the same as if he had spoken them to us himself immediately If any man think himself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things I write until you are the Commandments of the Lord said St Paul 1 Cor. 14.37 You are wont to insinuate indeed as if the Scriptures were not of that use to us now as they were to them to whom they were first written But however they might more concern them than us in some particular cases proper to them yet in things of common concern they are as much for our use as they were for theirs For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our Learning Rom. 15.4 What God said to Joshua I will never leave thee nor forsake thee the Apostle would have all faithful Christians relie on as if it had been spoken to themselves Heb. 13.5 That which was first spoken to the Jews Lev. 26. The Apostle applies to the Believing Gentiles as much as if it had been spoken to them only 2 Cor. 6.16 For ye are the Temple of the Living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people § 11. 9. We that have the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles brought down to us in the Scriptures may according to Scripture-Dialect be said to have Christ and his Apostles as truly as it was said of the Jews in our Saviour's days on Earth that they had Moses and the Prophets for it was by having in the Scriptures what they said and did that were said to have them And by hearing and believing the Scriptures of the New Testament we may as well be said to hear and believe Christ and his Apostles as they to hear and believe Moses and the Prophets which yet they were said to do when they did believe their Writings Luke 16.29 They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them Ver. 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead John 5.46 47. Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me But if ye believe not his Writings how should ye believe my Words Christ promised his Apostles upon his giving them Commission to teach all Nations that he would be with them to the end of the world and he is so in one sense when he accompanies their Ministration by their Doctrine and Writings with the presence of his Grace and power in their continuation to the end of the world And as it is said of Moses Acts 15.21 That he had those in every City that preached him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day inasmuch as his Books of the Law were read so for the same or like reason it may be as truly said that Christ hath those that preach him now when the Books of the New Testament written by inspiration of his Spirit are read among us and opened unto us every Lord's Day You may then safely conclude that those that have the Doctrine of Christ in his Gospel among them have Christ among them and all that receive and hold fast that do receive and hold fast him So saith St. John in his second Epist v. 9. He that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ he hath both
much deserve the same name they had You think it seems you may compare them as frequently you do with the false Prophets and bad Priests of old of whom it is said that the Priests did teach for hire and the Prophets divine for mony But are you indeed so far forsaken of understanding as to think it was a crime in the Priests under the Law to take mony or moneys-worth whereby to live to discharge their Office You cannot but know what ample provision God made for them and accounted himself rob'd when their Tithes were detained and kept back from them and therefore that could not be their crime But when the people were wicked and did not make conscience of observing God's Laws but broke them in keeping back the Tithes as well as in other things the crime of the Priests complained of then doubtless was that they taught the people corrupt Doctrine such as would please them that they might thereby incline them to pay them their Tithes God in Malachi's Prophesie complains of the people that they had robbed him in Tithes and Offerings even the whole Nation And then he complaines of the Priests also saying but ye are departed out of the way ye have caused many to stumble at the Law ye have corrupted the Covenant of Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people according as ye have not kept my ways but have been Partial in the Law Mal. 2.8.9 And so the false Prophets that saw vanity and divined lies saying thus saith the Lord God when the Lord had not spoken And why did they so but to get the peoples mony by pleasing them in Prophesying peace to them when the true Prophets prophesied of judgment and were prasecuted for it Ezek. 22.25 28. And are you sure that all those Ministers that receive mony of the people as a reward of their Labours whom you brand with preaching for hire and divining for mony are such and do as those Priests and Prophets did for which they are so stigmatized And if you are not sure of it as I am sure you are not nor can be Then I pray you consider how or which way you will quit your selves from being of the number of those false accusers of whom St. Paul Prophesied as persons that should have a form of Godliness and yet deny the power of it by whom the times should be mad perilous 2 Tim. 3.3 'T is possible and too probable that there may be some who for worldly and fleshly respects may greatly fall short of a faithful discharge of their duty towards the souls under their charge and if there be any that by dawbing with untempered Mortar do betray them I am no advocate for such they shall bear their burden whosoever they be But if there be some such how unreasonable and unchristian is it to condemn the Righteous with the Wicked and to censure all for somes sake It looks as if the work and office it self were the eye-sore to you as much if not more than their miscarriage in it And that which adds ground of suspition herein is that your great out cry against them is for taking mony for preaching which is none of their crime they doing their duty But those which I fear stand behind you and insensibly influence you herein know well enough that if the people could be but prevailed with to withold maintenance from the Ministry the Ministerial work would cease and a Door would be opened for somewhat else And therefore those Romish Factors that can turn themselves into any shape have cunningly made use of all sorts of Sects among us however otherwise differing among themselves yet in this to agree to cry down the publick Ministry There were in the Apostles time such pretenders to Christianity and Teachers too as sought their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ that served their own bellies instead of serving Jesus Christ that through covetousness with feigned words made merchandize of the people in order to all which they did corrupt the Word by reason of whose pernicious ways the way of truth was evil spoken of But by whom doubtless by none but by malignant adversaries to the truth it self But we have not the least whisper of any good Christians speaking evil of the faithful Ministry because of some miscarriages of the Scandalous and unfaithful And yet I believe you would take it ill if upon account of your doing now not as the good but as ill men then did you should be rank'd and numbred not with the good but with the bad which if you be not it is because some have more charity for you than you have for others that better deserve it What I was beginning to answer to your Plea for the incongruity of your opinion and practice hath led me to somewhat a long discourse and yet I have something more directly to say to it Your opinion is that men being taught of God himself by his Light and Spirit within now under the New Covenant need not to be taught by men nor to have the Scripture for their Teacher And yet for all that you take upon you to teach the Peopel your selves whil'st you decry it in others and say in your defence that in as much as men may disobey the Light in them therefore your teaching is necessary to perswade them to obey it But I pray you is God's shewing men their duty all the inward teaching you pretend to Do you not pretend to be led and moved by the Spirit to do as well as to know your duty Do you not say expresly that the Spirit of God moveth and leadeth into all the works of righteousness and that the Spirit of Christ only exercises the Conscience to God and Man and leads into the practice of all Truth Nay do you not make the acceptation of what is acceptably done to depend upon the motion and work of the Spirit in the doing of it and do you not count all that is not so done to be done in man's own will And therefore why do you thus dissemble the matter and heap one contradiction upon another But suppose that which you pretend were the only reason of your teaching is there not then the same reason that others should Preach as well as you Or are none in danger of rebelling against the Light but only such as hear you But the plain Truth is for all your talk that you do undertake to teach men what their Duty is as well as perswade them to do it as appears abundantly in your Books particularly in those of Edward Burroughs So that by this tergiversation and shuffling it plainly appears to intelligent men that the business at the bottom is not that you are against the needfulness of mans teaching notwithstanding all the teaching by the Light within but only against all other mens teaching but your own So that if you knew your
all thoughts and conceits of high attainments in the things of God they would repent and do their first works and begin as it were again at the first Principles of the Doctrine of Christ and so lay their Foundation a new in the beginning work of Christians Also that they would frame their Notions and apprehensions of things absolutely necessary to Salvation according to that plainness in which they are expressed in Scripture not affecting nor entertaining Mystical Notions of them More particularly that they would furnish their minds with right apprehensions of the person of Christ as Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary and of the Nature of his Mediatory Office That as Priest he offered himself in Sacrifice to expiate Sin by his Death and in vertue thereof makes continual Intercession for us That as Prophet he revealed and declared the New Covenant of Salvation That as King he hath given Laws to the World and that he doth Rule and Govern his Church through his Spirit by those Laws and that at last he will try and judg all men by them that have lived under them and that he will reward all with eternal happiness or endless torments according as they have been obedient or disobedient to them That they be careful also that their Notions of the New Covenant be according to the plain Doctrine of the Gospel in the Scriptures Particularly That it consists of two parts of Promises and of conditions of those Promises Also that the Promises of it are made upon account and for the sake of Christ his undertaking as Mediator That the great and special Promises of it are pardon of sin or justification the assistance of God's Spirit in our endeavouring to perform the condition and eternal Life That the condition on which these Promises are made are Faith in Christ Repentance sincere Obedience and the craving of the assistance of God's Spirit in the use of appointed means and our endeavours to perform the condition That they be careful also to form right Notions of the nature of the condition on our part on which the Promises of the New-Covenant are made As that no Faith short of such a belief in Christ and of his Doctrine as worketh unfeigned Repentance and sincere Obedience is justifying and saving That no Repentance short of a desire resolution and endeavour to forsake all known sin is saving Repentance That no Obedience short of a desire resolution and a continued endeavour to observe all the Laws of Christ without baulking any one of them when known to be such is sincere That no Faith no Repentance no Obedience short of these as thus described is a fulfilling of the condition of the Promises of Salvation in the Covenant of Grace As these great things of the Gospel are in Scripture expressed in great plainness so great care must be had to keep close to and to hold fast the form of sound words according to which they are so declared not affecting any Notion Phrase or Expression which makes them more hard to be understood by common capacities than they are by the very Letter of the Scriptures but when other expressions are used than what are in the Letter of the Text as its necessary there should sometimes especially in explaining metaphors and Idioms of Speech proper to the times and places in which the Scriptures were written they should be such and so used as may give a clearer insight into the Nature of the things themselves than without them can well be had carefully avoiding to take words properly which are spoken metaphorically or to be led by the meer sound of words but to take the measure of the sence of them by the scope and design of the Author since words of the same sound are not always of the same signification § 24. And now after I have laid things before you which are very apt in their own Nature to rectifie you in one of your grand and fundamental mistakes especially if invincible prejudice hinder not I should be very sorry to think or suspect that what is done herein should turn to no better account than to be a witness against you in that great day in which every mans work will be tryed of what sort it is And therefore to prevent that I cannot for your sakes and for the longing I have after your salvation but earnestly perswade you to give things purposely prepared to serve you a due consideration in your minds and not to pass over such things slightly as wherein your eternal Estate is much concern'd Remember that Heresie is one of those works of the Flesh which shut Men out of the Kingdom of God Gal. 5.20 21. And considering the Nature and bad influence of several of your opinions and with what pertinaciousness you persist in them it s greatly feared not to say confidently believed by such as are jealous over you with a Godly jealousie that many of you at least lye under no less guilt than that of grand Heresie And do you not then owe all seriousness of consideration to what is offered to rescue you from so great a danger Doubtless you do Let not then the height of your confidence to the contrary deceive you For it is not the greatness of your confidence that will in the least alter the nature of things or make them bend to your humour You are not the first that have been as confident as confidence it self could make them that they had fast hold of Truth when all the while it hath been but a lye they have had in their right hand But the more confident you are in your way you are like to be so much the more surprized with amazement when in another World you shall find yourselves to have been mistaken in that of which you are now so strongly confident in this if you should be so unhappy as to carry such mistaken confidence with you thither without a pardon Which that you may not is I assure you all the hurt that is designed you in this Address And therefore let me tell you again that it will be your wisdom much rather to bestow your thoughts and pains in labouring to find out whether you be not indeed under a delusion than in darkning of words without knowledge in labouring to obscure to your selves and others the evidence of Truth offered which clearly tends to your conviction FAREWEL THE END POSTSCRIPT THere being some vacant Leaves and because I have not so plainly represented the nature of Faith which is the condition of the New Covenant as I have the other parts of it in my advice touching a right Notion of the Nature of the Mediatory Office and of the Covenant of Grace I shall for these and other Reasons add a short hint of the help which the Scripture doth offer us herein When St. John saith Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 John 5.1 and again Who is he that overcometh the World