their lives to rob and kill as if they were of little worth yea when they know that they must die how desperately go they to the gallows and how little make they of their lives It s true as was aforesaid that nature abhorreth death but we see among Souldiers that he that at first is timerous when he hath been used a while to kill men or to see them kill'd by thousands groweth senseless almost regardless of his life and will make as it were a jest of death And when it is so ordinary a thing with men to kill birds and fishes and beasts for their daily food and pleasure why should they not easily bear their own if they look for nothing after death A beast loveth his life as well as we and our death is no more painful than theirs and we should have as much courage as a beast Especially men that live a poor and miserable life on earth would little fear that death which endeth it and so humane Government it self would be in vain He that would have an instrument to revenge him on his enemy to kill his Governour or do any villany in the world if it were not for fear of another world might find enow among Poor villains that by misery or melancholly are a-weary of their lives At least as long as they run but a hazard like a Souldier in fight and may possibly scape by craft or flight or friends or strength what wickedness will they not commit What Prince so just that hath not some rebellious Subject or some Enemy that seeks his life What man so good that is not maliced by some Who hath mony or an estate which one or other doth not desire and if there were nothing but death and annihilation to restrain men what Prince what person had any security of his life or estate If a Rogue once grow but sensual and idle he will deliberately resolve I will venture my life to live in pleasure rather than live in certain toil and misery a short life and a sweet is better than a longer which is miserable and must end at last We see if once men be perswaded that they shall die like beasts that they are not much troubled at it because they think that when they have no being they shall have no fear nor care nor grief nor trouble nor pain nor want And though right improved Reason which hath higher expectations makes a greater matter of the loss of them yet sensual men so brutine themselves that they grow contented with the felicity of a Bruit and are not much troubled that they have no more Annihilation therefore certainly is a penalty utterly insufficient even to keep any common Order in the World as I proved before And therefore it is certain that the penalty inflicted hereafter will be greater than Annihilation And if so it must contain with the Being of the Creature a suffering worse than the loss of Being § 35. The Belief of a Hell or endless punishment being that which is de facto the restraint of the Obedient part of the World and that which proveth too weak with the Disobedient part it thence followeth that a Hell or endless punishment will be inflicted The Reasons I have given before 1. Because that Experience sheweth that the Threatning of Hell is necessary in the Law therefore it self is necessary in the execution 2. Because God doth not govern the World by deceit § 36. God will inflict more punishment for the final rejection of his Government than Kings do for treason and rebellion against thousands There is no proportion between God and Man and between a fault against God and against Man Therefore if racks torments and death be justly inflicted for Treason against a King much more may be expected for rebellion against God Obj. But mens sins do God no hurt as they do the King Answ They do wrong where they do no hurt It is not for want of Malignity in sin but through the perfections of God that they do not hurt him But they displease him and injure him and they hurt the World and the sinner himself who is not his own A Child is to be corrected for many faults which do his Father no harm It is not hurting God that is the Cause that sin is punished Obj. But God is mercifull as well as just Answ True and therefore he shewed mercy to sinners in the day of Mercy And it is for the contempt and abuse of mercy that he condemneth them If the Mercy abused had been less the sin and punishment had been less A mercifull King and Judge will hang a Murderer or Traytor Mercy to the good requireth punishment of the bad Gods Attributes are not contrary He is mercifull to the due Objects of mercy and hath penal Justice for the Objects of that Justice Obj. But after this life the ends of punishment cease therefore so will the punishment For there will be none in the next World to be warned by it nor any further sin to be restrained unless it be a Castigatory Purgatory for the sinner himself Answ 1. I have proved that the Law was necessary to the Government of this World And if it was necessary that God say everlasting death shall be the wages of sin then his Truth and Justice make the execution necessary afterwards 2. When this life is ended we look for a New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness And the penalties of the sinners of this World may be a means of that righteousness of the next as the punishment of the Devils is a warning to us and proposed to us for our terror and restraint 3. How little know we whether thousands of the Orbs which we see are not inhabited and whether the penalties of Earthly sinners may not be a warning to any of those superiour Worlds God hath not acquainted us with all the uses that he can make of sinners punishments And therefore when Nature telleth us what is due it is folly to say it will not be because God hath no use for it Obj. But Hell is a cruelty which expresseth tyranny rather than wise justice Answ That 's but the voice of Folly partiality and guilt Every thief that is hanged is like enough to think the same of his own Punishment and Judge If you think it such a cruelty why was not the threatning of it enough to govern you and to counterpoise a Feather the trifles of sordid fleshly pleasure Why did you choose it in the choice of sin were you not told of it and was not Life and Death offered to your choice Would you choose that which you think it is cruelty to inflict who is it that is cruel to you but your selves Why will you now be so cruel to your own souls and then call God cruel for giving you your choice O sinners as you are wise as you are men as ever you care what becometh of you for ever
is a Principle in Politicks that Poena debetur reipublicae it is the Common-wealth to which the punishment of offendors is due that is it is a means which the Ruler oweth them for their security And Cato was wont to say Se malle pro collato beneficio nullam reportare gratiam quà m pro maleficio perpetrato non dare poenam Plutar. Apoth Rom. He had rather miss of thanks for his kindnesses and gifts than of punishment for his faults And was wont to say that Magistratus qui maleficos prohibere possent tamen impunitate donarent lapidibus ol ruendos esse ut Reipub. perniciosissimos A hundred such sayings are in Cicero Offic. 3. Quotusquisque reperietur qui impunitate propositâ abstinere possit injuriâ Impunitas peccandi maxima est illecebra De Natur. Deor. 3. Nec domus nec Respubl stare potest si in ea nec recte factis praemia extent vlla nec supplicia peccatis In Verrem 5. est utilius unius improbi supplicio multorum improbitatem coercere quà m propter multos improbos uni parcere Offic. 1. Non satis est eum qui lacesserit injuriae suae penitere ut ipse nequid tale posthac committat caeteri sint ad injuriam tardiores This is the common sense of all that know what it is to govern Obj. But God is so good that all his Punishments tend at last to the sinners good and are meerly castigatory Answ God is so wise that he knoweth better than we what is good and fittest to be done And God is so good that for the honour of his Government and Holiness and Goodness he expresseth his hatred of sin to the final ruine of the sinners And he is so wise and good that he will not spare the offendor when the penalty is necessary to the good of the innocent to prevent their falls The Objection is a surmise not only groundless but notoriously false § 10. He that would know how far punishment is necessary to the ends of Government must first know how far the Penal Law it self is necessary for the first and chiefest benefit to the Common-wealth is from the Law and the next from the Execution The first benefit is to constrain men to duty and to restrain them from doing ill This is done immediately by the fear of punishment with the expectation of the benefit This fear of punishment is to be caused by the rational expectation of it if they do offend This expectation is to be caused by the commination of the Law When the Law saith He that sinneth shall suffer the Subject avoideth sin for fear of suffering Therefore the Subject must believe that the Law-giver meaneth as he speaketh even to govern and judge in Justice according to that Law and he that can but make the Subject believe that the Governour doth but affright men with a lie and meaneth not to execute his penalties shall easily make his Laws of none effect and turn loose offendors to presumptuous disobedience Therefore the fore-belief of execution is necessary to the efficacy of the Law which else is but as a Mawkin to affright away birds and fit to work on none but fools And if it be so necessary a duty to the Subject to believe that the Law shall be the Norma judicii and shall be executed then in our present case it is certainly true For God cannot lie nor make it the duty of the world to believe a lie nor need so vile a means to keep the world in order So that it is most evident that if the Law be necessary the execution of it is ordinarily necessary and either the execution or some means as effectual to the ends of Government is ever necessary § 11. Therefore he that would know what degree of punishment it is meet and just for God to execute must first know what degree it is meet for him to threaten or make Due by Law or rather how much he hath made due Because what God should do is best known by what he actually doth If a temporal short or small measure of Penalty be sufficient to be threatned in the Law for the present attaining of the ends of Government then such a punishment is sufficient in the execution But if the threatning of an endless punishment in another world be little enough in suo genere to prevail now with Subjects for order and obedience then the execution will be therefore necessary by consequence § 12. It followeth not therefore that Punishment or Rewards must cease if the ends be past in natural existence because Moral means may in time be after their end to which they were appointed to operate in esse cognito and that penalty which is perpetuated may be a means to the ends already attained that is the threatnings and the expectation of them and then the honour of the Ruler's veracity and justice bindeth him to the execution § 13. What ever reward or punishment is annexed to sin by the Law is offered with the duty and sin to the subjects choosing or refusing and no man is in danger of any punishment but he that chooseth it in its self or in its annexed cause And he that will have it or will have that which he is told by God is annexed to it especially if it be deliberately and obstinately to the last hath none to blame of cruelty towards him but himself nor nothing to complain of but his wilful choice Obj. But it were easie with God to confirm man's will so that the threatning of a temporal punishment might have ruled him Answ It is easie with God to make every man an Angel and every beast or worm a man but if his wisdom think meet below men to make such inferiour things as Beasts and below Angels or confirmed Souls to make so low a rank of creatures as Men that have Reason and undetermined and unconfirmed Free-wills what are we that we should expostulate with him for making them no better nor ruling them in our way § 14. Sin doth unquestionably deserve a natural death and annihilation This all men grant that believe that God is our Governour and that there is any such thing as His Laws and Man's sins If treason against a King deserve death much more rebellion and sin against God Life and being is God's free gift if he take it away from the innocent he taketh but his own therefore there can be no doubt but he may take it away from the guilty who abuse it § 15. If such a penalty were inflicted God is not bound to restore that sinner to being again whom he hath annihilated if it be not a contradiction And then this penal Privation would be everlasting Therefore an endless Privation of Being and all mercies is the sinners due All this I know of no man that doth deny § 16. God is not bound thus to annihilate the sinner but may continue all his natural Being and
it that in effect it denieth that there is a God or pulleth him down as much as in the sinner lieth and it setteth up the Devil in his stead and calleth him God or maketh God to be such a one as the Devil is and also maketh an Idol of the sinner himself For it denieth God's Power Wisdom Goodness Propriety Sovereignty and Love his Truth and Holiness and Justice and maketh him on the contrary impotent unwise bad envious unholy false unjust and one that hath no authority to rule us with much more the like But a life of enmity rebellion and final impenitency which is the case of all that perish much more deserveth what ever humane nature can undergo § 30. He that consenteth not to God's Government is a Rebel and deserveth accordingly and he that consenteth to it consenteth to his Laws and consequently to the Penalty threatned and therefore if he break them he suffereth by his own consent and therefore cannot complain of wrong All that understand God's Government and Laws and consent to them are not only under the obligation of governing-power but also of their own consent and it is justly supposed that they consented on good and rational grounds not knowing where they could be better on hopes of the benefits of the Government and the Reward they necessarily consented to the Penalties § 31. He that never consenteth to the Law and yet is under the obligation of it hath Life and Death the Blessing and the Curse Felicity and Misery set before him in the Law Felicity is annexed to obedience and misery to disobedience and the Law-giver telleth us that accordingly he will judge and execute and he offereth every man his choice He therefore that after this doth choose the sin which misery is annexed to doth choose the misery and refuse the happiness and therefore it is no wrong to cast him into misery though everlasting as long as he hath nothing but what he chose and loseth nothing but what he rejected and that with wilful obstinacy to the very last A sinner in this case hath nothing but blasphemy to say against the Justice of his Maker for what can he say He cannot say that his Maker had not Authority to make this Law for his authority was absolute He cannot say that it was too cruel hard and unjust a Law for it was made but to deter him and such as he from such sin to which he had no greater temptations than the toyish vanities of a fleshly life And he himself hath declared by the event that the Law was not terrible enough to deter him if it would not seem against so small and poor a bait he himself doth justifie the terribleness of it by his contempt God saith I threaten Hell to thee to keep thee from sin The sinner saith by his life and practice The threatning of Hell is not enough to keep me from sin And shall the same man say when execution cometh it is too great No sinner shall suffer any thing but what he chose himself in the causes of it If he say I did not believe that God was in good earnest and would do ath◠said this is but to blaspheme and say I took God for a liar and deceiver and a bad and unwise and impotent Governour If he say I did not know that sin even final impenitency in an ungodly life deserved so ill common reason and all the world will rise up against him and the light of nature will shew him to his face that all the forty points of malignity were in sin which I mentioned before and therefore that the Law of nature had a sufficient promulgation Having thus shew'd what punishment God may inflict without the least imputation of injustice let us next enquire of Reason what he will inflict § 32. When it is at God's choice whether he will annihilate a sinner or let him live in misery Reason telleth us that the latter is more suitable to the ends of Government because the living offendor will not only be still a spectacle in the eyes of others as a man hang'd up in chains but will also confess his folly and sin and his conscience will justifie his Judge and so God's Justice will be more glorious and useful to its ends That which is not is not seen nor heard the annihilated are out of sight And the mind of man is apt to think of a state of annihilation as that which is as a state of rest or ease and feeleth no harm and so is not terrible enough as shall be farther said anon The living sufferer therefore is rationally the fittest monument of God's Justice § 33. It must reasonably be expected that a Soul which is made apt to perpetual duration should perpetually endure and that the Soul enduring the misery also should endure seeing it was due by the Law of Nature as is proved Perpetual duration is necessary to no creature their Beings being but contingent and dependent on the will of God But perpetual duration of a dependent being is certain when the first Being doth declare his will that it shall be so and the natural way by which God declareth his will concerning the use of any thing is by the nature and usefulness of it because he maketh all things wisely and nothing in vain Therefore when he maketh the nature of an Angel or spiritual being apt to perpetual duration as being not mixt of separable Principles nor corruptible he thereby declareth his will for its duration because he gave it not that durable nature in vain Two Arguments therefore I now offer to prove that man's Soul is of perpetual duration 1. Because it is such in its operations and therefore in its essence as the superiour Spirits are which are so durable for they are but Intelligences and Free-agents fitted to love God and delight in him and praise him and so is man 2. Because as is fully proved before it is made to be happy in another life and that proveth that it dieth not with the Body and that proveth that its nature is incorruptible and that proveth that it shall be perpetual unless any sin should forfeit its being by way of penal deprivation and that is improbable both because God hath fitter ways of punishment and intimateth in its corruptible nature that this is not his intent and because the state of future reward is like to be a confirmed state § 34. Experience telleth the world that so great is the folly and obdurateness of man and the force of present sensual allurements that nothing less than a perpetual misery worse than annihilation is rationally sufficient to be the Penalty of that Law which is the instrument of governing the world and therefore it is certain that so much is in the Law and so much shall be executed Those thieves and murderers that have confirmed their infidelity and overcome all the expectations of another world will as boldly venture
whether there be any such or not Because he is not made for any life but this And if God had made Man for no more he would have disposed and obliged him no further We have an understanding to know it and thoughts and hopes and fears and cares about it which are not all in vain and we are plainly in reason obliged to this and more than we do and that Obligation is not vain § 13. XIII If there were no Life of Retribution hereafter Man were more vain and miserable than the Bruits by far and his Reason would but more delude him and torment him But the Consequent is absurd Ergo so is the Antecedent The Major is easily proved by our great experience for the world consisteth partly of men that believe another life and partly of them that do not and Reason maketh them both the more miserable For the former sort which is the most of the world their Reason telleth them that it is their duty to labour for a happiness hereafter and to fear and prevent a future misery and so their expectation would be their meer delusion and their lives would be all spent and ordered in delusion Like a company of men that should run up and down to prepare for a transplantation into the Moon and should cut down timber to build there and provide a stock of cattle to store the grounds there and buy and sell Lands there such would be the life of man in preparing for another world and he would be under a double calamity One by all this fruitless labour and another by his fear of future misery if his labour by temptations should be frustrate and he should miscarry To have Reason to lead a man in such a delusory life and to torment him with the fears of what may befall him after death is sure to be by reason more unhappy than the beasts that have none of this And for the Atheists they are more unhappy too so far as they are rational and considerate For they have no more happiness than the beasts to comfort them while they look for none hereafter and they have in all the way the foresight of their end they fore-know their great probability of sickness and painful tormenting diseases they fore-know the certainty of their death they know how all their sport and pleasure will end and leave them in dolour and how their corps must be rotting and turn to dust they fore-see abundance of crosses in their way they are troubled with cares for the time to come A beast hath none of this fore-knowledge and none of the fore-thoughts of pain or dying but only fearfully flieth from a present danger Moreover the poor Atheist having no certainty of the truth of his own opinion that there is no other life is oft haunted with fears of it and especially when approaching death doth awake both his reason and his fears he then thinks O what if there should be another world where I must live in misery for my sin In despight of him some such fears will haunt him Judge then whether the use of reason be not to make man a more deluded and tormented creature than the bruits if so be there were no life after this But this cannot stand with the methods of our Creator To give us so great an excellency of nature to make us more vain and unhappy than the beasts When he maketh a creature capable and fit for higher things he declareth that he intendeth him for higher things Obj. But even here we have a higher kind of work and pleasure than the Bruits we rule them and they serve us we dwell in Cities and Societies and make provision for the time to come Answ Those Bruits that dwell in Woods and Desarts serve us not and our ruling them is a small addition to our felicity Pride it self can take little pleasure in being the Master of Dogs and Cats Rule doth but adde to care and trouble caeteris paribus it is an easier life to be ruled than to rule And if we take away their lives it is no more than we must undergo our selves and the violent death which we put them too hath usually less pain than our languishing age and sickness and natural death And it is as pleasant to a Bird to dwell in her nest as to us to dwell in Cities and Palaces and they sing as merrily in their way of converse as we in our troublesome Kingdoms and Societies If present pleasure be the highest of our hopes they seem to have as much as we or if there be any difference it is counter-ballanced by the twenty-fold more cares and fears and labours and mental troubles which we are more liable to And our knowledge doth but encrease our sorrow of which next § 14. XIV If there were no life of Retribution the wiser any man were the more miserable would he be and knowledge would be their plague and ignorance the way to their greatest pleasure But the consequence is absurd Ergo so is the antecedent The reason of the consequence is manifest in what is said the Ignorant have nothing to disturb them in their sensual delights The liker to beasts they can be to eat and drink and play and satisfie every lust and never think of a reckoning or of death it self the more uninterrupted would be their delights the fore-thoughts of death or any change would not disturb them their folly which maketh them over-value all the matters of the flesh would encrease their pleasure and felicity for things delight men as they are esteemed rather than as indeed they are But the more wise and knowing men would always see vanity and vexation written upon all the treasures and pleasures of the world and in the midst of their delights would fore-see death coming to cut them off and bring them to a dolorous end So that undoubtedly the most knowing would be the most miserable and though Nature delight in knowing much it would but let in an inundation of vexatious passions on the mind But Knowledge is so great a gift of God and Ignorance so great a blemish unto Nature that it is not by sober reason to be believed that so noble a gift should be given us as a plague and so great a plague and shame of nature as ignorance is should be a blessing or felicity § 15. XV. If the Kings and temporal Governours of the world do extend their Rewards and Punishments as far as to temporal prosperity and adversity life and death in respect to the present ends of Government and this justly then is it meet and just that the Universal King extend his benefits and punishments much further for good or evil as they have respect unto his own Laws and Honour But the antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent Kings justly take away mens lives for Treason They that look but to the present temporal good or hurt of the Common-wealth do think
and various instances these exceptions do but confirm the general truth that such there are I have said so much of them in two other Writings that I shall now say no more but this That those Judges ordinarily condemn them to die who themselves have been most incredulous of such things that so great numbers were condemned in Suffolk Norfolk and Essex about twenty years ago that left the business past all doubt to the Judges Auditors and Reverend Ministers yet living who were purposely sent with them for the fuller inquisition That the testimonies are so numerous and beyond exception recorded in the many Volumes written on this subject by the Malleus Maleficorum Bodin Remigius and other Judges who condemned them that I owe no man any further proof than to desire him to read the foresaid Writings wherein he shall find Men and Women Gentlemen Scholars Doctors of Divinity of several qualities and tempers all confessedly guilty and put to death for this odious sin And he shall find what compacts they made with the Devil promising him their Souls or their service and renouncing their Covenant with God All which doth more than intimate that men have Souls to save or lose and that there is an Enemy of Souls who is most sollicitous to destroy them or else to what end would all this be When people are in wrath and malice desirous of revenge or in great discontents or too eagerly desirous after overhasty knowledge in any needless speculation the Devil hath the advantage to appear to them and offer them his help and draw them into some contract with him implicit at least if not explicit I have my self been too incredulous of these things till cogent evidence constrained my belief Though it belong not to us to give account why Satan doth it or why upon no more or why God permitteth it yet that so it is in point of fact it cannot be rationally denyed And therefore we have so much sensible evidence that there is a happiness and misery after this life which the Devil believeth though Atheists do not 2. And though some are as incredulous of Apparitions yet evidence hath confuted all incredulity I could make mention of many but for the notoriety I will name but two which it is easie to be satisfied about The one is the Apparition in the shape of Collonel Bowen in Glamorganshire to his Wife and Family speaking walking before them laying hold on them hurting them in time of Prayer the man himself then living from his Wife in Ireland being one that from Sect to Sect had proceeded to Infidelity if not to Atheism and upon the hearing of it came over but durst not goe to the place The thing I have by me described largely and attested by learned godly Ministers that were at the place and is famous past contradiction 2. But to name no more he that will read a small Book called The Devil of Mascon written by Mr. Perreand and published by Dr. Peter Moulin will see an instance past all question The Devil did there for many months together at certain hours of the day hold discourse with the inhabitants and publikely disputed with a Papist that challenged him and when he had done turn'd him and cast him down so violently that he went home distracted He would sing and jest and talk familiarly with them as they do with one another He would answer them questions about things done at a distance and would carry things up and down before them and yet never seen in any shape All this was done in the house of the said Mr. Perreand a Reverend faithfull Minister of the Protestant Church in the hearing of persons of both Professions Papists and Protestants that ordinarily came in for above three months at Mascon a City of France And at last upon earnest Prayer it ceased Mr. Perreands piety and honesty was well known and attested to me by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery now Lord President of Munster in Ireland and attested to the World by his most learned worthy honourable Brother Mr. Robert Boyl in an Epistle before the Book neither of them persons apt to be over-credulous of such unusual things yet both fully satisfied of the truth of this story by Mr. Perreands own Narratives with whom they were very familiar See the other Testimonies cited in my Saints Rest Part 2. Q. But how doth this signifie that there is any future state for man Answ 1. Commonly these Apparitions do expresly referr to some sin or duty which are regardable in order to a further Life Sometimes they come to terrifie Murderers or other great Offenders and sometimes the Devil hath killed men outright which yet were no more painfull than another death if it fetcht not their souls into a greater misery sometimes they are used to tempt people to sin to witchcraft to revenge to idolatry and superstition to which use they are common among many of the Indians And all this intimateth some further hurt which sin doth men after this present life which they take not here for their pain but their pleasure 2. Many of these Apparitions say that they are the souls of such and such persons that have lived here If it be so then the question is granted And whether it be so I suppose is to us uncertain For why a condemned Soul may not appear as well as Satan notwithstanding that both of them are in that state of misery which is called Hell I yet could never hear any sure proof But because this is uncertain 3. At least it sheweth us that these evil Spirits are neer us and able to molest us and therefore are ordinarily restrained and that their natures are not as to any elevation so distant from ours but that a converse there may be and therefore that it is very probable that when the souls of the Wicked are separated from their bodies they shall be such as they or have more converse with them and that the good Spirits shall be the companions of the souls of men that here were not far unlike themselves When we perceive that we live among such invisible Spirits it is the easier to believe that we shall live with such of them hereafter as we are most like 3. I may adde to these the instance of satanical Possessions For though many diseases may have of themselves very terrible and strange effects yet that the Devil I mean some evil Spirit doth operate in many is past all contradiction some will speak Languages which they never learnt some will tell things done far off some will have force and actions which are beyond their proper natural ability Most great Physicians how incredulous soever have been forced to confess these things and abundance of them have written particular instances And the manner of their transportations their horrid blasphemies against God with other carriages do commonly intimate a life to come and a desire that Satan hath to
Via and manifold mercies helps and means do generally perswade the Consciences of men that there are certain Duties required of them and certain Means to be used by them in order to procure their recovery and salvation and to scape the misery deserved He that shall deny this will turn the Earth into a Hell he will teach men to forbear all means and duties which tend to their conversion pardon and salvation and to justifie themselves in it and desperately give over all Religion and begin the horrours and language of the damned § 9. The very command of God to use his appointed means for mens recovery doth imply that it shall not be in vain and doth not only shew a possibility but so great a hopefulness of the success to the obedient as may encourage them cheerfully to undertake it and carry it through No man that is wise and merciful will appoint his subject a course of means to be used for a thing impossible to be got or will say Labour thus all thy life for it but thou shalt be never the nearer it if thou do If such an Omniscient Physician do but bid me use such means for my cure and health I may take his command for half a promise if I obey § 10. Conscience doth bear witness against impenitent sinners that the cause of their sin and the hinderance of their recovery is in themselves and that God is not unwilling to forgive and save them if they were but meet for forgiveness and salvation Even now mens consciences take God's part against themselves and tell them that the Infinite Good that communicateth all the Goodness to the creature which it hath is not so likely to be the cause of so odious a thing as sin nor of mans destruction as he himself If I see a Sheep lie torn in the high-way I will sooner suspect the Wolf than a Lamb to be the cause if I see them both stand by and if I see a Child drown'd in scalding water I will sooner suspect that he fell in by folly and heedlesness himself than that his Mother wilfully cast him in Is not silly naughty man much liker to be the cause of sin and misery than the wise and gracious God Much more hereafter will the sinners conscience justifie God § 11. God hath planted in the common nature of mankind an inseparable inclination to Truth as Truth and to Good as Good and a Love to themselves and a desire to be happy and a lothness to be miserable together with some reverence and honour of God till they have extinguished the belief of his being and a hatred and horrour of the Devil while they believe he is All which are a fit Stock to plant Reforming-truths in and Principles fit to be improved for mens conversion and the excitation and improvement of them is much of that recovering work § 12. Frequent and deep consideration being a great means of mans recovery by improving the truth which he considereth and restoring Reason to the Throne it is a great advantage to man that he is naturally a Reasoning and Thoughtful creature his Intellect being propense to activity and knowledge § 13. And it is his great advantage that his frequent and great afflictions have a great tendency to awake his Reason to consideration and to bring it to the heart and make it effectual And consequently that God casteth us into such a Sea and wilderness of troubles that we should have these quickening Monitors still at hand § 14. And it is man's great advantage for his recovery that Vanity and Vexation are so legibly written on all things here below and that frustrated expectations and unsatisfied minds and the fore-knowledge of the end of all and bodily pains which find no ease with multitudes of bitter experiences do so abundantly help him to escape the snare the love of present things For all men that perish are condemned for loving the creature above the Creator and therefore such a world which appeareth so evidently to be vain and empty and deceitful and vexatious and which all men know will turn them off at last with as little comfort as if they had never seen a day of pleasure in it I say such a world one would think should give us an antidote against its own deceit and sufficiently wean us from its inordinate love At least this is a very great advantage § 15. It is also a common and great advantage for man's recovery that his life here is so short and his death so certain as that reason must needs tell him that the pleasures of sin are also short and that he should always live as parting with this world and ready to enter into another The nearness of things maketh them to work on the mind of man the more powerfully distant things though sure and great do hardly awaken the mind to their reception and due consideration If men lived 600 or 1000 years in the world it were no wonder if covetousness and carnality and security made them like Devils and worse than wild beasts to one another But when men cannot chuse but know that they must certainly and shortly see the end of all that ever this world will do for them and are never sure of another hour this is so great a help to sober consideration and conversion that it must be monstrous stupidity and brutishness that must overcome it § 16. It is also a great advantage for man's conversion that all the world revealeth God to him and every thing telleth him of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness and Love of God and of his constant Presence and so sheweth him an object which should as easily over-power all sensual objects which would seduce his soul as a mountain will weigh down a feather Though we see not God which would sure put an end to the controversie whether we should be sensual or holy yet while we have a glass as big as all the world which doth continually represent him to us one would think that no reasonable creature should so much over-look him as to be carried from him with the trifles of this world § 17. Men that have not only the foresaid obligations to Holiness Justice and Sobriety in their natures but also all these Hopes and Helps and Means of their recovery from sin to God and yet frustrate all and continue in ungodliness unrighteousness or intemperance impenitently to the end are utterly destitute of all just excuse why God should not punish them with endless misery which is the case of all that perish § 18. All men shall be judged by the Law which was given them of God to live by For it is the same Law which is Regula Officii Judicii God will not condemn men for not believing a truth which mediately or immediately was never revealed to them and which they had no means to know nor for not obeying a Law which was never promulgated to them
Exaltation whereupon the woman seeing the beauty of the Fruit and desiring Knowledge believed the Devil and did eat of that which God forbad The sin being so hainous for a new-made Rational Creature to believe that God was false and bad a lyar and envious which is indeed the nature of the Devil and to depart from his Love and Obedience for so small a matter God did in Justice presently sentence the Offenders to punishment yet would not so lose his new-made Creature nor cast off Mankind by the full execution of his deserved punishment but he resolved to commit the Recovery and Conduct of Mankind to a Redeemer who should better perform the work of salvation than the first Man Adam had done the work of adhaesion and obedience This Saviour is the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God who was in due time to assume the Nature of Man and in the mean time to stay the stroke of Justice and to be the invisible Law-giver and Guide of Souls communicating such measures of mercy light and spirit for their recovery as he saw fit Of whom more anon so that henceforward God did no longer Govern man as a spotless innocent Creature by the meer Law of entire-Nature but as a lapsed guilty depraved Creature who must be pardoned reconciled and renewed and have Laws and Means made suitable to his corrupted miserable state Hereupon God published the Promise of a Saviour to be sent in due time who should confound the Devil that had accused God of falshood and of envying the good of man and had by lying murdered mankind and should overcome all his deceits and power and rescue God's injur'd Honour and the Souls of sinners and bring them safe to the everlasting blessedness which they were made for Thus God as man's Redeemer and not only as his Creator governeth him He taught Adam first to worship him now by Sacrifice both in acknowledgment of the Creator and to teach him to believe in and expect the Redeemer who in his assumed humanity was to become a Sacrifice for sin This Worship by Sacrifice Adam taught his two sons Cain and Abel who were the early instances types and beginnings of the two sorts of persons which thence-forward would be in the world viz. The holy Seed of Christ and the wicked Seed of Satan Cain the elder as corruption now is before Regeneration offering the fruits of his land only to his Creator and Abel the younger sacrificing the firstlings of his flock of sheep to his Redeemer with a purified mind God rejected the offering of Cain and accepted the sacrifice of Abel Whereupon Cain in imitation of the Devil envied his Brother and in envy slew him to foretell the world what the corrupted nature of man would prove and how malignant it would be against the sanctified and what the holy Seed that are accepted of God must look for in this world for the hope of an everlasting blessedness with God After this God's patience waited on mankind not executing the threatned death upon their bodies till they had lived seven or eight or nine hundred years a piece which mercy was abused to their greater sin the length of their lives occasioning their excessive sensuality worldliness and contempt of God and life eternal so that the number of the holy Seed was at last so small and the wickedness of mankind so great that God resolved to drown the world Only righteous Noah and his family eight persons he saved in an Ark which he directed him to make for the preservation of himself and the species of Aereal and Terrestrial Animals After which Floud the earth was peopled in time from Noah to whom God gave Precepts of Piety and Justice which by tradition came down to his posterity through the world But still the greater part did corrupt their ways and followed Satan and the holy Seed was the smaller part of whom Abraham being exemplary in holiness and righteousness with his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob God did in special approbation of their righteousness renew his gracious covenant with them and enlarge it with the addition of many temporal blessings and special priviledges to their posterity after them promising that they should possess the Land of Canaan and be to him a peculiar people above all the people of the earth The children of Jacob being afterward by a famine removed into Egypt there multiplied to a great people The King of Egypt therefore oppressed them and used them as slaves to make his brick by cruel impositions Till at last God raised them up Moses for a deliverer to whom God committed his message to the King and to whom he gave power to work miracles for their deliverance and whom he made their Captain to lead them out of Egypt towards the promised Land Ten times did Moses with Aaron his Brother go to Pharaoh the King in vain though each time they wrought publick miracles to convince him till at last when God had in a night destroyed all the first-born in the land of Egypt Pharaoh did unwillingly let the Seed of Jacob or Israel go But repenting quickly he pursued after them with his Host and overtook them just at the Red-sea where God wrought a miracle opening the Sea which the Israelites past through on dry ground but the King with his Host who were hardned to pursue them were all drowned by the return of the waters when the Israelites were over Then Moses led them on in the Wilderness towards the promised Land but the great difficulties of the Wilderness tempted them to murmuring against him that had brought them thither and to unbelief against God as if he could not have provided for them This provoked God to kill many thousands of them by Plagues and Serpents and to delay them forty years in that Wilderness before he gave them the Land of Promise so that only two which came out of Egypt Caleb and Joshua did live to enter it But to confute their unbelief God wrought many miracles for them in this Wilderness He caused the Rocks to give them water He fed them with Manna from above Their shooes and cloaths did not wear in forty years In this Wilderness Moses received from God a Law by which they were to be governed In mount Sinai in flames of fire with terrible thunder God appeared so far to Moses as to speak to him and instruct him in all that he would have him do He gave him the chief part of his Law in two Tables of Stone containing Ten Commandments engraven thereon by God himself or by Angelical ministration The rest he instructed him in by word of voice Moses was made their Captain and Aaron their High Priest and all the Forms of God's Worship setled with abundance of Laws for Sacrifices and Ceremonies to typifie the Sacrifice and Reign of Christ When Moses and Aaron were dead in the Wilderness God chose Joshua Moses his Servant
Covenant of Grace confirming his Doctrine by abundant uncontrolled Miracles contemning the World he exposed himself to the malice and fury and contempt of sinners and gave up himself a Sacrifice for our sins and a Ransom for us in suffering death on a Cross to reconcile us to God He was buryed and went in Soul to the Souls departed And the third day he rose again having conquered death And after forty dayes having instructed and authorized his Apostles in their Office he ascended up into Heaven in their sight where he remaineth Glorified and is Lord of all the chief Priest and Prophet and King of his Church interceding for us teaching and governing us by his Spirit Ministers and Word 5. The New Law and Covenant which Christ hath procured made and sealed by his Blood his Sacraments and his Spirit is this That to all them who by true Repentance and Faith do forsake the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up themselves to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier he will give Himself in these Relations and take them as his reconciled Children pardoning their sins and giving them his grace and title to Everlasting Happiness and will glorifie all that thus persevere But will condemn the unbelievers impenitent and ungodly to everlasting punishment This Covenant he hath commanded his Ministers to proclaim and offer to all the World and to baptize all that consent thereunto to invest them Sacramentally in all these benefits and enter them into his holy Catholick Church 6. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son did first inspire and guide the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists that they might truly and fully reveal the Doctrine of Christ and deliver it in Scripture to the Church as the Rule of our Faith and Life and by abundance of evident uncontrolled Miracles and gifts to be the great witness of Christ and of the truth of his holy Word 7. Where the Gospel is made known the HOLY SPIRIT doth by it illuminate the minds of such as shall be saved and opening and softening their hearts doth draw them to believe in Christ and turneth them from the power of Satan unto God Whereupon they are joyned to Christ the Head and into the Holy Catholick Church which is his Body consisting of all true Believers and are freely justified and made the Sons of God and a sanctified peculiar people unto him and do Love him above all and serve him sincerely in holiness and righteousness loving and desiring the Communion of Saints overcoming the Flesh the World and the Devil and living in Hope of the coming of Christ and of Everlasting life 8. At death the Souls of the Justified go to Happiness with Christ and the Souls of the wicked to misery And at the end of this World the Lord Jesus Christ will come again and will raise the Bodies of all men from the dead and will judge all the World according to the good or evil which they have done And the righteous shall go into Everlasting Life where they shall see Gods Glory and being perfected in Holiness shall love and praise and please him perfectly and be loved by him for evermore and the Wicked shall go into Everlasting punishment with the Devil II. According to this Belief we do deliberately and seriously by unfeigned consent of Will take this One God the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the Father Son and Holy Spirit for our only God our reconciled Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer and resolvedly give up our selves to him accordingly entering into his Church under the hands of his Ministers by the solemnization of this Covenant in the Sacrament of Baptism And in prosecution of this Covenant we proceed to stirre up our DESIRES by daily PRAYER to God in the Name of Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit in the order following 1. We desire the glorifying and hallowing of the Name of God that he may be known and loved and honoured by the World and may be well-pleased in us and we may delight in Him which is our ultimate end 2. That his Kingdom of Grace may be enlarged and his Kingdom of Glory as to the Perfected Church of the sanctified may come That Mankinde may more universally subject themselves to God their Creator and Redeemer and be saved by him 3. That this Earth which is grown too like to Hell may be made liker to the Holy ones in Heaven by a holy conformity to Gods Will and Obedience to all his Laws denying and mortifying their own fleshly desires wills and minds 4. That our Natures may have necessary support protection and provision in our daily service of God and passage through this World with which we ought to be content 5. That all our sins may be forgiven us through our Redeemer as we our selves are ready to pardon wrongs 6. That we may be kept from Temptations and delivered from sin and misery from Satan from wicked men and from our selves Concluding our Prayers with the joyfull Praises of God our Heavenly Father acknowledging his Kingdom Power and Glory for ever III. The Laws of Christian PRACTICE are these 1. That our Souls do firmly adhere to God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer by Faith Love Confidence and Delight that we seek him by desire obedience and hope meditating on himself his word and works of Creation Redemption and Sanctification of Death Judgement Heaven and Hell exercising Repentance and mortifying sin especially atheism unbelief and unholiness hardness of heart disobedience and unthankfulness pride worldliness and flesh-pleasing Examining our hearts about our Graces our Duties and our sins Watchfully governing our thoughts affections passions senses appetites words and outward actions Resisting temptations and serving God with all our faculties and glorifying him in our Hearts our Speeches and our Lives 2. That we worship God according to his Holiness and his Word in Spirit and Truth and not with Fopperies and Imagery according to our own devices which may dishonour him and lead us to Idolatry 3. That we ever use his Name with special Reverence especially in appealing to him by an Oath abhorring prophaneness perjury and breach of Vows and Covenants to God 4. That we meet in Holy Assemblies for his more solemn Worship where the Pastors teach his Word to their Flocks and lead them in Prayer and Praise to God administer the Sacrament of Communion and are the Guides of the Church in Holy things whom the people must hear obey and honour especially the Lords Day must be thus spent in Holiness 5. That Parents educate their Children in the Knowledge and Fear of God and in obedience of his Laws and that Princes Masters and all Superiours govern in Holiness and Justice for the glory of God and the common good according to his Laws And that Children love honour and obey their Parents and all Subjects their Rulers in due subordination unto God 6. That
agreeableness to his opinions ways or interest self-love self-conceit self-esteem self-will and self-seeking is the soul and business of the world And therefore no wonder that it is a divided and contentious world when it hath as many ends as men and every man is for himself and draweth his own way No wonder that there is such variety of apprehensions that no two men are in all things of a mind and that the world is like a company of drunken men together by the ears or of blind men fighting with they know not whom and for they know not what And that ignorant sects and contentious wranglers and furious fighters are the bulkie parts of it And that striving who shall Rule or be Greatest or have his will is the worlds employment It is a dreaming and distracted world that spend their days and cares for nothing and are as serious in following a feather and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity and dying in their hands as if indeed they knew it to be true felicity they are like children busie in hunting butterflies or like boys at foot-ball as eager in the pursuit and in over-turning one another as if it were for their lives or for some great desirable prize or liker to a heap of Ants that gad about as busily and make as much ado for sticks and dust as if they were about some magnificent work Thus doth the vain deceived world lay out their thoughts and time upon impertinencies and talk and walk like so many Noctambulo's in their sleep they study and care and weep and laugh and labour and fight as men in a dream and will hardly be perswaded but it is reality which they pursue till death come and awake them Like a Stage-play or a Poppet-play where all things seem to be what they are not and all parties seem to do what they do not and then depart and are all disroab'd and unmask'd such is the life of the most of this world who spend their days in a serious jeasting and in a busie doing nothing It is a malignant world that hath an inbred radicated enmity to all that virtue and goodness which they want they are so captivated to their fleshly pleasures and worldly interests that the first sight approach or motion of reason holiness mortification and self-denial is met by them with heart-rising indignation and opposition in which their fury beareth down all argument and neither giveth them leave considerately to use their own reason or hearken to anothers there are few that are truly wise and good and heavenly that escape their hatred and beastly rage And when Countries have thought to remedy this plague by changing their forms of Government experience hath told them that the vice and root of their calamity lieth in the blindness and wickedness of corrupted nature which no form of Government will cure and that the Doves that are governed by Hawkes and Kites must be their prey whether it be one or many that hath the Sovereignty Yea it is an unthankful world that in the exercise of this malignant cruelty will begin with those that deserve best at their hands He that would instruct them and stop them in their sin and save their souls doth ordinarily make himself a prey and they are not content to take away their lives but they will among their credulous rabble take away the reputation of their honesty and no wisdom or learning was ever so great no innocency so unspotted no honesty justice or charity so untainted no holiness so venerable that could ever priviledge the owners from their rage or make the possessors to escape their malice Even Jesus Christ that never committed sin and that came into the world with the most matchless love and to do them the greatest good was yet prosecuted furiously to a shameful death and not only so but in his humiliation his judgement was taken away and he was condemned as an evil doer who was the greatest enemy to sin that ever was born into the World He was accused of Blasphemy for calling himself the Son of God of Impiety for talking of destroying the Temple and of Treason for saying he was a King And his Apostles that went about the World to save mens Souls and proclaim to them the joyfull tydings of salvation had little better entertainment wherever they came bonds and afflictions did abide them And if they had not been taught to rejoyce in tribulations they could have expected little joy on earth And it was not only Christians that were thus used but honesty in the Heathens was usually met with opposition and reproach as Seneca himself doth oft complain Yea how few have there been that have been famous for any excellency of wit or learning or any addition to the Worlds understanding but their reward hath been reproach imprisonment or death Did Socrates die in his bed Or was he not murdered by the rage of wicked Hypocrites Plato durst not speak his minde for fear of his Masters reward Aristippus left Athens ne bis peccarent in Philosophiam not only Solon but most benefactors to any Common-wealth have suffered for their beneficence Demosthenes Cato Cicero Seneca could none of them save their lives from fury by their great learning or honesty Yea among nominal Christians he that told them of an Antipodes was excommunicated by the Papal Authority for an Heretick And a Savonarola Arnoldus de Villa Nova Paulus Scaliger c. could not be wiser than their Neighbours but to their cost No nor Arias Montanus himself Campanella was fain in prison to compile his New Philosophy and with the pleasure of his inventions to bear the torments which were their sowre sauce Even Galilaeus that discovered so many new Orbs and taught this World the way of clearer acquaintance with its neighbours could not escape the Reverend Justice of the Papalists but must lie in a Prison as if O sapientia had been written on his doors as the old Woman cryed out to Thales when he fell into a ditch while he was by his instrument taking the height of a Starr And Sir Walter Rawleigh could not save his head by his Learned History of the World but must be one part of its History himself nor yet by his great observation how Antipater is taken for a bloody Tyrant for killing Demosthenes and how Arts and Learning have power to disgrace any man that doth evil to the famous Masters of them Peter Ramus that had done so much in Phylosophy for the Learned World was requited by a butcherly barbarous murder being one of the 30000 or 40000 that were so used in the French Massacre And many a holy person perished in the 200000 murdered by the Irish It were endless to instance the ungratefull cruelties of the World and what entertainment it hath given to wise and godly men even those whom it superstitiously adoreth when it hath murdered them And in all
earthly things as is necessary to them that will attain it For few men will seek with their utmost labour or let go all other things to attain a happiness which they are not well perswaded of the reality of And though sound reason might well perswade them of it yet reason is now become so blind and unsound and partial and enslaved to the flesh that it is not fit for such an office according to our necessity without some heavenly Revelation § 9. And it is exceeding congruous to mans necessity who is faln under the power and fears of death as well as the doubts and estrangedness to the other world that he that will save and heal us do himself in our nature rise from the dead and ascend up into heaven to give us thereby a visible demonstration that indeed there is a Resurrection and a life to come for us to look for Though God was not obliged to do thus much for us yet Reason telleth us that if he will do it it is very suitable to our necessities For all the reasonings in the world do not satisfie in such things so much as ocular demonstration when we either see a man that is risen from the dead or have certain testimony of it it facilitateth the belief of our own resurrection and he that is gone into Heaven before us assureth us that a Heaven there is § 10. When God in mercy would forgive and save a sinful people it was very congruous to reason that there should be some fit means provided to demonstrate his holiness in his justice and to vindicate the honour of his Laws and Government and so to secure the ends of both For if God make a penal Law and execute it not but let man sin with impunity and do nothing which may deter him nor demonstrate his Justice as much as the sinners sufferings would do it would tell the world that he that gave them the Law and thereby told them that he would rule and judge them by it did but deceive them and meant not as he spake And it would bring both the Law and Governour into contempt and perswade men to sin without any fear and he that was question'd for the second crime would say I ventured because I suffered not for the first It was the devils first way of tempting men to sin to perswade mankind that God meant not as he spake in his threatning of their death but that they should not die though God had threatned it And if God himself should by his actions say the same it would tempt them more to sin than Sathan could as his credibility is greater Therefore he that is a Governour must be just as well as merciful and if God should have pardoned sinners without such a sacrifice or substitute means as might preserve the honour of his Law and Government and the future innocency of his Subjects as well as their punishment in the full sense of the Law would have done the consequents would have been such as I will leave to your own judgements § 11. And it was very congruous to reason that so odious a thing as sin should be publickly condemned and put to shame although the sinner be forgiven As it was done in the life and death of Christ For the purity of God is irreconcileable to sin though not to the sinner and therefore it was meet that the sin have all the publick shame though the sinner escape and that God be not like weak imperfect man who cannot do good without doing or encouraging evil § 12. It is congruous to our condition that seeing even the upright do renew their sins their consciences should have some remedy for the renewal of their peace and comfort that it sink them not into desperation which is most suitably provided for them in Jesus Christ For when we were pardoned once and again and oft and yet shall sin he that knoweth the desert of sin and purity of God will have need also to know of some stated certain course of remedy § 13. It was meet that the sinful world have not only a certain Teacher but also a perfect pattern before them of righteousness love self-denial meekness patience contempt of lower things c. which is given us by Jesus Christ alone And therefore the Gospel is written Historically with Doctrins intermixt that we might have both perfect Precepts and Pattern § 14. It was very congruous to a world universally lapsed that God should make with it a new Law and Covenant of Grace and that this Covenant should tender us the pardon of our sins and be a conditional act of oblivion And that sinners be not left to the meer Law of perfect Nature which was to preserve that innocency which they have already lost To say Thou shalt perfectly obey to a man that hath already disobeyed and is unfitted for perfect obedience is no sufficient direction for his pardon and recovery Perhaps you 'l say That God's gracious Nature is instead of a Law of Grace or Promise But though that be the spring of all our hopes yet that cannot justly quiet the sinner of it self alone because he is just as well as merciful and Justice hath its objects and pardon dependeth on the free-will of God which cannot be known to us without its proper signs The Devils may say that the Nature of God is good and gracious and so may any condemned malefactor say of a good and gracious Judge and King and yet that is but a slender reason to prove his impunity or pardon All will confess that absolute pardon of all men would be unbeseeming a wise and righteous Governour And if it must be conditional who but God can tell what must be the condition If you say That Nature telleth us That converting Repentance is the condition I answer 1 Nature telleth us That God cannot damn a holy loving Soul that hath his Image but yet it telleth us not That this is the only or whole condition 2. It is not such a Repentance as lieth but in a frightned wish that the sin had not been done but such a one as consisteth in the change of the mind and heart and life and containeth a hatred to the sin repented of and a love to God and Holiness and we have as much need of a Saviour to help us to this repentance as to help us to a pardon § 15. It is very congruous to our miserable state that the Condition of this Covenant of Grace should be on our part the acknowledgment of our Benefactor and the thankful acceptance of the benefit and a hearty consent for the future to follow his conduct and use his appointed means in order to our full recovery which is the condition of the Christian Covenant § 16. Seeing man's fall was from his God unto himself especially in point of love and his real recovery must be by bringing up his soul to the love of God again
know without this were to know without knowledge Faith is an act or species of knowledge it is so far from being contrary to reason that it is but an act of cleared elevated reason it is not an act of immediate intuition of God or Jesus Christ himself but a knowledge of the truth by the divine evidence of its certainty they that wrangle against us for giving reason for our Religion seem to tell us that they have none for their own or else reprehend us for being men If they had to do with them who make God to be but the Prime Reason would they say that Faith is something above Reason and therefore something above God I believe that our Reason or Intellection is far from being univocally the same thing with God's but I believe that God is Intellection Reason or Wisdom eminenter though not formaliter and that though the name be first used to signifie the lower derivative Reason of many yet we have no higher to express the Wisdom of God by nor better notion to apprehend it by than this which is its Image I conclude therefore that § 1. The Christian Religion must be the most Rational in the world or that which hath the soundest reason for it if it be the truest And the proof of it must be by producing the evidences of its truth § 2. The evidence which Faith requireth is properly called Evidence of credibility § 3. When we speak of Humane Faith as such Credibility is somewhat short of proper Certainty but when we speak of Divine Faith or a Belief of God evidence of Credibility is evidence of Certainty § 4. The great Witness of Jesus Christ or the demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority was The HOLY SPIRIT § 5. The Word or Doctrin of Jesus Christ hath four several infallible testimonies of God's Spirit which though each of them alone is convincing yet all together make up this one great Evidence that is 1. Antecedently 2. Constitutively or Inherently 3. Concomitantly and 4. Subsequently of which I shall speak in course § 6.1 Antecedently the Spirit of Prophecy was a Witness to Jesus Christ Under which I comprehend the prediction also of Types He that was many hundred years before yea from age to age fore-told to come as the Messiah or Saviour by Divine prediction of Promises Prophesies and Types is certainly the true Messiah our Saviour But Jesus Christ was so foretold Ergo. 1. For Promises and Prophesies Gen. 3.15 presently after the Fall of Adam God said I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel As it is certain that it was Satan principally and the Serpent but instrumentally that is spoken of as the deceiver of Eve so it is as plain that it was Satan and his wicked followers principally and the Serpent and its seed only as the instruments that are here meant in the condemnation And that it is the seed of the woman by an excellency so called that is primarily here meant and under him her natural seed secondarily is proved not only by the Hebrew Masculine Gender but by the fulfilling of this Promise in the Expository effects and in other Promises to the like effect The rest of the Promises and Prophesies to this purpose are so many that to recite them all would swell the Book too big and therefore I must suppose that the Reader perusing the Sacred Scripture it self will acquaint himself with them there only a few I shall repeat Gen. 22.18 In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed Gen. 49.10 The Scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a Law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come The whole second Psalm is a Prophecy of the Kingdom of Christ Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Annointed c. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Be wise therefore O ye Kings be learned ye Judges of the earth serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish c. Psal 16.10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Psal 22.16 17 18. Dogs have compassed me the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me they pierced my hands and my feet I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture Psal 69.21 They gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Isa 53. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth He was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare his generation For he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was he stricken and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand He shall see of the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil
with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death and he was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors Isa 9.6 For unto us a Child is born unto us a Son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his Name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor The mighty God The Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to stablish it with judgement and with justice from henceforth even for ever The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this Isa 7.14 Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel Dan. 9.24 c. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy City to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the Vision and Prophecy and to annoint the most Holy Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks the street shall be built and the wall even in troublous times And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself And the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the City and the Sanctuary and the end thereof shall be with a floud and unto the end of the war desolations are determined And he shall confirm the Covenant with many for one week and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease and for the over-spreading of abomination he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined be poured upon the desolate Mal. 3.1 2 3. Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of hosts But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a Refiners fire and like Fullers sope and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver c. I omit the rest to avoid prolixity There is scarce any passage of the Birth Life Sufferings Death Resurrection Ascension or Glory of our Saviour which are not particularly prophesied of in the Old Testament but nothing so copiously as his Righteousness and his Kingdom The Prophesie of Isaiah is full of such and is but a Prophetical Gospel To these must be adjoyned the Prophetical Types even the typical Persons and the typical Ordinances and Actions It would be too long to open how his sufferings from the malignant world was typified in the Death of Abel and the attempted oblation of Isaac and the selling of Joseph And his work of Salvation in Noah and his preserved Ark and Family And his Paternity as to Believers in Abraham And his Kingly conduct and deliverance of the Church by Moses and his deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and conduct of them in the Wilderness and by Joshua's victorious bringing them into the Land of Promise His Reign and Kingdom by David and his building of the Church by Solomon and his Priesthood by Aaron and his Successors c. And it would take up a just volume to open all the typical Ordinances and Actions which prefigured Christ from the institution of Circumcision and the Passover or Paschal Lamb to the end of all the Mosaical Ceremonies Christ is the signification and the end of all I will only crave your consideration of the custom of Sacrificing in the general it came into the world immediately upon mans sin we find Cain and Abel the two first persons born into the world employed in it From thence to this day it hath continued in doctrin though the practice be restrained with the Jews it was no peculiar Ceremony of their Law but hath been commonly exercised by almost all Nations through the world both Greeks Romans and Barbarians And it yet continueth in most countries of the Heathens where the Doctrin of Christ hath not abolished it as it hath done both with the Christians and Mahometans For the Mahometans borrow the confession of one God and the rejection of Idols and Sacrifices originally from the Christians Now I must confess that I am not able to satisfie my self of the original and universality of the custom of Sacrificing upon any reasons but those of the Christians either it was a prophetical promissory institution of God himself to lapsed Adam to point him to a Saviour the second Adam or else it must be from the Law of Nature or else it is from some other positive Institution or else it must be an universal Errour There can no fifth way that is probable be imagined And 1. I am not able to see that the meer Light or Law of Nature should be the original cause for then it would be all mens duty still and what reason can Nature give us to judge that God is delighted in the bloud and pain of the innocent bruits or that the killing and offering of them should be any satisfaction to his justice for our sins or any rational means to avert his judgments or procure our forgiveness If it be said that It was but a ceremonial confession that we our selves deserve death as that creature suffered it I answer Confession is indeed due from us by the Law of Nature but the question is of the killing of the poor beasts and offering them in sacrifice If the exercise of our own penitence by confession were all that might be done as well without the creatures bloud and death What is it that this addeth to a penitent confession and why was the oblation to God contained in the Sacrifice If you say that the life of bruits is not so regardable but that we take it away for our daily food I answer It s true that it is allowed us for the maintenance of our lives but yet it is not to be cast away in vain nor is God to be represented as one that doth delight in bloud And the common sense of all the world in their sacrificing hath been that besides the confession of their own desert there is somewhat in it to appease God's displeasure and none that I ever read of did take it for a meer confessing sign or action If it be said that they did it to signifie their homage to God I answer Why then did they not offer him only the living creature rather than the dead all took it to be a propitiatory action And if there had been an aptitude in this sign to betoken our penitent confession only yet when God knoweth
villanies though they call it railing nor will he flatter proud rebellious dust though they call flattery a necessary civility nor will he give leave to his Messengers to leave sin in honour and to let the proud do what their list and quietly damn themselves and others without plain reproof though it be called unreverent sawciness or sedition 2. And he that considereth how little Title Caesar had to the Kingdom of the Jews and that the sword alone is a better proof of force and strength than of Authority and is a Plea which an Usurper may have on his side will rather praise the submission and peaceableness of Christ than blame him as disloyal But for the doctrin of Obedience in general who hath ever taught it more plainly and pressingly than Christ and his Apostles 2. The Gospel or doctrin of Christ it self also hath the very Image and Superscription of God I will not say imprinted on it for that is too little but intrinsecally animating and constituting it which is apparent in the Matter and the Method and the Stile 1. The Matter and Design containeth the most wonderful expression of the Wisdom of God that ever was made to man on earth All is mysterious yet admirably fit consistent and congruous as is before declared That a world which is visibly and undeniably fallen into wickedness and misery should have a Redeemer Saviour and Mediator towards God! That he should be one that is near enough to God and unto us and hath the nature of both that he should be the second Adam the Root of the Redeemed and Regenerate that God should give all mercy from himself from his own bounty and fulness and not as unwilling be perswaded to it by another and therefore that the Redeemer be not any Angel or intermediate person but God himself that thus God come nearer unto man who is revolted from him to draw up man again to Him that he lose not the world and yet do not violate his governing Justice that he be so merciful as not to be unrighteous nor permit his Laws and Government to be despised and yet so just as to save the penitent renewed souls that he give man a new Law and conditions of salvation suitable to his lapsed guilty state and leave him not under a Law and conditions which were fitted to the innocent that he revealed himself to the apostate world in that way which only is fit for their recovery that is in his admirable love and goodness that so love might win our love and attract those hearts which under guilt and the terrors of condemning justice would never have been brought to love him that guilty souls have such evidence of God's reconciliation to encourage them to expect his pardon and to come to him with joy and boldness in their addresses having a Mediator to trust in and his Sacrifice Merits and acceptable Name to plead with God that Justice and Mercy are so admirably conjoyned in these effects that Satan and the world and death should be so conquered in a suffering way and man have so perfect a pattern to imitate for self-denial humility contempt of honour wealth and life and exact obedience and resignation to the will of God with perfect love to God and man that the world should be under such an universal Administrator and the Church be all united in such a Head and have one in their nature that hath risen from the dead to be in possession of the glory which they are going to and thence to send down his Spirit to sanctifie them and fit them for Heaven and afterward to be their Judge and to receive them unto blessedness and that sinners now be not condemned meerly for want of innocency but for rejecting the grace and mercy which would have saved them that we have all this taught us by a Messenger from Heaven and a perfect rule of life delivered to us by him and all this sealed by a Divine attestation that this doctrin is suited to the capacity of the weakest and yet so mysterious as to exercise the strongest wits and is delivered to us not by an imposing force but by the exhortations and perswasions of men like our selves commissioned to open the evidences of truth and necessity in the Gospel All this is no less than the Image and wonderful effect of the Wisdom of God And his Goodness and Love is as resplendent in it all for this is the effect of the whole design to set up a Glass in the work of our Redemption in which God's Love and Goodness should be as wonderfully represented to mankind as his Power was in the works of Creation Here sinful man is saved by a means which he never thought of or desired he is fetch'd up from the gates of hell redeemed from the Sentence of the righteous violated Law of God and the execution of his Justice The Eternal Word so condescendeth to man in the assumption of our nature as that the greatness of the love and mercy incomprehensible to man becomes the greatest difficulty to our belief He revealeth to us the things of the world above and bringeth life and immortality to light He dwelleth with men He converseth with the meanest He preacheth the glad tidings of Salvation to the world He refuseth not such familiarity with the poorest or the worst as is needful to their cure He spendeth his time in doing good and healing all manner of bodily diseases He refuseth the honours and riches of the world and the pleasures of the flesh to work out our salvation He beareth the ingratitude and abuse of sinners and endureth to be scorned buffeted spit upon tormented and crucified by those to whom he had done no greater wrong than to seek their salvation He maketh himself a Sacrifice for sin to shew the world what sin deserved and to save them from the deserved punishment God had at first decreed and declared that death should be the punishment of sin and Satan had maliciously drawn man to it by contradicting this threatning of God and making man believe that God would falsifie his word and that he did envy man the felicity of his advancement to be liker God in knowledge And now Christ will first justifie the truth and righteousness of God and will demonstrate himself by dying in our stead that death is indeed the wages of sin and will shew the world that God is so far from envying their felicity that he will purchase it at the dearest rate and deliver them freely from the misery which sin and Sathan had involved them in Thus Enemies are reconciled by the sufferings of him whom they offended even by his sufferings in the flesh whose Godhead could not suffer and by his death as Man who as God was most immortal As soon as he was risen he first appear'd to a Woman who had been a sinner and sent her as his first messenger with words of love and comfort to his
by Miracles and therefore certain by a certainty of Divine belief § 21. I. They that observe in the Writings of the said Disciples the footsteps of eminent piety sincerity simplicity self-denyal contempt of the World expectation of a better World a desire to please and glorifie God though by their own reproach and sufferings mortification love to souls forgiving enemies condemning lyars with high spirituality and heavenly-mindedness c. Must needs confess them to be most eminently credible by a humane Faith They being also acquainted with the thing reported § 22. II. 1. That the Apostles were not themselves deceived I have proved before 2. That the Report was theirs the Churches that saw and heard them knew by sense And how we know it I am to shew anon 3. That they took their own salvation to lie upon the belief of the Gospel which they preached is very evident both in the whole drift and manner of their Writings and in their labours sufferings and death And that they took a Lie to be a damning sin He that doth but impartially read the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists will easily believe that they believed what they preach'd themselves and lookt for salvation by Jesus Christ Much more if he further consider of their forsaking all and labouring and dying in and for these expectations And Nature taught them as well as Christ to know that a Lie was a damning sin They teach us themselves that Lyars are without as Dogs and not admitted into the Kingdom of God And that God needeth not our Lie to his Glory nor must we do evil that good may come by it Therefore they could never think that it would help them to Heaven to spend their labours and lay down their lives in promoting a known lie to deceive the World § 22. 4. That they expected temporal ruine by their Religion without any worldly satisfaction is manifest both in Christs prediction telling them that it would be so and in the tenour of his Covenant calling them to forsake life and all if they will be his Disciples and in the history of their own lives and labours in which they met with no other usage than was thus foretold them Many of them had not much wealth to lose but every man naturally loveth his ease and peace and life And some of them though not many had Worldly riches as Zacheus Joseph of Arimathea c. and commonly they had possessions which they sold and laid down the price at the Apostles feet And the Apostles had ways of comfortable living in the world instead of all this they underwent reproach imprisonments scourgings and death Commodity or preferment they could not expect by it Object But to men that had been but low in the world the very applause of the people would seem a sufficient satisfaction for their sufferings To be Teachers and have many followers is a thing that some people would venture liberty and life for Answ Lay all these following things together and you may be certain that this was not the case 1. Even women and many that were not teachers were of the same belief 2. The Teachers did all of them set up their Lord and not themselves but deâ—ased and denied themselves for his honour and service 3. Their way of teaching was in travel and labour where they must deny all fleshly ease and pleasure and so must have nothing but bare applause if that had been it which they sought after 4. They suffered so much reproach and shame from the unbelievers who were the rich and ruling party as would have much over-ballanced their applause among believers They were persecuted imprisoned scourged scorned and made as the off-scouring of the world 5. They were so many that no single person was like to be carried so far with that ambition when his honour was held in equality with so many 6. One of the great vices which they preach'd and wrote against was pride and self-seeking and over-valuing men and following sect-masters and crying up Paul Apollo or Cephas c. And those that thus sought to set up themselves and draw away Disciples after them were the men whom they especially condemned 7. If they had done as this objection supposeth they must have all the way gone on against their certain knowledge and conscience in teaching lies in matter of fact And though some men would go far in seeking followers and applause when they believe the doctrine which they preach themselves yet hardly in preaching that which they know to be false the stirrings of conscience would torment some of them among so many and at last break out into open confession and detection of the fraud 8. And if they had gone thus violently against their consciences they must needs know that it was their Souls as well as their lives and liberties which they forfeited 9. And the piety and humility of their writings sheweth that applause was not their end and prize if they had sought this they would have fitted their endeavours to it whereas it is the sanctifying and saving of souls through faith in Jesus Christ which they bent their labours towards 10. So many men could never have agreed among themselves in such a scatter'd case to carry on the juggle and deceit without detection Now tell us if you can where ever so many persons in the world so notably humble pious and self-denying did preach against pride man-pleasing and lying as damnable sins and debase themselves and suffer so much reproach and persecution and go through such labour and travel and lay down their lives and confessedly hazard their souls for ever and all this to get followers that should believe in another man by perswading men that he wrought miracles and rose from the dead when they knew themselves that all were lies which they thus laboriously divulged If you give an instance in the Disciples of Mahomet the case was nothing so no such miracles attested no such witnesses to proclaim it no such consequents of such a testimony none of all this was so but only a Deceiver maketh a few barbarous people believe that he had Revelations and was a Prophet and being a Souldier and prospering in War he setteth up and keepeth up a Kingdom by the Sword his Preachers being such as being thus deluded did themselves believe the things which they spake and found it the way to worldly greatness § 24. 5. That the witnesses of Christ were men of honesty and conscience is before proved 6. That it was not possible for so many persons to conspire so successfully to deceive the world is manifest from 1. their persons 2. their calling 3. their doctrine 4. and their manner of ministration and labours 1. For their Persons they were 1. Many 2. Not men of such worldly craft and subtilty as to be apt for such designs 3 Of variety of tempers and interests men and women 2. For their Callings the Apostles knew the
I prove you foolish in your Infidelity And if you will conjecture then that there may as many of those other Regions be damned 1. You shew your selves much more harsh in your censures than the Christians are whose harshness you are now reproving Yea you conjecture this without all ground or probability And will you say then For ought I know it may be so Ergo Christianity is incredible Can a groundless conjecture allow any rational man such a Conclusion Obj. But you say your selves that many of the Angels fell and are now Devils Answ But we say not how many we never said that it is the whole number of the Glorious Inhabitants of all the superiour World who are called Angels as Messengers or Officers about man we know not how small a part of them comparatively it may be And of them we know not how few fell Augustine conjectured that it was the tenth part but we have no ground for any such conjecture Obj. But it is incredible that the World should perish for one mans sin whom they never knew nor could prevent Ans 1. To them that know what Generation is and what the Son is to the Father it is not incredible at all that the unholy Parents do not beget holy Children nor convey to them that which they have not themselves nor yet that God should hate the unholy Nor that the Parents choice should signifie much for their Childrens state who have no wills of their own fit for actual choice nor that restored imperfect holiness should not be conveyed to Children by natural propagation which came to the Parents by Regeneration nor that the Children of Traytors should be disinherited for their Fathers faults nor that the Children of Drunkards and Gluttons should be naturally diseased 2. No man in the World doth perish for Adams sin alone without his own Though we judge the case of Infants to allow you no exception yet to carry the controversie to them into the dark and to argue à minus notis is not the property of such as seek impartially for truth Christ hath procured a new Covenant upon which all those that hear the Gospel shall again be tryed for life or death And those that hear it not have divers means which have a tendency to their recovery and are under undenyable Obligations to use those means in order to their recovery which if they do not faithfully they perish for their own sin Should it not make Christianity the more easily credible when certain experience assureth us how prone even Infants are to sin and how universally the World is drown'd in wickedness and then to finde so admirable and suitable a Remedy revealed Obj. But Punishment is to warn others from sinning But after this life there will be none to warn therefore there will be no punishment because the end of punishing ceaseth Answ 1. It is a false position that punishment is only or chiefly to be a warning to others It is chiefly for the ultimate end of Government which secundum quid among men is the bonum publicum but simpliciter in Gods Government it is the Glorifying or demonstration of the Holiness and Justice of God the universal Governour to the pleasure of his holy will 2. It is the Penalty as Threatned in the Law and not the penalty as executed which is the first necessary means to deterre others from offending And then the execution is secondarily necessary because the Law must be fulfilled It is not the actual hanging of a murderer which is the first necessary instrument or means to restrain murderers But it is the Penalty in the Law which saith that Murderers shall be hanged And the commination of the Law would be no restraint if it were not that it relateth to a just execution So that it was necessary to the restraint of sinners in this world that God should threaten Hell in his Law And therefore it is necessary that he execute that Law or else it would be delusory and contemptible 3. How know we who shall survive this present World to whom God may make mans Hell a warning Are not the Devils now set out in Scripture for a warning to Man And how know we what other Creatures God hath to whom these punished sinners may be a warning Or whether the New Earth wherein Righteousness must dwell according to Gods Promise 2 Pet. 3.12 13. shall not have use of this warning to keep them in their righteousness As long as all these things are probable and the contrary utterly uncertain how foolish a thing is it to go from the light of a plain Revelation and Scripture and argue from our dark uncertainties and improbabilities against that light And all because self-love and guilt doth make sinners unwilling to believe the truth So much for the Objection against Hell Obj. VIII But it is incredible that all those shall be damned that live honestly and soberly and do no body harm if they do not also live a holy and heavenly life and forsake all for another World Answ It is but selfishness and blindness which maketh men call him an honest man and speak lightly of his wickedness who preferreth the dung and trifles of this World before his Maker and Everlasting glory What if a pack of Murderers Thieves and Rebels do live together in love and do one another no harm shall that excuse their murders or rebellions and give them the name of honest men What is the Creature to the Creator what greater wickedness can man commit than to deny despise and disobey his Maker and to preferre the most contemptible vanity before him and to choose the transitory pleasure of sinning before the endless fruition of his God what is wronging a Neighbour in comparison of this wrong shall a sinner refuse his everlasting happiness when it is offered him and then think to have it when he can possess the pleasure of sin no longer and all because he did no man wrong Doth he think to refuse Heaven and yet to have it If he refuse the Love of God and perfection of Holiness he refuseth Heaven It is so far from being incredible that the unholy should be damned and the Holy only saved that the contrary is impossible I would not believe an Angel from Heaven if he should tell me that one unholy Soul in sensu composito while such shall be saved and have the heavenly felicity because it is a meer contradiction For to be blessed in Heaven is to be happy in the perfect Love of God And to love God without Holiness signifieth to love him without loving him Are these the Objections of unbelief Obj. IX The Resurrection of these Numerical Bodies when they are devoured and turned into the substance of other bodies is a thing incredible Answ 1. If it be neither against the Power the Wisdom or the Will of God it is not incredible at all But it is not against any of
of my life in converse with such truly sanctified persons and in preaching this Gospel through the great mercy of God with such success upon no small numbers so that I am certain by full experience of the reality of that holy change which cannot be done but with the co-operation of God I have seen that this change is another matter than fancy opinion or factious conjunction with a Sect Even the setting up God in the soul as God as our Owner Ruler and Chief Good and the devoting of the soul to him in Resignation Obedience and thankful Love the seeking of an everlasting felicity in his glorious sight and love in heaven the contempt of this world as it pleaseth the flesh and the holy use of it as the way to our felicity and pleasing God the subduing and denying all carnal desires which would rebel against God and reason and restoring Reason to the government of the lower faculties the denying of that inordinate selfishness which setteth up our interest against our neighbours and the respecting and loving our neighbours as our selves and doing to others as we would be done by and doing good to all men as far as we have power the holy governing of our inferiours and obeying our superiours in order to these ends living soberly righteously and godly in this world and in the patient bearing of all afflictions and diligent serving God in our several places to redeem our time and prepare for death and wait with longing for the everlasting glory the hope of which is caused in us by faith in Christ our Ransome Reconciler Example Teacher Governour and Judge This is the true nature of the Religion expressed in the Gospel and impressed on the souls of sanctified men By this effect I know that Christ is the Saviour of the world and no deceiver as I know a man to be a true Physician and no deceiver when I see him ordinarily and throughly perform the cures which he undertaketh He saveth us actually from the power of our sins and bringeth up our hearts to God and therefore we may boldly say He is our Saviour This witness through his mercy I have in my self and is alway with me and in those whom I converse with round about me I have also upon just enquiry found that the witnesses of Christ's Resurrection and Miracles have delivered us their testimony with a three-fold evidence 1. The evidence of just credibility to a humane belief 2. The evidence of natural certainty in the natural impossibilities of deceit 3. The evidence of supernatural divine attestation in 1. The Image of God on their hearts and doctrine 2. Their miracles and 3. Their sanctifying success And I have found that the witnesses of the Miracles of the Apostles themselves have also given us the same three degrees of proof of the Verity of their testimony though Miracles continue not now as then And I have look'd round about me in the world as diligently and impartially as I could to see whether Christ and the way which he hath prescribed us have any competitor which may make it difficult to resolve which to prefer and follow And as I have found that none but GOD alone hath absolute Dominion and Sovereignty over us and is our chief Benefactor nor fit to be our felicity and ultimate end so I have found that there is no one so fit to be taken for our Mediator and the Way to God as Jesus Christ none else that hath a natural aptitude none else among men that is perfect without sin that hath conquered Satan the world and death that is a Messenger from Heaven so infallible and sure whose Doctrine and Life is suited to our case none else that is become a Sacrifice for our sins and hath risen from the dead and ascended into Glory and doth govern and preserve us and will judge the world and hath power to give the holy Ghost both for Gifts and Graces nor that actually giveth it to the sanctifying of all his sincere followers none else that hath such a Church and Kingdom contemning the world and contemned by the world and so truly fitted to the pleasing of God and the future fruition of him in Glory I see that Judaism is but the porch of Christianity and if Christ had not confirmed the verity of the Old Testament to me I should have found the difficulty of believing it much greater And as for Mahometanism besides the common truths which it retaineth of the Unity of the Godhead the Verity of Christ and the Life to come c. there is nothing else which at all inviteth my understanding And as for Heathenism the case that it hath brought the miserable world into is much to be pitied and deplored Much precious truth is revealed to us by Nature but experience telleth us of the need of more and Christianity hath all which Nature teacheth with a great deal more So that Christianity hath no considerable competitor And as for worldly wealth and honour superiority and command of others the favour applause and praise of great ones or of the multitude voluptuousness and fleshly delights c. ease long life or any accommodations of the flesh yea learning it self as it is but the pleasing of the fancy in the knowledge of unnecessary things all these I have perused and found them to be deceit and trouble a glimpse of heaven a taste of the love of God in Christ yea a fervent desire after God yea a penitent tear is better than them all and yieldeth a delight which leaveth a better taste behind it and which my Reason more approveth in the review and the vanity of all inferiour pleasures appeareth to me in the common effects they distract and corrupt the minds of those that have the greatest measure of them and make them the calamity of their times the furious afflicters of the upright and the pity of all sober standers-by who see them turn the world into a Bedlam and how all their honour wealth and sport will leave them at a dying hour and with what dejected minds unwelcome death will be entertain'd by them and with what sad reviews they will look back upon all their lives and in what sordid dust and darkness they must leave the rotting flesh when their souls are gone to receive their doom before the Judge of all the world All these are things which were past all doubt with me since I had any solid use of reason and things which are still before my eyes Wherefore my God I look to Thee I come to Thee to Thee alone No man no worldly creature Made me none of them did Redeem me none of them did Renew my soul none of them will justifie me at thy Bar nor forgive my sin nor save me from thy penal Justice none of them will be a full or a perpetual felicity or portion for my soul I am not a stranger to their promises and performances I have trusted them too
them to perceive its holyness and worth Where it is indeed sincerely practised And is most dishonoured and misunderstood through the wickedness of Hypocrites who profess it As the Impress on the Wax doth make the Image more discernable than the Sculpture on the Seal but the Sculpture is true and perfect when many accidents may render the Impressed image imperfect and faulty So is it in this case To a diligent Enquirer Christianity is best known in its Principles delivered by Christ the Author of it and indeed is no otherwise perfectly known because it is no where else perfectly to be seen But yet it is much more visible and taking with unskilfull superficial Observers in the Professors Lives For they can discern the good or evil of an action who perceive not the nature of the Rule and Precepts The vital form in the Rose-tree is the most excellent part but the beauty and sweetness of the Rose is more easily discerned Effects are most sensible but causes are most excellent And yet in some respect the Practice of Religion is more excellent than the Precepts in as much as the Precepts are Means to Practice For the end is more excellent than the Means as such A poor man can easilyer perceive the worth of Charity in the person that cloatheth and feedeth and relieveth him than the worth of a treatise or sermon of Charity Subjects easily perceive the worth of a wise and holy and just and mercifull King or Magistrate in his actual Government who are not much taken with the Precepts which require yet more perfection And among all descriptions historical Narratives like Zenophons Cyrus do take most with them Doubtless if ever the Professors of Christianity should live according to their own Profession they would thereby overcome the opposition of the World and propagate their Religion with greatest success through all the Earth Because no man can well judge of the Truth of a doctrine till he first know what it is I think it here necessary to open the true nature of the Christian Religion and tell men truly what it is Partly because I perceive that abundance that profess it hypocritically by the meer power of Education Laws and Custom of their Countrey do not understand it and then are the easilyer tempted to neglect or contemn it or forsake it if strongly tempted to it even to forsake that which indeed they never truely received And because its possible some Aliens to Christianity may peruse these lines Otherwise were I to speak only to those that already understand it I might spare this description § 7. The CHRISTIAN RELIGION containeth two Parts 1. All Theological Verities which are of Natural Revelation 2. Much more which is supernaturally revealed The supernatural Revelation is said in it to be partly written by God partly delivered by Angels partly by inspired Prophets and Apostles and partly by Jesus Christ himself in person § 8. The supernatural Revelation reciteth most of the Natural because the searching of the great Book of Nature is a long and difficult work for the now-corrupted dark and slothfull minde of the common sort of men § 9. These supernatural Revelations are all contained 1. Most copiously in a Book called The Holy Bible or Canonical Scriptures 2. More summarily and contractedly in three Forms called The Belief The Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandements and most briefly and summarily in a Sacramental Covenant This last containeth all the Essential parts most briefly and the second somewhat fuller explaineth them and the first the holy Scriptures containeth also all the Integral parts or the whole frame § 10. Some of the present Professors of the Christian Religion do differ about the authority of some few Writings called Apocrypha whether they are to be numbred with the Canonical Books of God or not But those few containing in them no considerable points of doctrine different from the rest the controversie doth not very much concern the substance or doctrinal matter of their Religion § 11. The sacred Scriptures are written very much Historically the Doctrines being interspersed with the History § 12. This sacred Volume containeth two Parts The first called The Old Testament containing the History of the Creation and of the Deluge and of the Jewish Nation till after their Captivity As also their Law and Prophets The second called The New Testament containing the History of the Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ The sending of his Apostles the giving of the Holy Ghost the course of their Ministry and Miracles with the summ of the doctrine preached first by Christ and then by them and certain Epistles of theirs to divers Churches and persons more fully opening all that doctrine § 13. The summ of the History of the Old Testament is this That in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth with all things in them Viz. That having first made the Intellectual superiour part of the World and the matter of the Elementary World in an unformed Mass he did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give light The second day he separated the rarified Passive Element called Fire expanding it from the Earth upwards to be a separation and medium of action between the superiour and inferiour parts The third day he separated the rest of the Passive Element Earth and Water into their proper place and set their bounds and made individual Plants with their specifick forms and virtue of generation The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Starrs for Luminaries to the Earth either then forming them or then appointing them to that Office but not revealing their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made Fishes and Birds with the power of generation The sixth day he made the terrestrial Animals and Man with the like generative Power And the seventh day he appointed to be a Sabbath of Rest on which he would be solemnly worshipped by Mankinde as our CREATOR Having made one Man and one Woman in his own Image that is with Intellects Free-will and executive Power in wisdom holiness and aptitude to Obey him and with Dominion over the sensitive and vegetative and inanimate Creatures he placed them in a Garden of pleasure wherein were two Sacramental Trees one called The Tree of Life and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And besides the Law of Nature he tryed him only with this positive prohibition that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge Whereupon the Devil who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity took occasion to perswade the Woman that Gods Threatning was not true that he meant not as he spake that he knew Man was capable of greater Knowledge but envyed him that happiness and that the eating of that Fruit was not the way to death as God had threatned but to Knowledge and