Gal. 5.22 Not only that they are the fruits of the Gospel which is sometimes phrased by the word Spirit in opposition to those legal observations which being carnal ordinances are called flesh But they are so the fruits of the Spirit that as he first dictated the Rule so does he also concurr to the actions If the Evil Spirit could carry Christ to be tempted in the Wilderness Shall we not think the good Spirit could relieve him too If the Prince of the power of the Air can be a Spirit working in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 Shall we conclude the Holy Ghost less active or powerful to work in those who resign their wills by the direction of his Laws to his most sacred and safe conduct The promise of life and eternal salvation is made to us upon this condition that through the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body Rom. 8.13 And though many things concur with the influences of the holy Spirit to effect so great and victorious triumphs Yet all causes act with a dependence upon this glorious power which works in us both to will and to do when we prepare our selves for its reception by endeavouring what in us layes to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2.12 13. Preaching Prayers Meditation and hearing the word of God are ordinary means to convert a sinner from the error of his way And yet S. Paul though he sufficiently magnifies the Preachers Office sayes that we are only workers together with God 2 Cor. 6.1 And 't is well for us all when God assists and blesses our endeavours And God grant that those who attend such sacred institutions being swift to hear may never be so swift also as to depart without a blessing Having thus both asserted and explained the coming of the holy Spirit to influence men the certainty of its operation and the necessity of its influence which makes up this Chapter of my discourse I shall close it with a brief request to all who desire so to approve themselves to God here that they may not be rejected by him hereafter That they would use all possible diligence to obtain and keep the blessing and influence of this holy Spirit which gives them such great assistance in sanctifying their minds and ordering all the actions of their lives That they would well use the grace they have received that so they may be capable of more in the hour of trial and at the day of temptation That they would pray frequently for new supplies of aid and assistance And that they would never by a vicious and unholy life grieve the Spirit and cause it to desert them lest through too much confidence in themselves they at last prove both Cowards and Apostates CHAP. XI HAving in the former Chapter in some measure proved that the Holy Spirit of God descended according to the predictions of the Prophets and the promise of our Saviour I shall now enquire into his work and business in this world amongst men who were rational and intellectual Beings Who might as some men are apt to think have well enough propagated Christian Doctrine when they had heard it from our Saviours own mouth and had for some time daily conversation with him Without any other new assistance besides the miraculous gift of tongues And what employment the Spirit of God could possibly have among other men As they will not be Religious enough to know So truly they are yet very much to seek However I shall adventure without calling any men names to shew according to my steady and long continued though mean thoughts what the sacred Spirit of God has done and yet does to guide men into the wayes of truth In the promises where Christ who was truth it self engages for the Spirits corning into the World in a more plentiful manner than in foregoing periods He seems to be described as a person different from the Father and the Son And I shall instance in one eminent promise to this purpose John 16.13 Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth Now that our great and most blessed Redeermer of men speaks of a person here And not of what is said to be an afflatus divinus only as some have interpreted this place to void the Doctrine of the most glorious Trinity Which is the great and I had almost said the distinguishing Article of the Christian Faith is plain from the terms of this Text Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is prefix'd to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He the Spirit of truth And this latter part which is a Periphrasis does but acquaint us who the Person was Even the Holy Ghost the third Person in the most Glorious Trinity God blessed for evermore Now this profound mystery of the Trinity however inexplicable it may seem to be in all particulars to the understandings of men who are loth to think that any Beings are above their great capacities and reasonings Yet it has been alwayes believ'd by the Orthodox through all the Ages of the Christian Church And it is a point sufficient if there were no other to baffle the Heathen Objection against our Religion viz. That it cannot be Divine because there is no Mystery in it But I design not to treat in this discourse with any that own not Christ to be the Messiah The great King and Saviour of the World And therefore shall only acquaint the Reader That Jesus himself seems to take great care to insinuate and fix this fundamental point in the particular promises of the Holy Ghost Lest any persons mighty in reason and wonderful in argument should refuse to believe such a Mystery as this when apparently revealed because their own reason is not able to conclude the thing or their language cannot fully explain it In the fourteenth of Saint Johns Gospel the sixteenth Verse our blessed Saviour acquaints his Disciples for their comfort and encouragement with this great promise I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth Here is one praying another sending and a third given So is it also at the twenty sixth Verse of the same Chapter But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Here is the Father sending in the Sons name or upon his account the Holy Ghost to teach the Apostles those things which our Saviour had more briefly hinted to them And such things also which the Apostles through prejudice could not then receive And to bring those parts of the Christian Doctrine to their remembrance which they through human frailty might forget That so they might be fitted to be the publishers and the sacred and infallible Pen-men of the most excellent Principles of the Christian Religion And that
renders our notions more clear and durable We use the means that are within our power and set our reason and faculties on work and then the Spirit by a secret operation enlarges our minds and blesses our endeavours Thus Paul must plant and Apollo water although it is God that gives the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 And thus the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to embrace the Gospel whilst she attended to it as it was spoken by S. Paul Acts 16.14 When the Apostles were yet diffident concerning the truth of our Saviours resurrection though they had the Books of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms by them in which these things were sufficiently predicted yet Christ himself opened their understandings before they could apprehend the meaning of those Scriptures Luke 24.45 As we may do all things through Christ strengthning us Phil. 4.13 So separated from him we can do nothing John 15.5 The Spirit of God has put much of our duty into our own power yet has still reserved something to himself that we may be kept humble depend upon him and beg his aid For the animal man that is not possessed with the Divine benediction and influence of the Spirit who admits not of propositions prov'd only by Miracles receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they appear foolishness unto him neither can he know them whilst he remains in that condition because they are spiritually discerned are proved by Miracles not Logick 1 Cor. 2.14 Hence is it that S. Jude describes sensual men to be such as have not the Spirit ver 19. of his Epistle Now upon the view of all this As we have no reason by our unbelief to deprive our selves of what is promised and to shut out those assistances from our souls which bless and facilitate our endeavours so we have no cause to say that our safety is beyond our power and that Heaven is too high for our reach since if we solemnly prepare our hearts and devoutly petition the assistances of the Spirit we may obtain it and God will not be wanting to us if we are not first wanting to our selves This is what S. Austin sayes Facienti quod in se est Deus non deneg at gratiam That God does not deny his grace to him who does what is in his power And that promise of our Saviour may relieve and encourage us That our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Let us act then with the dependence of creatures and yet not relinquish the reason of men Let us not think to be drawn into an understanding and belief of those truths contained in the Scripture by the strength of a Miracle and upon the wheels of an extraordinary Providence to be snatched out of the pit of ignorance by an irresistible force and informed by an Apostolical illumination But let us use those means that are now put into our own power for the full apprehension of all divine and necessary truth and walk according to what we have already attained the knowledge of that our obedience according to what we have received may attest the sincerity of our minds And then if any thing yet remains which is necessary farther for us to know God will use some method or other to inform us and by his Spirit dispose our understandings to receive it For God shall reveal even this unto us and we have S. Paul's word for it Phil. 3.15 16. And thus I have now at length considered this promise of leading men into truth both as it concerned the Apostles and as it also relates unto our selves I have shewed how it guided them and how it does still lead us into Truth There is now but one thing more that will want only a brief reflection before I arrive at some practical Inferences from the whole discourse and that is the latitude of this Promise in relation to its object which as it hath been already discoursed on with reference to the Apostles so must it be explained in relation to our selves For this universal all truth must not be understood in the utmost extent it is capable of no more than it was with reference to the Apostles but it must be limited in these following particulars First The Spirit guides us into all truth which may be necessary for the ordering our conversations in this World suitable to the Religion we are baptized into There are directions published in Sacred Writ for our Christian deportment in all our various states and conditions From whence S. Paul in the general exhorts that our conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ Phil. 1.27 Which would be a strange and insufficient direction were there not in it a compleat rule for our lives The duties of a Christian are either concerning God others or our selves As to the first we are commanded to worship God in spirit and in truth The devotion we pay him must be suitable to his being and the general rules given in the Gospel John 4.24 And we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind Matth. 22.37 As to the second we have this direction To do to others as we would have them do unto us Mat. 7.12 And to love our neighbours as our selves Matt. 22.39 And as to our selves we must walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying Rom. 13.13 Nay our whole duty is comprehended in one Text of S. Paul who tells us that the Gospel teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in the world Tit. 2.12 Piously towards God Righteously towards our Neighbours and soberly in relation to our selves Nor have we only these general directions but those also that are so particular that we may hence take the measure of our duties and such prudent advice is given in all the conditions that may happen to us That we are neither left without proper counsel nor yet without comfort and relief Secondly The Holy Spirit of Truth guides us into all those Divine Truths which we ought to believe and of these he has given us so exact an account that no new Article is to be added to that Faith which has been already delivered to the Saints The Apostles Creed in which are contained all things necessary to compleat our belief is in every Article revealed in the Scripture And men that go too far beyond it are apt to be wise over much and to think and conclude beyond sobriety and therefore Thirdly The Spirit thus guides us into all truth that concerns our future happiness and salvation It has informed us that there is such a state by bringing life and immortality to light in the Gospel and it has laid out and smooth'd the way that leads to it It has given some description of the state it self as far as
his Doctrine to be Divine and himself the Messiah sent from God by attributing them to the power of the Devil but the Gnosticks did in effect the same thing by retaining upon occasion the Ceremonies of the Jews which our Saviour had abolished if he were owned as a person sent from God to void the old Law and establish a new So that those who embraced what he came to vacate in effect denied him to be come in the flesh and consequently destroyed the obligation of the Gospel by renouncing the Messiah whose authority established this new Law as a Rule to the World Nay by this rejection of the Son they disowned the Father who by a voice from Heaven and giving him power to work Miracles gave a testimony to his Person and his Doctrine And therefore our Apostle reflecting upon these men saies Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son whoso denieth the Son the same hath not the Father but he that acknowledgeth the Son the same hath the Father also 1 John 2 Chap. 22.23 And in the 4 th Chap. 3. v. Every Spirit or teacher that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God and this is that Spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world CHAP. II. HAving thus given an account of part of this Epistle of S. John together with those of whom the Apostle cautions men to beware I shall farther explain and illustrate the words to render them yet more useful to our selves by considering in them 1. A Caution 2. An Exhortation 3. The reason of both The Caution is Not to believe every Spirit The Exhortation To try the Spirits whether they are of God The Reason both of this Caution and Exhortation is because many false Prophets are gone out into the world I begin with the Apostles Caution Beloved believe not every Spirit If all that men utter pretending to be inspired were without any severe consideration to be entertain'd and what they deliver were to be believ'd there would no more need the Apostles caution than our own care But when we live in an Age in which Propositions and Doctrines are delivered that too plainly contradict each other some of which are impious and abominable others at first audit foolish and ridiculous and a third sort that tend to disturbance and ruine wasting Property making our Kingdoms large Aceldama's and our Cities the places of dead mens sculls and are apparent enemies to human Society When under the pretence of a Catholick Religion Doctrines of purity proposals to advance the Scepter of Christs Kingdom Principles shall be insinuated that if pursued with that furious zeal which they require will effectually destroy those things indeed which men endeavour to maintain in words If our blessed Saviour may thus be fought under his own Banner the cause of God cover abominations murder be acted for the glory of our Maker Blasphemy be spoken by the assistance of the Spirit and the method to render Princes glorious shall be by stabbing or beheading If the most horrid wickedness shall be palliated under the cloke of Religion a new Commandment shall be pretended for breach of the old and the Moral Law shall daily be violated by inspiration If men under pretensions to the guidance of that Spirit which inspired the first deliverers of the Gospel to be a Rule to succeeding Ages and Generations shall hang out new lights to the world that take away all the glory of the old and preach to us another Gospel bearing their Christ only pictured on their Standards and Banners and their Gospel to us on the points of Swords Nay when the Spirit in the propagation of the Gospel neither prescribed nor used such methods but quite contrary those of faith and patience humility and self-denial which did not interfere with the Government of Princes but made men actively or passively to obey And when the same Spirit has expresly declared that in the latter times there would be such a falling away from the faith that men would so far depart from the standing rules of the Gospel as to give heed to seducing Spirits and doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4.1 Nay when the great Lord and Authour of our Religion has acquainted the world that many false Prophets should arise with such earnest pretences and strong delusions that should almost shake the very Elect those whom he had chosen to put his Name and Character upon with Lo here is Christ or lo there exalting several though false Messiahs It will become us to consider any new pretensions beyond the rule we have already learned and not to receive Opinions at adventure but to make a more strict and considerate enquiry and not to believe every Spirit And that 1. Because we have already entertained a standing Rule of Faith and Manners by which all Christians ought to be directed to the final period and consummation of Ages And though this great and Characteristical Principle of Protestants is contradicted both by the Papists and Enthusiasts whilst the former equal their Traditions with the Scriptures and the latter their own fancies and dreams both upon occasion bestowing such ignominious titles on the Bible that they would think it uncivil if they should be given to any of their own writings Yet S. Paul tells us that the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation and being given by inspiration from God cannot be false without supposing him a liar Nay the Apostle goes on in their commendation that they are profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God much more the people may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. The design of that Gospel which we have embraced sufficiently declares it to be a full and compleat rule of life that which if followed brings peace and welfare to us here and eternal happiness in that life which is to come For it teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in the world and to look for a blessed hope and immortality for which the former way of living prepares us Titus 2.11 12 c. Nay so perfect and compleat is this rule and so designed to direct us to the end of the world that the Apostle denounces a Curse against any that teach another Gospel or Rule of life different from or contradictory to this though an Angel from Heaven should prove to be the deliverer And repeats it twice in the same Chapter that it may be sufficiently declared and stand as a memorial to all Ages Gal. 1.8 9. And Saint John in the close of his Revelations sufficiently reproves all new pretensions by telling the world that if any man shall make additions to this which was compleat before God shall add unto
fervency and devotion for them For if ye being evil sayes our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And since God is so bountiful to us let us not be wanting to our selves For when we shall with retirement consider how numerous and potent our sins are which must all in their habits be mortified and subdued how many turbulent or inticing temptations we have to oppose that are ready every day to conquer us and steal invisibly to our most secret entertainments how many passions we have to calm and moderate which upon every suitable and tempting occasion endeavour to make an insurrection against our reason How many personal and relative duties we are to perform in a wise and pious ordering our conversation how the suggestions of our own flesh the injections of Sathan and the malice and defilements of the world will endeavour to oppose and obstruct our progress When we consider the black passage of death and the grave and God knows what dismal encounters we may meet with in our way to them What fears will then suddenly arise to baffle our hopes and make our faith ready to expire And upon the whole when we reflect upon our weakness and miserable infirmity In a word When we consider how much work we have to do how little time to perform it and what great disproportion there is betwixt our duty and our power It will not only appear that it is high time to awake out of sleep to rise and be doing But to take the Armour of God for our defence and to pray to Heaven for the assistance of the Spirit Since this appears to be so necessary in relation to our weakness and our duty And certainly what is so necessary for our safe conduct to that Haven where we would be and which God designs for our eternal rest and shelter from all tempests and future storms There is no reason why we should distrust the Spirits influence and operation Nor to make our selves uncapable of the favour by testifying our unwillingness to receive it by perpetually opposing and disputing against it For Lastly this influence of the holy Spirit upon the minds of holy and good men is from the Scripture infallibly certain to those that at once both want and beg it and do prepare themselves for the reception of it Why otherwise should our Saviour give this assurance to his Disciples that God gives the holy Spirit to those that ask him Nay what becomes of those promises in the Scripture that engage Gods truth and faithfulness to assist good men in the discharge of their duty and to support them under all their misery and misfortune if we were altogether left to our selves to pursue the dictates of our own reason and to stand only upon our own leggs without any superiour help or influence The Apostle tells us that the Spirit does help our infirmities Rom. 8.26 But this would be false if we had either none that required his assistance Or that he would not condescend to supply our wants S. John makes this vinculum unionis this bond of union betwixt Christ and us the Spirit of God to be a character by which we may distinguish our selves Because he has given us of his Spirit 1 John 4.13 And S. Paul fully agrees with S. John For sayes he if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 I know with what great industry these and other Texts have been restrained to that Divine temper of mind by which we know and discern our condition This indeed being the gracious effect of the holy Spirits co-opperating with our endeavours is by no means to be separated in our judgment upon our selves And we have no other way to judge of the cause but by this Divine and glorious effect But yet where this is visible in an holy life and virtuous actions we have no reason to exclude the cause Especially when it is principally included in the expression For the Apostle supposes this Spirit that Christians have to be the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead Nay a branch also of that power which shall hereafter raise us too For it follows He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in us Because our Bodies are here the Temples of the Holy Ghost God will not suffer them to remain eternally in their ruiues But will hereafter re-edifie and raise them because they were once the habitation of his Spirit Hence are Believers said to be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of their inheritance Ephes 1.13 And therefore they are advised in the same Epistle not to grieve this holy Spirit of God whereby they are sealed unto the day of their redemption Eph. 4.30 Now though we may be said to be sealed up for Heaven by a Divine temper of mind upon Earth that this prepares us for future glory and that if this disposition be not in us we are none of Christs Yet it would be as harsh a speech as can be admitted in any language to say that this holy temper of mind shall raise us up at the last day Since the wicked are then raised too Or to say that any man voluntarily grieves this Divine temper and disposition of mind when the man then grieves himself These expressions therefore must certainly intend more than this And they can scarcely admit of a fair interpretation without expounding them of the holy Spirit of God which now co-operating with our faculties produces in us divine tempers and dispositions and so prepares us for that inheritance which he shall raise us up from our graves to possess The Holy Ghost was first promised to the Apostles and Christian Disciples under the names and notion of a Comforter and the Spirit of truth and how could he be both or either if he did not influence their minds with joy and knowledge The Spirit it self sayes the Apostle bears witness with our Spirits that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 It did not only testifie unto others by those Miracles that did confirm their Religion and consequently proved those that did sincerely embrace it to be born of God as well as their Religion But it evidenced these things also to their own consciences by a sacred benediction and a Divine and more immediate concurrence with them when they compared their lives with the Rules of their Religion And consequently proves to them that they were heirs of God and coheirs with Christ which is the argument the Apostle is there prosecuting to give them comfort in the midst of tribulation and to animate their courage and resolution against the sufferings of that present time The graces and virtues visible in a Christians life are said in Scripture to be the fruits of the Spirit
converted to this Religion and accompanied Saint Paul received the notices of those early and first transactions of our Saviour and his Disciples and been guided by the Holy Spirit of God in recording the History and Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles But if we make the strictest enquiry into those twelve Apostles which our Saviour sent to preach his Doctrine abroad in the World we shall find them all by their Education either too much prejudiced or unprepared to invent or propagate such a Religion The greater part were a few rugged and inconsiderable Fishermen that knew only to catch Fish and mend their Nets when they were broken and either eat or sell their Fish when they had caught it And how unfit these were to preach rules of life to the world to make known Riddles and explain Mysteries To maintain their Faith against the learned disputes of Rabbies and Philosophers or to commit a System of Christian Doctrine to writing for future ages to live by and that it might become the rule for mens actions Let any reasonable men judge It must needs therefore be a greater argument of a larger inspiration that these men were so slenderly prepared by nature or Education And by how much the meaner these were by so much the more powerful were the operations of the Spirit to guide them into all truth But besides the consideration of this we have a more sure word of Prophecy to ascertain their inspiration from above Since all Scripture is given by inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 And since no man can possibly know those Laws by which God will govern the World 'till he pleases himself to make them known It must needs be that he must impregnate the minds and inform the understandings of those whom he designs to be the Pen-men of his Laws And this he did as to Moses and the Prophets under the Old so to the Apostles in the New Testament by his Holy Spirit Therefore was he to teach them all things by informing their understandings John 14.26 And by guiding them into all truth John 16.13 Secondly The Holy Spirit of truth guided the Apostles and first publishers of his sacred Doctrines by quickning their memories That what their Master had before taught them the Disciples now might remember for the benefit of others The memories of men by reason of their own weakness and the multitude of objects which daily present themselves to the mind and that variety of converse and numerous disturbances they meet with in a World full of noise and humour are very apt to slip many things which they ought to register and when they are entered to lose the record Hence is that admonition of the Author to the Hebrews that we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip Heb. 2.1 The Apostles therefore who were men of like passions with our selves had an extraordinary power assisting their memories That those things might again recur which they had heard from our Saviour at that time when by his-absence he was uncapable of repeating and orally to deliver that Doctrine which before they had the advantage of hearing The Spirit then by an immediate impression put their Spirits into such a motion and proposed such objects to their consideration and understanding and so ranged the particles of the brain that the same images presented themselves and they had the same Ideas and apprehensions which possess'd their minds when the trutns were first delivered to them Or if I may be any way extravagant in endeavouring to describe the manner of framing this miraculous effect Yet sure I am that some way or other this was done or the promise of the Holy Ghost was not fully accomplished For sayes the Text the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you John 14.26 Thirdly This Holy Spirit of Truth inclined the wills of the Apostles and first Planters of Christianity to publish those things which were impress'd upon their understandings and their memories now perfectly retained and to commit these truths to Writing that future Ages might be able to read what they could neither see nor hear To exhibit no more than what they had received for the Divine Rule and to live also suitable to their Doctrine to avoid the suspicion of Cheat and Imposture Now though this influence might seem to be unnecessary to such as had imbibed the Christian Doctrine with their understandings because their wills might seem immediately to follow what their understandings dictated to be true and the reasonableness and admirable excellency of this Doctrine might be motive enough to perswade as well to its practice as belief Yet we find by a woful experience that the wills of men do not alwayes follow the dictates of their understandings But that we violate Laws which yet we are convinced to be true and good If it were not so few men would embrace vice and offer injury to the Precepts of Christianity which all men of reason and discretion must needs acknowledge to be excellent in themselves and infallibly sealed and authorized by God who has by a miraculous hand attested them to the World It was necessary therefore that the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel should be made willing as well as able to accomplish all those things which might tend to the propagation and assurance of the Gospel And we cannot conjecture that so sudden an alteration could be made as we find in the Apostles who by their Trade and Education were rough and stubborn this being generally observed of Mariners so as to be brought to acknowledge such gentle precepts so opposite to their customs and inclination without a superiour influence mollifying their tempers and the powerful operation and perswasions of God to make them willing in the day of his power When Paul therefore was converted by a Miracle and brought to the acknowledgement of that Jesus whom he had persecuted that glorious light which shined upon his understanding rectified also the perverseness of his will and inclined that to follow his Conviction so that he became not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision but shewed both to the Jews and Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance Acts 26.19 20. Fourthly The Holy Ghost led the Apostles into all truths of the Gospel by working Miracles to confirm their Doctrine These are the great Seal of Heaven that sufficiently authorize whatever they are brought to give testimony unto For these being either visible effects beyond the power of natural Causes or some strange and extraordinary alterations of nature by laying a restraint upon its usual operations Or causing it to take a different course by a strange composition of second Causes or a powerful concurrence of some Agent not included in the immediate Cause They
Unity of the Body of Christ to encrease our knowledge in the Christian Doctrine and prevent our being deceived and led into error Hence was Timothy's Office which he had received by the Ordination of S. Paul stiled a gift 2 Tim. 1.6 And lest these appointments should not be accounted the products and designation of the Holy Spirit These gifts are attributed to the Spirit Who is in himself one uniform Being though these were divers according to the variety of times and seasons And they are all such manifestations of the Spirit as are given to men to profit withal 1 Cor. 12. Now as Gods Providence Rules the World though we can neither discover his Councels nor are able to account for the manner of his operation As he disposes of Crowns and Kingdoms determines our dayes and disposes our Habitations though these things are accomplished by an order and train of second Causes severally designing and concurring to the end So does the Holy Spirit dispose the way of the Education of some and incline their minds to the Office of Ministers in the Church of Christ that Gods people may not perish for want of knowledge But there may be some alwayes to preach the Word and to convey Christs Doctrine from Generation to Generation That his Church being built upon the true confession of an Holy Faith as on a firm and well fixed Rock the gates of Hell may never be able to prevail against it Matth. 16.16 and 18. Now a sufficient number of such men distinguished by their Education and manner of living from those that are more encompassed with the noise and disturbing affairs of this life being prepared by a previous train of circumstances and having the advantages of their own parts and understandings And being by such means able to see into the notions of those that have gone before them having been used more to reading consideration and retirement than other men and to weigh the just consequences of things They must needs attain a competent ability in the matters of Religion to which they most apply themselves And they may be capable through the assistance of that Spirit who calls and gives them Authority in their Office to become instruments in his hands to guide men into the wayes of truth In all the Arts and Mysteries of the World we deem it a natural way to learn by obtaining one that is skilful himself to teach us the Principles and Grounds of his Knowledge And we more certainly and easily obtain our design when we have such a one to instruct us So is it in matters of Religion 'T is a natural way to inform our selves in those things that concern our Salvation when we have not only an an inspired Rule But men Educated into the knowledge of those things that prepare them for the understanding the Mysteries of Religion and are afterwards appointed by due Ceremony and the direction of the Holy Ghost to guide us into all truth Especially if in the last place we consider that the Spirit of truth confirms those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external appointed Ministrations by an internal work upon the understanding and affections That there is such a thing as a Divine illumination yet continued amongst Christians as our Church owns it by her Prayers so no man can reasonably contradict it Not that it does render any man infallible as the Romanists affirm Nor inspire men with any new Doctrine or Rules of life besides what it has revealed in the Scriptures as some Enthusiasts adventure to determine Yet we must not to avoid the extreams forsake so useful an Article of belief that gives God the glory of his power and keeps us dependent upon him and is so great a foundation of our prayers and praises Truth is not to be forsaken by the Jews because the Samaritans may be of the same opinion Nor shall I like the Jews in Barbary refuse to eat of that Meat which is dress'd by one of a different perswasion Or to drink in the same Cup with a Moor when he is a person of a wholsome Constitution until it has undergone the Ceremony of Washing Truth in this World will be blended with error and 't is the prudence as well as piety of a Christian to make a separation of the Wheat from the Chaff and not to slight and refuse the one because the other has been mix'd with it 'T is true indeed as Mr. Hales expresses it The Promise of the Spirit to the Apostles which should lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret informing their understandings with high and heavenly Mysteries which never entered into the conceit of man And to us this promise is made good because what was written by Revelation in their hearts for our instruction they have written in their Books But yet this is not all the assistance the Spirit gives us For though he does not inspire us with any new Doctrine you he opens our understandings to the apprehension of the old I am far from admitting the conceit of an impulse to be the rule and measure of our lives because we know what mischiefs have overspread the World when propositions have been vailed with such a pretence and it may be our own as well as S. Austin's observation Tanto sunt ad seditionem faciliores quanto sibi videntur spiritu excellere Men are the more prone to sedition by how much the more they seem to excell in their inspiration yet there cannot appear the same danger where the Spirit only assists our understandings to apprehend those truths which are already deliver'd and inclines our wills and affections to embrace them when according to the direction of S. John we are not so credulous as to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God or no 1 John 4.1 Now then only may we reasonably conclude our understandings to be influenced by the Spirit when our notions agree with the written Word For to the Law and to the Testimony sayes the Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no morning or light in them Isa 8.20 There are divers means natural in themselves and rationally appointed by Almighty God for the informing men in the truths that concern them Reading meditation and hearing the Word are proper methods to inform our understandings and to guide us into the way of truth But prayer is therefore wont to be superadded not only to compose our minds and make them fit for Divine Contemplation by a sequestration of our thoughts from those external objects that by intermixing themselves with those that are more spiritual confound our Idea's and notices of things and render our minds more loose and extravagant But because Prayer supplicates those aids and assistances of the Spirit that facilitate our apprehensions of truth by removing objects that crumble and disorder them and it
therefore it must remain doubtful to those that will not believe the Gospel is it not more reasonable to receive this Revelation so well attested and to renounce others that are not so than to leave things of such an infinite concernment at so miserable an hazard Nay since there can be no other than probable proofs of future things when Arguments are taken from their own nature without the admission of Divine Revelation Is there not greater reason even when two things seem uncertain to adhere to that which is more probable And to that which gives us some hopes rather than to that which affords us none at all In this there can be no danger to believe there is a future state there may be great in the denial of it If it be not true it makes us yet live with more comfort and die with less trouble and reluctancy But perhaps all may now be willing to believe the Scriptures to be true Yet such Faith alone will not gain the prize though we finish our course in fighting for it Therefore let mens belief of a future immortality and a joyful state evidence it self in endeavours to obtain it For that faith is only fancy that thinks to be crowned without obedience And to believe the History of the Resurrection of our Saviour and not raise our selves to newness of life will leave us still dead in our sins Credere se in Christum quomodo dicit sayes S. Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae qui non facit quod Christus facere praecepit How can he be said to believe in Christ who does not do what he commands him And a little before in the same Tract Immortalitate potiri quomodo possumus nisi ea quibus mors expugnatur vincitur Christi mandata servemus How can we enjoy eternal life unless we keep those Commands of Christ by which death is assaulted and overcome S. John tells us He that doth righteousness is righteous And though men pretend other signs which are as easily confuted as they are made Yet If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments sayes our Saviour Matth. 19.17 And S. Cyprian will vouch the application if I suppose this to be the condition to obtain it For though the Christian Law be a Law of liberty yet it is a Law still that commands us to act like Religious men and not think to be drawn to Heaven upon the wheels of an extraordinary Providence and craned up to Paradise by an irresistable Power We ascend to Heaven by gradual advancements of virtue and devotion nor can we think that all mankind are perpetually to be saved like the Thief upon a Cross We must not think to mount above the Clouds through the vapours of repeated Debaucheries to rend the Skies and make Heaven open by louder Oaths and thundering Execrations Or to jump out of Dalilah's lap into Abraham's bosome No surely they that have done good shall go into life everlasting But they that have done evil into everlasting punishment Thirdly We learn from this discourse to praise God for giving us the Gospel and to admire and extol the Holy Ghost himself who in such an eminent manner assisted the Apostles to commit so excellent a systeme of religion to writing that we of the latter ages of the World may read what we could not hear And by the ordinary conduct of the Spirit of truth be guided to the knowledge of those things which they were extraordinarily inspired to deliver Not to commemorate so great a favour must be the highest ingratitude imaginable Let us be as thankful then as we are knowing and as we increase daily in the one let the other run parallel in the enlargement God is pleased to own himself glorified by our praises This we do when we praise him with our tongues But then does it become most glorious when it is followed with an holy and Religious life The former may proceed from hypocrisie But attended with the latter it makes the whole Trinity to rejoyce and secures to our selves those Graces we already have and engages God to give us more as our future conditions shall want supplies To him that hath shall be given saies our Saviour Nay this in an especial manner rejoyces the holy Spirit of God whose proper work it is to sanctifie And a vicious life is said to grieve him And how acceptable a Sacrifice the whole is appears in what he sayes by the Psalmist Psal 50.23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Praises and thanksgivings are the natural results of a sense of mercies and favours impress'd upon the minds of men And we conclude those to be unworthy of a benefit that will not acknowledge the goodness of their Benefactors And the proportions of thanks must take their measures from the benefits received How much therefore the sending the Holy Ghost to inspire the Apostles and by them to convey light unto the World to conduct mankind to glory and immortality exceeds all the temporal favours we do enjoy By so much the more must our hearts be lifted up and our lives express our gratitude to him that sent him and to him who by his merit and intercession procured him Fourthly Did the Spirit of truth guide the Apostles into all truth necessary to the Salvation of men And does he still influence our minds and promote our endeavours in making enquiry after the things that conduce to our peace Then let us pray frequently to Almighty God for this influence and benediction of the Spirit Prayer was that which prevail'd with God to send him in so eminent a manner and for such glorious designs into the World and prayer will still continue him here I will pray the Father says Christ and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth Joh. 14.16 Prayer has not only an influence upon our selves as it fixes our minds and makes our holy resolutions steady but mightily prevails with God himself who will crown what he has commanded with success In this therefore lies our greatest strength in the performance of which duty soberly and with a suitable devotion and intention of mind we may be said to wrestle with God Nay it conveys to us those assistances of the Spirit that are useful to us for the sanctifying our natures and carrying us through the hazards and various circumstances of our lives For if ye being evil sayes our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Let us not then be wanting to our selves in this duty of Prayer since so great an advantage attends its devout and hearty performance and to publick Prayer whereby God is most glorified the pains are only presence and devotion Fifthly If God sent his Spirit upon the Apostles to
guide them into all truth that we might have safe and infallible Rules to order and direct our actions by Then see how God values soundness in the Faith however men too much disregard it If either any Creed or none at all could have carried men to their future bliss Christ need never have come into the World to deliver an universal Doctrine in the Gospel Nor sent this Holy Spirit of truth to guide the Apostles into all truth This necessity therefore of being sound in the Faith was the reason why our Saviour and his Apostles caution'd men against Prophetical pretenders and false Teachers to take heed what they hear Mark 4.24 To have a care that the light which is in them be not darkness Luke 11.35 And to take heed lest there be in any of them an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God Heb. 3.12 Hence is it because as S. Peter sayes there are damnable Heresies that the unsound Cretians were so severely to be reproved that they might be sound in the Faith Tit. 1.13 Hence is it that S. Paul commands Timothy to hold fast the form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 Which probably referr'd to some brief Creed or summary of the Christian Faith delivered to him by the Apostle Though we find them now Burlesqu'd and flouted at But alas with as little wit as reason From hence finally was it that S. Jude exhorted those to whom he wrote his Epistle to contend earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints 3. ver of his Epist We are not now to make our own Faith nor is it indifferent what we believe Let us receive therefore what has been delivered out of the Scriptures through all the several Ages of Christianity and endeavour to make our lives as pure as our Faith Lastly We may learn from this Holy Spirit of truth to speak truth and by no methods to impose upon one another That we may evidence to God our selves and the world that the Spirit of truth has still an influence upon our minds There are a generation of Vipers among men whose teeth are Spears and Arrows and their tongue a sharp Sword That ingross the whole trade of lying and yet pretend to be men inspired These receive false News in gross and then retail it out to others Their tongues indeed are very sharp and no wonder neither since they keep the Whetstone wholly to themselves These are your itinerant Historians that to consume our Corn carry alwayes firebrands at their tails Who lie so often that they can hardly believe themselves when they speak truth and give to all that have had the curse of their conversation a plain testimony who their Father is But let not any of our souls enter into their secrets But resolve to resemble the Spirit of truth in abominating all lies and hypocrisie and to qualifie our selves for our future ascent to Gods holy Hill by speaking the truth in our hearts Psal 15. Our Saviour had no guile found in his mouth And we must follow so good an example unless we think lying the Character of a Saint and perjury to put on a Martyrs Crown S. Paul did not think so when he forbad the Colossians to lie to one another seeing they had put off the the old man with his deeds Colos 3.9 Let us therefore beware of Arrogance and Calumny Of detracting from others or attributing too much to our selves And let us imitate the Holy Spirit under the Gospel by guiding our selves into all truth So shall we avoid both sin and shame and eternal confusion at the great and terrible day of the Lord that we may then give up our accounts with joy and not with grief Would we but endeavour to follow the sacred Spirit of God who is so ready to influence our minds in truth and faithfulness Commerce and Trade would be more innocent we should neither betray our own selves by any false or glozing language nor should we suffer by plain dealing Oaths would again become Religious among English men nor would any be unjustly executed by guilty or scandalously freed by an Ignoramus Our gracious and truly Great Monarch would be safe without the base attempts of any to secure him He would be our own and we at his wise and lawful disposal by his Coronation Oath and our sworn Allegiance to him Every man were there truth among us might enjoy peace in his own capacity he might sit under his Vine and his Fig tree and Liberty and Property would never be bones of contention more But if we remain Hypocrites in Religion and false to each other we can neither expect that God or men should be our friends Because what in us lyes we peck at the foundations of the World and make the whole Creation groan We shake the main Principle of Trade and Commerce when we are such wretched creatures that no body can believe us And we cannot but enrage the Great God who being truth it self has sent his Holy Spirit unto us to guide us into the wayes of truth Whatever guilt therefore any person may by the iniquity of times striking in with his own easie inclinations have contracted to himself in this point Let him now repent while it is called to day lest the night come in which terror and astonishment will surprize him whose obscure shadows will by degrees withdraw the pleasing light from him till it lodges him in a state of blackness for ever The Conclusion WE are here placed in a World so full of objects that affect our external senses that we are naturally led more by these than we are by faith And when by degrees we abstract our thoughts and fix our minds on things above we either weary the powers of our minds and make them sink into a stupid inadvertency or else are so pleased with the sprightliness of our creating fancies that we nimbly make Idea's in our brains of such seeming things as never were nor ever shall be And so we lead our selves into the belief of what was not designed to be the object of our understanding no more than it shall be the subject of our possession Sometimes these things are projected before hand by the cunning politick men of the World who by such means intend to impose upon others to carry on secular interests that may in the end be gainful to themselves And sometimes men by reason of their weak and unable constitutions acting contemplation beyond their own capacity to manage it impose upon themselves till they really believe their own thoughts of objects that yet have no real existence nor are ever like to have a being in the Universe Some think too much and others too little Too much learning makes one sort mad and others are mad because they have so little Some men by sinking themselves into a deep melancholy and others by a nimble and exorbitant agitation of their blood and spirits command themselves into ecstasie or
A DISCOURSE Concerning the TRIAL OF SPIRITS WHEREIN Inquiry is made into Mens Pretences to Inspiration for publishing Doctrines in the Name of God beyond the Rules of the Sacred Scriptures In opposition to some Principles and Practices of Papists and Fanaticks As they contradict the Doctrines of the Church of England defined in her Articles of Religion established by her Ecclesiastical Canons and confirmed by ACTS of PARLIAMENT By THOMAS PITTIS D.D. one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary London Printed by B.W. for E. Vize at the Bishop's Head over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1683. To the Right Worshipful Sr. Edward Worseley Knight Colonel of one of the Regiments of the Country Militia and Deputy Governour of the ISLE of WIGHT Honoured Sir HAving an unexaminable opportunity of publishing such Tracts as this And having formerly by your Father been presented to the Rectory of the Parish of Gatcomb in the Bounds of which your Mansion House is seated and in which you live having the right of Advowson undoubtedly in your self I cannot but present these Papers to you as being the Inheritor of your Fathers Estate and Vertues too and of his great kindness to me in particular which you yet on all occasions continue and increase by succeeding heaps of favours I need not relate the Loyalty of your Family it bearing date with its Antiquity and has been so manifested to the present World that a Memorial of mine would be its disparagement and upbraid the memory of mankind All know whose brains are not sunk into Oblivion how you would have redeemed King Charles the First that most Pious Martyr of ever blessed memory when he was a Prisoner in Carisbrook Castle from the present insolence of the worst of men to whom by violence he was enthral'd and the designed mischiefs that were likely to befal him from persons that thirsted after Royal Blood who were most monstrous and irreconcileable enemies to mankind and Caesar You had prudently laid your design and were honestly ready accoutred and prepared and at your Post at the appointed hour But alas all miscarried through the base treachery of other men to your misfortune and much bigger grief After this you were forced to wander and exile your self And 't was happy for us that survive your misfortune that you came off so Since the return of our present and most gracious Sovereign with whom you were also expell'd by the rage and malice of a Pack of unreasonable and malicious men your great modesty and unalterable affection to the Island in which you make so considerable a Figure in which I have the priviledge and honour of a Native has been the only cause of your not being removed into a larger Sphere But now your age and the greatness of your Merits together with your old Protestant Church of England Principles to which you are honestly and severely addicted will hardly permit you to suffer an exchange in this World though I alwayes wish'd it 'till you advance to the Glory of the next I dare not any longer be thus burdensome to your modesty and contentment that covet retirement in defiance of all your very large capacities But yet Sir give me leave to pray from the true resentments of a grateful mind that the great God who is far exalted above all Beings would continue to preserve your most Loyal and exceedingly devout self Your most Vertuous and extraordinarily pious and modest Lady and the two Gentile and excellent Branches happily sprung and nourished too from You who are the root of both much longer than I in this World shall be capable of remaining Dear SIR Your most affectionate and most humble Servant Tho. Pittis London Nov. 1. 1683. A DISCOURSE Concerning the TRIAL OF SPIRITS CHAP. I. THE Third Person in the Sacred Trinity one God blessed for ever is frequently abused by the pretences of men to such Revelations as are inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel and many Doctrines of the Christian Religion which the Holy Ghost at first inspired men to deliver And though this began in the Apostles days when the mystery of iniquity by the Gnostick defection began to work Yet it has continued and improved men in their villanies throughout the several Ages of the Church Nay so far that Treason and Murder and open Rebellion are consecrated by those that pretend to be inspired and they blasphemously make the Holy Spirit of God that breaths forth peace and quietness upon the World to become the Patron of the greatest and most disturbing impieties that ever infested the Societies of mankind This though we have been loth to believe it we are now convinc'd of by a woful experience an experience which had been purchased by our utter ruine unless Gods Providence assisting and favouring the wisdom of our Superiours encouraged by some Loyal and unwearied resolutions had happily prevented it We have two sorts of men both pretending to an infallible inspiration though on different grounds that ruine and destroy the Principles of Christianity under a shew to advance them And though we were unwilling to think that men who seem'd at so great a distance from each other should ever reach to join hand in hand and that the same principle should reconcile such different pretensions Yet as Samson's Foxes were joined together by their Tails though their heads looked away from one another So now we see those that breath inspirations from the Pope and they that boast more immediate ones from Heaven confederating though before expected by the most observing and considerate men to house the corn and tares together that Gods Harvest may become their own and they may reap where they never sowed And certainly when such attempts both by a separate and united force are made against all Order and Religion intitling God to the Patronage of a lie making the Spirit of Truth to contradict himself and crucifying Christ under a pretence to exalt him when our own Kingdoms are ready to be destroyed by cheating us out of our Properties and our Lives with a specious shew of advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and to lift up his Scepter our Soveraign's must first be broken in pieces when disorders tending to subversion and ruine are plainly legible in the affairs of men coals are blowing to set all our Houses on fire and we tread those paths that will lead us to confusion and all this while men profess to be serving a God of Order when multitudes pretend to be sent from God that speak contrary to his written word and have no other Miracle to prove their Principles but the strangeness of their villany in rooting up the Laws of Nature and Society when so much brass is currant amongst us instead of gold and our silver is every day exchang'd for dross and we are ready to be made the companions of Owls or what is worse of Thieves and Murderers 't is high time to bring forth the Touchstone to enquire into the
value of things before we receive them that counterfeit coin may not claim the same priviledge with what is instamp'd with Caesar's Image nor an enterance opened for the Pope of Rome riding in a Kirk born on the backs of those that know not what they carry that they may bring Popery in triumph to us like the Grecians lodged in the belly of that Wooden and insensible Horse that entred Troy and sacked the City and so gain'd that by an easie strategem which ten years siege could not effect For these and such like reasons if men will now hearken to any I have chosen this Subject to Discourse on that if possible we may separate the chaff from the wheat distinguish betwixt the Doctrines of Apostles and those of Devils and mark out the Spirit of Antichrist that it may be known from that of our Saviour that names may no longer confound things nor Satan be received by any of us though he transforms himself into an Angel of light lest we mistake that for Samuel in his Mantle which only the Witch of Endor raises And therefore let us not believe every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone into the world And from these words I shall raise my Discourse In this Epistle S. John endeavours to confirm Christians in the profession and practice of the Christian Religion notwithstanding all Objections to the contrary and therfore gives them sufficient caution to beware 1. Of such Heresies as destroy the foundation such as interfer'd with the great Doctrines and Authority of the Messiah such as under some great pretences of purity and preciseness might introduce Factions and Schisms and dissolve that strict love and union which ought to be among the Professors of the Gospel These things some were prone unto in the first and early times of Christianity As soon as the Church had put forth leaves the Caterpillars were ready to devour them 2. Because the Church of Christ was planted in the midst of Jewish Superstition and Heathen Idolatry and a Sect was now sprung up in the world that under the names of Christians had provided Principles which in times of danger might equally suit with both or either and so could shelter themselves from one storm and raise another if the wind blew from either quarter The Apostle therefore bids men to beware of Idolatry this being a plain renunciation of their Religion as Heresie would both maim and wound it Little children sayes he keep your selves from Idols and what he closes his Epistle with is what we all close our prayers with And that we may be also delivered from the insinuations or Society of both these sorts let all the people say Amen From the consideration of this design of our Apostle we may plainly see how suitable this whole Epistle is to the present humours and distractions among us and how soon were the advice imbraced it would cure us of those languishing distempers under which we seem to faint and die The extremities of disease vex and torture us and no sooner have we got off a cold fit which makes us almost shake and shiver into ashes but the hot one comes on which fires and almost is ready to consume us Nay a strange mixture of both encounter us rather than we shall recover and live and those things which the vigour and strength of our constitution is able to baffle whilst separate and apart being conjoined create a new disease which troubles the Physician and puts him to the utmost of his skill though I hope it will never be able to baffle him or leave us to be a prey to vermine or the great disease and pest of men Let us follow the rules of this Apostle that what ever injuries our bodies may suffer which in too many are Martyrs already by the great fears and uncertainties of their minds our souls may be safe and secure and kept unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus Let us be united in our common profession not staggered with the high pretences of others nor let us yet relax our diligence from the discourses of any that will at all adventures be secure among our selves But whatever notions of infallibility on the one hand or present and particular inspiration on the other shall be presented to us to debauch us from our Principles Let us well examine before we believe receive nothing that may contradict natural Religion or what is superadded in the word of God that publick and plainly declared revelation to which there need no additions to make the man of God wise unto salvation But let us follow the Apostles advice and try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world By the word Spirit here is plainly meant any one that under a pretence of Inspiration or assistance from the Spirit publishes any new Doctrine to the world in the age of the Gospel and so includes both Papists and Enthusiasts The one tying the Spirit to the Chair of the Pope the other to their own Dreams and Phancies And this interpretation as it is generally assented to is plain and open to every man that will either consider the scope of the Epistle or the reason of this advice of the Apostle why we should not believe every Spirit because many false Prophets are come forth into the world and therefore we are to examine the Doctrines which any pretender to the Spirit teaches lest we are led by the authority of any into snares that may captivate and destroy our souls Now although this caution of Saint John primarily relates to the Gnostick defection yet it is a direction to all Ages and may guard us from all the pretensions of men that under a specious authority from the Spirit of truth vent false Doctrines to the World in any period of the Christian Religion Because both the Duty and the Argument to inforce it will be of a perpetual concernment as long as false Prophets come forth into the world Yet because the Gnosticks are most immediately reflected on as being the Antichrist so early appearing in the Christian world to defeat this Religion under a denomination from it boasting some extraordinary knowledge when they were men both ignorant and vile we must enquire into the particular reason why the Apostle in this place cautions men to beware of these whose faults were so scandalous that they seem manifest to all The reason of this next to that which is more general the proneness of men to any error that may gratifie themselves and become either their security or pleasure is the same why the sin against the Holy Ghost shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come because the Gnosticks plainly destroyed the Gospel although by a different Argument from the former The former against whom that severe though deserved Sentence was pronounced invalidated all our Saviours Miracles which proved
unto the world their coherence with any thing already reveal'd their agreeableness to the nature of God or the welfare of men to persuade any reasonably to embrace them If it be pretended that the inspiration it self is a sufficient authority to him that delivers Principles to the world and reason enough for any to embrace them Yet however the inspiration must still be proved as it has alwayes been by Miracles And those not false but real Because otherwise every one that has confidence and wickedness enough to pretend to an impulse and Call from Heaven may impose what he pleases on the world and they must without examination believe it This indeed would be a ready way to render the reason of men useless and degrade them into the silly nature of a Beast that being bridled and sadled is turned which way soever the rider pleaseth Nay it would be an extraordinary and new method as miraculous nay more than the pretenders inspirations to make the parts of a contradiction both true if all those who presume that they are inspired are to be believed For nothing can be more apparent to us than that various Sects opposite to one another distant to a total separation pretend all to be thus inspired And if what upon this they presume to deliver is to be received by those to whom the message is directed And they pretend it is directed unto all How can we since their confidence is equal know which to adhere to since all come by the same authority And it is impossible to receive the opinions of all because they contradict one another 'T is true we find some men among us that have run through all the signs of the Zodiack and their want of constancy and resolution not being directed to the Pole has caused them to tremble and shake like a Needle through all the points of the Compass Yet this has been by degrees not at once but by succession But in the case we have now in hand many pretend to have things revealed that yet thwart and encounter one another and all at the same time To embrace at once these several propositions is plainly impossible and if we consider to make our choice we are either apparently obstinate and wilful when all come with the same authority or else we openly forsake the Argument of Inspiration and stand and examine these Doctrines by a rule and instead of believing every Spirit we try them But if men will notwithstanding these plain and palpable absurdities presume still to thrust such wild pretensions upon the world and the proof of their Doctrines shall be by confidence not argument I would willingly have them to consider as well as our selves what their pretended inspiration means and what that impulse usually effects upon their own minds that makes them so confident that they are inspired from above Can it be supposed or do they feel in themselves any thing more than their own melancholy or thoughts brooding to hatch an Opinion Do they find any more than their persuasions heightned and their assurance of what they were before willing to believe bold and strong and thus inflaming them with a zeal to maintain what inordinate thoughts have produc'd strong resolutions to propagate in the world If it be so as certainly it is every man who is thus raised will have the same authority with another and opposite opinions which is yet impossible must at once be embraced by men because the authority upon which their certainty is grounded is felt by all though understood by neither And to others there seems the same confidence and assurance in the teachers of these different Opinions Our own reason therefore without an inspiration will readily teach us that since the Holy Spirit of God to an inspiration from which all these several men pretend is but one and what it delivers alwayes consistent these men cannot be inspired But they take their dreams for a converse with Spirits their melancholy phancies for inspirations the diseases of their bodies for the accomplishments of their minds and their own thoughts to be Revelations And in short only think themselves awaked when they are indeed asleep Nay we may farther raise our distrust and boldness towards these men Because we know that confidence assurance and real belief of what has entred into the minds of men receive degrees of accession and strength as well by thought conversation and argument as by any impulse that can be imagined Nay many times subtility pride impudence and wilfulness will maintain a thing with as great eagerness and zeal as if men had been really inspired The Devil can do much to heighten mens persuasions and they may do much to heighten their own and arguments that men conjecture to arrive at a compleat demonstration of a point will make them as tenacious of an opinion especially where they may appear singular as any impulse or inspiration Now in the midst of such perplexing causes that are able to produce the same effect it will be difficult if not impossible for men that adhere not to a Rule of trial to come to a particular and exact determination and to satisfie either others or themselves to what cause they may attribute the effect If they pretend to be able to distinguish betwixt a good and a bad cause where the effect yet seems to be the same Or to know the cause by the different impressions variety of impulses make upon their Spirits by which an object is conveyed to their understandings and by a distinct method by which the images of things become figured in the brain This can be no conviction to others until it is explained Nor any to themselves unless they certainly know and understand it Which if they do they are as well able to express this as they are the proposition which as they pretend is revealed to them But I fear this attempt will be in vain Because I cannot find upon strict consideration and retirement but that the motions of the Spirits must be always alike and the same percussions upon and convulsions in the nerves to cause the soul to understand and believe whether it be truth or falshood that is represented if it be received under the notion of truth And if the object seems to be true it makes a like impression as if it were so Therefore it is impossible for the Enthusiast to distinguish an inspiration from God from a suggestion by the Devil if he forsakes thâ— Rule and the publick sentiments of good and evil Therefore we see how unreasonable it is either to be startled with the vain pretences of men or to give credit to every Spirit since upon such grounds the Devil may be entertained for an Angel of light and the discoveries we make may as well be by the flames of Hell as by beams darted from the Sun in the Firmament CHAP. III. NOw from the precedent Discourse upon the caution of the Apostle I inferr 1. The
't is but calling any one Heretick and a dressing him up with pictures of Devils and presently he is exposed to the flames And this is such a Sovereign power of life and death that it reaches not only the body but the soul Thus as some flea the truth to prove it naked and instead of declaring it expose it So others pretending to its safe custody permit none to understand it but themselves And so the rest must swallow a Serpent for a Fish and eat stones instead of bread As if imposing cheats upon the World were the best way to prove a man insallible and deluding others were the only Argument to evidence that we are not deceived our selves This is the great secret of the Roman Empire that does not only silence Disputes but forbid Enquiry That does not only stop the mouths but crack the skulls of mankind taking away our judgement of discretion and our choice and Metamorphosing men into Beasts And then they put the yoke upon us and whip us on to toyl and drudgery that their own Pastures may be covered with Flocks and their Valleys stand thick with Corn whilst the high Hills laugh and sing For if it be once supposed that their Church is infallible whatever they determine must be true And when we have vow'd obedience to them 't will be too late afterwards to make enquiry A powerful way this is to reconcile men when contradictions themselves may thus meet and at any infinite distance embrace when the Romanists please to declare them true If this one point be but admitted 't will be ridiculous to dispute the rest For all the Articles must certainly be true which a Church has determined that cannot err This is a new way indeed to walk by faith and not by sense to pull out our eyes that we may see the better And instead of captivating our understandings to the obedience of Faith to deliver up our reason to another man This is perfectly to enslave our selves when Christ has made us free to entangle our necks in the yoke of bondage and to leave the burden of the old Law for the greater load and oppression of a new And to make our selves like gentle Beasts ready trapped and furnish'd for others to ride us Let the Church of Rome once be infallible and then they become as omniscient as Apollo All their determinations are ex Tripode And we must then become as silent as in the Grave and make our selves a prey to these Worms We must kneel down at the Popes feet and make our selves fit to be trod upon But our reason is so properly our own that as no man has a right over it so is it strongly fortified within us that none is able to take it from us unless we will deliver it up our selves If we will suffer the Philistins to deprive us of our strength and put out our eyes they will certainly then make sport with us And if we yield so great a Point as they unjustly challenge from the Old Testament and the New we deserve then to be made a Spectacle when they have no reason to prove their Authority but because they have a mind to rule and we become such fools as to obey The Prophets then may prophesie falsely and the Priests bear rule by their means when the people shall love to have it so and what will you do in the end thereof Jer. 5.31 Seneca sayes of men that are curious about trifles operose nihil agunt De brev vitae cap. 13. that they are very industrious about nothing and though the studying of many of our Modern Controversies is like an Emperours locking himself into his Closet that he may be very busie in catching Flies and we may say of some great Controvertists in the world what Seneca sayes of those that took abundance of pains to find out a few unprofitable experiments that by this they did not appear more learned but troublesom Vid. ut sup Yet when by admitting a Principle our reason is destroyed and our Religion in an eternal hazard by being at the devoir of another altogether as fallible as our selves and of whose honesty we cannot alwayes be assured We must then rally our Arguments to resist or suffer our selves to be led into slavery That there is not therefore a foundation from any Text for the Romanists pretended Infallibility nor any Argument grounded upon reason I shall endeavour briefly to make appear And therefore we may yet believe our selves to be men and the Pope himself to be no other Because 1. There is no absolute promise of intire Infallibility made to men in the whole Book of God but only with limitation and restriction I readily grant that there are promises of Infallibility in some Texts But these were made good in the Apostles and the seventy Disciples And yet though delivered in general terms they are to be restrained not only to the persons to whom our Saviour spake but to things necessary for them to know in relation to that end for which they were inspired And these were only such truths as our Saviour delivered to be the standing rules for Posterity to guide themselves by in relation to their eternal welfare This is plain both from the latter part of the Verse of which the promise of the Spirits guiding into all truth Joh. 6.3 is the former And from the comparison of this Text with another In the Verse of which this Text is a part we have this added to confirm the promise lest any should think the revelation of the Spirit should not prove equally certain with the declaration of our Saviour He shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak Whatsoever he shall be commissioned to inspire you with that shall he communicate unto you Which is still included in these two particulars 1. In what our Saviour himself had delivered to them Or 2. In what he should suggest to them to make their defence before Kings and Rulers which need not at all concern them whose ignorance in the Laws might cause them to fear because the Holy Ghost should teach them in the same hour what they ought to say Luke 12.11 12. This only is superadded And he will shew you things to come Which must either relate to the Gnostick defection and the perdition of the Jews which our Saviour had predicted Matth. 24. Or else to the Spiritual nature of Christs Kingdom which the Apostles were so prejudiced against to inform them that this with some other things which they could not bear whilst he was with them in the flesh they should at last be satisfied in Joh. 10.12 Or else it must include those predictions of Prophets more frequent in the Primitive times of Christianity such was that of Agabus Acts 11.28 who foretold the Famine that should come to pass in the dayes of Claudius Caesar And that prediction of S. Pauls bonds and imprisonment Acts 21.11 All which
considered together brings the promise of the Spirit and infallibility to the Apostles under determinate restraints and limitations But 2. This will further appear if we compare the promise of guiding into all truth with that other relating to the Holy Ghost Joh. 14.26 where the Apostles are told that he should teach them all things more plainly those which our Saviour had delivered and bring those things to their memory which they might forget though before declared He shall teach you all things sayes he and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you So that it appears that the Apostles had not the Spirit without measure though they may be said to be filled with the Holy Ghost And that this promise of infallibility to them was made in a limited and restrained sense Secondly Supposing the promises of Infallibility were made in never so enlarged a sense yet they are to be restrained to the persons to whom they were at first made as to the unerring conduct and I might easily make it appear that they cannot in their full sence concern any but the Apostles themselves and the first Preachers of the Christian Religion Because the end of this extraordinary inspiration was to make them capable of prescribing to us an infallible and unerring rule Which being accomplished there is no farther occasion of an infallible inspiration For to what end should this be continued to one or a certain number of men unless they were upon new emergencies to deliver new Doctrine to the world If it be necessary to the understanding of what has been already prescribed the Laws of the Gospel will not only want one of the most excellent qualifications of a Law that it be plain and easily intelligible But the same necessity will argue infallibility useful to all which renders it thus necessary unto some For if it be therefore necessary to some that they may become Guides to others Since their conduct in relation unto others must consist in advice and declaring that sence of the Law which could not be understood without them all which must be expressed by word or writing every man has as much need of infallibility that he may not misunderstand the interpretation as any have to prevent their misapprehensions of the Law if there can be no peace without infallibility Now that all men have not infallibility is as readily yielded as it is to be proved that the Pope has none Thirdly If there were now this infallibility amongst men there must be a perpetual revelation For if the perfection of the humane nature could here render any men infallible we may well conjecture that many might have been in every age that might have been Directors to the rest Or if it had been founded in humane nature why should not an equal perfection render all mankind infallible Either of them being granted will invalidate the necessity of a Divine Revelation and turn the word of God into a story and do despight to the spirit of grace if rendering it useless and a fable will do it For to what end should any men be inspired when they were before infallible in themselves The infallibility therefore which we discourse of must proceed from a strong and certain inspiration And whatever is delivered by vertue of this is of equal authority with the Scriptures themselves And then none can be safe in his life or fortunes when ever any inspired man makes it his pleasure to take them away Nay if we are conscientious we must yield them up upon demand lest haply we may be found fighters against God And this appears in the Romanists themselves as well as others taught by them The more conscientious any of them are the more readily do they yield to the impositions of their superiours and they have reason for it if they think them to be absolutely infallible For no private evidence of a thing must subvert their faith in the Churches determination and so much the more triumphant is their faith by how much the more it captivates their understandings As it is so much the more meritorious by how much the less it has of evidence So the greater the Objections are that meet and encounter the Churches determinations their faith is rendered the more glorious and full of victory Let the Doctrine then be never so wicked in it self or consequences the conscientious believer of the point of Roman Infallibility must neither see the one nor the other But renounce all the evidence of his reason and if occasion be as there is sometimes of his senses too For what evidence can reasonably be attended to that bears a testimony against that which is infallible This then must be a ready method to change the nature of good and evil and the eternal Law instamp'd upon our minds if the mutation proceeds from the Roman Chair Nay the nature of things need not be changed if the Pope please to change their names Men may borrow then and never pay if he pleases to cancell the debt Ruining families and overturning Kingdoms will become noble and a glorious exploit Nay religious acts when he is at leisure to adopt them into the number Burning Cities and murdering Princes shall be accounted means of propagating the Gospel if he please once to determine that we may do evil that good may come of it And blowing up the Estates of Kingdoms is presently holy if he will but sanctifie the Powder and Canonize the man that has the courage to attempt it So powerful is this Doctrine of Roman Infallibility that it can change the Devil into an Angel of Light And let the Pope himself be never so wicked his determinations are all true and good and he may remain his Holiness still He may subvert by degrees or all at once the whole Doctrine of Christianity though from thence he receives his pretensions of authority if he pleases to declare it a Fable when it shall no longer comport with his advantage Nay he has already so blended it with the Religion of the Jews and practice of the Heathens that Christianity is so buried in an heap of rubbish that 't is an hard matter to gather it up out of such a great confusion of ruines The substance is lost in the midst of Ceremony internal devotion is interrupted by a pompous Scene of Pageantry and Shew and yet the evidence of our senses must be rejected in the Doctrine which they so much applaud in practice And yet Fourthly Notwithstanding all the Roman pretences to Infallibility If there are any promises made of it they do as well concern other Churches as themselves For if these promises were made to the Apostles in general as is very plain from the circumstances of their delivery if they were not terminated in them but reached also the whole succession of those by vertue of whom Christs promise was made good of being with the Apostles alwayes to the end of the world Then either
Society much more in such a one as is purely Christian that we may be regular and uniform in our practice and that there may be no divisions among us And that the common Acts which we are to join in as a Body or Society of Christian men may not be disturbed by particular members withdrawing from them or rendered indecent or invalid by noise or confusion But yet there is no obligation upon any man to resign either his sense or reason in any point of which he is a capable Judge But only to captivate it to the obedience of faith in such points as are apparently revealed by God though the points themselves may be above the determination of the faculties of men And therefore no Authority can oblige us to contradict the Scriptures in their standing Laws of Faith and Manners Because these ought to be a Law both to our Governours and our selves antecedently to the Laws and Canons of men Hence is it that we reject the pretences of aspiring men to any absolute and compleat infallibility by virtue of any promise supposed to be made to the Successors of the Sacred Apostles Because there is no such promise made to any but the Apostles and the first Writers and Publishers of the Christian Religion whose Writings are to be our standing Rules in all things absolutely necessary to Salvation Nay the end and design of the first Divine and infallible guidance was only to introduce a new Law superstructed upon the Old Law of Nature and to free Religion from the corrupt glosses and customs of men who abusing their Authority had falsly imposed things on others To obliterate the old Ceremonial injunctions prescribed to the Jews To draw the Gentiles from their Heathen Idolatry and to erect the Christian Church among men that all Nations might flock to it be sheltered in one Fold being redeemed from the power of the destroyer and feed together under the Government and conduct of Jesus Christ the great Pastor and Bishop of our souls Hence was it that our Saviour promised the immediate and infallible guidance of the Spirit to his Apostles that being before of meaner capacities they might be able to understand his Laws so well as to publish them to the World as the standing Rules to all future Generations But this rule being once compleated by the informations which our Saviour gave to his Apostles whilst he was with them And by the continued inspirations and assistances which they received from the holy Spirit after his Ascension into Heaven to explain some things and bring others to their remembrance and to enable them to preach the Gospel to the World and to publish the Doctrines and Rules of it in Writing to be the standing Law of Religion to which all future ages might have recourse for guidance both in Faith and Manners When this Law was fully and compleatly written which was to be the great and only Rule of mens Religion there was no need of a standing infallibility to interpret what was so fairly written that in things absolutely necessary to Salvation none but Ideots can possibly be mistaken and none but Knaves will endeavour to mislead them For there is no man who has humility enough to use the help of the learned in Religion and grace enough to implore the ordinary assistances of the Divine Spirit which God gives to those that ask him but if he endeavours with sincerity to live according to what he already knows and faithfully and honestly applies his rational faculties to the diligent search of Divine truth he shall certainly attain such degrees and advancements of knowledge as shall be sufficient to make him wise unto Salvation if he does not too much strive to be wise above what is written And if after all this he chance to fall into any error through the naked infirmities of human nature it shall be such as will be consistent with the foundation nor will it be so severely laid to his charge as to be the cause of condemning him hereafter when it was not in his own power to help it The Scriptures certainly were first designed to be the Rule of Faith and Manners And a rule ought to be so plain that all who are to take their measures by it may be able by some means or other to compare their belief and actions with the Rule and also to pass a judgment upon the whole Nay if we reflect upon our own rational powers together with those assistances we are directed to and make use of these when we consider the Scriptures themselves we must of necessity yield this to be true Unless we will be perverse and obstinate in every thing For if we think upon the quality of those persons to whom our Saviour and his Apostles applyed themselves in their usual discourses we shall find that they spake not in their Sermons nor wrote their Epistles only to the Rabbins among the Jews nor only to the Philosophers among the Gentiles Nor were there at the first many Rich or Noble called But the Poor had the Gospel preached to them The Apostles declared their Doctrine freely to the multitude Nay so did our blessed Saviour himself And therefore they must preach it in such language as all might be capable of understanding and receiving it if prejudice did not resist the impression For their design being to plant Christianity in the World to make Proselytes to the Kingdom of Heaven and in the belief and practice of this Religion to bring the lapsed race of men once more to God by disswading them from the error of their wayes and by guiding their feet into the way of peace Why should any think that they delivered the matters of mens future and everlasting concerns and the present Laws to guide them by in so mysterious a manner or such muffled language that the end of all their discourses might be lost by their speaking unintelligibly to the people Now since the souls of men that are not too much hindered by a very bad constitution of their bodies have all the same principles of Reason and every Individual has a proper judgement peculiarly his own and either we understand the languages and schemes of speech in which the Doctrines and Rules of life delivered by Christ and his Apostles were written Or else we receive them faithfully translated especially in necessary Doctrines and rules which the Criticks themselves cannot well torture because they are oftener than once delivered from several pious and learned men who more perfectly and compleatly understood them Why should things therefore that were at first plain to the capacity of the meanest be so obscure to us that we must want a guide who is infallible to direct us almost in all our wayes and what is worst of all he splits us at last against a stone If God has not thought it fit to bridle mankind so as to curb them from becoming sinners but has in this left them to their own
choice that if they will sin it may be their own act and deed Why should we think that he has chained them so fast one to another that they cannot err or wander out of the way unless they break that link which ties them all to an Infallible Chair But alas such is our condition here that we may as well expect to free mankind from the commission of sin as to restrain all men from error Nay there is as great a necessity that the lives of men should be void of the one as there is that they should be free from the other As much reason there is for men to be holy in all manner of conversation as there is for all to be sound in the faith since if we have faith we may have it to our selves but the actions of our lives have an influence upon others Why therefore should there not be an irresistible power set up to restrain men from vice as well as a standing infallibility to keep them from error Since God then who will judge men hereafter for those things which are properly their own has not thought it fitting to set up the one I cannot but suspect that he never designed to fix the other but to leave men to their own faculties to which he has added sufficient assistances to judge and to chuse fairly for themselves And therefore methinks 't is more reasonable to believe that since men cannot pretend to both it would be more modest to pretend to neither especially since we have no authority whatever power any have gained or usurped among us from reason or revelation to advance any among the Race of men to be an infallible Judge in Religion farther than his sentence proceeds according to the Laws of the Gospel And by this I cannot find that he has done any more beyond the faculties we have received as we are men than to give us a Rule sufficient to judge Doctrines by and Laws by which we are to govern our practice together with some superadded means to help our judgments and direct our Opinions by the Authority of Magistrates who are an Ordinance of God by the instructions of his Ministers who are also of Divine institution and the common assistances of his Holy Spirit to guide us into all necessary truths which tend to the promotion of our eternal happiness And so the final success is left to our own liberty and choice either in a refusal or compliance with them Because I cannot believe but that God acts suitable to the nature of human creatures in all his general dispensations to men that so he may in our future state with equal justice inflict punishment or give us a reward according to his promise And indeed to write strictly to be sound in the Faith would not be praise worthy if it were so ordered that we could not err Nor need S. Paul have so carefully exhorted to this if we might have been so easily preserved from all diseases and deviations in Religion by the infallibility of S. Peter and those who plead their Title from him I am sure that an Apostle acquaints the Church of Corinth that there must be also Heresies among them that they who are approved may be made manifest 1 Cor. 11.19 By which he proves and fore-tells matter of fact though he does not signifie Gods approbation but only his permission of them And the reason why he suffered error and division to be introduced among them by the perverseness or curiosity of any was that such as united in the true Faith might brighten and shine forth with the greater glory and like the Sun in the Firmament might triumph over Clouds and darkness There is no foundation therefore to erect the Popish infallibility on nor for any Church to set up such a Tribunal among themselves Having thus as I hope cleared my self from any great and unpardonable miscarriage in this point I shall briefly proceed in reflecting upon some mistakes of others that are false Rules to judge Doctrines and Spirits by Wherein private Enthusiasts are most notoriously guilty These smell Popery at a distance and can hardly promote any design without pretending that it is suddenly to be introduced into the most Protestant and best established Church in the World But they too publickly discover themselves to be Popishly affected who are very apt to spie errors in the Pope and yet so transfer them to themselves and steal them away that they may have the Monopoly of them and retale them to others under new names when they are in the possession of another Master These will not allow the Pope to be infallible but are apt to conclude themselves to be so And thus they fetch Candles from Romes Altars that they may set them up in their own Breasts As if there were no difference betwixt the holy Spirits guiding men into truth and walking by the light of their own fires What either a disease and weakness in their bodies or their minds has made a representation of to their phancies so long till their brooding thoughts have at last produced something which they may justly call their own These things they are apt to think or at least to say are the dictates of the Spirit and accordingly they will adventure to guide themselves and impose their own enjoyed phancies upon other men But if every thing of this nature and mens wild discourses the effect of this were to receive the stamp of Divine Authority and become infallible guides of action So strange a confusion would be made among us and such a monstrous Babel would be erected that Trowels would be call'd for instead of Morter and men would cry out for Bricks before they had gotten Straw to make them Their tongues would be so various and unintelligible that a Teutonick language could never reconcile them nor be able to discover them nor give marks to know the first Builders by when they are dispersed into divers Countries But every mans head would still tilt against another and bring a kind of damnation upon the World The Society of Devils would be more regular than men who must live without God or Beelzebub The births of reason would be deem'd abortive and the fruits of madness would receive the characters of sobriety and discretion The greatest Lunaticks would be most Religious and we should pay the greatest veneration to a Fool. But since things are not come to this pass yet I shall briefly examine a very few false Rules by which some among us satisfie themselves in the tryal of Spirits and guidance of themselves First There are some that build much on what they stile the Return of prayer when they have made a Fast the Prologue to contention and a long Prayer has been the Breakfast when they resolved to dine upon Widows houses yet they have too frequently thought or at least endeavoured to cause others to believe that what has happened after their prayer has been the return from
end of the Mosaick Constitutions and such a compleat System of Divinity as is sufficient to make a man perfect throughly furnished to every good work and thereby to prepare him for that eternal inheritance that fadeth not away And thus I have now considered all the chief parts of what I design and with all faithfulness according to my knowledge discharg'd my self The discourse on such a point has been long but I hope it will not prove unuseful in such times as these in which truth is blended and beset with error Strange Doctrines have insinuated into the minds of men And we are now sailing betwixt Sylla and Charybdis and God knows which may swallow us When truth like pure and clean Wheat is put betwixt two Mill-stones that seem to joyn to grind it in pieces And Religion like our Saviour upon the Cross is almost crucified betwixt two Thieves But blessed be God his Providence is over all his works and through his help we hope for deliverance from all our troubles For vain is the help of man without him CHAP. X. HAving hitherto for the most part treated concerning False Spirits and argued against the pretences to inspiration among Papists and Fanaticks and given some directions by which we may be able to discern what inspiration is true and what false That it may not be objected against the body of this Discourse that I have left neither Soul nor Spirit to animate it but have hinted only some operation of the Divine Spirit and restrained that to the first Age of the Christian Religion as if it were not needful for future Generations to guide men into all truth I shall spend some Sheets to prove That as there were Promises that the Holy Spirit of God should conduct men after our Saviours Ascension so that these Promises were made good by the apparent Descent of the Holy Ghost And to shew in what manner the Sacred Spirit informed the Apostles and the first Publishers of the Christian Doctrines And how he still influences the minds of men in the understanding and receiving them The Wilderness of this World is very thick of Briars and Thorns that scratch and tear the Church of Christ in her passage through it And since the most who profess themselves to be Christians agree in the design and end of their journey Yet because we are apt to fall out by the way and differ about the determination of the paths that lead thither Hence is it that I have hitherto endeavoured to hinder men of good intentions and different judgements from entertaining a delusion by reason of any shortness in their sight that they may not be deceived by their own fancies or the suggestions of others and so miscarry in their greatest concernments and fall short of eternal happiness hereafter And lest we should complain as if we were in this errable state of life left without sufficient means to conduct us to the great end of all our Religion And in the glorifying of God to save our souls I shall now shew some things before hinted more plainly and openly That we are not left without sufficient conduct from the Holy and true Spirit of God But that he was in the World at the first delivery of the Doctrines and Rules of life expressed in the Writings of the New Testament and still continues to influence the minds and actions of men In order to the discharging this that I am now to engage in I shall first prove That the Holy Ghost did come according to the Predictions of the Prophets and the Promise of our Saviour For 1. He came upon our Saviour himself 2. He inspired and comforted his Apostles and the first Planters of the Christian Religion And 3. He still influences the hearts and minds of those that seek and do not resist him First That this Holy Spirit rested upon our Saviour accompanying him throughout the actions of his life none that pretends to the embracement of Christianity can possibly contradict For his Miracles attest this Divine residency and loudly proclaim it to Ages and Generations And if there had not been this irrefragable testimony yet that there was such a Divine impression upon his mind the purity of his Doctrine and the holiness of his life sufficiently attested and that the Divine Spirit inspired and did assist him As his Conception was by the power of the Holy Ghost so did it continually breath upon him through all the periods of his whole life It gave a visible attestation to his Person and Doctrine and witnessed his Commission to the World when at his Baptism it descended in the shape of a Dove and lighted upon him Matth. 3.16 And this was seconded by an audible voice loudly thundering from the very Skies This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased In his life he had the Spirit without measure John 3.34 He was not limited to the same proportions of power and assistance with S. John who preached the Doctrine of Repentance and by this prepared the way for the Messiah Nor with those Prophets of old who were inspired at sundry times and in diverse manners to whom divine and unaccountable impulses were neither constant in their method or continuance But the Holy Spirit accompanied our Saviour throughout the several stages of his life so that he could upon any emergent occasion make discovery of it to others and alwayes knew it to be resident in himself he carried it with him to his Cross and Death to support him in his misery and to cause him to triumph over his temptations and enemies It hovered as it were over his Grave guarding his body with a security beyond the Souldiers power and at last raised him with triumph from the dead Rom. 8.11 and thus baffled the arguments for infidelity Secondly This Spirit promised came also upon the Apostles of our Saviour In the second of the Acts at the beginning It descended with noise and a glorious splendor and came with such a train of solemnity and its appearance was so gay and pompous that it amused Nations and confounded the multitude It shook the great place of their assembly and sate gloriously in the shape of a Cloven Fiery Tongue upon the head of each Apostle giving them at once a character to distinguish them from others and ability to execute that Commission which our blessed Saviour had before given them They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Here was the Prophecy of Joel accomplished that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh when the Holy Ghost thus descended with power in the lap of a Cloud with a rushing wind to blow open the doors of mens hearts that the King of Glory might come in It came with Cloven Fiery Tongues to teach the Apostles to sound forth the Gospel to all the World with a becoming zeal and warm affection The Tongues were Cloven that
they might be sure to divide the Word aright and Glorious like the streams of Fire not only to represent the Majesty and Divinity of the Holy Ghost or to signifie the clearness and perspicuity of the Gospel but to enflame the zeal and warm the devotion of these Apostles Nay they were both Fiery and Cloven that their zeal might not be divorced from knowledge but one might administer to the other and both to him who influenced them with this Spirit This made them at once the admiration and envy of the World This made their Doctrine glorious and triumphant and confirmed it with Miracles beyond the force of malice and contradiction This caused the Church to spring from the Blood of Martyrs made it live in the midst of spight and flourish on the tops of Crosses and Gibbets to shine gloriously in the midst of flames and triumph over death it self though its members were killed all the day long This gave the Apostles the prevision of those things which in our Saviours life they were not able to bear at the same time giving them a prospect of their misery and their comforts too This brought to their remembrance what their Master had before taught them and inspired them to the instruction of others that they might build the Christian Church upon that Corner-Stone which though rejected of men was in it self elect and precious Thirdly The Holy Spirit came also upon the hearts of believers The Samaritans that believed received the Holy Ghost Acts 8.17 and whilst S. Peter was preaching occasion'd by the conversion of Cornelius the Holy Ghost fell on those that heard him Acts 10.44 And though as to those glorious effects of that power which at first was frequent in working Miracles and inspiring men to speak divers languages for the proof and early propagation of the Gospel it now withdraws its force and operation yet it still continues that necessary influence which impresses the minds of devout men and assists them in the performance of their duty and arms them with patience and resolution This Doctrine of the Spirits working upon the minds of men is too frequently contradicted even by such as seem to want the assistance of some strength superiour to their own whilst to avoid one Rock they run upon another To escape that Enthusiasm which has too much disturb'd the World and led men into darkness and error they reject the conduct of Gods Holy Spirit when he would lead them into the way of truth Men are so cautious lest they should infringe the uncontroulable liberty of their own wills that they intrench upon the Divine Providence and endeavour to bind their God in chains that he may sit fast in Heaven to very little purpose If there were no such thing as a Divine influence and benediction from above to what purpose would our prayers be Why should we petition for those things which we are assured we shall never receive Or how can any pray in faith for what they believe will never come We mock our Maker to his very face when we say Turn thou us O good Lord and so shall we be turned if God has no hand in the conversion of a sinner and it would be prophane and ridiculous to pray for the being or increase of grace if God did not influence our minds Nay he that rejects this principle boldly pleads the cause of Epicurus against Christ and the Philosophy of an Heathen countermands the Divinity of a Christian For how can God rule the world exercise his Empire over the Powers of the Earth how can he controll the purposes of men and rebuke their actions when they contradict the counsels of his Will and the designs of his Providence if he does not immediately influence their wills as well as propose objects to their senses I know we are too apt to disbelieve those things which we do not fully understand and to expunge that out of our Creed which is not plainly evident to our reason But can it appear to be just and equal to reject a Being because we understand not the manner of its existence Or to deny such effects as we see because we have not a view of the Cause which is invisible If so then farewel the sublimest Articles of the Christian Faith And not only so but the first Principle of all Religion the Being of a God which no mortal eye ever saw nor can a finite Being frame a compleat Idea of him Shall I deny the Creation of the World because I know not the manner of its Makers operation when he sent forth his Fiat Nor how so rare a Systeme of things could be produced out of nothing pre-existent Must I reject Spirits because I cannot see them or all the operations of immaterial Beings upon the corporeal substances of this World because motion amongst bodies is made by contact and I cannot apprehend how a Spirit can work upon a body when none but bodies can touch one another Who can tell how our souls work upon our bodies And yet none is so senceless as to deny it Nay who can describe the manner of our souls union to our bodies And yet no man will refuse to own the thing or will any one deny the parts of bodies to be united to each other because the term of their union was never yet so fully resolved as to baffle all objections to the contrary Why should we then doubt of the holy Spirits influencing the minds of men because the manner of operation is intricate and inexplicable When we find it by the independence of our thoughts and those good suggestions crowded into the midst of some evil contrivances where no other reason can be given of them but that they are injected from above that we may fully convince our selves by our own experience that God works by his Spirit and concurs with the motions of rational beings when they incline to comply with his operations The wind bloweth where it listeth sayes our Saviour and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit John 3.8 We all believe that the wind blows when it becomes obvious to our senses And yet the causes of these different winds and the reason of this swift motion of the Air have puzled the wisest and most inquisitive Philosophers God is therefore said by the Prophet to bring the winds out of his treasures Jer. 51.16 And in the Book of Job we find that they break out of the chamber and secret places So we discern the fruits and effects of the Spirit though we cannot account for the manner of producing them And therefore 't is not unreasonable to believe the influence of Gods Spirit upon the minds of men For 1. 'T is possible 2. Necessary 3. From the Scripture infallibility certain First The operation of the Holy Ghost upon the souls of men is possible Our Saviour to rebuke the
it might by their means be in its purity free from mixture delivered to all the succeeding generations of mankind And now by the way what a slender plea have any Enthusiasts of this age for any new revelations of Doctrine beyond what Christ preached to the World Since the Holy Ghost himself was never promised to the very Apostles to any such end and purpose For it cannot with any reason be supposed but that Christ whilst he was preaching in the world delivered a compleat Body of his Doctrine And had he not whatever becomes of a jus divinum for the government of the Church He had certainly been less careful than Moses And yet the Author to the Hebrews says He was faithful to him that made or appointed him as also Moses was faithful in all his house Heb. 3.2 But not to endeavour to work Miracles and restore sight to such as are resolved to be still blind and to shut their eyes against the light of the Sun because it will discover that their deeds are evil when darkness does at once as well increase as inspire wilfulness or melancholy To leave also any farther explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Which I have hinted to you as well to mind you of the solemnity of a necessary Festival of our Church as to cause men to adore what they cannot understand to admire that with which they cannot be familiar to praise what they cannot comprehend and to believe that Mystery which is plainly revealed Though they cannot unriddle the thing it self To come more closely therefore to the business I have in hand The Holy Ghost promised is said to be the Spirit of truth And this not only 1. Because he is Spiritus verax as Slichtingius would have it to comport with his endeared notion of afflatus divinus Nor only is he a true Spirit either in original or operation in opposition to what is gross and sensual Nor 2. because he truly and really proceeds from the Father And consequently has Authority enough to produce a faith in us which must be Divine Nor 3. because being in unity with that Father and Son from whom he does proceed he must be truth it self as S. John stiles him 1. Epist 5. Chap. 6. and consequently cannot be guilty of a falshood unless we suppose that God may lie which the Apostle assures us is impossible Heb. 6.18 And reason also concludes such a Being to be void of this to whom we ascribe all possible perfection But Lastly he is called a Spirit of truth in relation to his Office and Employment Because he guides others into truth Though from the precedent acceptations and account given of his appellation we may reasonably infer his capacity to instruct and guide others into all truth And that the Apostles who were so miraculously guided delivered nothing to be the rule of mens lives but what was true and came from God and therefore what they delivered is to be both believed and obeyed And thus I am come to the last and principal particular that I aim at in this Part of my Discourse in which is contained the Office of the Holy Ghost in this particular and the substance of this promise viz. He will guide you into all truth Now this Conduct of the Spirit of truth must be considered two wayes 1. As it related to the Apostles and first Disciples of our blessed Saviour 2. As it concerns the whole Church of Christ that is or shall be Militant in this World First Let us consider the holy Spirit of God as influencing and directing the Apostles and first planters of Christianity to whom this promise was principally made And as it did concern all so was it promised to all to guide them into all those truths that compleated the Articles of the Christian Faith or were to be left as standing directions for the lives and actions of those who should embrace this Religion He does not call S. Peter out and make this promise of infallibility to him excluding all the rest from this advantage Nor does he here accost him in the name of the other Apostles as he does in that other Text on which the Pope superstructs his Supremacy We find indeed S. Thomas S. Philip and S. Jude interrupting his discourse by proposing questions for him to explain But the last time he spake to Peter we find him at once rebuking his confidence and fore-telling his sin Nay a crime so great as to deny him John 13.38 And therefore all the rest of his intervenient discourse can concern him no more than it did his Brethren And 't is well if at present it did as much which if others would be contented with we might easily grant it and must do so if we would not prove his Epistles to want an inspiration from above This promise then concerning the Apostles and primitive planters of the Christian Doctrine so far as it was useful to their extraordinary conduct we must examine and enquire what assistance the Spirit gave them to guide them into all truth And this he did in five particulars First By an improvement of their understandings Ordering and directing the Ideas of their minds that they might be able to frame adequate conceptions of the truths which they were to deliver to the World And as he that created the eye can see and he that formed the ear can hear So he that made the Soul it self and endued it with all its faculties and powers must needs be able to impress the understanding with any notions he is pleased to infuse by the powerful operations of his Holy Spirit Now that he did exert such an influence had we no testimony from the Scriptures themselves will easily appear to any sober and considerate inquirer that shall compare the education and condition of the Apostles with those admirable Doctrines which they delivered unto the world Though S. Paul was bred at the feet of Gamaliel yet his learned Education made him but the greater persecutor of the Christians and more prejudiced against the Doctrine of our Saviour 'Till he was converted by a Miracle and a light had first dazled his eyes and struck him blind whilst a greater did illuminate his understanding and by its brighter glory darken and blot out those prejudicate notions that seemed before to irradiate his mind Though S. Luke was born and bred in an University the City of Antioch the Metropolis of Syria a place furnished with Schools of literature Though he had applied himself to the study of Physick to which Philosophy was a necessary preparative Though be had studied in the Schools of Greece and Egypt and seasoned his mind with learned accomplishments so far improving the abilities of his nature And though to all this he was a Jewish Proselyte and so far prepared for the Kingdom of God Yet all this signified but little and would certainly have opposed Christianity with the greater strength and more subtilty had he not been first
argue some superiour operation And we must attribute them to God or the Devil Accordingly have men used to difference them as they tend to a good or a bad design Hence we find in the Old Testament two characters of a false Prophet and consequently as many of a true as I have hinted immediately before 1 If the sign or wonder that he gives for confirmation of what he pretends in its design destroys natural Religion i. e. what proceeds from the common reason of men For if there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and the sign or wonder come to pass which he gives thee If this be wrought to draw men from the Worship of the only one God to pay Divine homage to a false one or to many The sign was permitted only to prove them And such a Prophet was not only to be accounted false But to be put to death for his villany and imposture Deut. 13. at the begining 2. When the Prophecy was not true and the thing foretold followed not 't was a sign that the Prophecy was bold and presumptuous and what he that is a God of truth never commissioned the Prophet to deliver Deut. 18.22 When signs therefore and wonders were really effected that tended to the advancement of Religion establishing what was written in mens hearts and destroying all that God had forbidden and fixing nothing contradictory to what had been confirmed to the Jews but what did prefigure this new method and at such a particular period of the World was predicted that it should be destroyed They must needs confirm the truth which those men delivered who had sufficient power and authority to work them Miracles were things rationally acknowledged to be sufficient signs of the Divine Commission of those who were permitted to work them when they carried especially such characters of a Divine Power in their nature or in their frequency and continuation as no Devil could be supposed to have granted to him Nor any man could possibly effect to do mischief in the World Thus when Moses delivered the Law his Speech was followed with Thunderings and Lightnings and the noise of the Trumpet and the smoaking of the Mountain Deut. 20.18 Which sufficiently confirmed the Divinity of the Moral and prepared the people for an obedient reception of the Judicial and Ceremonial Law And thus was it also at the delivery of the Gospel When S. John the Baptist sent two of his Disciples unto Christ to know whether he were the true Messiah that was to give Laws unto the World Our Saviour returns this answer Tell John what things ye have seen and heard how that the blind see the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised Luke 7.22 These Miracles so full of goodness and Divine influence were a sufficient attestation of his Doctrine Hence he makes the same reply also to the Jews when they proposed the same question The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me John 10.25 And therefore sayes he of the same persons If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had had no sin If I had not done Miracles far beyond Moses and the Prophets whom yet upon the authority of what these did they believe they might reasonably have pleaded their Law against me Which then had been bless'd with as noble an establishment as what I now pretend to deliver But now that I do such works which no man ever yet did before me they have no cloke at all for their sin nor any excuse for their unbelief John 15.24 Now as Miracles argued the truth and Authority of our Saviours Doctrine So they led his Disciples into the same truth For from those Miracles which they saw him do in confirmation of his Doctrine they might reasonably be induced to believe what he delivered to them and when the power was yet continued to themselves they might well inferr that they were still guided into the truth Since the Holy Ghost thus sealed it to themselves and others and they had so powerful and Divine a testimony to what they apprehended and delivered Thus when they had received that Commission from our Saviour to go into the world and to preach the Gospel to every creature They went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following Mark 16.20 The same is attested by the Authour to the Hebrews that God bare the Apostles witness with signs and wonders and divers miracles and distributions of the Holy Ghost according to his will Heb. 2.4 This is the testimony he gave unto the truth by the Miracles which were wrought by those who published and owned the Doctrine of our Saviour evidenceing its Divinity to themselves and others For we say the Apostles are witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him Acts 5.32 Lastly The Holy Spirit guided the Apostles and Primitive Disciples into all truths of the Gospel by an extraordinary support in the midst of great and raging persecutions Both Scripture and Ecclesiastical History informs us what trials and conflicts these had for the profession of their Faith and a firm adhesion to the Christian Religion Their whole lives were a continued tragedy which did not end but in blood and death The state of the Church was such in those dayes that All that would live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution 2 Tim. 3.12 Nothing but cruelties from their severe Adversaries attended the profession and publication of the Gospel Which was the principal foundation of that Argument of S. Paul to prove the hopes and certainty of the Resurrection If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 Hence the Apostle argues the Hebrews to patience and courage in the midst of sufferings from the reflections upon what they had already overcome That they might not by a future cowardize lose the reward of their former adventures Call to mind sayes he the former dayes in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions By having their Estates made a prey to their enemies by being made a gazing stock to the world by bearing reproaches and tortures themselves and being companions to those who were so used Heb. 10.32 They gat their bread with the peril of their lives As the expression is Lament 5.9 And for the sake of Christ they were killed all the day long and no more accounted of than as innocent sheep appointed to the slaughter As S. Paul applies that of the Psalmist Rom. 8.36 And if we view the ends of their lives we shall find nature alwayes anticipated and they snatched away by a violent fate still swimming to Heaven in their blood One is crucified another beheaded a third is stoned a fourth has his brains beat out with a Club Another
is hanged by the neck against a Pillar after whips and scourges had made a Prologue to the Tragedy One is flead alive another thrust through with a Spear and a third dragg'd about the craggy part of a street till his flesh was torn off and horrid pains compell'd him to expire It would be endless to account for the dismal tortures which the Apostles and Primitive Disciples endured their whole age being full of clouds and storms And the release from one torment was but the entrance upon another They daily went in danger of their lives which were indeed but continued deaths and repeated tragedies Now what a wonderful confirmation must this add to their own faith as well as seal its truth to posterity that they should have such multiplied tortures as anxious and cruel as the malice of enraged Adversaries could invent and execute and yet would not accept deliverance if they must purchase it with the denial of their Faith They must needs be animated to the belief of those truths in the profession of which they were so encouraged by a Divine power and the comforts of the Holy Ghost that they suffered torments beyond their own strength to endure Nor did the rage and persecution of their Adversaries overcome them Especially when we shall consider too that they could smile in the midst of flames and look upon their own blood with joy When they could account Martyrdom a Crown and such deaths as were most painful and cruel they could travel through as the nearest passage to their eternal reward Which whilst they viewed in a steady and well fixed contemplation they were able to conclude their afflictions to be light and to endure but for a moment And that the future reward overballanced them both in weight and duration They could glory in what the justice and custome of the world accounted shame and rejoice that they were deemed worthy to suffer for it Acts 5.41 They were alwayes dying and yet lived were able to account tortures chastisements and could still rejoyce in the midst of sorrows 2 Cor. 6. They could approve themselves the Ministers of God in patience in afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments and that black Catalogue which S. Paul has recorded to posterity It must certainly convince both themselves and others that the hand of God did yet support them and that the Doctrine was true which they delivered for which they were miraculously prepared and now strengthened in their sufferings for it by the comforts and assistance of the Holy Ghost They knew themselves to be a company of rude and illiterate men or at least some of them were not polished either by art or Education for converse with the learned Rabbies amongst the Jews or the subtil Philosophers amongst the Gentiles and yet they baffled and could silence both had not their force reached farther than their argument And therefore sayes S. Paul where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 1.20 S. Stephen who was but a Deacon to the Apostles was yet so full of faith and so endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost that he did not only amaze the people with the greatness of his Miracles but when many disputants were rang'd against him he did not only smartly encounter but overcame them too For they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake Acts 6.10 They were fain to leave their reasoning and consult their subtilty and had no way to stop his mouth but by a shower of stones that took away his breath What could such men as these have done when they were brought before the Council of the Jews or Tribunals of the Romans Where all the subtle quirks of Law and all the inventions that malice could contrive should be used to entangle their innocence by craft had not the Holy Ghost assisted them in making their defence loosened their tongues and informed their understandings This was what was promised them before and now as certainly and fully accomplished For when our Saviour sent forth his twelve Apostles and told them how they should acouter themselves what were the contents of their Commission and how they should demean themselves He acquaints them also what dangers they were likely to encounter with They were sent forth as Sheep in the midst of Wolves Every one would endeavour to devour them And therefore they should be scourged in the Synagogues and be brought before Kings and Governours upon their Masters account But sayes he When they shall deliver you up let it not trouble you that ye are not well skill'd in the Law where subtilty may cause a Criminal to escape when ignorance may draw the innocent into punishment For it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you Matth. 10.19 Now men that had such extraordinary confirmations of their Apostleship and found these assistances from the Holy Ghost must needs be fully convinced of those things that were imprinted on their understandings and would attest their Divine authority unto others to whom they were obliged to declare and publish them when they themselves were so fully persuaded as not only to suffer all the inconveniencies of this life that could be brought upon them by the subtilty of the Politicians of the World but all the tortures and cruel deaths which malice was able to inflict And thus did the Holy Spirit of truth guide the Apostles into all truth But yet notwithstanding all this It must be considered that though the Apostles and primitive Disciples of our Saviour had thus the conduct of the holy Spirit Yet it was never intended to guide them into all truths of all kinds For this were to extend a promise beyond what was ever designed by the Holy Ghost Truth is a word of a large interpretation it runs through all Arts and Sciences and is as comprehensive as all the objects and understandings of men For whereever there is a conformity betwixt the object and a rightly prepared intellect there is truth Nay there is too often truth in that which we do not understand The Spirit therefore did not design in his sacred and infallible conduct to extend the capacities of the sacred Apostles to an infinite comprehension so as to cause them to know omne scibile every thing that is capable to be known For that were not only to make a new creation but to put them beyond the capacity of Creatures Nay though he is Omnipotent to go beyond his own power in making Beings as infinite as Himself Nor did the Spirit in the guidance of the Apostles into all truth intend their information in the truths of all the Arts and Sciences extant in the World He did not design to instruct them in the art of Syllogism Nor
that they should read natural Philosophy to the World He did not intend to teach them to call the Stars by their names or that they should by virtue of his instruction know their several motions distances or altitudes He did not intend Aphorisms in Physick Or to give to them Geometrical proportions Nor to breed them curious and expert Artificers though some of these have made themselves Apostles Nor to teach them the numbers of Arithmetick Or the Astrological signatures of things or times and seasons For these were not for them to know because the Father had put them into his own power Acts 1.7 And therefore as they were never so proud and bold so neither were they so unlucky as the Pope who must needs condemn a point in Geography and the tenet of Antipodes for a destroying Heresie So little did he know the universal Empire he pretended to that he did not understand the extent of it nor the Figure or Bounds or Inhabitants of that Earth over which he yet pretended an Authority The Holy Ghost therefore guided the Apostles into those truths only in Divinity which included the full Doctrine of the Gospel which our Saviour delivered that they might be able to preach them to the present age and commit them to writing for the use of all succeeding Generations The Spirit was not given to them to make them great Historians or Philosophers but Christians and to capacitate them to be the planters and founders of Churches not the posts and standards of dispute Or to be the leaders of Sects and Factions in Philosophy They were to erect a Pillar of truth setled upon a firm foundation Christ himself supporting the Building and this neither for Pasquins or Poetry but for a Rule and directory of standing Religion and Devotion CHAP. XII THE souls of men whilst hous'd in these bodies of clay are darkned and obscured notwithstanding all the windows of sense to let in the light of external objects to an intercourse with the mind For supposing our senses could alwayes make true and exact representations to our souls which yet we know are often deceived yet these could only convey such things as are the proper objects of the souls of men Those of an higher and more exalted nature that are not capable of an image must needs escape the perception of our outward senses and if reason it self when most disentangled from those fetters which our senses too often impose should endeavour to make propositions and inferences about the essences of those things whose spiritual natures evade our sense our notions could not be adequate to the things themselves nor could we fully comprehend what is infinite nor have a positive Idea of spiritual Beings though reason might conclude their existence Hence is it that all our definitions and descriptions of these are therefore imperfect because negative and though we may conclude what they are not we never could by humane power yet resolve compleatly what they are which makes Divine Revelation necessary and that we should have faith beyond our reason though we never believe without reason to assure us of the authority we confide in This being therefore our state and condition in this World we must as well praise Gods Goodness as admire his Power for sending us that Spirit of Truth which guides us into all truth that is necessary to conduct us to eternal happiness Now this Promise I told you I would consider two wayes 1. As it related to the Apostles and first Disciples of our Lord and Saviour 2. As it concerns the whole Church of Christ that is or shall be militant on the earth The first of these is already dispatched And therefore I now proceed to the second To view the Promise of the Spirits guidance as it concerns the Church throughout the several Ages and Periods of the Christian World I have already proved the divine influence on the minds of men though its immediate operation is too difficult to be explained as to the manner of its energy and work and that we have no reason to disbelieve the thing for that we know not the manner of its operation What therefore is now to be discoursed supposing the truth of its influence in general and that extraordinary assistance he gave unto the Apostles is How the Holy Spirit of God possesses the minds of those with truth who make themselves by holy dispositions and a due exercise of their rational faculties capable to receive it and what truths those are that the Spirit of God guides men into As to the first supposing that which has been already proved That the Apostles were inspired from above to receive a full revelation of those truths by opening their understandings and quickning their memories that concern the salvation of mankind and that they committed them to writing faithfully recording them for the use of posterity and that these are to be standing rules for all ages and generations to come I cannot find any other method the Spirit has used or does continue to guide the ages succeeding the Apostles into all truth but what is contained in these three particulars 1. By those Scriptures which he inspired the Apostles to publish and deliver 2. By inclining the hearts of some men to continue that Ministry which must endure to the end of the world And 3. By confirming those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external ministration by an internal work upon the understanding will and affections of those who are inclinable in the day of his power First then The Spirit of truth guides us into all truth by those Scriptures Christ and his Apostles delivered to be the standing rules for posterity These are those lively Characters in which we may read the Nature of God and the directions of our lives These are such an infallible rule of truth that they certainly guide those into it who soberly and conscientiously apprehend and follow them They convey peace of conscience here which is a thing valuable above Crowns and Kingdoms and hereafter give us such possessions as infinitely transcend the power of our thoughts and exceed all humane expectations These Holy Scriptures contain such a compleat body of Doctrine that they need not any additions to be made to them Let their own sense be but sufficiently explained and if they are permitted to speak their own mind they will neither want Apocrypha nor Traditions nor any new Revelation neither to render them a compleat System of Divinity Mens own Doctrines and not Christs want Traditions to confirm them and 't is the pride and covetousness of a Sect of men that would make all Christians groan with their burden and void Gods Word with their own pretensions however they are varnished with the plausible Epithets of ancient and Apostolical that make such additions to the Scriptures But the Holy Scriptures which were at first given by inspiration of God are able of themselves
when rightly understood to make the man of God perfect And if they are able to furnish the Minister certainly they are sufficient to instruct the people Nay to make them throughly furnished to all good works and are able to make them wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. Hence is it that these are so far from being taken from the adult that they are to be exposed to Childrens Learning Or else it would not have been Timothy's commendation that from a child he had known the Scriptures And if such Elogiums were made in the honour of the Old Testament much more praises must be given to the New which shews us a way to be justified from those things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 and brings life and immortality to light 2 Tim. 1.10 The Doctrines in the Gospel preached by Christ and enlarged upon by the Apostles through the powerful inspiration of the Holy Spirit are sufficient accompanied with those means appointed for their delivery and the ordinary assistances given to those that attend them with humility to guide men into all those truths requisite to be known in relation to their eternal welfare And therefore blessed are they sayes our Saviour that hear the word of God and keep it Luke 11.28 From hence draw we the water of life and these are the fresh springs of salvation at which mankind may satisfie themselves Here have we directions to demean our selves in all our various conditions in the World that we may endure both the Sun-shine and the Storms that prosperity may neither swell nor adversity consume us S. Paul's advice therefore to Timothy must be attended by us also To continue in the things which we have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom we have learned them and that because evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived 2 Tim. 3.13 14. Let the infallible men of mystical and unintelligible demonstration endeavour to prove what they cannot defend but by their old argument of force and fire Let them blaspheme the Holy Ghost in the Apostles whilst yet they pretend to its inspiration themselves Let those argue against the Scriptures being a Rule when rightly understood that can defend their Doctrine only by a counterfeit tradition Having no greater argument against the sufficiency of the Scripture but because it consumes their Hay and Stubble And that they can there neither fetch Wood to burn us nor Stones to destroy us But let us who are of the day be sober and be wise to that which is good And then as God formerly subjected Sathan to the seed of the Woman for that by the Serpent he deceived their simplicity and stain'd their innocence so though now he endeavours by subtile impostors to beguile soft and ignorant minds he shall not alwayes triumph in his villany But the God of peace shall bruise him under our feet shortly Rom. 16.20 The Providence of God is a great deep the reason of man is not able to fathom it And though he may for the punishment of our sins the tryal of our vertue or to make our adversaries ripe for destruction permit some to erect their Plumes and lead captive unwary souls in triumph yet though he that standeth must take heed lest he fall let us according to S. Paul's advice hold fast the form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 and contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Jude ver 3. and withdraw from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after what has been delivered 2 Thess 3.6 And if we walk according to this rule peace shall be upon us and mercy Gal. 6.16 We need not then be afraid of the winds and storms nor yet of him that kills the body if we truly fear him that can destroy the soul Which none but God himself can do For sayes our Saviour whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them is like a wise man who built his house upon a rock and though the rain descend the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon that house it falls not Matth. 7.24 The God of truth having now given us a standing rule by the glorious inspiration of his Holy Spirit expects that it should be the general measure of our actions And as no sign would be given of our Saviours death and resurrection besides that of the Prophet Jonas so no rule can be expected by us besides the Gospel to the universal period and general Conflagration Hence is it that S. Paul puts all under the severest curse that pervert this or preach another Gospel And he does not only anathematize men but passes the same sentence upon Angels if at any time they should prove so bold and impious Nay he doubles the curse to testifie his faith and proclaim the irrepealable duration of the Gospel But though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you let him be accursed Gal. 1.8 What was indited by the inspiration of the Spirit is certainly true and we may confide in it What is added by the wit of men may possibly be false and therefore it is not to be be looked upon as infallible any farther than it can be proved either directly or by consequence from the Scriptures themselves This is the rule which the ancient Fathers disputed against the Hereticks by and this must be the measure and rule of our faith it being so full and plain that no new Article must be added to our Creed nor any other rules of duty contradictory to these all necessary things being so easie that any person of any ordinary capacity using the methods of Gods own institution may soon arrive at knowledge enough to save him if his will does not rebell against his understanding and he faithfully practises what he knows Nor could the end of Gods Law ever be obtained or men be left inexcusable if it were so obscure that it could not unriddle it self For the end of all Laws being the obedience of those that are bound by them How can men obey that which they cannot by any means understand And if it cannot by the ordinary helps of the learned in it interpret it self there must then be a new inspiration to interpret what was inspired before And then there will be two inspirations where one would have served Because he that can interpret a Law plainly to the World might have made it plain at its first delivery Unless perchance we may think it wiser to do any thing with toil and pains which may be performed with ease and pleasure 'T is true indeed that many men by ignorance or wilfulness when they forsake the Guides of Gods appointment heaping Teachers to themselves having itching ears may be and are led into divers errors under the specious pretence of truth And thus those amongst the Galatians who in those early dayes
troubled the Church perverted the Gospel of Christ Gal. 1.7 But this is no argument against the sufficiency or plainness of the Scripture in things necessary to our eternal salvation For they are usually more obscure Texts that are to exercise the more Learned and Critical part of men upon which Heresies are founded And this too frequently is occasioned by men that wrack and torture their understanstandings to conceive such things as are not here perfectly to be known Or if they are to be fathomed by other men yet are above the reach of those who thus ignorantly and erroneously apprehend them Thus S. Peter speaking of S. Paul's Epistles sayes that in them there are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction 2 Pet. 3.16 But another sort there are too that have too much subtilty to be accounted ignorant Who are some of he perverse disputers of the world that first suit their Tenets to their interest and then violently press the Scriptures to prove what they were never intended for We should never else have heard This is my Body brought to prove that absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation Nor Feed my Sheep to prove the Popes Supremacy Nor He will guide you into all truth to prove his Infallibility Nor He shall be saved yet so as by fire to prove a Purgatory When all these Texts are capable of fairer and more plain interpretations to another and more coherent sense But that the ambition of some men would entitle themselves to the government of the rest And then frame others belief to render them tame for such a tyranny and to be subject to whatsoever they will impose when all this while they suit the Articles of the Churches Faith to the encrease of their own Wealth the better to support their Pride and Usurpation Nay on the other side we have those amongst our selves who call the Pope names and yet embrace his Doctrine And tie that infallibility which they rob the Roman Chair of to their own single and Enthusiastick determinations Who by misunderstanding some Texts of Scripture direct themselves by a private impulse and then muster these to defend it But the Flower is not the less fragrant for that the Spider thence will suck for poison Nor does the Scripture cease to be a safe and sufficient Rule to those who soberly apprehend and follow it Notwithstanding some may wrest and misapply it Nor does the Spirit at any time contradict it self He having therefore inspired some men to commit a Rule to writing for future Generations to read and understand and put forth a Law that is sufficiently plain and perspicuous And men having reason and understanding enough assisted by the Spirits ordinary directions to guide themselves by the measures of this Rule and Law into all truth He expects now that they should order themselves as they do by all human Laws That is to believe upon the Authority of the Imposer and live proportionably to so great a favour and labour to understand what he has put into their power to know Remembering that of wise Agur Add thou not unto Gods words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Prov. 30.6 The authority God has given to the Governors of his Church empowers them to command or alter circumstantials that all things may be done decently and in order In these we are to obey them that have the rule over us and to submit our selves Heb. 13.17 But no men are authorized to usurp the Throne of God himself To create new Articles of Faith Or impose other primary rules of duty than what they find written in the Scriptures They are only to confirm and explain them For as we must not think of men so neither of Doctrines above what is written Our language and design must be the same with S. Paul To deliver that which we also received 1 Cor. 15.3 So may we be workers together with God And when the world in the wisdom of God that is by the works of God which demonstrate his wisdom knows not God it may please him by the foolishness of preaching i. e. what some men account folly to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 And this leads me to the next particular in which the Holy Spirit of God guides us that are remote from the Apostles Age into all truth which they delivered By inclining the minds of some men to continue that Ministry that must have its succession unto the end of the World And this is the second way of the Spirits conduct That in all Religious Constitutions which have been in the World there has been a separate and appointed Ministry is more notorious than to spend words in the proof of it 'T is too deeply planted in the minds of men and it bears an equal date with the Law of Nature fix'd in us Without this publick Worship cannot have its constant and orderly Being And had not this been established with the constitution of Christianity it would not only have been in a worse condition than any Religion which has possessed the world But than any Trade or Occupation among us to the obtainment of which men must be learners before they become able Workmen Or are permitted to exercise their particular Callings amongst any well ordered and embodied Society The separation therefore of some men from the generality of Christians was first made by our Saviour himself When he called the Apostles and sent forth the seventy Disciples to preach the Gospel unto human creatures And when the time of his departure from the world was come When he was to be received into his Fathers Kingdom in such a triumph as became a Conquerour and one to whom all power was given He delivers his full Commission to his Apostles substituting them in his own stead to rule his Church and to ordain their Successors That like the Tribe of Levi they might be legitimate and by a continued and distinguishable descent they might be perpetuated to the end of the World As my Father sent me sayes Christ so send I you John 20.21 Or as S. Matthew describes it All power is given to me both in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And lo I am with you alway to wit in the exercise of this power by your selves and Successors to the end of the world Matth. 28.18 19 20. These are some of those gifts our Saviour gave unto men when he ascended upon high Ephes 4.8 For he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ This is to endure 'till we all come into the
it was fit for us to know or our frail capacities can receive so that we may accommodate the words of the Psalmist to the Holy Spirit Thou shalt guide us with thy counsel and afterwards receive us to glory Psal 73.24 These are the truths the Holy Ghost still guides us into as far as our frailty is able to comport with his methods and influence He does not now come amongst men to cause them to speak divers Languages or to work Miracles amongst those who have the Records of the Gospel Nor yet to reveal such secrets as the Father has put in his own power and properly belong to God alone He does not help us to search into the Closets and Decrees of Heaven no more than he discovers the Councels of Princes nor does he elevate mens understandings to distract themselves with things that are above them But having given the Law of Life he guides our feet into the way of peace CHAP. XIII HAving thus far accomplished my design in confuting mens false pretensions to inspiration from the Holy Spirit of God upon due examination of others writings and mine own thoughts raised for ought I know to the contrary either by my converses with or observations from other men for I dare not call any thing mine own so as to be any first inventor Having no Common-Place-Book to direct me Or else from some Superiour benediction upon human endeavours which I have attempted in some part to prove and vindicate And to shew in this all that I believe or can at this time explain in any measure unto others That there may be some farther use made of this writing I shall conclude all with a few brief Observations and Inferences from the whole or some parts of this Discourse And First Every man ought to judge for himself in matters or Religion that are proposed to his belief or practice as far as he has abilities and capacity to understand Because S. John exhorts all men to try the Spirits whether they are of God And this will neither seem to be absurd or impossible when we shall consider that we are men endued with rational faculties that we have the use of the Holy Scriptures in which all things are plain that are universally necessary to the Salvation of mankind That we have Guides appointed to help us in the interpretation of what is difficult and the Holy Spirit promised to assist us in all Which God gives to every one who in earnest prayer devoutly asks it And which is present with him in all emergences 'till by a vicious life he strangely grieves him and by an obstinate continuance in the habits of sin he provokes it totally to withdraw from him Were there an human Throne of infallibility erected to which all others might appeal and rest satisfied with the determinations of him that possesses it There would be no occasion of an Apostles direction to try the Spirits But since we are exhorted to prove all things that we may hold fast that which is good And the Scriptures direct us to no such human infallibility but assure us that what is not of faith is sin As it produces the greatest satisfaction to every man to settle his own notions in Religion So it is his duty to examine the Doctrines and Opinions of men propounded to his belief or which are designed to guide his practice before he believes and entertains them Making Gods Word his rule in all things that are plain and evident And taking the assistance of those Guides and Teachers which God has appointed and set over him in those points that are more difficult and obscure And this if done with that humility devout prayer for Gods assistance and true industry which becomes a man in so great a concernment as that of Religion will either find out all truth Or if he remain in any error it will be such as God will never condemn him for Since the most gracious God will never expect from mankind that their apprehension of things should exceed the cacapacity of their reception and what the means of his appointment cannot help them to Nor that either their belief or actions should ever exceed the power of their Beings And those that so studiously and industriously endeavour to give a check to mens reasoning and examination about the Doctrines they propound render their opinions things to be very much suspected And will give us to understand that their deeds are evil when they hate the light And as for that peace among Christians that the pretended infallibility in the Church of Rome or any where else boasts an establishment and continuance of Whilst Protestants are crumbled into Sects and Divisions We may easily reply that they have their Controversies as well as we and parties among them that oppose each other with an equal heat and eagerness in dispute with other mortals and are distinguished by their several denominations Even as the Jesuits difference themselves from all being such sworn Vassals to the Court of Rome that they endeavour to support it to the ruine of the Church Let the Romanists and others therefore first pull the Mote out of their own eyes and then they may the better see to pull the Beam out of anothers But why may not such peace and order as are convenient and perhaps as much as can ever be obtained be preserved among men professing Christianity by the publick Authority checking the disorderly actions of men without imposing setters on their belief Which it is altogether impossible to compel or punish either if men were so wise as to keep it to themselves and not trouble others by discourse I doubt not but it may be done as well as Authority keeps men in a tolerable order in relation to the management of secular affairs though he that administers it is not infallible Nor do all that are Subjects still concur in Opinion with him Preserve therefore your judgement of discretion and use it too that you may not be led like blind men when you have eyes to see and helps to assist them when they wax dimm And then having setled your selves in the true Religion Secondly Let me exhort you to stand fast in it Not to be like waves of the Sea rolling to and fro with every tempest and carried about with every wind of doctrine Not to be pleased with every new appearance in the world because variety in other things different from Religion is so grateful to the generality of men For in such things they may have their choice and not be limited by a superiour power But our option in relation to Principles of Religion must be directed by a superiour rule and guide And having once found out this we must not vary upon new pretensions from what this prescribes to us Lest having left those paths that should direct us we wander about we know not whither Sathan gets great advantages upon unsteady minds And 't is easie to make a new impression
phrensie And then their pretensions grow so big that they become proportionably tall too till they aspire to the storming the Walls of Heaven attempting to blow open the everlasting Gates that they may pry into those things which are lock'd up from the inquiries of men And thus being puff'd and swelled up it proves only to be Tympany and disease when we think we have true conceptions and when our own thoughts have raised our fancies we conclude that the Spirit overshadows us and our obscure opinions or strange propositions raised by the sudden transports of our minds are too often with confidence enough boldly averred to be the immediate dictates of the Holy Ghost Want of true and ingenuous education and thereby the more exact assistances of reason causes many of those who would be accounted more spiritual than other men to think themselves inspired from above when an unusual fear a sudden joy or a powerful disease has brought Convulsions into their Nerves and seised their reason and judgement with a Palsie so that all their notions are jog'd into a confusion and their faculties can neither embrace or pursue their proper objects But by what means soever the thoughts or expectations of such men are lifted to an height waiting for an impulse sighing and groaning for an unusual influence Vain are those hopes where there is no promise and uncertain that rule of determination of things which appears to be fallible and deceitful And yet thus are all the expectations of those who think the Spirit guides them into truth by other means than what I have already shewed you or to any rules and measures of religious actions than what are plainly laid down in the Word of God or thence drawn by a fair and truly Logical deduction If you should be at the trouble to examine a little all the pretended impulses of men their great variety will evince their folly and their opposition to each other their deceit and falshood Is there any Sect pretending to Enthusiasm that does not peremptorily and with the greatest confidence assert the Spirits internal seal to their principles although just opposite to each other and all perhaps contrary to the Scripture This is the great fountain which yet divides into so many streams whose waters all have different tastes according to the chanels in which they run and the variety of soil through which they pass This is made the cause of separation which in it self is still but one This makes men divide from one another and all from that Church to which they should belong proving each others Doctrines erroneous and all still by the same Spirit As if the God of order delighted in division and different Religions like variety of creatures proclaimed Gods Wisdom and his Power When he has now enjoyn'd one faith to the whole World and sent his Son to set up his Banner for all Nations to flock to it Divers Languages indeed were once a character of inspiration from the Holy Ghost but different Creeds were never yet the fruits of him that is but one That truth which the Spirit guides men into can be no other than the plain uniform rules of the Gospel and whoever pretends to any inspiration to deliver a Doctrine different from this blasphemes the Holy Ghost and makes God a lyar whilst he pretends his inward seal publickly to attest an open falshood But if there were such a thing as the Spirits impulse in these ages of Christianity we should have some certain characters by which we might know it as the Prophets and Apostles must be suppos'd to have had and if we make it an argument to convince others we must work Miracles to attest its original The latter none of the Enthusiasts pretend to Or when ever their madness has attempted this testimony no sooner do they dubb themselves by the names of Prophets but they are discovered to be plain Cheats If they pretend a way to evidence to themselves that they are inspired with a divine breath to give them a warrant for doctrine or action not consonant to the Writings of the Apostles it does not only render the Scriptures insufficient but makes God to contradict himself and wounds that Eternal Truth of the Deity into which we ultimately resolve our belief But let us come to the examination of the impulse it self and we shall perceive in the midst of what uncertainties such men must be miserably toss'd who suppose what they deem such to be sufficient warrant for what they then think on and propose to themselves What strange and impious actions have been the consequences of such supposals I need not now relate because they have made such noise and ruines among our selves that they are still fresh among us But to proceed with this supposed impulse or impression upon mens minds by which deserting the Scriptures some Enthusiastical men will take the measures of their doctrines or actions I know not what they mean by it unless it be the heightning our perswasion making our belief of a thing bold and strong and our resolutions to act and maintain it fix'd and zealous And if this be what they make a rule or a character of the Spirits guidance since we find but little difference when we view this supposed operation in persons of various nay opposite principles we must either conclude what all deliver under this pretence to be true or else it is not safe to conduct any The former is too wild a position for any that pretend to sobriety to espouse and therefore the latter must be true Besides every mans reason may sufficiently inform him that our perswasions and determinations of things become as well setled and fix'd and have their various elevations or depressions as well by the strength or weakness of arguments duly weighed and attended to as by any impulse which can be imagined How then shall we be able to know what our reason dictates and what we are confirmed in by strength of argument from what the Holy Spirit now seals by an impulse or impression upon our minds How shall we distinguish betwixt a strong fancy a setled opinion and this pretended inspired Doctrine Nay how can we difference without recurring to the eternal Laws of good and evil which will render this new impulse useless the impressions of the Spirit from a secret temptation and a subtile suggestion from him who is our greatest adversary If we dare adventure to be so Critical as to pretend to new discoveries and such a rare ability to distinguish betwixt the motions which these several impulses make Since there can be but one sort of action in the spirits of a man if the perception be not above reason miraculous the same convulsions and percussions on the Nerves to cause the soul to understand and believe whether it be a truth or falshood that is represented a truth from God or a diabolical delusion How can the rarest and most artificial Enthusiast distinguish betwixt
actions where there is no difference at all For as it matters not whether the object proposed to the Wills embracement be either real or apparent good the same passion is used in the reception so in respect of the understanding also If the object seems to be true it makes the same impression with truth it self If we pretend a difference in the Images represented in the brain which the soul contemplating does according to their beauty or deformity own or reject the objects represented by them since we find still that an error presented under the notion of truth as long as we receive it is as pleasant to us as truth it self there can be no such Idea's supposed of such different aspects that in them we can read good and evil without some more superiour direction For if there were it would be impossible for a man to be deceived that gave himself time to contemplate these Images But if we shall as we must indeed prove the truth of the Spirits impulse from the agreement of the thing it impells us to with the truths revealed in Gods Word then the impulse it self is but a weak direction that must have another more convincing to determine it Nay not the surest confirmation of things that admits a proof beyond it self whilst the Scripture becomes its Judge either to condemn or acquit it If this were not so why should our Saviour give the World such admonitions and caution men against false Christs and false Prophets that should arise and deceive many Matth. 24. but that he foresaw the false pretensions that would be made to inspiration S. John need not otherwise have cautioned us not to believe every Spirit nor exhorted us to try the Spirits whether they are of God but that he knew that many false Prophets were gone out into the world But Lastly Let us consider too that God does not use to make bare his arm and put his power to an immediate work when the thing may be accomplish'd as well by other means which he has appointed to that very end For though this might demonstrate his Power yet it lessens his Wisdom to exert more strength and use more applications to produce an effect which fewer might as well accomplish Nay it would subvert that scheme of causes which his contrivance has already ordered It would both render Gods rules and mans endeavours after the knowledge of the truth useless and ridiculous At least those Scriptures which are already revealed would not be able to make the man of God perfect which is not only contrary to the Apostles affirmation 2 Tim. 3.17 But S. Paul's argument must be inverted and he might justly he ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it would not be the power of God unto salvation whereas he plainly and confidently affirms it to be so Rom. 1.16 Why should any therefore now the Rule is given vainly expect revelations and impulses and extend their belief to a bold presumption deluding themselves with vain hopes since these now are neither promised nor in that manner Enthusiasts wait for them ever intended Let us rest satisfied therefore with those truths already received since no more Divine Rules of life can rationally be expected till the Day of Doom And with Gods benediction and the ordinary concurrences of his holy Spirit upon the Gospel let us frame our lives according to its Precepts and Commands that walking according to these Rules we may at last receive the end of our faith the salvation of our souls These the Holy Ghost has sealed to us not only by inspiring the Sacred Pen-men to an exact delivery but he has confirm'd them also by such Miracles as at once exceed the powers of the creation and surmount the objections of men and Devils Upon this we build a rational belief though some mysteries in our Religion exceed our full and perfect comprehension Other pretensions however back'd with great names being confidently averr'd with boldness and zeal are no other than wild notions and exorbitant fancies Things that if Satan who pants and breathes for our eternal ruine can once perswade us to an embracement of he then presents a deformed Monster for the most beautiful Truth He has then cast a veil upon our minds and leads us blindfold into what errors he pleases He spreads his Nets and entanglements for us and certain he is to catch and ensnare us For who cannot lead the blind into a ditch or bring him upon a Precipice when he thinks himself safe and secure How easie is it for the fallen Spirit that envies men the very hopes of bliss since he himself is in eternal despair to dart into persons who forsake the written Word to attend new impulses and revelations those poisoned arrows that shall drink up their spirits and perswade such to embrace any thing who have no better rule than their own perswasions Listen not then to the fond fancies of any bold and passionate men who making use of their hot constitutions convert their own natural rashness into a seeming zeal pouring forth thick words and thin sense whilst they impudently pretend the Spirits impulse for all their rude and unreasonable notions and give the stamp of Canon to their Doctrines Nor must we yet on the other hand so far make our reason Judge as to destroy our faith but taking the Gospel for our sufficient rule let us use our faculties to explain and apprehend it But by no means let us curtail or extend it beyond what was the design of the imposer 'T is a strange Age in which we live when Religion is almost lost by making too strict an enquiry after it and too much curiosity in our speculations has rendered us almost regardless of our practice We discourse the gravest and most serious points of our holy faith with so much levity and disrespect the indecency of the places in which we hold such Conferences adding to our vanity that we first make our Religion common and then slight it as mean and inconsiderable But whatever the Sons of Darkness do let us who are of the Day be sober and with due reverence and a godly fear receive those impressions of the Spirit which he has made in Sacred Writ so shall we avoid the blasphemies of those who so confidently assert Diabolical suggestions and the black fancies which are the fruits of a corrupted constitution for Divine inspirations For no zeal or mode of delivery can possibly perswade any rational man that duly exercises his own faculties that profound nonsense or unaccountable propositions are deep Divinity Nor that men whose natures are envious and Diabolical can possibly receive instructions from God to promote division raise disturbances or to continue any which have already had their auspicious beginnings and as I hope their full progress among us For that wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without wrangling and