and foretasts of the glory which Christ hath purchased and promised If you know no such thing in your self as this you have resisted the Holy Ghost or Quenched the Spirit And if you would not have him dwell and operate in your heart no wonder if you cannot see him in the holy word And if you would not consent that he Rule your Mind and Life no wonder if you deny him also in that word which he did make to Rule you If you question the Real existence of these several Testimonies of Gods Spirit First Those that were given to Christ and his Apostles I have plainly proved to you in the Treatise were delivered down to the world three waies 1. By the most credible humane Testimony to produce a humane Faith 2. By such a Connexion and such Circumstances of those humane Testimonies as amount to a Natural Infallible Certainty As we have of the Wars in England and that there was such a man as K. Charles K. James c. and that our Laws were made by the King and Parliament that London was burnt that there is such a City c. even to them that see not any of these 3. By new Divine Attestations to these Attestations so that there concurreth First A full humane Faith Secondly A Natural Certainty Thirdly A Divine Faith to the ascertaining us that Christ did die rise ascend work miracles give the Spirit and by it the Apostles wrought the like Secondly And the other two Testimonies still shew themselves They are yet in Being The sacred Gospel is among is and on it the Life Light Love fore-described The Believers sanctified by this Gospel are among us and have within them the Impressed Life Light Love We see it where distance selfishness prejudice or malignity hindereth not shining though as through a Lanthorn and working though imperfectly in others And they that have it may so feel it in themselves as will preserve them against the Cavils of Unbelievers As the Great Creator hath his standing Testimony in the Natural Conscience of mankind which in despight of the Devil shall keep up some Natural Religion in the world And they that have not a written Law are a Law unto themselves shewing that God hath a Law in their hearts So the Gracious Redeemer hath his standing Witness in the sanctified even his holy Spirit the Divine Nature the New Creature the Image of God the Father Son and Spirit dwelling in them by Divine Life Light and Love so as shall keep up a Church of holy ones to Christ in despight of all the powers of Hell even the spirits of Death of Darkness and of Malignity And so much for the Validity of Gods Attestation III. All then that remaineth doubtful or further to be spoken to is What it is that God hath thus attested by the Holy Ghost And First We are sure it is not nothing It is not nothing that all this is done for nor nothing that maketh this change on souls Secondly We are sure it can be no less than the Truth of the Person Office and Doctrine of Christ himself He hath certainly by this proved his own Verity and Veracity for his own Miracles and Resurrection were seals affixed hereunto Thirdly We are sure that the same Gospel spoken by himself was confirmed also when spoken or written by his Disciples Else the same should be sure and not sure Fourthly We are sure that the Apostles Miracles c. confirmed all their Commissioned work I have proved this in my Treatise of the Lords Day Whatever Christ Promised them the Spirit for that he gave them the Spirit for He that findeth his Promise with the Performance may know that it was the Promise which was Performed Therefore our work is to find out that Promise And First We find their Commission Mat. 28. 19 20. Go and Disciple me all Nations Baptizing them into the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have Commanded you And the Promise is Lo I am with you alwaies to the end of the world And Joh. 16. 7 12 13 14 15. It is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Advocate will not come unto you But if I depart I will send him unto you I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all the truth For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that he shall speak and he shall shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you Luk. 24. 49. And behold I send the promise of my Father upon you But tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high so Act. 1. 5. Ye shall be Baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence Verse 8. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem and to all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth John 17. 8. I have given to them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them Verse 17 18. Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth As thou hast sent me into the world so I have also sent them into the world And for their sakes I sanctifie my self that they also might be sanctified through the truth John 14 26. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Adde to these the Texts which mention the Performance of these Promises as John 20. 22. Act. 2. Act. 15. 28. Heb. 2. 3 4. So great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signes and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will 1 Pet 1 12. The things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven Rom. 15. 19 20. Through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about by Illyricum I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ Gal. 3. 2. This onely would I learn of you Received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith By all this it is evident that the Spirit was given them to enable them to understand the Gospel and to preach it to the world to remember all that Christ had taught them to help them to deliver the Covenant of Grace and draw men into it and Baptize them To gather Churches and to teach them to observe all that
all which and much more it appeareth that the Apostles though then in a state of Justification had a very general and defective knowledge of the Office of Christ and that though his Prophetical Office was ordinarily believed Joh. 4. The Samaritane woman could say when the Messiah cometh he will tell us all things and a temporal Kingdom expected yet his spiritual Kingdom and especially his Priestly office by his sacrifice death resurrection heavenly intercession for all the old Types and Sacrifices was little understood by the Disciples Yea he sometimes sorbad them and others to tell men that he was the Christ because the great evidences of his Resurrection Ascension and Spirit by which it was to be evinced were yet to come And we believe not that all that were saved before had more knowledge than the Apostles so that though all the faithful Jews believed in the promised seed even the Messiah as one that was to be sent to be their Deliverer and Saviour yet it was by a saith that was very general and far from that distinctness which after the Resurrection of Christ was required of all to whom the Gospel was promuglate which I have said the more of to you lest you think that we hold what we do not and so take occasion to erre by supposing us to err Clemens Alexandrinus Justin Martyr Arnobius Lactantius and other old Christians do go yet further then yet I have conceded to you And our very learned Dr. Twisse doth argue that God could have saved the world without a Redeemer if he had pleased because he saved the faithful under the old Testament without any existent Mediator except God himself or any existent sacrifice or merit or intercssion of him and because he saveth Infants without faith But for the first I take it to be at best too great temerity or audacity to dispute whether God could have done things better or otherwise which he has done so well of which I have said more in my Premonition before my Treatise called the unreasonableness of Infidelity Though I know that Wallaeus and many other learned Protestants say the same And as for Infants they are not saved without the Sacrifice and grace of the Redeemer though they know him not nor are they in the Covenant without the faith of their Parents or Owners which is as their own And if the Spirit of the Prorphets be called the Spirt of Chrict 1 Pet. 1. 11. And the reproach of Moses was the reproach of Christ Heb. 11. 26. We may much more conclude of the ordinary Believers before his coming that Christs Interest and his Spirits operations and help extended much further than mens understanding of him his undertaking and his future work No doubt but the eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that had undertaken mans Redemption and thereupon was our Lord Redeemer gave even to Socrates Plato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epistotus Plutarch c. What light and mercy they had though they understood not well from whom or upon what grounds they had them Ninethly And also we hold that the Jews were not the whole of Gods Kingdome or Church of Redeemed ones in the world as I have fully proved elsewhere But that as the Govenant was made with all mankind so amongst them God-had other Servants besides the Jews Though it was they that had the extraordinary benediction of being his peculiar sacred People Tenthly And we hold that as the Jews had by Promises Prophesies and Types more means to know God and the Messiah to come than other Nations so they were answerably obliged to more knowledge and faith than other Nations were that had not nor could have their means If then all the world be under the first Covenant of Grace and if you confess this to proceed from the wisdome and goodness of God and that men are bound so to believe and if Christ since his Incarnation hath diminished none of the mercies of God to the world but rather greatly increased them and so where the Gospel is not preached nor cannot be had they that refuse it not are in no worse case than they were before how can you say that they are Remediless if Christ be the ransome and remedy We know that all men partake of a great deal of mercy from God after the notorious demerit of their sin We know that this mercy telleth them aloud that God dealeth not with them according to the first Law of Innocency They see he pardoneth them they feel that he pardoneth them in part that is that he useth them not as they deserve We know that all this mercy obligeth them to hope that he will yet be further merciful and to repentance obedience thankfulness and love We know that the Heathen are no left as the Divels without remedy but all the Nations are under Divine obligations to use certain means which have a tendency to their recovery And we know that God biddeth no man to use his means in vain Fourthly Let us therefore first debate this Case with any unbeliever that hath your objections Whether you have any fault to find with the Christian Doctrine of the way of mans salvation for the first 4000 years before the Incarnation of our Lord If you have First Is it with the Author Secondly Or with the terms and conditions of life First The Author then was none but God The eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word did interpose to prevent the execution of strict Justice by resolving to glorifie Love and Mercy Do you deny the being of Gods eternal wisdome or word Do you deny him to be God himself Or a Divine subsistence dream that it is but some Accident in God No your fair description of God p. 210. dischargeth you from the imputation of so gross an error You will say that the Divine power and goodness interposed as well as the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word True Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt in divisa but so that each hath an eminency in his own work though not as separated or a solitary principle or cause The Father and Divine Vital Active Power was eminently glorified in the Creation The Son and Divine wisdome is eminently glorified in the making of the Remedying Medicine And the Divine Love and Spirit is eminently glorified in the operation of it to the Health and Salvation of the Soul The son and the wisdome or word doth not finish all the work himself but with the Father and Divine power sendeth the holy Spirit and communicateth to man the Love of God And all together will be glorified in our glorification Secondly And if it be the terms of life that do offend you First It is either the terms of satisfying the Justice of God Secondly Or the terms of conveying the benefits to man First For the first there is nothing in it to give offence For we dream not of any extrinsecal agent or action much less that which
Christ had commanded them and made part of his Laws To teach them all truth which was Evangelical or part of their Ministerial Office To enable them to be most certain and full in their Testimony of what they had heard from Christ and seen him do which was part of the Gospel In a word to to perform all their proper Office I do not at the present suppose you to take these Texts for the word of God For I must suppose you to be an Infidel But I onely offer them as part of the certain historical evidence concurring with all the forementioned history and evidence of the fact to prove what it was which the Apostles miracles were used to confirm This same Gospel they preached every where when they wrought these miracles And if they confirmed not the Gospel or Christian Religion they confirmed nothing So that it being certain that this Spirit and Miracles were real and certain that they were the Testimony of God and certain that it was the Truth of Christs person actions doctrine sufferings resurrection ascension and Covenant and Commandments which they attested and all that is properly the Gospel or Christian Religion what hindereth our certainty of all this If it were a doubt whether the Spirit attested more it is never the more doubtful whether he attested this much The Apostles constantly preached this Gospel They Baptized persons into the New Covenant They opened the Articles of the Faith to them and caused them to profess that Faith They engaged them into the promise and directed them in the practice of a godly righteous and sober life And they confirmed all this by miracles And is not all this then made sure Yea before they wrote any of the Scriptures And now to the Objection He that speaketh falsly in one thing is to be believed certainly or as infallible in nothing I again answer it is a blind Objection God onely is absolutely infallible All men are fallible in some things We are not to believe that the Apostles could erre in nothing at all Peter knew not what he said when he talkt of dwelling on the Mount They could erre and they could sin And he that sinneth erreth They were not absolutely perfect But it is in certain particulars even in the Declaration of the Gospel that God would not suffer them to erre or to deceive Those words which the Holy Ghost did by inspiration dictate to them it is certain that all those words the same Holy Ghost attested That is To all the word of God And thus much being past doubt what if we were now at a loss about some Appurtenances of the Gospel whether they were any of the Spirits dictates or any part of the word of God or any proper part of that which the Apostles were Commissioned for and Spiritually Enabled to teach What if in some points which they could know by common sense infallibly as well as other men any one should think that they were left meerly to that certainty of sense What if one be uncertain which are the Parts and which but the Appurtetenances of the Gospel in some things which salvation is not laid on Or were uncertain whether the Spirit did determine the Speakers tongue or pen about every such Appurtenance What 's this to the invalidating of any of the rest If indeed when they speak by the Spirits Revelation they spake falsly at any one time we could never be sure that they spake true But when we are sure that all is true which they speak by the Spirit and sure that they spake the Gospel or delivered the Christian Religion by the Spirit and are onely not sure whether every word in Genealogy or by circumstances were spoken by the Spirit nothing will follow hence but that every word of God is true and every word of the Apostles which was a word of God And it is perversness to argue They may erre when they speak their own words as men Therefore they may erre when they speak Gods words by the Spirit First The Testimony of the Internal sanctifying Spirit is infallible And so much as this Spirit attesteth to me is true And I am sure that this Spirit attesteth the truth of the Gospel in me for the substance of the Gospel is imprinted on my heart and by the impression I know the seal But what if I find on me no part of Gods Image which was made by the name of Jorams Father or Son what if I feel no Testimony of the Spirit in me which tells the age of such or such a man there named Nor can prove by the Spirit in me how far Bethany was from Jerusalem What if the mention of Pauls Cloak and Parchments did not sanctifie me Must I be uncertain of that which did Secondly What if I read a promise in the Scripture that God will never fail me nor forsake me but will preserve me in safety to his Kingdome If I were uncertain whether this promise extended to every hair of my head so that none of them should perish or to the preservation of my Colour and such like accidents Will it follow that I cannot be sure that I my self my soul my person shall not be forsaken What if I have a promise that all things shall work together for my good And I am uncertain whether sins or my own follies or rashness or the creeping of every worm in the world or the shaking of every leaf be numbered with those All things Must I be uncertain therefore whether any thing shall work for my good or whether sufferings for Christ shall do it Thirdly What if I be uncertain whether the vegetative faculties or soul in man be material or immateterial Must I be as uncertain whether man have an immaterial or incorporeal soul and whether the intellectual powers be such or not Fourthly What if I be in doubt when the Law doth summon a man to any place or command him any office whether it meant that he shall not change his cloaths or leave them off nor cut his hair or nails but bring all with him Doth it follow that I must be as uncertain whether the person himself must come or not Fifthly What if I be disputing whether a Tree be wood and I cannot tell whether the leaves their ribs or stalkes be truly wood or not must I therefore be uncertain of all the rest Sixthly What if we dispute whether all the Kings officers are to be obeyed and it be a doubt to me whether a Prelate or an Apparator be the Kings Officers can I therefore be assured of no others Seventhly When a witness sweareth to any writing that it is true or to any interrogatories If I be uncertain whether it be the true spelling or Syntax of the words or the propriety of every phrase or every circumstance of the matter which he attesteth must I therefore be uncertain whether he attest any thing at al This one consideration may shew the unreasonableness of
to banish all considerable doubting And now I conclude First Whatever is True is objectively certain and Infallibly true so far as that no man in Believing it true is therein deceived or mistaken All Truth is Certain Infallible Truth in it self Secondly Few Truths in the world are so Evident as that a blinded prejudiced indisposed person may not be ignorant of them or erre about them Thirdly All Truths in the Scripture have not equal evidence that they are the word of God though all that is known to be the word of God if equally so known have equal evidence in the formal reason of saith that they are true Fourthly All known Truth is infallibly known that is He that knoweth it is not deceived nor can possibly be deceived by taking it to be true so that as Infallibility signifieth not being deceived all true knowledge is subjectively infallible and certain that is its true Fifthly No man can know that Infallibly which is not objectively certain that which is not True cannot be known to be true The strongest and most confident belief of a falshood is a false belief and more than fallible or uncertain Sixthly All Gods word being equally true and infallible the belief of it is also equally true and infallible But being not All equally intelligible evident to be his word and necessary the understanding and belief of every part is not equally easie strong past doubting or necessary Seventhly There is a superficial belief of Divine Revelations even the Gospel which a natural man may have by extrinsick means And there is a more clear apprehension which a Commoner sort of Grace may produce But that Belief which is so clear and powerful as truly to sanctifie and save the soul must be the effect of the special operation of the Holy Ghost who yet hath a course of appointed means in which we must receive it Eighthly The reason of this necessity of the Spirits operation of faith and then by saith is not because the Gospel wanteth due Ascertaining Evidence or an aptitude to convince and sanctifie a soul For it s highly Rational though mysterious and Good But because by corruption and pravity the mind of man is so undisposed to know believe and love truths of such a nature as that there is need of a special Internal higher Operator to set home the work as the hand of a man setteth the seal upon the wax and to do that by it which the bare word alone with the excellentest preacher cannot do Ninethly Yet is no wicked Infidel excuseable that saith If I cannot believe it I will not believe it Because First It is his pravity which is his disability Secondly He is more able for a common superficial belief than for a special effectual belief Thirdly And if he did by the help of that common belief do what he might and God appointeth him in the use of means to obtain a special Faith through grace he should find that God hath commanded no man to labour and seek after grace in vain and if any man have not that grace and power which is of necessity to his faith and salvation it is long of himself who useth not his commoner power and grace as he might use them And so much to prevent misunderstanding Now my Reasons why I take every History Chronology Genealogy in Scripture as certainly true and every other word which is spoken by a true Prophet and Apostle as by the Spirit and not disowned by the Scripture it self but especially such as you accuse in the Gospel are these First A Priore Because it seemeth to me that the writing of the whole Books of the New Testament by them was done in the discharge of the Commission given them by Christ And he promised his Apostles his Spirit for the performance of all their Commissioned office work This writing is part of the preaching which Christ sent them for And no doubt but the Spirit did cause them to write all the substantial part And therefore we have reason to think that the smallest parts are from the same Author and that he assisted them in the least as well as in the greatest Yea the very accidents may have a perfection in their place though less perfect in themselves Though all the Evangelists use not the same Method or Order nor repeat Christs sayings in the same terms yet in respect to the whole frame it may be best that there should be that diversity of words and order to preserve and declare the same sense and things And even their plain and less accurate stile and method may be best as fittest to its use and end Secondly A Posteriore There is no Caviller that yet hath proved any falshood or contradiction in any passages of the Scripture Though the clearing of some of them require more than vulgar knowledge Thirdly Saving the controversies about the few questioned Books and some few sentences and words the Church which received the Scriptures as Gods word did receive the whole as his word and as certainly true in every part Fourthly Because that Spirit of Miracles in the Apostles and that Spirit of Holiness in us which attesteth the Christian Religion doth receive it and attest it as found in the sacred Scripture though not as there alone And it putteth no exception against any part of the sacred record Therefore while it particularly attesteth the chief parts it inferreth an attestation to the smallest for that word or line which is not strictly a part but an accident of the Christian Religion is yet a part of the Bible which containeth it Fifthly And though all the reasons which I have given prove that the Truth of the Christian Religion may be certainly proved though we could not prove every by expression in the Scripture to be true and though we deny not but the Pen-men manifested their humane imperfections in stile and method yet if each passage were not True it would be so great a temptation to the weak and make it so difficult to know in some points what is true in comparison of what it would be if all be true that we have no reason to imagine this difficulty to our selves while its unproved And having said this I am here in order to answer your objections which yet you should not have expected from me whilst so great a number of books are already written which have done it And why should you bid me write that again which is written already unless you had confuted what is written If you understand Latine you may find a multitude of such seeming contradictions reconciled in Sharpius Magrius Althamer Cumeranus but most fully in abundance of Commentators If you understood not Latine you may read enough in Dr. Hammond and many other Annotaters and Commentaries Mr. Cradock's Harmony c. And you may have enough that understand Latine to translate you the solutions as out of Spanhemii Dub Evangel Grotius Jansenius Chemnitius and such others And
most necessary clear and certain must be held accordly with a more clear assured confidence than those that are unnecessary dark And that uncertainties must be reduced to certainties and not certainties to uncertainties And that all arguing should be a notiore and not a minus not is And as I said before as the Trunks of the Tree the Veins the Arteries the Nerves are few and visible and easily and surely known when the thousands of little branches are hardly visible or numerable so is it with the schemes of truths He therefore that will begin at these numerous small branches will dote rather than know or learn As in the former instances First When I see with my eyes the effects of Power Wisdome and Goodness in all the visible works of God I am sure that it is perfect Power Wisdome and Goodness which is the cause of this I am certain that nothing can give that which formaliter or eminenter it hath not to give nor can the effect exceed the totall cause I am certain that he from whom all Creatures Power Wisdome and Goodness doth proceed must needs himself be more Great and Wise and Good than all the world of Creatures set together which he hath made To this fundamental certainty therefore I must hold if I will not dote whatever little Objections or pratlings may be used against it Secondly Eternity is a thing incomprehensible which quite swalloweth up my understanding and many little things be said against it But I am certain that nothing can make nothing And if ever there had been nothing there never would have been any thing And to this certainty I will hold Thirdly A holy life hath a great many of cavilling Objections raised against it by corrupted nature And shall I there begin to make my trial of it No I am first sure that a Rational free Agent and Subject of God is bound to obey him and that the Greatest Good should be Greatliest loved and that we are totally our Creators own and should be totally devoted to him I am sure I cannot love the infinite Good too much nor be too Good nor do too much Good to others in the world nor make too sure of my own felicity nor too much seek my ultimate end And shall not this assurance hold me fast against all the snarlings and pratlings of the doating drunken world So here I have in the Treatise opened those grounds on which we may be certain of the necessity of this holiness of the life to come and of the truth of the Christian Faith and hopes And because God in mercy hath not put off the world with the skeleton of a bare Creed but also given them the compleat body of sacred Scriptures to be a full perpetual Record of this truth shall I turn his mercy to a snare and sin and question all even the Articles of the Faith because in the Scriptures there are some things accidental to Religion and some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unskilfull wrest to their destruction This is but to be Devils to our selves and foolish enemies of our own peace and comfort As Cicero speaks against them that pleaded for the souls mortality as if it were a desireable thing You have nothing else that suiteth the Nature and Interest of a man and agreeth with the Nature and Interest of God to set against the Christian Religion in Competition If you would have no Religion you would have no Hopes no Safety no Business or Comfort but Beaâ—â—ial in this world and you would be no Men. If you would have nothing but Nature and the Holiness which Nature clearly calleth for you would have Health in an unhealed Body and Health without the Physician and his Means The Mediator is the way to the Father and if you would Love God and be happy in his Love and have the Pardon of your Sins you have little reason to reject him that cometh to Procure Reveal and Communicate that Love and Pardon which must win your hearts to the Love of God And if you would not die in desperation but have the hopes and foresight of a better life you have little Reason to quarrel with a Messenger from Heaven which bringeth Life and Immortality to light As bad as Christians are if personal quarrels and malignity blind you not and if you will not take the enemies and persecutors of Christianity for Christians meerly because they assume the name you may easily see that serious Christians who live according to their profession are persons of another kind of excellency than all the unbelieving world I know that from some self-conceited ignorant well meaning persons I must look to be reviled and called a betrayer of Christianity because I plead not for it in their way and give you any other answer to your objections than That when God giveth you the spirit you shall know that the Scripture hath no contradictions and that Christianity is the true Religion Till then you cannot know it nor must I give you Reasons for it But I do my work and let who will wrangle and revile How far the sayings of some are true or false that the Scripture is the onely means of faith or saving knowledge of God that it is Principium indemonstrabile as first principles of knowledg are in nature that as others say It hath evidence of credibility but not evidence of certainty as if evidence of Divine credibility or or faith were not evidence of certainty that faith hath not evidence but evidence evacuateth faith or the merits of it with such like a man of understanding may gather from what is said And I must not be so tedious as particularly here to resolve them having done it in Preface to the Second part of the Saints Rest Edit 2. c. long ago And though I have written nothing here which some men cannot make an ill use of and some men will not turn to matter of cavil and reproach I will not therefore leave it out whilst I expect that the Cood which Truth is fitted to is greater than the evil which by accident and abuse will follow it And because you seem Confident and think me bound to answer you and consequently all others not knowing how many hundreds may trouble me in the like kind I send you this in print that other mens mistakes and infidelity also may have the same remedies But I shall conceal your name and dwelling lest the shame of your sin should hinder your patient application of the remedy save onely by telling you that it is long ago since I read a noble Learned Lord who in a Latine Book De Veritate Contra Veritatem said much against the certainty of faith But it was all but learned froth and vanity I Rest A Servant of Christ and desirer of your faith and salvation R. Baxter Dec. 28. 16â—1 THE SECOND PART OF THIS APPENDIX BEING Some ANIMADVERSIONS On the foresaid Treatise
therefore where Revelation was not few were wise or virtuous And the Philosophers themselves were all to pieces among themselves and their disagreements and doubtfulness tended to the gulfe of utter Scepticisme Now as nothing is more necessary than Religion as you well profess so Religion consisteth very little in the sensible apprehension of of present existences but in the knowledge of things absent or insensible things past and especially things to come the Happiness to be attained and the misery to be escaped Now if all the Poor unlearned Men and Women in the World must have known all these things only by natural discourse how little Religion would have been in the World when the Philosophers knew so little themselves And though your learning and understanding made the immortality of the Soul so clear to you and the rewards and punishments of another life as that you number it with the common notices yet were not the old Philosophers themselves so commonly agreed on it as they should have been much less all the common People And if you say that now almost all the world believeth it I answer it is Gods great mercy that it is so But consider whether it be not more by the way of believing than of naturall instinct or knowledge For all the Christians and all the Mahometans who believe the words of Moses and Christ also take it by the way of believing And so do most of the Heathens The Japonians have their Amida and Zaca The Chinenses the Indians the Siamenses the Peguans c. have all their Prophets And the very Savages of all the West-Indies or America have their Idols Oracles or Wizards whom they far more depend on than their natural discourse about things Invisible Past or Future So that really if Commonuess go with you for a proof that any point is of natural instinct and certainty as a Notitia Communis this will be one of the chiefest of them that Religion consisting in the notice of and due respect to things absent invisible past and future is to be maintained in the world by divine Revelation and Faith and not by the immediate evidence of things nor by meer discursive Collections from things so evident So that Mans weakness with the quality of the Objects maketh Revelation so necessary that without it the vulgar who are the main body of the World would have next to no Religion And on the contrary how easie and pleasant and satisfactory is it for all these poor People yea to the most learned to have these mysterious truths brought by Revelation to their hands Now through Gods mercy all our common People Women and Children Servants and day-Labourers may know more with ease than ever Democritus Epicurus Antisthenes Zeno yea Socrates Plato or Aristotle could reach by all their studies to the last More I say of Religious necessary knowledge Tenthly And this being so necessary and so great a mercy to mankind I wonder that you put it not among your common notices that God being perfect in love and wisdom and having made man purposely to be Religious here and happy hereafter will certainly provide for his Religion and Happiness so necessary and so excellent a means as Revelation is God being the Father and Lover of light and of Souls and the Devil being the Prince and Friend of darkness Consider whether you may not strongly infer from the very nature of God and the nature and necessity of man and the other communications of Gods mercies to the world that he will certainly give them this great mercy also Eleventhly It is certain that God hath ways of communicating light to mans understanding immediately and not only by extrinsick sensible objects The Father of Spirits who communicateth so much to the corporeal world is not further from Souls nor more out of love with them But if there be any difference may rather be thought to hold a neerer more immediate communion with them than with Bodies and to be himself to the mind what the Sun is to the Eye and more Twelfthly It is certain that God can give the standers by that have no Revelation immediately themselves a fully satisfactory attestation or proof of the truth of another mans Revelations He that denyeth this maketh God to be impotent Thirteenthly It is certain that the Attestation which I described in the Reasons of Christian Religion was such supposing that such were given viz. In the Antecedent Testimony of fulfilled Prophesie the Constitutive Testimony of Gods Spirit apparent in the effects on Christ person and on his Gospel And the Concomitant Testimony of all his Miracles and Resurrection and Ascension And the subsequent Testimony of the Spirit on the Apostles their Miracles and doctrine and on the souls of all serious Christians to the worlds end These are things set all together First Which none but God could do Secondly And which God would not do to deceive the world Thirdly Yea which God would not permit to be done to deceive them in so high a matter Because he is the Omnipotent Omniscient Gracious Governour of the world And if these Testimonies were not of God it were impossible to know any Testimony to be of God And seeing wâ—â—â— have no surer it would be mans Duty to Believe and Obey and be Ruled by a Lie And if it be our Duty to Believe God to be so defective either in Power Wisdome or Goodnesse Holinesse Truth Justice or Mercy as to rule the World and the best of the World in the greatest matters by lying and deceit as if he wanted better means What Wit can devise any remedy against such deceit as shall be so attested as aforesaid Or if deceit can be perceived how can it be mans Duty to Believe it seeing mans Intellect is naturally made for Truth and abhorreth falshood And how can it be Good to Obey Deceit and Lyes And when the Devil is the Father of Lies what blasphemy is it to charge them on God By this it will be apparent that the Question must be in the upshot whether there be a God or no God and so whether there be any thing or nothing Fourteenthly There is some Moral Historical Evidence of the truth of things past which is as certain and much more satisfactory than the Natural Evidence of Conclusions raised by a long series of argumentation Yea some which is truly a Natural Evidence though it depend on the credit of free Agents The proof and reasons I have given in the Treat First The Will though free is Quaedam Natura and hath its Natural propensity to known good as the understanding also is and hath its Natural propensity to Truth And the understanding is not free of it self but acteth per modum Naturae Secondly There are some of the acts of the Will it self which are so free as yet to be necessary As to will Good sub ratione boni to will our own Felicity and nill our own misery to will Life and
so that how much hath God done hereby to confute such suspicions and accusations There are now in England learned and worthy men in Church preferments which doubtless do not so love them as to buy them with the loss of truth and that to keep up a Religion against their Consciences But if you did so accuse them sure the many hundred silenced Ministers now in England that live in poverty and many of them want Bread when they might have preferment as well as others do live out of the reach of this accusation I write not this at all as meddling with their Cause but as answering your Exception I have my self got no more for Preaching the Gospel these nine years than if I had been a Lay-man I mean I have Preached for nothing if the success on mens souls were not something and Gods acceptance so far as I did Preach And more than that I would offer any man my solemnest oath to satisfie him that I believe and profess the Christian Doctrine for its proper evidence and for the hopes of the blessedness promised thereby which if they prevailed not with me above all the riches preferments and pleasures of this world I would never have been a Preacher or a Christian nor would continue in my calling and profession one day much less on the self-denying terms as I now do But O my Lord thou hast been to me a faithful Saviour a happy Teacher a supporting Comforter in my greatest dangers distress and fears Thy service hath been sweet and good Thy word hath been a powerful Light a Quickening a changing an elevating a guiding a comforting word So far am I from Repenting that I am thy Disciple or thy Servant that now I am not far from my departure from this world I do vehemently protest that I beg no greater mercy of thee in this world than that I may Believe in thee more firmly and Hope in thy promises more confidently and by thine Intercession receive more of thy Holy Spirit by which I may have neerer access to God and that by thy blood and merits I may be justified and cleansed from the guilt of all my sins and that by thee I may be taught to know the Father and to Love him as his Love and Goodness hath manifested it self in Thee and in the gracious works of mans Redemption That thou wilt be the undertaker for my soul and body through my life and that at death I may commend my Spirit into thy hands in a strong well grounded Faith and Hope and come to the in the fervent desire of Divine and Heavenly Love And I ask for no greater felicity hereafter than to be with thee where thou art to behold thy Glory and to see the Glory of the blessed Deity and Live in the perfect Knowledge and Love and Praise of God Sixthly And I may add that it is not only Clergy men that are Christians Besides them the Learned'st men in the world have defended or stuck to the Christian Faith I need not name to you either men of your own rank such as the two Mirandula's the great Du Plessis Marnixius de Aldegâ—nde Anhaltinus a Prince though a Divine Bacon and many a worthy Noble man of these Kingdoms and of many other nor such Laymen as the Scaligers Salmasius Grotius Causobone Thuanus and multitudes more Were all these larvati vel palliati by assed by price or fleshly interest He that is not a Christian for Spiritual and Eternal Interest taking up his Cross and following a Crucified Christ on terms of self-denial even to the forsaking of all for him not excepting life it self and doth not by his Cross even Crucifie the flesh and the world which is the provision for its lusts is indeed no real Christian at all I had thought to have said somewhat to your pag. 220 221. In omni Religione immo conscientia sive ex Natura sive ex gratia media sufficientia dari unde Deo accepti esse possint ultro credimus But I have been long enough and the answer may be gathered from what is said before The Lord save this Land and the darker world from Infidelity and its fruits and give us moâ—â—â—f that spirit which is Christs Agent and witness in us effectually to plead and maintain his cause Amen Jan. 16. 1672. Caes Baronius Annal. ad An. 411. BUt because we are discoursing of such matters Reader I intreat thee to suffer me like the good householder in the Gospel who bringeth out of his Treasurie things new and old to adde some things new or later to these of elder date For what I shall briefly say will much delight thee For I will not report unproved things but what I know to be confirmed by the assertion of very many learned men Yea and by all Religious men out told the people in their Sermons And for my part I will bring forth the Author of whom I received it and that is Michael Mercatus Miniatensis PPronotory of the S. R. Church a man of most entire fidelity and of eminent knowledge and honesty of life He told me of his Grandfather of the same name with himself Michael Mercatus senior between whom and Marsilius Ficinus a man of a most noble wit there was an intimate friendship contracted and increased by Philosophical studies in which they both were followers of Plato It happened on a time that as they used they were gathering from Plato but not without doubting how much or what of man remained after death which Platonick documents where they failed were to be under-propt by the Sacraments of the Christian Faith for of that argument there is extant a learned Epistle of Marsilius to this Michael Mercatus of the Immortality of the Soul God And in their discourse when they had long disputed they thus concluded it and giving each other their right hands they Covenanted that which ever of them first died if he could do it he should certifie the other of the state of the other life And having thus covenanted and sworn to each other they departed And after a considerable space of time it fell out that Michael senior being early in the morning at his Philosophical studies unexpectedly he heard the noise of a horse swiftly running and stopping at his door and withall the voice of Marsilius crying out O Michael O Michael those things are true Michael marvelling at the voice of his friend rose up and opening the window he saw him whom he heard with his back toward him in white riding away on a white horse and called after him Marsilius Marsilius and looked after him but he vanished from his sight He being struck with admiration at the strangeness of the case took care to enquire what was become of Marsilius he lived in Florence where he died and found that he died that same hour in which he heard and saw him And what did he hereupon Though he had been a man of approved honesty and had lived a life harmless and profitable to all as it became a true Philosopher yet from that time bidding farewell to Philosophical Disciplines and becoming a forward Lover or follower of the true Christian Philosophy onely as more eminent than the rest he lived the rest of his time as dead to the world onely for or to the life to come being an example of a most absolute Christian who before had been famous among the Philosophers of his time in praise as second unto none So far Baronius The same is reported by abundance of other writers FINIS ERRATA PAge 1. l. penult for were read was p. 23. l. 2. r. Indic p. 30. l. 10. r. adapted p. 64. l. 7 8. r. same apparition p. 117. l. 15. r. Treat l. 27. r. bestow p. 123. l. 23. r. mens p. 149. l. 16. r. end p. 157. l. 20. for ls r. is