and I my self with others have shared of in suffering there they have often beaten us and cast water and dirt upon us there they have danced leaped sung and spoken all manner of prophane and ungodly words offered violence and shameful behaviour to grave Woman and Virgins jeared mocked and scoffed asking us If the Spirit was not yet come and much more which were tedious here to relate and all this while we have been seriously and silently sitting together and waiting upon the Lord so that by these things our inward and spiritual Fellowship with God and one another in the pure life of Righteousness hath not been hindered But on the contrary the Lord knowing our sufferings and reproaches for his Testimonies sake hath caused his Power and Glory more to abound among us and hath mightily refreshed us by the sense of his love which hath filled our Souls and so much the rather as we found our selves gathered into the Name of the Lord which is the strong Tower of the Righteous whereby we felt our selves sheltered from receiving any inward hurt through their malice and also that he had delivered us from that vain name and profession of Christianity under which our opposers were not ashamed to bring forth these bitter and cursed Fruits yea sometimes in the midst of this tumult and opposition God would powerfully move some or other of us by his Spirit both to testifie of that joy which notwithstanding their malice we enjoyed and powerfully so declare in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit against their folly and wickedness so as the power of Truth hath brought them to some measure of quietness and stillness and stopped the impetuous streams of their fury and madness that as ever of old Moses by his Rod divided the Waves of the Red Sea that the Israelites might pass so God hath thus by his Spirit made a way for us in the midst of this raging wickedness peaceably to enjoy and possess him and accomplish our Worship to him So that sometimes upon such occasions several of our opposers and interrupters have hereby been convinced 〈…〉 Truth and gathered from being Persecutors to be Sufferers with 〈…〉 let it not be forgotten but let it be inscribed and abide for a constant remembrance of the thing that in these beastly and bruitish pranks used to molest us in our Spiritual meetings none have been more busie than the Young Students of the Universities who were learning Philosophy and Divinity so called and many of them preparing themselves for the Ministry Should we commit to writing all the abominations committed in this respect by the young fry of the Clergy it would make no small Volumn as the Churches of Christ gathered into his Pure Worship in Oxford and Cambridge in England and Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland where the Universities are can well bear witness § XIV Moreover in this we know that we are partakers of the New Covenant's Dispensation and Disciples of Christ indeed sharing with him of that Spiritual Worship which is performed in the Spirit and in Truth because as he was so are we in this world For the Old Covenant Worship had an outward Glory Temple and Ceremonies and was full of outward Splendor and Majesty having an outward Tabernacle and Altar beautified with Gold Silver and Precious Stones and their Sacrifices were tied to an outward particular place even the outward Mount Zion and those that prayed behoved to pray with their Faces towards that outward Temple and therefore all this behoved to be protected by an outward arm nor could the Jews peaceably have enjoyed it but when they were secured from the violence of their outward Enemies and therefore when at any time their Enemies prevailed over them their Glory was darkned and their Sacrifices stopped and the Face of their Worship marred hence they complain lament and bewail the destroying of the Temple as a loss irreparable But Jesus Christ the Author and Institutor of the New Covenant Worship testifies that God is neither to be worshipped in this nor that place but in the Spirit and in Truth and forasmuch as his Kingdom is not of this World neither doth his Worship consist in it or need either the Wisdom Glory Riches or Splendor of this world to beautifie or adorn it nor yet the outward power or arm of flesh to maintain uphold or protect it but it is and may be performed by those that are spiritually minded notwithstanding all opposition violence and malice of men because it being purely Spiritual it is out of the reach of natural men to interrupt or molest it even as Jesus Christ the Author thereof did enjoy and possess his Spiritual Kingdom while oppressed persecuted and rejected of men and as in despite of the malice and rage of the devil he spoiled principalities and powers triumphing over them and through death destroyed him that had the power of death that is the devil so also all his followers both can and do worship him not onely without the arm of Flesh to protect them but even when oppressed For their worship being spiritual is by the power of the Spirit defended and maintained but such worships as are carnal and consist in carnal and outward ceremonies and observations need a carnal and outward arm to protect them and defend them else they cannot stand and subsist And therefore it appears that the several worships of our opposers both Papists and Protestants are of this kind and not the true Spiritual and New Covenant worship of Christ because as hath been observed they cannot stand without the protection or countenance of the outward Magistrate neither can be performed if there be the least opposition for they are not in the patience of Jesus to serve and worship him with sufferings ignomies calumnies and reproaches And from hence have sprung all those wars fightings and bloodshed among Christians while each by the arm of Flesh endeavoured to defend and protect their own way and worship and from this also sprung up that monstrous opinion of persecution of which we shall speak more at length hereafter § XV. But Fourthly The nature of this Worship which is performed by the Operation of the Spirit the natural man being silent doth appear from these words of Christ John 4.23 24. But the hour cometh and now is when the true Worshippers shall Worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to Worship him God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit and in Truth This Testimony is the more specially to be observed for that it is both the first chiefest and most ample testimony which Christ gives us of his Christian Worship as different and contradistinguished from that under the Law For First he sheweth that the season is now come wherein the Worship must be in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to Worship him so then it is no more a Worship
The Second Proposition Concerning Immediate Revelation Seeing no man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son revealeth him and seeing the Revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit therefore the Testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been is and can be only revealed who as by the moving of his own Spirit converted the Chaos of this World into that wonderful order wherein it was in the beginning and created Man a living Soul to rule and govern it so by the Revelation of the same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the Sons of Men both Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles which Revelations of God by the Spirit whether by outward voices and appearances Dreams or inward objective manifestations in the heart were of old the formal object of their Faith and remaineth yet so to be since the object of the Saints Faith is the same in all ages though set forth under divers Administrations Moreover these divine inward Revelations which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true Faith neither do nor can ever contradict the outward Testimony of the Scriptures or right and found Reason Yet from hence it will not follow that these Divine Revelations are to be subjected to the examination either of the outward Testimony of the Scriptures or of the natural reason of Man as to a more noble or certain rule or touchstone for this Divine Revelation and inward Illumination is that which is evident and clear of it self forceing by its own evidence and clearness the well disposed understanding to assent irresistibly moving the same thereunto even as the common Principles of natural Truths move and incline the mind to natural assent Such as are these that the whole is greater than the part that two contradictory sayings cannot be both true or false which is also manifest according to our adversaries Principle who supposing the possibility of inward Divine Revelations will nevertheless confess with us that neither Scripture nor found Reason will contradict it and yet it will not follow according to them that the Scripture or found Reason should be subjected to the examination of the Divine Revelations in the Heart The Third Proposition Concerning the Scriptures From these Revelations of the Spirit of God to the Saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth which contain 1. A faithful Historical Account of the Actings of God's People in divers Ages with many singular and remarkable Providences attending them 2. A Prophetical Account of several things whereof some are already past and some yet to come 3. A full and ample account of all the chief Principles of the Doctrine of Christ held forth in divers pretious declarations exhortations and sentences which by the moving of God's Spirit were at several times and upon sundry occasions spoken and written unto some Churches and their Pastors Nevertheless because they are only a Declaration of the Fountain and not the Fountain it self therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge nor yet the adequate primary Rule of Faith and Manners Nevertheless as that which giveth a true and faithful Testimony of the first Foundation they are and may be esteemed a secondary Rule subordinate to the Spirit from which they have all their excellency and certainty for as by the inward Testimony of the Spirit we do alone truly know them so they testifie that the Spirit is that guide by which the Saints are led into all Truth Therefore according to the Scriptures the Spirit is the first and principle Leader And seeing we do therefore receive and believe the Scriptures because they proceeded from the Spirit therefore also the Spirit is more originally and principally the Rule according to that received maxim in the Schools Propter quod unumquodque est tale illud ipsum est magis tale Englished thus That for which a thing is such that thing it self is more such The Fourth Proposition Concerning the Condition of Man in the fall All Adam's Posterity or Mankind both Jews and Gentiles as to the first Adam or earthly man is fallen degenerated and dead deprived of the sensation or feeling of this inward Testimony or Seed of God and is subject unto the power nature and Seed of the Serpent which he sows in mens hearts while they abide in this natural and corrupted State from whence it comes that not their words and deeds only but all their imaginations are evil perpetually in the sight of God as proceeding from this depraved and wicked Seed Man therefore as he is in this state can know nothing aright yea his thoughts and conceptions concerning God and things Spiritual until he be disjoyned from this evil Seed and united to the Divine Light are unprofitable both to himself and others Hence are rejected the Socinian and Pelagian Errors in exalting a Natural Light as also the Papists and most of Protestants who affirm that Man without the true Grace of God may be a true Minister of the Gospel Nevertheless this Seed is not imputed to Infants until by transgression they actually joyn themselves therewith for they are by Nature the children of Wrath who walk according to the Power of the Prince of the Air The Fifth and Sixth Proposition Concerning the Vniversal Redemption by Christ and also the Saving and Spiritual Light wherewith every Man is enlightened The Fifth Proposition God out of his Infinite love who delighteth not in the death of a sinner but that all should live and be saved hath so loved the world that he hath given his only Son a Light that whosoever believeth in him should be saved who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world and maketh manifest all things that are reproveable and teacheth all temperance righteousness and godliness and this Light enlighteneth the hearts of all in a day in order to Salvation if not resisted Nor is it less universal than the seed of sin being the purchase of his death who tasted death for every Man For as in Adam all die even so in Christ all shall be made alive The Sixth Proposition According to which principle or Hypothesis all the Objections against the universality of Christ's death are easily solved neither is it needful to recur to the Ministry of Angels and those other miraculous means which they say God makes use of to manifest the Doctrine and History of Christ's passion unto such who living in those places of the world where the outward preaching of the Gospel is unknown have well improved the first and common Grace For hence it well follows that as some of the old Philosophers might have been saved so also may now some who by Providence are cast into those remote parts of the world where the knowledg of the History is wanting be made partakers of the Divine Mystery if they receive and resist not that Grace a manifestation whereof is given
to every man to profit withal This certain Doctrine then being received to wit that there is an Evangelical and saving Light and Grace in all the universality of the Love and Mercy of God towards mankind both in the death of his beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ and in the manifestation of the Light in the heart is established and confirmed against all the Objections of such as deny it Therefore Christ hath tasted death for every man not only for all kinds of men as some vainly talk but for every one of all kinds the benefit of whose offering is not only extended to such who have the distinct outward knowledg of his death and suffering as the same is declared in the Scriptures but even unto those who are necessarily excluded from the benefit of this knowledg by some inevitable accident which knowledg we willingly confess to be very profitable and comfortable but not absolutely needful unto such from whom God himself hath withheld it yet they may be made partakers of the mystery of his death tho ignorant of the History if they suffer his Seed and Light inlightning their hearts to take in which Light communion with the Father and the Son is enjoyned so as of wicked men to become holy and lovers of that power by whose inward and secret touches they feel themselves turned from the evil to the good and learn to do to others as they would be done by in which Christ himself affirms all to be included As they have then falsly and erreonously taught who have denyed Christ to have died for all Men so neither have they sufficiently taught the Truth who affirming him to have died for all have added the absolute necessity of the outward knowledg thereof in order to the obtaining its saving effects Among whom the Remonstrants of Holland have been chiefly wanting and many other Assertors of universal Redemption in that they have not Placed the extent of this salvation in that Divine and Evangelical Principle of Light and Life wherewith Christ hath enlightned every man that comes into the world which is excellently and evidently held forth in these Scriptures Gen. 6.3 Deut. 30.14 John 1.7 8 9. Rom. 10.8 Tit. 2.11 The Seventh Proposition Concerning Justification As many as resist not this Light but receive the same in them is produced a holy pure and spiritual birth bringing forth holiness righteousness purity and all these other blessed fruits which are acceptable to God by which holy birth to wit Jesus Christ formed within us and working his works in us as we are sanctified so are we justified in the sight of God according to the Apostles words But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Therefore it is not by our works wrought in our will nor yet by good works considered as of themselves but Christ who is both the gift and the giver and the cause producing the effects in us who as he hath reconciled us while we were enemies doth also in his wisdom save us and justifie us after this manner as saith the same Apostle elsewhere according to his mercy he hath saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost The Eighth Proposition Concerning Perfection In whom this holy and pure birth is fully brought forth the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed and their hearts united and subjected unto the truth so as not to obey any suggestion or temptation of the evil one but to be free from actual sinning and transgressing of the Law of God and in that respect perfect yet doth this perfection still admit of a growth there remaineth ever in some part a possibility of sinning where the mind doth not most diligently and watchfully attend unto the Lord. The Ninth Proposition Concerning Perseverence and the possibility of falling from Grace Altho this Gift and inward Grace of God be sufficient to work out Salvation yet in those in whom it is resisted it both may and doth become their Condemnation Moreover in whom it hath wrought in part to purifie and sanctifie them in order to their further Perfection by disobedience such may fall from it and turn it to wantoness making Shipwrack of Faith and after having tasted of the Heavenly Gift and been made Partakers of the Holy Ghost again fall away yet such an increase and stability in the Truth may in this Life be attained from which there can not be a total Apostacy The Tenth Proposition Concerning the Ministry As by this Gift or Light of God all true knowledge in things Spiritual is received and revealed so by the same as it is manifested and received in the heart by the strength and power thereof every true Minister of the Gospel is ordained prepared and supplied in the work of the Ministry and by the leading moving and drawing hereof ought every Evangelist and Christian Pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the Gospel both as to the place where as to the Person to whom and as to the times when he is to Minister Moreover who have this Authority may and ought to Preach the Gospel tho without human Commission or Literature as on the other hand who want the Authority of this Divine Gift however Learned or Authorized by the Commissions of Men and Churches are to be esteemed but as deceivers and not true Ministers of the Gospel also who have received this holy and unspotted Gift as they have freely received so are they freely to give without hire or bargaining far less to use it as a Trade to get Money by it yet if God hath called any from their Imployments or Trades by which they acquire their livelihood it may be lawful for such according to the liberty which they feel given them in the Lord to receive such Temporals to wit what may be needful to them for Meat and Cloathing as are freely given them by those to whom they have Communicated spirituals The Eleventh Proposition Concerning Worship All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times or Persons for tho we be to worship him always in that we are to fear before him yet as to the outward signification thereof in Prayers Praises or Preachings we ought not to do it where and when we will but where and when we are moved thereunto by the secret Inspirations of his Spirit in our hearts which God heareth and accepteth of and is never wanting to move us thereunto when need is of which he himself is the alone proper Judg all other worship then both Praises Prayers and Preachings which man sets about in his own will and at his own appointment which he can both begin and end at his pleasure do or leave undone as himself
for this vain Opinion they had of their knowledg hindered them from the true knowledg and the mean people who were not so much preoccupyed with former principles nor conceited of their own knowledg did easily believe Wherefore the Pharisees upbraid them saying Have any of the Rulers or Pharisees believed in him But this people which know not the Law are accursed This is also abundantly proved by the experience of all such as being secretly touched with the call of God's Grace unto them do apply themselves unto false Teachers where the remedy proves worse than the disease because instead of knowing God or the things relating to their Salvation aright they drink in wrong Opinions of him from which it 's harder to be dis-intangled than while the Soul remains a blank or tabala rasa For they that conceit themselves wise are worse to deal with then they that are sensible of their ignorance Nor hath it been less the device of the Devil the great Enemy of Mankind to perswade Men into wrong notions of God than to keep them altogether from acknowledging him the latter taking with few because odious but the other having been the constant ruin of the World for there hath scarce been a Nation found but hath had some notions or other of Religion so that not from their denying any Deity but from their mistakes and misapprehensions of it hath proceeded all the Idolatry and superstition of the world yea hence even Atheism it self hath proceeded for these many and various opinions of God and Religion being so much mixed with the guessings and uncertain judgments of men have begotten in many the opinion that there is no God at all This and much more that might be said may shew how dangerous it is to miss in the first step All that come not in by the door are accounted as Thieves and Robbers Again how needful and desireable that knowledge is which brings Life Eternal Epictetus sheweth saying excellently well cap. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know that the main foundation of piety is this to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 right opinions and apprehensions of God This therefore I judged necessary as a first Principle in the first place to affirm and I suppose will not need much further explanation nor defence as being generally acknowledged by all and in these things that are without controversie I love to be brief as that which will easily commend it self to every Man's reason and Conscience and therefore I shall proceed to the next Proposition which tho it be nothing less certain yet by the malice of Satan and ignorance of many comes far more under debate The Second Proposition Of Immediate Revelation Seeing no man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son revealeth him Matt. 11.27 And seeing the revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit therefore the Testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been is and can be only revealed who as by the moving of his own Spirit he disposed the chaos of this World into that wonderful order wherein it was in the beginning and created man a living Soul to rule and govern it so by the revelation of the same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the sons of Men both Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles which revelations of God by the Spirit whether by outward voices and appearances dreams or inward objective manifestations in the heart were of old the former object of their faith and remain yet so to be since the object of the Saints faith is the same in all ages tho held forth under divers administrations Moreover these divine inward revelations which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true faith neither do nor can ever contradict the outward testimony of the Scriptures or right and sound Reason yet from hence it will not follow that the Divine revelations are to be subjected to the Test either of the outward testimony of the Scriptures or of the natural reason of Man as to a more noble and certain rule and touchstone for this Divine revelation and inward illumination is that which is evident and clear of it self forcing by its own evidence and clearness the well disposed understanding to assent irresistibly moving the same thereunto even as the common principles of natural truths do move and incline the mind to a natural assent As that the whole is greater than its part That two contradictorys can neither be both true nor both false § I. IT is very probable that many carnal and natural Christians will oppose this Proposition who being wholly unacquainted with the movings and actings of God's Spirit upon their hearts judge the same nothing necessary and some are apt to flout at it as ridiculous Yea to that highth are the generality of all Christians apostatized and degenerated that tho there be not any thing more plainly asserted more seriously recommended nor more certainly artested to in all the writings of the Holy Scriptures yet nothing is less minded and more rejected by all sorts of Christians than Immediate and Divine Revelation in so much that once to lay claim to it is matter of reproach Whereas of old none were ever judged Christians but such as had the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 But now many do boldly call themselves Christians who make no difficulty of confessing they are without it and laugh at such as say they have it Of old they were accounted the Sons of God who were led by the Spirit of God ibid. verse 14. But now many averr themselves Sons of God who know nothing of this leader and he that affirms himself so led is by the pretended Orthodox of this Age presently proclaimed a Heretick the reason hereof is very manifest viz because many in these dayes under the name of Christians do experimentally find that they are not acted nor led by Gods Spirit yea many great Doctors Divines Teachers and Bishops of Christianity commonly so called have wholly shut their ears from hearing and their eyes from seeing this inward Guide and so are become strangers unto it whence they are by their own experience brought to this strait either to confess that they are as yet ignorant of God and have only the shadow of knowledg and not the true knowledg of him or that this knowledg is acquired without immediate revelation For the better understanding then of this proposition we do distinguish betwixt the certain knowledg of God and the uncertain betwixt the spiritual knowledg and the literal the saving heart-knowledg and soaring airy head-knowledg The last we confess may be divers obtained but the first by no other way then the inward immediate manifestation and revelation of Gods Spirit shining in and upon the heart inlightning and opening the understanding § II. Having then proposed to my self in these propositions to affirm those things which relate to the true and effectual knowledg which brings
life eternal with it therefore I have affirmed and that truely that this knowledg is no otherways attained and that none have any true ground to believe they have attained it who have it not by this revelation of Gods Spirit The certainty of which truth is such that it hath been acknowledged by some of the most refined and famous of all sorts of Professors of Christianity in all ages who being truly upright-hearted and earnest seekers of the Lord however stated under the disadvantages and epidemical errors of their several sects or ages the true seed in them hath been answered by Gods love who hath had regard to the Good and hath had of his elect ones among all who finding a distast and disgust in all other outward means even in the very principles and precepts more particullary relative to their own forms and societies have at last concluded with one voice that there was no true knowledg of God but that which is revealed inwardly by his own Spirit whereof take these following testimonies of the Ancients 1. It is the inward Master saith Augustin that teacheth it is Christ that teacheth it is inspiration that teacheth where this inspiration and unction is wanting it is in vain that words from without are beaten in And therefore for he that created us and redeemed us and called us by faith and dwelleth in us by his Spirit unless he speaketh unto you inwardly it is needless for us to cry out 2. There is a difference faith Clemens Alexandrinus betwixt that which any one saith of the Truth and that which the Truth it self interpreting it self saith A conjecture of Truth differeth from the Truth it self a similitude of a thing differeth from the thing it self it is one thing that is acquired by exercise and discipline and another thing which by power and faith Lastly the same Clemens saith Truth is neither hard to be arrived at nor is it impossible to apprehend it for it is most nigh unto us even in our houses as the most wise Moses hath insinuated 3. How is it saith Tertullian that since the Devil always worketh and stirreth up the mind to iniquity that the work of God should either cease or desist to act Since for this end the Lord did send the Comforter that because human weakness could not at once bear all things knowledg might be by little and little directed formed and brought to perfection by the holy Spirit that Vicar of the Lord. I have many things yet saith he to speak unto you but ye can not as vet bear them but when that Spirit of Truth shall come he shall lead you into all Truth and shall teach you these things that are to come But of his works we have spoken above What is then the administration of the Comforter but that discipline be derived and the Scriptures revealed c. 4. The Law saith Hierom is spiritual and there is need of a revelation to understand it And in his epistle 150 to Hedibia question 11. he saith the whole epistle to the Romans needs an interpretation it being involved in so great obscuritys that for the understanding thereof we need the help of the Holy Spirit who through the Apostle dictated it 5. So great things saith Athanasius doth our Saviour daily he draws unto piety perswades unto vertue teaches immortality excites to the desire of heavenly things reveals knowledg from the Father inspires power against death and shews himself unto every one 6. Gregory the Great upon these words he shall teach you all things saith that unless the same Spirit sit upon the heart of the hearer in vain is the discourse of the doctor let no man then ascribe unto the man that teacheth what he understands from the mouth of him that speaketh for unless he that teacheth be within the tongue of the Doctor that 's without laboureth in vain 7. Cyrillas Alexandrinus plainly affirmeth that men know that Jesus is the Lord by the Holy Ghost no otherwise than they who tast honey know that it is sweet even by its proper quality 8. Therefore saith Bernard we daily exhort you Brethren by speech that ye walk the ways of the heart and that your Souls be always in your hands that he may hear what the Lord saith in you And again upon these words of the Apostle Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord with which threefold vice saith he all sorts of religious men are less or more dangerously affected because they do not so diligently attend with the ears of the heart to what the Spirit of Truth which flatters none inwardly speaks This was the very basis and main foundation upon which the primitive Reformers walked Luther in his book to the Nobility of Germany saith This is certain that no man can make himself a Doctor of the holy Scripture but the holy Spirit alone And upon the Magnificat he saith No man can rightly understand God or the Word of God unless he immediately receive it from the Holy Spirit neither can any one receive it from the Holy Spirit except he find it by experience in himself and in this experience the Holy Ghost teacheth as in his proper school out of which school nothing is taught but meer talk Philip Melanchton in his Annotations upon the 6. of John Who hear only an outward and bodily voice hear the creature but God is a Spirit and is neither discerned nor known nor heard but by the Spirit and therefore to hear the voice of God to see God is to know and hear the Spirit by the Spirit alone God is known and perceived Which also the more serious to this day do acknowledg even all such who satisfie themselves not with the superfice of Religion and use it not as a cover or art Yea all these who apply themselves effectually to Christianity and are not satisfied until they have found its effectual work upon their hearts redeeming them from Sin do feel that no knowledge effectually prevails to the producing of this but that which proceeds from the warm influence of God's Spirit upon the heart and from the comfortable shinings of his Light upon their understanding and therefore to this purpose a late modern Author saith well videlicer Doctor Smith of Cambridge in his select discourses To seek our Divinity meerly in Books and Writings is to seek the living among the dead we do but in vain many times seek God in these where his Truth is too often not so much enshrined as entombed Intra te quaere Deum seek God within thine own Soul he is best discerned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus phraseth it by an intellectual touch of him We must see with our eyes and hear with our ears and our hands must handle the Word of Life to express it in St. John 's words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Soul it self hath its sense as well as the Body And therefore David
when he would teach us to know what the Divine Goodness is calls not for speculation but sensation Taste and see how good the Lord is That is not the best and truest knowledg of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the Brain but that which is kindled within us by an heavenly warmth in our Hearts And again there is a knowledg of the Truth as it is in Jesus as it is in a Christ-like nature as it is in that sweet mild humble and loving Spirits of Jesus which spreads it self like a Morning-star upon the spirits of good men full of Light and Life It profits little to know Christ himself after the flesh but he gives his Spirit to good men that searcheth the deep things of God And again it is but thin airy knowledg that is got by meer speculation which is usher'd in by Syllogisms and demonstrations but that which springs forth from true goodness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen speaketh it brings such a Divine Light to the Soul as is more clear and convincing than any demonstration § III. That this certain and undoubted method of the true knowledg of God hath been brought out of use hath been none of the least devices of the Devil to secure mankind to his kingdom For after the light and glory of the Christian Religion had prevailed over a good part of the World and dispelled the thick mists of the heathenish Doctrine of the plurality of Gods he that knew there was no probability of deluding the World any longer that way did then puff man up with a false knowledg of the true God setting him on work to seek God the wrong way and perswading him to be content with such a knowledg as was of his own acquiring and not of God's teaching And this device hath proved the more successful because accommodated to the natural and corrupt spirit and temper of man who above all things affects to exalt himself in which exaltation as God is most greatly dishonoured so therein the Devil hath his end who is not anxious how much God be acknowledged in words provided himself be but always served he matters not how great and high speculations the natural man entertains of God so long as he serves his lusts and passions and is obedient to his evil suggestions and temptations Thus Christianity is become an art acquired by humane science and industry as any other art and science is and men have not only assumed unto themselves the name of Christians but even have procured to be esteemed as masters of Christianity by certain artificial tricks though altogether strangers to the Spirit and Life of Jesus But if we shall make a right definition of a Christian according to the Scripture videlicer that he is one that hath the Spirit and is led by it How many Christians yea and of these great Masters and Doctors of Christianity so accounted shall we justly divest of that noble title If then such as have all the other means of knowledg and are sufficiently learned therein whether it be the letter of the Scripture the traditions of Churches the works of Creation and Providence whence they are able to deduce strong and undeniable arguments which may be true in themselves are not yet to be esteemed Christians according to the certain and infallible definition above-mentioned And if the inward and immediate Revelation of Gods Spirit in the Heart in such as have been altogether ignorant of some and but very little skilled in others of these means of attaining knowledg hath brought them to Salvation Then it will necessarily and evidently follow that inward and immediate Revelation is the only sure and certain way to attain the true and saving knowledge of God But the first is true Therefore the last Now as this Argument doth very strongly conclude for this way of knowledge and against such as deny it so herein it is the more considerable because the Propositions from which it is deduced are so clear that our very Adversaries cannot deny them For as to the first it is acknowledged that many learned men may be and have been damned And as to the second who will deny but many illeterate men may be and are saved Nor dare any affirm that none come to the knowledge of God and Salvation by the inward Revelation of the Spirit without these outward means unless they be also so bold as to exclude Abel Seth Noah Abraham Job and all the Holy Patriarchs from true Knowledge and Salvation § IV. I would however not be understood as if hereby I excluded those other means of Knowledge from any use or service to Man it is far from me to judge as in the next Proposition concerning the Scriptures shall more plainly appear The question is not what may be profitable or helpful but what is absolutely necessary Many things may contribute to further a work which yet are not that main thing that makes the work go on The sum then of what is said amounts to this that where the true inward Knowledge of God is through the Revelation of his Spirit there is all neither is there any absolute necessity of any other But where the best highest and most profound Knowledge is without this there is nothing as to the obtaining the great End of Salvation This Truth is very effectually confirmed by the first part of the Proposition it self which in few words comprehendeth divers unquestionable Arguments which I shall in brief subsume First That there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son Secondly That there is no knowledge of the Son but by the Spirit Thirdly That by the Spirit God hath alwayes revealed himself to his Chilldren Fourthly That these Revelations were the formal Object of the Saints Faith And Lastly That the same continueth to be the Object of the Saints Faith to this day Of each of these I shall speak a little particularly and then proceed to the latter part § V. As to the first viz. That there is no Knowledge of the Father but by the Son it will not need much probation being founded upon the plain words of Scripture and is therefore a fit medium to draw the rest of our Assertions from For the infinite and most wise God who is the Foundation Root and Spring of all Operation hath wrought all things by his Eternal Word and Son This is that WORD that was in the beginning with God and was God by whom all things were made and without whom was not any thing made that was made This is that Jesus Christ by whom God created all things by whom and for whom all were created that are in Heaven and in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers Col. 1.16 Who therefore is called the first born of every Creature Col. 1.15 As then that infinite and incomprehensible Fountain of Life and Motion operateth in the Creatures by his
own Eternal Word and Power so no Creature has access again unto him but in and by the Son according to his own express words No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him Matth. 11.27 Luk. 10.22 And again he himself saith I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh unto the Father but by me Joh. 14.6 Hence he is fitly called the Mediator betwixt God and Man For having been with God from all Eternity being himself God and also in time partaking of the nature of man through him is the goodness and love of God conveighed to mankind and by him again man receiveth and partaketh of these mercies Hence is easily deduced the probation of this first Assertion thus If no man know the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him then there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son But no man knoweth the Father but the Son Therefore there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son The first part of the antecedent are the plain words of Scripture The consequence thereof is undeniable except one would say that he hath the knowledge of the Father while yet he knows him not which were an absurd repugnance Again If the Son be the Way the Truth and the Life and that no man cometh unto the Father but by him then there is no knowledg of the Father but by the Son But the first is true Therefore the last The antecedent are the very Scripture words The consequence is very evident For how can any know a thing who useth not the way without which it is not knowable But it is already proved that there is no other way but by the Son so that who so uses not that way cannot know him neither come unto him § VI. Having then laid down this first Principle I come to the second viz. That there is no Knowledg of the Son but by the Spirit or that the Revelation of the Son of God is by the Spirit Where it is to be noted that I alwayes speak of the saving certain and necessary Knowledge of God which that it cannot be acquired otherwayes than by the Spirit doth also appear from many clear Scriptures For Jesus Christ in and by whom the Father is revealed doth also reveal himself to his Disciples and Friends in and by his Spirit as his manifestation was sometimes outwards when he testified and witnessed for the Truth in this World and approved himself faithful throughout So being now withdrawn as to the outward man he doth teach and instruct mankind inwardly by his own Spirit he standeth at the door and knocketh and who so heareth his Voice and openeth he comes in to such Rev. 3.20 Of this Revelation of Christ in him Paul speaketh Gal. 1.6 in which he placeth the excellency of his Ministry and the certainty of his Calling And the Promise of Christ to his Disciples Lo I am with you to the end of the World confirmeth this same thing for this is an inward Presence and Spiritual as all acknowledg But what relates hereto will again occur I shall deduce the proof of this Proposition from two manifest places of Scripture The first is 1 Cor. 2.11 12. What man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things which are freely given us of God The Apostle in the verses before speaking of the wonderful things which are prepared for the Saints after he hath declared that the natural man cannot reach them adds that they are revealed by the Spirit of God ver 9 10. giving this reason for the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God And then he bringeth in the comparison in the verses above mentioned very apt and answerable to our purpose and Doctrine that as the things of a man are only known by the Spirit of man so the things of God are only known by the Spirit of God that is that as nothing below the Spirit of man as the Spirit of Brutes or any other Creatures can properly reach unto nor comprehend the things of a man as being of a more noble and higher Nature so neither can the Spirit of man or the natural man as the Apostle in the 14 verse subsumes receive nor discern the things of God or the things that are Spiritual as being also of a higher Nature which the Apostle himself gives for the reason saying neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned So that the Apostles words being reduced to an argument do very well prove the matter under debate thus If that which appertaineth properly to man cannot be discerned by any lower or baser Principle than the Spirit of man then cannot these things that properly relate unto God and Christ be known or discerned by any lower or baser thing than the Spirit of God and Christ. But the First is true Therefore also the Second The whole strength of the argument is contained in the Apostles words before mentioned which therefore being granted I shall proceed to deduce a second argument thus That which is Spiritual can only be known and discerned by the Spirit of God But the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the true and saving knowledg of him is Spiritual Therefore the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the true and saving knowledge of him can only be known and discerned by the Spirit of God The other Scripture is also a saying of the same Apostle 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost The Scripture which is full of Truth and answereth full well to the inlightned understanding of the Spiritual and real Christian may perhaps prove very strange to the carnal and pretended follower of Christ by whom perhaps it hath not been so diligently remarked Here the Apostle doth so much require the Holy Spirit in the things that relate to a Christian that he positively averrs we cannot so much as affirm Jesus to be the Lord without it which insinuates no less than that the Spiritual Truths of the Gospel are as lyes in the Mouths of carnal and unspiritual men for though in themselves they be true yet are they not true as to them because not known nor uttered forth in and by that Principle and Spirit that ought to direct the mind and actuat it in such things they are no better than the counterfeit representations of things in a comedy neither can it be more truly and properly called a real and true knowledg of God and Christ than the actings of Alexander the great and Julius Caesar c. if now transacted upon a Stage might be called truly and really their doings or the persons representing them might be said truly
and really to have conquered Asâ—â— and overcome Pompey c. This knowledg then of Christ which is not by the Revelation of his own Spirit in the heart is no more properly the knowledg of Christ than the pratling of a Parret which has been taught a few words may be said to be the voice of a man for as that or some other Bird may be taught to sound or utter forth a rational sentence as it hath learned it by the outward ear and not from any living principle of reason actuating it So just such is that knowledg of the things of God which the natural and carnal man hath gathered from the words or writings of Spiritual men which are not true to him because conceived in the natural Spirit and so brought forth by the wrong Organ and not proceeding from the Spiritual Principle no more than the words of a man acquired by art and brought forth by the mouth of a Bird not proceeding from a rational Principle are true with respect to the Bird that utters them Wherefore from this Scripture I shall further add this Argument If no man can say Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But the First is true Therefore the Second From this argument there may be another deduced concluding in the very terms of this assertion thus If no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then can there be no certain knowledg or Revelation of him but by the Spirit But the First is true Therefore the Second § VII The third thing affirmed is That by the Spirit God always revealed himself to his Children For making appear of the truth of this assertion it will be but needful to consider God's manifesting himself towards and in relation to his Creatures from the beginning which resolves it self always herein The First step of all is ascribed hereunto by Moses Gen. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters I think it will not be denied that God's converse with man all along from Adam to Moses was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit And afterwards through the whole tract of the Law he spake to his Children no otherwaies which as it naturally followeth from the Principles above proved so it cannot be denied by such as acknowledg the Scriptures of Truth to have been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost For these writings from Moses to Malachy do declare that during all that time God revealed himself to his Children by his Spirit But if any will object that after th dispensation of the Law God's method of speaking was altered I answer first that God spake alwayes immediatly to the Jewes in that he spake always immediatly to the High-Priest from betwixt the Cherubins who when he entered into the Holy of Holys returning did relate to the whole People the voice and will of God there immediately revealed So that his immediate speaking never ceased in any age Secondly from this immediate fellowship were none shut out who earnestly sought after and waited for it in that many besides the High-Priest who were not so much as of the kindred of Levi nor of the Prophets did receive it and speak from it as it is written Numb 11.25 Where the Spirit is said to have rested upon the seventy Elders which Spirit also reached unto two that were not in the Tabernacle but in the Camp whom when some would have forbidden Moses would not but rejoiced wishing all the Lord's people were Prophets and that he would put his Spirit upon them verse 29. This is also confirmed Neh. 9. Where the Elders of the People after their return from captivity when they began to sanctifie themselves by fasting and prayer in which numbring up the many mercies of God towards their Fathers they say ver 20. Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them and ver 30. Yet many years didst thou forbear and testifie against them by thy Spirit in thy Prophets Many are the sayings of Spiritual David to this purpose as Psal. 51.13 Take not thy Holy Spirit from me uphold me with thy free Spirit Psal. 139.7 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit Hereunto doth the Prophet Isaiah ascribe the credit of his Testimony saying chap. 48. v. 16. And now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me And that God revealed himself to his children under the New Testament to wit to the Apostles Evangelists and primitive Disciples is confessed by all How far now this yet continueth and is to be expected comes hereafter to be spoken to § VIII The fourth thing affirmed is that these Revelations were the object of the Saints faith of old This will easily appear by the definition of Faith and considering what its object is For which we shall not dive into the curious and various notions of the School-men but stay in the plain and positive words of the Apostle Paul who Hebr. 11. describes it two ways Faith saith he is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen which as the Apostle illustrateth it in the same chapter by many examples is no other but a firm and certain belief of the mind whereby it resteth and in a sence possesseth the substance of some things hoped for through its confidence in the promise of God And thus the Soul hath a most firm evidence by its faith of things not yet seen nor come to pass The object of this faith is the promse word or testimony of God speaking to the mind Hence it hath been generally affirmed that the object of Faith is Deus loquens c. That is God speaking c. Which is also manifest from all these Examples deduced by the Apostle throughout that whole Chapter whose Faith was founded neither by that outward testimony nor upon the voice and writing of man but upon the revelation of Gods Will manifest unto them and in them as in the Example of Noah ver 7. thus By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his House by the which he condemned the World and became Heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith What was here the object of Noahs Faith but God speaking unto him He had not the Writings nor Prophesyings of any going before nor yet the concurrence of any Church or People to strengthen him and yet his Faith in the Word by which he contradicted the whole World saved him and his House Of which also Abraham is set forth as a singular Example being therefore called the Father of the Faithful who is said against hope to have believed in hope In that he only willingly forsook his Fathers Countrey not knowing whether he went In that he believed concerning the coming of Isaac though contrary to natural probability But above all In that he refused not
but inward and immediate revelation as we have before proved Their example can be no ways applicable to us except we believe in God as they did that is by the same object The Apostle clears this yet further by his own example Gal. 1.16 where he saith so soon as Christ was revealed in him he consulted not with flesh and blood but forthwith believed and obeyed The same Apostle Heb. 13.7 8. where he exhorteth the Hebrews to follow the faith of the Elders adds this reason considering the end of their conversation Jesus Christ the same to day yesterday and for ever hereby notably insinuating that in the object there is no alteration If any now object the diversity of Administration I answer that altereth not at all the object for the same Apostle mentioned this diversity three times 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. centreth always in the same Object the same Spirit the same Lord the same God But further if the object of Faith were not one and the same both to us and to them then it would follow that we were to know God some other way than by the Spirit But this were absurd Therefore c. Lastly this is most firmly proved from a common and received maxim of the School-men to wit Omnis actus specificatur ab objecto every act is specified from its object from which if it be true as they acknowledg tho for the sake of many I shall not recur to this argument as being too nice and Scholastick Neither lay I much stress upon those kind of things as being that which commends not the simplicity of the Gospel If the object were different then the faith would be different also Such as deny this Proposition now adays use here a distinction granting that God is to be known by his Spirit but again denying that it is immediate or inward but in and by the Scriptures in which the mind of the Spirit as they say being fully and amply expressed we are thereby to know God and be led in all things As to the negative of this assertion that the Scriptures are not sufficient neither were ever appointed to be the adequate and only rule nor yet can guide or direct a Christian in all those things that are needful for him to know we shall leave that to the next Proposition to be examined What is proper in this place to be proved is that Christians now are to be led inwardly and immediatly by the Spirit of God even in the same manner though it befal not to many to be led in the same measure as the Saints were of old § X. I shall prove this by divers Arguments and first from the Promise of Christ in these words Joh. 14.16 And I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever 17. Even the Spirit of Truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Again ver 26. 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 and 16.13 But when that Spirit of Truth shall come he shall lead you into all Truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak and shall declare unto you things to come We have here first who this is and that is divers wayes expressed to wit The Comforter the Spirit of Truth the Holy Ghost and sent of the Father in the Name of Christ. And hereby is sufficiently proved the fottishness of those Socinians and other carnal Christians who neither know nor acknowledge any internal Spirit or Power but that which is meerly Natural by which they sufficiently declare themselves to be of the World who cannot receive the Spirit because they neither see him nor know him Secondly Where this Spirit is to be He dwelleth with you and shall be in you And Thirdly What his Work is He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and guide you into all Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As to the First Most do acknowledge that there is nothing else understood than what the plain words signifie which is also evident by many other places of Scripture that will hereafter occur Neither do I see how such as affirm otherwayes can avoid Blasphemy For If the Comforter the Holy Ghost and Spirit of Truth be all one with the Scriptures then it will follow that the Scriptures is God seeing it is true that the Holy Ghost is God If these Mens reasoning might take place where ever the Spirit is mentioned in relation to the Saints thereby might be truly and properly understood the Scriptures Which what a non-sensical Monster it would make of the Christian Religion will easily appear to all Men. As where it is said A Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal it might be rendred thus A manifestation of the Scriptures is given to every man to profit withal What notable sense this would make and what a curious interpretation let us consider by the sequel of the same chapter 1 Cor. 12.9 10 11. To another the gifts of Healing by the same Spirit to another the working of Miracles c. But all these worketh that one and the self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will What would now these great masters of Reason the Socinians judge if we should place the Scriptures here instead of the Spirit Would it answer their Reason which is the great guide of their Faith Would it be good and sound Reason in their Logical Schools to affirm that the Scriptures divideth severally as it will and giveth to some the gift of Healing to others the working of Miracles If then this Spirit a manifestation whereof is given to every man to profit withal be no other than that Spirit of Truth before-mentioned which guideth into all Truth this Spirit of Truth cannot be the Scriptures I could infer an hundred more absurdities of this kind upon this sottish Opinion but what is said may suffice For even some of themselves being at times forgetful or ashamed of their own Doctrine do acknowledge that the Spirit of God is another thing and distinct from the Scriptures to guide and influence the Saints Secondly That this Spirit is inward in my opinion needs no interpretation nor commentary He dwelleth with you and shall be in you This indwelling of the Spirit in the Saints as it is a thing most needful to be known and believed so is it as positively asserted in the Scripture as any thing else can be If so be the Spirit of God dwell in you saith the Apostle to the Romans 8.9 and again Know ye not that ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you 1 Cor. 6.19 Without this the
Apostle reckoneth no man a Christian. If any man saith he have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his These words immediately follow those above-mentioned out of the Epistle to the Romans but ye are not in the Flesh if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you The context of which sheweth that the Apostle reckoneth it the main token of a Christian both positively and negatively For in the former verses he sheweth how the carnal mind is enmity against God and that such as are in the Flesh cannot please him Where subsuming he adds concerning the Romans that they are not in the Flesh if the Spirit of God dwell in them What is this but to affirm that they in whom the Spirit dwells are no longer in the Flesh nor of those who please not God but are become Christians indeed Again In the next verse he concludes negatively that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his that is he is no Christian. He then that acknowledges himself ignorant and a stranger to the inward in being of the Spirit of Christ in his Heart doth thereby acknowledge himself to be yet in the carnal mind which is enmity to God to be yet in the Flesh where God cannot be pleased and in short whatever he may otherwayes know or believe of Christ or however much skilled or acquainted with the Letter of the Holy Scripture not yet to be notwithstanding all that attained to the least desire of a Christian yea not once to have embraced the Christian Religion For take but away the Spirit and Christianity remains no more Christianity than the dead Carcass of a Man when the Soul and Spirit is departed remains a man which the living can no more abide but to bury out of their sight as a noisome and useless thing however acceptable it hath been when actuated and moved by the Soul Lastly Whatsoever is Excellent whatsoever is Noble whatsoever is Worthy whatsoever is Desireable in the Christian Faith is ascribed to this Spirit without which it could no more subsist than the outward World without the Sun Hereunto have all true Christians in all Ages attributed their Strength and Life It is by this Spirit that they avouch themselves to have been converted to God to have been redeemed from the World to have been strengthened in their Weakness comforted in their Afflictions confirmed in their Temptations imboldened in their Suffering and triumphed in the midst of all their Persecutions Yea The Writings of all true Christians are full of the great and notable things which they all affirm themselves to have done by the Power and Vertue and Efficacy of the Spirit of God working in them It is the Spirit that quickeneth Joh. 6.63 It was the Spirit that gave them utterance Act. c. 2.4 It was the Spirit by which Stephen spake That the Jews were not able to resist Acts 6.10 It is such as walk after the Spirit that receive no condemnation Rom. 8.1 It is the Law of the Spirit that makes free ver 2. It is by the Spirit of God dwelling in us that we are redeemed from the Flesh and from the carnal mind v. 9. It is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us that quickneth our mortal Bodies v. 11. It is through this Spirit that the deeds of the Body are mortified and Life obtained ver 13. It is by this Spirit that we are adopted and cry ABBA Father v. 15. It is this Spirit that beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God v. 16. It is this Spirit that helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us with grâ—anings which cannot be uttered 26. It is by this Spirit that the glorious things which God hath laid up for us which neither outward Ear hath heard nor outward Eye hath seen nor the Heart of Man conceived by all his Reasonings are revealed unto us 1 Cor. 2.9 10. It is by this Spirit that both Wisdom and Knowledg and Faith and Miracles and Tongues and Prophesies are obtained 1 Cor. 12.8 9 10. It is by this Spirit that we are all baptized into one Body v. 13. In short what things relating to the Salvation of the Soul and to the Life of a Christian is rightly performed or effectually obtained without it And what shall I more say For the time would fail me to tell of all those things which the Holy Men of Old have declared and the Saints of this day do witness themselves to enjoy by the vertue and power of this Spiritual dwelling in them Truely my Paper could not contain those many Testimonies whereby this Truth is confirmed wherefore besides what is above mentioned out of the Fathers whom all pretend to reverence and these of Luther and Melancthon I shall deduce yet one observable Testimony out of Calvin because not a few of the followers of his Doctrine do refuse and deride and that as it is to be feared because of their own Non-experience thereof this way of the Spirit 's in-dwelling as uncertain and dangerous that so if neither the Testimony of the Scripture nor the sayings of others nor right reason can move them they may at least be reproved by the words of their own Master who saith in the third book of his Institutions cap. 2. on this wise But they alledg it is a bold presumption for any one to pretend to an undoubted knowledg of God's will which saith he I should grant unto them if we should ascribe so much to our selves as to subject the incomprehensible counsel of God to the rashness of our understandings But while we simply say with Paul that we have received not the Spirit of this World but the Spirit which is of God by whose teaching we know those things that are given us of God What can they prate against it without reproaching the Spirit of God For if it be a horrible Sacriledg to accuse any Revelation coming from him either of a lye of uncertainty or ambiguity in asserting its certainty wherein we do offend But they cry out that it is not without great temerity that we dare so boast of the Spirit of Christ. Who would believe that the sottishness of these men were so great who would be esteemed the masters of the world that they should so fail in the first Principles of Religion Verily I could not believe it if their own writings did not testify so much Paul accounts those the Sons of God who are acted by the Spirit of God but these will have the Children of God acted by their own Spirits without the Spirit of God He will have us call God Father the Spirit dictating that term unto us which only can witness to our Spirits that we are the Sons of God These tho they cease not to call upon God do nevertheless demit the Spirit by whose guiding he is rightly to be called upon He denies them to be the Sons of God or the Servants of Christ who are
not led by his Spirit but these feign a Christianity that needs not the Spirit of Christ. He makes no hope of the blessed Resurrection unless we feel the Spirit residing in us but these feign a hope without any such a feeling But perhaps they will answer that they deny not but that it is necessary to have it only of modesty and humility we ought to deny and not acknowledg it What means he then when he commands the Corinthians to try themselves if they be in the Faith to examine themselves whether they have Christ whom whosoever acknowledges not dwelling in him is a reprobate By the Spirit which he hath given us saith John we know that he abideth in us And what do we then else but call in question Christ his promise while we would be esteemed the Servants of God without his Spirit which he declared he would pour out upon all his Seeing these things are the first grounds of Piety it is miserable blindness to accuse Christians of Pride because they dare glory of the presence of the Spirit without which glorying Christianity it self could not be But by their example they declare how truly Christ spake saying that his Spirit was unknown to the world and that those only acknowledg it with whom it remains Thus far Calvin If therefore it be so why should any be so foolish as to deny or so unwise as not to seek after this Spirit which Christ hath promised shall dwell in his Children They then that do suppose the in-dwelling and leading of his Spirit to be ceased must also suppose Christianity to be ceased which cannot subsist without it Thirdly What the work of this Spirit is is partly before shown which Christ compriseth in two or three things He will guide you into all Truth he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance Since Christ hath provided for us so good an instructor what need we then lean so much to those traditions and commandments of Men wherewith so many Christians have Burthened themselves What need we set up our own Carnal and corrupt reason for a guide to us in matters Spiritual as some will needs do May it not be complained of all such as the Lord did of old concerning Israel by the Prophets Jer. 2.13 For my People have commited two Evils they have forsaken me the Fountain of Living waters and hewed them out Cisterns broken Cisterns that hold no water Have not many forsaken do not many deride and reject this inward and Immediate Guide this Spirit that leads into all Truth and cast up to themselves other ways broken waves indeed which have not all this while brought them out of the flesh nor out of the world nor from under the dominion of their own lusts and sinful affections whereby truth which is only rightly learned by this Spirit is so much a stranger in the Earth From all them that have been mentioned concerning this promise and these words of Christ it will follow that Christians are always to be led inwardly and immediately by the Spirit of God dwelling in them and that the same is a standing and perpetual Ordinance as well to the Church in general in all ages as to every individual member in particular as appears from this argument The promise of Christ to his Children are Yea and Amen and cannot fail but must of necessity be fulfilled But Christ hath promised that the Comforter the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth shall abide with his Children for ever shall dwell with them shall be in them shall lead them into all Truth shall teach them all things shall bring all things to their remembrance Therefore c. Again No man is redeemed from the carnal mind which is at enmity with God which is not subject to the Law of God neither can be No man is yet in the Spirit but in the flesh and cannot please God except he in whom the Spirit of God dwells But every true Christian is in measure redeemed from the carnal mind is gathered out of the Enmity and can be subject to the Law of God is out of the flesh and in the Spirit the Spirit of God dwelling in him Therefore every true Christian hath the Spirit of God dwelling in him Again Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his that is no Child no Friend no Disciple of Christ. But every true Christian is a Child a Friend a Disciple of Christ. Therefore every true Christian hath the Spirit of Christ. Moreover Whosoever is the Temple of the Holy Ghost in him the Spirit of God dwelleth and abideth But every true Christian is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Therefore in every true Christian the Spirit of God dwelleth and abideth But to conclude He in whom the Spirit of God dwelleth it is not in him a lazy dumb useless thing but it moveth actuateth governeth instructeth and teacheth him all things whatsoever is needfull for him to know yea bringeth all things to his remembrance But the Spirit of God dwelleth in every true Christian Therefore it leadeth instructeth and teacheth every true Christian whatsoever is needful for him to know § XI But there are some that will confess that the Spirit doth now lead and influence the Saints but that he doth it only Subjectively or in ablind manner by inlighting their understandings to understand and believe the Truth delivered in the Scriptures But not at all by presenting these Truths to the mind by way of object and this they call medium incognitum assentiendi as that of whose working a man is not sensible This opinion tho somewhat more tolerable than the former is nevertheless not altogether according to Truth neither doth it reach the fulness of it 1. Because there be many Truths which as they are applicable to particulars and individuals and most needful to be known by them are no wise to be found in the Scripture as in the following Proposition shall be shown Besides the arguments already deduced do prove that the Spirit doth not only subjectively help us to discern Truths elsewhere delivered but also objectively present those Truths to our minds For that which teacheth me all things and is given me for that end without doubt presents those things to my mind which it teacheth me It is not said it shall teach you how to understand those things that are written but it shall teach you all things Again that which brings all things to my remembrance must needs present them by way of object else it were improper to say it brought them to my remembrance but onely that it helpeth to remember the objects brought from elsewhere My second argument shall be drawn from the Nature of the New Covenant by which and those that follow I shall prove that we are led by the Spirit both immediately and objectively the nature of the New Covenant is expressed in divers places and First Isa. 59.21 As for me this is my
it are answered § XIII The most usual is that these Revelations are uncertain But this bespeaketh much ignorance in the opposers for we distinguish betwixt the thesis and the hypothesis that is betwixt the proposition and supposition For it is one thing to affirm that the true and undoubted Revelation of God's Spirit is certain and infallible and another thing to affirm that this or that particular person or people is led infallibly by this Revelation in what they speak or write because they affirm themselves to be so led by the inward and immediate Revelation of the Spirit The first is only by us asserted the latter may be called in question The question is not who are or are not so led but whether all ought not or may not be so led Seeing then we have already proved that Christ hath promised his Spirit to lead his Children and that every one of them both ought and may be led by it If any depart from this certain Guide in deeds and yet in words pretend to be led by it into things that are not good it will not from thence follow that the true guidance of the Spirit is uncertain or ought not to be followed no more than it will follow that the Sun sheweth not light because a blind man or one who wilfully shuts his Eyes falls into a ditch at Noon day for want of Light or that no words are spoken because a deaf man hears them not or that a Garden full of fragrant Flowers has no sweet smell because he that has lost his smelling doth not savour it the fault then is in the Organ and not in the Object All these mistakes therefore are to be ascribed to the weakness or wickedness of men and not to that Holy Spirit Such as bend themselves most against this certain and infallible Testimony of the Spirit use commonly to alledge the example of the old Gnosticks and the late monstruous and mischievous actings of the Anabaptists of Munster all which toucheth us nothing at all neither weakens a whit our most true Doctrine Wherefore as a most sure Bullwark against such kind of assaults was subjoyned that other part of our Proposition thus Moreover these Divine and inward Revelations which we establish as absolutely necessary for the founding of the true Faith as they do not so neither can they at any time contradict the Scriptures Testimony or found Reason Besides the intrinsick and undoubted Truth of this assertion we can boldly affirm it from our certain and blessed Experience For this Spirit never deceived us never acted nor moved us to any thing that was amiss but is clear and manifest in its Revelations which are evidently discerned of us as we wait in that pure and undefiled Light of God that proper and fit Organ in which they are received Therefore if any reason after this manner That because some wicked ungodly devilish men have committed wicked actions and have yet more wickedly asserted that they were led into these things by the Spirit of God Therefore no man ought to lean to the Spirit of God or seek to be led by it I utterly deny the consequence of this Proposition which were it to be received as true then would all faith in God and hope of Salvation become uncertain and the Christian Religion be turned into meer Scepticism For after the same manner I might reason thus Because Eve was deceived by the lying of the Serpent Therefore she ought not to have trusted to the promise of God Because the old World was deluded by evil Spirits Therefore ought neither Noah nor Abraham nor Moses to have trusted the Spirit of the Lord. Because a lying Spirit spake through the four hundred Prophets that perswaded Achab to go up and fight at Ramoth Gilead Therefore the Testimony of the true Spirit of Micajah was uncertain and dangerous to be followed Because there were seducing Spirits crept into the Church of old Therefore it was not good or uncertain to follow the Anointing which taught all things and is Truth and no Lye Who dare say that this is a necessary consequence Moreover not only the Faith of the Saints and Church of God of old is hereby rendered uncertain but also the Faith of all sorts of Christians now is liable to the like hazard even of those who seek a foundation for their Faith elsewhere than from the Spirit For I shall prove by an inevitable argument ab incommodo i. e. from the inconveniency of it that if the Spirit be not to be followed upon that account and that men may not depend upon it as their Guide because some while pretending thereunto commit great evils that then nor Tradition nor the Scriptures nor Reason which the Papists Protestants and Socinians do respectively make the rule of their Faith are any whit more certain The Romanists reckon it an error to celebrate Easter any other ways than that Church doth This can only be decided by Tradition And yet the Greek Church which equally layeth claim to Tradition with her self doth it otherwise Yea so little effectual is Tradition to decide the case that Polycarpus the Disciple of John and Anicetus the Bishop of Rome who immediately succeeded them according to whose example both sides concluded the question ought to be decided could not agree Here of necessity one behoved to err and that following Tradition Would the Papists now judg we dealt fairly by them if we should thence aver that Tradition is not to be regarded Besides in a matter of far greater importance the same difficulty will occur to wit in the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome for many do affirm and that by Tradition that in the First Six Hundred Years the Roman Prelates never assumed the Title of Vniversal Shepherd nor were acknowledged as such And as that which altogether overturneth this presidency there are that alledg and that from Tradition also that Peter never saw Rome and that therefore the Bishop of Rome cannot be his Successor Would ye Romanists think this sound reasoning to say as ye do Many have been deceived and erred grievously in trusting to Tradition Therefore we ought to reject all Traditions yea even those by which we affirm the contrary and as we think prove the Truth Lastly in the Council of Florence the chief Doctors of the Romish and Greek Churches did debate whole Sessions long concerning the Interpretation of one Sentence of the Council of Ephesus and of Epiphanius and Basilius neither could they ever agree about it Secondly as to the Scripture the same difficulty occurreth the Lutherans affirm they believe Consubstantiation by the Scripture which they Calvinists deny as that which they say according to the same Scripture is a gross error The Calvinists again affirm absolute reprobation which the Arminians deny affirming the contrary wherein both affirm themselves to be ruled by the Scripture and Reason in the matter should I argue thus then to the Calvinists Here the
unmoveable foundation of all Christian faith which argument when well weighed I hope will have weight with all sorts of Christians and it is this That which all Professors of Christianity of whatsoever kind are forced ultimately to recur unto when pressed to the last That for and because of which all other foundations are recommended and accounted worthy to be believed and without which they are granted to be of no weight at all must needs be the only most true certain and unmovable foundation of all Christian Faith But inward immediate objective revelation by the Spirit is that which all Professors of Christianity of whatsoever kind are forced ultimately to recur unto c. Therefore c. The Proposition is so evident that it will not be denyed The assumption shall be proved by parts And first as to Papists they place their foundation in the judgment of the Church and Tradition If we press them to say why they believe as the Church doth Their answer is because the Church is always led by the infallible Spirit So here the leading of the Spirit is the utmost foundation Again If we ask them why we ought to trust Tradition They answer Because these Traditions were delivered us by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church which Doctors and Fathers by the Revelation of the Holy Ghost commended the Church to observe them Here again all ends in the Revelation of the Spirit And for the Protestants and Socinians both which acknowledg the Scriptures to be the foundation and rule of their Faith the one is subjectively influenced by the Spirit of God to use them the other as manageing them with and by their own Reason Ask both or either of them why they trust in the Scriptures and take them to be their Rule Their answer is Because we have in them the mind of God delivered unto us by those to whom these things were inwardly immediately and objectively revealed by the Spirit of God And not because this or that man wrote them but because the Spirit of God dictated them It is strange then that men should render that so uncertain and dangerous to follow upon which alone the certain ground and foundation of their own faith is Built Or that they should shut themselves out from that Holy Fellowship with God which only is enjoyed in the Spirit in which we are commanded both to walk and live If any reading these things find themselves moved by the strength of these Scripture arguments to assent and believe such Revelations necessary and yet find themselves strangers to them which as I observed in the beginning is the cause that this is so much gain-said and contradicted Let them know that it is not because it is ceased to become the priviledge of every Christian that they do not feel it but rather because they are not so much Christians by Nature as by Name and let such know that the secret Light which shines in the heart and reproves unrighteousness is the small beginnings of the Revelation of God's Spirit which was first sent into the world to reprove it of Sin John 16.8 And as by forsaking Iniquity thou com'st to be acquainted with that Heavenly voice in thy heart thou shalt feel as the Old man the Natural man that savoureth not the things of God's Kingdom is put off with his evil and corrupt affections and Lusts I say thou shalt feel the New Man the Spiritual birth and Babe raised which hath its Spiritual Sences and can see feel taste handle and smell the things of the Spirit but till then the knowledg of things Spiritual is but as an historical Faith but as the description of the Light of the Sun or of curious Colours to a blind man who though of the largest capacity cannot so well understand it by the most acute and lively description as a child can by seeing them So neither can the natural man of the large capacity by the best words even Scripture words so well understand the Mysteries of God's Kingdom as the least and weakest child who tasteth them by having them revealed inward and objectively by the Spirit Wait then for this in the small Revelation of that pure Light which first reveals things more known and as thou becom'st fitted for it thou shalt receive more and more and by a living experience easily refute their Ignorance who ask how dost thou know that thou art acted by the Spirit of God which will appear to thee a question no less ridiculous then to ask one whose eyes are open how he knows the Sun shines at Noon-day and though this be the surest and certainest way to answer all objections yet by what is above written it may appear that the mouths of all such opposers as deny this Doctrine may be shut by unquestionable and unanswerable reasons The Third Proposition Concerning the Scriptures From these Revelations of the Spirit of God to the Saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth which contain I. A faithful historical account of the actings of Gods People in divers ages with many singular and remarkable Providences attending them II. A Prophetical account of several things whereof some are already past and some yet to come III. A full and ample account of all the chief Principles of the Doctrine of Christ held forth in divers precious Declarations Exhortotions and Sentences which by the moving of God's Spirit were at several times and upon sundry occasions spoken and written unto some Churches and their Pastors Nevertheless because they are only a Declaration of the Fountain and not the Fountain it self therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledg nor yet the adequate primary Rule of Faith and manners Yet because they give a true and faithful Testimony of the first Foundation they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule subordinate to the Spirit from which they have all their excellency and certainty for as by the inward Testimony of the Spirit we do alone truly know them so they testifie that the Spirit is that Guide by which the Saints are led into all Truth therefore according to the Scriptures the Spirit is the First and Principal Leader Seeing then that we do therefore receive and believe the Scriptures because they proceeded from the Spirit for the very same reason is the Spirit more Originally and Principally the Rule according to that received Maxime in the Schools Propter quod unumquodque est tale iliud ipsum est magis tale That for which a thing is such the thing it self is more such § I. THe former part of this Proposition though it needs no Apology for it yet it is a good Apology for us and will help to sweep away that among many other Calumnys wherewith we are often loaded as if we were vilifiers and deniers of the Scriptures for in that which we affirm of them it doth appear at what high rate we value them accounting them without all
above intimated will appear The same argument will hold as to the other branch of the position That it is not the primary adequade rule of faith and manners thus That which is not the rule of my faith in believing the Scriptures themselves is not the primary adequate rule of faith and manners But the Scripture is not nor can it be the rule of that faith by which I believe them c. Therefore c. But as to this part we shall produce divers arguments hereafter as to what is affirmed That the Spirit and not the Scriptures is the rule it is largely handled in the former proposition the sum whereof I shall subsume in one argument thus If by the Spirit we can only come to the true knowledge of God If by the Spirit we be to be led into all truth and so be taught of all things Then the Spirit and not the Scriptures is the foundation and ground of all Truth and knowledg and the primary rule of faith and manners But the first is true Therefore also the last Next the very nature of the Gospel it self declareth that the Scriptures cannot be the only and chief rule of Christians else there should be no difference betwixt the Law and the Gospel As from the nature of the New Covenant by divers Scriptures described in the former Proposition is proved But besides those which are before mentioned herein doth the Law and the Gospel differ in that the Law being outwardly written brings under condemnation but hath not life in it to save whereas the Gospel as it declares and makes manifest the evil so it being an inward powerful thing also gives power to obey and deliver from the evil Hence it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is glad tidings the Law or Letter which is without us kills but the Gospel which is the inward Spiritual Law gives life for it consists not so much in words as in vertue Wherefore such as comes to know it and be acquainted with it come to feel greater power over their iniquities than all outward Laws or Rules can give them Hence the Apostle concludes Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you For ye are not under the Law but under Grace This Grace then that is inward and not an outward Law is to be the Rule of Christians hereunto the Apostle commends the Elders of the Church saying Acts 20.32 And now Brethren I commend you to God and to the Word of his Grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those that are sanctified He doth not commend them here to outward laws or writings but to the Word of Grace which is inward even the Spiritual Law which makes free as he elsewhere affirms Rom. 8.2 The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death This Spiritual Law is that which the Apostle declares he preached and directed people unto which was not outward as Rom. 10.8 is manifest where distinguishing it from the Law he saith The Word is nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth and this is the Word of Faith which we preach From what is above said I argue thus The principal Rule of Christians under the Gospel is not an outward letter nor law outwardly written and delivered but an inward Spiritual Law ingraven in the heart the Law of the Spirit of Life the Word that is nigh in the heart and in the mouth But the letter of the Scripture is outward of it self a dead things a meer declaration of good things but not the things themselves Therefore it is not nor can be the chief or principle rule of Christians § III. Thirdly That which is given to Christians for a Rule and Guide must needs be so full as it may clearly and distinctly guide and order them in all things and occurences that may fall out But in that there are many hundred of things with a regard to their circumstances particular Christians may be concerned in for which there can be no particular Rule had in the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures cannot be a Rule to them I shall give an instance in two or three particulars for to prove this Proposition It is not to be doubted but some men are particularly called to some particular Services there being not found in which though the act be no general positive duty yet in so far as it may be required of them is a great sin to omit for as much God is zealous of his Glory and every act of Disobedience to his will manifested is enough not only to hinder one greatly from that Comfort and inward Grace which otherwise they might have but also bringeth Condemnation As for instance Some are called to the Ministry of the Word Paul saith there was a necessity upon him to preach the Gospel wo unto me if I preach not If it be necessary that there be now Ministers of the Church as well as then then there is the same necessity upon some more than upon others to occupy this place which necessity as it may be incumbent upon particular persons the Scripture neither doth nor can declare If it be said that the qualifications of a Minister are found in the Scripture and by applying these qualifications to my self I may know whether I be fit for such a place or no. I answer The qualifications of a Bishop or Minister as they are mentioned both in the Epistle to Tim. and Tit. are such as may be found in a private Christian yea which ought in some measure to be in every true Christian so that that giveth a man no certainty every pacity to an office giveth me not a sufficient call to it Next again By what Rule shall I judg if I be so qualified how do I know that I am sober meek holy harmless Is not the Testimony of the Spirit in my Conscience that which must assure me hereof And suppose that I was quallified and called yet what Scripture Rule shall inform me whether it be my duty to preach in this or that place in France or England Holland or Germany whether I shall take up my Time in Confirming the Faithful reclaiming Hereticks or Converting Infidels as also in Writing Epistles to this or that Church The general Rules of the Scripture viz. to be diligent in my duty to do all to the Glory of God and for the good of his Church can give me no light in this thing Seeing two different things may both have a respect to that way yet may I commit a great error and offence in doing the one when I am called to the other If Paul when his Face was turned by the Lord toward Jerusalem had gone back to Achaia or Macedonia he might have supposed he could have done God more acceptable service in Preaching and Confirming the Churches than in being shut up in Prison in Judea but would God have been pleased
though we should extend that of the Revelation beyond the particular Prophecy of that book it cannot be understood but of a new Gospel or new Doctrines or of restraining man's Spirit that he mix not his humane words with the Divine and not of a new revelation of the old as we have said before The Fourth Proposition Concerning the Condition of Man in the fall All Adam's posterity or mankind both Jews and Gentiles as to the first Adam or earthly man is faln degenerated and dead deprived of the sensation or feeling of this inward Testimony or Seed of God and is subject unto the Power Nature and Seed of the Serpent which he soweth in mens hearts while they abide in this natural and corrupted estate from whence it comes that not only their words and deeds but all their imaginations are evil perpetually in the sight of God as proceeding from this depraved and wicked Seed Man therefore as he is in this state can know nothing aright yea his Thoughts and Coneptions concerning God and things Spiritual until he be disjoyned from this evil Seed and united to the Divine Light are unprofitable both to himself and others Hence are rejected the Socinian and Pelagian errors in exalting a Natural Light as also the Papists and most of Protestants who affirm that man without the true Grace of God may be a true Minister of the Gospel Nevertheless this Seed is not imputed to Infants until by Transgression they actually joyn themselves therewith for they are by Nature the Children of Wrath. Who walk according to the Power of the Prince of the Air and the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of disobedience having their conversation in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind Eph. 2. § I. HItherto we have discoursed how the True knowledg of God is attained and preserved also of what use and service the Holy Scripture is to the Saints We come now to examine the state and condition of Man as he stands in the fall what his capacity and power is and how far he is able as of himself to advance in relation to the things of God Of this we touch'd a little in the beginning of the second Proposition but the full right and through understanding of it is of great use and service because from the ignorance and altercations that have been about it there have arisen great and dangerous errors both on the one hand and the other While some do so far exalt the light of Nature or the faculty of the natural man as capable of himself by virtue of the inward will faculty light and power that pertains to his Nature to follow that which is good and make real progress towards Heaven And of these are the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians of old and of late the Socinians and divers others among the Papists Others again will needs run into another extream to whom Augustin among the Antients first made way in his declining age through the heat of his Zeal against Pelagius not only confessing men uncapable of themselves to do good and prone to evil but that in his very Mothers-womb and before he commits any actual Transgression he is contaminate with a real guilt whereby he deserves eternal Death in which respect they are not afraid to affirm that many poor Infants are eternally damned and for ever endure the Torments of Hell Therefore the God of Truth having now again revealed his Truth that good and even Way by his own Spirit hath taught us to avoid both these extreams That then which our proposition leads us to treat of is First What the condition of man is in the Fall and how far uncapable to meddle in the things of God And Secondly that God doth not impute this evil to Infants until they actually joyn with it that so by establishing the Truth we may overturn the errors on both parts And as for that Third thing included in the proposition it self concerning these Teachers which want the Grace of God we shall refer that to the Tenth Proposition where that matter is more particularly handled § II. As to the First not to dive into the many curious Notions which many have concerning the Condition of Adam before the fall all agree in this that thereby he came to a very great loss not only in the things which related to the outward man but in regard of that true Fellowship and Communion he had with God This loss was signified to him in the Command For in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. 2.17 This death could not be an outward death or the dissolution of the outward man for as to that he did not dye yet many Hundred Years after so that it must needs respect his Spiritual Life and Communion with God The consequence of this fall besides that which relates to the fruits of the Earth is also expressed Gen. 3.24 So he drove out the man and he placed at the East of the Garden of Eden Cherubims and a Flaming Sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life Now whatsoever literal signification this may have we may safely ascribe to this Paradise a mystical signification and truly account it that Spiritual Communion and Fellowship which the Saints obtain with God by Jesus Christ to whom only these Cherubims give way and unto as many as enter by him who calls himself the door So that though we do not ascribe any whit of Adam's guilt to men until they make it theirs by the like acts of Disobedience yet we cannot suppose that men who are come of Adam naturally can have any good thing in their Nature as belonging to it which he from whom they derive their Nature had not himself to communicate unto them If then we may affirm that Adam did not retain in his Nature as belonging thereunto any will or light capable to give him knowledg in Spiritual things then neither can his posterity For whatsoever real good any man doth it proceedeth not from his nature as he is a man or the Son of Adam but from the Seed of God in him as a new visitation of Life in order to bring him out of this natural condition So that though it be in him yet it is not of him and this the Lord himself witnessed Gen. 6.5 where it is said he saw that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually which words as they are very positive so are they very comprehensive Observe the emphasis of them First there is every imagination of the thoughts of his heart so that this admits of no exception of any Imagination of the thoughts of his heart Secondly is only evil continually it is neither in some part evil continually nor yet only evil at sometimes but both only evil and always and continally evil which certainly excludes any good as a proper effect of mans heart naturally For that
its light shine upon all but if any one close his Eye-lids or willingly turn himself from the Sun refusing the benefit of its light he wants its illumination and remains in darkness not through defect of the Sun but through his own fault So that the true Sun who came to enlighten those that sate in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death visited the Earth for this cause that he might communicate unto all the gift of Knowledg and Grace and illuminate the inward Eyes of all by a peculiar splendor but many reject the Gift of this Heavenly Light freely given to them and have closed the eyes of their minds least so excellent an illumination or irradiation of the Eternal Light should shine unto them It is not then through defect of the true Son but only through their own iniquity and hardness for as the wise man saith Wisdom 2. their wickedness hath blinded them From all which I thus argue If there was a day wherein the obstinate Jews might have known the things that belong to their peace which because they reject it was hid from their Eyes If there was a time wherein Christ would have gathered them who because they refused could not be gathered then such as might have been saved do actually perish that slighted the day of God's Visitation towards them wherein they might have been converted and saved But the First is true Therefore also the Last § XXI Secondly That which comes in the second place to be proved is that whereby God offers to work this Salvation during the day of every mans visitation and that is that he hath given to every man a measure of saving sufficient and supernatural Light and Grace This I shall do by Gods Assistance by some plain and clear testimonies of the Scripture First from that of John 1.9 That was the true Light which inlightneth every man that cometh into the world This place doth so clearly favour us that by some it is called the Quakers Text for it doth evidently demonstrate our Assertion so that it scarce needs either consequence or deduction seeing it self is a consequence of two Propositions asserted in the former verses from which it followeth as a conclusion in the very terms of our Faith The first of these Propositions is the Life that is in him is the Light of Men the second the Light shineth in the Darkness and from these two he infers and he is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world From whence I do in short observe that this Divine Apostle calls Christ the Light of Men and giveth us this as one of the chief Properties at least considerably and especially to be observed by us seeing hereby as he is the Light and as we walk with him in that Light which he communicates to us we come to have fellowship and communion with him as the same Apostle saith elsewhere 1 Joh. 1.7 Secondly That this Light shineth in Darkness though the Darkness comprehend it not Thirdly that this true Light inlighteneth every man that cometh into the World Where the Apostle being directed by God's Spirit hath carefully avoided their captiousness that would have restricted this to any certain number Where every one is there is none excluded Next Should they be so obstinate as sometimes they are as to say that this every man is only every one of the Elect these words following every man that cometh into the world would obviate that objection So that it is plain there comes no Man into the World whom Christ hath not enlightened in some measure and in whose dark Heart this Light doth not shine though the Darkness comprehend it not yet it shineth there and the nature thereof is to dispel the Darkness where Men shut not their Eyes upon it Now for what end this Light is given is expressed ver 7. where John is said to come for a witness to bear witness to the Light that all men through it might believe to wit through the Light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which doth very well agree with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being the nearest antecedent though most translators have to make it sute with their own Doctrine made it relate to John as if all men were to believe through John For which as there is nothing directly in the Text so it is contrary to the very strain of the Context For seeing Christ hath lighted every Man with this Light is it not that they may come to believe through it All could not believe through John because all men could not know of John's Testimony whereas every man being lighted by this may come there through to believe John shined not in the Darkness but this Light shineth in the Darkness that having dispelled the Darkness it may produce and beget Faith And lastly We must believe through that and become believers through that by walking in which fellowship with God is known and enjoyed but as hath been above observed it is by walking in this Light that we have this communion and fellowship not by walking in John which were non-sense So that this relative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be refer'd to the Light whereof John bears witness that through that Light wherewith Christ hath lighted every man all men might come to believe Seeing then this Light is the Light of Jesus Christ and the Light through which men come to believe I think it needs not be doubted but that it is a supernatural saving and sufficient Light If it were not supernatural it could not be properly called the Light of Jesus for though all things be his and of him and from him yet those things which are common and peculiar to our Nature as being a part of them we are not said in so special a manner to have from Christ. Moreover the Evangelist is holding out to us here the office of Christ as Mediator and the benefits which from him as such do redound unto us Secondly It cannot be any of the Natural Gifts or Faculties of our Soul whereby we are said here to be enlightned because this Light is said to shine in the Darkness and cannot be comprehended by it Now this Darkness is no other but man's natural condition and state in which natural state he can easily comprehend and doth comprehend those things that are peculiar and common to him as such That Man in his Natural Condition is called Darkness see Eph. 5.8 For ye were sometimes Darkness but now are ye Light in the Lord. And in other places as Acts 26.18 Col. 1.3 1 Thes. 5.5 where the condition of man in his natural state is termed Darkness Therefore I say this Light cannot be any Natural Property or Faculty of Man's Soul but a supernatural Gift and Grace of Christ. Thirdly It is Sufficient and Saving That which is given that all men through it may believe must needs be Saving and Sufficient That by walking in which fellowship with the
peccato originali lib. 2. cap. 2. Gelasius also in his disputation against Pelagius saith But if any affirm that this may be given to some Saints in his life not by the Power of mans strength but by the grace of God he doth well to think so confidently and hope it faithfully for by the gift of God all things are possible That this was the common opinion of the Fathers appears from the words of the Aszansik Council Canon last We believe also this according to the Catholick Faith that all that are baptized through Grace by baptism received and Christ helping them and co-working may and ought to do whatsoever belongs to Salvation if they will faithfully labour § XI Blessed then are they that believe in him who is both able and willing to deliver as many as come to him through true repentance from all sin and do not resolve as these men do to be the devil's servants all their life time but daily go on forsaking unrighteousness and forgetting those things that are behind press forwards towards the Mark for the Prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus such shall not find their faith and confidence to be in vain but in due time shall be made conquerors through him in whom they have believed and so overcoming shall be established as pillars in the house of God so as they shall go no more out Rev. 3. ver 12. The Ninth Proposition Concerning Perseverance and the possibility of falling from Grace Although this Gift and inward Grace of God be sufficient to work out Salvation yet in those in whom it is resisted it both may and doth become their condemnation Moreover they in whose hearts it hath wrought in part to purify and sanctifie them in order to their further perfection may by disobedience fall from it turn it to wantonness 1 Tim. 1.9 make shipwrack of faith and after having tasted the heavenly Gift and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost again fall away Heb. 6.4 5 6. yet such an increase and stability in the Truth may in this life be attained from which there can not be a total Apostasie § I. THE first sentence of this Proposition hath already been treated of in the 5 and 6 Propositions where it hath been shewn that that Light which is given for Life and Salvation becomes the condemnation of those that refuse it and therefore is already proved in those places where did demonstrate the possibility of man's resisting the Grace and Spirit of God and indeed it is so apparent in the Scriptures that it cannot be denied by such as will but seriously consider these testimonies Prov. 1.24 25 26. Joh. 3.18 19. 2 Thes. 2.11 12. Acts 7.51 13.46 Rom. 1. v. 18. As for the other part of it that they in whom this Grace may have wrought in a good measure in order to purifie and sanctifie them tending to their further perfection may afterwards through disobedience fall away c. The testimonies of the Scripture included in the Proposition it self are sufficient to prove it to men of unbyassed judgments But Because as to this part our cause is common with many other Protestants I shall be the more brief in it For it is not my design to do that which is done already neither do I covet to appear knowing by writing much but simply purpose to present to the world a faithful account of our principles and briefly to let them understand what we have to say for our selves § II. From these Scriptures then included in the Proposition not to mention any more which might be urged I argue thus If men may turn the Grace of God into wantonness then they must once argument 1 have had it But the first is true Therefore also the Second argument 2 If men may make shipwrack of faith they must once have had it neither could they ever have had true faith without the Grace of God But the first is true Therefore also the last argument 3 If men may have tasted of the heavenly Gift and been made partakers of the holy Spirit and afterwards fall away they must needs have known in measure the operation of Gods Saving Grace and Spirit without which no man could tast the heavenly Gift nor yet partake of the Holy Spirit But the first is true Therefore also the last Secondly Seeing the contrary doctrin is built upon this false hypothesis that Grace is not given for salvation to any but to a certain elect number which cannot lose it that all the rest of mankind by an absolute decree are debarred from grace and salvation that being destroyed this falls to the ground Now as that doctrine of theirs is wholly inconsistent with the daily practice of those that preach it in that they exhort people to believe and be saved while in the mean time if they belong to the decree of reprobation it is simply impossible for them so to do and if to the decree of election it is needless seeing it is as impossible to them to miss of it as hath been before demonstrated so also in this matter of perseverance their practice and principle are no less inconsistent and contradictory for while they daily exhort people to be faithful to the end shewing them if they continue not they shall be cut-off and fall short of the reward which is very true but no less inconsistent with that doctrine that affirms there is no hazard because no possibility of departing from the least measure of true Grace Which if true it is to no purpose to beseech them to stand to whom God hath made it impossible to fall I shall not longer insist upon the probation of this seeing what is said may suffice to answer my design and that the thing is also abundantly proved by many of the same judgment That this was the doctrine of the primitive Protestants thence appears that the Augustan confession condemns it as an error of the Anabaptists to say that who once are justified they cannot lose the Holy Spirit Many such like sayings are to be found in the common places of Philip Melancthon Vossius in his Pelagian History lib. 6. testifies that this was the common opinion of the Fathers in the confirmation of the 12 These pag. 587. he hath these words that this which we have said was the common sentiment of antiquity those at present can only deny who otherways perhaps are men not unlearned but nevertheless in antiquity altogether strangers c. These things thus observed I come to the objections of our opposers Obj. § III. First they alledge that those places mentioned of making shipwrack of faith is only understood of seeming faith and not of a real true faith This objection is very weak and apparently contrary to the Text Answ. 1 Tim. 1.19 where the Apostle addeth to faith a good Conscience by way of complaint whereas if their faith had been only seeming and hypocritical the men had been
preferment men became such by birth and education and not by conversion and renovation of Spirit then there was none so vile none so wicked none so profane who became not a member of the Church And the Teachers and Pastors thereof becoming the Companions of Princes and so being enriched by their benevolence and getting vast treasures and Estates became puffed up and as it were drunken with the vain pomp and glory of this World and so marshalled themselves in manifold orders and degrees not without innumerable contests and alterations who should have the Precedency So the vertue life substance and kernel of the Christian Religion came to be lost and nothing remained but a shaddow and image which dead image or carcass of Christianity to make it take the better with the superstitious multitude of Heathens that became engrossed in it not by any inward conversion of their hearts or by becoming less wicked or superstitious but by a little change in the object of their superstition not having the inward ornament and life of the Spirit became decked with many outward and visible orders and beautified with the gold silver precious stones and the other splendid ornaments of this perishing world so that this was no more to be accounted the Christian Religion and Christian Church notwithstanding the outward profession than the dead body of man is to be accounted a living man which however cunningly embalmed and adorned with ever so much gold or silver or most precious stones or sweet ointments is but a dead body still without sense life or motion For that Apostat Church of Rome has introduced no less ceremonies and superstitions into the Christian profession than was either among Jews or Heathens and that there is and hath been as much yea and more pride covetousness unclean lust luxury fornication profanity and atheism among her teachers and chief Bishops as ever was among any sort of people none need doubt that have read their own authors to wit Platina and others Now though Protestants have reformed from her in some of the most gross points and absurd doctrines relating to the Church and Ministery yet which is to be regretted they have but lopt the branches but retain and plead earnestly for the same root from which these abuses have sprung so that even among them though all that mass of superstition ceremonies and orders be not again established yet the same pride covetousness and sensuality is found to have overspread and leavened their Churches and Ministery and the life power and vertue of true religion is lost among them and the very same death barrenness dryness and emptyness is found in their ministery so that in effect they differ from Papists but in form and some ceremonies being with them apostatized from the life and power the true primitive Church and her Pastors were in so that of both it may be said truly without breach of charity that having only a form of godliness and many of them not so much as that they are deniers of yea enemies to the power of it And this proceeds not simply from their not walking answerable to their own principles and so degenerating that way which also is true but which is worse their setting down to themselves and adhering to certain principles which naturally as a cursed fruit bring forth these bitter fruits these therefore shall afterwards be examined and refuted as the contrary positions of truth in the Proposition are explained and proved For as to the nature and constitution of a Church abstract from their disputes concerning its constant visibility infallibility and the primacy of the Church of Rome the Protestants as in practice so in principles differ not from Papists for they ingross within the compass of their Church whole Nations making their infants members of it by sprinkling a little water upon them so that there is none so wicked or profane who is not a fellow-member no evidence of holiness being required to constitute a member of the Church and look through the Protestant Nations and there shall no difference appear in the lives of the generality of the one more than of the other but he who ruleth in the children of disobedience reigning in both so that the reformation through this defect is but in holding some less gross errors in the notion but not in having the heart reformed and renewed in which mainly the life of Christianity consisteth § VI. But the Popish errors concerning the ministry which they have retained are most of all to be regretted by which chiefly the life and power of Christianity is barred out among them and they kept in death barrenness and dryness there being nothing more hurtful than an error in this respect for where a false and corrupt ministry entreth all other manner of evils follows upon it according to that Scripture adage like people like priest For by their influence instead of ministring life and righteousness they minister death and iniquity The whole back-slidings of the Jewish congregations of old is hereto ascribed The leaders of my people have caused them to err The whole writings of the Prophets are full of such complaints and for this cause under the New Testament we are so often warned and guarded to beware of false Prophets and false Teachers c. What may be thought then where all as to this is out of order where both the foundation call qualifications maintenance and whole discipline is different from and opposite to the ministry of the primitive Church yea and necessarily tends to the shutting out a Spiritual ministry and the in-bringing and establishing a carnal This shall appear by parts § VII That then which comes first to be questioned in this matter is concerning the Call of a Minister to wit what maketh or how cometh a man to be a Minister Quest. Pastor or Teacher in the Church of Christ. We answer by the inward power and vertue of the Spirit of God For as saith our proposition Answ. having received the true knowledg of things Spiritual by the Spirit of God without which they cannot be known and being by the same in measure purified and sanctified he comes thereby to be called and moved to minister to others being able to speak from a living experience of what he himself is a witness and therefore knowing the terror of the Lord he is fit to perswade men c. 2 Cor. 5.11 and his words and ministery proceeding from the inward power and vertue reaches to the heart of his hearers and makes them approve of him and be subject unto him Our adversaries are forced to confess that this were indeed desirable and best but this they will not have to be absolutely necessary I shall first prove the necessity of it and then shew how much they err in that which they make more necessary than this Divine and Heavenly call First That which is necessary to make a man a Christian Arg. so as without it he cannot
be truly one must be much more necessary to make a man a Minister of Christianity seeing the one is a degree above the other and has it included in it nothing less than he that supposeth a master supposeth him first to have attained the knowledg and capacity of a Scholar They that are not Christians cannot be Teachers or Ministers among Christians But this inward call power and vertue of the Spirit of God is necessary to make a man a Christian as we have abundantly proved before in the second proposition according to these Scriptures He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God Therefore this call moving and drawing of the Spirit must be much more necessary to make a minister Secondly all ministers of the New Testament ought to be ministers of the Spirit and not of the letter according to that 2 Cor. 3.6 and as the old Latine hath it not by the letter but by the Spirit But how can a man be a minister of the Spirit who is not inwardly called by it and who looks not upon the operation and testimony of the Spirit as essential to his call As he could not be a minister of the letter who had thence no ground for his call yea that were altogether a stranger to and unacquainted with it so neither can he be a minister of the Spirit who is a stranger to it and unacquainted with the motions thereof and knows it not to draw act and move him and go before him in the work of the Ministery I would willingly know how those that take upon them to be ministers as they suppose of the Gospel meerly from an outward vocation without so much as being any ways sensible of the work of the Spirit or any inward call therefrom can either satisfie themselves or others that they are Ministers of the Spirit or wherein they differ from the ministers of the Letter For Thirdly if this inward call or testimony of the Spirit were not essential and necessary to a minister then the ministery of the New Testament should not only be no ways preferable to but in divers respects far worse than that of the Law for under the Law there was certain tribe allotted for the ministery and of that tribe certain families set apart for the priesthood and other offices by the immediate command of God to Moses so that the people needed not be in any doubt who should be Priests and Ministers of the holy things yea and besides this God called forth by the immediate testimony of his Spirit several at divers times to teach instruct and reprove his people as Samuel Nathan Elias Elisa Jeremiah Amos and many more of the Prophets But now under the New Covenant where the ministry ought to be more spiritual the way more certain and the access more easie unto the Lord our adversaries by denying the necessity of this inward and Spiritual vocation make it quite otherways for there being now no certain family or tribe to which the ministry is limited we are left in uncertainty to chuse and have pastors at a venture without all certain assent of the will of God having neither an outward rule nor certainty in this affair to walk by for that the Scripture cannot give any certain rule in this matter hath in the third Proposition concerning it been already shewn Fourthly Christ proclaims them all Thieves and Robbers that enter not by him the door into the Sheep-fold but climb up some other way whom the Sheep ought not to hear but such as come in without the Call movings and leadings of the Spirit of Christ wherewith he leads his Children into all truth come in certainly not by Christ who is the Door but some other way and therefore are not true Shepherds Obj. § VIII To all this they object the succession of the Church alledging that since Christ gave a call to his Apostles and Disciples they have conveyed that call to their Successors having power to ordain Pastors and Teachers by which power the authority of ordaining and making Ministers and Pastors is successively conveyed to us so that such who are ordained and called by the Pastors of the Church are therefore true and lawful Ministers and others who are not so called are to be accounted but intruders Hereunto also some Protestants add a necessity though they make it not as a thing essential that besides this calling of the Church every one being called ought to have the inward call of the Spirit inclining him so chosen to his work but this they say is subjective and not objective of which before Answ. As to what is subjoined of the inward call of the Spirit in that they make it not essential to a true call but a supererogation as it were it sheweth how little they set by it since those they admit to the ministery are not so much as questioned in their trials whether they have this or not Yet in that it hath been often mentioned especially by the Primitive Protestants in their treatises of this subject it sheweth how much they were secretly convinced in their minds that this inward call of the Spirit was most excellent and preferable to any other and therefore in the most noble and heroick acts of the reformation they laid claim unto it so that many of the primitive Protestants did not scruple both to despise and disown this outward call when urged by the Papists against them But now Protestants having gone from the testimony of the Spirit plead for the same succession and being pressed by those whom God now raiseth up by his Spirit to reform these many abuses that are among them with the example of their Forefathers practice against Rome they are not at all asham'd utterly to deny that their fathers were call'd to their work by the inward and immediate vocation of the Spirit cloathing themselves with that call which they say their Forefathers had as Pastors of the Roman Church For thus not to go further affirmeth Nicolaus Arnoldus in a pamphlet written against the same Propositions called a Theologick Exercitation sect 40. averring that they pretended not to an immediate act of the Holy Spirit but reformed by the vertue of the ordinary vocation which they had in the Church as it then was to wit that of Rome c. § IX Many absurdities do Protestants fall into by deriving their ministry thus through the Church of Rome As first they must acknowledg her to be a true Church of Christ though only erroneous in some things which contradicts their fore-fathers so frequently and yet truly calling her Anti-Christ Secondly they must needs acknowledge that the Priests and Bishops of the Romish Church are true Ministers and Pastors of the Church of Christ as to the essential part else they could not have been fit subjects for that power and authority to have resided in neither
could they have been vessels capable to receive that power and again transmit it to their successors Thirdly it would follow from this that the Priests and Bishops of the Romish Church are yet really true Pastors and Teachers for if Protestant Ministers have no authority but what they received from them and since the Church of Rome is the same she was at that time of the reformation in doctrine and manners and she has the same power now she had then and if the power lye in the Succession then these Priests of the Romish Church now which derive their ordination from those Bishops that ordained the first reformers have the same authority which the successors of the reformed have and consequently are no less Ministers of the Church than they are But how shall this agree with that opinion which the primitive Protestants had of the Romish Priests and Clergy to whom Luther did not only deny any power or authority but contrariwise affirmed that it was wickedly done of them to assume to themselves only this authority to teach and be Priests and Ministers c. For he himself affirmed that every good Christian not only men but even women also is a Preacher § X. But against this vain succession as asserted either by the Papists or Protestants as a necessary thing to the call of a minister I answer that such as plead for it as a sufficient or necessary thing to the call of a minister do thereby sufficiently declare their ignorance of the nature of Christianity and how much they are strangers to the Life and Power of a Christian ministery which is not entail'd to succession as an outward inheritance and herein as hath been often before observed they not only make the Gospel not better than the Law but even far short of it for Jesus Christ as he regardeth not any distinct particular family or nation in the gathering of his Children but only such as are joined to and leavened with his own pure and righteous Seed so neither regards he a bare outward succession where his pure immaculate and righteous Life is wanting for that were all one He took not in the Nations within the New Covenant that he might suffer them to fall into the old errors of the Jews or to approve them in these errors but that he might gather unto himself a pure people out of the earth Now this was the great error of the Jews to think they were the Church and People of God because they could derive their outward succession from Abraham whereby they reckoned themselves the Children of God as being the off-spring of Abraham who was the Father of the faithful But how severely doth the Scripture rebuke this vain and frivolous pretence Telling them that God is able of the stones to raise children unto Abraham and that not the outward seed but those that were found in the faith of Abraham are the true Children of faithful Abraham Far less then can this pretence hold among Christians seeing Christ rejects all outward affinity of that kind These saith he are my mother brethren and sisters who do the will of my Father which is in heaven And again He looked round about him and said who shall do the will of God these said he are my brethren So then such as do not the commands of Christ as are not found cloathed with his righteousness are not his disciples and that which a man hath not he cannot give to another and it 's clear that no man nor Church though truly called of God and as such having the authority of a Church and Minister can any longer retain that authority than they retain the power life and righteousness of Christianity for the form is entailed to the power and substance and not the substance to the form So that when a man ceaseth inwardly in his heart to be a Christian where his Christianity must lie by turning to Satan and becoming a reprobate he is no more a Christian though he retain the name and form than a dead man is a man though he have the image and representation of one or than the Picture or Statue of a man is a man and though a dead man may serve to a Painter to retain some imperfect representation of the man that sometimes was alive and so one Picture may serve to make another by yet none of those can serve to make a true living man again neither can they conveigh the life and spirit of the man it must be God that made the man at first that alone can revive him As death then makes such interruption of an outward natural succession that no art nor outward form can uphold and as a dead man after he is dead can have no issue neither can dead images of men make living men so that it is the living that are only capable to succeed one another and such as dye so soon as they dye cease to succeed or to transmit Succession So it is in Spiritual things it is the life of Christianity taking place in the Heart that makes a Christian and so it is a number of such being alive joyned together in the life of Christianity that make a Church of Christ and it is all those that are thus alive and quickened considered together that make the Catholick Church of Christ Therefore where this life ceaseth in one then that one ceaseth to be a Christian and all power vertue and authority which he had as a Christian ceaseth with it so that if he hath been a Minister or Teacher he ceaseth to be so any more and though he retain the form and hold to the authority in words yet that signifies no more nor is it of any more real vertue or authority than the meer image of a dead man And as this is most agreeable to Reason so is it to the Scriptures Testimony for it is said of Judas Acts 1.25 That Judas fell from his Ministry and Apostleship by transgression So his transgression caused him to cease to be an Apostle any more whereas had the Apostleship been entailed to his person so that transgression could not cause him to lose it until he had been formally degraded by the Church which Judas never was so long as he lived Judas had been as really an Apostle after he betrayed Christ as before And as it is of one so of many yea of a whole Church for seeing nothing makes a man truly a Christian but the life of Christianity inwardly ruling in his Heart so nothing makes a Church but the gathering of several true Christians into one Body Now where all these members lose in this life there the Church ceaseth to be though they still uphold the form and retain the name for when that which made them a Church and for which they were a Church ceaseth then they cease also to be a Church and therefore the Spirit speaking to the Church of Laodicea because of her luke-warmness Rev. 3.16 threateneth to
raise up and move among them by the inward immediate operation of his own Spirit Ministers and Teachers to instruct and teach and watch over them who being thus called are manifest in the hearts of their Brethren and their call is thus verified in them who by the feeling of that life and power that passeth through them being inwardly builded up by them dayly in the most holy Faith become the Seals of their Apostleship and this is answerable to another saying of the same Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 13.3 Since ye seek a proof of Christs speaking in me which to you-wards is not weak but is mighty in you So this is that which gives a true substantial Call and title to a Minister whereby he is a real successor of the vertue life and power that was in the Apostles and not of the bare name and to such Ministers we think the outward Ceremony of Ordination or laying on of Hands not necessary neither can we see the use of it seeing our adversaries who use it acknowledge that the vertue and power of communicating the Holy Ghost by it is ceased among them And is it not then foolish and ridiculous for them by an apish imitation to keep up the shadow where the substance is wanting And may not they by the same rule where they see blind and lame men in imitation of Christ and his Apostles bid them see and walk yea is it not in them a mocking of God and men to put on their hands and bid men receive the Holy Ghost while they believe the thing impossible and confess that that Ceremony hath no real effect Having thus far spoken of the Call I shall proceed next to treat of the qualifications and work of a true Minister § XV. As I have placed the true call of a Minister in the motion of this Holy Spirit so is the power Life and vertue thereof and the pure Grace of God that comes therefrom the chief and most necessary qualification without which he can no ways perform his duty neither acceptably to God nor beneficially to men Our adversaries in this case affirm that three things go to the making up of a Minister viz. 1. Natural parts that he be not a fool 2. Acquired Parts that he be learned in the Languages in Philosophy and School-Divinity 3. The Grace of God The two first they reckon necessary to the being of a Minister so as a man cannot be one without them The third they say goeth to the well-being of one but not to the being so that a man may truly be a lawful Minister without it and ought to be heard and received as such But we supposing a natural capacity that one be not an idiot judge the grace of God indispensably necessary to the very being of a Minister as that without which any can neither be a true nor lawful nor good Minister As for letter-learning we judge it not so much necessary to the well-being of one though accidentally sometimes in certain respects it may concur but more frequently it is hurtful than helpful as appeared in the example of Taulerus who being a learned man and who could make an eloquent preaching needed nevertheless to be instructed in the way of the Lord by a poor Laick I shall first speak of the necessity of Grace and then proceed to say something of that Literature which they judge so needful First then as we said in the Call so may we much more here If the Grace of God be a necessary qualification to make one a true Christian it must be a qualification much more necessary to constitute a true Minister of Christianity That Grace is necessary to make up a true Christian I think will not be questioned since it is by Grace we are saved Eph. 2.8 it is the Grace of God that teacheth us to deny ungodliness and the lusts of this world and to live godlily and righteously Tit. 2.11 yea Christ saith expresly That without him we can do nothing Joh. 15.5 and the way whereby Christ helpeth assisteth and worketh with us is by his Grace Hence saith to Paul My Grace is sufficient for thee A Christian without Grace is indeed no Christian but an hypocrite and a false pretender Then I say If Grace be necessary to a private Christian far more to a teacher among Christians who must be as a Father and Instructor of others seeing this dignity is bestowed upon such as have attained a greater measure than their Brethren Even Nature it self may teach us that there is more required in a Teacher than in those that are taught and that the Master must be above and before the Scholar in that Art or Science which he teacheth others Since then Christianity cannot be truly enjoyed neither any man denominated a Christian without the true Grace of God therefore neither can any man be a true nor lawful teacher of Christianity without it Secondly No man can be a Minister of the Church of Christ Arg. which is his Body unless he be a member of the Body and receive of the vertue and life of the Head But he that hath not true Grace can neither be a member of the Body neither receive of that life and nourishment which comes from the Head Therefore far less can he be a Minister to edifie the Body That he cannot be a Minister who is not a Member is evident because who is not a member is shut out and cut off and hath no place in the Body whereas the Ministers are counted among the most eminent Members of the Body But no man can be a member unless he receive of the vertue life and nourishment of the Head For the members that receive not this life and nourishment decay and wither and then are cut off And that every true member doth thus receive nourishment and life from the Head the Apostle expresly affirmeth Eph. 4.16 From whom the whole body being fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part makes increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love Now this that thus is communicated and which thus uniteth the whole is no other than the Grace of God and therefore the Apostle in the same chapter ver 7. But unto every one of us is given Grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ and v. 11. he sheweth how that by this Grace and Gift both Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers are given for the work of the Ministry and edifying of the Body of Christ. And certainly then no man destitute of Grace is fit for this work seeing that all that Christ gives are so qualified and these that are not so qualified are not given nor sent of Christ are not to be heard nor received nor acknowledged as Ministers of the Gospel because his sheep neither ought nor will hear the voice of a stranger This is also clear from 1 Cor. 12.
throughout for the Apostle in that Chapter treating of the diversity of Gifts and Members of the Body sheweth how by the working of the same Spirit in different manifestations or measures in the several Members of the whole Body is edified saying v. 13. That we are all baptized by the One Spirit into one Body and then v. 28. he numbers out the several dispensations thereof which by God are set in the Church through the various working of his Spirit for the edification of the whole Then if there be no true member of the body which is not thus baptized by this Spirit neither any thing that worketh to the edifying of it but according to a measure of Grace received from the Spirit surely without Grace none ought to be admitted to work or labour in the body because their labour and work without this Grace and Spirit would not be ineffectual § XVI Thirdly that this Grace and Gift is a necessary qualification to a Minister is clear from that of the Apostle Peter 1 Peter 4.10 11. As every man hath received the Gift even so minister the same one to another as good Stewards of the manifold Grace of God If any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God if any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever Amen From which it appears That these that minister must minister according to the Gift and Grace received but they that have not such a Gift cannot minister according thereunto Secondly As good Stewards of the manifold Grace of God But how can a man be a good Steward of that which he hath not Can ungodly men that are not gracious themselves be good Stewards of the manifold Grace of God and therefore in the following Verses he makes an exclusive limitation of such as are not thus furnished saying If any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God and if any man minister let him do it as of the ability that God giveth which is as much as if he had said They that cannot thus speak and thus minister ought not to do it For this If denotes a necessary condition Now what this ability is is manifest by the former words to wit the Gift received and the Grace whereof they are Stewards as by the immediate context and dependency of the words doth appear neither can it be understood of a meer natural ability because man in this condition is said not to know the things of God and so he cannot minister them to others And the following words shew this also in that he immediately subjoyneth That God in all things may be glorified but surely God is not glorified but greatly dishonoured when natural men from their meer natural ability meddle in Spiritual things which they neither know nor understand Fourthly that Grace is a most necessary qualification for a Minister appears by these qualifications which the Apostle expressly requires 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1. c. where he saith A Bishop must be blameless vigilant sober of good behaviour apt to teach patient a lover of good men just holy temperate as the Steward of God holding fast the faithful Word as he hath been taught Upon the other hand He must neither be given to Wine nor a Striker nor covetous nor proud nor self-willed nor soon angry Now I ask If it be not impossible that a man can have all these above-named Vertues and be free of all these Evils without the Grace of God if then these Vertues for the producing of which in a man Grace is absolutely necessary be necessary to make a true Minister of the Church of Christ according to the Apostles judgment surely Grace must be necessary also Concerning this thing a learned man and well skilled in Antiquity about the time of the Reformation writeth thus Whatsoever is done in the Church either for Ornament or Edification of Religion whether in chusing Magistrates or instituting Ministers of the Church except it be done by the ministry of Gods Spirit which is as it were the Soul of the Church it is vain and wicked For whoever hath not been called by the Spirit of God to the great office of God and dignity of Apostleship as Aaron was and hath not entred in by the door which is Christ but hath otherways risen in the Church by the window by the favours of men c. truly such a one is not the Vicar of Christ and the Apostles but a thief and a Robber and the Vicar of Judas Iscariot and Simon the Samaritan Hence it was so strictly appointed concerning the election of Prelates which holy Dionisius calls Sacrament of Nomination that the Bishops and Apostles who should oversee the Service of the Church should be men of most intire manners and life powerful in sound Doctrine to give a reason for all things So also another about the same time writeth thus Therefore it can never be that by the Tongues or Learning any can give a sound judgment concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Truth of God Lastly saith he the Sheep of Christ seeketh nothing but the Voice of Christ which he knoweth by the Holy Spirit wherewith he is filled he regards not learning Tongues or any outward thing so as therefore to believe this or that to be the voice of Christ his true Shepherd he knoweth that there is need of no other thing but the testimony of the Spirit of God § XVII Against this absolute necessity of grace they object That if all Ministers had the saving Grace of God Obj. then all ministers should be saved seeing none can fall away from or lose Saving Grace But this Objection is built upon a false Hypothesis Answ. purely denyed by us and we have in the former Proposition concerning Perseverance already refuted it Obj. Secondly it may be objected to us That since we affirm that every Man hath a measure of true and Saving Grace there needs no singular qualifications neither to a Christian nor Minister for seeing every man hath this Grace then no man needs forbear to be a Minister for want of Grace Answ. I answer We have above shewn that there is necessary to the making a Minister a special and particular call from the Spirit of God which is something besides the universal dispensation of Grace to all according to that of the Apostle No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Moreover we understand by Grace as a qualification to a Minister not the meer measure of Light as it is given to reprove and call him to righteousness but we understand Grace as it hath converted the Soul and operateth powerfully in it as hereafter concerning the work of Ministers will further appear So we understand not men simply as having Grace in them as a Seed which we indeed affirm
all have in a measure but we understand men that are gracious leavened by it into the nature thereof so as thereby to bring forth these good Fruits of a blameless conversation and of justice holiness patience and temperance which the Apostle requires as necessary in a true Christian Bishop and Minister Thirdly they object the example of the false Prophets of the Pharisees and of Judas But first as to the false Prophets there can nothing be more foolish and ridiculous as if because there were false Prophets truely false without the Grace of God therefore Grace is not necessary to a true Christian Minister Indeed if they had proven that true Prophets wanted this Grace they had said something But what have false Prophets common with true Ministers but that they pretend falsely that which they have not And because false Prophets want true Grace will it therefore follow that true Prophets ought not to have it or need it not yea doth it not much rather follow that they ought to have it that they may be true and not false The example of the Pharisees and Priests under the Law will not answer to the Gospel times because God set apart a particular Tribe for that Service and particular Families to whom it belonged by a lineal Succession and also their service and work was not purely Spiritual but only the performance of some outward and carnal observations and ceremonies which were but a shadow of the Substance that was to come and therefore their work made not the comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the Conscience seeing they were appointed only according to the Law of a carnal commandment and not according to the power of an endless life Notwithstanding as in the figure they behoved to be without blemish as to their outward man and in the performance of their work they behoved to be washed and purified from their outward pollutions so now under the Gospel times the Ministers in the anti-type must be inwardly without blemish in their Souls and spirits being as the Apostle requires blameless and in their work and service must be pure and undefiled from their inward pollutions and so clean and holy that they may offer up Spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 As to Judas the season of his ministry was not wholly Evangelical as being before the work was finished and while Christ himself and his Disciples were yet subject to the Jewish Observances and Constitutions and therefore his Commission as well as that which the rest received with him at that time was only to the House of Israel Matth. 10.5 6. which made that by vertue of that Commission the rest of the Apostles were not impowered to go forth and preach after the Resurrection until they had waited at Jerusalem for the pouring forth of the Spirit So that it appears Judas's ministry was more Legal than Evangelical Secondly Judas's Case as all will acknowledge was singular and extraordinary he being immediately called by Christ himself and accordingly furnished and impowered by him to preach and do miracles which immediate Commission our Adversaries do not so much as pretend to and so fall short of Judas who trusted in Christs Words and therefore went forth and preached without Gold or Silver or Scrip for his Journey giving freely as he had freely received which our Adversaries will not do as hereafter shall be observed Also that Judas at that time had not the least measure of Gods Grace I have not as yet heard proved But is it not sad that even Protestants should lay aside the eleven good and faithful Apostles and all the rest of the holy Disciples and Ministers of Christ and betake them to that one of whom it was testified that he was a devil for a pattern and example to their Ministry Alas it is to be regretted that too many of them resemble this pattern over much Obj. Another Objection is usually made against the necessity of Grace that in case it were necessary then such as wanted it could not truly administer the Sacraments and consequently the people would be left in doubts and infinite scruples as not knowing certainly whether they had truly received them because not knowing infallibly whether the administrators were truly gracious men But this objection hitteth not us at all because the nature of that Spiritual and Christian Worship Answ. which we according to the truth plead for is such as is not necessarily attended with these carnal and outward institutions from the administring of which the objection ariseth and so hath not any such absurdity following upon it as will afterwards more clearly appear § XVIII Though then we make not humane Learning necessary yet we are far from excluding true learning to wit that learning which proceedeth from the inward teachings and instructions of the Spirit whereby the Soul learneth the secret wayes of the Lord becomes acquainted with many inward travels and exercises of the mind and learneth by a living experience how to overcome evil and the temptations of it by following the Lord and walking in his Light and waiting dayly for wisdom and knowledge immediately from the revelation thereof and so layeth up these heavenly and Divine Lessons in the good treasure of the heart as honest Mary did the sayings which she heard and things which she observed and also out of this Treasure of the Soul as the good Scribe brings forth things new and old according as the same Spirit moves and gives a true liberty and as need is for the Lords glory whose the Soul is and for whom and with an eye to whose glory she which is the Temple of God learneth to do all things This is that good learning which we think necessary to a true Minister by and through which learning a man can well instruct teach and admonish in due season and testifie for God from a certain experience as David did Solomon and the holy Prophets of old and the blessed Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ Who testified of what they had seen heard felt and handled of the Word of Life 1 Joh. 1.1 ministring the Gift according as they had received the same as good Stewards of the manifold Grace of God and preached not the uncertain rumors of others by hear-say which they had gathered meerly in the comprehension while they were strangers to the thing in their own experience in themselves as to teach people how to believe while themselves were unbelieving or how to overcome sin while themselves are slaves to it as all ungracious men are or to believe and hope for an eternal reward which themselves have not as yet arrived at c· § XIX But let us examine this Literature which they make so necessary to the being of a Minister as in the first place the knowledge of the Tongues at least of the Latine Greek and Hebrew The reason for this is that they may read the Scriptures which is their only
Rule in the original languages and thereby be the more capable to comment upon it and interpret it c. That also which made this knowledge be the more prized by the Primitive Protestants was indeed that dark Barbarity that was over the world in the centuries immediately preceeding the reformation the knowledge of the tongues being about that time until it was even then restored by Erasmus and some others almost lost and extinct And this barbarity was so much the more abominable that the whole worship and prayers of the people was in the Latine tongue and among that vast number of Priests Monks and Fryers scarce one of a thousand understood his breviary or that mass that he daily read and repeated The Scriptures being not only to the people but to the greater part of the Clergy even as to the literal knowledge of it as a sealed book I shall not at all discommend the zeal that the first Reformers had against this Babylonish darkness nor their pious endeavours to translate the Holy Scriptures but I do truly believe according to their knowledge that they did it candidly and therefore to answer the just desires of those that desire to read them and for other very good reasons as maintaining a commerce and understanding among divers nations by these common languages and other of that kind we judge it necessary and commendable there be publick Schools for the teaching and instructing youth as are inclinable thereunto in the languages And although that Papal ignorance deserved justly to be abhorred and abominated we see nevertheless that the true reformation consists not in that knowledge because although since that time the Papists stirred up through emulation of the Protestants have more applied themselves unto literature and it now more flourisheth in their Universities and Cloysters than before especially in the Ignatian or Jesuitick Sect they are as far now as ever from a true reformation and more obdured in their pernicious doctrines But all this will not make this a necessary qualification to a minister far less a more necessary qualification than the Grace of God and his Spirit because the Spirit and Grace of God can make up this want in the most rustick and ignorant But this knowledge can no ways make up the want of the Spirit in the most learned and eloquent For all that which man by his own industry learning and knowledge in the languagues can interpret of the Scriptures or find out is nothing without the Spirit he cannot be certain of it and may still miss of the sense of it but a poor man that knoweth not a letter when he heareth the Scriptures read by the same Spirit he can say this is true and by the same Spirit he can understand open and interpret it if need be yea he finding his condition to answer the condition and experience of the Saints of old knoweth and possesseth the Truths there delivered because they are sealed and witnessed in his own heart by the same Spirit And this we have plentiful experience of in many of those illiterate men whom God hath raised up to be ministers in his Church in this day so that some such by his Spirit have corrected some of the errors of the Translators as in the third Proposition concerning the Scriptures I before observed Yea I know my self a poor shoe-maker that cannot read a word who being assaulted with a false citation of Scripture from a publick Professor of Divinity before the Magistrate of a City when he had been taken preaching to some few that came to hear him I say I know such a one and he yet liveth who though the Professor who also is esteemed a learned man constantly asserted his saying to be a Scripture sentence yet affirmed not through any certain letter knowledge he had of it but from the most certain evidence of the Spirit in himself that the Professor lyed and that the Spirit of God never said any such thing as the other affirmed and the Bible being brought it was found as the poor shoe-maker had said § XX. The second part of their Literature is Logick and Philosophy an art so little needful to a true minister that if one that comes to be a true minister hath had it it is safest for him to forget and lose it for it is the root and ground of all contention and debate and the way to make a thing a great deal darker than clearer For under the pretence of regulating man's Reason into a certain order and rules that he may find out as they pretend the Truth it leads into such a labyrinth of contention as is far more fit to make a Sceptick than a Christian far less a minister of Christ yea it often hinders man from a clear understanding of things that his own Reason would give him and therefore through its manifold rules and divers inventions it often gives occasion for a man that hath little reason foolishly to speak much to no purpose Seeing a man that is not very wise may notwithstanding be a perfect Logician and then if ye would make a man a fool to purpose that is not very wise do but teach him Logick and Philosophy and whereas before he might have been fit for something he shall then be good for nothing but to speak non-sence for these notions will so swim in his head that they will make him extreamly busy about nothing The use that wise men and solid make of it is to see the emptiness thereof therefore saith one It is an art of contention and darkness by which all other sciences are rendered more obscure and harder to be understood If it be urged that thereby the Truth may be maintained and confirmed and Hereticks confuted I answer the Truth in men truly rational Answ. needeth not the help thereof and such as are obstinate this will not convince for by this they may learn twenty tricks and distinctions how to shut out the Truth and the Truth proceeding from an honest heart and spoken forth from the Vertue and Spirit of God will have more influence and take sooner and more effectually than by a thousand demonstrations of Logick as that Heathen Philosopher acknowledged who disputing with the Christian Bishops in the Council of Nice was so subtile that he could not be overcome by them but yet by a few words spoken by a simple old rustick was presently convinâ—ed by him and converted to the Christian Faith and being inquired how he came to yield to that ignorant Old Man and not to the Bishops he said that they contended with him in his own way and he could still give words for words but there came from the Old Man that vertue which he was not able to resist This secret vertue and power ought to be the Logick and Philosophy wherewith a true Christian minister ought to be furnished and for which they need not be beholden to Aristotle As to natural Logick by which rational
up a shadow and form of these orders and so make several ranks and degrees to establish a carnal Ministry of mens making without the Life Power and Spirit of Christ this is that work of Anti-christ and Mystery of Iniquity that hath got up in the dark night of Apostasie but in a true Church of Christ gathered together by God not only unto the belief of the principles of Truth but also into the Power Life and Spirit of Christ the Spirit of God is the Orderer Ruler and Governour as in each particular so in the general and when they assemble together to wait upon God and worship and adore him then such as the Spirit sets apart to the Ministry by its Divine Power and Influence opening their Mouths and giving them to exhort reprove and instruct with Vertue and Power these are thus of God ordained and admitted into the Ministry and their brethren cannot but hear them receive them and also honour them for their works sake and so this is not monopolized to a certain kind of men as the Clergy who are to that purpose educated and brought up as other carnal Artists and the rest to be despised as Laicks but it is left to the free Gift of God to chuse any whom he seeth meet thereunto whether rich or poor servant or master young or old yea male or female And such as have this call verifie the Gospel by preaching not in Speech only but also in Power and the Holy Ghost and in much fulness 1 Thes. 1.5 and cannot but be received and heard by the Sheep of Christ. § XXV But if it be objected here Obj. that I seem hereby to make no distinction at all betwixt Ministers and others which is contrary to the Apostle saying 1 Cor. 12.29 Are all Apostles Are all Prophets Are all Teachers c. From thence they insinuate that I also contradict his comparison in that chapter of the Church of Christ with a humane body as where he saith verse 17. If the whole body were an Eye where were the hearing If the whole were hearing where were the smelling c. Also the Apostle not only thus distinguisheth the Ministers of the Church in general from the rest of the Members but also from themselves as naming them distinctly and separately Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers c. As to the last part of this objection to which I shall first answer Answ. it is apparent that this diversity of Names is not for to distinguish separate Offices but to denote the different and various Operations of the Spirit a manner of Speech frequent with the Apostle Paul wherein he sometimes expatiates to the Illustrating of the Glory and Praise of God's Grace as in particular Rom. 12.6 Having then Gifts differing according to the Grace that is given us whether Prophecy let us Prophecy according to the proportion of Faith Or Ministry let us wait on our Ministring or he that Teacheth on Teaching or he that Exhorteth on Exhortation Now none will say from all this that these are distinct Offices or do not or may not co-incide in one person as may all these other things mentioned by him in the subsequent verses viz. Of Loving being kindly affectioned Fervency of Spirit Hospitality Diligence Blessing Rejoycing c. Which yet he numbers forth as different gifts of the Spirit And according to this objection might be placed as distinct and separate Offices which were most absurd Secondly in these very places mentioned it is clear that it is no real distinction of separate Offices because all acknowledg that Pastors and Teachers which the Apostle there no less separateth and distinguisheth than Pastors and Prophets or Apostles are one and the same and co-incide in the same Office and Person and therefore so may be said of the rest For Prophecy as it signifieth the foretelling of things to come is indeed a distinct Gift but no distinct Office and therefore our Adversaries do not place it among their several orders neither will they deny but that both may be and have been given of God to some that not only have been Pastors and Teachers and that there it hath co incided in one Person with these other Offices but also to some of the Laicks and so it hath been found according to their own concession without the limits of their Clergy Prophecy in the other sense to wit as it signifieth a speaking from the Spirit of Truth is not only peculiar to Pastors and Teachers who ought so to Prophecy but even a common priviledg to the Saints for though to Instruct Teach and Exhort be proper to such as are more particularly called to the work of the Ministry yet it is not so proper to them as not to be when the Saints are met together as any of them are moved by the Spirit common to others For some acts belong to all in such a relation but not only to those within that relation competunt omni sed non Soli thus to see and hear are proper acts of a man seeing it may be properly predicated of him that he heareth and seeth yet are they common to other Creatures also So to Prophecy in this sense is indeed proper to Ministers and Teachers yet not so but that it is common and lawful to other Saints when moved thereunto though it be not proper to them by way of relation because notwithstanding that motion they are not particularly called to the work of the Ministry as appears by 1 Cor. 14. where the Apostle at large declaring the order and ordinary method of the Church saith ver 30 31. But if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first hold his peace For ye may all Prophecy one by one that all may learn and all be comforted Which sheweth that none is here excluded But yet that there is a subordination according to the various measures of the Gift received the next verse sheweth And the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets For God is not the Author of confusion but of peace Now that Prophecying in this sense may be common to all Saints appears by the 39 verse of the same Chapter where speaking to all in general he saith Therefore Brethren covet to Prophecy and verse 1. he exhorts them saying Covet Spiritual Gifts but the rather that ye may Prophecy Secondly as to Evangelists the same may be said for whoever preacheth the Gospel is really an Evangelist and so consequently every true Minister of the Gospel is one else what proper office can they assign to it unless they should be so foolish as to affirm that none were Evangelists but Matthew Mark Luke and John who wrote the Account of Christ's Life and Sufferings And then it were neither a particular office seeing John and Matthew were Apostles Mark and Luke Pastors and Teachers so that there they co-incided in one and indeed it is absurd to think that upon that particular account the
another retaining nothing but the name and that also unjustly Secondly from this distinction of Laity and Clergy this abuse also follows that good honest mechanick men and others who have not learned the art and trade of Preaching and so are not licentiated according to these rules they prescribe unto themselves such I say being possessed with a false opinion that it is not lawful for them to meddle with the Ministry nor that they are any ways fit for it because of the defect of that Literature do thereby neglect the Gift in themselves and quench many times the pure breathings of the Spirit of God in their hearts which if given way to might have proved much more for the edification of the Church than many of the conned Sermons of the learned And so by this means the Apostles command and advice is slighted who exhorteth 1 Thess. 5.19 20. Not to quench the Spirit nor despise Prophecying And all this is done by men pretending to be Christians who glory that the first Preachers and Propagators of their Religion were such kind of plain mechanick men and illiterate And even Protestants do no less than Papists exclude such kind of men from being Ministers among them and thus limit the Spirit and Gift of God though their Fathers in opposition to Papists asserted the contrary and also their own Histories declare how that kind of illiterate men did without learning by the Spirit of God greatly contribute in divers places to the Reformation By this it may appear that as in calling and qualifying so in preaching and praying and the other particular steps of the Ministry every true Minister is to know the Spirit of God by its vertue and life to accompany and assist him But because this relates to worship I shall speak of it more largely in the next Proposition which is concerning Worship The last thing to be considered and inquired into is concerning the maintainance of a Gospel Minister But before I proceed I judg it fit to speak something in short concerning the preaching of Women and so declare what we hold in that matter Seeing Male and Female are one in Christ Jesus and that he hath given his Spirit no less to one than to the other when God moveth by his Spirit in a Woman we judg it no waies unlawful for her to preach in the Assemblies of Gods People Neither think we that of Paul 1 Cor. 14.34 to reprove the inconsiderate and talkative Women among the Corinthians who ttoubled the Church of Christ with their unprofitable questions or that 1 Tim. 2.11 that all Women ought to learn in silence not usurping authority over the man any waies repugnant to this Doctrin because it 's clear that women have prophesied and preached in the Church else had the saying of Joel been badly applied by Peter Acts 2.17 And seeing Paul himself in the same Epistle to the Corinthians giveth rules how women should behave themselves in their publick preaching and praying it would be a manifest contradiction if that place were otherwaies taken in a larger sense and the same Paul speaks of a Woman that laboured with him in the work of the Gospel And it is written that Phillip had four Daughters that prophesied and lastly it hath been observed that God hath effectually in this day converted many Souls by the ministry of Women and by them also frequently comforted the Souls of his Children which manifest experience puts the thing beyond all controversie but now I shall proceed to speak of the maintainance of Ministers § XXVIII We freely acknowledg as the Proposition holds forth that there is an obligation upon such to whom God sends or among whom he raiseth up a Minister that if need be they minister to his necessities Secondly that it is lawful for him to receive what is necessary and convenient To prove this I need not insist for our adversaries will readily grant it to us for the thing we affirm is that this is all that these Scripture testimonies relating to this thing do grant Gal. 6.6 1 Cor. 9.11 12 13 14. 1 Tim. 5.16 That which we then oppose in this matter is first that it should be constrained and limited Secondly that it should be superfluous chargeable and sumptuous And thirdly the manifest abuse hereof of which I shall also briefly treat As to the first our adversaries are forced to recur to the Example of the Law a refuge they use in defending most of their errors and superstitions which are contrary to the nature and purity of the Gospel They say God appointed the Levites the tithes Obj. therefore they belong also to such as minister in holy things under the Gospel I answer all that can be gathered from this is that as the Priests had a maintainance allowed them under the Law Answ. so also the ministers and preachers under the Gospel which is not denyed but the comparison will not hold that they should have the very same since first there is no express Gospel command for it neither by Christ nor his Apostles Secondly the parity doth no waies hold betwixt the Levites under the Law and the preachers under the Gospel because the Levites were one of the tribes of Israel and so had a right to a part of the inheritance of the land as well as the rest of their brethren and having none had this alloted to them in lieu of it Next the tenth of the tithes was only allowed to the Priests that served at the Altar the rest being for the Levites and also to be put up in Store-houses for entertaining of Widows and Strangers But these Preachers notwithstanding they inherit what they have by their Parents as well as other men yet claim the whole tithes allowing nothing either to widow or stranger But as to the tithes I shall not insist because divers have clearly and learnedly treated of it apart and also divers Protestants do confess them not to be jure Divino and the parity as to the quota doth not hold but only in general as to the obligation of a maintainance Which maintainance though the hearers be obliged to give and fail of their duty if they do not yet that it ought neito be received nor yet forced I prove because Christ when he sent forth his Apostles said Freely ye have received freely give Mat. 10.8 and they had liberty to receive Meat and Drink from such as offered them to supply their need Which shews that they were not to seek or require any thing by force or to stint or make a bargain before hand as the Preachers as well among Papists as Protestants do in these daies who will not preach to any until they be sure first of so much a year but on the contrary these were to do their duty and freely to communicate as the Lord should order them what they had received without seeking or expecting a reward The answer of this given by Nicolaus Arnoldus Exercit. Theolog Sect. 42.43
unholy and proflagate men such were the false Propets and Apostles as appears from Mic. 3.5.11 1 Tim. 6.5 6 7 8. c. 2 Tim. 3.2 2 Pet. 2.1 2 3. 3. The Ministers we plead for are such as act move and labour in the work of the Ministry not from their own meer natural strength and ability but as they are acted moved under-proped assisted and influenced by the Spirit of Christ and Minister according to the Gift received as good stewards of the manifâ—ld Grace of God such were the holy Prophets and Apostles 1 Pet. 4.10 11. 1 Cor. 1.17 1 Cor. 2.3 4 5 13. Acts. 2.4 Matth. 10.20 Mark 13.11 Luke 12.12 1 Cor. 13.2 3. But the Ministers our adversaries plead for are such as wait not for nor expect nor need the Spirit of God to act and move them in the work of the Ministry but what they do they do from their own meer natural strength and ability and what they have gathered and stoln from the letter of the Scripture and other Books and so speak it forth in the strength of their own wisdom and eloquence and not in the evidence and demonstration of the spirit and power Such were the false Prophets and Apostles as appears Jer. 23.30 31 32 34. c. 1 Cor. 4.18 Jude 16. 4. The Ministers we plead for are such as being holy and humble conend not for precedency and priority but rather strive to perfer one anoher and serve one another in love neither desire to be distinguished from the rest by their Garments and large Phylacteries nor seek the greetings in the Market places nor uppermost Rooms at Feasts nor the chief seats in the Synagogues nor yet to be called of men Master c. Such were the holy Prophets and Apostles as appears from Matth. 23.8 9 10. and 20.25 26 27. 4. But the Ministers our Adversaries plead for are such as strive and contend for Superiority and claim precedency over one another affecting and ambitiously seeking after the forementioned things such were the false Prophets and Apostles in time past Matth. 23.5 6 7. 5. The Ministers we plead for are such as having freely received freely give who covet no man's Silver Gold or Garments who seek no man's Goods but seek them and the Salvation of their Souls whose hands supply their own necessities working honestly for Bread to themselves and their Families and if at any time they be called of God so as the work of the Lord hinder them from the use of their Trades take what is freely given them by such to whom they have communicated Spirituals and having food and raiment are therewith content such were the Holy Prophets and Apostles as appears from Matth. 10.8 Act. 20.33 34 35. 1 Tim. 6.8 5. But the Ministers our Adversaries plead for are such as not having freely received will not freely give but are covetous doing that which they ought not for filthy lucres sake as to preach for hire and divine for money and look for their gain from their quarter and prepare War against such as put not into their mouths c. Greedy Dogs which can never have enough Shepherds who feed themselves and not the Flock eating the fat and cloathing themselves with the wool making Merchandise of Souls and following the way of Balaam that loved the wages of Vnrighteousness Such were the false Prophets and Apostles Isa. 56.11 Ezech. 34.2 3 8. Mic. 3.5 11. Tit. 1.10 11. 2 Pet. 2. verses 1 2 3 14.15 And in a word We are for a Holy Spiritual pure and living Ministry where the Ministers are both called qualified and ordered acted and influenced in all the steps of their Ministry by the Spirit of God which being wanting we judg cease to be the Ministers of Christ. But they judging this Life Grace and Spirit no essential part of their Ministry are therefore for the upholding of an humane carnal dry barren fruitless and dead Ministry of which alass we have seen the Fruits in the most part of their Churches of whom that saying of the Lord is certainly verified Jer. 23.32 I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profit this People at all saith the LORD The Eleventh Proposition Concerning Worship All true and acceptable Worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times nor persons for though we be to Worship him always and that we are continually to fear before him yet as to the outward signification thereof in Prayers Praises or Preachings we ought not to do it in our own will where and when we will but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret Inspiration of the Spirit of God in our hearts which God heareth and accepteth of and is never wanting to move us thereunto when need is of which he himself is the alone proper Judg. All other Worship then both Praises Prayers or Preachings which man sets about in his own will and at his own appointment which he can both begin and end at his pleasure do or leave undone as himself seeth meet whether they be a prescribed form as a Liturgy c. Or Prayers conceived extempore by the Natural strength and Faculty of the mind they are all but Superstitions Will-worship and abominable Idolatry in the sight of God which are now to be denyed and rejected and separated from in this day of his Spiritual arising however it might have pleased him winked at the times of Ignorance with a respect to the simplicity and integrity of some and of his own Innocent Seed which lay as it were buried in the hearts of men under that mass of Superstition to blow upon the dead and dry bones and to raise some breathings of his own and answer them and that until the day should more clearly dawn and break forth § I. THE Duty of man towards God lieth chiefly in these two generals 1. In an Holy conformity to the pure Law and Light of God so as both to forsake the evil and be found in the practice of these perpetual and moral precepts of Righteousness and Equity And 2. In rendring that Reverence Honour and Adoration to God that he requires and demands of us which is comprehended under Worship Of the former we have already spoken as also of the different relations of Christians as they are distinguished by the several measures of Grace received and given to every one and in that respect have their several offices in the Body of Christ which is the Church Now I come to speak of Worship or of those acts whether private or publick general or particular whereby man renders to God that part of his duty which relates immediately to him and as Obedience is better than Sacrifice so neither is any Sacrifice acceptable but that which is done according to the will of him to whom it is offered But men finding it easier to Sacrifice in their own
and no man here limits the Spirit of God nor bringeth forth his own conned and gathered stuff but every one puts that forth which the Lord puts into their hearts and it 's uttered forth not in man's will and wisdom but in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit and of Power Yea though there be not a word spoken yet is the true Spiritual Worship performed and the body of Christ edified yea it may and hath often faln out among us that divers meetings have past without one word and yet our Souls have been greatly edified and refreshed and our hearts wonderfully overcome with the secret sense of God's Power and Spirit which without words hath been ministred from one Vessel to another This is indeed strange and incredible to the meer natural and carnally-minded man who will be apt to judg all time lost where there is not something spoken that 's obvious to the outward senses and therefore I shall insist a little upon this subject as one that can speak from a certain experience and not by meer hear-say of this Wonderful and Glorious Dispensation which hath so much the more of the Wisdom and Glory of God in it as it 's contrary to the Nature of man's Spirit Will and Wisdom § VII As there can be nothing more opposite to the Natural will and wisdom of man than this silent waiting upon God so neither can it be obtained not rightly comprehended by man but as he layeth down his own wisdom and will so as to be content to be throughly subject to God And therefore it was not preached nor can be so practised but by such as find no outward ceremony no observations no words yea not the best and purest words even the words of Scripture able to satisfie their weary and afflicted Souls because where all these may be the life power and vertue which make such things effectual may be wanting Such I say were necessitate to cease from all outwards and to be silent before the Lord and being directed to that inward principle of Life and Light in themselves as the most excellent Teacher which can never be removed into a corner came thereby to be learned to wait upon God in the measure of Life and Grace received from him and to cease from their own forward words and actings in the natural willing and comprehension and feel after this inward Seed of Life that as it moveth they may move with it and be acted by its power and influenced whether to pray preach or sing And so from this principle of man's being silent and not acting in the things of God of himself until thus acted by God's Light and Grace in the heart did naturally spring that manner of sitting silent together and waiting together upon the Lord. For many thus principled meeting together in the pure fear of the Lord did not apply themselves presently to speak pray or sing c. being afraid to be found acting forwardly in their own wills but each made it their work to retire inwardly to the measure of Grace in themselves not being only silent as to words but even abstaining from all their own Thoughts Imaginations and Desire so watching in a holy dependence upon the Lord and meeting together not only outwardly in one place but thus inwardly in One Spirit and in One Name of Jesus which is his Power and Vertue They come thereby to enjoy and feel the arisings of this Life which as it prevails in each particular becomes as a stood of refreshment and overspreads the whole meeting for man and man's part and wisdom being denyed and chained down in every individual and God exalted and his Grace in dominion in the heart thus his Name comes to be One in all and his Glory breaks forth and covers all and there is such a holy aw and reverence upon every Soul that if the natural part should arise in any or the wise part or what is not one with the Life it would presently be chained down and judged out And when any are through the breaking forth of this power constrained to utter a sentence of exhortation or praise or to breath to the Lord in Prayer then all are sensible of it for the same Life in them answers to it as in water face answereth to face This is that Divine and Spiritual Worship which the World neither knoweth nor understandeth which the Vultures Eye seeth not into Yet many and great are the advantages which my Soul with many others hath tasted of hereby and which would be found of all such as would seriously apply themselves hereunto For when People are gathered thus together not meerly to hear men nor depend upon them but all are inwardly taught to stay their minds upon the Lord and wait for his appearance in their hearts thereby the forward working of the Spirit of man is stayed and hindred from mixing it self with the Worship of God and the form of this Worship is so naked and void of all outward and worldly splendor that all occasion for man's wisdom to be exercised in that superstition and idolatry hath no lodging here and so there being also an inward quietness and retiredness of mind the Witness of God ariseth in the heart and the Light of Christ shineth whereby the Soul cometh to see its own condition And there being many joyned together in this same work there is an inward travel and wrestling and also as the measure of Grace is abode in an overcoming of the power and spirit of darkness and thus we are often greatly strengthned and renewed in 〈…〉 of our minds without a word and we enjoy and possess the 〈…〉 and Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ by which our inward than is nourished and fed Which makes us not to dote upon outward Water and Bread and Wine in our Spiritual things Now as many thus gathered together grow up in the strength power and vertue of Truth and as Truth comes thus to have victory and dominion in their Souls then they receive an utterance and speak steadily to the edification of their Brethren and the pure Life hath a free passage through them and what is thus spoken edifieth the body indeed Such is the evident certainty of that Divine strength that is communicated by thus meeting together and waiting in silence upon God that sometimes when one hath come in that hath been unwatchful and wandring in his mind or suddenly out of the hurry of outward business and so not inwardly gathered with the rest so soon as he retires himself inwardly this Power being in a good measure raised in the whole meeting will suddenly lay hold upon his Spirit and wonderfully help to raise up the good in him and beget him into the sense of the same Power to the melting and warming of his heart even as the warmth would take hold upon a man that is cold coming into a stove or as a flame will lay
the natural man from a meer conviction of his understanding doth in the forwardness of his own will and by his own natural strength without the influence and leading of God's Spirit go about either in his understanding to imagine conceive or think of the things of God or actually to perform them by preaching or praying The first is a missing both in matter and form The second is a retaining of the form without the Life and Substance of Christianity because Christian Religion consisteth not in a meer belief of true Doctrins or a meer performance of Acts good in themselves or else the bare letter of the Scripture though spoken by a Drunkard or a Devil might be said to be Spirit and Life which I judg none will be so absurd as to affirm and also it would follow that where the form of godliness is there the power is also which is contrary to the express words of the Apostle For the form of godliness cannot be said to be where either the notions and opinions believed are erroneous and ungodly or the acts performed evil and wicked for then it would be the form of ungodliness and not of godliness But of this further hereafter when we shall speak particularly of preaching and praying Now though this last be not so bad as the former yet it hath made way for it for men having first departed from the Life and Substance of true Religion and Worship to wit from the inward Power and Vertue of the Spirit so as therein to act and thereby to have all their actions enlivened have only retained the form and shew to wit the true words and appearance and so acting in their own natural and unrenewed wills in this form the form could not but quickly decay and be vitiated for the working and active spirit of man could not contain it self within the simplicity and plainness of Truth but giving way to his own numerous inventions and imaginations began to vary in the form and adapt it to his own inventions until by degrees the form of godliness for the most part came to be lost as well as the power For this kind of Idolatry whereby man loveth idolizeth and huggeth his own conceptions inventions and product of his own brain is so incident unto him and seated in his faln nature that so long as his natural Spirit is the first author and actor of him and is that by which he only is guided and moved in his worship towards God so as not first to wait for another Guide to direct him he can never perform the pure Spiritual Worship nor bring forth any thing but the Fruit of the first faln natural and corrupt root Wherefore the time appointed of God being come wherein by Jesus Christ he hath been pleased to restore the true Spiritual Worship and the outward form of Worship which was appointed by God to the Jews and whereof the manner and time of its performance was particularly determined by God himself being come to an end we find that Jesus Christ the Author of the Christian Religion prescribes no set form of Worship to his Children under the more pure administration of the New Covenant save that he only tells them that the Worship now to be performed is Spiritual and in the Spirit and it 's especially to be observed that in the whole New Testament there is no order nor command given in this thing but to follow the Revelation of the Spirit save only that general of meeting together a thing dearly owned and diligently practised by us as shall hereafter more appear True it is mention is made of the duties of Praying Preaching and Singing but what order or method should be kept in so doing or that presently they should be set about so soon as the Saints are gathered there is not one word to be found yea these duties as shall afterwards be made appear are always annexed to the assistance leadings and motions of God's Spirit Since then man in his natural state is thus excluded from acting or moving in things Spiritual how or what way shall he exercise this first and previous duty of waiting upon God but by silence and by bringing that natural part to silence Which is no otherwaies but by abstaining from his own Thoughts and Imaginations and from all the self-workings and motions of his own mind as well in things materially good as evil that he being silent God may speak in him and the Good Seed may arise This though hard to the natural man is so answerable to Reason and even natural experience in other things that it cannot be denyed He that cometh to learn of a master if he expect to hear his master and be instructed by him must not continually be speaking of the matter to be taught and never be quiet otherwise how shall his master have time to instruct him yea though the schollar were never so earnest to learn the science yet would the master have reason to reprove him as untoward and indocile if he would always be meddling of himself and still speaking and not wait in silence patiently to hear his master instructing and teaching him who ought not to open a mouth until by his master he were commanded and allowed so to do So also if one were about to attend a great Prince he would be thought an impertinent and imprudent servant who while he ought patiently and readily to wait that he might answer the King when he speaks and have his Eye upon him to observe the least motions and inclinations of his will and to do accordingly would be still deafening him with discourse though it were in praises of him and running to and fro without any particular and immediate order to do things that perhaps might be good in themselves or might have been commanded at other times to others Would the Kings of the Earth accept of such servants or service Since then we are commanded to wait upon God diligently and in so doing it is promised that our strength shall be renewed this waiting cannot be performed but by silence or cessation of the natural part on our side since God manifests himself not to the outward man or senses so much as to the inward to wit to the Soul and Spirit if the Soul be still thinking and working in her own will and busily exercised in her own imaginations though the matters as in themselves may be good concerning God yet thereby she incapacitates her self from discerning the still and small voyce of the Spirit and so hurts her self greatly in that she neglects her chief business of waiting upon the Lord nothing less than if I should busie my self crying out and speaking of a business while in the mean time I neglect to hear one who is quietly whispering into my ear and informing me in these things which are most needful for me to hear and know concerning that business And since it is the chief work of a Christian to know the
by him so may many through negligence miss to hear God often-times calling upon them and giving them access to pray unto him yet will not that allow them without this liberty in their own wills to fall to work And lastly though this be the only true and proper method of Prayer as that which is alone acceptable to God yet shall we not deny but he often-times answered the Prayers and concurred with the desires of some especially in times of darkness who have greatly erred herein so that some that have sit down in formal Prayers tho far wrong in the matter as well as manner without the assistance or influence of God's Spirit yet have found him to take occasion therethrough to break in upon their Souls and wonderfully tender and refresh them yet as in preaching and elsewhere hath afore been observed that will not prove any such practices or be a just let to hinder any from coming to practice that pure Spiritual and acceptable Prayer which God is again restoring and leading his people into out of all superstitious and meer empty formalities The state of the controversie and our sense thereof being thus clearly stated will both obviate many objections and make the answer to others more brief and easie I shall first prove this Spiritual Prayer by some short considerations from Scripture and then answer the Objections of our Opposers which will also serve to refute their method and manner thereof § XXII And first that there is a necessity of this inward retirement of the mind as previous to prayer that the Spirit may be felt to draw thereunto appears for that in most of those places where Prayer is commanded watching is prefixed thereunto as necessary to go before as Matth. 24.42 Mark 13.33.14.38 Luke 21.36 from which it is evident that this watching was to go before prayer Now to what end is this watching or what is it but a waiting to feel God's Spirit to draw unto prayer that so it may be done acceptably For since we are to pray alwaies in the Spirit and cannot pray of our selves without it acceptably this watching must be for this end recommended to us as preceeding prayer that we may watch and wait for the seasonable time to pray which is when the Spirit moves thereunto Secondly this necessity of the Spirit moving and concurrence appears abundantly from that of the Apostle Paul Rom. 8.26.27 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God Which first holds forth the incapacity of men as of themselves to pray or call upon God in their own wills even such as have received the faith of Christ and are in measure sanctified by it as was the Church of Rome to whom the Apostle then wrote Secondly It holds forth that which can only help and assist men to pray to wit the Spirit as that without which they cannot do it acceptably to God nor beneficially to their own Souls Thirdly The manner and way of the Spirits intercession with sighs and groans which are unutterable And Fourthly That God receiveth graciously the prayers of such as are presented and offered unto himself by the Spirit knowing it to be according to his will Now it cannot be conceived but this order of prayer thus asserted by the Apostle is most consistent with those other testimonies of scripture commending and recommending to us the use of prayer From which I thus argue If man know not how to pray neither can do it without the help of the Spirit then it is to no purpose for him but altogether unprofitable to pray without it But the first is true Therefore also the last Thirdly This necessity of the Spirit to true Prayer appears from Eph. 6.18 and Jude 20. where the Apostle commands to pray alwaies in the Spirit and watching thereunto which is as much as if he had said that we were never to pray without the Spirit or watching thereunto And Jude sheweth us that such prayers as are in the Holy Ghost only tend to the building up of our selves in our most holy faith Fourthly The Apostle Paul saith expresly 1 Cor. 12.3 that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost If then Jesus cannot be thus rightly named but by the Holy Ghost far less can he be acceptably called upon Hence the same Apostle declares 1 Cor. 14.15 that he will pray with the Spirit c. A clear evidence that it was none of his method to pray without it But Fifthly all prayer without the spirit is abomination such as are the prayers of the wicked Prov. 28.9 and the confidence that the Saints have that God will hear them is if they ask any thing according to his will 1 Joh. 5.14 So if the prayer be not according to his will there is no ground of confidence that he will hear Now our adversaries will acknowledg that prayers without the spirit are not according to the will of God and therefore such as pray without it have no ground to expect an answer for indeed to bid a man pray without the spirit is all one as to bid one see without eyes work without hands or go without feet And to desire a man to fall to prayer ere the spirit in some measure less or more move him thereunto is to desire a man to see before he open his eyes or to walk before he rise up or to work with his hands before he move them § XXIII But lastly from this false opinion of praying without the Spirit and not judging it necessary to be waited for as that which may be felt to move us thereunto hath proceeded all the superstition and idolatry that is among those called Christians and those many abominations wherewith the Lord is provoked and his Spirit grieved so that many deceive themselves now as the Jews did of old thinking it sufficient if they pay their daily Sacrifices and offer their customary Oblations from thence thinking all is well and creating a false peace to themselves as the Whore in the Proverbs because they have offered up their Sacrifices of Morning and Evening Prayers And therefore it 's manifest that their constant use of things doth not a whit influence their lives and conversations but they remain for the most part as bad as ever yea it is frequent both among Papists and Protestants for them first to leap as it were out of their vain light and profane conversations at their set hours and seasons and fall to their customary devotion and then when it is scarce finished and the words to God scarce out the former profane talk comes after it so that the same wicked profane spirit of this world acts them in both
the apostasie if we did not this way stand immoveable to the Truth revealed but should join with them both our testimony for God would be weakned and lost and it would be impossible steadily to propagate this worship in the world whose progress we dare neither retard nor hinder by any act of ours though therefore we shall lose not only worldly honour but even our lives And truly many Protestants through their unsteadiness in this thing for politick ends complying with the popish abominations have greatly scandalized their profession and hurt the reformation as appeared in the Example of the Elector of Saxony who in the Convention at Ausburg in the year 1530. being commanded by the Emperor Charles the Fifth to be present at the Mass that he might carry the Sword before him according to his place which when he justly scrupled to perform his Preachers taking more care for their Princes Honour than for his Conscience perswaded him that it was lawful to it against his Conscience which was both a very bad Example and great scandal to the Reformation and displeased many as the Author of the History of the Council of Trent in his first book well observes But now I hasten to the objection of our adversaries against this method of praying Obj. § XXV First They object that if such particular influences were needful to outward acts of worship then they should also be needful to inward acts as to wit desire and love God But this is absurd Therefore also that from whence it follows I answer that which was said in the state of the controversie cleareth this because as to those general duties Answ. there never wants an influence so long as the day of a man's visitation lasteth during which time God is alwaies near to him and wrestling with him by his Spirit to turn him to himself so that if he do but stand still and cease from his evil thoughts the Lord is near to help him c. But as to the outward acts of Prayer they need a more special motion and influence as hath been proved Secondly they object that it might be also alledged Obj. that men ought not to do moral duties as Children to honour their Parents men to do right to their neighbours except the Spirit moved them to it I answer there is a great difference betwixt these general duties betwixt man and man Answ. and the particular express acts of worship towards God the one is meerly Spiritual and commanded by God to be performed by his Spirit the other answer their end as to them whom they are immediatly directed to and concern though done from a meer natural principle of self-love even as beasts have natural affections one to another and therefore may be thus performed though I shall not deny but that they are not works accepted of God or beneficial to the Soul but as they are done in the fear of God and in blessing in which his Children do all things and therefore are accepted and blessed in whatsoever they do Thirdly they object Obj. that if a wicked man ought not to pray without a motion of the Spirit because his Prayer would be sinful neither ought he to plough by the same reason because the ploughing of the wicked as well as his praying is sin This objection is of the same nature with the former Answ. and therefore may be answered the same way seeing there is a great difference betwixt natural acts such as eating drinking sleeping and seeking for sustenance for the body which things Man hath common with Beasts and Spiritual acts And it doth not follow because man ought not to go about Spiritual acts without the Spirit that therefore he may not go about natural acts without it The analogy holds better thus and that for the proof of our affirmation that as man for the going about natural acts need his natural Spirit so to perform Spiritual acts he needs the Spirit of God That the natural acts of the wicked and unregenerate are sinful is not denied though not as in themselves but in so far as man in that state is in all things reprobated in the sight of God Fourthly they object that wicked men may according to this doctrin Obj. forbear to pray for years together alledging they want a motion to it Answ. I answer the false pretences of wicked men do nothing invalidate the truth of this doctrin for at that rate there is no doctrin of Christ which men might not turn by That they ought not to pray without the Spirit is granted but then they ought to come to that place of watching where they may be capable to feel the Spirits motion They sin indeed in not praying but the cause of this sin is their not watching so their neglect proceeds not from this doctrin but from their disobedience to it seeing if they did pray without this it would be a double sin and no fulfilling of the command to pray nor yet would their Prayer without this Spirit be useful unto them and this our Adversaries are forced to acknowledg in another case for they say It is a duty incumbent on Christians to frequent the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as they call it Yet they say No man ought to take it unworthily yea they plead that such as find themselves unprepared must abstain and therefore do usually excommunicate them from the Table Now though according to them it be necessary to partake of this Sacrament yet it is also necessary that those that do it do first examine themselves lest they eat and drink their own condemnation and though they reckon it sinful for them to forbear yet they account it more sinful for them to do it without this examination Fifthly they object Acts 8.22 where Peter commanded Simon Magus Obj. that wicked Sorcerer to pray from thence inferring that wicked men may and ought to pray Answ. I answer that in the citing of this place as I have often observed they omit the first and chiefest part of the verse which is thus Acts 8. verse 22. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee So here he bids him first repent now the least measure of true Repentance cannot be without somewhat of that inward retirement of the mind which we speak of and indeed where true repentance goeth first we do not doubt but the Spirit of God will be near to concur with and influence such to pray to and call upon God Obj. And Lastly they object that many Prayers begun without the Spirit have proved effectual and that the Prayers of wicked men have been heard and found acceptable as Achab's Answ. This objection was before solved for the acts of God's compassion and indulgence at sometimes and to some persons upon singular extraordinary occasions are not be a rule of our actions For if we should make that the measure of our obedience great inconveniencies
would follow as is evident and will be acknowledged by all Next we do not deny but wicked men are sensible of the motions and operations of God's Spirit often-times before their day be expired from which they may at times pray acceptably not as remaining altogether wicked but as entring into Piety from whence they afterwards fall away § XXVI As to the singing of Psalms there will not be need of any long discourse for that the case is just the same as in the two former of Preaching and Prayer We confess this to be a part of God's Worship and very sweet and refreshful when it proceeds from a true sense of God's love in the heart and arises from the divine influence of the Spirit which leads Souls to breath forth either a sweet Harmony or words suitable to the present condition whether they be words formerly used by the Saints and recorded in Scripture such as the Psalmes of David or other words as were the Hymns and Songs of Zacharias Simeon and the Blessed Virgin Mary But as for the formal customary way of singing it hath in Scripture no foundation nor any ground in true Christiansty yea besides all the abuses incident to prayer and preaching it hath this more peculiar that often times great and horrid lies are said in the sight of God for all manner of wicked prophane People take upon them to personate the experiences and conditions of Blessed David which are not only false as to them but also as to some of more sobriety who utter them forth as where they will sing sometimes Psal. 22.14 my heart is like Wax it is melted in the midst of my Bowels and verse 15. My strength is dried up like a Pot-sheard and my Tongue cleaveth to my Jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of Death And Psal. 6.6 I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my Bed to swim I water my Couch with my Tears And many more which those that speak know to be false as to them And sometimes will confess just after in their Prayers that they are guilty of the Vices opposite to those Vertues which but just before they have asserted themselves endued with Who can suppose that God accepts of such jugling And indeed such singing doth more please the carnal ears of men than the pure ears of the Lord who abhors all Lying and Hypocrisie That singing then that pleaseth him must proceed from that which is PVRE in the Heart even from the Word of Life therein in and by which richly dwelling in us Spiritual Songs and Hymns are returned to the Lord according to that of the Apostle Col. 3.16 But as to their artificial Musick either by Organs or other instruments or voice we have neither example nor precept for it in the New Testament § XXVII But lastly the great advantage of this true Worship of God which we profess and practice is that it consisteth not in man's Wisdom Arts or Industry neither needeth the Glory Pomp Riches nor Splendor of this World to beautifie it as being of a Spiritual and Heavenly nature and therefore too simple and contemptible to the natural mind and will of man that hath no delight to abide in it because he finds no room there for his imaginations and inventions and hath not the opportunity to gratifie his outward and carnal Senses so that this form being observed is not like to be long kept pure without the Power For it is of it self so naked without it that it hath nothing in it to invite and tempt men to dote upon it further than it is accompanied with the Power Whereas the Worship of out Adversaries being performed in their own wills is self-pleasing as in which they can largely exercise their natural parts and invention and as to most of them having somewhat of an outward and worldly splendor delectable to the carnal and worldly Senses they can pleasantly continue it and satisfie themselves though without the Spirit and Power which they make no ways essential to the performance of their Worship and therefore neither wait for nor expect it § XXVIII So that to conclude the Worship Preaching Praying and Singing which we plead for is such as proceedeth from the Spirit of God and is always accompanyed with its influence being begun by its motion and carried on by the power and strength thereof and so is a Worship purely Spiritual such as the Scripture holds forth Joh. 4.23 24. 1 Cor. 14.15 Eph. 6.18 c. But the Worship Preaching Praying and Singing which our Adversaries plead for and which we oppose is a Worship which is both begun carried on and concluded in man's own natural will and strenghth without the motion or influence of God's Spirit which they judg they need not wait for and therefore may be truly acted both as to the matter and manner by the wickedest of men Such was the Worship and vain Oblations which God always rejected as appears from Isa. 66.3 Jer. 14.12 c. Isa. 1.13 Prov. 15.29 John 9.31 The Twelfth Proposition Concerning Baptism As there is one Lord and one Faith so there is one Baptism which is not the putting away the Filth of the Flesh but the answer of a good Conscience before God by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and this Baptism is a Pure and a Spiritual thing to wit the Baptism of the Spirit and Fire by which we are buried with him that being washed and purged from our sins we may walk in newness of Life of which the Baptism of John was a Figure which was commanded for a time and not to continue for ever as to the Baptism of Infants it is a meer humane Tradition for which neither Precept nor Practice is to be found in all the Scripture § I. I Did sufficiently demonstrate in the explanation and probation of the former Proposition how greatly the Professors of Christianity as well Protestants as Papists were degenerated in the matter of Worship and how much strangers to and averse from that true and acceptable Worship that is performed in the Spirit of Truth because of man's natural propensity in his faln state to exalt his own inventions and to intermix his own work and product in the Service of God and from this root sprung all the Idle Worships Idolatries and numerous Superstitious Inventions among the Heathens For when God in condescension to his chosen People the Jews did prescribe to them by his Servant Moses many Ceremonies and Observations as Types and Shaddows of the Substance which in due time was to be revealed which consisted for the most part in washings outward purifications and cleansings which were to continue until the time of the Reformation until the Spiritual Worship should be set up and that God by the more powerful pouring forth of his Spirit and guiding of that Anoynting which was to lead his Children into all Truth and teach them to Worship him in a way more Spiritual and acceptable
would then follow that all those that have this baptism are saved by it Now this consequence would be false if it were understood of Water-baptism because many by the confession of all are baptized with water that are not saved but this consequence holds most true if it be understood as we do of the Baptism of the Spirit since none can have this answer of a good Conscience and abiding in it not be saved by it Fifthly that the One Baptism of Christ is not a washing with Water as it hath been proved by the definition of the One Baptism so it is also manifest from the necessary fruits and effects of it which are three-times particularly expressed by the Apostle Paul as first Rom. 6.3 4. where he saith that so many of them as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death buried with him by Baptism into death that they should walk in newness of Life Secondly to the Gal. 3.27 he saith positively For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ. And thirdly to the Col. 2.12 he saith that they were Buried with him in Baptism and risen with him through the Faith of the operation of God It is to be observed here that the Apostle speaks generally without any exclusive term but comprehensive of all he saith not some of you that were baptzed into Christ have put on Christ but as many of you which is as much as if he had said every one of you that hath been Baptized into Christ hath put on Christ. Whereby it is evident that this is not meant of Water-Baptism but of the Baptism of the Spirit because else it would follow that whosoever had been Baptized with Water baptism had put on Christ and were risen with him which all acknowledg to be most absurd Now supposing all the visible members of the Churches of Rome Galatia and Coloss had been outwardly Baptized with Water I do not say they were but our Adversaries will not only readily grant it but also contend for it suppose I say the case so they will not say they had all put on Christ since divers expressions in these Epistles to them shew the contrary so that the Apostle cannot mean Baptism with Water and yet he meaneth the Baptism of Christ i. e. of the Spirit cannot be denyed or that the Baptism wherewith thes were Baptized of whom the Apostle here testifies that they had put on Christ was the One Baptism I think none will call in question Now admit as our Adversaries contend that many in these Churches who had been Baptized with Water had not put on Christ it will follow that notwithstanding that Water-baptism they were not Baptized into Christ or with the Baptism of Christ seeing as many of them as were Baptized into Christ had put on Christ e. From all which I thus argue Arg. 1. If the Baptism with Water were the one Baptism i. e. the Baptism of Christ as many as were Baptized with Water would have put on Christ. But the last is false Therefore also the first And again Arg. 2. Since as many as are baptized into Christ i. e. with the one baptism which is the baptism of Christ have put on Christ then Water-baptism is not the one baptism viz. the baptism of Christ. But the first is true Therefore also the last § V. Thirdly since John's Baptism was a Figure and seeing the Figure gives way to the Substance albeit the thing figured remain to wit the one baptism of Christ yet the other ceaseth which was the baptism of John That John's baptism was a figure of Christ's baptism I judg will not readily be denyed but in case it should it can easily be proved from the nature of it John's baptism was a being baptized with Water but Christ's is a baptizing with the Spirit Therefore John's baptism must have been a figure of Christ's But further that Water-baptism was John's baptism will not be denyed that Water-baptism is not Christ's baptism is already proved From which doth arise the confirmation of our Proposition thus There is no baptism to continue now but the one baptism of Christ Arg. Therefore Water-baptism is not to continue now because it is not the baptism of Christ. That John's baptism is ceased many of out Adversaries confess but if any should alledg it otherwise it may be easily proved by the express words of John not only as being insinuated there where he contra-distinguisheth his baptism from that of Christ but particularly where he saith John 3.30 he Christ must increase but I John must decrease From whence it clearly follows that the encreasing or taking place of Christ's Baptism is the decreasing or abolishing of John's Baptism so that if Water baptism was a particular part of John's Ministry and is no part of Christ's baptism as we have already proved it will necessarily follow that it is not to continue Secondly Arg. If Water-baptism had been to continue a perpetual ordinance of Christ in his Church he would either have practised it himself or commanded his Apostles so to do But that he practised it not the Scripture plainly affirms John 4.2 And that he commanded his Disciples to baptize with water I could never yet read As for what is alleged that Matth. 28.19 c. where he bids them baptize is to be understood of water baptism that is but to beg the question and the grounds for that shall be hereafter examined Therefore to baptize with Water is no perpetual ordinance of Christ to his Church This hath had the more weight with me because I find not any standing ordinance or appoyntment of Christ necessary to Christians for which we have not either Christ's own practice or command as to obey all the Commandments which comprehend both our duty towards God and man c. and where the Gospel requires more than the Law which is abundantly signified in the 5. and 6. Chapters of Matthew and elsewhere Besides as to the duties of Worship he exhorts us to meet promising his presence commands to Pray Preach Watch c. and gives precepts concerning some temporary things as the washing of one anothers Feet the breaking of Bread hereafter to be discussed only for this one thing of baptizing with Water though so earnestly contended for we find not any precept of Christ. § VI. But to make Water-baptism a necessary institution of the Christian Religion which is pure and Spiritual and not carnal and and ceremonial is to derogate from the New Covenant Dispensation and set up the legal Rites and Ceremonies of which this of Baptism or washing with Water was one as appears from Heb. 9.10 where the Apostle speaking thereof saith that it stood only in Meats and Drinks and divers Baptisms and carnal Ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation If then the time of Reformation or the Dispensation of the Gospel which puts an end to the Shaddows be come then such Baptisms and
with the using as much as other things But further if the use of water and bread and wine were that wherein the very seals of the New Covenant stood and did pertain to the chief Sacraments of the Gospel and Evangelical Ordinances so called then would not the Gospel differ from the Law or be preferable to it Whereas the Apostle shews the difference Heb. 9.10 in that such kind of observations of the Jews were as a sign of the Gospel for that this stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings And now if the Gospel worship and service stand in the same where is the difference Obj. If it be said These under the Gospel have a spiritual signification Answ. So had those under the Law God was the Author of those as well as Christ is pretended to be Author of these But doth not this contending for the use of water bread and wine as necessary parts of the Gospel-worship destroy the nature of it as if the Gospel were a dispensation of shadows and not of the Substance whereas the Apostle in that of the Collossians above-mentioned argues against the use of these things as needful to those that are dead and arisen with Christ because they are but shadows and since through the whole Epistle to the Hebrews he argues with the Jews to wean them from their worship for this reason because it was typical and figurative Is it agreeable to right Reason to bring them to another of the same nature What ground from Scripture or Reason can our adversaries bring us to evince that one shadow or figure should point to another shadow or figure and not to the Substance And yet they make the figure of Circumcision to point to Water-baptism and the Paschal Lamb so bread and wine But was it ever known that one figure was the antitypes of the other especially seeing Protestants make not these their antitypes to have any more vertue or efficacy than the type had For since as they say and that truly that their Sacraments confer not Grace but that is conferred according to the Faith of the receiver it will not be denied but the faithful among the Jews received also Grace in the use of their figurative Worship And though Papists boast that their Sacraments confer Grace ex opere operato yet experience abundantly proveth the contrary § X. But supposing the use of Water baptism and Bread and Wine to have been in the primitive Church as was also that of abstaining from things strangled and from Blood the use of legal Purification Acts 21.23 24 25. and anointing of the Sick with Oyl for the reasons and grounds beforementioned Yet it remains for our adversaries to shew us how they come by power or authority to administer them It cannot be from the letter of the Scripture else they behoved also to do those other things which the letter declares also they did and which in the letter have as much foundation Then their Power must be derived from the Apostles either mediately or immediately but we have shewn before in the tenth Proposition that they have no mediate Power because of the interruption made by the Apostasie And for an immediate power or command by the Spirit of God to administer these things none of our adversaries pretend to it We know that in this as in other things they make a noise of the constant consent of the Church and of Christians in all ages but as tradition is not a sufficient ground for Faith so in this matter especially it ought to have but small weight for that in this point of Ceremonies and superstitious Observations the Apostasie began very early as may appear in the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Colossians and we have no ground to imitate them in those things whose entrance the Apostle so much withstood so heavily regreted and so sharply reproved But if we look to Antiquity we find that in such kind of observances and traditions they were very uncertain and changeable so that neither Protestants nor Papists do observe this Ceremony as they did both in that they gave it to young Boyes and to little Children and for ought can be learned the use of this and Infant-baptism are of alike age though the one be laid aside both by Papists and Protestants and the other to wit Baptism of Infants be stuck to and we have so much the less reason to lay weight upon Antiquity for that if we consider their profession of Religion especially as to worship and the ceremonial part of it we shall not find any Church now whether Popish or Protestant who differ not widely from them in many things as Dalleus in his Treatise concerning the use of the Fathers well observeth and demonstrateth And why they should obtrude this upon us because of the Ancients practice which they themselves follow not or why we may not reject this as well as they do other things no less zealously practised by the Ancients no sufficient reason can be assigned I shall not nevertheless doubt but many whose understandings have been clouded with these Ceremonies have notwithstanding by the Mercy of God had some secret sense of the mystery which they could not clearly understand because it was sealed from them by their sticking to such outward things and that through that secret sence diving in their comprehensions they ran themselves into these carnal apprehensions as imagining the substance of the bread was changed or that if the substance was not changed yet the body was there c. And indeed I am inclinable very favourably to judg of Calvin in this particular in that he deals so ingenuously to confess he neither comprehends it nor can express it in words but yet by a feeling experience can say the Lord is Spiritually present Now as I doubt not but Calvin sometimes had a sense of his presence without the use of this ceremony so as the understanding given him of God made him justly reject the false notions of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation tho he knew not what to establish instead of them if he had fully waited in that Light that makes all things manifest and had not laboured in his own comprehension to settle upon that external ceremony by affixing the Spiritual presence as chiefly or principally though not only as he well knew by experience there or especially to relate to it he might have further reached unto the knowledg of this mystery than many that went before him § XI Lastly if any now at this day from a true tenderness of Spirit and with real Conscience towards God did practise this ceremony in the same way method and manner as did the primitive Christians recorded in Scripture which yet none that I know now do I should not doubt to affirm but they might be indulged in it and the Lord might regard them and for a season appear to them in the use of these things as many of us have known him to do to
their Doctrine 158 159. concerning the possibility of not sinning 172 173. the possibility of falling from Grace 176. many of them did not only contradict one another but themselves also 211. concerning Baptism and the sign of the Cross 301. concern-in an Oath 372. Feet concerning the washing of one anothers feet 317 318 319. Franequer 222. Freely the Gospel ought to be preached freely 180 221 222. G Games see Playes Gifted Brethren 198. GOD how he hath alwaies manifested himself 3. unless he speak within the Preacher makes a rustling to no purpose 5 6. None can know him aright unless he receive it of the Holy Ghost 5 6 7. God is to be sought within 7. he is known by sensation and not by meer speculation and syllogistic demonstrations 6 7. he is the Fountain Root and Beginning of all good works and he hath made all things by his eternal Word 10. God speaking is the object of Faith 15. among all he hath his own chosen ones 5. he delights not in the death of the wicked see Redemption He hath manifested his love in sending his Son 132 149 150. see Justification he rewards the good works of his Children 157 158. whether it be possible to keep his Commandments 159 160. he is the Lord and the Only Judge of the Conscience 331 333. he will have a free exercise 339. Gospel see Redemption the truths of it are as lies in the mouths of profane and carnal men 12 23 24. the nature of it is explained 25 26. it is distinguished from the Law and is more excellent than it 26 42. see Covenant Law whether any ought to Preach it in this or that place is not found in Scripture 42 200. its works are distinguished from the works of the Law 152. how it is to be propagated and of its propagation 334. the worship of it is inward 289 290. it is an inward Power 107 108. Grace the Grace of God can be lost through disobedeince 174 c. Saving Grace see Redemption which is required in the calling and qualifying of a Minister see Minister In some it worketh in a special and prevalent manner that they necessarily obtain Salvation 96 97. Your Grace see Titles H Hai Ebn Yokdan 126. Hands laying on of Hands 199 327. Head of uncovering the head in salutations 350 352 361 362 363 364 365 388 389. Heart the heart is deceitful and wicked 45 59 60 61. Heathens albeit they were ignorant of the history yet they were sensible of the loss by the Fall 124. some Heathens would not swear 378. heathenish Ceremonies were brought into the Christian Religion 301. Henry IV. King of France 341. Heresies whence they proceeded 244. Hereticks 336. High see Priest History of Christ see Quakers Redemption Holy of Holys the High-priest entred into it once a year 14 15. but now all of us at all times have access unto God 27. Holiness your Holiness see Titles Honor see Titles Hypocrite 336 340. I Jacob 241. James the Apostle there were of old divers Opinions concerning his Epistle 40. Idolatry 232 245. whence it proceeded 277. Jesting see Plays Games Jesuits see Sect Ignatian Jesus see Christ what it is to be saved and to be assembled in his Name 119 120 132 238. Jews among them there may be Members of the Church 182 183. their error concerning the outward succession of Abraham 190. their worship is outward 290. Illiterate see Mechanicks Indulgences 130. Infants see Sin Iniquities spiritual iniquities or wickedness 244. Inquisition 340. Inspiration where that doth not teach words without do make a noise to no purpose 5 6. John the Apostle concerning his second and third Epistles and the Revelation there were sometime divers Opinions 40. John the Baptist did not Miracles 198. John Hus is said to have Prophecyed 57. John Knox in what respect he was called the Apostle of Scotland 217. Judas fell from his Apostleship 191. who was his Vicar 293. his Ministry was not purely Evangelical 205. he was called immediately of Christ and who are inferior to him and plead for him as Patron of their Ministry 205 206. Justification the doctrin thereof is and hath been greatly vitiate among the Papists and wherein they place it 129 149 131 132. Luther and the Protestants with good reason opposed this doctrin tho many of them ran soon into another extreme and wherein they place it and that they agree in one 131 132 136. it comes from the love of God 133 149 150. to justifie signifies to make really just not to repute just which many Protestants are forc'd also to acknowledg 135 136 141 142 to 147. the revelation of Christ formed in the heart is the formal cause of justification not works to speak properly which are only an effect and so also many Protestants have said 128 130 131 132 134 135 141 146 147 148 149. We are justified in works and how 128 135 136 149 to 160. this is so far from being a Popish doctrin that Bellarmin and others oppos'd it 129 135 156 157. K Kingdom of God 256 327 334. Knowledg the height of man's happiness is plac'd in the true knowledg of God 1. error in the entrance of this knowledg is dangerous 1 2 superstition Idolatry and thence Atheism hath proceeded from the false and feigned Opinions concerning God and the knowledg of him 3. the uncertain knowledg of God is divers waies attained but the true and certain only by the inward and immediate revelation of the Holy Spirit 3 4 5. it hath been brought out of use and by what devices 8 9. there is no knowledg of the Father but by the Son nor of the Son but by the Spirit 3 9 10 11 12. the knowledg of Christ which is not by the revelation of his Spirit in the heart is no more the knowledg of Christ than the pratling of a Parret which hath been taught a few words may be said to be the voice of a man 12 13. L Laicks 214 218 219. Laity 219 321. Lake of Bethsaida 94. Law the Law is distinguished from the Gospel 26 290. the difference thereof 26 167 168. see Gospel under the Law the people were not in any doubt who should be Priests and Ministers 188. see Minister of the Law Worship Learning what true learning is 205 206. Letter the letter killeth quickeneth not 168. Light the innate Light is explained by Cicero 125 126. Light of Nature the errors of the Socinians and Pelagians who exalt this Light are rejected 57 58 Saving Light see Redemption is Universal it is in all 83 84. it is a Spiritual and heavenly Principle 86 87. it is a Substance not an accident 88 89. it is Supernatural and Sufficient 104 107. it is the Gospel Preached in every creature 107 108. it is the Word nigh in the mouth and in the heart 109 110. it is the ingrafted Word able to save the Soul 114. testimonies of Augustin and Buchanan concerning this Light 127. it is not any part of
Joh. 5.44 Jer. 10.3 Acts 10.26 Matt. 15.13 Col. 2.8 John 17.3 John 7.48 49. Aug. ex Tract Epist. Joh. 3. Lib. 1. Storm Paedag. Lib. de veland virginibus cap. 1. Hpist Paulin. 103. De incarnatione verbi Dei Hom. 30. upon the Gospel In thesau 10. lib. 13. cap. 3. In Psal. 84. John 1.1 2 3. Eph. 3.9 Joh. 16.13 14 26. Euseb. Hist. Ecclesi lib. 5. cap. 26. Conc. Flor. Sess. 5. decreto quodam Concl. Eph. Act. 6. Sess. 11. 12. Council Flor. Sess. 18.20 Conc. Flor. Sess. 21. p. 480. seqq John 16. verse 13. Rom. 8. verse 14 Concil Laod. can 59. in cod Ecc. 163. Concil Laod. held in the Year 364. excluded from the canon Eccl. the Wisdom of Solomon Judith Tobias the Maccabees which the Council of Carthage held in the Year 399 received Hieron epist. 28 ad Lucin pag. 247. Epiphan in Anchor Tom. 2. oper Gal. 1.8.9 Rom. 3.10 Ps. 14.3 53.2 Mat. 7.16 Ezek. 18.32 33.11 1 Cor. 12.7 * Calv. in cap. 3. Gen. Id. 1. Inst. c. 18. S. 1. Id. lib. de Praed Idem lib. de provid Id Inst. cap. 23. S. 1 a Beza lib. de praed b Id de praed adart 1. c Zanch de excaecat q. 5. Idem lib. 5 de nat Dei cap. 2. de praed d Paraeus lib. 3. de amiss gratiae c. 2. ibid. c. 1. e Martyr in Rom. f Zuing. lib. de prov c. 5. g Resp. ad Vorst part 1. p. 120. Upon Job lib. 1. cap. 11. So saith the Westminster Confession of Faith Chap. 11. Sect. 1. * Eph. 2. verse 15. 1 Joh. 4. verse 10. Ezech. 16. verse 6. 1 Pet. 2. v. 22.24 3.18 Tit. 2.14 Phil. 3. verse 10. * I do not only speak concerning men before conversion who afterwards are converted whom yet some of our Antagonists called Antinomians do averr were Justified from the beginning but also touching those who according to the common Opinion of Protestants have been converted whom albeit they confess they persist alwaies in some misdeeds and sometimes in hanious sins as is manifest in Davids Adultery and Murder yet they assert to be perfectly and wholly Justified Heb. 11.6 Joh. 3.18 Luk. 13.3 Apoc. 2.5 Rom. 8.13 Heb. 7.26 1 Pet. 2.22 De Just. con Bell. lib. 2. cap. 7. pag. 469. Disp. de Iust. Thes. 3. ver 4 loc de Iust. ad Eph. In cap. 2. Tom. 3. de Sanct. lib. 10. cap. 1. In cap. 3. ad Tit. ver 7. In Apol. Confess Aug. In Gen. cap. 15. ad verb. Credidit Abraham Deo pag. 161. Lib. 3. Reg. cap. 9. ver 4. pag. 681. In Rom. 4. ad ver 16. In considerat modest de Just. lib. 2. Sect. 8. Inst. lib. 3. cap. 11. Sect. 15. In Exam. Concil Trid de Inst. pag. 129. In cap. 2. ad Eph. ver 4. loc de lust Thes. 15. In Gen. pag. 162. Arg Epistolae praefixiae dissert ann Impress Paris ann 1597 pag. 78. Impress Genevae 1586. In medulla S. Theologiae lib. 2. cap. 1. Thesi 30. Job 8.13 These are the words of the Westminst larger Catechism Object Phil. 3. ver 14. Matth. 10. ver 8. * As was betwixt the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople Hos. 4.9 Joh. 10.1 * Succession * Who gives himself out Doctor and Professor of the Sacred Theology at Franequer Matth. 12. v. 48. c. Mark 3. ver 33. c 2. Cor. 6. v. 17 18. * In the life of Benedict 4. Of Joh. 16 of Sylvester 3. of Boniface 8. of Steph. 6 of Jean 8. Also Onuphrius annotations upon this Papass towards the end * Franciscus Lambertus Avenionensis In his book concerning Prophecy learning tongues and the Spirit of Prophecy Argentorat Excus anno 1516. de prov cap. 24. Heb. 5.4 * So Nic. Arnoldus Sect. 32. upon the 4 These * Ibid. Nic. Arnoldus Inst. * Lucae Osiandri epit hist. Eccles. lib. 2. cap. 5. cent 4. See also 2 Pet. 2. ver 3. vers 4. vers 11. Acts 21.9 Isa. 56.11 Matth. 10.4 Isa. 30. verse 20. Prov. 27. verse 19. Isa. 10.20 26.3 Eph. 4.23 1 Sam. 10.12 1 Cor. 6.17 * If any object here that the Lord's Prayer is a prescribed form of Prayer Obj. and therefore of Worship given by Christ to his Children I answer first This cannot be objected by any sort of Christians that I know Answ. because there are none who use not other Prayers or that limits their Worship to this Secondly this was commanded to the Disciples while yet weak before they had received the dispensation of the Gospel not that they should only use it in praying but that he might shew them by one example how that their Prayers ought to be short and not like the long Prayers of the Pharisees and that this was the use of it appears by all the Prayers which divers Saints afterwards made use of whereof the Scripture makes mention for none made use of this neither repeated it but used other words according as the thing required and as the Spirit gave utterance Thirdly that this ought so to be understood appears from Rom. 8.26 of which afterwards mention shall be made at greater length where the Apostle saith We know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us c. But if this Prayer had been such a prescribed form of Prayer to the Church that had not been true neither had they been ignorant what to pray nor should they have needed the help of the Spirit to teach them Prov. 18.10 John 18.36 Col. 2.15 Acts 7.48 Isa. 1.16 17. Prov. â—7·1â— Inst. Job 2.13 Prov. 21.4 Eph. 4.5 1 Pet. 3.21 Rom. 6.4 Gal. 3.27 Col. 2.12 Joh. 3.30 1 Cor. 1.17 1 Cor. 1.14 Obi. Confir Matth. 9.13 Refut John 3. verse 34. Allegation Obi. * In the 4 book of his Instit. chap. 15. Quest· 1 Cor 6.17 John â— 60 66. John 6.35 55. 2 Cor. 6.14 John 6.53 John 6.57 John 6.56 verse 16. Inst. lib. 4. cap. 17. Matth. 26.16 Mark 14.22 Luke 22.19 Matth. 26.26 Mar. 14.22 Lu. 22.19 1 Cor. 11.23 Obi. Anws And likewise the other oriental versions as the Arabick and Aethiopick have it the same way Obi. Phh. 5.13 Luke 9. v. 55 56. Matth. 7. v. 12 13.29 Tit. 3.10 Rom. 14.23 Matth. 10.16 Matth. 28.18 2 Cor. 10 4. Psal. 110.3 Athan. in epist. ad solit vit ag ibid. Athan. Apol. 1. de fuga sua tom 1. Hill contra Aux Hieron epist. 62 ad The. Ambr. epist. 32. tom 3. Ambr. epist. 27. Marc. epist. ad Archimand c. Mon. Eg. in acta concil Chalce * Hosius epist. ad Constir apud Ath. in epist. ad solit vit tom 1. (a) Hil. l. 1. ad Const. (b) Ambr. comm in Luc. l. 7. (c) Cypr. epist. 62. (d) Tertu Apolog. cap. 24. Id. Apolog. c. 28. Idem ad Scapul e. 2. Luth. lib. de captivitt Babylonica History of the Council of Trent Calv. Inst. c. 19. Sect. 14. Eph. 5.11 1 Pet. 1.14 Joh. 5.44 Jer. 10.3 Acts 10.26 Matth. 15.13 Col. 2.8 * After this manner the Papists used to disapprove the sobriety of the Waldenses of whom Reinerius a popish Author so writeth But this sect of the Leonists hath a great shew of Truth for that they live righteously before men and believe all things well of God and all the articles which are contained in the creed only they blaspheme and hate the church of Rome Obi. Eccles. hist. lib. 4. pag. 445. Phil. 3.20 1 Sam. 2.30 Heiron in his Epistle to Celant admonisheth her That she was to be preferred to none for her nobility for the Christian Religion admits not of respect of persons neither are men to be esteemed because of their outward condition but according to the disposition of the mind to be esteemed either noble or base he that obeyeth not sin is free who is strong in vertue is noble Let the epistle of James be read * This history is reported by Casaubonus in his Book of Manners and Customs pag. 169. In this last Age he is esteemed an uncivil Man who will not either to his inferior or equal subscribe himself Servant But Sulpitious Severus was heretofore sharply reproved by Paulinus Bishop of Nola because in his Epistle he had subscribed himself his Servant saying Beware thou subscribe not thy self his Servant who is thy Brother for flattery is sinful not a testimony of humility to give their honors to Men which are only due to the One Lord Master and GOD. Rom. 12.2 Athan. in pass cruc Domin Hier. lib. Ep. part 3. tract 1. Ep. 2. Ans. Matth. 5.43 Eph. 6.12 2 Cor. 10.4 Ja. 4.1 Gal. 5.24 Isa 2.4 Mich. 4.3 Isa. 65.25 Joh. 18. v. 36. Matth. 26. v. 52. Rom. 12. v. 19. Marc. 8. v. 34. Luc. 7. v. 28. Luc. 3. v. 14. Esth. 3.5 Job 32.21 22.